Tag: rejects corner

please don’t love me. 
nobody knows better 
than i, 
it will be a waste of time. 
i’d love your eyes more than
any eyes in my life, 
i’d lose myself in them 
for weeks at a time and
wake up hungover in
strange places.

well eyes // a.s.m

you were eleven
pounds of limbs when
i scooped you into my arms
beneath the flickering
yellow lights that reflected
off urine-stained linoleum.
i thought i was rescuing you. 

that night as you walked
into the apartment
for the first time, i wasn’t
thinking about paris or
the lust in my veins
(the lust pumping out of
my heart). you cried,
scurrying into a corner
when i accidentally stepped
on your paw. i feared you
wouldn’t let me near you again.
you were so slow to let
the hair on your back go
down. 

the days are getting longer,
the skies bluer, and i am
dreaming of paris
again. you follow me
to the bathroom, waiting
patiently outside the door.
you follow me throughout
the house. wherever i am,
your eyes are there. brown 
and gold nebulas. 

we fall asleep
and i feel your heartbeat against
my feet. i want to squeeze you
so hard sometimes. 
twenty five pounds, 
you are an anchor following
me around. i can hear
london calling me now.

where do i go 
to escape your eyes, 
little lamb?
what have i done, falling
in love long before
i have seen the world; 
making home in twenty five
pounds of limbs and
pawprints in the snow?

will your eyes follow me
to london and paris? to cobblestone
cities and languages 
i have yet to learn? 

your small heart an anchor
at my feet, mine is filled 
with a lust to see every inch
of the Earth’s skin.

little lamb // a.s.m

I. i wish you’d stop apologizing for me. i’m sick of feeling like i was born an apology. 

II. i know you’d never intentionally hurt me. but you have, you do, and you will.

III. i know you have the rare gift of seeing the angels inside of us, and that your first instinct is to hold those angels close and shelter them. but you need to let us go. you need to give us room to be individuals who experience pain and make mistakes. 

IV. i know i have, do, and will hurt you, too. i’m sorry. 

V. i learned a while ago that the less i told you i loved you, the less you’d yell at me. so i stopped saying it. 

VI. i love you.

VII. sometimes i hear your stubbornness in my own voice and fear i will grow to sound just like you. it took me a while to find my own voice, but it’s here, and i’m learning to be loud. 

VIII. i used to put my headphones on, hang my neck off the edge of my bed, let the tears roll up my head and wish i had a different mother. i don’t anymore.

IX. thank you for all that you’ve done. thank you for nursing us with chunks of your heart. for continuing to feed us even when you felt like there was none of you left. thank you for loving me even when you didn’t want to. thank you for emptying yourself so we could crawl inside. thank you for never giving up. thank you for somehow finding the light within us and reflecting it back at us when all we felt was darkness. thank you for molding me into who i am today.

a letter to my mother // a.s.m

it’s so cold out here,
my bones are vibrating.
my thumb seems to have forgotten 
how to flick a lighter, 
but i don’t feel the icy tongue
of the wind on my skin. 
i am half-cooked: well done
on the outside, but raw
in the core. perhaps
all i need is a cigarette
to light me. but i know fires
never last on the coldest nights;
even the brightest flames
eventually die.
i can’t hold this
damn bogie still enough
for it to
kiss the flame; the moons
of my fingers are turning purple
and the rawness is
creeping to the surface.

i am still raw in the center // a.s.m

write it all down.
pour your mind on the paper–
all of it:
every passing
thought
every hiccup
every mistake
every “i can’t believe…”
every disaster
every painful memory.
put it all on the lines.
and when you’ve squeezed your sponge dry,
take a wet brush and paint
the words into colors
shapes
noises
textures.

How to Write A Poem // a.s.m

the past is
the past is passed.
and i know i need to stop
looking through the binoculars backwards,
but for some reason
i keep seeing little flecks of you
in the glass when i look through my windshield, 
and i wonder if it’s your reflection from behind me. 

i see you laughing. i want to 
be the reason for that laugh,
to be next to you so i can hear it.
but i know it’s
something she said
that’s so funny,
and that you’ve already forgotten
the way i snort when i laugh.
she doesn’t snort when she laughs.
i wonder if you like that better. 

i wonder if  you wish you could hear me
laughing too. 
i wonder if you’ll see a photo of me in a hot air balloon
in August and wish you had been there to hold my  hand
as i looked over the edge because you know 
my fear of falling 
from great heights.

checking up on an ex will only bring pain, i promise. // a.s.m