Raven-starlight - From Stardust We Came, To Stardust We Will Return. - Tumblr Blog

I think that if you were to melt

You’d melt like sugar

Sticky-sweet

Molten—golden; 

Flaking on my lips and fingers

You’d melt like ice cream

Slow dribbling spilling seeping 

Brimming over the goblet

White wine (not red) 

seductively sweet

You’d melt like honey pouring 

Viscous and luminous 

Like your eyes in the sun 

Ah—the sun! 

The light—your light—

Your warmth like the sun

Like apricity—

Like sunbursts after the tempest

Golden sunshine spilling over

Like warm hands cradling me 

you touch me and

I’m burning

melting

for you.

Oh, darling—

You have been hurting 

For a very long time. 

I am sorry that you have spent your life

Saying “I’m sorry” for others

I’m sorry you’ve spent your life 

Feeling like you need to be more palatable

To be perfect for others 

Because you can’t be perfect for yourself.

Because you don’t want to be a waste of space

Because to be unproductive is to be useless

Oh, darling—

You have been hurting 

For a very long time

Haven’t you? 

You want to hold the world because it is beautiful

But you are too loud, too demanding, too much. 

they try to drown you because you are beautiful

For living unapologetically. 

Oh, darling—

You do not need to be less loud 

Less hopeful

Less perfect. 

You have been grieving the loss 

of the beautiful world

Because they have tried to drown you. 

Oh, darling—

You are not too much

But just enough.

Because you’re beautiful for living as you are

And perfect for loving the world as you do.

You have been hurting 

for a very long time

You have so much love to give—

So let others love you too. 

You have always

Been good enough. 

how to tell a story

How does one tell a true story? 

My poetry is not true. 

They are half-truths I decorate in flowers and sugar. They are little lies that I rip apart and chew and swallow and smile with blood stained teeth and say: look. I am an artist. I give you my heart and I chop it into fine pieces so it is palatable for you. I tear the flesh from my bones and devour it and spill my entrails upon the floor and make my carcass into art. Look at me and praise my pain. 

I say: I am a poet. 

This is a lie. 

I am not a poet. I am a broken human being who spills ink and blood upon pages. I am a thief who steals all the pain from others and take it for myself so that I may sing about my grief. I am not a poet. 

I say: I am a poet. 

This is a truth. 

I grasp at words and lay them upon my tongue and savor the taste of honey and decay. I spit them upon the page and create art. The words says what my voice cannot. 

I say: she was searching for home. 

I do not say: she would never find it. 

I say: the bloodied sheets pooled around her like snow around a dead bird and she wondered if she was dying. 

I do not say: society told her that she was a woman now and her body was no longer hers. 

I say: she was a soft down-feathered bird, fluttering her feathers, singing so sweetly.

I do not say: they’d broken her wings. They’d torn them off of her and flung them into the air. They said it would heal. It did. Her flesh forgot the wrongs they’d committed. Her heart did not. 

I say: she was an angel. 

I do not say: she had sinned too much to ever fly again. 

(I ask: But what is sin? 

They answer: the antonym to purity. You are not pure. You are dirty, dirty, dirty. You are tainted and evil and sinning. You have turned your back to God.

God? I ask. Plaintive. Pleading. Pathetic. Who is God? Why have I been condemned? 

There is no answer.) 

I say: God is real. 

This is a lie. 

I do not believe in a higher being. I have seen too much to look up at the heavens and say that someone watches over me, cradles me, guards me, loves me. The pain does not make me a better person, make me more whole, make me more good. It does not teach me to value what I have. It does not make me more beautiful. Fuck that. I make myself beautiful. 

I say: God is real. 

This is a truth. 

It is a truth when I look at you. 

It is a truth when I am on my knees begging—I love you I’ll serve you I’ll do anything for you because maybe if I beg for your love as I do a god then you will not leave me and you will not hate me and you will smile at me and say that I am good enough. 

It is a truth when I pick up the pen and write. 

It is a truth when I write about love and sweet kisses and fate and destiny and you. 

I say: I love you. 

This is a lie. 

