#BenRiddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

the poem floats through the aisles of a grocery store. it, the plastic bag ghost witness to consumerism. they, haunting the reticent halls of community; the last come together, go forth of our local homes we share with others. there are no robots here, heckling cacophonies of barcodes and rendering them as billowing rorschach test sounds that taste like metal tinnitus like the rudimentary intelligence of drones come alive to deliver us from evil, our groceries from woolworths. the poem floats, watches. there, a veteran disgruntled they took his benefits away. coles doesn’t care if you served – it focus grouped how much it could take from you. here, a single mother between two jobs trying to remember which yogo johnny likes and if she has time to let some handsome catfish from the internet buy her a drink late one night this week. we hold hands and walk the aisle, the poem doesn’t understand, but it watches fascinated as we smile. what is there left to smile about, the poem asks. you hold my hand, and i am in love with you; ghost of late nights held in treasured memory by couch, by midnight air; by good mornings and i love yous. the poem watches as we kiss each other morse code kindness; try to decide on flavoured candles, whether lavender haze smells more like your mother’s house or my pinterest boards; you smile then, my memory. here, we are still happy; doomed by the narrative but still in love for a little while. the poem floats through the aisles of a grocery store. i, the plastic bag ghost witness to consumerism. we, haunting reticent aisles trying to find what’s left of you.  duck and dash poetry have a facebook page and are posting daily prompts through march. this is a response poem to today’s prompt “your poem floats through the aisles of a grocery store”

#poetry #original poetry #original writing #Books and Literature #lit #alt lit #spilled writing #writing #poem #Writers and Poets #rejectscorner #writerscreed #spilled ink #benriddle #poeticstories #poetselixir

[riddlemethispoetry]

And when tantalus reaches for the forbidden fruit, he becomes a story. We have all become a story, telling ourselves endlessly like our truth is needed at the peak of Olympus and we are the only born again bards that sing; echoing hollowly as our moans and groans of ecstasy, validation turn and spoil like rot and rotting like fruit on the vine decayed and made into wine we pour into lava pits, choking on noxious fumes and self-indulgence. I've heard your story before, spat into my mouth by a coughing whore selling their labour to mining magnates, fiduciary stagnates and name partners who thought of them as a number. He, oak notes and eucalyptus born of bush and destined to die in callous crematorium, chewed up by meatgrinders and fed to asphalt fumes that are the planet pleading, begging for no more, for I've had enough, please can someone call me an uber home, or God; I want to apologise to him for the mess I made of his children and the dinosaur bones I knocked from mantelpiece and let lie, or be lied about until they became myth. Call me a priest, let them sprinkle salt water on me, the earth; let no more things grow, let me rest. I am no Ares, red meat heart planet banging asteroids on kitchen counters in futile protest. It is no blessing for Zeus to notice you, call you child. Call you disappointment as you reach for told stories, Greek myths, cold retellings as you thrash, desperate for likes as you drown in waves of morpheus' stolen laughter, we took storytelling from the gods and they cursed us, now it is all I do, spew; vomiting stories for six retweets; I hit notifications like a toke, try again, cry again about anthills, mountains about rolling stones, the fickle nature of fame; flames and my guts torn as I lay there looking for Zeus to notice me, my hand reaching for stolen fruit.

#poetry #original poetry #rejectscorner #Writers and Poets #writers on tumblr #Writerscommunity #dark academia #greek myth #alt lit #poetryportal #writerscreed #poeticstories #poetselixir #BenRiddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

