#maelinoe

i am scared. time is running out for me to be wise for my age, for me to stun the world with my words because they come from a young, an innocent, an inexperienced brain. i am scared that soon i won’t have youth to rely on. i will lose my excuse. and i am scared that that’s all i am; words propped up by the promise of the wisdom of youth.

Our love is like a church And sometimes our mouths are bloody And there's a taste of metal on my tongue But we continue devouring each other And don't care that the war's just begun As crimson slips from my lips Like bullets from a gun And sometimes I'm crying And our hands don't fit like they used to But we keep trying and trying And breaking a few fingers along the way As we claw desperately at the time Like we can stop it from slipping by And sometimes we're both silent And I don't want to do this But there's a sharp sting in my cheek And I don't smile the same way I did As our eyes slip past the bruises on my hips Like it's the monster under the bed of a 13-year-old kid And sometimes I think I want it And the pain is a welcome-card But I have been empty for so long And my actions are a muscle-memory As your hungry mouth devours me again Like a reflex, not a choice And then I forget about you And you have shut me out again But I remain blood and bones and bruises And you're an image tattooed on my eyelids As I am brainwashed into remembering you Like you were some sort of saint, not the devil And then you're breaking down my door And you have the key still around your neck But it's tied like a noose, or maybe an empty promise And I think maybe that's the same thing As you settle in my heart again Like a ghost without a home And then I become bloodied and broken and bruised again And you continue breaking me down for fun But I accept it, because loneliness is worse Than all these broken bottles on the floor And not recognising yourself in the mirror in the morning

It begins with your laughter: a light, ecstatic feeling in my chest, an answer to a question I never asked, and me, a clock slowly falling behind, forever chasing the time it can never quite catch. Then comes the guilt when you speak my name. A thumb hovering over these text messages, that I never sent because they will hurt you, -- but I'm hurting, too, when you blame me for the oxygen that I steal, for all these wounds that just won't heal. Condemning the marks these nails left in my hand, but let's not forget that you were the one that put them there. Preaching this toxicity of the heart like you're the victim, while you're burning me at the stakes. My bones taking forever to burn; My ashes forever caught in your lungs, beneath the lips that spoke these words, that taught me how to burn in the first place. It ends with the memory of someone I once knew. An imprint, forever on my heart. The dirt that's never coming off.

Hi, Lydia! You're an amazing writer and I hope that you'll be able to do your readings in Salt Lake City. <3 <3 You deserve much more than that

I am all ignitable energy. You see it in my eyes, these faucets rung felt-pen tip dry and red as baby’s breath. In my knees, the rope burns are purpled with caution, made angry and self-aware. I am half-rag, half-china doll or maybe I am. Maybe I am. The sea’s wet dream. An animal crocheted into the brooding afternoon sunlight. Skeletal and demanding of something it never learnt how to touch. Something bred like bone beneath graveyard dirt gone stutteringly cold.  Something like your name, hot as karma, burning against my gums. (Stop predicting all of the ways you think you’ll die, it's unhealthy, he tells me. I tell him my mutilation is my muse, that I reap the gravel from the gutter and get high.) See, my neck is wrung as though the handle of a knife, my blood lies (unclaimed) and discarded in pools of abandoned light and my limbs form rosaries that follow the footsteps of no god. You know, maybe it would hurt less if I made this story about someone else. I’ll talk about other people. How I recognize the weightless misery that hangs like clouds or suicide from the forlorn eyes of the church boy who stares at passerby cars from his mother’s front porch and counts the minutes down to his damnation. How I see a little bit of myself in the girl by the prairie who waits and waits for an apocalypse that only ever stirs in her own gut and refuses to reflect in the ribs of the lake she dips her feet in between. The way my cat curls up onto the kitchen floor, poised like Mona Lisa in front of an audience of invisible artists. My brother who keeps getting his knuckles burnt on exhaust pipes. Or you. You, who took my tongue in your mouth like a bloodied rug and licked the slate clean. You, reiterating the words of conquistadors, with all of Peru’s downfall whorling in your eyes. You, of dandelions. You, the gaunt baby of mourning mothers. You, of tired oceans and deathless desires. You complete me like the final verse of a poem that’s been exhausted of metaphors, you kiss me and spring glitters in between us. An awakening, like what the sun does to the trees as they cross their legs in patient wait for a wingbeat of sky. He takes my hand, says it’s gonna be alright, says faith is all about cutting up a bible at 2 AM in a motel room engorged like the belly of a breathless angel exiled from heaven. A barn on fire, the spoon that scoops the moon’s eyes, a cul-de-sac shaped like a portal to hell. Those low places our regrets simmer through. Where I lost my ability to love, where my blood vessels grew into lilies and drowned.

i cannot write love poetry. before, i convinced myself i felt my heart thumping. before, i thought myself into circles around people. before, it was all boys, all confused smiles, all crushing myself into a heart-shaped cake tin. i cannot write love. there’s nothing for it to hang onto, no jagged edges to be mauled by, only a bittersweet smile as i watch them holding hands. here is the conclusion: i cannot love. not in the way the movies say i should. not how my friends seem to fall. does romance always entail collision? it seems an awful waste sometimes, shattered souls scattered to the howling winds of heartbreak. here: take my arms; take my hands; take my heart; love does not write my poetry.

metaphors are hard. they gnash their teeth and scratch and kick and bite the hand that feeds them. i cannot tame them, cannot make docile the words that masticate the meaning behind the galaxies and constellations and the flowers blooming inside eyes, inside veins; what is a beast but poetry? it is not gentle. it is the roar of the sheets bristling on bed beneath the lazy-susan churning of a lonely sunday morning.

Walking Corpse Syndrome