Tumgik
astoryfullofwoe · 7 months
Text
worship // greek lovers
i play your body like a lyre
and savour the sweet songs you sing;
my fingers know every string by heart,
i’m fluent in your vocal poetry.
i would start and end wars
for your ambrosia lips
and the way they trail down my figure—
your mouth more devastating
than any of Eros’ arrows.
we make such beautiful music together.
modern greek lovers; Sappho must be proud.
caress me like you’re
making love to Aphrodite;
i’m all soft curves and pink skin,
dripping sea foam, ready for your touch.
gently work the oyster shell open,
and polish the pearl ‘til it shines.
trace my flower petals with your tongue,
drink the nectar forged only for you.
bite me like you’re
fucking Dionysus;
claw me open, hear me cry out—
you know i like it rough.
curl around me like ivy,
scratch down my back and feel it arch.
sip on my wine, suck on the cork;
watch how i put on a show for you.
embrace me like you’re
bedding Hera;
spread yourself wide, peacock-style,
give yourself up to me in offering.
brush heavenly kisses down my neck,
you know i’m your queen—
your hands gripped in my hair, my crown,
your face of carved marble, my throne.
make my mortal body tremble
on our altar of honey-sweet elixir
and damp, discarded bedsheets;
climb Mount Olympus, make a religion out of me.
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astoryfullofwoe · 7 months
Text
the birds
limbs heavy from exhaustion, and
head foggy from probable sunstroke,
i collapse on a bed of stone
below the famous arches
and contemplate the birds.
the stiff rock i lie on digs
into my back, and i know
i’ll be sore when i stand up,
but i don’t move;
comfortable in my discomfort.
with legs bent at the knee,
and my dress awkwardly scrunched
between my thighs and
not on the littered ground,
my feet rest on jagged cobblestone.
stone that has been here for
decades, centuries, a millennia;
stone that bears the weight of
hundreds, thousands, millions of people
and now bears mine.
how many have come before me,
and how many will come after me?
how many will lie here, just as i do now,
with lungs crushing under the weight of time?
how many will sit here and write a poem
about it? how many already have?
the question makes my head
spin more than my dehydration does.
here i lay, bumpy stone digging into my soles.
here i am, a single grain of sand
on a beach spanning infinite miles.
here i lay, with my sunglasses pinching my nose,
dizzy from heat and sticky from sweat,
watching the birds.
watching the pale birds glide,
the sole white blots against the blinding blue,
landing on the empty spaces
between the towering bends
the same as it would on a plain beach rock.
the oppressive grandness of
my view suffocates me,
but the birds fly over and under and through,
in a taunting tango with time
that they appear to be leading.
my body is heavy,
so heavy,
but the birds look weightless,
and right now,
that’s enough for me.
oh, to be a bird flying through roman arches!
oblivious to the historical weight of
the stone that holds up their nests,
passive towards the clock’s choking hands,
knowing only what it feels like to soar.
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astoryfullofwoe · 10 months
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look at me
tw: s€lf h@rm, $ui€ide
i’ve never outgrown
the child who purposefully
trips and scrapes their knee
for their parents’ attention.
years later and i still
wail and scream just so someone
will spare me something more
than a fleeting glance.
because my knee isn’t
the part of me that’s hurting.
my knee is bloody and scratched
but it will heal by tomorrow
and you won’t even be able to
tell i was ever bleeding.
it’s not my knee, it’s my heart.
it is my heart that hurts,
cradled by my ribcage and
stowed away in my flesh—
who would ever be able to tell
it is cracked and bleeding?
out of sight, out of mind.
i put a bandage over my bleeding knee
and my mom kisses it better
(it’s the only way i can be the center
of an adults attention);
i wrap gauze around my bleeding wrists
and fall in love with the colour red
(i never fell out of love
with intentional infliction).
the screaming child in me lives on;
i want someone to notice
and beg me to stop,
beg me to stay alive,
because it feels like i could
take a flying leap of faith off of
the bridge over the creek near my house,
or bleed out in my bathtub,
or choke on a bottle of mystery pills,
and no one would notice.
or worse, no one would care.
intentional falls evolve into unscrewing
pencil sharpeners and still nobody notices.
scrapes mutate into cuts
and still nobody notices.
so please, just look at me.
i’m not asking you to rip my body
from the bridge barrier,
just look at me.
look in me not through me;
look into me.
see me for who i am
beyond this wounded persona.
sorrow is all i’ve ever known,
but with soft words and gentle hands,
maybe i can forget what torn flesh feels like.
maybe i’ll rediscover sunlight.
take the blade out of my hand
and place your heart there instead;
for i am only cruel to those
who i believe deserve to suffer,
and that is not you, never you.
you are safe with me,
i am not safe with myself.
no one has caused me as much hurt
as i have myself.
these scars would not exist without me—
i have only myself to blame.
look at me.
i want to scream:
look at all of my ugliness,
and love me for it anyways.
