Wisp-of-thought - It Aches Softer Here - Tumblr Blog

I lost track of the wounds

In the end

The only one that mattered

Was the one you gave me

In the end

The only one that mattered

Was you

In the end

It was the betrayal that slaughtered me

Before the blood loss

When your eyes sliced into my soul

Puncturing the vital organ

I was dead before your blade parted flesh

Ghost before my body hit the ground

~

In the end

My final breath

An exhale of your name

That still tasted like home on the tounge

My blood forgetting to be afraid

In your familar palms

~

But if I am spirit

Why I am the one haunted?

By you

Or some part of you that perished

With me

Begging for mercy

I do not know how to grant you

~

And if you lived

Why did I find you

Haunting your own shell

When I returned to

Forgive you

~

~And Caeser Thinks: If Betrayal Is A Kiss, I am Glad I Tasted It Last From Your Lips

In the end

When redemption comes for me

He looks so much

Like you

And is not what absolution has always been?

You

Coming back

To me

And in the space carved out for forgiveness 

He plants "I love you, still" instead

And is this not what mercy has always been?

Love where guilt once grew

Burying the hurt in an unmarked grave

A field of second chances blooming over it

And even now

When I think of you 

In mourning of us

It is her ghost

That haunts you 

While I wait my turn

To be remembered

For it has always been her

And the girl who wears her sheets of grief

This time

Until they grow tired of playing a dead thing

For you

And even after everything 

It is her ghost that you take to bed

And mine that lingers by the door

Watching

Wondering

Wanting

Forever

For I cannot even 

Haunt you

Better than

She

And I will always love you like you 

Are my first

And you will always love me like I

Fall somewhere inbetween 

The beginning and

The end 

And what can I do

But keep falling

Short 

of forever 

A memory that will not last

No matter how hard I try

To hurt you enough 

For the scars to linger

Even after I am gone

The doctor tells me I might have arthritis at 9 am on a wednesday in november 

My shoes are wet, my coat is soaked, my umbrella is broken 

I have to catch a bus in time for class 

In 20 minutes, 19 minutes, 18 minutes

18 minutes

18 minutes

18

The cold is seeping into my aching bones 

The doctor tells me I might have arthritis

But he does not believe the MRI results

He says I am only 18

18

He says it should be impossible

For my body to be is such a state of

Inevitable disrepair 

And this is all I have ever wanted

For someone to tell me that I am too young to be this old 

That all this ache belongs somewhere 

That I am allowed to hurt

And that they are going to heal me

The doctor tells me I might have arthritis

And there is nothing we can do 

Which is of course not exactly what he says 

He says here are our options

And i hear 

There is nothing we can do 

I hear

This body 

A broken record 

Only getting worse 

The song you once loved eventually

Unrecognizable 

It's surface covered in scar tissue that runs

Too deep

To love back to healing

But you remember 

You remember 

What it sounded like

When it was capable of beauty

And the darkness calls to me with all the names my mother said were too soft for me

The shadows think I am delicate and I let them, try to let them convince me too

That somewhere something may yet still think I am worthy of gentleness 

I am a wound

And the longing it will scar

I am the irony of the guilty begging for mercy before the end

And temptation to give it

The ache of dreaming of the redemption you will never let yourself have 

The agony of an artist without a muse

The desire that overcomes you when your center of gravity shifts on a precipice 

The reminder of how final an edge is

How peaceful the end

I am the nights when missing him is longest 

The false memory of his gentleness 

The phantom promise of what could have been if you let yourself be reduced to repentance 

The curiosity of what it would be like to part flesh and bone, to shed your skin and be reborn without this name

The fleeting hope these seams will split and the clock will stop and the mirrors will shatter 

