ironedout

Ang Shuang (Shuang A.) / +65 / 21 i learned to write so i would stop bleeding NOW ACCEPTING PROMPTS :-)

[ironedout]

1 you know you’re fucked when you have an entire dream revolving around holding his hand. and by holding his hand i mean palm hugs. i mean fingers building steeples together, opening doors you never even knew existed. i mean your head line disappearing into his heart line. i mean, you’re fucked. 2 how do you love someone who is always, but never, just about to leave? every time you look over your shoulder he is always turning the corner. every time you scratch your ghost town heart off the map he turns it gas station. you take your last gallon of fuel and give it to him. don’t tell him it’s the last. keep waiting for him to come back round that corner. 3 one night he will tell you about this girl, because there’s always a girl, and she is beautiful. i mean, the kind of beautiful you can’t even hate, and believe me, you’re going to try. all your friends are going to try but the fact is she is yellowstone and you are botanic gardens. i mean, sure, you have flowers, but no one’s gonna stay there for more than half a day. he is not staying with you. you are the gas station girl, the rest stop he sleeps in on the way to his coda city slow dance. you are nothing but fuel. 4 how do you love someone who is always, but never, just about to leave? you sit on a ledge and argue with your heart for hours. when is a boy not just a boy? when you won’t stop dreaming of his hands. when your heart thinks he’s the sky. 5 you know you’re fucked when you have an entire poem revolving around holding his hand. and by holding his hand i mean not really. i mean you are never sitting in that passenger seat. i mean, close those doors. even the ones you thought existed. even the ones that felt real. i mean, there are no more corners left to turn. i know you’re fucked, but stop looking.

“Gas Station Girl”, by ironedout

[ironedout]

the way your foot catches on vacant air, keening for the missing step. how an eight-year-old tongue runs again and again over gaping gum before it registers evaporated enamel. halfway across the world a soldier reaches to shut a window with his right hand and withdraws, mouth tightening in bruised remembrance. some days you think the rain has finally wrenched every last root from the arms of the earth, until you find yourself blinking in the middle of a supermarket aisle, fingers straining for a carton of juice you don’t even drink.

[ironedout]

it’s been forty-four years since someone set foot on the moon. i don’t want to turn this into a metaphor but when you smile the whole world shifts in orbit, slanting beneath my unsteady feet, until you turn your face into the sun and rationality eclipses. every corner you have touched has a flag on it: the soft crook of my elbow, the edge of my bruised knuckle, the crater of my chest. even as you spiral into the pull of other planets i drift in wait for the music of your footsteps colliding against the ground. i would wait forty-four years for you to conquer me all over again.

the moon listens to elevator music, by ironedout

[wordsdancemag]

I need to stop holding the door open for boys who like my mouth shut.

from “Running on Empty” by Ang Shuang, published on Words Dance (via wordsdancemag)

[ironedout]

what do i want? i want this world to fold over, fold under, flatten like a tongue beneath a rock, so i can run and run and run until the ground disappears and i fall into empty air. i want to quietly disappear.

[ironedout]

three years later i am still sitting in these ruins, struggling to rebuild a city out of all this debris.

[ironedout]

Your poetry is absolutely beautiful and I wish I could be half as talented as you are ❤️

Thank you so much.

[ironedout]

You Are Who You Love, Not Who Loves You How do you explain this? It wasn’t always bad. See, there were the summer afternoons when he played guitar

Two of my poems were featured in Persephone’s Daughters, which was a lovely honor.

[ironedout]

and i sat and thought about how sad it was, how utterly human we were in this tragedy of cross-purposes. how we could both swallow the same sword and choke on both ends. sometimes when i blister in this pain i forget you have your own wounds to lick.  sometimes when i burst into flames i forget to keep my hands off you.

i guess this is an apology, by ironedout

[theprocast]

When you love someone, you can feel it all the way down to your very bones. It haunts you with every breath you take—there is no way you do not know love when you feel it.

ironedout

[ironedout]

When you have no skin, you steal. Shroud yourself in a facade of furs and fangs and fury, as if that way you can convince the world you will not perish when he goes. When he goes, you claw your heart out and leave it on his doorstep, still warm, a feral gift. Snarl at the traps, then slink into them anyway, praying that sacrifice will turn you into something lovelier. Flinch at your reflection in the mirror, all terrible teeth, all savage sorrow, all monster. At night you howl at the moon until it leaves for good.

“Blanket Beast”, by ironedout

[ironedout]

Did you write a poem about something like you can see the love dimming in their eyes? I'm trying to find it but I can't find it :(

Hmmmm, I’m not sure, is it this one? 

[ironedout]

Years later, I can still taste the ice on your tongue. Some nights you insist your way into  the aperture beside me— these nights too long, these dreams too short. The world still moves slow at the thought of you. Your artist's hands, rapier's mouth. Husband in all but name. Oh, no matter how many times I practice mouthing your name against the cool winter air you will not come to me. Ghosts do not condense. I know that. I live the life, ride the horses. Kiss the men and even marry one. Laugh when Lizzie learns to spit, then cry when I realize she looks  nothing like you. Love, I have done it all, and all without you. Years later, every lick of the breeze still feels like your breath against my neck. Death will not scrub your song from my skin.

“From Rose, to Jack”, by ironedout

[ironedout]

We were always saying goodbye in the blood in the bone over coffee before dashing for elevators going in opposite directions without goodbyes.

From “Movement Song” by Audre Lorde

[ironedout]

There is no easy way to say this. I am still swallowing sleeping pills and praying to hold you in my dreams while you are miles away coming loose to the beat of someone else’s heart. Still taking the long route to buy juice I don’t even drink. Still leaving the door open, just in case. There is no easy way to say this. The juice has gone bad. I am still in love with you. The birds are flying home after the winter but you are not coming back.

“Gone”, by ironedout

[ironedout]

i’m sorry that loving me will often feel like fighting in a war. that you will have more battle scars than you can count. that sometimes “i love you” tastes more like surrender than a victory. that mine is the sort of love that breaks bones and captures cities. bites your lip so the taste of rust lingers. a flag. a warning. a measured mark of title. the kind of love you need to recover from. that some days you will reach for me and i will be going, gone, ghost. that some nights i turn myself off with the lights and the bedroom doubles as a battlefield where i am more enemy than ally. that sometimes these hands are made for hurting and not for holding. healing. i should hold you more often. i should. i’m sorry.

all the things i couldn’t say to you in person, by ironedout

[theprocast]

I think the truth is, love can be easy if you just let it. We like to over complicate love when the answer is simple: you love someone until you don’t, or until the end of the world. You try your hardest and if it doesn’t work out, it’s okay to walk away. Trust that another door will open. Remember that love is the most important thing you can do. Choose them even when it gets difficult — even when they are difficult. Steal kisses in theaters. Smile. Be there for the big moments, and the small ones too, because sometimes love is two people giggling in bed sharing a chocolate bar. Sometimes love is two people just listening to each other breathe. Love is two people making the same choices, over and over, even if the rest of the world falls apart. It’s them. It will always be them, no matter what. Just what is so hard about that?

the truth about love, by ironedout