;fear

We felt it, with our hands pressed tightly against our child-chests.
Boom
Boom
Boom.

It sounded nothing like a heartbeat,
But explosions being let off in the distance.
And it smelt nothing like fear,
It smelt like sweat and dried ***** caked onto torn pajama pants.

We grew to know the insides of our mouths,
with our soft gums clutched between our teeth -
We learned that our voices were safer kept stowed away there.

We picked at their hands like we picked at our scabs,
Because pulling off healing skin,
felt like pulling off a rooted burn,
And prying off desperate fingers from off our bones,
Meant prying off something that terrified us.

This was our strength;
This was our paralysis.

We felt it, with our ears pushed against the door,
Please
Please
Please

It sounded nothing like a pleading mother
But warm air, creeping through vents with a sudden force.
And it smelt nothing like fear,
It smelt of fresh blood, kissing the lips of a weeping woman.

We worshipped knives like they worshiped our baby-soft skin,
Because cutting open ourselves meant cutting out what they left inside,
And watching the filth flee
down our wrists, down our knees,
Felt like draining water
Out of a clogged tub.


It felt nothing life fear
It smelt nothing like decay
It was a continual clutch of the knife against their throats

This one's for you, daddy

I stare at you angrily,
After what you did, I cried for hours.
While you lie, cool as a cucumber, smiling right next to me,
In your birthday suit, I hate you much, brothers shouldn't touch sisters that way.

I sand up shakily, the pain shooting my core only increases as I drop to the floor with a cry, you chuckle as I start to crawl to the bathroom, slowly but surely I shut the door.

I lie in a bathtub, naked and in pain, I can't get my brothers hands and how he used them out of my head, I can't get rid of the feeling on my pale skin, I feel *****.

I feel so *****.
~ Kat Herondale.

we woke up together, enveloped in each other and your bedsheets, to the sound of soft wind chimes in your bedroom window and cars driving past your home. your room smells like your cologne and the laundry detergent my mother used when i was young. you lazily half moaned, half murmured, "good morning, love," and you, with your dazed condition and morning breath, found my lips and met them with yours. you pulled me in closer and ran your fingers gently through my messy, tangled hair, and i inhaled your scent so deeply i could feel it softly settle in the bottoms of my lungs. the morning sun shined through your bedroom window and the shadows of the trees outside danced in the wind along your baby blue bedroom walls. you ran the tips of your fingers gently in sporadic loops along my shoulder blade and spine. we lay there and took it all in, took each other in, our legs intertwined and my head against your chest. for these few minutes i found myself wishing we could live infinitely in these small, precious moments, the ones we take for granted, the ones we only remember when the big picture is gone. i snuggled closer into your arms and we drifted back to sleep, heartbeats synced and bedsheets entangled in our legs.

I guess I just have to admit
That it was all too hard
Too unpleasant
And when I look around me
At the happy couples
I see a thing I've never had
Never personally witnessed.

A real ease.
Getting along without need
A coexistence
Without constant reassurance
An exploration
Of mutual profoundness
The ability to take up space
In your own separate ways
While still being
Each other's best dance partner.

When will I truly enjoy
The way someone dances with me?

What's that like?
I'm not sure
And I think it's because for eons
I strived so hard
To find it.

I don't know
I'm not sure
But I don't think my family has it
And I think I've convinced myself I had it
A plethora of times
And now all there is left to do
Is thrive, exist
And let go.

I.    Scared
This is real for me
This is love to me.
And some days I’m scared out of my mind at how genuine this is.
Nothing has ever felt this authentic to me, other than maybe pain.
This is new to me.
You read the stories and love is this all powerful magic and its so **** powerful that it scares me. It scares me that this thing, this emotion, may rip my heart out of my chest and leave it in a million little pieces.
I’m not scared of you,
I’m not scared of us,
I’m not scared of a fight,
I’m not scared of love,
I’m not scared of forever,
And I’m definitely not scared of heartbreak, my heart has known its scars and I’m not afraid of gathering more.
I’m scared of an ending that’s everything but happy,
I’m scared of the strength of my feelings,
scared I’ll let you down,
scared I’ll hurt you,
scared of anything and everything, all my demons coming out to play and every inch of me is screaming run.
I’m scared that I’ll run,
I’m scared of losing you,
of not being enough.
But as scared as I am, I’m willing to fight for this.
For us.
For our forever
Our happy ever after.

II.    Two
Two souls, more different yet similar than most, met while on their own paths.
They continued together for a while, like many others.
A poet and a soldier, each claiming their own hell, living in their own darkness.
Finding comfort in each other’s arms.

III.    Love
How do you measure a relationship?
By the future?
By the arguments?
I’ve always measured it by how far I could see down the road.
And honestly, with some I could see into 20’s or 30’s, but never the end of our road. Those thoughts were foggy, these are too but more clear, everything is blurred but your face, where with them everything but their face was clear.
With them, I saw lives I didn’t want, lives that were comfortably numb. I saw superficial happy endings.
But with you I see my forever.
I see 5 years down the road, chasing dreams
I see 10 years, building a family
I see 15 years, balancing life
I see 40 years, retiring
I see 50 years, walking down random city streets, hands intertwined
I see 60+ years and meeting again someday in another existence  

I see forever with you
I want forever with you.

Just like your handwriting
You’re a mess
You hide yourself
By cunning words
Trying to disguise how you really feel
But that’s okay
I see right through the facade
You are the type of guy
Who sometimes cries alone
In his room
The type of guy
Who teases and messes with girls
Making them feel awful
Because it’s hard to express how you really feel
You are the type of guy
Who never shows his inner thoughts
You don’t believe anyone will understand
The chaos in your mind
But that’s okay
I see right through it
I am the type of girl
Who’s willing to put
My heart out there
However
You are the type of guy
Who never sees
A girl like me.