love

i rb and post poetry • was poetry-hedgehog

[ho1y-water]

Your best friend’s bared chest 

Above the line of her low cut going-out top;

Golden sun and beach sand and winter falling.

His face 

Flashing like a nightmare.

Your hands cold like always.

It feels like the soft growing heat between your back and the mattress,

That place where bedsores form.

It feels like grey clouds.

So little of life is what you want it to be.

You anticipate death

Like a lizard anticipates November.

Most bad things start with g;

Guilt, grief, greed. And so on.

Groggy footsteps from upstairs, shh, don’t wake dad. The goddamn picture he gave you that you can’t look at anymore. The green bile rising in your throat. And so on.

We won’t say why. We know you’re sensitive.

And so on. Greasy hair and true love and grass. Normal stuff. I don’t know, 

Fuck you, 

I’m working on it.

I think that’s all you can do.

The deer watch you. Winter keeps coming.

Here you are. You’re just hoping the pills start to work soon.

Skin-to-skin. Green seaweed in the water.

Beginning, meet end; and

it feels like violent, incurable, 

unstoppable, unending, ravaging,

crushing, savage,

heretofore-unknown illness.

You like imagining your body is sick, 

and not your ugly heart.

I think you have to, though. I think 

that’s all.

[ho1y-water]

the man’s name is noodles. i call my man “princess”

and i threw up three times this morning. i’m never gonna be in love the same way itll never be dry at the bottom of the mariana’s trench, the same way air is breathable, the same way you’re beautiful. we got croissants.

my skin is itchy where it’s scabbing. i wanted you to cut me too,

wanted you to hurt me more,

but now i’m okay with it. now i’m okay with it.

repeating like snowfall in my head, now i’m okay with it. let’s play cards and forget.

welcome home beautiful baby.

i missed you.

this can never be real.

in some dreams, in some dreams, maybe.

in another place. but not real. i prayed to the moon. i prayed to the stars. i prayed at the empty blackness, begged the silence for my forgiveness, and nothing came.

in this life, no one saves you.

doesn’t matter how many times you show me you don’t want me. i will still be here, beautiful baby. now i’m okay with it.

[ho1y-water]

No, please no more

Late nights. Please no more

Darkness. Please no more big lonely idea that blooms out of the stars when they shine. Please no more buses. Please,

Don’t make me go back. Don’t make me

Get in the car. I want a field. I want a girl.

Open the windows. Take off your bra. Let the feeling in, offer your hand,

It just wants to smell your fingers.

In the post-rain parking lot

I knew I looked ugly,

But the fear hadn’t set in yet,

So we were laughing and talking and getting on the bus, and I felt almost like perfection.

She pushes the hair behind her ears

Like everything is okay.

Everything is not okay.

The earth is coming apart at the seams,

Overstuffed with wool fluff. Like a full heart.

Beating,

Still,

Beating,

Still; arrhythmic

But it hardly matters. To us, at least,

Here at the end of the world

In the middle of the ocean,

It hardly matters.

[kuchipachi]

white flag by lucia gallipoli

[dogwoodbite]

[ID: a white lace curtain with the words "I DIDN'T ASK TO BE BORN / BUT I CERTAINLY DIDN'T / ASK TO DIE / EXCEPT FOR WHEN I DID / AND I THANK GOD / HE NEVER LISTENS" added with white interfacing just above a flower motif border /End ID]

[kafk-a]

[sioltach]

YOU DID NOT COME INTO THIS WORLD. YOU CAME OUT OF IT, LIKE A WAVE FROM THE OCEAN. YOU ARE NOT A STRANGER HERE

[fuckyeahmrleonardcohen]

“In Montréal spring is like an autopsy. Everyone wants to see the inside of the frozen mammoth. Girls rip off their sleeves and the flesh is sweet and white, like wood under green bark. From the streets a sexual manifesto rises like an inflating tire, “the winter has not killed us again!””

— Leonard Cohen, “Beautiful Losers”

[ho1y-water]

this same bathroom, these four walls

I’ve had every broken heart of my life in my parents’ house,

my childhood bedroom is stained with claw marks and spattered blood and teary grainy gritty lonely nights spent curled up

sobbing into the carpet.

You said

“I love you”

“Thank you i love the jewelry”

“Do you think our parents should meet soon”

And then you said

hope you’re happy with the next man.

I guess, when you don’t lend everything, you can’t lose it when your lover leaves.

We are all strapped in for the ride tonight.

I’m thinking of you because of course I am, because I always am. Because I’m in love with you.

I wish you’d come knocking but I don’t, because I know I’d answer, and that’s the thing.

Summer, five years ago. Or else summer now. Or else lying dead in a ditch. Whatever. Each moment drags by the same. All just the same, tiny studded blips of cellulite stardust.

I guess, when you’re young, you have to give your virginity to a man who doesn’t love you.

I’ve been the lightest here, the heaviest. The same and different. Healthy brain, electric shocks.

I’ve been the nicest, the meanest here; jobless, jobful. Hopeless, hopeful. Mystic and plain. Always messy. Always in love.

A few more weeks of this and I might have to reconsider this whole thing.

[ho1y-water]

Toweling off and dry rot. Small shiny things, pink things, red things. Fascinators, attention-grabbers, wind catchers, butterfly catchers, dream catchers. Sore feet. Red things again. Working hard under a boss who hates you for no reason, all for the paycheque to disappoint you.

