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92
Nicole Hammond Aug 2015
92
i want to kiss you so bad
that i've been thinking of
making my car kiss guard rails
i know that they would
both feel the same
it would all be over
just as quickly
my mouth would fill
with blood
all the same
sorry
Nicole Hammond May 2015
i remember when you asked me
about "the night"
afraid if you gave it a name
it'd come back like a sick dog
how when i finally told you
you screamed where are they
looking me up and down
like i was harboring them
like fugitives
which, in a sense
i was
i remember you looking at my chest
like you could take a
baseball bat to it any second
it's a good thing i told you
my hands
so you wouldn't blame
yourself anymore
when i didn't want to touch you
i didn't tell you
it pulls my hair
and twists my arm
and drags me to my knees
when i'm alone
and it trickles out
the corners of my mouth
when nice boys don't say please
when they say let me
when they say trust me
when they say i love you
when i resign to polite terror
i don't tell you it's on my skin
every time i enter crowded rooms
i don't tell you it's in your face
and my face
and every face of everyone i see

i never told you why
i only kiss you with the lights off

because that would only scare you
and what use is it
to let them hurt you too
i don't think i've ever devoted a whole poem to this subject before.
Nicole Hammond Sep 2015
i want to grow up next door from you
i want to be seven years old with you
i want to put band-aids on your
skinned knees

i want to meet you in a book store
i want to talk about poetry and art and trotsky
i want to buy you a book like i'm
buying you a drink at the bar

i want to sit next to you on the train
i want to make small talk about the weather
i want to lend you my coat and forget
to ask for it back

i want to be a field nurse
if you're a wounded soldier
i want to change your gauze
and sneak you extra meal rations

i want to be a bystander
talking you off the ledge
i want to lead you gently back into the world

i want to be careful with your heart

i want to love you softly and abiding
agapē love: selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love
Nicole Hammond Sep 2015
maybe the night the entirety of my skin
sighed under the weight of your touch
you, boy of silence,
were deafened by my sound

maybe there was something in my kiss
that tasted too much like her

maybe there was something about my eyes
that reminded you of why
you were always afraid of the dark as a child

maybe it was some animal instinct
to flee to higher ground in the presence
of a flood

maybe you were reminded of the first time
you laid your hand on a hot stove
and the pain you swore you never wanted
to feel
again
written after a dream i had
Nicole Hammond Aug 2016
dear god of needle ***** and poisoned well
i pray you find my mother
cold and dry and unfeeling
something you can draw no moisture out of
a different god struck a rock with a staff
a long long time ago
and water came to cool his throat
but there are no miracles here
so you can please stop beating her now

dear god of gluttonous apothecary
my mother's body is a mathematical
uncertainty
it is a function with limits
her veins are rolling with their bellies full
of chemicals that burn
her hair runs from the scalp the way
two legs would
from a house going up in flames
my mother's body
is a house going up in flames
i am a child that is terrified of a monster
under the bed
i am helpless to a thing i can feel but
cannot see

dear god of gasoline remedy
your counterintuitive science
your black dream
takes her body like a new land
teaches her it's wretched language
it rapes and pillages
it steals the recognition
that sparks her eyes when she looks in mine

dear god of intravenous dark rider
let her live to see a day
she can wake and not be bound
to her biology

dear god of pink ribbon tourniquet
let her breathe and take it for granted again

dear god of careful rampage
finish what you have started
and lock the door behind you
Nicole Hammond Jan 2016
bless the pills, the drink, the sweet and reckless
bless the dent you made in the world's skull
bless the warmth of you
in sheets and in blankets
bless it all that you left behind
bless the way it's so hard to miss you
*oh, curse the way it's so hard to miss you
Nicole Hammond Aug 2015
forgive me for the three times I denied you
forgive my tears for their taste of salt
from the nights I looked back
forgive me for taking your hands
and turning them into bread
you are not to be devoured
your body never was mine
consecrated to be broken
and even if it was
what disciple am i
to be worthy of you
my love is not strong enough
to hold another lover to that cross
my soul too undeserving
but i need you to know
like you know the cracks in your ceiling
from staying up at nights
i need you to know
i will lay these palms down
lining your path
anywhere you choose to go
even if you find someone
who would rip apart the seams of heaven
to hear your prayers
even if she carries your cross
even if she washes your feet
i would part seas for you
i would spill this wine of my blood
to make you smile
i would write a new covenant
to every morning you awoke
i would give to you all the pearls
in heaven's gates
because you are my patron saint
you can sharpen me with your iron
you can refine me in the fire
Nicole Hammond Jun 2015
i am no refuge
if the past 2 years
have taught me anything
i am more shrapnel than shelter
with willing hearts
strewn in my wake
but i am kind
i will not salt your wounds
with these tears
i will keep my distance
but these thoughts like water
circulate silently around you
never straying farther than
these arms can swim
and i am weak
i am so weak
for the smile that found me
in the sound and the strangers
much softer and worthier than i

