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Nov 2017 · 492
Day Before Thanksgiving
M Rose Nov 2017
one day
the holidays
will hurt a little less
as time halves and halves and halves until
i can't remember your name anymore.
in time i'll learn to be present
with the ones who wait to
love me, soft and
patient.
i'm not going home for thanksgiving out of sheer stubbornness and the idea of facing my family after this, a harrowing year, sounds too hard. I'm also really sick, but that feels like a bratty excuse to use. I'm trying to convince myself that I can always try again for Christmas or even next year, but there's a nagging, quiet voice in the back of my head...
Nov 2017 · 566
reaching
M Rose Nov 2017
when i reach you,
i want it to look like the day i left. gray
skies, teasing winds, the ocean roaring and
rushing louder and faster than i've ever seen.
on the boardwalk, i want to hear the
musicians play, but i'll stand by one
in particular--an old man playing an erhu
to background music emitting from a cheap speaker,
sounding like the karaoke songs my
mom would always sing along to. i hated them then, but
i'd give anything to have that back now.

when i reach you, i want you
to listen to me as i describe
how i feel when i see a mother leading her
toddling child by the hand while her husband
looks for a place to sit on the beach. i
won't be able to explain it, but i'll
cry and try my
best to express that
it's love,
it's always been love,
it always will be love,
and this family of strangers is
ruining me and
sustaining me and
they'll never be the wiser.

love is an action.
love is an action.

i want to love you.
i want to love you.

when i reach you, i want you to know
i'm reaching for you, that this isn't
just happenstance, or where everyone ought to go, but
i did it for you.
i took off all my clothes. i killed all my lovers.
i did it to be close to you,
but you feel so far away.
i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i'm sorry.
you have to tell me to stop reaching.
Nov 2017 · 544
9/2/17
M Rose Nov 2017
Sharks can't swim backwards,
they can only move forward.
But forward is a circle
and they'll never know.

We buried you in cherry
under the juniper tree,
and with God as my enemy,
God isn't there.
I tried to write a song after my baby brother died, but to no avail. The drought continues. I've been doing a lot of reckoning with my spirituality since then.
Nov 2017 · 873
Provo, UT 15:16
M Rose Nov 2017
Calling out into the canyon,
Echoing, echoing, echoing.
Sometimes I think I'll die there in the morning light, but then--
a Buzzing. You ask if I'm coming home.
I hear the rumbling of the semi trucks
and they sound so tired. They sound like me.
The Gray enshrouds me and it gets hard to breathe.
I think about that night so often.
I thought we would be a Long time
but you disappeared right before my eyes.
Steam rising from my flesh, with my last breath I ask you to stay;
you remind me that I held the blade.

When the shards of glass Pierced
your skin I felt the Stinging
alongside you.
Mouth gone Dry,
at last I see how my love turned Blind
for nothing more than a Flicker and a Shadow.
tw: violence, intrusive thoughts, etc.
Dec 2015 · 382
12/3
M Rose Dec 2015
I'm getting better every day. One
day I'll be soft again and you
won't envelope my heart or my mind
anymore. You're almost
gone and I won't wish that
you lose your
way because you deserve redemption as
much as I do. One day I'll
be soft again and you will
seep from my pores and
into the earth and soon
we will decontaminate
and help something else
grow.
Nov 2015 · 452
11/24
M Rose Nov 2015
I'm going to drive home and it will be cloudy.
Brown then white then
brown again and that
tunnel I hold my breath in and
I wonder if you held yours too.
I hope it snows on my way and
I hope those granules accumulate and
enshroud me until I'm clean in a
winter baptism.
Salt and salt then
juniper trees then sagebrush
and the lonely gas station I find because I exited too early
in the small town that knows it's being used and
people never stay.
Mountains that curve and bend into hills
and I fall back in time into
earth tones and hard hats and
fear and fear and fear.
I feel out of place in my red dress
and my chest tightens.
Compressing, compressing, compressing until I
can't breathe and I feel so
small
and the hills so
small
grow smaller and smaller and
they box me in and
I can't breathe oh God
I know you're not there but please let me
breathe.
Winding roads wound tighter and
tighter that make me feel like I'm driving in circles.
It's my worst fear that I've grown too big
for this place and I want it to
stop I need it to
end and I cry out when I see it,
I grow small again as it comes closer and
when it comes to me,
when I come to it
it gives me my chest back and
gently places my lungs inside.
I am clean and
it knows I'm clean
and I can be here once again.
I drive and it's cloudy and I am home.
I'm going home for Thanksgiving soon and while my heart feels so empty it still pounds with rage.
Nov 2015 · 348
17:03
M Rose Nov 2015
The air around me is searing Hot
even though it's only the middle of February, and my chest is Tight
even though I know it's still there in my torso and fits just fine. I imagine the Icy
look on your face if I ever told you those words out loud, the Dull
pain deep inside my rib cage when you say, "Don't be stupid," as if I could help it.

Love spanning 500 miles is Hard.

I feel the loneliness get Heavy
and heavier but I just read my stories and watch my shows and I keep Quiet,
but it's too much and I end up laughing until I know myself, and until I know my heart is Pulsing
and sometimes it's erratic and maybe one day it will miss one beat too many, collapsing on itself in an anatomically correct Black
hole but I won't even scream because the echoes in this void in me are surely Loud enough.
Apr 2013 · 392
17:29
M Rose Apr 2013
i like boys
that hate themselves
and everyone else
and can find the time
to do so with me
Mar 2013 · 470
00:16
M Rose Mar 2013
perhaps my heart is black
but after this i remember why i choose to be coarse.
the night was cold; you made me colder
and colder still. i shouldn't have had to turn on the light
or listen to your words while staring into the dark,
wishing to reverse the clocks to never awaken your unwanted hunger
and advances that only make me more bitter
and unbelieving that out there is something sweet
yeah idk i'm just really upset about the ride home from the dance last night
Mar 2013 · 557
11:53
M Rose Mar 2013
I'm consumed by the world of blue.
Outside this home is dark and cold,
but as I look up, I feel the warmth
of the stars--when the world is quiet
is when celestial bodies burn brightest.
Tonight I believe in nothing but the light
emanating from this heavenly ceiling mist
and the hope that one day we'll again see the sun.
it's about van gogh's "the starry night"
Feb 2013 · 623
7:51
M Rose Feb 2013
im so tired
of not being able to write
because of my shaking hands

im so tired
of this cure
that isnt curing me

im exhausted
Feb 2013 · 440
17:08
M Rose Feb 2013
i stopped at chinese on the way home from the doctor's
"keep taking your medicine and see me in three weeks."
i ordered my food.

it was impulsive, but i was hungry
the world could wait another day.

i waited, admiring the pictures on the wall.
a cell phone buzzed,  but it was not mine.
the cashier walked towards the door.

"honey, don't cry." i tried not to listen.
"the holidays are hard. just find a hotel."
the holidays are hard. every day is hard.

i picked up my order and walked
past the father and his daughter and the distance
and the heartbreak and time that won't stop
not even for the father and his daughter. not even for me.

i looked away so he wouldn't see my tears.
M Rose Feb 2013
the room so cold
and the voices so quiet
I'm trying so hard to make my heart soft
so I can finally enjoy this moving picture
but my vision's obscured by my burning eyes
my tears are the raindrops in the grey
sky in Tokyo. . . but at the end, my heart is warm,
although not promising, it's still sweet,
the notion that color can be found within the dull

— The End —