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260 · Jun 2019
Still Gone
fray narte Jun 2019
I’d like to think that there is someplace where you never fell out of love with me and out of the orbits we made. And that’s why I still write — for my poems to be that place where words never failed us, where the goodbyes were never said for good, and where I could breathe in your scent at 6 am and know and feel that you were still there; that it wasn’t just another trace you left behind. At least in the poems, I could make you love me still.

At least in the poems, I could undo the fights and stitch our red strings back to each other, and look at you as if I was lost in the sea, and you were made of moon dusts and starlights.

At least in the poems, I could probably make myself enough — make my love enough for you to stay. At least in the poems.

But then again, they’re just poems darling, arranged to look like a happy ending. They’re just poems. And you’re still gone.

You’re still gone.
259 · Mar 2020
Journal Entry #29
fray narte Mar 2020
"These are but bruises not healing fast enough — bruises from all the black holes I swallowed. Then again, the ocean doesn't always spit back out what it has claimed for itself. Maybe it works that way as well, with all these black holes. Because, you see, if I'm not one at all, why does daylight breaking through my skin have to hurt this much?"
256 · Jul 2019
lurking here
fray narte Jul 2019
mental illness hides itself in the unwashed laundry spread on your bed and on the bedroom floor. it hides itself in the dust that settled on your favorite books and in the permanent markers on your powder-blue walls; it hides itself in skipped meals and in the messy hair you hadn’t washed for a week now and in the chorus of your favorite song you no longer sang to. it hides itself in your favorite constellation — in the night skies and star clusters you stopped gazing at and in those vanilla ice creams that no longer felt comforting.

mental illness is fickle, sweetie, for it hides in bad dye jobs and unopened birthday letters and in dishes piling on the sink. it hides in your limbal rings while you look at those sunsets that feel like summer storms. it hides under your skin while you stand under the shower, wondering why you even bother to bathe, or when you freeze in the middle of street, waiting for the bus to come. it hides in mornings you force yourself to get up and clean your room.

we know it, don’t we? it hides in trivial things. it hides in places people won’t look at, sweetie. it hides in proses like these
253 · Jun 2021
to jasper and his hands
fray narte Jun 2021
You’re everything bad for me; our idea of love is crashing into sunburnt, rust walls, with hands around each other’s neck. There we are, soaked in each other’s sadness. There we are, all cold, mechanical limbs until we can no longer tell whose hand does the breaking – whose skin is left with scars. There we are, silhouettes jumping off Ferris wheels straight into the fray – all broken bones and the maddest smile.

This is love – in its ugliest form.
You’re everything bad for me; you’re every terrible idea – every wrong decision made seconds before going haywire.

And yet, maybe, you’re not – maybe it’s me.

Maybe it’s me; I lived to come undone and fall apart to your autumn eyes. Maybe it’s me: cold, dilapidated skin after all the havocs you wreaked, and still, I would stand and run to you – despite all this knowing – all this hurting. So darling, break me – leave me in ruins, for another life to see.

I wasn’t good for myself anyway.
251 · Feb 2020
all these crumpled letters
fray narte Feb 2020
Love, I said I wouldn't miss the sound of your early morning voice.
These sheets were weighed from all the times the dawn sent its sunrays
like palms filled with love letters;
but maybe I too, had become all the dawns that lingered too long.
I said I wouldn't miss the outline of your body;
oh how I planted kisses on every uncharted curve
but this bed is now a map of strangers from all these towns I do not know.

I said I wouldn't miss the hands, touching,
fingers picking each stray breath away;
I wouldn’t miss waking up next to you —
all serene, all magical than lucid dreams.

But darling, it's ten to twelve and our memories,
they covet me as the summer rain pours outside
and now,

I miss all these stupid little things;
the brief way you wince at papercuts,
the secret smiles after eye rolls
and radios turned to the max,
the way red lipsticks and love notes
linger on bathroom mirrors;
the water and steam have erased them now,
love, I miss the way you hog blankets;
the threads have now come undone,
taking down your scent with them,
all too painful, all too slow, it slips
even from these memories,

And I know I said I wouldn't miss you
but it's half past twelve, and I'm in your shirt
and the rain had stopped
but I think so far — so far love,

missing you has not.
244 · Sep 2020
September 2
fray narte Sep 2020
I. One day, the moon will forgive me for all the ways I broke myself, until I was a driftwood crumbling into dust, stirring on the edge of your bed — all the faint traces of the ocean gone. The moon will forgive me for growing bruises where your lips once staked claim.

No, that was not my fall from grace, I whisper; my skin has long abandoned tenderness at the doorstep of the first boy who broke my heart. Maybe I had been broken since. Now, there are some things you can never fix: all the bones that you'd once held are all the bones that break.

