O' FROZEN HEART

[shivaer]

slainfury.

  THE  YOUNG  WOLF  PACES  WITH  RIGHTEOUS  RAGE.  /  BUT  RAGE  IS  ALL  HE’S  EVER  KNOWN,  EVER  BEEN.  the  sight  of  it,  the  display  of  it  upon  scowled  youthful  features  is  nothing  new.  there  is,  however,  a  foreign  display  of  fear  –  one  which  few  have  ever  seen  upon  the  composed  high  commander’s  otherwise  icy  demeanor.  the  hands  of  flesh  and  metal  are  clenched  tightly,  as  though  with  the  intent  to  take  his rage  out  upon  something.  last  time  the  unfortunate  victim  had  been  a  wall  –  it  had  been  with  his  prosthetic,  no  less,  unaware  of  his  brute  strength.  and  with  it,  the  ability  to  nearly  destroy  an  entire  structure.

 he  whips  around  suddenly,  eyes  feverish  and  bleary.  but  he  does  not  /  will  not  weep,  has  not  done  so  in  years.  this  vulnerability  is  as  close  of  an  attempt  there  will  be.  all  evidence  of  his  desperation,  his  helplessness  that  has  not  been  present  since  he  was  a  boy. ( since  he  had  a  mother  to  lose.  /  now,  the  vicious  cycle  looks  to  his sister.  )

  ❝   she’s  blatantly  throwing  her  life  away,  as  though  it  is  her  only  choice!  to  hell  with  the  proclamations!  fate  be  damned!  ❞  the  ranting  tirade  of  a  naïve  child,  paired  with  the  pain  of  a  man’s  experience.  funny,  for  him  of  all  people  to  condemn  fate.   ❝  how  can  you  stand  by  idly  and  allow  this?  you  are  a  mother  to  us  as  we  your  children  –  and  do  not  deny  this;  but  what  mother  collaborates  with  the  gods  to  offer  her  child  a lamb  to  the slaughter?  ❞  

       when  he  turns all she sees is the boy lost in the fire. the boy lost in the war and the man that tried to rise as phoenix from his bones. but bones remember the boy, she can hear it in the way anger shakes his voice the same way his sorrow did on that day. before, gentiana took him in her arms. kissed his brow and swore to keep him safe. breaker of oaths, mother to wolves --- she’s thankful for the ice of her heart. worries that the heat of his shaking voice will make her remember her bones.

       ❝ do not mistake my actions for idle. would that i could offer my own throat to the same effect, i would have been made bloody years before your birth. ❞ she doesn’t say that she had tried to barter her wrists before the prophecy was weaved through lunafreya’s veins. doesn’t tell him how she begged to be both temple and sacrifice. 

       she doesn’t tell him about her throat gone raw from tears but goddess needs not --- when her eyes open they’re misty with everything he’s too afraid to shed. anger does neither of them good but she knows he’s no longer a boy to be held until the world loses its edges anymore. he is the sword, the yellowed fang, that threatens to bite the earth in two. she’s always been glacial melting, it shows across her face now. ❝ what would you have me do then, my son? damn the world and watch you both die? pray for a miracle greater than the two of you to save us all? i have tried, ravus. what else should i do? ❞

[shivaer]

noxvirago.

PRIVATE MOMENTS, nowadays, only seemed to be increasingly few and far between – not that this came as any surprise, given the circumstances. but to be granted a break from being under scrutiny, and in turn the opportunity to let her guard down ( even if only for a moment )? she certainly wasn’t about to take that for granted.

who knew when she’d next have the chance to, anyways?

to offer a glimpse at who she COULD have been, were this any other life ( a life unburdened, a life lived by an ordinary teenager ) was just as much, if not more so, a rarity. but under scrutiny or not – the fact still remained that she only felt comfortable doing so freely around gentiana ( unsurprising, perhaps ), and that in itself spoke volumes.

