up my throat until it feathers my jaw, curling at the nape of my neck, until the only sound i can hear is what thunders inside me. what an awful cadence, do not tell me they write verses about its rhythm. my metronome does not sit steady, does yours? no, mine – it skips to its own ravenous beat, i am lassoed to its whims, i breathe when it lets me breathe. it beats when it wants to beat. the great white sternum trembles.
this is not my symphony.
the wind blows on tonight, uncaring. billowing steel grey blinds, meshed windows whistling in her embrace, surging and receding like yet another song i am unable to decipher, i crave her weightlessness; but not her temperature, fuck, my hands are cold enough. how much dissonance can i hold? twelve curving carbon cores envelop an organ that races with no friction, no heat. racing to the cold. racing to what no longer coheres.
this is not my swell of strings.
can a caged organ bruise? i know it can feel sore, believe me, i know – to the point where i cannot carry it any longer – but can it turn from red to brackish, aching purple, thrashing against her own earthly bone-white bars, turning me into her mellow masterpiece? fuck me, i promised i wouldn’t be a poet, not about this, but to my prayers you pay no heed. you let me tremble. you let me fall, let me fail, let me fade. there is no fucking poetry in that. you, when can i talk of you and not speak of the history you cut from me?
you were not this cruel, is it such sacrilege to ask you to slow?
this is not my unending crescendo.
when i awaken in twilight with one hand pressed to pulse and whisper “are you still my reason? will you still help me salvage?” as though it didn’t erase me first with no promise of return, it does not answer. it does not answer.
crazed and kamikaze, my heart tries to suffocate me.
phases of persona drown in static while ugly angels inside take centre stage. then one night — when crushed flowers give their fragrance to the air and your forgiveness is supposed to follow — it only takes root in your chest. never makes it up your throat, never into your words, always held fast by sharp teeth.
i am both better and worse than you thought.
it starts when you're very young. the fruits of your mother's labour came out rotten; she gave birth to terror instead of a daughter. your hands will hold what you were never meant to inherit, and it will stain and swallow every person you touch, aching with homesickness. you will smear your existence onto every surface, flinching at the intensity of colour and stench, devastated by your own wicked flesh. proxy wars and burning houses, you are both the crime and the crime scene.
you die so many times; your shadows are bloodful corpses. black is nothing but the darkest red.
you grow wings, slowly. fury comforts startled little girls when they're infected with woes. fury gets tired of waiting for someone to help. fury cools into ashy white feathers because the spine that once held you up has now rusted over, in need of new pillars. strength becomes you. courage gorges on your spite. paralysis licks at your wounds. blind faith builds cathedrals around your body, sick of sadness that sits in your skin. sacrosanct breaks stalemate, sows seeds for sharper canines in your gums, and biblical rage thrusts you forward whether or not you acquiesce.
you shall not fold your wings to come through doors.
onwards and upwards. soaring takes practice; the smoke from your pyre becomes the wind beneath your wings. hatred comes easy, righteousness comes easier. corrupt vengeance for what died and left. you've come out of the chrysalis too early, it is now your onus — the way the fire licks at those ash-ridden white feathers — your triumph and your collapse both look the same.
a daughter, an urn. a girl, a gun. not who made you, but a third worse thing.
was there ever any difference?
this is a very old story. there is no other version of this story. the ashes come long before the phoenix; you'll outwit fate, but you won't outlast hope, purgatory before infinity.
did you grow up, or did you grow teeth?
sylvia plath's quote from the unabridged journals of sylvia plath.
kahlil gibran’s quote from on houses, the prophet (knopf, 1923).
richard silken’s quote from war of the foxes. it has been repurposed here.
i totally get the allure of venting to ai, even i wish i could completely disconnect from my conscience and be thoroughly gaslit into believing i can do no wrong.
One like nitpick thing that drives me crazy is when people call Blue Whales the largest whales or the largest living mammals or some shit like that
Because yes that is true. But when you frame it like that you are completely disregarding the absolutely batshit reality that Blue Whales are the largest animals that have ever existed on earth through the entire history of the planet and they are alive right now today
I’ve always held a deep hatred for Plath’s fig tree analogy.
It’s a beautiful piece of art, do not misinterpret me. I hate what we’ve done with it.
I abhor its cultural afterlife, the adoption of this analogy in the everyday lives of women, the justification of counting yourself out of things because of an intellectually elegant work. The casual destruction of circling a wound instead of addressing it.
I understand the tragedy of paralysation, of the figs rotting and falling. I just do not accept it as an ending.
a bone to pick, a bullet riddled aircraft, a vengeful woman.
ellievsbear
stormborns
titsay
origamiaround
areudirty
germansingergirl
gracieabrams
theartofmadeline