𝒟𝒾𝑔𝒾𝓉𝒶𝓁 𝒟𝒾𝒶𝓇𝓎

~𝒜 𝓅𝓁𝒶𝒸𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝓌𝓇𝒾𝓉𝑒 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝓎~ ~𝒜 𝓅𝓁𝒶𝒸𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝓌𝓇𝒾𝓉𝑒 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝓎~

[konemak]

I love you

And you make me worse

In the same way something is whole

But has holes on the sleeves

The kind you find

Donated to fluorescent lights

And unwanted

Originally expensive, worth something

But now

A sweater no one would notice

Hung on a rack to sag

Until you find me

And make me worse

Make me less

Than whatever the pennies and dimes

On the tag say

You make me beyond that

Holes to slip your fingers through

Like gloves

Holes to see inside me

When you lift me up,

Take me home,

Make me something

You don't ask for cashmere

Or stability

And, though I'm ashamed to say,

Sometimes I can't even keep you warm

You let me be all that

In a closet

For both of us

I smell like history and age

You say

Though I would say death,

Before I met you

But I will forever let you

Redefine me and become my bones

The hanger folding me into shape

A shabby skin

So worse for wear

[konemak]

Flowers look tangled

Swirling minds into hypnosis

"Pick me through"

"Tell me what you are,

And what name I am from you"

He loves me,

He loves me not

As I undo nature's knot

My blood running hot

Getting pricked and picked

Planted down and up along the wall

Spiraling along stone

My head swinging in the air

There goes the mess

Into the wind

Till I am clean, I say

Till it is nothing to the gardener

The free petals are his mess

To sweep up in a pile

From his driveway

Muscle memory, they swirl

They crowd together in a dust pan

They glow pink, they curl

But the season was named

No longer spring

No longer a girl

[konemak]

I wait for you to come home

And leave your place by my side

You tell me you hate where you come from

And I let the lie slide

Sometimes you hold your family photos

And let your gaze linger

Sometimes I catch you

Wrap one around your ring finger

We can't help where we were born

We can't help who we mourn

It comes as natural as a flood after rain

Natural as blood meets pain

Natural as a stain

Love is a season we spend

Trying to tend what we want to grow

But new roots wilt in the cold

Of what we think we know

[konemak]

A day old promise

Is forgotten

If it can't be done now

It'll never come

Unless the now stretches on

And you let it hold you in place

Today was yesterday and tomorrow

There is the hope

There's a trail of broken promises

That fall out of your head

Like blood soaked leaves

You forgot you made them

A crueler god

Than the few

So normal

So nothing

I forgot I made them

Because another day comes

Not now

There's something missing

I'm growing out of it

Growing out of needing to be honest

There is the hope

In tatters next to my bare chest

Something else is coming now

A darker promise

That shines brighter than what I think I started

This poem out thinking of

It stays everyday

I thought, like a curse or weight

But no

It's my promise

That keeps me stuck

In the now, today, yesterday, tomorrow

For years and years

Where no one sees my pinky curled

Around my hair

As a swear

My sleep

As practice

A promise to keep

To stop the weeping

[konemak]

You poured into me

Everything

And I was so small

Your dreams didn't fit

Your love didn't fit

And still, I took it all

A baby bird

Not knowing how to close its beak

Open and chewing

On something I can't speak

A weak stomach,

I can't digest your eyes

They watch my insides

Am I good? Am I bad?

I am tired,

Living for two,

Not really living

for anyone anymore

Inheritance

A sick green

That the world is made of

What is everything

Is everything

Until you choke on it

[konemak]

I've done God wrong.

At least, I think

He stopped answering my calls

Saying he loves me with a wink

In his smile, he says it's fine

That I'll always be his daughter

But he kept the blood stained sheet

After leading me to slaughter

Yes, I let the knife go through

And there's sin in dying still

But I stood in wait for him

Believing in God's will

[konemak]

I'm my mother's bones

Left over from her picking through

The meat-formed faces of men she loved

They are swallowed pills and memory

While I am left behind to sit in her closets

She buried me to grow; like a soul is found in soil

Or maybe she just wanted me under her feet

I wrote that question on my gravestone

Knowing she'd say she couldn't read

[konemak]

You slipped through my lock

All melted, burning rock

Taking down the door

In a scene that we called war

There's shouting through silk feathers

Baby's first handwritten letter

Saying "I'm not worth the rot"

Tying her hair in knots

Silent as the devil

I'm stumbling to your level

So someone's there to hold

Even if my dreams grow mold

[konemak]

Love in the air

So you're choking on the smoke

They all say its there

Just in a battered cloak

Rising up with no face

Just breath and warm body

You cling onto the space

That keeps your memories foggy

No one can see it

Except in the track of tears

It's a taste you spit

And outgrow in your years

[konemak]

We're tied by blood

We have to bleed to see

The reason it was you and me

The healing, god it never stops

A scab to pick where we left off

[konemak]

With all my debts to pay

Can I afford to save myself

Just to love another day

With my life high on a shelf

I organized it neat and tidy

With a box carved out inside

My truth somewhere in hiding

So there's room to fit your stride

I'll follow, till I hear

My own words getting loud

You're my biggest fear

And the one who makes me proud

[konemak]

The old couch

Can't be brought up new

I'm not strong enough to

Carry it out to the sidewalk

But I managed to the attic

I let it die up there

And let it take up space

So I can sit

Pretend it doesn't dip

It reaches for the stairway

Back into the living room

It knows it doesn't match

What we've done to the place

But I swear I'd hear it cry

Left alone out there, away

The closest we sat before

Renovations

[konemak]

The world that you hand me

All wrapped up in stars

That have been dead

For a thousand light years

Or however long

You've been alive

I assume the difference

Is between 1 and 25

Or however old you'll see me

When you're looking for a way

To be a child with a mother

Who has my turn of phrase

And your lover's face

[konemak]

Lights on the other side

Spell tomorrow

Between us lie our

Fallen words and ammo

Pick up your friend

I'll let you carry a body

If my words can carry

Something bloodless tonight

What language do you speak

My fellow man?

I'll learn it, to give you

My proper burial

Wrapped up in

My country's flag

We burned all

But your face

The world sits

Waiting for our kiss

Metal or bleeding lips

[konemak]

I run away

From the chances

I know I would take

If my shoes

Were gifted for moving

If they cared

To walk me there

Laced up and kicked around

Still they keep me

On the ground

My shoes,

Who can't lead me

Anywhere nice

I swear to you, I'd go

But they're always saying no

Out of their soles

I stopped glueing back on

[konemak]

Where did you stop loving me?

It was a place, not a time

If we had gone on forever

You would've always been mine

I must've took a wrong turn

Somewhere you couldn't go

I'd turn back to where your love is

If you'd only let me know

[konemak]

Hey lord,

When's the rent due?

Who do I pay to?

This body needs repairs

And I don't think you're there.

Knocking three times,

They're playing wind chimes.

Enraptured by a stare,

I see the Devil there.

Collect me

Keep me close

On a shelf, by a rose

Yeah, I won't get to grow

But I won't have to know

When the rent is due,

Won't have to pay you.