I'm sure you've all noticed I'm not here very often.
It's because I don't write anymore.
The girl I used to write about stopped breaking my heart.
I fell in love with someone else. Not violently, not poetry worthy.
The way I feel with her doesn't make me feel the need to use poetry as an escape.
So I'm signing off.
my tumblr is graced-lightning.tumblr.com if you'd like to continue to keep up with me.
if not, it's been cool.
peace out, my friends

1.14.15

Summer clung to September with popsicle-sticky hands,
blew her misty breezes through
the cool mornings that wanted so desperately to
be crisp.
the leaves finally fall from the willowy branches,
still soft, still green.
“love us” they cry
“we are just like you”
they are.
we are all clinging to something that has
moved far beyond us.

Autumn paid us a visit,
briefly,
without any regard for anyone who
might have missed her or
wanted her to stay awhile.
she drove by, honking her horn
“hello, my loves!
goodbye”
as she pressed the gas pedal fiercely,
leaving us with smog in our already rattling throats.

Our brief visitor will be greatly missed,
reminisced upon.
hot cocoa and mittens don’t belong here,
November is not the owner of these
specific ideas.

A melancholy feeling that you
can’t quite place,
don’t quite know where it’s coming from.
it is Winter, this feeling,
lonely hearts and shivering hands
wishing desperately for Autumn
to return once more.

i almost told you this wasn’t poetry
in my defense, it isn’t pretty
the gory bits of humanity never are.
but people in and of themselves are poems
so here’s myself for you;
call it poetry if it makes you feel better

loving you was the sound of a piano
and now when I tickle the ivories all I see is
you, laughing on the bench next to me
let’s sing together again someday,
okay,
?

i still love you,
but the misery in it is behind me.
it’s no longer tainted with your presence and
your kiss and your voice.
loving you is somehow easier
knowing you’ll never pay me back in kind.

i need you to play for me again.
take out your ukulele;
let’s cheers to hickies, sunshine and nirvana
maybe pretend we could
love each other again someday

i told you this wasn’t pretty but i guess
you could call it a poem because this is myself on paper
i told you i’d try to see the world in poetry but i guess
here I am making good on that.
visit me sometime, okay?
i’ll be tuning the piano.

I was always the kind of kid who liked to fix things
I bought myself a pink hammer when I was 8 years old
and I liked to “fix” things with it.
turns out I wasn’t all that good at fixing and I
mostly just broke things.
nobody really had a problem with it until
I broke myself and then
fix yourself!
they scream
go! nail yourself back together!
but all I really feel like doing is sawing myself in half.
I could see myself failing to fix anything,
watching helplessly with my pink hammer while they
screamed loudly, endlessly
fix yourself fix yourself fix yourself fixyourselffixyourselffixyourselffixyourself
they tried everything.
they took pliers and pried open my brain they
measured and remeasured my sanity with tape and pills
that looked suspiciously like
the bubble in those bars you use to make sure something is even
my mother and father wore safety glasses as i took an axe
to my sense of self and buried it with
a shovel bigger than the three of us
“she’s a bit of a fixer-upper” they say
as if they’re selling a house
they try to fix me up, gorilla glue me together but
it’s too little, too late
I sawed myself in half and there’s
no fixing this one.

You realized before I did that we would never fit, only collide. We weren't meant for forever.
We were meant for disaster, always.
Somewhere in my bones I knew that we clashed but I couldn't explain why and now I know.
You were red, burning with passion and I was yellow, too optimistic for our own good.
Red and yellow don't match.
they only mix to form orange,
the universal sign for danger
You were a stop sign, the truck that put out the fire in my heart, the low battery light.
I was sunny, Van Gogh's paint, the midway point between go and stop. I was SLOW DOWN I was YIELD I was a sunflower that you somehow managed to crush.
Your flames grew taller than my blooms and when there was nothing left of me to burn, you moved on to a new field of flowers.
Roses this time, pink and young and innocent.
I hope she burns as poetically as I did

