words are worlds @papermouths - Tumblr Blog

I realize now that it was a certain apathy, rather than peace, that turned my acts and my desires to ash.

Clarice Lispector, from The Complete Short Stories; “Obsession,” (via violentwavesofemotion)

She tried to console herself with the reflection that one never knows how far other people feel the things they might be supposed to feel.

Virginia Woolf, from “The Voyage Out,” (via violentwavesofemotion)

#prose

I have ripped my wrists apart trying to find the solution, some way of peace, of stillness, of silence, but they didn’t bleed while I breathed. They didn’t bleed, but I breathed, and stitches don’t hold in oxygen, but they mean that there’s something in you still worth saving.

#fragments #writing #iriswrites #prose

my dreams are the last place left where i think i still love you.

#fragments #writing #iriswrites

ocean tea

Ma tells me that priests are God’s representatives here on earth,

that if I believe in God, I must believe in those He chose to serve him.

I must trust His power. I must trust the faith and our Church.

I must trust Fathers, because Fathers are God’s helpers. Fathers are here to help us.

Ma tells me that mass is important, and being volunteered to lend Father a hand

is a blessing. It’s an opportunity. It means having a better chance at

reaching Heaven. She smiles when Father bends down to give me a hug after mass.

He pats my head when he tells Ma that I am always welcome to help him again.

Ma tells me that she’s lucky to have me. The kids in my neighborhood are always

getting into trouble. She hears their parents complaining all the time. She

kisses me on the forehead and tells me that she hopes I’m behaved around Father.

I know I am. He always places a hand on my knee whenever he tells me.

Ma tells me that I’m getting quiet. She laughs and asks if being in Church

all the time has taught me the gift of silence. She says that praying with Father thrice

a week must be a relaxing experience. I don’t tell her I don’t really think it is,

but Father always asks me not to make a sound, so she must be right.

Ma tells me that next time, I shouldn’t come home so late. She says that

it’s not safe for me to walk home alone in the dark. I tell her that I’m fine, but she

says she still worries. I don’t know how I can tell Father this. He says that the

longer I stay with him, the less time I will need to suffer in Purgatory.

Ma tells me that I shouldn’t be staying up so late. She says that she can see the light

shining under my door when she goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

She says it’s why I always look so tired and pale. I tell her I’m sorry and I’ll try better.

I can’t tell her that I can’t fall asleep without a light on anymore.

Ma tells me that I should save water and take quicker showers. She says that

I need to remember to save money, but she’s happy she doesn’t

need to remind me to stay clean like most kids. Father tells me that I’m clean

because his touch is cleansing, but I always feel dirtier whenever he’s finished.

Ma tells me that I’m losing weight. Father has been allowing me to go home earlier,

but she’s still worrying about me. Father told me that our secret is penance, and if I

tell anyone, I could burn in Hell. I know this, but I still don’t feel worthy

for Heaven. I don’t know how to tell Ma. I don’t want to burn in Hell.

#My poetry #tw: rape #tw: sexual abuse #sexual abuse #rape #Spotlight #Writing #iriswrites

original sinner/original saint [to eve]

i. how did it feel to come alive and know that you were only derived? that every time he looked at you, he could only ever see his own bones, his own flesh? how did it feel to know you were made to be a reflection of someone else?

ii. did he ever really love you? did he ever love you more than the way you loved him back? or did he only really love the idea of you? that you were made just for him—made for him to love? could you ever bring yourself to ask him if he still would have loved you if you weren’t the only two people in the world? were you afraid to ask because you felt like all he’d ever say was “you were made to be perfect for me”? as if that answered everything. as if you were the answer to everything. you love him, but you don’t know how much of this love is from having no one else to give it to, or because you were created for it.

iii. did you ever wonder why you couldn’t be as content as he was? did you ever resent him for being the first created? did you ever imagine what it would have been like if you had been the only one? if you had been made before him? do you think you would have given in to the loneliness the way he did?

