phobicsiren

[phobicsiren]

Blank Slates

I’m a sucker for a blank slate. Five years ago, I moved across the country and started anew: new address, new zip code, new phone number. The numbers that once defined me for two and a half decades were now different, alien even. My space was mine to decorate, so I did: fairy lights, candles, fresh flowers and art soothed the pain of being away from familiarity. A different, yet same, sun shone in the sky. Harsher, more blinding. It bruised my skin: burned it, then bronzed it. After years of being pale moon glow, my shoulders became gold-flecked like my eyes. My bare arms gave way to ink that spread and sprawled, telling a story I won’t soon forget. Freckles popped up along my jaw like a new constellation. My hair lightened to a honey chestnut, I cut and dyed it ruby red (“it’s hair, it’ll grow back”). 2300 miles away from my past, from my safety net, I re-invented myself from the blank slate I was given and haven’t looked back.

I’m a sucker for a blank slate. I read once our cells regenerate every five years; the implication this brings lives rent free in my head. In three years my cells will have completely forgotten your touch, and with it, the idyllic mornings that were forsaken when you called it quits. Nobody talks about the one that leaves; just the carnage they leave in their wake. How one morning they wake up and everything you had together was no longer enough. The thing that nobody tells you about this? The poets, the song writers (we are especially guilty of this). When we are left, our pain is tangible and becomes a muse for us to sit with. Devastating heartache becomes some pop-y little ditty for other heartbroken to clutch onto like prayer beads. I’m guilty of holding onto illicit affairs like a life raft while I was awash in a sea of pain. Because when Taylor said “you showed me colors I couldn’t see with anyone else” and “for you I would ruin myself a million little times” no truer words had been spoken and until then it felt impossible trying to put words to a feeling that almost, should have, broken me.

I’m a sucker for a blank slate, but starting over - really starting over: packing my car, leaving behind that which does not bring joy, is terrifying and expensive. Traveling, to say, falling asleep in one city and waking up hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away, scratches the itch to start fresh without the commitment. Airports are transient; awash in a sea of people I’ll never see again, I will order the cranberry mimosa at 9am. It goes so well with truffle oil garlic fries and staring broodingly out at the tarmac. Hotel rooms offer a decadent impermanence: there is something about waking up in a city that I never plan to live in that motivates me to live the best version of my life.

Here’s the thing: I’m a sucker for a blank slate, but what if a blank slate is a state of mind? You don’t need to wait for the new year, for cell regeneration, or foreign cities to have a blank slate. You can start over whenever you want to. You just have to want it.

#poetry #poet #poets on tumblr #poetry 2023 #writblr #january 2023 #deeprompts #AMRPrompts #theconstantpoetprompts

[phobicsiren]

in a world where this year is actually different, I will

Take a book with me to the wine bar; which is to say I’ll actually make it to the wine bar to begin with. I spend a lot of time musing about the perfect book to bring with me: mystery? Crime? Romance? Why does the book I bring with me to a wine bar matter anyway? When I could stay in, throw my legs over your lap and read whatever I want for free. Eventually I’ll make time for farmers’ markets on Saturdays; right now it is impossible because you are irresistible when you mumble in my neck and pull me a little closer as soon as the thought crosses my mind. I want to take the scenic route, get out of my six to five; find the happiness in cooking again: my hands miss the ease of shaping dough, how meditative it can be to chop tomatoes, their plump skins giving way to endless seeds of possibility. If this is the year things are different, I’ll stop worrying about the mystery, maybe crime book and just go to the wine bar, drink the Chardonnay and probably end up writing poetry about it anyway.