You do not exist. You are some distant wish in my head for love and companionship. You are some shapeless dream of a perfect partner, of a perfect kind of love. 

I say: I love you. 

This is a truth. 

I love the idea of you. I love the idea that love exists. I love the idea of sneaking kisses, of stealing your scarf in autumn, of waking up in your arms, of soft dometistic love. I love that somewhere out there, you exist, and you are not perfect, you are not heavenly, you are not the most beautiful creature to grace this planet—but you are you and I love you. 

I say: let me tell you a story.

I say: this is all true. 

I say: this is all a lie. 

I say: that does not mean it is not real. 

I say: truth is a semi-permeable membrane. 

I say: this is how to tell a story.

how to be a saint

they expect much from you. they will touch your skin and claim your blessing. they will chant your name until their lips form it without thinking, until their tongues have memorized the way it tastes, until they have said it so many times that they’ve claimed it as their own. your name is no longer yours. it is theirs. it is divine, now. 

you, too, are divine. they will fall to your feet and you will feel the whisper of their lips caress your skin. benevolently, gently, they will graze fingertips across your face like they are touching the face of your god. this body is not yours anymore. it is of the gods. it is a vessel. 

they will not always be so gentle. they touch you with reverence, yes, but they are hungry. they are hungry for the touch of the divine for the gods for you. they will devour you with dripping lips and red hands and smile and say more. it is never enough. it never will be. they will slowly taste your flesh and tear you to pieces. your blood is not yours anymore. it is stardust and ichor and wine and ecstasy. 

the choir sings like angels with your name at every breath and you realize their singing starts to sound like screaming. why aren’t you singing? Sing for us. your voice is the gods’ voice. no it is not your voice you do not get to speak for yourself. you never spoke for yourself. your voice is not yours. 

your body is a temple. they will offer up food and drink and more gold than you will ever need. none of it is yours. the church will take it. you do not know what for. they tell you not to worry about it. worry will mar that perfect face of yours. do not destroy that body gifted to you by the gods, they say. do not be ungrateful. they have made you a perfect vessel for us. this is not the first time they have made a temple out of a body. haven’t you figured it out yet? you own nothing. nothing is yours anymore. 

they crave you like they crave anything they cannot have. you are intoxicating, addicting, your silken skin and sweet voice. they stare up at you like you are a god, blinded by the light. they do not realize they are looking at a corpse. 

how come you are not perfect? you were molded in the shape of perfect beings. you should be perfect. they want more. they need more. you are not enough. if you are not enough they will feast on your flesh and lick their lips and beg for more. can you hear them screaming? they need more. more. MORE. 

you taste divine. 

apocalypse

If the world were to end

In fire or in ice

Or at our own hands

To fight a war thrice; 

You’d find me outside

With the night sky

Because after stars die

Their light reach our eyes.

you. 

indescribable, ineffable—

every word for beautiful could fail to describe you. 

every phrase meaning i love you

ardent, luminous, so exquisitely ruinous

would fail, tottering and stumbling, 

to capture your essence. 

yet you’re like the silken, moonlit night; 

a swatch of deep velvet sprinkled with stardust 

like bright fireflies caught in dark amber

like stars you can touch, small suns in your hands 

because holding you is like the sun in my hands 

i’d give you the sun if you asked me to

each dusted freckle like a delicate kiss

star-kissed

we are all made of stardust but you—beloved—

are made of the seraphic, most radiant of stars 

of perfection cradled in the heavens’ hands. 

and I would know you 

if we were nothing but dust and ash 

after the unraveling of the universe 

i’d know you after the death of all stars

i’d know you in utter darkness or light 

i will always know you—

you.

spring dawn

You’re the snowdrop that delicately lifts 

Its head up from the melting snow—

The way first blades of grass push up

through the blanketed plateau. 

You’re the shy and rosy blush 

Of the briar’d, waxen rose; 

The golden warmth of apricity

and the hopping, playful crows. 

You’re the soft and dew-touched hush 

Of the leaves after the rain—

The deep bellow of white-winged geese 

Heading home—home—again. 

