Karlyn

Writer of Things.

[karlynmaness]

I was born to be the lamb, the slaughter for the wolves. It’s how they bred women—as the sacrifice before the feast. They shred us down until we are but a carapace of ourselves, pluck away the imperfections of girlhood, tempting our adolescent freedom with idyllic dreams through meadows and gardens, ripen the cheeks and freshen the body to present us for our finishing. It is then and only then—when we are promised the bounty for our beauty—do they bleed us to the bone, claws dug into hallowed flesh, agony burning in our throat but all that escapes is a whisper. Bred to be a prize until your very body becomes your demise. And I promise you after the hunger subsides, whilst the taste of your skin still rots on their tongue, you will be blamed for the blood that stains those spectral teeth. You will be the crimson that sullies empires.

The Lamb for the Slaughter // Karlyn Maness

[karlynmaness]

Closure doesn’t come for people like us,

A book that ended before it even began.

Not all stories go according to plan,

The proof lies hidden where we stand.

We’re caught in the trenches of what could’ve been,

Searching for a way out of this mess.

How do we unpack the truth: we settled for less,

When we were given an abundance of happiness?

I was never one for settling scores,

But I’ve been out here, fighting your war.

Happenstance brought me back to your door,

I can’t live in this in between anymore.

Closure might come to someone like me,

If I let go of dreams, set you free.

Rewrite the beginning,

To find peace.

[karlynmaness]

I look in the mirror, and all I see are the women lost to time. We share a familiar gaze with eyes of ocean blue lost in a current so deep we’ve forgotten how to breathe, but oh, how we scream. Her life was forgotten along the way, erased for a role she was obliged to play, a contract bound from breath to stone. Rattling cages and rattling bones, she begs and begs for what we’re owed, for what she gave so that I might have a fraction of the hunger that drove her mad. With her soul passed on, she haunts my every want. What more could this world give: a lover and a husband she bled red. How they love to tell the tale of the murderess they hung for being female. No trial could save her now, but alas justice prevails. Her brunette locks run down my spine, staking her claim at what’s mine. With each gaze, she speaks to me, defying the confines of history. Hidden in her demise of deep blue siren eyes, I know the truth. They burned the witch for heresy, insisting she brought men to their knees, out of bitter pride, Lilith in disguise, but we all know that’s a lie because freedom only comes at a price, so she paid them her due, and they killed her without the proof, and without knowing what her descendants could do when they stumbled upon their crimes. We’ll burn down the world in her name, for filled in all of our rage are the women lost to time, united are the daughters of the night.

Women Lost to Time, Daughters of the Night // Karlyn Maness

[karlynmaness]

In all of my hope, there is a dark cloud of doubt. I fear that you have given up on me, given up on the fact that I’m real and trying my best to find you. How many soulmates have given up on true love because they grew tired of waiting, grew tired of being alone? The morning dew touches my skin as I stand on the balcony of now, drinking my coffee with the sunrise, and think of what it must be like to wake up in your embrace, what it must be like to know you, to feel you stir in an apartment we call home, to see a city riddled with memories of us shining out the window. My love, this is me trying everyday for you, for me, for us. Please don’t give up. I’m out here. I promise. I’ll find you.

Missed Connections // Karlyn Maness

[karlynmaness]

It happened again today, the heartstring tying you to me pulled across space and time. The sun kissed the sea as I felt the flutter touch my soul. I wonder how you do it, how you reach across the void to find me at the most opportune times. The universe knows we haven’t met yet, your gravity is something I would know, something I would recognize, but you find me nonetheless. You find me on the darkest nights as my heartbeat slows, when I can’t reason with life for one more second, one more breath. You find me when the voices in my head trap me in their cage, and I fear these chains will be the last thing I’ll ever know. You find me when the first snow has fallen, and all I can think about is what’s been lost when the path ahead becomes nothing more than an eternal frost. Then, there’s your warmth pulling the string to keep me from letting go, to keep me from succumbing to my own cold. You hold me in a way no one else can, embracing my spirit, guiding me forward with a steady beat. Maybe it’s not that hard to believe that you’re out there after all, unraveling the string that leads from you all the way to me. And I wonder and I wonder and I wonder if you feel me too. Do I have the same effect on you?

Heartstrings // Karlyn Maness

[karlynmaness]

The first snow fell today. The last of the leaves have yet to go, but even that couldn’t stop the frost. The pain burdens my bones, aching with the looming cold, as I gather what’s left of the firewood on the porch. Surely, if you were going to burn us down, you would’ve left more kindling than this.

It’s temporary, I remind myself. Temporary, until you return the warmth to our hearth. Temporary, until you find whatever calls to you in the wild isn’t worth our love. It’s all temporary. You wouldn’t leave me with just this, a few dozen logs and a box of matches, as winter presses on. Devastation. You wouldn’t lead me to my own devastation. I’m worth more than that. And you know it too.

