unspoken

through the motions // through the wall

[throughthemotions7]

65. air

.

all we have is now and now it’s gone, now is gone i mean, now is gone, it’s always just now going away as i close my fists around the air you exhale. and air i tend to withhold, just holding my breath and fearing that now goes away and now never fails to go and i never fail to fail to accept it. all we have is now but we don’t even have now, and maybe that’s why i stay up at night and now what is it that you can have, that you can have, nothing here. nothing now. look around — above — let go. you can see it just as well as i do it’s all all so pointless isn’t it? to hold your breath thinking you’ll control all of the air. to think that’s what it takes to change everything, or rather— to keep everything still. you took the wrong turn, darling. you’re up the wrong hill. 

.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo) • inspired by @writerscreed​'s prompt “all we have is now” • 

[throughthemotions7]

64. sky

.

the night fell and

so did i

i wanted to look like your sky

the moon shines and

so does your smile

igniting what's left of my mind

i wrapped my sanity around the grain of your voice

can you hear it echo in the sound of your pulse?

one day perhaps i'll come home to

the sound of your breathing

you'll ask and i'll say i do

i do want

all my silences

to mean something to you

and all my past faces

will melt down in my hands

at once, perhaps, as i pray

and i will look up to

my sanity staying mine

as we-- as you

look at our stars align.

.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo) •

[throughthemotions7]

63. party

. “there is always a party at the end of the world” - prompt by @akablackbird​ .

.

there is always a party at the end of the world – is that the one where our cakes taste like candles? and they're all packed up in your mouth, right, wax coating your palate and your throat, can't speak, can't move. can't stay. can't come. but the party will go on whether you're there or not. and you've been invited, right, everybody has. but the party will go on regardless of what you choose to do and the party wasn't thrown for you anyway. 

there is always a party at the end of the world and it's always the same. same old music ringing in your ears like a song you can almost remember. almost. ringing, ringing. you still can't quite hear it. what a party. what a night. you thought the party would drive you away from the night but all it does is drag you further in. there's no escape now. the party at the end of the world will stop when you do, and you don't. 

you can't.

• through-the-motions (prose + photo) • 

[akablackbird-deactivated2023111]

The Bearer of Bad News

If not for what is killing me

Then how come words elate

For I am vessel who's set free

The cargo and the freight

And seeing sunrise over sea

While sunsets best describe

The only thing that feels like me

Is claiming we'll survive

So I am sailing none the less

With rudder broken/sails torn

To give to you what's half expressed

Now that you've been forewarned

It's 2 days more of travel safe

And 2 of choppy waves

Before you've made it to the place

Where I have dug our graves.

[teaspirationss]

ask me how I love you, and I'll tell you you’re the breath I need to take over and over again.

[akablackbird-deactivated2023111]

A Sentence Incomplete

So surely when world is broke and ending

When you and I can stop pretending

That the stars aligned to spotlight eyes

That have since been covered or disguised

So surely you could touch paper and pen

So surely you'll write me then

So surely when heart is beating its last

When present seems poised to flatter the past

Like darkness we lived in, under the sheets

Like laughter forbidden, being discreet

So surely you'd love to laugh once again

So surely you'll write me then

So surely when poem must end just the same

The poet being bent to bury your name

'Neath visions of death and dying heartbeat

With the sentences cracking and incomplete

So surely martyrdom lasts until when

So surely you'll write me then.

[throughthemotions7]

62. plums

.

the rain had stopped and the grass was shining a fluorescent green and i thought of all the times we said goodbye. all the times i thought it was going to be fine and it wasn't. sometimes i think that it would be easier not to see you so that we can save at least one goodbye for later.

the rain had stopped and it felt like the ground would never be entirely dry again. i was driving on those country roads and they looked darker and i thought they'd been tarred over. it was only the rain. but then doesn't the rain wash us all anew? doesn't it?

the rain had stopped and we started picking plums in the plum tree. a sour smell arose from the ground where overripe fruits littered the grass. the sun was shining through the leaves and try as i might i could not take a good picture of it. funny how you can never take good pictures of the sun. there were as many memories here as there were plums in the tree. my mother said it was a shame we couldn't reach the ones that grew on the higher branches. maybe they weren't meant for us. bees were buzzing between our feet and we didn't know to what extent we belonged here but we did – we did pick the plums.

the rain started falling down again in tiny specks. this is exactly how it feels to miss you. i can walk around without an umbrella but i will always feel the water on my face. i won't be drenched but i will never be dry. and the persistent drizzle will keep reminding me that there's so much more water somewhere else.

