elinor white

she/her ; original poetry about queerness and the insatiable urge to be known. find me on substack as @elinorwhitepoetry

[illicit-opia]

[making-anagrams-from-posts]

faithfulness wilted, hope-incited kiss:

ascend

girly

gritty

antic forbid, thin bud. omit.

[illicit-opia]

is this girlhood?

[illicit-opia]

is this girlhood?

i wonder sometimes if she thinks about that night

her fingertips tracing circles on my bare shoulders

like our footsteps trace the halls of this building.

if you won’t kiss me here then

let’s run away together. yes, yes, i know it’s

cliche but the point is i’m tired of waiting.

i’m tired of trying to pretend like butterflies

don’t beat at the walls of my ribcage and climb up

the inside of my throat. maybe that’s why i choke

on my own breath; on all of the words.

please say them for me. i’m sorry i’m so selfish but i’m

scared. i’d rather never have you than have

to lose you. it’s embarrassing but

it’s honest. i want to be honest. and i am,

in everything except words— in laughter and little smiles that

only you seem to notice— in fingers intertwined

and i’ll bring you your lunch if you want and

god, new year’s eve when you scraped your teeth

against my shoulder and bared open my

bloodied pumping heart—your

immediate apology, face turning red, i don’t know why i did that,

no, it’s okay. i promise.

i just want it to be real.

[illicit-opia]

i can only let myself love her in color

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“the nature of memory”

[illicit-opia]

“all needle and no thread”

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everything on fire (nothing ever burning down)

[illicit-opia]

everything on fire (nothing ever burning down)

[illicit-opia]

[illicit-opia]

[illicit-opia]

[illicit-opia]

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“Do you really think that at any period in our friendship you were worthy of the love I showed you, or that for a single moment I thought you were? I knew you were not.

But Love does not traffic in a marketplace, nor use a huckster’s scales. Its joy, like the joy of the intellect, is to feel itself alive. The aim of Love is to love: no more, and no less.”

— Oscar Wilde, de Profundis

[illicit-opia]

mind over matter

you know how when you’re fourteen everything seems to matter a little bit more? all of it

was a little more colorful— faster heartbeats. cursive handwriting. she was

trees, bushes, limbs, everything on fire

and nothing ever burning down. nothing ever left unforgiven. and yeah, yeah, i

know it’s cliche. shh. it’s okay. come lay down next to me. would

you do that for me? we can stay here all day if you want to. i’ll read

you a poem that isn’t about you and we can listen to young the giant. it’s a

little harder to imagine now, but it’s fine. i’ll be fine. just give me a few

dozen more years of flipping through pages

of a book i never even wanted to read. she used to say the difference between want and

need is when you’re an ocean away and you feel

a sort of drowning. a tug at your stomach. like

the waves in between you are churning and all the sudden you’re throwing

up over the side, except you were never really in a boat and it

all is some random metaphor typed up against some random keyboard. words shoved up against

a sheet of blank paper like how she would push you up against the

wall when you were still in belgium and she kissed you and everything was fine. if that wall

could talk it would murmur sweet nothings it learned from us. if this is

still a metaphor then you’re the fire from earlier and i’m the saltwater that

doused all your pretty orange flames. i don’t know anything about love

but i do know how to kill it. i know how to start all my sentences with “i

don’t want this to end.” and it always does, anyway, but i think

maybe the begging is its own kind of a lifeboat. maybe i still hold pieces of it

inside me. or whatever. maybe that’s love. maybe not. maybe love is just sending an email forgetting that it’s over and then having to remember that it is.

.

this poem is a golden shovel! read the last words of each line and they make a quote: “it was fire. i would read a few pages and feel like throwing it against the wall. is that love? i think maybe it is.” — richard siken

