Rachel Barnett

Rachel Barnett Sep 2015

falling in love with strength, pretending

when you fall in love with a feeling,
you are falling in love with the accompanying thought of being in love with it.
grains of dirt in the cracks of Marin
a man whose hands filled every space that your husband always touched but you never felt
reminiscing on granules of powder with a head space that always told you what you had would never be enough
and it only showed you the true strength of what you believed, not the truth behind it
she told me that the void which we are trying to fill is the empty space left over from instant gratification for an over-stimulated mind
nothing
and we're trying to be deep but it's just feeble attempts at filling our own deprived space,
because we think we're getting high off anti-anxiety pills when really we're just feeling how a "properly functioning" human does.
"we're all just human, honey. we're all just trying to make ourselves feel good. just remember, with each high comes an even worse low. i know you feel everything and nothing and you're just trying to subside it. we're only human."
and you're just falling in love with the strength of the belief.
not the truth behind it.

#truth #drugs #strength #healing

Rachel Barnett Jun 2015

untitled #1

the children of the sun began to awake, the moon goes down
and a pretty little monkey caught blood orange stars threw them to me said, "the beauty of the most destructive colors. how's your mind feel?"
this is enlightenment through the glorious transcendence into a psychedelic silhouette
Lucy winked waved dove off a cliff and fell out of the sky
the lights begin to sing and the low moon climbs a rope made of stars to strive find hail and you are divine
I realized if I stepped out of my body I'd break into blossom
he turned, cymbals crashed roaring horns and showed me concealed imaginings
evenings die going green and a willow swept by rain here in this room, desiring you, always roaming with a hungry heart- how dull it is to pause or make an end
though it is so beautiful that either you or time must fade, leaving the stations of your body, an iridescent creature, the whole house is thinking
x

#love #poetry #words #ink #spilled #english #lit #acid #lsd

Rachel Barnett May 2015

recognition

what you must understand is that i never get down on my knees to pray and i leave before i am left
and the mountains were on fire with those who were too tired to shed their old skin, bright flames and pretty little snakes with no shoes
don't you know Lucifer was God's favorite too?
i found a place where the water tastes like wine and the boys hide behind purple haze
a Pandora's box full of lilacs & heat
and Stella made me dizzy with her toxic classic taste but i was only trying to feel the way you did.
what you must understand is that just because we hold each other up, it doesn't mean that we're in love.
wide-eyed girls and barefoot boys playing with fire while the children laugh and cry "more, more"
he sang into the harmonica soft and sad and he has something to die for
a string of lights and an artist that no one but everyone knows
it's throwing a blood orange off the roof, pulpy innards painting the ground-
beauty of a lit cigarette, the color of destruction
fire and blood oranges
and your soft voice
tickling her ear.
it's your hands and Lucifer on my body with God whispering in my ear.
you.

Rachel Barnett May 2015

125: mama, there's wolves in the house

everything i feel is a Molotov cocktail
then, here, and now
and i don't love him,
but his tongue is full of violets and he says he could blow my mind when we're on a different frequency than this
and i carve his spine into a crescent moon and etch my initials under his tongue
does it make a difference?
a belly full of flowers, missing love.
go back to your first love, tell her you never want to leave her, rid her of the longings that brought her to her knees; was i that to you?
and i don't love him, but he's here and you're not
i have turned him from a prayer into prey, a box of cypresses split in two
but does it make a difference to you?
i'm only a few hundred miles away, sticking my fingers in electrical outlets to remind me of what your lips felt like on my hands.
i don't love him, but he's dark energy, a mindfuck.
i don't love him but i bet if i turned off all the lights in the room he'd glow in the absence of it; and i'm trying not to think.
they say vampires can't see themselves in mirrors- is this what i've done?
the monsters slide back beneath my bed, and even though they stay quiet when we touch, it still hurts me too much.

#spilled #inkspilled #thoughtsspilled #wordsspilled #poetrylitenglishproselovedrugs

Rachel Barnett Feb 2015

a bulletproof vest

i remember the night you called me and told me you are in love with me

the terror and panic in one's voice when they find their soul bound to another never ceases to amaze me

and i miss you enough to make the whole world feel lonely;
echo dances above my mind in my
subconscious attempts at pulling you closer,
sooner
but she only sits on the best post and combs
through my hair with her soft + unforgiving fingers
she says "you're losing your way + Loneliness stole your line of sight. you're not a bad person for the way you tried to **** your sadness. you're helping yourself survive."
i am alone and i talk to the parts of things that
have been destroyed by love-
the picked flower forgotten
the child's toy that no longer sings
the city benches written on with black and red ink-
"would you do it again? let the fingers trace
with butane soaked tips, let the intimacy ignite
the flame, let the scars raise so terrifying and
pure.

would you do it again?"

yes.
always yes.

#love #sad #lonely #happy #in #happiness #missing #loneliness #echo

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