August

a place for my thoughts that doesn't feed back into me

[ohandreagibson]

“HoneyShe keeps her makeup in the ceramic bowl of bullets beside a jelly jar full of gardenias on an old dresser in Mississippi Where outside tomato plants grow in the bellies of old boats and she carries a knife just in case she finds something she wants to carve her name into I swear to god if I had an Adam’s apple I would tell her to peel it and take a bite Meaning this time I am not turning back I am not turning in I am turning over every leaf of all my leaving I am moonlighting as the moon light My shine is working overtime just to hear her call me ‘honey’ It makes me feel like the bee’s knees Like I could finally lose my past like the keys to the getaway car Like all my fucking up might finally be out of gas Like there will be no more war fought in my name What if my name is nothing but ‘honey’? Do you realize I gave up on this in my twenties You were the first thing I ever wrote on a vision board I cannot wait to tell you the truth better than I have ever told the truth before And no that does not mean that I’m going to tell you that you look like Marilyn Monroe But you do and it makes me want to run For president Jesus fucking Kennedy Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are when you’re tripping Literally tripping I have never met anyone more clumsy You walk into a room and turn every head when you crash to the floor And I’m like ‘that’s my girl!’ That’s my girl with the busted lip and no she’s not embarrassed that’s a sunburn she already had from my moonlight Now bring me a Shirley temple I’m going to trampoline every inch of cement in this town And she’s going to teach me how to bounce back Mixing her southern polite with her New Orleans fuck-off-honey I wanna hear every story about your whole life Tell me again about your ghetto blaster birthday cake Tell me again how you were master pumpkin carver Tell me again how you’ve never ever been to therapy Why does that turn me on You have a friend who tattooed the words “you wish” on her ring finger I have a friend who pulled out her tampon on the streets of manhattan and threw it at a misogynist cop We are perfect for each other Come drink like a fish in my desert city I want to be the fairy in your Irish pub I want to be your pretty boy I want you to tell all your friends you’re out of my league so I can slap you high five when I’m sliding into home So when I start writing down our love in public poems You know you can burn all of my books if I don’t live up to my word If you ever have any doubt that I am going to live up to the altitude of your highest hopes, remember it was for you that I overcame my fear of flying For you that I learned the ropes of rescue remedy do not under any circumstances rip off the top of the bottle and start chugging it like booze You’ll freak out everyone on the plane And you don’t need enemies at 30,000 feet trust me honey You just need to know this is the first time I’ve ever done this without looking for an exit row And I’m pretty sure my seat can’t float but I’ve already fallen from the sky for you Already said no to the parachute Already told my mother you curse like a sailor and you love like the war is finally over and you have just come home and you are running down the dock in the harbor and you’re screaming my name You’re screaming “honey” and I’m screaming “don’t trip” and you’re screaming “honey honey” and I’m screaming “baby don’t fall down” I am running for your red lips I am running for your red heart With my red heart Red as a Mississippi sunset Honey Honey Honey”

— Andrea Gibson “Honey”

[ohandreagibson]

“The Nutritionist The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables Said if I could get down 13 turnips a day I would be grounded, rooted. Said my head would not keep flying away to where the darkness is. The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight Said for 20 dollars she’d tell me what to do I handed her the twenty, she said “stop worrying darling, you will find a good man soon.” The first psychotherapist said I should spend 3 hours a day sitting in a dark closet with my eyes closed, with my ears plugged I tried once but couldn’t stop thinking about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet The yogi told me to stretch everything but truth, said focus on the outbreaths, everyone finds happiness when they can care more about what they can give than what they get The pharmacist said klonopin, lamictil, lithium, Xanax The doctor said an antipsychotic might help me forget what the trauma said The trauma said don’t write this poem Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones My bones said “Tyler Clementi dove into the Hudson River convinced he was entirely alone.” My bones said “write the poem.” The lamplight. Considering the river bed. To the chandelier of your fate hanging by a thread. To everyday you could not get out of bed. To the bulls eye on your wrist To anyone who has ever wanted to die. I have been told, sometimes, the most healing thing to do- Is remind ourselves over and over and over Other people feel this too The tomorrow that has come and gone And it has not gotten better When you are half finished writing that letter to your mother that says “I swear to God I tried” But when I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back There is no bruise like the bruise of loneliness kicks into your spine So let me tell you I know there are days it looks like the whole world is dancing in the streets when you break down like the doors of the looted buildings You are not alone and wondering who will be convicted of the crime of insisting you keep loading your grief into the chamber of your shame You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy I have never met a heavy heart that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside Some people will never understand the kind of superpower it takes for some people to just walk outside Some days I know my smile looks like the gutter of a falling house But my hands are always holding tight to the ripchord of believing A life can be rich like the soil Can make food of decay Can turn wound into highway Pick me up in a truck with that bumper sticker that says “it is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society” I have never trusted anyone with the pulled back bow of my spine the way I trusted ones who come undone at the throat Screaming for their pulses to find the fight to pound Four nights before Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington bridge I was sitting in a hotel room in my own town Calculating exactly what I had to swallow to keep a bottle of sleeping pills down What I know about living is the pain is never just ours Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window When I can see what I couldn’t see before, through the glass of my most battered dream, I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds. So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, don’t try to put me back in just say here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better but knowing as bad as it hurts our hearts, made of only just skin, knowing there is a chance the worst day might still be coming let me say right now for the record, I’m still gonna be here asking this world to dance, even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet you- you stay here with me, okay? You stay here with me. Raising your bright against the bitter dark Your bright longing Your brilliant fists of loss if the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other, my god that’s plenty my god that’s enough my god that is so so much for the light to give each of us at each other’s backs whispering over and over and over “Live” “Live” “Live””

