"unmarred" poems - Hello Poetry

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.

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May 18, 2014

May 18, 2014 at 11:58 PM UTC

mikaila

Medusa

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.