ladybug, fly away home

Not really happy with how this one turned out, but considering the mindset I am in, I am proud of it.

Dreams are very important to me. I am happy to put these words on the page today. I think I have a better idea of where this theme is leading me.

Night after night, I pleaded with you to receive me, to look into my eyes, to accept me as a part of you that could be loved. Until finally, I could not scream any louder, I could not beg any harder, I could not do anything more to show you that I needed you to answer me. Holding your face, looking in your eyes, smothering your body with my own, producing as much sound as my body could, you would still not answer me. It was an awful dream.

And then you disappeared and became me. My inability to accept loss. My persistence to live in grief. My attachment to something physical that allows me to live in this world and feel like I belong. My craving for hurt, for pain, for feeling, for a never ending song of melancholy sorrow. And I realized that me, my hands, my smothering body was open air, fresh water, a breeze I felt on the other side of the world, so full of life that I felt like I could never die. I was desperate, suffering, endlessly begging. I died, I became God, I became life. I have tried to die and tried to live. And I have still not listened to myself.

I am still resisting, but I have full control. I am the plane.

Ellie, the themes of flight / escape run through this thread beautifully! Along with the tension of fighting against the body / self!

I enjoyed the clever poem within a poem (like the spots upon a ladybug!) in poem 1 - it feels light and kind of whimsical at the beginning urging the ladybug to run, but as the poem moves on the poem gets darker with the wolf-chase leaving a very eerie feeling I'd say!

In poem 2, you really capture that disconnect between the self / consciousness / and the body! While not super-related, it reminded me a little of the feelings of having a panic attack, and just being generally dissociated from your body - > feeling like you are watching a plane plummet to the ground is the perfect description of that. There's dread and horror, but also an absolute inability to stop gravity. I like how this poem is in conversation with poem 3, where in poem 3 the plane is no longer a metaphor for being "out of control" but now is their place of control and agency for the speaker by the final line. They are really interesting to read together because a lot of the lines and images bounce off of each other!

I'm excited to see what you'll write next Ellie, your poem always has great depth! <3

Thank you very much, @alliyah! Your comments mean a lot to me, and I really appreciate hearing your thoughtful impressions

Oh please, meet me at the cemetery,
Meet me where our bodies are buried,
Where we took our last breath.
Before I mourned what I have already lost,
Before you died, but never left,
When being alone meant loneliness.

It will always rain; our flesh will always rot,
This valley we are buried in is too many miles from home.
Oh please, could you meet me at the cemetery?
Tell me anything; I beg you, let me hear your voice again,
Be more than a dead bird, a corpse, a reminder of the uncontrollable.

Let our bones and blood mix together, as we sing,
‘Could you meet me again, for the last time,
At the cemetery, which is too many miles from home?’
Look at me once more, and promise me anything,
Give me a reason to love your body, even in death.

Please, meet me at the cemetery, where our bodies are buried.

How to breathe underwater:
Experience yourself as something uncontrollable. Realize over and over again, that you are not unstoppable, that you eventually have an end.
Experience another being as something uncontrollable. Learn how easily you could crumble, in another persons arms. Feel how quickly your breath could slip away, while begging to be saved.
Survive the unlivable, something lethal, sufficient of ending you. Find your place as a mortal, in a world that will outlive you. See yourself living, when you felt, with certitude, that you would die, forever a wayward soul.
Experience life as fragility, something hard to breathe in. Lose all safety, lose your sanctuary, plead asylum to the person you love the most in this world. Beg them for anything you can think of, because you cannot run another mile with this little breath.
Try to breathe again, knowing that every breath could be your last. Now knowing that every thought is impermanent and inimitable. Breathe underwater, because you are too weak to heal.

Oh wow, these are so powerful. I LOVE the way you play with form - the red text, the prose poems, the list format. 'Dreams' has such beautiful imagery to it, too. I think I'm gonna be thinking about it for a while.

How to breathe underwater had me holding my breath the whole time I read it. Then I read it again, and again, and again.

Experience yourself as something uncontrollable. Realize over and over again, that you are not unstoppable, that you eventually have an end.

Experience life as fragility, something hard to breathe in.

Now knowing that every thought is impermanent and inimitable. Breathe underwater, because you are too weak to heal.

So beautiful <3