lost and lead only by the stars

"Swinging by my neck from the family tree”-Ethel Cain

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

I sing myself a lullaby as old as my consciousness, a soothing melody of "you will be fine". I tell my mind that the old wounds don't bleed anymore; therefore, they must be healed, buried in my past. I had never considered the possibility of my blood freezing on the gelidity of these days. Of my limbs being so lonesome, they would stop moving in the middle of a street, as if I was a hare under the glow of headlights. 

How come the daughter of starlit skies and poisonous plant has come to this? The girl who smiled at crows and lightning instead of hiding? But my tears are still warm as they slowly kiss my icy cheeks, and I pray their heat is enough to keep me going.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

lingering scar rests on my shin

the bloom of a poppy flower bud

from the first time a razor kissed my skin

on a sleepless foggy night

a trail of ruins was left behind

wrapped in repugnant mud

of a bathroom's broken light.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

Let me out of here. I can feel my brain rotting inside my skull. Its capacity is decaying so fast that I'm afraid it won't last much longer. Is it possible I'm such a good actress anyone can hear my heart screaming inside a chest unable to bear all that is thrown at it any longer? I'm strangled, surrounded by every angle. An oak plantlet forced to grow in the submersed dirt of a yoghurt pot, in the windowsill of a little child. Let me out of here, can't you see? I am just asking for my version of seven minutes in heaven, where I'm alone, and the closet is a never-ending forest. Just seven minutes, I'm begging. Seven minutes where my mind won't be caged.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

I burned on a pyre whose logs were my expectations and then my insecurities. During my life, I entered the forest, seeking comfort and validation, unaware I was gathering fuel for my cremation. I hear their compassionate voices assuring me that wood ash contains crucial nutrients for new vegetation growth. The voices of those who watched my body burn, exhilarated eyes or blank stares - but now their cloying hypocritical words litter my burnt mind. I am melting in smiles before them, but that sweet phoney hides the dire alkalinization of the soil above which the fire consumed my dreams. Plants don't grow on saturated ground. The once thriving, exuberant forest now resembles a graveyard, filled with tree skeletons indicating the burial sites of my escapees who never heard their last rites.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

Sweet soul, yet wary Ephemeral scent of rosemary I found her; alone Little doe on a meadow A star shining on her own

Fugitive satellite, elusive sights Resemblance of a sun-touched paradise Though the crow flies over the fallow

Narrowing carmesim skies of ripe cherry Poignant first taste of a blackberry On our sleepless nights

The oddest vertigo in ethereal indigo Underneath a frail cover of lullabies Weald that the dim has blown Forgotten dreams on a tender prairie Dear, what did you bury…

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

The night before my last history test in 6th grade still lurks inside me. I brushed my teeth, went to bed, made a cocoon of stress around me. I would be fine. Why wouldn't I be fine? But what crumbled somewhere in my infirm brain? I should have realized before I was permanently shaking even tough it was almost summer, the way my stomach twirled even with lemon balm tea.

On that ominous night, I couldn't get rid of that unsettling feeling in the air, but the threats were still whispers, still soft. Shaking and trembling on a floor illuminated only by the moonlight, I knew something was wrong.

On the second day of the holidays, they shouted. They tore me apart, blood clots on a fetid corridor; and my lungs collapsed and invisible hands suffocated me and my head was a blur and can't you see my arteries bursting open and my blood spreading on the floor? The day I knew no one can be trusted, as they won't let their pretty immaculate hands get defiled by touching your mortal remains. And then they'll blame you for the mess they helped create.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

I want someone to lie with me on a bed, on the floor, somewhere. I want to hear soft whispers blocking all the noise surrounding us, telling me I'm fine, I'm safe, I'm enough. I want someone to hold me as tightly as if my body was just about to fall apart, and they could not bear that happening. I want a place where I won't need to beg anymore. I want the safety of love embracing me, hands tangled in my hair.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

i. every time i get closer to the places where i grew up, where i live, i find my heart suffocating, shrinking. it cages itself on some dark and dusty corner of my soul, in a desperate attempt to lock its secrets, so no one can see them. i'm left powerless, aimless; inkless. my stomach twirls on a belly aching to run away.

ii. every time i go far away, my lungs become inebriated by the softness of the cold night air. every second matters, every note caresses my blood. stars twirl everywhere i look - on the forested hill, on constellations, on his eyes. i wish i could live forever in those moments. creating, feeling, sharing. breathing.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

