worse

this is as bad as it gets

[prairieprayers]

the leaves are green, but they're falling. middle of spring, and yet. is our humble orchard cursed? along with the one down the road, and further and further? along with the rivers and the lakes? are the fields fouled too? on the news I saw the clouds gather over the Badlands. poured rain until the weatherman stopped reporting. is it still flooding if no one's around to drown? heard up north it didn't snow all winter, the farmers -you'd think otherwise- were most worried. the kids just wished they had more snow days off. heard the pavement in this city is so hot, stray cats haven't been seen in weeks. their trees were cut down a long time ago, at least. the grass isn't growing in, not here. the news won't tell us if it's growing anywhere. shame, I already know. (it's not.) all winter it didn't snow, god'll save us though. no curses last forever, or, at least, I hope so.

record highs

[prairieprayers]

I'm missing golden canola fields, rotting fences, waist high grasses. I'm caught on chickadees waking me up and the sourness of backyard apples. My memories are bleeding together like the snow and dirt are, now. Is it time to start praying yet? Who am I without summer storms, replaced with blizzards and false heat I'm sweating like a sinner, racking up the heat bills. Can't recreate sunshine though, can't ignore the cold.

[prairieprayers]

man, I took pieces from everyone surrounding me, empty of substance, and it's hard to tell what's me all that's left when I take myself apart is the bitterness, the anger, I'm hiding something and I barely know what it is. throw me overboard, let's tell if I float. it's like witch trials either you float -and they kill you or you drown -and they killed you it's kind of like imposter syndrome, but no one will ever find out I'm good at what I do, and what I do is fake and pretend and take up any persona that will keep me alive but I'm not in danger so? it runs in circles and how many of these vent arts are mine?

[prairieprayers]

people like to boast about how despite the pain they wouldn't change a thing wouldn't lie for a million dollars they burnt down their closet and the house it was inside and never looked back I'd keep looking back guess that says enough. everyone says that people like me ruined pride, twisted it's meaning don't look at me, i don't even have it. but I can handle this purgatory, this endless trap it doesn't hurt as bad when I replace the words. like hiding with safety. suffocating with not being dead yet sickness with not being dead yet rather be on the way than already there, you know

sacrifice a part for the all

[prairieprayers]

catch me sick at the corners begging to be cut clean im not in the era of doctors draining bad blood so i’ll just do it myself. pray for a rougher cure in my down time. can i rid an addiction by giving into it? i am an old beloved home crumbling under the floorboards. you don’t notice until the rot bleeds through- until the blood bleeds through, until the sickness is on display and even then people turn away, catch me pounds lighter, finally free of dead weight. im kidding, everyone knows i bleed faster than i can heal.

bad blood

[prairieprayers]

we gotta stop doing this like, constantly choking on our own affections and you really really like this one but you don't want to be predatory or scary or clingy or in love in the first place and you kind of want to wake ten years past, or maybe not wake up at all because you really like this one but it's not going to work out

closeted

[prairieprayers]

still my swamp creature, the bog rises around you and your veins may be sludgy green but, You are safe here, within your legends and your elegance, the pieces of you that you permit are very beautiful, but if these frogs could speak.. past the willow trees and fog, you can see the stars, stranger lights than the ones under the water, stranger constellations than the ones arranged with these lily pads, they would say. i take one step closer and sink, trusting you not to drag me under, but I hold you to no morals. the algae is holding firm, and your mind will clear when the water does.

bog witch

[prairieprayers]

It's called figuring yourself out and my fingers are ghosting over labels like they're wearing white sheets. a sharp wind comes, blows it all away like dust. and most of the time that's all it really was it's called being confused because everything sticks like my hands are covered in syrup or honey or tar but nothing stays stuck, just sweetens until it's only sugar, crumbling away in my palm it's called being open because I reach out for anyone who will look but not touch, smile but not listen. I don't need to be someone's story or memory or name they don't want to let go, I want people to let me go. It's called I wish I left myself alone.