[illicit-opia]

mind over matter

you know how when you’re fourteen everything seems to matter a little bit more? all of it

was a little more colorful— faster heartbeats. cursive handwriting. she was

trees, bushes, limbs, everything on fire

and nothing ever burning down. nothing ever left unforgiven. and yeah, yeah, i

know it’s cliche. shh. it’s okay. come lay down next to me. would

you do that for me? we can stay here all day if you want to. i’ll read

you a poem that isn’t about you and we can listen to young the giant. it’s a

little harder to imagine now, but it’s fine. i’ll be fine. just give me a few

dozen more years of flipping through pages

of a book i never even wanted to read. she used to say the difference between want and

need is when you’re an ocean away and you feel

a sort of drowning. a tug at your stomach. like

the waves in between you are churning and all the sudden you’re throwing

up over the side, except you were never really in a boat and it

all is some random metaphor typed up against some random keyboard. words shoved up against

a sheet of blank paper like how she would push you up against the

wall when you were still in belgium and she kissed you and everything was fine. if that wall

could talk it would murmur sweet nothings it learned from us. if this is

still a metaphor then you’re the fire from earlier and i’m the saltwater that

doused all your pretty orange flames. i don’t know anything about love

but i do know how to kill it. i know how to start all my sentences with “i

don’t want this to end.” and it always does, anyway, but i think

maybe the begging is its own kind of a lifeboat. maybe i still hold pieces of it

inside me. or whatever. maybe that’s love. maybe not. maybe love is just sending an email forgetting that it’s over and then having to remember that it is.

.

this poem is a golden shovel! read the last words of each line and they make a quote: “it was fire. i would read a few pages and feel like throwing it against the wall. is that love? i think maybe it is.” — richard siken

[illicit-opia]

mind over matter

you know how when you’re fourteen everything seems to matter a little bit more? all of it

was a little more colorful— faster heartbeats. cursive handwriting. she was

trees, bushes, limbs, everything on fire

and nothing ever burning down. nothing ever left unforgiven. and yeah, yeah, i

know it’s cliche. shh. it’s okay. come lay down next to me. would

you do that for me? we can stay here all day if you want to. i’ll read

you a poem that isn’t about you and we can listen to young the giant. it’s a

little harder to imagine now, but it’s fine. i’ll be fine. just give me a few

dozen more years of flipping through pages

of a book i never even wanted to read. she used to say the difference between want and

need is when you’re an ocean away and you feel

a sort of drowning. a tug at your stomach. like

the waves in between you are churning and all the sudden you’re throwing

up over the side, except you were never really in a boat and it

all is some random metaphor typed up against some random keyboard. words shoved up against

a sheet of blank paper like how she would push you up against the

wall when you were still in belgium and she kissed you and everything was fine. if that wall

could talk it would murmur sweet nothings it learned from us. if this is

still a metaphor then you’re the fire from earlier and i’m the saltwater that

doused all your pretty orange flames. i don’t know anything about love

but i do know how to kill it. i know how to start all my sentences with “i

don’t want this to end.” and it always does, anyway, but i think

maybe the begging is its own kind of a lifeboat. maybe i still hold pieces of it

inside me. or whatever. maybe that’s love. maybe not. maybe love is just sending an email forgetting that it’s over and then having to remember that it is.

.

this poem is a golden shovel! read the last words of each line and they make a quote: “it was fire. i would read a few pages and feel like throwing it against the wall. is that love? i think maybe it is.” — richard siken

[illicit-opia]

five things (not to think about when you’re high)

1. or when it’s 4 a.m. and you’re spitting backwards

liturgies into violin string heartache. when you’re hung

out to dry naked in front of him and all he says is

are you coming to the wedding on friday?

and of course your response is either going to be an overdone burnt up apology or

2. i died for you. don’t let me waltz ghostlike

to my own music if you’re going to abduct

your hand from my waist and leave me floating lethargic

just offshore. teaching someone to dance

is harder, you know, if you’ve already had to stitch up your heart twice this afternoon

3. alone. he’s holding you shamefully close but he doesn’t know

about these seamstress acts of violence, all needle and no thread—

doesn’t see the stitches coming undone as he dips you

4. headfirst in the pool, all rinsed sinuses and chlorine caressing

parts of you he never will. but anyways this is all just a thought experiment

that you really didn’t want to conduct, and of course when you snap

back to reality he’s blinking at you with cloud-covered

eyes still waiting expectantly for the answer to that

5. knife of a question. it’s okay, sweetheart. go ahead, drive

into the deer. i promise its guts

won’t splatter all over you and stain your heart

and all your clothes, your favorite coat. it’s

okay. he’s not the deer, i promise. go ahead.