grace: Favorites

Apr 2015 grace

Olivia Greene

I didn't expect this from you
ironically, it seems I say that a lot about you
I didn't expect for our veins to disconnect
I really didn't want to feel that
I did not foresee the change that would summon
new feelings with other people and diminish mine towards you
I never imagined my arm pulling away when it gently touched yours
I don't have experience in love... except, that word comes with so much and so little meaning im not sure how to define it
What I did have experience in, however, was wishing, every day, every evening
that something would come of it
that I would be okay to really feel what I felt towards you

The little that amounted meant so much and yet so little

And now I feel like that poet who drones on about that unrequited love, and phrases it in ways he or she believes to be original

Pessimistic much?
Possibly.

But before I end this poem I would like to say that I love you and I loved you and a part of me is relieved that I stopped

Apr 2015 grace

ATTENTION: WOMEN (and you men, too)

Apr 2015 grace

Dorothy A

ATTENTION: WOMEN (and you men, too)

Don't listen to what the culture says about you. Forget about what you see in the magazines. Forget about what you watched on TV. Forget about what you have seen in the movies. Forget about what you hear on the radio or came across on the internet. Forget what you just saw on a billboard or store poster. We are women of worth. It doesn't matter what we look like, how much we weigh, what our bra size is, or how **** we are...we are beloved by God who made us and He loves us without ridiculous, unrealistic demands, the cruel demands to be perfect to the eyes of the world. Outer critics are everywhere, and our inner critic wants to chime in and get aboard. We are women of worth. May we all remember this.

Apr 2015 grace

Death of a poet

Apr 2015 grace

Death-throws

Death of a poet

A poet dies not when he looses the will to live
But when he looses the will to write

#short #truth #verse

Apr 2015 grace

older

Apr 2015 grace

Olivia Greene

older

I awoke to the realization that today was my nineteenth birthday
I laid there for a moment recalling how I felt when I awoke on my eighteenth birthday
Nothing felt out of place,
nothing in the air had been charged,
and nothing in the air begged me to inhale it more graciously, as if my ascent to real adulthood required more oxygen
As one does upon their birthday, I reflected upon the previous year
I ruminated on the places I'd seen-
lakes of the midwest, dark hallways with strangers I was supposed to know, funeral homes I wished didn't exist
The places I'd waited-
the concrete carpet with friends for our favorite band, the stoplight of a town 400 miles from home, and calmly on a bench to call off a relationship with a guy I had just met
The people with whom I'd shared my voice-
fellow feminists, 5 year olds with autism who just wanted a piggy back and a hand to steady them on the hiking path,
my dad, finally
The places I hid my voice-
my brother's fraternity, a breakup text dripping with humor
I dwelled for a brief second on the men and women I had exchanged my touch with,
and with whom I had woken up without
As I flipped on my stomach
I could feel my swollen brain, gorged with knowledge, begging me to do something with it
I looked at the polaroids I had hung above my bed
and comfortably remembered the unrequited love
I had come to halting terms with, but now rested with like cozy pillow under my stomach
I looked at the faces of friends whom I would now consider long distant friends. I wasn't sure if things would settle with them in the same way they had for 3 sensational months of summer
I shuddered at the toxins I had so willingly placed in my body,
pills, alcohol, drugs, unnecessary self-criticisms
I considered my weight-
a number that had risen and fallen due to over-eatting on the weekends and the daily under-eatting to compensate for the liquid sugar from the night before
I saw pictures of my hair, a foot longer than it is now and considered all I had put it through
I thought about my brothers
I wondered what they were thinking about when they woke up one year older
I do not feel older, I do not feel wiser.
I feel fine.
I am nineteen and I feel fine.

Apr 2015 grace

cadavre

Apr 2015 grace

berry

cadavre

this is a poem about how you sleep,
how your body grew cold like a corpse in a mortuary.
how it felt wrong to reach out and touch you.
did you know that you turned away from me
every time i tried to face you?
did you do it on purpose?
maybe you were afraid i would be able to see
you were dreaming of her,
that i would read it on your face.
lines by your mouth like obituary,
like roadmap, her bedroom,
the destination, mine, a pitstop.
loving you was like attending a funeral service for myself
and sitting in the front row. no.
loving you was like watching you pick out a casket
and call it practice. ****.
i know how sensitive you are about death.
i know it still hurts.
i know how everything hurts.
i am sorry for just being another thing that hurts.
i think i'm afraid to let you forget that you used to want me.
like if i can somehow dig deep enough,
wound you into remembering me.
i keep weapons-grade nostalgia in my back pocket
for the days i can feel myself slipping from your consciousness.
i was born with scar tissue where skin should've been.
but this isn't about me.
this is about the way you sleep
like you're waiting for someone to close the lid,
cover you in dirt, and read a psalm.
this is about the way i tried to sing your pieces back together,
and the way my voice gives out
when i read the things you write for anyone other than me.
lover, friend, stranger,
i just wanted to show you how to love your darker parts.
i never meant to become one.
i am so ******* selfish.
but i swear i am trying to unlearn the steps.
and you used to think my two left feet were charming.
i am out of time in more ways than one.
i keep stepping on your toes.
i can't seem to stop tripping you up,
hoping that you'll fall back into whatever this was.