#writing 2023 #poetry #poetry 2023 #writblr #poet #poets on tumblr #January 2023 #theconstantpoetprompts

[phobicsiren]

2022, in Memoriam

After Max & ConstantPoem

A time of mourning - life and love lost. Of rebirth, illicit affairs, trying new foods (“don’t panic, chew, then swallow, you’ll be ok. Breathe”), moon gazing, and wishing on stars. There were a lot of Silver hour insomniac mornings; the kind where frosted dew clung to each blade of grass and I wished I had my car with its heated seats. Then, the desert. I’ve almost never been so happy to see red rocks as I was after January. I grieved, but I also ran from it, shed who I was like a silvery snake skin and grew into something more beautiful.

A time of rebirth; of marveling at the city skyline, and ramen with friends. Golden hour afternoons found me half asleep, the gentle hum of a tattoo needle the perfect sleep aid.

A time of changing the narrative: laughing where I once cried; plane tickets to cities I’ve only ever dreamed about; concert tickets to bands I’ve only streamed on Spotify. Sunflower fields. Museums. Drinking under the full moon. Mid afternoons in discord servers with friends bleeding into long nights and falling asleep to the sound of comforting voices.

It wasn’t my year; but in a way, it was.

#writing 2022 #poetry #poetry 2022 #writblr #my writing #poet #my poetry #theconstantpoetprompts #december 2022

[phobicsiren]

On airports -

Inspired by Steve Miller Band

The airport sees the purest of interactions:

Hellos, joy overflowing.

Goodbyes, heartache indelible.

I am no stranger to either.

There is controlled loneliness in being the one to drive myself to the airport, park my car, anonymous against a hundred others in the spiraling garage, is comforting. It gives me something to focus on, determination leaking from my shoes with each wavering step. To drive myself to the airport is to avoid goodbyes, which I suck at because my heart is too tender.

I have shared beers, stories, and kissed strangers in airports, knowing I will never see them again. Airports are like hotels to me: transient. I still remember the stranger with the pink hair, who tasted like tart apple and spearmint. He held my face tenderly while he kissed me, perhaps the best kiss I have experienced, yet I didn’t give him my actual name and don’t remember his.

How does that song go?

From Phoenix, Arizona

All the way to Tacoma

Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A.

Northern California

I have fallen asleep in one city, only to wake up in another, a new time zone, a new soft beginning, too many times to count.

My favorite route is the one that ends with me tucked into a car, squished next to my backpack, my mom or one of my sister’s behind the wheel. Finally, after months the stress truly melts from my shoulders and invariably, even though I slept on the plane, I actually sleep because I am home.

When it is time to leave I am thankful for oversized sunglasses even on cloudy days because the tears rolling down my cheeks are nothing a mother should have to see.

The controlled loneliness of walking into the terminal and not looking back. Of knowing that unlike here, nobody is waiting for me past security when I get back. One day if I am so lucky, romantic love will be there, waiting to sweep me off my feet, kiss me tenderly, tuck the curls behind my ear and away from my tired face.

But for now, it is me and my suitcase. Satchmo along for the ride in my backpack.

#writing 2022 #poetry #poetry 2022 #my writing #writblr #poet #my poetry #airport

[phobicsiren]

Moments I want to have with you

Early morning drives when the sky is still cotton candy - blue raspberry run through with jagged cherry and orange. Quietly drinking coffee; you turned me into a pumpkin fiend and you carefully tend my addiction with a laugh. Midday naps when the sun lazily sinks behind the tree line, some movie we aren’t paying attention to on in the background. That moment when our eyes meet for a moment too long, like palpable tension in a movie when the protagonists are about to kiss. I don’t want anyone to interrupt this. Fingers tangling in your hair, your breath warm against my shoulder. Laying, staring up at the ceiling just talking. Deciding to go on a drive and chase the moon. Gas station snacks like unattended seven year olds at 2am for a road trip, even though we’re just going home. Late night poké hunting like it’s 2016 again; if I could go back, I would do everything the same so we could still end up here because for as many moments as we’ve had, there are so many yet unwritten.

#writing 2022 #poetry #poetry 2022 #writblr #poet #november 2022 #hazelpoetryprompts

[phobicsiren]

November

November is the beginning of the year’s weekend. To say, it is the Friday of the year. Days are shorter and the violet hour slips around me like my favorite cardigan. I am painted in soft hues, the autumnal breeze catching my hair, caressing my face.