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astoryfullofwoe · 11 months
Text
The Symposium
the blood of gods
runs through my veins;
slit my wrists and watch
the golden ichor trickle.
bow down to my
crown of ivy and laurels,
kneel before my
throne of precious stones
and ignore the cracks
in the sacred foundation,
creeping up the sides
like mold in an abandoned house.
avert your eyes,
because you see, my dear,
it is not just achilles
who has a damned heel;
for what are gods
without humans there
to worship them?
altars are built to worship,
as the source of divine rule;
but tell me, my dear,
who is it again,
that creates these altars?
who is granting them
their life-giving power?
the creators of the creators
are ignorant to their own influence.
don’t you see?
don’t you understand?
i need you.
i need you the way
mundanity needs divinity,
the way immortality
needs death.
you are the bones
that hold up my body;
you are the moon
and all her stars
that chart the skies
and guide me home.
with your ambrosia lips on mine—
through you i feel divinity.
pour the nectar that sits
sweetly on your tongue
into my mouth,
lick it onto my teeth.
your skin against mine is something holy—
touching you is an act of worship.
my hands on your milky skin
and my mouth on your neck,
your scent the strongest aphrodisiac.
bury yourself into the crevices of my body—
confirm zeus’ fears and show him that
he was right about the first humans,
but i still found my other half anyways;
no divine knife can keep
the two of us separated.
i will always find my way
back home.
home is where the heart is,
and my heart lives nestled,
beating hard in your gentle hands.
pull my mortal body flush to yours,
exhale softly against my lips.
breathe your warmth into me,
this sacred exchange of spirit;
and watch as i rise
from the rolling sea foam,
radiant and glowing,
golden from your love.
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astoryfullofwoe · 11 months
Text
shelter dog
i’m nothing but a shelter dog;
mean because i’m terrified.
desperate to be loved but
snapping at anyone who tries;
needy and overly attached
while being cold and distant—
but i can’t help it,
call it survival instinct;
i can’t be left broken hearted
if i have no heart left to break, right?
your love is a new home but
the feeling of being trapped
does not go away just because
you can’t see the bars anymore.
the cage disappears but that
doesn’t mean the scars do.
i’ll bite the hand that feeds me because
what if it’s not pets this time, but a strike?
i have my hackles up at all times,
growling at sudden movements,
because i have been through too much torment
to let myself be beaten again.
i’d rather be called a bad dog
than be kicked in the stomach
by yet another foot.
but why do you keep stepping on my paws?
it’s an accident followed by apologies
but i still yelp and must
lick my wounds alone nonetheless.
every time i show my belly,
that vulnerable skin ends up wounded,
and there you are, oblivious
in the other room,
and i’m left with only the stars
to hear my aching howls.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
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snowfall
the sky spits out shimmery snowflakes
that land in your hair,
and i feel like i’m suffocating;
how can a person be so beautiful?
the sky is heavy and dark
but i’ve never felt so light.
your sweetness is new and melts on my tongue—
i’m drowning in your honey, honey.
i want to drink you with my morning coffee;
because she called me baby
but you call me
your love, your dearest, your muse,
and there is something religious
about the way you make my soul
feel like it’s been rinsed in cool water—
clean, revitalized, reborn.
i like to think i see a future
in the palm of your hand;
one where all of our socks
are mixed in one drawer,
you’re wearing one of my shirts,
and i’ve had a bad day,
but i come home to you,
and suddenly i can’t remember
what was ever bad about my day
in the first place.
you whisper my name
in the heavy darkness of my bedroom,
to the shell of my ear
and to the crest of the moon,
and it sounds like a wish, a prayer, a promise.
i never used to like the snow,
but with you looking at me
like i am all you’ve ever wanted,
wearing a halo of snowflakes
and a smile that thaws my soul,
i realize the snow has grown on me.
no matter the temperature,
and no matter the snowfall,
winter is pure warmth
when you’re there to hold my hand.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
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divine anguish
it is involuntary, at this point:
the urge to scan every room for all possible exits,
to analyze every relationship for gaps in my extension;
to agonizingly wonder what it will be about me this time that will send someone away.