I am poetic justice in all her cruel beauty 

I am the universe in all her lonely infinity

I am the forgiveness that comes for you when you are least worthy of mercy

Just because I can

You return for me

Once I've finally

Bled your name

Out my veins 

Sometimes there is grief

But most days there is only

The space in my heart

You left behind

Where nothing grows

Anymore

- somedays missing you is an ocean and somedays it is drought

My favourite Poet gets married

And I lament to my friend that there will be no more heartbreak poems

And is this not the kind of tragedy we all long for

The thing about art and

Artist

Is that they are confusing most of the time

Until you have lived the heartbreak of a muse

Until you have lost a child

Or a childhood

Until you have buried your mother

Or resurrected yourself

Until you have spent a summer drowning

In your own oceans

Until you have forgotten the colour of the sky

Or his skin

And maybe this is why I am so

Confused

Because I have not lived this heartbreak yet

But every one of her poems was about a lover lost

And I think of all the loss haunting her love

I think of all the ghost girls under their bed

I think of all the poetry she wrote about someone else

And I cannot understand it

~

He tells me that he loved her for six years

That she was the person that knew him best in the world

He still says her name like he may yet summon her ghost

The consonants getting caught in his teeth

I imagine he tastes her with every mouthful of promises he makes me

All the songs he sings me reminds him of her

I keep them all like scars

~

He says he loves me

And I try to believe him

But it is hard when

All I can imagine is how he would have loved her till the end

If he could have

- to the poems I never had the heart to finish because of you

I know

I will never 

Fill the craters

She left in your heart

And I know

When we are over

I will take nothing of you with me

But pieces of her void 

And you will have nothing to remember me by

But the memory 

Of how I could not love you 

Like she did

I am still forgiving myself

For the time I wasted

For the people I loved who did not love me back

And I knew

And I knew

And I am still forgiving myself for the staying

For keeping the loneliness 

In all the parts of me

I swore I'd never let it 

Touch

I grow old and wonder if writing poetry has always been this hard

I wonder what I wouldn't sacrifice for a muse

I would give my youth if I had any left to offer

The only thing I have ever wanted more than to be a writer

Is to be loved

But these days I wonder

If there is really a difference

For where do I exist if not between the lines of every poem I have never written

And if I do not write my story who will

And if I do not claw my metaphors into your tear ducts

Who will remember me

Who will remember me

- Hiatus

I wait for inspiration at the door step of my youth. But she has long forsaken the promises we carved into my childhood bedframe. And this is the abandonment of the muse. For there was a season when poetry herself wooed me into unfurling my untried fingers to her pen and for a moment she was encapsulated by the way I bled ink for her. How deep I was willing to tear myself to reach the sweetest similies. Capillaries and couplets. And she kept me. Until the metaphors melted into puddles of half remembered melodies. And she grew bored. I cannot recall which came first.

I always knew her gaze was fickle. Her favour easily shifted with the tilt of the light. And how easy it is to fall into shadow. How beautiful the canvas of the sky when closest to darkness, when teetering on the precipice of the end. I write to her still. Shove the love notes composed of subpar symphonies under the porch where she promised she would return for me. And what does poetry know but already rotting vows.

In some letters I miss her. And in some I ask her forgiveness. In some I bleed, and leave this offering to be unfound. I wring out the papers drenched in desperation, and ask her to hold me. One last time. I ask for a poem. And I use the letters to burn my past to ash. For perhaps the smell of smoke carries farther. Perhaps ash and charred memories, will linger longer than love.

Oh the blood I have shed

Oh the youth I have lost amongst the grief

And for who?

In hopes a river of sorrow,

Or a pathway of scars

Would lead love back

To the hollow parts of me

I carved out

To make room for the forgiveness

I deny myself?

And this is how it begins

When I rediscover the fear of being undeserving of the things I love

When I forget how to hold the poems on my tounge

When I let the words fester and wilt in my veins

Let the unsaid accumulate in the back of my throat

Dead passages stain my skin shades of neglected potential

When I promise myself I'll end

Or I'll begin

But even I do no trust who I have become

Oh the blood I have shed

Oh the youth I have lost amongst the grief

And for who?

In hopes a river of sorrow, a pathway of scars

Would lead love back

To the hollow parts of me

I carved out

To make room for forgiveness

I deny myself

These days, I look at my body and wonder how I could have ever been at war with something so soft

03.08.22

- the phases of the moon speak with the stages of grief -

1.

The Loss: {silence}

The New Moon: {silence}

The Loss: Is this the end?

The New Moon: I suppose it depends on where you start. For some, this is the beginning. For others, this is the end.

The Loss: {silence}

The New Moon: {silence}

The Loss: It is so dark.

The New Moon: I know.

The Loss: {silence}

The New Moon: The ache will come in waves. The tides are always highest when the loss is new or full.

