these days i spend my mornings

summoning life from this earth.

i pat the soil with my rain hands.

i shake the laughter loose from

the curtains. i tame the sunlight

with the soles of my feet.

these are the words that i sleep with.

earth, come here, you dying breed

of a woman, and give me light.

these days i pull the waves from

the sea so the moon can breathe.

i love you, your falling days,

with all of my aching good heart.

after all, you built the ocean

that i will one day drown in.

until then i spend my mornings

peeling the flesh from the orange

sky and offering it up to my hungry

mother. we have an agreement:

the sky, the summer, me. they tell me

that death is not easy. they tell me

that they do it all the time.

and then i say make me over

in your image, your warm suns,

your bluepeach waters. summer,

i want love everywhere, all the time.

i want the moonlight to know

she can dance. this, of course,

is impossible. this is the song

i sleep with. this is hope.

and the falling sun says

hope will not bring back the summer,

nor the love of a thousand hands.

but she will come.

this is the song where you come home.

ballad of weary heads

sloping onto shoulders. mother

our book is no Bible

our love is no ceremony.

come spring we go to bed open.

your arms say love in sleep.

dark room of grief i am your child.

send me letters to burn.

i fear i did not plan for this:

loving you, or catching

the fruit you threw into my hands.

the stereo is soft tonight.

so this is our mountain.

trigger warning: mentions of death

sea salt fields take me in

olive oil blooms at my feet;

in a golden rush i sometimes forget what it means

to be young and free.

a girl my age died this week-

she tried escaping what we all lived to be.

i didn’t know her,

but i knew her meaning.

i never spoke to her,

but i miss her being here.

the mortar and pestle grind my teeth

the sun on my back makes my mother tense;

i wanted to feel the wind on my face

she’ll never understand my summer tan, my lack of sense.

i put the food in my mouth

do as i’m told

because i made it,

grasp at the smoke before my eyes

miss out on words

because i ate them.

Sing, o Andromache, the lament of Hector.

You held a dead man’s body while his heart was still beating

And only watched as he walked steadily to his fate.

Who else has been widowed to a man not yet buried?

Let the poets sing of his battles and his glory;

The women will sing for those left behind by cruel Destiny

Never a part of the story until it’s over.

Speak to the dead and throw away honor and morals,

The living hold nothing for you once the body is buried.

Call out to the shade of the life you once had;

Reach for the silhouette of someone you could never keep.

Weep, weep, only your voice will be heard in this song.

Look at yourself and know that you

Are only a shadow of your former self.

Now this shadow is only grief

grief

grief.

after leila chatti

No birds. No stars. No one remembering how they’re

dead but how brilliant they are. No one saying that

the sun’s just another star, no shaping it in the face of

a lover long lost. No more other realities. No more other lives.

The truth is that we get this one and then we blow it

before we ever had the chance. Again, no birds. No more

metaphors about how they’re flying and how they’re free.

I can’t stand being so full of envy anymore. No more you.

Who in God’s name is the you, ever, anyways? This poem

isn’t for you. I want it to be for me. I want to be selfish in

a piece for once. I’m so tired nowadays. There are no

bird wings or Greek muses that could change that. I’m scared,

and it is not poetic. There is no rebirth that makes this better.

It doesn’t matter that we see the same moon at night, or

the fact that you can pretend I’m the lover stuck in it. I’m just

angry all the time that it saw you first. Would you still love me

if you didn’t have to. If I didn’t say that you’re the one in some

flash fiction piece where you save me. Would you still love me if

you knew how hopeless I was. I said this poem wasn’t for you, but

maybe I’m just angry all the time that you can only appear in stanzas,

anyways. I will make no euphemisms. I am hurt and alone.

and i’ve run miles and miles trying to make the world

spin faster like it

would matter at all like i’d feel better if it did like i’d feel like i wasn’t the only one

the lonely one that ran as fast as i could as fast as i did as fast as i am.

i am only sixteen and everything is so much i am only sixteen and i want to be

so much i am only sixteen and i put the world on my shoulders i am only sixteen

and i am atlas who knew it would crush him but still wanted to be great it feels like

everyday i’m going as fast as i can with no time for a water break i am only

achilles without a patroclus i am invincible i am golden and gleaming and i am

only sixteen and i won’t let anyone coax me out of my armor and take some of

the legend onto their own shoulders i want that. but i do want that but there’s

no time for that there’s no time for that because i need to be everything at once

do you get it? i’m trying to be something here i’m trying to be the hero with the

happy ending because i’m going to be the one to do it if it’s anyone it has to be

me but i’m seeing a flaw in the plan and it’s that i am so tired and i am working

with everything at once and i am only sixteen and it feels like i

have to be much more than that. but i am so tired. and i am only sixteen.

