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Oct 2020 · 543
–intangibles–
Skaidrum Oct 2020
how do I fall in love with pieces of myself
that died many years ago?
emptiness hangs in my mouth
like some fickle aftertaste.
and deep down, my thoughts are like
frightened fish.  
i cut the world out of a magazine and
held it in my hands. . . how easy it seemed;
to crush it.  to crumple it.
turn it into heartache origami.
i suppose i'm possessed;
a mourning era––a morning light,
a bowl full of teeth.
i have laid myself to rest so many times that it seems i celebrate my funeral more often than my birthday.
5/20/20
––From some old religion of mine; v.
"welcome to certain altars"
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Oct 2020 · 241
3am facades
Skaidrum Oct 2020
i.
aloe vera aftertaste;
as honey drips from the faucet.
let's leave this pile of bones
under the duvet.

ii.
been a long time
since venus asked me to write.
the butterflies murmurs beneath skin;
beneath this milky way.

iii.
**** softly;
let all nightmares bubble over––
––and over––and boil––
as your innocence walks out the front door.

iv.
blow your nose,
sign your death certificate.
tell your mother,
that it never was her fault.

v.
i leaned on the sink,
& took a long long look at the mundane.
i rinse my hands; the depression doesn't wash off,
––and the honey turns sour in the drain.
1/30/20
––From some old religion of mine; iv.
"depression at it's witching hour."
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Skaidrum Oct 2020
1.)  you must hang up the world in the closet and heal.
2.)  submerge yourself in the mirror; make peace with what you see.
3.)  baptize yourself in the bathtub; watch the sins go down the drain.
4.)  make an offering to your body; for you are a temple.  you house a goddess within; and at all costs you must subdue her suffering.  
5.)  banish certain shadows from your body; today no one should follow you.
6.)  sow your dreams into the houseplants' pots; water them in softness; grow with them.
7.)  drink tea.  pray.  worship gentle things.  breathe; without the invasion of thought.
8.)  recycle your soul.  reincarnate into something other than yourself; become more than what you originally had in mind.
9.)  call your mother; or your father, or whoever ground you most.  remind them you love them.  allow certain heartbeats to re-align you.
10.)  and above all; forgive always.
1/28/20
––From some old religion of mine; iii.
"heal my children."
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Oct 2020 · 497
–fever wolf–
Skaidrum Oct 2020
dead man's requiem,
how does god weep when he's laughing?
shadow puppet queen;
it hurts, doesn't it?
the grip of life loosening
rapidly, rapid fire...
welcome to the bullet feast.
Go outside and play with time now;
chess with the past,
checkers with the present,
poker with the future.
howl at the sun for a change;
smoke on some of that science if you think it'll save you––
eat names for breakfast.
break every mirror
that pities you,
water your houseplants
with holy water.
drink tea sap.
107.1°
Fever wolf.
1/23/20
––From some old religion of mine; ii.
"the stuff of fever dreams"
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Oct 2020 · 265
dualities
Skaidrum Oct 2020
the sun squatted just over the horizon,
a giantess,
a red bulb;
the pregnant flower––
enabling all flesh;
flora and fauna
alike.

the moon sank her fangs into the sky,
merely a anorexic sliver of a crown,
a knife, against newborn night;
a ballet dance,
eating her own heart out
as the monsters devour
her leftovers.
1/23/20
––From some old religion of mine; i.
"vive la light"
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Oct 2020 · 219
error 404
Skaidrum Oct 2020
i.
when my father's pride lands
on my shoulder, digging it's claws
into my collarbone; demanding
blood in return for his
acknowledgement
of my
existence;
I learn to receive his broken
version of what love is
without protest.

ii.
when my mother's judgment
runs it's fingertips down the
curvature of my spine, searching
for weaknesses in my
posture, pose,
and figure;
my weight, skin
and fissures;
I learn to endure her
backhanded version of love  
without complaint.


iii.
when my younger brother's anger
comes over for dinner, makes itself
a guest in my first apartment;
and cusses out my duty
as an older sister to
even give a **** about him
in the first place?
Tells me I've failed
at loving him properly?
I learn to cry without
really crying
at all.

iv.
you think you've taught yourself how to be ice;
only to realized you're just shattered water.
Amen

© Copywrite Skaidrum
May 2020 · 159
sleep
Skaidrum May 2020
i.
a dream of mine once
held hands with me;
he asked: "if you had a
hundred tongues and
a hundred mouths––
what wisdom would
you feed me til' I was
plenty full?"

ii.
and as i stood, waist deep
in whatever was leftover
of myself; i answered sadly:
"we often forget lesson
number one:
broken instruments
often preach broken
sounds; and it is not
always up to us to
fix them."

iii.
and that's how we stayed;
together, enjoying the meal
of my wisdom until my dream
whispered in my ear: "you know,
you could always forgive yourself."
"i know," i smiled soft, staring
beyond what the stars could offer.
"but there is simply nothing left
to forgive."
––I am as broken as they come.