.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo), •

[throughthemotions7]

61. lockscreen

.

cause you painted my thoughts green

looking fine on my lockscreen

i checked the time and it was two

searched my mind and there was you

it's been hours and ages

since you wrote on my pages

the words that you discovered

when you dreamt of that bluebird

hovering above the clouds

not yet lost but still not found

it's been hours and ages

since you tore its old cages

all wide open in the dark

turned into a million sparks.

and i felt you stirring in your sleep

and i heard you breathing in so deep

dear i pray for ages and hours

to harvest this love that's ours.

.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo) •

[throughthemotions7]

60. count you in

all numbers that don't count you in are not enough – are lonely – are all missing out. all missing something. just like i – a 1, as I'm writing – am missing you. "un seul être vous manque, et tout est dépeuplé". the greatest number can also be the loneliest. it's cliché, it's obvious, it's true. everybody knows that. everybody is aware that there's nothing lonelier than numbers. but also nothing more crowded than two. two minds, four eyes, six minutes since you sent your last text, eight years since we first met. last and first, first and last, i want you to always be all of the above. you're my one and only, the one i never want to be lonely. and without you i'm not a whole number, not exactly – i'm a fraction, i'm irrational. i've been counting days and hours since you first told me you'd miss me, and i treasure each second that adds to the sum total. but love isn't about numbers, never has been, quand on aime on ne compte pas. but here i am, surrounded by the thousand words that you left in this room, and perhaps that's the reason why i can feel like a 1.5 even when i'm missing the 1 of you.

.

through-the-motions (poem + photo) • inspired by @writerscreed 's prompt "the loneliest number" •

[throughthemotions7]

59. motions

.

i'm losing myself in a blank page fighting freedom in this gold cage chained up my mind but it still screams can't even find peace in my own dreams cause time is water and i can't swim this sea's deeper than it first seemed than i first thought when these cursed thoughts first entered my head just like melting lead solidifying falsifying can i just breathe. please. choking my way up the water shrugging all that sand off my shoulders let me find a way to let it flow let me find a boat and let it float here i am, here are these words balancing at the top of my lungs here are the facts, devoid of all perfection i'm tired of polishing up their implications here is my life, see i can't control the motions of the universe sprawling all around. there might be more to life than my own twisted sight of safe and sound.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo) •

[throughthemotions7]

58. a thousand times

.

dancing in the light of my mistakes swirling with candid fire in my veins i'm opening up to the closest wall, shouting words that echo between my skin, my bones, and the ceiling did you know that everything around you was burning with its own kind of heat that there was more to music than getting lost in the beat more to life and to you than these simple phrases how are you, where you at, all of these phases what is up, what is wrong, i want to be right where you are, right where you can find me i so want to be up, i don't want to be wrong i want to write the word you’re still missing in your song don't want to be out of tune, please don't let me be out of place what good are both my feet if they're not walking at your pace i've failed you so many times but you didn't count them all keep forgetting my lines but you still pick up when i call i would say i love you but i've said it a thousand times i would sing you a song but i think i'll stick to rhymes. 

.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo) •

[akablackbird-deactivated2023111]

Visit Original Link

One take. Go easy. I think it gets better after the first verse. 

[throughthemotions7]

"Life's too fast when I walk and too slow when I run" - @12blackbird21

[throughthemotions7]

57. keep

.

but is it okay if i die in your arms as the sun sets in the east and the ice turns warm is it okay if the look on my face is only a gateway to what fills up my chest to the winding maze of intricate thoughts and wishes that you unfold with patience as you walk the bridges i've designed and assembled in all the wrong places but you're gentle and kind, all you do is remind me that truth looks different after a good night of sleep so i close my eyes knowing it's you i want to keep.

