I wrote a letter to my 12-year-old self and
It went something along the lines of
“Love Yourself”
but counselling office posters read the same
things so I ripped it up.

See, I used to think that I could fly into the
Sun and it would feel like a warm hug, nothing
So drastic as incineration

Then I saw what could happen to pallid skin on
a hot day and my mindset changed.

I wrote a letter to my 10-year-old self and it
Was more like a warning,

(a red light is flashing, don’t fly into that tower)

Don’t let yourself become cynical
Don’t forget to call your grandmother
Don’t get so caught up in making money that
You’ve forgotten what it means to be a kid

You should be doing loop-the-loops around
That tower,
Roll upside-down, see your city like a bird.

Don red, bleach your apron, do something
Radical to it.

This has become the unsung song of your life

You’ve forgotten to live.

I stopped breathing last night,
dreams of weights resting on
my chest woke me flailing,  
calling for help without a voice.
In my dream we were in your room
and you were sleeping on my
chest the way that you used to.
We'd had a fight about my best friend
about how you thought that he was
in love with me just like
that barista at our café and
my scruffy coworker and just about
everyone on my train ride home.
I told you,
(I think I screamed a little)
that it wasn't possible because I had you.
You said I had a Dickinson heart
but I didn't understand your
literary references
(because by this point I was crying)
and so you kissed me and laid me
down and I woke up
suffocating.
You were sitting on my chest, darling,
grinning at me.

Under these lights I'm honest.
Every flaw, every imperfection
shows true, like raw footage of a plane
crashing into the ground,
showing everything that went wrong.

They show me who I really am,
and what everyone sees:
Chipped, coffee-stained teeth,
frayed, wiry brown hair,
small, deep brown eyes,
every scratch, every scar
every razor-burned pore,
everything I try to ignore
in other rooms of the house.

It explains why I buy lamps
with dimming shades and
warm, dark-yellow bulbs:
The less you can see of me,
the longer it'll be before
you go on rushing out,
jingling keys, clutching a cocktail dress.

But we are
simply
not made
to only see
each other
when we
wake every
morning.
I've lost
you.

I will not slam my gavel on the splinters buried in the back of your mind that drive you insane. Let me pluck them instead only to fill their empty graves with seeds that will grow their own food for thought. Let us spit our souls on our palms and be unafraid to shake hands. I want to become sick with your expansive mind so I may develop immunity to the wretched virus of the narrow majority.

And when you can’t handle any more shut doors locking in your face, grab onto the rope I drop by your side and I will pull you to a new hallway of opportunities. When your back is up against the wall, I’ll remind you to close your eyes and breath because the next time they open the wall will have sunk into the shadow that you yourself have laid on the ground.  

I can’t stand knowing. I have to walk it and exercise it, much like a muscle breaking its former self down only to rebuild itself stronger, and keep it moving because the place where my awareness lands will be the cage where it sleeps. So lend me some of your mental crack and lets find our own over this great wall of the unknown and see if we can’t break down the impossible together.

He created it free hand with a shackled mind and misplaced the key in a pocket he never did like reaching into. Creating a decadent falsity as it kidnapped the truth to a place begging too high a ransom. He only painted with his heart, something he had been perfecting his entire life. Drawing blood to draw with blood left him light in the head and weak in the knees though he kept painting on the canvas, and with passion and ache paint till his palette became parched. A masterpiece he would say while others saw naught but a blank canvas no matter how hard he tried making them fall in love. Though something was missing, something had always been missing but what? He lost himself days on end working to make the beauty in his mind a reality. The days turned into months while the months turned into seconds.  He was pulled to the dangerous place he had always pushed away, squeezing the very last drop his heart could bare until the heart itself became bare, ceasing to move. Before he could make the final stroke he fell weak onto the frosty floor, laying in the shadow of the canvas. With tired eyes and  a vacant heart he finally understood the missing element to his masterpiece. And with his final breath, the last thing his eyes would ever see in this world was the canvas . . . completely empty as the man he became.

A voice echoes through the cracks in my skull.
Lost dreams down a spiraling black hole.

Chasing shadows cast from heart,
finding light disguised as dark.

Dirt and worms fall from sky.
Crossing hearts with hopes to die.

Killer b-line straight to the brain.
A body’s lost mind makes the soul insane.

Feeding on humanity to save my own,
pulsing with life then turning to stone.

Deadly teeth sink past her skin,
where our zombie apocalypse begins.

A promise of love till death do us part,
A promise perhaps where death is the start.

The air your lips used to warm
as you'd breathe into mine,
has become too cold
from the space
you left between us.


Now,
I warm my own air
with flames
set from the peelings
of a burning heart
you threw away
in a rusted can.


I don't remember winter ever being so cold.

that seven days-
i still think about the idea of someone sleeping outside in the cold-
i get very nervous and sad-
when it's cold and i am smoking in front of my home-
then again i kinda smirk and smile-
i know it could happen again-
me outside after the library closes-
sitting and waiting-
wishing and hoping-
i never thought that day would come-
shopping at the dollar store-
thinking i can make it-
all i need is something-
if it rains-
if it rains-
if it rains-
well it did and it got dark-
so i chickened out of the outdoors-
i went in search of warmth-
i found the only fresh grass in the whole parking lot-
darkness is different in the forest-
darkness is different in the city-

Ribbons. (Very Dark)

Take the silken ribbon from my hair.
Wrap it tight around my neck.
For on cold nights of loneliness.
In darkness.
My cold body sits.
My neck bruised in compassion.
Once there in sight.
Was once there in mind.
There for company.
Seek and thou shall find my friend.

Embalmed behind a sullen smile.
Austere.
Such quiet company.
In dignified silence sat.
My mouth stitched shut.
Calling out is not aloud.

I feel you watching me.
While in eternity I sleep.
A presence around me.
I feel that you want me.
Caught by skeins of royal blue.
Oxygen depleted.
In a tapestry of captivity.

But I am not yours.
Only God can set me free.

(I have no  organised religion, I am agnostic. The last line…just seemed to fit.
I am a Robert Browning fan and a Poe fan. Hence the darkness!).

By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)