Woman King 

so here’s the poem i entered for the Bridport Prize
if you want to watch the video of me reading it, you can do that here :) 
feedback is always appreciated, as always 

I can’t say that this is bursting out of me —
that I’m responding to some sort of mystical calling telling me to make my mark or remove myself from the stagnancy of my own fucking life,
but I can say that it always comes out unasked, unmasked, unmistaken
because you can’t force yourself to feel or to love, but when you try,
it’s like quicksand.
You can only take so much of your own shit before you sink so deep into yourself that no exit could ever exist —
before you become stuck in the bowels of the thing and not in the thing itself.

I don’t blame you.
You could slit my throat and I’d probably just apologize for bleeding on your shirt because, fuck, we all want to be loved —
but when you tell me I’m worthless, that there’s something wrong with my face,
I remember that my hands are strong even though my will is fucking rotten
                    that I am a tree that grows hearts; one for each that you take
                    that I am alive, god damn it
                    that I like feeling guilty about being a white privileged female and the tip-of-
                    the-tongue feeling that comes with forgetting what you’ve done.
It’s less of a game of pinball and more like making breakfast, with you.
There is routine
and a set outcome
instead of flailing around — aimlessly aiming for something without understanding why.

I’ll give you a half of an apology; tell you I’m sorry that the words that spill from my mouth like cum tend to weigh you down
but I’ll tell you I’m not sorry for making you watch as I tear myself apart because
look, motherfucker
my fingers move faster than lightning and they can burn bridges and peel your face off and kill those kids riding bikes across the street
and look, motherfucker
I’m fighting back with these hands and these lips
and look, motherfucker
I’m showing you what it feels like to really bleed
to cut off your own limbs to spite the ones who sculpted them
to cut yourself off                                from                                        yourself.

You call me baby.
                           It makes me feel small.
We’re not where I promised you we’d be by now.
                                                                            I’m not who I promised you I’d become.
This is nothing, and I believe in nothing,
                                                             but it is my nothing.
I am keeping it and wearing it like a crown.     

hokay
so

here’s my poem
sorry i’m all awkward at first and then super passionate about it because my poems are my babies and i love them more than people. there you have it. 

i finally submitted a poem entry for the Bridport Prize today the deadline is tomorrow but that doesn’t matter really. i mean it’s not that exciting, but this writing competition is supposedly very prestigious and if i place, i could win a semi-substantial amount of money. plus i’ve been saying for years that i would start submitting my poetry to things and work on getting published, but i’m a lazy piece of shit so i guess this is actually kind of exciting. even if i just took a bunch of my favorite lines from previous poems i’ve written because the 42 maximum line limit is ridiculous and nothing i’ve written is shorter than 42 lines. i still love the final product. 

i might make a video of me reading it/post the poem on my poetry bloglater since i’m not sleeping tonight. 
you know.
if anyone’s interested in listening to it/reading it.  

i am a master hunter 

thecanceryouwontremove:

sitting half-naked on the floor,          3 a.m., guitar in hand
words that aren’t mine -                    spilling from my lips like cum 
and i remember all of the words        that were mine, once 
grasping at them desperately,           knowing they can’t go anywhere
because i’ve trapped them,               being the hunter i am 
i used to kill for sport
for the thrill of ending things 
to spread this illness - share the burden of how it feels to have the life drained out of you
i used to fight just to fight
to wield my words like weapons
the dashes like daggers, using punctuation to puncture my own skin
and yours, too
to sever the barrier of flesh that cleaves us
but every arrow falls
                        short                                   of its target.
you can’t bridge the gaps of time and abandonment with fucking words - not when the distance is this great. 

but i still watch you like an assassin 
lying in wait
choosing my battles
learning when to keep quiet          when to approach you as if it was an art
as if                                              it was natural
as if                                              it made sense to pierce through flesh with language - 
                                                    to destroy something with nothing.

you call me baby. 
it makes me feel small.
the sky keeps rotting and soon enough you will rot and you’ll take your secrets with you and
i’ll dig
     dig
     dig
           to find everything you kept from me
but this heart you raised grew tough
and now it’s swollen, filled with all the bullshit we devoured to save ourselves from every mistake we ever made.

think of this as a fresh kill
novel wounds
blood dripping from the carcass you are

think of this as a fresh start
new beginnings and all of that shit you tell yourself when you wake up and think, ‘the rest of my life begins now’

think of this as a ritual                    
becoming the hunter instead of the hunted.

The day I thought I was going to change things 

thecanceryouwontremove:

my phone didn’t ring at all today and it reminded me of those 16 year old days of writing you off and telling you off and fucking off
but I’m not here to tell you about the time when I could’ve taken that all back, or 
to tell you that things change when you’re not looking at them 
like the weather or  the light-bulbs in the living room that are growing dimmer or the meanings of things.

No.

I’m not here to tell you about that - about any of those things that are trivial and meaningful all at once;
the way it feels when someone hangs up on you - when the silence is pregnant
full of all the things you want to say and can’t,
but I can tell you something about my hands
the callouses on my fingers are getting weaker and I keep picking at the loose skin hanging from them 
I could turn it into a metaphor about how that means I’m getting weaker, too;
something along the lines of, “I’m not as tough as I used to be” or “I guess that means I’m getting softer”
                            but we’re all tired of that bullshit. 