but your songs still medicate me

and you said you'd keep me warm

and i don't remember
what i said next
but it doesn't matter anymore
because

you said you'd keep me warm

and i am still shivering
so sorry for not posting in so long. i'm proud of this poem.
Nicole Hammond Jul 2016
my mother traded her body for a future tense. my mother gave her flesh as ransom for a life cancer held captive. it wants what makes her woman. she obliges. she holds her body the way she has known it one last time and i can see the halls filling up with water. my eyes are losing their salt as her wounds seem to be finding it. she finds pain and it finds her worthy. i don't know what god finds her a landscape worthy of deserting but it calls her chest exodus. her body, so full of blood and bread and water and wine and everything else that makes her a covenant. her body, a body of water, of hydrogen and oxygen and intention and breath and everything else that makes her alive. my mother is alive, past, present, and future tense.
my mom and cancer no longer share a street address. my mother is cancer free today. this is for her body and everything it went through to get here.
Nicole Hammond May 2015
he lost her
you lost him
do not lose yourself
holding onto both of them
remember, this is your battle
and you can shoot your own foot
if it makes you feel anything at all

you see people in love
and it makes you cry for
everything you could've had
return the sheets
you two could've bought one day
burn down the house
you could've lived in
kiss the future children goodbye
you'll learn to live with yourself
some day
make peace with the fear that
he'll never come back to you

he'll never come back to you

*he'll never come back to you
my heart isn't broken anymore but this is still the writing I find the most honest
Nicole Hammond Aug 2015
i realized i no longer remember your birthday

at the realization of this realization i
crumbled on my bathroom floor
and cried for joy at my mind
learning to replace the long memories
of birthday candles in your living room
with a comfortable void
like the space after they were blown out

these things learned to be left alone
until nothing but the peace of
forgetful numbness remained

my heart surviving its own efforts
my heart surviving you

me
surviving you
Nicole Hammond May 2016
there's a summer growing in my mother
there's something burning
blistering something soft
my mother's woman
is souring like warm milk
it tells her this is natural
this is the way an organic thing rots

there's a winter growing in me
there's something cold
splintering something soft
my mother's woman
is freezing like a lake in december
small and cold and stagnant
and everyone's too scared
to put too much weight on it
i'm trying to be strong
but strong feels cold
cancer feels cold
what does that make me

there's a spring growing in my mother
there's something growing in my mother
there's something putting down roots
my mother's woman
is growing plastic flowers
from hospital bracelet stems
she waters them with her iv drip
it grows and tells her it's natural
it grows and tells her it's right
it's not right