II. And I know, it'll forgive me for sinking into the comfort a stranger's sheets somewhere in this bleak, forgotten town. It's been a month, and I am made of lows and pathetic attempts to forget your voice. And the moon knows I was never cut out for love — only for things that resemble it. So when you wrung poems out of my tangled pulseline, when you muttered you loved me that July night, it'll forgive me for sighing myself to oblivion, having been undone by your gaze. It'll forgive me for having wanted to die in your arms. And oh, it was beautiful while it lasted.

We were beautiful while we lasted.

III. And still, I am never cut out for love. The one I know is made for burning down cathedrals. For leaving dead flowers in the gaps of your ribs. For throwing poems under the bridge. For throwing myself thereafter. I always had a proclivity for things that leave me hurting in the aftermath of disasters. And there are no poems left to make sense of it all. Just erratic thoughts. Just a flight risk caught in the loose ends where memories are left to rot.

No, there are no poems to write anymore. Just heartbreak. Just lonely rooms, and drawn curtains, and your scent, fading from these sheets — held close. In silence. Despite it all.

IV. And one day, the moon will forgive me for wanting to stay when I should be leaving.

Maybe I will forgive myself too.
244 · Jan 2020
hospital walls
fray narte Jan 2020
too bright —
too light —
the hospital walls
offer no place to cry.
too flawless —
too white,
and i am the spot in the middle,
the blemish,
the stains,
the discoloration
to a scrutinizing gaze.

i can feel them shying away
from these black candles i lit —
burning away like a sacrifice —
the melting filth of wax
that dared defile
something so holy as a savior's robes,

i can feel them flinch
upon the touch of these hands
and yet i am a woman unhealed,

upon the sight of these tears —
a baptism,
a renaming ceremony

in honor of the graveyards
i dug in secret,
in honor of the coffins
lowered in my chest,
in honor of the soil filling in the depths
all too careful,
all too slow
until i am reborn as Mourning
and until mourning fades into specks of dust.

and the hospital walls still look spotless.
and the hospital walls still look too pure.
Inspired by Sylvia Plath's Tulips and my own share of grief
fray narte Feb 2020
so when you dissolve into a thousand poems you can never write trying to look for the way out, let go. even the moon melts parts of itself, and your skin, it is made from the cracks constellations have between its stars. and when december starts to breathe the last of its sadness — and how it lingers on your skin: a glass so breakable, let go; wilted flowers no longer flinch at a lightning's touch; you are made from the same matter — all cold lips and an ether of sighs. let go, darling. all this, because you are not just a girl. you are a storm without a calm.
237 · Sep 2020
tragedy of the calm
fray narte Sep 2020
You were my only chance at the calm, it's no secret. Not when my skin had become a topography of city light and anomalies waiting to happen. Not when broken wrists and collarbones had defined my name. And for years, my fingers had held onto rusting street signs, pointing to where my flesh had started to decay under the nipping of the butterflies — places to avoid touching, otherwise I'd break.

But you were the calm.

And for so long, it had evaded my side of the bed. And I know you had tasted dead dahlias and maladies off my tongue. Poets don't write about lips like mine — those that repel clarity and softness — those that had forgotten the words to a prayer. And it's no secret that I had spent years walking on a tilted axis and screaming at the pitfalls of my own doing. And yet you kissed me; for once, my skin had learned silence — raw, and in broad daylight. For once, I didn't have to be the storm that I was.

And love, whoever knew you would betray the calm, when you were my only chance at it?

Now, nightfalls just feel like bruises starting to show way too soon. Now, September nights are just cold and are filled with blunders. Now, this heartbreak seems like it may outlast all my well-kept sunsets, waiting for me at the end of this storm. And it could've been you, still — it could've been us. Now all that we were is a wreck to behold. And love, must all beautiful things rot?

You were the calm, but poets don't write about tragedies like these.

Maybe it's better off that way.
231 · Jun 2019
the muse's poetry
fray narte Jun 2019
honey you never loved me, you simply loved having someone you could write poetry about.



and i gave you that.
230 · Jul 2019
journal entry #28
fray narte Jul 2019
darling, my notebooks are running out of strings and pages; how many more poems do i have to write before you come back?
221 · Aug 2020
Untitled
fray narte Aug 2020
"Please don't ever leave me."

And love, I never would have left — not for all the serene mornings unsettled by these shapeless thoughts. Not for all the sanest kisses laid gracefully on scarring skin. Not for all the storms that had dissolved into the calm. I never would have left you — not for the world falling away into a mess of sorrows while the sun watches from afar. But the street lights are spent and mornings are colder and my hands are bruised from picking up all the pieces that you broke.

Did you feel most alive when you were killing me?


Now in the silence, my poems mourn over a loss that isn't theirs.


And in the silence, you say, "Please, don't ever leave me."



And in the silence, I answer, "I wish I never had to."
fray narte Sep 2020
and how do i crawl out of this chest — this skin — this lonely, grave, without choking on all the dirt?
211 · Jun 2019
take me back
fray narte Jun 2019
Take me back
to the tattered pages of your books
where gray roses grew.
Take me back
to the school grounds where
we used to break all the rules,
to the unmarked graves
of the promises we no longer said
after we had broken them
one
by
one,
and to the road trips
where you felt like
winter dipped in sadness
and I,
a love song flung
to the summer sun.

