My Voice Crackles Like The Edges Of Burnt Paper / Absinthe And Green Teathe Lining Of My Throat / Is

my voice crackles like the edges of burnt paper / absinthe and green tea the lining of my throat / is ragged from disuse and the effort of healing. my words are sparks and gasoline / burning their way up again and again and the scar tissue covering my wounds / is made into flame

@cityskylinesofimaginaryplaces, SCAR TISSUE (excerpt?)

love her. love her. love her.

there was one time i tracked orange paint all over the room in the shape of a star.

i was painting (of course you know that) and trying to cover up the words on the outside of a lid and i painted it red first, because i thought blood covers everything

except it wouldn’t cover this and i couldn’t understand why the paint wouldn’t cover up the stupid white letters that didn’t mean anything for god’s sake who wants to read ‘SALSA’ on the top of a universe in a bottle?

so i painted the top orange instead and that covered up the words easy and i don’t know how i managed it but i got orange paint all over my foot (or at least that’s what i told my roommate) because really i was waiting for the paint to dry and i wanted to feel like i could’ve been something special.

there went an orange star i put on my foot, out of spite because everyone always said don’t get paint on you dear

and it just kept growing and growing and growing along the bottom of my foot because i had to even out this side and stretch out that point so it looked proportionate but that made the other side look too small until i had a star stretching from my heel to the ball of my foot and all the way around

i let it dry and walked around with it for an hour or two until i had to wash it off and down the bathtub

the paint gathered all around the drain and left a ring of orange that won’t go away no matter how much i scrub and i didn’t mean to tell you all this its just that i cried when i had to wipe it away

i know it’s silly but it felt daring and special and wild and it was just a stupid star that didn’t even look pretty

besides i hate the colour orange when i’m sad because it looks too happy like it’s bloody smiling at me and saying i should be happy too and i just can’t

but i didn’t hate that star because it meant something to me and it reminded me that i could be special if i tried (it reminded me of blue ink and a bathroom sink) only less existential and contemplative.

anyway i’m only telling you this because i thought someone should know just in case the water comes back up stained like a northeastern sunset drifting below the horizon or the inky black night receding to leave a morning star in its wake.

love defined

storge• /ˈstɔːɡɪ/ noun, Greek: Στοργή (familial loyalty)

1. your brother likes to tease you about everything relentlessly but the one day someone else says something is the day when he stands up and punches that boy’s lights out because “no one gets to talk about her like that” and he just smiles when you ask him what happened after he comes home with a black eye. 2. when you come out to your family accidentally in the check out line of a Meijers your mom just laughs (and for god’s sake you were twelve and you didn’t know a thing except that you were pretty sure you liked everyone and not just boys) but she still took you to church on Sundays and said “what did you think i was going to do? you’re my daughter, you idiot. i love you.” 3. the only one in your family who knew what you were saying half the time was your father because you both spoke sign language and could yell at each other across the room saying “KANGAROO!” and start laughing while everyone else looked on. you made a habit of trying to learn new languages together until you could both speak in German and French too but the only words of Gaelic you spoke were the ones you said every day- mo gaol orst, tha gaol agam orst. 4. family is not what you think it is and neither is love. both are what you make it and both are worth fighting for

philia• /ˈfɪliə/ noun, Greek: Φιλιάς (friendship)

1. there is a divot in the road up ahead and it’s caught all the rain that fell while you were walking through this quiet neighborhood with your bare feet, sneakers in one hand and Emily’s shoes in the other. 2. she has green flip flops that match the green trees and it’s the last day but also a beginning, the start of another road that you walk down when you turn the corner. 3. you are barefoot and you splash through every puddle, every crack and you walk down the middle of the road together. this could be sad but instead you talk about conjugating French verbs and how there is a way to say you, me, us, we, together, forever with no strings attached. 4. Alyssa said if you ever needed to talk to someone that she’d always be there, don’t worry about it because that’s what friends do, right? and the thought of that makes you want to cry because who ever knew how much it meant to have someone who would be there.

eros• /ɛɹɒs/ noun, Greek: ἔρως (romantic love)

1. what arrows struck the hearts of men and caused them to feel a love like this? what arrows and what bow, what reason could there be to inflict us with this strange and bitter wonder if not to make us feel alive? 2. had you known how fast and how hard that you would fall im not sure you would’ve made the same decision but i am sure that you would have believed in and made the same love. 3. open your mouth and swallow them down like sugar and blueberries that turn your tongue purple but your lips red like kisses. you are a pair of hands begging to be held and a pair of lips waiting to be kissed and kissed and kissed until you are dizzy and the world is made of shining colours. 4. there are epics and poems and songs and movies and books and thousands of words written to describe this love and yet the story can be told over and over and over again without us ever tiring of it.

agape• /əˈɡeɪp/ noun, Greek: ἀγάπη (selfless love)

1. selfless love of one person for another (especially love of a spiritual means) 2. love that knows no body or no boundaries. love that can give and give and give until there is nothing left but everything, because there can always be more. 3. you couldn’t begin to understand how to love like this because to love like this is to be god but you can try because heaven knows that we can be good when we want to. 4. this is what was meant to be known as love.

