Because I know the way you did your hair

In the summer light on those old nights

There's something lingering there

And you know that it's just not fair

The way that you kissed me when you'd never miss me. 

And so

Because the way we fell all apart

The words you'll never take back

And the ones that I'd never say

Doesn't erase from my memory 

The way that it tasted when you barely breathed

Quiet in the night holding in nightmares

As you slept as you slept there

"

"

And so

Summers turned round to fall

Apples and promises had

The warmth of you has left my air

Flowers wilted from my hair

The things we left behind when the sun angled wise

We've left ourselves for too many tall tales

And memories in the golden fields 

Because I knew the way you did your hair

In the summer light on those cold nights

Where something lingered there

And you knew that it's just not fair

The way that you kissed me when you'll never miss me. 

(religious, personal; might not be for everyone)

The light from the window reminds me

Of a place far away and near at once

That I've been to only in photographs

Leaving an ache in my bones that I cannot remember

How it got there and stayed for all these generations

I'm the strongest there is,
up from the fire,
A pheonix still molting ashes
and it feels the next
burning time comes soon.

When all I have left is these
Smoldering wings
a shattering past lay behind me
and all I see is reasons
not to come down

We all need a little help
but I don't want
to be your dolly
or hear you say
I can't make it on my own.

I climbed out of hell
built for me
ascending by blood and nails
embedded into what
we used to call me.

Where I have walked
barefoot, naked
floors paved with broken glasses
I've left your devastation
to lay far behind me.

We all need a little help
but I don't want
to be your dolly
or hear you say
I can't make it on my own

I discovered something tonight 

Standing half naked and alone in my kitchen,

I like girls with cores of steel

Wrapped in softness you can't touch,

Girls who are cynical and tired

Holding out limping feminitiy and hope.

I like girls whose bases weather through

And whose voices are deceptively fragile

And who will not shut up, just switch methods

These girls whose hooks unto me

Don't break, just blend into 

Another part of this circle.

Babe you gonna mock me,

I never get what I want.

It ain't gonna wound me

I've already stiched it up. 

I have become a marshland

Soft and plunging,

Folding underfoot.

I was once a rich meadow

But you dammed me,

Building your dens-

They call it bio diverse

A rich environment

Where before you saw only

A slightly arid stretch 

And a stream ran through it.

You laud the habitat you built but

Now I can only give out 

and never recieve.

Did you not see the depths

And breadths of my weavings

Were the homes built in me invisible 

when they were not of your own hands?

The only breaths of life with meaning

It seems,

Are the ones that flourish as you thrive.

(I'm not even the sort of

Girl you set up with someone

For fear I'll tip and overflow

Drowning an unsuspecting innocent

Under the song of my madness.)

Your balance isn't the only thing

Unstable in these seas. 

The siren's call is deadly,

So we block the sound from our ears.

No amount of fury unseals this wax.

I shiver at the wind

Because I don't know your touch-

Would you graze me so soft

That pain echos after,

The down of it setting

My nerves into panic 

Like a stiff breeze

On a bad day?

Or would you press so hard

I ripple and flush,

Purple and then green,

The ooze of contentment 

Grounding me to wherever 

You feet have taken us?

Driven mad by feather pains

And driven deep under your weight,

And yet untouched, unlonged 

Un brushed by consideration,

I lock away what I cannot bleed

Out unto a page.

Things I will not have:

Laying at your feet

Purring when you remember

That I am here and

Stroke my hair.

Dropping to my knees

At the sound of your round voice

Asking me to wait

A minute

As I watch you go

From her to a closer you

Rounding down the steel

In your core.

Tracing the curve of

Your waist in eyes and kisses

And worshipful touch

Thrumming in.

Washing your hair and 

Scrubbing free the dead skin cells

Under warm cloth or

With my nails.

Laying down clean and 

Protected by the smell of

Your damp hair on my 

Dry pillow.

Waking up clinging

To the hallow your hip made,

Smell sticking to sheets

Empty, warm.

(I know I wept but

My pillow is dry and the

Salt wet under yours

When I search.)

Laying hands grasped as

I sob out memories drug

Out of my own depths

Beside you.

Feeding you breakfast

Well past noon because who let

The either of us 

Be adults?

Tear this unaimed

Longing out of my chest

And make my heart as practical

As pessimism makes the mind.

L ife may teach soul crushing truths

But it doesn't mean I want a pulped heart.

My joy

Turns to ash

On your lips

Fingertips

Grey from

Your licking them

With my heart

In your mouth.

Today's the day 

I take the things

I didn't want from you

(Cold and shimmering

In the sun)

Swallow them down

Feel the chill

Bloat inside of me

(Hard round marbles

Left to freeze)

I hope to blush green

And fresh 

Beneath the dew of you

(Turning blueish in the light

As only water can do) 

Instead of letting who I am

Break under weight

Of being unwanted too.

(Cold as ice under

A winters sun)

I want for this to

Grow to become

As solid as

The roots between 

He and I,

To have those ties grow into

Ours and

To create a harmony

The way I sense

You water him

Beyond what has been there before. 

