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summergirlNow read aloud over here. Do give it a listen, won't you?
     i. summergirl,
you are crowthroated and tumbling
through the aspen grove
hair on fire with sunrise, lungs
full of sky.
eyelashes like wildflowers
and every morning brings
a new spray of freckles
and a sharper curve to your collarbones.
the cornfields hold no shadows
for your lighthouse eyes
and there are no endings in that
surefooted smile.
     ii. you have grown
so fast.
autumn finds you with broken ankles
leaning on an oak branch
and watching the skies.
crow to sparrow--you are quiet.
summergirl, there is peace in silence,
perched treetop,
fallen antlers in your hands.
you will come to mourn your deer.
keep them close.
     iii. by winter you have paled,
and like the streams 
your eyes have frosted over.
you feel the chill--
there is no need for sight.
summergirl, th
a hospital bird with soot in her lungsshe slept through a car crash
that almost killed her,
through whitewhite walls
and dreams
where her lover dies
nobody thought she'd make it
but she woke up a few months later
with flowers in her hair
and ash in her airway
trying to remember how to start all over
but forgetting to remember how to live.
fall slipped from her open eyes
and winter crawled in for a long hibernation
of not-quite-cold-enough-for-snow
to her the clouds looked sick
and pale like they might
let everything inside them out,
but she opened up wide instead,
spilling blood where there was none to be spilled.
her heart slipped down the street
and with unsteady hands
she stitched in a bird and cut off its wings.
terminali.

we landed in oklahoma
and drank cheap martinis in the terminal;
you carried my guitar and fell in love
with my voice but not my tongue,
not my hands.

ii.

there's a man with a garage
that looks like a plane because nothing
meant more to him. will you make a model
of that bar? will you make a model
of my red cheeks? or will you live in a townhome
with her and three children?

iii.

the problem was you're not gay.
the problem was there was feeling
but it wasn't for us. i had you but
it wasn't for us.

iv.

i'm not sure if i resent you,
but i remember that bar and every pockmark
on the stool you sat on while i played
the song that parted yo
confessionalthey say sad girls change their hair color
and forgive their monsters.

i change my morals
and become one.
001   i am a whirlwind of
     bruised knees
       (purple)

     an aching heart
      (dark blue)

     twisted guts
        (red)

          &
  a regret that could
   crumble mountains.
  (green-green-green)
the four faces of the year.i.winter was shy,
never had much to say
and stumbled over dirt
because she only knew
how to walk in snow.

she wrote in cursive
but spoke in chimes
and her cheeks were
forever the color of
a weathered cabernet.

she only loved once
and when she did,
she lost her heart.

you see,
the boy used her
in the night
and left her in the day
and she was content.

she resolved that
beautiful people
deserved more love
than herself
and were therefore entitled
to take love from those
who were less worthy.

(she loved a boy
who would never love her back.)

ii.his name was spring
and his voice dripped nectar
into the ears of virgin
Wildflowers, Imperfect BirdsI breathed your name like wildflowers under vast broken skies, in wide-open spaces. The wind blowing through them spoke of dew and dirt and petrichor, and there was sunlight on the ground like a mosaic patterned by god's own hands.

I said it like a monarch claiming new land: a declaration, a butterfly breath over old earth; like it was coffee on a warm morning with the sun in my eyes, interlacing with my lashes; like it was a dream; like it was a prayer like it was a miracle wrought of air and bone and body: you, in, out, in, out, in and in and in.

I cried it out like an earthquake between lip and lip, continents that don't quite fit: your
astronomerswhen we're together
dusk is containable; the moon in my palms
and the stars on your ceiling.

we lull the city to sleep
with our theories of life; my tongue curling
into speech.

do you remember,
when Jupiter was a silver wick, lighting its countless moons?

that night,
you balanced a cigarette off your lips,
and I watched the vermillion flame burn life
as a newborn sun;

stars forming,
planets moulding and constellations snaked
above our eyes.

i imagined
what it would be like to be curled
inside the embers – creator and destroyer
of worlds,
so close to your lips.
Iwhen the grey wolf
comes striking at my door,
i will strip him of his cloak
and make him 
a man,
naked
starsi pray that someday soon, in a lonesome winter, your bones will cease to ache.
regrets will no longer break your morals like glass figurines,
you will not ask God to pardon your sins.
you will forgive yourself.

i hope, for your sake, that your butterfly-flutter eyes
will only be dampened with tears worthy of shedding.
your glory will shine out of those 2 crystal windows
and you will finally know what freedom feels like.

one day, in the midst of a dreary december, i wish for your wings to open wide
and carry you to heights far past any you have ever experienced.
your lungs will become blooming forests
with snippets of poetry carved into
slingshot words.there are a million worlds living in your head
            begging to be wrapped around your tongue and released like a slingshot
     into the heart of some stranger you may never meet.
you need to have a plan...so here's to
conventional wisdom.
1. relocate
to some forgotten shore.
2. fall desperately in love with
     i. the ocean
     ii. the sky
     iii. the honey sunrise and
     iv. the steelgray winter dawn.
3. sink
soul-deep into the water and
breathe.
4a. search out the requisite words
     i. from behind white and blue curtains
     ii. and underneath clam shells
     iii. and in the wakes of fishing boats, and
4b. pluck them from the ceaseless
scrawls of sunlight
against the slopes of waves.
5. make time for
     i. poetry
     ii. and other
        selfish
        pursuits.
calamity.the poor boy got a lecture from deaths secretary
"deaths busy enough as it is without walk ins"
"but it was urgent," he stutters.
"it couldn't wait, it was now or never"
he was simply told
"take a number, and wait over there with the rest
who 'couldn't wait' "
Damaged goods.Sometimes I tell them that
it's a birth defect,

that when they dragged
me from my mother's womb
they broke me,

that my mother left the hospital
with a cheque in hand to make up for
"the accident," of course.

