The Tea House

20, lesbian, fae/faers star/stars. a poet. ~reblogs encouraged!~

[earlgaylatte]

Minneapolis I'll Love You Forever-

I don't care if it's just the shell of your glorious

Buildings, Would love to take a walk

Through you. Miss you.

Would love to cook you tahdig, use up

The saffron my neighbor gave me. Miss you.

Raise you the way you raised me, before

Stuffed animals in a glove box

Meant something. Would love

To walk to all of your libraries,

Do all of your coffee shop hops.

Bring the ghosts. I'll bus down to 26th,

And you can tell me about what comes after.

Wish You. Wish I could go back for a while.

Don't need to restore yourself to

My childhood memories. I come home

The moment my plane touches down.

You are home, even though I'm taller.

More jaded now. Show me your new tricks.

I want to dance at the block party, if you

Want to be a block party, I'll sweep your

Streets after. Miss your river, your art,

Your vibrant food trucks lining Nicollet.

Miss your DIY shows. They're cool now.

I'll introduce you to everyone I know, if you'll

Be recognizable when I crawl back.

Why'd ICE come? Wish you

Would swallow them whole. Miss you.

Wish I could walk through your door,

Watch fireworks at your parks, run

Inside from your storms. Minneapolis,

I'm so sorry. I'll love you forever.

[earlgaylatte]

Dom Drop-

& when you come for me and whatever is left

of my kneeling body i'll tell you

i think i have been lonely

since the day i was pulled thrashing from my

mother's womb & my language of crying

meant something. to be hers was to be part

of something greater than myself. when

crying was my only language it was a gift,

not displaced tears in a dorm room

quickly shuffling from hands to feet,

bed to hallway, sleeve to face

until the lust grows impatient

& i indulge my teeth again. pile into

the same chinese restaurant

where i pushed down loving you

& choked on meeting your parents, empty

my nearly barren pockets on

egg foo young and hot tea

because if you are cursed with dating me,

the least i can do is keep you

warm and fed

you'll never go to bed hungry &

i'll tuck my measly tip under the soy sauce

because we are not the only open mouths

to feed, but sneak extra fortune cookies into

my pockets anyways. & yours reads drink up,

or look at the stars, or

hit me, mine says i'm sorry for

the bruise on your neck, i'll never do it again

but you laugh, breathless in the cold night.

the sky is starless, kissed with thick clouds

that hide my blush, & we wait for a bus that

never comes, & i'm clutching your hand like

a lifeline i won't need until months from

now, when i lie to my mom about why i won't

come home for spring break & i'll scream

into the night that fortunes are liars

& it'll answer back with a windchill that

presses me further into your side.

[earlgaylatte]

things i want for my twentieth birthday-

my hair dye to rinse out right in the shower/ a vinyl that sounds like a thunderstorm/ cheap flights/ wings/ perfectly winged eyeliner/ a sense of momentum/ without being pushed from the nest/ a third season of fleabag/ the price of oranges to go down/ to be able to afford all my groceries/ a body that spoons itself/ hands that hold themselves/ my pet names to be "lovable"/ or "worthy"/ a cup of tea/ a shot of t/ to drink enough lavender that my menstrual blood smells floral/sunflowers that never die/ friends that never die/ for everyone to come to my party/ and leave older, unharmed, and laughing.

[earlgaylatte]

I Want Myself Pulling My Hair Back

Off the heat of my neck, tangled by my

Cocoon of blankets, woven like a celtic knot.

I remember dreaming of myself split open

Like Sheela na gig and it hardly hurting.

The night I looked at myself horrified.

Back when my days belonged to no one,

When my heart rattled like Bodhrán

In my chest. I played dumb and turned

My tears into fiddle riffs. I took in

All the saltwater of the Earth so I could be

Wanted.

I want myself embarrassed, by the ocean

Of bad luck, by the thistle-scarred skin.

I remember convincing my mouth to smile

Again. It took a lifetime. I tricked my legs

Into walking down the coast, forcing

The frown up until my face resembled a seal.

It didn't help. High on the rocky beach,

A faerie poured shots of whiskey and kelp.

She offered me one, then a double,

Then the bottle. I held it palm up.

Brought it almost to my sleeve like an ace.