@midnightxmasquerade wrote this gorgeous piece to the prompt "widowed" the other day, so I thought I'd have a play too. This one is called Widower. you buy a bottle of withdrawal, shoot it off a fence on your way to the post office, try to find God or what you sent on your way to the blackout. it is becoming less a recession than an exhaustion of the working poor, you cannot hold up pyramids when you flood the foundation sand with opiates and denial. I see so little beauty that isn't in people these days; we, the widowed halves of our better humanity. they want you tired,

so tired you stop wanting what you've always wanted: to be loved. instead, you compromise, accept booty calls from boys in sweatpants sleeping on empty mattresses on dusty floors. you, baby doll, try to take their broke and fill yourself with it; take your empty and try to fill it with pain, with falling asleep to familiar voices, to reruns of old shows, old smiles, old dreams of owning an apartment and filling it with trinkets you made of your love. with these little prayers you made of plants to home, you pray

softly now, your quiet lips moving when you close your eyes and pretend there are no broken vases called men laying stagnant beside you. we used to say that when you pray, it is less about outcome than speaking quiet truth into the universe. we used to say a lot of things between voyeur pillows, paintings by your mother, and these days, these days you only speak truth to tired pages you keep in dollhouses buried in the back of your head where things itch, where your hands shake and you smile at memories. somewhere, i buy bottled relapse, drink it like fizzy water. somewhere, I am thinking of you.

#poetry #original poetry #original poem #poem #lit #alt lit #rejectscorner #poeticstories #writerscreed #poetselixir #benriddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

I, Tyrannosaur

you only weep for the ruin of something when you know what came before. you look at me; your eyes a reflection of Pompeii and the dinosaurs, of flash frozen people sprayed as ash against dining rooms, the kitchen where we held each other said "I am not ready to give up." I watch you give up. I watch you like I am standing in a field, naked but for scales and the roar of empire. I, tyrannosaur, so certain of my supremacy that I know I never need to change. I, tyrannosaur, look at you; it is the last time. there is so much love in my eyes, it is not in a language I ever asked if you understand, and we have fought about it in kitchens, quietly or with raised voices that sound like lava storming the streets, like volcanoes kicking off like comet colliding atoms screaming, shrieking then torn away from each other, the sound of splitting artificial as the idea of ending. I think we would be so much more kind if we remembered there are endings. I, tyrannosaur, look at you; watch you go, watch comet crash volcano howl like pressure cooker as I learn to cook for one. On the wall, there is an image of us; ash burned into wall. you only weep for the ruin of something when you know what came before.

#first draft #alt lit #poetry #poetry portal #creative writing #Writers and Poets #poets corner #excerpt from a book i'll never write #writerscreed #poetselixir #poeticstories #rejectscorner #BenRiddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

The streetlights climbed like vines around the steelshod feet and spires of concrete dreams as they reached for modernity. There was little green here, anymore. Not even in your hollow eyes, once hourglasses of warm excitement, tides ebbing, fraying for the freedom of moonlight, for alarm clocks to crow reveille, whistles to sound the end of day. Now, they stream advertisements into you, your dreams, the backs of your retinas as you pine for sleep and beg for art to free your trapped feet, stamped feet; tattooed with sores from steel cap saviours stopping teslas running over your toes, your supervisor falling asleep at the wheel, impaling you with forklift stakes like you are Dracula and not just held in undeath by the rampant virus of mortgage, rent, the need to free yourself from shackles called debt and made up like your mind worming, working on stories of monsters in the closet.

#bad poetry #alt lit #poetry #poem #original poem #new poets on tumblr #new poets society #oc poetry #Writers and Poets #Writerscommunity #writerscreed #poeticstories #poetselixir #spilledink #rejectscorner #BenRiddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

shoplifting from american hegemony

The first time I am caught stealing it is from an American Apparel, I pretend

I am on the way in, leave banned but triumphant, possess now a shirt with an

eagle on it. There is a holiness to praying for forgiveness, learning; to penitence.

There is a self-prescribed divinity to not, to taking oil drum day dreams and making,

breaking home out of houses wherever you want; autofictious arrogance, and I,

I feel like I'm saying a lot out loud, and nobody's listening not even me.

