The Quiet Wisdom

[mistplacedthoughts]

The colder the reality, the warmer the lie. Sit by the violet fire and watch your life burn, or snuff out the lie and fight.

[mistplacedthoughts]

False Hope

It's too hard saying goodbye again.

Perish the thought.

[mistplacedthoughts]

He doesn't understand

[mistplacedthoughts]

[mistplacedthoughts]

With burnt fingertips I reached for your face

And like a fool was met again by flames

[lifeinpoetry]

i understand that someone

has to die      for me to be free

i just think                       that someone

is too often      me

— Logan February, from “still life with the evangelist,” published in Agbowó

[mistplacedthoughts]

I Just Can’t Make Up My Heart About You

[tarnishedsoul]

How do you know when a crush has got out of hand?

When you sit at a Dennys at 3 am And pour salt out into the table And trace their name in it And you’re not even slightly drunk

[mistplacedthoughts]

Why does our love work best when it's impossible? Why is our love always a countdown, a slow crawl of frost, turning my lips the color of the violets dying in your garden? Yet in my last heartbeat I would settle for a lifetime of Colder Months.

[mistplacedthoughts]

And, oh, how we only love each other in pieces. And how I've loved every piece of you, but never bothered to solve the puzzle.

[lifeinpoetry]

It’s not desire              between us but something else. A frequency                            low and slow

like the color red, our thoughts              sliding against each other                            in correspondence                                          elaborations                                                        waves

— Eliza Rotterman, from “Acupuncture,” published in The Los Angeles Review

[mistplacedthoughts]

There is so much of us. We have painted ourselves into thousands of metaphors, written ourselves into caricatures of creatures beyond our understanding. Our first hello, I love you, goodbye, we could track through hours of poetry.

We used art to paint ourselves into a corner together. We made a cage out of labels and handwriting, created wings on our backs, but collars around our necks. We didn’t realize the monsters we were creating, how unlovable, unrecognizable we’d become to anyone but each other. We relished in it, but we’ve become a beast far too complicated for metaphors and poetry. So, let me be a little more clear. Let me risk being wrong like I always do.

Dear Violet,

When I explained that I couldn’t stop comparing every man’s heart and mind to yours, couldn’t love something that paled in comparison to you, I was asked what I would say if you told me wanted me. If you told me I could hold your heart and mind again, despite everything. I didn’t even hesitate to answer.

I’m tired of trying to find the right combination of metaphors and moments, songs and sonnets, leading questions and meaningful pauses, just to tell you I want you back without all the bullshit. I want to purify the beasts from our bones and try writing a whole new story.

Dear Violet,

I’ve been bad at guessing what you’re trying to say. Or even to whom you’re saying it to. So, forgive me if this is blindsiding or abrasive, but it’s a conversation I won’t wait for you to start.

[littlelostnotes]

Wallflower

Looking at you now, here, is nothing short of terrifying. A dark room and people dancing. I was a seed that bloomed on the wall and you are a sunshine too intense for my vines and sidewalk weeds. You remind me of all the things I hate. I look at you now and I there are knots in my throat of all the insults I was forced to swallow. My armor was down and I felt love, but looking at you now, I feel all the places i was struck. You were a rose and I was a dandelion. At one time, I was convinced I could bloom but I let myself get hung up on your thorns. I’m intimidated. This was my home. I was hopeful that by running away here, I would be safe. I should have known that wildflowers always pop up when you lease expect it.

[mistplacedthoughts]

When wildflowers break through the hardwood; when we have nothing left to dance on but the forest floor, and there is nothing left to dance to but the sounds of the birds and the bees, you are the only one who's feet will fall lightly enough to preserve the life beneath them; the only one who can dance to the rhythm of the insects' wings without getting stung once. When they dim the lights, and you see the cold skeleton inside everyone you've ever called home, feel the grass between your toes, remember that wildflowers will always outlive the manicured, domesticated rose. Remember that you bloom persistent every season, waning and waxing as you might, while all the plastic petals around you will not survive nature's fury. Vines and weeds and wildflower dreams will always creep across the dance floor in the end. It is in their nature to grow and be fearless in the face of thorns. Remember that the stack of bones that used to be home only looks like death from a distance. Remember that we only wilt without your careful hand.

[mistplacedthoughts]

Not All Florists Sell Violets

When the boy told me he worked at a flower shop, my eyes faded to sepia as I played back the nights I’d come visit you, watch you stroll between the petals and leaves, feeling the sounds of the flora. We would close our eyes and dance to music only we could hear, the sunflowers shaking to the rhythm, the scent of you stronger and sweeter than roses.

When I snap back to the flower shop boy, he tells me with a certain fascination that he can never tell what I’m thinking. I’ve hidden every vision of you behind steel mazes, the walls scrawled with your poetry, wolves in every corridor, spiders on every crevice, a puzzle that serves as a locked door and a royal altar.

Violet, this flower shop boy has eyes just as green and bright as yours. When I got in his car, he played our favorite song, the one we used to sing at 2 am when no one else was around. He doesn’t realize the shoes he’s trying to slip into, your sharp teeth around his ankles, he doesn’t understand why I think flower shops are dangerous, Violet, I took him home anyway, I let his hands explore the map of my body, finding places you helped name, my teeth sunk into his neck, leaving marks that would look gorgeous on your skin, Violet, he tasted like expired roses that were too proud to admit what they had become. He tasted nothing like you.

The next night, he showed up where I was dancing, his eyes glazed over in whiskey. I ordered my favorite cocktail, to prepare myself, to match his empty affection, but it was too thick and caught in my throat, it told me to be sober for this, forced me to feel everything. He swung me around the floor recklessly, breathlessly, choking on the sweet venom still trapped in my airway, his veins were syrupy with liquor, he was shamelessly ablaze the way we always hoped to be, but his fire sucked the remaining oxygen out of my lungs, his hands sent short circuit sparks down my spine, I couldn’t run, this is what the movies say love should feel like, but

Violet,

I missed the sea salt spray of your calm oceans.

I missed the way I used melt into your poetry.

I missed the fluidity of our dancing, hands, hips, hearts, perfectly in sync.

Dear Violet,

I met a florist with green eyes, and I thought I could love him like you, but he couldn’t satisfy the Wolf of your memory that lives inside me. You devoured every ounce of him, and the visage of you is hungry for more. No one but you will ever be able to tame the beast.

[mistplacedthoughts]

I met a florist with green eyes, and I thought I could love him like you, but he is a drunken bull in a china shop and you are the Violets in the ceramic vase that is crashing to the floor.

[mistplacedthoughts]

Icarus, I keep trying to tell you; No one will care about the skeletons in your closet the way they'll care about the dresses in mine.

[mistplacedthoughts]

I exist to watch the stars burn To know my limits To build my own world