Sometimes I tell them
that they said,
"she'll live,
but it'll hurt her."

Because I live and
it hurts me and I don't know
how else to say,

"I'm sad all the time
and I can't get out of bed some
days and I've considered that
not living might be
beneficial to my survival,"

and as they try to work
that out I'm heading for the door
with my head down and
my dignity scraping along on
the floor.
hyperdontiasometimes it feels as if
I have too many milk teeth,
too many parts of me that belong
to a time when I climbed trees to touch the sky
and I swam in sunflowers
and fireflies -
to a time I have long since
painted in sepia tones,
long since pushed
to the back of my mind
with hands so tired
of being filled with splinters
- too many seeds
and not enough light.

there are too many parts of me
that I have placed underneath pillows,
that I have kept behind closed lashes,
that I have slept upon, waiting
for the morning to arrive and them
to be g o n e ,
replaced with coins that I could place
underneath the tongues of the dreams
that I could not fer
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fragment 29i found myself unable to write about you -
i should have known
i should have known
i should have known
fragment 28i wish there was something i could say
to make this okay,

but it's not

and it won't be

and i can only hope
that you are.
sunday died in my arms last nightmy father is
passed out on the couch,
with some
half-rate horror movie playing
fake blood & all;
a half-eaten bowl of chili
on the table;
and an empty can
of copenhagen
on his chest.

and i am thinking,
maybe i should just take the keys from the counter
and pretend that i am any good
at driving stick shift
when your hand is hot on my
thigh.

and i am thinking,
what would he do-
my father, i mean-
if he knew just what i've been up to
this week,
this month,
this year,
et
cetera,

i swear just one
honest story
would lead him straight out the door
with a cross hanging from his
neck and a shotgun
in his hand, dead-set
on killing
someone, if
you are wasting your time (a warning)and
no, i don't hate you,
i don't love you
and i probably won't even
remember
you, five years from now:

you are just another drunken soldier
decaying the flowers
in my front yard,
fighting a war i never meant to
start,
sink
ing
into
the insipid ache
of my is-
olation
on the eventual recession of everythingfull title: on the eventual recession of everything i have ever felt

listen listen listen
i am a honey bee and the things i say
sting, but they kill me,
they kill me and i am so
sorry,

you have got
to believe me when i say that
'cause baby it's all i have.

and i know
this won't matter in the morning
when you're too tired or
too hungover
to remember it,
but i didn't mean
what i said,

not a damn
thing-

not even
the good parts.

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October 28, 2012
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[x]

lukewarm

:iconvvolatile:

she had the kind of voice
that seemed to be stuck
in the hour of four o'clock
in the morning - soft
and tired and luring,
mumbling her way through
subways and tunnel lights
all pale yellow with noise.

there was tea and long baths
and longer absences,
hiccups of breath
the best
she could do.
long springs and
longer falls,
one equinox to the next
and still the bad
was never that bad
and the good
was never that
good,
and she continues to hum
the birds continue to sing
the apples continue to
grow  and
sour and
fall,

and bury themselves
again.
:iconvvolatile:
edit 11/15/12: thank you so much for the DLD ([link]) and all of the support/favourites/feedback/etc. you guys are wonderful :heart:


mm.

without extremes
everything would taste like
mush.


again, to be read out loud,
if you even bother

(c)
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:iconscattle:
~Scattle May 14, 2013
God, I love this. The fact that it's so understated really punches you in the gut. The world keeps turning no matter what happens; this poem speaks to that.
Reply
:iconvvolatile:
=vvolatile May 14, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
thank you so much :heart:
Reply
:iconslowslicksnails:
=slowslicksnails May 3, 2013  Student Writer
I love this. :heart:

I'm unfaving it so I can re-fave it again so it's in my most recent faves. :la:
Reply
:iconvvolatile:
=vvolatile May 4, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
:heart: :heart: :heart:

one of the very very few poems i am actually proud of myself.
Reply
:iconcoolwhip48:
~CoolWhip48 Mar 5, 2013
I feel as though words cannot possibly do this any justice. So I'll just say that this was absolutely beautiful; even though that doesn't even begin to cover it. :heart:
Reply
:iconvvolatile:
=vvolatile Mar 5, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
kjldsajjkljds thank you so much, it's sweet of you. :heart:
Reply
:iconyoushiver:
~youshiver Jan 29, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
i met a girl with such a voice

and the description is so fluently written

and ah
Reply
:iconvvolatile:
=vvolatile Jan 29, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
:heart:

how lucky are you
Reply
:iconmeggie272:
~Meggie272 Dec 23, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
I love this so much. It sounds beautiful out loud too :heart:
Reply
:iconvvolatile:
=vvolatile Dec 23, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
thank you :heart:
Reply
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