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vanessa Nov 2019
in the moments before dawn you’ll hear whispers: haunted breaths 
that scrape your neck like glass fingernails, razorblades in the liminality of time; 
the music in your ears will ring like church bells and 
crack like porcelain spoons in ceramic hands. the clouds will call your name, 
dip it in the sea and stain it grey, and you’ll wish you could get it back
but you’ll find yourself muted, your vocal chords tangled, 
knotted, and slit by stiffened swords in the arms of the enslaved. Cape Horn beckons
and we pretend not to hear. Senegal polishes her silver knife & I pretend that I am not unfaithful to Alexandro’s memory. if there’s no way 
to unlock my wrists then don’t bother looking for land, just turn 
my vessel around and let my eyes search for the gaze of the mountain. if there’s no way 
to silence my mind then don’t bother whispering in my ears, 
don’t be naive, 
don’t play games with me unless you can dock the ship. when the clock turns three, 
go tell Bartholomew he can take my body, it’s not mine and 
I don’t want it anymore, the blood on my neck may be my blood but 
it belongs to the blade, so tell him,
turn my bones into skeleton keys and Aranda will show you the way. 
I’ll follow your leader if you follow me, I promise, 
I promise, I promise unbroken dreams in Delano’s unbroken hands. although
my wrists are bound by plastic chains, I’ll still tell you 
to watch your step because the planks beneath your feet 
are echoing with the phantoms of lost crowns whether or not you can 
feel the spirits in the air. you can’t see but your jeweled massacres 
have bled into the suds twined around your neck,
My Dear Amasa, 
I wonder what you’d say if you knew that
there will be no sunrise.
inspired by melville's benito cereno
vanessa May 2019
build me a city
and i will paint you in gold. when we stand on the towers
everything becomes a shooting star
a question not of if but when they will hit the ground
and not when but if they will crash before we do. there are
galaxies beyond the scope of what we think
is beautiful, what is human
and what is perfect.
build me a temple and i will
worship your gods. the land at our feet
is a coagulation of shimmering glass,
of lightning on beaches
paint me in prayer and i will walk with you to the ends of the oceans.
good night,
good morning,
paint me a village and i will build you a sunbeam
when the light hits your cheekbones
i call it home.
  Mar 2019 vanessa
em
my days aren't good days
or bad days
they are just
days.

and they never stop
crawling forward
with me
trapped inside
them.
vanessa Sep 2018
he brings you petals in the morning
from mismatched flowers
blown away by the wind and drowned
by the dew
you meet him by the door and watch
the sun kiss his cheekbones
you grow a little bit each time you see the flowers
tucked against the lapels of his suit

you are his dandelion, and he your flower boy
you love him with the simple power of nature
ponder the wonders of harmony as he drags his leaves
against your jaw

his pressed petals
make you wonder how
could this get any better
you are a juxtaposition of dress shoes
bathed in marigold
comprised only of truth

what we believe is what we become

and so you never realise how
dress shoes crush dandelions
how ‘flower boys’ wilt into truth
craving the power of ripped petals and cracked stems
blown away into the wind

// hindsight

oh my flower boy
you have forgotten my marigold sunsets
amongst your dandelion dreams
how you wish i were as fragile as
those petals in the wind
vanessa Mar 2018
draw laughs from your lungs
shove cries back through your chest
press words out through your lips

paper tongues mean nothing when the monsters breathe fire

and no one can silence them

and no one ever tries 'cause
no one ever knows they’re there
vanessa Mar 2018
we’re just teenagers
hair whipping in our beat-up trucks teenagers
gas station food at 3 am teenagers
love too hard and lose yourself teenagers

some people wonder why we hate
everything

we touch the rays of sunrise
with our snapchat flower crowns
and skate park supernovas
and with our glass-pane-collarbones
peeking out from black bomber jackets,
fragile fingertips emerge from sweater paws.

we capture our feelings in polaroids
our emotions swallowed up
by bottles and our youth
it’s the life we think we know

and all they ever wanted us to do
was crack

we’re just teenagers
soda can sizzle teenagers
lungfuls of shattered dreams teenagers
disintegration conversation teenagers

but the reason why we break so easily
is because we’re humans too.
yikes is this an aesthetic

— The End —