A Curse of Unmooring by betwixtthepages, literature
Literature
A Curse of Unmooring
Nestled in the deepest pits
of the shadows lining my ribs
stands a darkened,
drafty cobwebbed door.
If you tilt your head
J
U
S
T so
and listen closely,
the weathered man
In the skeletons of my past's moon
whispers the secrets
I've forged into ironwill
and cast into empty cages.
Unmoored,
unbound,
untethered ,
these ghosts haunt the corners
of my every distraction
singing,
slinging,
stinging the nettles
of all the thoughts
I cannot falter
and all the poisons
I cannot leash.
I am human,
I am broken,
I am misty eyed and unraveling,
a reveling of ribbonbreaths,
a revealing of lingerself
I could no more lay claim
than pay
praying mantis,
you hold my heart tattered at half-mast,
a mantra to the sanctuary
the solace your voice once provided
I hear it screaming in the chasms of silence
left between breath strokes
and withered stars--
haikus of misunderstanding,
a poetry all its own
there's a breaking to the madness,
a confusion of who I was and who I am;
there's a madness to the breathing,
a reckless nonchalance
tempting the web I've woven around my wounds
bandages can't fix this,
stitches are bound to rip in the sunrise,
and your claws are too clean
to be strangling me so quickly
so pull me close and tear me open
I'll figure out the rest
under a differ
In the absence of you,
my therapist asks how I'm coping.
I cop a line
about finding healing in art,
lie about how honest I am
about how much this hurts,
tell a tall tale about keeping busy
when really,
these walls stopped talking
the day you died
and I stopped finding anything
but safety in my sorrow net.
Happiness is fleeting--
a dream you appear in,
your voice saved in my phone,
the last gasp of a scent
that takes me, however briefly, home.
In the absence of you,
silence is heaven and hell--
a friend to embrace,
an enemy to defeat,
an abyss I can't
Forging Foundations by betwixtthepages, literature
Literature
Forging Foundations
there is part of me that knows these walls
in the same ways I know
unrequited was the dream I used to tie my strings to,
unrequited was the hope I used to fill myself up,
unrequited is just a word I used to be friends with
because you've crooked your fingers
into the hooks of my jeans
and you've hooked my heart,
dangling, a stranger to safety
learning how to let someone lead--
there is a piece of me that fears these feelings
like I fear insects that sting, like I fear wildfires that rage,
like I fear porcelain dolls
with cracked faces and scarred chests
because so far in this life,
all the beautiful things I've ever held
have come to me brok
My heart is a campfire;
we're gathered like fireflies
to hear the eulogies of my drywall veins,
a silent nod to the flickering hope
that stubbornly clings to my breath beats,
my eye shine, my razzle and glow dreams.
You are quiet in your gasping,
a beacon I've set my destination for
but can't quite reach out to pull close--
like moon dust or phantom velvet or the softest of night sighs,
you slip through even the loosest clenched fists,
a will-o-the-wisp with an alluring face and an ever changing façade.
In my aching, I crackle and crinkle your name
across the typography of my skin,
a topographical error in lusting and loving
that I can't
Something Worth Hoping For by betwixtthepages, literature
Literature
Something Worth Hoping For
My relationship with you is like a dive,
and I don't mean the
leaping from tall buildings
hoping to sprout wings
or spontaneously combust on the way down kind.
No.
I mean my car got a flat
on the side of the road two miles passed
and I'm twirling the plastic ring
of a one-ply napkin
in a corner booth at the back
of a just off the beaten track diner
because I left my spare in your trunk
and I don't know how to handle a jack
and there is no cell service here, anyway.
I mean the payphone in the vacant lot next door
ate ten dollars worth of quarters
before connecting me.
I mean I finally got a dial tone
and then dialed the wrong number;
the
the things history has taught you by betwixtthepages, literature
Literature
the things history has taught you
hooded heart:
history has taught you
that men who hide their truths
are wolves who stray behind turned backs;
that leashes are only effective
when they don't hold knives to cut thin ties;
that whispered words and heavy gestures
mean more in dark corners
and you can't keep a wolf from hunting
when you're too hopeful to lure a snare
and trap them in their place.
past hurts dictate present fears--
you are cowed by the teeth memory flashes,
weak-tongued and vein-tied
in the face of seeding saplings:
an erasure of courage
more biting than the bruises of phantoms passed.
broken spirit,
history has taught you
that men who hit use words more than f