fragile: Favorites

Mar 2014 fragile

hallelujah

Mar 2014 fragile

Tom Leveille

i am seven and in your living room
with antiques & photographs
of family that are more like strangers
and handshakes at christmas
there is a jar of circus peanuts by the armchair
and i remember being told that these are here because they are never out of stock
and that they are the only things
children will not want to take from me
i still do not like the color orange.
i am eight and round the bannister
to an upstairs that reminds me
of heaven in that
place i can't go sort of way & i am
knuckle deep in your pumpkin pie
wiping it on my uncles suede jacket
our hands still shake but the jury is still out
on if he looks at me and napkins the same
i hope you do not sleep
with my apologies under your fingernails
i will not say them out loud
i know i should have mowed your lawn
i should have been a home
for second hand smoke
if i could go back i would be your ashtray
i remember the day you forgot who i was
i bound into the room and throw my arms
around you like an armistice
and you ask who i am
we are not in church
but everyone stops singing
i am passed from child to child
while we all laugh
but my lungs feel like
they've been mugged in an ally
who's son does he look like, mom?
my father says like gospel
you pull on your cigarette
sip from your watered down wine and shrug
and i am neck deep in forgetfulness
i imagine alzheimer's
as being born again every day
so, we will spend ages
looking at captions to photographs
telling your stories to strangers
as my father begins to forget
and when i imagine probate
an unfamiliar hand unfolding a will
to be read to wayward angels
i want to burn down the house
and sleep in the ashes

Mar 2014 fragile

letters to cupid

Mar 2014 fragile

Tom Leveille

letters to cupid

whenever i hear a wind chime i think of your voice. i wonder what it's like to be your bedsheets. what it would really be like to understand the jargon in your head. i ******* want to kiss you sometimes and then others i really do want concrete between your hands & my skin. i can't think straight all the time so i wonder if it benefits me at all to explain what it means that i don't want or expect anything from you but if we accidentally liked eachother in that middle school "sort of way" then i wouldn't say no. i want to really understand what you mean when you say "stay" to me in our texts. i wonder if your sleeping pills do to you what they do to me. i'm thinking again about "stay" and maybe i'm choked up on you leaving for school up north but i'll never tell you because get the **** out of here and don't look back especially not for me. stay. your smile, genuine or not tears me in two. i wish every face on the planet had your smile and i am ******* afraid of you wearing lipstick. i'm terrified of your bare skin and goodbyes. i hate farewells and see you laters. i knew the first time i saw you interact on your phone while drinking coffee the way you text people and how i now do the same thing. i get around read receipts. i sometimes want to hear you say you want.. not so much me, maybe me, but my company. theres a park near my house where i've imagined us paddle boating. i got written up at work once for daydreaming about it. what the **** is in a friendship anyway, decency in a human isn't biological. i get hung up on knee jerks and gut reactions. i want to know what the ******* are thinking about when i look up and you are looking right at me. but then again, i don't. as long as i'm wondering. as long as the door might swing open or closed. stay. go. run. **** your collarbones. **** your chest and skin and lips and everything i hate but crave and might like about you without say so. stay. sit down and explain to me why it is that i care anyway. i am afraid that if i say i want to *******, you'll think i mean *******, and not "*******". i wanna know if any of this sounds familiar and i here i am back to wondering what the **** is going on and why you're looking at me. the hair on my neck stands on end when you do and another thing... **** poetry. i cloud my feelings for you & anything else with the abstract so you'll never really know if i ******* hit rock bottom or not over the fact that i know we will never kiss. somebody just said "**** buddy" on tv and i think sometimes symmetry between irony & circumstance. i have harbored some of these thoughts since the night you said hello to me. i'm sorry i had to get over the fact that once upon a time i wanted to save somebody, and you weren't going to let it be you. i do sometimes think my hands might break you, that you spend your day painting a picket fence in your head that you can't get on one side or the other on. i felt like you didn't want to get up from dinner and i rushed it out the door because i am afraid to start a sentence with so. so stay. i am sorry my words often wear brass knuckles. your smile shoots to **** and if i ever die while you still remember my name i want you to read this or read something at my funeral. i don't know if these butterflies are waiting for me to jump or sit down but they speak up when my phone lights up & it's you.

