PillowTalk*

a poem begins as a lump in the throat

[realgentlemenwrite]

Silent Echoes - The Experiences of a Young Philosopher

I. I heard it on the radio they found echoes of the Big Bang racing throughout the universe and I wonder if they mistook that sound for my heartbeat moments after you gave me life again.

II. I remember your silences more clearly than your words, they sound like the place that love goes to die. The moment you stopped saying “Hello!” was when your silences echoed “goodbye.”

III. They say that an action unobserved theoretically never happened. If you weren’t there to hear my heart breaking, was my heart ever whole at all?

IV. Put silence in a syringe and shove the needle through your veins. That is what heartache feels like. My heart is tirelessly trying to give life to my hollow bones with an empty bloodstream, and I have you to thank for this empty Hell.

V. If God exists where echoes die, you must have been something beautiful.

[realgentlemenwrite]

We Need a New Word for Love

I keep telling you ‘I love you’ and it comes out as an apology. I’m sorry. You want it to be bolder, bigger, less pathetic.  ‘Love’ has become a fighting word for us.  You argue that you love me more. I don’t object.  I turn over in bed, sob into the pillow, pity myself.  I mumble it back to you because you  like the way it sounds coming out of my mouth. We’ve turned caring for each other into a duty dance that’s cheapened ‘love.’  It has become another way of apologizing as you roll your eyes and say, ‘Sorry, I forgot to buy milk’,  a habit with every evening’s, ‘Night, love you too’,  a promise we keep breaking:  ‘Of course I won’t, I love you’, a lie.  It hits me that we no longer know what it means  when you slap me across the face and instantly, I tell you I love you. I can’t help it.  I have spent months associating it with this much pain.  My insides are bullet-holed basins where the past goes to die.  I feel death when you stand close. Stay away from me. I love you.

[realgentlemenwrite]

I want to spend October with you, because it’s  my favorite month and happens during my  favorite season. I wish we could aimlessly  walk around a forest and with each leaf that  falls from the branches above, we fall a little  more for each other too. While hand in hand  we can crave the smell of warm coffee and  cinnamon muffins on a chilly morning, we  could feel the autumn breeze brush against  our skin and the goose bumps we get, we  won’t be able to tell if it’s from touching each  other’s skin or from the wind being too cool.  When we lay in bed you’d have the hardest  time moving an inch away from me, because  I’d want to be skin to skin every minute.  These lonely summer nights without you make  me crave the fall, and crave the season of  death in the hopes that maybe this loneliness  would die too, and you’d appear by my side.  I can’t tell if I love the night too dearly, or  hate it too passionately. I think I’d adore  it if I got to sleep next to you every evening,  and I think that I’d enjoy the sunset more  watching it hit your face than actually  seeing it say goodnight. I just crave to  spend time with you, I do.

[realgentlemenwrite]

Marry someone who lets you have a bite of their brownie, even when you said you weren’t hungry. Marry someone who laughs at the same things you do. Marry someone who kisses your nose on a cold day. Marry someone who you can watch Disney movies with. Marry someone who is proud of you whether you earn £5 a week or £5,000 a week. Marry someone who you can tell everything to. Marry someone who isn’t afraid or embarrassed to hold your hand in public. Marry someone who lets you take over when decorating a cake. Marry someone who you can spend the day in IKEA with without feeling stressed. Marry someone who wraps you up inside their coat in the winter. Marry someone who accepts your fears and phobias. Marry someone who gives you butterflies every time you hear their key in the door. Marry someone who you don’t always have to shave your legs for. Marry someone who accepts you all day every day, even when you don’t look or feel your best. Marry someone who puts three sugars in your tea, despite telling them “just the two”. Marry someone who doesn’t judge you when you eat your body weight in cookies. Marry someone who doesn’t make you want to check your phone, because you know they will reply. Marry someone who waits with you to get on the train. Marry someone who understands that you need to be alone sometimes. Marry someone who gets on well with your parents and isn’t uptight about family events. Marry someone who calms you down when you get mad about stupid stuff, and never tells you it’s “only stupid stuff”. Marry someone who makes you want to be a better person. Marry someone who makes you laugh. Marry someone who you love. Marry your soul mate, your lover, your best friend.

[realgentlemenwrite]

You are Everything.