I don't like to put a name on it

[prairieprayers]

im not as bad as the prophecy says i will be, im just tired and the blood under my nails  is mine.  im scared and i feel the words imprinted onto my skin, who i will become. its destiny, but its terrifying and i want to be a savior, who dies, over the villain who survives. my morals can burn through any sheet of magic truths, but it cant erase them. i know what i will do, and i wonder how i will ever have teeth that sharp, heart that dark, be that.. lost. i am found here, but like any good story, there are no happy endings

chosen one

[prairieprayers]

"you shaped the century" she turns her head and a goddess doesn't feel pain but "I am the century, I am the earth and the oceans and its so much. Your rivers are my veins and you say you love me and im given sacrifices, not on purpose. Every spill of blood is an offering, every breath is a prayer" she's glowing, eyes and skin and you think, it must be impossible to look as human as she does, fragile but her hands are as cold as steel, are steel. everytime you see her, nothing is the same. different face, color, voice but she's always herself, always good and gracious and she takes a deepbreath "this is bad" you shake your head, and thunder cracks you are human, and she, no matter how much blood she sheds, kisses she gives to strangers, she is forever divine. not on purpose, not by choice. just by being unlucky, and being good and gracious

mother nature

[prairieprayers]

and fuck I will etch the date of our deaths onto every subway wall, scratch it into all the billboards lining the highway but I will never visit our grave. formal but far apart, two strangers intimately beside, in a graveyard. we were not strangers, and we died on the same day. I don't remember it. either from cold or cancer or the ocean taking its claim, I don't know what happened, we had a funeral and every sunday someone plants a rose between our patches of dirt and I am guilty to say I wish you were here, but I don't know what's holding me back from joining you. so I will float over downtown and tease passerby and carve our date of death onto something everyone will see, and they'll wonder, and they'll awe, but no more than I will, because as I truly pass away, forget and forgotten, someone will remember, even if it's just scars on a wall.

ghost story

[prairieprayers]

unfortunately the whole city died in a wreck and i will not visit you in the morgue if it ever comes to that. unluckily, i was stabbed in the back one too many times, please god make the next one real so i can make my last words angry, instead of– dying. evidently, im not as strong as you thought i was, never as pretty, smart, kind, never as real. I am snitbits of other people’s personalities and if you look too close it’s easy to forget my name because of the people i keep tucked in under my collarbone. i'm sorry i never told the truth, but it's your fault you'd ever listen in the first place.

liar

[prairieprayers]

pretend to be patient and kind. they will believe, and with believing, comes worship. you are hailed as benevolent and beautiful and as vast as a cloudless blue sky. you are a god, and gods do not regret, but you’ve always been something different even from the likes of you. you do not want this. worship me, worship this, but I am evil, I am the monarch of liars and cold and bad, but with that comes no clean way, so of course I had lied. patient, kind, beautiful, I can even believe it too, sometimes everyone else does. but it’s not true. Gods do not feel regret, but my guilt is as vast as dead space.

why do u trust me

[prairieprayers]

I may or may not be sorry, ok shuck? do you get it? there's no time for romance when the world's crumbling at our feet, so I guess I just suck at following rules really. grease and rock stained me in the maze, and red and scars found me in the scorch, but I mean, somewhere I found you? and I can tell this won't last but I tried to catch you when you fell, and now I'm falling in love with you, so? how unlucky can we be anyway?

from minho to newt, stuck in the middle

[prairieprayers]

i love your poems oh my. you're an amazing writer.

thank you so much!

[prairieprayers]

I didn't take advantage of winter. none of its long sleeves, and easy excuses, easy cold. But I guess that's good. It's a month clean and tidy cravings that I just forget. I just pretend I don't miss metal and copper and that special open-window, open-skin feeling. sure, there's still memories and sudden fast triggers like a bullet hitting a life line. A month clean and a second to break it. A month clean and safety I forgot.

hey

[prairieprayers]

spring break, I dont want to remember anything before green grass and fucking tulips, like I'm in a greenhouse forever. the trees should be budding, my heart may as well be thudding. hitchin your breath is my favourite pastime. look me in the eye, and tell me you won't trade snow for dust devils. look me in the eye, and the sun will scorch through your icy facade.

sunkissed