"breathlessness" poems
Rising
Falling
Cicada Waves
Teach me to Breathe
in the Depths of Breathlessness
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 3:32 PM UTC
Take me down while standing tall
into shattered pieces fall
laughing now tears rush by
rolling down from this high
what is known, what is seen
wash this battered mind to clean
watch me smile here and past
rictus grins that will not last
knowing of the pain to come
colouring each and every moment fun
screaming now in joy or pain
always have they felt the same
only in this sea at dark
when light is gone and hope depart
there i find that fateful step
to take me up the slope so swept
then i smile, i laugh once more
offer myself as emotions *****
though in that moment of breathlessness
where i don't have to face this test
there is a hope that i'll just stop
no more struggle to that top
dear ocean then, call my soul
let me pretend that i am whole
for i would swim the waters again
please, let me swim the waters again.
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 9:06 PM UTC
My doctor told me to find a more healthy way to release my stress.
She said that taking two hours to fall asleep every night was rather unhealthy.
So, she told me to come home and to write about the things that relax me.
Here we are.
Every day a thousand things run through my mind. I can't breathe because school sits on my shoulders. My job crushes me slowly and my family physically causes me pain. But through so many foggy images I can see you through them all.
I can reach out and almost touch you even when I am alone in my room and I cannot get up because the panic has literally crushed me.
You are there in the simplest way.
The few moments in my life when I think the only way out is to let the weight of the world crush me entirely I can feel you.
The times that everything is in pieces and I am vulnerable and on the floor of my bedroom sobbing, you happen to walk in.
You physically pick me up and you carry me to safety.
A bath and you will bathe me and you will hold me and I will collapse and you will support me.
You carry me to my bed and put on a vinyl and a candle and you clean my room because it being ***** stresses me out.
You turn the lights off and the fans on and you consume me in your warmth.
You kiss the demons away and you strip off the suffocating clothing on me.
You make love to me and you wipe away terrible tears and you drench me in your love.
The seconds become minutes and minutes are now hours and you spend what is almost days with me in my bed wrapping your body around mine.
I cannot breathe still but now it is the best kind of breathlessness. The kind that happens when you see heaven in the eyes of a human and your life is paused while you try to remember how it all happened.
I am crushed still but now with the weight of your love.
But there is no pain. None. Only the most beautiful feeling my small body has ever felt.
And in the moments of bedroom bliss I am free. I am free of those things that eat at me and those thoughts that stress me to tears.
With you I am free.
Nov 23, 2013
Nov 23, 2013 at 9:14 PM UTC
*Hungered for a taste
of your elixir's essence,
drunken inhalations
of your poetry
a splendiferous whirl
of time & space 'tween
darkly scented moons
and sun's adoration,
blithe starry nights
amidst meditative new
dawn's effervesce,
spirited of the heart,
gleaned in the soul,
yearnings of another
chapter's paradise
universal experiences
etched of hourglass sand,
written upon endlessly
chimerical verses
wildflower gardens drenched
of dandelion's plum wine
swooning under a
hypnotic scripted spell,
intoxicating power
of unchained symphonies
dancing amongst skies'
released euphoria
resonating in a song's
reprised melodies,
breathlessness of delirium's
celestial pauses
in vaporous breezes'
unfurling undulation,
captivated by rhythmic
destiny reverberating in
loins' pleasurable calling
quenched of sacred
offering's quell
transcending earthly
persuasions' rhyme,
let me lick the nectar from
your poesy's insatiable lips,
sweet mercy's healing
captured in rapturous
surrender's reawakening ~*
*Je veux que vous tous,
tu me manques*
Ce que vous manquez de moi?
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:05 AM UTC
The infinity of lights made her feel infinite
Safe
Like all the light would drive out the dark in this glowing city
One
She was as vast as the vast city around her
New York
Chicago
Seattle
all
or
None of the above
Dream World
Safe
Safe enough to jump
Not really to jump
Maybe more to fly
The fear did not affect her action
In her hazy dream world city
She could fly she thought
She places her feet on the slippery unforgiving iron
Stepping Up
Looking Down
The fear was still not there
This was not a suicidal act
She wanted to jump
Not so much to jump as to fly
King of this concrete jungle
The ***** of the heart
The pulse of the hand
The breathlessness
The final step
Shes soaring now
Shes falling now
flying:soaring:floating
falling:flailing:breaking
you won't break yourself if you believe you can't
There's the confliction
The child that believes she can fly
The grown girl who lays broken to die
Her body is broken like a cartoon
Like Wile E cayote after falling off some boulder
There was a whole body
There was not
blood
guts
or reality
Hazy dreamworld city
In this flowing capital she beams with a twisted sense of perseverance
She sustains no injuries
Like tripping on those uneven breaks of pavement
They say you're never supposed to sleep through the falls in the falling dreams
The pit of the stomach
Winded
Clammy
Punched in the stomach
Falling Dreams
Yet she did
Why was the fear not there?