there's an autumn growing in me
there's something about believing
in a god that shows mercy
that dies
when you watch mercy
get its *** kicked by mutation
my mother's bravery
is getting its *** kicked
by biology
my mother's hope is a thing with feathers
my mother's faith is a thing with leaves
and both of them are dying
she tells me it's okay
it's not okay
it's not okay
this is it. this is the poem i've been too scared to write.
Nicole Hammond Jul 2015
i have spent my entire life being sad solely because it is familiar
-
once i cried for 13 months over an 8 month relationship that ended within a phone call
-
i wasn't ***** but they stole something from me and i don't know if i'll ever get it back
-
sometimes i refuse to wash the clothes that you've touched and i just say that i forgot
-
showers used to give me panic attacks and instead of seeing a therapist i cut all my hair off
-
i sleep on my stomach in hopes that even just once someone would check to make sure i'm still breathing
-
i get on buses alone in the middle of the night just so i can feel unknown to something else again
-
when i told my father that i was feeling scared again he couldn't understand why it was so relieving
-
i push people away and then i cry when they fall into someone else
-
i'm terrified of adulthood so i stopped celebrating birthdays in hopes that they would take the hint too
-
this barely makes sense to me, but i guess poetry doesn't have to.
Nicole Hammond Jul 2015
if my body can be equated to minutes
you loved me like i was worth
every one of them
which is to say
i wish i had more
i wish i hadn't thrown so much away
i wish i hadn't wasted so much time
loving people that weren't you
i wish i hadn't wasted
so much of my body
loving people that weren't you
Nicole Hammond Feb 2016
a star of burning conscience falls out of orbit and you find yourself, a moon, on a collision course with this boy of light beams. the world is startled into being when he does not break you but reflects from your surface. it's like he has been in you all along, since the universe was only a child picking the gravel of planets out of its skinned knees. after the crash i picked broken glass out of your chin but your chest wasn't so simple. i couldn't pull a shard of her without your whole heart coming with it. you had saturn's rings for rib bones and i thought loving you would be easier.
a sort of precursor to "quasar". i've been really enjoying the space themes lately if you haven't noticed.
Nicole Hammond Dec 2015
you went up in smoke
somewhere in valhalla
i'm here
exactly 916 miles away
wishing i had said anything to you
when i still had the chance
before i dug my nails
into the hard december soil
trying to find any trace
of the dust they said
you were returning to
if you're really going back
to that from which you came
i'll wait for you
in that house
on woodburn avenue
until your seventeen year old self
comes slipping drunk through
the front door
because at least you still have life to waste
in 1977
if there's a God
i wanna ask him
why your soul must've gotten confused
and fled your body 5 days
before they stopped the life support
i'd ask him why you had to leave
2 generations of women behind
2 parents who were forced
to survive their oldest daughter
a husband reeling
a brother, my father
i'd ask him why
the whole family's speaking without
consonants now
why suddenly we're all children
mourning your loss
in assortments of vowels
why nothing is as honest
or as lonely
as childhood
or death
in a grieving heart is an abundance of poetry.
Nicole Hammond Mar 2015
there is poetry here
there is poetry in my first lost teeth
the 2, front and center,
came out together
one onto the brick walk
of my grandmother's garden
the other,
into the grass never recovered

maybe this is why
I always find myself
driving past that house
there are pieces of me there
I never got back
there are pieces of me there
12 years left behind
maybe this is why
I coughed up mouthfuls of dirt
at your funeral
not exactly finished
Nicole Hammond Feb 2015
today makes 10 years
and it's ironic that
you died
around Valentine's Day
because
your favorite color
was always pink
you were beautiful
and you suffered
and it was not beautiful
but you were beautiful
you are beautiful

this poem will not be sad
because you are not sad
I did not cry today
because you wouldn't have
wanted me to
I cooked myself scrambled eggs
and set two places
at the table
I wore a dress for you
I put on lipstick for you
elegance was the house you built

today I chose to love because
I love you
I am a woman because
you showed me how to be one
I sat in the back yard
between the tall pine trees
because I haven't forgotten
how much you loved to garden
I'm sorry your gentle might didn't
translate into my clamoring bones
I am too much me to be soft like you

I wrote your name on my desk today
without the vowels
I still know it's you but it's not there
like I want it to be
showing me how to plant flowers
how to make light with my ***** hands
because of you, whom I love
because of you I love
for my beautiful grandmother, who was like a mother to me; thank you for showing me love that abounds even through death.
I'm not ready to forget you yet.
Nicole Hammond Nov 2015
saplings
turned kindling
turned ash
all under the winter and fire
of my hands and my mouth
so fearful
of ghosts that
still draw blood
of wounds that
never healed the same
of things broken and left
broken
a self-preserving instinct

