hello

this is the old blog for my writing i can’t seem to delete fully thank you so much for the love when i was young i write for REAL if you want to find me: jasmine khaliq!

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“warmth. like the 12 o’clock sun on my back. like brass instruments in an orchestra. you breathe in three-six time (in two three out five six) kissing me sloppy, sweet beer breath, petting my hair lazily, just fingertips. away from me on the other side of the nevada/california border poppies are opening orange and red. snowcaps are thawing and so am I.”

— “On Mornings in Reno” by Jasmine Khaliq  (a poem for class, inspired by waking up next to my boyfriend)

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“in your dim room my shadow slips her dress over her head, her socks over her knees, begging “take me home please” before you stop weighing the words like marbles on your tongue. i kiss your palms and pray it reminds you to soften the blow but still my gut tightens as i wait for the punchline. is it my fault? did i not recognize the warning signs? even in dreams you’d leave before saying goodbye. we drive in church-pew silence and i think of all the times you did not hold my hand in produce aisles, coughing when it hurts, hoping the sound reminds you i am still here. i try to cave into myself as you reach my driveway but your mouth can make even orchids bloom. i press into you, trying to preserve the way your body fits mine i hope your thumbs bruise my hips, little depressions on peaches, staying with me even when you leave. i feel swallowed up by you and by the sky, a gaping wound. i pull away from your arms and steel my stomach but then you tell me, “goodnight, I love you.””

— “One Foot in Sea” – Jasmine Khaliq or basically, how i used to be scared of my boyfriend breaking up with me again (via jasminekhaliqwrites)

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“You call me your peach. Cupping me in your palms, biting through fuzzy flesh with crooked front teeth. Gory kisses, you tug cracked snake skin from my lip. Molting, my hair falls out, dark clumps between faults of your fist. Wounded, your fang-tooth in my neck. I ooze crude oils, tar-black liquid blooms from gouges bruised blue. Open me like the limpid orchids in the garden vivisection– I am the maiden at the loom burning fingertips, (left out of the Iliad, hidden in Helen’s bedroom) braiding tapestries with blood brown yarn like entrails of Greece’s men. Posed, dripping, a portrait.”

— “Wet Paint” by Jasmine Khaliq (i feel i have been trying to write this poem forever)

[ammitandotherpoems]

Why should I retract my claws for you? What do I earn from playing nice? I'll choke on the cries I leave in my throat. I am not sorry. If I am angry, I will be angry. I will be blinding light I will be rage and shaky hands I will be venom and teary eyes I will not laugh at your jokes I will not tuck my fangs away to smile for you. I will look you dead in the eye and I will spit out teeth that are not mine.

"Ammit" by Jasmine Khaliq

[ammitandotherpoems]

I've created catacombs from the breaths you took against my neck mausoleums of each kiss (both the ones that excited me and the ones that had me counting the seconds until we were done). I tried to bury the memory of your hands the feeling of your fingertips... the color of your veins beneath your skin... and how grabby your fingers were clutching fistfuls of my hair pawing at my sweaters trying to cling to me but coming up empty because each time I slipped through the gaps between your knuckles and I am so sorry that I was not a solid enough earth for the roots of your trees and that you could not see that. I feel suffocated by the flowers growing inside me. how does such beauty bloom from my darkness, and do I deserve it? I almost hope they bury me alive.

"Sepulchre" by Jasmine Khaliq

[ammitandotherpoems]

if I really am your jasmine flower (so holy and so pure) if you are really mine at all (as I am wholly yours) why would you bend me this way, not towards the sun but towards the moon? (was I ever light or always dark) why would you mar me this way, not winnowing weeds but plucking petals? (I love you, I love you not) I knew you'd be the death of me.

"DEFLOWER" by Jasmine Khaliq

[ammitandotherpoems]

unfold me in the man-made valley behind the baby's breath and poppies that I plant, that you pluck petal by petal: I love you, and I love you not.

"Bloomed/Rotted" by Jasmine Khaliq