- m.f.

"i am always dying in places where you fell asleep." - K.L.

Apr 2015 grace

wide awake

Apr 2015 grace

berry

wide awake

i wonder if the doors in the house you grew up in
started slamming themselves to save your father the trouble.
i wonder if you can remember the last time you prayed,
and if you had trouble unfolding your hands.
i wonder if your mother knows
about the collection of hearts you hide in your closet,
i wonder if she could tell mine apart from the rest.
i wonder if your shoes know the reason why
you keep them by the back door and not your bedside.
and sometimes, i wonder
if you ever think about that night when i told you,
you wouldn't need to drink so much if you had me.
but it seems like we only speak when you've got body on your brain,
whiskey in your glass,
your judgement is overcast,
and you know i'm too weak to ignore you.
i learned how to translate your texts
from drunken mess back into english.
i am fluent in apology, but i don't ask you for them anymore.
this is just how it is.
it's not enough for either of us
but ******* it we are not above settling.
so i will ignore her name on your breath,
and you will ignore the fact that this means something to me.
i always thought the first time i kissed you,
it would be on your mouth.
i just wanted to be something warm for you to sink into,
something that could convince you to stay a second night.
but i sneak you out in the early morning,
and you take a piece of my pride with you when you go.
i am left to nurse the hangover from a wine i've never tasted,
wondering how this is possible.
waiting for the next drunk call,
for the next time i get to pretend we are lovers,
the next time i get to live out the fantasy i am most ashamed of.
it is the one in my head where you want me when you're sober too.

- m.f.

Apr 2015 grace

the crow

Apr 2015 grace

berry

the crow

i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember when we talked about going to seattle?
you said you liked the rain
and the fact that no one there would know you,
i just wanted to be wherever you were.
i was never afraid of the dark
when you talked about yours.
i still don't have words for what i felt
when you told me the only other number
you had saved in your phone apart from your mother's was mine.
i keep telling myself you're not allowed
to just exit and re-enter my life as you please,
but i leave the door unlocked,
so what does that make me?
the last "i love you" from the last time we spoke,
is still stuck to the roof of my mouth.
other lovers have tried to pry it out of me,
but the memory of you is like lockjaw.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember the lizard you caught last summer?
you let me name him forrest.
if life is a box of chocolates,
there are pieces missing,
and whatever is left has gone stale.
i can't smoke cigarettes in my backyard anymore
without wondering where you are
or if you're smoking too.
i hope you're not drinking,
i know you hate what it does to you.
your secrets are still tucked between my ribs,
i will hold them safe and repeat them back to you
if you ever lose your way home.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember when you told me
about the person you were afraid of becoming,
i said i wasn't scared,
and i told you i was proud of you?
i'm still proud of you.
i hope you're in school or at least keeping busy.
i hope you still make yourself laugh.
i miss you so much it hurts my whole body.
do you remember what movie we were watching
the night you got arrested?
i still can't finish it.
i am holding the place.
can we pick up where we left off?
can we stand up and wipe the dust off?
i never got to tell you why i only write in pen,
or why i can't sleep with socks on,
or about the day i caught god with his hands in a public fountain
fishing for change.
i'm not mad at you for disappearing, but i'm lonely.
the only reason i haven't called
is because i'm afraid of being sent straight to voicemail,
but if i ever find myself in indiana again,
you'll be the first to know.

- m.f.

Apr 2015 grace

whispering the wrong parts

Apr 2015 grace

Tom Leveille

whispering the wrong parts

so you're disappointed
that you're disappointed
and maybe that's to be expected
some folks make beds
out of their catharsis
differently than others
it's this list
of things you lost in the fire
or how jealous you are
of people
who never came back up for air
you're crying
so the faucets leak out of solidarity
& someone asks you
why the floor is wet
so you tell them
"we've been weeping here forever"
then they want to give you
a mouth full of presupposition
by saying
"are you going down with the ship?"
& you look them in the mouth
like Leo is handcuffed to a pipe
five decks down
you look at them
like you just woke up
from that dream everyone has
where all their teeth fall out
maybe it's an intervention
a hearse vs station wagon origin story
a clearance sale
& everything's gotta go
or maybe it's the dream
where you're at the docks
from your childhood
and there's a little girl
unmooring all the ships
because she thinks
they'll float away
but every time
she unties them
they just sink

they just sink