this is
quiet
this is 3:17 AM, awakened by dreams of smoking illegal things with you
this is hushed whispers, bated breath, this is
waiting this is
the moment after a slap across the cheek.
this is
deep
this is the pacific ocean, hiding skeletons of sailors and pirates who
maybe never wanted to condemn anyone to this dark, damp death they
just wanted a little money for their baby girl at home this is
conversations with a cactus at midnight this is
trying to catch my breath after running to your open arms
this is
dark
feeling for your hands but catching your neck instead this is
“this place is ******* haunted, Grace”
this is holding me at the waist this is
European cathedrals on rainy afternoons this is
5’1” and 5’3” this is
tea at 7:34 AM this is
out of tune pianos everywhere I look and
lying on the floor, battered and bruised as you part your lips
ever so slightly, this is
a memorized dance, a harmony
under scrutinizing stage lights.
this is rehearsed, this is
directed, this is choreographed, this is
not a performance anymore.

Text her. Send her messages that she won't know how to respond to. she'll read them and put her phone down. Stare at the read receipt for hours until you realize she's not picking the phone back up, she doesn't have anything to say to you.

Eat lots of chocolate. It has serotonin in it, the happy chemical. When you cuddle with her, your brain releases oxytocin. As long as you eat enough chocolate (and throw it up) you won't miss the oxytocin one bit.

Bleed. When she tells you that she cuts herself, cut deeper. This is guerrilla warfare now, and for every shot fired you must fire back.

Read your messages. Laugh at the nicknames she used. "Princess". "Baby". "Darlin". You were never her princess, never her baby. She was the child and you were merely her plaything.

Make art. Write dumb poetry about falling in and out of love, take photographs of your ****** thighs, paint a picture using only shades of red. Let her figure out what all these things mean.

Drink. Green tea, *****, over-priced lattes. Stay up all night crying. Wear stilettos. Sit in art museums all alone and wonder if being a starving artist is as much fun as it sounds. Take long showers and harmonize with your favorite songs through your tears. Use heavier, blacker eyeliner. Spend time on yourself. Adopt a cat. But most of all, remember this:

You can only love one person. Choose yourself

She’ll be lovely. There will be spaces for you between her ribs. Your left lung is smaller than you right lung to make room for your heart, but there’s all kinds of room in her body. Her kidneys and liver are failing and soon enough they’ll be gone to make room for your love.

2. She won’t ever be expensive on dates because all she’ll order is a salad. You’ll never have to worry about not having enough money (for dinner at least). You’ll have to worry about emergency room bills when she passes out, but she’ll never ask for anything else. All she’ll want is ***** and sleeping pills.

3. She will always put you first. She’ll love you with all the love she should have kept for herself. She’ll make you hot chocolate and stay up until 3 AM while you’re crying over her. When she makes you cry because you just want her to see herself the way you see her, she’ll be there with cold hands and tired eyes. She’s dead, she’s exhausted, all she wants is a good night’s rest. But you can count on her to be there.

4. She will tell you that you are perfect. She’ll believe it, too. Everyone around her seems to be perfect and she’s drowning under the weight of mediocrity but it’s okay. She’s okay. She won’t understand that all of us are swimming and most of us are drowning.

5. She’ll always have scissors and pencil sharpeners on hand. The knives in her kitchen are always sharpened to perfection and if you forget your razor at home, it’s ok. She has extras in her closet.

6. She’ll ******* any time you want. As long as you don’t look at her while she’s getting undressed. She’ll be used to the sensation of knives but it’s a different kind of pain when you look at her. She will want to be beautiful for you. She’ll love you until she can’t breathe anymore. You’ll make her feel beautiful for the night but when she wakes up she’ll still think she wasn’t worth it.

7. Date a girl who hates herself because she’ll love you.

She’ll be lovely. You’ll be able to count the spaces in between her ribs. She’ll have thin skin and it’ll be so easy to drive her crazy with just a single touch. It’ll be easy to make your mark on her, too. She’ll bruise easy and love it. She’ll think it’s beautiful.

