Grandpa says god made little girls out of sugar and spice and everything nice,

and I guess I wouldn’t know because there was no god in the house I was raised, 

but there is no sugar in girlhood, either,

and I wonder if this, too, was lost in translation.

If I could add a stanza to sacred scripture,

pagan turned prophet,

girls would be splinter and stone and those fragments of bone,

ground to dust by a world resting on their shoulders.

Maybe girlhood is knowing that your world is small but words cut deep,

and when you carry something for long enough you forget how to put it down.

You begin to think that these too-small fingertips are enough to hold a glass globe overhead,

That they are enough to stop the silver spiderweb of cracks that snake across its surface,

Girl playing god, 

but god is a man other people believe in,

and sugar doesn’t taste as sweet when you can’t tell it apart 

from the ground glass glittering on your empty palms.

There are 206 bones in the human body and thirty minutes until the bell rings,

stop the chit chat because this is fifth grade health class and today we are talking about growing up,

make sure you eat right and smile more and don't do drugs...

or is it smile right, do drugs more, and don't eat?

Moving on, it doesn't matter, get your calculators out because today we are learing how to calculate body mass index,

can you say body mass index, kids?

Welcome to the number game,

to memorizing the calories in a chocolate milk carton and how long you have to jump rope to burn them off,

we walk home thinking small thoughts and practicing how to take up less space,

teacher says things get easier when you're older but I believed mama when she called me beautiful right up until the day I walked in on her watching the way her bare stomach buckled in the bathroom mirror, right up until I saw the tears in her eyes,

and this is not to say I blame her for the days when I do not feel beautiful but rather to acknowledge that we failed her too.

there are 206 bones in the human body but baby you are so much more than a skeleton, and I know they taught you that hating this body was the same as helping it,

and it is so fucking hard to be gentle with yourself because big kids don't cry,

so count this as me throwing a tantrum.

This body has danced to so many songs alone in my bedroom, and I love her.

This body has pet so many dogs, and I love her.

This body has bled and bloated and broken... and I love her.

and some days I do not want to, but mama taught me that love is unconditional.

There are 206 bones in the human body and I don't know if learning to love this body gets any easier, but maybe it is enough to try.

they taught us in school that everything is made of something smaller, that if you cut it in half enough times you’ll still be left with something,

and I think the girls on the magazine covers in the grocery store checkout line must cry about this at night,

cry that you cannot cut enough calories to be nothing at all,

but they are trying anyway,

corpse turned commodity because we read somewhere that love is only given to the dying, so thank god we are dying,

feasting on famine, packing pride down bleeding throats like it’s enough to sustain us, wondering if this is what gluttony feels like,

stomach bile gnawing on self worth until I wonder if my teachers were wrong this whole time-

I don’t think I can feel any smaller than this.

so as some may know, i've been absent from the platform for a while now and for that i apologize. there are some things going on in my personal life and some things beyond my control and i haven't been able to find the motivation to do anything, let alone write.

sorry if i haven't been keeping up with other's posts and for that, i sincerely apologize. i don't check prose often but when i do, i come back to an overwhelming amount of notifications so i don't go through them all.

i don't know when i'm coming back and that's okay... i've been trying my best to continue working on The Forgotten People and i will continue to post it when i return. i will let you all know when i'm back but until then, i will be only logging on every once and a while.

thank you to those who have messaged me to check up on me. it means a lot. -vinte

my gears.

g.r.i.n.d.i.n.g. t.o. a. h.a.l.t.

w r e d e

o n g s

s*n*a*p*p*e*d c*i*r*c*u*i*t*s

a n d

spl it wi res

missing

memories

(shattered stories)

running & running & running

but

this

must

end

i’ll plug myself into the wall

~and hope~

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not active here anymore, but enjoy some recent pieces

i listened to you

oh so carefully

how did i miss

what you were telling me?

if best efforts were never enough

than you were impossible to please

i gave you all i was

wanted nothing more

you could’ve had a perfect girl

instead you have a burned bridge

always the demon, was i

forever wrong in your eyes

could i have done better,

to fit into your dream?

i only ever wanted

a mother

you only ever

what i could never give

i dream of you

by the seaside

you always said we’d end up

a couple by the ocean

an old house

on the cliff side

are you there now,

waiting for me?

or did you wander far away

the same as i?

sea salt tears down your cheeks

the clear blue ocean reflected in your cloudy eyes

a soul as tempestuous as the waves

a heart as steady as the tides

you are my rocky shoreline, dear

Two miles south of nowhere there is a field of dying things,

silent save for the rasp of autumn grasses as they crash to the ground.

There is a girl here, too,

running a pink tongue along rusting guitar strings,

all ripped jeans and cloudy skies.

A man's name is tattooed across her clavicle,

blue ink pooling at the place her breath catches.

His name was Agony and he taught her to love,

to hold kitchen knives to heartstrings and pluck them like a symphony,

dancing barefoot on barnwood floors

until the splinters left scars.

His love was one of honey and shrapnel,

the kind of beauty that only comes with pain-

but the world is growing dimmer

and come dusk

she lies alone

in this place of dying things.

The world told you women were weak.

So you went and stayed strong.

The world told you only money makes the world go round.

So you went and quit your job to raise a family.

The world told you men are assholes.

So you went and loved the kindest one you could find.

The world told you children need a better education.

So you went and homeschooled them because you realized the educational system sucks.

The world told you white people were racist assholes.

So you defended the right to base our opinions of people on their personality traits and acknowledge that people are products of their environment.

The world finally called you a Troll.

So you went and wrote a beautiful book on how to be a better fucking Troll.

To my fellow troll EstherFlowers1 - for teaching ME how to be a better fucking troll :) I'll always love you, dear teacher/mentor/mother/mediator/friend

some days we are sinew and bone,

plucked from carcass like afterthoughts and wrapped in rotting linen,

sun-bleached and silent until the marrow is dry,

prettier at the precipice of being nothing at all.

in another room a man with cruel hands is talking about wishes,

wondering aloud if the sound of breaking bones is baptism enough,

knowing it won’t make him feel whole again

but at least he wouldn’t be the only broken one.

if my prayers were ever to reach heaven

i think the angels would inhale them

as if they were oxygen, as if they

were suffocating in the presence

of an almight God. they would

cling to them as a child hugs

their blanket in the darkness

of the night and as a drowning

person clutches their life line.

but my prayers do not reach the

heavens for they never leave my

tongue as it hurts to much to

pray when all you feel is pain.