"collarbones" poems
We're almost touching.
we were walking side by side,
you're talking about cabs in your hometown.
I can feel the gravity of your hand, calling my fingers
whispering "it's alright."
We're touching but not quite.
you held my shoulder to protect me from the passing cars.
and for the first time in a long while, I felt so fragile.
In this world where I find it hard even to breathe,
you believed me.
I almost said it.
All I need is one ounce of strength to tell you every single thing that I have ever felt about you.
I want to find home in your collarbones.
Would you be kind enough to let a stranger in?
I want to seep in your being because I'm cold.
The world is harsh and my cracks are aching.
Almost.
Mar 19, 2018
Mar 19, 2018 at 5:46 AM UTC
it's the hardest thing in the world,
watching you fade.
I'm waiting until you become dust
all for a more prominent ribcage
and to be able to cut diamonds
with your collarbones.
it's the hardest thing in the world,
watching you cry
in front of your reflection.
your pain is never beautiful
but your soul always will be.
you always were.
it's the hardest thing in the world,
watching you die.
you were always so fragile,
so delicate. I fear you might snap
when I try to hug you close,
with your bones digging into my arms.
it's the hardest thing in the world,
watching you fight.
although, it's not so much of a fight
when you're too tired to
and the winner is guaranteed
and you never wanted to win anyway.
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 1:46 PM UTC
The teacher wrote a question on the board
large enough to see but,
still hard to follow,
in black expo:
If each color had a taste, what would sad taste like?
And the girl with crosses up and down her arm
mentioned once,
'blue tasted like flat soda pop,
cold and a bit too sweet'
The boy with the hair running smoothly over his eyes
pronounced sixty four ways to say 'azure'
and each time,
he tasted the iron of the
hammer that his father had split his collarbones apart
and I cried for each story,
because the color 'blue' always
tasted like brandy, heartbreak and broken nails
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 1:15 AM UTC
a thin layer
of expensive,
french perfume
on your collarbones,
dripping down
due to the
high temperature
you caused when
you walked into
the room.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 3:04 PM UTC
dear aries,
had i known what love was back then,
we might have made it last.
dear taurus,
you were always everything
i wished i could have been.
dear gemini,
you are a fiesty, wonderful soul,
i love you dearly, my surrogate brother.
dear cancer,
i still remember the first day we met,
but i cannot remember the sound of your voice.
dear leo,
you are worth more
than your protruding collarbones.
dear virgo,
our horoscopes say we are the perfect friends,
but you are a heartless creature and i am afraid of you.
dear libra,
you are vicious,
picking petty fights over nothing,
yet you are still my best friend.
dear scorpio,
god, what a beautiful, fascinating being you are.
how i always wished to be yours.
dear sagittarius,
i gave you my heart,
and now it has two years
and eight batterings worth of scars.
dear capricorn,
i miss our late night storytelling,
i am waiting on an apology that will never come.
dear aquarius,
we are so different now,
i cannot bear to speak to you.
you are afraid of me.
dear pisces,
whenever i see you,
you take my breath away.
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 9:39 AM UTC
Thin, white wrists.
Bone white
Like china
And just as brittle.
They make that coarse, scraping sound when they touch one another.
The kind of sound that delicate, expensive teacups make when stacked
The wrong way.
It makes me cringe.
Little blue veins kiss the surface of them,
Hissing and sizzling when the air gets
Too close
Like tiny snakes.
These wrists
Have made promises.
They have
Borne loads.
These wrists have snapped like twigs
Under the weight of a heavy,
Punishing love.
But, pressed back together the way they'd been,
They hardened oncemore
Like stone
And the cracks and fissures
Sank inside again
And smooth, unmarred, delicate white skin emerged
To begin the process over.
At night the snakes whisper and murmur against my cheek in their sleep
And sometimes, quite suddenly,
They sink in their fangs
And I awaken with a start,
A sharp pain radiating out to my fingertips
Like a shock.
Last night I felt their strikes by the hour
One,
Two,
Three, more.