[wild-brambles]

time travel for those who grieve a time

in forty-five minutes i will shrug

off the last vestiges of my

youth. twenty-one years on

this world and i feel more fresh to

it than a newborn faun. but in

the hospital where they pulled

me from my mother, screaming and

bloodied, there is still an hour

window where i am young. i

exist in a quantum limbo, who

i am and who i was existing

simultaneously. can i

go back? can i pet my dog one last

time? can i draw in my friend’s

bedroom again, before

we fell apart? it’s only an

hour—surely we have time for

one more hug. one more joke. one

more game of fetch before time

eats us all. i want to remember. i

want to be able to talk to my

parents without bile creeping

up my throat. i want to stay up

until midnight on new years, binging

shows on netflix while your

parents and siblings tussle in the

living room. i want the world to

stop spinning. i want to love my

body again. i want to believe i’ll

make it to thirty. i want

time. i want to say

goodbye.

thirty-eight minutes now. an hour and

thirty-eight minutes, where i wasn’t

watching the beginning of the

end. where i didn’t fear the cruelty

of a stranger. where the thought

of god didn’t fill me with fear. where

mourning doves called to me in

the autumn air. where i had an

autumn, and a winter, and not the

howling, dangerous thing that’s

taken their place. where summer was

just hot, and nothing more. where

love was unconditional, and fear

was confined to closets and

dark hallways and things that

go bump in the night.

tick please come

back tock no stop where

tick are you going tock

i’m not finished tick

yet there’s still

tock so much more

i tick tock want to do before

tick tock the earth swallows

me whole tick

tock please i’m

tick tock begging

tick

tock you i

tick tock

just need

tick tock

more tick

tock

time.

original work, 2025

[earlgaylatte]

your brain. shakes like dog.

[earlgaylatte]

Maybe I Need A Chiropractor-

But it's the end of summer and I've only slept on the couch for three months straight so my Mother can line her twisted spine up with the bedframe. Which is to say- in disregarding my own crookedness- I don't always know how to love without sacrificing parts of myself. My mom doesn't need to know how my shoulders turned purple where they kiss, or that I escaped the heat by crashing my body into anyone who would have it. Listen, I have never known a type of affection that didn't hurt a little. Ask me for pirate's glass so I have an excuse to cut my fingers. And all the mugs pilled on side tables may look like stones on a grave, but I promise they have always been there. It's evidence of my hunger- for skin, for life, for a chest pressed into the parts of myself I can't reach. I think everyone I know would let someone crawl through their ribs for a good night of sleep. And by all of this I mean I have conjured ten different reasons I should just keep my legs closed. My coiled body is remembering all of them.

[earlgaylatte]

Eulogy for the Sound of Planets-

I won't make a metaphor of constellations. But if I die, string me up in them. If I live, memorialize me on your ribcage. To be yours is to be something greater than myself. It was you who said: every moment spent crying is a lifetime displaced. And If divinity can grieve freely, I believe in G-d less and science more each day. Like how science says my body is stardust, and your microbiome is in my gums. Through me, you'll live forever. Though me, the spark of joy from skin-to-skin is eternal. Science says: your ghost does not inhabit my bedroom. Today, I am a room of astrophysicists learning their funding has been pulled. The International Space Station will crash down like a mighty fist, but NASA will release recordings of the planets in its wake. Jupiter wheezes with each rotation. Pluto dances a Horah on the edge of the Galaxy. Mars has no discernible sound. If the penalty is only displacemet, I'll still look for you in every universe. I ask god where I can see you again and she says: The room of astrophysicists. You- I try to burn every wrinkle, stretch mark, freckle in my Anterior Cingulate Cortex whenever I can. I can't tell if the blood is rushing to my ears or if that has been Mars all along. But tonight, in the hallowed ground I call my bedroom, I hold my face until I forget the warmth is my own. And I try to write down what Mars is saying. "You can let go now; you can let go now; you can let go now; you can-"

[earlgaylatte]

this is a poem i wrote about the love i have for people who aren't here anymore bleeding into the love i have for people who are still with me. i edited it a lot since i first wrote it, hence the reblog. <3

[earlgaylatte]

Summer-

(inspired by chen chen)

i am sunburned skin in the belly of the

beast-

my name ends with an "em" of hesitation.

holy is the sweat from half-manic half-punk

thrashers coating the back of my flannel.

a summary of the energy in this beer garden:

fizzing.

