sappho's angels

a poetry network for lbpq women and women-aligned people.

[sapphosangels]

anyone want to take over this account let me know

[peachpoetics]

A Pastoral

We could have a kind of farm,

I suggest,

With a little shop attached,

We could make jam and lemon curd,

Maybe chutney or,

Other things in little packaged jars,

I could bake things,

You could sell paintings there too,

We would only grow vegetables,

And fruit,

We would cook things with love,

Labour the earth with love,

Live together in love,

I feel sure that I could work the soil,

I have always felt an uncertain hard need in my

bones,

To give something back to Mother Nature,

And I grew up in the country,

So I feel sure I would acclimatise,

But it is only a fantasy,

A sort of a story,

Even though it does sound nice either way.

[aikaleegrave]

letter to my younger self

we find our way back up to the surface, blinking the light into blur, unwrapping hibernation from our shoulders and molting it white to the ground. 

i wade waist-deep in orchids, slipping on bloodpink petals, and your mouth is an open sky stitched up with silence and thin silver scars. time is a circle. april comes again and again, and it’s always the same:

you linger too long on train tracks and at the edges of bridges, but we’re both still writing poems about hope, because we’re not dead yet, only caught airborne in the flight before impact in a moment we can make last for another day, and another, and another, until you’re facing a birthday you spent years expecting to never see.

i’ll be the blade if you’ll be the sun that finally convinces me to stay.

a.s.w. || april prompts || find me on patreon 

[partlycharlie-archive]

waking from hibernation

(for napowrimo, from @avolitorial ’s list of prompts)

it’s spring, today.

i wonder how those animals feel,

on a day like this -

a day that feels like the first of spring,

although i know perfectly well that it isn’t -

breezy, and sunny, and

just the right temperature to be

straddling the line

between shivering and sweating.

are they happy

to be waking up from such an extended slumber?

do they stretch out their limbs,

feel the cracks and snaps of unused muscles,

and ache with the need to use them?

do they yell out to the forest -

   the tundra -

   the cave, even -

to tell all those who are listening

(or who aren’t)

that they are alive?

that they have survived,

that they have lived,

that they are here to tell their story

to anyone that will listen?

or rather - do they despair?

do they lament the loss of such easy times,

in which the heartbeat slows

and the breathing deepens

and the mind

just

stops?

do they reminisce on the months during which

they didn’t have to think -

about where their next meal was coming from,

or where they would find shelter for the night,

or how far away their children were,

or how long it would take to travel back to home -

do they ever miss the easiness of sleeping?

do they ever wake up and wish they hadn’t?

or, maybe, they feel nothing at all.

maybe waking up is just part of the day, just like any other.

[antigoneblue]

"each day you rise with me know that i would gladly be the Icarus to your certainty, my sunlight. strap the wings to me. death trap clad happily. with wax melted id meet the sea under sunlight" -pheus

i’m photolytic for you, the way the room fillswith goldluminescence, mourning, morning, all of it,you make me resonate with the rage of a supernovaburning out at the end, i thinki’ll take it, you can put entropy in my milkand i’ll take 3 sugars. i’ll call this wildanimal feeling love

thank you!! hope you liked this, and that you’ll like the rest!! 

[antigoneblue]

You know that feeling when someone with a really cold hand and someone with a really warm hand hold hands? And it balances out? That’s what Hozier’s music feels like for me. - Venus

hope you like this extract, and that you’ll like the rest of this poem when it’s out! <3

[antigoneblue]

“no grave can hold my body down” once you replace every part of yourself, are you still you? [google search “how to be reborn?”] i am my wounds and i am the salt i pour into them. i am the pain i so desperately cling to. i am the sting and i am the burn and i am the scar that remains. [google search “is it supposed to hurt this bad?”] [google search “what if i like it?”] -h.h.!

thank you for this incredibly poetic prompt!! this is part 1/6, hope you like it & that you’ll like the rest of this when it’s out! <3

[aikaleegrave]

{ find me on patreon }

[antigoneblue]

"burned out from a joyride, she likes to roll here in my ashes anyway" - mist grey baby girl tell me how u looked so good in the middle of the house fire. love ur big amber eyes, flicker like the flames that licked the rafters while i licked ur neck & grin, golden plated. god knows we r gonna go up in smoke but our hearts still beat like snare drums & our cheeks r pink again - l.p.