And this morning a strange... fullness
Began in my wrists
And seeped out
Up along my arms
Through my collarbones and down
Into my heart.
Perhaps it was the venom
Working
But where it spread I
Settled
Like an old stone wall.
Like the halls of a castle
That has seen too much death
And too many kings.
I sank into myself
For the first time
And the ground felt heavily solid
And I felt
Only the hollow hiss
Of little blue and green serpents
Dreaming inside me
And that
Was something like certainty,
Although of what
I still don't
Know.
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 11:58 PM UTC
It's my birthday
Finally Thirteen
That's when i started falling
It's my birthday
You told me to go up to my room
Mama started calling
It's my birthday
You locked the door
Your clothes are on the floor
It's my birthday
My collarbones are showing
Then I started crying
It's my birthday
You told me to shut up
Youre finally growing up
It's my birthday
You touched the cracks
of the broken glass
It's my birthday
You said it's a test
You won't make a mess
It's my birthday
You didn't take my virginity
But you took in my purity
It's my birthday
You left after kissing my forehead
so i just nodded my head
It's my birthday
I cried
I wanted to die
It's my birthday
Finally thirteen
when i started falling
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 10:12 AM UTC
You just can't
compete with
**** Me
boots.
The leather-clad calves
that
whisper "come to bed...
I promise so
many touches"
Cardigans merely dictate
"shoulders maybe...
You so much as peek
at my
collarbones, and you're
done for,
Mister."
Spoken -
Maybe I would
tease...
"Try only,
to kiss
my cheek
because I'm
on the
boring bus"
(and especially
in your Chamber)
Or so you
would suppose.
But inside this
sweater, I'm
a Butterfly.
Mar 4, 2011
Mar 4, 2011 at 8:09 AM UTC
So sweet
So tender
Your hands
On my skin
Tracing
My collarbones
Smoothing
My hair
Your lips
Softly brushing
Breathing
On mine
So warm
Your chest
Pressed firmly
Onto mine
This time
I'm right
I feel
Complete
This time
I feel
The beauty,
Everything.
Feb 28, 2018
Feb 28, 2018 at 7:52 PM UTC
You are so beautiful you make my eyes burn
like you are a ray of sunshine-
but I love you more under the moon
we both are marked by craters
deep blue and black under our skin
I traced your veins with my fingers
and I just want to swim in them
I don’t know how many more times
I can write about the curl of your lips
and the way your hair turns at the edges
and about your legs
and chest
oh god your chest
and your collarbones
and the tattoo on your bicep
and the freckle in your eyes
and the dark burnt edge of it all
I don’t know how many more poems I can write
about how I want to love you forever
how I want to take care of you
how much your illness does not
define you as a person of value
oh god I ******* love you
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 11:05 AM UTC
*“As for Charles – he likes girls. If he’s drunk, I’ll do. But – just when I’ve managed to harden my heart, he’ll turn around and be so sweet. “
“You like him a lot, don’t you?”*
The night crumbles to dust as I trace
every single crease, every nook, every edge of you.
I drink you in, you drink cheap wine:
you only kiss me with alcohol in your blood,
you cannot stomach me without
the drugs.
A pile of cigarette ash on the floor,
broken glass. Shattered ice cubes and
cigarette butts.
It’s a scene of decay; you and I
could only survive if you whispered
sweet nothings and I let you gut
me. You lead me on and I always
slip, and touch you and believe
this time will be the time you stay,
this time will be the time you remember last night
morning come,
this time will be the time
I
am
the
one.
It rains the first time and there’s a bottle
of scotch; we play cards; you’re drunk:
I strip you off; tonight you smile; tonight
you will not mind if I touch
your jaw
your lips
your waist
and below
and your heart
no – never your heart.
Then it’s a matter of time.
You always come when you need me and I
can never refuse to be the one
who lets your tongue
explore my mouth
if only drunk
if only for a while
if only for the night.
I’m there. I will do. For now.
I kiss
your lips
your throat
your neck
your collarbones
and down – way down – below
and your heart
no – never your hear.
