poetic letter project

they say, if you don’t keep it a secret it won’t come true / but we’ve been wishing on stars & for the sun to come through / and pierce the ash clouds of the future we dreamed in our youth. she says there is bit by bit still reason to grin, to dance; we are smiling at fluttering vermilion and falling fire / pulling our collars higher, the warmth of a dream blooming in reverse to a sapling of hope. and yet yesterday night the moon was fighting for her right to self-determination / and hope, in any language, is self-sacrificing to the tipping point of tidal waves / i think hunger pains and deja vu speak for me more than they both used to / and all this means i cannot escape the past tense save to say i am trying my best. at this turn of the seasons, white clouds ignited & ripped apart as they slid toward the scarlet horizon / the monarch butterflies have made their way south / and my mouth caged my laughter as my eyes filled with salt water because i was crying out of joy at what the television showed: possibility, and kindness, and the sun and moon watching over their child earth, where everything is pretty and alive in their blue-green-golden home / you say, you will all be happy again one day / and i say, the day came. even if we are cities, states, and seas apart / your promises are ripples in the ocean: they reach.

don’t let it get you down. we were talking about things the other day, sunlight, forests & all that. i’m listening to a song that sounds like people on the moon playing bass guitars. i’m humming along to the beat of my heart & sure it’s a broken record but isn’t that what makes life so compelling? the ugliness?  we were talking about the greys. i would’ve shown you all my splinters. cut my skin to show you that my blood isn’t golden anymore, but it used to be, a few years ago, you know?

you’re blessed the same way banyan trees are, you belong in the world like wildflowers growing thru pavement cracks and ice-creams in summer and prayers murmured in the quiet of night when everything feels just a little bit ethereal. i’m sorry for the sadness, and i know grief tends to destroy. but i love you and you are strong, i know this. take the resilience woven into your body, like grass on riverbanks. let it illuminate you.

i know this doesn’t help, but i befriended all the lonely. made it my asset. someone told me, mockingly, that i’d never have any friends. i laughed, the sound of a bell tolling in the distance. “you’re not saying anything i don’t already know,” i wanted to say. instead, i said, “i have me. and that’s one person who you’ll never have.”

it felt good. it really did. yours, someone between goddess and monster.

PS if you ever need an ear, i’ve got two attached to my head. there are probably ears of corn in the fridge, i can get those too, for luck. but i promise you, i’ll listen. lend you my two ears and nineteen years and we’d burn candles made of some minerals from saturn or something and nothing would be able to hurt us, not there, not here, not in this safe place we’ve made.

i was thinking

(and you know how dangerous that is,

      but today they were only happy thoughts.)

about the mail system and the point of packages

which didn’t they used to call parcels?

or maybe that’s just in England.

but the point of a package

(if i ever get to it.

      seems i’m always getting sidetracked.)

is to keep things together isn’t it?

and that’s the point of a matched set

and i wonder if it’s the point of friends.

see a teacup by itself

(and now i’m on to tea-time,

      and i’m still not English.)

isn’t much use,

because all the tea-things

belong together.

and things go together

so that they don’t get lost.

—————

do you understand?by pansydiv ( me, on dA)  // more about this piece under the cut! 

my last-period class is windowless. in these mornings that salt their tongues with wind and mellow into the sticky-sweet afternoons of almost-summer, i tuck flower stems into the eyelets of my boots. apple and peach blossoms wilt by noon, but the sprays of lilac

only turn a darker purple. even in rooms sealed tight, you can open a gate to the season’s air and find a glimpse of green and growing things. the sky was such an infinitely soft blue yesterday evening, the clouds whispering blessings during their slow meander across the world.

they made me think of girls in dresses as frothy and white as freshly laid snowdrifts, of red rose petals dripping from corsages to land on pale floors. of how i collected those  errant paint-splatters, pressed them flat between the time-weighted pages

of fantasy novels. together is a word with so much history. so many stories tucked into its syllables alongside the thin-stemmed sprigs of dried forget-me-nots. the sky knows how to match the flowers to her hue, how to time her rising sun to the blossoming. open your windows

and perhaps we, too, can learn. 