we’re just versions of ourselves all the time, smoke& mirrors. our bodiesburn where they touch. gasoline isn’t citronella oilbut you can pretend, if it makes you feel purer.if it makes you feel clean the same descriptions of cigarettes and home depots. theway the exhale feels,from the bottom of my lungs. disaster kids, young inthe 2000s, old enough to knowthat the next decade will only be demanding. i used topretend that CDs came from outer space,the silver sides some new kind of shiny asteroid, somekind of dream machine.

hey, if you are who i think you are (i’m like, 90% sure) - i love you lots & we gotta collab soon. and i really hope you are who i think you are because i think this poem is the kinda thing you would really like, given your vibes & aesthetic and all. anyway!! hope u like this extract, and that you like the whole poem, when it’s up. 

[aikaleegrave]

i’m writing you a poem

you exhale silver moths that wing their pale way into the sky. daughter of a land crushed kingless, silhouette of a city turned lightless against stars that shiver in the sudden dark. in the silence, you ask what poem i have clenched between my teeth tonight, and i kiss you, wordless for once. on a distant horizon, the flames are dying, smoke carried across the sea. we, too, are burning. we, too, crack like the teeth of ice, walking onwards to a half-forgotten dream.

in a city drowned by night, we stand with our backs to the mountain, mouths filled with ash and the dead wood of grief. the streets echo emptiness, no fires or drawn blades or oaths left to be broken, no weaving of gold and silver lulling us to sleep. what songs, you say, could ever be sung about tragedy? i’m holding the answer on my tongue, i’m letting it flutter free, your name lighting every candle in the city, pushing back the dark inch by inch, your name a spark, a faraway star, a hope rekindled.

[antigoneblue]

1. i’m vanilla in love 2. dark hours (you put me through) 3. high praise 4. two cities pulled violently by the neck 5. sadderdaze BONUS

i know i took ages to do this @tempestintext but i hope this is worth the wait. love you xxx

[antigoneblue]

for the chapbook - “i will grow bold in a bartered and desolate land” / “who could ask to be unbroken or be brave again, or honey even hope on this side of the grave again?” / apathy and anger sharing your body in a world that is crumbling, but still there is the persistent and impossible hope you may still get the life you dreamed of before the cracks in our reality started to manifest. - lia

4.the word vigilante sounds like a folk ditty. weturn the radio up.we dare to be ourselves even as they make listsfor slaughter.i think of all the flowers i couldn’t afford. ithink of all the summersi spent fearing climate change. i think of whatit meant in 2005and what it means now. we’ll sing through the debris,darling.the world will end, and they’ll try to take usdown with them,but this is what it means to be young –  that surreal feelingthat nothing can rip the wings off our backs. we’llfly.

thank you! i hope you like this, and that you’ll like the rest of this poem <3

[antigoneblue]

dance barefoot in the forest. kiss me hard and taste only wine and eternity. we are immortal here; we are beyond

thank you nin, hope you like this extract, and that you’ll like the rest of the poem when it’s out!!

[antigoneblue]

this poem is called ‘wasteland, baby’ and it’s inspired by hozier’s new album.

[antigoneblue]

but 13 years later, i’m still writing bad poems about my parents / i’m not sure what this is (or if it’s even good) but here is proof that i’m alive & writing, or trying to? 

[partlycharlie-archive]

push ups

in phys ed class today, we learned that girls my age only have to do seven push ups.

boys have to do twenty-five.

the other trans boy in my class stares at me and we sigh, suffer, sigh again.

which is more important? the teacher is still talking, but the words fade away when i start to speak. dysphoria or physical laziness?

the ultimate question of high school. his voice cracks with the distinct ring of puberty - or hormones, maybe.

we laugh, but the sound is hollow.

[partlycharlie-archive]

charlie

my best friend helped me find charlie; told me it was him or alex. but that x sound,  eks maybe - too hard, too loud in the quiet, too much.

charlie, though.

charlie is two syllables,  neat and tidy with  a smooth ch and  an r that may or    may not be there    depending on the day and  a lie that isn’t pronounced like one.

charlie is dark red; a burgundy  like blood, but sweeter, kinder, on the tongue, a cherry flooding your taste buds.

i rub the name charlie between my fingertips and feel the smooth edges on my fingerprints, none of the hard parts of isabella piercing my skin.

somebody told me that they liked my name, once. the words came out sweet, honey in milk and chocolate chip cookies on my tongue. 

thanks.  i chose it myself.