The problem is caring. If I didn’t care I wouldn’t be doing this. The problem is that I was a kid who no one looked at, so when you look at me, I want to do everything to keep you looking. Shiny things again, small things. Tokens. I blow it. Money, men. I blow.

Sharp things. Toenails, razor blades, the sting of waxing one’s pussy. Soft things. Things I can’t get anywhere else. A cornered market. Sore feet again.

Heat like danger. Heat like dead leaves, dead grass. Dead girl. Dead girl loves you. I love you.

I love you. I love you.

I know later on I’ll be embarrassed I ever felt this way for you but I love you.

Sweet things, like your tongue in me. Tender things, like the bottom of your foot or sleeping on your chest. Hard things. Rough, scary, boring, grating, thankless things. Bad things. Red things again. Claspers, pincers, tweezers, pliers. Screwdrivers. Screw drivers.

Back in my childhood bedroom like I never left. How vertiginous it is to change so much and so little.

Plain things, pills and such. Little things, like pokes or like blinks.

I love you.

[ho1y-water]

it can be clean like this,

crystal gaze through grass blade frostbite in rainy december.

his lips finding my cheek like a cat finding its warm bed

over and over and over

and over again,

curving to fit my body,

curling around me because he wants to.

love means: even though you aren’t doing so well right now.

they are outside smoking

or else

talking puffs of speech

thrown away forever.

i like to pull my own feet out from underneath me,

get sick and tired of sleeping in my bed,

go back and beg for forgiveness

but really

begging for kisses.

i sometimes wonder

about that other life i once had,

the ashes of which blew away with last summer’s fires.

now i can stop faking

and take my pills

and forget.

[ho1y-water]

And so, the end of times. This thing you dreaded. Your

“what

if”.

Your biggest fear.

But nothing explodes. You simply find yourself

different.

Like sound ceased to travel.

Like deafness,

like death,

like plunging your head underwater.

Nothing changes.

I asked God to turn down the music but I heard no response.

I asked God if change was possible and all he said was, “come back later”.

I tried calling God, but the line was busy.

I tried again

but he was out to lunch.

The stars shine for everyone. Even you.

You don’t even have to pray.

Did you know that?

[ho1y-water]

and you were so pretty /

the prettiest /

looking through pictures, i feel

that old love in my brain and organs

red and deep / some thing

that never saw light.

and you never forget your first,

and even though the sun on you and me set two summers ago,

i still live in that neighbourhood,

feels like i’m the only one who stayed the same.

and this feels ancient,

headaches,

puking on this bathroom floor, /

things i’ve been doing forever.

will you miss me this way?

like you cut yourself?

like october fog?

and will you miss me forever the way i miss you?

[ho1y-water]

is your heart hurt /

did your feet slip in the sand are you /

all right /

in the dark stillness of the night,

everything is warm again

and kind. a susurration of wings.

clairvoyance. squareness and linoleum.

are we still men

if we forget to eat, sleep,

if we spread out in pale grass and melt

and drink blood.

i saw you through dark water /

gleaming on dark water

like so many stars. and like stars

the dawn made you translucent. gone /

and like stars /

you do not love me back.

pink sailboat floating to nowhere

two ships sinking in the night with /

the blackness of night

all around.

[ho1y-water]

and so broadly things continue on.

the headache just doesn’t subside,

but you cannot spend forever licking your wounds

no you must at some point let them scar. in the end no one will save you.

in the end it is up to you. often in this life some things are ugly and wretched

and sog you with seawater years after they go. often those things are part of you. i will keep the porch lit for you

and pretend i do not see you

walk away. i will save these calls for you

if you will come back

and want them. i will preserve how i love you

for when you let me tell you

again.

and so broadly the long grey dream continues on.

beige. magic isn’t real any longer. the mystery erased by all this laid out bare.

maybe in another time, another place,

where i wasn’t such a fuckup.

yet beautiful creatures swarm you in the water

cheering your name in the gym,

lifting you on their shoulders in gatsby-gold glitter as your smile

smudges across your face.

i get to watch. i love you from this far.

i try not to think about it. often in this life you are very insignificant and do not matter much to the people you love. i am a child. i struggle with this.

i tell myself, everyone else is very selfish too.

i watch you walk away.

i lie blurred on the couch.

and all i could think of was how the sidewalk looked while i listened to you tell me i was pretty. all you wanted was a friend.

if i could paint over it all,

make it sage green like the sweater, or the leaves in summer two years ago,

i would.

[ho1y-water]

Green tile, sotto voce, vibrato. I’m alone on the couch collecting bedsores. Italian forte on TV, distractions so I don’t rot. Orange sun, short shorts, gaining weight, golden silence. I want my mom. But we all want things. I hope you forget you ever wanted me. Black stars, black night, black screen, little black book. I hope you get what you need, but everything is bitter. Everything means something else. In this life, no one will save you. You must do it yourself.

[ho1y-water]

good morning

i want body heat

i want

easy food

i want grocery aisles empty

and i want silence

and i don’t want you anymore

all i do is hurt you

be in peace and

go from me

i want sticky notes

i want

greenness i want

clean hands

[lifeinpoetry]

The forlorn truth about me is

That I’m the one who loves you

I have no belief

I have no rage

I just do this

I just have to

— Niina Pollari, from “I’m the One Who Loves You,” Path of Totality