[x]

You spoke synonyms to me."I want to live inside your chest,"
you said, "I want to burn between your legs."

Summer Memoriessummer crept up on us as we stood watching the ocean roll in to touch our feet, tears pooled in the lace-white hollows of our bones as we clasped you tightly in hands tainted black by the ashen remnants of sorrow. two years old and chubby around the knees, i clutched my piece of you that much tighter than everyone else as the waves rolled higher to tickle the backs of my ankles.
but it wasn't what i was accustomed to. i was used to every brush of your wrinkled skin being accompanied by a giggle worn thin by age and wisdom. i was used to you smiling at my too-full bones, my grip on sorrow even in that age too tight and my optimism almost inter

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 (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.

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

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

and bury themselves
again.

A(nother) letter to myself.You have grown.

You are not ten years
old and silent.

You've found the words
and you have made them
your sword and your shield,

your battering ram against
the walls you built when you
were too afraid to live.

And I know that some days
you feel like letting go,
like falling.

That you wonder if it might
feel like flying if you spread your arms
and close your eyes and pretend you
aren't doing this to die.

You have stood on the edges
of rooftops and bridges
(To follow her, I know,
but you were not born to go this way.)
and you have climbed back down.

You will make it, my girl,
by the skin of your teet

Birthday celebrations.Twenty-three cigarettes
at midnight in honour of
the years you might have
lived,

but chose not to.

a town i don't want to call mineon the right of the turquoise green sign
that welcomes you to columbia,
there are two gas stations and a church.
on the left side, there’s a morgue.

when i was five years old, my father pulled over
and stopped on the side of the road while black car
after black car passed us, going the other way.
“did we know them?” i asked.
“no,” he said, putting the car in drive. “but someone did.”

at seven, mr. jimmy down at the ice cream shop
let me have free samples of all the new flavors he made
before he put them out to the public.
a favor, he called it, for his little henry.

(years later i would realize t

fast-forward through the goodbyesthis is the beginning of the end
“i know you,” he says.
and he looks defeated, he looks sad, he looks like
he's a boy who may one day realize how much
he cares for you, so you cut him off and say,
“minus all the secrets i don’t tell anyone.”
“well, yeah, minus those.”
“then you don’t know me at all.”

and then you tell him,
i love you. but you don’t use those words
because those are taboo. are jinxed.
are knock on wood three times fast.
instead you press him in a hug and say,
i’m sorry, knowing he won’t understand
that this is the first time you ever cared for some

count to infinity before you sleep.cause i know
there are days when
it's painful to even breathe,
your throat closing up on the knowledge
that you don't know
how much longer you'll be waiting on this
band-aided, superglued planet.

every cell in your body vying to be the next to die,
and all you have to tell them is
maybe. maybe next time.

those are the days you spend
cutting rose thorns into your palms
and clenching your fists tight around
jagged reflections and prismed rainbows.
the days you realize
we're losing so much faster than we're learning.
we're maturing faster than we're growing.
adults stuck in the bodies of kids,
moving around, making the mistake

Belated Valentinehe bought me a typewriter
and said, "i can't write,
so write me something
beautiful; your words are
sometimes sad but always
powerful."

tasseographyyou stain my organs like the blackest of tea poured over and out into bone-white china cups. i feel the weight of your aftertaste in every moment of solitude scraped from breaks made into restless messes by your memory.

you haunt me like a mad man's symphony, like a eulogy pre-written and dedicated to the residue of us.

porcelain dolls with faces as pallid as your affection and as alabaster as your skeleton watch us fall apart. our saccharine sub-terrains implode, chipping the edges of our finest china with their crystalline shards; we bleed out as quickly as torn tea-bags doused in scalding water.

you are the tiresome teardrops that fall

elisewhy
would you fuck with me,
she tells me.
she is coarse as a brook bed, a force riding on the top of her. she is nose first into the brine and i feel her pain. i feel remorse. i feel the cool current run over her slick back. she is slick, i think. why so forceful? why so fast? the water uncurls from my fingers. the rocks that line the brook feed into her, and i pick up one, weigh it in my hand.
elise is heavy as igneous.
she is cold and fresh and she fits in the crests of my palms like a pebble.
'i don't know.'
'i loved you,' she falls, a skipping stone, a splatter.
'i know.'
she slams into me. elise is Mt Pinatubi, tetonic and moving into the heart of me, riding to the surface to find me.
'fucker,' she spits. i hold my cheek, red now.
elise is as tough as rock, and i tell her that.

A letter to myself.
You're destroying yourself
and I love you.

Your arms are
barbed wire
and I love you.

