When I Was Young, Love Was Always Big, But Never So Big Someone Out There Couldn't Fit It In A Poem.

When I was young, love was always big, but never so big someone out there couldn't fit it in a poem. I am less young now.

Once, I read about how grief is too big to write. That you have to paint it in negative space. You have to tell it in molecules. You cannot write the galaxy, you have to write the smallest star. You cannot write the torn fabric, you have to write the fraying thread. You have to write the empty hangers, you have to write all the extra hot water the shower now has, you have to write the tongue cutting itself on past tense verbs. You write the empty shoes, you write the unbaked banana bread, the red grapes only she ate growing mold in the fridge, you write the bed into an ocean unbearably vast.

I am less young now, and I realize you must write love like grief. And is this not the truest metaphor I have ever touched. For in this way, all the greatest loves do not have poems. For how does one write the peace into pieces small enough to be held by the craters in every o and b and p. I am less young now, and in this way I do not want a love worthy of poems. I would like one that could never be penned. That could never fit in the span of a few stanzas. I want us forever unwritten.

I had a dream that the king and the queen of a small country had a daughter. They needed a son, a first-born son, so in secret, without telling anyone of their child’s gender, they travelled to the nearby woods that were rumoured to house a witch.

They made a deal with that witch. They wanted a son, and they got one. A son, one made out of clay and wood, flexible enough to grow but sturdy enough to withstand its destined path, enchanted to look like a human child. The witch asked for only one thing, and that was for their daughter.

They left the girl readily.

The witch raised her as her own, and called her Thyme. The princess grew up unknowing of her heritage, grew up calling the witch Mama, and the witch did her very best to earn that title.

She was taught magic, and how to forage in the woods, how to build sturdy wooden structures and how to make the most delicious stews. The girl had a good life, and the witch was pleased.

The girl grew into a woman, and learned more and more powerful magics, grew stronger from hauling wood and stones and animals to cook, grew smarter as the witch taught her more.

She learned to deal with the people in the villages nearby, learned how to brew remedies and medicines and how to treat illness and injury, and learned how to tell when someone was lying. 

Every time the pair went into town, the people would remark at just how similar Thyme was to her mother. 

(Thyme does not know who and what she is. She does not know that she was born a princess, that she was sold. She only knows that one night after her mother read her a story about princesses and dragons, her mother had asked her if she ever wanted to be a princess.)

((Thyme only knows that she very quickly answered no. She likes being a witch, thank you very much, she likes the power that comes with it and the way that she can look at things and know their true nature.))

The witch starts preparing the ritual early, starts collecting the necessities in the winter so they can be ready by the fall equinox. Her daughter helps, and does not ask what this is for, just knows that it is important.

The witch looks at Thyme, both their hands raised into the air over a complicated array of plants, tended carefully to grow into a circle, and says, sorry.

Keep reading

Hurricanes blossom

All disasters were once children

For they had to grow

Learn to be

The tragedy they were destined for

And in this way can any crisis

Be averted?

For who are we to interfere

with fate?

~

My lips are bruised peaches

My melancholy a docile creature most days

I wonder if in another life I will become

A medium size star for what I have done

Or for all I have not

Ordained for the most gruesome of celestial deaths

Planetary nebula

All the violence of unbecoming

Without the supernova beauty of unravelling

~

I have never been kissed

I have never been held like

Blooming daffodils

Like the black hole before it

Becomes.

Do you think the black hole is

Deserving

Of what it takes?

Do you think it cruel?

Do you think it does not hate what it has become?

Do you not think it tries to be

Small?

To take less?

Do you think it is easy to

Devour the world

To hold the universe in the pit of yourself and still feel

Empty

To be insatiable

To repent for the hunger

Gifted to you by oblivion

~

We have only ever seen

One side of the moon

And in this way I mourn

But who could I still become

If I stopped grieving the loss

Of the woman I thought I would be

~ and even the end must first begin

When I am with you I forget who I am,

I am only who I can be.

And for a instant I do not mind being held.

For a moment existing is a pleasure,

For a moment I exist on purpose,

Not by mistake or on accident.

I don't know if all this wanting is supposed to have a point but I cannot help but give into it anyways.

If there is any greater joy in life than being desired by that which you too desire I do not know it. For what a miracle reciprocation is.

They tell me too many of my poems are about love these days, but they don't know that the kindest thing you have ever done for me is given me something else to write about

I don't know if you make me feel alive but you look at me like I exist, and I cannot help but marvel at the possibility that you might too recognize this phenomenon.

Sometimes I feel so ghost I am shocked that you are able to hold me outside of memory.

Sometimes when I cannot bear the bite of my own name on my tounge, I borrow yours.

Only for a while.

And I trust that you will not mind.

I trust that you will understand.

You always do.

~ If you told me that you loved me I would not believe you but it is still my only reoccurring dream

Everyone says they would rather skip the small talk

Get to the deep stuff

The important things

As though the little things are not the entrance to the heart

The cracks and crevices not the softer way

To make home in ones affection

Over breaking open the ornate doors

Of their chambers

Leaving them bleeding out

So tell me

How you take your eggs

And that ponytails make your scalp itch

Tell me how long it takes you to drive to work

And where you like to sit on the train

Talk to me about weather

And about how you keep forgetting to take out the trash

So that one day when I show up with a cup of tea just the way you like it

And we talk the long path home

Just past the mural you love on 22nd street

You will know

Just how important

The little things are

To me

When they belong to you

~ i met her in September

You cannot hold the light

But that does not mean you cannot let it hold you

Surrder, darling

The caress of the sun is yours

Asking nothing in return

But that you rest in the warmth of its embrace

And if you wish

To reciprocate,

To give a little too,

Then open your heart,

And let the light in

- for what is more selfless than the dawn?