cynicism isn't wisdom

YOUR LOVE FINDS ITS WAY BACK

sierrademulder:

and one day, it just showed up, like an abandoned
bundle on my doorstep. Honestly, I don’t know how
it found me again. The last night we spent together,
I lured it away with a trail of breadcrumbs, a necklace
it swallowed one diamond at a time—such a hungry,
little bloodhound. I led it deep into the forest, fastened
its legs together with twine. Dug a hole. Said I will jump
if you jump and it did just like I knew it would. When I left,
it did not call out. This was your last gift for me.
And now, here it is again, lying on its back—its pink
underbelly exposed—and I cannot say I didn’t want this
to happen, that I haven’t been waiting by the window.
I have sculpted your body from the dust on the doorknob.
I hoarded your name in my mouth for months.
I’ve been saving so many words just for you.
My throat is a beehive pitched into the river. Look!
Look how long my love can hold its breath.

 

- Sierra DeMulder

THIS, TOO, IS NOT FOR YOU

sierrademulder:

Between 6am and awake, you dream
of your professor calmly explaining
how much she enjoys your poetry
while slowly cutting off your index finger.

You wake when the knife hits bone.
In the kitchen, you drink weak coffee
and chop onions for the omelets with
a dull knife.  You crack an egg

and two yolks fall out. Two wet coins.
Two golden eyes floating up at you.
Your grandmother once told you
this was a sign of good luck (but she

also kept a small bottle of holy water
on her dresser and would smear
the cross over your forehead when
you had a cold). You dump the eggs

down the kitchen sink. Outside,
the wind ties itself around your bare ankles.
The smell of mud. Dried worms in the driveway.
A deer carcass on the side of the road

makes you think of him. You wonder
what makes you so attracted to rot. 
You realize by noon you haven’t
said more than twelve words:

good morning I no thank you don’t
love I’m sorry well enough. The dull sun
slowly disappears down the drain.
The birds sing and this, too, is not for you.

- Sierra DeMulder

(Source: typewriterblues)

towns too small

likeawritingdesk:

odds are that if you know me you know every
person i’ve ever written a poem about and
see them daily at the supermarket or walking
down queen’s street or drinking black coffee
in the park by the water

you have probably heard of the way they kiss
from others and the sadness they carry in the
invisible suitcases piled around their feet

odds are that you’ve drank whiskey with them
in an alley behind a bar they were playing a
show at that night or have bought a piece of
art from them to help pay their rent

i imagine you know these ghosts quite well

In Love and In War

“To my daughter I will say,
‘when the men come, set yourself on fire’.”

-Warsan Shire

oleanderss:

when they told me
to not
make homes out of people

i laughed

because who would be foolish enough
to plant the seeds of themselves
in a skin that wasn’t theirs, or in a smile
they didn’t own

but when i turned to show you
there was only quiet

empty space

and my roots
from around your ribcage

(via saamanthro)

"You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy."

Andrea Gibson, The Nutritionist (via dulcetdecember)

(Source: theseliteraryquotes, via quiethouses)

"You tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do, love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love."

“For Women Who Are Difficult to Love,” Warsan Shire  (via paper-sparrows)

(Source: sotla, via dreamedofnowhere)

"It’s 11 am and I’m sitting in a restaurant
3 beers in. Believe me, even I’m surprised
I’m still alive sometimes.
I have been drinking about you for 2 days.
Lately you remind me of a wild thing
chewing through its foot. But you
are already free and I don’t know what to do
except trace the rough line of your jaw
and try not to place blame.
Here is the truth: It is hard to be in love
with someone who is in love someone else.
I don’t know how to turn that into poetry."

Clementine von Radics (via wah-mos)

(via wah-mos)

"

I filled my gas tank to 33 dollars and 33 cents
and told you it was for you
because it was your favorite number.

I organized our belongings
(white t-shirts—books—toothbrushes—
baby, this is where we keep our sweaters)
as if using the word “our” would embed myself
into what you call home.

I bought flowers from a homeless man
because you are a botany major.
I wanted to bring them to you,
wilting and loveless, and show you how
I can nurture something worth saving.

There is a five-finger scar above my breast.
There is an orchestra on my neck shaped like your pulse
from all the nights you held me the way
you only hold something slipping.

There are 6 states
pressed like stubborn flowers
between the last time I kissed you and today,
but you still feel like a sound caught in my throat.

Sierra DeMulder, “During the Month it Took You to Leave Me” (via fleurishes)

(via wah-mos)

"I wonder if you know yet that you’ll leave me. That you
are a child playing with matches and I have a paper body.
You will meet a girl with a softer voice and stronger arms and she
will not have violent secrets or an affection for red wine or eyes
that never stay dry. You will fall into her bed and I’ll go back
to spending Friday nights with boys who never learn my last name.

I have chased off every fool who has tried to sleep beside me
You think it’s romantic to fuck the girl who writes poems about you.
You think I’ll understand your sadness because I live inside my own.
But I will show up at your door at 2 am, wild-eyed and sleepless,
and try and find some semblance of peace in your breastbone
and you will not let me in. You will tell me to go home."

(via clementinevonradics)

(via colormecrzy)

"

The first time
you took off your clothes
in front of me, you slid
the white fabric of your blouse
off your arms and revealed
the pale ladders
of scars.

You never referenced them
directly. You said you were
lost, once. You said you
did things, once, and you
did them because they
helped you survive yourself.

I didn’t say anything,
but you took my hand
and pressed it to the
ridged rows of your flesh
and for every line you left
upon yourself and healed,
I found another reason
to call you beautiful.

Gabriel Gadfly, “Survival”  (via strawberrytelle)

(via hollagramzz)

(Source: gabrielgadfly.com, via adoseofyourstruly)