i was too in love
to be manipulated
i gave him more
than his years
knew how to hold
and the remainders
came spilling out
like floodwater
brown and thick
as eyes and november breath
it swam through his lungs
his shining, hopeful breath
a new conquest
to the absence
presence inevitably brings
mom
Nicole Hammond Jan 2016
mom
i keep waking up with blood in my mouth and i never know how it got there. i say your name 3 times like i'm coming home and it's gone. i don't know how. i had this dream the other night where i saw all my memories with you in them except now it's raining in all of them. i don't know what that's supposed to mean but if it's gotta rain somewhere, it might as well be in me. i want all of the sunshine to be left for you. the last memory that i saw in the dream was of us sitting in your car outside of barnes & noble, when you told me about the spot they found in the scan. the honesty in your voice sold out any of the courage you tried to feign for me. i asked you if you were afraid. you said it was all in God's hands. i asked you if you were afraid. you said yes. we sat in the car, under that dark, peculiar rain and i cursed the hands of whoever is up there holding your life so carelessly. maybe i'm a hypocrite or maybe i'm hopeless but i went back to church the next day. i counted all the times they promised you eternal life wishing just one of them would be true. if he really washed you white with his blood i wanna know what that white blood was tending. i counted all the times i wasn't patient with you and wished you hadn't wasted so much precious breath on someone so ungrateful. i counted all the tears, all the goodnight hugs and i love you kisses that your chest has ever known and prayed that there is enough hope in them to fight off whatever it is inside you that's trying to **** you. i'm sorry for whatever i left inside of you 18 years ago that didn't sit well with your bones. i'm sorry for all the bad blood i've caused.
Nicole Hammond Feb 2015
I want to be like nature
nature has no worry,
no tremor in the night
of what the day will bring,
no panic attacks in the shower

the sky looks down and even
in its insurmountable size
it cannot help the ground
it watches men dig up her roots
and lay their own falsehood
on her and the construction equipment
drowns out her weeping

the sky is at the mercy of the clouds,
constantly being washed over with
sadness and not being able to stop
crying, sometimes the sky stays in bed
for days without so much as
opening her blinds

she sees her lover the trees being
used by men who won't remember her
in the morning once they
devour her and take her
away and she gets so angry but
the lightning strikes never
land where she wants them to,
overcome by anguish for being
so big and so blue and so helpless

but sometimes the seasons spend the
night and actually stay for breakfast,
and she feels so lovely
she beams with radiance and
the whole earth smiles

nature has no worry;
the earth knows that
these men prying her apart
like lock jaw will some day
return and they will plant
flowers in her and repent
for their sins

she is the woman you come home
late to and she already has
the bed turned down, and
even when the sky sees her
dressed in white she has to stop and
catch her breath.

the sky knows some days
the clouds will hang on her
like cinder block and they will be
relentless, but when you are
the blanket the whole child of earth
is tucked in under she is calm,
relinquishing to the night with
the peace of knowing every fog
will be burnt away

she sees every one of her lovers
reincarnations and loves her again
and again and again in every life;
when she sees the trees being cut
like green split ends she writes a
eulogy in the breeze, sending away
her lovers leaves to be lived again
always closer to her own heart

the universe has seen come & go,
it knows the taste of unfaithful,
has found her hairs in its bed, but
still she cooks breakfast for one and
locks her doors as she leaves

she knows men will try to change her,
fail, and then leave and
they will try to change her, fail,
and then leave and she has no worry
that her eyes will stay bright,
her hands never cramped into bitterness,
nature has no worry.
Nicole Hammond Apr 2015
this is the poetry which has no words
to manifest itself
this is the empty Sunday
to remind me of the last
happy Saturday
and the way only one of them
feels real and it's not the one
you'd want it to be
this is the everything
and the nothing
and I thought I knew what I
was signing up for
but I was wrong
I thought I'd never get the chance
to love you
but I was wrong
the universe gave me my chance
gave me your hands
to touch me once
and everything after felt so right
until it didn't anymore
and then I was left with the skin
that belonged to you
and the way I can't deal with the fact
that this skin still belongs to you
and I miss you with no words
in dry deserts of poetry books
that I know you would love
in the same way that you
couldn't love me
and the way I can't write about this
because you took all the
poetry out of me
because this was the only way
I could make you real
if I could just leave you here
in words and in spaces
I could touch you again
but I can't write about this
and it hurts
and I love you and it hurts
and right now, sitting here,
I am the child I once was
a lifetime ago
crying for the arms that were
supposed to hold me

