NewlyRefurbished™

a new place for my poetry

[weltenwellen]

Saeed Jones, "Aretha Franklin Hears an Echo While Singing "Save Me", Alive at the End of the World

[demaparbat-hp]

The answer is always yes

[sarcasticbreathing]

pinky promise?

i wipe the saliva off my chin on the shoulder of yesterdays shirt as i pull on my socks.

i’m keenly aware of the ache in my chest and distantly aware of the one in my thighs.

surprisingly, no thoughts about it come to mind. perhaps it’s more like too many beginnings that i can’t catch a hold of.

feelings racing past that i can’t articulate.

it’s not like i have any right to them. not when i have no claim on you either.

thankfully, i can’t see my own expression in this moment. i’m sure it’d be even more embarrassing seeing the shade of red i must’ve turned. the way the hurt flashes over my face and my eyes well up before they move from your mouth to the floor. i’m sitting on it a minute later as shove all my stuff in my bag. i resist giving your room a once-over and just assume i’m contained to the one corner of your life.

the words, “i’m sorry” leave your lips.

true as anything else you’ve told me up to this point i’m sure. they’re of little comfort. empty platitudes and nothing but seven letters at the end of the day.

i hate them desperately.

outside, two little girls drag their sleds back up the driveway.

i’m stood on your porch waiting for my uber to arrive. you’re standing behind me in your sweater with your hands in your sleeves, trying not to shiver. i can feel your eyes burning a hole in the back of my neck.

i want to tell you to go back inside but i can’t get past the wet lump in my throat. the way the cold squeezes at my lungs and the hot tears leave tracks on my wind-bitten cheeks.

my focus stays on the girls instead. i watch them exchange whispered secrets then join together in a pinky promise.

i wonder at what age you’re supposed to grow out of keeping those.

[grungesniper]

Tfw you realize the bourgeoisie are not human.

[sarcasticbreathing]

fav disco elysium fanart.

[klexos]

“Maybe I shouldn’t push my luck,” he said. “I wish you wouldn’t,” Costis said faintly. “Your god might be offended.” ― Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia

I had this scene kicking around in my head for a while so glad to finally have an excuse to get it out!!

[dragonqueenstormwitch]

propaganda i’m not falling for:

mal oretsev slander

‘kanej isn’t together’ allegations

kaz brekker with blue eyes (sorry mr. carter)

matthias being the ‘least interesting’ crow (there’s not one)

readers who think nina isn’t ever allowed to fall in love again

kuwei as some sort of manipulative villian

shipping nikolina when zoyalai blows every other nikolai ship ever out of the water (except malkolai) (jk) (maybe)

[sarcasticbreathing]

the reason i believe we’ll never be free of the patriarchy is because people read shadow and bone and somehow ended up darklina shippers.

[sarcasticbreathing]

kanej HC that once their relationship is a little more developed kaz likes to hold her wrist so he can feel her pulse. it helps with flashbacks.

[ludicrouslycain]

Straight ppl be saying "Why cant they just be friends?" To the most homoerotic, queer coded, gay friendship and expect people to listen to them

[sarcasticbreathing]

decay and rot are childhood friends

i squeeze myself into a free space on the couch beside an amazon box full of laundry fresh from the laundromat.

i eye it suspiciously and pray that the dryers killed the rest of the bed bugs.

i try and fail to put my feet up on the cluttered coffee table, next to more boxes, plates of old food and mostly empty drinking glasses.

my shoes are on, laces untied but i can’t bring myself to take them off.

i don’t own slippers and socks aren’t thick enough to protect me.

i move my hand from its resting spot and scrape the crumbs out from underneath my fingernails.

my mind is occupied by the sting in my bladder.

the downstairs bathroom is occupied by silverfish.

“they’re tiny and harmless. don’t worry about it”

the bible says that your body is a temple and that’s why i’m going to hell for my tattoos.

it can’t be helped.

when you’re in Sunday school and they describe a “temple” as god’s home,

all you can do is picture the decades old soap scum lining the tub and the clogged drain.

it’s a wonder no matter how long i shower for i never get clean.

this house is not on fire, but i do wish i could burn it down. and if i was stronger id turn my face away from the smoke and just start walking.