a summary of the emotion i am trying to

dance out of me:

guilt.

i am no longer nymph, i am not yet a

treehopper.

my stepdad and his generation would call

this bar "decrepit,"

which is to say- it, like me, refuses to cater

to them. or that it, like me,

is loud and queer.

loudness means I am finally shucking the

shame i carry into the dirt under me.

and "me" is someone who knows the

importance of spending summer sunkissed,

sweaty, and storming.

there's a flash flood in my skin waiting to be

released.

soon, i will write a poem that tastes like

folk punk when read outloud.

after, i will look my stepdad in the

eyes and tell him:

you should have never used your apathy to

stifle the joy that sprouts within me.

and when i said it hurts, to tell me i had to

do it again. and do it again.

and do it again. and

do it.

[earlgaylatte]

hi, here's a poem i wrote titled salt! i liked the format better on my notes app so enjoy. :)

[earlgaylatte]

10 year plan-

rediscover my passion for academia in graduate school. write their name in the margins of my notes like an incantation. get used to seeing their pretty face: at home, at work, a wink and wry smile cutting through my defenses. pick up oranges at the grocery store. learn how to make all of their favorite pasta dishes. spend so much time in libraries that my sweaters start to smell like old books. make just enough money that i can spend it on frivolous things: crystal towers, tinned fish, the lenox spice village. declare that if we were small enough, we'd live in the saffron house. move somewhere coastal. make my own sea salt. bury the old ghosts in the back yard. learn what it feels like to wake up warm and safe, my nose burried in the crook of their neck. kiss the shape they leave in the sheets. get crinkles around my eyes from a lifetime of laughing at their jokes. and no matter what, keep eating oranges. always eat oranges.

[earlgaylatte]

Pangea-

listen, baby, 3 million years ago

before jesus was a carpenter carving

fig trees into chariot wheels,

the universe itself wrote oxytocin into

our DNA.

what i'm trying to tell you, is, in this world,

which was forged from the fires of

constant pressure and release,

i am the sunflower turning to face your

brilliance instead of the heavens.

you have me praying in a foreign language:

"An luífeása le mo mhuintirse?"

until all i can do is imagine nesting into the

star-burned olive of your eyes. listen,

my darling,

solomon wrote: let him kiss me with the

kisses of his mouth! for your love is better

than wine- and i spend

the rest of my life dizzy and flushed as

evidence of it.

you say my name and i yearn to collide

our bodies like atoms,

pangea our souls into

a single point of origin. what

i'm trying to tell you is, my celtic ancestors

believed the soul, when compelled,

could trancend the body. and if you're ready,

i'd like to make you feel like that.

[earlgaylatte]

Earth's Cycles-

the sun beats heavy and the ice thaws to

half moon lillies blooming in the yard; shut

me up with your hand under my shirt.

i've worked at the local art museum longer

than i've loved you, and just now i'm

realizing

that the smell of oil paint on my sweaters is

impossible to get out.

kiss me in the video room with the drums

pulsing.

i've held a gay little jumpsuit in my hands

and thought about safewords.

i've held polaroid pieces of upstate new york.

i've held tiny red threads in my fingertips

and have dragged them up to a boy's pinkie

like a dagger.

strip off the artists' black and pin me

gently onto the exhibitions.

the moon is finally coming and coming

and the freaks are back out glittering like

fairies.

do you know how it feels to lose your breath

seeing andromeda sparkle

in your other's eyes?

i want it to feel like that-

a painting of a night sky.

somewhere between the earth's cycles and

locking up museums things start slotting

into place. I want it bad because stars and

artwork both draw the prettiest gasps out of

you.

[earlgaylatte]

WAR IS OVER (they're my boyfriend now)

[earlgaylatte]

Earth's Cycles-

the sun beats heavy and the ice thaws to

half moon lillies blooming in the yard; shut

me up with your hand under my shirt.

i've worked at the local art museum longer

than i've loved you, and just now i'm

realizing

that the smell of oil paint on my sweaters is

impossible to get out.

kiss me in the video room with the drums

pulsing.

i've held a gay little jumpsuit in my hands

and thought about safewords.

i've held polaroid pieces of upstate new york.

i've held tiny red threads in my fingertips

and have dragged them up to a boy's pinkie

like a dagger.

strip off the artists' black and pin me

gently onto the exhibitions.

the moon is finally coming and coming

and the freaks are back out glittering like

fairies.

do you know how it feels to lose your breath

seeing andromeda sparkle

in your other's eyes?

i want it to feel like that-

a painting of a night sky.

somewhere between the earth's cycles and

locking up museums things start slotting

into place. I want it bad because stars and

artwork both draw the prettiest gasps out of

you.

