Ashley Wade Parker

Ashley Wade Parker Feb 2013

if ever the salt in your soul
becomes too much
so grainy that it
fills your veins
and stills your happiness
if it becomes so heavy that it fills your combat
boots like the desert sands
you will fight on
and piles onto the floor when you open your
mouth
if it becomes so brackish
that gin and whiskey will
not drown out the voices
of the demons in your stomach
i will take your salt and
toss it in the four directions
of the earth
i will give it back the dirt
i will place it on the wings of crows and ravens
to deliver it to the laughing sky
to the sea which craves it
to the cleansing fire
i will give it to all these
and place some of
it in my own heart
under my own tongue
and in my own soul

this is for my cousin Johnny Parker who is in the army at the moment.

Ashley Wade Parker Feb 2013

Untitled

some nights the nastier bits of myself crawl up from my throat and sit on my tongue & whiskey isn't strong enough to wash them down

Ashley Wade Parker Feb 2013

february

there comes a point
when the laughter of friends fades
the warm glow of a pub
the smell of spilled beer and cheap fries
the feel of others
seems far away
these points come
when the heaviness of February settles on your heart
fills up your throat
dries your eyes
at this point it feels like all the warmth you know
is snuffed out
and spring is too far away
and the bottle of wine on your counter is too expensive to drink all at once
in these moments
when the cold around you keeps
you awake
when kanye west's cold
makes you think
about the way you treat yourself
when your feet throb and feel cold
under wollen socks and flannel
when tea doesn't warm your stomach
when ana's words almost feel like friendship
again
these moments can make
a person look
a thousand years old
skin sallow
and bones frail
these moments when your mind crosses
every road
stopping on each face of your
futurepastpresent
of
every
bridge burned
and even those flames can't warm you
when you think about everyone in your life
and realize
not one of them would think about you
but tomorrow
when sun tears through
my window
i might feel a little warmer
and maybe i will forget all about tonight
and the sometimes moments
and the lows that come
when you least expect

Ashley Wade Parker Feb 2013

insomnia

l{one}l{I}ness
hurts like
one
e m p t y
cup of coffee while another sits
cold in the late afternoon light
full and a little bitter
like your stomach
it stings
like
too much wine -- or *****--
against chapped lips
at 10:45p.m.
finding a ****** wrapper under your bed
of trapped in the corners of your sheets
or cigarette cherries falling onto fuzzy
knee
caps
while Johny Cash
sings you into drunken sleep
al{one}
at
11:30 p.m.
it throbs like heads
and unanswered text messages
and bruises on your knees
the day
after
blinking dizzily into grey-morning-afternoon-night
waking up in a single bed
when the fires have gone out
makeup is smeared
and you realize you forgot to put on socks
it feels like that look on your face
when calls go unanswered
and pretty lingerie makes your skin look
bruised
when a dress meant for a party lies
crumpled in the corner of your bed
or your bathroom
damp and wrinkled
from showers taken at
3.am.
to burn out the lonely that
clings
like
your hands in his when you stop
being alone
or like perfume on a
black tee-shirt that you
borrowed months ago
it is comforting like cheap coffee
and relaxed smiles
of an entire box
of off-brand reeses cocoa puffs
with almond milk
of the taste of peach cigarillos
it is sweet like sweet red and dark chocolate
on a tuesday night
when you are in your underwear
or like listening to sad music
while shaving your legs
and buying a bottle of nail polish
because of the pun in the name on its
bottom
it is also addicting like
the smell of their sweat or
seeing their car parked at the gas station
and holding your breath
to see them
or counting the *******
band stickers on their bumper
to the beats of your heart
untill the lights turn green
it is like listening to ingrid michaelson
in a cold car or sitting
in a cheap orange chair in a coffeeshop
by yourself.
it is like drinking a bottle of wine before
5 p.m.
or watching the sun rise
over naked
january trees
when you haven't slept the night before
or the night before that
or the night before
or the night
before

Ashley Wade Parker Jan 2013

Untitled

Reasons why I am going to Europe:

I am going to Europe because I am nineteen— almost twenty— years old and, for some reason, I am expected to have my entire life planned and ready to go. I am expected to go to college, get a degree which will give me above-minimum wage pay, possibly meet a boy. Date this boy on and off (as well as a few others) during my early twenties, get drunk a few times, maybe do some drugs, marry someone when I turn twenty six. Have two kids. Pay my mortgage, plan to travel when I am older. Pay my student loans. Do yoga on the weekends.

No thank-you.

I am nineteen— almost twenty— years old, and for some reason, I have no idea what I want to do with myself. I went to college for a major in English with a teaching license— I hated it. I tried to **** myself three times. So here, I am, working at Food Lion, running around the woods, drinking Gin and blood orange juice on a Monday night, with no plan. And I am happy. I am going to Europe because what else would I be doing with myself? I am going to Europe because I want to wake up in a hostel with someone else’s shirt on, the smell of salt on my skin, and the taste of wine in my mouth

. I am going to Europe because I don’t want my greatest thrill in life to be going to Whole Foods one Saturday of the month to buy nice wine and a quality meat only to watch the travel channel and hope for places I will go to ‘someday’. I am going to Europe because why can’t ‘someday’ be today?

I am going to Europe because I may get lost in a market place, in a bottle of Absinthe, in the arms of an Italian man, in the bottom of a bottle of sweet Moscato, in a pub in Ireland, in the mouth of a french girl, in a German forest, and that will be alright. I am going to Europe because my feet itch, and my soul is thirsty. I am going to Europe because sometimes it feels like the world is only as big as your home-town, and that is only an illusion that needs to be cured.

Ashley Wade Parker Jan 2013

places

i see us in shades of spring and autumn
in the  r        s    of earlgrey left on the
             i          g
                n
bottom of chipped
mugs and tea glasses on antique wood tables
and wood floors
in the smoke of cigarettes french inhaled in the woods
in the smoke of summer fires
that burns my eyes
and in the red stains left of white shirts
and the (almost) ***** left the next day in asheville alley ways
i see us in water running over rocks
and in the moss growing on boulders
in the ice fractures of thin glass
and the steam
vapors of a
tea kettle
at 4 almost five almost sun
                                                u
                                                p
when you are going
to be too far                                        away
and I am
going to be
a little too far gone
in a bottle of wine
a little out of my head
a little mad
a little lost while you are loosing yourself

Ashley Wade Parker Jan 2013

napkins

the soul of a writer can be found
in words
s cr
ib
b led on
crumplednapkins -- like horcruxes--
when sleep feels like a far off dream (when people watch you, wondering if you are strung out on coke while you scratch words on these thin sheets of paper in restrauntsbarscoffeshops
half
mad
eyes glassy)
in discernible handwriting comparable
to some
primitive
hieroglyphics-- a language of voices in your head and dreams too vivid
they can be found on the backs of hands
and journals
and popcornbags
when nightlights are too dim in the early hours of insomnia
and moonlight is obscured by curtains
in drinks like london fogs
and ***** chais
and black coffee
and black tea
in packs of empty
American Spirits
and half-full (empty) gas tanks
and piles of books that will never be read that will be re-read and quoted
and tweed scarves and
empty journals and chipped nail polish
in dead pens and phones
in unanswered texts, emails, messages
and unrequited love
their souls can be found in the
stained
bottoms of coffecups
and sticky shot glasses
and wine glasses (some still half full of cheap
redwhitezinfadel
because rent is hard to pay
when no one wants to
read words
scribbled on the back of a napkin