You twist me round your little finger and I
would die and die and **** and die
a thousand times
to have you look at me and say
I’ll stay tonight.
My Charles.
No – never mine.
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 9:25 AM UTC
And here am I
Saturday's brain
Saturated and static
Beautifully buzzing with anticipation
Glowing, large, gorgeous
I am rotund and proud
Filled with the blissful tension leading
Up to letting go
My heart, like roaring drizzle
Breathes up through my collarbones
out my shoulders and ears
A steady humming in my veins
My earlobes murmuring
In agreement
I think
I'll break the surface now
Mar 31, 2016
Mar 31, 2016 at 2:07 AM UTC
I'll hold your hand through the wizened wrinkles; even if your beautiful mind will eventually crinkle.
Crinkled & crumpled into creases too deep for sunshine to peek through.
(My fingertips will still slowly but surely fix it.)
Even when the hair tickling my bare shoulders, collarbones & necks on lazy sunday morning is no longer quite the same.
I'll be right here.
Aug 4, 2014
Aug 4, 2014 at 3:55 AM UTC
without the memories of playgrounds--
the smell of too many American Spirits
(andsometimesnewportmentholswhentimesgottough)
the taste of chocolate wine
the cold of holy river water
the sting of heartache and hangovers and broken toes
the glow of midnight fires built too high with entire trees
the feel of tears on my sun-scorched collarbones
the sound of e.e. cummings and the poems from our adolescence being read over baking bread at three in the morning
rushing back to me.
i still remember our fears of shadow people and the
too loud screams of *** rock
over men(i should say boys)
who we centered our summer around
when we weren't busy being goddesses.
& there isn't a day i don't see a swing set
or hear the beginnings of Johnny Cash song
when i do not think of you
and hope
that the world will not change you
that the world will not change me
and we will one day
have a practical magic houses
and hostas
that i glare at
while i make tea in the mornings.
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 11:10 PM UTC
My heartbeat sending up an erratic hymnal to the hand tightening around my neck: The same hand that grabbed my thigh under the table. Only God saw. The mouth that asked forgiveness on Sundays is on my collarbones in the park after sundown. It still gives me a stomach ache to think about you. Your fingers wrapped carefully around my throat wasn't the reason I couldn't breathe. I miss it already even though in the moment I wished I was anywhere else; my world was closing in again and I felt trapped. It happened on the same bench where I sat alone in grade school and wrote haikus about birds and waterfalls. Something must be wrong with me for thinking you were a blessing that I deserved.
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 9:25 PM UTC
There's a sister who floats with hungry collarbones and a razor-edged smile. She smokes sadness when she isn't ready to exhale.
She is beauty in fine art and wrath the colour of thunderstorms; the rain comes when she smiles.
Holier than thou and quick to judge, with antiseptic perception known to bring out the things you were not aware existed.
Addictive, those imprints from her feet will stamp all over you; nimble fingers puppeteering those who fall out of her thoughts.
She is selfish and always leaves, leaves, leaves. She ran away at the first tremor; she did not stay to watch the concrete crumble.
But she picked me up when the concrete friction broke my knees, lashed tyrants with her tongue and prowled behind the boyfriends that came and always went.
This sister whom I project; the image of her I mirror. She is love and laughter and moods that taper and flare.
She is a cluster of persons, a bomb liable to a detonate on a short fuse. She is trouble ailing in the best possible way; her flames light up the shade.
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 3:35 PM UTC
If my hands could tell a story, they'd say how your spine always looked beautiful in the morning,
when the sun's rays created shadows that danced along your back and flirted with your neck
like they'd never meet again.
They'd say how your lips always curved upwards as if they were saying hello.
If my hands could tell a fairytale, there'd be no happy ending,
there'd be no end at all.
I wish my lips could finally part to say the right things,
because all I want to do is hear your name roll off my tongue,
in the same sentence as "you're mine".
I want them to tell the story of your lips,
red, and taunting and always mysterious.
I always got a toothache when you weren't in the room.
I think I need a root canal.
If my knees could speak they'd tell you how lovely it was
to bend to curl to your legs.
