ogygia ~ a poetry collection

sea glass, smooth pebble
i'm back to the ocean, love.
the crash of the waves and the thrill of the breeze.
the sand sliding between our toes.
the towels we sit on, laughing as our hair whips at our faces.
but there's always something beneath the aestheticism.
for me, it's the jagged bits sometimes slicing up from my prettily painted exterior.
you don't avert your gaze from it
and it makes me worry
that one day, the edges will become too sharp
and you won't be able to see it coming
and it will slice, cutting deep.
there is fear of
the monster under my skin,
leeching through to
speak through my eyes.
there is fear hidden in the way i wish for you to weather me down.
make me into something softer than the shards of me that could hurt you.
take the spun sea glass that i am and mold me into a smooth pebble.
take me from the ocean and place me in a stream.
you make me want to live and you make me want to dream.
i've grown up with turmoil
but at the sight of you, i settle.
i'll make soft ripples wherever we go-
i'm content being a pebble.

(addition:
a pebble can't be a pebble by itself.
it becomes smooth by colliding with others of its kind, and when it truly becomes a pebble, those that helped it on the way are the pebbles that glide through the current with it. let's be pebbles, love.)

shelley by the graveyard
i will be a graveyard writer.
with headstones and hedges
and shadows and starless nights.
i won't write the flowery things
that society expects women to write.
i will subject these men
to dark poetry
and madness
and thoughts their brains can't comprehend.
maybe they will go home
and my work will haunt them,
a monster ages in the making
from their belittlement
of a woman in any industry
they consider theirs.
let this story be a lesson
to the men who let us down.
when they ignore, hurt, and desert us,
we're the ones who hold their crown.

shelley by the sea
i am the surf crashing against the rocks,
a monster frothing at the mouth
because of the bars on its cage.
with my love gone, it is easy to break free
and tear everyone apart.
but i wait for the bars on my cage to rust,
for the ocean's salt to bite my bars,
and i open my mouth, inhale the storm
as the clouds come rolling in.
there is fear on the horizon.
they've seen my monsters
but they haven't seen my storm.

style
i write like a mix of
modern late-night poetry
and ancient classic poets
ahead of their time.
only in my poems
does this style start to shine.
so i'll "nurture my sharks"
like nikita gill's amphitrite
and suffer through "a year
whose days are long"
like oscar wilde
in reading gaol.
just
break into my mind
and watch the darkness stir.
poetry lets it out the door, saying goodbye gently.
it may come back today
or tomorrow or next week
but poetry will let it out
whenever the darkness peaks.

my darkness is a dog,
my poetry opens the door.
the wind is calling,
and i stop bawling,
and no one is crying anymore.

the greats
sometimes, i wonder
what the greats would think of me.
shakespeare would think it's grand
that i create words without folly,
just serendipity.
byron would respect
the way i throw myself into debates
on things my heart has decided is right.
oscar wilde would adore my passion,
say i can love who i love.
he'd love the way my girlfriend and i got together,
trace his fingers over the words on this screen
and reverently mutter that i am
lucky to have a muse that loves me in turn.
i would agree.
replicating the greats is not what we are meant to do.
respecting them is better, comparing is not.
they would appreciate what we've done
to create and thrive and love.
to get the shot at living
that most of them never got.
shakespeare lost his creative freedom
through the demands of his fan (queen elizabeth the first).
byron lost his life
trying to fight for people that weren't his own
but loved him like a god
(in his downfall,
he practically became
one of their gods
anyway).
oscar wilde lost his love
and any chance of it thereafter
because of prejudice
and popcockery
and frivolous hearts deciding to switch loyalty.
they would love to see you
live to write what comes from your heart.
"don't be like us,"
they whisper.
"be better."

club love
the subwoofers shake
and it doesn't matter.
you're laughing,
and the sound is all i hear.
your perfection
drowns out every other sound.
my blood rushes
in my ears, brain, and body.
i only ever want to hear you.

missing a friend
and a little part of my heart broke
when i heard you were leaving.
carry it with you into the light-pink sea
and don't forget us when you drift away.

byron
from england to italy to greece,
my love for travel and art never ceased.
night and day, i fall in love-
it's rather easy to succumb.
now, aside from living,
it's a wonder to be
a larger-than-life figure
only truly after death.
the children in the country that dispelled me revere me;
the country that adored me even in life calls me a hero
and compares me to their gods...
and i am here, dead.
i am an academic, a poet,
a lady's man,
a hero, a fiend,
and a martyr,
and i am certain i will keep becoming more even after my death.
but remember that i was.
you are.
i am dead,
but you are not.
remember to be as true
to whatever piece of self you find and feel
as you can be in life
to become something greater
beyond the grave.

percy and mary
ours is a love of crashing waves,
powerful lightning,
and devastating beauty.
ours is a love of midnight debates,
soft morning lovemaking,
and quick matches of wit whenever else.
ours is a love of equals, darling.
to lose one is to lose the other.
but the poets left that part out.

the star in your sternum
there is beauty in your eyes
and wells in your soul.
yet you cannot be content
if you are not whole.
there's a divot in your chest
and it makes you dive down low
right into your depression
you've cracked and now you grow.
~
here's a secret, love;
sunshine can only come
when darkness deems it ready.
yet you-
you with all your poetry,
you with all your shadows,
you with all your sunlight-
you shine even with all the darkness there.
there is light in you, love.
see it,
be it,
breathe it in.
only when you keep that light in your mind, heart, and soul
can you confront the darkness gripping your mind and squeezing your heart
and hug it with your soul.
you accept it.
you forgive it.
it is still.
and then it is smaller.
it is still there, in the corners sometimes
but you're not looking into the corners anymore-
not when the windows are open
and the sun shines through
and even when it's night, there is the moon
and even when it's shrouded with clouds, there are stars
and even when there is darkness, there is you
and there is light.

a short chant for the dreamers in pain
i am and i am and i will be
strong enough to face
whatever may come
and whatever won't.

little sister, big sister
you take a scalpel to my brows
and slice until i'm bleeding and bare.
you twist the tweezers with moisturized fingers
and turn me into a numb cadaver.
meanwhile,
i take a stylus to your hand
and write inside your palm
that peace and love are everywhere
and with kindness, you can be calm.

how demeter protects herself
and suddenly,
she smiles,
and there's something sharp in it
that warns you not to do anything you might regret,
that makes you retract your hand
and that sharpness in her smile soften
and move instead to her eyes.
a quiet, offputting strength
that you hadn't seen in her before.

january
and i see
the end of
january.
slight ice,
fine snow,
slightly foggy skies.
fur coats
and fairy lights
and chilled walks
with frozen air.
so i say hello
and goodbye
to january.

a clouded day after a rain-filled night
i watch as the gray sky absorbs the color
of the beige, rain-soaked wood.
grab the panels, dig your fingers in,
and the rotted wood will rip apart.