The New Moon: {silence}

The Loss: {silence}

2.

Shock & Denial: This is not the end.

Waxing Crescent: No, I suppose this is just the beginning.

Shock & Denial: The darkness cannot last.

Waxing Crescent: The darkness is eternal. It is the light that must fade eventually.

Shock & Denial: This is not the end.

Waxing Crescent: No, I suppose a cycle cannot end, but nor can it begin. For some things are forever.

3.

Pain & Guilt: It hurts

First Quarter: It will not last.

Pain & Guilt: Perhaps it should. Perhaps this is what I deserve.

First Quarter: Why?

Pain & Guilt: I could have...

First Quarter: You could not have. There are some things you cannot change. There are some things that are meant to happen. They cannot be stopped. I would know.

Pain & Guilt: It hurts.

First Quarter: For now. For this is just a phase

4.

Anger & Bargaining: If I promise to change, do you think life will return?

Waxing Gibbous: Do you think you can change?

Anger & Bargaining: Perhaps if life came back.

Waxing Gibbous: You can not barter with life or with the light. You will change when you are meant to. When you are ready. And they will come and go when they are meant to. When they are ready.

Anger & Bargaining: And who are they to get to say? Who are you?

Waxing Gibbous: I am but a phase. I am but the part of the moon the light is meant to hold tonight.

Anger & Bargaining: I would have given my light for theirs.

Waxing Gibbous: Light is light. It belongs to no one. It is not yours. It was not theirs. And who are you to command the light?

Anger & Bargaining: {silence}

Waxing Gibbous: {silence}

Anger & Bargaining: I am but a phase. I am temporary. The light will leave me too.

Waxing Gibbous:  But it has not yet.

5.

Depression: Is this the end?

Full Moon: I suppose it depends on where you start. For some, this is the beginning. For others, this is the end.

Depression: I think I would like for this to be the end.

Full Moon: But look how far you’ve come.

Depression: I think I would rather return to before the beginning.

Full Moon: But look, you are already almost there.

Depression: I don’t know if I will make it. I feel so empty.

Full Moon: But look at how full you are of sorrow.

Depression: {silence}

Full Moon: The ache will come in waves. The tides are always highest when the loss is new or full.

6.

The Upward Turn: I feel lighter. I do not understand why. For there is more darkness here than there was before.

Waning Gibbous: The darkness does not always have to be heavy. Sometimes the darkness is a mercy. Sometimes it is a chance to start again.

The Upward Turn: I don’t know if I am ready to start again without them. Not yet.

Waning Gibbous: Not yet. Not before you are ready. You must trust the light will turn when it is time

The Upward Turn: It still hurts.

Waning Gibbous: It will. for this love is not a phase, but this sorrow is.

7.

Reconstruction & Working Through: This is not the end.

Third Quarter: No, this is not.

Reconstruction & Working Through: There is more to life than the way it ends.

Third Quarter: Yes, there is.

Reconstruction & Working Through: There are ways to remember others without forgetting yourself. Life lies beyond this. I feel it.

Third Quarter: You must strive to find revival in the darkness. You must trust the light will come for you even when you cannot see it.

Reconstruction & Working Through: Even in the aftermath of loss. I will strive to rebuild a life in which their memory will last. A life worthy of the light to return to.

Third Quarter: It is not about being worthy. It never was. It is about spending your time well while you have it. It is about not wasting away worrying about the next phase but just existing in this one. And trusting the light will hold you and have you and leave you exactly when it is meant to. Do you trust?

Reconstruction & Working Through: I am trying to.

Third Quarter: Then that is enough.

8.

Acceptance & Hope: Is this the end?

Waning Crescent: People tell me that I am the end, and yet in all my years I have not felt like the end. I have not yet met it but I do not think it looks like this.

Acceptance & Hope: No, I do not think it looks like this either. But what comes after this?

Waning Crescent: I have heard rebirth comes after this. That it lays in the darkness. In the unknown.

Acceptance & Hope: And I will be rebirthed into a new life in which they are gone. Do you not fear the day when the light does not return for you?

Waning Crescent: Not anymore. For today is not that day. Perhaps, tomorrow, when the light leaves, she will not return. But today, she is not done with me yet.

Acceptance & Hope: No, not yet.

Waning Crescent: Not yet.

