my manic and I.

teen angst disguised as poetry // run by two girls

[orangesinabowl]

i keep meaning to write about how in love with you I am, none of it  does you any justice  

none of it. none 

but i'm telling you, i noticed: the chips in your enamel heart, heart like a machine gun, tongue like a viscera blade, lips like a 

cardiac

arrest (me)

arrest me arrest me arrest me you make me feel so small like being crushed between constellations like tiny soldiers are digging their heels into my lungs and

it's so beautiful you're so beautiful you're going to kill me i love you so much

[orangesinabowl]

i'm sorry/ you see, i can't write a novel about you & i can't because your charcoal brown hair isn't the exact shade of black you want it to be & i can't tell the difference & because the day i met you your lipstick was cracked & i thought you were never going to talk to me & i can't because the girl in the reader's head won't be nearly as pretty as you & she won't covet you like i do & she won't covet like you do & she won't be pristine & polished & smoky & madly in love with at least 3 girls not including natasha hyatt, i'm sorry, & i can't because i'm not lucy & i can't because i can't spend so much time building an almost-you when you're still right here, i'm sorry.

[orangesinabowl]

a question about the excerpt you posted from that english essay: what was the topic?

'happiness is'

[orangesinabowl]

piper is the prettiest girl i know, which is especially nonsensical when you consider the fact i don't even know her.

-

if i had been born ten years earlier, i would've been a freshman when she was a senior. we would've gone to different schools but if i'd been born ten years earlier, i'd have been the sort of girl who goes to parties and besides, i'd at least still see her at dance. if i'd been born ten years earlier, i would've fallen in love with her, although that wouldn't be any different from now.

-

piper is an english name, and it means flute player. so obvious. so goddamn beautiful.

-

i always wanted a willow tree in my backyard, and if i'd been born in 1987, i might've had one. my dad would've still had money, janine would've still been alive, our house would've been in the nice part of town instead of the middle of nowhere. i would be 26, now, long out of teenage hell and dating a girl with a body metaphors can't touch. 

-

i don't know anything about piper except that she's gorgeous and everyone seems to be in love with her, but if i did, i might tell you she's made out of porcelain and her bone marrow lives outside of her skin, that her voice is like the flute that is her namesake and she's like a snake charmer, an anachronism, a song.

-

sometimes i think i've never once wanted something i could have, which is especially nonsensical when you consider at least two people i could have if i wanted could be reading this right now. for whatever it's worth, i'm sorry, it's just that, well, if you saw her, you'd know.

-

piper is the prettiest girl i will never know, just like i will never know how to whistle or play an instrument or love what's right in front of me.

[orangesinabowl]

the thing is, you'll never be better, but you're good enough for me.

[orangesinabowl]

how to run away and never get caught

stop caring about everyone. try to forget what your mother’s voice sounds like. don’t leave a note. don’t miss a single soul. after all, they are the reason you’re leaving.

remember that you can’t run away from your loneliness any more than you can run away from your skeleton. it lives inside your bones, and it’s coming with you. 

belong. belong, finally, somewhere, wherever you wind up. adopt the local accent when you’re buying gum as gas stations and slur your speech (already drunk, 8am) in colloquial slang at the woman slinging burgers at the only diner in eighty miles.

hide only in plain site.

tuck words of reassurance in your back pocket. reread the creased, coffee-stained paper under suburban streetlights at dusk and remember why you are there.

find a good partner in crime. hold their hand tightly, and don’t let go. together you are invisible, invincible; too broken for anyone to call back home.

[orangesinabowl]

i've been trying to write you a love letter for years, but i'm afraid i'm not good enough.

x

dear *****,

look, i would love to be in love with you. i'm pretty sure i am, when we're on the phone and night and i can hear you smile when i call you beautiful. you're so fucking beautiful. the words "i'm so in love with you" are so fucking beautiful and they slide off my tongue and into your ears so easily. god, i love you so much. there i go again. here we go again. i'm so in love with you is only half of the truth. i'm so in love with you, but you've always loved me more. and listen, i'm so fucking broken. the truth is, you'd be so much better off without me, because no matter how in love with you i am, i'll always be just a little more in love with myself and her and my bio teacher when she wears her hair down and that squeaky-voiced gummy bear girl and alison brie and anybody with blue eyes. the truth is, i'm so in love with you, but i'm afraid it's not enough. look, i'm sorry, but probably not as sorry as i ought to be.

[orangesinabowl]

half truths, II

i don't know how to write love letters, at least not to you, but i'm afraid that's what this is.

x

dear *****, look, i think you're beautiful. sometimes i think about what it would be like if i could call you something more than mine and it makes me cry and hide under my blankets. listen, people used to fall in love with me, but i didn't care about those people, i cared about you. the truth is, your name ends in lie and isn't short for anything. the truth is, you're my least favourite spelling, and i'm sorry. that beautiful pregnant spanish teacher i used to always talk about has the same name as you only hers is only three letters. i used to think about her at night before i fell asleep sometimes and the only difference is i knew she'd never love me back. i used to cry myself to sleep. i don't remember the first time i wanted to kiss you but i remember wanting to swallow knives every single time you told me you'd never feel the same. i don't remember falling in love with you, but i remember falling in love with her, and i'm sorry. look, i told you this was a poem and i was lying, but so were you.

