Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
svdgrl Feb 2016
too much of anything is a bad thing-
when I told her of how my teenage cousin
touched me when I was three,
a Buddhist monk with that mantra
squeezed my hand gently.
she saw the glow
overflowing in my eyes
and nodded, as the minutes rolled by
the overcast skies in her gaze
were relieving.
they reminded me that
the restraints are only
as strong as I resist,
so my hands pried
themselves from promise
and my fingers reached
the wisdom clouds above us.
they drew the rain
and let the glowing flood
be just fine.
svdgrl Feb 2016
When honesty feels like your organs are exposed-
blood is slipping out numbed wounds and it's embarrassing,
then maybe at that point, it's not just honesty.
Maybe it's a blatant self-sacrifice, like a look-at-me
look-at-my-love-for you confession,
or even an I-can-rip-my-own-skin-off-
and-show-you-what's-inside plea.
Believe you me.
You'll be a Prometheus punished daily
by reiterating the truth over and over,
only to grow a new skin overnight,
before you ever lie again.
And that honest self-sacrifice should not
be for someone unworthy.
It's a truth meant to be seen by someone
with merit.
Who wouldn't take your exposure
place it over the fire for far too short a time,
and complain while they eat it up.
The right people are hard to come by-
because real honesty is barely clean,
and rarely meant to be eaten raw.
Self-sacrifice isn't light,
isn't always healthy,
and may leave you with a sick stomach.
But if the right person sees it,
they'll stitch you back up,
drink only your tears until
you have empty eyes,
and hold you and your secrets in,
like the sweetest child they could ever love.
Stop ripping yourself open
to people who can't deal with blood,
especially yours.
svdgrl Feb 2016
ACL
I just woke from experiencing what it felt to be free
of a doctrine, of this overlying immense pressure to be righteous and respectful,
that which I've inherited from my own expectations and from those of whom I admire.
I had been touched by something even bigger than my own self perseverance-
than my connections between "the wise,"
than my science that I hold so dear.
It's almost indescribable- so bear with me
as I dig through my consciousness for a dream that could just be a great answer to our confusions.
I felt myself sifting through a softened solid
that was smooth and sunset-hued.
It stretched around me but went through me all the same.
It was warm but refreshing.
It cleared away the dichotomies, the questions, the labels into a vast spaciousness that couldn't ever make me feel loneliness because in this clear space,
there was you.
In a raw form- without explanations, without excuses, without fear,
without the taste of another on your lips,
without the pressure to exist.
Just you, and your experience floating around and through you,
in the most beautiful colors I've ever seen you don.
It was just you, and it was just me,
in soft solids of insight.
When I stepped forward, I saw your life around you,
not my interpretation riddled with negative and positive energies,
but the sights and sounds that created an indefinite understanding.
With the sunsets swimming around them.
As I got closer I began to notice my own life,
spirits of the past grazing my skin gently
and gingerly.
And when we finally were face to face,
in what might be nano-seconds
our eyes were not expectations but one,
our lips were not provocations but one,
our bodies were not vehicles but one.
And it felt comfortably fluid as we walked together in something I can only liken to acceptance.
It was fleeting, however.
I was pulled out of this by the hands of 3 AM on a Tuesday, my disappearing fever,
and desire to relieve myself from all of the water I consumed before bedtime.
The lingering feeling of insight and acceptance urged me to write,
and expel the overwhelming emotion of wishing I never woke up.
I couldn't stop sobbing
and I hadn't a clue why.
I guess it was because in this dream
I came to know
the world is crumbling around us
and all we can see are the demands and the means to be something other than oneness.
We choose be chained by these requirements,
because living in this world is not the safety of the amniotic sac that we leave behind in the past.
We should know that we could relive that every time we create something we strongly believe doesn't have to last.
I'm not sure who I've lost,
or what I've found-
but I can hope
it's knowing that we may not ever precisely touch what love is despite how much we try to render it through words
and actions,
a definitive language that gives us its tangibility.
But it can touch us.
It can touch us into being one again,
if we put our lives on pause,
It can touch us if we let it.
svdgrl Jan 2016
Somewhere along the long stretching lines
of misogyny and misunderstanding,
******* and child-******* became
false-terms that were accepted by the masses
to describe small exploited human beings,
survivors.
and **** became a title boys and men aspired
to achieve, and not quite directly the
selfish manipulative sociopathic ****
that it really entailed.
