perpertually burning.

© valkyrie sunna. "i'm on fire, put me out."

[valsunna]

a collection of poetry and prose on childhood, grief, mothers, daughters and growing up. download here. 

[ cover art done by @elliewilliams ] 

[valsunna]

references my own poetry in my own poetry.

[valsunna]

this time of year the monarchs are hovering in the backyard by the tangerine tree & the clothesline  and this time of year i’m not on fire -  i’m just the heat between two hands on either side of a wall. i’m coming to this understanding of my own beauty. the underbelly of an animal is always soft  cut it open and the guts spill out. my skin is made of polymer clay my skin is made of -  i can’t save you from your own mistakes. i can’t save you from anything, anymore. i’m coming to this understanding that sometimes it’s not enough to just love someone sometimes you have to be loved back. 

i don’t want martyrdom or a monument  just a statuette in the way.

[valsunna]

tender meat. 14.01.21

[valsunna]

its the new year and the whole towns gone quiet,  and still, some nights i sit out on the deck for you. some nights i go to sleep with your side of the bed covered and the porch light still on. some mornings i make a second plate of pancakes. some mornings i leave a second set of keys under your favourite garden pot. do you think love is partly eating?  do you think love is partly disgusting consumption?  i don’t want to think about my teeth  i don’t want to think about my claws. does every story have to  devolve into this?  when winter comes all the flowers i planted for you will be dead and all the stray dogs will be gone, too; their teeth stitched to their jaws and the screams from their chests hollowed out into sobs.  i’m not saying we’re animals. i’m not saying it’s your fault; i just don’t know if you ever loved me if it was that easy to find someone new if it was that easy to give me up. 

i made you coffee if you want it, it’s on the sil.

untitled. 5.01.21

[valsunna]

message not received. 24.12.20

[valsunna]

bad 1 am notesapp poetry.

[valsunna]

1.

i don’t want to be  an amalgamation of the things we both have to forget. is it too much to say your family doesn’t celebrate christmas, but you wanted to decorate a tree with me. is it too much to say i don’t like trying new foods but i wanted to try them for you. you don’t like music like that but you listened to it for me. i don’t love like that but i did it for you.  is it too much to say, i never would’ve stopped wanting you for what you didn’t love about yourself. at night i want to look back but i’m terrified you won’t be there. i’m still learning how to sleep with you gone. is it too much to say i only wanted you to let me inside is it too much to swallow that i wasn’t vulnerable for anyone but i laid down for you. is it too much to say, please touch me please touch me please touch me. 

[valsunna]

27.10.20

[valsunna]

[image on left is not mine.]

[valsunna]

9. 

how many times have i  done this? i don’t know how to write it out pretty, or if it’s meant to be pretty at all. yesterday i cleaned my room  for the first time in a months found remnants of  myself hidden all around, things i’d thought i’d lost but were there all along. clumps of blonde and red hair hidden between the sheets and an old eyelash, maybe an entire arm i’d forgotten had ever been there in the first place. these parts of my body displaced as grief works an amputation.  i don’t know what else is missing but at least i can pretend  it’s not you. 

[valsunna]

8.

i spend all summer a fixation on you  and the ocean, those two things that  kill me i both want forever. nothing else, only you and me like the sun, my mouth open my stomach a bowl of light. i wish you would tell me what you really want. 

i spend all summer  in my bedroom with you in my head as  a kaleidoscope of citrine and sunlight  of everything that burns  and etches that leaves a mark and  doesn’t go away. 

i’m sorry again that we’re on fire and we can’t put it out. you get the aftertaste of swallowing the sun & a swollen throat and i just get this empty sky. how is that fair? 

you loved me long and pretty in the summer. and i loved you back.

error lies in hoping. [ 8.10.20 ]

[valsunna]

7. the curtains are on fire! so put them out, we have buckets and buckets, but your arms aren’t long enough to wrap around the both of us and my hands aren’t strong enough to keep holding on. when the rain starts i’ll turn away from you in the upper right corner of my mind, hanging from a spiderweb watching me at night. i cover my eyes. you’re still there i throw a blanket over you, you push it away. but you don’t do anything except stare, i scream at you to leave but you stay. how is that fair? i have a nightmare where i tell you something i used to say and you don’t want me anymore, and i wake up crying like if i could cordon off parts of me to give back to you i still would.  my hands which are no longer yours, are only touching eachother.  tomorrow when i wake up, you still won’t - 

[valsunna]

5. 

one day i’ll be okay with being less than what i was

or who i could’ve been. i cup yesterdays me in my hands

and blow out the candle too. i close all the windows 

lightwood & steel, fire on

the bedsheets & packing my body away for tomorrow. at night

it’s simpler, i turn over and i’m not there, but the shadows still

shine through my fingers

was i born with a body or was it always my mothers? 

in the mirror her eyes, her hair, the slip of her mouth

the tip of her nose. my fathers only feature the cut of my jaw

in the mirror my mother, and only my mother. i turn it to my insides 

to see who’s really there, and it’s just her. i scrape her out

and find her somewhere else, hidden in my colon

or somewhere in my blood. it terrifies me; no part of me

isn’t part of her. 

[valsunna]

very very bad notesapp poetry But a look into my unedited 3 am Sad little crybaby time

[valsunna]

4. the final act

[valsunna]

your poetry is amazing!!! it's so beautiful and makes me Feel

aw tysm!!! ❤ thts so sweet of u 2 say