[witnessthestars]

winter of the surrender // O. Tarleton

[witnessthestars]

First born blade // O. Tarleton

[witnessthestars]

First born blade // O. Tarleton

[witnessthestars]

Every version of you in the sunlight,

begging

Pupils contracted,

pinpricks of black in

a dazzling kaleidoscope of light

Everything luminous hurts,

every touch leaves heat tracks on a pallid body,

blistered and swollen,

this is the aftermath of the thing you wanted,

The thing you have always wanted,

ruined and split open again and again.

Pry open your mouth and swallow,

make religion out of the things god has discarded.

It is yours now so love it,

crack open the ribcage of the moon as an act of devotion.

The light reflects still,

on your clavicles like cliffs,

the small of your back,

the shards of your skull scattered like glass.

[witnessthestars]

Sometimes,

I think the wound is older than me.

That the stench of rot followed me out of the womb

and has suffocated me ever since.

I came out with hands stained red and

a mouth to speak the downfall of man,

or yours.

(I still cannot find the difference)

and the gentlest way to bring yourself

to ruin.

It goes like this:

after the third dead cat no one speaks your name the same way,

every bird is icarus on your bedroom window,

you are always there to witness. Someone is bleeding out in front of your appartement

and the first red hands belong to you,

always.

Disaster follows you

like an abandoned dog

that you can't help but feed.

[witnessthestars]

So you want a love poem

and I want to be wanted.

To rewrite what my body knows

as it comes in contact with you.

I mean, like an implosion,

like a star collapsing on itself because it contains too much.

I am made of too many contradictions,

fight or flight made flesh

only it's both,

only I have only learned to fight myself.

So you haven't slept the whole night and I still want to stain you with the picture of me,

carve out a place for my sins inside of your brain.

You want a sweet collection of words,

I know.

You want what you think other people have torn out of me,

you want the tearing,

the crying,

the pained breath when the sun hasn't colored the sky yet.

Don't you know;

your baby teeth are still in my shoulder,

i breathe but not quite the same without the imprint of a mouth on my neck.

Of course it has to be yours,

of course it's gonna be yours.

I'll get drunk on the carpet again,

make all the same old mistakes,

I'll be fourteen and angry again. It can be okay this time.

It's a cyclical thing,

I'll be the crash,

I'll wear the damage.

You can watch.

[witnessthestars]

I devour as an act of love,

I name my teeth devotion,

polish them gently so that the necessary violence ends more gracefully,

cleaner.

The world has a bite to it not unlike a fishbone,

you choke and ask for more still,

pluck shards of it out of your trachea.

This is what living is,

eat what kills you,

marvel as you snuff it out instead.

In my bowels there is a snake,

a perfect circle of smooth scales and cold flesh,

it twists and twines,

endless,

an ouroboros of spit and bile.

Feed what does not need to eat,

swallow my own tail endlessly

and cease to ponder wether it is death or immortality that I seek.

To live is to consume ceaselessly,

to be a catastrophy to everything but yourself.

Autophagy/29.12.21

[witnessthestars]

A guide to teenage heartbreak:

1: This time, as your palm hits my skin it doesn't feel like lightning. There is nothing heart-rending about the bruise, I do not touch it tenderly for hours on end, wondering if when it fades my soul might, too.

My eyes are as calm as a summer sea, smooth on the surface as to not betray their treacherous dephts.

I become Medusa, a poisonous sacrifice to the violence of men.

2: "It's like loving a corpse." you say, months later.

Your waste still drying on my skin,

your teeth still written on my neck.

The first time you made me cry the crickets fluttering in the trees swarmed for the first time in years,

now,

we are in a season of wanting.

3: I know grief like a mother knows her child.

Even years after the leaving you will cradle it's face gently, recognizing yourself in the tired eyed weariness.

Softly I will say "I made this, it has been birthed out of me"

The things you break often find a way back to you, like so many wounded dogs who have not yet learned to bite.

3: Heartbreak smells like incense and cheap lube, feels like a hand resting against your throat, waiting for the most painful time to tighten.

It's like premonition,

I see everything that's going to break before it does,

I hear every apology before the accident happens.

[witnessthestars]

A guide to teenage heartbreak:

1: This time, as your palm hits my skin it doesn't feel like lightning. There is nothing heart-rending about the bruise, I do not touch it tenderly for hours on end, wondering if when it fades my soul might, too.

My eyes are as calm as a summer sea, smooth on the surface as to not betray their treacherous dephts.

I become Medusa, a poisonous sacrifice to the violence of men.

2: "It's like loving a corpse." you say, months later.

Your waste still drying on my skin,

your teeth still written on my neck.

The first time you made me cry the crickets fluttering in the trees swarmed for the first time in years,

now,

we are in a season of wanting.

3: I know grief like a mother knows her child.

Even years after the leaving you will cradle it's face gently, recognizing yourself in the tired eyed weariness.

Softly I will say "I made this, it has been birthed out of me"

The things you break often find a way back to you, like so many wounded dogs who have not yet learned to bite.

3: Heartbreak smells like incense and cheap lube, feels like a hand resting against your throat, waiting for the most painful time to tighten.

It's like premonition,

I see everything that's going to break before it does,

I hear every apology before the accident happens.

[witnessthestars]

Imagine this:

The worst thing that ever happened to you is still walking,

somewhere,

someone is a witness to a crime they don't know of.