iv. you never asked for any of it, but you were forced to bear the consequences as if you had. you never asked to be made, but you were expected to be grateful. you apologized for the apple, but all you ever wanted to be was equal. all you ever wanted were for the questions to stop. you’d never told anyone that you doubted long before you took the bite. did it hurt to be blamed? did you cry when you were locked out of the gates? you may have been second to be made, but you were the first to be human.

v. you bore the weight of committing the first mistake. you bore the weight of committing a mistake that anyone in your place could have made. did you ever lie awake and wonder if you had been set up for pain? if it was all a part of the plan, a part of your role to be the first mother, then you may as well have been.

vi. did you ever want to forget the garden? forget that you were faulted for doing what you didn’t know you had been destined to do? were you angry? did it hurt to feel that kind of fire burning inside of you for the first time? did it hurt to know that your children were to be born sinners because you could not be forgiven the way father will expect them to? did you hope they’d someday understand that it wasn’t all your fault?

vii. it was not your fault, and i have not forgotten this.

viii. most don’t remember and more will forget, but i have not forgotten this.

ix. you are more than just his wife. you are more than just a conversation with a liar. you are more than just a single bite.

x. i have not forgotten you.

#Writing #My poetry #My prose #iriswrites

madgirlf

you’ve left so many angry voicemails that you’re starting to wonder if your voice ever sounds any other way. you send a reckless text (read: truthful) then turn your phone off for three hours. you change your ringtone so it warns you when it’s actually worth answering. you’re superstitious about what to set as your background picture so it’s never a person. you don’t want to have to change it later. you use the same emojis every day and they don’t make any sense. why is the monkey hiding their face? who are the red lips for? you change your passcode every time someone in your family figures it out. you and your friends get high and talk about how crazy it is that you have serious conversations through text messages and promise to never do it again but still, that night you all send a series of ones and zeroes through space and somewhere along the way they are coded into the perfect words to tell your ex that you’re still angry. you fall asleep with your phone still in your hand.

Fortesa Latifi -

iPhone

from We Were Young available here

(via madgirlf)

#pretty things #fashion

madgirlf

happy world poetry day, friends! if you want to celebrate, grab a copy of my books from Amazon. We Were Young & No Matter the Time are available now <3

madgirlf

happy poetry month 😍📚😘

Why are we so fascinated with sadness? What is so fascinating about a body feeling like lead? Feeling weighed down enough to sink deep into the bed, weighed down enough to sink without any chance of swimming? Feeling adrift like some piece of wood in the open ocean, lost in the current, the pull of the tides?

#fragments #writing #iriswrites

you’re lonely sometimes. it happens. there are nights you lie awake in bed, trying to fall asleep, and it just hits you: how empty the space beside you is. how quiet the room is when you’re the only one breathing in it. and when it hits, there’s an ache in your chest, some kind of small void opening in the cavity where your heart is. it’s the same ache that you feel when you miss something, someone, but this is different. it’s the ache that hurts because there’s a part of you that feels empty. like there’s too much space inside your body that you can’t possibly fill by yourself. and it’s okay. it’s okay. you breathe and let it pass, let yourself feel lonely for a while, and then you let it go. you keep breathing and then you let it go.

#fragments #writing #my prose #iriswrites #loneliness

latenightcornerstore

Tell me about the days where your body feels nothing like a body: where it feels like a place soldiers lay down arms and forget to come back for them. Tell me what it’s like holding yourself at the barrel of someone else’s gun without pulling the trigger or what you intend to do with all these hand-me-down war relics when the fighting is over. Tell me how love never did you any favors. Tell me about all the temples you burned and rebuilt again and how no one’s ever thanked you for a hard day’s work. Tell me about your therapist when he diagnosed your depression: tell me about the softness he carried in his shoulders or the way he held his hands like an apology. Maybe if we keep falling for every weary, doe-eyed soul we ever meet, one of them is bound to love us back, eventually. Accuracy by volume. They’ve leveled cities that way: that’s how you handle machine guns and atom bombs (and you and me). We’ll just keep loving. We’ll just keep shooting. We’ll just keep hurting (ourselves) till it works.

ACCURACY BY VOLUME by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)

#poetry