will i be known and loved?

use #scliddaritieswrites to find all my poems ༄˚♡

[resqectable]

“Close your eyes and imagine the best version of you possible. That’s who you really are, let go of any part of you that doesn’t believe it.”

— C. Assaad

[lucidloving]

@roach-works // Melissa Broder, "Problem Area" // Mary Oliver, "The Return" // @annavonsyfert // Koyoharu Gotouge, Demon Slayer // Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance // David Levithan, How They Met and Other Stories // Tennessee Williams, Notebooks

[cor-ardens-archive]

[soracities]

Marina Tsvetaeva, excerpt from Poem of the Mountain, Selected Poems (trans. Elaine Feinstein, with Valentina Coe) [ID'd]

[weltenwellen]

Richard Siken, from "On Perplexity: Chrysanthemum"

[scliddarities]

if i could feel the rain on my skin i would wipe the water from my glassess and text you i love you.

to peel this orange and rip it apart to share with you.

audre lord said anger does not destroy hate does. what does love do. even in my most angriest love battles i am always saying i love you i love you i love you do you understand me? are you hearing me? please listen when i say i love you.

[scliddarities]

this chasm, this void, this endless abyss that my spirit has spent kneeling and screaming into is starting to close. water filling it up allowing the spirits’ voice to distort and change. i am no longer screaming into the abyss but to myself. my voice bouncing against these jagged walls as an otherworldly strength takes over me. is this the healing process?

[scliddarities]

why do we love what destroys us? a statement most days to soothe me each time i do something i will regret later. stuck in my ways and unable to see past this haze of pain i lean my head against the mirror, the coolness of its touch burning my skin, i want to speak to who i was. i want to know if she is understands that i’ve been choiceless before. i want her to know that i’m learning and trying and i love what destroys me because i hate myself, i hate who i am now but not her. never her.

a question that sits on my tongue. only a poet would ask something as three dimensional as that. i ask myself who i am in the dead of night when only the house breathes, i beg my ancestors to show me reason, to give me strength. i waste away under these sheets. nothing besides me but a book.

[scliddarities]

i am sixteen. there are flash cards lying on the floor along with my uniform and school bag there are unshed tears burning in the back of my eyes and i’m looking at the exam timetable on my wall and thinking i will not survive this. my nan brings me a bowl and hands it to me quietly she says nothing as she stares at me, at my room at the exam timetable on my wall.

in the bowl are sliced oranges and grapes, cut up apples and blueberries swimming in yogurt. just the way i like it.

i am twenty and i am lying on my nans bedroom floor she is beside me a blue plastic bag with an assortment of fruits between us. she pulls out a mango and instructs me to go wash it. we eat the mango loudly, expressing how much we miss home. how sweet it is, how the skin is not as nice as it should be. we allow the juice to run down our chin. i’m thinking this is juiciest mango i’ve ever eaten in this country. i’m thinking i’m so lucky to share it with someone who loves me.

[scliddarities]

i think time moves faster in the winter, maybe this is something that everyone was aware of but i used to think it would drag on. i used to be hyper aware of every minute just achingly passing me by. my mum was sick and i cancelled plans to take care of her, we worried because she gets sick easily and often but this time felt different.

my nan is a strong woman, she walks 10 thousand steps a day and hates when we tell her to sit down. she fell in the snow yesterday and we laughed together until this morning she started walking strangely and called the doctors as soon as we could. they told her to take ibruprofen and rest. she is unhappy.

my diet is ruined, it’s too cold to think nutritiously. i worry about how to style my hair and if there’s any point making an effort when i’m just going to wear a hat over it anyway. i long to take a bath but i hate how cold it is when you come out.

my days have been merging together. i think this is what i hate the most. i wake up and blink and it’s the evening already. the sky is permanent steel. i’ve been watching house of dragons, my mum believes it’s impossible for dragons to have just lived side by side with humans but secretly i hope it was true. i believe in the impossible.