and it hurts
and it hurts
and it hurts
what do you do when you've given him all the beautiful parts of you? what do you do when it hurts, and you can't even write about how bad it hurts? what do you do when he doesn't even know? what do you do when he kisses you and then never touches you again?
Nicole Hammond Dec 2015
when i heard that you were going to die, my mother told me "baby, these bodies are only as strong as the next car crash". invincible until two metal birds try to occupy the same airspace and then hollow bones suddenly are no good for flying anymore. i watched the same thing happen to you, without the screeching brakes. when your blood tried to occupy the same space as your lungs, your heart suddenly didn't know what to do so it didn't do anything. i'm writing this poem without any line breaks because i'm scared that if i give you any empty space, you'll take it and run and i can't let you die like birds flying south for winter. this isn't that natural. i can't justify you dying with a stupid euphemism like "if you love something, let it go". this isn't how it's supposed to be. god created the word "goodbye" to try to make up for the fact that we ever needed to use it in the first place. i'm supposed to be able to use it but you couldn't hear me even if i could. i'd tell you goodbye but it's clear neither of us are good at letting go.
Nicole Hammond Dec 2015
i'm taking comfort in jet lag
i'm thinking of the catharsis in a glance
i'm measuring stages of grief
in atmospheres traversed
i'm changing my name to stale blood
i'm hurdling 27,006 feet above where you are
i'm wondering if emotions can become
airborne
i'm wondering if anyone knows
i'm wondering how everyone here can
just not know
how they can not break down entirely
when they hear someone running to
catch a flight
i'm choking on pressurized air
and promises
death decided i shouldn't keep
i'm breaking sound barriers
trying to find
the last octave you could speak
i'm crying at the sight of sewing needles
i'm sleeping in your bed
i'm dreaming of breaking the teeth
that took your mouth for granted
i'm pressing flowers from your funeral
in a book that promised eternal life
i'm cursing your death certificate
i'm still waiting for a curtain call
i never wanted to write this poem, especially for you.
Nicole Hammond Feb 2016
i still wonder if you feel like a black hole without me.
i wanna know if i could ever hold you
in any kind of orbit
or if all i am to you is a moon.
if the only kind of body i am to you has nothing to do with outer space.
if all we are is
dust and tears and exit signs.
Nicole Hammond Feb 2015
1
you were what Adam called poetry those first days in the garden; there were no words to encompass You so he used all of them

2
I have heard voices at the bottoms of bottles, always emptier

3
I am angry at my hands for being too weak to turn house keys, maybe you would've let me in if I was strong enough

4
it's all my fault, I know it. the day my father loaded his fear into the back of a pickup truck and drove away was the day I learned that leaving is just coming back, falling out of bed when I thought I felt your warmth beside me

5
show me a word that doesn't look like loss when you hold it to the light too long; there isn't one

6
maybe if I didn't cry so often I would feel fuller; if I was fuller I would have more to pour out to you

7
love me with a depth and severity that would make hurricanes green with envy

8
we want so much and we desire so deeply, it is no fault of our own that we always feel so disconnected; empty of a thing of which we have never felt full

9
playing foul piano chords to an audience of my nauseating loneliness, roars of applause come from your side of the bed

10
it's okay that he only calls when the morning after has proven to come too early & too bright, you've always been the warm & familiar darkness
Nicole Hammond Jul 2016
i watch the sun rise at my mother's feet on a monday morning. i watch my mother writhe as i watch her skin rise, like the sun, warm over infected tissue. she vomits into my lap and i say it's okay. she squeezes my hands until my fingers turn red as the veins in her eyes, rising without sleep. she digs her nails into my legs as she begs for a god who isn't listening. for now i am the only god who is listening. i am listening to her ***** and tremble and plead. she tells me if there had been a gun by the bed she would have used it. for some reason i can't bear to think of my mother dying by her own hands but by her own cells is somehow more bearable. her hands and her once perfect cells, they live somewhere untouched inside of me. i carry them, no matter how heavy they grow.
this is cancer. this is what it looks like. do not be mistaken.
Nicole Hammond Feb 2015
11
I looked at your hands too long and started feeling sorry

12
I am death and you are grave, made to hold me when all else turns to dust

13
I was 16 the first time my mother told me God was not inside me anymore. I was 16 when I started to wonder the same myself.

14
I saw my reflection in the glass pane of my back door and started to cry like a child out of fear

15
why don't you let people touch you anymore? I bet you still remember the night you turned to ash at that strange man's touch. you've been burning ever since and you're so scared of loving again because they took everything from you, you can't even write poetry anymore for fear of sending your hands into a violent flashback. your body wants to forget the press of another, careful or catastrophic

16
the truth of the matter is your bed didn't feel empty until you believed it to be. when did you become insufficient?

17
you were so skinny; what made you hate yourself so fervently that you tried to turn your body inside out? did you think that making yourself disappear would make someone else come back?

