poetry and prose

hollie | 23 | creative writing | UoG

[escuerzoresucitado]

[avanillaopus]

I read that grief is just love with no place to go, and God, I would go anywhere. I would go to places with no names. If you went somewhere I couldn't follow, I would find a way because without you, every place exists to be empty. Cities stand in silence. Lights go out. Every conversation, every laugh, every deep breath and heaving sob gets sliced in half. Every word anyone says is an echo of all the times you promised me you were going to stay. The silence on the other end of the phone leaves me a decaying husk; the wind sweeps right through me, and it hurts. My whole life is a bruise, turning red, turning blue, turning green, then purple, then red again because it hurts all the fucking time. Nothing has changed. I still stick my fingers into all my bleeding wounds. I pull them open to let the light in, but there isn't any. I'm back on the edge of that yawning black hole, looking in. I stare for so long it starts to stare back. I start seeing your face—your startlingly blue eyes and your easy smile, the cheeks I liked to lay my hands on. I stare for so long that I forget who I am, how to speak, how to do anything but love you even though my love has no place to go. I would run into the pit if I knew you were in there with your arms open for me. I would let the blackness swallow everything I am, everything I'll ever be, just to look into your eyes one last time and beg for it not to be the last time. If I can't run, I will crawl. I will drag myself bleeding along the floor just to ask you to love me a little longer, just for one more day. Because nothing has changed for me. I'm still right where you left me. h.w

[avanillaopus]

lavender

You walk ahead of us as the afternoon sun beats down, a promise of glorious summer nights and even more glorious summer memories. The cracked pavement is flanked by blooming lavender bushes, their aroma acting as a time machine that transports me back to the most comforting moments of my girlhood.

Alice predicts what you’re going to do before the thought even occurs to you and we watch on in excited anticipation to see if she’s right. You reach out and pluck a flower from the bush as you walk, rub it between your fingers and bring it to the tip of your nose. You inhale as though it has magical properties. 

Nan used to that too and at that moment, you are a reflection of her, a reflection of the woman Alice is becoming, my own fate sealed with pretty purple petals. 

Most girls spend their entire lives fighting to become anyone but their mother, their grandmother, their sister, but not me. If I flower into half the woman you did, have an ounce of Nan’s strength and a fraction of Alice’s character, I’ll have become exactly who I always wanted to be.

- h.w, for my mother

[avanillaopus]

This all feels too much like last time, nearly two years from the day. Although he's not actually gone, the pain is already worse than before, which terrifies me so much that I can barely admit it. I'm apprehensive to even write down that his being gone might be easier to cope with than having his foot wedged in the door of my life while he decides whether or not I'm worth the effort. I am always so surprised - even after all this time - when I reach a level of pain I had no idea existed, and this just might be the big 10 at the top of the scale I've been waiting for. It's so excruciating that I find it hard to breathe; a white-hot fire poker rammed down my throat, burning where my stupidly hopeful heart is fighting desperately to beat. Each step I take makes my entire body ache because they are fruitless. They never bring me any closer to him. He's all I think about. Everything depends on the empty text messages I wait to receive, though they're barely enough to sustain me. Being with him was a three-course meal of all my favourite food but what we have right now isn't even comparable to table scraps. And it would have been such a relief to be able to say that this is the worst part of it, but it isn't. The worst part is that he was so convinced that I'd be the one who couldn't handle the distance that he convinced me too. But now he's gone and I'm the one trying to hold everything together, ready to do anything to make this work even though it feels like he's already given up.

- long distance, h.w

[avanillaopus]

jamie's house

Sometimes  you walk into a house  and the idea of taking off your shoes  doesn't even cross your mind.  other times you walk into a house  and the floors leave your shoes dirtier than the muddy footpath out front.

Souls are very much like houses and even though you can’t make homes out of people  some people  feel like home. 

Being close to him  is standing on a front porch at dusk bathing in the warm light from the hallway while you wait for him to let you in. You find yourself kicking off your shoes before he’s even opened the door because he has the kind of soul you fear touching lest you smear it with all your dirt. You’ve been to many houses so you think you know what to expect but nothing can prepare you  for this kind of homecoming.

His stories are a blanket that he wraps around your shoulders  to ward off the chill of the evening and looking at the world through his eyes is like looking out across rolling fields peppered with wildflowers. He makes you want to be a better person, makes you want to live every day  like it's a summer night.  There isn’t much space in his house  for empty feelings and meaningless words and even though you know you can’t stay forever  you find yourself wanting to leave something behind.

So you tell him stories of your own and he listens like what you’re saying  is actually worth hearing. You share your favourite songs with him - old Fall Out Boy that you didn’t think anyone else liked -  only to find that he knows every word and when he sings along with you to The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes you feel more seen than you’ve ever felt in your life.

You’ve been to many houses so you think you know what to expect but nothing can prepare you  for this kind of homecoming.

His soul isn’t just a home. It’s a whole town full of houses - a whole city of skyscrapers with all their lights switched on - and even though you know you can’t stay forever  you hope you managed to leave a mark that says ‘I was here,’ because what a privilege it was to matter to him, what an honour  to be let into his house.

