Livia Jayne

Hi Tumblr!! Just popping in to announce that my poetry book CROSSROADS is now available!

You can find it here.

This follows my first collection, METAPOETICAL, that I released in 2022 - so if you missed that one, make sure to check it out too! Where META was more about poetry and the muse, CROSSROADS is the love story between two characters. While I wouldn't classify it as a verse novel (as it is still a relatively short collection), CROSSROADS draws on aspects of narrative to tell its story more so than META did. It's something a bit different, but fun to write nonetheless.

I'm always so nervous about this part of the process, but I want to make sure that you know how appreciative I am for this platform and how my courage has grown throughout the years I've spent here. Tumblr is family, however you choose to support me and my words.

Much love,

sneaking in the open door.

a foot wedged in the gap between

the planks that line the floor.

betrayal wears a cloak,

drips chocolate on my tongue...

traitorous and dangerous

as a darkly-scented roast

ordered at the counter,

then consumed by your lingering ghost.

but I can no longer turn a blinded eye,

do i regret you? maybe

but i smile when i say it / search the skies for the gaze of a ghost-crow from my past / blue ice spearing to my soul / it steals the name from my mind / drops it like a feather to the ground / you catch it on your tongue, carrying the weight tucked behind loose-leaf lips

do i regret you? never

but i smile when i say it / as if i had enough of you to forget in the first place

ah, so you do see that sharp-honed blade / slicing slivers from a name i dare not claim / swallow it, then, in small bites of truth / you call me by a name i am not yet ready to answer to / twist your wantings to become my own / i realise i am delaying the inevitable, but / resistance has long made itself at home in my lungs

do i regret you? always

in a land of dust and desert

when the stars made stories of our lovers,

there was a place where storms gathered their tears

where lanterns sailed like promises across the seas

where life poured from the cup of an open hand

there—by the lake where winter’s last leaf withered

you’d find the sands, cascading in an ever-fall

caught in parts… the hourglass

it hid in the curtains, so she threw them aside then it ran for the Persian, so she tossed it outside

the lonely one, that wanders still

about the hills and valley ground

while he harps on about daffodils;

those yellow dots, his dancing queens...

the ocean takes on the tempest you ask from it covets your soul for itself it hoards every word you've whispered, tucking them into small graves beneath the coral forest until someone like me takes a dive fingers searching, bleeding on the broken spires until I find all the faults you wanted to hide the ocean feeds me those pearls so they form a chain at my throat clinging like a prayer, a dream, a decree

look anywhere but me

what truth inside the elevator

with a flourish of 'the end'

but i don't think i'll be finished

that doesn't sound like you:

a letter to the lover

and writing fillers that feel like fluff

even characters need to blow off steam

where light filters through the shards

i know you feel you're incomplete;

fake it til you make it, sweat and tears for all the rest

so tell me, is this working?

a word of advice from me, past

her whispers wise and reassuring

and water churns...

no love lost