Spilled Love Letters

Poems written by a hopeless romantic, determined to reach one heart in the void.

[overturnedinkwell]

I keep seeing your chest covered in blue. Not fingerprints, rather mouth--- no parted lips, pressed over and over in places my hands have yet  to touch. I'm ready to let it smear now. I'm ready for them to know it was me.

Possessive

[overturnedinkwell]

You touch me and every sound I make is beauty, is poetry. Every gasp is a sonata, every hitched breath a symphony.

- Sext (When Moans Make Melody)

[overturnedinkwell]

Our “hello” was

arms thrown around your neck

and hands ready to catch

a waist

already leaning into them.

It was lips

against lips

before words.

After waves,

but before “hi”

After eyes

locking the minute one got

out of the car.

The way the screen door slams shut

as she ran to you.

The way your car door echoed

when you caught her.

It was nestling into the crook of your neck,

your nose in her hair.

Holding one piece of home

that wasn’t a house.

It was a moment

where security was real.

It is a memory—

rather, a promise

of people

we’ve yet to meet.

Of moments

where “home”

will come inside,

lock the door,

and stay.

I think about the future a lot

[overturnedinkwell]

I pull into your driveway playing the remix: This is how it starts, you get in my passenger seat and we don’t quarrel about my driving. My arm flings across your chest every time I brake too hard and you hang your arm out the window, Kygo streaming through the speakers. I sing and you join and we let the air fill with the rightness of off-key, wrong pitch, minor over major. I dance in my seat, tapping on the steering wheel and you choreograph our routine beside me. And this is how it’s supposed to be: someone letting me drive, be in charge of something, join me, singing, dancing, smiling sharing in the rebirth of my happy.

Sexual Healing (Kygo Remix)

[keikomivra]

I think honest love Is less about how much  You would do for someone And more about how long You would wait Unable to do anything at all To do it

~ Tyler Knott Gregson

[overturnedinkwell]

I am 21 and trying to find the way to love you: picking apart pieces of myself like bread crumbs, leaving a trail. I am 22 and find myself knocking on the witch's door; willingly folding myself into the oven, confusing love with warmth. I am 23 and all that's left of that house is smoke. All the bread crumbs--- devoured by animal or in storm. I was 21, trying to find a way toward loving you. But I am 23 now, and know that I am the damn road.

Gretel Gone Rogue

[overturnedinkwell]

You swallow and I hear the crack - of waves breaking against rocks, of lightning splitting trees, of all my resolve splintering into a million tiny pieces. - You swallow and my mouth is dry - like sandstorm in Sahara, like shelter in monsoon season, like heat unfurling through every limb, every sinew, every cell. - You swallow and I am so, so thirsty. - You swallow and I wish I was tasting you.

Consume

[overturnedinkwell]

The last time we kissed, my legs were shaking. I don't know if you knew that, felt that I was trembling while you were messing with the hem of my dress and I was scared because I wanted it bunched up my thighs. I didn't tell you that but I swear, my hands were in your hair for anchorage and you were so unresponsive but your thumbs kept circling hip bone. I didn't think you would kiss me back, but your tongue would slip against my bottom lip and my whole body was buzzing, swaying... I pulled back to look for glaze in your eyes, my hands sliding down your neck. We went to say goodbye and you pressed the most gentle kiss on my lips. We both left. My mouth a little more swollen, my body resembling jitterbug, with ankles locked and gas pedal waiting.

Oscillate

[overturnedinkwell]

You thread fingers so easily, fill in blank spaces I didn’t knew existed all with the touch of your palm against mine. — Me always asking for heat watching the way each knuckle bends until the warmth spreads from your hand through me — and though we are in an ice rink, I stop shivering. — It has been months now and it only occurs to me, listening to a Halsey album of all things, that you will never stop being a fantasy. — That the thought of us will always be synonymous for what I believe love could(’ve) be(en). I think loving you is something that has to outgrow me. — Until then, it’ll be my hand knowing yours in the dark, playing with your hair just to have you mess it up, you rocking in time with me every time we hug, our last goodbye — a broken promise.

Late Appreciation of Hopeless Fountain Kingdom

[overturnedinkwell]

I'm still hung up on the way your eyes are set in your face: deep and drowning brown. I look for them in every new person I encounter; my breath catches when they come close.