There's blood in my mouth from the grind, the beat, but it's better than biting my tongue,

cutting myself on my teeth. I'm writing poetry on post it notes,

postcard scrawl, the receipt rolls of sacrament halls, shopping docket

coupons buy one get one free, buy ten have your soul back;

my spirit is burning at a stake inside of me held there by hands I made myself

the fire starts inside of me, I watch as it comes out, watch it touch these flimsy

yellow paper walls where Wilde wrote Gothic and for a moment, I want

I want to watch it all burn, because if the bar burns down, then maybe

the stories disappear, and I disappear; I'm feeling homesick for a time I could say

I love you, to say I love you, to say I am sorry for the space between us, now

for the times you put your hands on my chest and burned them; my ribcage turned

boilerroom, smoking lounge caught fire when I left the light on, let shame

watch our shadow figures fuck; for when my inner child caught frying pan handle from

stove. We catch fire in the living room, held up by hands inside of me. The smoke

exhales, we breathe deeply of one another; start to drown. There,

we made a home on the sea floor, but some people can only hold their breath

for so long before they need to scream, ask for space; need to see

mountains carve up night sky, while I dream of writing wills on the walls Atlantis,

the things I would show you there, I write on yellow wallpaper, burn them up.

I don't write for other people anymore. The last time I stole, I took a book

from a shop in a part of town I can't afford. It was a copy of Howl,

I wrote in it, put it back. Don't believe what they tell you, I tell the person after me.

This was never ours, this language, you don't have to sound like they do.

Outside I am arrested, eating Subway naked in the middle of the day.

#first draft #poetry #bad poetry #alt lit #autofiction #howl #writers on tumblr #spilled poetry #naked lunch #poetryportal #poeticstories #writerscreed #poetselixir #benriddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

wait, no this isn't a shitpost

the other night, i asked for a prompt and some angel sent me a cool one that I'll post a poem to later (almost done, i promise)

but also and in the meantime and hi, i have been working SO MUCH lately and because some life that happened i had to do one more semester of uni (for this degree, there may be more and i resetve the right to complain about them)

but the thing is that writing keeps me sane, more, it makes me happy, and when i get in my own head i love some prompts

if you have prompts, i would love to write to them + please send them to me. hi, I would love that

xoxo ben reedle

PS: if you're interested, i wrote a book recently! you can buy a copy here: http://mybook.to/Cripple-Who-Is-Whole. dw, you can also read it for free on ao3 there: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39150735/chapters/97948608 

#poetry #poem #dark academia #light academia #academia #writers on tumblr #original writing #writerscommunity #new poets community #alt lit #spilled writing #rejectscorner #writerscreed #new poets society #poetselixir #poeticstories #new poets on tumblr #benriddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

I watched Sleepers (1996)(it has Brad Pitt in it and I was surprised) recently, and I have many many thoughts about it, but particularly about the epilogue and one of the scenes in it. this is a poem about that (no spoilers, kind of).  tw: references to alcohol, implication of addiction  how long will the lawns last come the zombie apocalypse?

these last vestiges of suburban undergrowth, they, the hollow monuments of the working class playing at fiefdom; at your curb is a moat and that fence falling was an invasion, call out your neighbour and bequeath to them the honour of fixing it. none matters anymore, here these tired leaves are hallowed stories of bygone age; here, where child pulled stick from sand and named themselves merlin, there is rotting in the streets, bodies where they fell; these dreamlike games of "what would you do if?" come alive and indignant.

how long will the lawns last when no one remembers to water them?

we, the refugee in our own streets; haunted by tropes and dystopia. they, the fertilised soil come alive and carnivorous; mycelium apologists cawing, clawing at the empty husks of what we become. gossamer skin, flesh prison; were we dust once? stardust perhaps, angeldust lined up on god's key and given breath, not inhaled. once, we were god's children, now left in a hot car we turned the air con off while dad was in the store; we fight now to lick the saltwater saline from each other's foreheads, ration Sodom and Gomorrah's electrolytes, we learn to pray again, I think sincerely. no one comes, no one answers. a popeless place.

how long will the lawns last when the flood takes the survivors?

