Tag: tw

some days
you are silent
& to me it feels greater
than the 3,000 miles
between us.


& in this silence I fear
the worst
& in this silence I fear

a silence I know well

a silence I have felt
before

withdrawal of
emotions & words
intended to wound;


in my heart I know
you always call

but I am still learning
to feel silence
as more than a
punishment.

getting over a cold shoulder // a.s.m

Rock-a-Bye, Baby

wingedpiglets:

Nobody warned you
that once I left
the warm walls of your womb,
I would be your sacrifice
to this world;
that I was no longer yours to control.
I was destined to move
with the mountains, to walk
barefoot on the soil and let the soles
of my feet close all gaps between me
and the universe.

And yet you fight—loudly, violently, teeth bared—
to tell the cosmos I am yours.
My first unsteady steps, the first utterances
to tumble from my mouth, my every
achievement and failure
belong to you.
If you cannot have them, no one can,
not even me.

And so you destroy
me
slowly; blindly tearing me apart,
consuming me until
I am once again
completely, undoubtedly, a part
of you. 

i see you, limp
 
on the ground
in every room of this house
and sometimes on sidewalks
and in darkly lit places. 

i’ve been sleeping with the lights
on lately, but
they don’t protect me
from the darkness
that’s entered my mind 

they leave,
constantly illuminated,
the inescapable end
i discovered in your eyes 
as they rolled back
into your head
on the hardwood floors
where we used to build
empires.

your civil war // a.s.m

get so high that
you feel numb, 
slit your wrists while in
the tub. warm water glides
over the edge of your
porcelain ship. blood flows
through caulk river
channels between
the tile. you will haunt the 
seals between the
floor forever.

Cecilia // a.s.m

mother, don’t you know? 
the boy with the golden 
irises doesn’t smile anymore. 
he’s packed, and there’s something 
heavy in the bags he carries
underneath those eyes.
there’s no such thing as darkness
in the city of angels.
there’s no fear in death when 
you welcome it. 
perhaps the sun will thaw
him, perhaps the cold has
nothing to do with why he’s 
so numb.

you can’t run away from what’s within // a.s.m

a nuclear bomb has just gone off
in the living room. 
the ground bubbles
under pressure, vibrations rising
like heat and the Christmas
tree trembles, 
golden orbs shimmying and
dangling precariously off
evergreen cliffs. 

a mushroom cloud is spreading throughout
every single room in the house. 
i stay put but keep my head down.

my heart doesn’t palpitate when
the walls start to quiver.
with a smile, i close my eyes and
enjoy the way it feels
as though the house is rocking
me to sleep. 

there will be plenty of time
to clean up the mess later.

good vibrations: Christmas morning // a.s.m

we’re pressing pause
with ocean water on our faces. 
you’re pressing play
with syrup in your veins. 
this ship is going down;
one by one 
we throw you our life
jackets so you may stay afloat– 
we’re already sinking anyways. 

large waves are hitting us now, 
water blanketing the floor. 
you throw your head back and laugh
and jump overboard. 
all lifejackets with us, even 
yours. 
nothing we had could 
save you.

Heroin, Pt. III: Relapse // a.s.m

you’re close enough to me
that i can see your eyes,
but they are
somewhere far away
from here. and so we sit
on the couch in silence,
me reading my book, you
staring into space and repeating
the same five lines from a song
i don’t know.
i really do feel like you’re on some
other side, you know.
mom’s crying on the kitchen floor,
stabbing holes into
cellophane because
at least when grandma died,
her body didn’t haunt us anymore.

Heroin, Pt. II // a.s.m

you have been used
by the world for too long.
your edges are
becoming soft. you are collapsing
under the
weight of this world
while giving him a piggyback.
you must let him hit
the ground before he can learn how
to pick himself back up.
you can’t chase him through the
playground anymore, he is lost
in mazes you would never be able
to escape from.
you cannot help him
find the way out when you are
just as lost yourself. 

run away
from the place he’s landed.
take time to develop the strength
to breathe
life back into his lungs
for when he finally decides
he wants to live again.

for Nectar in regards to my brother’s heroin addiction: i know you are his mother, but you cannot do anything to help him until he is ready to help himself. // a.s.m