i am inside her skin. i am her fingertips, her kneecaps, the back of her throat -- and i feel everything. like liquid i pool and congeal where the surface gives way. her skull is a quarry after a rainstorm, thick, indiscernible.
i want to hear every word she has ever spoken like it's being said to me. the tension breaks. i feel her breath on my ear all the way across the country. i can't imagine her doing something like that. you know, being human. she is enslaved to the cycle, reeled back in like a world record muskie.
this will not be the last time. again, i will feel it. her tongue meets the roof of her mouth.
again and again and again.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
i remember the first time i cried into another person's skin. it felt a lot like shame, probably. there's something so embarrassing about vulnerability; she had left and returned, left and returned, etc.
i can be as gentle as she'd like. i can be mean and nasty. i consider everything for a brief moment. this is it, right? this is all there is. i wake up on the floor again, in the bathroom. she sweats her concealer off.
i feel her fingers digging into my ribcage, bones creaking like an old staircase. somewhere along the way, i have learned to come to terms with everything unfathomable -- "make sure you're quiet when you leave."
5 am peaks through the blinds; every house is unfamiliar to me now.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
i want your indistinguishable dreams and memories. your tongue speaks nothing but words i have already written down. i'm always talking about coming home and half-open blinds, speeding down the interstate.
i feel like i am a child again; the hum of your engine lulls me to sleep. it's good in the light, it's good.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
my limbs go numb and my fingertips swell like moisture in a doorframe.
it was a scorcher out yesterday; the sun burnt holes in our skin, turned us into paper-mache. we bonded over the fact we missed that feeling -- missed the glow behind our eyelids, the light sneaking through the blinds at sunrise.
i open my arms and accept it, swaying, falling. i am a collector. i house these memories in my soul, every summer since i was seven. again and again, my eye catches a shiny thing in the sunlight and i slip it into my pocket.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
i talk to my mother periodically in my head; "that girl i used to love, i haven't written about her in months."
as it all passes, i find more and more words for the things my mother never taught me -- the trees, god, the window in the bathroom that faces the street.
we creep around each other the way we both creep around mirrors.
i think my fatal flaw is leaving things unfinished. i leave the parts of me that are mean and nasty on the forefront, a disease that only she can cure.
half of the sandwich rots in the fridge. the feeling suffocates me; hunger and wanting and everything else disastrous.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
there is something disgusting stuck in my throat. the dogs are barking. i gnaw on the joints of my hands to the beat of their dissonance. i secede, urging, marveling in the irony of it all.
i go over it in my head like i will say it, but i don't. i love you. let me in. she says she misses me, but only after the sun sets. let me in. i fester at her doorstep, under the table, everywhere i am not allowed anymore --
i bite, growl, split my maw on my chains. she does not look away.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
in sunlight, she turns corners; i never know what's real and what's not.
she wheezes and scratches, laying dead like roadkill in my bed, nothing left that isn't grotesque. something terrible is happening to me and i can't sleep or eat. words fall dead from my lips, dry rotted, caked in filth.
what's wrong with you? is twenty three years not enough to heal? she says this to me when we fuck. when i wake up, she is back to floating in corners, oxidizing in real time, kissing the edges of my vision.
i swallow my disgust and stare. i can't shake the feeling, but i keep trying.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
we know this place and all its weaknesses well. we've spent summers spitting and nodding in park bathrooms when our parents yelled far too much. i barely have anything left of you — a yearbook, a conversation on my old flip phone, a few polaroids. wedding invites turn into radio static. i turn into an evil man.
it's summer again now, the third since my rebirth. mom says she misses the old me, the me before i spent nights on couches and the backseats of cars, before benadryl and musing to basement floors. she always said the first girl you'll ever disappoint is yourself. i feel it in my bones and every ridge of my soul. i chase every feeling, fleeting or not. you said that's my fatal flaw.
i guess we can be rich, but we can't all be wealthy. i have five dollars in my pocket and a lifetime of nosebleeds, rib fractures, dirt caked under my fingernails. these are the things i keep remembering that i shouldn't; all of the girls you took home that i never saw again, you, the paint on the walls. life is a sulk of mystery and i belong where i put myself — alone, cross-legged on the floor.
your dad asked me when i moved if i wanted your old mattress and i felt my insides twist. i have a video of us laughing in your bedroom that i’ll never show anyone. i still cry the same way you did when you told me there was nothing left for you here. i tried to call you in los angeles, but the lines were dead.
in time, all of my friends will become martyrs; i keep counting mistakes instead of blessings. i don't want to be your best man.
Last edited by dissonance on Tue Jul 02, 2024 12:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
i guess we can be rich, but we can't all be wealthy. i have five dollars in my pocket and a lifetime of nosebleeds, rib fractures, dirt caked under my fingernails.
THIS >>>>> your poetry is always something i look forward to reading when i get the notification, & you're always an inspiration for me mr. big brother figure <33333
when life gives you lemons, throw them out because mangos are better.
doublr posting here, but i also love the second stanza. if someone who didn't know you read it, it may have meant something elsr but to me the meaning is so clear, and this poem is so idk... you? it's hard for me to explain in words, but the way it's crafted just reads, well, "chi" like, i couldn't see anyone else writing this poem like this, and that's something iblove abiut your poetry too, is that it's so strikingly unique. the final stanza is a great contrast to the first, from wedding invites to best man-- and this poem is such a sense of yearning and lovesickness that i personally enjoy. so, yeah i like this poem, and all of your others too, chi. never stop writing >:3
when life gives you lemons, throw them out because mangos are better.
i am crying in the car on the way to the airport. jade ashes out of the window and touches my hair like she loves me, but she does not love me anymore.
i don't think we can be people now after everything. she mentions how this is all a part of the process, that if i write so much about love, i should know something about heartbreak.
she says, "sometimes you make people sad. everyone who’s ever met you knows that.”
the california sun bit down on me; i imagine the deterioration of its teeth in my mind as a time lapse. there are times i wish it would swallow me whole.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
i pay the price for this stale air and savor it; this humidity sticks to my shirt, coats the skin in my nose. sweat drips down my forehead and onto the idealized version of you i have created. i am notorious for this, making homes out of nothing.
my mom only let me paint one wall pink. i am still an angry child. i sigh into memories like they are the rim of my bathtub. they assure me i am everything i hoped i wasn't.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
i understand what you say without words. with my head in your lap, i inhale your perfume and it rots the flesh around my ribs.
i infer that your new favorite color is strawberry blonde because of the way your fingers wade through my curls. it takes me back to a time and place i'm no longer sure i ever existed in; those nights heavier than my spine could bear, swaying under bathroom lights.
sometimes i find myself craving your closeness, wanting to be the crust on your gums. this distance is the worst taste to have in the back of your throat. you linger on my walls like black mold, the decay in between my linoleum tiles. i cling to your sharp edges.
i am a house made of everything you have ever loved. you will never have me in a way that matters; it hurts more than anything in my entire life.
"If I saw you every day forever, I would remember this time." ― Thomas Harris
i like this poem, and all of your others too, chi. never stop writing >:3
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