November smells like mid morning coffee and pumpkin pies cooling on the windowsill. It is soft, like the duvet I wrap myself in when I sit on the couch and occasionally glance out the window at too bare trees that I could learn a lesson or three from.

November sounds like migrating geese; did you know they travel in pairs, mate for life? Maybe in my next life I will be reincarnated as a goose and find you again, just as I have in this life.

November tastes like mulled wine - sticky, warm, gently spiced on my lips. I can glance down at my mug and find those same soft hues painted along the skyline if I only wait long enough.

November is ephemeral just like the sun in the autumn afternoon: Blink and you may miss it.

#november #writing 2022 #poetry #poetry 2022 #my writing #writblr #poet #my poetry

[phobicsiren]

Villain Era

After Taylor Swift, Anti-Hero

I wanted a love like the movies: wildflowers in vases on tables, ephemeral light filtered through gauzy curtains at daybreak. The sun finding us half sprawled, more akin to puzzle pieces than a pair of spoons in the drawer.

I thought I was the protagonist of the story, but I got a hollow point through my heart and a knife stuck in my back. Pierced through the heart, but never killed, girls like me, we suffer. We are a doormat to our own need to be loved, so we settle even if it would destroy us. Girls like me, we’re made to believe we are the villains of our story.

How could we believe anything otherwise when our “Prince Charming” was a frog born with a spoon in his mouth, already promised to another by fate, but intent to ruin our lives, make us out to be the villain.

Medusa was the villain too, and all she did was exist. Cursed because she was beautiful. Maybe blessed so she would never be hurt again.

I am in my villain era; Medusa dainty on my wrist, protect me from another hollow point through my heart, another knife in my back.

I am no longer a slave to my need to be loved, my need to be rescued. I don’t need to be rescued from the story that I control the outcome to.

Pierced through the heart, but never killed, girls like me are a Phoenix, rising from the ashes.

#writing 2022 #poetry 2022 #poetry #my writing #writblr #poet #my poetry #november 2022 #my words

[phobicsiren]

Kiss Me

“Kiss me.”

“Why?”

Because I want to feel something.

Because covering my right arm in tattoos to heal the damage we did isn’t enough.

Because the pain was temporary, but the emptiness is real, indelible, like the mark you left on my life.

Because tomorrow could be the end of the world; a meteor could strike, California could fall off the map, Florida too.

Because it has been 371 days since your lips have crushed into mine. All of those lies about “I don’t remember the last time we kissed” were just so I could feign being cool girl, aloof girl.

Because I’m tired of being cool girl (remember that time you called my bluff about Bebop?)

Because I’m tired of being aloof girl (I’m tired of acting like I don’t care just so a man will love me)

Because I want to kiss someone who understands my jokes, my references and isn’t tired of them.

Because I want to run my fingers through your hair at dusk, wake up next to you again at dawn. One last time.

Because I want the world to stop. Your hand on my cheek makes me forget about everything else in 30 second intervals and I need a little more of that.

Because in the roughly 1,725 or so days that we spent together, I didn’t tell you enough to kiss me.

Because it was supposed to be you and me against the world; yet it became you versus me, versus the world.

Because if I’m being honest, if I could take back everything, I would want to start with a kiss.

Finally.

#writing 2022 #my writing #poetry 2022 #my poetry #writblr #poetry #poet #romance #spilled prose #excerpt from a book i'll never write #spilled writing #september 2022

[phobicsiren]

Untitled -

Golden hour in the city.

A room painted gold, but we hide in the shadows.

How you look at my tattoos, hold me with my back to you.

Your fingers dance fire on my skin.

I would do anything to feel this way again,

And again,

And still again.

Even though you can’t look at me while you hold me.

Even though we still love each other -

Who am I kidding -

This was just a fuck.

