sincerely, ellie

[cigarette-sunshine]

i do not love you.

i do not love you

when all you do is make me

unlove myself.

you push in my wounds

and open up my scars

to suck the life and happiness out

of me.

how dare you

take my strength,

take my courage,

take my love.

so, my love,

i do not love you,

and i’m afraid

i never will.

[cigarette-sunshine]

one day i see you as beauty

the next i see you as pain.

how scary it is to kkow

i could stop it all (the pain mean)

right this second

[cigarette-sunshine]

Mon Cherie – you are stronger than the world

And the ground upon which you stand 

Is stronger than you think. Do not be ashamed

Because those models are

Skinner than you

Sexier than you

Different from you – you are you. 

You were made to not only walk this earth

But grace it with the beauty that you behold,

you are human.

And being human means embracing the sorrows as much as

You embrace the laughter. Mon Cherie, some days you will

Cry, you will feel the world closing in on you and want to give up, but

Don’t. I promise you that emotions are merely chemical reactions

Holding up more space in your brain than you want to hold in this world.

Grace this earth with your beauty – 

Believe that your mind is a garden of roses.

Being human is feeling every emotion that the world has to give

And you deserve to feel the caress of your true love

As you shed tears of sorrow. Mon Cherie

The world is not an easy place

(if it was easy, it would not be called living) but my darling

You are only human, and that is all I can offer you

In this world full of erratic emotions that I cannot explain

(but mommy you know everything) – I don’t. I cannot change the world for you

Though I would. You are my heart and soul, but my love

Be kind to this world the way you must be kind to yourself 

– Compassion starts within – 

My darling, mon Cherie, mi amor – you are only human, so be unforgivingly 

Human.

[cigarette-sunshine]

and i am learning to love

the sound of my footsteps

in a way that elicits hope and dreams of

what is yet to come. i’m learning

how to embrace the unknown

when the known is all i’ve ever known. a

home of expected tears and hatred

now met with your kindness, wrapped in a feather —

i’m learning that

you are my home.

and i wouldn’t want anything different

[cigarette-sunshine]

your eyes sparkle like the blue of maui’s waters

but you cut deep into my heart

a diamond made of glass.

i was not cut out for this type of love

the way your utterance cuts deep into my soul

the way i cry without hope

the way my pain encompasses me.

[cigarette-sunshine]

you act like you are the only

cloak of armor that fits me —

but you are not

you are one of many, one that i just wanted

to try on

see how it looked

feel it for a little while.

stop trying to tell me what i am trying to say

before the words come out of my mouth.

you don’t know me

and you never will

[cigarette-sunshine]

i am writing to people i don’t know

to tell them about someone they don’t know -

a never ending paradox of nobodies,

all trying to be somebody

to someone

[cigarette-sunshine]

But what does it feel like?

It feels like window panes shattering in my pale, virgin hands. 

It feels like attempting to catch the water droplets as they slip through my fingertips.

It feels indescribable.

[cigarette-sunshine]

today…

the world is gray, a deep black and white.

it is not colorful and vibrant like it once was.

i want to say that it’s okay but

i don’t believe that, at least not today.

[cigarette-sunshine]

the sand around my body has perfectly formed

to satisfy my body. hours i lie here

waiting for you. hours i lie here with oceans

crashing on my face. i can feel myself drowning but 

i don’t have the energy to come up for air. 

every time the waves crash on the sand

my heart breaks a little more. 

i brought myself here

i carried my frail body to the ocean

to wash away the pain

yet i was filled with nothing but coal -- 

my heart shattered like a glass pane.

[cigarette-sunshine]

four and a half years, i held your hand while

you cried, your tears pouring darkness

onto my shoulders.

four and a half years, we whispered melodies

into each others’ mouths, only to be

heard by an angel.

four and a half years, you called me beautiful;

now, you call me

abuse.

[cigarette-sunshine]

it feels like

clear windowpanes shattering

in your soft hands,

the morning dew kissing your wounds.

[cigarette-sunshine]

sunshine doesn’t seem so beautiful

when you stare right at it

so when i looked into your eyes

i don’t know what i expected to see

i felt a dark cloud covering me

as your skin touched me

stinging sharp pain shooting down my body

(i didn’t want to feel that way) you didn’t care

you forced me to love you in the way that

you wanted to be loved

and forgot about me

(i might as well have been asleep because then

maybe i’d be able to go back to sleep)

my body covered in black and blue

pushing on it just to feel something

other than you

forcing me down

call me daddy you said

but dad’s were supposed to take care of you

(i was daddy’s little girl) and you didn’t

take care of my body

that you ripped open and swallowed

whole as you whispered concrete into my

veins, making me take up more space than

i deserve to in this world.

[cigarette-sunshine]

why is it so difficult

to write about the things you love

once you’ve been broken

it seems like the whole world has been turned

upsidedown, the whole world

just spinning around.

without you i am lost

with you i am broken

it’s like a fucked up way of the world saying

that you can’t ever have what you really

want

[cigarette-sunshine]

she finds herself writing about

flowers

because flowers are picked

when they are beautiful,

yet she finds herself only picked

when she spreads the

sweetness of her thighs

for a wary knight

who has come from a land far away.

[cigarette-sunshine]

when i was sick you carried me home,

placed me in a bed of feathers

and wiped the tears from my face.

when i was sick you loved me wholly

and deeply. you took on the role of

caregiver

and never stopped giving.

when i got better you stopped showering

me in roses and honey. you decided

that i was a desert that needed rain.

so when i got better,

i didn’t really get better,

because you made me worse.

[cigarette-sunshine]

ignorance

paint me like a butterfly

with pale pink peonies that blossom

along the sides of the 

bewildering meadow.

scatter wishes of ancestors before me,

ones that coruscate,

across the never-ending noire abyss.

they’ll tell our ancestors not to

brush their fingertips across my physique,

but of course, they won’t listen --

their beings, covered with my virginity,

my being, covered with their everlasting nescience.

my wings can only hold so much rain

before they begin to fracture --

cascading down pellucid promises

into the gloomy meadow below.