things all girls want to do:
• become medusa
• dance naked around a fire in the woods w other ladies
• eat men
• let their eyes roll back in their head and speak in tongues
• eat men
Where are those woke white people at!?
it’s gotten to the point where i just do a peace sign as a natural reflex
play.
every poem I ever wrote about you revolved around the concept of noise,
like an acrobat
tiptoeing
across a tightrope.
like the soft sound made by a cassette tape
between songs,
like slamming doors
and startling laughter, like colorful shoes
on slick concrete.
the way you say
my name
unleashes a spectrum
of colors in my mind.
though I could never figure out
what the loneliest sound is,
I know that you are
the producer
of the loveliest noises.
they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it would take me millions
to properly convey how you look
when you smile,
or when you take a drag of a cigarette,
blowing smoke out into the atmosphere.fast forward.
pause.breathe in. breathe out. breath me in. breath you out. breathe you back in; breathe me out and
my god, I’ve forgotten how lungs work,
I am drowning in thoughts of you,
while you are off somewhere, floating in a pool of my tears
and sipping some fruity cocktail.
in.
out.
breathe.
BREATHE.rewind. play.
I watch the smoke drift and fade away,
and it makes me wonder if that is what it will be like when you go;
me, with the taste of second hand nicotine on my tongue,
between my teeth,
and you,
ascending to the sky on a plane, slowly fading into the horizon.
out of sight,
in mind.pause.
I wish I could freeze this moment and trap your vibrant energy like fireflies in a jar.
when you left me
I left my door ajar
just in case you decided
to come back
home.fast forward.
I sleep on one side of my bed
instead of the middle
just in case you come back in the middle of the night
and crawl under the covers.
when I go out,
I sit at a table for two
and make small talk with the ghost of you
and though the food is spicy,
all my tastebuds receive are bittersweet memories
of you.rewind.
you look at me and a smile
crosses your face
one that makes it all the way to your eyes
my chest aches,
in a pleasant kind of way,
as if you were keeping my heart inside of yours.
constricting.
behind the hazy cloud of smoke residue,
I can see love in your eyes.
you slide your sweaty palm into mine, and give it a squeeze.record.
the way your lips move, shaping around the words
“I love you,”
the way they coat me like caramel on an apple,
the sticky, sickly sweet sensation clogging my pores and enveloping me whole.pause. fast forward.
he smiles at me.
I smile back,
but can’t help but notice
his nose doesn’t scrunch like yours,
his lips don’t curve the same.
but you are thousands of miles away,
forgetting me with every breath you take,
memories of me fading like smoke
in the distance,
while I try to memorize someone else’s landscape.
I wear the perfume
that you loved the most
and it makes me think of you
so while he tells me he has finally found
the one,
that I feel like home
I get lost in thoughts of you,
hands in my hair,
tangled up in a warm, golden kind of silence,
not caring nor knowing
where I begin, and you endpause. rewind.
you squeeze my hand once more,
to stop me from trembling,
because I know that all too soon,
we will untangle
from the web of love
that we have weaved,
sit in a melancholy blue kind of silence,
and say goodbye.
and when you walk away for the last time,
I will finally know what the loneliest
sound in the world is,
that even the supernatural power of phantoms will pale in comparison
to the noise made by your footsteps when you walk away,
because that fading sound will haunt me forever.
and when the door shuts between us,
we will finally learn
where you start and I end.
if missing you is art, then I will be creating masterpieces (via steadytrembling)
I tried to change, closed my mouth more, tried to be soft, prettier, less awake. Fasted for 60 days, wore white, abstained from mirrors, abstained from sex, slowly did not speak another word. In that time my hair, I grew past my ankles. I slept on a mat on the floor. I swallowed a sword. I levitated. Went to the basement, confessed my sins, and was baptized in a river. I got on my knees and said amen and said I mean.
I whipped my own back and asked for dominion at your feet. I threw myself into a volcano. I drank the blood and drank the wine. I sat alone and begged and bent at the waist for God. I crossed myself and thought I saw the devil. I grew thickened skin on my feet I bathed in bleach and plugged my menses with pages from the holy book, but still inside me, coiled deep, was the need to know… are you cheating on me?
Cheating? Are you cheating on me?
“Denial” by Warsan Shire (for the Lemonade album by Beyonce)
you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.
Warsan Shire (via leadbyeg)
