spilled ink

[maleficiation]

Blackout poetry in the archives. A challenge, for sure.

Fairy Tales

At last the witch said: you need only arms and fingers to do this - the sparkling glittering star, the roaring pools, the lamps darkened, she dare not break with sorrow.

a flower kissed the dark blue sea

the magnificent moon went through her tender body the sun shone before her, fixed eyes on her, cast her down she was naked in her long, thick hair.

and how she looked at him tenderly with her eyes, for into the witch pointed needles and sharp knives bore gladly, and lightly: the grace of movement

she was given the greatest beauty

[midnightpoems]

the next time we fuck you’re on your period and when your blood smears across my thigh i need a trigger warning for the punch to the gut i feel seeing red

there hasn’t been blood there since before the first time you choked my name, since the [days]nights a girl half your heart and twice your tongue had me keeping tally on my skin counting the nights it took to bleed her out - i don’t want to bleed you out, not yet, because

you make me feel tangled, rough and bright like a stone before polishing, like a shape whose edges beg smoothing by the palms of your hands - i need you to mold me, i need you to break me down until i’m everything, until i’m more and less that she ever fucking touched

i love you like the moon loves a sunrise, like marble loves the chisel in the hands of her sculptor - i need you to pour me between your cupped palms like a lava flow, like the heat beneath my skin is not enough [and still too much] to burn

burn, like the cold press of your teeth to the crease of my thigh, melting dents left by her touch

i have wrecked my skin for less than you

[midnightpoems]

i wrote this for you on a friday night, fingers shaking from the booze and the cold;

scratches soft against paper like your nails across my back never were -

miss you like a hangnail worried between my teeth until abruptly, gone

[midnightpoems]

I have left claw marks on everything I love; dents where my fingers fit, a gap to show this space was mine no matter how smoothly you gloss it over. I was here. I was here. I’ve heard that the only thing that matters is how gracefully you let go of the things not meant for you. you, my dear, were meant for me. leaving you feels like a storm and rain sounds more like home to me now than my own heartbeat. the space between my fingers is an echo of your voice

[midnightpoems]

I swallow the hurts whole. Let them force their way down my throat while I remember how to breathe. Feel them sink below my ribcage as I curl myself around, heavy and resigned.

I carry you beneath my heart.

[midnightpoems]

life as an octopus

i tattooed over my heart a map of the sea, lines of ink a tether to my bones; even drowning i am not lost

[midnightpoems]

Love is a fearful thing, i am not in love

Your hand traces my spine and I feel no embers stir.

Nothing like love, i do not mourn. Gently, you pull away.

[midnightpoems]

v.

you lay with me in the dark and trace the lines of my back with your fingertips,

whispering what you find there into the curve of my shoulder -

you press your lips to my neck, a feigned lover’s kiss. we ignore the sunrise.

[midnightpoems]

iv.

You looked so beautiful and right in your sweater with your mussed-up hair and I missed you more than anything in the world

leaning over the arm of a dusty couch with your hands  wrapped around a mug of tea

fingers laced through the handle like they used to fit intertwined with mine.

[midnightpoems]

i.

since the last time we kissed, even snowflakes feel like fire on my skin

and the roll of my walk cannot dislodge the weight circled round my heart.

since the last time we spoke the chill of stone beneath my palm feels like the worst kind of blessing --

how long will it take before I'm ready to feel warm again?

[midnightpoems]

ii.

every night for two weeks I leave at 3am and wander across campus, stand on the bridge and look down at the waterfall rushing and convince myself to walk back home

[midnightpoems]

iii.

when was the last time i  smiled without thinking  of you?

like you lurk behind my teeth  waiting for my laugh  to leave

it is so hard  to breathe around you