I Couldn't Look At Billy (He Had Your Eyes)

[overturnedinkwell]

Tell me what the hood of your truck feels like. I think I want to melt into warm metal. I think I want to look at the stars so much that my love for constellations causes them to tremble. I think I want the sky to fall on me. Tell me that that is a kind of love. — See us sitting in a field, flannel blanket amidst wild flowers. You murmur about life’s imperfections and I laugh a garden. We entwine under an indigo sky and there are vines connecting with pinpoints of life. I think I want to root into earth. I think I want the soil to take our fingerprints twist our DNA until we are nothing more than dandelion fluff and children are wishing on the fantasy of us. – Tell me that that is a sign of blooming. —- Tell me we can be something under a dark sky amidst swaying stems. Tell me that summer is more than just “I think” and “are wishing”. Show me more than “kinds” and “signs.” — Promise me that we, too, can be wonderful.

Star Gazing

[overturnedinkwell]

Every boy who has kissed me first has also left me. And maybe that says something about me, how my mouth is bear trap,< my lips work as snare, confines others’ because it’s the only way I know how to beg, it’s the only way I can convey “stay”. — So, I want but never ask first. One never does when the question leads to abandonment; why even bother the claws to break skin? — ---When you don’t have a chance of holding what’s meant to leave you. When mouths meeting are a different kind of speaking, a “goodbye” tasted, instead of said.

Animal Instinct

[overturnedinkwell]

We’re on a hillside, overlooking the Pacific, and it’s 80 degrees; call it California Dreaming --- Chilled champagne, a fruit platter, me in a silk robe and you with a notebook in hand. --- And I can see it, your eyes covered by shades, but there’s a twitch in your cheek and your hand is steady with each stroke of the pen, and I swore I’d never fall for a writer, but, man. --- In the twilight, I look below and see Byron and Mary strolling on the beach. I hear Charlotte, Emily, and Anne swoon in time with the waves that are breaking— --- when I look back at you, head bent over a notebook, pen still in hand, I stretch out my arms, wrap them around your neck, feeling you relax into it... --- and you know that I only write poems about dreams, because no where in Jersey could we maintain a patio set without snow, or wind, or the chance of getting it wet.

Writing About You Again

[overturnedinkwell]

The sunlight filtered through the trees, above your hand in mine, fingers linked. Three years to gain a true, best friend and I wouldn't trade a single minute of it.

To Care in Silence

[taibor]

“Let us pray. For your blessed bones. For your sacred hands. May you learn to love what is holy in you. May you learn to love what is not. To the ones that have not loved you like you deserve, may you forget their names. May you remember your own, always. Amen. Amen.”

– from A Prayer by Caitlyn Siehl

[overturnedinkwell]

It’s got to be summer. The windows are down. “Chicken Fried” or “Brown Eyed Girl” or something that is irrevocably warm, wind-in-hair plastered smiles, hands raised through a sun roof good is playing off the radio. – This is my version, so we’re driving down the Causeway. And the reeds are whipping to and fro and your fingers are locked with mine hand is raised to your lips, because you know I like that. And you let me sing, you smile when I dance in the passenger seat. – We hit the bridge the same time as the chorus. I look out over the river I’ve grown up and around and between from and thank God for the marshland. Thank God for the tiny hometown where I spent summers feeding ducks, writing on the porch swing, letting the sun kiss me in all the places you will touch so tenderly. – And when we reach the curb at my mom-mom’s, you walk around the car, open my door and start singing to me, as I lead you down the street, past my church, holding your hand, taking you through my childhood, enjoying a summer day, realizing love can be warm, no traffic, fireflies at the first sign of dusk, laughter in the moon light good.

It’s a Given

[overturnedinkwell]

It is 12:07AM and I am listening to Dion's cover of "Dream Lover" and writing about graveyards. -- Tell me in the future, when I rake my fingers through my bangs, have the pen behind my ear and the desk light focused on the manuscript, you'll join me in the study, -- Tell me you'll sing "I want a dream lover, so I don't have to dream alone." -- Tell me you'll come up behind me, kiss my head and then retreat to the couch that sits in my secluded space. -- That you won't leave when the well is running low. That you will stay when the ink on the quill has dried. -- Promise me that you'll stay even if the writing's dark, even if Johnny Mathis fills the space meant for shadows. -- Promise me you'll stay when the ghost take over the pages and the heads roll between the lines. -- Love me because even though I write death scenes on nights like these, when the music is happy and my fingers are crying, -- I'm a simple girl who lives for fairytales and wants her own happy ending.

Stay; just a little bit longer.