explanation kills art

"You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better." - Anne Lamott

[poetnextdoor]

I pick the smaller plate. You assume this means I’m not hungry, when really it’s because I read somewhere that the emptier the plate, the less food your mind thinks you’re eating, so I pick the smallest plate and spread out my dinner as much as possible. You open your fourth drink; the sun is still up. The phone rings and we all jump, but no one answers it. Mail piles up in the corner of the room, but we don’t bring it up. Sometimes it feels bigger than an elephant in the room. Your blankets are on the couch, and pretty soon you will be wrapped up in them. You probably won’t get up for days. I’m not sure how you plan on making money. When I go to bed, I put on kids’ movies just to cheer myself up. It doesn’t help when they tell me  Ohana means family, when I know firsthand that family means everyone gets left behind eventually.

Things I Cannot Mention at the Dinner Table, I.S. (via poetnextdoor)

[poetnextdoor]

For far too long, this sadness has shown up like an unwanted e-mail I never signed up for. I did not subscribe to this constant feeling  of utter despair and loneliness, but each morning it’s there again: a new notification to remind me of my hollow chest. Every time I click unsubscribe, the whole page crashes and I have to start again - and God, I am so sick of having to start again.

I DO NOT WISH TO RECEIVE THESE MESSAGES ANYMORE, I.S. (via poetnextdoor)

[poetnextdoor]

I swear I will try my hardest not to love you for the rest of my life, but it's difficult when you always seem to know exactly what to say to make me speechless; to make me want to see myself through your eyes, because, clearly, you see something inside this wounded heart that I don't.

there’s nothing good about me, I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

and I don't mind waiting up all night to make sure you got home okay, if you don't mind knowing each time I close my eyes, all I see is your face.

sweet dreams, I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

I see craters in your eyes that resemble the surface of the moon, and maybe that's why I feel like I'm floating whenever I look at you.

I.S. 2014.

[poetnextdoor]

I want you to be afraid of losing me, without thinking that you will because you've made me smile more times in the last few weeks than I ever have before, and I'd never be stupid enough to let you go, because I know in my mind, that I've made the right choice and it just might be the first one, because I felt it when we kissed, that you might be the last one.

I.S. 2014.

[poetnextdoor]

Each time you yell I am transported back to the house with the bug infestation and walls so white you could never escape your own reflection. I am standing motionless in the hallway watching you pummel the door with your fist, painting over all that white with your own blood. Eventually the door will be glued back together, but it will never look quite as white. And it took a while,  but your hand slowly healed, and all that was left was a tiny pink scar - and yes, it has been a while, but my heart still hasn't healed, and all that's left of it now is a tiny pink dot.

Withered With Time, I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

I am so sick of women being reduced to titles. Like our names don’t represent the hours our mothers spent in labour just to see us, just to look in our eyes, and know everything that we would accomplish. Everything that we would be. I was given my name because I was meant to be different (and a writer, funnily enough). I am not His Girlfriend. I am not a High School Drop Out. I am what I say I am, what I demand that you call me, and no other names that you wish to give me are permitted to leave your mouth.

My Name is Not Girl, I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

I want to be the hero, but I’m so used to being the victim that I’m not sure I can give it up. I’ve made myself so comfortable here. The pillow has a perfect mould of my head, the blankets know just how to curl around me like wrapping paper, so they block out the cold. I can be soft here. I can be weak here. I know that no one will judge me. Besides, who has ever heard of a hero that cries herself to sleep?

Maybe I Could Be The First One, I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

I remember when you said that you hide behind a mask and we both agreed that everyone does once in their life and I remember being too warm and uncomfortable, as I counted all the rings on your fingers when the sky was as dark as your eyes I wonder if you've fooled anyone else the way you fooled me and I think about when you said you wanted to hear something I've written and I knew right then I'd never write anything good enough

Masks, I.S. (2014)

[poetnextdoor]

I almost can’t believe all the ways I let you consume me, let you make a home out of my hollow chest. You were so comfortable there that when I asked you to leave, you looked at me like it wasn’t my choice. Like I owed you that space. You had already engraved your name into the walls and given everyone your new address, and I just didn’t have the strength to keep pushing until you were out the door.