It was not in her sleep cycle
not on top of the skyscraper in hazy dreamworld city
She saw her broken body rise to life
Why could she sleep through the fall?
And the next sky scraper she fell from
...Not in hazy dreamworld city
...Would she walk away?
Was she jumping from the money that built that skyscraper?
Or the classic Freudian symbol, dream specialists might contend
Translation of one image onto another
So I was jumping away from men
Commitment
What's new?
Spend money and time
Loose friends and crime
Jumping away from reality
Soaring now
Falling now
Falling into the flowing light of the hazy dreamworld city
As flies will always return to fluorescent light bulbs, naive
Like if she got close enough to it
She would become it
She would consume it
The light would consume her
Illuminated
The dark expelled to the smallest corners of this earth
flying in this hazy dreamworld city.
Jun 24, 2012
Jun 24, 2012 at 7:16 PM UTC
It's the blend of black and white
The collapsing of good and evil
Like parallel universes becoming one
Like the pull of an angel to the dark side
Or of a devil redeemed
Or like two children at play
rolling down opposite sided hills
Until they meet in the middle of a valley
But gray is not just two colors combined
It is a feeling too
Like an uninvited dark cloud
Looming over head
Crowding you in an empty room
Gray can even be a sensation
A feeling of breathlessness
Despite knowing that your lungs work perfectly
It is the color of numbness
Of no personality and "I don't care"
Its the color of not having an appetite
And a lack of social interaction
Gray is the black and white feeling of a panic attack
When the lights start to blend together
But that slowly turn black as you start to disassociate from the world around you
And you only hear your ears ringing and your heart beat
Heart beat...
The one thing that makes us real
The one thing that we all have in common.
BUT we have more than just hearts
We have minds
Minds that make the human race diverse
Gray is the color of diversity
It represents the complete blend of black and white
To think of the world in black and white would be a crime
Not because there is never a right or a wrong
But because when you see the world in gray,
You witness a world of beauty, pain, error
Emotions that don't exist in clean margins
I love the world that I see in gray.
Can you see it too?
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 12:09 PM UTC
Beyond the butterfly feelings
In the whirlwind of our intimacy
A full option sensual desire
Distance distancing distance
All at once till we hit the ******
The zenith of pleasures and feels
Like the breakthrough of Miracles
Sounds of Soughs, ex and in hales
Hot Moments of breathlessness
Scratches of speechlessness
Mouth agape, dead-in-moments
long squeezes, short grips, sweats
Body vibrating, breath whispering
Emotions revealing, turn ons
Passions imploding, hard ons
Intense kinetic motions of kardias
Slippery shining fleshy mammalians
Till the moment of implosion: ******
That sweet ecstasy moment when
all that exists is what you feel
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 10:09 AM UTC
When I look at myself, I am not beautiful.
My feet are twisted and gnarled like the wood of an old tree.
My limbs are gangly and thin.
My eyes are too large,
My hair is too straight and too dark,
And my ******* are too small.
In the mirror each day, I cannot tell myself I am a radiant woman.
But when the music starts, I shine.
The notes hit me like rays of the setting sun, and every hue of grace and passion is splayed across
The folds of my dress,
The arch of my back,
The curve of my ankle,
The stretch of my throat.
Each harmony, each crest and fall of sound and feeling
Is a wave that breaks over me,
And I am lost.
I drown in emotion, in the distinct expression of self that only movement can allow,
And in that moment, I forget beauty.
I forget love and hatred and pain and joy, and as I forget I am freed.
I forget because they no longer belong to me.
I have given them to the melody,
To the dance which draws them out of me like venom-
The next move, fraught with the tension of 'goodbye forever',
The next turn, spun by the unraveling of my heart,
The next leap, lent weightless wings by the joy of a first kiss,
The next slow reach carved from the desperation of 'it's all my fault'.