Mar 2014 fragile

If You Were the Sun

Mar 2014 fragile

Jamie Horridge

If You Were the Sun

Who are you and why do you have this effect on me?
You walked in the room and I can hardly breath
Do you make me nervous on purpose, or is it just me?
Are you doing this on purpose?
I'm falling so quickly

I don't wanna rush it and call it too soon
But if you were the sun, then I'd be the moon
Your eyes illuminate the streets with the only light I can see
I'm just a deer in your headlights when you look at me

Take me anywhere you want to go
I'd follow you into the dark in places I don't know
Wherever you are is where I want to be
You're everything I want, and all that I can see

If you have a hint of doubt about the things that I have said
Just believe me when I say, you do laps inside my head
If you leave it up to me,
I'd tell you to stick around
You be the tree,
I'll be the roots in the ground
I'll help you grow and try to give you everything you need
Darling, it'd make me happy if you grew old with me

Mar 2014 fragile

tell me something good

Mar 2014 fragile

R

tell me something good

I can't think straight
my eyes are blurry and red
tears are rolling down my cheeks
I couldn't bear to wake you up
but I should've
my god, I really should have.
maybe I wouldn't be here
in this place right now
with wet bed sheets now
stained red with
tears of my
blood.

cutting doesn't release pain anymore,
it just lets me feel more.
how am I supposed to let go when
all I seem to do is let the feelings back in?
I can't take it anymore.
this constant pain.
I feel so whole,
yet so empty and I
just cant take it!

I know I am happy
yet I feel so down.
why is it that
every time i feel good
I somehow find a new
reason to get sad
again?

I can't breathe
the thoughts have returned

help

Mar 2014 fragile

Dawning of love

Mar 2014 fragile

Jack

Dawning of love

You whispered your secrets
on breezes of starlight
of moonbeam collections
in night sky desire

Those twinkling phrases
beyond the horizon
which once held the sunset
in blistery fire

Beneath every pine tree
found evergreen wishes
with snow dressing branches
long winters to show

And springtime petunias
bloomed fresh for the season
soft feathery visions
you want me to know

That here as we’re lying
this hillside of splendor
while counting the diamonds
a’ shine up above

Each sunrise of morning
a new days beginning
asleep in my arms is
the dawning of love

Feb 2014 fragile

you sometimes bite your lip during laughter

Feb 2014 fragile

Tom Leveille

you sometimes bite your lip during laughter

you are inches
measured by miles away
bulldozing oriental food
you don't intend on eating
around your plate
and i am imagining
the translation of asking
for a broom in a foreign language
for when you shatter over small talk
or the first sentence to start with "so"
breaks you into shaking
that i can feel from across the table
and i am thinking now
about tectonics and how you must be daydreaming of being submerged in a book
back home or gripping tightly
to bedsheets begging for familiar warmth
i can tell by the way you are looking at me
that you are feigning our salutation embrace
seconds drowned in ankle deep water and i wonder if you see my hands
as jackhammers and if the reason
why you hug so hard
but only for a moment
is to be as sharp as possible
so that i do not smell your perfume
or notice that you aren't wearing any and why
there are few suprises
in the safe you claim is a mouth
where shades of plush pink
hide a sickly pallor
and i continue to look over
brick & mortar borders
and think how maybe
she is thinking of kissing
but certainly not me
not these apologies nailed to my face
i give myself a moment
of benefitted doubt that you sometimes
picture your frame under mine
and if your clavicles would crack
if i were to touch them
i am sorry that i am a victim of imagination
but i swear i chalk it up
as the forgotten feeling
for when you look up
and the person you are looking
at is gazing directly at you
you have painted yourself
as a mosaic in my mind
as a mess of dust & incoherent words
that all sound like please in my ears
but that doesn't explain why
my hands are the ones that are shaking
when i imagine you
imagining me
in the spaces of yourself
where you've forgotten
you could put someone