I. You are my definition of perfection: the way you look at me sends shivers down my spine. The thought of kissing you does so much worse.

II. I wish you were beside me. I have always loved the rain – but never the thunder and lightning that accompany it. I want a pair of arms around my waist; a faint breath against my neck; a racing heartbeat that matches mine. I want to be reminded that everything is okay. That I am safe. That this is real.

III. “You’re fucking beautiful.” Three words that my body cannot handle. Tell me again. Do not stop – even if I ask you to. Any combination of words would sound just as lovely, if they were to leave your lips.

IV. Your lips. That’s all I can think about at this moment. Your lips against mine; nothing exists but us. Immersed in a moment we’ve both dreamed of for too long. Consumed in the desire that has built itself up to this point. Kiss me – I promise to kiss you back.

V. I want to crawl inside your heart. Make a home for myself amongst the pieces of girls who left you behind. Burrow myself deep beneath the secrets you hold close. I want to belong to you.

VI. I’m thinking about your hands now: how it feels to thread my fingers through yours, kiss your knuckles until they stop bleeding. You don’t need to fight anymore. The battle is over. You are in control of your feelings. And we are happy.

VII. When were you last happy, my dear? I don’t remember ever being this content. And though I may be sad about the way I look, or how well I may or may not do in our upcoming exams – it doesn’t matter. I am so, so happy; it’s all because of you.

VIII. My parents tell me I have an answer for everything; that I don’t know how to stay quiet, and ignore what doesn’t involve me. You are the only person who is able to render me speechless, and I don’t know how you do it – but my mind blanks, my voice is engulfed by thoughts of you, the words struggle to break free. I can’t help what you do to me.

IX. The number 9 is amongst my least favourite, but I have lost my train of thought. Because you are you. And you are exactly what I didn’t know I was missing until I found you – that lost puzzle piece hidden between wooden floorboards as a child; that letter from a loved one that was shoved in amidst the birthday cards and broken dreams; that box with your favourite bracelet, which you tried so desperately to replace.

I’m not making sense, and this is how I know you’ve got me.

[realgentlemenwrite]

Most species Bare their teeth As a threat As a display Of aggression Of leadership

It is a reminder That these Clenched jaws Can and will Open your Yielding throat

I want you to think of this The next time I smile.

[realgentlemenwrite]

Practicing.

I want to write a love poem for the girls I kissed in seventh grade, a song for what we did on the floor in the basement of somebody’s parents’ house, a hymn for what we didn’t say but thought: That feels good or I like that, when we learned how to open each other’s mouths how to move our tongues to make somebody moan. We called it practicing, and one was the boy, and we paired off—maybe six or eight girls—and turned out the lights and kissed and kissed until we were stoned on kisses, and lifted our nightgowns or let the straps drop, and, Now you be the boy: concrete floor, sleeping bag or couch, playroom, game room, train room, laundry. Linda’s basement was like a boat with booths and portholes instead of windows. Gloria’s father had a bar downstairs with stools that spun, plush carpeting. We kissed each other’s throats. We sucked each other’s breasts, and we left marks, and never spoke of it upstairs outdoors, in daylight, not once. We did it, and it was practicing, and slept, sprawled so our legs still locked or crossed, a hand still lost in someone’s hair … and we grew up and hardly mentioned who the first kiss really was—a girl like us, still sticky with moisturizer we’d shared in the bathroom. I want to write a song for that thick silence in the dark, and the first pure thrill of unreluctant desire, just before we’d made ourselves stop.

[realgentlemenwrite]

May 2014.

This morning I woke up and decided to tell the truth. I am not okay, and I don’t think that any of us are, and I don’t think that we need to apologize for it. Friends call to make plans and I say yes, instantly regretting it. If it’s not alcohol,  it’s getting high, it’s music so loud my bones hum.  It’s driving around and making promises with our pinkies or throwing up on the side of the street or kissing  each other so violently that we’re swallowing hair,  wisdom teeth. It’s loneliness so deep in my stomach  it’s in my womb and kneecaps. I’m writing this because I fucking want you to feel something. I want you to  sweat me out like a fever. Okay, okay, listen: I want to be a new girl but it’s these old habits. We’re all so warm and feeling and I can’t quite get this taste out of my mouth. We fling love around  like we don’t expect to get it back. It feels like  only yesterday my mother was kissing my scrapes  and bruises. Only yesterday I was learning to tie my shoes,  snap my fingers, be trusted with the delicate task  of dressing myself. I don’t think it’s safe here anymore. Empty out your chest and get ready to run.

