"ricochets" poems - Hello Poetry

I. I’ve swallowed too many I love you’s to be afraid of coughing up blood. They cut you on secret. Who knew it was drinking gasoline and sawdust and every little inflammable thing and then sitting down cross-legged in the heart of a howitzer; soft. II. You are a soft explosion. You are streaks of a rebel orange in a sky that is supposed to be blue. You are steel rods in the curve of my spine, holding me straight. III. I love you’s are like death notes written in ash: you’ll have to smoke your way to it. Smoke cigarettes, journals, curtains, and yourself to get that much ash in your lungs; trying to blow smoke rings into your finger; my ceiling knows more about my sadness than you do. IV. Saying an I love you once will have you chanting “don’t leave me” on a rosary; love will take your bones and leave you lusting for somebody whose back is the last thing you’ll see, and whose skin you’ll think you left your keys in: and now you’ve locked yourself out of your own house, in a storm whose sirens wail in your ears and remind you, you’re hopeless and homeless. V. I love you’s leave no exit wounds, no shell casings, and when the time comes you’ll be telling them all how his bullet ricochets in your ribs, but emotion never made up for evidence in the court of settlements for a broken heart. VI. Telling someone you love them is like cutting your jugular and not expecting to bleed out. VII. I love you like the pages of a mad girl’s journal. VIII. The moon turns from an ally to the haunting image of science and realisation: you share the same sky, but no longer the same bed. And astronomy keeps ******** you over when you look up at the sky and no longer understand constellations. IX. Love makes it more getting-back-at-you than getting-back-together-with-you. X. Every time you taste blood, you’ll know you kissed somebody with teeth like needles and they cut you everywhere; they bit you, they bit you, they bit you and you kept letting them.

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Dec 21, 2015

Dec 21, 2015 at 10:29 PM UTC

rained-on-parade

Love and other disasters

I. I’ve swallowed too many I love you’s to be afraid of coughing up blood. They cut you on secret. Who knew it was drinking gasoline and sawdust and every little inflammable thing and then sitting down cross-legged in the heart of a howitzer; soft. II. You are a soft explosion. You are streaks of a rebel orange in a sky that is supposed to be blue. You are steel rods in the curve of my spine, holding me straight. III. I love you’s are like death notes written in ash: you’ll have to smoke your way to it. Smoke cigarettes, journals, curtains, and yourself to get that much ash in your lungs; trying to blow smoke rings into your finger; my ceiling knows more about my sadness than you do. IV. Saying an I love you once will have you chanting “don’t leave me” on a rosary; love will take your bones and leave you lusting for somebody whose back is the last thing you’ll see, and whose skin you’ll think you left your keys in: and now you’ve locked yourself out of your own house, in a storm whose sirens wail in your ears and remind you, you’re hopeless and homeless. V. I love you’s leave no exit wounds, no shell casings, and when the time comes you’ll be telling them all how his bullet ricochets in your ribs, but emotion never made up for evidence in the court of settlements for a broken heart. VI. Telling someone you love them is like cutting your jugular and not expecting to bleed out. VII. I love you like the pages of a mad girl’s journal. VIII. The moon turns from an ally to the haunting image of science and realisation: you share the same sky, but no longer the same bed. And astronomy keeps ******** you over when you look up at the sky and no longer understand constellations. IX. Love makes it more getting-back-at-you than getting-back-together-with-you. X. Every time you taste blood, you’ll know you kissed somebody with teeth like needles and they cut you everywhere; they bit you, they bit you, they bit you and you kept letting them.