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Mar 2020 · 154
xxvii.
Skaidrum Mar 2020

so, who you gonna
love—when the sun ***** the moon
and replaces you?
Of the haiku series
xxvii. rotten stars never last long
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Nov 2019 · 175
xxvi.
Skaidrum Nov 2019

we were the serpents
of yesterday's dark magic;
too bad I loved you.
Of the haiku series
xxvi. the rose gone wrong
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Nov 2019 · 280
neon lights nursery
Skaidrum Nov 2019
⁠—March 24th, 2019:

I told my happiness that I wanted it home at 11pm tonight;
it stumbled in at 3am drunk;
except it wasn't happiness at all actually,
it was anxiety that ****** grief one too many times
it was the ugly truth staring me in the face
daring me to change.

I've cried over one too many skeletons in my closet
in between the winter sweaters and lingere
I can't decide what to do with myself half the time.

I have this gaping hole in my chest
and I've been trying to fill it with alcohol
like my father does
still does
will continue to do
except it isn't working so why are both of us trying.
solutions are like old dogs
you can't teach new tricks

and it's finally spring time and the rain
has dealt poker faces and smeared makeup tears
and I just want the blackjack joke to end
when will the tsunamis be here
when

and yet now for the first time in a long time I know what it's like
dealing with losing somebody that you haven't really lost
just he's having fun somewhere else
without you
and you aren't.
a tough pill to swallow
more like a harder bullet to bite

there's too much
too much too much too much
sickness bubbling inside of me and every word
that attempts to comfort me.

maybe I'm not drunk texting anyone
but maybe just ******* maybe
I'm drunk writing because honestly?
the wordsmith within has died and come back to life
and it's out of practice but not out of mind and I
haven't come to terms with that yet.

I have laid in bed all day and now I will lay in bed all night
wondering which is the best way to silence the swarm of bees that constantly produce chaos like honey in my pretty little head cause;
nothing makes sense like it used to
like it used to

asking for help these days feels like a punishment because
I have this undying thirst for constant attention or validation and
it's worse than cancer
the symptoms are raging
the doctors don't know what cure could fit into these veins
and nurses can't stomach the dark and ugly memories beneath my skin
only once centimeter down.

"to be, or not to be"
is such a silly thought strung up with fictional mourning
but somehow we make them flesh because Shakespeare seemed to get it,
he seemed to be able to wrap his head around all of the nonsense and translate it into a language we could comprehend
how does one do that
take the impossibles and make them
plausible.

cause one day the earth is going to hear me
roar, whisper,
electrecute the heavens---
I will speak for the masses
and I will speak for myself.

And this world,
will rest in perfectly in my palm
like eggs in a nest
that the universe set an alarm for.


⁠—
⁠—an ode to my loneliness on a silver platter,
and all the wounds beneath.

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Oct 2019 · 199
xxv.
Skaidrum Oct 2019

you sacrificed me
at the altar of your rage;
-the curse of friendship.
Of the haiku series
xxv. flames oozing at 2am
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Oct 2019 · 192
xxiv.
Skaidrum Oct 2019

And you loved me so
loudly, that chaos mistook
us for it's parents.
Of the haiku series
xxiv. from the *****'s mouth
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Oct 2019 · 221
lamentation no. 1
Skaidrum Oct 2019
—-
"oh zethus,
what have you broken wide open?"



i.
teeth
meet neck;
slow drag of fire against
flesh- little hiccups of
death between lips:
"a martyr if i ever saw one."

ii.
dark is the color of his name;
filthy is his flame-
fingers curling in blonde hair
the pull, the release,
the war open's it's young mouth
and moans.
"succumb to this."

iii.
the dragon; [elder grey jewel]
perches on the windowsill
and bows before a queen;
but is a king in sheets and shadows-
little omen for you darling:
"may death come as our healer,
not our prophet."


iv.
the flowers felt rough
stealing from your mouth-
into mine.
-screams baptizing themselves in honey-
--names swimming in the old religion--
to dine upon such celestial
matters; would
"be my favorite way to bleed."

v.
civilizations
count their glories on your behalf;
as the love you make to me
encourages chaos from it's cradle-
"silver crescent mother;
grey flame father;"
but what a terrible way to live my dear:
"always at odds with
the sun."


