loose lips

my name is mern and this is where i post what i guess you might consider poetry main

[opossumpoet]

to the final girl

you were only ever taught to show your teeth when you smile. it never occurred that you could use them to rip skin. that lesson became your own.

fear replaced your conscience, so you used it as gasoline. you stand in the ashes and the blood. you scream at nothing and everything. the air exiting your lungs is proof that you made it.

but there is no finish line here, no trophy. no god. no paradise. only you and the whites of your eyes. your scabbed legs ache like fire and remind you that you chose to live.

what of the others?

they struggled like you did, but the choice wasn’t theirs. there is no glory in the spaces they left behind. only men find pride in tragedy.

they did not die so you could live. you felt the pain of your own rebirth. you made mortality your bitch.

survivor’s guilt will become survivor’s gangrene. you will wash the blood off, but it will always stain. calloused skin will coat your heart.

whispers around you will claim that it was only luck that saved you. but you know better. lift up your dirtied hands and laugh at how the world shudders.

it is not luck that saved you. it was you.

and a girl who saves herself belongs to no one but her rage.

[opossumpoet]

hesitation

i reach my hand out to you and then i hesitate. there is everything to lose in a simple gesture and losing you would feel like an operation while awake. i don’t want to see my own blood so i bargain. i decide to sacrifice my selfish touch for the chance to look at you. the afternoon sun shines on your grinning teeth and i ache when you glance at me like you have a secret to tell. i want to be your secret to tell. i want my name to be whispered in the tone of your favorite colors. then i could lay to rest in the knowledge that i am sacred to you. you say that you are small but you are also the moon and the blackberries i pick during the summer and every miracle that has ever happened on this planet. it is a miracle every time you blink. perhaps i could call you my own miracle, even though you are not mine. i will never be able to completely call you mine. this i am sure of. you are not a fragile trinket to be stashed away in some velvet lined box. your body was crafted to create ripples in still water. to say otherwise would be lying and i wouldn’t dare do that. my hands tremble when i think about the possibility that you will remain in my orbit. the hope of a permanent ‘us’ prods at me with sharp honeyed eyes and refuses to retreat. i will either regret it or not regret it. that is all i know. but for now, i hesitate. and i look at you.

[opossumpoet]

this is not a confession.

the first chord of a song you showed me will turn into the shine of your braces when you smiled at me. you smiled like there was an entire world inside of your belly waiting to burst and paint the trees in whatever color you might have wanted them to be- maybe mustard yellow or pastel pink or the color of the walls of your room. i still feel an ache pulling me towards the you i cherished when i see the colors you loved. no matter how many times i have told it that it is pulling me towards nothing, it persists like a confused magnet. like a broken compass. like false hope digging a pit in my stomach.

/

maybe we were in the middle of a crowd of people that i didn’t know were watching. did you ever think to address any of the fragility you told me i held within? at times i felt like shattered glass and i was afraid that you would cut your hands. you told me i was easy to hold until you actually held me. were there bandages on your fingers that i didn’t see? you knew how apologies would spill from me like a second nature and yet you were okay with letting your static silence hold me by the throat. where was your radiant soul when our light faded? to you it might have been blowing out a candle, but to me, it was extinguishing a forest fire.

/

do you remember this like i do? i sat in your living room examining my feelings as if they were a jar of marbles. i counted them, and i listened to you sing to yourself in the kitchen while you made breakfast. the sound of your voice was a promise even if you didn’t know i was listening. you sounded like the sunlight streaming in through the screen door. i hated and loved myself all at once because i suddenly realized that a future wasn’t too hard to imagine if i could hear you singing throughout it. i stared at the lines of my palms and imagined you having wrinkled hands stained green by rings i would give you. i imagined us as one soul in two bodies and wondered if this was what knowing what you wanted felt like. i think i might have known for a little while. but knowing what you want is meaningless when what you want is far away even when it’s right next to you.

/

when i hear the song you sang that day, i won’t listen. instead i will stuff my ears with the lizard skin i have shed. i will make a cage around my heart with the fragile bones of what once was and i will persuade myself that it is made of iron. i will resist the siren song of a memory i cannot let go of. i will scrape my nails across the chalkboard i left a love letter on until the tips of my fingers bleed. i will bundle up the lack of closure like a piece of notebook paper on my floor that has your handwriting on it. i will toss it into a fire in my backyard like it wasn’t my whole world for an era of my life. i will feel the orange light from the flames and think of your laugh and i will focus on the ashes instead.

/

this is not a confession.

this is an atonement.

[opossumpoet]

the sun-

treasure to others,

fiend to me.

i shield my eyes,

yet the light has claws

and rakes my body.

my muscles scream,

screamed,

will scream.

i cannot plug my ears

when the harsh noise

comes from within.

there is no such thing as joy

no such thing as decadence

in constant ache.

[opossumpoet]

too much / an open wound

i am too much.

don’t believe me?

i’ll prove, i’ll prove

tear out my heart

flesh on a platter

blood leaking like syrup

i’ll serve it to you

help you chew

until you’re sick

until you spit it in my face-

and i’ll love you then, too.

/

i am an open wound.

don’t believe me?

i’ll prove, i’ll prove.

this world is salt

words are infection

lord help me, i sting

sting red like pointed stares

sudden movements

angled silence

a travesty of gangrene

and bleeding despair.

[opossumpoet]

you are the muse of tragedies

marble carved tears, despair eyes

head thrown back in anguish, beautiful hurt

wailing to the heavens (are they listening?)

my orpheus

my icarus

gold. blood. ache

meant to hurt

for art, for glory, for what?

the fates smile with cracked teeth

i cannot save you.

[opossumpoet]

first kiss

first awakening

first sin

we were young, innocent

untouched but yearning

yearning for what?

we knew, but we were scared

scared of getting what we wanted

terrified of the flames in our chests

casting our gazes down, down, down,

yet our eyes wondered

i remember-

soft skin and soft scents

my heart racing

thick gold hair cascading

a labyrinth i was willing to get lost in

i couldn’t help it

her teeth tugged at her lip

her eyes sparkled in the darkness

the giggle in her throat was nectar

and oh god, i touched her

i touched her

i touched her

touched her thighs, her stomach

my unskilled hands reached out

grasping for holiness, finding bliss instead

they don’t teach you bliss on sundays

they don’t tell you that it’s rebirth

[opossumpoet]

i. blinding sun, reflecting on infinity. pearlescent spots when my eyes close. maybe they’ll line up as a map when i dream. i won’t remember it, but i hope for it anyway.

ii. glimmering waves that are soft to touch, salty to taste. like the skin between a girl’s thighs, like the sweat on my collarbones.

iii. my soul screams out red to the ocean. it answers in colors that don’t exist. i still understand their hues, in the way that wolves understand the moon.

iv. the sea and i know each other. we’re old friends. the first time the tide took me under and the sand scraped the skin off my body, a bond was formed. the salty water stung like hellfire and i knew it was tough love.