[earlgaylatte]

Heavily inspired by @two-bees-poetry, a poem I wrote about having an addict dad. I don't know if I did that format right, but oh well.

[earlgaylatte]

Eulogy for the Sound of Planets-

I won't make a metaphor of constellations. But if I die, string me up in them. If I live, memorialize me on your ribcage. To be yours is to be something greater than myself. It was you who said: every moment spent crying is a lifetime displaced. And If divinity can grieve freely, I believe in G-d less and science more each day. Like how science says my body is stardust, and your microbiome is in my gums. Through me, you'll live forever. Though me, the spark of joy from skin-to-skin is eternal. Science says: your ghost does not inhabit my bedroom. Today, I am a room of astrophysicists learning their funding has been pulled. The International Space Station will crash down like a mighty fist, but NASA will release recordings of the planets in its wake. Jupiter wheezes with each rotation. Pluto dances a Horah on the edge of the Galaxy. Mars has no discernible sound. If the penalty is only displacemet, I'll still look for you in every universe. I ask god where I can see you again and she says: The room of astrophysicists. You- I try to burn every wrinkle, stretch mark, freckle in my Anterior Cingulate Cortex whenever I can. I can't tell if the blood is rushing to my ears or if that has been Mars all along. But tonight, in the hallowed ground I call my bedroom, I hold my face until I forget the warmth is my own. And I try to write down what Mars is saying. "You can let go now; you can let go now; you can let go now; you can-"

[earlgaylatte]

superbowl 2025-

they've got a weed tint to their words as

i settle over their lap and try to turn the

music of their breath up. my brain stutters

like the walls of jericho crashing and I

swallow my last miracle from the bottom of

a wine glass. i've split myself open enough

times to know how to carve a space for

them in my soul. when being vulnerable isn't

enough and i've got to wear them like a

hoodie. they've got curls like lucifer and

hands like a greek myth. they've got a

smile like a northern sunset. they've got a

voice like van gogh's roses rooting in the

base of my spine. they rest their legs on

mine like a unicorn and my body is a

tapestry to immortalize. on top, the world

glows seedy amber and i nearly sob in

adoration. your warmth, my jeans; your

dorm or the library? we try not to get sick of

cuddling but stay glued to each other's

side. we don't say goodbye but we do say

"see you later," and i yearn like oscar wilde

the moment they aren't there. all sensual

and bad metaphors but with the purest

intentions.

[earlgaylatte]

the aftermath-

weed tastes like champange in the grey

morning light, sun flicking through curtains

and my hair a halo on sweaty pillows.

bones dense in the aftermath

of college kids having highschool parties,

from standing on my tiptoes all night to be

seen. drunk drag and drunker drag racing.

wasted a tuesday night on someone who

wraps sage like a blunt and doesn't know

the difference between amethyst and

auralite. which in itself isn't an issue,

but it does tell me he doesn't listen. hell is

a locked bedroom door and a house party.

hell is the house not even having a dog to

escape to. weed tastes like

how bad i want a warm mouth on mine and

butterflies in my stomach. dizzy

from the glitter and polaroid flashes.

low lights, long hair, and hands on my hips

is the recipe to turn me sixteen again.

the forecast is as unforgiving as the ice

under tires, street racing back to the iron

range or to bar hop across the bridge-

negative twenty degrees and

my blood runs as cold as the outside when

i wake up to him pressed against me,

fingers leaving party tattoos in their wake.

who even passed me this blunt, who's keys

are sparkling in the lamplight, who's hand

is gripping my waist like a lifeline. my limbs

tangled like this in bed is

like being sixteen again, too.

he grabs my chest

like he prayed for it, and

there's ash in my hair like confetti and

mascara on my cheeks like a bad porno.

i wish this was a poem but it's just

the aftermath of greened out ramblings on

a public bus and forgetting to photograph

the bruises.

i wish this was a healed wound but it's just

the aftermath of the aftermath of

the aftermath.