If my knees could tell a story, they'd describe the cold, hard
bitter kiss of death they shared with the pavement so many times
when I found your bags at the door.
If my knees could beg, they'd ask for forgiveness.
For being too bony, too weak,
for not being able to support your dreams.
(I'd give up anything now for that little apartment in New York
and nothing but two typewriters)
If my fingers had a chance, they'd trace the familiar lines of your collarbones
and over your shoulders, because by now they've committed them to memory.
If my fingers had a chance, they'd hold yours again.
They say to stay away from broken people but I saw you as a puzzle
just waiting for someone to put you back together again.
If my eyes could tell a story they would whisper softly of your flowing hair
and pixie-like body.
They would ask you to stay.
They would jump out of my body to give you a glimpse of how I see you.
They would show you how utterly unprecedented you are.
If I believed in heaven I would tell you that you're a miracle.
That you are something I wished upon for years as a child.
You are a star.
You are a supernova.
You are a black hole, ******* me in and twisting me about until I am nothing
but battered limbs and my broken heart.
You are God with the Devil's kiss.
If my lips could move they'd say "stay".
You were mine.
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 12:59 AM UTC
The swell of your feverish hands over mine.
Sweat soaking into my skin.
I’m clutching every part of you I can grasp,
Every part of you I can fit into my palm.
We’re sitting beneath the hollow tree,
Beneath the ocean of a sky,
Beneath the screaming black-billed cuckoos.
We don't say a word because we don't need to;
Just silent prayers burned between us,
Scarred into pale, malnourished bones.
I look at you as your sloe-eyed gaze
bores into the mountains of clouds swimming above us.
I want to kiss you,
But all I can do is lay my head on your shoulder,
Wishing I could build a home out of your collarbones.
I don't ever feel safe anymore.
Except when I’m forgetting everything, with you.
At dusk,
I tried to unlearn the way the gold in your skin,
Possessed your face in scintillant rays of spots.
I could count each one if I had the time,
But you’re already turning your spine stuffing back away from me,
And skipping back home
Without the bother or concern to look back.
Aug 20, 2017
Aug 20, 2017 at 8:58 PM UTC
in my dreams
your fingertips run
down my spine
and you trail kisses
on my collarbones
they sting,
like a flame that's just
been ignited for the first time
and my soul turns
into dark ash
your kisses like gold
and your touch like silver
i'm engulfed in your love,
passion, and warmth;
your touch makes me quiver
our skin never breaks contact,
your hands explore my body
as i lie there,
head arched,
and let you have your way
with me
my body feels alive
with the touch of your fingertips
running down my cheeks,
collarbones, ******* stomach;
all the way down my thighs
and into the cool depths
of my sanity.
you whisper sweet nothings
into my neck,
your breath hot against
my icy skin
"i love you"
"you're perfect"
"you're beautiful"
and in that moment of time,
i believe them;
i believe your thoughts,
your whispers.
i know it won't last
for long,
but it was great
while it lasted;
my heart like a flame
that you've ignited
with just one simple touch,
one spark,
of your hands
Mar 29, 2013
Mar 29, 2013 at 10:17 AM UTC
Hate to see you leave. Love to watch you go
Pretty peepers on your hip.
Makes me waant to kiss you up an down.
Like that hollow spot. Between your collarbones below that swan like
Curve at the base of your throat.
Jesus. So **** there.
So many little things. Pretty girl.
For me to appreciate about gods most beautifull creation. Bar none.
Woman.
I am a student of you have been all my life.
Lovely. Cradle of creation. Ectasy incarnate.
If he made anything better, he must have kept it for himself.
Or keeps it high on the shelf.
Woman.
