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1.1k · Oct 2017
The Smell of Cigarettes
Stéphanie Oct 2017
You smell like cigarettes... and now I do too.
I don't mind you smoking,
But how funny is it that you smell
like one of the things I hate the most?
That scent always holds on for dear life
onto my hair, when I come home.

I wonder if that is the reason why
I feel the need to scrub myself clean
as soon as I set a foot back into familiar territory.
Or is it the smell of you I want to forget,
so that I cannot recall that you even touched me?
That anyone has ever touched me?
Because the only way to erase the way he held onto me
seems to be to never let you hold me either.

I had grown accustomed to the feeling
of the temple that is my body
crumbling under his too strong, too rough, too fast hands.
To the void in my belly from which he took the butterflies
and replaced them with a distrust that won't go away.
I had become used to picking up the pieces,
to washing them of him one by one
and then putting them back together
with Duck Tape and Superglue
into a puzzle that no one will ever solve,

just like when you're little and figure out
that if you just press hard enough,
any piece will fit together,
even if the whole picture feels wrong
as if that action alone would rewind the world
to a time when he hadn't happened to me yet.
Now that my body has been whole for such a long time,
I cannot bare the thought of being deciphered and pulled apart,
even if it is to build the picture right again
and let you in.

I know I could come to enjoy the smell of cirarettes,
if only because it is yours.
But it was also his
and I prefer telling myself that I just don't like
the way it clings to me
because it is easier than facing the fact
that because of him, I hate the feeling of smelling like you.
388 · Dec 2017
Artificially Bold Knuckles
Stéphanie Dec 2017
Numb lips
and small hips
under artificially bold knuckles
showed me
for just a glimpse
of a moment too quickly passed
what I could have
with someone else
364 · Oct 2017
Red Toned Silvers
Stéphanie Oct 2017
My heart feels heavy in my chest
as I lay next to you
yours, so openly displayed
beating in your outstretched hand
like a silver platter that is way too bright
keeps me from falling asleep
as you know I have a habit
of keeping people in the dark.

Once, your silver fingers stroked my cheek
and I startled as the cold hit my skin
but I didn't move away
because a second later you were all warmth
and slow breathing
and the smell of cigarettes
and comfort
and heart.

Dearest, please
let me close my eyes a little longer
seeing life in tones of red
aclimating our thick skins
as your brightness blinds me so
but for a fact I know
I can warm up to you
as you warmed up to me.
347 · Dec 2017
The Sound of Rain
Stéphanie Dec 2017
Illusion of a storm
       from the shower next door
               makes me feel like a kid
                       held by its mother
                                as I always loved
                                        the sound of rain
270 · Oct 2017
Frostbites
Stéphanie Oct 2017
I learned that ice burns too
from the frostbites we gave each other.
Where my tongue got stuck
to the iron of the blood
gently flowing from open wounds
artfully lining our freezing mouths.

Just like children
licking a frozen stop sign
a warning so red it just screams
that all of this
might have started with
the gentlest of intentions,
but still ended up
with us both imploding
like forgotten frozen pipes.

Because the cold invading our guts
expanded for so long
that it was then impossible
to slow down the shattering
of this weird winterland
we failed to see our world was.

And when came the time
to take back my tongue,
to tell you that I could no longer
live with the forming stalactite
of our mixed, dripping,
bloodstained saliva
stabbing at my heart,
the warm breath I exhaled
did not agree with your cold one.

Two opposite winds collided
creating a perfect storm
effectively capturing my voice
in the bull's eye of my lips.
My words did not know
if they should still
attempt to break through
or stay, eyes closed,
in this artificial peace.

Maybe the bull's eye could be
a temperature controlled utopia
where the teeth marks in our cheeks
would fade overtime
and our guts wouldn't explode
and the stabbing at my heart would stop.

However, when I opened
the lashes of my words
like a winter forest being burned down
and our eyes met
like little red frightened creatures
we understood
and only ended up drowning
in a pond of our own melted tears.
227 · Mar 2018
self-sabotage
Stéphanie Mar 2018
i cannot concentrate
this is consuming me
like the backwards spit
of a dragon
who forgot that her fire
was meant to hurt others
not herself

is it really so bad
that she enjoys
the wind in her face
since it is
the only thing
that makes her
feel ?

— The End —