.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo) • 

[throughthemotions7]

56. mud

.

but take all this mud, take all that doesn't bud, i'm tired of being neck-deep in these filthy waters, tending to plants that can't grow and to clouds that won't go. but take my chalky hands and

lead me out of these empty frames. apathy is merging with my very irises and dissolving their colour. i smile with bricks in my mouth and it's like i'm lying to faces i don't want to lie to. objectively, the glass is full and it looks like all i'm doing is frenetically emptying it into the nearest fishtank so my bad scaly thoughts can keep swimming. but never forget life is both the tunnel and the light at the end of it. never forget – make a sticky note out of everything that's stuck around, make a mental list of every hour that kept you sane, that kept you safe, that kept you sound, here is truth at last.

kidding. you're gonna have to keep

going –

but isn't that the whole point? catch glimpses, catch feelings, catch your breath, release it all. all that matters now is that you keep your eyes open in moments when you used to close them,

what matters now is that you learn how to speak,

learn how to breathe,

learn how to draw constellations. what matters – now – don't you see? – is not a fresh start – but raw continuation.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo) • featuring  @writerscreed 's prompt 'fresh start' • 

[throughthemotions7]

55. stumble

.

i want to write about everything that crumbles. about everything that stumbles. about everything when it's still there, pulsating in these overused veins. i want to find a place to unfold everything into the biggest, clearest map you've ever seen. but of course that won't happen. i'm looking for stories when i'm stuck in my room, in my head, and everything in between. i am enclaved in everything i enclave and i've heard that's generally the way it works. it's not working, though. it's absolutely not working. i'm treading water in the middle of nowhere and i am looking for islands i keep pushing back into the distance. the red thread of the horizon – can you see it? – tends to disappear – rather unsurprisingly – behind greyish clouds. clouds that shred into smaller wisps and crawl in the empty space between my eyes and my glasses. i'm scared of being scared. i'm scared of walking in the wrong shoes. i can't tell if they're the wrong shoes if i don't try to walk in them. i can't tell. i can't tell.

i'll still try.

i'll still write about it as it un-crumbles, un-stumbles, un-falls to the ground.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo) •

[akablackbird-deactivated2023111]

Acumen’s Diet

We returned the confusion, missteps and mistakes

So sure what remained would be candies and cakes

For digestion seems simple enough in the way

That it takes not a thought, one to fight or obey

But the nutrients gathered from sugars and sweets

Couldn’t build back the muscles left fragile and weak

From craving the purpose left all too unmet

Decrepit from fighting the thought of a threat

That eat well enough on the matter quite gray

Overcooked parietal and frontal fillet

Seems banquet enough for the bullies and beasts

Leaving nary a scrap for the starving to eat

[throughthemotions7]

54. incomplete

.

and with this sentence incomplete and all my words at your feet i go and close the door. softly. quietly. for there are still snakes stirring in my hair. you act as if they weren't there, so i give up. i do. i wave the white flag and the rain stops try one more time then my head drops maybe i was wrong all this time. but i can't tell black from white anymore i can't tell the ceiling from the floor high and low are much too quick to switch sides. now the tip of my tongue is a burden the vapid silence is too quick to thicken and it's past my turn to speak again. and with this sentence incomplete i leave you to your wooden seat with the orange you've just peeled. with the soft lips you've just sealed. we've always dealt in afterthoughts and maybe if we weren't so alike we may be finding a gentler path through these brambles. picking the pieces ire disassembles. but i'm always afraid of the wrong sentences hate my voice when it shatters your silences but perhaps it's the only way that i know to test out which soundwaves will act on your soul i hope these few erratic words are enough to polish the edges that remain too rough.

• through-the-motions (poem + photo) • prompt : “a sentence incomplete” by @12blackbird21​