“ do you think – ” ANOTHER FACT REMAINED, and it was the late queen never being far from her daughter’s mind. “ do you suppose she’d be proud of me? ”

ravus had been the first to be held in her arms when goddess and messenger were still learning how one body could be home to two souls. he wasn’t chosen but he was sunlight all the same.  ( little wolf, how fast their hunger grows )  her hands shook to be trusted with mortal life. yet all the while sylva smiled. trusted her with his fragile skin.

when lunafreya came into the world, the shaking of her hands felt like it would turn into an earthquake and destroy everything.  ( this is you, girl, this is who will save our star )  too often had gentiana been touched by things that only destroy and though sylva smiled, she feared. but girl turned to woman and messenger’s hands stopped shaking in time to hold her when she needed it most. when the war took her home --- when the sick took her soul. when it was all she could do.

the oracle speaks and draws gentiana from her mind with a question that twists in frigid heart. sylva. do you suppose she’d be proud of me? eyes open for olive to meet soft blue and messenger begs her smile to not be a distant star. ( ‘watch over her, gentiana. as you’ve watched over me.’ )  ❝ the girl worries too much. she asks the wrong questions. ❞

❝ what is there not to be proud of? ❞ i’m proud of you too. there’s no need to mask it in poetry. ❝ you have done so much --- saved so many. why would she not be? ❞

[shivaer]

ignominiy.

         ❛  YOU  DIDN’T  LET  ME  FINISH  MY  SENTENCE  LAST  time  we  met .  ❜  a  brief  moment  on  the  train  to  gralea ,  cut  even  shorter  by  the  young  prince  striking  him  down  (  how  cruelly  opportunistic ;  he  takes  after  ardyn  himself  in  many  ways  )  into  bloodied  ice . ❛  but  if  you  didn’t  want  me  to  remark  upon  your  BEAUTY  even  in  death ,  then  I’ll  just  keep  it  to  myself !  gods  know  I’m  be  the  only  one  that  could  say  that .  ❜  mock - innocence  is  accentuated  by  even  faker  regret ,  expression  of  shock  easing  into  one  bearing  a  smile .  the  infernian  is  a  blade ,  not  unlike  damocles’ ,  that  he  holds  between  her  fourth  and  fifth  rib ,  the  cold  steel  inching  closer  to  heart  with  every  mention  of  a  long  lost  love .  ❛  oops ,  my  bad .  ❜

         if  he  seeks  to  wound  her, he would have to dangle something above her head held by something more fragile than horse hair. a love lost by his hand --- every time he seeks to wound her is met by hardened flesh scarred by his own actions. a heart turned ice once more in lover’s absence. glacian folds mortal hands across her stomach and lifts her face to him.  ( if he finds beauty in her, she hopes it buries him. hopes her winter drives him breathless )   ❝ many others have found me so, and many more will. ❞ you still think you’re special, after all this time? if he seeks to be the blade, he should know by now all the armor she wears.  ❝ will you find your own demise as beautiful as mine, i wonder? when ill blood burns the ground, how bright will your smile turn? will he rival the sun he scorned? ❞

[shivaer]

voidened.

         ❛  EVER  WONDER  WHAT  IT  WOULD  BE  LIKE ?  IF  YOU  were  any different  from  who  –  or  what  –  you  are  today ?  ❜  there  is  no  animosity  in  his  words ,  only  a  question  as  tame  as  a  calm  sea .  the  goddess  approaches  and  ardyn  remains  still ,  looking  out  at  the  city  that  thrives  down  below .  ❛  just  curious .  maybe  then  we  wouldn’t  be  at  each  other’s  throats  like  starving  wolves .  ❜

      IF SHE IS A STARVING WOLF, then he’s the one who gave her hunger its shape. heels click along the floor until she stands beside him. wonders what he sees in the glittering lights before  (  are they stars caught in the glass of windows? or candles waiting breath to extinguish them one final time?  )  the question warrants an answer, one seldom entertained by the goddess. the woman, however, lets out a sigh. “ what different would please you? warmth? forgiveness? what thread tangled in my past would you see undone? would it change you? “

[shivaer]

I’ll take you quiet as the bones in your closet, love as softly as a whisper. Holding your tongue like a secret.

❅ LITERARY SEXTS //      accepting

      HE HAS SEEN HER spilled over like forgotten wine and remained to take her in. now she remains in his arms — to take him in.

       THEY HAVE BOTH TAKEN the name ‘secret’ for each other and shifted it to mean ‘love’  when none are around to hear. they fit together like a coded message. she would call him ‘love’ if he wouldn’t shift it to mean ‘enemy’. instead they say very little at all as she’s laid down. as they pretend salvation at each other’s fingertips. pretend that they could be anything other than two creatures clinging to each other’s bodies with a desperation that would spell death in the morning.

