darkness.

poems by Richard Siken (x)

❝ —Uhm, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m still learning how to use Twitter. ❞

 ❝Muggle drama is the BEST,❞ she mutters before looking up at Amelia. ❝Is it not at least all over your Twitter feed?❞   

                “It’s nice to know that drama never stops,” he says, rolling his eyes as he watches her scroll through something. “Is this about that Taylor Swift girl? I saw something about that. At least the Muggles know how to keep themselves busy.”

❝Muggles have all kinds of ridiculous drama,❞ she’s smiling with her teeth, and it’s both genuine and malicious.  ❝She’s been doing this type of thing for years, it seems. Now all these other celebrities are taking her side,❞ After the article says it’s been updated, her pale, red-nailed hand holds her phone out to him so that maybe he’ll revel in the downfall with her.

“—’m fine, just wanted a few hours to myself I guess.” James muttered as he heard someone approaching from behind him. He was reclined back in the soft chair at one of the coffee houses. Classes could wait for one day, in his opinion.

❝ You’re in my seat, ❞ Alecto deadpanned, surprised that the likes of James Potter had found her little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop instead of waiting in a winding line as Starbucks. She came around his other side, settling into the chair opposite him. She held her mocha in both hands, allowing the heat to warm her.  ❝ Figured you’d be the type to stick to the well-known shops. You don’t like burnt coffee? ❞

☞     ‘   my fatal flaw is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.   ’ ☞     ‘   i gave you credit for a little more savoir faire than that, if you don’t mind my          saying so.   ’ ☞     ‘   beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. quite the contrary. genuine beauty is          always quite alarming.   ’ ☞     ‘   and if beauty is terror, then what is desire ?   ’ ☞     ‘   what’ve you got ?   is that gin ?   where’d you dig that up ?   ’ ☞     ‘   do you have any plans ?    what are you doing for the next forty or fifty years         of your life ?   ’ ☞     ‘   by now my thoughts were so contradictory and disturbing that i could            no longer even speculate, only wonder dumbly at what was taking place          around me.   ’ ☞     ‘   whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.   ’ ☞     ‘   if we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that           naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring          our bones, then spit us out reborn.   ’ ☞     ‘   but how ?    how could you possibly justify cold blooded murder ?   ’ ☞     ‘   i prefer to think of it as redistribution of matter.   ’ ☞     ‘   it is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from the          world, that no one and no thing hurts along with one’s burned tongues and           skinned knees, that one’s aches and pains are all one’s own.   ’ ☞     ‘   i’m not particularly happy here, but you’re not particularly happy with where           you are, either  ’ ☞     ‘   beauty, unless she is wed to something more meaningful, is always superficial.   ’ ☞     ‘   love doesn’t conquer anything, and anyone who says it does is a fool.   ’ ☞     ‘   i am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.   ’ ☞     ‘   anything is grand if it is done at a large enough scale   ’ ☞     ‘   there is to me about this place a smell of rot, the smell of rot that ripe fruit         makes. nowhere, ever, have the hideous mechanics of birth and copulation and         death  been so brutal or been painted up to look so pretty; have so many people         put so much faith in lies and mutability and death, death, death.   ’ ☞     ‘   in short: i felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.   ’ ☞     ‘   i suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all.   ’ ☞     ‘   any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothingness.   ’ ☞     ‘   all those layers of silence on silence.   ’ ☞     ‘   not quite what one expected, but one realizes it couldn’t have happened         any other way.   ’ ☞     ‘   what are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy ?   light shining from a          dead star ?   ’ ☞     ‘   how about a kiss for your jail bird brother ?   ’ ☞     ‘   she was like a reverie to me.   ’ ☞     ‘   we think we have many desires, but we in fact have one: to live. to live forever.   ’ ☞     ‘   in this swarm of cigarettes and dark sophistication they appeared here and         there like figures from an allegory, or long-dead celebrants from some forgotten         garden party.   ’ ☞     ‘   i’m not dead. i’m only having a bit of trouble with my passport.   ’

Richard Siken, excerpt of Wishbone (via henrydear)

for the bloody knuckles that pound against the flesh of another, the knees that scrape against rough surfaces as bodies hit the ground, and the bandages that are painted scarlet with their wearer’s determination; the blood that spills from the bodies of fighters is the most valuable when mixed with that of their opponent. 

Honest - The Neighbourhood

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“By now I was so cold it felt like burning. ”