what do you write
when you are sixteen and appeal only to girls
who think they know the pain of heartbreak
between their morning classes?
who believe they have walked a thousand earths
in their paper-white sneakers,
and their flowing hair?
lips covered in flowers;
skin painted in gold;
they are happy, and a little bit empty
which is why they love poetry like mine,
which dresses itself in obscurity
and ****** metaphors
like this forgery could pass for anything real.
Jul 18, 2019
Jul 18, 2019 at 4:22 PM UTC
i found that you are my great big love
these are usually decisions i make myself,
roles i assign to innocent boys,
but you have filled this position regardless of my objections;
though i don’t really have any.
you have become the beat-up sneakers
that are strewn in the hallway of your house,
white and *****
fraying at the edges
you have become the stuffed animal i bought you,
which you hold every night in your sleep
and i love the ****** bear almost as much as i love you
i see you in your sweater that hangs on the back of my chair;
i am almost too scared to wear it,
to defile its essence as something that belongs to you,
but i can not help but bury my face in it from time to time.
it is like a little pocket of you i can carry
whenever you are not with me
you are the books i lend you,
ones i now associate with the words falling from your lips,
upon which i trip;
you speak beautifully about books,
and though i struggle to keep up,
it is a soft fall that i endure,
one i will gladly endure.
you are a playlist i made
of songs that lay a roadmap of our love,
songs that remind me of different points in relationship,
though you nearly always plague my mind;
it has come to a point where everything
that happens to coincide with your presence in my life
is inherently you;
the joy i possess is you,
the warmth that swarms my body is you,
the smile tugging at my lips
and i love finding you everywhere,
because this is exactly where you belong.
in every corner of my room, of my own skin,
you are proudly displayed;
because you are my great big love, my dear,
and this is exactly where you belong.
Jul 18, 2019
Jul 18, 2019 at 4:20 PM UTC
i found solace in your arms,
and peace in your voice,
in your smile, always in my dreams,
like i can't get enough of it already
i want to close shop
and tell all the past me's there are that;
this is it.
i want to rewrite every poem where i tell myself i was in love,
because nothing compares to the subtle yearning of my heart for your skin
whenever you're not around;
i am no longer in the business
of manufacturing pretty greeting-card words,
because nothing i say captures
how much i love you;
the word love alone is not strong enough.
i find myself in a blissful bubble when i'm with you,
where there is only laughter and warmth;
where you come in different flavors
but they fill me up all the same
you are sweet when we're laughing too loud in your room,
velvety and understated when i am scrubbing your chest in the shower,
clean and refreshing when you wipe my tears off my face.
but i am painfully attached to you
no matter what packaging you come in;
you are a boy whose soul is kindred and kind,
and i would love you if i had nothing that made me;
you and your arms are enough.
Jul 18, 2019
Jul 18, 2019 at 4:16 PM UTC
i am dazzled by the idea of my suicide
and what it will do to you
the mother of my best friend,
who only ever saw me smile around her son
and filled her house with infectious laughter.
what would she say to my mother at my funeral?
would she even come? would she let him go?
how do you reconcile
the sweetness of a young girl
with the slashes on her wrists?
what about him?
i love you,
but sometimes i wonder if you realize
i am walking a razor thin line
between going through the motions of alive,
and death;
i wonder if the horror would settle slowly,
surreal in its weight,
or if you would be filled with panic and fear
at the realization that
you should’ve seen this coming.
the space of time between my panic attacks,
and telling you i am okay,
is too short for me to possibly be okay.
the tightness of my arms around your waist,
the fear of letting you go,
is all too telling of my loneliness.
i love you, and i don’t want you to hurt,
but what would my suicide do to you?
you, the boy i loved,
who let me bleed like it was beautiful,
like it was entertaining.
what will it be like
to finally see the life drain from my eyes?
i always thought
you ought to understand the consequences of your reckless love,
and this is not a punishment,
but what if you finally realized?
your fingers are soaked in pain,
your lips a knife’s edge dissecting me,
and i fell in love with it for so long,
but your love made me fantasize about the blood in my body
in ways i shouldn’t
perhaps you would cry,
and there would be an ache
where i used sit next to you and play with your hair,
but how soon would you forget me?
it is a dark thought,
but, mother,
what would my suicide do to you?
would it throw you off-guard?
would you pretend
i didn’t present you with all the telltale signs?