—

[dragonfulloflies]

fingernails etched in palms

teeth drawing blood like ink from my tongue

god what would it be like to feel nothing at all

i won’t have the breath to answer

keeping myself screaming

in prayer that i never ask again

[dragonfulloflies]

sometimes i think we are all just children of the months we are born to

january babies, headstrong leaders

like a new year’s resolution come to life

may kids, soft and bright

the budding of a million spring flowers

then there are nature’s most desperate;

the children of august, longing and lingering

a fading sunburn you peel off your back

this is the family I was born into to

never taught to be anything more than fleeting

a last kiss, sand washing down your shower drain, a wave the sun gives as it dips below the horizon, tearful departures for the shattered hearts we leave behind

soaring temperatures help to coax you into 5 months of darkness

the sun never burns brighter than the final weeks before the equinox

peaches are ripest just before they rot

my entire life colored burnt orange before my very eyes

every summer is a new summer

until august

when every summer is a last summer

the children of august, transient and constantly searching for beginnings

instead of perpetual ends

[dragonfulloflies]

and god,

when you take my body

leave my hands

so the people i’ve loved

can finally hold the words

i always meant to say with my

lips

[dragonfulloflies]

in my head i’m dead

a million times over.

death has become art,

monets that only exist in my dreams

so far.

the sun is more yellow in france

and the willows all weep

over me.

take all the lily pads and let them drown me.

i’ve only ever wanted to be

something worth looking at and

what’s more beautiful than a sunset?

[schuylerpeck]

napowrimo day 13

schuylerpeck / instagram: hiitssky

[schuylerpeck]

fresh newsletter for you at schuylerpeck.substack.com

schuylerpeck / instagram: hiitssky

[dragonfulloflies]

why do you think love and trust can coexist when love is the most violent, holy act I can commit against you? my love is angelic. divine and ruthless. can you not see my hands? permanently stained red from the spilling of trust of any person who has ever dared to pray at my altar. you say “I love you” when you might as well say “I know you will smite me and yet nothing could feel closer to heaven on earth”

[dragonfulloflies]

my laughter is my voice, loud and breathy

my rage is quiet and unassuming but you can smell it on me, a signature scent

sadness infects my bones and sometimes it spreads to my organs, radiation keeps it at bay for now

jealousy grows from my scalp, needing to be untangled each morning

my bliss exists in garments, under and outer, I dress myself to contentment

my love is my hands, deliciously soft, extremely shaky

[dragonfulloflies]

i sit and wait and wait and wait. waiting for words that don’t scream your name. waiting for the last road out of town to open up. waiting for answers, apologizes, and people that are never coming. waiting for the earth to either swallow me whole or let me grow within her. waiting for the right time to close my eyes and take a deep breath. waiting for my body to get tired enough so I can finally stop thinking about the fact that all I’m doing is waiting.

[cithaerons]

Leila Chatti, I Dreamed I Forgot 

[adrasteiax]

Mary Oliver, from Worm Moon in “Twelve Moons”

[heavensghost]

Poetry by Amrita chakraborty ( @sunrisesongs )

[schuylerpeck]

schuylerpeck / instagram: hiitssky

[nonalimmen]

“The feral woman is usually extremely hungry for something soulful,”

— Clarissa Pinkola Estés, from “Women who Run with the Wolves,” c. 1992

[propertiesofjoy]

vladimir nabokov’s first letter to his future wife, véra (26 july 1923)