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Hayley McInnes Mar 2020
I am partial to a shifting psyche
I am hard to find when I give up my act
I find the long way back

I am a lighthouse when the wind blows south
I am open mouth when I go off the track
here’s to the long way back

Parallels with my insides
Luminol on my black tie
Lucid all til the white lie
I’ll buy anything you say

Archivist of the meeting
Red of wrist and of feeling
I exist just to see it
Seems to be all that I crave
cas Mar 2020
it's an empty shed,
and my mind's been dead.
before you—
i was alone in bed.
Panoply Mar 2020
one day someone will love you

he will remove your shirt
his hands will move over your skin
soft, fragile fingertips, safe, warm touch
you will sigh and he will enjoy the sound and sight of you
unfurling before him

my mistakes that clog my skin
my anger a bitter, pulsing monster
my love a ****** ****,
but shouldn't it be me to rip the buttons of your shirt
let it fly to the floor
breathe in your skin
admire the view of your eyes closing as i
trailed red kisses over you

shouldn’t it be me who knew you better than he could?
and yes, i am not your typical lover
but i cannot imagine you’d want him
to be intimate with someone who could barely love you,
a tepid version of the love i would make you feel,
i’d let smiles overwhelm our intimacy,
but it will be him, not me, touching your skin like it's golden
you’ll never know that my love is heaven and skies,
and his is merely a shiny fracture of the sunlight i could give you

yet despite my desperate tries of declaring this all
you turn your head away from the sun, me, too bright
and crawl to your comfort, when you could stride to my sunlight
you will shiver in the shadows of his love
instead of basking in the heat of mine
???
mari Mar 2020
he’s larger than life,
a caricature of patriotism
in a thompson-esque world
of mania and devilish charm.
one hand on my waist,
the other on his new pistol;
puts me in a trance
watching him smoke cuban missiles.
sirens crying out at sea
won’t lure him into turquoise waves.
swears he’s from the tribe
that calls appalachia home,
but the mountains vehemently refuse;
cherokee roots thatta ways don’t grow.
i wished for his violent affection;
it felt like heaven’s projection,
but when i found a life worth living for
freedom he wasn’t willing to award.
swore he’d buy me the stars and
bestow a nomadic nebula to me,
but only if i sold him my soul
and gave him my castle’s key.
no amount of holy white flames
will devour the fingerprints and dirt
he coated my exquisite flesh in,
but i can paint them to show
the horrors from which i’ll grow.
strangled up in ivy and a kaleidoscopic spin,
breathing my vows while he dips me, achilles,
in that vile city river of sin.
u gave me the fear, i gave u the loathing
Sky Feb 2020
the rain makes the asphalt look sad and pregnant.

i turn my head for one moment and a lonely 7 train skitters by, barely grazing my left ear. i close my eyes. i close my eyes because if you look, you get sad and that's how you lose. so i look down at my feet at the soft, shimmering asphalt instead

and i watch the train through the asphalt. it torpedoes by, one silver frame at a time, like a silent film still bobbing around in its chemical bath. i continue to watch, from a safe distance.

(its like looking out the window at the cars zooming by. its all fun and safe until you reach your hand out a bit too far and the next thing you know, some ******* car up and runs away with it.
its like marriage.)

except im in college and the wheels of the train never quite touch the ground, but hover, hover over like some kind of homeless intoxicated guardian angel stranded in a sprawling urban desert.

(he lies on top a one of those BigBellys, lies on his stomach, sandaled feet dangling just inches from the ground. blink blink, goes the BigBelly. Gabriel groans,
incomprehensible muttering)

and the train throws bleachy yellow squares of light throw themselves onto upon the pregnant asphalt in fits of just destructive laughter and when they hit the ground by that time they're already hugging themselves, hugging and shaking all over like fuuuuuuck, it's sooo cold in here (in my body!) each one of em murmuring in a foreign tongue about how someone keepzon etching street names into the bathroom walls

Thayer and Broadway at 3AM on a Wednesday morning is someone's oasis, mine for as long as i stand here, my mind stumbling back n forth from one airpod to the other as i feel like im sinking down, down into the soft squishy asphalt wit the weight of my backpack making my shoulders touch the floor wit my bleachy yellow head dangling from my neck as i blink needily / cravingly / searchingly at a sidewalk that stares back at me with the most deadest honest (to godest) blankest expression i ever seen on a no-body

and when i look into its eyes i can see myself but im standing in the  middle of Times Square and -- hey -- everythings looking up! but it cant be me because im here at Thayer and Broadway dangling my head and angling it AWAY from the passing train because if you look, you get sad, you think of home, and when you think of home, thats when you really know you've lost, not sure what but you've lost and you probably cant even actually go home after youve lost because, well, mother**** it you've lost and life just likes to call you a cuck and hit you in the throat like that

but i wouldn't know, i haven't gotten that far yet
here i am standing at the intersection of Thayer and Waterman. the rain glistens on the deserted streets and it's beautiful, but really, all i want to do is go home.
SoVi Feb 2020
Gave everything you had
To a love you thought would last.

You wanted to be there
By their side till the end of time.

Favors they asked of you
Stretched you thin like paper.

Your calls and messages
Were left on read, unanswered.

You waited for them
As the sun rose and fell asleep.

When you walked away
They decided to plea and beg.

You decided this was it
This will be your last first lover.


You said goodbye
To the person that made you suffer.



© Sofia Villagrana 2020
S H Violet Feb 2020
I think I’m living in a box,
trying to hide from you.
I don’t like to lie,
but what is true anymore?
I’m sick to my stomach
that you can think of me,
claiming me as yours,
when you didn’t work for anything.

I feel like trash, I feel like dirt.
Watching you take and take,
and just sitting there
with my eyes purposely closed.
I was so lonely, I didn’t know
what it felt like to really be touched.
So I let myself get shut
up inside this way.

You’re like a greedy child

who can’t keep their hands away.
You don’t keep your hands away.
And I feel useless.
Of course I’m one of those.
Of course I don’t leave.
And remember the little girl
who promised she’d never take this?

I see the light from outside,
but he’s not getting any closer.

I don’t have him.
I can’t have him.
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