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 Feb 2014 Elise
marina
i wish i could love you
gently, but the beating in my
chest is echoing like a choir
through cathedral halls
and i don't know how to think
about you quietly

(maybe, if there is a god, he
meant for our song to be
heard by heaven)
 Feb 2014 Elise
dean
you are not stardust
and you are not iron
you are not an element on the periodic
table and you are not
a being crafted for perfection

you are blood and flesh you
are skin and bone you are
all of these clichés and far
more but you are nothing besides
what you make yourself

not forged from iron not hardened
by fire but wonderfully fallible and beautifully
human
 Feb 2014 Elise
Emily
I. I say I love you but you remind me of the 5am sky like a bruise across the horizon and holding back sobs in the back seat of your best friends car with my knees pulled up to my chest

II. I say I love you but the nonfiction section of the library feels too much like your hands that afternoon we kissed hidden between shelves of books, worried the librarian might find us

III. I say that I love you but girls like me can't be held down and love is an umbilical cord and I want to be free and I need to own myself. You can't.

IV. I say that I love you but how could I when you and I have changed so much I don't even remember how it feels to be in love?

V. I say that I love you and I am sorry for lying.
 Feb 2014 Elise
Emily
uncertainty
 Feb 2014 Elise
Emily
The sheets were soft and crumpled underneath my back and my mind was wandering even though this wasn’t the time for that, and I thought about how much I always loved the feeling of bare skin against sheets, year round, even when it was far too cold for it to be a reasonable thing to do. There’s something **** about just being naked, as simplistic as it sounds. With only his skin, my hair, and the sheets touching my body, I felt exposed but I also felt strong, which was an interesting mix of emotions. I knew I should have been more fixated on what was going on (he certainly was) but I always feel somewhat disconnected from my body and having someone else touch it made it feel even more foreign. It wasn’t unpleasant to have his hands all over me, maybe just a little disappointing and I suddenly wanted to push him off me and go for a walk outside where the air could fill my lungs. Stuffy. It was stuffy in his room, I thought. The distinctly boyish smell of deodorant and sweat mingled with the fake perfume of the candle I remembered to bring and it was was suffocating me. Outside, I could hear his little brother playing loudly in the yard and I wanted to be a little kid again but instead I was inside in a darkened room doing things that seemed too adult for my body and things I used to tell myself I would never do. I liked his brother; he was a sweet kid and last spring I took him to the park a few times when the older boy on top of me had work at the bodega down the street. It felt ***** to hear his childish yells and I wanted more than ever to leave, but the strange more-than-friends relationship with this boy meant that he wanted this once in a while and I liked him more than I had admitted to anyone yet. The cracks in his ceiling were familiar to me by now and once, after we--******? made love? I still didn’t know what to call it-- he told me that the first night I came over, drunk and crying, he had to run to peel off the glow in the dark stars that had still been up, a remnant from his childhood, and I found this endearing and I had kissed him again for that. One of his hands was running through my hair now and I stroked his chest, which was leaner and tanner than my bluish-white hands. In the back of my mind I thought I might love him but it could have been his body between my thighs. I could never be sure.
 Feb 2014 Elise
James Jarrett
I saw her again, there at the hospital
Her hair had begun to silver in early autumn
She was no longer the child
That I had tried to protect, but a grown woman
She was now a matriarch
And she had developed steel in her soul
The years of neglect had been a fire
That forged her an inner strength
Burned the Iron until it became hardened
Even better than it would have been
We talked in the hushed waiting room
All echoes of happiness muffled by the sadness
That clung to the walls like padding
We walked the sterile halls
Scrubbed clean of tears and smiled sad smiles at each other
It was her first death as the matriarch
And she was in charge of this thing, this dying
She was the one who had the strength
To keep everyone else together
Keep them functioning, even if robotic
They did whatever task she gave them
Feeling as if they had accomplished something
And forgetting for a moment
I was proud when I saw her, even through the sadness
Although it was no work of mine
I felt that I had let her down
As I couldn't protect her from the unspeakable things
That visited her daily and worse, nightly
She had been so young and vulnerable, but no more
She was strong and stable,
The rock that the rest of the family could anchor to
As they were buffeted in a hopeless ocean
Yes, she was now the matriarch and she was in charge of this thing,
This dying
To my most beloved niece, the new matriarch.
The lines on your skin form mazes
Going round and round
Baby let me tell you
I wanna get lost in them
I don't wanna be found
I don't care if I'm never found
 Feb 2014 Elise
marina
isaac
 Feb 2014 Elise
marina
i wish my hands didn't shake
every time you say my name,
but i am only
human
****
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