You’re the fragile, dainty dance 

Of the young and prancing fawn; 

The dappled light of komorebi 

From the slow rising of spring dawn. 

gilded

gilded like priceless treasure 

but gold is so cold and 

so heavy to bear so plate 

it in unbreakable steel 

don’t let warm hands 

melt soft metal like honey 

oozing dripping spilling 

over like a brimming cup 

of wine trickling through and

staining the ground with 

gold, gold, gold like a

vein of fool’s gold and 

sunsets as they bleed into night and 

leaves in the autumn and 

the hourglass’s sands and 

the eyes of a deity who only 

watches the passing of time 

coldly—

heavily—

softly—

like the sun watching over 

the demise of the earth 

the solemn unraveling 

into dust and stars. 

incomplete

Last night, I ate a grapefruit and it 

Tasted like you—bittersweet; 

Cut it in half, let one decay 

Let the other half be incomplete. 

“keep going,” they say, “time will heal,” 

put emotions away to the highest shelf 

and I guess it’s worked for me 

if the point was to lose myself. 

and now it feels like nothing is complete 

not the grapefruit I can no longer find

not your last wish, uttered in final sighs

and certainly not the living you left behind. 

daughter of dusk

daughter of dusk, 

selfish and cruel—

breaking, falling, 

her faces dual 

raw petals curling from 

cracked emerald eyes

nourished by tears 

and quiet lies

bleeding hope from 

thorn-lined skin—as

briar shields flower

as hands from help

don’t leave me please—

etched in starlight 

don’t let me go—

please hold me tight

then bleeding—bleeding; 

red slowly seeping 

lines upon lines while 

waiting for the reaping

but she’s right there

stay—leave—stay—please

is it—she—me—so wrong

you’re on your knees

just say it’s fine and

bandage the cuts

it’s just a bad dream. 

keep your eyes shut.

kindred stars

night unveils her jewels at 

your askance, painting each 

star with patient detail; the 

heavens murmur to you and

gift you gossamer wings. 

climbing silken ropes of 

nebulae, delicate in their 

earthen creation, as if you 

are always reaching for 

the cosmos up above. 

You lift earthbound eyes to 

kindred stars—reaching, always

reaching, for a light that I

cannot see, yet—I want 

to see what you reach for. 

From corded aerie to stardust—

the velvet night spinning your 

dreams to eternity’s archive 

holding you in its arms; 

slowly—softly—gently…

fragments

I see you in fragments first, 

like the broken shards of an 

ancient mirror; the crinkle of

your eyes when you smile at me 

In its delicate elegance of 

hesitant joy. 

Then I see you, the whole of you; 

Like the pieces have been 

Rearranged, not a mirror but 

A painting that reveals your

beauty in your actions and

your words. 

How rarely we perceive our true 

worth in others' eyes--the light we 

carry without ever trying. You 

Look at your reflection and do 

Not see the beautiful being 

Whom I love. 

You’ve cut yourself on the shards

Of those you’ve tried to heal, 

Because they did not want 

Your quiet kindness. Yet 

You still dare to love with your

Entire being. 

Perhaps that is what I see in you—

A heart that longs to heal

The broken parts of the world

Faltering, cautious, yet despite 

Its stumbling, perfect in

Every way. 

So every day I choose this

To love you, to cradle every 

Delicate piece, to love you

Not despite your “brokenness” 

But because of every part that

Makes you.

flicker

So small am I in Time’s tight fist, 

A singular match struck on stone. 

The drag of friction calls me into being, 

Only to flicker out as I am blown. 

Yet in this split second I illuminate more 

Than those who burn for centuries. 

My mere seconds compare to their hours; 

Time enough in my own eternity. 

Fleeting meaning against immortal being. 

Would you prefer to always be living? 

Mortals in their inevitable extinguish

see what the gods are always unseeing. 

Light the candle, slowly burning, 

Light it at the cost of me; 

How odd it is that I, so brief,

should teach the timeless how to be. 

and it always comes back

to your willingness

to destroy yourself

for the slightest chance

that someone might

care enough to stop you.

