#bumblebeepoems

Can you keep me in your chest

Just for a little while

It seems like a safe place

For me to curl up

And sleep

Just for a while

Let me rest inside you

I’ll leave all on my own

Tell me if I’m too heavy

I know how to carry the load

It’s just that I’m tired

And I don’t know how to go on

So let me rest now

Just for a bit

I’ll leave again

I promise

My heart stopped pounding

The minute you left

And started punching

Right through my chest

Hands are gripping

Through your pullover

I wrapped around myself

Like a protective shell

Of cotton and scent

Trying to keep it in

When it climbs up my throat

Escapes and runs

Away for me

Over this continent

Jumps over oceans

And lands in your lap

That’s the only place

There’s moments I remember where I come from

When my mother raises her voice, mocks the people around her in a cynical imitation; the fireplace fails to warm the memories and i can’t even pretend to laugh

When friends talk about christmas and birthdays and celebration; I remember the times I tried and the times I failed; How they are the same; How I’ve given up on invitation cards and blowing out candles

When you raise your hand in a joking gesture; I pull up my shoulders and wait for the impact; and when I doesn’t come I remember

That I’m here and I’ve grown; I could raise my own hand, be on the other end for once; and am I not curious what that would be like?

But I get up and I leave like I’ve done before

For better things and better memories

When I remember my childhood it seems too empty to be true. Mice must have broken into the pantry, stealing all the best parts, leaving only hard bread crusts and stale water. But as I look around there’s no sign of absence. There’s empty space, yes, but dust has long settled where marshmallows and hot chocolate should have been. I check the walls for holes, they are worn and dirty but solidly hole-less. I search the shelves for crumbs of something sweet, something savoury, anything. Any trace of something to nurish a growing girl. But the pantry remains empty, as if it had always been that way.

A word is spoken

It opens a faucet

Everything I have

drained

In a gurgling sound

Drip

Drop

How could I explain

This existence takes

More than I can give

Drip

Drop

Every touch

Any word

A look

Or just

Simple presence

Drip

Drop

It drains drains drains

I’ve run dry years ago

A desert land

An abundance

Of absence

Drip

Drop

Yet it seems

I never vanish

Always giving

Another

Drip

I’ve always compared my heart

To a bird in a ribcage

Trying to break free

For as long as I can remember

It has banged against its confines

Cracking apart my very bones

Lately I feel it had broken free

There’s been so much pain

And a vast emptiness

Where talons once scraped

Slowly the haze cleared away

The bruises faded out

And in the silence I could hear

The rustle of wings unfolding

A tentative beat

Once, twice

A small curl of air turning into

A spiralling twisting turmoil

Soaring high, crashing low

Lately I feel I found myself

In letting go of caging bones

In spreading wings and tasting clouds

And though I’m still scared

Exploring these unknown skies

I can breathe deeply

When the moonlight hits

Just right

Baths the world

In shimmering light

I wonder

Are you hardened steel

Made to withstand

Yet easy to break

A brittle confidence

Are you splintered wood

Cut down by careless hands

Once a space of life

Now vacant and cold

Are you glinting copper

Shimmering gold

Slowly coming undone

Under my fiery embrace

Because I am not a spark

I am the sun alive

When I start to burn

It is blue and bright

Will you bask in my warmth

Reform and reshape

As we both transform

Flame and molten gold

Or will you burn

Dark soot clouding the sky

Wrapping clinging falling

Smothering my light

So I watch the sparks

Awaiting flakes of cinder

As we melt together

Ever so slowly

I am a creature of devotion

I guess I’ve always been

Give myself to others

The way I wish they did to me

A tear down your cheek

I’ll wrap you inside

So tight you stop feeling your body

Or the nightmares day and night

A wrong glance

From a random passer-by

Sends me off the edge

I’d fight for you anytime

You are in a bad place

So many dumb mistakes

See how I stop my life

Take needle and thread

Patch you up again and again

We all have priorities

And mine is simple

You and you and you

That much we have in common

I’m a creature of devotion