I dont know if I deserve you

But I know I am deserving of peace

I ask her

When was the last time you took what you deserved

She asks me

When was the last time you let go of what you did not

Revalations have historically always come in

Pieces

But I do not want to wait until the end to be whole

Perhaps failure is a learnt habit

Perhaps we are born with all the potential we will ever bear

Perhaps my existence is but circumstantial evidence

Blossoming doubt

Look at who I have become

All unfulfilled potential

And weeping willow

All blunted tongue and

Blurred edges

Is this what I am destined for?

Subar symphonies and the suburbs

Becoming my mother

Who keeps her highschool poetry

In her youthful handwriting

In a baby blue file folder

On the top shelf of her closet

We have always been my favourite tragedy

The curtain falls and keeps falling

For all you ever did was love me like leaving would be easier

And tell me you have never dreamed of

Being loved first

For does anyone truly know desire

'Till they have wanted that

Which they cannot have?

- haphazard harmony (another compilation of random lines without a poem)

I only ever wrote for you after our end

Which meant every poem tasted too much like an overripe obituary on the tongue

But when has guilt ever stopped me from doing something I shouldn't

What has poetry ever done but turn me selfish

Let me repaint everything in shades that complement the tale of my own tragedy

For what is the heartbreak of an artist

If not another poem the world could have done without

I want to shout at every passing stranger

Every person who thinks they know me now

Do you know

That I was soft once?

That I had long hair and

A small body

And a heart that could have loved you

Do you know that

I could have loved you

Once

I wait for someone to tell me

That I’ve changed

But they do not

And I mourn for the loss of me alone

She will never get to fall in love

When I do, it will not be the same

When it ends it will be an Antarctic winter

Perpetual darkness

Night amongst night

It will be a small dead star long dead

The ones that fade forgotten

In the oblivion of space

She would have done so much better

Her heartbreak would have been spectacular

Would have been Tsunami and supernova

It would have been beautiful destruction and art

It would have been art

It would have birthed revolutions even in her misery

It would have meant something

And even in the absence

Of condolences

I know she did exist

My family is a compilation of unhealed truths and disintegrating hearts

Infection is setting in but we are all too proud to ask for help

We do not know how to say:

I cannot fix this one,

this time

it is not simply my refusal to

This time

I could not stitch this back together

Even if I tried

But we are more than willing to gripe about the pain

To say that we are dying without the weight of the fact that the end is coming for us

Will rotting away in the back of the fridge with the oranges I told my mother not to buy

She says it is her money

Tells me to stop worrying about the price of things

When all she has ever taught me is how much life costs at someone else's expense

.

My father says he's sorry

It is the one thing my mother

Never did

He says he's sorry and that he is trying

To change

He says he is getting better

I say

Okay

I try to

Believe him

I try to

Forgive

But I have never been taught how

Never been taught the phonetic difference between

Mercy and forgetting so they become

Synonyms

And remembering a sin

Only committed in the shower

When the water is louder than the sacrilege

And how can I hold him

When I am still mourning the loss of the

Parts of me he shattered

Because he was angry

But even I know

How much easier it is

To hate

Than to

Grieve

.

I remind myself

I have broken things too

I remind myself

I am only

What I have let myself become

I remind myself

I have no one

To blame

But myself

So I blame her

Bathe in doubt

And swallow the bathwater

~ my mother will never be sorry

How does a poet ever write about

The things that matter

I want to write about

My mother’s notebook

And my sister the dying star

I want to write about the grieving blackhole

And the beauty of supernova unbecoming

I want to write about

The library that swallowed the sun

And burned

And burned

And burned

I want to write about how every book

Has smelt slightly of smoke to me since then

I want to write about forgiveness

I want to write about my unravelling

The things I will never get back

I want to write about the teardrops of time

Filtering through my lashes

I want to write about the end

I want to write about the end

The end

But it is all so

Hopeless

So infinite

I try to write of it

And I sit with the galaxy in the pit of me

And I ache

The words die on my fingertips

The metaphors swell until my throat is

A rose stem

And I lay on the living room floor

Remembering how to breathe

Promise myself

I do not have to write the poem

Promise myself

I never have to write again

And the galaxy consumes itself

And there are no poems

There are no poems

About the things

That matter

~ don't call me a poet