Proton Shake

Hi I'm Ariana and this is my thing. It's mostly astronomy and poetry.

[protonshake]

Growth

One day, I planted a flower seed: I watered the ground that held it, trimmed boughs to give it more light, weeded the earth around it, marveled at its first leaf, applauded its first bud, and it grew and it grew and it grew and it grew One day, I left the flower: I gave it no water, I did not prune its leaves, I did not weed its bed, and I did not come back and I did not come back and I did not come back and I did not come back and the flower flourished without me

[protonshake]

I only miss them when I miss you

There are no stars out my window There is steel and cement and fluorescent bulbs that illuminate desks at which no one sits or sees. There are no stars out my window There are pillars of brick that house pillars of marble that house pillars of old men who creak like wood as they walk There are no stars out my window But the velvet night is in your hair; stardust gathers at your feet; A pulsar beats in your chest. You inhale: Galaxies collide You exhale: A billion stars fuse inside me.

[protonshake]

Fever dreams

Creek beds sit on my thighs Deep crevasses that once held more when once I held more

I drown in pools in fever dreams wanting more, I wake.

Some days, I am empty; All days, I am full.

[protonshake]

Steps

I come home late at night, count the steps it takes to get from car to door (It’s one hundred and twenty) and for about two minutes, all that’s on my mind is “…twenty-one…twenty-two…”

My cat cries for food, but will not eat if I walk away and cries instead for love so I hold him until he remembers he is hungry.

I think about what it means to love someone so much that you would rather be near them than eat, and I cry.

I think both of us would starve with smiles on our faces and with food less than One hundred and twenty steps away.

[protonshake]

Letters to each other, from no one:

I: There are roads etched inside you on which soldiers march, fighting unwinnable wars Outside, you smile. II: With every hardship, you sprout skin as a tree with its trunk and I, hewn, am curious of your age.

[protonshake]

This is not the field where I died.

The soft glow of your teeth, illuminated by past lives and loves in fields of dead confederate soldiers tries to suffocate me, but I didn't die beneath your lips, curled upwards, cunningly sharp, carefully used to tame and subdue Or beneath bayonets, Precise cuts from your tongue, poisoned, poised to lay my body on your alter. I tore down the mountains that bore your name, built new ones with calloused fingers; with caverns now deep enough to hold my heart inside them; with boulders strong enough to not cry beneath its weight. This is not the field where I died because our story was not written by you, it is written in your ashes by all the parts of myself I learned to love again; It is the field where you died and I lived.

[protonshake]

Sometimes I remember my dreams

The night outside is cold and cruel, and inside me, a canyon-- dry riverbeds wind around sediment; curves sharp as a scorpion's tail. You kiss sunlight into my cheek; into every mica-filled pass; into the moon itself until, drunk, it bathes in starlight-- and I swim in sparkling riverbeds until, drunk, I forget they were empty.

[protonshake]

On love, and landmine diffusion:

When I was a child our carpet was a war zone as we played with wooden landmines that were real enough in our heads.

With the slightest touch, they would explode I had to be gentle; I had to be patient; I had to treat them with all the care afforded to the mayflies I tried so desperately to save without breaking thread-like legs.

On those summer nights, if we were patient enough and brave enough and careful enough our prize was that we made it out alive. We each picked our favorite wooden mine as a souvenir I always let you choose first because I loved you, and you always left the prettiest one for me

[internetpoetry]

Throwback to my MS Paint beginnings and my perpetual love of anthropomorphized shapes lol by protonshake

[protonshake]

It's father's day again and I suppose I should see my dad. We haven't talked in a long time and I think he stopped understanding me when I stopped being a child, but I feel my feet slip on shoes and my hand grab my keys and my legs go down the staircase and kick small rocks through muddy ground as they walk a few blocks to where he lives. It's father's day again and he is silent as I tell him about how much I love my boyfriend --oh, if he could meet him!-- and how much my job scares me --oh, but how proud I hope he is!-- and how I think it's funny that we live so close, so accidentally. It's father's day again, and I tell my dad I love him but he does not say it back, and and he does not hug me, and he does not tell me he is proud but I pick up a rock and set it on his headstone.

[internetpoetry]

image macro by protonshake

[protonshake]

basically.

[protonshake]

I'm a fan of you ^~^

<3 `.’,~`*~.,’` <(^_^<) `.’,~`*~.,’` <3

[internetpoetry]

by protonshake

[protonshake]

say hey to my sister, circa 1982.

[protonshake]

You pick apples in autumn. Not sour, like Granny Smith or mushy, like every Red Delicious you have ever had. You like the Honeycrisp, hanging low in the shade shielded by several leaves so that you cannot see how red and how ripe and how perfect it is and when you are silent, the apple says "I am not yours to enjoy."

[protonshake]

The tree lives by power lines and reaches too far in the springtime, flowers fly off rooftops while men in hats break limbs I build snowmen from white petals and ask when did my arms become branches and when have they ever flowered but for you?

[protonshake]

On frames of reference:

Sometimes, I eat my food pretending I am from another planet. I bite into my apple and try to imagine what it would taste like to someone who has never tasted anything so sweet or so cold. Sometimes, I sip my milk slowly, and for a moment, I am not pretending, and I am in awe of how anything could be so sweet or so cold.

[internetpoetry]

by protonshake

[protonshake]

What a great idea.