Jan 2014 fragile

sleeping habits

Jan 2014 fragile

berry

sleeping habits

i still remember the first night we fell asleep on the phone together. i don't recall why you were crying and i'm sorry that you probably do. but i sang to you. i sang to you until you were silent. and that became a ritual for us. my voice carried you into dreams and i had never felt so important before. i didn't know it was possible to think the way someone snored was cute but night after night you proved me wrong. the moments before sleep were occupied by conversations of the future we wanted to build. we talked about being together in our bed in our house someday. i conjured up countless images of memories yet to be made that served as pictures on the pages of stories you told me. those images are still stuck to the walls of my skull, clinging to them as if to say, "but he promised." every time i try to peel them off they scream. i told you from the beginning the way promises tie my stomach in knots and most of the time you were careful. but at 4am when my voice was drowning in sobs i let you tell me you weren't going anywhere. you told me to breathe, suddenly i could. and you kept doing stupid little things until i gave in and laughed. i felt you smile. promises still made me feel sick. but i needed your consistency. the nights i had to fall asleep without you were hell. they always turned into red-eyed mornings where i watched the sun rise before managing only a few hours of dreamless sleep. i always woke up tired. i looked for you in other voices but none of them fit. your promises still lingered in my head. you said my heart would never be broken again, and i know this is not your fault, but i have been picking glass from my lungs for 17 days and the bleeding hasn't stopped.

- m.f

Jan 2014 fragile

my body

Jan 2014 fragile

berry

my body

this is a series of brief letters to the pieces of my body

dear body,
we don't always work together very well,
but i swear i am trying.

dear hands,
the callouses and crescent moons in your palms
will not be for nothing.

dear knuckles,
aren't you tired of painting yourselves black & blue
every time words fall short of the fire burning behind my sternum?

dear feet,
you know better than to follow roads that lead to dead ends.
there are better places for us to go.

dear eyes,
you have sunken so far into my skull
it shocks me you see anything at all anymore.
you're fixated on shades of gray
but i promise the world will regain its color soon.

dear knees,
stop crawling.
this broken glass is from his bottles.
get up. no more blood.

dear shoulders,
it was never your burden to carry. let it fall,
and try your hardest not to feel guilty.

dear neck,
his hands will never make a home here,
and you are worth more than one night of empty bruises.

dear spine,
stop waiting to be warmed by fingers
that would reach for another body if they could.

dear tears,
do not waste yourselves.

dear ears,
you have been filled with ghost songs for too long.
stop listening for things no one is saying -
it will make life much simpler.

dear mouth,
i know these secrets have been threatening to break my teeth
but please do not open your gates. i am not ready.

dear skin,
we have never been close friends.
i am sorry for the scars.
i am trying to learn how to be comfortable in you.

dear mind,
if i could wish you into an etch-a-sketch
and shake you clean of these bad memories i would.

dear heart,
i hope you can forgive me for being so careless.
i feel how tired you are. rest is on its way.

dear body,
you will one day see a grave,
but it must not be by your own hands.

- m.f.

Jan 2014 fragile

name

Jan 2014 fragile

thrcy

name

I never really liked my name
until I heard you say it
with genuine & care
the way it flows through your mouth
leaves me breathless

You speak it like it's your own language
a code only you can decipher
like an inside joke just for you
the way you whisper it in my ears
filled with love & certainty

The way you pronounce it
every syllable like a music to my soul
the way you caress it
to convey conversations
makes my heart skip a beat

Whenever you mumble my name
I know only good things
comes out of it
for you want to
leave a mark, which is a smile on my face

You once said that if you could
you would make a poem
a song, a rap out of it
to show your appreciation & affection
of the wonder of my name

You used to express it
with lots of pride & integrity
you'd yell it out loud
until your out of breath
to tell others how my name
is so beautiful
that deserves to make a big deal out of itself

Until now I never really liked my name
because it reminds me you used to worship it
with loads of care & sincerity
now it just makes me feel broken
for I'll always remember
how you spoke my name
with your low husky soothing voice
that will always leave me breathless

Jan 2014 fragile

The thing about love

Jan 2014 fragile

Ellen Holm

The thing about love

Thats the thing about love
everything they say is true
every cliché, every stupid quote seems accurate

The butterflies, when your lips meet for the first time
the shiver down your spine, when you look deep into his eyes
the happiness, the joy he brings you, him being your reason to get up in the morning
it's all true

But, so are all of the bad things
so is the feeling of being shattered into a million pieces when he breaks your heart
so are the sleepless nights, when all you do is cry
and so is the insane longing
the unbearable desire to have him next to you
to feel his lips on yours
and to look deep into his eyes once again