brown skin + glitter

a journal

[elluno]

And what can be said

of the jewel covered lady?

When the deaf man appeared

And tore her scale for scale,

left her bloodied—

Dead—

She lived to give him sound

And she screamed until his soul bled

For mercy.

(inspired by Jibaro)

[elluno]

that was the day I died the nightmares ended and so did the dreams how I prayed to no longer wake up sweated shaking and now I close my eyes silence, the dark has no voice I succeeded in clearing them out warm bodies to heat this lifeless flesh of mine the beat of a heart long lost I cleared them all out so perhaps they will take me now the right candidate for death perhaps they will take me now

[elluno]

when these ropes were tied

around that strange stone

at the core of me,

tightly tied,

I didn’t notice those calloused hands

and fingertips hardened

from countless strings strummed

are you the one responsible?

you who hides in darkness still,

are you the one responsible?

I put my hand inside and I feel nothing

nothing on the other end

a lie I tell myself

because sanity demands my ignorance

and the truth evades me, as you do

whatever is that thing people call love?

I don’t feel such things

I assess and reassess

and sensations rarely break the hairs

that don’t rise up

when you say my name

I became a cage when you were near,

locked up inside myself;

breathing cool air

onto your heated skin

who was I to you, if not

air conditioner on legs?

I only desire myself and fantasy of us

I never feel much when I’m free;

the cage protects

the cage contains

the cage had a door

to which, you had the key

I wondered if you’d open it,

perhaps I imagined it,

and you were just a passer by

I’ll just shrink instead,

then I should be small enough to slip through these iron bars

I’ll just shrink instead

[elluno]

I’ve never really had friends. I realise that now, after years of begging for the very love I gave so thoughtlessly. Colonial minds put a price on the love I give freely. “It must be worth nothing,”, they say to themselves, “since it’s being given away like this.” So, my love has no power, no yield no impact, nothing. As empty as the vessel pouring it out it would seem.

[elluno]

Can these stupid bots leave me alone !!! No I don’t want to read at your nonexistent event leave me alooooone

[elluno]

The options for some time have been: To die Or to live With the hope That tomorrow Might be the better day. That better day Still has not come. I’m losing hope.

[elluno]

I would rather be alone and free, and deal with the weight of loneliness, in freedom, than be a slave in a community of deceivers and the willingly deceived.

[elluno]

Is our ending something we author? Foresight haver suddenly blind. Reached the volta, and there were no lines remaining; a sudden end instead. I could write chapters about the first day, when it snapped into place and you were there and I wasn’t, I pretended I wasn’t. I pushed it back and away; faintly aware of your stare, and my own was set ahead never on you, until it was, and we collided wrongly. It was a very odd and angled collision. Not the beauty of poets, or Italian cathedral paintings; our collision was sharp nails and un-moistened stubble and friction burns and mismatched parts, and you tumbled away from me and I looked back and remembered you had stood excitedly, waiting for me to return your smile and I looked away, disgusted. Is that why you killed me? Revenge?

[elluno]

They only listen when you're dead and once you're dead you're dead. Is it when I die that people will listen? Perhaps my death is the lesson.

[elluno]

I need a reduction. They’re always sore and I hate wearing bras. I leave them free and the church excommunicates me. I never had a god anyway. Defence of me has always been weak, and future prospects unsurprisingly bleak. Someone else’s curse lands upon me in a heap and I stop pretending. How loud must I scream how long must I scream before I am heard? What difference does it make? An elusive sort of voice; noisy and less at once. An elusive sort of body; hideous and soft at once. What difference does it make?

[elluno]

why do I miss the man that hurt me?

pathetic fallacy;

thunderstorm to my left

outside the window.

it’s great that the sky cries my tears for me,

isn’t it?

when I cried in front of him

he didn’t seem to care

I wonder if he minds the rain

[elluno]

so, does grieving expire

with the expectation that follows

hollow platitudes strewn

over the barren landscape

of my blistered skin?

it has stuck past the

capability of the hands that

held this wall up alongside me;

they have all fallen away now.

the wall is still as heavy

as it was upon its erection.

I suppose standing by it,

pushing against it,

is how I live now.

[elluno]

what does comfort replace?

the solemn prayers

of hearts disconnected

what does their comforting replace?

the dead are not revived

what is lost is lost

what does comfort replace?

[elluno]

the number games I play are never enough to chase the lingering shadows away. truly, I sleep soundly, knowing that Cerberus at my feet devours those that creep in my bedroom at night, and I wake to fading wails and the screams of men whose wars fought, battles lost, become the loaf I tear to feed him. I suppose one greater could subdue him I wonder where that greater is.

[elluno]

clear reflections in strange places unexpected places I read lines backwards + upside down a photo I took, I flipped it; water, sky, and the sky was water inside the upside down, not the show instead, a home that exists only in the truth mystically copied onto the glass of my face

[elluno]

the more you listen, the more you hear the more you look, the more you see so, songs unsung take form of their own as foreign ears press into the silence I project where there is nothing, a record of youth appears authored by foreign ears do I, composer of my own tale have the rights to those masters? the ones begot by machinations external to me; a genesis of stories told about me, without me? can I ever own those rights?

[elluno]

How bad is it? How bad can it really be? I watch you chain yourself to that wall and I thought it was only with the turn of each new moon, until I found traces of something odd on the rim of the mug you gave me before bed each night, and I decided not to sip and I slept and awoke to sounds of you howling in the basement below. How could I sleep through all that? Right, the tea. So, it was nightly, all along? You become this monster, all alone? Protecting me from yourself, I heard you sing once, when you refused to show me. How bad could it truly have been?