poetry

m.r.l // 22

[soaked-roses]

i am laying on my back in a field and the grass is rubbing my calves but it doesn't itch. the sun is as bright as it's ever been, the kind of day where my eyes are closed but everything is still bright and living. i am crying but i don't remember why. his hand is in my hand and i am a child and i have never been this close to love, right on the edge of it, like i am on the bow of a ship, or like i am the ship, or maybe i am just a girl and he is just a boy. but we feel so big, so magnetic, the way or knees keep knocking like they're trying to speak to each other. we don't kiss. we don't know how yet. so maybe it ended. maybe i hurt him. i took what we had and i buried it. but here i am still writing about that day in the field, still wondering if i will ever light up the way i did then, when he was all i had ever known how to feel.

clara mcgowan

[soaked-roses]

i wonder if you ever look for yourself in my poems. if you can tell which ones are covered in your fingerprints. i try to leave little clues so you know i'm still thinking about you. so you know i still carry you with me, on these pages, in this heart.

clara mcgowan

[soaked-roses]

I spend my nights tracing constellations on your skin, my finger finds the north star but you DON'T say my name the same way anymore; the syllables seem to fumble around on your tongue. i KNOW people leave; that is what they are supposed to do after all, and nobody knows the reason WHY we like to promise light years when we only plan to stay seconds, you promised me a century, I made you my sun to try and convince you to give me a little more time, but stars burn out and i THINK you don't kiss me the same anymore, your lips feel all wrong, tight on my skin and cold. but maybe I'M wrong, maybe i overthink but my finger finds the north star on your shoulder blade and i can't stop LOSING sleep over the thought that even the sun will die, i stare at constellations made of stars that are dead just like YOU and -- (i know why.) (because i am.)

catarine hancock

[soaked-roses]

seeing you come to me should be a catharsis but instead it takes on the colour of murder. it is because you are the mortal one between us. more beautiful in your emotion, easier to kill, all that energy inside you as quickly perishable as the entire lifespan of a butterfly. maybe this was why i wanted you, i had grown cold with responsibility for the sun. destruction was not what i intended for you but it is what happens to all who follow in my wake. ask the sunflower who she used to be, she will tell you she was the mortal who fell in love with me. this was the difference between ichor and iron. the universe made you closer to itself than us. the water will take better care of you than me, let me melt your wings, you belong to the sea. now a stillness neither of us knew before. now a softness no one can answer for.

nikita gill // apollo to icarus

[soaked-roses]

i wonder how long until inevitably, i will see your face again. i wonder what kind of hurt will live in my chest when i realize i don't know you anymore

clara mcgowan // the road not taken

[soaked-roses]

we used to talk about the future like a roadmap. 'here we are, at point A' we drew a line across the page, encircling all the places we wanted to stop and sightsee i circle graduation. you applaud. you circle moving in together. i kiss you. i circle marriage. you say 'i will love you until this car dies, until the tires run out of air, until we can't hitchhike anymore. i will love you until we have nothing left.' we hung the map up on the wall, a promise or testament or something to pray to. later, you strike a match to close to our future. the whole thing burns up. i kept buying new atlases. kept trying to chart new courses. you say 'i have nothing left for us.' i say 'i don't know who you are anymore.' you say 'that's the point.'

it’s okay to buy a new map by Clara McGowan

[soaked-roses]

i still check your horoscope and the stars tell me more about you than you ever did and what does it mean when i am screaming into a void that has never spoken back to me and  what am i supposed to do with this leftover love and am i just supposed to let it rot in the fridge am i just supposed to let us die out in the cold

Lily Rain

[soaked-roses]

“(is the night sky ruined for you too?) for i always told you about the constellations and pointed out the planets you said that whenever you saw orion you would think of me (i hope it is) (i hope it isn’t)”

— m.r.l. // orion

[tullipsink]

A.M// please don’t break my heart

[poemsforpersephone]

the poets were wrong. you don’t burn and there are no tornadoes in your chest, your hands don’t hold galaxies or stars and your anger isn’t a volcanic god ready to smite every enemy. the moon doesn’t love you and neither do the stars, but the earth does, in its own way, i guess. see, you are human, my dear, born to destroy and to take and to make, born to learn and to watch. you observe the stars; they do not observe you. you run from tornadoes or you chase them, you do not become them. your anger is just anger an emotion to control or be controlled by; volcanoes can stay dormant for years but you are never still. and why would the moon love you? why would the stars? they are too far away to be swayed by a pretty face, but the earth lives under your feet, it feels you dance to the beat it drums out in thunder and rain. you are human, fragile and while your skin is weak your heart beats strong. it might not hold hurricanes but it does hold love, and this can be just as deadly. your anger won’t ever level cities but it can topple friendships and they amount to the same thing. the poets were wrong. you are not out of this world, you are of it and beloved to it, and you are still special.

HUMAN NATURE // l.s.

[soaked-roses]

somehow, years later, i'm still surprised when your name comes up in conversation. i'm surprised about how my body responds to it. about how well it fits in my mouth.

clara mcgowan // it’s like my body forgets that we don’t speak

[soaked-roses]

i cannot and will not be somebody else for you.

m.r.l // period.

[soaked-roses]

i love autumn because it is honest. it says: look at all these parts of you. they served a purpose once. it says: look at how they've faded. how many of them do you still need? it says: it's okay to be tired, love, but you don't have to carry what withers you.

beth branch // look at all these parts of you

[soaked-roses]

i will be strong enough for two people and i will let us go.

chloë frayne // i’m not hurting us anymore

[soaked-roses]

i was in line to pay for my groceries when i saw him on the other side of the store getting an ice cream with his brother he walked away without seeing me i said to my boyfriend (who came to the store with me) "look, there he is. there is the boy who broke my heart a year ago." my heart didn't leap my throat didn't burn there wasn't a pit in my stomach my boyfriend looked at me and said "i am so proud of you. you didn't crumble, you didn't break. this is progress." i guess it is.

m.r.l. // day 415; getting over you

[soaked-roses]

if im so 'over' you, why are you still on my mind? why do i still write about you?

m.r.l. // day 408

[soaked-roses]

no text. no call. strangers who used to be one heart.

- m.r.l. // day 365; all we are