why does all that i touch with loving hands
blacken and shrivel under my embrace?
when will all the love i have sent out into the world
circle back to me?
lord, i am terrified my love
is incomprehensible,
poured into outlets
that don’t recognize its voltage.
lord, i worry i am the 52 Hertz whale—
spending a lifetime calling for company,
only to realize you’ve never
even spoken the same tongue.
even worse, lord, i fear my love is repulsive;
a revolting, ugly thing that my fellow creatures
would rather perish
than be subjected to.
lord, i’ve sat at your son’s feet
and begged him to let my love
come back around,
so that i can stop living
with the hole in my chest that is
aching, crying, screaming to be satiated,
even just a quarter filled, an eighth—
but his stoney face of final agony remains silent.
i convince myself my suffering is christlike,
a torture to be immortalized in church frescos—
because humans like believing that they are not insignificant,
because at least i can embrace my pain if it is divine anguish.
because it is so much nicer than the truth:
that i am hurting without reason,
that i will not be praised for my torment;
no one’s knees will ache for me but mine.
i am not a martyr nor a saint,
there will be no title granted for most pious self-punisher;
i am simply a burning human lost at sea,
calling out to a sky that won’t answer.
i’m sorry that i worry this is one-sided,
that there will always be someone else you’d rather have,
i’m sorry that i fear i am funnelling
my love into a beautiful black hole,
and i’m so sorry
that no amount
of your sweet, sincere “i love you”s
can make me believe it.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
Text
august, personified
There is no greater feeling in the world than
opening your eyes to see your love peaceful beside you.
Morning shines through the window above her bed, 
where I sit up and watch her with awe stricken eyes as she lays there, 
trusting, bare, vulnerable, beautiful,
like a muse posing for her painter, a masterpiece waiting to be realized,
and sometimes I wish I could pick up a brush and fill a canvas the size of a mammoth
with strokes of stawberry blonde for her hair and bright prismarine for her eyes
and hold it up in the city center for everyone to worship because
I have truly never seen somebody so beautiful in my life and I need others to know that
she is mine.
Instead to heal my heartache I write laughable poetry with the rawness of paper, ink and quill 
in attempts to share my visions and emotions through words but
the words to describe the hurricane that swells in my brain at the mere thought of her
simply don't exist.
Instead I tell people how she is like August, her warmth like the sun, 
her love so fleeting like the summer month that escapes my arms
as soon as I am finally able to embrace it 
and I become an ascetic while I wait eternities in my frigid sorrow for her return.
I long for her arms to be the blankets that protect me in my slumber every night and
for her smile to be my "good morning, honey," every day,
but for now I sleep a 17-minute drive away as a licenseless citizen
torn from the tenderness I’m starved of
and meet her a paltry once a week just to make sure
we don't perish of yearning hearts.
So on days when I am with her
and text my mother good morning at nine but
don’t eat my breakfast until twelve, it isn’t because
we stayed up past midnight dancing to Darling Nikki and Dirty Diana,
but because I relish in dawn shining into her bedroom and the touch of her skin on mine
and let the gentle trace of her fingertips on my back and
the soft kiss of her lips on my cheek linger so I can
continue to feel her presence when I am back at my house.
There, I feel the greatest loss in the world
unable to wake up to see my love peaceful beside me.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
Text
tulip, unbloomed
no one ever thinks about the death and decay
necessary for a single blooming tulip;
i want people to know the radiant garden
without seeing the rotting ecosystem underneath.
you make this so difficult;
you peel away my beautiful petals
and are slowly uncovering
the decomposing pistil inside.
how cruel of you to pluck away my defences,
my husk and my walls and my masks,
that i have spent an eternity perfecting
to shield my fragile heart from voyeuristic eyes.
i hate you for this
(you pull off my protective petals
with such an ease
that i want to scream out
in panic and fright—
the potential of you terrifies me;
you are the living paradox of all the
angst and solitude i’ve ever believed in),
but, also, i love you for it
(maybe softness
isn’t weakness when you
hold me like not even
the harsh forces of the earth
could tear you from me;
maybe budding softness is necessary
to cultivate the healing air of spring).
still i remain unbloomed,
terrified to reveal my soft spots—
my aches and my scars and my ugliness;
my body and mind in all their tainted glory,
because i don’t know
what would hurt more:
if you were to notice the damage
or if you were to not.
what would i do if you ever decide you
don’t like the taste of rot on your tongue?
what am i left with—
a gutted body, a cold bed, and empty hands?
i offer you a single tulip;
speaking in a wordless language,
and yet saying more than i am ever able to.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
Text
december’s elegy
tw: brief mentions of sh
the icy december winds engulf my hands,
curling around my fingers like the antithesis of a glove,
and it catches me in a tornado of cold,
throwing me back to past decembers.
a wind that feels like
needles pressing into my skin
reminds me of the annual aches
that accompany winter.
a voice in my head sings:
it’s nectar reaping season again!