I like to pretend that my hangnails are people, sometimes - that ripping them from my hands is some sort of twisted fucking method of ripping them away from my life

and I realize that my body’s tired of being used like that
used
like a hooker
to get other people closer to things
to distance myself from myself
used
and thrown away
at the expense of trying to make something better than what’s been given to me
like one of those shitty gifts you get at Christmas
a disgusting sweater you never asked for and will never wear because after all these years, your own flesh and blood still doesn’t know what you like
what you want
and usually these things are things they can never give you
but it’s not like they care enough to try, anymore.

At the end of the day we all settle like the dust at the top of ceiling fans
and sometimes we move -
find new things to attach to
and

still

we

settle.

i didn’t order room service 

thecanceryouwontremove:

you should’ve known that i wanted something from you then.
you know,
when you were standing outside the door of my car
and i did 
i really fucking did
i was tired of giving
and you were tired of getting
but you never could pick up on that kind of thing -
the way i looked at you with the window half down;
looking at one half of your reflection mixed with my own through the film of dirty glass it was covered in shit and dead bugs and words written by my fingertips when the air left films of cold sweat all over everything
looking at you like a drunk person looking at himself in the mirror at a party
eyes glazed over,
repulsed and fascinated by his own fucking face
alarmed that he is at once himself and not himself at all

just think of this as one of those memories you haven’t made yet
an aborted thought
the potential life of a heartfelt moment cut short
you’ll ask me, “but it was a miscarriage, right?” 
forcing yourself to believe that it wasn’t my fault
that it wasn’t a choice
but it was
it is
it will be
because i will tear you out of me, somehow -
sever the chords that have tied us together all this time

it’s not like you belong here
or anywhere
and no one ever really belongs to a place, to a person.
you
don’t
get
a
say
in
this.
try to stop me and i’ll rip the world out from under you
try to help me
to help you
to help me
because i don’t know how to dish out a refusal.
i can’t send this order back to the fucking kitchen of life and complain about how the plate was too hot to handle even though the food was cold
and the service was mediocre
so i yelled at my server to spite him because i tried to be a fucking person today
and i should’ve ordered room service
because life fucking owes me something
because i deserve something better, don’t i?
something that will leave me satisfied, in the end.
 

there will be a hell for people like you
like us
like me
the people who are crushed by the weight of not living their lives
the people who wait
the animals that fall for the bait -
those who know that there is nothing more painful
than wanting
what
you
can
never
have
and chasing
after it
anyway. 

2am spurts of poetic nonsense? Hi. Nice to see you again. It’s been a while. 

off the cuff 

thecanceryouwontremove:

(this is an older piece, but I haven’t written anything lately because life is constantly punching me in the face.)
___________________________

A girl picks up the phone and prays for the line to go dead, but no one is ever that fortunate

and you expected some logic, here - for some sense to appear, or perhaps some other unknown force to pull everything together -
for the words to follow the thoughts, but the thoughts came first and then there was vomit everywhere;
broken words

all

                over

                     the

      place

                           and

now we’re back here with the shit -
                                                       stuck in the bowels of the thing and not
                                                       the thing itself. 

You gave me your silence and I said, “take whatever you want”
and I said other things and wrapped them up in my opinions - in drunken vocabulary
and you threw some bullshit around:
dressed it up,
made it pretty,
                       called it an apology.
                                                                 It was quite the performance. 

I don’t care how you split her, she’s yours 
and she’s not aware yet, but she’s yours 
and if you’re the highest bidder, I’m yours
and you’re not aware yet, but 
I
fucking
own
you.

So I cut you off before you had a chance to say it-
decapitated your thoughts -
                                          weeds in a yard ripped to shreds -
fear and -
                everything withering -
                                                   wordseatingthemselves -
slurred
words
and
dead
ones 
and
cut
ties
and 
cut
bullshit
and 
cutting
you
from
me
and 
filling
the 
empty
pathetic
spaces
with 
clinical
cynicism
and 
booze. 

And maybe this is melodrama,
and maybe this is an exercise in getting fucked over for the 5th time in 3 years,
and maybe this is me, your emotional punching bag,
and maybe this is just you being an asshole and me making a better story out of it because,
let’s face it, 
who doesn’t want a better story?

I can give you one in which everyone looks like a flower, 
where there are forests and trees and The Smiths playing in the background;
a family vacation that doesn’t turn into a complete shit show, a life that doesn’t fall apart -
a day when love survives, when everyone is forgiven even when they don’t deserve it, 
when you tell someone to fuck off and they pull you closer and you don’t shoot them. 

I’m sorry, but I’m the one who shoots the albatross of you/me and fucks everything up, again.
          That comes later.
I’m sorry, but I’m the one who swallows you whole in the end.
                                                                                               That comes later. 

I’m sorry, but this is just another piece of shit that talks about love going the wrong way,
even though there isn’t a right way.
There’s just a way;
this is mutilated love on its own way,
a way,
away. 

(You can only get away with so much before it all catches up to you,

                                                                                                         but nice try.)

The first and the last are two things you will never be, sweetheart. 
The second and everything in between - these are the things you will always be.

hey guys
hey
hi
reblogging my poetry blog so some of you can see it
you know
in case you want to read something 

over the course of the last 4 years, i’ve written a little over 100 poems (you can read most of them here and some recent ones here if you’d liiiiiike)

out of those 100ish poems, i probably only love 10 of them
which is irrelevant  

actual point: i definitely have enough poems to make a collection of 40 of them, which means i can work on getting it published eventually if i get organized about it

it’s just the weirdest fucking thing
like
i could be a published poet in the somewhat near but distant future

wtf