the collected works of summer kiesel

This a collection of my unedited work, posted here mostly as a way to make myself put it out there somewhere. Thanks for reading!

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On Acceptance (1/30)

Long after the flowers have wilted and the neighbors’ lasagnas thrown out, after the relatives have stopped calling to check in, when we no longer look for your face in the crowds or forget that you are not simply waiting for us In the other room-- we find ourselves with our heads above water, gluttonously gulping air as if we have already forgotten what it feels like to drown. There are days, whole weeks, when I don’t think of the old pair of your shoes I keep under the bed, And the rumble of the train going by sounds less and less like the rattle of bones and more like the warmth of your laugh. On the nights when we are pulled under the waves, when even the very air surrounding us is just a reminder of the space you no longer inhabit, there is still starlight that filters through the water, and we know that we will breathe again. My brother, the weight of this has never changed. We have only gotten stronger. We have learned how to carry it.

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The Undead

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About the Poet

The poet sits on a woven plastic chair crushing the end of a pen between her mandibles, thinking, “Mandibles is a pretty pretentious word to use in a poem.” She thinks of images--  pilot lights, fingernails, insect wings, the moon. The poet has used all of these before. Every poem is about a boy who doesn’t love her  and she has run out of metaphors.  Burnt wicks, the poet thinks, driftwood, radio static-- how do you pin loneliness under glass?

The poet writes in circles. She loves in circles too.

[blunted-mountains-blog]

Will and Testament

For my mother, I leave my shoulders--  you have spent your whole life with yours bent low, carrying the broken on your back.  You deserve a new pair.

For my sister, I give my knuckles,  my teeth, my two good fists--  may you be brave enough to use them   the next time he comes home mean.

For my father, my jawbone-- they say ours are identical. I like to think it’s the only thing we have in common.

My nephew, lanky fawn,  who has not yet been made ashamed of gentleness, for you I leave my ribcage--  use it as a shield when the world tries to make you small.    Likewise, my niece,  who has spent her first summer  memorizing how a body should look in a bikini,  you must take my arms--  soft though they may be,  they have fought and held equally.  Let them lift you when the world makes you feel too big.

For my first love, the false love, you can have my tongue-- it’s swollen and raw from all the time I spent biting it around you  that it’s not worth much anyways.   And for you ( which of course I have always meant you ) I would leave you my heart but that’s too expected  and besides you already have enough of it. So I leave you my eyes-- perhaps they will finally allow you to see  every time I looked at you and saw the whole world.

[blunted-mountains-blog]

Groundhog’s Day

I, who live my life in the dark. I, who speak only the language of the dirt— I can hear them already, the sun-seekers herding above me, waiting as they always do on this day for the holy message of the soil, for their prophet to appear. I remember the last time: the untamable shadow, the turning back, the mistakes and grief and dread that lay behind me in the dark. The humans tell a story of one of their own who chose to look behind her and was turned into a pillar of salt. I know what this must feel like—the fear of the wreckage left behind you, the paralysis of self-doubt. This is why some choose to stay in the dark. Not today. Light is already creeping into the quiet, frozen spaces. My shadow waits behind me like a patient friend, but this time I do not acknowledge it. My followers fall mute as I emerge, reading their own divinations from my presence. I wish I could tell them this—the real secret from beneath the earth: where there is light, so there must also be shadow. What matters is which you choose to see.

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A Love on Trial

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Does your poem "Advice for the Chubby Girl In Highschool" draw inspiration from the poem "Unsolicited Advice" by Jeanann Verlee?

I didn't think of it while I was writing, but afterwards I realized it was definitely a subconscious nod to Verlee's amazing poem. Thanks for asking!

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Your poetry brings me to tears. Your writing is beautiful. And from reading it, I can tell that you are too.

Wow, thank you so much. You have a very beautiful heart.

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Your "Advice for a chubby girl in high school" post is so, so beautiful. Thank you for writing it.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for your kindness. 

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Advice for the Chubby Girl in High School

1. When you find yourself sitting for an hour in a bathroom stall, wishing happiness could be as simple as pushing your fingers down your throat, Get up. Go home. Throw your scale in the street and watch the cars run over it. 2. There will be times when you wish you could cut the fat from your body with a cleaver— Step away from the mirror. Hug your thighs, thank them for always taking you where you needed to go. Wave your flabby arms like a protest sign. 3. When the girl with pink hair and rosary bead necklace says you have man hands, show her just how tough your middle finger can be. 4. When the boy you love won’t kiss you in public, leave him. When he asks you not to go on birth control because it will make you gain weight, leave him. When he tells you at dinner you’d be pretty enough to model if only you lost twenty pounds, order three desserts. Then leave him. 5. There is nothing poetic about the baggy of sleeping pills and goodbye letters you keep under your mattress Flush the pills. Burn the letters. Hug your mother. 6. People will tell you that high school is whatever you make it to be. You don’t have to make it anything. You just have to make it. Get out of the bathroom stall.