 each time is the same. remember when we were eating cold pizza on your bedroom floor and listening to africa by toto? you say you’re scared god won’t love you if you kiss a boy. i say “god put you on this earth. god gave you this heart, full of love. god meant for it to be this way.”

 i’m sorry that we can’t breathe freely outside. i’m sorry that i can’t imagine kissing her in any way that doesn’t end in violence. doesn’t end in this feeling of the witchhunt. feeling like you’re naked in a hall of mirrors. something in me that couldn’t be cleaned. something in me that feels like rot. like blood in my mouth.

 i didn’t put that disgust in myself. love is pure. it should be. it should be. oh, it hurts.

 so we’re stuck in the closet. so it’s dark here. so we can pretend the glitter makes it worth it, like stars at night. so we can say the velvet is soft like meadows. but can we go outside?

 we can never come out. you’ve heard that old wives’ tale, have you not? out of the frying pan, into the fire? it’s the same all round, it’s the same warped agenda. out of the closet, into the casket. destiny and fate too busy watching us endure this pain older and deeper than ourselves, bleeding through our ancestors. until we are free to love, we are not free to be anything.

 aren’t they toxic? one day i will get so drunk i will be able to kiss a boy and pretend it’s love. i will stand on the tabletop in jeans and a bra, and i will sing africa by toto. and when i go home in tears, everyone will say it is beautiful.

everything has changed. i say this smiling & shaking my head in disbelief, because after all these misspoken dreams and palm- muffled screams, i’m not afraid of past things one bit. they all fit under pages like the petals that wilted off lily and daisy stems; they don’t

dry quite as pretty as the roses, but not all memories can be the right kind of red. my last-day class was cut to a half; too many false farewells happened still. and that night my friends spilled water at dinner, and that morning i avoided thinking too much, and i say this to mean 

i tried to make it seem like not an end. i  asked that boy the question i wanted to for years—is your favorite color still blue? — while handing him a marker to sign my yearbook. even if it took longer, i would have waited to make sure the end was a good one.

overhead and underfoot the cicadas and tall grass are spilling their whispers, asking with grace if they get to live again after summer is over. perhaps molts into promise, and if lies are the easiest things to swallow, it’s because bitter never outshines sweet. savor the season’s heat and hue;

someday, soon, we’ll taste the truth.

i do not tell you about the pain settling low between the valley of my hips again i do not tell you about the coughing or the old ache in my spine or the blood, & still-

you treat me like i am half-broken already, half-lion & half-corpse, your voice all laughter & rich like honey you tell me i’m beautiful & for the first time i believe you.

nine pm. july sunset. i have the taste of bonfire on my tongue & you are in my mind again i pretend you & i are under the same stars & we are both hungry. i buy postcards & think of you, thinking i really wish you were here & still i cannot tell you the truth.

for charlie — 

i wish you were there to see it near the top of the mountains: the sun caught the water just right and rainbow fluttered in cloud form, for less than a minute until the wind tore it past and pushed me forward.

(there was a singing in my head with every step uphill; i’d climb taller mountains just to hear that sound again. i hope the water droplets know i’m proud of them.)

the moon can send the message for us, with seashells found at the cusp of the ocean. she left it, warned us, handed the flags and bandages at once, quoting salt water cures all and knowing we know what salt does to a wound.

i’ve always reminded myself that life is a sine wave. up, down. good days, bad days. but a tangent curve? brilliant. i have to start saying that instead, and stop pretending that my favorite tree is unlike me, just skeleton and skin and stuff between.

claim what you’ve made yours and nothing stands in your way anymore. the glowing glory of gold and blue, the lopsided equation of sun and moon, it’s all, finally, marching beside you.

love, rosie