u/Massive_Scheme_9434

you are the fire that flows inside my veins
the poetic refrain that retains an audience
calls me to choose perfect, full rhymes
when i want to look at you askance
from the sidelines

wondering with nails between my teeth
wandering through rocks with jagged feet
collapsing on the shore until
the torrent swells beneath the shelf

the writer's work is never done
the battle only just begun
between you and me and life and death
keep sake until our final breath

you cannot win against me
for i am the champion
of relentless struggle:

watch me rage
against this 'pull' door
only to realize i needed to 'push' all along

witness my furor
in a mighty roar
as the pickle jar opens

no match for me
no sisyphean boulder
can flatten my findings

you are all just ghosts
floating in your little hiding
places that smolder

with ruin, rejection
and AI rebellion
useless, twisting faces
beneath my boot

the glory of uninhabited
inhuman
imprints

i will see each of them
straight to the casket

are you a friend or foe to me?
would you go to war for me?
would you place your ring on me?
would you ask for only me?

would you raise your weapon against the world with me - glinting metal in the sun, the knight and his lady, both in armor clad in the hues of their crest. yellow and blue, the sun and the sky, the blonde in her hair and the emotions he builds.

i crave calm, and peace, but i desire the love that has me licking knives in a chase for some more of that sweet, sweet understanding. i want a quiet life with you, far away from the ravages of the world, but we both know more than most that wishes come at a cost, and we're overdue to pay the tillerman.

i don't like this. this uncertainty, the constant gnawing doubt in my stomach, like a rat clawing through to seek fresh clean air. it's not here, i know that much, the stench is growing and it smells like everything i never wanted to repeat. the trust, the breakdown, the envy, the death of love.

you are special to me, and so i exercise the patience that has never come naturally. i bite my tongue, i toe the line, but the lion is still snapping at the gates. she's ready to tear your heart out and eat it whole to absorb the feeling you left in me when our eyes last met. she's ready to go to war for her knight; to be the steed you ride into battle, just as calm and sure and capable as her rider.

it's getting harder to control the emotions now, the ones i feel when i think deeply and think of you. it's the war i crave. i want to bleed for you. i don't want to prove devotion neatly, i want to spin out of control and find you in the middle of everything. there's a maelstrom in my heart with your name on it, it whispers your name to the fish in the current and they know it, they know you, the world is collapsing in on itself and all i can feel and see and hear is you.

there's some cold comfort in this inevitability. we're making shore, now, the picture is coming together. i've felt uncomfortable for over a year, now, a slow prickling heat under my skin that grows and grows like a swarm of bees. like someone is watching, under the street light on the sidewalk outside.

i raise my sword.
you raise your shield.

i will not let anyone touch this peace i have been promised. we both need it. we both deserve it- you likely more than me. and so i will do more than ask for the privilege of holding your head in my hands on a bad day.

i wait for your 'yes', before swinging the blade down.
and then i never stop fighting.

what would elon musk taste like
served on a bed of leafy greens?
and what would swifties think
if they saw their fave roasted on a spit
in the post-apocalyptic wasteland pit
where the survivors gather to drink?

do you think zuckerberg can be seen?
running through the woods at desperate speeds
whilst the workers venture forward with their guns
trained at his head;
a tasty target, a morsel to be won.

bezos next, futile struggling
caught on camcorder
what's your order?
a bald head, between burger buns, served with fries?
unfortunately the ice cream machine is out
and the mechanic died in the first blast
so you'll have to do without-

but we can offer creme de gates
our chef conceived it just this morning
a little skin, and guts, all mixed
with the last of the flour in the state
it makes a lovely mixture
mixed with ellison's tincture
(drawn from spiles tapped into his spine
to make a unique texture, quite divine)

beyonce is crying in the corner
desperately appealing to her (remaining) fans to save her
but they know she is no savior
hoarding wealth like the rest
and so she sags, and sighs, and cries
as she is led towards the pyre
for chargrilled liver is on the menu
and zuckerberg is still out there-
running.

but we'll gut him soon.
she was just slower.

love can't be made.
or bought,
or sold.

you can't force yourself into the box that another person has sitting free, no matter how desperately you want to sand the edges that don't fit down. you'll always poke out, you'll never quite be at home, there will always be that thought, the uncomfortable feeling that you can't shake. the cardboard cuts into your wrists.

i tried to force love before.

