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KM Ramsey May 2015
I know the world like no other
the centripetal force that
catapults me into the concrete wall
at my back which leaves
lashes of gravity
and welts and wounds that
remind me
the tides will turn and
I will careen towards
a blackness not even I can comprehend.

I know no middle ground
I live only in extremes
no gradations in my existence
leave me no steps
to descend the sheer cliff face
that I toe ever so recklessly
tempting that gravitational force
whose mere presence
fills me with righteous
distilled
rage.

There is no grey here
or is it gray?
-ey
-ay
I don't even know the orthography
well enough to describe
how the two sides of
me
the wraith and the goddess
could perhaps be intertwined
effervescent power
the cream swirling
in inexplicable patterns
until the coffee is a
calm
warm
and no longer bitter
on the tongue of those
whose life is not lived
only on the fringes
the afterthought
of a leather jacket
fallen out of style
decades ago
and yet still worn
as a reminder of the days when
I danced until my movements
fell in sync with the Earth's and
I stopped being able to
distinguish where
my root feet ended
and the moist midnight soil
began.

I know black
I know white
I know wintry obsidian nights
the darkness so thick
that even my sharpest blade
could never penetrate its
foreboding mass pressing in on me
I know truly endless summer days
when sleep is a forgotten virtue
and sunlight pouring through my window
warms me
and I photosynthesize joy
take all my nourishment from
the ambrosia of the sun.

In extremes there is no need
but want.
KM Ramsey Jun 2015
i want you
constantly
when you scornfully declare
that you think about me
all the time
i bite my tongue
and clench my jaw
to keep back the gushing torrent
wild white water mustangs
my words tripping over each other
tumbling into the stony
barrier of my teeth.

how do i explain
or attempt to reconcile
that desperate
gaping
magnetic longing
when as your trusted
calloused hands
twice the size of mine
to protect me even when
i'm raging to be left bare
and ruined by myself
when those hands
seeking my supple body
those curves that keep you
returning unto the temple
that is my very self
and you peel away the rind
of my vestments to expose
the fruit waiting inside

and i cry

heavy searing tears
sliding like fire down
the rocky cliff face
and the barren planes of my
freckled cheeks

i close my eyes
and shake my head
feeling the repulsive odor
of my looming shame
radiating off me and
strangling the want
the need
for you.

i miss you.

you say that you will
one day
mold me into a clay being
who spins on the potter's wheel of this world
and sees the beauty
and intricately woven cloth that
cradles my effervescent soul
your alchemy seeks to
transform my crocodile tears of shame
into a joyful well of infinite
contentment
in your arms
whispering reassurances that
perhaps one day
will not pass uninhibitedly
through my skull
but linger
and loiter in my cerebellum
sewing themselves into
the sides of my cerebrum
greeting my grey matter and
simply becoming another
wild flower in the
meadow of my thoughts.

i fight as intensely against
your tendrils of hope
and ropes lashed to your vessel of refuge
as i do contrary to the
barbed binds digging into
the flesh around my wrists
and wrenching my heart with
realizations of my own inadequacy.

i don't want to be fixed.

do i want to fix myself?
and the question echoes
through the empty
barren halls of that secret
wherein reality has become
a comforting quagmire of
delusions and a time
delineated only by a
flashing number on a scale.

you haven't seen the blackness
though you've glimpsed its shadow
looming in my wake
when i leave you knowing
in my mind i'm already
doubled over
head buried in the toilet
how to pull it out
and curl my flaccid tongue
around those syllables
those simple six letters

H E L P M E

written like braille across
my forehead and
carved
branded
scarred into the sacrosanct eventuality
of the black hole salivating
to consume
to the end of all things.

i have never been sick enough
the immutable darkness has never
dipped temperatures to
absolute zero and
terrified the entire world
stopped in its orbit to marvel at the
girl disappearing.

i wonder why you worry.
letters to you i'll never send
KM Ramsey Feb 2016
maybe you never intended to love me
and i yearn with all of my being
to ask whether i was simply
some science experiment for you
why you led me on
why you stay with me when
it is obvious that
i am not the one
not the one who will melt your heart
the crystalline lattice of ice
that beats within you
behind a barbed wire fence
but i would shred my hands
trying to scale it
i would amputate any limb
if it might prove to you
that i love you
and it's killing me to
not be loved in return

i want you
no
now i've transcended want
i need you
i need you more than oxygen
i'd starve myself and i
wouldn't even feel the pangs of hunger
or my muscles consuming themselves
because the pain of
not being loved by you
when i love you so fiercely
eclipses all else and i
didn't even realize i was
bleeding on the pavement
the butchered wound in my belly
self inflicted
because i want to turn myself
inside out
to rip out my internal organs
and hand them to you on a silver platter

i would give you all of me

i have given you all of me

and yet it's not enough
perhaps it never will be
if you predetermined that you
would never love again
and i'm simply some sort of test
of your capacity to love
which you are slowly realizing
has disappeared

i would rather be tortured
physically ripped apart
i would throw myself upon the rack
the hangman would have no work
i would place the noose around my own neck
snap

but i realize my pain means nothing to you

because you are my judge and executioner
though what pleasure
can you derive from a condemned
dead woman walking
who welcomes physical pain
as glorious distraction
vacation from the
internal pain that no
medicine could touch
that scar tissue that is continuously
pulled apart again
when i see your face and
am reminded of the depth of my love
and your shallow eyes betray your cover
telling me the truth
that you'll never love me
because i am incapable of being loved
letters to you i'll never send
KM Ramsey Sep 2015
how can you not see it?

