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jemma-silvertPoems
I beg you, Do not make this out to be a love note; Do not romanticise my words      until a list of all that is wrong with you           becomes a letter in a bottle, washed up on an island’s shore. Do not teach the child I will never have      that the locked wooden box of dated but unsent letters hidden beneath her bed           will one day become a novel. They are all addressed to you--    just as every thought I think echoes with your name               every song is about you               every tear burns my skin with the acidity of your touch          the smoke from               every cigarette tastes of you. It is you. It is you              who is the black mist enveloping my lungs from the inside out, It is you              swirling in my hollow veins                 as they wrap themselves like chains                    around my organs, screaming for night, and you capture my beating heart. And it is you      who tells us to teach our children                          to make sure to say their pleases and their thank-yous, And we taught them not to talk to strangers,   but we never taught them to say                                                       ‘no’. -- Now I don’t speak to the kids hanging out on the corner And I don’t speak to the man when he pulls up his van, And now I don’t speak                                   when I'm lying in bed you never taught me to say no I don’t speak when your hand runs down my body           like I am something you own           like my bones are the ivory keys of a grand piano                and you must hit every note on your glissando descending    to hell. I don’t speak as you wrap yourself around me metal chains on a summer’s day I close my eyes             and listen to my organs screaming for night                    like a child who just wants her bedtime story,                                                              her mummy to come home,                    like a child who is not afraid                                of monsters in her head,                           or of monsters under the bed,                           or of you, Lying      beside her. And we scream for night    And we close our eyes       And we float up into a moonless sky. The definition of a black hole is                ‘a region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can                 escape’. If it is the matter that creates the pull that traps the matter,    then you are not so much in me          and I am not so much in you                as we are trapped inside each other. The world made up of people and       people made up of world,                                           like Romeo and Juliet,       we do not exist without the other,                                           you and I. For the words            immorality and immortality                                             may be frighteningly similar, but there is a difference between                  apathy and anaesthesia; I do not close my eyes to shut you out,            I close my eyes because it is only darkness that can make the space between my bedroom walls appear infinite;            It is only music that lets me hear your screams as you suffocate mine;                   only smoke that lets me taste your toxicity as my ashes spread like a virus through your veins. I want to die. And I'm taking you down with me,    So don’t you dare tell me to teach the child I will never have       that her scars seek attention,          or that she needs them as proof of what you have done to her mind;    Don’t you dare teach us that the rope from which we hang is a diamond necklace;           that corpses are more beautiful when drained of blood,              that we are more beautiful when broken. Dear world,    I beg you, Do not make this out to be a love note; Do not romanticise my words      until a list of all that is wrong with you           becomes a letter in a bottle, washed up on an island’s shore. Do not teach me that my suicide note is poetry      when our existence is intertwined           and my death is yours,           and you are too cowardly to do it for the both of us,   but, darling,                     so am I. So please,    I beg you, You can make this out to be a love note,                                              a letter in a bottle,    just close your eyes;       float up into a moonless sky;          dissolve into infinity.                                             Die with me--.                                                                                                                   j.s.
0
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 1:31 PM UTC
Dear World,
I beg you, Do not make this out to be a love note; Do not romanticise my words      until a list of all that is wrong with you           becomes a letter in a bottle, washed up on an island’s shore. Do not teach the child I will never have      that the locked wooden box of dated but unsent letters hidden beneath her bed           will one day become a novel. They are all addressed to you--    just as every thought I think echoes with your name               every song is about you               every tear burns my skin with the acidity of your touch          the smoke from               every cigarette tastes of you. It is you. It is you              who is the black mist enveloping my lungs from the inside out, It is you              swirling in my hollow veins                 as they wrap themselves like chains                    around my organs, screaming for night, and you capture my beating heart. And it is you      who tells us to teach our children                          to make sure to say their pleases and their thank-yous, And we taught them not to talk to strangers,   but we never taught them to say                                                       ‘no’. -- Now I don’t speak to the kids hanging out on the corner And I don’t speak to the man when he pulls up his van, And now I don’t speak                                   when I'm lying in bed you never taught me to say no I don’t speak when your hand runs down my body           like I am something you own           like my bones are the ivory keys of a grand piano                and you must hit every note on your glissando descending    to hell. I don’t speak as you wrap yourself around me metal chains on a summer’s day I close my eyes             and listen to my organs screaming for night                    like a child who just wants her bedtime story,                                                              her mummy to come home,                    like a child who is not afraid                                of monsters in her head,                           or of monsters under the bed,                           or of you, Lying      beside her. And we scream for night    And we close our eyes       And we float up into a moonless sky. The definition of a black hole is                ‘a region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can                 escape’. If it is the matter that creates the pull that traps the matter,    then you are not so much in me          and I am not so much in you                as we are trapped inside each other. The world made up of people and       people made up of world,                                           like Romeo and Juliet,       we do not exist without the other,                                           you and I. For the words            immorality and immortality                                             may be frighteningly similar, but there is a difference between                  apathy and anaesthesia; I do not close my eyes to shut you out,            I close my eyes because it is only darkness that can make the space between my bedroom walls appear infinite;            It is only music that lets me hear your screams as you suffocate mine;                   only smoke that lets me taste your toxicity as my ashes spread like a virus through your veins. I want to die. And I'm taking you down with me,    So don’t you dare tell me to teach the child I will never have       that her scars seek attention,          or that she needs them as proof of what you have done to her mind;    Don’t you dare teach us that the rope from which we hang is a diamond necklace;           that corpses are more beautiful when drained of blood,              that we are more beautiful when broken. Dear world,    I beg you, Do not make this out to be a love note; Do not romanticise my words      until a list of all that is wrong with you           becomes a letter in a bottle, washed up on an island’s shore. Do not teach me that my suicide note is poetry      when our existence is intertwined           and my death is yours,           and you are too cowardly to do it for the both of us,   but, darling,                     so am I. So please,    I beg you, You can make this out to be a love note,                                              a letter in a bottle,    just close your eyes;       float up into a moonless sky;          dissolve into infinity.                                             Die with me--.                                                                                                                   j.s.
#suicide#poem#sad#death#smoke#children#letter#slam#spokenword#blithe
jemma-silvert
Written by
jemma-silvert
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 1:31 PM UTC
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