it is hard to stay sober at christmas. there are so many stories you want to forget. I have become a garden I refuse to tend to, my eden fractured or stagnated like still river water whining beneath bloated bodies discontent with the perpetually unfinished bottle of gin left in hand and not burning through holes in stomach, worldview or self-esteem. we are all just children holding on to branches as time tries to sweep us, sleep us away. sandman's folly, we are all sleepers now, dreamers now. we, the last gasps of a world forgetting; smile with me, think of lawns surviving, untended. imagine how they grow. close your eyes, inside of me there is grass blooming, stretching endlessly. when the time comes, tides come, remember how i smiled, watered lawn when i could not feed myself.

#alt lit #original writing #original poetry #poetry #Writers and Poets #writers on tumblr #Writerscommunity #dark academia #dark acadamia aesthetic #rejectscorner #writerscreed #poetselixir #poeticstories #BenRiddle #tw: alcohol #alcohol #alcohol mention

[riddlemethispoetry]

Like Minded

@midnightxmasquerade made me watch Like Minds, and asked me to write a response poem. This was the result.  Heavens falling; a necessary evil bleeding memories like heresy like loving you more than God.

Pull me apart like some living autopsy, some dissection; cup my heart in your hands let it beat for you, let it know;

"I see you," I want you to whisper to it, as I scream hung from fish-hooks and barbed wire from

the ceiling and the Fates. Perform me for these old crones and their laughter;

let me be a story blood-flecked on your nails, an apology no one asked for, a memory.

Love is made of heartbeats, I think, or measured in them; by time, by pumps perhaps, or

the sheer volume of blood we breathe. Perhaps love is all of them, perhaps as we love, make love

or fall, our heartbeats echo echo against one another like Doppler riding someone in an elevator;

the closer we come to the edge, the further we are from understanding. Perhaps falling is all that matters,

we speak of orbit, talk to children about globes or mobiles, but really the planet is falling,

falling perfectly, screaming across the horizon so it is never lost, always

kept just close enough to Helios that the sun can catch us, if Ra wants to.

Love is the same, I think, it is falling, falling and screaming letting our echoes hang in the void

as poetry, scrawled across blogs and tumblr and twitter, the most deviant of art

written in Plato's cave and abandoned. Perhaps that is why God abandoned us; He ran away with some floozy,

or perhaps he started writing poetry over poetry over the echoes of poetry, perhaps

He was screaming and poetry couldn't catch Him, so He fell. Perhaps Lucifer is less an idea than

an after photo. Imagine before and after photos of love; the exuberance, the hope. The betrayal,

not by a lover, necessarily, but by your idea of love, your expectations. Hope is a fickle bitch, tricking you

into living just so you can die. Death is just an echo; it can only come to the living like

echoes only come to the living sounds, so strange that we are become echoes of one another;

like we are two minds speaking, or listening to voices speak from the flames, the fire

alone with us in the cave, and we are warm. There are few things more Faustian than falling in love,

the heliocentric making someone the centre of your universe,

in exchange for being happy, for a little while. The story is always the same; eventually

one of us falls too far. One of us suddenly free of gravity, of orbit; of love,

becoming then only a voice. I have loved many voices, but yours now, the only sound I care

ringing, echoing echoing like I am trying to scream your voice; like

I am trying to speak it, only I am falling from the edge of an earth, held

back by fish-hooks, barbed wire, humanity. The Fates cackle; place my heavy heart

on the scales of Anubis, but before you do, please whisper "I see you, I know you;

I loved you, too."

#poetry #original poem #dark academia #darkacademism #dark acadamia aesthetic #dark aesthetic #like minds #Writers and Poets #original poetry #alt lit #rejectscorner #writerscreed #poeticstories #poetselixir #benriddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

After the war, she didn't sing anymore. How do you even ask about that? It's not bad, just missing; less pain than the absence of feeling, of emotion. She used to sing, dancing between bookshelves alive and in love with words, with learning; with giving a shit. She was quiet now like she had kissed a ghost in a black cape and it had sucked the soul out of her, like it had put its hands on hers like she was playing the keys and it stilled her hands, or like she had buried her music with all the great loves she had buried in open graves, like she'd left white tulips and music there.

