lime writes

hi - my name is lime. i write poetry and prose.

[lime-writes]

hello, my 3 followers

I've relocated to love, lime (https://love-lime.tumblr.com/)

i've been trying to get back into all my artistic pursuits, which includes writing. hopefully i'll be writing much more consistently.

this blog will be archived within the week. not to assume that i'm significant enough to need this notice, but maybe someone might wonder where i went :) always a nice thought.

[lime-writes]

i go with you

i think i died sometime this year and never noticed. i'm sorry for not throwing a funeral, which i to say i'm sorry i never held your hand through it and taught you how to grieve me.

then again, i never had to. then again, i rarely had to explain anything with you.

-- i think i- i think... i don't know... i feel like i'm slipping away...

-- low tide, my love. it's just low tide. you will be okay.

i remember teaching you how to love me right, but i don't remember when you got so good at it.

-- will you be here? when i come back, i mean.

-- all of this, is just a wider shore. i'll be the very ground beneath you.

both marooner and marooned - this has been my purgatory. i feel like a held breath most of the time, but you always know when to do the breathing for the both of us. i haven't been myself because i don't remember how.

but hey. i remember you like a northern star. i can forget my name and still recall yours. i can forget my own skin and still remember how it feels when you touch it. time passes over me like ripples in my trance, but the same day in a year wakes me up just enough to be able to say:

you are the only thing my hands still now how to write for. you are the salt in the water - the thing that keeps my body floating.

only you can bring me back from the dead.

-

l.m. ellis

[lime-writes]

remembering my mom is a girl

we will never be side by side except when walking down the street in sweltering heat when shorts are the only option and you are either harlot or reckless or dumb and “hey, your bra strap is showing”

we will never see eye to eye except when looking in the mirror pinching, prodding, pretty-fying listing the you-should-be’s from mouths of people who will never live in the body they’re cherry picking

we will never be taking deep breaths together except on the toilet, leg bouncing hunched over a plastic stick dreading the bars that will cage you should chance decide a deadly fate and “it just doesn’t feel good for me when i wear one. i’ll be careful i promise. please?” because they only sow, never nurture have never ripped out the sprouts themselves

no, we will never be holding hands except at the sound of hollering voices watchful eyes, tailing footsteps from predators for sport the only time closeness is safety with you might never understand why i don’t want to come home anymore but you have pushed rabid men off your body and cried alone afterwards like me and grandma and my sister dreading the next boy who asks to unzip your clothes

you might never get why i moved so far away but you have feared for your life and said no through tears, and that is the most we will ever understand the other, horribly because a mother is a daughter is a sister is a girl a girl a girl

- l.m. ellis

[lime-writes]

moving places

the bed i keep making

has seen its fair share of houses

new keys, new windows

the same mistakes in different zip codes 

always moving places to find eden

buying a new rug for the same old garbage to live under

and lugging my heaviest box labeled fragile

where inside is my crooked spine

tiresome chore to crave space 

when the elephant in the room is always me

if i were a crime scene

i’d be both corpse and killer

if i were a place i would unzip my skin and leave me behind

but i am no place

no eden to be found

i’m only eve

only adam

only the snake

only god laying on new sheets watching the murder happen

[lime-writes]

my twenties hum

a jar of dimes, mug of pencils

stack of books next to a window

i keep reading the same one over and over

ajar cupboards, mug of matcha

stack of clean face towels on my dirty laundry

i keep forgetting i have them over and over

jars recycled, mugs unused

stacked deep in cabinets, the unreachable corners

i keep using the same ones over and over

the fan hums, the AC breathes

as i sit sweating my electric bill, smiling

because i sit sweating my electric bill

bags of garbage, sitting on the shoe rack

one too many pairs of shoes, i never use

i never go places

bags of perlite, sitting on the patio

one too many plants? no such thing

i never count leaves

bags of hand-me-downs, sitting on their return

one too many weights, not mine

i never complained

my dog sighs, my boyfriend stirs in his sleep

as i sit by the table i bought, writing

because i sit by the table i bought

the sun shines, my world quiet

as i am watching my life happen, idle

because i am watching my life happen

commissioning coasters

recycling planters

thinking of taking up painting

again

my twenties spent on these small currencies

moving apartments

staying inside

forgiving myself so i can forgive God

again

and everything i know about love

i learned from losing

my body cut open, lungs

suffocating

chasing life through feeling

like dying

now all swept under the rug

nostalgia for pain swatted like a bug

i water plants, not grudges

i learn to stay, no running

a lion sleeping - just snores

no roaring

my twenties, humming

-

l.m. ellis

[lime-writes]