swords & pens

i'm maeve. i write bad poetry sometimes. " nothing ever ends poetically... it ENDS and we turn it into poetry. all that blood was never once beautiful. it was just R E D. "

[mermaidwithapen]

and here i am again two am and my skin is soaked in salt water you know, i keep thinking keep thinking things will change change when i fight for it when i harden my skin without compromising the softness beneath it but it's funny, because i'm starting to think that despite how much i fight how hard i beat my fists on the wall inside me no matter what i do i'm gonna wind up here here. my bed. two am. my skin's always gonna be soaked in my own tears they tell me i'm able like wind pounds on rooftops they said i could change things said i could change myself but, jesus christ, i've tried my fists have turned bloody voice long-lost to screaming my skin is cracked all from fighting so hard but here i am again. my skin ever-tear-stained my fingers numb again and i say, voice shaking "i don't fucking buy it.

i won’t fight like this for nothing  (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

You are brilliant and eloquent! I would Love to have a conversation with you. Your writing is gorgeous and I really hope that you're doing well. xx

you’re lovely! and i’m doing pretty well. thanks for being so nice about my dumb writing. 

[mermaidwithapen]

I hate to be a burden, but where do you get your inspiration for your works? I ask because I can tell that you put heart and soul into your works. I guess the answer is laid out in front of me, but I still want to know; How you can put these to words and make them sound natural and smooth? Without ruining the image you are trying to create

you’re not a burden, love! uh, i guess that’s the thing, man, i don’t really think about it. at all. i just kind of vomit words and try to make them sound pretty as i vomit them, but then i don’t like. i don’t do anything to it. idk. i’m not some great writer, ya know? 

that being said, i read a lot of sylvia plath, anne sexton, robert frost, edgar allen poe, langston hughes, and emily dickinson. so they might come out in my writing sometimes. 

[mermaidwithapen]

i never wanted to be your first love. that's the problem. i've loved so much in this short life of mine but i swear to god i've lost twice as often. i watched what should have been my first love fall, fade into a lull that eventually fizzled into something we called friendship. it was really just a no-mans-land because we were never really willing to fully lose each other. he lost even that a few years later when his love failed to make up for the scars he'd help to lay.when i did fall in love for the first time, it wasn't right. my impatient heart ran into his hands when they were barely open, and they snatched shut with my love still holding on for dear life. i followed him with my faith for three years and every month i died a little bit. my first love. this wasn't supposed to happen the first time i fell in love. i didn't wanna tell my kids about the way my first fucking love withered agonizingly. i didn't wanna tell my kids how i couldn't stop loving him even when i didn't exist for him. my first love wasn't supposed to end unrequited. but you. you weren't a first love. you were never a first love. you were a welcome distraction, then a wistful crush, then a best friend, and now? now you're all of the above. you're a best friend i would never doubt. a lover who holds me like you wouldn't dare let me go. we could have been a lot of things, babe, but were never first love material. but i guess that doesn't matter now. i guess you came into my life at the wrong time. or maybe we were just never supposed to fall together.when i cried about it to my best friend, she tried to make me smile by saying "maybe you'll live in the same city someday". because that was the best thing she could think of.my mom said that if we were older she would want us to stay together. and then she laughed and shrugged like it wasn't even a question.and when i talk to my cousins, they all say i'm lucky i got to taste real love so early, but i don't think it's lucky that i'm always gonna have to know what i lost.the way they talk about us, we're already done. and moved on. and it kills me everytime it but god fucking damn it i guess they're right.i guess no matter how right you feel in my arms, you're leaving. i guess no matter how many times you say we matter, i'm not gonna follow. i guess no matter how fucking home you are, we're gonna end. so you'll go to california and make history with your mind while i'll stay for the east coast winters and throw myself into my studies. you'll achieve in a lab coat in berkeley and i'll hole up in some museum in boston.and we'll live for ourselves. but we'll live without each other.and i guess that's how it has to be.

