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Sophie Herzing Jan 2015
The amount of people that I’ve scoped
through my own lenses, mirrored with optimism
weighed against the reality of who people are
beneath their cotton t-shirts is immeasurable.
I want everyone in my picture frame,
and I’ll twist the moral ladder to get there,
because I’ve been taught, ever since I was a little girl
in ballet shoes with my hair coiled neatly at my neck,
that there is far more beneath the glitter. That the light
can be blinding and it takes more than a promising silhouette
to bring people back into the good. I’ve slept with molted men
who’ve slithered into my bed on a nice compliment
and an “original” idea, and I’ve kissed their sore parts
hoping that the sweetness would pour from the cracks
in my lips and be absorbed by their scales. I’ve taken
triple chances on people who said I’ll do better,
and that they’d be better if only I could blush their cheeks
with my own electricity. I’ve harvested the sliver of memories
from each relationship I’ve kindled and melted them
into a ***, letting people sip the potion for themselves
and find a special, solemn rebirth in the wake of my aftermath.
I don’t know how
to have a conversation without saying thank you, or really,
you’re being too kind,
when really I’m the one who’s flicked kindness
from my fingers like leftover water. I’m the one
who’s branded her own version of band-aids, who's healed
those who I could fit in a tiny shoebox back to their own
self-proclaimed hugeness. I’ve beaten myself down to ***** clay,
and that’s why you

have found it so easy to mold me. It’s why I lay your socks out in the morning,
why I drive my mind back and forth in my sleep, why I’ve always been able to rock
your pretty little heart back to me. You captured the remaining ember
left drowning in the wax and made a model of who I used to be
before I let everyone else wear me down.
Sophie Herzing Dec 2014
You think I rub my arms over and over again
because it’s a little chilly and I should have worn a sweater,
but really I need to distract myself from the reflection
of you playing cat’s cradle with her fingers and nuzzling
your kiss into her wild hair. It’s not me who’s there even though
when the moon’s face wears the night to it’s annual masquerade
you’re the one who’s reaching out to me. Maybe we don’t kiss
but we don’t have to, because our souls have been suspended
above our heads like mistletoe and you chose
a long, long time ago to hold her instead of me. And you think
I’ve found recovery in the time, found separation
between the summers, but I tuck my hair behind my ears
and crush my lips back into my teeth not out of habit
but so that I don’t scream, That was supposed to be me!
That was supposed to be me. You know, too, or else you wouldn’t
recall some stupid puddle memory just so I’ll cling
to that last ember in the bottom of my heart and light it on fire.
So I’ll be the one to remind you of the frame you cut from my soft cedar
to put her in. You can turn my light down. I’ve got nothing for you now.
Sophie Herzing Dec 2014
You look best in my lamp light. Your belly scar
rough underneath my fingertips as I jump the scratch
and attach myself to your hips, kiss your pelvic bone
until even my teeth can taste your sweetness. I can feel
black kettles and the burn from the ironing board crash of 1999.
When we’re wrestling in my duvet covers, the shadows
cast your memories up like a sanctuary projection. I see red race cars,
your brother jumping on the couch, fishing bait kept
in your back pocket. Your lips taste like liquor but I hear nursery rhymes
from when you were little, wobbly, an over-all dream
in the yard seen through the kitchen window. I know,
that you’ve dressed yourself in bad dreams
and broke yourself over footballs and houses of green paper,
but you look best in my lamp light when my hands
cram your face into my palms, your blush dripping
from you cheeks. Because I see the way
you burrow yourself into my chest when you think
I’ve gone to sleep, and I’ve seen the way your foot catches
on the edge of the woodwork right before you fall.
oh this is a rough one.
Sophie Herzing Dec 2014
Be the barcode on my bra strap so maybe
I can finally be sellable skinny. Be my relationship goal,
the text to check outside my door, the 5k, 140 character post
about a teenage dream ****** through low brightness screens.
Be the slam poet screaming whiny, new written love songs
on the shareable Facebook post. And maybe I’m just as bad,
but at least I recognize when my eyes fall numb from staring
at self-expression turned self-obsession. Maybe it’s Jack talking back
through my shot glass or maybe it’s the blacklight absorbed
into my skin. Or maybe it’s a girl in a “vintage” dress just sizing out
bigger than the edges already cut out for her. Maybe it’s me
bending backwards over chivalry and **** coming back from the 90’s.
Don’t blame me for biting into the media sandwich that is magazines
and the indecision of being too clingy if I just freakin’ called you.
Cause picking up the phone is a lot more risky than the kissy-face emoji
at the end of a message. Don’t blame me for consuming
tissue paper lies designed to target my own vulnerability, or my lack
of understanding the truth because all everyone
has ever told me is just a step in the manipulation blueprint
to get what they want, or just get me to bed. I only trust old photographs,
things I wrote down when I couldn’t sleep, my mom, and the dirt
I used to bury my own reflection. Be the 50% off on my receipt
just so I know I got something off. Be the nicotine in my cigarette,
the Blink 182 voice inside my head, the joints that hold me up
where I stand, and maybe I’ll finally know who I am.
Sophie Herzing Dec 2014
Back in 2003 I found a piece of me
buried, like a shard of pottery, in the sandbox.
A Hot Wheel’s car, little rusted with one tire missing
that I used to shove in the little zippered flap
of my Powerpuff Girls backpack. Older, fifteen,
I carved another piece of me out and pasted it
to a vanilla letter, sliding the envelope through the slits
in his locker door, and I lost it. I’m not even sure he read it.
Nineteen, faded and little stolen, I threw another piece of me
into my mother’s grave. Plush petals, rosary beads, crystal
liquid drops infused with microscopic memories. I cut
myself in slivers and jammed uneven edges together
just to gusto the void, compact the space, walk solid.
And now, twenty-three, I press my face against a mirror
and slide my arms into a flannel, grandpa, hammy-down.
You took the last piece. You crawled into my guard, tore the lining
and spit your black blood on the blank memoirs I had hanging
next to the split.