-mars

so it was my close friend’s birthday, so I folded her a thousand cranes and wrote this poem for her. She deserves the world, but for now I just give her a wish and spilled ink. Happy birthday, my love.

if you wish upon a star 

made of a thousand paper cranes

they’ll lift you up 

Into the sky and 

Fly you to the stars.

their thousand winged bodies 

will flutter against your skin 

like a heartbeat 

A ghostly tomb of 

a thousand trees. 

and you’ll dance in a dress 

made out of silent tears  

and broken promises 

and discarded ideals 

and innocent blood

and you’ll unfurl your dreams 

into golden silk and 

weave them into wings 

and fly with the cranes 

And they’ll whisper to you

make a wish. 

kalopsia

the light plays across the covers. 

i chose white covers because i 

thought it would make me sleep 

better but i don’t sleep anyways 

but they are beautiful. they are 

beautiful because i am leaving. 

kalopsia caused by an 1800 mile 

move. they are beautiful because 

i am leaving because i have to 

leave because i know this logically 

but my sheets at home are green. and 

in massachusetts. and i am in bed in 

texas. which is quite a problem, i 

would think. 

coffee and roses

It’s the way your name tastes like

coffee beans and rose petals. 

How your golden hoops, 

Glittering like precious metals, 

Swing with their embedded rhinestones. 

It’s the way you run your tongue 

over your teeth and bite your lip. 

How you prove my arguments wrong, 

But with a playful quip 

As if you don’t know the warm glow in my chest.

It’s the way you invited me to 

That coffee date and we took 

Pictures like a real couple. 

How we folded stars with their colorful look

With those strips of colored paper. 

It’s the way you gifted me 

That jar with our paper stars.  

How the jar’s glass refracts the sun 

And scatters the light across my room 

In dappled spots like komorebi. 

It’s the way I felt when you

Told me I tasted of the 

Lip gloss you wear

How I felt when you said that 

I tasted of your lips. 

It’s the way you hold my heart 

Cradle it oh so gently 

In your hands as if you don’t 

Have the power to crush it 

Into a million tiny pieces. 

It’s the way I know that 

Even if my name on your lips 

Tastes of ecstasy 

You will be

The death of me

little white lies

Sometimes I wonder if I’m an awful person

No—I am an awful person; I

Tell myself I’m an awful person—my

Parents tell me I’m an awful person 

My friends tell me to get therapy, but

Everybody around away from me—I

Draw in those around me, then

Burn bridges—I need therapy

Lie, lie, lie; just a white lie 

I’m digging myself deeper and deeper 

Lie, lie, lie; oops, another lie

Why does everybody think the best about me? 

Play dumb, sweet smile, sugared compliments

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it

So bad everybody thinks I’m good

A masquerade, this charade just keeps going

Let’s play a game, just you and me

Let’s see which fake personality

I’ve chosen to paint myself

Which one is it gonna be?

Lie, lie, lie; just a white lie

I’m trapped in this web I can’t defeat

Lie, lie, lie; oops, another lie

I keep spinning these threads of deceit

Caught in this carousel of illusion—I’m 

Suffocating in delusion—I

Crave the taste of authenticity—but

Truth’s a double edged sword, you see

My world’s unraveling, catastrophe 

Unraveling just like my sanity

Looked into a mirror that fed my vanity

But guess that now that’s gone to insanity

Love, —

I’ve always wondered why people start their letters with “dear”. Were the first people to write letters friends? Lovers? Family? How close were they to spill their hearts upon a piece of paper, all starting with the word “dear”? 

I’m not going to start this with “dear”. You don’t deserve that. You never were my dear. Perhaps we could’ve, in another world, in another time. But not now. Not here. 

Is it possible to be heartbroken without any words being spoken? To crush hope without a noise? I always thought it’d be louder, bigger, greater, yet here I end with barely a whimper. 

I don’t know why I’m writing this. I should be over you. I thought I was over you. Yet each time I see you, there’s a pain in my heart, a twinge in my soul. You were the one who decided to stop talking to me, yet wherever you look at me, there’s something odd in your gaze. 

I don’t get it. Why? Every time I think it’s over, you talk to me—the barest conversation—and I do this all over again. You build me up then throw me down, all without realizing it. 

