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Elise Jackson Apr 2021
the longest road is the one you keep looking back on
the longer you stare
the more it stretches

it seems that the roads i walk have the most rigid bones
the ones that can't quite stretch to that spot
such an ache that i feel it in my own bones

the fact that you're no longer alive
grasps me in the strangest moments
and those bones come through the dirt to hold onto me

they remind me that i too
am in constant ache
i think one day i'll hold their hands
Elise Jackson Dec 2020
i.
i've met god
he's lying six feet deep
in the rare greens of chicago
where the trees make up for the emptiness
the loss
the silence

the grass seems so frightening for its purpose
but yet so full and comforting
i don't blame the slumber

i blame the normality of it all
i cannot keep swallowing grief and pretending it doesn't hurt me
Elise Jackson Oct 2020
there is this soft innocence when the sun rises
when your mind is at its weakest
eyelids heavy
bearing the burden of the past
and its memories

the most pure is the softest light
that the sun can bestow onto you

a gentle reminder that the day is new
even when all the days seem stagnant
and sleep is but a distant task
tired.
Elise Jackson Oct 2020
i miss your tires fighting the pavement under our legs
i miss the wind slipping into the cracked windows
i miss how everything turned into slosh as highways stretched

it always seemed as if they only elongated for us
all packed into one car
sharing slushies and eye-roll worthy jokes

nothing else mattered in those hours where we shared space
nothing else seemed more important than each other's company
nothing else sounds better
i've learned a lot about about gratitude in the past 188 days.
Elise Jackson Aug 2020
i wish i felt as cool as i did in the summer of 2016
and i wish i could feel the slow fade into the fall all over again

screaming our favorite songs out the car windows
while the neighbors hastily shut their curtains

in those moments i was free
more free than i ever felt over the weekends home from school

more free than i feel now
more in control than i am now
Elise Jackson Jun 2020
i watch the way your fingers touch the kitchen counter
so thoughtful and unaware of contact

when i notice my own fingers
they're gripping at the seams between the tiles

your eyes, half open and searching for words
when the night becomes dense and the world stays quiet

sometimes i feel it only stays quiet for us
for as long as it does
short but, felt it in my bones.
Elise Jackson Dec 2019
a seven hour vacation away from conscious life
a seven hour movie presentation
a seven hour time frame somewhere else

how funny it is
that back in 2002 we thought this was permanent
we thought our lives couldn't get any better than this

we were all so wrong
but very right
depending on various ideals

we didn't get the future we were promised
maybe that's a relief
or a panicked thought

no matter what year it is
i still have the same dream
the one i thought about for seven hours a day five days a week

a dream of my freshly washed hair
being dampened once more but by freezing rain
the impending feeling of doom

the goosebumps and standing hairs
the soft lights of the world grazing the snowy clouds
and for those few moments


i felt that i was the only person in the world
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