i never wanted another fucking first love. (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

if HAPPINESS were a person it would look like HIM big stature, easy smile eyes so dark but full of more warmth than you find in the largest hearth he is the end goal, the thing you were always reaching for but he is anything but what you thought he is subtle as anything, sweet as sugar tranquil as sunday morning sunbeams he doesn't heal anything over like you thought but he sits in the corner, gently reminding you that he is always there when you're ready for him he fumbles and stumbles, doesn't understand about the lost time and broken hearts but he tries his best, works his pretty words into poetry HE IS EVERYTHING YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WAITING FOR but he is worth every moment you waited for him if hope were a person it would look like her all quizzical smiles and whispered ideas full of little lightbulbs and thought bubbles quietly holding your hand when things get hard she is the sum of moonglow and sunshine just enough melancholy to be joyful and whenever she's around it's like the whole room just took a gulp of sunshine and laughed with an open mouth you're not always sure she's there in the dark and even though she promised, you're never quite sure but when you look in the right places, you always find her she's right where you expected, the place that you thought was too obvious to check in the first place she's exactly what you need to hold tight through the darkness she's always there, whether or not you hear her and you know, without her, you're not quite sure you'd remember how to laugh if strength were a person it would look like her all sharp lines and deep thoughts never wavering, but not always there either she's just what you need to grab onto to whisper in your ear that you can DO this she tells you to just try one more time, just keep going and even though you never believe you've got it in you she finds it for you every single time always there, right by your side picking you up, holding you down,  pulling you back when it's not worth the fight she's got wisdom for ages but, oh, how she's fierce and when she opens that mouth, you know either savvy or satire is gonna follow and you know either way, it'll be the best thing you've heard in decades she's what you found when you thought you were dead and with her help you picked yourself up and started a vivid new life

a piece about my best friends (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

the aching in my chest turns to emptiness when left to it's own devices and as i am pulled backwards into this black hole of blankness i am no longer a girl or a creature at all ice takes my fingers and fire takes my toes i am nothing, i am nothing and as i watch the girl i once was go about her routine of a life, i can only scream but my screams are lost in the void and the emptiness claims me again until i am returned to my body where, weeping and gasping, i become human once more

on depersonalization (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

why is it that i am always w a i t i n g for you? for eight months i waited, desperate to feel you reach out to me and when finally i reached out to you you bade me wait some more and after i had done my time, willing you came into my arms with a smile and held me as i could only dream my darling, you have never failed me each time you ask me to wait, you are true and when we are one it is as if the sun and moon have aligned to create the purest form of beauty we are shooting stars, twined together each relishing a shine of our own but when we come together there is nothing to keep us from kissing the sky but you are gone once more and i am stuck in this all-too-familiar purgatory with only the future promise of your embrace to keep my own stormy mind at bay waiting is an agony of anxieties and longing for a month at a time i am penelope; sat at my bedroom window staring at the sea and wondering if you'll ever come home but if penelope waited two decades for her odysseus so i can wait one month more for you

i feel like i’m always waiting for you (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

she tastes of coffee & spearmint when you kiss her in the morning and her brows sort of crease with a timid sadness when you say you love her two black leather bags hang below her wide ocean eyes and you swear she can still hear the nightmares howlingshe tastes like chocolate & bitterness when you kiss her after school when you brush her hair behind her ear and pull her close to you and she is giggling like some kind of fairy mischief and challenge in her eyes and you know you love her most in the afternoon when she uses that darkness to glow like some kind of half-lit neon signshe tastes like vodka & salt when you kiss her at three am stumbling through your bedroom window apologies dripping from her tongue like half-swallowed alcohol she can’t quite puke up you wrap her up in your arms and kiss the scars until the shaking stops you hold her until her breath steadies and the apologies slow to mumbled ‘i love yous’she tastes like strawberries and sugar when you kiss her in the summertime when she dances out in front of you like the whole world belongs just to the two of you and you see that old fire spring up in her eyes so she kisses you in the back of the van and doesn’t let you leave until it’s light outside and you swear the darkness has begun to retreat until she wakes you up screaming with nightmaresshe tastes like coffee and chocolate when she kisses you gently one morning and you can tell she’s different by the way she tugs on your hand quietly and the darkness in her eyes is shining but it’s not so dangerous anymore the scars are all healed up and you know you never saved her like you wanted to instead she learned how to save herself and she holds you close as the sun rises you don’t have to say anything