        (  GODDESS, DID YOU KNOW? did you know that his hands would follow our curves so soft it would seem like penance?  ) her tongue is held as their mouths come together. instead she spells out her love on the ridges of his spine. nails digging into his bones and there is no love — no secret but them. no whispers but her lips against his. his name repeated, repeated.  ( is this what you wanted — when you dreamed to best the gods? you have me, love, you have me until the dawn  )  

        IF HE HOLDS HER TONGUE like a secret in his mouth, she holds him as one between her thighs. there are no gods between them. no secrets and no words. her hands find his hair and tangle until it feels closer to a prayer. until her skin is so hot beneath him that gentiana becomes woman again.

[shivaer]

I don’t just want to take your breath away. I want to rip it from your mouth and keep it locked away between my teeth. You can only have it back if you kiss me again.

❅ LITERARY SEXTS  //      accepting 

       CHEST HEAVES and when their lips part again, she finds her self-control on the ground beside the outer part of her clothes.

       THAT ISN’T TO SAY she picks it back up. hands too occupied tangled in his hair, pulling his head back until column of his throat is exposed. red mouth finds his pulse, sinks her teeth into the apple at his throat  (  and if i ripped it from your throat? what would you do then?  )  it’s a question left on his skin as each kiss brings her closer to the line of his clothes. 

       DAMN HIM and the uniform he wears — her hands move until they slip beneath it. imagine tearing it, and him, in half. but cold fingers trace over musculature concealed by fabric. imagine him laying beneath her with nothing between them except skin. except her breath held in his throat.

      “ AND IF I STEAL IT BACK? ” glacian’s voice is soft along his jaw. pulling him to her until she can feel every inch of him. until the path of her mouth is mapped out in the red of her lipstick against his skin  (  in dim light it’s almost blood  )  pulls back for just a moment so eyes meet and he sees her — parted lips and half-closed eyes. “ what then? ”

[lizzyisameme]

literary sexts vol. 1 poetry meme

Literary Sexts is a modern day anthology of short love poems with subtle erotic undertones edited by Amanda Oaks & Caitlyn Siehl. Hovering around 50 contributors & 124 poems, this book reads is like one long & very intense conversation between two lovers. It’s absolutely breathtaking. These are poems that you would text to your lover. Poems that you would slip into a back pocket, suitcase, wallet or purse on the sly. Poems that you would write on slips of paper & stick under your crush’s windshield wiper. Poems that you would write on a Post-it note & leave on the bathroom mirror. Treat yourself, a crush or a lover with this lush gift!

source and amazon buy link.  

I will be providing select short, sometimes edited, poems for a texting/”sexting” meme, but not the whole book itself.  If you enjoy the poems provided, please support the collection whether it’s the first volume or the second.   Or look into the works of the various contributors and see if anything else they’ve written is to your liking!  

Feel free to add to and/or edit these sentences to better suit your needs—but remember, many of these work best in the context of texts and/or love notes instead of spoken dialogue.    —Lizzy.  

Mark me like a passage from your favorite book, then open me there again and again.

My skin is full of flowerbeds and you know every way to make them bloom.

I am tracing the knobs of your spine like the map of my favorite continent. You are all the places I haven’t visited yet and I mark each one off with my teeth.

Your hands unzip me one breath at a time; there is not room beneath my skin for all of you and I spill over the edges with a sigh.

You take apart my heart in pieces with your mouth, but the splash of your tongue against mine feeds it back to me. It tastes sweeter coming from you.

You opened your mouth and spoke the language in my blood.

You kiss me and there aren’t sparks. There’s an entire orchestra in my chest, playing staccato on my heart strings.

My hands are nomads, my dear desert. May they never find rest.

Being small things, we understand this as our humble attempt at thunder, at setting the world to shake.

Delicate work. Like peeling kiwis. My tongue across your skin. Mellow flesh against my lips. Your taste always in my mouth.

How a storms needs to feel the earth how the earth wakes to the pelt of rain how the ground is quenched is how I need you… 

My hands were glaciers I never dared to move freely, my fingers icicles. Your touch thawed me to excavation. I want to dig into your warmth.

Kiss me like white bread, stick to my teeth even after the whiskey. I want memories of your mouth lodged beneath my tongue to wake me at two in the morning, hungry.

I want you next to me, in my bed, your clothes making friends with my floor. Love me hard enough so we wake up the neighbors.

Your hands peeling that onion, thumbs and forefingers pulling skin from skin—they are sacred. Let me kiss them. Let them bless my sinning chest, let them peel my lips apart.