2. She won’t ever be expensive on dates because all she’ll order is a salad. You’ll never have to worry about her ordering an expensive steak. You might have to worry about emergency room bills when she passes out, but she’ll never ask for anything else. All she’ll want is ***** and sleeping pills.

3. She will always put you first. Your needs always come before hers because she was raised “God first, others second, I am third”. She’ll make you hot chocolate and drive to your house at 3 AM with pizza she won’t eat, even though she’s dead tired and all she wants is a good night’s rest. You can count on her to be there.

4. She will tell you that you are perfect. She’ll believe it, too. Everyone around her seems to be perfect and she’s drowning under the weight of mediocrity but it’s ok as long as you know how perfect you are.

5. She’ll always have scissors and pencil sharpeners on hand. The knives in her kitchen are always sharpened to perfection and if you forget your razor at home, it’s ok. She has extras in her closet.

6. She’ll ******* anytime you want. As long as you don’t look at her while she’s getting undressed, she’ll love you until she can’t breathe anymore. She’ll smile as you kiss her thighs because you’re the only one that makes her feel beautiful.

7. Date a girl who hates herself because she’ll love you.

I’m all sharp edges and she’s contours
hills, valleys
soft skin on loud bones

She’s turning me soft but
she says she likes me better that way.
she doesn’t want ribcages, thigh gaps, logic
she wants feelings, hushed whispers, curves

she’s slowly teaching me that skinny girls are
nice to look at but they can’t hold on when you push them away
.
She refuses to realize that sometimes
some things are better left unsaid
.
I am afraid and she’s warm and
i’m shivering inside and out.
i’m bruising, perfect shades of purple
my neck and my knuckles and my heart

i don’t even know what i wanted but it’s
too late now she’s
breaking me.

i always wanted to be in love
but not like this.

I tried to write poetry about pushing her until she couldn’t breathe
about the way her soft lips opened against me and how
she bit my neck even when I begged her to stop
I tried to find the words for all of those things but
I realized that she had written the poetry for me
she wrote it on my neck in shades of purple
and on my back in little streaks
she wrote poetry with the wrinkles in my sheets and
the knots in my hair and the
taste of her in my mouth.
Sometimes poetry isn’t always on paper
Sometimes it’s on people.

I thought that maybe I'd have something to write about now but I guess not because here I am with black eyeliner and hickeys that look like snakebites still wondering what to say

There's something magical about the way
the ***** New York City streets look
when it's been raining and it's still cloudy.
Headlights shine on the pavement
and if you look up for a moment,
you can see the skyscrapers disappear into the clouds.
City streets look so dull in the sunlight.
Dust swirling in the air.
But just before dark, when it's rained
at 5 in the afternoon
the streets are shiny and little girls jump in the puddles
cars drive slow
and women are holding up umbrellas
still slick with water droplets

And when it's late November
Christmas lights shining everywhere
and mugs of hot cocoa warm throats and hands and stomachs
and music plays softly at the edge of your conscience
snow falls gently from the low hanging clouds
a snowflake lands on her wool coat and
she turns around and you both stop because
suddenly everything is
so much more beautiful than either of you expected.

I haven't done dishes in weeks because I haven't needed them yet.
I refuse to say it's my tummy grumbling because tummy sounds cute but mine isn't so my stomach is grumbling and it's loud but not louder than black coffee and cigarettes
(that's what skinny girls are made of, didn't you know?)
my room-mate is worried and my best friend can smell it and I am fat.
please excuse me if my voice cracks. I've got something in my throat but it isn't ***** and it isn't food
it's my heart. There's no room for it in my ribcage anymore so it jumped into my vocal cords and maybe that's why I told her she was exceptional last night
(she isn't)
I don't weigh myself because I don't have batteries for the scale and maybe that's a good thing because Ana won't stop whispering in my ear until I look lovely
(no matter how close to 100 I am she's not happy)
so won't you please excuse me while I look for my ribcage?
you'll find me in a churchyard next time we meet
and I hope I'm the skinniest angel.