People whisper as you walk,

they say things like hospital, or blood clot, and you have to muzzle your own urge to bite.

It's a human response that,

fight or flight.

Sometimes you never stop fighting.

Some animals keep charging even after you shoot them.

Sometimes

An act of mercy is only another silver bullet,

You spit it out, speckled with blood like stars.

Get up, keep walking, there will be more bullets, there will be more men to shoot them still.

You will survive them all.

[witnessthestars]

Sometimes,

I think the wound is older than me.

That the stench of rot followed me out of the womb

and has suffocated me ever since.

I came out with hands stained red and

a mouth to speak the downfall of man,

or yours.

(I still cannot find the difference)

and the gentlest way to bring yourself

to ruin.

It goes like this:

after the third dead cat no one speaks your name the same way,

every bird is icarus on your bedroom window,

you are always there to witness. Someone is bleeding out in front of your appartement

and the first red hands belong to you,

always.

Disaster follows you

like an abandoned dog

that you can't help but feed.

[witnessthestars]

Sometimes,

I think the wound is older than me.

That the stench of rot followed me out of the womb

and has suffocated me ever since.

I came out with hands stained red and

a mouth to speak the downfall of man,

or yours.

(I still cannot find the difference)

and the gentlest way to bring yourself

to ruin.

It goes like this:

after the third dead cat no one speaks your name the same way,

every bird is icarus on your bedroom window,

you are always there to witness. Someone is bleeding out in front of your appartement

and the first red hands belong to you,

always.

Disaster follows you

like an abandoned dog

that you can't help but feed.

[witnessthestars]

Today writes itself this way:

You are a fair faced,

middle class tragedy,

dark eyes to look at the moon with,

small hands to touch boys that

make your skin crawl

like the waves at night.

Drink the whiskey,

pretend you like the burn,

pretend it's alcohol still

as dusk turns into dawn.

If you don't know how to do anything but ache,

fake it.

Wear this rusted spoon bravado on your breast like an insignia,

it is your pride and it is your shame.

The world will swallow you soon,

but just tonight you are a comet,

making your death a sign of the times. Don't look at the blood,

nothing you wanted to keep was ripped out of you,

didn't they promise?

Just this time you are more than your body.

Dance,

cry,

scream,

step over the body of your shame,

you are a wretched creature

and it is beautiful still.

It's okay, worship always needs a sacrifice.

[witnessthestars]

Sometimes things are hard to name

How do you tell someone;

My mother's labour lasted sixteen hours and yet I am still afraid of heights.

Without also uncovering the grief that has lingered ever since.

Fifty years ago,

my grandmother fled a war.

This morning I woke up with gunpowder on my tongue.

Wether by elder's right or by luck i carry the weight of my ancestor's transgressions.

Or, years after you fall into the river,

Your children will find your scars on their back.

My mother told me that I once got so sick that my eyes burned like stars,

and she,

shamefully,

prayed to the skies that I would not wake.

In the wild, lionesses eat their young.

Wether by fear

or by some instinct that we cannot define,

they devour what they cannot keep by any other way.

Perhaps, as she looked at my still soft skull, she felt that same primal urge.

And yet,

I have not forgotten how to breathe,

slowly,

as not to wake anything that wishes to stay forgotten.

Like a sickly cub I stay home,

I lay in wait.

To learn the art of violence,

you must witness it first.

[witnessthestars]

Trauma Bonding

Or,

sometimes,

what doesn't kill you refuses to leave.

In the desert people mistake mirages for water, it's like this,

The glimmer in the distance, the promise of better things;

The gentle agony of misplaced hope.

If something isn't a definite negative you will reach for it, bruise your fingers until the pain starts to feel like pleasure.

Nestle this mess of crossed wires in your heart and treasure it.

If there is no good you will take the bad instead,

if you see blood then you're not as empty as they say,

you will cough it all out at his feet if you could.

Isn't it yours if you hurt so fiercely for it?

Isn't it yours if you begged,

belly up for the blade to fall perfectly?

Your hands have fossilised like this, aching and cramped around it,

Slowly, you forget the art of letting go.

[witnessthestars]

There is an altar in the gentle dip of my back, I am a small god of the forgotten things.

I carry in me the following offerings:

Seven dead roses, my grandmother's ring, soft white fur, a yellowed collarbone, three stains from a nosebleed, your mother's grief, the hands of anyone who wanted to leave them there.

Bruises like rubies in this temple.

If I bleed then aren't I holy?

If I weep then aren't I pure?

If I have wings then tear them off my body,

make me a martyr to the ordinary people.

Here there is only dead things, frightened animals with throats slit open like a gift.

They say gods are cruel things;

I say Medusa begged even as she was defiled,

when a woman turns into a beast we blame the sacred for an unholy thing.

No one wants a blessing when they could have this:

A mouth full of teeth, blood on fragile hands,

A curse to lay on every man that even thought of touching you,

Children that never leave, even after being birthed.

Even if it's hideous, power is power.

[witnessthestars]

And I, ever the fool, start thinking of your arms as a soft thing

Never mind that you like seeing me choke,

Glassy eyed, empty minded,

Empty hearted.

Hands around my neck,

hand around my throat,

they come back sticky regardless,

If I closed my eyes hard enough I would see stars,

I would see you as the sun

against my waxen wings.

I have always been afraid of heights you know,

Of course you know.