#okayodysseus

[lydiamoved]

MY MOTHER AND I,    lydia knowles

[yoursdelilah]

@eloquencenet event: nature

I am tired of being a skyscraper, ONLY WILD THINGS OUTLIVE THEIR BONES

[pushkins]

It took me a long time to understand why we say ridden by anxiety. It's the yolk of it's endless circling, over and over the same trail spiralling down. The hopeless, the bargaining, the insignificant decisions that were not insignificant at all are brought back by your voice.

Your unwelcome intrusion in my sleep, you're a voyeur to the wound inflicted by your choices.

Loss evokes trauma, my feet tread on the memory of broken mirror and metal, abrasions — my walk a penitent prayer, the wounds like stigmata; I am devoted to the memory of us.

What I will not say: I think more of you now that you're gone than I did before. How is this trade of fair?

Your unwelcome martyrdom with our friends, you're jury and executioner and saint and martyr in our shared history. Have it, it's yours now.

Heartache evokes trauma, the only truth I recognise in you are the pieces of me you took — the distorted shadow I cast dragging the rewritten history, ink still wet.

What I will not say: The loss of you is deep enough to shake the foundations of my soul. I have woken up at dawn with your name as cheap comfort.

Your unwelcome haunting; the rattling of your bones in the places that were ours. The fragments of me you appropriated, and for that I cannot forgive.

(the anxiety that rides in at the sight of an open door; the sun-warmed welcome mat; the newfound silhouette at the window; they take your place on the couch; the cooling tea; the language built between until ours turns distant, then one day hopefully forgotten)

What I will not say: I've tasted the shame left by the echo of your absence.

— for @primordialnyx || Eliot C. ||☕|| commission

[jupiterreed]

i. boy feeds on light — a hasty poem i wrote last night for a bps prompt.

[softstained]

WISH YOU WERE HERE, by laetitia k.

all poems are eulogies, some more than others. here are four blackout poems from songs that meant the world, in a time that meant even more. my way of saying goodbye.

[kestrel-of-herran]

i. you were born on my lips as a tongue-slip, a half-fetus wish, the epigraph to a greek tragedy. two syllables, a raven’s rambling; the sharp ca-ca-caw of destiny, glass-sheer and porcelain-thin. but the wordplay is lost with the original greek. ii. they named you god-sent to complete the myth: my mother the troy that kept letting you in; my father aeneas who would flee out to sea. for years i acted the cassandra, i savored my miasma with a fury’s glee at fatality. but brother, i am no longer your tartarus. i will not contort my features into the mask of a greek tragedian and sing of your wrath. this is not the iliad or some myth. this is my katharsis.

epos | 24.06.18 - 24.04.19 // lenore

[peonyleaf]

I know loving me sometimes feels like  standing too close to the edge  of a cliff but could you at least pretend you have wings to use if you fall?

you know i wish i was more than more than good (l.d.r)

[lydiamoved]

FRAGMENTS OF WHICH WE LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER or: torn love letters given between two love birds in their youth      from my upcoming chapbook ‘To Set Something On Fire’


1.


here i am, wrinkled and weary, with nothing but fate to keep my tendons / ligaments from slipping from their places.

  there’s a crease where my eyes meet together there’s a dent where a dimple used to relax 

here we are, wrinkled and weary, with nothing but fate to keep us from falling apart. 


you take hold of my arm, fingers sliding into soft flesh, and you say wait, it’s not your time yet. 
 and i thank you

2.      


if sweetness is supposed to temporary, then yours isn’t that. yours tastes like raspberry sugar underneath my tongue, that goes in and out with sweet – sour – sweet movements / I love you, you told me, once, and it sounded like 

it belonged in your mouth, from your throat, and nowhere else.


3.
   Dearest Lover My Lovely Darling  Beloved, 


I love you. I love you. I love you. 
      i cannot say it enough. it sounds beautiful from my mouth. 

spilling like gold. 


I love you. I love you. I love you.


4.
 

here you are, wrinkled and weary, with nothing but fate to keep your tendons / ligaments from slipping from their places. 

there’s a crease where your nose squints when you’re cross. there’s a small imprint where the feather – end of your makeup brush hits. 

here we are, wrinkled and weary, with nothing but fate to keep us from falling apart. 


you take hold of my arm, fingers sliding into soft flesh, and you say wait, it’s not your time yet. 
 and i thank you.