i don’t even know if you’ve stopped looking at my arms,
or if you’ve chosen to ignore the skin suffocating with scars.
how do you not anticipate your own child’s death, mother?
i am waiting for you to look at me
and see that there is so much more hidden underneath my eyes
than flowery, teenage angst;
often i am unhappy, mother,
to the point where i forget there is a tomorrow,
and i know you understand
because you only talk about your anxiety.
i love you, but this is not what family is supposed to be like, is it?
i am alone in this empty house.
perhaps my death would make me mean
that much more to you,
because all that’s left is love lost;
all there is is a vague memory of the girl you let die,
all that is gone because she is dead.
perhaps a pretty laugh,
her bouncy movements,
her sing-song speech.
but perhaps my death would be inconsequential;
how long would it circulate
before it became a whisper of a rumor?
how many would blame me for my own sadness?
acquaintances who would feel bitterness towards the fact
that they ever associated with someone so sick,
mothers and daughters who’ve placed me in a box:
this is why we don’t like depressed people.
and i’m not even dead,
but i’ve fallen in love
with the pain my suicide would bring upon you,
like it is something pretty,
like it is something to be desired.
Jul 18, 2019
Jul 18, 2019 at 4:14 PM UTC
if you shake me hard enough
that my brain liquefies and pours out my eyes
i couldn't tell you what would come out
a translucent stream of drunken mistakes,
the putrid smell of a thousand unrequited loves,
the anxiety biting at my nails,
or nothing, maybe.
maybe the things that fill my head
until it swells
are made purely of oxygen
and the belief that i am anything more
than an animated shell of a human.
nonetheless, my head throbs
with empty and full thoughts,
they resonate within my limbs,
traverse the edges of my fingers and manifest in shaky hands.
my empty thoughts,
they lead me nowhere,
walk with me in circles until i get dizzy.
i have rationalized every feeling of mine
until it's become a linear code i force myself to operate,
until it is no longer what it is
i've built myself into someone i'm not,
because i only have my thoughts,
but they are not me.
so if you shake me hard enough,
until my heart falls through my stomach,
i couldn't tell you what would come out.
Jul 18, 2019
Jul 18, 2019 at 4:12 PM UTC
it gets a little pathetic
when i'm writing poems about boy number four
and they ring the same tone as the ones before,
when their touches and words and kisses
are interchangeable
and they are reduced to nothing more than
a number
i’m throwing myself a pity party,
in honor of a new milestone;
a pattern repetitive enough that i can predict it months in advance
but do nothing to stop it
i’m throwing myself a pity party,
and you’re all invited
share your stories with one another
about dear old me,
the girl who once had the brightest smile and the sweetest hugs,
who fell slowly and hard for the idea of a boy,
convincing herself she could love him, forcing herself to love him.
how similar are your stories
about the one who thrived on your love
until she was left cold and starved?
i say she loved you, but really
you know she didn’t;
now you know you are a number on a list,
one she doesn’t even know about,
knocked down before she moves down to the next
you now know she is a master of manipulation,
for she has tricked us all into thinking she is the victim
but how conscious of her own manipulations is she?
this girl’s sleep comes in restless fits,
interrupted by images of boys that blend in together;
the one who ****** her in the dark,
the one who turned her heart into a pit stop,
the one who smiled into her eyes while he twisted a knife in her back
and you, boy number four,
the one who has already managed to break her
maybe it gets easier the more worn down she is,
the closer she is to the bottom of the list
maybe she doesn’t know there is a list,
a cut-off line,
a pattern of boys;
the harshest truth this girl has ever faced
is the inevitability of loneliness
and she is blindly going through the motions
of someone looking for love,
though perhaps she can’t even do that
so i am throwing myself a pity party,
and letting my ghosts keep me company.
Jul 18, 2019
Jul 18, 2019 at 4:11 PM UTC
you talk about ***
like it is tasteful,
your fingers ghosting the inside of my thighs
like it is pure,
but it is not.
you leave a trail of gunpowder,
hide explosives in the crevices of my skin,
and there is nothing tasteful
in the hunger with which you do so,
like you are both in a rush to bruise my neck
and get rid of me after.
there is nothing tasteful about the noises i make,
loud and empty to fill up this loveless space.
do not confuse these sounds
with approval;
with every ****** of your hips,
i am further disjointed from reality.
is that really me, the girl moaning like she is made of lust?
perhaps that noise,
your nails digging into my back,
my knuckles turning white as i hold onto your bed frame,
are the only things keeping me grounded
because i try not to get lost in your kisses
when you only kiss me as a prelude
to ******* me,
and i try to forget that there is a timer
on my free range of your body
still, i let you hold me down,
and i let you kiss me
but there is nothing tasteful about the way you look at me once you are done
i am not ****
but your eyes turn lazy and glaze over me
before moving onto more important things,
and there is
nothing tasteful about the way you strip my confidence
you think i am your masterpiece,
but this is a violent crime against my heart;
your *** is empty
and i don't want it anymore.
