you love her, don't you?
because she's beautiful;
she's exciting;
she's empyreal.
because she kisses like these are her final moments of life
and she wants to spend them only with you.
but be careful who you trust (the devil was once an angel, you know).
she makes your heart flutter, but
anyone'll tell you that really,
arrhythmia isn't a good thing.
she's a disguise, grief wrapped up like a gift.
oh, darling, she's a pretty war. ****** in her veins.
(but)
let's go from the start.
your bones don't fit
you feel as though your throat is all sandpaperandnails
you're alone. you've been ohsolonely.
then you meet her and she's all chocolateandcinnamon and
perfectly
aligned.
you look into her eyes. you see a nebula.
an interstellar cloud but made up of something you should know but don't.
she's dumbfounding;
it's refreshing.
you like mysteries.
she’s everything you’ve ever wanted (probably) and she pulls you out of that hole.
that one with the festering thoughts
and the dark spaces where you could go for days at a time.
your heart was heavy, a sky full of rain.
but she was a tempest. your saving grace.
this is a story about love, but it's not a love story.
not really.
this is a story about the human condition,
about how, though the heart isn’t the *****
that makes us feel,
it still hurts the most.
and more importantly, this is an open letter
to the skies,
to whichever deity decided that you couldn’t
be with her forever.
you're a house with empty rooms and
there's a storm teasing the windows;
an aggressive ballet.
looking back,
you suppose you should have noticed the leak
before it got the chance to flood
and you remember the look in her eyes when you said
"even though I did geography at school, it didn't teach me
the difference between an earthquake
and you"
and she said she didn't understand
and you said * that's the point, neither do I.*
for to love someone
is to give them your heart on a platter
and hand over the cutlery, too.
but you remember just thinking oh,
if she makes you giddy like this then
what could be wrong?
you know that "gravitation is not responsible
for people falling in love"
but the force with which you feel the desire
to present your heart like a gift, to
open yourself to the possibility of hurt and break
must be greater than yourself
and you never knew why they called it
"heartbreak" until the day she left
and you realised after, that the difference
between you and humpty dumpty
is that his friends thought he was worth trying to
put back together again.
the thing is that
empty rooms echo, and now
so do you.
and after that,
after the fallout
and the body count of all your past selves
they'll say to you:
*you're young
it's not the end of the world.*
but
when someone makes flowers grow in your lungs
and then makes you choke on them
it feels like it is.
you know what?
you notice empty spaces more
once your chest becomes one.
a house of cards
imagine matchsticks;
burning love but
singeing your fingers,
and she never asked why you flinched
her palms, eden.
her kiss of death,
her purgatory embrace.
she, aokigahara, suicide forest.
you were born to die in her arms.
and if you ever wondered
why they name tornadoes after girls,
you don't now.
you, lacklustre lazarus.
you know you're no phoenix;
the ashes consume.
so here you are.
and ode to you,
because words shouldn't be like bullets,
staccato, and
vowels shouldn’t have sharp edges-
but they do.
you see,
poetry is the place love goes when it dies,
the place where heartbreak is framed with metaphors
and mounted on the wall as art.
a library of all the things left unsaid.
the psychiatrist takes lots of notes.
about how you thought she was your
deus ex machina,
about how you remembered too late that this is real life
and really, all of this is just a periphrasis.
you think
sticks and stones, sticks and stones
but the truth is that words
are like bullets,
and her tongue the gun;
her “goodbye” ricocheting against her teeth.
now, today, it’s you with the weapon;
taking control the way god never did.
cold metal and clammy hands.
cleaning up the mess left behind
by a tornado named her.
b a n g.
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 9:34 PM UTC
you love her, don't you?
because she's beautiful;
she's exciting;
she's empyreal.
because she kisses like these are her final moments of life
and she wants to spend them only with you.
but be careful who you trust (the devil was once an angel, you know).
she makes your heart flutter, but
anyone'll tell you that really,
arrhythmia isn't a good thing.
she's a disguise, grief wrapped up like a gift.
oh, darling, she's a pretty war. ****** in her veins.
(but)
let's go from the start.
your bones don't fit
you feel as though your throat is all sandpaperandnails
you're alone. you've been ohsolonely.
then you meet her and she's all chocolateandcinnamon and
perfectly
aligned.
you look into her eyes. you see a nebula.
an interstellar cloud but made up of something you should know but don't.
she's dumbfounding;
it's refreshing.
you like mysteries.
she’s everything you’ve ever wanted (probably) and she pulls you out of that hole.
that one with the festering thoughts
and the dark spaces where you could go for days at a time.
your heart was heavy, a sky full of rain.
but she was a tempest. your saving grace.
this is a story about love, but it's not a love story.
not really.
this is a story about the human condition,
about how, though the heart isn’t the *****
that makes us feel,
it still hurts the most.
and more importantly, this is an open letter
to the skies,
to whichever deity decided that you couldn’t
be with her forever.
you're a house with empty rooms and
there's a storm teasing the windows;
an aggressive ballet.
looking back,
you suppose you should have noticed the leak
before it got the chance to flood
and you remember the look in her eyes when you said
"even though I did geography at school, it didn't teach me
the difference between an earthquake
and you"
and she said she didn't understand
and you said * that's the point, neither do I.*
for to love someone
is to give them your heart on a platter
and hand over the cutlery, too.
but you remember just thinking oh,
if she makes you giddy like this then
what could be wrong?
you know that "gravitation is not responsible
for people falling in love"
but the force with which you feel the desire
to present your heart like a gift, to
open yourself to the possibility of hurt and break
must be greater than yourself
and you never knew why they called it
"heartbreak" until the day she left
and you realised after, that the difference
between you and humpty dumpty
is that his friends thought he was worth trying to
put back together again.
the thing is that
empty rooms echo, and now
so do you.
and after that,
after the fallout
and the body count of all your past selves
they'll say to you:
*you're young
it's not the end of the world.*
but
when someone makes flowers grow in your lungs
and then makes you choke on them
it feels like it is.
you know what?
you notice empty spaces more
once your chest becomes one.
a house of cards
imagine matchsticks;
burning love but
singeing your fingers,
and she never asked why you flinched
her palms, eden.
her kiss of death,
her purgatory embrace.
she, aokigahara, suicide forest.
you were born to die in her arms.
and if you ever wondered
why they name tornadoes after girls,
you don't now.
you, lacklustre lazarus.
you know you're no phoenix;
the ashes consume.
so here you are.
and ode to you,
because words shouldn't be like bullets,
staccato, and
vowels shouldn’t have sharp edges-
but they do.
you see,
poetry is the place love goes when it dies,
the place where heartbreak is framed with metaphors
and mounted on the wall as art.
a library of all the things left unsaid.
the psychiatrist takes lots of notes.
about how you thought she was your
deus ex machina,
about how you remembered too late that this is real life
and really, all of this is just a periphrasis.
you think
sticks and stones, sticks and stones
but the truth is that words
are like bullets,
and her tongue the gun;
her “goodbye” ricocheting against her teeth.
now, today, it’s you with the weapon;
taking control the way god never did.
cold metal and clammy hands.
cleaning up the mess left behind
by a tornado named her.
b a n g.
this was my first proper poem, written over a year ago. the only way is up.
Request permission to use this poem