The fire crackles inside, a blaze illuminating the darkness. It shines for you, my love. A beacon in the night, I keep it alight to guide you. For when you return, you will need the warmth too. How cold must it be where you are? How lonely was autumn with flaming reminders of me? Are you lost, my dear? Are you lost in a sea of concrete and a mirage of freedom? Does my fire not burn bright enough for you to see? That must be why you’re not here, why you have yet to arrive. You’ve lost your way.

Follow the wilting meadows, for they all lead to our cabin in the woods. Follow the weeping willows, for our tears have forged the path home. Follow the weathered trail, for my footprints in the fresh snow will show you where I am. I’m here in the enchanted forest that dies to bloom again. I never left us, and I wait for you.

I pace the creaking wood floors. Along the walls, all I see are reminders of you. I’ve painted every crevice of this house. I’ve painted the space between me and you with a colorful future, full of hope, full of memories, it’s all still ours. How beautiful our canvas is as it bleeds for reality, as it craves your flesh and blood to give it life. I wait for you to breathe your essence into our dreams. I wait for you to tell me it was me you wanted all along, not some Godforsaken fantasy I could never compete with. Me. I’m the dream you desire so wholly your ego fights against our fate. I wait for you to defeat whatever you must to be here, present and unwavering in our truth.

And I wait. And I wait. And I wait.

The lake has frozen over, and the snow continues to fall as I trek the path each morning. Three logs and two matches, that’s all that’s left of my salvation. There’s been no sign of you for months, the ache now a radiant wound, tearing at my hope. I’ve grieved for the living, but never quite like this, never for someone so close to my heart I can feel us beating in time. I used to close my eyes to see your face as clear as day, but now your image only brings me pain. You haunt these walls with the promises I cling to. The life I wanted is painted on these walls, a ghost in the night that tears at my sanity. You left me to my demise.

A nightmare, my love, you’ve turned us into a nightmare. I can’t wait any longer for you to come back. It’s time. It’s time to end the pain you’ve caused and take back what is mine.

Reminders of us remain frozen in this place as I call to you in the void, as I clasp the idea of peace between thawing hands. A siren song fills the silence as I wait once more. How much time you have given me to think, my love. And I think. And I think. And I think about how your burning sun left me to die. You took my warmth and left me to freeze for eternity. You stole my youth and ran away into the wild when it was convenient too. You were our undoing, over and over and over again. I tended to our flame until the ash stole each breath like it was my last.

Maybe it will be, and now it’ll be yours too.

Reminders of Me. Reminders of You. Reminders of Us. // Karlyn Maness

[karlynmaness]

We Scream in Silence // Karlyn Maness

For women, non-binary people, and trans people fighting for their right to choose. For all who have to fight for the right to their bodies and may share in the same frustrations as I, we scream in silence.

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[karlynmaness]

Separate pieces, but still connected. 🌦 ☔️🌧

[karlynmaness]

[karlynmaness]

Perhaps, you weren’t the constellation I made you out to be. Our love doesn’t hold the weight of a great fable in the never ending sky of life, nor do I recognize you as any magnificent hero or vile beast. Maybe instead, you were a blank space between two points with no clear end and no known beginning. Maybe, you were just a void to waste my time like I wasted yours.

[karlynmaness]

A Rendezvous of a Thousand Lives

All I know is you weren’t supposed to be this person: the person I apologized to my friends for when your drinking got out of hand, the person I apologized to my parents for when the hurt you caused was the only thing I could talk about until the house fell silent, the person I apologized to myself for when I waited around for you to realize I was worth it, I was worth the fight, but your pride got the better of you. Pride, was it? Maybe not.

You wear a mask of cool, unbridled confidence, an armor forged from the ruin and devastation that haunts you to your bones. Link by link, you built this facade of a man to protect you from the pain you’ve run from all your life. Then, here came your greatest foe. Uncertainty, doubt, all dripping from my being like an endless IV plunged deep into my veins. Every heartbeat, every breath, it courses through me like a remedy, like a poison. There I stood questioning everything: you, your intentions, this future you had conjured in your mind before I knew trust dies as the years move on.

There’s no comfort in knowing someone’s past when their present remains a mystery. And still, the mystery remains. As I tear apart my soul for you to know each version of me that ever lived, I see a thousand faces reflected in your eyes. Your past never died, did it? Not like mine. Your skin didn’t shed down to flesh and blood to awaken something new. They still live on, don’t they?

We’re dancing in a hall of mirrors, and I ask you to show me who you really are. You glance between each panel, and you don’t know if you are the boy no one wanted, the kid who couldn’t do anything right, the teenager who dreamed of ends more than beginnings, or the man who runs away from vulnerability like the generations who came before him. They all seem so alive at this moment. They all seem so alive, like you could be each of them, all of them, at any given time.