[scliddarities]

time moves so slowly, i’m stuck in the moment you couldn’t answer when i asked when did you realised you loved me? i replay it with my eyes shut. time moves like a ticking bomb but i’m frozen in this memory. it’s for the best i know but my heart catches each time i hear your name. why do you have such a common name. i sense the tears before they fall and wonder if you’re okay, if you have someone to hold you while you cry. i want the best for you, why didn’t you just love me.

[scliddarities]

i used to think words of affirmation was a useless love language, if asked i would say “oh you know, i guess words of affirmation but i think all five really.” even though the others never come naturally to me, they never feel right. but to see her and to tell her she is the most beautiful person i have ever looked at and watch her smile and turn away from me laughing, to look my best friend in the eye and tell her i love her, how easy these words roll off my tongue. how lucky i am to be able to sit with these letters and shape them into magic.

[scliddarities]

june in london.

beer gardens and bees. poetry readings in air conditioned coffee shops. the tube. sweating on the 73 bus. sun dresses. “sorry my hands are getting sweaty.” regent’s park. st james park. hyde park. picnics. lots of cake. “god it’s hot today isn’t it?” never inside. reading on the train ( if there’s space ) accidental eye contact and awkward smiles. journaling while the sky stays bright. roof top bars. outdoor cinemas. end of exams. joints by the canal. humid summer nights.

[scliddarities]

i think about kisses in photo booths

and how we’ve been showing love privately forever.

i think about pride and how it started as a riot

how this anger i feel is not new, just reborn.

i think about identity and how attached i am

i’m a lesbian and i’m okay with that.

i see young gay men in the stars

AIDs took so much from us.

i see grainy photos, handwritten love letters, dedicated books

i see how we leave a stain on the tablecloth of life

we’ve always been here.

i taste my future in your kiss

and wonder if they felt like this. like me.

[nosebleedclub]

June Prompts

1. pride 2. the truth about us 3. chokecherry 4. disloyal 5. sun in an empty room 6. the princess’ garden 7. second floor 8. your heart at dawn 9. lake erie 10. 7-eleven 11. honeybee 12. hiding from adults 13. grecian 14. the head of a monster 15. keep it together 16. fires  17. luxury hotel 18. it doesn’t hurt 19. crime on the cape 20. wrist 21. summer solstice 22. sever 23. chipped tooth 24. empty horror 25. splice 26. greenery 27. it’s not enough 28. stitches 29. beyond the destruction  30. final novel

[scliddarities]

i pull a blanket to my chin, wrap my tired broken body in the fibres of it, hoping maybe it can absorb some of the pain and give me warmth instead.

there is something ugly growing in my chest, i feel it hiding in the dusty corners of my heart. it stirs and i hold my breath.

i wonder if this feeling will linger above me forever. i think of mistletoe and kissing couples, i think of clouds of rain, i think of thunder and rain, of pain and happiness. of you.

i have one foot in the grave of girlhood. my mothers aged hand strokes the side of my chin. she doesn’t notice the tears welling in my eyes.

i want to love and love and love but what if i am not enough and what if i’m too much and what if eventually the ugly thing growing in my chest is revealed and it’s just the truest parts of me? and what if this dark and miserable feeling lingers and i stay this way forever? and what if i’m buried alive in this makeshift coffin of womanhood-

i pull the blanket up over my head and let the warmth soothe my thoughts.

[scliddarities]

to me queerness is passion. it is waking up everyday and smiling extra hard at the gay man who tells me to have a lovely day when handing me my hot chocolate.

it is my mother correcting herself without prompt. “partner not boyfriend.” ( we’re still not quite there yet- but that is queerness to me too. )

it is my friend reaching to hold my hand, it is the light brush of her thumb on my knuckles. it’s the unwavering love.

it is the warmth that blooms in my chest when she tells me she’s never been so open with someone else before.

it is every beautifully blissful moment where i feel recognised seen and accepted. it is the smile after someone says “you’re gay too?”