[sarcasticbreathing]

Jekyll and Hide

my own name is foreign on my tongue;

when asked, i spit it out

like a child who’s bit off more than she can chew.

eyes perpetually bigger than her stomach.

i stare at the mush seeping into the floorboards.

my name

but can i claim a culture i’ve never known?

Am i promised to Limbo?

a foot in each world without dominion over either.

weary,

destined to reside no where.

[sarcasticbreathing]

dead weight

sickly grey in complection, bloated yet hollowed out of all things human in nature.

empty and lacking the warmth a soul brings to the eyes.

the first time i saw a dead body i was 10.

my grandpa laid in the casket peacefully.

his skin turned jaundice yellow from the layers of foundation it took to bring his colour back. cheeks sunken into his face and his lips a bruised pink colour. an odd choice of lipstick for a corpse. he looks immensely clown like and only vaguely like my grandfather.

the second time,

i am 20 years old stood in front of my mirror

wearing my grade 8 graduation dress.

[sarcasticbreathing]

tectonic

I hope you can feel the ground shake with my rage from miles away

cause lord knows you don’t have the guts to witness it up close.

i can’t blame you because if you did

you wouldn’t be feeling the tremors through your feet

but your neck,

coming not from the ground

but my hands.

[sarcasticbreathing]

Rotten

everything you touched is ruined.

from the pillows you laid your head on, to the sheets you slept under.

the towels you took me out to buy when i first moved out. all the clothes you ever took off of me. the shows you recommended to me, the ones we watched together and the ones we pretended to.

all of the roots you planted in me are rotting. from one end to the other,

it spreads to every part of my life that you touched. and even some of the parts that you didn’t are growing infected by proxy. just looking at all the things you once held in your hands is enough to make me spiral.

so, i showered in the dark today.

because out of everything i own, i am what you touched the most.

[sarcasticbreathing]

July 1st- Julius Caesar

the old man who sits at the long table is back again today.

i give him my best attempt at a friendly greeting. it’s been busy today. i am worn thin.

“a caesar salad with no bacon please. light on the dressing”

that’s his order every time. like a mantra.

i tell him that the dressing is the best part.

he laughs and agrees but tells me that it can be overwhelming.

he pays and sits. at the long table always. like a portrait. forever still.

after he is done his food he comes back. orders a pastry, and tells me i look tired

i wonder if he is worried. if he can see the way i disappear when im not being spoken to or the way my shoulders sit. if something about me is visibly off enough for a stranger to worry.

i respond, “i am tired. keep coming here and you will realize i exist in a perpetual state of tired” with a forced chuckle, only half joking. it’s a pitiful attempt.

he says that i am too young to be so tired.

but the way he says it doesn’t make me angry. doesn’t make me feel like i need to prove that i’m allowed to be tired or to tell him i’m simply an old soul to waive off distress.

it just makes me sad.

“i know,” is all i say in response.

he says he’ll come back for dinner which i do not doubt will be another caesar salad, no bacon light dressing.

i am not there to see if he keeps his word.

[sarcasticbreathing]

i have $50.21 in loose change

it’s sitting in a plastic bag nestled in a paint brush holder. i don’t own a piggie bank. i can’t decide if using the change to buy one is too ironic.

i finished Jennette Mccurdys new book today. after i finished it i immediately grabbed a new book off the shelf and put it in my bag.

i keep one on me to remind myself to make the time for my hobbies. but mostly so strangers think i’m well read.

i saw someone i recognized at the grocery store. she used to be a friend of a friend but now i don’t know where i stand with him. she greets me with a hug. i think she likes me a lot. she doesn’t know he and i are barely on speaking terms now and i don’t know what that makes us (friends i hope). when we part she says she’ll see me at the next games night. i smile tightly but say nothing. i know she won’t.

my first love has a new girlfriend. she likes my poetry until she realizes i wrote it. she doesn’t realize my old friends like her so much because of how similar we are. i think that in another life, where i’m nicer and things are easier, we are friends.

i know i think about that too much.

i wrote poems about him for two years.

i don’t write about him anymore.

[sarcasticbreathing]

wisdom teeth

my wisdom teeth are coming in.

i feel no more enlightened than i did yesterday

a day when i was free from this sharp twang in my jaw and all awareness of it.

maybe all experience is wrought from pain.

or maybe it’s my fault for growing up.

i’ll need them pulled.