Jul 18, 2019
Jul 18, 2019 at 4:09 PM UTC
most of the time i'm sick to my stomach
with the thought that you'd be better off without me;
poison love,
how you've invaded my body
and marked the inside of its skin,
the space between my organs,
the blood running through me
it has started to paralyze me,
poison love,
but there is an edge to that toxicity
that i am continuously falling for
or is it you i am loving?
the line separating the two has begun to blur
because your hands on me
have become synonymous with hurt
and i love it
but still i am scared you will leave me;
poison love, i know i am simple
i am bland and unlovable
but i need you to breathe
i need you
most of the time i'm sick to my stomach
with the thought that you'd be better off without me;
maybe that's exactly the kind of thought i need
to stop feeling so sick.
Jul 18, 2019
Jul 18, 2019 at 4:07 PM UTC
your scents make you
like a sweater laden with the aroma baked cookies,
and the faint hint of your friend's cologne
it is a comfort, hanging on your shoulders
or a sweet girl's perfume
that smells of chamomile and honey
her naive innocence
it is rich, the way it invades your nose
the boy you love
who smells like warmth if it could be bottled up
sweet and sour at the same time,
some drugstore body spray he uses
and yet it reminds you of evenings spent with him,
clinging onto your clothes,
or when some stranger wearing it walks past
even your own smell
beneath this manufactured, manicured
version of you,
is not lost on his skin
or his bedsheets
like the vanilla you used to lather on your skin,
mature and yet demure in its subtle sweetness;
still, your skin tasted of sweat and lust and
you
tell me, what do you smell like?
the clothes that sit in a laundry basket
for a few days,
the candle that burns in your room
i don't know
ask your friends;
they tell you it's a spicy scent;
a medical undertone;
it doesn't even stand out;
here you are,
defining the tang of a boy’s sweat
and what does yours mean to anyone?
nothings, perhaps
and it doesn’t sit well with you;
so you stand in aisles of perfume,
a crowded, over-priced store,
deciding who you want to be
the comforting cookies,
the innocent cup of tea,
it doesn’t even matter
you buy the prettiest bottle,
in lotions, in perfumes, in shower gels
a signature smell, you tell yourself,
maybe will make you make sense
you drench your skin in it for weeks
but you lose the lotion,
you forget to spray the perfume on in the morning,
run out and can’t find the same scent anymore
you borrow your beautiful friend’s perfume for a day
and it reminds you of her
the soft angles of her smile, her mermaid hair
you feel pretty
then it wears off when you get home
and you’re left with
medical, spicy nothing; what does that even mean?
what does it mean
to not know what your own body smells like?
to only have others' smells cling to you
is both a privilege and a hindrance
i am marked by lovers and friends
i have patches of skin that smell like certain boys
but does that not make the skin theirs?
your scent makes you, but i don’t have one.
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 9:06 AM UTC
can i chalk up my prudish ways to a stifling, arab upbringing?
one where my mother would often comment on the bra strap showing beneath my shirt,
or my dealings with a boy in public;
where *** is never isolated from marriage
i don't care about *** and marriage,
*** before marriage,
but perhaps it is difficult to scrub my mind clear of that kind of thinking
conservative, we called it;
more than anything, it suffocated me
but perhaps i could chalk it up to the first boy
whom i gave the privilege of proving my mother wrong;
proving that *** and love were not mutually exclusive;
perhaps i could blame the boy who abused this privilege,
kissed and touched me of his own accord,
and scarred my appetite for anything that intimate
perhaps he is just an overeager boy, me a shy girl
but here i am,
incapable of kissing another without shaky hands,
the feeling that it is distinctly not right to be here
kissing someone,
despite how much i want to
so who’s to take the blame?
Jan 7, 2019
Jan 7, 2019 at 5:56 AM UTC