#hipscheck

[bloodandbloodandreplay]

and if I was dryrot, the absence of wet or warmth, then you would have turned my coffin into a tinderbox, turned me into cinders, sent me up in flames just to make sure I went down. and you were a glass of ice water and cold dewy mornings and clammy fingers and you still forced yourself to spark me into flame. would it have been so difficult, to have held my bone dry and lonelylonelylonely hand in yours? maybe I would have survived it if you had. maybe I would have survived.

[thornedcrowns]

Push back against the pull- fight it! It's a long, tough slog, but find the bullet, bite it. You won't die in this ditch, soldier, you'll get out of here. If you see a hill, you climb it.

A lot of days are spent staring at walls. The walls flicker blue light back, but that doesn't make them small. It hones the urge for flight, not attack. That's okay. It's been a long battle, soldier. You can rest for a minute. Get your breath back.

Jump up again. Every day rings a battle cry. It's a tough place to be, soldier, but at least here you're a being. There's unwritten rules about those who fall in those ditches. They're never kind. Never slacking.

Sharp sunlight bounces artillery off the sharper weaponry. Mould your hands into a weapon, you'll see. Stand up tall, soldier. This is a battlefield, not a place to sight-see. If you're gonna make it out alive, you've gotta fight your way free.

Listen to me, soldier. I'll make sure your soul never again knows this agony. I've got your six, soldier, but that means that you've got mine, see? This is a war, and I'm not dying 'til I see the end of it, you hear me?

Soldier. Your blood sings for it.

[bloodandbloodandreplay]

My limbs are alien to me. My skin crawls, and it is not mine, and it falls off me in long strips.

Still, I yearn to hold your hand in mine.

[thornedcrowns]

Cotton wool capillaries,

Burst at an inconvenience.

Pressed apart, by

Forces stronger than I

And pulled apart

By me (myself). Honestly, I

Don't know how to stop

This annoying self destruction

So I hope it culminates

In my deletion.

I don't deserve to live. That belongs to someone with much more...

I'm not sure what

But more than

Filler material

And a cotton wool core.

[thornedcrowns]

I do this dance all the time. There's knives and blood and cries- we dance in the night like fireflies. It's nonsense personified, impersonated; a leg lifts high and it tears down the sky. Kisses are pressed into desks and necks and the ground and they're coloured red, from the blood hounds. It's late, it's day, the time ticks by like boxes tumbling down, my kisses are blue to match your frown. More nonsense between pages, inside the sheets. Stars on a silver platter turn purple to paint your teeth.

[thornedcrowns]

For you, a woman's beauty lays in her pain.

In her abject sadness,

Her loneliness (but implicitly)

And her quiet rage.

It stays quiet because she can't disturb the kids,

Or the neighbours,

Or you or him or her.

For me?

Her beauty is happiness.

A woman's beauty lies in her laughter.

[thornedcrowns]

Childhood years. I'm biting into a chocolate bar, quick enough that the sweet hasn't melted into the shiny foil wrapper. Mummy calls at me, reminding how too many is too bad.

Preteen years. I eat lunch with my best friend. The dinner lady, a friend of my momma's, laughs and tell me to eat healthier. I'm on free school meals.

Baby teens: I laugh in the schoolyard, pulling my friends along with me as we nip at each other with biting words. I skip lunch to save money; I spend lunch in the library.

Teenage years: a binge/ purge cycle over a lifetime. I spend 15 with sore feet from running constantly, 16 with IBS in overdrive from bloating, 17 in fear of loose skin and black spots in my vision.

The cusp of adulthood. I count down the days to my 18th birthday, I count down calories until they're in the negative. I spend my meal tokens in college on green tea and water bottles, cringing at the taste. Is this being healthy? Is this how the skinny rich girls eat?

~A healthy sort of poverty, striken

[thornedcrowns]

I write bad poetry for my bad emotions.