a c h e.

20, she/her, © kaitlyn martin as belle malone

[sufferingtheologies]

am i a dream? some figment of a god or a girl or a ghost, some wretched, shriveled little thing, sat in the corner of a dust mind aching for release? am i the dream, or is she-- she, the temptress, she the feathers trailing over joint and bone and marrow, shivers going deeper than bone with every touch, every whisper, every kiss? are we dreams or dreamers, scattered across a bed (ours, hers, mine? theirs.) a blood-red mattress with pillows like bruises that tear with each kiss.

maybe we’re the nightmares, belle malone 

[sufferingtheologies]

You're writing is so lovely and brilliant. I absolutely love everything about it. Never stop writing please.

thank you so so much!!! this is so sweet and lovely, oh gosh, thank you <3

[sufferingtheologies]

please post more poetry belle!!!

i will very soon, i promise!

[sufferingtheologies]

it's 1AM and you're the monster. you made her do it, because you're too much and too little all at once, and so very weak and hollow, and it's too easy to burn up a thatchwork person when your lips are a matchbook. strike one: you told her it was all going to be alright. you liar. you filthy fucking liar. strike two: you told her you'd hold her if you were there. you fool. you little fool, you know better than to try to hold a forest fire, a hurricane, an earthquake. you know better than to try to reign in a whirlwind girl. strike three: you told her you loved her. strike three, you're fucking out.

[sufferingtheologies]

I saw your page a couple of weeks ago and I loved it but I forgot to follow you and all I remembered was the first word of your username and I've been searching since then and I'm glad I finally found you because your words rock my world.

ahh this is so lovely!!!! thank you so so very much<3 

[sufferingtheologies]

i took you as a witness. i took you because I was tired of being the only one to see the monsters. i took you as a witness because the monsters were everywhere but you showed me that i was living in a room of mirrors and the only one with blood on their teeth was me. and then you kissed me, bloody mouth and all and told me you’d always liked the children’s stories where the villains won. and then you gave me your body and i told you that i didn’t know what to do with it and you told me you’d show me, and the lamb became the lion for one night, two, three, four–

[sufferingtheologies]

I am tired of writing about the poor bastards, the sick and the broken and the ones with rotten cores. There are no more worms here. They’re all gone.   So maybe I put pesticide in my coffee. So maybe I’m a time bomb. So maybe there are three ways this will end, and maybe neither of us will make it out alive. It doesn’t matter. Close your eyes. In this world, we are good people. In this world, our bones are full. In this world, we get a gentle ending.

Belle Malone

[sufferingtheologies]

congratulations on being featured in wildness, your writing is beyond phenomenal x

thank you so much! this is so sweet oh gosh xx

[platypuspress-deactivated202401]

We are happy to announce that the inaugural issue of Wildness is now live.

We have some great poetry and prose (including some great Tumblr writers @mythaelogy, @starrygraves, @heteroglossia, @medeae, @soyla-ise, @myshoesuntied, @johnnyblooms and @kalynroseanne) along with some excellent features, including interviews and travel writing.

You can check the site out at: readwildness.com

Where you can read and submit your own work for the next issue.

[sufferingtheologies]

1. Kiss the dead boy on the mouth. Kiss the monster where it hurts. Kiss the angel and make him holy. 2. Dig until your hands become hands again. Dig until you find the girl you gave to the lake. Dig until her lips aren’t made of silt. 3. She doesn’t mean to rot. She doesn’t mean to rot. She doesn’t mean to rot. 4. Tell yourself that until it’s true. 5. There are rules to these things. You don't put the sweater back after you've unraveled it. You don't paint your fingernails when they're splintered and bloody. You don't love him when he kisses your neck. 6. The girl with the gasoline mouth is burning again. You cannot save her. You never could. 7. If they made your wounds, they won't lick them clean. Learn the taste of your own blood. Forge yourself in copper and iron and salt. 8. You'll get used to the taste. 9. Theirs will always taste better.

what the wolves should’ve told me, belle malone

[sufferingtheologies]

take the parts you love and make a monster/make a war/make a garden/make sin because that’s all these bones can ever hold, hollow and sickly and bitten through by winter’s early sunsets. take the parts your mother loves and make a graveyard/make a saint/make god/make yourself and know that she will never understand why  you could never settle for lips that were anything less than blood red. take the parts he loves and bury them deep/make mercy/make hatred/make lust/make what love would be if you knew its truth because you are the queen, and  they deserve to tremble.