about a girl with darkness in her head and love in her heart (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

safety, a word i never quite grasped but your arms pound the definition into my head like a gunshot impossible to ignore and somehow a little bit frightening nothing is permanent whispers through my ears whistling insecurities that you can't quite catch can't quite drown out of this whirlpool of a mind you've entangled yourself in you are laughter and light and a steady beam of sunshine that dances around the musty abandoned museum of my heart but, darling, light fades these shadowy thoughts slip from my mouth clumsily, gurgling fountains of messy words and you kiss my lips quiet, murmuring softly not today, not today, not yet and so the whispers fade to just a rustling background noise just a nonsense worry for another day i am so afraid of losing you that i have not quite let myself have you just yet

you tell me “not today” but i cannot push it far enough away (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

it's how his hands feel like silk on my skin whether he's pulling me close to him or just tracing his long fingers over my scars and i swear he's nothing if not gentle with my hands it's the way he laughs, eyes all crinkled and lips tugged apart like the joy is just pushing him,pulling him this way and that as if he just cannot contain himself it's the muted melancholy in his face when he knows i'm holding back on him but how he just kisses my head and let's it go let's my have my space when i need it it's the look in his eyes when he's solemn he could be sad but i know it's just softness and i swear it takes everything in me not to hold him and keep him right there forever it's his arms and how they reach to hold me just when i'm wanting to be close to him like his body just knows i always want to be close to him all the time, doesn't matter where we are it's how whenever i kiss him i feel his lips long after he goes

what is it about him? (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

jesus christ, when are you gonna realize? there are no villains in this life we live we're all just off-color tragic heroes who carry pens sketching up convenient antagonists among armies of our own made-up minions tell me, when are you gonna notice? we all have to be our own fucking hero our own arch enemy, our own trusty sidekick when are you gonna stop taking the world so personal? people gotta hurt each other to stay alive, babygirl, and, hell, you do it too, you just hide behind a neon halo when are you gonna step up to the plate? take responsibility for all the hurt YOU caused? because i promise, that's when you get to feel the joy you say i broke you but all i did was sting your precious arm honey, you're the one who hollowed out the scar dug into it until it bled and festered and soon enough the flies swarmed on in around your living cadaver oh god i know i hurt you, but i never broke you, at least not half as much as you broke yourself just to spite me

grow up.  (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

you ask gently, voice penetrating the comfortable silence but i don’t mind ‘how’d you get that scar’ you point to that little raised mark thats stands out against the freckled skin of my forearm, my veins run cold with a kind of painful longing so i pull my arm towards me, push a strand of troublesome orange hair behind my ear and press my lips together into that smirk i know you like 'you don’t want to know’ i assure you and the words roll off my lips like oil, because you don’t you don’t want to understand the dark that seeps behind my eyes and stays you do not want to feel the drums that beat in my chest when i panic but oh you’re looking at me with those eyes deep and brown and so concerned in the dim afternoon schoolhouse light and suddenly i want to tell you everything

i could tell you everything but would you run away? (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

what if we break each other? me, an antique vase hot-glued back together just barely keeping these pieces in one form you, a gentle but confused hand, reaching out to unwittingly touch me in comfort you might get cut and i could crumble all over again i cannot swallow my sharp edges nor should i and you will never stop reaching out for some signal what if we end up worse off for this in bloodied, broken pieces all over the kitchen floor what if we heal each other? me, a half-repaired old decoration that still shakes and splinters when i hear yelling you, a pair of shaking hands wishing so hard to reach your goals oh my god we could heal you could hold me together while my glue dries and i could give you something to steady that shaking that echoes through you what if we end up better in ourselves two separate beings helping each other grow

notes on beginnings (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

i used to think i was so fragile pale and light and usually broken then somebody said i was tough and for awhile i thought maybe i was more like cut stone decaying and old hearty and dangerous but then somebody crushed me and i realized i’m neither one i have glass bones and and a porcelain heart surrounded by a filmy plastic wrap i’m so broken and so easy to break but you see it’s my skin that deceives you i’m a doll made of playdough surrounded by a thick rubber wall i bend and shape myself to look like you want but i shatter a little more every single time and every now and then my broken glass pierces my skin and maybe then you notice i’m no tough cookie no firm and steady brick maybe then you see all i am is in pieces mostly the rips in my soul stay on my soul and you continue to throw me to the ground Push me to the side testing my limits you never see the damage i’m already so broken without your help