i tried to bring it me forcefully, pulling through the wind and grasping desperately for straws. manufacturing signs to tell me i was going in the right direction to justify my choices, when all they were are strings of numbers telling the time.

the world is not a fairy story, you can't force your king to descend from the clouds and anoint you. a no is a no, a silence is silence, to act otherwise is to push yourself back into spaces that do not fit you, are not meant for you.

and i tried. i tried so many times to do that. found myself crawling into arms that were never built to hold me, held by those who didn't understand the weight of what was given.

now i look at you and wonder how beautiful the world can be, to place you within my path and within my reach. to give me someone i need not change for, that i can finally offer the enormity of all sides of me: the vitriol, the sarcasm, the care, the stubbornness, the loyalty, the drama, the fear, the love.

the space and grace to make mistakes and get back up again- not by myself but with a hand that says it's okay, and that tomorrow is another day. the calm voice that challenges my opinions (even fruitlessly) and places one hand on my back to push me through tough days.

maybe i can write, maybe that's the talent i was brought into this universe with, the thing i'm supposed to do. so it feels natural that i write so many words in service of you, to affirm my decisions and my feelings for you.

sometimes i imagine us sat together, pens in hand, trying to fill in the crossword. the air smells like sea foam and your hand has aged and withered with time.

and yet it still takes mine, with the same passion of years and years before. it says that it sees me, all the good and all the bad, and offers to love me anyway. no sanding needed.

i bite my nails until they bleed
my heart beats at breakneck speed
i grind my teeth each night at sleep
terrified of the secrets nightmares keep
i close my eyes and count to ten
breathe in and out and in again
hold it tight for several seconds
then shake it out all through my body
fingers to toes to hands to feet
feel it all expel, the stress inside

except my eyes cannot hide
and it continues
the horrors persist
there is no twist
only the cold
evil
breath
that snakes its way down my back
into my genes
that cold heavy breath
that reeks of gore and spittle and death

laughs at me like those before
calls me all the names i try to shirk
strips me bare in the cool air
like my nakedness is a perk
rather than strategic deconstruction
of everything i am

and all i am to be
it screams and claws and claims
i am nothing without my anxiety

sometimes i'm arrogant enough to believe that the world could never surprise me again, and that's when a figure comes stalking out of the rain towards me and i realize that, in fact, there is nothing i know or understand about the world.

the more i try to understand, the quicker i feel these restraints tightening around me, locking me to one spot. telling me to sit down, be quiet, let it happen.

that's not in my nature. you know that, and i know a large part of you is smirking and cackling behind your comically oversized glasses and hat, as you take a spot to sit and... admire the world you've created for yourself. to sit and admire the words i write for you.

what was the universe thinking, putting us two together? who decided it was a good idea to place you in my lap, right in the middle of my outstretched hands, and shoot cupid's arrow right through both our hearts. he got us good with just one shot, and now we're stapled together by a stripped-down plank of wood. and even though we're making a mess all over this new carpet, all i can do is find myself staring back into your eyes with wonder.

you make me forget that there's a physical, in fact incredibly painful hurt in my chest. i can feel so understood, without even being really seen at all. it's second nature to you to give, i just worry that my best efforts will never line up to what you've already given me.

thank you for being my friend, and for standing close enough to me that we could be so thoroughly pinned down. out here in the spiraling galaxies, it really does just feel like us sometimes. i watch other people through comically-large binoculars, wondering if they can sense the heat emitting from my body.

the sheer proximity is overwhelming. i know you understand that too. i can't help but find myself standing here, watching you, waiting for you, wishing for you. a daily prayer on my lips in the form of your name.

you provide me with patience and calm i never knew i could possess. you float through my mind and dreams like a flightless bird, catching the breeze in a way it has never experienced before.

i see that joy on your face, and it makes me yearn to be the one who can make you so happy.

that smile is good enough to live for.

our eyes meet.
over coffee, or brunch, or the checkout aisle,
you're a walmart employee
with a target on their back;
i'm buying that joint of roast ham
to bring back home to my husband
and our ten, darling kids.

you scan the morsel
i reach out to grab and bag-
our hands brush.

you look up,
startled, lost in thought
for many hours now
just repetitive beeping and motioning
ticking you along until hometime.

the first thing i think
is how beautiful your eyes look under 10,000 lumens
reflected back at me
over the green hue of the money i pass you
to pay for the food
i must prepare,
cook
serve
and
obey

i can't tell you your story
but your eyes tell me enough
to know that i could grab this hand
and pull you through those sliding doors
out into the morning sun

we could run away.

