#asteraria

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pretty is a word that belongs to girls with bright smiles and locks golden like the sun and skin pale like the moon and the universe in their eyes. who could swallow the sun and nobody would even blink. pretty fits in the dimples that curve in the side of her cheek. pretty belongs to the magic of midday, a warm hand curling around your wrist and a fluttering pulse.

beautiful is a word that belongs to girls with hair in choppy bits and lips that rarely quirk up and anxiety that bubbles up behind their throat. beauty is etched into her ebony skin, her long nose, her acne scars. we whisper secrets into the curls of her hair, and it’s like the world stops when she laughs. beauty is the muscles in her arms, flexing as she pumps her wheelchair.

loveliness is a word traced in elegant lines over plump legs, a lingering mark on the side of her glasses. it’s the ambition in her eyes, what would make you gladly be another brick if only so that she can make her castle. loveliness is for princesses, queens, visionaries, stars, girls, girls, girls.

- girls | a. graham

[lasbrumas-archived]

i. spring

I was always taught Spring was a soft season.

The pastels, the flowers, girls with ribbons in their hair.

But what about the plants that push through hard, frozen ground

And trees that wake up after Hell freezes over?

There is nothing soft about giving birth and raising young

Hoping they’ll see the sun the next day.

So take your pastels, Spring, wear them like war paint.

Take your flowery thorns, and remember ribbons can be used to choke. | p.l

[smallepics]

“Let them see,” I beg, a half strangled breath, “the art of humanity, raw and unforgiving.”

I’m proud to announce my first ever Chapbook ‘FIFTEEN’

FIFTEEN is an exploration as well as a record in fifteen poems about the uncertainty of future growth, and a look back on the years and lessons already experienced.

This is a big moment for me as a writer and I’m so excited to share! I hope all of you will give it a chance- FIFTEEN runs on a pick-your-price operation so everyone can enjoy- although the suggested price is $1

GET IT HERE  || MORE EXCERPTS 

Big thanks to all my followers for giving me the guts to do this and everyone who has helped me edit. Especially @aavillainess @stardustandwar  @avolitorial 

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- anna graham

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november is autumn’s rattling breath desperately trying to hold onto a life it knows it can’t keep

november | a. graham ( #1 of months, years, days )

[smallepics]

Three years.

That’s how long it took me, after you left, to crawl down ocean dunes,

Sand filled my mouth, scraped down my tongue like thousands of apologies I should have said, stuck forever in my teeth.

I fell down, surrounded by crushed rocks of many more things to tell you.

Until waves came up, lapping at my thighs while I lay burning blood,

Cooling my cheeks, ghosting my skin,

The tossing and turning of worn down rock made the water’s edges dark,

Further out, under a hanging sun, diamond seas glittered

Still, and at peace, simply because they touched you

- Is this what you felt after me?

Laying, drowning, somewhere between heat in your mouth and salted flowing bliss,

Staring at a half moon shadowed by the sun,

For a moment I thought it might be a cloud, would crash flood me, falling with the other gathering titans in the sky,

Because up there is the keeper of time

And he has consumed us all

These are the things I think about these days.

 What else?

I have forgotten you so completely it makes me afraid,

(That is why I can finally sit on these shores again)

I am shaking confusion and welling of lost because- who am I now?

Who am I?

Remembering the smell of you, sunscreened stained.

If I wrench the right shirt from the depths of my memory I can smell you,

I can almost remember-

Before I throw up, dizzy with remembrances.

This is not nostalgia, I feel so much more violent than that

Everyday is another key I forget in your laugh

I used to have each pitch, the sound from deep in your throat

Now, just the huffing of breath right before,

Sometimes a surprised “Oh-”

I wish they’d ask, “Hey, aren’t you the kid-”

Then I could break my lips with how fucked up I feel now,

With the chance to ramble out every word you said (I can’t remember them) and watch pity crumble their face

They don’t.

And so, I forget you.

I text you but not you, 

Not the ghost of you, but the ghost of me

- And isn’t that just me to ache because I hurt and not because you do?

(I remind myself who I am every time I don’t ask for your new address.

So hate me, so hate me.

I’m aching, I’m aching.)

I wish the summer sun would stop scalding me from afar

And just crash into me, emulate the space in my lungs so I couldn’t feel it

I can’t choke on my fire

So I fall into the ocean, don’t let my hands break the surface

It’s you, in these waves

Here, where they spread your ashes on a cloudy cloudy day

Letting them mingle salt and sand,

I feel the tug of a wave forming around me

And crash

 I breathe in

A confusing rush of water becomes a fizzling wave

I swear I can hear you.

- Let Me Drown With You // N.A

Based off of Sunchoked for @ibuzoo June Challenge

[smallepics]

i am marching

(and my mind is running, cutting and cutting itself off-)

i am marching

off off off to find

(you) an empire

i have smelled the turn of flesh, warm to cold

(it made me: sovereign, ruler, dynasty maker, emperor)

i have smelled the turn of flesh, warm to cold

staining the dirt dark wine in victory

i thought, a mind not quite my own

“that man died for me.”

-see but the blood of these men is not the same as:

red cheeks sticky with red cherry sap hitting my red robes hard

-and the dirt was not the same as:

pink shell sand molded by pink flush hands under a pink spilled sky

these memories burn different yellow gold orange molten fires 

pressed against my burning eyes

(is that hate for men who have taken everything or tears that cannot fall i cannot tell i-)

pressed against my burning eyes i see 

both-

kingdoms rising through blood and wave soaked dirt

one pushes up to choke my chest

with that smell, the smell of flesh

one is the rising pitching laugh of-

oh brothers

brothers brother brothers

you are the kingdom i am trying to build

you are you are you are—–

i am marching to you.

i am marching to you.

- Worth Fighting // N.A

Based off of WearyWNet Prompt: during the reign of the Yuan dynasty (1277 AD, China), Song loyalists preferred death over being ruled by the Yuan. While Empress Dowager Xie secretly sends the child emperor’s two younger brothers to Fuzhou in hopes of saving the heirs of the line, the child emperor survives the Battle of Yamen. He searches for his younger brothers to reclaim their empire together

[lasbrumas-archived]

when they say “the world is your oyster,” do they mean

i can pull it out, screaming,

from its shell

or use it to mass produce a milky white pearl

that will sell for hundreds of dollars one day?

do they mean i can exploit it,

dig it from its watery safe haven,

put it up for auction,

people’s faces pressed against the glass, saying

“this one, this one will do”?

can i collect a whole galaxy’s worth of people’s oysters

people who just left them there in the dark depths

of the ocean in space?

can i cook them all up or eat them on the half shell,

my lips stained with the tears of their inhabitants?

i think i’d like to make a pretty penny

off these oysters,

if i can

just to taste

the salt of emotion again

Oysters $20 a pound

Oysters! Get your oysters here!

oysters || p.l.