I don’t want to be your harmonies anymore; I want to be the melody you scream when your heart is starving for love. I want to satisfy your hunger.

Show me the parts of you that nobody else ever wanted to sleep with. Show me it all with the lights on.

You, darling, are Vesuvius. I won’t see you coming. Erupt. Wreck me. Leave me ashes leave me Pompeii, leave me outlined into your history forever.

It’s not so much that I want to kiss you. I want to relearn vocabulary words from the shape of your mouth. All my poems are yours first.

Kiss me blossoms in the summer, lover. I want to taste the succulent sweet of your peach tree smile. This time let Adam take the fruit from the garden.

Surge into me as a downpour, as the pounding waterfall which makes swollen rivers flood, as the sea.

The happy ending to this night: you tug my hair and lightly brush your hand across my lap. Don’t forget how resilient I am and how I would bend for you.

Even my lungs are in love as we breathe together.

I don’t just want to take your breath away. I want to rip it from your mouth and keep it locked away between my teeth. You can only have it back if you kiss me again.

The gentle friction of your hand on my thigh is enough to strike a match inside me. I lean into your lips and the fire blooms and spreads.

You are an undiscovered continent. I trail my fingers down your mountainsides. Ten explorers digging for buried treasure, I want to take it all.

My body is a gospel and you are my first quivering hallelujah. Your breath leaves your mouth like a prayer and washes over me like faith.

My hands are hungry for your flesh, desperate in the way that rivers empty themselves over waterfalls.

I peel back your skin to see if we have the same scars. I follow the map of your veins back to your heart and press my palm against yours to tangle our lifelines.

I hope to breathe in you. I hope my body will be the blood your roots drink.

We commit sins in holy places, fold ourselves between pews like dirty pictures tucked into a bible. Pant each other’s names until they sound like scripture.

My tongue collides with your collarbone like a meteor careening across the cosmos, and I taste the stars you are made of.

You kiss me with your mouth wide open like you’re not afraid of swallowing poison. I taste the good and bad in you and want them both. We call this bravery.

You, benevolent god, legs splayed like instruments of creation. I, blank slate of the universe, kneel in wait for you to fill me with your hot, honeyed light.

My hands are suntanned tourists without a map whose desire compels them onward to explore your golden cities by the light of the stars.

The moment between your thighs where I become a devout follower of your existence. That hour which passes in slow seconds of soft skin, as I lay my head against you, drifting, drowsy with love.

Your grin is a flash of primal fire in the dark. Somewhere deep inside me, something hungry wakens and shifts, uncurls its insatiable tongue.

I have been thinking of how I want to be touched by you, with hands that will play me like piano keys, with fingers that will make a symphony out of me.

You till the soil of my need, my lips a blood-red flower bursting open with the first wet flush of your heat.

When it comes right down to it, all that nonsense about hearts syncing up feels like a hallelujah with our bodies pressed together like praying hands.

Every time, you peel back my skin, pry open my ribs, and feast on my insides. Every time, you make a meal of my heart, and every time, I let you.

You’re not one for poetry or sentimentality, so I’ll just say that I’ve dreamt of being the motor oil trapped in the grooves of your weathered hands.

I ache for your hum between my legs, the purring of motorcycles on winding highways: wind in my hair, and romance in losing myself to the sweet, revving vibration of the engine again and again.

You smile and it’s like sunrise. Something inside me Wakes up, stretching.

I float away in cool sheets against my burning skin, and you are the sea guiding me beyond the realm of earthly things.

My lipstick spills over your mouth and trickles down to your chin, your neck, pooling into your collarbones. We love like crushed grapes in wine country.

You’re kissing a wildfire up my thigh and I am tracing the landscape of your jawbone like a sculptor. My hands were made for this.

The rush you give me: The way a blade of grass must feel when splashed with a cloud’s cry after days of screaming for rain.

We are the fall of Rome, all fire and fighting. We collapse into each other like the pieces of the Parthenon, kissing like gladiators, loving like rebuilding.

You creep into my head like a river rushing for the sea & a cosmic digit of fingertips flash over me.

You are pressing against me like I press flowers against the pages in my book. You are kissing my neck and it feels like the start of forever. I want to touch you until my palms burn.

The wet of your mouth rains down my neck like frame, the soft heat of your tongue burns the apple in my throat. We are practiced at this love that asks angels to cover their eyes and turns devils shy.

