Tag: spilt ink

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

i think perhaps
small bits of my
heart are eroding
off and being
carried through my blood
stream to my brain because
i’ve been having trouble
separating the two
lately. i’m worried
pieces
of my heart have
taken root in the striatum
(an invasive species on once fertile soils):
i fear i may do
something stupid.

the fusing of heart and mind // a.s.m

MY FIRST LOVE: the earliest flame to catch the wick of my heart. She burned bright and long, keeping me warm through Winter. In Spring,  the branches began to fall, and her fire consumed so brightly it burned. 

MY SECOND LOVE: a brilliant firework. When I fell, he reached out to catch me, but I knocked him to the ground with the weight of my heart. Never close enough to hold, he was gone just as quickly as he came.

MY THIRD LOVE: you set a fire in me I cannot extinguish, you travel through my veins. The first to heat my whole body: the only one I have allowed to spread this far. I am letting down my firewalls, risking third-degree burns, but there is something thrilling about seeing torches in your eyes.

love can set your heart on fire, but it can also burn // a.s.m

honestly,
it doesn’t matter
what time it is because
i’ll be thinking of you
anyway. 
at some point
i stopped feeling, so
i lit myself on fire to get high
enough away from the ground
you’ve walked on.
i see your footprints
on the streets from way up here
as the city shrinks to ants.
i can still pick the top of your head
out from the crowd
from the clouds, 
until i am on the moon:
i can’t see anywhere
your heart and mine were together.

(for)getting high // a.s.m

i know he is
secure and safe.
your mother will not shudder
when you bring him to
dinner dressed 
in a suit and tie, and 
he will know how to start a fire 
in the fireplace without looking 
it up on yahoo answers. 
you can marry him 
in a church and not feel 
God glaring 
down at you. 

but please know that 
i will always laugh 
at that video you love of 
the guy with the cup feet 
no matter how many times you 
replay it. 
my future already has
your name in it. 
we are so much alike that 
i sometimes wonder what 
part of me doesn’t have a piece 
to match up with you. 

everything i am is another 
heart on my sleeve: 
my biggest weaknesses, 
because they are everything 
he is not, and 
he has you.

excerpt from a letter i wrote to an old love // a.s.m

you smell different
when you’re awake: slightly less
of dewy dreams, slightly more
of espresso machines
behind the counter where
our hands touch when you give me
my change
and call me ‘Sir.’
I sit at my table from
noon till two while you bus tables,
thinking of all the poems
I could write about just your eyes:
so goddamn
wide, with the whole world
still in ‘em.

it’s Tuesday– your shift ends at four,
and i think about how you will
take the bus to your apartment
downtown; how you’ll put your
stocking feet
up on the coffee table while you
drink wine and watch
Gilmore Girls reruns on the CW.
How you’ll fall asleep, empty
glass in hand, dreaming of
versions of a future life in
a world i do not exist in.

i will go home and drink
malt liquor with my dinner
while listening to NPR,
and fall
asleep to the
smell of dew and you
saying my name as our
hands brush together when you
reach for mine.

the smell of burnt
espresso and
the sound of your voice
(it always seems
so much softer in my dreams)
in the morning
will wake me up
to the continents in
your eyes
and i will only be able to smile
as you
hand me my change.

the girl in the coffee shop // a.s.m

your hands 
on the outer walls of a mountain 
you are about to climb into,
dig your hands within
the soil. feel her move
beneath you,
hear the wind scream his name. 
hear it echo in the distance,
hear it slowly begin to fade.

climbing mountains // a.s.m

1. If their eyes ever falter as you walk into a room, walk away. You may not believe it, but you deserve to be reflected in their irises.   

2. If you’re sitting in your bed with their voice echoing in your head, using your sheets to wipe your nose, and can think of sixteen reasons to go and one to stay, you should go. You will find someone better for you, I promise.  

3. If you go into it hoping you can get them to smoke less weed or stop saying ‘fuck’ so damn much, don’t go further. Old habits die hard, if at all; make sure you can live with their quirks.

4. If they hold their glass of vodka closer than your waist, let them go. You do not deserve to come in second to their vices.

5. If they pinch your love handles and tell you your curls look better straightened, leave. The way you were created deserves to be adored.

6. Know you are worth millions of atoms, of stardust and spiraling staircases of double helixes, and do not accept anything less than love.

you are worthy: things i wish i had known when i met you // a.s.m

you’re too young to be hiding
in the closet
full of clothes your
mother bought you. 

you’re too young to 
hate yourself so much
that you dream of hiding
in there forever, just so you
never again have to wear a dress
on Easter. 

you’re too old 
to be living as anything but
what paints your stomach lining. 
project it in color on city walls. 
scream it drunkenly off of rooftops
to the whole world, a reminder: 

your tiny planet will
never stop spinning as long as you
continue to push it.

your life is too short to be squeezing yourself into clothes that don’t fit who you are // a.s.m