Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Regine Howl May 2013
Today I made a sad attempt to die
yet I had no rope
To make my thirteen loops
like an old man showed me to do
I thought about where I could find enough
to hold my body above the ground
Where my feet just barely touch
my hands limp beside thick thighs

Failing at my attempt at life
there seems no better time
When I have no hope
this is costly and for naught
I've nothing to offer here
and I have no want to
No being pulled apart and shoved beneath the rug
yet I lack motivation and drive
Even in this
so no progress will ever be made
I made a sad attempt to change my life today
Regine Howl May 2013
You called
Again
This time you left
Another voicemail
I shake my head, then roll my eyes
Then I feel myself begin to think
Perhaps he needs to talk to me
Specifically
I listen to your voice like I have so many times before
"I don't know why I called-"
I throw down my phone
Don't know?
Then don't
Just don't
Tears are inching towards the corners of my eyes
Hate is everywhere, in hot white flames inside my mouth
Blindly I splash water over me
Shaky hands because of our ruined foundation
My eyes find yours in the mirror
And I start screaming
The glass isn't who put me through Hell
Yet it suffers all your consequence
When it is covered in spit
One would think I would feel-
But no I am still insufficient
Regine Howl Apr 2013
I am ready for summer to dance back into my life.
I will always love that season above all others.
I am ready for the heat and the long nights,
the bugs and fireworks.
I want nothing more than to care about only making sure that I am out of the house every single day more hours than I am inside.
I want scorching cement under my feet.
Chalk and bubble solution soaked into all of my clothes.
Every negative inch of my soul is brightened up just a bit under the summer sun.
Water balloons and the sun roof down.
I want it all back.
I know we all love Summer, most of us do anyways,
I guess I know a few people that can’t stand the heat.
But summer has always held this idea to me that I could become infinite.
I can change my entire life around with one fantastic summer,
if I just went headfirst into it.
I would come out with golden threads plaited into my hair,
pretty thighs and green flecks in my eyes.
I will come out with a sense of fearless courage I lost too long ago.
I can be sure to find my five year old self longer than a moment when Summer comes back.
She will sit with me, happy that I can find a natural smile in the muggy humidity.
I will hear her confidence in the back of my mind before I go bungee jumping.
She will tell me that we have never been scared of anything.
Her twang will pull at my heart strings,
and I will never resist such encouragement.
At night when shadows creep up my spine,
she’ll squeeze my hand and I’ll laugh at the monsters in my head.

My five year old self would kick my *** for the ways I act today.
My head floods with the best of old memories when July creeps upon me,
I will see skipping rocks, and trails,
and all the smiles I put on people’s faces.
I will hear the pride in my dad’s voice,
and it will sound like it is in my reach to get it back.
Wild innocence will grow back inside my heart,
if only for a few months…
The backbone that bends without breaking will straighten itself with threads of spider’s silk
and I will look people in the eye,
and I won’t care what they see inside of mine.
Then August will make it’s appearance,
and I will balk, like a horse at flowing water.
I’ll dig my feet into the hard earth and my head will fly back and shake the mirrors in my face.
I will only see the awful darkness that awaits me the rest of the three seasons.
Then I will hear that voice, asking me to promise, to be honest…
to try all year long, because there is nothing to be scared of.
I cry at the end of every summer, just because I can’t stand for my happiness to leave me.
She will tell me if I cry, she won’t stick around;
and I know that I should swear,
pinky promise and try my damnedest.
But by the time September is here, I am a mess.
The shadows and monsters have taken up residence
and Fear has his hands crawling up my back,
undoing all the threads that were holding up my spine;
smiling all the while, bringing up goosebumps on my paling skin.
Fear takes me while I wait for Summer to save me.
Regine Howl Apr 2013
There are bruises on my skin from my last night with you,
I wear them like badges of merit you earned as a boy.
Purple smears underneath my freckled blades,
and the blue stains on my thighs tell the truth.

Tell the truth you said.

Without saying the words,
my body tells of a pretty heartache,
the one not everyone gets to experience.
I will call myself lucky,
and run my fingerprints over the marks you left,
the sentences you wrote with your teeth and all your pressure.
When they fade, and I can still feel the ache under the skin,
I will miss the colors that others could see.
That the proof I never told,
the truth will slip away,
but it will not heal.
The left shoulder blade has the most beautifully articulated bruise.
It is a splatter of violets and pinks, and my tiny freckles look like stars in a galaxy.
But I am a black hole,
and I will take the bruise under
eat it up and fear that I will do the same to the story, to your memory.
So I will drunkenly scrawl facts and moments and details in the space in my lungs and heart.
You admitted you knew the smell of the air in my lungs,
so when can you admit you love me,
at least in the dark?
Regine Howl Apr 2013
I left my heart on the corner of Haight and Ashbury
Where my shoulders were bruised by you
and blood rushed from my lips and fingertips
You were wearing blue
and the unemployed cheered you on
I left my heart there
the day I decided to deny all you wanted
Regine Howl Apr 2013
If
You have cold feet
You shamelessly dance when cleaning the kitchen
You drink too much too often, before noon and all week long
I want closure
Regine Howl Apr 2013
I can't write
And I can't love
I am not a friend
I am
In fact
Driving with one knee
Turning at 70
Smashing the keys with one hand
And ripping into an orange with the other
It's dark out, gotta get my vitamin d somehow
Mildred
Millican
Wellborn
Retreat
You are all the ******* same
Just take what's closest
There's nothing good about this
There is no ******* center stripe
Next page