#aoacampbell

[aoacampbell]

[aoacampbell]

I want to be a writer but I don't know how.

"Start with something simple", they say. "Write down the first thing that comes into your mind every morning, when you wake up."

I wish I was asleep- I want to die.

or they say

"Write down the words you've never been able to say aloud."

I love you- I loved you. is all that comes out.

-- Impersonating Neruda (2014)

[aoacampbell]

I seek your small hands and slender body; your fresh lily scent and lovely hair. I have longed to gaze into your pale blues eyes, and to touch your delicate skin.

Your grin-as bright as sunrise; and your lips-stained the most beautiful rouge.

To look at you, is to witness perfection  in a form that is pure and unbridled, and I am lost in the violent wake of your bewildering being.

The beauty that is yours shall never meet my common hand.

Your curious quintessence, too precious for this withered man.

Child of the heavens, wanton to my heart; you are but a warm breeze across my frigid landscape.

—Poems Written from a Distant Shore (2010)

[aoacampbell]

Life without melancholy is sitting on the east coast.

The smell of saltwater, and being too far from home to call, or plead for reasons why you left me heartsick and alone.

-- Poems Written from a Distant Shore (2011)

[aoacampbell]

To those of you who left, wherever you are. I don’t know if you realize this, but you’ve missed a lot since you left.

1. My parents moved out of their home. They sold everything they had, and ended up still, in massive debt. I never told you, but it’s something they’ll never get out of. It’s mine now. I will be paying their bills, feeding them, taking care of them until they grow too old to breathe the air. This is just one burden I have been left to sort. 2. I got diagnosed with a mental illness that is relatively unknown, unexplained, and untreatable.  I suppose this is one of the reasons you left in the first place. I don’t blame you. I never will. It’s not something you chose to deal with, but what you have to understand is that, neither did I.

3.  And it’s not that I want you to be unhappy. It’s not that I want to burden you with some of my grief, it’s just that you should know what is real and going on, and know that I was not lying when I said "There is something wrong with me.`

4.  This is not about pity, or retribution. It's about the nights that I spent confined to the bathtub. It's about the weeks where I couldn't get out of bed, and the car crashes, and dropping out of school. It's about giving a reason to things that went too long without.

5.  This is about the overdose. This is about jumping off that bridge, and that balcony, and over that edge. 

6. This is about moving to a strange place, and cutting too deep, and getting too thin, and spending too much. This is about changing my hair colour, and avoiding mirrors, and writing poetry so personal  that I feel like I am naked, and bleeding and am ashamed of that. 

7.  This is about my mother`s attempted suicide that I never told you about. This is watching Top Chef together, and not talking about how much I loved you. This is sleeping with someone you know, to dig the knife into your back. 

8.  This is every friday night at work where I ordered the wrong dish, lost my pay-cheque, and couldn't pay for electricity.  9.  This is waking up so tired you're dizzy. This is waking up so empty you're full. And this is just a fraction of the things I never told you.

10.  My father loved us so much  he went millions into debt. My mother was so sad  she took all her pills at once. My sister was so confused  she left her only love. I am so broken I may never be fixed.

11. This is my reality, and I`m glad you left when you did, because it is only fair. But I still miss you. 

-- 2009-2012: Three Years of Ruin (2012)

[aoacampbell]

We made love today. Nothing else I have ever done in the whole of my life has seemed so right.

--Kismet (2013)

[aoacampbell]

Losing you never gets easier, it just 

                 gets

                              further

                                                     away.

—Love and Related Illnesses (2014)

[aoacampbell]

Then you left.

-- A Three Word Story (2011)