(and the other voices wail their despair)
but i say this year will be different.
i say this year will be different;
but after dipping my hand into the freezing gusts
and relishing in the unbearable cold,
i’m not so sure anymore.
am i really strong enough to resist
the sharp steel allures of the winter’s cold?
i ponder as i sit
cross legged on my bed,
chest constricting
from the python grip of relapse.
am i a fool to think i won’t surrender
to december’s metallic essence?
my hands are not
my own anymore;
i grab at my forearms,
hyperventilating.
what sorrow are the biting winds
of december laced with?
my blood screams
to be let loose,
to be freed from
its prison of flesh.
how is the summer’s foliage able
to shield us from such misery?
i quell my dry sobs
and bodily tremors
by reminding myself
that this is on a deadline.
soon the sun will come back and
evaporate the sludge from my lungs,
loosen the black tendrils curled around my heart,
melt the deep rooted pain off my skin.
winter woe will be a mere memory
when summer serenity resurfaces.
and then i will be myself again;
i will be reborn.
i will stand in the sunlight,
listen to my body sing,
feel my gold re-emerge,
and i will glow.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
Text
a room of our own
these four walls are our own little universe
where time doesn’t pass,
and no one else exists
except for you and me.
in our little universe our troubles vanish for a few hours;
everything outside of this room is decrepit wasteland—
your hands and your hair and your voice
are the only indisputable truths.
we’re pressed so close that the space between our bodies vanishes;
the hard lines soften until my arm is indistinguishable from your torso.
bodies curled like two parentheses, blocking out the rest of the world;
inside containing soft words and gentle touches and greedy kisses kept just ours.
your skin under my fingertips is tangible poetry,
and i want to lie here until i can recite every curve and angle from memory.
but in a few hours you’ll be gone,
slipping through my fingers like ice losing its nature,
and all i’ll have left is the ghost of your outline on my pillow;
so, please, forgive me for being a nonbeliever.
you’re a dream, im convinced—
every kiss is too good to be true;
your achingly sweet phantom touches,
always fading away before my longing is fulfilled.
so kiss me again to prove to me that you’re real,
and then kiss me once more, just in case—
you could make a believer out of me.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
Text
sanguine
no, no, no.
the gleaming steel of the knife in your warm hand smirks
as it plunges into my abdomen and twists at a sickening angle.
not again, not again, not again.
the sensation of my vitals being churned into indistinguishable chunks jolts me;
my liver is torn apart from end to end,
my intestines are sliced and minced,
and i can feel my stomach being ripped open like a soft, rotten fruit.
stop, stop, stop.
you pull the knife out, stained with the liquor of my livelihood, and my body follows it.
i hold my miserable, mangled organs in hands that are shaking too hard to actually keep them contained,
so they spill onto the floor, painting the concrete a menacing maroon.
please, please, please.
the nausea strikes me down all at once
and i collapse under the weight of dry heaves and wretched sobs that splinter the very ground i am bleeding out on.
i can’t see through my tears and i can’t hear anything other than the blood thundering through my veins,
like a soldier who knows he’s losing this battle and can’t help but fight it anyways,
and i am so very hopelessly, pathetically lost.
i am lost in my thoughts and lost in my blood
and lost in your eyes that still hold me like a vice, even now.
why, why, why?
i clutch my sides and curl up like a displaced child,
and my chest aches with a red hot pain as if i had been stabbed there instead.
you turn and leave, lacking the decency and courage to bear witness to my expiration at your feet.
my heart is beating much harder than it probably should be,
considering the sea of scarlet soaking through my skin,
and all i can think about as my limbs twitch like a vehicle-stricken rabbit,
is how inevitable this entire calamity was:
a grotesque end for a bleeding heart;
i was always destined to die by my own hand.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
Text
drowning // head above water
i will keep treading until my muscles collapse,
until my limbs ache and my eyes burn and my lungs scream for air;
i will thrash and fight and cling onto the little spark of life still left in me,
because i have done this before but this time will be different.
the cool navy of the deep will not lull me in this time.
i will not fall victim to its open arms and empty embrace,
regardless of how easy it might be.