[blunted-mountains-blog]

Here, in The Room of What Was (2/30)

You are holding a small glass horse

in your hands, turning the figurine

over and over,

breaking off each jagged limb

and letting the pieces

fall at your feet,

joining the sea of coquina shells

and dead wasps.

On the bed there is a pillow

that smells like seawater

and if I press my ear close enough

to it, I can still feel the brush of

your eyelashes closing.

Love has been hiding in this room,

in the stuffing of the toy elephants

in the dark corners under the bed

in the echo of the windchime in the closet

in the lines of your shaking palms,

but neither of us are allowed to look for her—

not anymore.

On the wall there is still the faint

trace of your handwriting,

the messy scrawl

where you once told me

that I say the most beautiful things without

ever opening my mouth.

We have both tried to burn the words away

but the smoke singed them into our lungs

and with every inhale

I can still feel them smolder.

[blunted-mountains-blog]

(1/30)

my mother keeps her old wedding rings

tucked away in one of her socks,

like the decaying knuckles of a shameful skeleton—one

that was drowned in a sea of liquor and spit and the blood of split lips.

her current one still grasps her finger like an elegant manacle,

anchoring her to a ship that has long been sinking.

  “you don’t have to find your soulmate”

              she tells me

  “just find a man who still loves you after you’ve poured out his whiskey”

  she laughs as she says this, but in her fragile inhales i can hear the

sound of beer bottles breaking,

and in the spaces between words

there is still the dull echo of a fist making contact.

  “sand is pretty lucky, you know”

              she says to me

  “it can crumble and fall apart all it wants, and the ocean comes back anyways.

  don’t ever be the ocean”

  she leans forward in her chair, looking hard at me and

reaches out to stroke my hair, to run a finger down

the curve of my jaw—

finding my father’s features.

  “or, i guess, it’s okay to be the ocean,

  if you really love him

  and as long as he doesn’t drink

  and as long as he’s gentle”

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Einstein's First Time

He knows the physics of it of course: friction, inertia, two forces acting upon each other, but god he has never found a way to measure feeling. There is a living equation draped over him, running her fingers through his premature greys and he wants to tell her that the circumference of her breast is equal to pi multiplied by diameter and that the slopes of her face follow Fibonacci’s sequence perfectly. He has spent so long studying how space curves only to find he was wrong— space is a woman space is a long-haired vixen with her hands on his skin space has so many impossible curves and she will always remain an enigma. All of the laws and truths he has shared will be replaced, He will be replaced. Someday his memory will be lost between constellations, and he knows this because in one moment this woman has overshadowed every word he has ever dictated—she divulges the meaning of life in a broken, incoherent gasp against his neck, and he will spend the rest of his life trying to make any other idea be as beautiful.

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NaPoWriMo

So I know that I only wrote 25 poems in 30 days, but I do not regret this. Poetry used to be something I couldn't stand to write, and when I did manage to choke out a few lines it was every few months or so. I wrote more poetry this month than I ever have and definitely grew in confidence as a writer, so even if I didn't accomplish my original goal, I achieved more than I ever expected. I'd like to thank all my old followers who stuck with me on this journey and all the new ones who joined along the way. You'll be seeing more from me. Love always, Summer

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Advice to the Girl with Clouds on her Ceiling (23/30)

Darling, I know you keep trying to find your wings, but a boy now has a mouthful of your feathers, and the sky is a lonely place to be, anyways. Learn to love the ground.

[blunted-mountains-blog]

Across the Border (21/30)

How nice it must be to dig your fingernails into the dirt to learn what sweat feels like when it beads below your back, to smear your face with whitewash paint. Whenever a camera comes near you make sure to throw yourself in front of the lense; you get double points if you can manage to pull one of the native children into the shot— triple points if they gaze sadly at the camera. Feel the pride swell in your chest as you say “Hola” and “Gracias” over and over, rolling your R’s with extra emphasis because you took Spanish 1 and you’re practically at home across the border. Sit in the one-bedroom shack with the family of five you’re helping and pretend not to notice the smell. Be bothered by it anyway, Be a martyr. Flash your winning smile as you are loaded back onto your air-conditioned bus. Brag about your service over dinner, sit in the shower longer than necessary so you can admire the water running down the drain, shut the door to your own room, and press your clean white body into the sheets.

[blunted-mountains-blog]

(20/30)

Someone was supposed to be holding you in the rain. When droplets doused your hair and made your skin slick and your clothes heavy, there were supposed to be hands to brush away the beads of sullied water from your eyelids and lips to kiss away the cold. Instead you will have to settle for the gaze of a streetlamp, resign yourself to hug the gravel, sleep on train tracks, pray for drought.