[realgentlemenwrite]

Thirteen Important Things I Want You to Know.

1) I want to rent hotel rooms with you and spend more than half our time being outside.

2) I want to get lost while we’re driving because I can’t read maps and you are too stubborn to ask for directions.

3) I want to eat drive-thru food with you on the floor of our first apartment.

4) I want to get drunk in public and have you take me home while I hit on you.

5) I want to go on long adventures with you.

6) I want to go to the movies and make out with you in the back like a couple of over excited teenagers.

7) I want to lay with you under the stars and talk about the future like I’ve got it all planned.

8) I want to break in your arms once in a while because I don’t have it all planned.

9) I want to bore with you with my favorite shows and movies even though you insist it is okay.

10) I want to play video games with you and sulk when I lose.

11) I want to paint you in my poems.

12) I want to dance with you.

13) I want to spend the rest of my life with you, knowing there’s no place else I’d rather be.

[realgentlemenwrite]

An Apology to my Body.

I am sorry for filling you with beer and bad thoughts and then asking you why you shook. I am sorry for pinching you, for hitting you, for bruising the thin-skinned parts of you. I am sorry for the names I called you when we were fighting. You are not ugly. You are not useless. You would not be better off gone. I’m sorry for almost throwing you out into the street because my sadness was too much for me. I’m sorry for carving my fingernails into your thigh and then resenting the way people asked, “How’d that happen?” I’m sorry for plucking you and nicking your calves with drugstore razors. I’m sorry I let some people see you in the moonlight. They didn’t deserve to know the color of your hips like I do. I’m sorry for leaving you convulsing over a toilet bowl over some boy. I’m sorry I did not thank you for simply trying to take me where I wanted to go. I’m sorry I screamed at you to shrink, shrink, shrink when all you could do was grow. I’m sorry that this apology is ten years too late. I’m sorry that it will probably come again. I’m sorry that I do not treat anybody else as poorly as I have treated you. I’m sorry that I am constantly learning how to love you, when you have never once doubted how you feel about me. I’m sorry in ways I have not yet learned to communicate.

[realgentlemenwrite]

Dear Future Daughter:

1) When you’re at some party, chain smoking on the roof with some strange girl with blue hair and exorbitant large dark eyes, ask her about her day. I promise you, you won’t regret it. Often times you’ll find the strangest of people have the most captivating of stories to tell.

2) Please, never mistake desire for love. Love will engulf your soul, whilst desire will emerge as acid, slowly making it’s way through your veins, gradually burning you from the inside out.

3) No one is going to fucking save you, anything you’ve read or heard otherwise is bullshit.

4) One day a boy is going to come along who’s touch feels like fire and who’s words taste like vanilla, when he leaves you, you will want to die. If you know anything at all, know that it is only temporary.

5) Your mental health comes before school baby, always. If its midnight, and you have an exam the next day but your hands have been shaking for the past hour and a half and you’re not so sure you want to be alive anymore, pull out that carton of Ben and Jerry’s and afterwards, go the fuck to bed. So what if you get a 68% on the exam the next day? You took care of yourself and at the end of the day that will always come before a high test score. To hell with anyone who tells you differently.

[realgentlemenwrite]

Five Things my Mother Never Taught Me.

i. when even the wolves will not look at you as though you are worthy of being devoured count yourself lucky ii. the universe is ever expanding don't let anyone tell you there is not room for you here iii. you are not the space you leave behind iv. wanting power does not make you a bad person it is not hard to be hungry when you have lived your life off crumbs from their table v. he is not midas you have always been golden

[realgentlemenwrite]

Infection.

There are twenty four ribs  that supposedly protect  your heart from damage,  but I swear you know  the precise location of  each 4 cm gap, know how to nick the arteries  and slip into my circulation, virtually undetected until the x-rays show you  lighting up my body like a christmas tree.

[realgentlemenwrite]

A Reminder not to Bother You at Work.