Thank you, Curtis Jackson.
In case no one has screamed it enough,
It's January 2016 folks.
Let's place ourselves in some perspective.
The stories are never just one,
but I'm getting angry and I'm fortunate
enough to be able to speak.
I've got privileges that need to be checked,
too.
Let's check off the privilege that I haven't been abducted
or coerced at 12 by he who claimed that I was wise beyond my years,
and plucked out of my family to do his bidding
under the guise of a mature relationship.
He's 26, but all I can see is the fact I could be older
than the other girls. An old soul in a small pre-pubescent body.
Which is what they tell you to make you feel special.
Let's check off the privilege that
I'm not given those funny feeling drugs to help me
cope with pain of losing my "virginity" to a high-rolling old man
who was fond of his size.
Let's check off the privilege
that even if I do manage to escape the slavery that I'm put in,
I'm labeled as a *** and used up and too ****** up to really be better,
by both my family and my peers
You don't have to cover your ears and eyes,
because you think you can't see me.
You think I'm over seas or in some true detective podunk village
in middle America.
You think I'm not in your school-yard or
I wasn't the girl you teased for being pregnant in middle school,
the one that disappeared and never came back.
That I might not be your troubled niece who keeps hanging with the wrong crowd and going to boarding school this summer,
but she runs away from home before she's sent off.
But we keep blaming *** education, welfare and alternative schooling as the bane of our children,
all these ads for awareness and underfunded programs to aid them
are quickly shoveled under the thick heavy expensive rugs of the Kardashians and Wests,
the golden globes and the best dressed,
and those horrendous child beauty pageants.
Let's stop absorbing this filler material that we shovel into our
kids brains,
and maybe teach our little boys what it means to be privileged,
and to protect by learning to respect.
Our little girls how far they can reach if they learn to never second guess their worth.
It begins with us. Let's stop turning a blind-eye and shut ear,
because we fear making a commitment to the belief
that men and women should be equal.
That yes, not all men,
but yes there are women,
and our experience is not the only story that needs to be understood.
And everyone has a privilege that needs to be checked,
but check your own first.
January is human-trafficking and slavery awareness month.
It exists among us, all.
Let's stop being part of the problem and learn how we can help.
svdgrl Jan 2016
I never thought I could ever feel so nervous,
and so proud looking in the mirror.
Sister, in some ways our resemblance is uncanny
and that never makes me feel terrible.
Even if we both cling to our bottles of perfume,
nailpolish, and beer
to remedy our despairs,
I'm proud of you.
I love how you don't ever leave your effervescence at home.
It's contagious, and everyone eventually wants a sip.
You found your beauty quite recently-
but I want you to know its always been there,
it began when your eyes first became
those thick lashed squints
from smiling too hard.
You admire things, and they admire you back.
I hope you won't forget that
when you chase what seems to be difficult.
Sister, I know there are days where you
don't see what greatness you deserve,
when you believe you have to be sorry for
your *****.
I know it because I've seen you, and I know it
because I do the same.
You always remind me to never apologize.
And now I do you.
Sister, don't let that crown fall over those
smiling eyes.
You are stronger than the chance you might be sad.
You are finer than the fool who won't call back.
You are better than the boy who should be a man.
You carry troubled teenage girls over your shoulders
every single day.
You save them, as much as you can and give them that warmth.
Don't forget to warm yourself.
Because the heat travels, sister.
I feel it too.
You always tell me I move you but I always think my words couldn't possibly do you any justice. You're a spectacular woman, please don't forget that.
svdgrl Jan 2016
I am your favorite red lipstick
that got away,
the expensive one your mother gave you
because she had an extra.
I used to grip the sheen of your swears,
while you pressed me against
dinner napkins before meals.
I know the words you'd like to say,
the curses you'd breathe.
I taste your grief.
You want me to return,
you won't come to terms
with the thought that I might think
I just look a little better on her
pallid pallid skin.
You've inhaled spores today,
it's your day off and you're trying
to forget you ever lost me.
Writhing with our friends.
You're afraid of blood.
But you love the sauce.
Your skin is crimson,
flushed from the heat.
What a shock
to know,
it was you
that came on
a little too strong.
Next page