How you shower my scent from you,

Laugh when I fix my hair,

Remark “this will do” in the mirror.

How we didn’t look back leaving the room.

Where I left my heart in your suitcase.

Tucked away next to finery I forgot we bought each other, next to a cologne I want to forget the smell of.

Won’t forget the smell of.

The room was just a waypoint.

Now I’m not looking back when I cross the street.

Now I’ve got big sunglasses on even though I’m wrapped in violet.

An orange car leaving the scene -

Phone turned back on.

A life to resume - the F is silent.

How I will get home, fall into a made bed smelling like you.

How I will regret showering you away to keep it moving.

How I will lie to everyone about where I was.

Napping.

Gaming.

Reading.

How I’ll wait until the next golden hour when you find me just so we can do it again.

I hate this piece; but this is the closest I’ll get to being able to get my pen to write about you.

One day I’ll revisit this

#writing 2022 #poetry #poetry 2022 #my writing #writblr #poet #writing #my poetry #spilled prose #excerpt from a book i'll never write #spilled writing #september 2022 #excerpt from a story i'll never write

[phobicsiren]

S1 Revelations

I woke up this morning and something felt different, broken. Outside, the cotton candy clouds, cumulus and pink were tinged through with orange slivers. If only I had a cartoonishly large knife to cut some of the marshmallow fluff. I realized, as I threw back the snowy down, stretched, that it’s not me broken, it’s how I feel about you. I am repeatedly draining myself, trying to pour from my chipped teacup into yours, but it never fills. I am giving until my fingers bleed, cracking open my pomegranate heart, harvesting seeds with bloody fingers. For what? A future that will never exist, not in this timeline, not in the mythical multiverse, not even in my wildest dreams. If we are a couple, we are the most toxic. You don’t like me, not remotely, but gods am I useful to you. Usefulness is addictive. You take, and take, and take and I will always smile, chagrined that I couldn’t give more. It’s a tough pill to swallow because it tastes like battery acid and eats me from the inside out. Your occasionally pretty words, gentle gestures do not outweigh the bruised heart, the bloodied fingers, the tear stained cheeks. I am the girl you call drunk, apologize for showing up disheveled. Drunk kisses turn to drunk regrets, I see how you look at me in the early morning. I am the girl you will text at 2am to hangout, late nights coiled around each other innocently end in rewinding a show we don’t care about anyway. I will never know what it’s like to have brunch with you, laugh under the sun’s gaze. The sun pities me, but the moon gives me her strength; she too knows what it’s like to be a placeholder to ward away the lonely nights.

#poetry #poetry 2022 #writing 2022 #my writing #poet #september 2022

[phobicsiren]

I guess I’m not Young Anymore

After Mae Ann and Bella Townsend

I mean, I still believe in love despite having my heart cracked open like a pomegranate for its seeds; it, I, am stronger for it and will persevere in spite of it, despite it. I mean, I would crack my heart open and pluck the seeds out myself, if only to breathe easier. I used to shy away from this feeling; this hummingbird in my chest, these butterflies in my stomach, the uneasiness that has coiled itself around me like a second skin. But now I embrace it; I have learned to sit with the malaise, speak kind to myself even on my worst days. I mean, my worst days aren’t a reflection of who I am, they are a reminder that I don’t have to be “on” all the time. I mean, I keep telling myself it’s okay to say no, to disappear for a while, stop pouring from an empty teacup. I mean, film and all that (don’t say “all that, just film”), portray everyone as perfect all the time. Even at their worst. I mean, I no longer expect my life to be like a movie, where a boy will win me a teddy bear from the fair, hold my hand, kiss me under a crescent moon and tell me he loves me. I mean, I only like the fair for fried dough slathered in warm pizza sauce and snowy parm cheese. If we go, usually it rains. I mean, I love the rain when I used to be terrified of it; the smell of damp earth and grass has become a soothing balm. I mean, the thunder used to scare me, but now I throw open the door and sit on my patio, a curtain of rain inches from me. I mean, I no longer romanticize being kissed in the rain, not when you can wrap your arms around me in the warmth of the bed and we can listen to the rain while we cuddle each other to sleep. I mean, I guess I’m not young anymore: love, hell, life is more than just the sunny days, but the rain never bothered me much anyway.

