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Honestly dishonest.I'd kissed you seventeen times before they tore me
away from the coffin.

This could be tragically romantic but I'm lying;
I wasn't allowed through the chapel doors.
Things I'll tell you when you're older (6).In the end,
you're all you have.

Be careful.
Quietly suicidal."Those things'll kill you,
you know?"

"I'm counting on it, sweetheart."
Things I'll tell you when you're older (5).You'll cry and that's okay,
you'll be fine.

I promise.
The deforestation of a wild thing.You tear the curtains down
and find that I am a funeral pyre in
full swing.

You learn that loneliness is nothing like
emptiness, but a burning forest.

Brightburnflames licking up my thighs and
taking with them the kisses you lay there,
and there and there.

Will my deforestation strip my skin back to
the taste of lovers old, their touches turned Midas-gold
along the expanse of new pink skin?

The curtains haven't burnt so you pin
them back up on my collarbone wings and slide
them closed to hide the damage.

I burn the way unwanted things burn (green wood damp bark),
I don't want to go but you've shut the fire in and my skin
Table for two.The car-crash-crush
of my heartcage fell out onto
the table,

bitter blood and
love between the
candles.

"I still love you,"
you said, rinsing out the tablecloth,
"car crash heart and all."
Things I'll tell you when you're older (4).There is never a wrong
time to love someone,

but sometimes there will be
the wrong someone who
will love you the
wrong way.
If you need me to.This language
might belong to the
world and her
citizens,

but
this tongue
and these words
are mine.

And if I need
to spit endearments
into the city's
humble streets
from her sky
stretching
bones

to let you
know,

then so
be god damned
it.

I will.
Feet up on the dashboard.We're driving and I don't know where.

I know that once upon a time
beauty and terror happened to me all at once
and since that night I haven't been able
to tell the two apart,

and I know that your left hand is
more beautiful than your right, but your
right knows how to touch me best.

You said,
"every mouth I've ever kissed
was practice for you,"
and I said,
"darling I don't care,
I've kissed them too."

And you know that what I mean is
I've kissed the ashes of their memory from
your lips and shovelled them from between
your teeth with my tongue,

that I'd pry
them from the back of your throat if
I thought you'd try to hide them
back there
A madwoman's letter.Darling,
you shouldn't
have asked

what it is
that crooks
my smile in
the middle like
that;

you'll find me
soon enough,
you'll see,

curled around the
table leg with
my teeth in the
wood because
I've bitten scars
into my skin
before,

and

Darling,
you shouldn't
have asked
what drives
me to

d
r
 o
 p

to my knees
and scream some
nights,

obscenities
dripping/tripping/slipping
from my mouth like a
feral child raised
on alcohol and
raised fists,

because Darling,
your warm-blood-white-bones
weren't made to
understand how my
lunacy stains my
own bones black,

swirling
tattoos of
every cage
my flutter
Clockwork.She shows up unannounced.

Her shoes in one hand and
her heart in the other;

butterfly wings and
mud strewn on the carpet.

"I don't want to talk about it."

And I wasn't going to ask, but
"I know."

She steps over the welcome mat and kisses my cheek,
"you need to shave,"
she says as she drops her shoes and her
heart in my hands (flutter-stopping clockwork).
"I know."
It wasn't a mistake.I've dragged my lungs
through packet after packet of cigarettes,
so it's no wonder to learn that all
I've got left is ash-grey and
tar-black and useless.
Garotted.I grew up with
rosary beads around my throat,
garotted by both my mother's
Faith and His word.

She would say,
'He can save you,
you have only to pray to His
Greatness.'

So I would clasp my
baby-girl fingers and
pray, pray, pray
that the hands under
my bed would leave me
alone when the lights
went out.

They never did,
and I grew out of
hoping.
If you know.If you know someone,
if you know

the way their shoulders might
slump with each dreadful minute
of their day,

don't ask them
for more time.

And if you know

how their words might dry up
with their smile and you're left
facing an empty well,

don't ask them
for more water.

If you know how
sometimes their hands will
shake with the effort it takes them
to face the day,

then let them know that
you know,

and that you'll stay.
Feb 20th.I’ve never liked the summer,

the heat stands on the pavement waving
like an old friend and the girls with freckles
all look like you;

their hair in thick braids down their backs
as they smoke their cigarettes and break my heart.
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More from ~trembling-knees

Together.At night my thoughts wander,
and they used to travel miles and miles
to find you sleeping in your
own bed.

(Where you were missing me
as I was missing you.)

Now they whisper across
the pillow we share most nights
and your hair collects them
carefully,

eggshell hopes for
always.
Haunted.The nightmares are back
and they end with your face;

always asking why I didn't follow
when you left.
Obligation.“Live,” they told me
as they held my throat
up to the blade,

“you should want to
live, darling.”
Fact.They could offer me all of Europe,
but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else
with anyone but you.
Mania.You find yourself tiptoeing
around the shards of me left
on the bathroom floor.

(The aftermath of another
episode, manic.)

I watch;
you pick me up
and my eyes droop,
knowing that tomorrow
I'll wake up with
you there.

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Flatline.

:icontrembling-knees:

"--evere trauma--"

Hushed voices dressed in
white twist somewhere far above my
head and the bed that isn't
mine.

"--blood loss,
we aren't abl--"

My eyes are too heavy,
my tongue too thick.

I want to tell them
that I'm sinking but not
dying, not yet,

"--about her family?"

but the wind comes in through the
window, cracked open whisper-thin,
and pulls my voice away,
away.


"only survivor, she's--"

Beep. Beep.

"--ragedy really, to di--"

Beep.

"--o young--"

Beeeeeeeeeeep.
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:iconaleakim-selphorian:
~Aleakim-Selphorian Apr 4, 2013  Hobbyist Photographer
This poem makes me glad that I've started forgetting to read titles before I read the poem. It made me look twice before I realized - and goodness. I teared up when it hit, just a second later than it should have.
Reply
:icondisrhythmic:
*disrhythmic Jan 11, 2013
but the wind comes in through the
window, cracked open whisper-thin,
and pulls my voice away,
away.

God, my heart.
Reply
:icontrembling-knees:
~trembling-knees Feb 21, 2013   General Artist
Let me cuddle it for you!

:heart:
Reply
:iconchococoatedlemons:
~ChocoCoatedLemons Jan 8, 2013
This was pretty damn powerful - and such a terrible idea, I mean. The horror of knowing they're talking about your immiment death but being unable to speak up.

One of my favourite short horror stories (very specific genre there XD) is about a man who is paralysed by a snake bite on the autopsy table, hearing and seeing the pathologist get ready to cut him open. It was so suspensful, this had the same sort of feeling. :)
Reply
:icontrembling-knees:
~trembling-knees Feb 21, 2013   General Artist
It's something I've been wanting to write about for a while. I was recently present at a friend's passing away when her family chose to switch off the life support (she'd been hit by a car and was comatose for a long time), and I couldn't help wondering if she could hear them talking and crying about it.
Reply
:icon0hgravity:
*0hgravity Jan 7, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
great job building a scene and creating that suspense in so little time.
Reply
:icontrembling-knees:
~trembling-knees Feb 21, 2013   General Artist
Thank you!
Reply
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