I melt into the gentleness of your fingertips. Your tongue presses me open like the summer fresh flesh of a perfectly ripe fig, all juice, seeds and pulp.

The small of your back is refuge, is veldt, is summer heat. And I am predatory snarl.

I can’t brush out the taste of you; coffee breath, cigarette smoke, and all. Mouth to mouth; Our shared vices linger on each other. Your salt still lives in my tongue.

I’ll take you quiet as the bones in your closet, love as softly as a whisper. Holding your tongue like a secret.

You smiled and lit up like the dusk. I sank to your lips like the sun against the horizon. We made the day stand still.

I want to kiss you until you melt into me, ice turning to water. I want to drink you deep, and warm you from the inside.

[shivaer]

What does all this love amount to? (also from luna hehe >:3)

❅WAR OF THE FOXES  //      accepting

       WHAT INDEED does love form into when it’s left like a girl in a forest burning? when the last of the soldiers set their arms down not because the war is won — but because the only one left to fight is a girl / god-touched and wonderful but her hands are so small.

      AND WHAT CAN HANDS HOLD aside from prayer? gentiana sets her hand upon luna’s cheek. hopes that glacian’s cold doesn’t pain the girl.  (  q. is she holding luna, or is she holding a prayer? / a. those words have meant one and the same since daughter of prophecy first opened her eyes  )

       YOU ARE HOPE. she asks what love amounts to and there was a time when that answer would be nothing. would be my love lies corrupted at the hands of a man once meant for greatness, too. but lunafreya deserves more than a goddess’ bitter mourning. 

      “ IT IS THIS — ” daughter i have loved as my own, heed my words. may they bring you comfort in the days to come. hand withdraws with the prayer that’s never spoken aloud. just because she fears love doesn’t mean the oracle should as well. “ if the girl must know, it is this : she stands because of love. she breathes because of all who love her. that to see her lost would spell the end of love. what does love amount to? only life, girl. only life. ”

[tombstcne-blog]

RICHARD SIKEN / WAR OF THE FOXES Change pronouns as necessary and tweak sentences as appropriate!

I am faithful to you, darling.

When you bang on the wall you have to remember you’re on both sides of it but go ahead, yell at yourself.

Some people don’t understand anything.

He’s easy to desire since there’s not much to him.

No one wants to know what’s in his head.

To make something beautiful should be enough. It isn’t. It should be.

You’d break your heart to make it bigger.

Will you defend yourself? From me, I mean.

Let’s kill something.

I prefer to blame others, it’s easier.

All these ghosts come streaming down and I wish I had something else.

We all move forward anyway. Ripples in all directions.

What is a ghost? Something dead that seems to be alive. Something dead that doesn’t know it’s dead.

All thoughts finish themselves eventually.

Can we love nature for what it really is: predatory?

When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.

I wanted to explain myself to myself in an understandable way.

Something’s not right about what I’m doing but I’m still doing it.

The enormity of my desire disgusts me.

Look away but I’m still there.

Want something to chase you? Run.

Take only what you need.

Never finish a war without starting another.

I’ve seen your true face: the back of your head. If you were walking away, keep walking.

The fear: that nothing survives. The greater fear: that something does.

All these things and what to do with them. We carve up the world all the time.

I like dead things. They cannot hurt me.

We like things related to our survival: soup, arrows - they expand the range of the species.

My body is a graveyard.

People like to think war means something.

Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other. We know who our enemies are. We know.

There are many loves but only one war.

You will need to comfort him, or we will never be finished with this.

You cannot have an opponent if you keep saying yes.

Its roots in the ground and its branches in the air, a tree is pulled in two directions.

The boy is a bird, bad bird. He falls out of trees.

You cannot get in the way of anyone’s path to God. You can, but it does no good.

Some say God is where we put our sorrow.

In the wrong light anyone can look like a darkness.

What can you know about a person?

Difficult thing, to be scrutinized so long.

Even when I look away I am still looking.

Everyone secretly wants to collaborate with the enemy, to construct a truer version of the self.

How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder?

Why build a room you can live in? Why build a shed for your fears?

There wasn’t much left but it felt like him, wild and scared.

The best part of spirituality is reverence. There are other parts. Some people like to hear the sound of their own voice.

If you don’t believe in God, then who are you talking to?

But truth doesn’t count in law, only proof.

Was I discovered or invented? Feels like I’ve always been here.

Measure yourself against the truth and not the other way around.