[orangesinabowl]

half truths

this isn't a love letter. i don't know how to write those, at least not to you.

x

dear *****, look, even if i don't write your name everyone will know who this is for. look, i don't care. i met you a long time ago and i never meant to care about anything, then. i wasn't alone yet. people used to fall in love with me. that sounds like a lie, but listen, when i first met you i didn't have to babysit my own ego. i had other people to do that for me. the truth is, your name ends with lie and i don't know why i ever expected anything else. the truth is, i never meant to care about anything but i did. i don't remember falling in love with you but i remember being jealous of every boy you told me about, and even more of the girls. i don't remember when everyone else left me but i remember the first time i wanted to swallow knives when you told me about your wild friday nights. look, this isn't a love letter and it isn't beautiful, but neither are you.

[orangesinabowl]

What's the best book you've ever read?

daniel handler’s the basic eight (although i could make a case for any of his books). -noryx and crake by margaret atwood is one of the best books I have ever read. -a

[orangesinabowl]

Is this blog over too? :/

nothing is over. we are working very hard to keep it that way.

[orangesinabowl]

my body is in ruins my body is held back with yellow caution tape and separated from the curious by a shroud-laid rope they all come rushing,  come touching, come looking for pieces big enough to salvage and take under their shirts with them to show their friends back home

they don't whisper about the girls who are whole because they want to know about  the ruins of Rome

they want to know what ruined her, they want to know how to survive it

they actually think that they  could survive you.

[orangesinabowl]

dear v,

i have always wanted you.

yours, k

i sleep with this note under my pillow. someday, i think, these words will seep into my brain and i will no longer doubt them. i know this two-step by heart, the way i have memorized the curve of each of your purple-inked letters, your purple-bruised hips.  i do not want you wrapped around my finger; only around my waist.

dear k,

i have always wanted you, but never like this.

tangentially yours, v

this is the sound a heart makes when it splits in half. i want to lock myself in my room but it's too full of you, the pillowcase, the records, the glow-in-the-dark stars. you're not dying, my mother reminds me. i wish i could believe her.

dear v,

i know about her. it's okay. i don't see how anyone could not be in love with you.

still yours, e

nothing about anything is fair but least of all this. i want you to still love me but it'd almost be easier if you didn't. i'll keep breaking you. i don't want you to keep being broken. 

dear e,

i'm sorry. 

yours for as long as you want me, v

i'll want you forever. it's my fatal flaw, or maybe yours. i'm your hamartia and you're mine and we'll drag each other down all the way to the bottom of the ocean. we could finally rest there. i want to die by your hand.

dear v, 

i don't want to be the ghost that haunts you forever.

chimerically yours, k

i don't want that, either, but no one has ever paid attention to what i wanted. you, for instance, and her. but you're everywhere. in the letters tacked up on my wall, my favorite shirt, roughly half of the stuffed animals on my bed. all my monsters taste like you.

dear k & e,

i can't keep pretending i deserve you. this is something like good-bye.

someones, v

-

all names have been changed to protect the innocent and, more importantly, the guilty.

[orangesinabowl]

i can't write you anything worth reading. i hope if i killed myself it would break you.

[orangesinabowl]

hey uh

this blog has 400 followers

and that's really cool because it was never supposed to be anything more than allie & i whispering at each other

so thank you for listening in

[orangesinabowl]

it terrifies me when i tell you you're beautiful and you can't bring yourself to believe me.

[orangesinabowl]

hi, i'm icarus, i'm falling

every since i was little, i wanted to fly. i used to have these dreams about being a bird, and i would wake up on the floor next to my bed with bruises covering my arms.

ever since i was little, i wanted to escape.

-

when i turned fifteen, i asked my father for a pair of wings.

the wings were constructed, twice my length in width and half of it in height, of feathers. cemented in wax. colors that would make you feel like you were already flying. i could feel them on my skin from across the room.

he instructed me to pray over the feathers. to the gods of Anemoi, for an alliance with the wind, so that i should never be forced into a storm.

he instructed me to avoid the sun, to avoid the sea. "stay away from anything that glitters. it's a trick."

-

what it feels like to soar:

breath

butterflies colonizing your stomach

freedom

power

orgasm

everything i'd ever wanted

eternal

ethereal

rebellion wrapped around your ankles 

-

sensation overpowered warning. the sun felt warm on my back, warm on the wings that were so much a part of my body i could feel with them as well as i could with the skin on my arms. the ocean shimmered, beckoned me from down below. helios winked at me, asked me to come closer.  by the end of it all, i guess i considered myself a god, too succeeded to heed caution. i flirted back while he sent flames sadistically down my back. me, too struck by power to notice the feathers falling into the sea. one by one like little birds, they chirped. like little sirens. follow me, they chanted. follow me. to the sea, to the sea.

so i did. i flew up, said hello to the sky, thanked him for having me. up, up, up. until i lost my balance. i was sailing, ascending, it felt too good to stop. falling, even, tasted magnificent. 

-

you forget everything when you're falling. take that as metaphorically as you please. i forgot that i was alive. i forgot that i could die. in retrospect, i should have seen it coming. 

i mean, i did, literally. the waves rushing up towards me. i could smell the salt. i could feel the waves, rocking me, away, away, away. i knew what was coming, really. i knew how the ocean would feel on my skin, how my feathers would look, circled around me like a halo for my whole body. i just didn't account for the water in my lungs, that's all. i forgot the suffocation.

-

it didn't feel much like dying, but then again, i've only died once.