i am a drinker of pity. i pour salty streams, draining liquid from my vats of pretend. show me you can dissolve them, i'll forgive you always. you'll be sorry for nothing of real apology.
so i will sponge the aqueous words. so hasty, they wash away fault. although i know i am the fault, you think you are the sword. i am the one blowing the waves until they are chopping.
the way a shell carries a snail
to hold is to protect, shield like green-stained roofs and gutters, or weather-battered ship hulls, as if the storm is an unnatural thing to fear, to break you. do you feel strong enough to hold me away?
to hold is to cherish, savor like sweet milk, slow-settling honey. drink, soak like sponge, taste like sugar. love not always. do you long enough to hold me close?
to hold is to mourn, (or remember, if the sun is up) as if we know what kind of pain holds the sharpest blade. reminiscent like a stream of rainwater, cold like the ocean to which it returns. and everything feels dead, except the warmth in your arms. do you grieve enough to hold me for eternity?
you are everything to me. (this is itself is untrue. I am quick to not tie two threads so tight knowing they will be cut. when the sun sets, I will try my hardest to shatter you into nothing.)
kiss me, (i swear to myself, i mean this for warm care and love, but i cannot help but fear my splintered image crumbling for the desire of the pure taste of honey. i enjoy moving as slow as syrup.)
hold me, (for eternity i wish, yet i know it is pure imagery. like a tropical fruit, i am in a constant cycle of seeking warmth, safety, enclosure, some blanket around me, until i choke on the smothered hearth.)
and know that, (i know nothing) i love you. (this i know is true. though this is all a page, i flow fountains for you, i kindle flames for you, and i return to you always. you are everything beautiful i see.)
i wake up, daisies blooming in a trail at my toes, ready to put my head through flowery wreaths throughout the day. i am so constant, my bold magenta leans to neither rose nor violet.
i drift, an unweathered cloud, sprouting color seeding painted "abstracts", wondering what it is like for someone to anchor you down so hard the hull splits. i cannot feel, but i can drift and dream.
and i have a fabric of many patterns, so unpredictable i am predictable. maybe you can classify me as a different fairy wing, yet i am still so tree-like and rooted i do not fly for a backhanded petal of beginning, but the kiss helps.
so dream me dreamy, lips so full of the right words, i can weave a basket strong enough to bear some weight, some weight i guess i must carry.
seasonal
i fell softly for you like a trickling crimson leaf, and my heart was white as powdered snow as I saw you. you, you bloom petals with every word you say, and blow the breeze that scatters the seeds like stars, and your smile opens a pocket of sunlight through the clouds. i love you through every change in the trees.
if the sun was gone i would hope i could still look up to your smile. and if the air grew still and the wind fell asleep i would hope i could still feel your breath on my skin.
for a moment, you are all i have. for a moment, you are everything.
keep me where your embrace is like a shelter of bricks in a blizzard, like the warmth under a feathered wing, and i'll keep you in my heart, always returning, like a sun to a horizon, like a sea to a shore, like a butterfly to its homeland.
Last edited by LuminescentAnt on Tue Jul 14, 2026 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Week 1: the way a shell carries a snail >I really like the rhythm of the lines in this one, especially from the second stanza. It just feels right and gives this slow, settling mood. > I particularly enjoyed these lines:
drink, soak like sponge, taste like sugar. love not always.
Week 3: as a man > Love this one!! The mixture of airy, flowery image with rooted tree imagery, the floating and the anchoring makes the poem very dynamic. And I feel like it conveys a harmony between things that only seem contradictory, if that makes sense.
Week 4: so it is > This one has a soothing, reassuring tone. I like the use of repetition, which feels like it's emphasising the speaker's promise to the "you".
this evolution is inconsequential. i am forever churning the apple, wringing the juice, suffocating the acids, and have found that mocking sympathy can be squeezed out of any word or gesture, if the eye is infected enough with citrus.
i am too softened, (or rotten, or bruised, which all bears the same appearance in a fruit) i would rather shrivel to a pulp than hold myself up to the sun in some self-appointed sunbathing pedestal. (the velvet pillows, they scare me.
the flesh, of course, always finds its way back to the soil. like water to a cloud preparing precipitation, we sink, until we are intangible individually, to be repurposed, or forgotten.
so i carry this with me, a shiver that i could one day not be sweet enough to be stirred among ice cubes.
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