The men sing the liveliest songs they know as they leave

burning Troy and all its anguished dead;

Agamemnon drinks deeply,

laughs the way a dying warrior does when he thinks he’s won.

Alone, Cassandra watches the waves,

wrists bound as she sits with the other captured women

who wail for what is lost, what little remains.

Alone, Cassandra’s eyes are dry beneath the weight of mourning;

She’s seen this all before.

The war is done and the victors sail home with their spoils.

Cassandra sees the rot in their ribs, the blood soon to be spilled;

vengeful wives and desperate widows lash out in the same way

and all Cassandra has ever seen in people are their graves.

“Sing with me,” Agamenon orders, wine on his breath,

warm blood ready to be spilled from his veins.

“There is nothing to mourn,” he says as though Cassandra hasn’t been

mourning her whole life, in her high tower waiting for the end.

You’ll be dead before you see the dawn in your homeland;

Cassandra’s prophecies are always true, but never believed.

She stays silent, still, a daughter without a father;

Iphegenia will rest once she gets her share of their hearts.

The men keep singing as they row,

sharing drinks between themselves in celebration.

Praise to the gods leaves their lips as easily as souls leave their bodies;

Cassandra sees their lives play out before her eyes

And patiently waits as they sail to her death.

i wrote hollow poetry and never noticed the echo;

but watching you hang my moon, hang my stars,

hang my world, hang my heart; as if we’re a gallery

that’ll never be shown, instead kept like memories

in our souls? darling, when you become a part of me,

there’s no such thing as breathing. & there’s no more

capitalizing, it’s not just ‘i’ anymore,

it’s ‘us’ ,

it’s ‘you and me’

it’s ‘we’

& somehow through that,

we became our own kind

of poetry.

tell me, how are we writers

if we can’t ever find the words we need?

how can we write a piece unexpectedly at midnight; yet,

when there’s a question mark after the do you love me too,

there’s no word that means:

of course i do,

these fibers burn for you

i’ve already rearranged the galaxy to a constellation of you

why isn’t there a phrase that means all three of these things

and so much more? sometimes i love you just doesn’t feel like

enough for me to say to you.

perhaps...suppose i’m overthinking again? it’s like, loving you

took me on a path of self-discovery, unknowing need; originally,

i thought i’d lace this piece with quotes, but i don’t want

an artist’s voice to speak my heart; i’m selfish darling; i want you

to remember my voice, the whisper of it, like i do yours.

& as i picture your hand trying to cover up

that awfully cute smirk, all i ask is for,

those magic words.

if i begin to say i want this

to be the part of my body that touches

yours and i want the music in the next room

to stop

outside u-hauls move lives

the exact science of this is the science of moving whole

lives from one point to another as if life is a heavy shell on your back as if the only

point of my body is the one it makes when it shuts you in a dark room

called sex

is it your eyes i ask is it your eyes

things that are born and live in darkness (sea caves)

going to the next room and hoping you follow i say don’t fuck with the kid

who brought a gun back from easter holidays

don’t fuck

around i sleep but i only sleep around you

your body caught inside the curl of mine like a whisper as the sun waxes and wanes

late afternoon (we have come so far)

the sanctity fuck it the sanctity of life although i do not sanction

life i broke that fence but on this side of the century there are no sacred places

left there is no sanctity

no one listens to the music in the next room as i struggle to stay awake

clean thru to sunrise to see the new light examining the plane and scape of your face or as

i wait sober at the bar to know if it is me you think of home with

mostly or if night by night you carry your life with you as turtles do

(without asking i want nothing more than this)

as a turtle you do you are a bright thing born to darkness you are like birds’ nests thrashed

from trees in a hard rain or turtles’ eggs washed out to sea

if i begin to say but do not say that i will miss you do you hear it

do you listen in your sleep as i brush the light back from your face (your face)

bright thing as hard to look upon as the sun

as hard to leave as time behind

as hard to go as hard to go

Light slips through the blinds, slivers of gold illuminating the room. Chains engraved with dates and memories bind him to his bed, eyes open because there are less flattering things to reminisce about when they're closed.