I've always been like this. I search for love in all the wrong places. My knees have become callous due to the time spent begging. Trenches embellish my face, from all the rivers I have wept - still, I don't learn. My body will keep on being stained by the mud I crawl in, in hopes of feeling appealing. Because I search for love in all the wrong places. Because I just need to feel enough... My dear, I wish I could be to you, just a third of what you are to me.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

Oh, please save me. From the ruin I am becoming, all due to me. My errors and flaws are accumulating into an immense, fatal pile on my bedroom floor. On the corridors of a school, I slowly watch the walls narrow, preparing to eat me alive; mercilessly. When did it start? When did I metamorphose from a capable child to this wrecked, deeply flawed being? All my old answers now lay on an unkempt floor, shattered. Everything I dared to think I was good at has burned to ashes. Here I am - my erratic path, my mediocre mind, my wasted potential. Everything is gone.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

night falls, starless unclad escapees hidden by the poetess behind her scars behind quasars- memories, don't run away as well for the meaning already started to dwell

on these tenebrous streets with no name i'm breathing this shame- the meaning already started to dwell

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

I wish I could know how other people perceive me. Just entering their head for a bit, opening the drawer with my file. Am I a stable, organized girl? A selfish mess too pretentious to be likeable? A naïve, who accepts getting hurt so she can be, or at least believe, she is loved? Maybe I'll never believe I'm truly loved. Maybe because I'll never be. My defects run too deep, too noticeable to the world for it to be possible. Condemned to be eternally inadequate, defiling everything I dare to touch. I have been told it my whole life. But here I am, with my glorious fantasies or being desired. Of being the one, not just another thread on the fabric of their life.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

We had this game where we would associate each other a colour, a plant, a feeling. I would be a pale brown pine bent by guilt. He would be a maroon oak, led by rage. We were so naïve that we didn't understand how such an innocent word game could bring to the surface so much about someone. I was so naïve I didn't understand how I could be guilt. But, years later, I find myself dwelling in it, fighting to feel pure again. I feel all my mistakes bending me like that abandoned pine in the winter's wind. I feel the faded brown of it's bark, desesperate to be loved again. I'm the one to blame. I'm the one whose words always come out distorted and broken; I'm the one begging for shelter. Too much, not enough. Stolen hustles and silent screams carried away in an oppressive summer breeze.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

I'm begging - not on my knees anymore but lying flat on the floor. Please, make me forget, make me unaware of everything that surrounds me. For I am not enough, never enough, and all I do is let everyone down; for the mountains grew too tall to climb, and it's getting colder and colder. Allow me to drown my sorrows in forgotten riverbeds, to submerge myself in them. Touch me, pure hands made of pure bliss. Show me I'm still worthy.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

Sometimes there is a veil between my mind and the world; that makes me feel disconnected and exposed. Those days, every sound shatters my head, and my ribcage collapses into itself. My old wounds join the new ones in an amalgam of despair, leading me into dark alleys. I am unable to shield myself. Everything becomes artificial, unreal. All hope strays away from me, ruthless in its obliviousness.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

Sometimes I feel like an external entity, watching myself from above. Or a secondary character in my life — an actress playing a predetermined role. I have no true sense of self, no identity, nothing except these agonizing thoughts that won't leave my head. And I'm hiding, hiding, hiding. Everything in me seems inadequate and obscene. My mediocre thoughts and words are humiliating in their nature. Pestilent, a disease slowly spreading — maybe that's what I am. This eternal game of hide-and-seek corrupts the little good that is left. Answers, answers. I beg for them to myself, but end up meeting the walls I built, enclosing me.

[pineconeontheforestsfloor]

I’m so sorry. How I wish there was a way that allowed you to enter my mind, so that you could access, without any tampering, my world. My words always end up coming out as a stumping mess, a mere shadow of my thoughts. And I don't know what to do to overcome this lacuna; I'm lost, I'm sorry. Please don't hate me. Oh, you are the best person I have ever met. I will never be able to describe how grateful I am for having the wondrous chance of knowing you. But how profoundly I wish I could do something to alleviate your burden, even though there are barriers in which I'm forever doomed to be helpless in my aid. But I'm here for whatever you need. And I swear, in my mind I'm so different. And I wish I could show you the real me; bellow all this shit that I can't denominate, that slowly distorts me. Sorry, my dear. Sorry for everything.