I am having these odd dreams where I cut out my heart  and nail it to the door as a warning. Maybe because  he did not mean his kisses. Or because the price of milk  is rising and mothers cannot afford to feed their children.  Or maybe it is because I walk behind couples  who are clearly not couples anymore. Their swinging hands.  How tender their want is, like a cut that is half-healed.  I haggle over pennies with the cab driver and kiss  strange boys with big hands. I do not like going to the laundromat and had to wear my little black dress to a dentist appointment last week. I sit on the bus and try to find a love poem in everything. Maybe this is hope.

[realgentlemenwrite]

Paper Body.

I wonder if you know yet that you'll leave me. That you are a child playing with matches and I have a paper body. You will meet a girl with a  softer voice and stronger arms. She will not have violent secrets or an affection for red wine or eyes that never stay dry. You will fall into her bed and I'll go back to spending Friday nights with boys who never learn my last name. I have chased off every fool who has tried to sleep beside me. You think it's romantic to fuck the girl who writes poems about you. You think I'll understand your sadness because I live inside my own. But I will show up at your door at 2 a.m. wild-eyed and sleepless, asking to find some semblance of peace in your breastbone, and you will not let me in. You will tell me to go home.

[realgentlemenwrite]

Ten Women I Have Been Warned Against Becoming:

1. The Girl Who Takes Up Too Much Space, always, her shoulders too wide in stairwells, her hips too big in doorways, her voice too loud in classes. This woman does not understand the art of crumbling, of curling herself tight like the spiral of a fern, soft, delicate, unwilling to reach out the ivy of her fingers to grasp onto what should rightfully be hers. This is a beast, an elephant, a moving mountain and she is capable of flattening you, she is capable of ruining you, she is capable of making you feel as small and insignificant in her life as she is supposed to be. You are this woman’s footnote to history, you are her side note in song lyrics, you are constantly interrupted by her with a witty joke you wish you thought of. I asked what the problem was with being a steamroller instead of a sunflower and I was laughed down.

2. The Beautiful One, the long hair or the slim waist or the pretty eyes or the lips like bowstrings. This woman looks good in everything because she’s confident in whatever you put her in. She’ll cut her hair short on you no matter how you like it, she’ll wear high heels and step on your opinions, she’ll look hot as hell no matter what size she is. See, the reason you can’t trust her is because women like this don’t need your permission, they’ll do as they please and get away with it. They’ll say no to you, over and over. Teach your daughters that beautiful means dangerous, teach them to distrust women who love themselves. Equate beautiful with vapid, equate pretty with stupid, take their power from them. Say they’re vain for their makeup, refuse to see them without it. These women are snakes, they are serpents. I said maybe the problem lies with you being unable to control yourself and was told to get off my pedestal.

3. A Bitch. Women are supposed to be ladies in the street but will tear skin under sheets. I’m told: Never raise your voice. Speak gently. Submit. Hold your opinion against your lips and when you admit to it, make sure it comes out as a butterfly wing suggestion. Don’t disagree. Don’t undermine someone else’s authority, regardless of whether or not they deserve your respect. Someone touches you, just move away from them. Don’t hit. Don’t talk back. Be like the ruins of Rome, only beautiful if you can’t hear your quiet death.

4. The Needy One. I have heard how others spit when they talk about how she gave you everything and you shoved it back down her throat until she choked on it, until she came back crawling and asked you what she did, until her palms and knees were scraped for want of just a little affection - never be this woman, I’m told, because she’s a joke and the joke is that she dared to have more emotion than you did. The truth is, I’m told, the one who cares less in a partnership is the one who wins. I didn’t know this was a competition.

5. The Cock Tease, certified stripper, how dare that girl look like that and not want me to sleep with her. Lust is always personified as a lady in red with a dress slit up her thigh. Lust is sinful because it’s power, it’s not asking for attention - it’s demanding it. I’m told she is the worst kind of woman, that looking good is supposed to be some kind of shame on her kin. I’m told not to leave the house in such a short skirt, not with a shirt so low, not with a lace back, not with high heels, not dressed like that. My lipstick can’t be too red, my hair can’t be too mussed, I can’t just “turn someone on like that and then leave them wanting.” I mentioned that instant gratification actually ruins our psyche and was told that being led on was “exhausting.” I said that there was a difference between purposefully tricking someone into liking you and just being attractive or friendly. I was told there’s also a difference between coffee and tea but both result in caffeine. I said, “I’ve been turned on in class by the girls I talk to but I didn’t expect anything from them,” and they said, “It’s different, you’re not a man,” but couldn’t explain where that difference was.