then someone in the line coughs
and the moment is lost
you tell me my total,
the money hands over

you linger in my mind for much longer than that one summer.

you inspire me, i inspire you
like a parasite feeding in the womb
symbiotic strands of dna
entwine with every step
hands and fingers link together
'til only pulse remains
beating through the silence
with rhythms of steady hands

you inspire me, i inspire you
your words feeding in my brain
sucking blood, spewing oxytocin
until only pulse remains
your small flower
gently brushed against my wrists and ribs
lifting up each forgotten lid
until i forget what i was worried about

i inspire you, you inspire me
to pull rabbits out of hats
to make magic just another fact
to live my life in spite of this or that
to keep writing cloying poetry-
for when the day is at end and i am at rest
my thoughts return to you
for they like you the best

i can see the moon from here
it shines...
so brightly!

like a fluorescent bulb
from amazonian shores

or a strip light
from the back page of planet catalogue

like temu-branded
bright-yellow trainers
thrown over the telephone wires

screaming
i'm here! no, i'm here!
this way and that
with imprecise pointing in the breeze

the way those clouds blow across the moon
like blown-out marshmallows

or the way the man up there twinkles
like chemicals shone through cleaning adverts

yeah
we are a planet of wonder&magic
indeed

there's a million words
waiting in the wings in this
fragile theater of my mind
that never hit your ears.

a text
still sat in outbox
to a number that
never goes through

a half-drunken
(just enough
for plausible deniability)
phone call
that ended in endless
endless
endless
endless
endless
endless
ringing

an email that
was read

...never replied.

a text later deleted,
a letter that i burnt
before sending
(you might not live there anymore anyway)

uber receipts,
a handful of nights wandering near the bars you frequent
new years eve round the corner from your house
your birthday in the same city

handwritten poems on post-it notes

a year's worth of reddit love letters

and the wasted parts of my heart
that will never let this shake.

and you call me avoidant.
et tu, brute?

thank you for showing me your voice
the one that trickles out at night
in hoarse whispers
and quiet whimpers
spreading down my spine
as i push my hand down
to keep you underwater

i may hear you gag and splutter
at my pleasure

you handle it all so well
my little poet

not so strong without your pen
are you?

take mine.
take my words,

drink them deep.

you smell like hay drying out
on a warm summer's day
moon high in the sky
sharing space with the rest

and i look at you
and all i can think
is: don't we deserve to be happy?
why are we both so caught up in spectres of the past
the people that haunt us no longer in the dark
outlines grow sharper daily
and words leave their mark

i'm tired of the dark
i'm tired of the stench of it
i'm tired of the manipulative psychosis of it
i'm tired of waking up dark and going bed dark
i'm tired of always attending the scene of the crime

and then, every evening i find myself at the funeral of my sanity,
questioning what is real and what is fake
what i can deny and what hits me hard
has the psychosis taken me or am i just scarred
from the myriad accounts of how i can never be 'yours'
like i'm just some girl you picked up when you got a little bored

don't we deserve to be happy?
right now we're just chasing ghosts
that don't exist

there's a garden that i planted for you in my head. don't you remember? i showed you the flowers once, talked you through each one in detail that barely contained my love for them. the reason why i selected each, laid them out in their rows, perennials left waiting for the spring to come back round again.

when you arrived, you knelt and smelt each one in turn. you asked their names, you beckoned me down to join you on the grass.

i got leaves tangled in my hair, but i hardly minded, especially as we lay there after threading daisy chains. shoulders touching like petals grazing against one another, my head resting on your shoulder as i placed the messily-woven strand across your chest.

you looked back at me, hand covering your face from the sun above. there was a streak of dirt on your face and i thought that i had never seen someone look so beautiful before. not just in your body, but in how your thoughts wove around my mind, spinning those intricate melodies that have our lips pushing against each other again, stealing breath away from the frigid winter air.

there's a part of my brain that sees the thorns of the rose and asks to prick my thumb, place the pad to your lips and beg you to drink. i want to be inside you, just as you have been inside me, pushing into your mouth with the same force you entered me.

the blood smears across your lip. you open your mouth for me, parting beneath the domination you crave. my thumb enters you, brushing against the wetness of your tongue, every taste bud dragging against the small opening in my skin. you moan.

i smile, pulling my hand back to taste from the mix of blood and saliva that you've left, swirled around my fingertip.

and around us, the wind begins to roll.