N.Torres Poetry

And maybe I am missing you,

But fuck you, you know?

Maybe I got lost in the way you felt so warm, and Ive always loved the sun so I let myself burn.

You were havoc disguised as home, both the dying and the healing, and maybe thats why i was never good at leaving.

Maybe thats why you were never good at staying.

You’re just a boy

I think of you all the time and I feel so silly. My heart starts to salsa to no music but its okay because ive never been good at dancing anyway.

I want the world to know of a boy who made the sun feel so small.

I want to hold your hand until mine fucking falls off. I can write hundreds of poems on the way your smile feels like home. How it tucks me in at night and man, I didnt think you could make the moon jealous too.

You make me feel like mountains in June, which is to say

How loud silence can be,

When the thumping of my chest

Sounds like the earth caving in

On its axis,

Or when my breath sounds like firecrackers

Maybe it is me who is caving in.

Tonight my heart beats on a metal spring

And i cant stop wondering

When ill stop chasing sheep;

I hope to wake up and not

Feel the weight of exhaustion

On my eyelids

Maybe one day ill wake up

And nothingness will feel

So light,

Sound so

My love, tell them how much it hurts. Let it fester in your mouth, grow vines where your lungs used to be. Make wine from my blood and call yourself a holy one- youve always been good at playing god anyway.

Don’t you know, love, why ancient ruins are considered beautiful?

No matter how many times i nail the doors shut, the echoes wont stop finding refuge in my chest.

Dear god: Its been two years and I still feel his coldness on my back. It tears my skin as I run from the “you arent good enough’s” and “it’s all your fault’s.”

Dear god: I prayed for the first time in August and saw your spirit shaking its finger.

Dear god: How can a man love a shadow of a person when he can’t even find the light.

Dear god: Its been two years and I’ve still made a graveyard out of a bed.

I envied nature at that moment- how storms can scream so freely and leave without apology. I cant tell him how there's an opera in my head who sings just for him. How the "i dont know what we are" starts to sound like an "im still so glad you exist" when the lights go out.

I wanted to tell him that even the sun starts to fall when it is tired. That ive grown unafraid of screaming storms. But i didnt. And I said sorry for blanking out.

And then he laughed and i thought,

Dreaming of days when happiness isn’t measured by how thin my breath feels against my throat,

Or the amount of times I didn’t say sorry–

I’ve crippled my tongue from rehearsing

the many ways to say I’m fine.

“Its okay”

“Don’t worry about it”

“The shower floor isn’t as bad as it looks”

smothered shadows that lingered under our beds and poked

their heads out of creaking closets.

i’d stay up singing to the moon in hopes that it’d lay to rest

and the sun would rise again,

but no one taught me that light would frighten me too.

that too much light can actually be painful.

when we met, it wasn’t painful.

light makes things grow,

and i felt gardens bloom in places long left vacant. 

i thought i knew warmth until you latched onto every inch of my skin

and in that moment, winter seemed so distant. 

i used to fear the dark,

but i fear what causes it.

it wasn’t you that frightened me, 

it was knowing that you’d eventually leave,

because at the end of the day,

but i cant seem to figure out when the rain even started.

i take for granted the days my body feels light

and time is no longer a punishment,

for ive been carrying oceans inside of me for months.

my muscles are starting to ache from wringing myself out 

and hoping the days i feel empty 

And I thought it was beautiful;

The way my heart beat races with each

Passing hour,

A game I’ve become expert in-

For the night knows of the sadness

That lingers in my throat,

A knot I can’t seem to swallow but

Have grown to live with.

When I was younger,

I learned that diseases can carry

Dormant symptoms that

live in your body without

You ever knowing,

But when the purple under my eyes

Became my favorite color,

I knew It wasn’t beautiful.

There’s nothing poetic about

The way my lungs feel heavy

Even though I’m barely breathing.

There’s no art form in the way

My face has gone pale in the morning.

I’ve learned the ways in which the night speaks,

But I’ve forgotten about the knot in my throat.

I need to remember that even though sometimes

I can’t feel it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.