Take me back to where
we drowned in the coldest mornings,
to where the sunrise looked like
magic spells cast
by the daybreaks in our eyes.
Take me back to the seas where
we built castles on the horizon
and waited for
the sun to sink.
Take me back to the spring-break bars
where the poems melted on our skin,
to the darkest hallways
where cigarettes almost looked like stars,
and to the broken beds
where we kissed
and kissed
and kissed
for a while
and said forever.
Forever.

Take me back to where that word ended, darling.
Take me back to us —
or at least take me away.
Take me far
far away,

so that I may forget our places,
so that I may forget we were ever there,
so that I may forget they were ever ours,
and that love was ever ours
and that we
were ever ours.
211 · Oct 2021
scorpio season
fray narte Oct 2021
now my ribs recede with the heaviest sunsets; look and miss a missing body. look and miss an unmarked grave. right here where i lie indefinitely, there's no headstone grand enough to carve this grief into. there's a hand, repelled by a poem. there is a grief without a name.
fray narte Dec 2021
here take all of my poems conceived without sin —
my throat is thick and crowded
with restless ghosts
whose bodies i no longer recognize;
they carry all of my many sins
and this poem is an
immaculate conception, at best
a distant, futile reference; take it


it's the only part of me pure enough
not to hurt you
201 · Jun 2019
the last time
fray narte Jun 2019
this is the last time i’ll hold on to the bonfires we lit amid the cold night air in a distant beach. this is the last time i’ll put your favorite song on repeat in my car while taking detours, just to hear them for a longer period of time. this is the last time i’ll eat ice cream on a rainy day because that hobby isn’t mine and it isn’t yours, but ours, darling — and ours is that book or that photograph you left behind in a hometown you’ll never mention to the strangers of a new city.

this is the last time i’ll subconsciously touch my wrist tattoo whenever i miss you — heck, this is the last time i’ll miss you. this is the last time i’ll stay up until midnight to watch our homemade short films. this is the last time i’ll view the digital poems you compiled because darling, poems always break your heart and maybe that’s why you kept on breaking mine.

darling — this is the last time i’ll want to hold your missing arms; this is the last time i’ll want to hold on to someone who has already let me go — this is the last time i’ll want to hold onto you. and tomorrow, i’ll be letting you go and *******, i want you to feel every bit of what it’s like to be let go.

so this is the last time, darling. this is the last lines i’ll ever write for you — this is the last prose i’ll ever call poetry — the last time i’ll ever call us poetry.

the last time i’ll call us magical.

the last time i’ll call us love.
fray narte Jan 2020
I have mastered the art
of making myself small;
the years have taught me
how to fold myself
step by step,
edge to edge
into pinwheels and paper lilies
mindlessly left in infinitesimal space —
an instinct —
a secret slipping into the unconscious,
left beneath the mattress,
left behind the doors.

The years — they've taught me
how to take my heart out —
take it apart and fold it
into a thousand paper cranes —

all cooped up in my ribs.

Their wings, decaying
with all the wishes
I never allowed myself to make.

Their beaks, pecking on the flowers,
on the wheels,
on my skin:
an obsession, a compulsion,
a ritual for symmetry,

a constant flipping,
a ceaseless folding,

until i am small enough —
insignificant enough to attract no attention,
to remain unseen, unheard,
unnoticed in the room.

And here, in this infinitesimal space
I have mastered the art
of making myself small.
194 · Feb 2020
Heathens
fray narte Feb 2020
But they stripped us of our robes, our faces and names until we're but calamities inside loose skins, crumbling and flaking off. And maybe that's why we started to believe that we're the ones who burned in *****, kneeled before the calf, and died in the lion's den.
173 · Feb 2020
this brain's betrayal
fray narte Feb 2020
i couldn't remember how i lost my handmade bookmarks; maybe i crumpled them mindlessly together with receipts and coupons and grocery lists. maybe they're hidden between the pages of a borrowed library book. i couldn't remember how i lost my gel pens and markers; maybe they're somewhere on a bus seat on the way to a different city; maybe they're left untouched on an armchair or on a table in overrated coffee shops i vowed to never enter again.

i couldn't remember how i lost the flowers i'd grown; maybe it was on that prom blurred like city lights with a guy named drew; i couldn't remember how i lost my favorite bracelet and my love for reading books while sitting on the toilet, couldn't remember how i lost my childhood best friend; maybe it was because i cut her doll's hair, or because i wouldn't let her play with my plastic cooking set.

but it was a warm, sunday night; the table was stained with cold soup and soda when you set down the spoon way too carefully and gazed at my eyes.

“i’ve fallen out of love.”

i’ve fallen out of love.

and i couldn't remember how i lost all the other things, darling but to this day, i still remember how i lost you that night.

— The End —