As they leave me, they become me, crashing down on the audience I've also forgotten, burning the bright after-image of my soul into the shadows of theirs.
I have never seen myself beautiful.
I have never looked. I have forgotten to look.
For when the music hits me, it turns me in on myself, and I can see nothing but my own spirit- a shower white hot of sparks-
And the cascade of the notes in folds of velvet against my mind.
I have never seen beautiful, but I have felt it.
It feels like a smooth silk shoe and blisters on my feet,
It feels like the trickle of sweat along my brow and the stab of muscle cramps in my legs, and the scrape of hairpins and sequins.
It feels like breathlessness when the curtains open.
It feels like the worn wooden stage upon which my heart may bleed all it wants.
For it does, it gushes, and it is the ugliness of passion.
It is terrifying, it is raw, it is light-starved and beaten, it is all I have.
And when I get up on a stage, people call it beauty.
Dec 29, 2012
Dec 29, 2012 at 8:11 PM UTC
The infinity of lights made her feel infinite
Safe
Like all the light would drive out the dark in this glowing city
One
She was as vast as the vast city around her
New York
Chicago
Seattle
all
or
None of the above
Dream World
Safe
Safe enough to jump
Not really to jump
Maybe more to fly
The fear did not affect her action
In her hazy dream world city
She could fly she thought
She places her feet on the slippery unforgiving iron
Stepping Up
Looking Down
The fear was still not there
This was not a suicidal act
She wanted to jump
Not so much to jump as to fly
King of this concrete jungle
The ***** of the heart
The pulse of the hand
The breathlessness
The final step
Shes soaring now
Shes falling now
flying:soaring:floating
falling:flailing:breaking
you won't break yourself if you believe you can't
There's the confliction
The child that believes she can fly
The grown girl who lays broken to die
Her body is broken like a cartoon
Like Wile E cayote after falling off some boulder
There was a whole body
There was not
blood
guts
or reality
Hazy dreamworld city
In this flowing capital she beams with a twisted sense of perseverance
She sustains no injuries
Like tripping on those uneven breaks of pavement
They say you're never supposed to sleep through the falls in the falling dreams
The pit of the stomach
Winded
Clammy
Punched in the stomach
Falling Dreams
Yet she did
Why was the fear not there?
It was not in her sleep cycle
not on top of the skyscraper in hazy dreamworld city
She saw her broken body rise to life
Why could she sleep through the fall?
And the next sky scraper she fell from
...Not in hazy dreamworld city
...Would she walk away?
Was she jumping from the money that built that skyscraper?
Or the classic Freudian symbol, dream specialists might contend
Translation of one image onto another
So I was jumping away from men
Commitment
What's new?
Spend money and time
Loose friends and crime
Jumping away from reality
Soaring now
Falling now
Falling into the flowing light of the hazy dreamworld city
As flies will always return to fluorescent light bulbs, naive
Like if she got close enough to it
She would become it
She would consume it
The light would consume her
Illuminated
The dark expelled to the smallest corners of this earth
flying in this hazy dreamworld city.
Jun 24, 2012
Jun 24, 2012 at 7:19 PM UTC
“Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. - Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
nov 1, 09
you had me standing with chattering teeth in the novemeber chill. the first time i had spoken to you in weeks. i was holding myself together so well. and then i broke. like you knew i would. hell we both knew it.
red box.hat.scent.shirts.skin.warmth.silence.depth.heart.wrecking.
were held to the touch of wrong. the sweet eyes of hidden truth. you have now set me up twice but i like being taken advantage of when its you taking.i am the perfect descripiton of your sweetest downfall, your only downfall.i want this all to come. come straight into me again like you always did. i mean i saw you smile when you wanted to walk away. but something in you made you stay.you could have broken my grip in half but instead you laughed at the jokes you wished you didnt have to hear. and i know this never happened. we never happened.ever. so im writing about a night that didnt exist.your hands slipping over skin.trembling under the brush of your hand.shaking all over like it was happening all over again.
“everything is so ****** up now. what do we have to lose now? everythings all ****** up.”
“am i just going crazy cuz i miss you?”-atmosphere.
i think you were impressed by the outcome of my words.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 1:38 PM UTC
For what it's worth i loved you.
Even when my eyes were too afraid to meet yours.
I just wanted to escape the breathlessness of being near you.
I was waiting for the rain to pass over our circumstances.
My heart was like a never ending earthquake.