#writing 2022 #poetry #poetry 2022 #my poetry #writblr #poet #september 2022

[phobicsiren]

09.18 Breathe In Your Scent

In the darkness, we lay entangled; two hearts beating as one, if only for a moment. You breath, ox steady, but soothing as a lullaby and I lay coiled around you, a mess of limbs. My creamy thigh is half tossed over your hip, my arm outstretched but pinned to your side by yours, our fingers gently entwined. My face is burrowed into the delicious spot where your neck meets your shoulders and I inhale deeply. “I love you,” a quiet admission against the warmth of your neck, swallowed by the night, our shared secret. This is not sustainable, but in this moment, I am allowed this decadent selfishness. Your scent washes over me again, and again, and again. It soothes my restless, weary soul and with each breath I take, I settle in to sleep’s cocoon. Warm sandalwood, leather bound books, expensive bourbon. These are a few of my favorite things.

#poetry #writing 2022 #poetry 2022 #writblr #poet #my poetry #deeprompts

[phobicsiren]

09.05 Maybe

Maybe I will stop staring at the endless stack that is my to-read list and curl up for an ethereal adventure: One where the princess slays the dragon on her own, saves the knight from himself / Maybe I’ll escape for the weekend - drive away in my little orange car, sun refracting off it like thousands of tiny prisms / Maybe I’ll dip my toes in the sand at the beach while I’m at it; get lost and let go in the depth of the sea, blue and everlasting unlike the ephemeral mists at dawn/ Maybe I’ll try that restaurant down the street: the one with the strand lights on the patio, reminds me of my favorite cozy pictures on Pinterest / Maybe I’ll give up maximalism in place of a hygge lifestyle, I’ve already got the oversized cardigans, plush and warm, despite living in this saints forsaken Desert / Maybe I will sell everything, reinvent myself again in a new city by the water; it has been 1,891 days and I am a mermaid who strayed too far from the ocean / Maybe I’ll adopt a cat. A little one who can teach me how to love unconditionally, who I will want to curl up in the ample sunbeams of my sun soaked living room for a nap with, who will curl up with me at night, give me a reason to come back to this otherwise empty apartment that is haunted by the mistakes of my past. / Maybe now that the leaves are turning gold and the afternoons are fading to violet hours, I will challenge myself in the kitchen again / Maybe I will listen to Frank sing about love, roll up my sleeves, pin back my auburn tresses, pour myself a glass of wine / Maybe I will pour my heart into a dish that can express my love in just a bite / Maybe it will be a modern day love potion, made of short ribs, gently braised and fork tender on a bed of fluffy whipped potatoes / Maybe I won’t have to tell him I love him because one bite and he’ll know / Maybe I’ll finally master mom’s cookies: half spherical, jagged like the earth’s crust, but will never leave me with skinned knees and teary eyes / Maybe I’ll stop saying maybe and go live the life I want to live- shamelessly sexy, fearlessly myself, unbound by expectations, even my own.

#writing 2022 #poetry 2022 #poetry #writing #my poetry #september 2022 #Promptsbyam

[phobicsiren]

09.04 DMs

After Tanisha

POV: Her Side; What it makes and takes to love a guy like him

You’re in his DMs and I’m curled up in his bed, listening to his snores, writing a poem about how I love him. You’re in his DMs and I am making him laugh with my outlandish commentary while he games. I am listening to his steady callouts, the gentle rhythm of his hands on keyboard and mouse, knowing I would trade anything, everything, to be here if fate took me away. You’re in his DMs and he is washing the linens because I am a shed monster, my red curls radiant in the morning sun against his inky sheets. You are in his DMs, ignored, while I have a thigh thrown over his and my fingers pull through his hair steadily. His breath is warm against my chest and my free hand meanders up and down his arm, his back, scratching my itch to touch him. You’re in his DMs and he’s DMing me that I forgot my hair clip, clipped to his pillow, again. He’s using it to ask me to come over and hang out, where I’ll invariably forget it by the end of the night. You’re in his DMs, but there was never any competition.