it would be something familiar,
to close my eyes and choke on the brine and block out the rest of the world,
to let the bleak blue engulf me and drag me down like it always does;
but i refuse.
i don’t want familiar.
i will do whatever it takes to keep my head above water—
for my body shall bear no new scars from this battle.
the sirens of the deep sea sing out to me,
their songs of sickly seduction;
but i refuse to let the comfort of the darkness drag me back down;
i will not allow myself to drown in the sea of my own sorrows anymore.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
Text
moon song by phoebe bridgers except i know it’s for the better this way
you are sick
(of being chilled to the bone more often than not)
and you’re married
(to a natural disaster in a human shape)
and you might be dying
(i’m killing you slowly, aren’t i?)
you’re holding me like water in your hands
but water is volatile and unpredictable;
and too much is fatal
but not enough will kill you just the same.
i am overflowing in your hands;
you can’t contain me but you try.
you don’t want this much of me
spilling out of your hands and soaking your shirt;
but i can’t stop it, i’m sorry.
i was so accustomed to the deep cold
and stark emptiness of the ocean
that the warmth of your skin is like a drug to me.
i cant quit you now, i’m sorry.
i know i should unhinge my freezing claws
from your soft heart
and ive been trying to i swear—
i know it’d be for the better that way.
you’re holding me like water in your hands
but please know- you’re not obligated to keep your hands wet for me.
open your warm, cupped hands and drop me into the cold marble sink;
go ahead, dry your hands of me.
it’s for the better that way.
don’t let me get too attached to you now;
my frigid cold will soak through your skin and rot down your bones.
i will eat away at your warmth and leave you damp and shivering;
but i don’t mean to, i swear.
water is admirable from afar but it is often cruel and deadly up close;
people build their houses close enough that they can admire it but far enough still that it won’t chip away at their foundation.
i am a bit like water that way—
enticing but it’s best to keep a distance,
so that my bleeding heart doesn’t unintentionally spread its mold onto yours.
i leave a trail of blue-faced victims wherever i go
and i am desperately grasping at droplets
to save you from that fate;
and to save myself from the tidal wave of sorrow that will come with the uprooting of my few remaining anchors,
because good intentions will not stop them from being swept away in my tsunami.
it’s for the better if you were to just dry your hands of me;
let go of me before you silently drown.
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astoryfullofwoe · 1 year
Text
be gentle with me
i am in grave danger.
and i have known that ever since
i finally registered the chest pains i get
when you smile at me.
you are a god-like entity,
in relation to the power you hold over me,
and yet you are still the most human person
i have had the pleasure of existing with.
you are the sweetest ache i’ve ever known;
i’ve never had heartbreak feel so warm.
i’m too open with you—
with my eyes wide and my walls down
(this has never happened before;
what have you done with my defences?)
i realize im practically begging you
to hurt me, to walk all over me,
to take the heart that’s in my hands
and wipe your shoes with it.
use my bleeding, still beating heart as a doormat
and you know id let you.
so now served to you on a silver dish—
you are holding my heart on a platter.
devour it if you really must, but
please
be gentle with it.
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astoryfullofwoe · 2 years
Text
swallow your sympathy
i don’t want your sympathy.
you could not fathom the hurt that is amassing and festering and healing.
my skin carries the hidden scars;
my soul has put itself together again and again and again.
i have been
unloved, unwanted, unable —
unable to comprehend why —
why i have always been left on the sidelines of life.
i have been at war with the woman in the mirror;
i have ripped the skin off my arms and then bandaged it back together.
so swallow your sympathy; i have no use for it.
take your pity and leave; it is not wanted here.
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astoryfullofwoe · 2 years
Text
how could you forget about us?
i missed the forget-me-nots this year.
two years ago i went out everyday
just to witness their existence.
i basked in them.
last year i picked a few, pressed them,
and hung them up in my bedroom.
i admired them.
this year i saw them once and said i’d
come back when they’re fully bloomed.
i never did.
how could you forget about us?
i look at the pressed flowers in my room
and i am suffocated by guilt.
my old friend droops away from me, refusing to meet my eye.
i can almost hear it shaming me:
how could you forget about us?
it isn’t anything new though.
i have a nasty habit of ignoring
those i love most,
feeling as if they’d be better off
without me anyways.
the forget-me-nots are not
the first nor the last friend i will abandon because i am too scared
to do anything else.
i have been starved of love all my life,
so when i am handed it by the mouthful,
i do not know what to do with it.
i puke it all up.
how could you forget about us?
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