The beautiful landscape of your mind was never the reason.
For what it's worth i really loved you.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 6:11 PM UTC
I long for the animal you hide
Won't you come out to play?
You won't know unless you've tried
This space is safe, promise it's okay
I am going to leave my mark
One way or another
Raw untamed fervid spark
It is you I am going to smother
Let the voracious hunger mount
Escalating each minute
Primal breathlessness paramount
You are your own limit
I'm not going to make love to you
I utter rather sweetly
Neither am I going to **** you
But own you...... completely
I want to tear you apart
Don't make any sudden moves
Pulsating beat of your heart
Every inch of me approves
I want to forget my own name
While I'm busy moaning yours
I promise to start quite tame
Until you are out of your drawers
My body I do herby bestow
Let me show you how
I whisper in your ear and let you know
The time is Now
Oct 16, 2017
Oct 16, 2017 at 1:52 PM UTC
Blood-soaked blue sky
Smell our vinaigrette of helplessness
The honey crying chords of a zillion golden cubs
Roots that won’t die
Bursting through us
Dark crimson walls high
Too shame our innards
Tear-drenched rain
Draining our conscience
Pulling us toward the marble migraine
Where blinded gerents continue the measured deterrent
Of life desperate
Keeping hearts from heads
And minds from mouths
Away from this marble pavement
High up top, in cobwebs of restitched tapestry
Skeleton beast, less beastly in breathlessness...
A surge of sun spurged light in clustered cusps
Blows into this lecher
To carry our vividness
Like pappus in great gusts...
Aug 20, 2025
Aug 20, 2025 at 7:42 PM UTC
I sip my beer, the relief of foam
the last remnant of civilisation
like a porcupine shawl
alcohol is the spine slice
beneath the skin
welcoming me in.
Electric lights shining bright
eels wriggling in a pool of light
like Frankenstein reborn
the monster within
the feathers of a passing dove give flight.
Sometimes I feel like grilled asparagus
the breathlessness of sentiments
wrapped in tin foil
the coil of perfection at gas mark 7.
Sitting in my bathtub and a 3 piece suit
electric toaster bubble and squeak
and fidgety machete at the ready
the voice in my head says, 'hey man, steady!'
the institute transmutes its underplay
I opt to not execute on this occasion
instead soak up the libation of liberation.
Safe in the knowledge;
tomorrow is another day.
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 7:16 PM UTC
He lost his wings at birth
Soaked in the misery of nothingness
Child caught the face of a dejected mum
Dad gasps for breadth in vanity of time
What lurks in the darkness beyond?
Where is the answer, the poor child reels
Eyes glinted at ignorant jubilation
Not again, the village moaned uneasily
Wings refused to flap inspiration
Sun refused to dry soaked misery rule
Conscious of the stream of pain not long
On and on breathlessness overcomes hopeful desire
Heart overflows with helplessness
Birds fly around filling the air with hope
Child closes eyes not to twig bitterness
So that sorrow could fly away
All at once the days come by
No means to endure the crunch of time
Denial by the offensive of futility of all
Rescue for survival nowhere to find
Staring the freshness of gentle breeze
Hope wades in with a struggle to live
‘Abrakadabra’ the witch doctor screams
So that sorrow could fly away
Don’t give up my brother
Determination beckons with authority
Sorrow and hopelessness dumped on the side
So that no other child sees it no more
Holding firm to tomorrow that is not lonely
Misery in abyss pushed aside to give way
Alas the flower glows and sweetness flows
Like the river of life beyond comprehension
Fly away your sorrow.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 4:21 PM UTC
You’re so close to the stars. i wonder if you can hear the secrets i told the constellations that one night i got lost on the roof trying to find my way without you. maybe you’ll get lost in the darkness up there and feel the way i feel when i get lonely sometimes. you’re going to cities I’ve never seen and you’ll be walking on roads my feet haven’t touched and in a way I’m jealous of the new air you get to breathe. the little intricate fibres that make up my lungs are burning with this constant northern oxygen I’ve been force feeding them. i wonder what its like to breath you in at 30, 000 ft above sea level going 600 miles per hour. i wonder if my lungs would burn out of blissful breathlessness for you. I wonder what jet lag looks when it's painted across your face. i hate being on planes, but I’m so curious about how tightly you’d let me hold your hand up there. until i met you i didn’t understand why people thought it would be so special to travel around the world with another person, because i’d always thought it would be better to be lost alone. but i get high off the thought of walking european streets with you.
