ogygia ~ a poetry collection

vacancies
call me crude but
you're the one who
ran me through.
~
imagine all the
vacancies
you have now.
blank space open,
nomads stoking
fires, and broken
souls coughing up
rust.
~
repair me.
you left your sword here.
hey, i think you dropped something.
a sword in the gut is normal, i suppose.
say you didn't mean to do it.
"i didn't mean to do it."
i don't believe your words,
but i do believe
the triumphant curve of your lips
as you twist the blade
and suddenly there's a knife in my back, too.
~
potential respite isn't repair.
all you do is take and all we do is share.
we beg you to listen and you don't even care.
crush us all, you'll soon despair.
~
can't you
feel the vacancies
now?

violin
until i write you
into my bones,
you will remain
in my heart strings.

iris and eos on love
graph me into sunlight
and find me in the morning
when dawn peeks into night
and the colors start their soaring.
bless the fingers in the sky
and the roses by your toes.
hold your heart and ponder why
your silken sky holds snow.
patch me up and pull me through,
the clouds will fill your heart.
tug me into edelweiss
and remember the start.

tangled
play with my hair and
tell me you love knotting it
and i'll tilt my head back
and laugh
and the world will cease to exist
outside of your starlit smile
and dancing fingers.

cinderella and every other girl who lives past abuse, neglect, and shadowy thoughts
the lead smears across the paper and the sides of my fingers.
i could crumble into ash and soot so easily.
a princess was a girl of cinders.
why can't a goddess be one of similar things?
why can't i be a girl crafted of broken-down fire
and curling talons shredding at the ocean inside my chest?

speaking of ink
​speaking of ink,
​i want to flow
​with the words exiting my soul.
​my hands are numb,
​and my legs are cold.
​my mind is lazy, but it's flourishing.

i am exhausted, but i am here.
​i am surviving.
​i am living.
​i am not yet thriving,
​but there will be a time when i am.

for now, i'll drape myself over my writing,
​and in the future,
​i will fade into the ink that
​sings me its lullaby,
​lulling my eyes closed,
​painting beautiful pictures
​that i can feel flood through my bones.

i am my words.
​the ink becomes me.

dreamlike
i am dreamlike, currently.
forgive my blabber.
i am a cascading torrent of rainbow-lit thoughts,
the soft words murmured into a sleeping babe's ear.
i am the softness of the dusk,
the swaying of lovers to jazz.
i am the brush of lips against your forehead
in a fond, whispered kiss from a family member you hold dear.
i am your wistfulness, your nostalgia, your sugar-encased wisdom.
i am steady canes and mountain trains and lilting, laughing melodies.
i am a story you forget by morning.
but that doesn't mean
i am not
real.
~

A/N: both to my readers and to the world

chrysanthemum

i donate
​my chrysanthemum kisses
​to my love and our art.

i save
​my nails and spiral-padded fingers
​for the stranges etches in my body
​that i feel don't belong.

i wake up
​feeling twisted and wrong
​despite the comforting warmth
​i'm wrapped inside.

"something will happen today."
​the raising of my skin tells me,
​the soft ridges of my scars prickling
​as i shiver,
​my soul along with me.

and for the first true time
​since i wrapped myself in love
​three months ago,
​i feel fear.

i am too happy with her.
​her love for me is bound to disappear.

~

twist the stem,
​the petals fall...
can you tell ​i wish to take her to a meadow?

the petals whisper
​hoarse, tortured screams
​and i sob as their vibrancy fades.

is this
​what i am doomed to?
​i will only ever be
​a stepping stone,
​a helping hand,
​a petal-soft brush of lips against skin.

she deserves more than me.
​she deserves the world.
​but for now,
​i'll settle
​for finding her a meadow
​and feeling the crack of my heart inside my chest
​as she smiles.

TW: d3@th, m!$c@rr!@g3, gr!3f

cradle
there is a child in my heart
and an empty cradle in their room.
my body feels so heavy
despite their weight off of me.
i would cling to their presence
just like they clung to me
if it meant they would return.
but there is an emptiness
where there should be weight,
and i curl into myself once more.

there is a child in my heart
and an empty cradle in their room.
my very bones say it is wrong
for my baby to leave life before me.

there is a child in my heart
and an empty cradle in their room.
my soul whispers hoarsely
that they should have taken me with them.

there is no love like that of a parent and their child.
but my child is gone
and the cradle is empty
and my love slips to mourning till death.

ariadne

ever since we were little,
we have been told
that there is a monster
at the center of every maze.
we have been told
that a hero will come to slay it.
we have been told
to stay put and
give the hero the tools
to kill what could have been
a brother or a friend.
we have been told
to be trophy wives
and disowned daughters
that are abandoned
at the first sign of
"loving too deeply".

ever since we were little,
we have been told
that all we could ever hope to be
is a princess, caged and waiting
for a hero to ride in
with the key we already possess.

but we are older now.
and as we kneel by lazy streams,
sobbing with every ounce
of our aching hearts and shredded souls,
we believe that this is the aftermath
because this is all we have been told.
we have been told
that this is where a poor girl's story ends.
if a woman is not
everything her lover needs her to be,
she will be worthless to the world,
and she will be abandoned.

we are older now.
these stories can be
thrown to the fire and
left to burn on an ash-covered wind
because only fools think that the story stops there.

after our hearts are wrung out, we rise
and the resilience and power that is us
attracts the attention and awe
of someone who can match our every word and feeling
and love just as deeply as we can
without any scorn or sneers.
the stories we were told when we were young
are wrong.
a caged princess
can become
the uninhibited goddess
she was always mean to be.

the story of ariadne
does not end when it stops
being about theseus.

there is power in us.
do not let the fear
hidden in the eyes
of the storytellers
of the previous generations
tear you down.
you can be born
a poor girl in a cage
and rise
to become
a goddess.

the labyrinth
maybe we are all
lost in a maze,
tied together by a string
hung around the loose stones and
disheveled dirt and
ages-old moss
to keep from falling apart and out.
to keep from becoming
lost instead to the cosmos
or the waves cresting against the sea-salted boulders
of the labyrinth.

the goddess of the hunt
the wind whispers
and the air thickens.
my eyes are lit with starlight
that reflects on the gravestones of
monsters that melted into mortality
at my withering gaze.
those who mark others with cruelty
will know my wrath
and eviscerate themselves
because they know i would do worse.
they do not call me
the goddess of the hunt
for nothing.

impact
my fingers stumble
across the keys
like a blind man
trudging home.
maybe they'll trip
and fall without purpose,
without landing hard enough
to make an impact.

cepheus

~

a/n: ​the part my grandpa for whom i tried to write a good poem about cepheus will see:

cepheus was many things,
​but he is remembered as a father.
​he was married with simple rings
​and remembered with honor.

a/n: the part i scream into the void

his wife was loud and brash
​while he was quiet and reserved.
​his calculations burn and crash
​as his city suffers
​for the pain his wife deserved.

he shrinks to fit in his lover's shadow.

cepheus, why do you let your wife take over?

your daughter is your pride and joy, yet to save your city
​and pay the penalty for your wife's ignorance,
​you chain your daughter to a sea-sprayed rock
​and wait for the monster to take his payment
​and leave you and yours alone.

you are a father, yes.
​but you are a king first.

and though the betrayal in your daughter's eyes
​cuts your heart and shreds your sternum,
​you leave her to her duty
​and do not change your decision.
​you chose to save your wife instead of your daughter
​and save your city instead of your heart.

you are a king, yes.
​but you should be a father, first.

disruptor
you blast the glass and call it peace.
i don't know what to call you anymore but war.