It was a Sunday morning in the library when he heard her find it again; candles burning like incense and prayer, and maybe, maybe it was God that spoke to her, and asked her to sing, or maybe it was the ghosts that she'd left her love of music for, or maybe it was the poetry in a book by some old bard, but

He stood there for a long moment, a long time or maybe none at all like an ethereal moment holding hands with time or a loved one like all the atoms in his soul shook at once, like an electrical wave surged with emotion, and for the first time pressed a special kind of serotonin into his palm, or like he'd been drowning in a sorrow that only love can give you, and for the first time in a long time they broke the surface and breathed again;

He swept her up in his arms and held her, held her like she was a moment, or this was; held her like she was a flame and he had lived for years alone in the dark, he held her like he had loved her all these years, because he had.

Don't stop he murmured to her, don't stop.

#Writers and Poets #poets corner #twcpoetry #dramione #spilled poetry #excerpt from a book i'll never write #dark academia #literature #english literature #poeticstories #poetselixir #writerscreed #poetryportal #benriddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

Moonfall

I don't know if it is possible to love someone badly, that is not to say I haven't.

Just at what point does it become something else, misconstrued or reneged upon like you and I are dancing in one of our last good moments, fond memories, the kind you will think about when I am gone like when I tell you I love you, or when we would lay next to each other, and it would feel warm, or that's how you would describe it, your body pressed against mine, we are dancing to the pilot light, later you will gaslight yourself into remembering we as still warm.

I don't know if it is possible to love someone badly, that is not to say I haven't.

Just at what point does it become something else; when is it possession, burnout, when does it cease being love, become a refusal to let go? When is it staying together for the mortgage, the kids, when is it you're there but you don’t sing anymore, so I know you can't be happy.

I don't know if it is possible to love someone badly, that is not to say I haven't.

Imagine being the first cosmonaut coming home from space, knowing there is no one who will ever understand what you saw; I have been tired for a long time now, tired of writing, of poetry; tired of conversation starting, finishing the flirtation of whether my name matters to your lips as long as they are full of something;

I, a marionette mouthpiece dancing to fill my wooden cheeks with a slice of someone else's pie,

I, a jettisoned joke spiralling into outer space hoping to be found by aliens that speak my love language;

We all know I am too busy to learn theirs. It is a radical act to refuse to harden your heart to the way things are,

Kiss me, while ET watches, waiting for the moon to crash into us like

We are the gravity of the old gods trying to build a universe to equilibrium, throwing tantrums over

whether to make life out of carbon or silicon, whether the first peoples are gold, silver or bronze;

Write your stories across my lips in technicolour; stop only when you are finished, I have the time, or this time I will make it.

This time, this judgement day; the trumpets sound out how I have thought of my hands speaking braille

to your goosebumps every night since I last loved you. This time, your lips fade into mine, we blur; less conflation than

the removal of distinction, your thoughts louder when they can just walk in, be heard.

This time, you the trumpets singing love means let your walls down little Jericho, you have been a coward too long.

We look up at the same stars as the ancient Mesopotamians, and I wonder would any tell me I love wrong?

Do I love badly? Or am I something else?

The dream ends, a dawn breaks; visions of you, the last star in the sky linger while I mourn the edge of sleep.

Above, the stars echo nothingness, and I remain behind, alone.

#original poetry #poetry #writblr #books and literature #literature #alt lit #poetblr #Writers and Poets #writers on tumblr #rejectscorner #benriddle #spilled ink #writerscreed #poetryportal #poeticstories #poetselixir

[riddlemethispoetry]

I feel like a forehead kiss would solve like 95% of your current problems, like it would clear your head; your heart of careless remarks, of intrusive thoughts, of overthinking.