—end scene: carpe noctem.—
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Sep 2019 · 242
xxiii.
Skaidrum Sep 2019

oh, you fallen thing;
please just hang the world up in
the closet and heal.
Of the haiku series
xxiii. i cannot afford to be this broken.
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Jun 2019 · 1.4k
alibis & fortune cookies
Skaidrum Jun 2019
———"that familiar boiling yolk of a sunrise—comas richer than russian dark chocolate— & saturn smoking a cigar while playing chess with gravity... i have been here before."

ocean dove, pardon my excuses for not writing as of late; been busy fulfilling a prophecy that can't even look me in the eye and ask me to change.  in the june wreckage of two thousand and sixteen;  i retired my tongue with the dormant volcanoes  before the world could end in my mouth.  and yet my poetry informs me that there are some wounds too sophisticated to even flower into scars—kind of like how my words will never feel like honey again, (but vinegar nonetheless.)

how cruel of me it was; to condemn you to a death without one final cigarette slow dancing with your lungs.  i miss the shadows of you most: the belt of venus caged like a wild animal in your eyes, your rusty guitar silky voice dripping off the haunted house we called home, countless a.m. drives kicking up filthy moonlight in the rearview mirror, but most of all—the way you said 'i love you' like it was nothing dressed up in something fashionable.

it is now the june of two thousand and nineteen. this wreckage sat on a throne and filled into the moon's shoes. a crown crawled it's way home to my head and kissed me with knowledge drenched in your name.  this queen started from lesson no. 1: broken instruments, will preach broken sounds—  and how lovely it has been, planting a world war in my soul only to raise eden in it's stead.  i will miss your company, but your ghost is no longer a requirement for me to be complete.

i have learned to stop loving falsehoods.  i have learned to start loving the leftovers of who i am becoming.  we would have been star crossed lovers had you not tried to swallow that bottle of pills that famous night where we fought like madonnas— but it looks like you got to death's fortune cookie before i did.

"and one day, you will have lived long enough to taste your grief turn bittersweet too"
———
my alibi still tosses in it's sleep at night thinking of you.
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Apr 2019 · 457
xxii.
Skaidrum Apr 2019

Slow dying flower,
will you sleep within eden,
or in god's belly?
Of the haiku series
xxii. another life another ribcage

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Mar 2019 · 661
catalysts & hangovers
Skaidrum Mar 2019
——————
i.
a dragon's claw;
merely leftovers of the moon
from last night's revolution,
and he beseeched a god long absent:
"how'd you forget my name in the grave
last week?"


ii.
i break bones like i break bread,
and hell recoils at the rare mention of me;
"—we're using blood for watercolors baby—"
'cause sometimes,
i don't think they understand
my heart.

iii.
god took the world to the doctor,
and asked for a cure he couldn't afford;
for the sun has already set in the palms
of my hands, o' father...
and there can only be so many
bones knitted together in this womb.

iv.
recall that,
reality only reveals itself when it feels
like making a fool out of someone;
and i don't know what stage of grief
i'm in—
or if I'm even in one
at all.

v.
i drink tea with ghosts
every other tuesday,
trying to make sense of it all;
because at some point,
—i'll stop eating bullets for
people's whose eyes
pull triggers.

vi.
mama always did raise me to be a sword,
and i killed when she told me to.
because, you see—
the fragile things die
in the cold, and what i find interesting
is that i've remained;
and ultimately?
it's a beautiful thing.

vii.
and when will i learn?
that mercy is false hope amongst all else, darling,
but enough already;
this poem's got universes full
of emotional baggage.

viii.
you said
you're a dreamer?
great, get in line kid,
you'll get a chance to change the ******* world,
just take a number
—like the rest of us;
but, then again...
"the world has always been ready
to receive you, hasn't it?
"
amen to that,
amen indeed.

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Mar 2019 · 471
xxi.
Skaidrum Mar 2019

Father ate bullets
for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and
sold his soul for me.
Of the haiku series
xxi. from wine to blood

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Oct 2018 · 455
An Ode for the Fountains
Skaidrum Oct 2018
and all the wishes stuck in their throats.

(i.) when i throw quarters
i wish i knew
what the universe tasted like
in my tea; and then i wished
that i could hug my babushka
& dedushka again for the last time
before their hourglass ran out.
i wish i could still witness the way
the light dribbled like honey in
that foreign land familiar street.
Back then I was taught that love
was contagious by nature,
that love was unconditional-
---maybe that’s what the universe really
tasted like to begin with.


