pitch black, pale blue.

i want to explain my heart in a language you'd understand.

[tigersontrains]

—   poetry blog curated by izzy. twenty something. she, her. —   substack.

[tigersontrains]

i think of the years that ran dry. i think of what is left.

i am what is left. we are sorry for the inconvenience! sorry for the blood! sorry for the kill! i went for the guts, the heart.

i went for your throat, and you didn't see that coming.

and i want to hit you where it hurts. i want to take what is left of you and spill it on the streets. you will be nothing but poetic justice in my hands, a story all mine to tell. i would have ruined my life to bury you six feet under.

i can think of worse fates now.

i am what is left.

there will be nothing left of you.

[trashyayo]

Children's Letters to God

[moonstoast]

—mothers

ijeoma umebinyuo // hyatt moore // class of 2013 by mitski // i, tonya (2017) // ? // gustav klimt // ? // lady bird (2017) // i remain in darkness by annie ernaux

[azulispector]

there's something about having a mother when you're a girl.

black swan //Buffet Etiquette, Hieu Minh Nguyen // Nayyirah Waheed//turtles all the way down// the cradell, berthe morisot// ??// the witch// Kyung-sook Shin, Please Look After Mom// lady bird// Take Care: Mothers, Daughters, and Inheriting Self-Hatred, Ella Wilson

[do1li3]

[tigersontrains]

you dreamt you were loved,

swimming across the sand.

and i couldn't blame you. sometimes, life swallows me up too. i'm standing on the line at the grocery shop and i wonder what's become of us all. there's a child playing in front of me, asking for candy her parents cannot afford.

i am quite like a tall child myself. parentless, five foot something. maybe not quite that tall. i eat my vegetables and drink water with the adults, smile when they smile, nod when they nod.

is there even a name for this? i don't feel old. i don't feel young. it's as if i'm a stranger observing life, merely making annotations, watching herself watch herself watch life. do you feel this way too?

are you quite like a tall child yourself too?

[julykings]

from In the House With No Doors by Sarah Kay

[weltenwellen]

Cathy Park Hong, from "Spring and All"

[engulfes]

“Grief doesn’t always start with death. It can come before that, and once it starts, there is no end in sight. We will all be touched by death at some point. I try to keep it at bay as best as I can. People carry heaviness with them, and this is my weight. I cannot get up to go to the bathroom or get a glass of water. My body sinks into the mattress as cement. This time of year, I feel especially tired. Since she’s been gone, the days keep coming, one after the other. If time can go on, I can too. Each day can carry me on its wave till months and years have passed.”

— Marlowe Granados, Happy Hour

[antigonick]

If I pass a mirror, I turn away, I do not want to look at her, And she does not want to be seen.

—Sharon Olds, excerpt of "Known to be Left", in Stag's Leap

[weltenwellen]

Ocean Vuong, from “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

[geryone]

How to Maintain Eye Contact, Robert Wood Lynn

[tigersontrains]

i hope sadness doesn't make a home out of my chest again.

those weeks and songs wasted, spent fighting for whatever little life i had left in me, wondering if it was all worth it.

sadness made a hole out of my chest. i never stopped trying to fill it.

we have a weird way of looking at void things, don't we? we hate empty spaces. we fill them with portraits and carpets and sofas. we fill all the empty spaces until there's no room to breathe.

in my empty space, there's only me. but i can barely breathe here, suffocated by the silence, how it permeates everything that's been left.

i'm a fish in a bowl, swimming in circles. to an outsider, it's silly. but if you get me out of the water, i can't breathe.

[tigersontrains]

—   poetry blog curated by izzy. twenty something. she, her. —   substack.

[tigersontrains]

all the reasons why i love you.

your laugh, your hearty, full laugh. when you giggle through the phone and it makes you sound like the most precious thing on the planet.

you're so funny. so smart. so capable. so driven. so full of life.

you always make me smile, you always surprise me with just how many stories and scars you have.

your little kiss emojis. i adore you. i adore your attention and your words.

your voice. just how much you melt me even when you're not trying to. how nice it'd be to wake up to your voice every single day of our lives.

i like your hands. i wanna hold them. i wanna hold them when we're on our way back home, when we're old, when we're getting married. i want to hold your hands in every lifetime.

you're so loyal. so fierce. so brave. i don't think you know it, but i'll remind you of it every single day. i'll put post-its on the walls, on the mirrors, on the cabinets, in your drawers. i'll never let you forget it.

there's never any version of you that's filtered. it's always you, my blueprint.

i can count on you. you can count on me.

you're my teammate, my partner, my sunshine, my one and only, my love, my sun, my stars and my sky. and i'm your moon.

my heart is so full of you, sometimes i wonder if it'll make me combust with joy. i hope your heart is full of my love too.

life is not as scary with you. loving you makes me brave and being loved by you makes me rest.

your life has taken its twists and turns, but you never gave up. i don't know how you do it. it'll take me a lifetime beside you to learn it.

we're so different and so similar. i want to sit on the rooftop and watch the sun rise with you. i want to ask you so many questions.

your embrace. i can't wait to be in your arms.

your taste. your movies, your songs, your art. we'll slow dance to all of your favorite songs one day soon, my love.

your eyes, your smile, your hair. every little inch of your body is mine to love, to cherish and to nurture.

your mind, your heart. how much of your soul goes into everything you do.

you, you and you. everything. i'll love you on purpose, i'll love you without any reason on rhyme, i'm sure.

happy sixth month to us, baby. another month of many loving you, i'm sure.

yours truly.

[tigersontrains]

you entered my heart, shyly. like someone who asks for a favor they can't return. i would have loved you anyway. i will always love you, regardless.

on purpose.

there's this lump in my throat sometimes. i want to cry my heart out, i wear it on my sleeves. you see all of me. i see all of me too. and i didn't think i'd feel again. anything.

but you hold me face to face and you tell me it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. shh, it's okay.

how does it feel to have such a big heart? how do you hold the weight of everything? i want to ask you. i want to ask you so many things. i don't always have the words for it, though.

you never had to say you love me.

i could feel it in a word, a laugh, a sigh. i could feel it in your voice. you don't have to say you love me. i know you do.