m-6Whisper

French

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hourglassi am running out of ways to try to get you to kiss me back / your eyelids are very soft and shot with purple veins and they look like the first morning after rain / i am willing to wait

9

Aug 26, 2014

jane doeher grandmother’s hand feels like an overripe peach and there’s not much behind her glossy eyes. the nursing home smells like disinfectant and the powdery smell of old women. jane tucks her feet under her chair as she watches the vacant stare on her grandmother’s face and wonders if her grandmother will notice when she stops coming. the soft buzz of television and the chatter of nurses feels very far away and the room feels too big for the two of them. jane’s grandmother raised her when her own parents were too drunk or coked up to remember they had even had a daughter and her first, second, third stroke had left her soft and empty. jane kisses her forehead, leaving a strawberry-colored mark on her grandmother’s pale skin and she slips a paperweight from the nurse’s desk into the pocket of her dress / the coat is heavy and camel-colored and hangs off jane’s small figure, nearly obscuring her. the collar nestles under her ears and she’s warm, even in the chill of the dusty second-hand shop down the street, with the watery-eyed cashier who watches her suspiciously and waits for his cigarette break. the weight is comforting and she hugs it in closer to her before removing it and stroking the shiny polyester lining. jane waits a few minutes before she pulls out a bundle of carefully stacked bills and quietly buys the overcoat without making eye contact. / at home, jane’s neat handwriting fills the last page of the journal she’s been keeping for the past few months. from her desk drawer she pulls two more of the same. the details of her life coat the pages and it occurs to her how small, how ordered, how utterly unremarkable her days have been. this elicits no real emotion and jane pours herself a half glass of wine and lies on the couch, fully clothed, and breathes so slowly her chest hardly moves. she wonders if it will hurt.

5

Aug 26, 2014

rememberingI. The first time I found the bag of needles and powder in her backpack I left and said I would never come back but she found me sleeping in the cemetery that night just like I always did when things were bad especially at home. I said a lot of times that I would never come back and I always did. She said a lot of times that she would stop and she never did. I still remember every plane of her face from feeling it in the dark. I wonder if she's okay but I can't care anymore. / II. I liked how she felt in bed and I liked how I felt in bed with her. / III. She called me at 4am a few times and talked to me so quickly I only caught half the words she was speaking and I couldn't stop smiling but when we hung up the room felt much emptier than before.

4

Apr 13, 2014

todayi miss you and this is as much poetry as there is in me

1

Apr 7, 2014

bitesi try to look in the mirror before i leave but i barely recognize the face staring back. my skin looks too thin for my face and my eyes are not as bright as they used to be. i like the way my ribs ****** through the skin of my torso. / the party is loud and slightly sweaty and no one seems to mind much that i’ve barely said a word and i don’t mind either but i want to go home, home with my soft bed and the quiet dark of my room and home where i can be alone. a girl i haven’t talked to in months nudges me and yells over the music God youre such a ****** with her wide teasing smile as i eat a tortilla chip and she doesn’t know that all i’ve eaten in the past six days is half of a small apple, in tiny precise bites / she doesn’t know

7

Apr 7, 2014

ironmy mouth tastes like pennies and your hand is too warm on my thigh under your parents table and i wish you would move it and i know the way you squeeze softly would be attractive to other girls but i am not other girls / i used to read books out loud to you and when i stumbled over words you would stroke my hair and i don’t think you even heard a word i was saying / you say you love math because there is no uncertainty and i think about how i am never a fixed point and i wonder if this is why you’re not always there when i wake up

