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 Jul 2021 chang
fray narte
I'm tired of being celebrated for surviving traumas I didn't deserve in the first place. I want to drive and drive and drive away until I no longer feel the sunlight digging its nails on my bruised legs, until I fall to my knees and melt in the shadows, and all traces of struggling are swallowed whole by the ground. I long for the quiet: a Brontë girl dying before the ending. I long to no longer be visible. I long to be long gone.
 May 2021 chang
fray narte
slice my tongue until the pieces resemble flower petals — until poems tremble on my very lips. on summer afternoons, they will look like the dried amaranths on your bedside table — in a city apartment you left. slice my tongue until the pieces resemble smoky quartz. it will sit quietly — each side showing the wild and quiet ways of aching. slice my tongue until it heals its wounds — until the sunset casts what's left of its light, and maybe my state of decay will finally look beautiful.
death is not a considerate creature

he takes what he wants
not just for spite but also for pleasure

death is a cruel comedian

the more you observe his acts
the more his irony becomes apparent
To any of those who have been unable to visit and grieve their loved ones who have died during this pandemic, my heart goes out to you
we sighed
so deeply
that the moon
shook
and the stars
rattled
and the night
trembled
to know our names

our tears stained the ocean
but they were really pearls

to be cherished
in an antique box

our sighs and tears
moving skies and seas

breathing fresh life into
the universe
 Feb 2021 chang
shianne rose
there are two types of sadness

there’s the kind of sadness
we ignore and
try to get rid of it
by finding new things to do
or we find someone to talk to
by blatantly avoiding any type of conversation
about feeling sad
about having any feelings at all
and then there’s that kind of sadness
that takes over
and it consumes any activity we do
we know it’s there
and there’s no possible way to avoid it
so we feed it exactly what it wants
it craves the sad music
it craves the isolation
it craves the anxiousness
and the sadness comes storming in
it has no manners
here we are calling sadness, an “it”
when all it is
is a feeling
that most people
call home
 Jan 2021 chang
fray narte
----
 Jan 2021 chang
fray narte
but what if i am all the things i couldn't heal from?
 Aug 2020 chang
fray narte
i have sealed all the papercuts on my skin;
they have become unmarked,
untended graves
and the willows have long learned
to do their weeping in the dark;
and now,
there can never be enough tears,
never enough mourners
dressed in all the shades of black
to share all this grief
in its most abstract form.

oh, to hear the farewells,
to feel the poems,
to see the wreaths
tossed all over the place
and yet, there can never be enough flowers in the world
to hide these wrists —
all scars and lines for everyone to see
and everyone to read
as if epitaphs to a gravestone;

these wrists —
all scratches from a girl buried by mistake;
the casket, the ground
can only do so much.

oh, such
morbid
thoughts
from such
a morbid
girl;

little one,
you write way too much about death
and his earthly belongings.


maybe one day he'll do the same.

— The End —