Aug 17, 2015
Aug 17, 2015 at 4:56 AM UTC
it all starts to blur together and every day fades further from the horizon.
every word uttered, every smile grinned, every surface touched
falls short from the whole when not lead back to you.
I haven't recognized my name since it was last spoken from your mouth.
I haven't let my hands float above the sunroof as I've traveled down each lonely highway, stretching farther away from you.
I haven't exhaled all the air in my lungs or been able to relax all the tension in my muscles from their constant preparation for the crash-
waiting on standby only makes the blow more painful.
I haven't been able to swim in the ocean without feeling your love.
you're like a tide, pulling me back and shooting me out again, crashing over my body with immense pressure, yet so soothing- coating every cell on my body with liquid- you pour over me and drown me whole.
I haven't been able to sleep the same.
Every time they ask me how I'm doing or if I still love you, I mutter about the "not enoughness" and the lack of, while staring at my hands, trying to retrace the last time i ate a full meal or fell asleep for more than three hours.
The one thing I run back to kills me like a bullet, firing all the way through:
The smoke in my lungs mimics the breathlessness I felt when you choked my throat
It's turning me to ashes,
but I choose to not get better.
There's some correlation between the way your existence has haunted me like a ghost,
Sticking to my skin like all this inhaled smoke,
Demanding for the light to be left on in case you wander from the unknown-
Back to your garden, your chokehold, your throne.
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 9:11 PM UTC
Her lips scream
" KISS ME "
Then whisper
" kiss me now "
At once
a thousand nerve-ends wake
electricity
rampant beneath
tender
sweet
candyfloss skin
Anticipating contact
her inner rhythms quicken
from ‘ bump-n-grind ’
to ‘ swing-beat ’
Hearts play along
to the new tune now
She smiles with those eyes
the message of her mouth
Delight
I understand at once
Replying
without reaching for a word
No second thoughts invade
the privacy of spontaneity
I just move to accept
this luscious invite
In a flash
ecstatic urges awaken
erotica in our minds
as we close
our telltale eyes
a split second before
the precious
perfect impact
Seems magnetically
heads tilt
Moving closer
till our silently screaming
half-opened mouths
knowingly meet
in once vacant space
Intentions projected
instantly accepted
Mouths
express new feeling
Tongues
take on new meaning
Suggestions
of intensity requesting
passions
yet to be fulfilled
The warm silk
snake of temptation
reacts to vibration
Twisting
Rolling
Curling
*******
Chewing
Playfully biting
Unspoken promises
Exciting
She plays a sensual game
Active / Passive
Strong / Soft
Control / Yield
Secrets revealed
Releasing for a moment
our mesmeric communion
Poised in breathlessness
we stare
as we subtly swallow
the essence
of our watery endeavour
Eyes smile
that insatiable smile
Still thirsting
chemical reactions
conceived by our emotions
Speed of light sensations
send shivers down our spine
Time
sleeps for a moment
Lost
in a fragment of dreamscape
we too escape
“ Mmmmmmm ”
The gentle sigh
waves through the air
We lose contact
with our unwelcome surrounds
as once again we entwine
to re-enact
the passage of our bliss
A repeat
of erogenous stimulation
replays the symphony of desire
in a higher vibration
Mouths in motion
mirror dancing
Automatic reactions
assume control
Whilst my mind
Is with her mind
my Soul
is with her Soul
Her grip tightens
Wanting more
wanton more
Red-hot
lava in the veins
seeking to surface
in a fiery eruption
Our watery essence
Seems to feed the flames
Yearning
I hear her
Burning
I feel her
Softening
Stiffening
Pulsing
I'm in her.
Jul 7, 2010
Jul 7, 2010 at 3:49 PM UTC
I'm stuck in this room
Trapped by the decaying white walls
That I scrape away at,
Mindlessly, as I shift
From medicated dreams to
Manic insomnia.
I thought the last thing I said to you was
Don't leave me here.
My eyes bleed
As I try to remove the demons
Infesting me,
Creeping through my lashes
Into my irises.
The droplets stain the walls,
Fingerprinting my frenzied panic,
Echoing the last thing I said to you.
Why did you leave me here?
The air is intoxicating,
Shifting from breathlessness to weightlessness.
I'm sure they poison me here.