(ii.) when i throw dimes i-
wish that my antidepressants were more
like leftover echoes
that i’d eat for dinner.
i wish i hadn’t said that but it’s too late
‘cause this ode is too busy
tripping over it’s own shoes;
i wish my poem knew how to tie it’s own shoelaces,
and knew how to say grace.
but most of all...
i wish there was a softer metaphor
to lower me into this hurting;
just like the leftover echoes

(iii.) when i throw nickels
i wish i could erase the murals of flashbacks
behind my eyelids;
before i fall asleep.
i’m convinced that they’re to blame
for my eyesight that acts more like
a broken compass than a disability.
i wish i was blind to the way
the world spoon feeds us the dark;
like it’s a requirement for us
in order to flower into people.
i wish i could fish my name
from infinity’s belly.
please just never wish for
infinity.

(iv.) when i throw in pennies
i wish i wasn’t their daughter.
i wish i didn’t have russian strings
and american footsteps for bloodlines;
i wish i was born a moon somewhere,
orbiting or worshipping the the color of
space, which is coincidentally the color of poets
the color of ink.
i wish my forbidden fruit was poetry,
i’m glad it isn’t.

(v. ) and i think,
i will always wish
for quicker deaths.
I don't write like I used too,
and I miss the dark.

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Jul 2018 · 1.1k
xx.
Skaidrum Jul 2018
**.

this pain is white noise
sleepwalking through this body-
in search of heaven.
Of the haiku series
**. folding statues.

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Jul 2018 · 1.7k
xix.
Skaidrum Jul 2018

Below the surface
rage falls in love with revenge
like yin fell for yang.
Of the haiku series
xix. my clothes are on fire tonight

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Jun 2018 · 521
xviii.
Skaidrum Jun 2018

"imagination
is the mother of terror;"
hums these old nightmares.
Of the haiku series
xviii. oh, what the wicked remember

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Jun 2018 · 405
xvii.
Skaidrum Jun 2018

i believe in truths
that would rather die tonight,
than speak tomorrow.
Of the haiku series
xvii. reality served by bullets

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Jun 2018 · 665
xvi.
Skaidrum Jun 2018

Alas, i've written
to infinity before;
but he wasn't home.
Of the haiku series
xvi. pleas on deaf ears

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Jun 2018 · 683
images
Skaidrum Jun 2018
(harvested from my heart)

12:24 a.m. --old friend
Well, if it isn't the moon herself
"Hello Icarus,"
You came home
"Black holes aren't homes."
Yet you were raised here, my dear
"How could I forget?"

1:05 a.m. --past lover
And how is she now?
"Who?"
That wolf girl you adored
"Smoking on other stars."
Stars?
"Planets as well,"
Does she fancy other moons?
"She fancies all celestial things."
Surely that is not the case-
"Her songs ate silence long ago."
What?
"Her wolfsong for me is but
loose ashes and
an epitaph now."

2:42 a.m. --current lover
Was the revolution delicious?
"Like a glass of unborn names,"
That many?
"The light spared no one."
No one at all?
"All perished under his gaze."
But you fell in love with him, didn't you?
"Yes."
Why?
"Simple;
I am a chaser of the light."

3:17 a.m. --state of mind
Why are you here?
"I spent all my faith up."
And you think you'll find more here?
"No."
Then why-
"The gates summoned me."
That is suicide, my dear
"I imagine it more like--
salvation in disguise."

4:08 a.m. ---medicine
Too many ghosts are glued to your spine
"I can't shake them."
You can shed them into poems
"They'll just turn into puppets."
But you will be their puppet master
"You expect me to play god?"
I expect you to rule over this wreckage,
like you used to


5:32 a.m. --homeward bound
Have you missed me over the years?
"Only in blinks."
Why's that I wonder?
"The moon sleepwalks across the sky."
So, are you going back now?
"Depends,"
On?
"If the night has eaten my name,
and craves these ruins again."
ft. the story behind
why the moon leaves our sky sometimes

© Copywrite Skaidrum
May 2018 · 1.0k
xv.
Skaidrum May 2018
xv.

my insomnia
holds a gun to my forehead-
and dares me to sleep.
Of the haiku series
xv. just a sleeping sickness

© Copywrite Skaidrum
May 2018 · 299
xiv.
Skaidrum May 2018

long story short, i
glued the stars to the sky so
they could sin again.
Of the haiku series
xiv. truths not everyone can swallow