6. A Slut, obviously ruined by another person’s touch. It doesn’t matter how many people she’s actually been with, it’s all about the rumors she carries with her. Easy. Harlot. You’ll still try to get with her, you’ll still take her into your bed and kiss her and say things you don’t mean - but you’ll defame her name when you talk to your buddies. My father used to say “A slut is fine for the night, but the virgin is who you take home and marry.” Maybe he didn’t know he was teaching his daughter to hate her sexuality. Maybe he didn’t know that every time she’d be kissed, her whole system would shake until she felt ready to combust, shame and self-hatred shivering against her spine. Maybe he didn’t know she’d disconnect emotions and sex because he always told her, “Boys are different, they won’t care about you.” Nobody said to her that it was okay to experiment. See, the funny thing is, I’m a dancer so I know exactly where my center of gravity is. I know how hard I’ll fall in each direction. Yet out of fear of getting hurt, I won’t let a single person inside of my bed.

7. The Soulmate. Never love romance more than you love being cynical. Never show weakness, never like pink, never think maybe you might find someone nice and settle down with them. Someone will find you, I was told, And if you’re lucky, he’ll put up with you when you start getting old. Never be the woman who believes in happily ever after, never be dumb enough to think maybe someone could love you after all of your mistakes. It has nothing to do with whether or not a family is important to you and you’re in a good place where a relationship would make your life better - you’re not a princess. You don’t get married, you settle.

8. The Girl With Strength, who can outrun everyone and who is stronger than her boyfriend. “See the thing about boys,” says my daddy, “Is that you have to let them win.” I sat at home and read stories about Artemis and wanted to become the huntress, too. I wanted to howl at the moon, I wanted to slay the beasts that bested me, I wanted to rule my kingdom with bloody fists. But girls are never athletes, never supposed to be “built,” regardless of the fact civilizations were constructed on our spines and we made homes in war by the steel of our ribs. Never be strong. We are supposed to wilt.

9. The Lady CEO: because if you choose work over family, are you really a girl? How dare you fight your way to the top through every pair of eyes that bore through your blouse, through every meeting where you were hushed by the sound of someone else talking, through every time someone called you “sweetie,” how dare you yearn for something. Is your husband the stay-at-home one? I can’t imagine how that is going. He’s not a real man, after all. I don’t give it long before the divorce. How dare you decide you’re happy being single. Don’t you know you’re supposed to bear children. Where is your honor? Where is your wisdom? Who cares if you are the leader, the best suited for your position, the quickest-thinking, the one who makes the hardest clients come back again. Don’t you see? Across history, women have been terrible at success. They always lose their man in the end. (When I said, “I would rather be a famous author than a mediocre mother,” I was told, “No, don’t worry, you’ll be a fine mommy.”)

10. THE GIRL I AM: FIRECRACKER AND DON’T YOU FUCKING FORGET IT I’LL RIP YOU TO SHREDS AND I WON’T FUCKING REGRET IT I’M NOT YOUR PRETTY GIRL I’M NOT YOUR ANYTHING I’M PERFECT, MOTHERFUCKER, AND I’M NOT GOING TO GIVE UP WHAT I’M DOING. I DON’T WANT TO BE “LADYLIKE” THAT LITERALLY MEANS NOTHING I’M NOT GOING TO STOP STANDING UP AND DEMANDING WHAT’S COMING TO ME. I’M GONNA BE SOMEBODY. I’M GONNA MAKE THEM REMEMBER ME. I REFUSE TO BE OVERSHADOWED IN HISTORY. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WERE TRYING TO CREATE BUT YOU MADE ME A DRAGON YOU PUT ME IN THE FIRE AND WHEN I STOPPED BURNING I LEARNED HOW TO GLOW DON’T THINK YOU CAN STOP ME YOU CAN’T TAME A TORNADO.

”

[realgentlemenwrite]

you made flowers grow in my lungs and although they are beautiful i cant fucking breathe