Take me, now, if that’s how it’s gunna be. You wanna live
with the dust bunnies in my baggage? Feed off my insecurities,
my staggered breath, or my mercury dreams? I don’t want to be saved.
I’ve made my own maze with only one way out, so you’re trapped
in the Miss Havisham model I’ve made, rotten cake. Build yourself
a new girl from my discards, suckle the marrow from my bones,
and blow, like a glass ornament, a pretty replica of who I am.
Isn’t that what you wanted? Wasn’t that part of the chase?
The sweet idea that you could pull some perfect women out of the rubble?
I bet that’d be nice to show off, you *******. But here’s the catch,

I know I’m broken. You don’t need to remind me. So take
the smiles I’ve learned to draw on my lips for two cents,
and give up the **** fight I know you won’t win.
Sophie Herzing Dec 2014
After the last bombing,
boys crowded me like vultures, trying to ****
the last good bit of me out and use it
to revive their own secret pride, make it a little sweeter.
They absorbed the sun-rays from my skin,
drank my kisses in like the final drop from the canteen.
But you showed up, a mirage in khakis and a clean shirt
with hair melted gold and a pressed button-down,
and I pulled you like an afterthought
through the membranes of protection
I made for myself. I caved.
I let myself fall through the reassurances, the promises
of never allowing myself to feel
that sentimental over a night spent sleeping,
your touch like little electric shocks tickling
my skin as you breathed relaxation into my ears
and memorized the ***** of my stomach into my hip.
I climbed through the covers and opened my mouth
as my heart bloomed over you. I guess,

I'm a little dried out. I guess,
since there hasn't been a single call,
that you've noticed how badly shaped I am and how
unsound my actions may be. But, baby,
I meant every thank you, every smile, every little
spotted kiss on your collarbone. And if I have to

I guess I can forget you. Tie myself to my footsteps
as I trace the cracks back to the sand you found me lying in
when you rode my hope like the sun
and proved that maybe the pain has only just begun.
Sophie Herzing Nov 2014
Why
Disconnected by the root, wasting
our time between sheets instead
of between conversations You kept
yourself in backwards hats and vague
excuses to the questions I was asking.
I lit myself on fire, extinguished the flame
in the shower after we finished, cursing
at the droplets sliding down the curtain.
***** this! and ***** that after you ******* me
into the enjambment that was your free space—
your convenience. I fit only if you push, I matter
only if it’s after midnight and the world
outside your door and bed frame
doesn’t have to know. In the daylight,
I’m a ghost that you always see. I’m the ruby
spotted from the corner of your eyes, the shine
that hurts to look at, but no one can know.
Of course. No one can know the way your mouth
rests between sighs or how your eyes lock
into mine when your bruising the inside of my thighs.

I’m the extra beer in your back pocket.
I’m the ***** in the towel who’s promising
her better self that she won’t go again,
that she won’t allow herself to try to patch
the promise from too long ago. The relationship,
shattered early, that mended itself crooked,
that became a book thrown at the wall
and a sweet, dissipated call. I’m the secret solemnly kept
at night when you’re drunk and ugly and begging
for some beauty to curl up next to. I’m the last line
in the best country song, the whisper
you scream for when I’m gone.
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