Perfect and completely dead.

People don’t learn anything unless they are afraid of being left behind.

Logic is boring because it works. Being unreasonable is exciting.

I am your arrival, there is no refusal, we are here, you see, together, we are already here.

This is also part of the story: how the story changes. This is something I forgot to tell you.

You might like it here. I think that you might like it here.

I tell you these things because I love you.

It’s nothing like I thought it would be and closer to what I meant.

Maybe we will wake up to the silence of shoes at the foot of the bed not going anywhere.

It reminds me of where I was going without you.

You know what it’s like to be alone: gimlets and vermicide. You know what it’s like to be alive, so forgiveness.

You asked me once, What are we made of? Well, these are the things we’re made of.

I turned my ears in all directions. I’ll live alone or in between.

Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.

Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything.

I live in big spaces, so I’m left alone in big spaces.

We made ourselves cold. We made ourselves snow. We smuggled ourselves into ourselves. Haunted by each other’s knowledge.

To hide somewhere is not surrender, it is trickery.

I try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story.

I surrender my desire to be healed.

Take it or leave it, and for the most part you take it.

Shame comes from vanity. Shame means you’re guilty, like the rest of us, but you think you’re better than we are. Maybe you are.

There is no new me, there is no old me, there’s just me, the same me, the whole time.

Don’t try to make a stronger wind, you’ll wear yourself out. Build a better sail.

You want to solve something? Get out of your own way.

What’s the difference between me and the world? Compartmentalisation.

I hope it’s love. I’m trying really hard to make it love.

I clawed my way into the light but the light is just as scary.

I’d rather quit. I’d rather be sad. It’s too much work.

I mean, maybe it’s better if my opponent wins.

What happens when I no longer want to meet you?

Nothing lasts forever: we know this.

Longing and suffering? Of course, of course. You want it to mean something.

You can disconnect it or you can try to glue it all together.

We could pull it apart, spend our whole lives pulling it apart and have no time left to do anything smart with the pieces.

The sooner you embrace it, the sooner it will leave you.

You are what you cover up.

Noise and more noise. Noise up to heaven.

One wonders why a story like this exists.

I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.

Someone has to leave first.

He was pointing at the moon but I was looking at his hand.

All this was prepared for me. All this was set in motion long ago.

I stayed as long as I could. Now look at the moon.

What does all this love amount to?

[shivaer]

inventan. 

         ❛  MY ,  MY !  what  a  pleasant  surprise .  ❜  how  quaint ,  to  host  to  GODS  under  the  same  roof  just  for  one  day ,  but  he  knows  that  SHIVA  does  not  visit  without  reason .  hollow  bamboo  rattles  in  his  ear :  at  last  his  eternal  companion  meets  one  of  her  kin  after  nearly  millennia ;  if  he  didn’t  know  her  any  better ,  he  would  say  benihime’s happy .  ❛  if  a  COLD  one .  you  know  I  never  liked  that  particular  aspect  of  your  personality  —–  no  offense .  ❜  

        SHE’S HALF TEMPTED to be charmed by him but instead takes in surroundings with critical olive eyes. gloss over the concealed form of her own kind --- the time for that would come soon. goddess steps slow, the room feels almost too small for her form, even when contained in mortal size. “ none taken, ” she begins and for a moment allows smile to curve along her lips. “ there are certain aspects of your own which leave much to be desired, as well. i trust you have been well? ”

[shivaer]

❝ i conversed with you in a dream. ❞

ANNE CARSON.

were we softer there, beloved? there’s been quiet nights where gentiana traces the stars and names them after past loves. past griefs. a thousand loves. a million griefs. and how many are given amara’s name? beloved, hated, treasured, scorned. all words trace their origin back to her steady existence until goddess wishes she could wipe the skies of every light. but then the dark reminds her of amara’s hair, of every desire to bury her face against her enemy. dream a new star and name it lover.

did you feed me sweet fruit then kiss the nectar from my tongue ? if their dreams mirrored each other, then it was a dream of blood crushed between lips. where they howled the night through and found each other in anger / teeth / the push and pull of an ocean, unforgiving or her own arms, unwilling to let go. gentiana dreams of what rage tastes like crashing against her and imagines it with red eyes and a soft mouth. and they’re both speaking but all she hears is the waves, the howling, the blood.

‘i conversed with you in a dream.’

was it a conversation using words at all?