goddess, create thyself, belle malone

[sufferingtheologies]

i. in my dream, you were here again. you were here, and i wasn’t bleeding, and you weren’t laughing anymore

in my dream, there was a bed with three pillows, and you drowned them all and called them silly, useless things, and i started shaking again.

in my dream, you put lipstick on your fists and told me now they’ll  leave pretty kisses, and i begged you to show me.

in my dream, you did.

ii. there are ways to say i love you when you’re going away.

you write down your wedding vows for the girl you always knew you’d marry. you send them to her, and pray they get there before the obituary.

you tell your mother thank you for the cookbook, and you kiss her cheek and tell her you like her perfume.

you hug your father and pretend you both don’t know that you’re not the child he always wanted, and now you never will be.

you make sure that, when you’re found, you look sorry. 

you make sure they can see the apologies on your tongue.

iii. i had another dream.

you were there again, and your hands were smeared red. 

you were cupping my cheeks with those hands and your teeth were cold when you kissed my forehead.

you took me to the bed with no pillows, and you laid me out. you smiled at my bones and called me beautiful.

you always told me i was beautiful when i was like this. blood-smeared and holy, ophelia reimagined.

 too bad you never brought me flowers.

[sufferingtheologies]

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: your LOVER and GOD.

my LOVER is the thing my Sunday school teacher never taught in his lessons. my LOVER is the chiefest of sinners and smiles with blades in her teeth. SHE is the reason the angels don’t visit anymore.

GOD hasn’t spoken to me in six Sundays. GOD destroyed the world but spared one. HE is the reason men tremble.

so is SHE. SHE would destroy the world and spare none, not even me. we both know this. SHE uses my rosary as a choker and licks my sins like wounds. SHE tells me its the sweetest thing SHE’S ever tasted.

GOD forgave me for my transgressions. SHE never has. SHE never will.

[sufferingtheologies]

CAVITIES

we’ll make boats out of our teeth and hollow out spaces between breaths and let

them speak. let them scream. let his hand fly shriveled and merciful, 

and push us to sea to refuge in primordial lung. when the priests cry out we’ll burst forth in righteousness and spread the gospel, the vitriol of mankind’s downfall to all reaches of the earth. to all reaches of his touch. to anything she has 

walked upon. to anything that has looked upon Their Face.

[risingphoenixpress-deactivated2]

The October issue of The Rising Phoenix Review is officially underway. Our feature poem for October 13th is Girls Who Love Church Girls By Belle Malone Here is an excerpt from Belle’s poem: there’s a gospel in your fingertips dragging over the ragged edges of a broken collarbone three summers past, the three marks that you left on my neck, mother, daughter, holy ghost– Read the full poem here

[sufferingtheologies]

So much thanks to Christian and the fantastic Rising Phoenix team for working with me to get this published!! All my love and best wishes to them xx

[sufferingtheologies]

tell her about the way you took me by the throat and licked the blood from my teeth. tell her about the way you twisted my words and  your words and our bodies  and plucked the feathers from my back.  tell her about the way you clipped my wings  and clipped my heartstrings and  clipped my tongue. tell her about how you made me stumble over apologies. tell her about how now, those are the only things i know how to offer. tell her you love her  and never tell her you once told me the same. tell her about how you never  gave me the chance to thank you for my inability to fly. tell her about how you never wanted me to soar.

i’ve always been afraid of heights anyway, b. malone

[sufferingtheologies]

HOMESICKNESS, B. MALONE

i want to go home. there’s a constant ache where my wings used to be, an itch like there are feathers beneath my skin, waiting. every morning tastes like sin / heaviness on my tongue / in my throat / in my soul /and i feel far removed from my brothers’ songs. these bones are hollowed / never hallowed / never able to fly. grace and mercy have not followed me here, and i run through the valley, but i am weary. i’m so fucking weary. forgive me, Father. i shall sin. forgive me, Father. i want to come home. forgive me, Father, but remember my transgressions. remember how i put on your whole armor / how i, bit by bit, suffocated. remember how i was baptized in your name / how there’s been water in my lungs ever since. remember how you took my sword when you cast me down / how i found another. i’m yearning for holy ground beneath my soles. i’ll take my shoes off before i leave / before i break these bones to make room for wings. i’ll say a prayer so that perhaps i will be welcomed back in song / in joy / not in silence. i, the prodigal. i, the homesick. forgive me, Father.