I have always had a hunger for words
seven years old, I was reading at a college level. I was amazing. A little freak of nature. They said, "Grace, you're so smart" "Grace, you're a genius" "Grace, you're going places in life" but now i'm not so sure because
I was extraordinary then but
this is high school now and everybody reads at a college level and all of a sudden I don't feel so special anymore.
10 years old I was required to write 13 poems for the "Bluebonnet Young Poet awards"
I submitted them but
I'm still waiting for the letter that tells me I've won.
And so I wrote poetry all through the sixth grade
I was threatened and
pushed around. but no one could know because if anyone knew
they would hurt me worse and so I took the liberty of
doing that for them.
but there was a boy. isn't there ALWAYS a boy?
and I tried to write about him but (shhhhhh) he was a secret and all of the things he did to me were (shhhhhh) (shut up) (be quiet) (don't make a sound)
once I was free from him the words poured out of me like a bird released from its cage finally finally finally I could SING.
but there was a boy. isn't there always a boy?
he let the words come and come and they were about him, always about him. they were beautiful. every day there seemed to be more words about him, for him, to him. it stopped being about my words and always about his but his words were empty so he stopped saying them. I wrote for him and hoped he would see it but I guess he never did because sometimes I still write for him and wonder what he's doing.
sometimes people like to tell me that my poetry isn't "appropriate" that it's "too emotional" "too adult" and I shouldn't be writing things like that, am I depressed?  who are they, who are any of you, to tell me what I can and cannot feel?
who am I, to be standing here, telling you what I feel?
I have always had a need for words.
it's about time I started treating them right.

all my life I’ve been burning things to the ground
I left my marshmallow over the flame too long
forgot the popcorn in the microwave last night
too many friendships have gone up in smoke because
I had too much oxygen in my heart

I learned yesterday that abracadabra means
“I create as I speak”

I was never afraid of fire.
three years old, I held my hands
close to the flames and cried
"Daddy, Daddy, it's magic!"
and to this day,
I often wonder if
I might be magic, too

I never believed in magic until I met her

she taught me that I am wildfire.
beautiful from a distance
but if you get too close, I might burn you
not to worry-
wildfire brings new life
I promise I’ll help you begin again.

you try to breathe fire, but you are not the magician here

you attempt to extinguish me
you throw water on my flames but
underneath the blackened exterior is
a still-burning ember
full of white-hot anger
I have been ablaze for too long
to be put out

and now, I pull the rabbit out of the hat.

illusion is key to telling the perfect lie
smoke and mirrors turn your gaze the other way
while I turn you to ashes
a magician’s final trick.

My hands have always been weak.
When I was seven years old, they decided
that I needed to go to physical therapy
because I couldn’t hold a pencil.
I couldn’t hold the reins tight enough.
I kept dropping things. I couldn’t do
anything right.

I have always been inherently sad.
When I was nine years old, they decided
that I needed to go to therapy
because I couldn’t control myself.
I couldn’t appreciate what I had.
I never slept. I couldn’t do
anything

I punched walls and kicked doors.
I ripped posters off of my
fourth-grade classroom walls.
Ten years old, I walked through the hallways,
All eyes on me because I was
Toilet Girl
I just couldn’t seem to
get it right.

When I am twelve, I’ll start
to write ****** poetry instead
of destroying things because
both are art forms but
my parents have to pay when I
destroy things.

When I am thirteen, I’ll realize
that it’s not just material objects
I have trouble holding on to.
I have trouble holding on to people, too.

I am fourteen, and I have just
been told that I’m not
doing anything right.
I haven’t hit a wall in years but
I guess old habits die hard because
I’m fifteen with
new scars on my knuckles

I am inherently sad and my hands are weak.
I write poems on my computer because
I still can’t hold a pencil.
But for someone with such
weak hands
I have a lot of scars on my knuckles.