© Copywrite Skaidrum
May 2018 · 483
bones of honey
Skaidrum May 2018
<>
'cause this is how he loves me

i.
when
emptiness hangs like a moon in my mouth-
he kisses the stain of night
from my palms;
and turns it
into
a
pulse.

ii.
he reminds me that our love-
is the constant tag of
"drowning sun and flowering moon"
between opposite horizons;
and that the sky will always be
our stage.

iii.
his heartbeat is the closest thing
to what the universe sounds like;
and he blinks and says instead:
"my love, my one and only,
you always will be
my beautiful infinity"

iv.
when i am nothing but
the color of mirrors-
or a broken chaser
of the light-
he finds a way to worship
even the coldest silhouettes of myself
like one would of art.

v.
i am a mural of a target-
i am constantly flirting with death-
yet he has been feasted on by bullets
because he refuses to let
shadows make a meal
of my soul.

vi.
he has defied every walking god
in his path to prove that nothing,
and i mean no existing thing-
can place a dent in our love.

vii.
the thing about the sun is that
he loves nothing more
than when i paint his bedroom ceiling
with our future.

viii.
And when death stands
on the tip of my tongue-
and the nightmares cup my cheek
in the flesh of my own kingdom (the night)
...
he holds me close;
until all the wars within my bones
turn to honey.
<>
paradise grows in our footprints my love
© Copywrite Skaidrum
May 2018 · 177
wind and wishbones
Skaidrum May 2018
let’s talk about it.
like the way you talk blood into jumping out of skin for the sheer fun of it;
or the way you can make someone who loves you fold in on themselves until they twist into paper cranes.
let’s talk about how you take chalk outlines of people’s soul and teach them how to walk right into your life only for them to walk right out again.
How you have this reputation of being a pitstop that breaks hearts for the sake of it.
Let’s talk about it.

How did this happen to you;
did the lonely carve you into broken hands,
did the dark burn too many nightmares into the backs of your eyelids,
how did your name collect cobwebs,

You were always a drifter,
born and raised in a blur, a lifetime of mistakes filtering through the palm of the winds;
You were desperate for the sweeter things in life and it drove you to harvest wings,
so you could glide instead of float
through the abyss into anyone’s arms.

You told me you loved me when we were young and I said:
“the moon cannot return her love,
just like the light cannot return the dark”
and so you wept but no matter where you wandered on earth I was still always right there in the sky,
an unblinking phenomenon,
a friend.

You told me love had you at world war with yourself and I stretched my limbs over the sky and told you,
“you are the wind,
you will know where to settle your soul soon enough”

And one day you wandered through the garden of eden in the flesh,
paradise unloved and decaying and you settled for the first time in your life.
I remember you telling me your feet were kissed by the soil in her garden,
that gravity spoke to you and convinced you to stay,
I remember you telling me she was beautiful in ways you never imagined possible and that her heartbeat was just too good
to be true.

The universe bloomed in her, and she tasted the concrete love you established.
Flowers learned magic tricks in the sunlight, trees bore fruit to feed even the stars, and even the snake could not convince herself she was broken when you were around.



So let’s talk about it.
Let’s talk about the way your love for her is like an echo asking a shadow to dance,
and why you ****** it up.
saylorville confessions at 1am
May 2018 · 299
xiii.
Skaidrum May 2018

the requiem dies
in the mirror this morning;
"the costs of lying"
Of the haiku series
xiii. friends who bloom in thorns

© Copywrite Skaidrum
May 2018 · 997
xii.
Skaidrum May 2018

you weren't looking but
the universe unfolded
in your garden's bones.
Of the haiku series
xii. to: elizabeth; eden in the flesh

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Apr 2018 · 445
xi.
Skaidrum Apr 2018
xi.

Eleven years since
you left, your name still hasn't
died in my arms yet.
Of the haiku series
xi. jack addison; my peter pan
4/3/2007

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Apr 2018 · 399
x.
Skaidrum Apr 2018
x.

God, give me the grace
to spend my faith spilling blood
for love that's worthy.
Of the haiku series
x. the costs of living

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Mar 2018 · 872
ix.
Skaidrum Mar 2018
ix.

I kiss gravity,
& the light leaving my bones,
"This is how we fell."
Of the haiku series
ix. a toast to endless cycles

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Feb 2018 · 459
viii.
Skaidrum Feb 2018

You have never once;
lost the translation of love
in the moon's phases.
Of the haiku series
viii. oaths from my pheonix

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Feb 2018 · 710
vii.
Skaidrum Feb 2018

My wolf girl was a
lantern among the sea of
ash & the afterlife.
Of the haiku series
vii. to: wolf girl

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Feb 2018 · 593
vi.
Skaidrum Feb 2018
vi.