Call me Ariel
But I'm no Disney princess
for all my earnest hopes
of something better
for all the painful
steps I've taken out
the green depths
These fins are crafted
more by Anderson.

Non-Poem Poetry update

I just wanted to let those reading this- and I know there aren't too many of you- know that I had a previously unpublished poem, SEEP, published in Barking Sycamores.

Barking Sycamores is a poetry journal founded by Nicole Nicholson. Barking Sycamores publishes poetry (and art) by neurodivergent writers. They use a broad definition of neurodivergent, inclusive of not only autistic writers but also those who would get a dx of ADHD, Bipolar, Synesthesia, and so on. If you aren't sure if you or your dx qualify, they are quite friendly and I'm sure that they would be willing to answer you. Barking Sycamores contact information is found here.

Nicole's own work you can check out under Ravenswing Poetry. I highly rec it- I'm especially thrilled about her ongoing Sci Fi series Digital Purgatory featuring the (without giving away spoilers) neurodivergent WoC Aanteekwa.

The submissions for Barking Sycamores' second issue are currently open until 6/30/14.

You can read all the poems in Barking Sycamores issue one here.

You can read my poem, SEEP, here.

I want to sit in the shade
of you, fingers dangling
and echoing Fall Out Boy
lyrics into the folds of skirts
foot twitching to stroke the
almost perfect grass in the
long stretch of summer afternoons
and hopeful twinings of hair
grown long in an echo of
restricted childhood framed
by long corridors and
hospital smells fading into
choirs singing hallelujah
 as we left them behind.

Sometimes I wonder
if I love these symbols
more because I've gone so long
parched for love
displayed out in the open
for sway-ings like mine
that any little drop
feels like heaven
sent springs-
even when in fertile grounds
it would be too stagnant to ponder.

It's not that I
don't believe in
soul mates,
that I don't think
there's a soul to
match or complement
each soul;

It's that I strongly suspect
that the soul that matches mine
died in the crib as a child,
Or wandered off into water
when no one bothered
to teach them to swim.

I'm unsure of the connections
between my sensations and
my body, this tiny euphoria
that I sense around the edges
and yet can't quite grasp onto.
I cannot feel it inside of me,
and the glow that is noticed
feels only like a tea dipped
edging upon blank paper.

I think I'm supposed to
be appalled or frightened
By this incongruity;
but in the face
of the disconnect
I can bring myself
to feel neither.

There's some sort of
discrepancy between
my mind and my body
a self protective disconnect
in response to relentless
pain- the nerves screaming
that invisible hands pound my flesh
that after days on end are
muffled into a distance
brain expending all its energy
into building those reinforcements
and straggling on through
the fog.

If all hearts break open wide
at every instance that
deserves to be called heart breaking
the hearts would be
dust and unable to fight
the breaking;
Let your heart crack
little bits to be reinforced
to stem the bleed.

My heart is racing
and I wonder if
paranoia would be better
than disappointment and long
worn melting emotions
feelings drained out when
I do not expect
and leave my back exposed.

I'm tender
and crispy around the edges,
sliced apart and fried
like ill done potato chips
raw and rotting in the middle
ashes crumbling to dust
at the ends.

The candle light has dwindled
to two small points in the night
glowing eyes set above
the dull stalks of the holders
in the dimness of the evening.
So little could have been done
yet so much has been.

___
4/30

Deep breath in
and exhale to the
tune of a starship's manifest
It's time to prove that there's
something still moving in these
depths beneath a long still pool
My currents turn ripples to
waves across my surface-
is it time to come up for breath?
The light scatters and dances
stars where waves peak
and I rest my burning eyes.

________

3/30

vestigial existence
these chemicals that flood
the channels that

irrigate imaginings 

and movings beneath

smooth plains.

My continuance a

remainder of the processes

manufacturing culture

until we collapse in upon 

ourselves—

vestigial existence

the key to endurance

if I can survive the now.

_________

2/30

Tethered and tender
bound am I
to this framework built
from gut string and bone
upon the drafts that
chaos wraught in
a past imagined by
bespeckled men whose
bones now molder
under deeply en-mossed
artifice.




_________
1/30

I'm a fragile eco system
built of bird spit and star dust
delicate electro wires frizle with
each impulse out from the darkness.
I've come tilted and un managed
my pools over running and building
bogs where once were tender footpaths
and leaving the other dry, parched,
leeched away so that even the water
unexpected afore death leaves no
jolt but cognition. Thoughts a reflex
now where once white hot lightening
arched from pool to pool, foot press
to foot press, alight with hope.
I've found these paths abandoned
an old bower's nest strangely preserved
through time, as the rot seeps up
from the ground and reclaims
the supports keeping up the
expectant hoardings twinkling
as the light reaches a final
gloaming over the ruined land.

Green glass sits in the rounded stones 

And the waves come up cold

From the north, salt water 

Coming in icy 

From the swell off the boats. 

I want to say she does not see me here

Picking my way across the

Sand bar home, 

But her captain smirks at my wet feet

When the tide chased my heels

Towards the dock

The same as 

He did when I told him

Where I wAs going this afternoon. 

These treasures that I would bring

Home to you

To form the housing to protect 

Our hearts 

Are made brittle by the ice forming

At the edges.