you can get dizzy if you forget where you're going,
pray to all the right gods and still end up in bed alone,
you can hide your shotgun in your mouth, tell everyone you're fine,
(hide all your little white pills in the sky and convince yourself they're stars.)
pretty boys with leather jackets and kisses like sunshine, hand me bullets
and tell me to
keep them in your medicine cabinet just in case.
they kiss me, clumsy and sad (and almost not a kiss at all.)
i can't remember if i kiss back.
the bullets are still there.
you see, you can tell everyone you're happy
but the truth is,
pretty boys with leather jackets will never save me from a burning building.
(they will never make the rain stay in my clouds.)
i have threads tied around seven of my fingers.
one for every day of the week.
blue is for monday, green is for thursday, and red is for friday.
i don't know what any of them mean, but at least i know what day it is.
i cough and cough and still the butterflies don't come out,
i kiss with wild, reckless abandon, and hope this is what death feels like.
every morning the mirror says
hold on, darling--
one day your medicine cabinet will no longer sign your death warrant in red ink.
the wolves wait by my bedroom window till i'm counting sheep
then they howl.
i wonder what they're saying, maybe they're lonely too.
sometimes they come in and gnaw on my ribs.
i can't bring myself to care, at least their breath keeps me warm.
pretty boys tell me
the wolves will come to your door every night
and the night terrors will too.
that the knocking will wake me up and i'll try and decipher the morse code
it'll spell out words that dig my lungs out of my chest with shards of glass.
you are a black hole meant to be a girl.
when the sun rises i tell my mirror that i am not my own cup of tea.
(i burn myself whenever i try and breathe.)
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
I’m typing this as I read so that I can comment on things as I’m going, so as to not leave anything out. Forgive me if my review is unclear.
The description in this is very good, and I love your wordings. Something I’ve noticed, however, is that your capitalization is lacking. I love the stanza “I have threads… what day it is.” Many of the lines in this are very good and I enjoy reading them. With the bullets in the medicine cabinet part, I feel like I’ve read something similar. Was there inspiration behind this?
The words in italics and parenthesis add to the poem. I also love how you repeat “the pretty boys,” as it helps keep the poem connected. I read some of the previous reviews that stated that this should be split into multiple poems, and I think four would be too much. If you wanted, this could be split into two, the second one starting at “I cough and cough….” My favourite parts are the part about the pills, and the part about the thread.
Overall, this is a very excellent poem. I love the wordings and the mood of it. Good job.
I realize this is a poem and you have every right not to care what i'm about to say. Jesus can make you forget all those feelings. You can come with all the baggage and anything you've got. Jesus said Himself that he didn't call the righteous, for no there is not one; he came to call everyone else; every ordinary person whoever lived on the face of planet earth and had burning scars. No one can be holy; don't even ever think you're some kind of lost cause. Brutalities are all there so that when everything else doesn't work out, we see things here fade forever and aren't important. God will give you permanent things.
On the surface it seems like religion, like some replacement for hope. But i just want to show u one thing maybe, and then be gone
9 But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.
10But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so no man knows the things of God, but the Spirit of God.
where in this poem did you get a lack or need for religion lol
in love, by personal stuff, by a muffled voice. I see you trying to spell "Ours" in Morse Code. I see a chest extremely devoured telling everyone they're extremely happy: but having to fall in here, on ears who knows are caring?; I've seen you don't even care for your own cup of tea, not delighting in it. not really, not severely contritely not richly - How about a Black Hole Soul
but~ who am i; How do you know what's real and what is only fantasy if you've never lain next to anything outside of the sad things? If nothing worth imagining has given you wings like eagles, iF you haven't felt a triumphal happiness (that though sometimes it's gone it always returns); why would you settle to remain trying to see things that can't undo you, make you feel/know/understand, or lead you to give your trust anything greater?
if what things incessantly assault the happiness you Stake much ado to construct, and none of the tactics you've tried to desist them with so far have worked in rich ways, then the truth must be elsewhere: riiiiiight?
Okay. Pretense out?
Slow the crap down and divide this into like four poems because the whiplash is real, girl, and my neck hurts from reading it. Your images are super visceral, and your scenes are super brutal and it makes me wonder things about Boy, but we'll talk about that after finals.
Talking about Poem One (You can get dizzy...stay in my clouds)
Strongest in viscera of the four, probably weakest in flow. It's so fast. It's so freaking fast and it needs to slowwwww down and breathe and just absorb some energy from nature and allow itself to exist for a while. The flow is very edgewise even for a Sikenesque piece, and I think you'll be happy in editing when you smooth it out.
Like really happy.
2. (I have threads...what day it is)
Shorter, less meaningful, really fillery in my opinion and can be scrapped without losing much at all? I feel like it detracts from the grand scheme if you're hellbent on having this as one poem. Actually, speaking of, the flowing between 1 and 3 in my mind works quite well without 2 between them. Let's remove that for now. I like that a lot.
And I would replace the butterflies with bullets. Why? Because everyone loves a callback, and the visceral image of swallowing bullets is real in my gut.
4. (every morning...try and breathe)
Jeeeeesus. Heavily the most Sikenesque with 3 being the most Moon/Levithan-influenced. There's another chance for bullets in the lungs. That last line is a tongue-burner. Spoken word spitfire. This has the best flow and the slowest punches, but when they connect, they really freaking connect.
But break this up, darling, because sometimes a breakup is for the best. #yeshedid
Ty
Ilu thank you
This is really good and I love it! I loved how you worded everything especially the part about hiding white pills in the sky and saying that they are stars. Just from reading this, I can tell that you are a great writer. You said things uniquely and you definitely have a fascinating style of writing. Keep it up and can't wait to see more from you!