The first lie that my
mother fed to me still tastes
like expired love.
Of the haiku series
vi. flesh & sacrafices

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Feb 2018 · 301
v.
Skaidrum Feb 2018
v.

We look back to how
we orchestrated our love
in those polaroids.
Of the haiku series
v. "him"

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Feb 2018 · 648
iv.
Skaidrum Feb 2018
iv.

Tell me where to sell
my soul, and I will meet you
there; ode to myself.
Of the haiku series
iv. odes & suicides

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Feb 2018 · 962
iii.
Skaidrum Feb 2018

Full Lakota moon,
unzips me from her womb &
dismantles this love.
Of the haiku series
iii. spells

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Feb 2018 · 1.3k
ii.
Skaidrum Feb 2018
ii.

Are you humble
to the very walls and windows
of your drifting soul?
Of the haiku series
ii. horizons

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Feb 2018 · 516
i.
Skaidrum Feb 2018
i.

Death; just an old dog
still trying to learn new tricks;
To soften our grief.
Of the haiku series
i. mercy

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Jan 2018 · 328
the carcass of heaven
Skaidrum Jan 2018
i.
"carpe noctum"
the moon breathes as she unzips
me from her womb and the stars
bow
as i flower into
greatness.

ii.
january flirts with death
and teaches the old dog some
new tricks.
"oh sweet thing,
there is an oasis
in every fever"


iii.
god of sleep,
tell me do your people roam
your ribs
at night;
do you have room for love
in your
domain;
or are you as heartless as the constellations
that decorate your ceiling?

iv.
my mother asked me once:
"are you humble
to the very walls and light switches
of your soul?"


v.
i make a nasty habit out of
fastening my grief
to the sky's front door---
when i write about the ones
death kept in his ******* pocket.

vi.
there is darkness peeling
off to my left,
when i unfold my limbs into the blackness as
lullabies leak onto the grass
and later become the dew
at first light.


vii.
why is it that when
you smile
it takes the shape-
of a morgue
you ***** sunrise, / you filthy legend
take all your diseases home and raise them
as your own children
away from here
away from here.


viii.
I am learning
that the only difference
between a garden and a graveyard
is what you decide
*to put
in
the
ground.
I'm throwing coins into the fountains
and wishing for a quicker death.

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Sep 2017 · 530
Watercolors
Skaidrum Sep 2017
...
This morning:

The quiet bleeds when you're not looking.
i did not know that the quiet could bleed.

Depression enters my room,
the garden wails in protest, death kisses my stomach,
Sadness whispers that she will not take my chalk outline and teach it how to walk today.
Today the sun stops working.

My mother buries
whatever slowly died in me
under the duvet.

Last night:

i guess,
anything can be a gun
if the darkness surrounding it
is hungry enough

i don't know how i make it to his bathroom
in time, but i can already feel the autopsies
they will preform on me;

i tame ugly screams beneath it all,
tell myselff it's not suicide if
love hangs in my mouth.

The other day:

"i have no sympathy"
"if it's killing you, then why are you still with him"

This particular stain of anger never quite
reaches my reflection in the mirror.
But it sets my clothes on fire.
All the same,
i seethe endlessly; and slit the throat of forgiveness so
it is not an option i could consider.

My father wakes up inside of me sometimes;
i am not afraid to be
a weapon in which i was designed,
a nuclear war in which i will return home from.

A while ago:

"you need to figure things out between just the two of you, none of your girl friends should be threatening my baby boy"
"i would have married a man i didn't love..."

for the love of GOD---

To ALL the adults who have tasted false wisdom
and wish to share it with me;
do not speak to me as if you could translate my suffering
for me, you do not look like a ghost to me,
do not treat me like i do not know that trauma is a thief to my innocence, you do not look like a victim to me,
do not ******* tell me that i am to contain myself to your benefit, because you know nothing but the way my name tastes on your lips,

i will
paint targetson your back,
with your own words--
and i will feed you to
the bullet feast when you least
expect it.

Don't patronize me with your ignorance disguised as watercolors.

Later tonight:

A little like all at once,
all over the world,
i fall out of love with you.

i used to baptize myself in
the things my phoenix would whisper to me,
all his solids and shadows
oh, the world was so beautiful in his eyes.

And how i wish there was a softer metaphor
that could lower me into this grief,
cause isn't heaven heavy enough,
isn't this hurting plenty?