Love can feel like a brittle leaf, falling apart beneath the whispers of the wind, or careless remarks that march like iron boots to crush love underfoot, or if not love then, infatuation; or love can feel like the last lights of autumn that you are trying to catch like it is the hand of someone you are losing, like the last smile of a ghost you are saying goodbye to, or not goodbye, but we will meet again, just not like this.

I do not know if I have ever been in love.

A mistake repeated more than once is a decision.

The last lights of autumn remind me of you.

I wrote someone a poem about autumn, once.

The poem didn't work because I didn't believe in it.

I didn't believe in them, or in saying goodbye, or I love you.

Those words would have been lies, the poem was punctuation.

It was simply a necessary ending. I do not know if they remember.

I never wrote you any poems. I didn't know if you would want me to, and

that's because I didn't ask, or try; I -

I just remember smiling at you, and some nights as the light fades

earlier and earlier, and my shadow sighs wearier and wearier,

I think about you and all these words I might have said, and

whether I would have been weird if I tried to ask you out like

Would I start speaking Old English like "Pray thee madam, are you

Free this evening? I'd like to drive my automobile by to pick you up at seven," or

Would I offer you some cheesy pick up line like ma'am, I hope you ride a bicycle

to work because you're already contributing so much to global warming.

You know. Because you're hot. Or would I have been myself?

Would I have said hello, and smiled at you, and

Would you have smiled at me, said "hello,"

And could we have been in love?

A mistake repeated more than once becomes a decision.

I have wanted to write you a poem for years, and

Some nights we'll talk, and your voice will breath sunlight through

my cracked phone and you will sound like the spring, or

coming home; like the world is tired of Hades, and is coming

back to the summer sun, a springtime baptism of the world in

warm rain, and greenery; in new love and forgetting -

Forgetting pain, or yesterdays, or the cold of long nights when

someone has let you feel alone.

My ethereal, you asked me the other night if I was asking you on a date.

A mistake repeated more than once is a decision.

I wonder if the winter of the world will be a decision, or whether

it will feel as natural as closing my eyes after a long day,

a day where I have worn steel-capped boots and sold myself

to work for corporations that never gave me a name tag because

I was always nothing to them. I wonder, will someone press buttons, and

will snow and ash fall upon us, will it sting like acid rain, and

will I cry for the end of the world or for not knowing if I have ever been

in love?

A mistake repeated more than once becomes a decision.

By the last lights of autumn you asked me if I was asking you on a date. I smiled at you, and somewhere you smiled at me. I started with hello.

#poetry #original poem #original writing #writblr #excerpt from a book I'll never write #light academia #autumn #litereature #english literature #poetryportal #writerscreed #poeticstories #poetselixir #benriddle

[riddlemethispoetry]

Of course I remembered is a love language, and every mirror you ever buy comes pre-used.

You shouldn't have to audition for someone to be in love with you.

I fell in love once when someone put their combat boots up on the dash of the car I lived out of more than

anywhere else. We see ourselves reflected in other people, She, director of some magazine,

I, a stray dog trying to read what someone wrote on my collar when I was a kid, trying to learn what that meant

for me now. They, a Joan Didion reincarnation writing stories to lay bare truth;

We, young and stupid; We, trying to reinvent counter-culture for ourselves, blissfully

ignorant of history, our history. Privilege looks like never needing to ask how we got here, never asking

through tears, chains; bruises bleeding questions like how did this happen, how is this fair;

why is this the way things are? Privilege is not needing them to change; is joining the revolution because

of your daddy issues, and being able to walk away when you're tired. Even in rebellion, your privilege is a story. All we are is a collection of stories. Just because you can change the next doesn't mean the last one wasn't

written or real. Look in the mirror. The lines under your eyes speak to that, to poetry written about how

you cried to Fast Car and Wildest Dreams; you never showed anyone the words you wrote in a notesapp, but

that doesn't mean that they weren't real, that how you felt wasn't valid, that doesn't mean that

the story from your POV isn't important. Even when it feels like no one listens; speak your truth.

