Abbigail

Abbigail Jan 2014

Selfish are the weak lovers

Selfish is she for praying to die before him
to avoid the pain of losing him

Selfish is he for stealing her innocence
Selfish is he for making her so comfortable with it

Selfish is she for expecting as much love as she gives
when she knows that it's too much to really bear

Selfish is he for feeding her so many kind words
and meaning them
when there was a chance they could only be temporary

Selfish was she when she was so angry
she let him wonder if she was leaving

Selfish were both for staying, for loving, for
needing, for touching, for promising,
when he knew she deserved better
when she knew he deserved better

Abbigail Jan 2014

She's Up

Her skeleton is not visible anymore
from under her skin,
and her legs no longer wobble like
those of a fawn learning to step
when she walks.

Her cheeks are filled back in
with the colors of his mother's garden,
and you'll never see the picture
her sister snapped
of the ghost that once drained
it from them.

She sleeps to rest, not to escape,
and you'd never suspect
that the glass on her nightstand
had been filled with whiskey
for seven months
to chase down the pain pills
she took every morning
for her father's bad back.
Now it's filled with water.

She dreams of more than death.
She dreams of life.
A life without him,
and a life without them,
and a life without hopelessness
and sorrow and regret.
A life free of the pain of his torches,
but not free of feeling.

"I can't live without you," she promised him
through drunken midnight tears.
But, hell, he wasn't the only one who
could break a promise.

Abbigail Jan 2014

A New Allure

There's something special about someone
you can lie awake in bed with all day,
Seeing you with your knotted hair and morning face
and still thinking you're someone worth kissing.

You can find it in the way they lie in any position at all
as long as it's wrapped around your body,
The way that they ignore every responsibility they'd said was so important
because laughing with you, your face buried in their neck,
is the single thing that surpasses everything else the world demands of them.

You’ve each held others before, the same way.
Limbs intertwined as many ways as can be found,
touching as much of their skin with yours as your shapes will allow.
You've explored the unknown inches of someone's body and
felt the chill down your spine when they did the same.
You’ve held others before,
but that doesn’t make it any less spectacular.

His legs feel different against yours than any you’ve felt before.
His lips are a new taste, a new shape,
a new, original kind of magic.
He makes different sounds as he falls asleep
and sometimes he narrates his dreams.

His face takes a different shape when he’s about to kiss you,
and a different shape yet when he only wishes he could.

His hands find new resting places on your frame
separate from those anyone else has discovered
and he’s found new words, still, to send
fluttering into the pit of your stomach
and color your cheeks a shade
that you pray he can’t see in the dark.

There’s something special about someone
you can lie in bed with at night,
Listening to your stories that never come out right,
if they ever come out at all,
and still trying to convince you that
you’ve got something worthwhile to say.

There’s something special about someone
who holds potential to make you feel a new feeling.
Whose mystery still intrigues you
and whose company still satisfies you,
Whose stories you still care to hear
and whose lips are still an enticing thought.

And he’s clearly insane,
But you’re really happy that
with your knotted hair and morning face,

**he still thinks you’re someone worth kissing.

#love #original #hope #happy #new #infatuation #magic #kissing #different #exciting #unfamiliar #alluring

Abbigail Jan 2014

All The Magic Things

You are the middle of August,
the product of a seasoned summer right before the cold returns.

You are the last chapter of everyone's favorite book:
a hesitant read for fear of an ending, yet all too inviting. 

You are the sound of a soft rain's patter against the window
on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

You are the familiar smell of a mother's home-cooked meal.

You are the purples and pinks in the sunset
and you are the reflection of colors on the water.

You are sleeping in until 3pm with nowhere to be.

You are the grin on a middle-schooler's face
when the girl at the dance says yes.

You are the first glass of water to a hangover.

You are the dream that disappointed minds
try to reenter when they awaken.

You are the feeling of freshly cut grass on bare feet.

You are the feel-better kiss
for every cut, scrape, bruise, or bump.

You are the excitement in a child’s eyes on Christmas morning.

You are the first ray of light to peak
from behind the clouds every morning.

You are the feeling of new socks.

You are looking at the moon
when you can swear he’s looking back.

You are the glow from the top of the lighthouse,
guiding sailors home from sea.

You are a memorable conversation with a stranger on the bus,
haunting and ending far too soon.

You are hiding out in a tree after dinner,
imagining belonging to the branches deriving from its core.

You are the joyful “God bless you”
proclaimed by a man on the corner asking for a dollar.

You are a hand to hold when sidewalks are slippery.

You are the warm voice emanating from the warm smile
on a frore wintry night.

You are the comfort of “goodnight”
from a lover’s lips just inches away.

You are the loyalty of a dog when his soldier returns home.

You are the fireflies in a mason jar,
flashing light through a dark room.

You are the best line in the song on repeat.

You are the laugh lines that years of smiles
sketched into the face of an old man.

You are every last bit of good and pure and magic in the world.

*And you don’t even know it.

Abbigail Jan 2014

About

I want to know what you were like as a child.
I want to look through all your toddler pictures
and read the notes you scribbled for your mom
when you were four.
Who was your best friend,
and were you afraid of the dark?