And you, the fallen angel of my thoughts,
You fiendish whisperer,
You have felt my fear,
Witnessed its brutality
In its shifting manifestations,
But still you left me here.
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 2:31 PM UTC
Do you remember the humid red that stained your cheeks?
Do you recall the sultry desire that overran your judgments?
Do you maybe reminisce on the unsynchronized gasping of needed breath?
Do you recollect on ripped clothing during insistent moments of unshakeable craving?
Because it was this unshakeable craving that controlled you, it overtook you and you forgot to resist. It was this unshakeable craving that let you remember, recall, reminisce, recollect on your sticky love.
Do you remember the burning of skin as you transferred heat?
Or the pressing up against the door?
Or curled toes?
Or the paralyzing quivers?
Do you recollect on the sweatiness amongst the heavy sheets?
Do you perhaps reminisce on how it felt like an addiction you couldn’t overcome?
Do you recall the “no-it’s-not”, but really it was?
Because really, it was.
It was the sum of these parts, but they oddly equated to more.
It was this “no-it’s-not”, when really it was, that let you remember, recall, reminisce, recollect on your sticky love.
Do you remember what it was?
Do you recall wanting, needing, yearning?
Do you recollect messy hair, breathlessness, than the stillness?
Do you reminisce on this quiet stillness?
Because it was this stillness that lets you remember, recall, recollect on, reminisce on your sticky love.
May 14, 2012
May 14, 2012 at 7:11 PM UTC
“I’m unraveling,” she said.
“Where’s the thread?” he asked. “I’ll pull it.”
Pull a thread and this dense fear
spins out and away into gales
like bits of flying paper
like cyclones
like breathlessness.
Then my life floats down
in a clean white line:
a declaration
a direction.
Exhaled, unraveled.
Feb 15, 2010
Feb 15, 2010 at 2:23 PM UTC
Quenched your thirst with nothingness
That final night we spoke,
Strangled by the Dragon's claws
Until your wristwatch broke.
It stained your lips, your fingertips
The membrane of your nose;
The queerest shade of mushroom blue
I'd ever then behold.
And were it not for breathlessness
That swallowed up the sound
I'd found the shade befitting of
The body on the ground.
As children, brave, you sailed away
More places than I'd go.
I followed each resounding path
And lived as your echo.
Motivation to taste the dregs
Of an oblivion
Was not a path I'd trace myself
Or follow where you'd been
I broke off, denied the blue
Before it stained me dead
I should have stayed a pace behind
To share the way I'd tread
You're Peter Pan at twenty-two
And nevermore a day
I watched the stars up in the sky
And saw you sail away.
Your wristwatch, though broken
Still clicks on in my head
The last place that you're breathing now
In dreams that grace your stead.
I never could quite come to tell you
I dreamt of drowning in one ocean
For the rest of my days.
Jul 19, 2016
Jul 19, 2016 at 1:33 PM UTC
You tell me repeatedly that I am wasting away,
that my arms are too slim,
my waist too cinched,
and my chest too boney,
but the only thing I hear
is your insecurity making me its mirror,
and in actuality
I have never been more proud of my progress.
Instead of concern for my well-being,
all I feel when that sentence slips from your lips
into the stale air that creeps into my ears
is a knife in my gut.
I am not wasting away,
I have already wasted.
I wasted away my breathlessness when he told me he cheated on me.
I wasted away the utopian idea of who I ached to be
and what I strived to look like.
I wasted away the pressures I gave into
when he wanted to force himself on me.
I wasted away the insecurities and trust issues I harbored for five years.
I wasted away his manipulations,
his deceit,
his pathological lies,
his slander for my name,
and the guilt I felt for cutting him out
and clawing my way back in.
I wasted away the anger and depression that almost consumed me.
I wasted away my lack of knowledge toward myself.
I wasted away my blank path,
and I wasted away my restlessness for the next chapter,
because I am the next chapter.
So, the next time you feel the need to tell me that I am wasting away,
The next time you think it's okay to say something like that to me,
I want you to not look at me,
but see me.
I want you to feel the curve on my hips and the stretch marks on my thighs
that I am okay with having.
I want you to look into my eyes
and see the fire I reignited in my soul
to warm the blood that pumps through these deep vessels
which carry each piece of the shattered self that I put back together
like the mouth of the river that flows straight into the heart of the ocean.
No, I am not wasting away.
I’m not wasting another day.
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 10:31 PM UTC