-h.w

[avanillaopus]

My life is a series of red lights and I run through them all without glancing back. All time ever does is pass and all I ever do is apologise for the dirt beneath my fingernails, the dirt that doesn't come out no matter how long I spend at the sink. I tell you it's from all the graves I dug with my bare hands and apologise again. 'I'm sorry for all the blood,' I say, 'I bite harder than everyone else.'

h.w

[avanillaopus]

At times, looking at you makes me violent with longing and I have to repress the sudden and overwhelming urge to put my head through a wall. When you're looking right back at me I am suffocated by my own heartbeat, like I've sniffed too many lines of cocaine. It's not like the movies when the world does something dramatic - it doesn't tilt on its axis or stop turning altogether - we're just the only people in it that matter. Your love for me is a flower you wear in your lapel and mine is a pill that boys have only ever swallowed whole. From where you're standing it probably looks like I don't feel much at all but the truth is, I feel things on a spectrum of colours you couldn't even begin to fathom. If I were to show you the depths of my love, you'd forget how to swim. If I were to tell you in your own language all the ways I wanted to touch you, you'd forget how to speak it. I love you so savagely that I have to keep it to myself to keep you safe. You've seen enough violence for one lifetime.

h.w

[avanillaopus]

I fell asleep in his arms once upon a time, listened to him recite poetry so softly I thought I was dreaming. Underneath the cover of darkness, I told him things I'd never told anyone else and with all the reluctance of someone who'd been shattered time and time again, I let him tuck me into the forbidden place next to his heart. Now he is a glimpse of a blue raincoat ducking around a corner, an unfinished meal and a half-empty cup. He chases daylight to weave into more seconds, more minutes, more hours, because he can never get enough. I want to grab him, tell him he doesn't need to worry so much about it getting away from him, but he's already gone.

h.w

[avanillaopus]

my mother is a murderer 

she has been killing unwilling, difficult parts of me my whole life. There is a graveyard full of them somewhere. I visit it on alternating weekends. I’ve spent a lot of time with my breath clutched anxiously in my chest anticipating the next slaughter, but nothing could have prepared me for this. 

It wasn’t quiet and calculated this time, it was a massacre of the ugliest degree. Now, instead of a graveyard, there is a mass grave overflowing with what remains of my trust in her and myself, my innocence, my sense of security, my dignity and everything she ever gave me.

I was still hanging onto the edge of the last cliff she tried to throw me off and now I am clawing my way out of a pit, gagging on the acrid stench of rotting flesh. I am consumed with digging through decomposing corpses trying to find a viable piece that’s left.

- h.w

[avanillaopus]

pumpkin guts

My chest is a pumpkin split down the middle. You can see directly into the squishy centre of my being. This is where my soul lives. Everything bad that has ever happened to me festers there. The squirming, tangled mess traps anything good that tries to make a home out of it.

The mess has no beginning, no middle and no end. Its origin is a secret I keep, even from myself. Anyone daring enough to stick a hand in and try and find the end  will likely lose a limb. It’s a twisted set of fairy lights that I will never hang. They get left in the bottom of the box (even at Christmas). 

Somewhere amongst all the knots and clots, the fragments of bone and stone my heart remains hidden. It is slowly suffocating, a mouse in the mouth of a python. And hidden within the walls of my starving heart is the girl I’m supposed to be.  I lose limbs trying to help her. I swallow my body weight in blood.

People tend to keep a safe distance from my soul.  They’ve seen things go in there and not come back out.  Tell me honestly: if you knew how many people had drowned in the ocean - if you’d seen each and every death happen with your own eyes  - would you swim in it?

- h.w

[avanillaopus]

🌻 If you get this, answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notes, anonymous or not! Let's get to know the person behind the blog 🌻

💛my favourite colour is yellow

🎵my favourite band is fall out boy

🌙i wear a locket engraved with ‘moony’ that has photos of a young remus lupin inside because i love him so much and im just THAT cringe

[spinningrims]

i’m seeing a lot of people reblogging suicide hotlines and this is just a reminder that this is a suicide help line that works like a text-based instant messenger for people who may need to talk to someone but have trouble/are uncomfortable making phone calls

[groovian-whovian]

Never don’t reblog this. There are so many people who have such bad anxiety about phone calls. This can save so many lives

[avanillaopus]

astronomy

- h.w

[avanillaopus]

My tears scare her to death, so I stop crying. She tells me that she doesn't recognise my face anymore, but I know hers better than I know my own. I've long since stopped looking in the mirror because I see everything I need to in her, and I don't look where I'm going anymore - don't look at anything - because I see everything through her eyes.

h.w

[avanillaopus]

It's April 28th. It's your birthday. It's your birthday and my heart breaks a little more with each breath I take. I wonder what you would say if I called you up. Would you thank me? Or would you tell me never to call again? Hell, would you even pick up the phone? Would you ignore the intrusive ringing and clear it from your call log so your new girlfriend doesn't see it? I wonder what gifts you got, if the presents she bought you were as good as mine. I want to know if you're spending the night at your dad's house since it was your mum's turn last year. Does your new girl know that our birthdays are only four days apart? Does she know that your mum threw us a party? Did you tell her about all the balloons she blew up for us, all the gifts wrapped in silver paper and the flutes of champagne? I already know you're not going to call on my birthday, so I don't call you either. Instead, I miss you from miles away, wondering if she fits in as well as I did, wondering if all your birthday wishes came true while I wish for a call that I know will never come.

h.w

[avanillaopus]

From sunset to sunrise I snorted lines of ketamine through a £5 note that was falling apart, drifting in and out of a vast array of different realities. We played catch with a bruised moon, danced to Lana Del Ray, swiped the remaining powder off the kitchen counter and smeared it over our gums until the shards cut into flesh and drew blood. We didn't believe in religion but if there was a God in that moment, it was us. Every line, every bump, every bloody smile brought me closer to heaven - closer to him - until I could almost smell his skin and wrap my arms around his waist beneath his winter coat, just like I used to when it was cold. I sniffed another line and suddenly I was dancing in the hallway of his house instead of mine. I could feel the floorboards beneath my feet and the carpet between my toes and it dawned on me that I'd do anything to see him one last time, figment of my imagination or not.

h.w

[avanillaopus]

the loss of love