10

Mar 27, 2014

I filled out a survey about sexuality and I want to save my response-I was raised in a strictly religious household and I privately thought that being gay was okay but I knew that most people in my religious community disagree. I admitted to myself when I was about 17 (I'm 18 now) that I was attracted to girls (I'm also Gray-A, meaning I experience limited ****** attraction) and this year I came out to a few close friends. My parents views on LGBT rights (that is, that "being gay is a choice" and "gays are destroying the sanctity of marriage", etc) influence me heavily, but in a negative way- they make me feel unsafe and I know I can't come out to them now or they might kick me out (my mom told my sister once that if any of us were gay we wouldn't be welcome. she also referenced my trans friend as being 'confused' and things like that). / The 8 or so friends I've told have been accepting but I know they see me differently and I feel uncomfortable telling boys because there's an expectation that lesbians are more inclined to ****** activity (think lesbian **** and are often fetishized, things like that. / I still go to church but it makes me miserable because people hate gays there and make insensitive comments, not realizing that they make me feel pretty terrible for being who I am. I've also suffered from major depression for about 6 years and part of what made it worse throughout junior high and high school was having to suppress my identity and the constant fear I face in my home and community. You never know who's going to hate you, reject you, or even attack you for being gay. The internet (tumblr, mainly) provides a more welcoming community than I find elsewhere so at least I have that forum to express myself.

3

Mar 20, 2014

little birdi awake i awake i awake i am awake and i see you first thing and you are beautiful to me and i see you all the time and you always look so fresh so young so glowing so terrifying you burn my eyes and i love you all the same i love you i love you this runs like a thread through every lobe of my brain i am so in love with you and the way you cry makes my heart beat extra strong today you are crying and i do not know why i do not care why this is how i love you and your face is grey pigeon grey pearl grey storm grey and your eyes are darker than ever before and from the way your hands twist in your lap i see that you are leaving me but there are no words in my throat just this never ending loop of i love you i love you i love you in my head i can’t get it out and i don’t want to either i see it in front of my eyes i see it all around me it’s so tangible it’s as touchable as your hair looks just now let me reach out and stroke it one last time your flesh is so soft and yielding and i can see my hands in front of me too but they do not make any sense because i have not commanded them to move but they reach for you reach reach reach for something i am afraid i might lose i reach like a child for their mother i reach for you and my hands are much stronger than your delicate neck and your neck so soft and brown is no match for me no not at all and your eyes your lovely tan eyes look so afraid and i want to tell you not to be afraid you are not going anywhere and your face looks so swollen so bruised and i begin to cry too but you are leaving me anyway and this is no punishment this is just me begging for you not to go but your eyes are fluttering shut and my face is bleeding from your sharp little nails scratching at me like a bird you are my little bird and you are broken on the ground

1

Mar 15, 2014

HOSPITALIZATIONYOU WILL NOT FALL IN LOVE IN A HOSPITAL, YOUR SKIN WILL SMELL LIKE THE DYING AND YOUR LIPS WILL CRACK AND YOU WILL NOT FIND BEAUTY / I USED TO THINK I WOULD FIND SOLACE IN THOSE SANITIZED WHITE HALLS BUT ALL I EVER FOUND WAS MY OWN EMPTY EYES STARING BACK AT ME FROM THE UNBREAKABLE SUICIDE-PROOF MIRROR AND THERE WAS NO COMFORT IN MY BRUISED TENDER FACE / HOSPITALS ARE NO PLACE FOR YOUNG GIRLS WHO HAVE NOT YET TURNED AWAY FROM LIFE AND THEY ARE NO PLACE FOR KISSING YET YOU READ ABOUT MOUTHS FINDING EACHOTHER IN THE DARKEST HOUR AND YOU THINK OF CEMENT HOSPITAL WALLS; THERE IS NO DARKNESS IN HOSPITALS, JUST PURPLE FLUORESCENT LIGHTS THAT MAKE YOU LOOK SO PALE YOU MIGHT JUST REALIZE THE IMMINENCE OF YOUR OWN DEATH.

4

Mar 13, 2014

HOROSCOPES FOR SURREALIST WOMEN, PART IARIES: stay away from cats claws and hours past midnight. good day for purple lips and kissing your mothers cheek / TAURUS: your leg hair will grow and it will feel like beauty. you are lost and will not be found and this will feel like being a child again / GEMINI: clocks will move backwards for you today. when his hand catches in your hair, go home with your shoes clutched to your chest.

12

Mar 12, 2014

Hello PoetryVoting