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 Oct 2016 Xander Duncan
Audrey
Lyssa
 Oct 2016 Xander Duncan
Audrey
If you can hear me,
If you can see me, or sense me, or
Imagine the taste of sea salt on my skin,
Know that I love you.
Deep and full, warm and soft,
I love you with the span of my hands and
The curve of my spine,
With poems and paintings and a smile
With clean sheets and a bottle of wine,
Come home to me.
Nest yourself in beside my sternum and let my heartbeat sync with yours,
Let my stomach fill with sunburst rainbow butterflies
When you giggle
Let me revel in your voice and bask in the comfort of your fingers laced with mine
It’s not Romeo and Juliet or the moon and the tide, but
I love you like 2 am pillow fights and baking cookies on a rainy afternoon,
I love you like listening to the frogs in the pond
and singing to every song on the radio,
I love you like galaxies colliding and old bookstores,
I love you like dancing on the sidewalk and neither of us can dance to save our lives
So we end up just holding each other and laughing,
Flowers twined in your hair and your legs all tangled up with mine  
And the sky is so so incredible it takes my breath away till I remember your eyes
Because I love you.
 Jul 2015 Xander Duncan
Audrey
Lucky
 Jul 2015 Xander Duncan
Audrey
When I was 7, I thought I was the luckiest person in the world
Because I found two four-leaf clovers on the same day
So I made a wish, to know how my story would end
And this year has shown me that I am god ****** lucky.
Lucky in a second-chance,
Once-in-a-lifetime miracle sort of way
That makes my fingertips tingle every time I think about it
Lucky in a breath-taking, tear-inducing way that makes me hold my friends and family tight behind my closed eyes
Lucky in a not-everyone-is-this-lucky realization
That forces me to line up my blessings on the countertop and count them,
Then count them again.
I am lucky, that when I decided to take myself out of this world
I fell onto the hugs and clasped hands of
People who would move continents
Just so I'd have someplace stable to stand.
I was fortunate that the nurse on suicide watch in my hospital room
Asked me to call her Ellie and let me cry on her shoulder during games of checkers.
I thought it was auspicious that the mental hospital served tapioca pudding that tasted just like my dad's,
Bringing memories of cold nights and warm smiles.
It was even favorable that I threw up before I got to the emergency room
Because the doctor looked me in the eyes and said
"If all that had stayed in your stomach,
You would be...not standing here right now"
It was reassuring that he didn't say the word "dead" to my face.

I am lucky, not only to be here, but
To want to be here, to want to breathe this moment
Because once you've spent time in the darkness
It's hard to come back to the light
Now 7 year old me knows I'm lucky enough
My story will not end in darkness.
Work in progress
 Mar 2015 Xander Duncan
Audrey
How the **** do you go from calling me
Baby girl to
*****?
Keep your soft kisses to yourself
Even when the thought of my hips
Let's you whisper in my ear
All the things
You'd love to see.
Stop.
I was yours only as long as
Your smile was wide enough to let me fly
Even cages of gold are still metal enough
To damage the wings of a butterfly.
I made myself vulnerable to you.
You grasped my trust by the neck and
Carelessly let your fingers tighten.
And yet...
I was the problem,
After you forced me to my knees with shame and
Promises that could never be and
The flush in my cheeks when you said how you'd touch me -
I was the one who smothered your heart
When you held your arms over my head so
All I could see was your scars,
And I cried for you
Apparently that makes me abusive,
Telling you to respect my body after I
Let you see the parts of me that inspire
All of my fear and shame
Makes me unstable.
Tell me...how can you go from
Loving my eyes to hating the truth in them
When we stare through the doorway to
A future I shut and locked the window on -
Don't give me the key.
 Feb 2015 Xander Duncan
Audrey
Dear you,
I know it's difficult.
I know up think your family dislikes you and
You feel like you have no friends
It's a struggle, I know,
To wake up,
To get up,
To stand up and stare and
Pretend to be interested in the people around you.
I know it hurts when you feel like a
Black-and-white character
In a technicolor Disney world.
I know.
Dear you,
You've had hard nights,
I know
When I say "stay safe"
And all you can reply is "I'll try"
When I beg you "please, live"
And all you can answer is
"but I don't want to"
I know.
I've been there, deep down inside my own heart
Where goodness and blue skies are a million miles away
I know it feels like it will not
Ever
Get better,
Feels like you're choking,
Feeling like the world is melting
I know.
But dear you -
You have made a difference because you made
Me
Feel beautiful.
Curse me, hate me, never speak to me again
But I will never forget that.
If society says you do nothing of value
For the rest if your natural life
You will still be great because you made me
Feel like I was worth something.
I will be seventy, eighty, ninety years old
And I will remember the way you made me
Feel
And I will smile
And know that I'm beautiful
And that makes you worth it all.
 Dec 2014 Xander Duncan
Audrey
Smoke
 Dec 2014 Xander Duncan
Audrey
She smelled like cigarettes
And the way the yellow street lamp sparked bright on her yellow teeth almost made him shudder, keep driving
But he didn't care, he wanted -no, needed
It
Her
Needed to see the back alley dust in the creases of her elbows
Needed to feel the visceral pull of
Skin on skin, fingers twisted in hair
To feel he was alive.
She tasted like cigarettes.
She never was able to kick them
Wanted a pack a day but could only afford
A smoke every 6 hours
Every 6 hours, like clockwork
Stumbling through the back door,
Desperately reaching for a light.
She counted herself lucky that her only vice was smoking
(the ******* the corner opposite had a
nasty coke habit)
Yet he didn't care what she tasted like,
Just that he was tasting her,
Feeling her,
Drugged on the way her eyelashes caught the light and the way her breath
Rasped the slightest bit when he grabbed her hand.
He was a regular, got good treatment
She knew to treat him good, don't complain
Still she couldn't help but feel degraded,
Worthless when her face was pressed to the ground,
Focusing on breathing and trying to shut out
His little gasps and noises as he got what he paid for
Still she couldn't believe where her life had gone,
On her knees, ignore the fact she was
Half an hour late to her smoke break, because she was here making a living.
She can only buy her cigarettes because  
She knows *** sells.
 Nov 2014 Xander Duncan
Audrey
Insecurities and scars, well worn and in need of love.
I'm stuck between wanting love while having romance

Living the dream while dreaming about life

Cuddling against your warm body

With a smile

Knowing it was just *** for you

While wishing I could say the same

I'm stuck between I hate this while I want this

Hating your disposition while loving your confliction

Of whether our pain is worth the sensation

Or if the seduction is worth the loss

Of not knowing

If it could one day

Be way more than

"Just ***"

I just want to live in Today

Without wondering about Tomorrow

Even though Yesterday you reminded me again

And Today you reminded me again

And Tomorrow you'll remind me again

Stop it!

I know!

I know you're leaving

I know you aren't coming back

Just let me have right now

Let me savor in what it feels like to be in love

Let me worry about the pain Tomorrow

I know there will never be an "us"

But what scares me more

Is losing you entirely

I can handle Tomorrow when it comes

Please just let me have today
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