My hands are made of paper/
my heart is made of stone/
but even so, deep down I know/
I don't want to be alone

material soul, material soul/
sand out my edges/
I'm feeling alone
material soul, material soul/
my body is made of/
silver and gold

anything can
look like poetry if
you hit the enter button
a lot

I was always told that I was star potential. If only people could see what I have bottled up inside of me, I could be famous. I'd be world renowned. I'd be a star. But I was his whole galaxy and now that he's gone, I don't feel like a star. To go from a universe to a star is so abrupt. One day you're someone's everything and the next you're no one's anything. I want to be a galaxy again. I wish someone could see stars in my eyes and taste cosmic dust on my tongue. To see a universe in a single person. I wish I could know what it's like. To look at someone and see everything, right there. But I know that everyone is someone's everything. Every person is someone's universe. Their planets, their sun, their moon, their stars. I am my own universe. I am the sun, the moon, the stars, the comets, the asteroids, the dust of what is to be. I am the future, the present, the past. I am my own everything. So I'll wait. I won't settle for someone who doesn't make the world turn, who doesn't have stars in their eyes, whose tongue doesn't taste like the cosmos. I'm waiting for my other galaxy ☾ ☼  ☆

**♛all the powers in the universe are already mine. I just can't see them♛

When men leered at me and boys glanced down my shirt and when I was invited into a bedroom or down an alleyway I always said no because I had a boyfriend. But now that I don't, what's my excuse for not wanting someone to want me?

Dear you,
I hope you know that no boy is ever worth saying yes when you really mean no. If he really loves you, he'll understand. You don't need validation from anyone. You're beautiful on your own, in your own way. You may not be perfect, but to someone you are. You'll just have to find him. He's out there somewhere. I hope you've already met him, but it's ok if you haven't. There's no need to rush into anything. Except for change. Rush into change because you're afraid of it but it's happening right in front of you and there's nothing you can do about it. So face your fears head-on and embrace the changes in your life. Embrace your sexuality. Embrace your ever-changing moods. Embrace the present, because you'll never get it back. But most of all, embrace yourself. Don't forget to care for yourself, because someday at the end that's all you'll have left. Don't forget it.
Love, you

My lips are almost chapped even though I use chapstick more often than I eat. They are in limbo, halfway between being soft and kissable and being dry and raw. I don't kiss you as often as I'd like, even though I kiss you several times every day. Kissing you feels so good, because your mouth is warm and soft and moves perfectly with mine. The touch of your lips is tender and sweet, except when it's not. Except when it's deeper and more urgent and your body tenses up and presses itself against me and your arms pull me closer. Except when I can tell you want more, more, MORE. Except when I want that too.
            2. My chest is small and pale and I might be allergic to something because I've got a rash. My chest is always covered by some brightly-colored piece of fabric. It's only bare when I'm in the shower and to be honest that's where I think about you the most. With the water running through my hair and across my skin I think about your eyes and your shy smile and your hands and your laugh. My chest is what you'd call 'petite' but I love it because it lets me pretend I'm a size XS.
            3. My arms are skinny but strong. They're pure muscle and when I move them around, miracle of miracles, they don't jiggle. They're pale too, but that's ok. I'll get tan this summer. It'll probably be a farmer's tan. My arms have about a million nerve endings and I never knew that up until a few weeks ago when you decided to discover what drives me insane. And guess what? You found it. I love it when you move your hands around because your touch makes me light up but the light dies down after a while if you don't keep reminding me that you're there.
             4. My back is the only part of me that got tan. I was wearing a one-piece swimsuit all of last summer and there was a hole in the back. My spine has a 17% curve and I have a few blackheads here and there because I work out so often. I can feel your arm slipping around my waist before it gets to where it wants to stay and that makes me crazy. It makes me want to lie on my back someplace where we can be alone and let your hands go other places (like to the zipper of your jeans or the scar on my ear)
               5. My stomach is the most important part of me. I like to keep it pink and clean and empty. I'd like it to be pure muscle and curves because skinny is good but I don't know if I have the strength to make that happen. Whenever you touch my waist (or anywhere, everywhere), something stirs deep inside of me. I wonder if you feel it too, if you feel it in your stomach or somewhere else or everywhere else.
                6. My inner thighs are probably the only part of me I haven't let you explore yet. Don't worry baby, I promise I won't hold back forever. It's just that my thighs are covered in stretch marks and memories of scars and I don't want you seeing that because I don't want to hurt you. But sometimes it feels like you're holding back too because you don't want to hurt me. I'll let you in on a little secret though- nothing can hurt me. I have armor made of titanium and nothing can pierce it except for words meant only for me and little touches that no one else can see. But here's another secret - there's a pretty little gap between my thighs that measures almost an inch if I lean forward a little bit. When I stand normally it measures only half an inch but that doesn't matter because I promise that I'll make room for you when the time comes, whether it's tomorrow or next week or next year. I promise there's room for you between my thighs.
                  7. My calves are muscled and look hot when I wear high heels. They are strong and that's really helpful when I kiss you because you're kind of tall and sometimes I have to stand on tip-toe. Sometimes one of my legs accidentally goes between yours and then you have to hold me up and I give up and melt into your embrace.
                  8. My feet are always cold. I don't like people seeing them because my toes are weird and so I always wear socks. Except when I don't, but that's only when it's summer and I'm too classy to wear socks with sandals. I wear cute socks though. Flamingos and whales and polka-dots and owls and squirrels. I paint my toes with colorful polish. Right now they're teal, like my eyes.
                  9. My eyes are ever-changing, but always beautiful. They're almost translucent sometimes in the sunlight. Sometimes they're angry and cold and emotionless, and that's when I scare people. Occasionally they're the color of jade, a light green that you could lose yourself in. Sometimes they're dark green, the color of moss and the top of the forest. Sometimes they're light blue, reminiscent of the sky on a cloudless day. And once in a blue moon, they're stony gray and I use them to pierce through the facade. Sometimes they're dark blue, the color of the ocean and I let the boys drown in them. But not you, baby. I'll keep you afloat.
                 10. My body was never a temple. But you can worship me if you want.