(Remember that one time four years ago?)

Groggy composure contorts into a grimace. He groans, wiping a sluggish hand over his face at an attempt to clean the memory from his conscious. It does nothing more than cover his vision with temporary darkness, and the memory resurfaces, a hot mess of familiar faces and an embarrassing past self.

Long hair and a terrible fashion sense. Graphic tees and camo pants.

He's found a better style.

(Though, anything could be considered better than the graphic-tee-and-camo-pants combination. Even his birthday suit, because at least he loves his body more than he did all those years ago. He likes to think that it shows with how he carries himself. And the fact that he actually has some meat on his bones, now.)

He shifts, thinking that the smaller movements might give him the energy to actually wake up. His weighted blanket covers his waist, but not his chest, and after an eternity of about two minutes (in disassociation time), he realizes that it's fucking freezing, and lifts a (not actually) fifty pound arm to pull the blanket up to cover him in a coccoon of what he wished was an actual person. Or maybe a cat.

(But oh, the voice he's beaten back with a stick starts to mock, you know who you wish was here with you, cuddling and warm in this cold room of yours—)

Another eternity of cringing, flinching away at awkward interactions with her, because who the Hell knows how to act around attractive women? His face burns, but at least the blush warms his body in his room, frigid from winter and a fan left on for gray noise.

The fan. He focuses on it, the noise of the three blades working in perfect mechanical synchrony to pull him back into the lazy river of a thoughtless mind, streams of words that lead to a void that he will never truly recall when he returns from his place in space. An empty canvas painted with invisible ink, and—

And thud goes something outside his bedroom door, and his soul falls back to his bed.

(How poetic.)

The birds sing outside his window, and he lifts his head to watch dust trickle in the sunlight, the occassional shadow of a sparrow greeting him.

South-facing windows were a terrible creation, he thinks absent-mindedly, eyes half-glaring at the sun and its position directly in front of his comfortable bed. Extra pillows piled up in front of the side closest to the window, so when he was completely horizontal, he would (usually) be perfectly hidden from the blinding rays.

Nothing more painful than a south-facing window.

Nothing—

—a quiet puff of laughter, not humorous but awkward, confused; eyes flicker everywhere around the room and you are oblivious, blind because of infatuation, because a confession could never be rejected, not by you—

—alright, maybe there were things.

Guilt grabs and twists his gut into a nauseous concoction, because he was an asshole when he was younger. Being raised by a narcissist does that to someone, but it's not like he isn't an asshole now. It's just different— he's a bitch because he doesn't let people push him around.

He's a bitch because he speaks his mind, and since he's AFAB* (he wished it meant A Fabulous, Arrogant Bastard), people like him aren't supposed to speak their mind. But he does it anyway, even if the repercussions make him add another terrible memory to cringe about late at night when he's trying to sleep.

(Who needs sleep?)

After all, that's what coffee's for.

Coffee. What time is it? The thought repeats, echoesechoesechoes until he finally has the energy to push himself up. Slow, perhaps to delay the inevitable for a few seconds longer. He grabs a sweater, sweatpants, slips them on.

Feels like that's used up all of the energy he has, and he blinks slowly. Moves like a sloth, because don't they move slow to save energy? But he curses at himself, because dumbass, you're not a sloth.

Manages to (finally) get out of bed, finds his phone. Looks at the time.

Then he hauls ass back under the covers, because the inevitable can be delayed for a little while longer.

_

*AFAB = Assigned Female At Birth.

Yes I'm questioning my identity. No I don't care about pronouns, this just always happens when I'm PMS-ing and I felt like writing it out. Yes this is about me.