gracedlightning
American
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning - So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past / ~Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby)
I'm sure you've all noticed I'm not here very often.
It's because I don't write anymore.
The girl I used to write about stopped breaking my heart.
I fell in love with someone else. Not violently, not poetry worthy.
The way I feel with her doesn't make me feel the need to use poetry as an escape.
So I'm signing off.
my tumblr is graced-lightning.tumblr.com if you'd like to continue to keep up with me.
if not, it's been cool.
peace out, my friends
1.14.15
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 8:56 PM UTC
Summer clung to September with popsicle-sticky hands,
blew her misty breezes through
the cool mornings that wanted so desperately to
be crisp.
the leaves finally fall from the willowy branches,
still soft, still green.
“love us” they cry
“we are just like you”
they are.
we are all clinging to something that has
moved far beyond us.
Autumn paid us a visit,
briefly,
without any regard for anyone who
might have missed her or
wanted her to stay awhile.
she drove by, honking her horn
“hello, my loves!
goodbye”
as she pressed the gas pedal fiercely,
leaving us with smog in our already rattling throats.
Our brief visitor will be greatly missed,
reminisced upon.
hot cocoa and mittens don’t belong here,
November is not the owner of these
specific ideas.
A melancholy feeling that you
can’t quite place,
don’t quite know where it’s coming from.
it is Winter, this feeling,
lonely hearts and shivering hands
wishing desperately for Autumn
to return once more.
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 8:25 PM UTC
i almost told you this wasn’t poetry
in my defense, it isn’t pretty
the gory bits of humanity never are.
but people in and of themselves are poems
so here’s myself for you;
call it poetry if it makes you feel better
loving you was the sound of a piano
and now when I tickle the ivories all I see is
you, laughing on the bench next to me
let’s sing together again someday,
okay,
?
i still love you,
but the misery in it is behind me.
it’s no longer tainted with your presence and
your kiss and your voice.
loving you is somehow easier
knowing you’ll never pay me back in kind.
i need you to play for me again.
take out your ukulele;
let’s cheers to hickies, sunshine and nirvana
maybe pretend we could
love each other again someday
i told you this wasn’t pretty but i guess
you could call it a poem because this is myself on paper
i told you i’d try to see the world in poetry but i guess
here I am making good on that.
visit me sometime, okay?
i’ll be tuning the piano.
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 8:55 PM UTC
I was always the kind of kid who liked to fix things
I bought myself a pink hammer when I was 8 years old
and I liked to “fix” things with it.
turns out I wasn’t all that good at fixing and I
mostly just broke things.
nobody really had a problem with it until
I broke myself and then
fix yourself!
they scream
go! nail yourself back together!
but all I really feel like doing is sawing myself in half.
I could see myself failing to fix anything,
watching helplessly with my pink hammer while they
screamed loudly, endlessly
fix yourself fix yourself fix yourself fixyourselffixyourselffixyourselffixyourself
they tried everything.
they took pliers and pried open my brain they
measured and remeasured my sanity with tape and pills
that looked suspiciously like
the bubble in those bars you use to make sure something is even
my mother and father wore safety glasses as i took an axe
to my sense of self and buried it with
a shovel bigger than the three of us
“she’s a bit of a fixer-upper” they say
as if they’re selling a house
they try to fix me up, gorilla glue me together but
it’s too little, too late
I sawed myself in half and there’s
no fixing this one.
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 8:15 PM UTC
You realized before I did that we would never fit, only collide. We weren't meant for forever.
We were meant for disaster, always.
Somewhere in my bones I knew that we clashed but I couldn't explain why and now I know.
You were red, burning with passion and I was yellow, too optimistic for our own good.
Red and yellow don't match.
they only mix to form orange,
the universal sign for danger
You were a stop sign, the truck that put out the fire in my heart, the low battery light.
I was sunny, Van Gogh's paint, the midway point between go and stop. I was SLOW DOWN I was YIELD I was a sunflower that you somehow managed to crush.
Your flames grew taller than my blooms and when there was nothing left of me to burn, you moved on to a new field of flowers.
Roses this time, pink and young and innocent.
I hope she burns as poetically as I did
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 9:07 PM UTC
A faint buzzing sound and our out-of-sync breathing is all that can be heard.
Every few moments the buzzing stops, only to be replaced by a quiet tap
Buzz. tap. Inhale .buzz. exhale. Tap .inhale. inhale. buzz
“he thinks it’s the moon” she says
the mysterious bug continues to fling himself at the dim lamp. Tap
“he’s going to burn his wings off and die” I murmur.
Buzz. Inhale. Tap. Inhale. Buzz. Exhale. Exhale. Tap.
“but if bugs could think, his last thought would be
‘I reached the moon’”
she looks at me. Back at the bug.
I’ve named him Oscar,
Buzz. Inhale. Tap. Exhale. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Exhale.
Loving her is a lot like flinging myself at
a fluorescent light. Everyone around me sees my
stupidity but all I can see is the moon and the
endless ocean tide it brings
buzz tap inhale inhale exhale
all I can see are the galaxies in her eyes and thunderstorms on her tongue.
Buzz. Tap. Inhale exhale buzz exhale tap
My wings are burning off but ******* is the moon beautiful.
Inhale buzz inhale tap exhale exhale inhale silence.
“I think he’s gone” she’s staring at the lightbulb
“yeah” I whisper. I’m staring at the moon.
She looks beautiful tonight, all messy-haired and barefoot.