when you envision the
bubblegum pink
rose petal future
whose softness you seem to
automatically expect
that i am certain is
a razor's edge dripping
with my inevitable blood
sanguinely falling in
pregnant dewdrops and
slicing my heart out of my chest.

cutting you out of me
snipping those meticulous stitches
weaving you into
my entire self and
consuming me with a
balmy warmth that i
fight against
balk at
because it cannot last when
i am an emotional
bull in a china shop
and destroy everything i touch.

i will eventually burn you

that fury and blinding pain
that lives in the pit of my stomach
and rises like refluxing acid
when i remember my own weakness
when i come back to reality
and realize the magnitude of my
inadequacy
the breadth of pain i inflict
a festering
oozing
wound red at the edges
neglected purposefully
for i welcome any pain
that reminds me
i deserve to hurt
suffering is not optional
when i am as disposable as
the receipt the cashier forces you to take
at the supermarket checkout
i bow to the wind
paper doll girl
waiting for a flame
my spontaneous combustion
seeing white
and then nothing.

i want to be better

for you

to somehow take myself
and mould the clay figurine
masquerading as
my authentic self
into a shape that fits
perfectly into the hole that
i sometimes see
when you let down the
veil concealing your
holy of holies
even just for a moment.

i want you to feel whole

to feel safe when you
wake in the night and find me
pressing myself ever closer
to you
even in my sleep
wanting you near me
the palpable reminder that
i am not alone
though i feel the inevitability
constantly.

i won't forget your precise smell
the feeling of
my bare skin against yours
or my head on your chest
even if you leave

which i know you will.
letters to you i'll never send
KM Ramsey Apr 2015
you say it's not about the ***
but the declaration does nothing
to ***** the boiling terror
to shoo away that yawning hole
digging deeper and deeper
into the root system of my ribs
tilling the lush soil that is
my traitorous stomach
and ever shrinking lungs
it uproots me
grinds the stump where I once stood
a towering oak
or was I only ever a sapling
that was snapped in half
severed the exact moment
that the floodgates opened
and the raging storms remnants
poured forth unshackled by the walls
I carefully constructed around my trembling heart
how I screamed when they fell
the resounding crash
of my fingers digging into your back
pulling you closer
and closer
I can't stop wanting you closer
to inhabit that feeling
the safety of a harbor in a storm
you somehow can protect me
from the radioactive wasteland
that I am still traversing
dodging gamma rays of manic frenzy
and alpha particles heavy with the
black hole that swears it will consume all of me
its final sacrifice demanded my life
how can I trust this?
when the reality of the matter is
you are no lead apron
absorbing the radiation for me
some kevlar vest that can ever protect me
from the bullets of vitriolic bile I hurl inward
not to mention grenades thrown my way
by wayward neural firings
which find me craving my blood
a box of razors is
a box of friends
and reality diverges into an orthogonal plane.
you could be snatched from me
you are a small worm on
the biggest hook to make the juiciest
most succulent amuse bouche
for a big world of sharks
how ******* stupid am I
to be a fisherwoman who has
fallen in love with her bait?
KM Ramsey Oct 2015
ripping paper and the
delicious sound of
detachment where there
was once a unity
screaming to the heavens
bleeding acid rain and
soaking me to my core
cold and wet watching you
watching me
at the window
mascara coursing down with
searing tears that
mix with rain and disappear
before you can see
the gaping hole
myself laid bare
bullet holes
and sink holes
collapsing in on themselves
and eating away
my body
silent screams escaping
the prison of my lips
praying
and praying
rending my garments
throwing myself prostrate
to be destroyed
consuming myself with
the pain of your absence
even when you are
sitting next to me and
i feel you slipping
along with my tenuous
sanity

you could have used a blade
a scalpel or razor
to leave clean cuts where
you extracted yourself from me
but you used a machete
a butter knife
rusted and dulled
hacking away to leave
jagged edges
screaming for relief
because i'd superglued you
into me
sutured your heart
where mine should have been
but yours burned brighter
than the stars in the universe
and i wanted to share
in that
and i wanted you closer
and closer
to absorb you into me
telling myself you wouldn't leave
but i'm bleeding on the ground
with only my pain
to keep me company
letters to you i'll never send
KM Ramsey Mar 2015
to have roots
and reach down
down down
into gritty earth
moist clay soliloquies
and whispers spoken
to secret places
to branches you’ve never
seen
dipping its leaves in rippling water
magnetic in its
cyclic purity
of pond to root to leaf back to pond