[fossaed]

ANNE CARSON SENTENCE PROMPTS

i.   quotes taken from various prose by anne carson. adjust as necessary.

❝  as long as you want, and all that you want.  ❞

❝  i am someone who did not die when i should have died.  ❞

❝  i remember exactly how i thought life would be.  ❞

❝  why are you so in love with things unbearable?  ❞

❝  i conversed with you in a dream.  ❞

❝  lie down and tell me about it.  ❞

❝  humans in love are terrible.  ❞

❝  desire is no light thing.  ❞

❝  your bitter heart heals my heart.  ❞

❝  gods are stubborn. so am i.  ❞

❝  memory is exhausting.  ❞

❝  anger is a bitter lock. but you can turn it.  ❞

❝  beauty of the heart and the mind are things that are cultivated.  ❞

❝  you cannot make me stop thinking.  ❞

❝  some conversations are not about what they’re about.  ❞

❝  but you know none of us is pure.  ❞

❝  there is something maddeningly attractive about the untranslatable.  ❞

❝  what chance do we have for a bit of attention?  ❞

❝  but dreams have ensavaged me.  ❞

❝  you are in pain, so what?  ❞

❝  love does not make me gentle or kind.  ❞

❝  my mind is burning.  ❞

❝  girls are cruelest to themselves.  ❞

❝  i wanted to know you.  ❞

❝  i do not want to be a person. i want to be unbearable.  ❞

❝  i will do anything to avoid boredom.  ❞

❝  i am interested in anger.  ❞

❝  not ashamed to say i loved him for his beauty. as i would again.  ❞

❝  this would be hard for you if you were weak, but you are not weak.  ❞

[shivaer]

KAGEYAKURA.

    ❛  THAT  CANNOT  be  your  only  reason .  ❜  calm  beyond  reason  stands  the  god  of  death ,  so  alike  the  peaceful  sea  before  a  storm  despite  the  turmoil  brewing  within  his  breast .  he  cares  little  for  others’  choices  unless  they  concern  him  —–  but  this  is  the  exception :  such  a  blatant  violation  of  their  duty  cannot  be  understood ,  least  of  all ACCEPTED .  ❛  do  not  speak  his  name  and  love  within  the  same  sentence  unless  you  mean  to  insult  the  very  idea  of  it .  he  is  the  world’s  enemy  and  therefore  ours ;  he  is  undeserving  of  sympathy ,  least  of  all  yours .   ❜

     “ have you ever heard the way a heart breaks? like cold glass, and all that scatters is never to be found again. ” there is the reason of logic and the reason of the ache in her ribs and in this they stand opposed.  ( o goddess, would you ask forgiveness from your own? would you confess on bended knee the sins of your bones? )  he doesn’t know how the years have stretched like shadows in her mind. their claws mistaken for a lover’s hand —– a heart cold as hers once was cannot know what it feels like to crave the sun. to hope for flowers where there is no light, no water. “ have you ever tried to piece together something you helped to break? would you cut your hands to make it whole again? ”

[shivaer]

❛ I said they forgave you. I never said I did. ❜

A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC.

“ and what would he do then, i wonder. ” it isn’t his forgiveness she wants but rather his contrition. would have him on bent knees and curved spine, splintered by the weight of his actions — as though he wasn’t carved from that rage, raised in the cavern of his chest.  ( you could feel his heart beating on the night you forgot you were a god, you could hear your own too )  gentiana places her hand on his sternum, with eyes closed she can feel his steady hatred beating for freedom. “ this man who was never a king, with all his anger in his heart? would he kill me? be the one to steal my breath a second time? ” 

then glacian steps back and shifts until palms rest facing upward. posture straightens until the curve of her throat, the pale skin of her chest are exposed before him.  ( you’ve bared your throat to him before, on the night he ate your heart )  olive and deep red, her eyes open to meet his. she’s no cowering soul, no woman begging for a lover to return. ( but you are a goddess before you are anything he can hold in his palm, and damn you for forgetting )  “ why then does he hesitate when i stand before him as i do? where in his heart does his conflict lie? is it in the fact that he has a heart at all? ”

[promaethean]

A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC / A GATHERING OF SHADOWS by v. e. schwab sentence meme.