18
the night God gave men the power to steal away souls the devil stayed at his mother's place & the seven circles of hell all drank themselves to sleep

19
there is more giggle than grave inside of you, never forget that. all the grace tucked behind your ears and hiding under your nervous fingernails is enough to make even the most monstrous shame laid upon your altar turn to dust at the very sight

20
what does death even mean when everyday you walk like you're late to your own funeral

21
every living generation of my family sat at the kitchen table tonight and tried to remember, death pulled up a chair in the corner but we all still laughed
part II of redamancy
Nicole Hammond Feb 2016
when this sickness has become the identity of your anatomy every scratch that doesn't bleed out is a worship song. every time i knock on the door and you are alive to open it i wanna melt down my house keys forever. i wanna tell you that any other taste of metal that promises you home is the blasphemy of your chemistry. i can't sit back and watch my only brother's mind turn into a car stalled across train tracks. i can't look at his throat anymore and only see a rope. i wanna open his skull and see where the ******* are hiding. i wanna pull chemicals from his brain like teeth. there's 3 years and 2 suicide attempts between us and i want to keep death farther from him than anyone ever kept it from me. i want to make his hands look like anything but a reason. i want to make the voices sound like anything but his own. i want to make them sound like anything but permission.
Nicole Hammond May 2016
everything that smokes isn't always a gun
but sometimes it is
God doesn't always come in a pillar of fire
but sometimes you burn and i still call it holy
sometimes you hold me and i don't call it chains
my skin remembers you long after you leave
but i don't call it sunburn
maybe i should
maybe there was a gun 'cause i still have
all these holes
maybe you were God
maybe you were hell but you burn even slower
like a sunburn
i wrote this to take my mind off what i'm too scared to actually write about
Nicole Hammond Nov 2015
for the first time,
i am not afraid of love
Nicole Hammond Jan 2016
your bones break like seeds
in the springtime
and left me wishing to be
more fertile soil
water knows you well
and i know the sun
because i have tasted it
i have heard it
in a language i can feel on my cheeks
and when winter fell around our ankles
that language had died
like somehow my tongue
never made it past 10 years old
and frozen telephone poles
like it had never known the warmth
of your name
the summer of your eyes
your always spirit and never temper
your heart beat that changes the seasons
Nicole Hammond Apr 2016
what i see is a generation of funeral pyres
what i see is children being scattered like
seeds scattered like ashes
chasing a dream that promised us joy
what i see is something wandering
wild and perfect and broken
i think that's it's god
i don't know anything about god

what i hear is my best friends choking down
their fear with a bottle on the weekends
what i hear is a story called "joy" and how
my name fits in it like a wisdom tooth
in an overcrowded mouth
what i hear is that things get worse
before they get better
i don't know anything about getting better

what i feel is lonely
what i feel is sick to death of always running
from what i know, from what i don't
what i feel is tired
of this race i never signed up for
what i feel is like maybe there never was joy,
like maybe all happiness is
is the spaces between aches
that we fill with anything soft
i don't know anything about being soft

what i say is nothing because
fear is a wired jaw
and joy is pulling teeth
one can't exist in the presence of the other
i don't know anything about anything other
Nicole Hammond Jun 2015
what quiet has made everything
so loud?
what stole all the sleep from
your eyes and all the
serotonin from your blood?
who gave you more than your heart
could hold?
is that why it feels so different,
because it's stretched and stretched
until it's too big for the small things
that do live there?
who emptied it all like gasoline
on the last shred
of what was beautiful?
what name did you try to
bleach out of your organs?
how hard did you cry when
it only made it brighter?
what was the best day you ever had?
now think of exactly
one year after that day.
do you see ghosts when you see
that date on a calendar?
what about all the days in between?
why does every good thing
that happens to you
only last as long as
their smell on your clothes
from the last time they touched you?
what about the night you swallowed the whole medicine cabinet?
did you hope that with all the
pills you took,
you'd finally be something
somebody needs?
when did you realize you can't
love anyone who could love
someone like you?
1 AM thoughts.
Nicole Hammond Mar 2016
i took a lighter to all the love i had left
left the ashes in a coffee can on the mantle
like a dog i had to put down
i buried it like a secret
like i could ever regret
i left my heart in another boy's glovebox
next to everything else he never needed but
thought he could some day

i couldn't love you even if i tried
Nicole Hammond May 2015
how many times do I have to say
I miss you until it becomes poetry