We spin further and further into the abyss of the unknown, the rhythm of your past echoing against marble floors as our steps struggle to keep in time. You’re lost in the music, and I am lost in you. A thousand lives flicker before my eyes, and yet, I feel like none want me but you hold on, grasping at something and nothing all at once. How beautiful a nightmare can be: the prospect of love swaying blissfully to a siren song. It lures us to the deep, daring us to choose. Do we part ways to let the jagged pieces of ourselves stay frozen in time, or do we rip open our scars, hoping to give life to an agonizing truth before our hearts bleed out in our own hands?

I know I’ve felt this devastation before, a twin flame that blazes through lifetimes until one of us extinguishes the light. I recognize you beneath it all, a glimpse of who you could be if you stopped masquerading as someone you’re not. There’s the fire among the darkness, and it calls your name. Do you let us burn, or do you dance further into the night?

[karlynmaness]

These veins are filled with words, a thousand sentences left unspoken. They beat through each chamber, echoes of who I am and who I was all coursing through every part of my being. Love comes along like a blade, asking us to cut upon ourselves and endure the pain of vulnerability. I fear the story that pours from these ink veins will be too much for you. I can see those hazel eyes begging to know me, know these words, and I will bleed out before I could ever sew myself back together again if I pick up that knife now. Some cuts span mere inches, but they go deeper than you could ever imagine. You, you’d be the undoing of me.

A Story Written in Crimson // Karlyn Maness

[karlynmaness]

I have never been one to show my love through gentle means. As a child, I’d run through fields of milkweeds and primrose, searching for something that could hold my attention longer than anything had before, something everlasting. I’d pick flowers of blue and flowers of gold, until I found the flowers of pink beyond where I was supposed to go. Then, I’d watch them die and wonder why my love and adoration couldn’t keep them alive.

As the sun began to fall into the trees, my last hope for something that could survive even me laid between dirty knuckles, like claws daring death to find us once more. I tiptoed around the pond towards the house I called home that summer. With each step, I watched as tiny sparks erupted from the ground. Was it the sun’s last stand to preserve her dying light, break herself into a thousand pieces so she can still shine?

The primrose fell from my hands as I reached and reached for my eternity. I had never seen a day without the sun, surely she wouldn’t leave me too. With a single piece buried in my fist, I ran as fast as I could. My forever, I couldn’t let her go, not until she was safe inside, in a place that could be ours. I locked the door and turned down the lights, just enough to see the firefly burn for me one last time. I was so scared to lose her, I held her too tight.

When death touches your life at a young age, mortality is what you know, and forever is what you dream. The older I got, the more I could see people are like fireflies on a Kansas night. We are a million delicate lights shining among the darkness, and all it takes is one person holding on too tight in the name of love to extinguish our flame.

Fireflies in Kansas // Karlyn Maness

[karlynmaness]

Was the sky really gray, or did I ignore the hues, paint a space between me and you?

[karlynmaness]

IG: @karlynmaness

[karlynmaness]

I feel the rain falling, a window and curtain between me and the outside world, but I feel it nonetheless. The hazy mist shrouds around me. Maybe it’s just raindrops ricocheting at my feet, falling from the sky and revolting against the earth, that fills the solitude around me. Or maybe the storm cloud that forms between cloud and ground is showing a bit of empathy. Can’t we all fall apart together and breathe in the gloom of the skies? For a moment, I’m no longer alone. It’s me and a thousand raindrops, me and a thousand voices. Each holds a memory like water does. I wonder if they are mine: the voices, the feelings, the grief. The flood fills my room, and I grasp above the waves.

What is mine? I wonder as I sink deeper, deeper into the storm that encroached upon my sanctuary, that has uprooted my home.

Am I alone in this tempest? Surely not, storms hold no prejudice. They will drown us all if we let them. And I won’t. The rain falls, but I ricochet from a watery grave. To the curtains, I swim: to find hope in the world, to find empathy in another.

Sunlight streams through the haze, and I see people. Some walking along uneven concrete roads, some lying in lawns of freshly cut grass. I was drowning, and they were free.

Instagram: @karlynmaness

[karlynmaness]

I stare from the street into familiar windows, into a place I once knew. It’s now full of unfamiliar things: people who laugh at jokes that aren’t ours, a velvet couch too pristine and too lavish to be a part of our space, a photograph of four, not two and certainly not one, hung just above.

Pieces of you haunt this house; this house, it’s not a home, not with the pieces of you painted down the halls and in the corners of rooms, painted in memories and lost dreams. Pieces of you that no longer live, no longer breathe, no longer exist on the same plane as I do. And people carry on like this is a home, not your home, not our home, but a home nonetheless. They’ll never know you, never know us, never know the truth about those eggshell walls you swore were pearl.

We stain every inch of that house, and there they go dancing and drinking like nothing came before. People rewrite the history of homes every day. They change the structure of our stories and give life to a sequel that was never meant to be about us. They bury us behind new paint to hide our broken shells, new carpet to cover up that tear stained wood, and ripped out walls that once held our life. Where do I have left to go to remember you? Even the home you built is slowly losing every tangible piece you left behind.

There you go, dying all over again, and still, there’s nothing I can do to save you.

Karlyn.

(IG: @karlynmaness)