Now:

i don't know how to describe the aftermath
other than----

"there is just a lonely hum in my mind
where my name used to be.
"
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Aug 2017 · 788
Epilouge
Skaidrum Aug 2017
...
I've been homesick,

It's been a long time since I've last given birth to gods in my poetry; so to the old truths and the new: 'hallelujah'

My tongue was a slave to lovely things---I'll admit it was easier that way, but now I've been writing it down again; turning spiders into stories and cancer into planets

who was I to begin with,
who was I.

I'll say it now. I will never escape the wolves. Those wolves with their chalk outlines and their lakota moons. They'll try to teach themselves how to walk back into your life again and don't you dare forget the ruin, oh don't you dare forget how the fire kissed you

she was moonlight sonata,
but he was clair de lune.

He fed me to the bullet feast when he saw fit and I left his ashes on the sidewalk; daybreak can have it for all I care now.


"I don't know if I'm in love with you anymore"

I remember my body as a garden of stars disguised as flowers; my roots merely empty spaces dismantled by the light. I remember the bullets in the soil he planted, and the wars that grew in it's place. I became a walking example of death; a soul in the process of decay.

Who was I,
who was I to begin with.


Dear all that has haunted me all these years: I am ready for you. I have always been ready for you.

Tell me where to sell my soul, and I will meet you there.


---Swimming in the moonlight
you wanted to fix me
you lied

© Copywrite Skaidrum
Aug 2017 · 498
"Mistake"
Skaidrum Aug 2017
And this is it
this is how you lose me.

Wake up my ghosts,
they will hand you what
you need
to end this

and then **** me
when you're angry enough

and do it slowly.

Leave bullets in my body
so i can taste the warm metal
the soft decay
long after
the resurrection

Let me dismantle myself
when you aren't looking,
you don't know
what suffering is


So when you look for me
the next morning and wonder,
why i didn't help you rise from ash,
why i was always so depressed,
why i left,

it was because
i thought i could trust you
to love
everything i was

i remember every single time
i forgave you when
everything screamed in me
to hate

i realize now
i am afraid of you
the same way
i was before

and you lack the ability to understand that,
or realize what damage
you dealt

This is how you lose
this war

because

i knew,
ever since i let myself
allow you in

that you
would be
the death of
me.
it was my fault

"wolf in sheep's clothing"
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Jun 2017 · 403
drifting
Skaidrum Jun 2017
"a lie
can make it all
the way around
the world and back

before the truth can even
get it's shoes on."
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Apr 2017 · 3.3k
"Shadow talks"
Skaidrum Apr 2017
─illustrations on the ceiling

i love the way
the sunlight ripples along his skin
with no complaints

"messiah"* the shadow talks
"of course he is"* i reply
and i resume to orchestrating my love

─little phobias

i wander aimlessly along his windows,
his eyes;
they are gates to afterlives unloved;
they are oceanic shrapnel
sky imprisoned infinities
a lapis point of view-
that i treasure

his heart is drenched
in my soul-
in a sweeter sickness-
in the liquid measure of my steps-
he mentions i'm contagious

i tell him he is my favorite way
to bleed

"september prodigy" the shadow babbles
"why?" i rasp
"sun at long last
kisses away
all the ghosts
harvesting from
the heart of the moon"

and i broke out into stars

─my serendipity

i love the raw
music of our conversations,
and how his voice
undresses me
and my monsters
so delicately
in fabrics of the dark

i love how his laugh
makes all the other planets
look dull;
how his smile
is the first step
to curing the blind

so the blind may know
what i know

"the symphony of seams"

i love how he is the shocking
philosophy
of turning suicide notes
into paper cranes

of picking fights with death
so i may remain

i love the phoenix tucked in his soul
how it defines-
the altitudes-
the limits-
our existence he describes to me

"reincarnation?" the shadow asks
"every morning he wonders" i answer
and the fever invests it's time in me

"what is he to you?" the shadow murmurs

"besides broken flowers,
and ink blots shaped like rain
he is my favorite stairway to heaven.
"
neurosis in my palms
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Apr 2017 · 1.7k
Ode to April 3rd
Skaidrum Apr 2017
...
I was born into this shadow of beauty we call the American dream, but I was raised in foreign silhouettes. The same exact silhouettes that raised my mother. My first memories were of her forest gods and alpine stories that have taught me how to write spiderwebs into the hearts of the miserable so my words could hold them together. My deadushka's magic could turn monsters into swans with a wink because his love was so contagious. My babushka's, on the other hand, showed me how to howl like darkness so even the wolves would know silence. I was born as spilled as it comes; as ink.  I now understand what tragedies look like at first;  ("Blessings")

As my mother picks her way across a war with me in her arms, the world catcalls that I am a half-blood puppet. The daughter with Russian strings and American footsteps. I arrive in America where I am reminded I belong here, but that was the first lie that my mother ever fed to me. To this day, it still tastes like expired love.

