x

[whisperingsleep]

Retroactive

Every time I see your hands, I can’t help but think about where they’ve been, and when I’m kissing your back, I think of all the mouths that have been there,  It’s irrational, it’s sick, but I fear there’s no cure for this. 

Every time I see your face I think of her lips on your cheek, every time you say you love me I think of all the times you’ve said that to her before.

It’s stupid, it’s sick, I fear there’s no cure for this. 

Every time you see me, I think about you thinking of all the other faces you thought were the best thing ever, and every place we visit, I wonder which spots you visited first with her.

It’s horrible, it’s sick, I fear there’s no cure for this. 

Every time you touch me, I imagine you touching her, every time you talk of our future, I think of you getting down on one knee for her.

It’s devastating, I’m sick, I fear there’s no cure for this. 

[whisperingsleep]

Senses

I stay up til 3am and murmur words, words once meant for you, but now, you’ll never hear, things I keep close to me now, now that your hand’s not here  to keep my heart company. And there are so many sounds filled with utterances of you, a spark of a lighter, an exhale I waited too long for, a cough to cover the silence, an alarm I can never turn off. But you are here, your stubborn fist pumping my heart, still, your eyes, the newest lens of my mind, your tongue the only taste my buds have ever truly loved, and without you, one by one, all my senses have left.

[whisperingsleep]

No

I think back to last May, it was supposed to be my birthday month, a joyous celebration, frosting on my nose, but all I could taste was rust on my tongue from the kisses I wish I could take back - it’s my body, it’s my life, so why has it never felt like mine? I let you use me, squeezed my eyes shut like a lemon and watched the tears form lemonade in puddles around me. 23 and life wasn’t a fairytale, a happy birthday message from the universe. I thought I was protected by some curse, didn’t the worst already happen at seventeen, wasn’t I exempt then, from all this bullshit, until I was 93? Haven’t I served my crimes with pain? But it’s never enough, because you came. And I let you but the bitterness remained in the back of my throat for so many months, scratching at your skin because my lips were occupied, I said it so many times, with every single twist of my body, but it was never enough, because you came. It’s like you enjoyed the pain, I could feel the blood pool up on my lips, I pulled back like a curtain to reveal what we all knew all along: I was never going to say it, I’m a polite hostess to the end, rolling my eyes to get through the lies and the gravel on my knees stung like a hornet beneath me but nothing was as bad as the thousand showers that could never wipe you off of me. Or the cold hard realisation when I looked in the mirror of who I had become, desperation clawed at every part of me, thoughts strangled the air out of me, because I was always going to be a polite hostess to the end, never saying that word that repeated a million times in my head.

[whisperingsleep]

The princess saves herself in this one

Maybe I should stop focusing on the pretty sounds that come out of mouths just because I like the way they resemble a script I once wrote when I was fourteen. I wish I knew how to stop getting tunnel vision any time I see a face that looks slightly good enough to be crowned, as if the tiara could save me from reality.

It’s all because a pair of brothers encoded these stories into my brain of how it should be, how it could be if the sun always shone and the clouds never rained. If the frog becomes a Prince, and If the beast is cured in the end, well then, couldn’t it all be perfect? Couldn’t it be magical if they just changed their entire being to fit me? 

Honestly, they should ban fairytales, burn them all at the stake, they’re a collection of future pain that the reader will one day obtain because what does it teach us, anyway?

Love a man into treating you well, if your life’s a trainwreck,  marry your captor, it’s sure to go down well, conclude the rest of your life in three vague words.

You can find salvation in another human being if you spend long enough waiting, and your meaning exists only in your relativity. For once, I’d like to see a Princess cure herself of her worries by meditating or volunteering at a charity and finding a purpose higher than anything romantic. I’d like to see a happily ever after with a shelter care animal or Sundays spent feeding the needy, playing chess with the elderly at a home, taking a walk and doing yoga, learning a language and making an appointment with a therapist.

I’d like to see the Princess call up her loved ones who remind her she’s not alone. I’d like to see the Princess go to a new country she’s never been to all alone. How much better would that have been? If she was my role model, if those were the solutions that were encoded in me? If the Princess, ever, for one second, saved herself, how much that could have taught me.

[whisperingsleep]

The dragon

I want to be attracted to the Prince, not the dragon but something in me is drawn to the scales. I want to love a man worthy of being a partner but something in me is drawn to the pain. I want to marry the guy who cares enough to comfort me but I choose the ones who never stay. I want all the things my body rejects and my mind feels repulsed when I see kindness on display. I want a man who I can trust, but I’d rather have a man who I can count on to pull away. I keep thinking my kiss can turn dragons into Princes instead of just loving one in the first place.