would that i were a tree
so that i could have known that love.
sometimes i feel like i'm not even a part of the ecosystem.
KM Ramsey Apr 2015
will you still think of me
when the winter’s snow
like ****** needles sticking
and pricking me
slamming your smack
mainlining your masochism
melts to pastel pink mornings
and pregnant dewdrops
gravity propelling them
down flower petal water slides?
will my taste loiter on your lips
will the memory of my touch
my ghost fingers
still leave erupting goose-bumps
your hair standing on end
my unalloyed current
sparking into the night of kerosene.
will the fire bring me to mind?
my face engraved on your memory
like a holy icon
to which you run when the flames
rage as far as you can see
the orange haze of ******
and the hoard of children running
blistered skin
and their screams piercing
gouging
each wearing your face.
KM Ramsey Apr 2017
you call me *****
label me with broad brushstrokes
to paint onto the tableau of
my life a permanent stain where
you think i don't already see one.

the joke's on you.

trying to sully an already *****
contaminated crime scene
you won't wipe away fingerprints
seared into my skin
by those who also
saw me as that *****
were you disappointed when you saw
i already had ruby red marks
of hands wrapped around my neck?
because your flying shrapnel
accusations make me wonder
if you wish you had
gotten there first.

*****.

though the declaration stings
it certainly doesn't take me
by surprise when i
see that word stamped across my
forehead any time i look in the mirror
the syllable lives between my legs
and bleeds my secret shame
but i can't let you see me cry
i can't let you know it hurts
i can't let on that i would do
anything to purge this stain.

how could you understand
that i see my reflection in
***** in the toilet so i
shove my fingers farther down
my throat to recreate
that feeling of drowning
the gags that created me.

*****.

i want to blame that
violation
or even my erratic neurotransmitters
for morphing that flaxen-haired
nice girl
into the gnarled old
shame-riddled creature who sits
silently before you
being named *****.

but it was no one else who
led myself to this place
who traversed dimly-lit rooms
of iniquity
and was reborn as this contemptible creature
i take up my cross
my new mantle
my ******* scarlet letter.

you make me want
to run through the streets screaming
to stand on a street corner
preaching the gospel
of my culpability
have you heard the news
of our ****** executioner
the *****
the label feels even more
familiar than my own name.

i don't deserve a name.

take my clothing and dress me
in rags
strip me of my name and address me
only as *****
my life will now be only
passive acceptance and
those hands will explore my hidden places
though they are as unknown
as Disneyland on a gilded
summer day
but you can watch my searing shame
in the invisible white hot tears
only i know.

don't touch the *****
or you might fall victim to
my contagious disease
of optics and opinion
myself the lowest caste of society
relegated to empty halls
and abandoned structures
where i am abandoned as well.

you seem surprised that
the *****
would be fiercely independent
would be accustomed to
being alone
but who stays with a *****?
who takes her home to
meet the family
my independence was merely
an adaptation
Darwinian evolution ensuring
i would survive
to suffer another day
another trial
another sentence.

i understand now why
criminals are handed
multiple life sentences
because i'm punished daily
deservedly so
i would **** myself and if
i came back i would
cry out for more
more pain
more lashes
lay me bare and cut the skin from
my bones and call me *****
never stop
never let me forget
what is burned into the back of
my eyelids
a memory connected to
that word
my name.

i was given that name
by violating vandals
who spray painted my guilt
all over myself
and i can't escape that night
whenever i close my eyes and
pray i won't wake up
or pray i'll wake up in some other body
uncontaminated
a form that was never touched
virginal purity i wish i could
somehow repackage and
re-insert into my ****
to purify the orifice of all
those who branded me
*****
the mantle i took on myself
and made manifest.
letters to you i'll never send
KM Ramsey May 2015
you say it to me all the time
so quotidian
it simply falls off your
carefree laugh
and do i see the remnants
of a fear
clouded by memories of another
woman you loved
who brandished knives on your bed
carving the evidence of her inadequacy
into the skin your fingers caressed
the body whose every crevice you had
explored for eight years

you must see some of me
in her
a peppering of her in me
like the seasoning that the creator added
as a dash of spice
to the primordial broth from which
we both crawled
spoon to his lips and a
contented smile turning all his features
up up up

you blow it off
but she must come to mind
every time you hear
the diagnosis
the label

"Oh, she's bipolar?"

the explanation for every
single
*******
aberration in our behavior

but you know it's not just
a "Hello, My Name is _" badge
it is days without sleep
paranoia-fueled delusions as we
diverge from your reality
and exist on a plane that
you cannot access

we go to Away.

but you know
that somehow we are eerily present
at least to you
from your perspective
when inky black voices
scream terrifying bile
and a bloodlust builds in the center in our chest
and we can smell the metallic whiff
of every single knife
each nectar-sweet blade
in the entire world
and you want to be there

you want me to call you
so you can see me
writhing on the floor
unable to rise from bed even fueled
by that insatiable hunger for
my blood
to die
to not die
to not be

can you live with a ghost again
he's making the same mistake all over again.

— The End —