ogygia ~ a poetry collection

snow day leisure
i'm
pressed for kindness
and blessed with love
but still feel worn out,
like the goodness and energy
has been wrung out of me
by the unstoppable hands of the world.
everything stops
and i just want to fall
into the numbness blanketing the ground.

goodbye, snow days
the snow is melting,
and the runoff feels
like another dream
sliding out of reach.

phaethon
every day,
i get closer to the sun.
every day,
i crave warmth enough
to go up in flames.
every day,
i watch the arc
of my father's chariot
and bat away
the prying hands of my sisters.
every day,
my arms get bronzer,
glowing with the hidden light
that puts apollo to shame.
every day,
i yearn to earn the title
of being my father's son.
every day,
the longing to follow in his footsteps
and perhaps become godlike myself
grows stronger
and stronger
until i'm holding the reins
and grinning
even as i turn
into a ball of flame and misfortune
and crash from the skies
into a spring
where the earth meets the seas.
every day,
i built myself up so i could crash.
every day,
my mother and sisters only stoked
the fire and longing to break free in me.
every day
led up
to this one.
so, i am smoke and acid,
and i am not regretful.

helios
when something you love
takes away someone you love,
you will never love again.
i made a promise
i was foolish to keep.
i am a titan,
the eternal lord of the sun,
the shining entity
who brings hordes of females
to his glowing gates.
yet the title i am most proud of
has always been
"father".
i was a fool
to prioritize my son's happiness over his safety.
i have always been nothing if not powerful,
but even i cannot reverse his smoldering death.
now, i am nothing if not regretful.
and regretful i'll stay till my last breath.

~

even legends die.

do i breathe again
i take a breath
and the world stops
and i wonder
if that breath
was my last.
do i breathe again?

the love of a jilted lover
when i say
that there is no hate greater
than that of a jilted lover,
i do not just mean
romantic love.
i mean every kind of love
that has left you broken after being unreciprocated
and continues to break you silently,
your soft sobs music enough to its ears
that it keeps making those silent cracks,
cleaving your heart into all the pieces
you never thought possible.
you are so bursting with love
that everyone seeks
to dry it out and restrain it.
but you are untamable, darling,
and nothing can dry out your love,
merely redirect it.
remind them of this
by hating them with ferocity
yet finding the love within yourself
to love others–
those who deserve it–
with the love you would have given them
had they not decided
to be sneering sacks of sick, saditty scorn
and instead realized that loving is not a weakness
when it is a love as fierce as yours.

my darling
in a move only captured in hollywood,
she looks at me with love and longing
and my poetry somehow turns to gold.

holding me steady
even when she isn't beside me physically,
i feel her essence in my soul.
she thrums through me like a steady heartbeat,
filling every cavity previously dull and cut inside of me
with quiet moonlight and sweet kisses and soul-tugging embraces.
and every time i think about hurting myself,
that heartbeat grounds me.
because i would be ruined if she ever flatlines
and i wouldn't want to ever destroy her equally with mine.

a map of the life of a lost ring

i. chosen

i was melded, forged, prodded, and twisted
until i became this almost-perfect thing
deemed worthy of nestling into the finely cushioned front seats,
settling back and waiting to be handpicked
(not with a smug air, but a proud one).

my kin were plucked away all around me,
yet in the cushions i stayed.
sometimes, a finger would flick me, play with me...
but they meandered away,
attention already shifting like the wind in this odd place,
going from a breeze to a gale within moments.

it was growing later
and colder for a day the locals called warm for winter.
i was losing hope despite myself,
and the cold began to gnaw at me.
i shivered, my metal rattling, clinking softly.

a soft, delicate laugh
like wind chimes and fairy dust
swam towards me
on a current in the wind,
and a bit of warmth
settled into my structure.

a pair of hands like flirty doves
flitted around me from ring to ring,
spinning and gasping softly in delight.
there was an admiration held in me for her,
for the excitement glittering in her eyes as she browsed
while her sister (young and angular and decidedly firm)
ran a curious, analytical gaze over most of us
before settling on a pair and brightening with triumph.
these ones, the young sister said,
were to be for her and her friend.
the elder merely smiled
and continued to flit around us happily.

"3 for less," the younger said,
giving the elder a pointed stare
and nudging her with an elbow.
"pick one."

the sweet one's eyes widened
like she hadn't expected
to get to be attached
to one of us.
she ran her fingers over my neighbors,
and tried them on
with a lackluster, disappointed dullness
in her eyes when she didn't feel a bond.
soon, her gaze snapped to me and my closest neighbor,
and she grinned.

she plucked up my neighbor,
and if i had a heart, it would have dropped.
"what do you think?" she asked her sister.
"eh," was the young one's response.
the elder nestled my neighbor back between the cushions,
and the world span.
i was lifted.
by joy, i was lifted!
"what about this one?" she asked the young one,
and this time, the girl narrowed her eyes and shook her head.
"i prefer the other one," the sharp one said.
the sweet one wilted,
torn as she looked
between me and my neighbor.
oh, no, she was indecisive.
i began to lose hope again...
then, something hardened in her soul
and softened in her eyes,
and she spun me onto her finger
with a decisiveness i never
would have expected from her.

i was chosen.
and i was elated.

ii. between

she took me with her.
she was busy, she said
to the people in her screens.
i know because i was on
her fingers as she typed it out.
and she was choosing to take
me
to go with her
on this journey of music and mayhem.
even with my slight fear and apprehension
of the outer world,
i was proud
that she was taking me.

we arrived at the first of the destinations,
and the young sister was with us.
she had chosen to leave her rings behind.
how foolish, i had thought.
my human friend echoed the statement.

the young one grew sharp again,
eyes turning to weapons she used artfully
against her sister as she asked in a soft voice
to play with me.
to play with me,
when the sharp sister
is not the one who holds my loyalty.
if i could have,
i would have scoffed.
my human friend (the sweet sister)
had the same idea.

her sister looked at her
with that steely gaze
of an eerily stagnant lake
reflecting stormy skies
and lush, sharp pine trees,
and the sweet one crumbled,
handing me over
reluctantly.

the younger one played with me triumphantly,
and this spinning wasn't as fun as it normally was.

eventually, the sweet sister finally snapped
and took me back,
but i remembered the mediocrity of the sharp sister to me
and held it against her.

iii. blind

the sharp sister went to a friend,
and the first place melted into a new one.

the previous place was heaven
compared to the place we now were.
loud and overwhelming and dark;
my human friend was at a loss for words.

but everything drowned to become the background
when she saw pale clouds of smoke curl from a man's mouth.