#writing 2022 #poetry 2022 #writblr #poet #poetry #september 2022

[phobicsiren]

09.03 Google Searches when I can’t sleep at night

After Maxine & Hazel

How to stop hating the city I live in / What’s there to do in Phoenix, anyway? / Things to do that aren’t hiking / Fuck hiking, respectfully / Cookies like mom makes them / What does homesickness feel like? / Will I ever stop feeling homesick? / Do cookies cure homesickness? / Does Brunch?/ Brunch spots near me / How to make Good breakfast tacos at home / The ideal Mimosa ratio (3:1) / Is a job that is 75% travel going to cure my homesickness or make it worse? / Should I apply for the job? / The one that will rip me from this stupid city / The one that will change the entire landscape of my life / Perhaps for the better / Where to buy lilies in September / Are Avocados still expensive / How to tell him I love him / Gemini and Leo compatibility / Does he know I love him - Can he tell from just a look? / Like Eurydice knew Orpheus loved her so deeply from just a glance / How to stop writing about him when I want to hide his name in every poem / Milkshake spots open late near me / Does dairy free ice cream suck / How to fall asleep when everything I love is 2300 miles away - except him

#writing 2022 #writblr #poetry 2022 #poetry #hazelpoetryprompts #poet #my poetry #september 2022

[phobicsiren]

09.02 Pumpkin Spice Latte

I tried a pumpkin spiced latte today -

Years of telling myself September is

✨Apple✨ Season,

Eyerolling at the “hype”,

Scoffing into my mug of mulled cider,

Feigned superiority and disdain,

over a drink that

admittedly, rightfully signifies fall,

Gone.

I get it now.

I tried a pumpkin spiced latte today -

The world did not end.

I still do not love “spooky season”,

Uggs did not magically form,

Covering my manicured toes.

I do not sound like some California-grown,

“Oh my god Becky”

Valley girl.

I tried a pumpkin spiced latte today -

My lips are sticky with spiced whipped cream

Years of contrarian hipster-ism,

Swallowed.

Washed down by cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg.

#writing 2022 #poetry #writblr #poet #poetry 2022 #my poetry #DeePrompts #september 2022

[phobicsiren]

09.01 Autumn leaves crumble under my feet

I have watched the year slip through my fingers, like sand through an hourglass that I will turn over and again until I cease to be.

I don’t notice it until I take a step back, look around: how the afternoons were once ephemeral iris, wrapping around me like a soft haze that bled into an everlasting golden hour. Once more, the days slowly transform into too-quick fading violet hours. The sky an artist’s pallet: 33 shades of blue, struck through with jagged amethyst and defiant citrine streaks as the sun disappears behind looming mountains in the distance.

Just yesterday, the afternoons were long, stuffy, overstaying their welcome when all I wanted was the sweet reprieve nighttime offered. Now the air is sweetly tinged with a coolness that lingers on my skin, a promise of the shorter days to come.

This desert that I reluctantly call home, with its prickly cacti and vultures that circle the sky, will never compare to the verdant forests where I grew up.

Being born in the fabled forest, with its lean trees and geese that I always look to, I was built for the abbreviated afternoons and crisp autumn leaves that crumble satisfyingly under my feet. The brisk air and fleeting light of the afternoon call to me and soon, like a goose that has migrated south for the winter and gotten lost, I will return to the forest that my heart truly knows is home.

#writing 2022 #poetry 2022 #poetry #DeePrompts #september 2022 #poet #my poetry