And I hate myself for it. I hate this feeling, this emotion that I can’t control. I hate that I know that it won’t work, yet I so desperately want it to work. I hate subconsciously looking for you everywhere I go. I hate remembering that your favorite color is blue, that you don’t like sweet foods. I hate thinking about your voice and what made you laugh. I hate knowing that you never looked at me the way I wanted you to. I hate knowing you loved someone else and she loved you too. I hate the relief I felt when you didn’t date her. I hate that I want you. I hate that I miss you. I hate that I love you. 

But I could never hate you. 

I wish I could. I wish I could scream and cry and yell at you. I wish I could tell you exactly how I feel. I wish I hated you instead of myself. 

But I don’t. 

So I’m sorry. 

I love you. 

Snaggle-Toothed Smile

TW: abusive relationship, grooming, death

Wolf is knocking on the front door

Sharp sharp teeth in a snaggle-toothed smile

Come here, little rabbit, let us play 

Come here, little rabbit, for I’ll stay here awhile

Wolf brings food to me every day

Come, little rabbit, I’ve come to play 

Wolf brings gifts to me every day

Come, little rabbit, have this beautiful bouquet

Wolf combs my fur for me every day

Protects me and never leaves me alone 

Careful, little rabbit, it’s dangerous outside 

Careful, little rabbit, don’t be on your own 

Wolf tells me how lucky I am every day

That he takes care of me, little rabbit 

And then he smiles that snaggle-toothed smile

Oh, little rabbit, you could become a habit 

Wolf accidentally hurt me today 

He asks me and asks me why did you make me do it? 

Feather-light kisses upon each wound

Snow white rabbit has become blood red rabbit

Wolf smiled that smile today 

Sharp sharp teeth with a snaggle-toothed smile 

Asked me, are you afraid of me? 

Run, little rabbit, run, run to the wild

Wolf didn’t come back today. 

Wolf didn’t give me gifts today. 

Wolf didn’t give me food today. 

My only companion was gone today. 

Wolf was oh so tender today. 

Wolf apologized for not coming yesterday. 

Oh, little rabbit, you will never be free.

Wolf killed me so gently today. 

The Wolf

why did i open the door to the monster that had already torn out my throat twice before? still have the scars but thought if i was capable of change, then so was he, forgetting my worth.

i swallowed his lies and drowned for months without being able to speak of the bites he stole from my soul and spat out in front of me, his blood-stained grin.

and as soon as I wasn’t her, he plunged the knife i gave him into my back, cut the rope and kicked me over the edge of the abyss.

but it’s okay.

I think this time I've finally learned my lesson.

Right Here, Right Now

TW: mentions of suicide, self harm

What if, right here, right now, 

I just jumped from off this roof? 

What if, right here, right now, 

I took this gun?—for no one’s bulletproof. 

What if, right here, right now, 

I took this rope and let me swing? 

What if, right here, right now, 

I took those pills? These tiny things? 

Coward, you screamed—coward, coward

Never did anything right

Always failed, always disappointed

So what if I gave into the night? 

What if, right here, right now, 

I took this knife, right at that vein 

Slashed ‘til I found blood and bone

And let thick crimson liquid rain? 

So slit my throat. Slit my arms. 

Slice this traitorous heart of mine. 

Carve these words into my chest. 

Smile and say that everything’s fine. 

Cut these thoughts. Cut these hands. 

Cut the voices inside my head. 

Ignorance is bliss—and so’s oblivion

‘Cause nothing can hurt me if I’m dead. 

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled “immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

you were like the sun. I was blinded by your presence, by that glowing smile. by the warmth of your hands, the gold of your heart. I watched you from afar, for I knew if I came too close my walls would all come burning down. if my heart was ablaze with you were near, then it was so cold, so lonesome, without you.

but I pushed you away.

out of fear, out of anger,

because I didn’t want to change. I feared change. I feared what would irreversibly change if I let you in my heart.

but now you’re gone, and I’m frozen. my sun hidden behind clouds of my making. and I realized that I needed you. I needed the warmth you gave. and I was willing to burn.