It's 4 am
And the term "exposed nerve"
Has never described me
So well before.
The last three hours
Spent utilizing every
Relaxation method I've
Ever been taught.
I'm so tired.
Tuck me back beneath
Warm skin and let me
Sleep.
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 7:23 AM UTC
Once, an old friend asked me; what would my soul look like, if others could see it?
"A bug," I replied.
To crickets, the mantis is terror incarnate--a fierce behemoth, with knives for hands and without mercy. It is to be respected and feared, it is mighty and dignified.
To a human? A mantis is...
"A bug."
It is the debris among the mud between the treads of your sneakers. It is the gross infatuation, the scientific fascination--it is weak. It is small. It is inconsequential.
I yearn for a life of primitive needs and void of wants.
I yearn for the mantis, seeking only to destroy enough to line his stomach, all in a day's work, back to the safe spot where the "bigger and badder" can't reach you.
Life would be eat, sleep, repeat,
and I detest my self-awareness. I'd rather fail the simple life of a mantis and die without need of fulfillment,
Than to realize I'll no sooner discover what "fulfillment" is to myself than reach it--and to be torturously aware of that,
So very, very, existentially aware.
"My soul would look like a bug."
Oct 29, 2015
Oct 29, 2015 at 5:58 AM UTC
"I love you."
It feels like;
Last week,
Everything in your house
moved--
Inexplicably--
Two inches left.
You still haven't yet found
Why your hip is
Permanently purple
From kissing the desk
You've never collided with before.
The words I'm looking for
Are two inches to the right;
But if I took that phrase and
Shifted it it,
All that would leave my throat
Was the sound of
Bruised skin;
Permanently purple
From hitting the words
I've never felt were less than satisfactory before
Because the words I need don't
Actually exist.
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 7:52 AM UTC
I am on a journey, back in time;
When you're meant to be the one
With experience,
You don't tell him "yes"
When he tells you to come
Home with him.
When you haven't spoken
In months
You don't stay
Five days
Four nights
In a time capsule;
Look! The walls are right
Where I left them
Look!
And I am right
Where he left me
And I have made this room
Home.
And I would gladly travel back
To this moment in history;
Yes, even amongst the
Sobbing--
To make this memory
The space I return to
After a long day of
Reality.
It always comes
Back to
Reality.
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 5:56 AM UTC
I throw myself down the stairs
in my mind.
I curl my toes over the top stair,
Imperceptible sways toward
the ragged drop
I close my eyes and tuck,
knees to heart,
hands to elbows
to face to
feet
to
toes
to
Tumbling, and
screaming and
bruising for days.
I throw myself down the stairs
in my mind.
Outside, I sleep
a little deeper
and stairs are for
reaching the kitchen,
If I threw myself down
them, I would
disappoint
everyone.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 8:35 PM UTC
"I kissed a feminist once",
he says, face flushed blotchy, something heavy resting on his shoulders
maybe
“I kissed a feminist once,”
and everybody laughs
“she was cold as ice,” he says
and he doesn’t mention how I turned
warm beneath his fingers,
heated up like embers
and reduced his bed to flame and ashes
“God was she mean,” he says
but he hasn’t forgotten the time
I told him to be kind to himself, to
purge the poison from his veins and
scrape the smoke from his lungs
“I love you I love you I love you”
I said,
“please love yourself too”
“I kissed a feminist once,”
he says, to loud guffaws,
an elbow in his side
and he doesn’t say “her lips
were the softest thing to ever brush
my collar bone”
he doesn’t say “she made playlists in my mind”
or “she covered me like a blanket”
or “her teeth on my earlobe ripped me open and scattered me across the sheets of her twin bed”
he doesn’t say “I loved that
storm of a girl,
I loved her heavy at 4am I loved
her like pennies
at the bottom of a fountain
like memorized freckles
I loved her like depth perception
like opposable thumbs
I loved her I loved her I loved her”
and instead he shrugs
that heavy thing off his shoulders
and shrugs the feel of my lips
off his chest and he says,
“she was a crazy ***** anyway”
- Lily Cigale
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 9:12 PM UTC
When I talk about you, my voice gets strained.
It's squeezing it's way through my teeth,
The abuse and the fear squeaking along the unoiled hinges of my jaw--
my voice breaks.
I am every teen novel, I am every TV special
on complex systems of abuse
I am victim.
I am girl, sitting in his car and relaying the details
of my youth, the day I lost all trust in you.
The memory of your finger, clammy,
tracing a line down the center of my *******
threatens to pull me under, and I am screaming--
*Why? Why did you have to make this so difficult?
Drowning myself was an inevitability,
so why did you have to hold my head under
and add your name to the list of
"who's to blame?"*
And to this day, I have this innate need to
please you, I've learned
the intricacies of language for no truer reason
than to string you (happily) along;
Always emotionally available, but never
for you.
Is this part of me that wants you
A product of your manipulation?
Or am I only telling myself that,
so I can remain,
victim?
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 4:20 PM UTC
As I'm lying in bed,
Fevered,
In wait,
Burning silhouettes of heat
With my smoldering skin
I wonder how much
Is psychosomatic
And if I'm so convinced I'm
Sick
That fever appeared when
I summoned it
When really I just wanted
So badly
To set aside responsibility
And sleep.
How powerful am I?
Powerful enough to **** myself
With a
Thought.
Thankful for now that all I wish for
Is sleep,
And not death.
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 5:10 PM UTC
I'm trying to convince myself
I know what something slow
And steady looks like.
But who can I fool
When I still recall so vividly
How on day two, he put his hand
Under my shirt
And I asked him not to stop
For eight long months?
How do I lie so convincingly
When I still remember so well
Before, before
How i would tell anyone who would listen:
"I fell in love the first day
I met him,
And did not stop for
The next year and a half."
How can I tell anyone,
How would they--
Could they?
Believe me,
When they know?
When they know I have such deep
Intuition for what I want,
That I dig my claws in by
Minute one,
And don't let go until
They beg.
Aug 30, 2015
Aug 30, 2015 at 4:58 AM UTC
My life is;
Françoise Hardy, on repeat
Falling a little bit
In love
With many bits of
Many people.
Maybe if I laugh hard enough this time,
Unapologetically,
Beautifully,
My mouth will be so large
I'll swallow you all
And maybe then I'll be so full of you
I'll finally be
Satisfied,
Satiated,
Fed.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 8:17 PM UTC