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013 at 10:56 AM UTC
and I would give everything I have to see your eyes light up like streetlamps and you know that time in summer where the steady glow from daylight merges into night time and the breeze dances along the leaves of trees too tall like ballerinas; so gentle if you blink you’ll miss the sway of them? that’s what you remind me of.
you are a glow, an indian sunset and I long to be the sea your sun shine kisses and when your glow transcends into moonlight I long to be the stars who are accompanied by your effervescent light night after night and you know to me you will always be a god **** sunset when you should be rainfall: you pour down on everything I love and leave puddles; you cause unapologetic floods in the crevices of my collarbones and attach your saltwater to the follicles of my hair and you warp the words on the pages of love letters I never sent and when you fall down my cheeks my teardrops and your raindrops will merge and for a moment we will become one and that’s all I’ve ever wanted. to be one with you. to be a god **** indian sunset in your illuminous eyes.
I keep running through the hallways of my mind and your voice is bouncing off the walls and echoing straight through my chest and there’s a thudding that gets louder and louder, like bongo drums, every time and I’m pretty sure my heart is now a gallery of us, open for public consumption and they can walk along the hallways and appreciate the beauty of our profound love like you never could.
one day you will find someone who melts your heart into your veins until it feels like the oxygen around your body is trapped and screaming for you to try to breathe, try to breathe harder and you’ll scream for them and they’ll stop returning your calls and there’ll be no texts and everything you once had will sink – almost in slow motion, almost as intangible as the idea that I loved you harder than anyone ever could – a ship where you’re the only person aboard and you’ll be watching an indian sunset like you watched their fingertips trace the curvature of your hips for the last time and you’ll realise in that moment that they were your indian sunset and man, don’t you just wish for some rainfall?
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 9:31 PM UTC
The truth of it is-
he's not going to fix you
she's not going to make you forget
the way your father would hit you
He is not going to make your collarbones sprout roses
He will not make you forget how to need
The truth of it is-
She is not a savior
She is not able to fight off the demons in your dreams
He will not make you forget the way your mother left
The bloodstains in the bathtub will still be there
The truth of it is-
This is your life
This is not a movie
No one is going to swoop in and save you
You will have to grow your own wings if you want to fly away
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 3:56 PM UTC
I miss you like sadness.
I used to wrap around myself like some lovelorn python
with a desire for suicide blondes.
Called yourself a wrecking ball, but you had no choice.
Maybe you wanted to caress my house softly without destruction.
Maybe you cried afterwards like a lost child on a mountain of doubt.
Full of maybes! You make me full of maybes!
I was taught as a child that maybe was just a watered down no.
Stop watering the truth down, I'm not your flower.
I'm a ****
And I'll just continue to grow until I can't fit in anything except for my own grave.
You make me want to go to church.
I was baptised once, I forget as what.
I honestly don't even know what religion is,
but I can religiously blacken my lungs with nicotine and lies.
Lie with me.
Caress my sins.
My body is world war three,
I have nuclear bombs in the dips of my collarbones
and every single freckle you used to compare to the galaxies
are bullet holes.
Save your prose for someone who gives a ****
Pull the blinds baby, we don't need light in here.
Did you know that with three minutes of asphyxiation you become brain dead?
Let's try it baby, suicide pact?
Let's dance with the dead darling.
You always said the devil was our best friend.
My tarot cards turned black when you turned them over.
You said that I was hard to read.
I had trouble reading anything except the bell jar.
And now it's my turn to ring it.
You're prettier with a necklace made of fingers.
I want to collect your energy in a mason jar and sell it at a garage sale.
I want to smash it in the middle of a highway and lay in a ditch until the wolves eat my body.
I want to be lost.
Lose me baby.
I'll lose myself in your lies.
Lie with me.
I just want to be held.
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 1:27 AM UTC
i tried to overlook
but like seedlings, you germinated
roots around my phalanges (like a dandelion)
from where we last touched.
over time and frigid winter weather, the roots
spread. around my metacarpals, intertwined
between my ulna and radius, all the way up
to my humerus and scapula.
by the spring, flowers sprouted just above my
collarbones, embracing my mandible.
little wilted blue petals surrounding me in my bed
each sunrise, but by noon, new petals already have
attached themselves to the receptacle.
by summer, i pluck their petals for amusement. as
they drift away in the breeze i can't help but to
remember you. us. we. and another thing i haven't
determined is whether you have forgotten me
or not.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 7:39 PM UTC