how many since it mattered

how do I tell you I haven't let
anyone touch me since you
because as long as your hands
remain the last
you still exist here somehow
how do I tell you that doesn't even
begin to describe it
how do I tell you all the places you
touched me still sing
like a phantom limb

how many days did it take
for your mother to ask about me
if I'm ever coming back again
what happened to me
what happened to us
what did you tell her
and how bad did it hurt to say aloud

how do I tell you even the simplest
things are crippling without you
how breathing is wasteful
when there's no other lips to taste it
how badly my body has pined for
yours again

how cruel must you have been
to make me want like a child
to lead me senseless
to the brink of everything
I ever wanted
to lead me giggling and trembling
touching your face
and to leave me here alone
without a warning
heaven was not heaven when I
entered it alone
all this love I have to give
is shot to hell if I can't give it to you

so how many times
do I have to say I miss you
until it becomes poetry?
because I'll do it
I'll do it and do it until it matters
to you
Nicole Hammond Jan 2016
i.
incessant and impossible
your heart beats the electric miracle of will

ii.
your chest feels like home
even when you are cold
and forget the feeling of front doors

iii.
nothing ever felt so warm
as the soft earth of your hands
and you are a gardener

iv.
lovers fall helpless
into the open arms of your gentle spirit

v.
you love with a safety and assurance
that morning will come
and it will come with a shining
it will come and it will come jubilant
it will come warm and safe and full

vi.
in love, you will be warm and safe and full

vii.
in you, days of empty vanish
like ice on windshields
from nights slept in socks

viii.
you will only know cold temporary

ix.
all things gold will stay and stay for you

x.
all things gold will stay and stay for you
Nicole Hammond May 2015
you are 16 now.
I know you just lost the first boy you've ever loved like a part of your own body. each morning will be a reminder of how bright the world continues to be without you in it. you won't sleep for weeks. you won't stop crying for months.
years from now you will reencounter the person you once were like a family member you only vaguely recognize, let alone feel connected to in any way. it will take years to find your way back to her but she is out there. she's looking for you. a lot has happened since you left her. you have loved and loved and loved since him and you're right, it hasn't been the same. it will never be the same. but you, you are not the same. you are not the shell of a girl you once were, you will not always feel so empty. you are smart. you are kind and you are bitter and you are forgiving and you are angry and you are every bit of these things that you should be at this very moment. I know it feels like every soft and beautiful thing has rusted over and is picking at your bones. understand that pain means you're feeling.
be kind to your mother. reach out to your father. take a step. you've wasted enough of your life. most importantly, stop waiting to hear this from someone else.

this is your sign.
I'm sorry I haven't written in so long. I've been, slowly but surely, making my way back to who I was. and I'm happy to say I feel like I'm finally here again. I love this community and all the beautiful people that are a part of it. thank you for your continued patience with me.
Nicole Hammond Sep 2015
i am forgettable
i am dull
i am a background character at best
never the hero
never the love interest
never the happy ending
always the passing glance
always half acknowledged
always the plan b
never the apple of anyone's eye
nothing special
nothing new or brilliant or beautiful
nothing memorable, no spark
i am beige
i am boring
i am only loved out of obligation
i do not exist
to you
or to anyone
or to anything
at all
vestige: (noun) a trace of something that is disappearing or no longer exists.
Nicole Hammond Jan 2016
nothing more to be born of the ash
nothing more to be born of me
flesh stretching to give and exhale in giving
inhaling smoke and sweetness inhaling
my throat a museum of anniversaries
pain with meaning
revisiting grave sites of people still breathing
breath for screaming
washing the ghosts of your hands
out of my clothing
because loving is leaving
oil of your skin in the water from my eyes
running from feeling
these poisons my body is cleaning
senses left reeling
your touch still so appealing
your face so seldom appearing
Nicole Hammond Feb 2015
I am waiting
for the day
you come and find me
here
giving me all
the love you have
withheld
and I will show you
the depths of my heart
I will meet you in the abyss
I will not be half hearted
no
no more
you will teach me
why my heart
felt so heavy
waiting for you
in you I will see
every reason I could not love
him
or him
or him
or him
I was saving it all for you
and now I know
the holes in my heart
and the chaos in my head
were all for you
because of you
the suffering was so sweet
you were worth the Empty Januaries
and the Hardest September of My Life
but now you are here
and these are no more
my heart is open
and I can love you
you are here
the whole world stops

— The End —