Of course I remembered is a love language. I fell I love with a ghost from Alabama, I didn't know what that meant at the time, just that they smiled and talked about God like God was someone they went to school with, the year above maybe, or you brought God with you like a teddy bear, a stuffed toy that you ascribe stories, personality to; I wondered what your God would think of me; the prodigal son that never came back. It has been a long time since I have been able to meet my eyes in the mirror. I wrote someone a book of poetry, once. It wasn't what they wanted. I can't remember what they did, whether it was a ring, a romance; for me to become someone else, or the person they saw in me. I remember making out beneath the mistletoe. I remember leaving - Every mirror you buy comes pre-used. Forgiveness is the same; every time you say sorry, every time someone says "I believe you," it is a fresh treasure, held and thrown away by anyone offered it. I wonder if God's eyes look like one-way glass, He, seeing all things, We, seeing only reflections of ourselves. Look in the mirror; You, a reflection of God writing symphonies under your eyes, beneath your tongue when you click it in distaste, disgust, when you mock someone you love forgetting where they left keys, a cup out, or how much you love them; They, coming home the prodigal child of God, to be in love with You. We make God in our own image as much as He sees Himself in you, You; made of love, a limitless resource sustainable only when you are held like you are treasured enough that They, Prodigal Child look you in the eye, say "I am sorry." You, God of Small Things; things like apologies, second chances, love - You, God of Small Things; the only ones that matter. They, seeing a reflection in your eyes; You, seeing them as they see themselves. You, see them through your eyes; You, never should you have been asked to audition for the love you deserve, You, never should have needed to ask for the love you deserve, You, the smiling face of "of course I remembered," but not just on Christmas, on a dinner quiet enough to barely be a date when They, smiling; a reflection order a glass of wine you'll like, or one Thursday, You, forgetting book club, They make treats, deliver to you at work; You, You, deserve to be smiling, shining like You are Christmas, or They, A wise man or shepherd finally seeing You, a prayer answered, a love reflected from the eyes of God back to the world as You. You, my beloved; You shouldn't have to audition for someone to be in love with you. I already am.

#poetry #original poetry #dark academia #dark academic aesthetic #darkacademism #excerpt from a book I'll never write #literature #english literature #poetblr #Writers and Poets #benriddle #spilledink #writerscreed #poetryportal #poeticstories #poetselixir

[riddlemethispoetry]

It only takes a drop of rain to break a drought, and why is my mailbox always full of bills and not love letters?

I had an artist residency once in a decaying old building that tasted like Gothic decadence gone insane dripping with hallowed stories like vampire kisses whispering down the walls with a soft, alluring kind of madness.

I would write late at night kept company by little doves, the smell of paint I left on a wall in a fit of artistic pique or exasperation.

The only sounds were the soft call of lonely rain, the echo of clickety clack train track carrying pendulum people to and fro unhappily swaying side to side awake to asleep to awake to sleep until it all blurred into microdosing Mondays suits worn out to the races Tuesdays burn your paycheck on the pokies but don't burn it all down because where are we all going to live if we set fire to the doghouse?

It only takes a drop of rain to break a drought.

The most perfect kind of intimacy is the kind I have with someone who only knows me from the ink etchings left inside a book of poetry I have left in Elizabeth's. There will be no pricetag, it will not appear in stocktake, no, my footprints and their shadows will be the only evidence in the wood floors of quiet underfoot as I, the reverse thief, leave you the last breath of poetry, that one gasp you need to wake up from resuscitation to retaliation against a kind of living that is always trying to kill you, I will not be there, I never am.

Catch my answering machine, if you can. Like a fridge, it is always running, always hopping never stopping all ways out of breath.

