Thursday, January 26, 2017

if places were people no. 5

i never thought i'd see you as a person,
except now that i found you it makes sense:
you became the place we hated.

you formed as i slept,
so i woke to your enormous cancerous thought processes
and your hopeless breath
that blows as mercilessly as the wind.
i woke to you being a mountain,
and i dangled off one of your cliffs.

you rise steeply
from the endless plain floor.
not sunshine falling from heaven,
but rock wishing to rule above grass,
tough as meat and
those shard-like word ledges threaten from miles away
sharp collarbones and jawline and thin thighs

my intention was to never climb your type,
but i'm the only one close enough to try.
now, when you aren't slicing with your obsidian edges,
you're mixing in dirt, breeding infection, reveling in the primal.
hungry green eyes.

you're wild, snarling,
edging away at every flower,
the ones that do bloom are tiny and dull and only last a week or two,
and then your thin breath suffocates them.

seeds only last so long underneath your snow.
your endless winter,
and the longer i spend in you the more i realize
why no one lives
here anymore



your hands used to hold mine and now they
hold me in the sunshine, mocking, until my skin burns.
your skin is dirty and rough and darkening with every day spent so close to the sun

your eyes used to make my own light up,
and now i shiver away at your glance,
afraid of what it might mean.

every car going in the opposite direction seems to call my name,
and i want to go with, but
from where i sit i can see the gravestone that holds childhood memories
and if you will not guard in then
i will
although i think even the memories have crawled out and left

i don't think you even know where the graveyard is,
though it continually fills with your victims,
and you know it not.

you only know when i'm in the area,
your arrows made of steel and the knowledge of my weaknesses
seek out not my heart, but the
arteries pumping towards it.
you aim for my limbs, not
my organs.
you look for targets to maim,
not to kill.

you would hate to be a killer.
you would hate to be anything horrid,
anything blatantly wrong.

but you don't mind the label of desert.
or rock of a mountain.
you don't mind the fact that people climb you to die, not to live.
or that they only come visit you when you smile,
not when you snow your black snow, dark thoughts.

you don't mind that everyone calls you no-mans-land,
no-woman's-land
the forbidden and hated and avoided land.

you say you don't mind, anyway.



but it must be lonely.
it must be quiet.
and i know how you loved the music in the city squares.
how you loved it when people smiled at you
and i know it because you loved it before you changed,
and you say it's an act but i will be honest
i do not believe those words of yours.

i try to bring it to you, the music,
but it isn't the same without the crowds of dancers
and anyway,
your shale mountainsides cut my feet when i dance for you.

it must be trying,
having everyone hate the way flowers grow rarely
so i try to plant a garden,
but your winter comes to soon
for sprouts to push out of the ground.

it must be
so
terribly
hard
to be a mountain in a country
where everything dies.

and yet here i am,
sitting with you,
because so far i have always been a mountain person
and i am starting to think that i have changed,
and that maybe the ocean is more of my style
except i don't want to leave you.
not like this,
not when you've run out of victims so you're turning into one yourself.
not when i can see the structure of the mountain,
and the covering is starting to fall.
the skin is starting to sag and stretch and
you're getting thinner.



i don't want to leave that grave of childhood

the snows came early this year,
i think you crave the ice water more and more.

there was one day this winter when i couldn't make it to the grave.
when i went the next day,
your forced laugh of a wind had felled a tree
breaking the headstone.

i think i will catch one of those cars now,
because who knows when the snows will melt.

i think i will go to the ocean
to see if less thin air will bring clarity of mind.

i think space
between us will make your
visible ribs seem less knife-like.

maybe space will make me miss you.
maybe i will like the thin air when i come back.
maybe the flowers will grow more, if i'm not watching them.
maybe you will have a bouquet for me when i come back.
maybe you will not be so hated when i come back.
maybe it will be better
when i come back.
if i come back.

you stabbed me from behind, when
i turned to walk away today.
an ice shard through my thigh
so that when i do walk, it will be painful.
i can still walk.
but i don't know
when i will come back.
if
i will come back.
too many scars from your arrowheads will
make it harder to climb your
unscalable peak

if i come back.


YO ALL!!! i'm still alive. (seriously i keep saying that. why. maybe because i have multiple not-so-near-death  experiences so i SHOULD be dead.) (i was busy.) (and there was a lack of coffee.) (don't ask.)

SO YEAH. there's another super-downer for you. in my defense i TRIED to find something uplifting. what can i say. i listen to too much chopin to be an expressively happy person. OH WELL. 

xoxo

6 comments:

  1. "it must be
    so
    terribly
    hard
    to be a mountain in a country
    where everything dies."

    DANG.

    - Aimee (To the Barricade!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. WHAO WHOA WHOAHWOTWHTOAWHTOAWHERTLSKDJFLKSDJFLKSDNMF/
    WHAT DID I JUST READ
    I seriously don't even know if you know how incredibly gifted you are but. GIRL. DUDE. SERIOUSLY. I can't even begin to express my feelings about this. HOW. YOU DO DIS. I'm dead. You are incredible. xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    ReplyDelete
  3. SAMI LEGIT I THINK I'VE SAID THIS BEFORE BUt every time you post one of these I literally squeal happily and cannot wait to read it. LIKE YOUR POETRY TURNS ME ON LIKE NO OTHER i know that sounds strange but it's real yo. :''''')

    THIS IS HEARTBREAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL. LIKE...AHFKSJALKJA I CANNOT EVEN CONSTRUCT WORDS (because like...this. this. tHIS.) But wow. It reminded me of a character in one of my books and wow I just I'M NOT OK.

    "not when you've run out of victims so you're turning into one yourself."

    do you even know
    how incredibly talented you are
    ?????????????

    THANK YOU FOR THIS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ABBIEEEEEEEE <3 <3 <3 you are amazing. I love your comments. :) :) :)

      Delete