I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

Once my back ached so much that I could barely breathe, so you ran me a hot bath and sat with me until all the knots came undone. How beautiful that was. How it represented everything you've done for my heart these last few years:  warmed it up enough to stop it shaking,  to finally make it start beating regularly again. How glad I am that I took a chance on your dark brown eyes that were always so mysterious to me. How grateful I am that you saw the depth in mine, saw their cerulean glow and mistook them for the bottom of the ocean. Took my hand and dove in with me, with no fear inside your eyes. Nothing so beautiful and effortless will ever occur in history, again.

I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

I am turning twenty. I go to the store to pick out a card (no one knows what I want better than I do), but find nothing between 18 and 21. My boyfriend informs me that twenty just isn’t an Important Birthday. It doesn’t Mean Anything. Of course, he’ll still treat me like a princess and make me feel as though I’ve won an award just for living one more day, but he’s right. It’s just the way things are. This is my first birthday without my mother. She didn’t die, I just finally cut the noose that she kept wrapped around my neck since the day I was born. This is the first year I’ve been able to breathe. Learning things on my own hasn’t been too bad. Like how to clean an oven, and how to put together a desk. She told me that I’d never survive on my own, and that I was so ungrateful of how well she had raised me, in the same breathe. Irony was always lost on her. So was the impact on her constant lying. These last two weeks have been the first time in my entire life that no one has ever lied to me. I know that I am a strong person, but just imagine living with that thought.

2016, I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

There is a fine line between a romantic gesture and a bear trap with your name engraved on it, and that line is the silver ring sitting in your drink in the middle of a crowded restaurant; the band on stage who suddenly start singing to you; the writing in the sky that is slowly spelling out your name. This poem is for every woman who has ever been proposed to in front of a crowd, and said no. Everything went so blurry that you weren’t sure whether it was a spotlight shining on you, or a sniper rifle. He asks, “Will you marry me?” like it’s really a question. Like he doesn’t know that if you say no, the mood will turn sour, the crowd will fire up, and you, will barely get out alive. You are not evil for knowing, or not knowing, what you want out of life. You are not evil for not lying to make him happy, for not “giving it a shot”. Your life belongs to you, and you do not have to spend even one moment of it doing something that you don’t want to do. Don’t think of this as the end to anything; this is just the beginning. Now you have the chance to go out there and find what you really want.

A Poem For The Women Who Said No, I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

It’s 11pm on a Saturday, and we have survived two and a half weeks on our own. Clearly, this means we can handle anything. Clearly, the hard part is already over. Sure, we wash our clothes in a soapy bucket and can’t figure out why the oven keeps smoking, but that’s okay because all we eat is toast and noodles anyway. There’s something exciting about this unknown. It’s not looming over me like all the others. There’s something so freeing about having no time frame of when I can and can’t leave the house. There’s something so freeing about not having someone in the room next to yours, always telling you that you’re going nowhere in life. You called me selfish for leaving when you started to fill the house with water, hoping I’d drown. You called me a bitch for standing up, for saying no, like you hadn’t told me for the last twenty years to never allow my back to become a walk way for anyone. I guess you got too comfortable standing there, in the middle of my broken spine. I will not apologise for walking out despite all of your constant threats, but I will say I’m sorry that you honestly think that you’re the one in the right.

An Exciting Unknown, I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

I look for a potential mother figure in every woman I meet. I flinch when I see how delicately other parents hold the ones they created. I wonder why I was not granted the same warmth. Maybe I came at the wrong time. Maybe you were in the middle of a good TV show, or about to open your third can of bourbon, when I decided it was time for me to enter this world. I can picture you rolling your eyes, and doing that loud, annoyed sigh of yours that always scared me right to the bone, and I understand now, why my life turned out the way it did. I understand now, why the pain within me feels like a never-ending handkerchief trick, with the audience laughing louder,  the longer it goes on. I understand now, that you had me for all the wrong reasons,  and you could never give me a good enough one  to even consider sticking around.

Out Of My Hands, I.S.

[poetnextdoor]

You looked me up and down, called me brittle, called me weak, said I would break under the first sign of pressure. But I’m still here. I’ve been through the flames, breathed in all that smoke, and, still, I walked out of those ashes on my own.

Still Here, I.S.