As my father spent all his kindness on me in the earliest years of my life I was given an English tongue and it bullied my Russian one into suicide. That is the only thing my father ever planted in me that he wanted to grow. Those seeds of words I would later bear fruit as ripe poetry.  Those fruit of the novels I will someday write as fiction into flesh. However, what is written beneath our skin doesn't necessarily always fit in our mouths. My father's greatest mistake was beating me into a ghost, but giving me the power to write about his hauntings.  His abuse moves into our house shortly after he realizes I am a tragedy, not a blessing.

As I write myself into the moon one day I will become, I meet a boy who's laughter makes all the planets look dull.  We learn to not walk like apologies, but like young legends. He was my first real taste of sunlight since I was brought here, and he spoke heaven into my eyes until I saw it. We loved each other like Peter Pan and Wendy did; deeply, cluelessly, and forever. Our immortality was a toy in the eyes of those who envied us. Yet he summoned the fires we should have feared as kids, but instead we stared into them and smiled. We were happy, and we were never sorry for that.


April 3rd, 2007. He died. That was the day I was old enough to grow out of a blessing and into the clothes of a tragedy. That was the day the heaven spilled from my eyes like the great flood and went with him. My mother theorizes that is why my eyes aren't as blue as hers anymore. The sounds of bullets hitting bodies today, even ten years later, between then and long ago, has the power to create painful afterimages of him. The post traumatic stress unfastens my blood from my my body and the poetry reacts by shutting me down all at once. Death asks me to write a spiderweb into his own heart, but I refuse.

I adopted grief into my family and he got along with abuse pretty well. To survive, I've left the nostalgia of that boy to hibernate deep in my bones.

Today is April 3rd, 2017.  I stand before a headstone that exists only sometimes in my head. I kneel before it and leave the skeleton of my love like a bouquet of roses. The shadows and silhouettes align, and I hold hands with both of them.

I weep as the odes of "it's not your fault" fall onto my ears like they do every year. From friends, lovers, and family. They mean well. Who knows, maybe someday I will have what it takes to believe them.

But he never grew up, so guilt still ***** it's wings here.


---"Sermons with a colorblind priest."
© Copywrite Skaidrum
Mar 2017 · 2.8k
Vermouth
Skaidrum Mar 2017
...
And just like that, I was drifting again. I was slipping into the folds of static, describing the abyss as I drowned. I fell from altitudes of happy to suicidal in only a manner of insidious seconds, because that's how it goes. You think you have what it takes to be ice but in reality, you're only shattered water.

It comes when I think of them. The urge to succumb into my own ghost has never been so appealing until now. But there are visitors here, the twins grief and guilt have been uninvited guests in a home held together by dried flowers for ceilings and walls of teeth. I have learned to confuse my name with wreckage under their supervision.  

The brothers tell me how to do it, ******* myself without hurting anyone else that I love. But they only speak their diseases to me when all my fight has bled out onto the kitchen floor as the latest mosaic. Then they feast, and teach me the art of being empty through their hungry wolf bites. I remember how to breathe in a shallow way so my skeleton won't fall apart. I haven't had to do that in a very long time. Guilt reminds me the idea of shrinking is hereditary, while grief tells me it's time to practice that now.

When I want to hurt myself I want to do very strange things. I want to ask cigarettes to try to strangle my lungs with smoke as weak as a newborn. It reminds me of what is missing. The sweetest punishment is often the deadliest. When I want to hurt I pick fights with my grief or guilt just so I can lose again, just so I can keep the moon in the same spot in the sky. Just so the stars will pity the same people. I am sick, I am sick, I am sick.  Welcome to the sickness, amen.

When I want to die, I rinse my soul out and leave it to dry.  Like a flower that will become brittle and turn into a bookmark to mark the page where my life left off. I allow myself to deliberately stop holding the weight of the sun and I allow the sky to crush me softly.

I let the tsunamis out of their cages.
I cup his face,
he is beautiful and he is holding what remains;

I will let love hurt me in unspeakable ways,
until death too, dies.


---"How to turn cancer into god."
© Copywrite Skaidrum
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