"inside?" she seethed quietly.
rage vibrated in her bones and had me shaking.
not because i wanted to, but because she was shaking.

her parents murmured, softly asking
if she was okay.

she slid me off her finger
and i felt the slam
reverberate through
my structure and spindles
as she placed me onto the table
with much more force than necessary.
"i'm going to the bathroom," she said tightly,
and even though i was just beginning
to transverse the human world,
i had a feeling
that she was only going there
as a distraction.

she came back still livid,
and she picked me up aggressively,
firmly settling me around her finger
and spinning me wildly.
i tried to soothe her,
but her eyes were wide and fearful,
and when she saw the smoke again,
she set me back down, this time, atop a pile of napkins.

the sweet girl's anger
turned her blind.

a stranger came and swept me away,
and my sweet human friend didn't know until minutes later,
when she spent the rest of the night
frantically searching
for something she wouldn't find again.

iv. lost

objects cannot feel pain.
but the closest we get to it
is when we are lost
and torn away from the people
who chose us.

mourned then forgotten
in a pale, plastic bag,
i am nothing now
if not lost.

red day
something drops in my chest,
clanks against the tiled floor.

red drips from my legs
to my white shoes,
cleaner than those
of most kids my age.

something tilts on its axis.
sometimes, i'm worried it's me.

my eyes flutter shut.
this is not something i should witness.
my eyes burn, and everything else in me
burns along with them.

as i fly, i will burn
like all who came before me.

i count my missing assignments
and the things that make me sigh.
i bury myself into my hoodie,
trying to live past
this next class,
this next hour,
this next minute,
this next moment.

the clock ticks too slowly,
and i fear i will not make it.

breathe.

my fingers are shaking.

breathe.

my eyes are closing.

breathe.

there is a pain searing
at my chest, at my heart, at my lungs, at my breast-

breathe.

is this too much? i
should have known, should have seen this coming-

breathe-

how could i
still manage to be so ignorant?

breathe-

there are words climbing up my throat,
tearing through the tissue and digging claws into my bones-

stop.

there is a swirling, liquid-red darkness here.
these kinds of things have always come and gone.

my head tilts,
my expression melts,
and relief loosens the muscles in my stomach.

this
will
pass.

today, i think,
is a red day.

when the poison of doubt leeches into my heart, my love is there to help me
confusion turns to doubt,
and i worry.
i split open my heart
and examine the pieces.
her words line every curve,
her essence is carved into my endocardium,
and the way i light up with her around
glows all along the caverns
of my pericardial cavity,
the shadows speaking only in her name.

my skin is callous
but my heart is soft.
every mark she made,
every smile she's given me,
every time her fingers twine through mine;
they all remain pressed
into the tissue of my heart.

there's an old chinese folktale
that talks about a red string of fate
that links soulmates by their pinkies.
i think she may have
taken my heartstrings
to tie herself together
and left me limp and ragged,
staring after her retreating figure
pleadingly.

my head droops.
soft fingers brush against my own.
i startle.
she is here, smiling at me.
she wakes me from my nightmares
and scatters my doubt-casting thoughts.
my darling, my sweetheart, my love-
i am addicted to you and your sweetness.
but i do not say it.
i settle into you and smile.
thank god there is peace
now curling in my gut.
thank god there is you.

sleepy academic
there's an imprint on my cheek
from my own hand
pressed against my face
with a force only
careless exhaustion
can muster.

testament to my tiredness
i
am
so
tired
that
my
fingers
are
dragging
across
the
keyboard
writing
this
instead
of
floating
or
flying
like
they
normally
do.

pink
pink pens and sunlight sweaters-
there is love in the atmosphere.
sinful eyes and sweet love letters-
there is love all around us here.

the poets will say
there is love in the air.

wherever we stray,
love will follow
like strips of
stardust and sunlight
caught in the wind.

enrapture me
so sweetly
as you always
do.

sweetheart,
you've blessed me
with your love.
i am yours
and you are mine
and we are always inevitable.
the pull of my heart
is always undeniable.
the direction it tugs toward
is you.

bully for my body
dresses flutter to the ground.
sometimes, i wonder
if laughter falls
that way, too.
then i see you,
and i know it doesn't.

your laughter is sharp,
booby-trapped
with a hidden edge
i did not know was there.

i glide my finger across it,
and i did not fear to bleed
because i did not know
there was something to fear.

your laughter falls heavily,
stilling like
a marvelous metal corpse
as it drops,
a stone in the water,
surface settling easily.

everything
that comes together
to make your laugh
(to make up you)
is rough,
hewn from spite
and dishonesty.

your cruelty confounds me.
you hate me
for things i can't control.
you mock me
for something you didn't have to see,
something you pressured me into doing.

every sneer that
flashes across your face
is engraved in my mind.

i hope you know
that i do not need
another bully for my body
and i do not appreciate
you being there
to shove yourself
into the spot.

you
are
not
welcome.