#thewindwardnet

[ashandabstraction]

for the girl in english who gave me the last of her cough drops | kmp

[ashandabstraction]

you told me sharks that don't move forward don't live, like it was a good thing, like you'd never known the suffocation of stagnation. you don't have enough teeth to know. if it had come with more compassion it would have been the thing i admired most about you.

excerpt from a love letter # 28 | kmp

[ashandabstraction]

like watermelon aged on a kitchen floor | kmp

[ashandabstraction]

melting | kmp

[ashandabstraction]

i need to finish this so i can sleep | kmp

[ashandabstraction]

Ask Me a Question//I’ll Write You a Poem: The complete compilation of responses to my ongoing series "Ask Me A Question//I'll Write You a Poem," current as of August 24th. Includes all previously published responses, as well as poems completely exclusive to this chapbook.

Hey guys! So in honor of my birthday I’m releasing my second ever chap book, which I’ve been working on for about 18 months now!!  The Ask Me project is still ongoing, so if you would like to participate feel free to send me a question. 

Available for free here!

[ephemeralcanvas]

For when the skull is sore and the ants are crawling through holes they made, mom always says acetaminophen (sometimes they are black ants and they do me no harm, sometimes they are red and my sinuses are burning). For when the stomach is cramped and the uterus is doing yoga, haldi - in tablets, in milk, in water, applied on skin (they always say it solves every ailment). For when the back is spasming and swing set chains are pinching the nerves, ibuprofen (but it gives me heartburn, and there is nothing more hopeless to me than heartburn). For the heartburn that inevitably follows, Zantac and lots of yogurt (I’d rather take the back pain than the heartburn, but I never told anyone that). For the sleeplessness and fitful dreams in which the body fidgets and the sounds are apocalyptic, chamomile tea and selenite sticks (dad believes in the stones, but sometimes when the heartburn keeps me up I wonder if the quartz is actually protecting me). For the itchy blotches and summer mosquito craze, hydrocortisone ointment and a few well-placed Disney band-aids. For the acne, for the scars, for the blackheads, and red stars, the only aid is the burial of self-esteem and medicines to last the millennia (I cannot understand how my body is still existing after the rough handling I put it through, but I suppose that is the beauty of the human body: it’s aching resilience).

- does curing the symptoms fix the problem?

[ashandabstraction]

i think about all the manic people you knew back in high school and my own fluctuating sanity, the way i slip out of contact for days and then suddenly weep at your absence and seek you out again, unapologetic and irritated at the temporary loss. i wonder whether you have ever noticed what instability you attract; if so, do you feel it as some deficiency on your part, worry what it is that draws us to you? or are we, the selfishly indulgent & frantic, drawn to you because you are, for better or worse, too oblivious or forgiving to notice or care with what consistency we manage to contain ourselves?

Excerpt from a Love Letter #14 | kmp