all roads lead to rome

hi, i’d like to use one of your poems for an animatic! i probably won’t finish it, but if by chance i do i would post it on YouTube. would that be okay? i would credit you in the video and description and provide a link to your account (if i ever finished and posted it)

hey!! do you have any advice on starting up a poetry blog / gaining traction? also your words are beautiful <3

is this a sideblog?

Ok, so. First of all, I really like your poems! I really want to illustrate one or two of them and publish them here. For the credit, should I tag you or give the link back to the poem? I hope this doesn't bothering you :") Have a nice day!

they burned my sister’s eyes out caught her by the throat and rattled her until she screamed for gods who never really existed at all

i can't speak for desktop, and i'm not sure if this works once poems are already posted, but ik that in the app when you click "quotes" you can tap on the A to adjust the font, same as you can in "text"!

hey! i think it's possible to make quotes not so big? but changing to text posts is totally understandable (also I love that poem!)

you call me POWERFUL and you mean: without mercy, sharp fists and sharp heart,  the rage of mountains when they tremble.  you call me STRONG and you mean:  unshakeable, unbreakable, unkillable.  i wound myself up like clockwork just to  make it true, turned myself into an earthquake  just to shatter the mountains inside of me.  you called me BRAVE and i realized that  the things i’m most afraid of are living in me.  the truth is, when you say POWER you mean  STRENGTH and when you say STRENGTH  you mean: don’t look weak, don’t feel weak,  walk high, punch hard, don’t look back, don’t  look back, don’t look back, don’t look back  the truth is, everyone looks back.  the truth is, i started shaking one morning  and i never really stopped. the truth is,  i want to be the sea at storm, wild and vicious  and beautiful in its power but all i am – – is what you mean when you say FRAGILE  when you mark a human being DON’T TOUCH  or she’ll BREAK you, what you mean when you  draw lines in the sand and on one side are those  in glass houses and on the other are those with stones.  you say EARTHQUAKE and you mean:  natural disaster, the gods striking down,  something too powerful for mortals to escape  but when i say EARTHQUAKE i mean:  i’m shaking, but i can still fight.  i’m scared, but i’m still going.  i’m sorry, but i’m still here.

they say fire burns too hot but they never tell you how  it hurts when it burns too low  instead. she strung my heart up into  a violin and played it on her  deathbed until i learned to sing  the words to rewrite our story   they say villains can’t be good  without the love of a pretty girl  but all she did was take my hand  and show me how to burn  the right way.  i left my heart down in the land of the dead, where the people pray  to the living ghosts and where her  smile lingers in the air like a  phantom wind.  they say be careful when you  fall in love, it’s so easy to drown   but the water here is pulsing  like the beat of my heart and  if this is how the story goes  then i will gladly burn.

how do you do italics or bolds on your phone? I'm really new and stupid so I hope you don't mind me asking this

this may be a dumb question, but how do you get your poems to format properly? because whenever I try to post mine, it just gets all weird ;_; [ like when you choose the 'quote' option to post it, and post it in the quote] thank you!!

ON TEA: i never got the taste for it even though my family pours it into your blood like it’s going out of style and starbucks sells chai tea like they’re not the same word and everyone looks at me funny when i say ‘no tea, no coffee’ just – ON WATER: i could’ve grown up next to the arabian sea, not that i don’t love the pacific, not that it would be much better, probably, all that smoke and death and fire and a pile of trash twice the size of texas, but at least on the other side of the world, everything’s a mess, so we can’t just shove it to the side and pretend that california is doing so – ON BEING GOOD: good, i donated to standing rock and i voted blue in november and i did my best, so it’s not my fault if the rest of this country decided to send us down a hole full of snakes to be eaten alive just like it’s not my fault if we’re in a drought and, fifteen states away, children are dying of lead poisoning when they don’t have to and it’s not my fault if – ON RESPONSIBILITY: we’re standing on a precipice and just about to jump, because surely any grass is greener outside a country with a wall and maybe i’m tired of fighting because we know the pipeline will spill and we know that people will die in airports and we know the ocean is rising up and ready to swallow us whole and we know that we deserve it because – ON SINS: i watched a nature documentary once five years ago, before i stopped watching things because the world makes me sad, and somehow, everything is our fault and somehow, nothing’s getting better, and i reduce, reuse, recycle, but the ice keeps melting and the skies grow gray like they’re prematurely aging and the ozone layer rips like your old favorite pair of jeans and it’s like we just won’t stop eating the apple even though god is yelling at us to just fucking – ON FIXING THINGS: maybe we don’t deserve our participation trophies but at least we tried and at least we’re trying and i guess that’s more than anyone else can say.

So, the girl is sitting in a café the color of coffee and caramel with a pink umbrella over the table protecting the sun from having to compete with her sparkling smile and she’s taking her tea like she takes her men (she says, with a laugh the shade of summer): sweet and environmentally friendly, and you’ve got a ten-ton ball of lead sinking in your stomach because she is a thousand colors and the boy walking over with a smirk in his step is just two and you know she will let herself melt and fade so she can match his black and white instead. Here’s the thing about girls who like girls who like boys: it’s sort of the same way a magician feels when he tries to pull out a rabbit from his hat and all he finds is a dove from the previous trick, white feathers ruffled, and you’re tugging colorful scarves out of your sleeves and never quite finding the end and the audience is laughing in second-hand embarrassment, the awkward air creeping into your lungs around the edges and you can’t breathe and she’s laughing and you’re trying to run but you trip on the rabbit that was supposed to be your magic trick and the hat goes poof and This metaphor doesn’t make sense but neither does the way you feel, tangled up in Gordian knots limb to limb to limb, reading books about girls who love girls who are sad about it and girls who love girls who die for it and girls who love girls who don’t love them back because what kind of girl loves girls, not an alive one, not a happy one, not a thousand-color pink-and-green- and-silver-and-purple girl with a sweet tea smile and a heart the shape of happiness, so here you are, again, in a café in a city the color of smoke, going round and round a carousel and trying to toss coins into a clown’s mouth but missing every time because some girls are just too damn pretty to swallow gold and have it mean something. And this doesn’t mean something. And this isn’t worth anything. And the girl laughs at a boy and the rabbit runs away, just like it always does, just like it always will.

You are a rose unfurling, winter’s bloom. Poison dripping down your throat and out of your bladed fingers. You spin stars into black holes, drive monsters to extinction in the dead heat of summer. You breathe blood and wake up screaming. You cough on leaves and fall asleep dreaming. Flowers are pretty in the same way you are – bursts of beauty covering up fault lines and butterflies pulling hurricanes to shore. You press thorn-tipped fingers into your ribs, twist and tug and pull out burning red. You wear vengeance like a crown; you wear crowns like they’re swords. There’s nothing dangerous about beauty. What’s dangerous are the teeth beneath. And you are anything but beautiful when you smile.

A PANTOUM FOR THE BROKEN-HEARTED The flowers festering like diseases at the side of a dying gaslight road bloom black and blue and bruised in a city staggering over its ghosts. At the side of a dead gaslight road, my little sister mourns our mother going mad. In a city staggering over its ghosts, it’s hard to handle humanity with any sanity. My little sister mourns our mother gone mad, our love lingering in pressed flowers and paper stars. It’s hard to handle humanity with any sanity when every touch is a thorn pricking blood from our hearts. Our love lingers in pressed flowers and paper stars blooming black and blue and bruised. When every touch is a thorn pricking blood from our hearts, the flowers fester like diseases.