writing for the void

ru.th • xxv• they/them

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really busy with work atm (even missed yesterday) but here’s a super quick day 4 of escapril!

4.) trip

a tiny cafe on the long street of my youth visited so many times I’m still familiar with the dips in the wooden stairs gone smooth from decades of use

the penultimate tricky one I’d once slipped on and tumbled down from as a child

how it had throbbed for so long afterwards but then my mother let me have some of her coffee as a treat which made every hurt worth it

sitting on her lap knowing this place my place

I want to show you the big cups they use for their coffee here, those one without a handle that you have to hold onto with both hands because they’re almost a bowl

when we get our coffee it’s contained in midsized, no-chip mugs with practical handles even a child could use unassisted

it’s not the point.

I don’t know what I expected. the same — always? just in the places I’ve played hide and seek in

the same old crevices to disappear into and only reappear once dessert is served

my coffee machine is better than theirs, I realise

another past boarded up. a house I no longer have the keys to and where I only disturb the dust when I force my way into

you pretend to like the coffee and pay the bill

leave.

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my take on day 2 of escapril: make sure to always google your symptoms!

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day one of escapril is finally here!!!

1.) change of state

driving off into the sunset, same old worries packed, but a change of scenery is still not to be underestimated,

nice to cry in a different supermarket once in awhile, new people to stare at you as you lose control of your body's tiny salt water sea.

if true change escapes you, you can try dragging your well-worn self around for a little longer opposite these new strangers until they too realise they've fallen for a fugitive.

yet another motel with the lights too bright and your neighbours fighting all night but drifting off, the cars on the highway almost sound like the soft lapping of the ocean around your feet in another state.

this long, long life and everywhere you go you already are, so what can you do but get back in the car

roll down the windows, listen to the crashing waves and how easily you disappear into the rushing noise all around you.

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it’s officially escapril again!!! let’s fucking go gang!!!!

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»I’m not sure if I’m ripening or rotting« (am I pathetic for being lost?)

lyrics from Chloe Slater’s new song 24 hours which I’ve been obsessed with recently (click for better quality!)

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so no easy salvation???

alt text under the cut

(first slide of two; black text on off-white background)

I don’t know how to talk about these visions in the corner of my eye without also telling you of these dreams

the things that have happened before you that unreal time before time when fear still governed the body with no antidote

you hold me tight and how do I ask to be held even closer even tighter so as not to unravel during the long nights spent lying by your side sleepless listening to your breathing

(second slide of two; black text on off-white background again)

this pattern so familiar to me by now I could tap it through the wall like an enemy spy

pick it out of the long rows of white sheets as I have done each night

I trace the shape of your mouth with my eyes (never my hands I dare not disturb)

and find the shape of my own longing for easy salvation reflected there

what haunts you where I cannot follow?

I wish to hold your hand in every realm caress your tight brow and make it all better in this life and wherever I’ll find you afterwards.

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somewhat of a stream of consciousness thing to get me back into putting things out (full text under the cut)

I have this reoccurring dream with two versions.

version a: I’m out in the storm and my friends won’t let me back into the house even though the hurricane is about to sweep me up but they’ve finally found out about what I’ve done which is the worst of all which is everything which is me which is the one thing you cannot be absolved from and so they’ve banished me to the outside to be ravished by the storm and I know in my gut that that is right because I am wrong

I was born wrong with all my atoms just a little to the left when everyone else’s tilt to the right and even though I know I am guilty of my own uncanniness I keep knocking on the windows and all the doors of the house to be let in please please just let me in I can explain making this so much more obvious. but they shut the blinds and I’m soaked and no one will listen to my excuses so I’m out all by myself in the storm locked out wet and alone and so scared not of the weather but of what this means, still knocking on the glass when my hands suddenly fall through. only at that point the storm has already taken the house. I must’ve not noticed because I was still banging on the one broken window, left behind, begging to be let into a vanishing act.

version b: I am the storm.

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(click for better quality!)

AND I CAN GO ANYWHERE I WANT, ANYWHERE I WANT, JUST NOT HOME

(idc what anyone says these lyrics hit)

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(click image for better quality!)

text reads:

Are we doomed? Are we doomed? Are we doomed? All / my questions come back to this one. / Please kiss me one more time. Hold me. Kiss me. / Hold-Kiss. All I ask for also circles back to this. / I know it’s late. Again. Again. And again-again-again. / Me. Before and after and still me, here. Me. Asking. / Tell me. / Indulge the tedious repetition of your lover’s pleas / tonight. We’ll tackle yours in the morning.

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some sort of love (poem)

neither of us acknowledging what's beating fast & bloody inside of me / no one pointing out the ugly splatter on the walls / one tender story no gory bits / no reminders of the guts churning ominously / stomaching the look in my eyes / blue green yellow anything / a tender bruise / but don't mention the red undercurrent / be silent / stop / sharpening my teeth on grand declarations / knocking into some idea of love that makes the old / marks well up / duller promises, please, to lull me in / don't say anything with teeth to it, nothing fleshed / out / I’ll just bite back & won't let go / again

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radio

static on the radio for days / channels bleak & squeaky like an empty chip bag / no news to break our silence / open my mouth & more static comes out / the radio’s been broken for days already but try again will you / who’s been driving / dog barks mad at the noise / I cannot stop buzzing / you left last month & you wanted that dog / walked off after you got too buzzed to drive / please I’ll change the channel fix the radio turn it off / anything / at least feed the dog

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another part from HOLY

you once told me you believed in evil, the real kind, / the old ways and tales, looking at me, your Old / Testament muse. / let's just say I wanted to give you one last thing / before it all comes crashing down. I built a chapel / for us to sacrifice your demons in and you laid me / bare on the altar. / fine. / blood to blood. your hands or mine, they all end up / around my throat sooner or later.

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part of a longer piece called HOLY

re-opening the old scars to shape them in each / other’s image — no mark on my body not created by / your divine mouth or hands — later, tending to our / wounds as though gauze could make us whole / again. like enough white will turn this old body bag / into a chasuble. it’s a poor substitute for absolution, / your touch salvation nonetheless. / I want your hands in my hurts and my teeth around / your heart. swallow my pain; I don’t care what else / you take with you.

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devouring wounds etc

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for day 11 of escapril: SPACE BETWEEN

between here & now & then & when did you stop believing in fairytales &

what will happen now?

was it when the space between the magic in them and the beige of your bedroom walls

parents shouting next door

became too large to build a bridge across? cliché.

you right next to everyone else in this semi-circle afraid to open the study door and ask to have their childish needs met, the bruises a nuisance, the tears a disruption, the punishment an inevitability. unoriginal.

get some new material.

time for another story.

what else could happen in that house, that bedroom, to that child?

no, not that

you’ve still not gone to space either, still cannot read between the lines to save your life. back to the beige bedroom

never left.

what happens once you run out of material for your life?

stories end. children safely tucked in, book closed & put away. perhaps another day, some space between the pages.

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incredibly behind on escapril and kinda out of it atm but here’s something short I wrote for day 10: DRUG OF CHOICE:

brother / eat glass / bleed / wake the sky / live less & / lie there in decay / dying of old desires unfulfilled

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some kind of truism/collage for day 6 of escapril: IF I TOLD YOU, YOU’D GO MAD

even endless / possibilities / cannot make / up for your / limited / abilities