/lʌv/ EXPLAINED :: @cityskylinesofimaginaryplaces

omnipotence doesn't mean you have the power to act

isn’t it awful to be the narrator of a story and know not only the good but all of the terrible things that people are going to have to suffer through? to think that maybe you could save them only to know that tragedy must run its course. the winds will always blow. the wolves will keep on howling. the witches will brew the future and tell which path to choose. the world will turn and turn and turn you with it until you’re dizzy, stumbling down into the forest into the deep, deep woods. there must always be blood and someone will have to pay. you know whose blood will whet the monsters’ appetites and you know exactly whose future those witches were brewing when they said tragedy and you know which moon those wolves were howling at and you know that the only things left will be the winds. you know what will be taken and given and given up, what wishes and dreams and hopes and fears are riding inside our heads. you know. but you’re not telling.

we dance among the stars.

lithium is the third to last element expelled before a star goes supernova and can be found in all of us. somewhere a star exploded and its elements, the molecules that make it up, rushed out into the great gaping abyss until they were put to use making us. someone once told me that all matter has existed since the beginning of everything, not just time because time is something we constructed, but everything. i think it was in my seventh grade science classroom and now i can remember it, first hour with coffee and bleary eyes even that young and hearing someone say: you have been a part of something before you were something and you will be a part of something after you’ve been something matter can never be created or destroyed it simply is. how it felt to know that the parts do not add up to a whole even if the whole cannot remember where all of its parts have been. i think it was comforting, the idea that everything i was was something before me and after me there would continue to be something of me that was once a part of me and the subsequent conversation later when i said sorry to a chair after bumping into it and my mother said what are you afraid of hurting its feelings? it’s not alive and i said it is alive because we’re all made of molecules and the molecules that make up that chair could’ve been part of someone i bet you were a chair once how would you feel if someone ran into you and didn’t say sorry? and she just laughed at me and said kid sometimes i wonder about you and ruffled my hair so i just laughed too and didn’t tell her that i thought it was beautiful, that the chair could be alive and still not because it was made of molecules and people and dust, lithium, real stardust or what could’ve been, only it didn’t know it.

don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve that

there is no excuse.

just because he says “i’m sorry, i don’t mean it, it was just the one time”?

that don’t mean shit. he’s gonna do it again, and again, and again so long as you let him.

by this point blood tastes like love and pain is your lover: you haven’t learned to leave it and you’re starting to try but you don’t know how and he keeps coming back.

this should not be a secret. there is no reason that he should ever touch you unless it’s with love.

you shouldn’t have to hide bruises and lie for him, don’t say it’s not his fault when honey, we can all see the handprints wrapped around your waist and the black eyes- we may not want to see it, but baby we’re not blind.

you don’t have to lie for him you don’t have to hide for him long sleeves in the summer isn’t the new style and don’t tell me it’s not because he left bruises the last time he had a date with a bottle.

please, just tell someone

and if they blame you, say “fuck them” and tell someone else.

because it’s not your fault it is never your fault don’t tell yourself that because you don’t deserve this.

no one fucking deserves this.

don’t you ever dare to think that it’s your fault he put his hands on you and you couldn’t say no.

and i know you think you love him.

i know you love him baby and im so sorry that he’s breaking your heart

but don’t let him break you too because that’s not worth it, that’s not how you show someone love.

even if you don’t want to say the word, this is what it is (and you can scream if you like)

this is abuse.

This Is Abuse.

THIS IS ABUSE AND I WILL NOT TAKE IT

take everything and leave. pick up your life and move it away from him. grab your dignity, your pride, your love

but honey leave the shame and guilt and pain for him because you’ve suffered long enough.

do not ever think for one second that he is worth it but always think that you are worth this not worthless

you are the strongest person that anyone could ever hope to be because you have known hatred that looked like love painted in purple, yellow, black and blue.

and if someone looks at you and says anything you don’t like, if they say that “that’s just how he shows his love, you shoulda been a better girl and maybe he wouldn’t’ve hit you, it’s your fault”

you better damn well say fuck ‘em.