i’m too broken (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

i don’t know the color of your eyes only that they are dark and wide they crinkle sweetly when you laugh sometimes fill up with this warmth that infects the rest of the room i know that when i come into class they always find me and linger for just a moment of silent greeting i call myself a poet, you know and i remember the eyes of every boy my first boyfriend had chocolate eyes sweet but flat like he was, the first boy i loved had these tropical ocean orbs that i got lost in like a lovesick mermaid without a song but you are so different with you i don’t consider the poems have never peered into your eyes with the intent of comparing them to some unstoppable force of nature never seem to remember anything except that i am happy with you your laughter i could write about for eons, the way it is off-beat which is funny because your fingers keep perfect time on anything from a bass guitar to the buttons of my coat i could describe the way you talk in a million different words no problem but your eye color escapes me and i could care less about your hair or anything else i can see, all i know is the way you make me FEEL and jesus christ, kid, i guess that’s all that matters

it could be uncomplicated if we let it (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

you ask me if you made me sad. i do not know how to tell you that you have made me happier than any one person i can remember. i do not know how to tell you that i somehow consented to giving you that much power over me and jesus fucking christ it isn't your fault that you can hurt me this way, but i guess you should learn to be more careful with your words because they broke my fucking heart. you ask me how i am. i don't know how to express the weight i feel on my back, on my chest, on my head, everywhere a force can push on me, i feel one. so maybe i'm a lot better now, and maybe i haven't tried to kill myself in eleven months but i think i'm just as broken as ever. you met me when i was healing and healing means i'm supposed to always be doing better but by your standards i think i'm still doing pretty bad. you ask me how i feel about you. i close my eyes and try to imagine how a lonely moon would feel about a fucking shooting star that somehow was pulled into orbit and now rushes past it's lonely face, almost in a teasing sort of race. confused. lucky. my life is a night sky and darling, you are this huge comet that came and fucked everything up. once upon a time the stars in my sky were brilliant and burned so brightly it was enough light to see by. but then you came in and you lit everything on fire but i didn't even feel the pain because i was so distracted by the light you gave me. now i feel it. now i realize i am so blinded by your light that i have to strain to see my steady stars at all. you give me so much warmth, so much light, such new vision, but you brought all kinds of pain with you too.  and i just fucking know you're not done.

notes to a shooting star of a boy. (m.g.t)

[mermaidwithapen]

spring break of freshman year: i'm sobbing, hyperventilating into the phone a boy tells me he loves me and i break him the line goes dead. eyes fall to the razor. i kept it by my bed and it's just shining springtime sunbeams reflecting in my eyes it is the first time i drag the blade up my arm the first time i attempt emptying my veins in the bathroom sink, but not the last. he sends me a text as i watch blood circle down the drain, disappear from sight 'sure. keep on running away.' and so i do. the black dots invade my vision. spring break of freshman year. spring break of sophomore year: i'm laughing, pressing a fake smile on my lips so desperately like i can push those urges down with an easter supper and a prayer when i go home, the razor still smiles at me she has become a faithful friend, we dance every night together, spend daytimes apart only to fall back in love when i lay awake. ten days later i down a bottle of pills wake up in the emergency room and spend two months trying to stitch long-lost pieces of myself together i lose an entire summer to a last-ditch attempt. spring break of sophomore year. spring break of junior year: fresh scars glare at me from my wrist but they lay lonely on my skin, unaccompanied. the razor weighs awkwardly in my hands where she would have been so comfortable last year i'm not laughing, but i am smiling subdued, real smiles at my family. i am so sad. but i am alive and perhaps content to be so. the bloody lips of an early death whisper in my ears every second but i have found louder voices to listen to. prettier practices that make those my own cruel thoughts dim. i am not happy. but i am not trying to die either. spring break of junior year.

a holiday for new life. (m.g.t)