Inhale exhale inhale exhale inhale inhale exhale silence.
We did it, Oscar. We reached the moon.
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 10:01 PM UTC
this is
quiet
this is 3:17 AM, awakened by dreams of smoking illegal things with you
this is hushed whispers, bated breath, this is
waiting this is
the moment after a slap across the cheek.
this is
deep
this is the pacific ocean, hiding skeletons of sailors and pirates who
maybe never wanted to condemn anyone to this dark, damp death they
just wanted a little money for their baby girl at home this is
conversations with a cactus at midnight this is
trying to catch my breath after running to your open arms
this is
dark
feeling for your hands but catching your neck instead this is
“this place is ******* haunted, Grace”
this is holding me at the waist this is
European cathedrals on rainy afternoons this is
5’1” and 5’3” this is
tea at 7:34 AM this is
out of tune pianos everywhere I look and
lying on the floor, battered and bruised as you part your lips
ever so slightly, this is
a memorized dance, a harmony
under scrutinizing stage lights.
this is rehearsed, this is
directed, this is choreographed, this is
not a performance anymore.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 8:43 PM UTC
Text her. Send her messages that she won't know how to respond to. she'll read them and put her phone down. Stare at the read receipt for hours until you realize she's not picking the phone back up, she doesn't have anything to say to you.
Eat lots of chocolate. It has serotonin in it, the happy chemical. When you cuddle with her, your brain releases oxytocin. As long as you eat enough chocolate (and throw it up) you won't miss the oxytocin one bit.
Bleed. When she tells you that she cuts herself, cut deeper. This is guerrilla warfare now, and for every shot fired you must fire back.
Read your messages. Laugh at the nicknames she used. "Princess". "Baby". "Darlin". You were never her princess, never her baby. She was the child and you were merely her plaything.
Make art. Write dumb poetry about falling in and out of love, take photographs of your ****** thighs, paint a picture using only shades of red. Let her figure out what all these things mean.
Drink. Green tea, ***** over-priced lattes. Stay up all night crying. Wear stilettos. Sit in art museums all alone and wonder if being a starving artist is as much fun as it sounds. Take long showers and harmonize with your favorite songs through your tears. Use heavier, blacker eyeliner. Spend time on yourself. Adopt a cat. But most of all, remember this:
You can only love one person. Choose yourself
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 2:43 PM UTC
1. She’ll be lovely. There will be spaces for you between her ribs. Your left lung is smaller than you right lung to make room for your heart, but there’s all kinds of room in her body. Her kidneys and liver are failing and soon enough they’ll be gone to make room for your love.
2. She won’t ever be expensive on dates because all she’ll order is a salad. You’ll never have to worry about not having enough money (for dinner at least). You’ll have to worry about emergency room bills when she passes out, but she’ll never ask for anything else. All she’ll want is ***** and sleeping pills.
3. She will always put you first. She’ll love you with all the love she should have kept for herself. She’ll make you hot chocolate and stay up until 3 AM while you’re crying over her. When she makes you cry because you just want her to see herself the way you see her, she’ll be there with cold hands and tired eyes. She’s dead, she’s exhausted, all she wants is a good night’s rest. But you can count on her to be there.
4. She will tell you that you are perfect. She’ll believe it, too. Everyone around her seems to be perfect and she’s drowning under the weight of mediocrity but it’s okay. She’s okay. She won’t understand that all of us are swimming and most of us are drowning.
5. She’ll always have scissors and pencil sharpeners on hand. The knives in her kitchen are always sharpened to perfection and if you forget your razor at home, it’s ok. She has extras in her closet.
6. She’ll **** you any time you want. As long as you don’t look at her while she’s getting undressed. She’ll be used to the sensation of knives but it’s a different kind of pain when you look at her. She will want to be beautiful for you. She’ll love you until she can’t breathe anymore. You’ll make her feel beautiful for the night but when she wakes up she’ll still think she wasn’t worth it.
7. Date a girl who hates herself because she’ll love you.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 7:41 PM UTC
1. She’ll be lovely. You’ll be able to count the spaces in between her ribs. She’ll have thin skin and it’ll be so easy to drive her crazy with just a single touch. It’ll be easy to make your mark on her, too. She’ll bruise easy and love it. She’ll think it’s beautiful.
2. She won’t ever be expensive on dates because all she’ll order is a salad. You’ll never have to worry about her ordering an expensive steak. You might have to worry about emergency room bills when she passes out, but she’ll never ask for anything else. All she’ll want is ***** and sleeping pills.
3. She will always put you first. Your needs always come before hers because she was raised “God first, others second, I am third”. She’ll make you hot chocolate and drive to your house at 3 AM with pizza she won’t eat, even though she’s dead tired and all she wants is a good night’s rest. You can count on her to be there.
4. She will tell you that you are perfect. She’ll believe it, too. Everyone around her seems to be perfect and she’s drowning under the weight of mediocrity but it’s ok as long as you know how perfect you are.
5. She’ll always have scissors and pencil sharpeners on hand. The knives in her kitchen are always sharpened to perfection and if you forget your razor at home, it’s ok. She has extras in her closet.
6. She’ll **** you anytime you want. As long as you don’t look at her while she’s getting undressed, she’ll love you until she can’t breathe anymore. She’ll smile as you kiss her thighs because you’re the only one that makes her feel beautiful.
7. Date a girl who hates herself because she’ll love you.
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 8:34 PM UTC