you may not be perfect, but you're perfect for me

the smell of a new book
2. when jeans fit perfectly
3. trying on every perfume in the store
4. getting compliments
5. when people play with my hair
6. dancing alone in my room
7. talking to someone late into the night
8. preferring to just hear the silence of the phone over hanging up
9. listening to his heartbeat
10. when his hands touch the sensitive skin on my hips
11. cuddling
12. blue eyeliner
13. getting a text
14. coffee
15. locking the door to his room
16. the little noises he makes
17. laughing so hard you cry and can't breathe and sound like a dying walrus
18. trying on the bombshell bra because you know you'll never buy it
19. trying on prom dresses
20. wearing his hoodie
21. when he makes circles on my leg with his index finger
22. the look in his eyes before we kiss
23. wearing makeup when you're home alone all day
24. fuzzy socks
25. the way his hands hesitate at the edge of my bra
26. sleeping in
27. making someone laugh
28. watching mean girls
29. laughing with my mom
30. the shutter sound on my camera
31. wearing a tiara for the hell of it
32. wearing boots
33. riding a horse
34. when a sequel comes out
35. getting tan
36. having soft hair
37. singing in the shower
38. getting sneezed on by my dog
39. hiking by myself
40. birthdays
41. cupcakes
42. getting off a plane after 14 hours
43. coming home
44. reading the great gatsby again
45. standing in the shower without doing anything
46. jumping into the pool with clothes on
47. snow
48. writing poetry
49. getting kissed unexpectedly
50. kissing him first
51. having facebook notifications
52. walt whitman
53. falling asleep to the sound of his voice
54. spontaneous plans
55. taking the cookies out when they're golden brown
56. walking the dog
57. roasting marshmallows
58. mudfights
59. foodfights
60. friendly fights
61. finishing his sentences
62. crossing the finish line
63. talking in an accent
64. family
65. having stamps on your passport
66. green tea ice cream
67. seeing that he's online
68. pranking someone
69. ;)
70. winning
71. inside jokes
72. finally falling asleep
73. falling in love
74. ringing his doorbell
75. finishing something.