I will be in the north, somewhere letting time and red dirt trickle through my fingers like I am holding the drought in my hands waiting for it to look beautiful, I think rich old white women might bottle it to take home to pristine porcelain tile floors, marble archways to say look, look here, isn't it dirty, and doesn't that make it beautiful?

You can commodity anything if you try hard enough.

Look at me selling my skin and stories for just one more bite of pie;

It only takes a drop of rain to break a drought.

I am dripping sweat and adrenaline, at this point in the poem my hands are wet and dripping, my lips dry and nervous and I am only here because someone made rain yesteryear.

I have been looking for it, dipping my fingers through dirt and time, and maybe I was looking for you, but that wasn't what I found.

Why is my mailbox always full of bills and not love letters? It is because I never asked for them.

All the best conversations start with hello.

The best books of poetry are slim, skinny; not like those instagram girls that bully and butcher your self esteem like they are ghosts haunting the tired walls of an old hospital folks let me heal myself with poetry in.

The best books may not have an isbn, no barcodes masquerading as Rorschach tests, maybe these books are little windows into the soul, and some will howl their anger; shriek sadness speak pain and betrayal. Some will be love letters, and maybe they won't arrive straight away to your letterbox, or fall magically down your chimney, but Say hello. It only takes a drop of rain to break a drought. 

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[riddlemethispoetry]

We write our names like poetry into the sidewalk; the wet concrete congealing behind the grooves of our fingers,

fingerprints like suburban sonnets staying behind. This is a good foundation. This is sacred. Sacred, adjective

referring to that, which is, set apart for special purpose, or chosen by higher power, picked; named, spoken aloud of by angels. That is to say you, my angel, make this sacred. You kiss me, your tongue of angels fills me with fervour, our hands stained with suburban sonnets, with

concrete interlock, hold, stay there for a short forever I would never rush, waste; forget. You, smiling

golden like your cheeks are blush with the reflection of fire dancing, prancing

refracted from a burning bush, bronze bull; when you hole my hand, I feel holy; baptise me in wanting you.

Hold me.

When Midas touched his lips to wine, I wonder if he kissed gold-flecks into his wife's cheek; after,

when he died hungry and alone, was that what he was thinking about? When I die, were I to die then be

turned away at St Peter's gates, that is to say upon arrival at the pearly whites of God's gnashing teeth, my

rejection, dejection; let me return to haunt this spot where I am happy. Let my ghost stand where we have stood, let it

trace fingers where we wrote our names, built a temple to love or to one another or both the same, let me

wait for you here, my Midas-touch, my angel.

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[riddlemethispoetry]

Not Mad, Just Disappointed

After the 2021 Met Gala

There's something deeply dystopian about the met gala surviving some eighteen months into the apocalypse. The rich eat

maskless like only money can afford to; forget diamonds, the truest expression of wealth in the modern age is being able to buy carelessness.

Perhaps the world is burning, but I can watch my favourites from stage and screen dance to the sound of violins, and Nero's laughter.

Here, a presidential hopeful wears a gown dripping the words "tax the rich." It costs more than my entire life.

There, a xillionaire white feminist wears a silk shirt that reads "Peg the Patriarchy," I cannot help but wonder what else

that money might have achieved. Performative activism is an expensive hobby; imagine paying ten girls’ college debt instead.

The populist left and right agree that what's wrong with liberal democracy is that it became illiberal; oligarchical.

A hundred lives go out each day in England. The crowd is full of British designers unfettered by border control, or

at least able to oil the economy so the crematoriums can stay afloat on this River Styx, perhaps the bodies fuel

the engine; if this is what replaces coal, I do not want it. I have not read the treasury reports about how many dollars

each life is worth GDP. I am tired of writing apocalypse poems, but it is better than getting sick, I guess; someone needs to remember.

We are all our father’s children; having made a world that we damned and doomed, now hoping the lives of children

will be worth it's redemption. We are hurtling towards oblivion content with blood, content with circus. I still watch it;

not mad at myself, just disappointed.

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