You pull them
across your
cageribskin
and I love you.

You're a one and twenty year,
eight month old war and
nobody's a winner
because there's only
you in this skin.

I left you alone
but I love you.

I wrote you a poem
and I love you.

I'm full of you
and I love you.

not all humans go to heavencock it
april 23 2008
“bye mom. i love you so much, i swear
i’ll be home soon.”
“please, you’re only eighteen, you have your
whole life ahead of you, please
don’t throw it away.”
“i’m going, mom. i’m going overseas
but i swear i’ll be back before you
miss me. love you!”

aim it.
now
most nights he shakes himself awake
with the vision of bombs and fire and bullets
still imprinted on his eyelids.
he doesn’t know what to call them.
the dreams, i mean.
what do you call bad dreams when
you’ve already lived the nightmare?

his therapist says his problem
is he think

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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

Winter-skinYoung boy,
you are winter-skin
and bone,

thin like naked
trees before spring
comes round to tea.

The wind rattles
through your veins and
I grit my teeth and
hold your hands to
steady you.

Young boy,
you are winter,
skin and bone.

-We had our first rain today;
it fell like mist and the smoke fled from
the hills after its wildfire father
faded out.

My bones sigh,
and I welcome Winter in.

Puddled love.I slipped in while you
were sleeping and stood knee-deep
in you.

Your chest swelled and
each wave kissed its way half-loved
up my thighs before sighing
back down to my kneecaps.

I slipped out while you
were sleeping and slept held-hands
with you.

7.I ate your absence for dinner.

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[x]

I raped myself.

by ~trembling-knees, Nov 30, 2012, 4:50:19 PM
Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

_{The first,
second and third times
it happened,
I was thirteen years
and two months,
thirteen years
and seven months,
and thirteen years old
and eight months
(respectively).

And I can't talk about it,
because when I was fifteen and first told someone,
I lied about it.

And when I was sixteen and told more people,
the lie had grown like cancer in a body that can't fight back.

I told people that I was strong,
that I fought back and hurt him because he hurt me,
that I didn't just lie back and take it.

And the truth is that I was weak
and it happened and I couldn't save myself
and I let it happen.

The fourth and fifth times it happened
I couldn't say no. I didn't say yes either,
but mostly I just couldn't say no because
I had learnt at thirteen that
saying no wasn't allowed.

So I let it happen.

I guess in a backwards kind of way I raped myself,
because I didn't think I could say no.

I don't know how to say yes,
or how to say not now,
I don't know what to do with sexual freedom.}

I raped myself.by ~trembling-knees

Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

It's hard to write about the truth when it weighs heavily in my chest, and no-one will believe me because when I was fifteen and sixteen I lied about it and I wish I'd never said anything.

~Raven18291 Apr 5, 2013

There is no fault in being a victim

*dietcocaine Dec 30, 2012 Writer

_{No. No. No. No. No.
Lying about it does not mean that you did it to yourself,
or that it was your fault in any way, whatsoever.

I'm sure you've heard this many times,
but there is no way it is your fault.

The problem and the fault lies with the one(s) who hurt you,
because they are the ones who are causing damage, and they
are the ones teaching you that you are wrong, and there are
just so many things wrong with people like that.}

~Lacewinged-Beauty Dec 15, 2012 Writer

^{Some things weigh heavily, forever. That does not make them your fault.
So you lied about it when you were younger, it still happened and it still wasn't your fault - no matter what people believe.
You were taught that saying no was not allowed - that is by no fault of your own. It does not mean you did it to yourself.
You followed what you were taught and tried to ease the burden with a lie, perhaps have one less person judge you for it. That doesn't make you a bad person, or the event any less true.}

~trembling-knees Dec 15, 2012 General Artist

Thank you.

~Lacewinged-Beauty Dec 15, 2012 Writer

^{No need for thanks.}

*0hgravity Nov 30, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

straight to the gut this one. my heart goes out to you.

I don't think I can say it any better than this...[link]

and I've said before, I barely know you, but I believe you; when someone writes like this it can be nothing but true.

~trembling-knees Dec 1, 2012 General Artist

Thank you

*Hfeather53 Nov 30, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I said no and was ignored anyway.

I understand what you mean about the freedom of sexual desire. I always feel... I dunno. Like I'm not my own to do with as I want. *shrugs* If that makes sense.

~trembling-knees Dec 1, 2012 General Artist

It becomes an obligation, of sorts. Don't get me wrong, I like sex, but sometimes it feels more like I'm having it because it's what people do than having it because it's what I want to do.

*Hfeather53 Dec 1, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Yeah, I understand that completely.

I felt that way when I was married.

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