❛  I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still.  ❜

❛  After all, you can kill people, but you cannot kill magic. Not truly.  ❜

❛  Impossible. What a useless word, in a world with magic.  ❜

❛  Everyone thinks I have a death wish, you know? But I don’t want to die – dying is easy. No, I want to live, but getting close to death is the only way to feel alive. And once you do, it makes you realize that everything you were actually doing before wasn’t actually living. It was just making do. Call me crazy, but I think we do the best living when the stakes are high.  ❜

❛  You have two faces. One you wear for the world at large, and the one you wear for those you love.  ❜

❛  Everyone’s immortal until they’re not.  ❜

❛  It is as it is. It cannot be undone. So please, be grateful, and be done with it.  ❜

❛  The thing about freedom? It doesn’t come naturally. Almost no one has it handed to them. I’m free because I fought for it.  ❜

❛  I know you can do this. I know you can hear me. Stay with me. Listen to my voice.  ❜

❛  Maybe you just got a taste of what it really means to be alive. You almost died. So now you know what it feels like to live. To fear for that life. To fight for it. And once you know, well, there’s no going back.  ❜

❛  You made a mistake. Everybody makes them. Even me. I’ve made many. It’s only fair that you made one.  ❜

❛  I did only what I had to do. If I could have given my life for yours, I would have.  ❜

❛  A kiss for luck. Not that I need it.  ❜

❛  I know. I know what and who you are. What will you do? Kill me?  ❜

❛  Why am I the only one in this fucking world to be held accountable for my actions?  ❜

❛  Aren’t you afraid of dying?  ❜

❛  I’m sorry. For whatever happened to you. For whoever hurt you so deeply that you see things like friends and fondness as weapons instead of shields.  ❜

❛  You know so little of war. Battles may be fought from the outside in, but wars are won from the inside out.  ❜

❛  Between the two of us, we’ll tear the whole world down.  ❜

❛  I am going to cut that smile off your face.  ❜

❛  It hurts. More than dying ever did. There are days when I feel like I deserve this.  ❜

❛  Death doesn’t scare me. Not nearly as much as the idea of wasting a perfectly good life in fear of it.  ❜

❛ You’re always so eager to slash and stab, why couldn’t you have stabbed him.  ❜

❛  Which is it, huh? You’re angry at me, or worried about me, or happy to see me? Because I can’t keep up.  ❜

❛  Wouldn’t it be amazing, if we got away with it?  ❜

Keep reading

[shivaer]

Too proud to show your true face, hm? (kallistrate)

BLOODBORNE.

     “ pride is a worry for those unconvinced of their worth. ” her own has been etched into the veins of stars since before they erupted into light. howling in her — the voice, ‘my true face is buried in the snow, has been buried, and will remain’. amara knows this truth and holds it like rotten fruit before the glacean. ( she’s not hungry enough to take a bite ) 

      here, gentiana folds her hands. opens eyes until they meet amara’s. this face is not her own but it’s the one she’s worn for years. wonders if this mystery, this lesson in temporary flesh, would be able to say the same.“ though if you’re willing to leave your form and show me yours, perhaps i will concede. ”

[shivaer]

But... do the gods love their creations?

BLOODBORNE.

     ( I SAW YOUR KIND CRAWLING FROM THE EARTH. YOU WEAK, SHIVERING THINGS )would that she could answer no and save herself the heartache. inside her, winter wind rages in a voice no longer her own, it’s an anger that has forgotten its voice — seeks hers to use instead. forgets that she held this throat first and now messenger turns her head away. it’s shame in the shape of a goddess’ heart. beats out the same message. yes, yes, yes.

     ( I SAW YOUR KIND IN THE SUN, FACES TURNED TO THE FIRST WARMTH YOU LEARNED ) shiva hadn’t. not at first, not when they had nothing to offer her but soft palms. shaking voices. but lover, look how they cry for our touch. a voice the color of sunrise at her ear. holding her in the sky and pointing to every speck. every insignificant heartbeat and giving it a name. mortals, lover. they burn brighter because their lives are so short.

     ( I SAW YOUR KIND IN THE DARK, WHEN NO OTHER LIGHT WOULD KISS YOU STILL ) she understands their coldest parts. loves them for their warmest smiles — and each candle snuffed out, each blanket of night pulled across their stilled hearts breaks her own slower. she’s a fracturing rib cage, unable to fit her sorrows and griefs and joys within her mortal bones. it was easier when i was farther away, lover. she wonders if in the dark he hears her pray still. this close they can hear my breaking. she doesn’t answer sabine. becomes only this: two hands, holding theirs. a red mouth and a kiss to their forehead. the only yes she can afford.