Olivia Ventura

Olivia Ventura Aug 2018

Relapse

Your skin fits you like a glove
Your legs and arms and fingers are toned
Your back curves toward your front
Your cheek bones already contoured

The pounding in your head as you walk
The fuzziness that clouds your brain
The emptiness that ***** your stomach in
The ribs that taper down your chest/sides

But you’re beside yourself when you stand up and black spots block your vision
But he runs his hand through your hair and pulls out dozens at a time
But you can hardly walk upstairs because you’re so out of breath when you reach the top
But your stomach bile is the only thing that gets expelled from your body
But you feel like purging the nothing you’ve been eating for three days straight
But you’re dying.

And for some reason
You can’t stop

Olivia Ventura Aug 2018

Bag of bones

Blue veins hug my hands and neck
My thin hair, a bunned-up wreck
I trace a picture of malnutrition
But, to me, there is no condition
Everyone either says one or the other
It’s their consensus but I’m left smothered
So I’m stripped down to my fatty core
But all they say is “put on more”
How I’d love to take a bite
But then they would get to win the fight
And what am I left with, even if I won?
A bag of bones with ribs like none
But I’m healthy, so I know what they mean
Even though that’s not what I’ve seen

Olivia Ventura Aug 2018

Tolerance

I would get nauseous
After just one cigarette
But since then I’ve grown a tolerance
And now I find friendship from nicotine

I would overthink
About the skin that lived on my body
But since then I’ve grown a tolerance
And I find endearment from my curves

I would rewrite
About love and everything in between
But since then I’ve grown a tolerance
And I see progress instead of mistakes

I would fall
At the sight or even the smell of you
But since then I’ve grown a tolerance
And I think this time it’s gonna stick

Olivia Ventura Aug 2018

Suspended

My legs dangled off the edge of the bed
And my hands were being held
My question dangled off the edge of the conversation
And my answer never came

My fingers tightened over the cotton covers
And my heart skipped every beat
My stomach tightened when I felt eyes on me
And my head began to spin

My singing echoed through the house
And my neighbors listened in
My memories echoed through my mind
And my chest began to heave

My tears were wiped away
And my arms were wrapped around shoulders
"My love, stop worrying about little things,
And forget about the past."

Olivia Ventura Aug 2018

What to do

Thumbing through pictures of people I don’t know
Looking at paintings by artists no one shows
Watching for patterns to see if I can escape
People not watching my plays or reading my poems

Suddenly art is no longer subjective
Now it’s only credited by the public eye
And I’ve in turn lost my creative eye
And now I’ve lost sight of my objective

To tell a story through my point of view
But now I just sit here and stew
On what they’ll want/see/hear/do
But my words are not meant for all of you

Now that my dreams have become reality
Should I be excited?
That my heart is going to be on display?
In front of my friends and family and him!

******* ambitions caused me to see
That maybe fame isn’t worth insecurity
But maybe that’s why so few people
Come to fame in the first place

My dreams sprawl out in every direction
And I don’t know which way to go
I could be a coward and keep to myself
Or I could be loud and proclaim my pain

Facing my audience, I stand in silence
Waiting for their applause before I perform
Hoping they’re entertained by nothing
So I don’t have to show all them all of me

Olivia Ventura Aug 2018

Replacement

I clumsily I tripped on my shoelace
I fell and broke my little glass vase
It was always too transparent for my taste
But its beauty was inexplicable
So I felt empty without its presence.
I bought this gorgeous crystal one
And placed it in the same spot
I put flowers in, and I tended to them
But they still wilted...
As it turns out, it was the crystal
Because even though it was better quality
The flowers only bloomed in the glass
They liked the vase’s vulnerability to the sunlight

Olivia Ventura Aug 2018

As hard as it may be

Rudimentary feelings
Bursting from my mouth
Arbitrary dealings
surely going south
I was only naïve to think
you would not remain
I had only perceived a link
between hopelessness and distain
so I’ll *** my love up in a ball
and throw it down a well
every memory bad and all
so nobody can tell
although it still exists
it won’t get in the way
because new insists
to give my old away