Venus

Venus 7d

Untitled

words unspoken
will always cut deeper
than ones allowed to flow.
please don’t cauterize
your feelings
just to spare mine.

Venus Aug 6

Untitled

how does one
learn to truly be content
with the uncomfortable silence
of self-reliance?

please, sit with me a moment more.

Venus Jul 27

arson

i’m afraid
i have burned all my bridges down
because i fear to recross them.

i’m sorry,
and i miss you—
even if i’m never able to prove it.

i still find myself
rereading the same lines you wrote,
as if they somehow could transform
into what i wish you would’ve said.

Venus Jul 20

to love is to destroy

my hands tremble
around something fragile—
this feeling,
us.

i don’t know
how to hold it
without destroying it.

so i drop it.

a word too sharp,
a silence too long,
a doubt
creeping slowly
up from my stomach

and suddenly,
i’m tearing at the seams
of something wonderful
just to see
if it will hold.

but every time i do,
i can feel the insides spilling out.
the stitching giving way,
as it always does.

and i hate myself
for being unable to love
without breaking
all at once.

Venus Jul 16

there is always a reason.

i stay because i’m needed.
my friends,
my family,
my cats.
they tether me gently to this world,
and i love them for it.

but still,
i’m tired in a way sleep can’t fix.
i carry a kind of grief that doesn’t come
from any one thing,
and never really ends.

i would never wish this on anyone.
but sometimes i wish someone could feel it,
just for a moment—
the weight i carry,
the quiet ache of living in my mind.

not so they’d hurt,
but so they’d understand
why surviving sometimes feels
like hell on earth.

i’m still here.
i’m still trying.
but it’s heavy.
and the weight is starting to win.

we can’t afford another funeral.

Venus Jul 9

07/04

she still looks like herself..
porcelain, yet fierce.
but there is now
something ghost-like
shifting behind her eyes.

she’s forgotten how to hold me,
the way she used to.
when i was small enough
to believe her arms
were impenetrable.

she calls my name,
but something doesn’t sound right.
like someone else
is wearing her voice.

i keep looking—
longing for the softness
she used to keep
behind her teeth.
but all i find
is bitterness
and conversations
i can’t sit through.

at times i wonder,
if she mourns me too
the child she formed
from the softest parts of herself,
who learned to disappear
the second she did.

Venus Jul 7

Untitled

my cheeks, do they feel soft?
when they’re covered by tears.
my eyes, do they mesmerize you?
when they can’t stand to look you in yours.
my hips, do they ****** you?
when they’re poking out of my skin.
my words, do they move you?
when they’re so stretched thin.

i ask, for once, that you open your eyes and truly see me.