I want to know how old you were when you got rid of your legos,
and I want to hear about your first crush.
Did you write her love letters or did you call her names
and steal her things?
Would she ever know of your plans to marry her in your backyard?

I want to meet your mom.
I want to hear the things you talk with her about,
if you laugh and joke and if you watch your words too carefully when she's around.
I want to ask her questions you wouldn't know the answers to,
Like how to make you smile when you don't feel like it
and what it is you hide behind when you're scared.

I want to learn the differences in your sighs
and of which of your smiles is most sincere.
I want to separate your thinking face and your sad face
and I want to know where to stand when you're angry,
far away or do you still want me to hold your hand?

I want to know your deepest fears and I want to figure out why
you're afraid of anything at all.
I want to hear your favorite joke and listen to your favorite song.
I want to read your favorite book and I want to know everything that you love about it.
I want to hear the story of the best day of your life,
and of the worst.

I want to hear about everyone you've ever loved
and what you loved about them.
I want to discover which pieces of you grew
and which pieces turned cold with each break of your heart.
I want to know the last time something made you cry
and what it was
and whether or not it still makes you cringe.

I want to know your views on fate and free will,
and did you ever believe in God?
I want to hear of your hopes and your plans and your ultimate desires.
I want to hear about every time you've been hopeless
and whether or not you believe in soul mates.

I want to find the place where you stash away your insecurities.
I want to learn of the parts of you that you've grown to love,
When did you realize you had something to offer the world,
and do you ever let yourself forget it?

I want to examine your brain in all its entirety
and I want to read the libraries within,
The shelves that hold the stories of every
experience that made you
And the notebooks with the scribbled poems
before you ever tore them up.

Abbigail Jan 2014

Love Him Not

He will appear out of nowhere with his confident stature,
animated laugh,
the body that you could only assume is an illusion,
comparable to a Greek god.

He will draw you with his beaming features-
his perfect mouth upon his perfect face with his perfect eyes
that are looking only at you
as if you are worthy to even see something so beautiful.

His radiant allure derives from a level of bliss and euphoria you'd never seen anyone acquire
and you don't want to leave his light.

His intellect will entice you
even more so than the essence of his beauty
and his soul will mirror kindness and freedom.

You will deny him any interest despite his perfection
and you will do this for a long time.

You'll wake up to kiss his face in the mornings
and you'll see the emotion in his eyes
when he tells you what you do to him.

You'll avoid the conversation when it's staring into the face of the future and asking questions about tomorrow.

He'll cook for you (significantly better than anything you could cook yourself)
and he'll watch your favorite cartoons and
you'll relay inside jokes that make you both feel at home with each other.
This will be both comforting and terrifying and
you'll wonder why you won't let yourself feel the way he wants you to.

You'll scan his face and find it exactly as flawless as it's always been, abnormally beautiful even,
and you cannot decide why he's there wanting you.
But he is.

And your weariness will leave you on emotional standby and undoubtedly conflicted.

I'm not sure why the paper-perfect never feels perfect to me. But it doesn't. And I'd like to reflect on that unfortunate phenomenon.

#love #feelings #passion #lacking #unrequited #guilt #sorry #misguided

Abbigail Jan 2014

Something Like Nostalgia

How I adore your nerve
when you kissed me in your closet upon sheets made of legos
and all of your childhood dreams.
How easy I am for you to draw when you play on stage the song that you wrote me,
The one that feels like rock climbing by the river,
Like naps in the summer when I drool on your chest and you don't mind,
Like kissing you until the very last minute of my curfew,
only to break it for the miracle that is your lips.
How alluring is your breath on my neck,
Your voice in my ear when you told me that you loved me
and you didn't stop smiling,
even as the years went by and I did.
How I craved, longed, begged for time to be still
the time you took me to the highest hill you could drive to,
You called it my mountain.
"At first, you look at it and it's so small,
but once you notice it, it's all you can see," you said.
How my stomach floods with waves of nostalgia and a taste
of everything I've ever had to live without,
With complete and utter spell-binded devotion at the simple familiarity
of your smell.
How addicted I am to your laugh when you're happy and
the mastered impression you do of your mom.
How weak I am to your intellect and your appreciation of literature
and real music,
Your enthusiasm for art and the "name that note" game you force upon me
as you stumble onto the classical radio station.
How in love I am with your romance that is as childish as my attachment
to my baby blankie and my mother's childhood walrus that you never ceased to insult.
Our pajama day that we decided over our prom,
When we turned on John Mayer and slow danced in your room.
Your idea of a date consisted of fake wine and me.
How incredibly warm are the coldest of nights,
On the side of your dirt road as we lie in the snow that is too cold for comfort,
yet holds us there with the fear that one day will not look the same as this one
and I would bear any amount of cold winter to keep one more moment of yours.
How I cherish the way you latch my pinky with yours when we walk
And the face you don't know you make when you play guitar.
The rooftop where you kissed me for the very first time and the string rings
we wore to remind each other we were still there.
How incredibly and unfortunately devout I am to all that I remember of you.