[x]

seven minutes.7.
time's hands on my eyes
i swim in a sea of black
guided by instinct

6.
i was only three
when my mother told me that
lives could be taken

5.
the first time i loved
i wore my heart on my cheeks
( he called me rosy )

4.
i left school to write
and serve coffee to truckers
who tipped me in books

3.
i married in rome
and waltzed in barcelona
before i went broke

2.
why we had two kids
i cannot even explain
but they were my words

1.
when i was eighty
my story flew off the press
and i flew with it

0.
death kissed my forehead
and peeled back time's fingertips
"welcome home, my child"

Clichei. true love

& you were that one famous line
of a love poem – 1863 sonnet
scripted down your spine, verses
of sternum & shuddering heartbeat.

i remember the sheets twisted blue
as the eventide, your eyes like thelassia,
that species of ocean grass. we swayed
to the music of galaxies colliding.
our song was the day the tides
finally curled round the moon's face.

ii. cancer

eventides, thelassia eyes, moon
great and heavy as that one lucky coin
that refused to land, to grant a wish
or let luck decide for us. there were
star crabs scuttling under your
oragami skin. & i never realized
all the ways that you folded
until t

cobblestones.

i pulled a napkin from the silver tin,
wiped the table clear, drops of ketchup staining the center.
i crushed the paper in my palm, felt the dampness reach the edges.

hurt cloud, she said as i let it roll across the table.

.

shooting baskets as the day ended,
the ball went over the backboard, disappeared into the dark.
she shrugged, then bent low, picked up pebbles.
aimed
and threw.

.

your poor hands, she said. you have so many scars,
and you're still so young. (she, younger than i, saying this)

she touched one hand, then after a pause she took the other
without looking at me.

some things take so much

satellite boyyou always told me,
to never be like you.

to not be faithless, blameless,
heartless.

you told me,
you had a satellite boy,
who guided your way home.

you told me,
he fell from the heavens.

you always told me,
you were just trying to find
someone whose heart wasn't beating,
because that way, they would never
die.

once, you made me promise,
to never swear on my own grave,
for a friend going insane.

CherishedI want you to worship this love
I write poems about—
I tore it out of a virgin womb
just for you,
and I bear to you now, naked,
shivering in the nervousness of flesh
exposed to a cold world.

It will suck on the breasts
of prostitutes
and kiss the lips of small-town drunks
with their whiskey-tipped breath
and hollow eyes,
and I will touch my fingers
to its precious little mouth
and feel the warm saliva
bathe my skin.

I want you to put your ear
to its unguarded chest and listen
to the murmur
of its shriveled heart,
pulsating—the warm, lively core.
A tempest, the Red Sea succumbing to Moses.
The fall of the tower

cadaver she was born with arctic lips
and overcast skin.
her hair fell like fresh snow
and she was far too thin.
her bones in locked closets,
joints creaked and shrieked
like a rotten floorboard
under gossamer feet.

sweetyesterday,
i ate fudge so sweet,
it burned my throat.
water welled in my eyes
like the tears i haven't shed
in over two months.

i don't think i remember what crying feels like.

today,
i had salsa several degrees hotter than usual.
i let it sear my throat,
let it linger on my lips.
it didn't make me cry.

there are less dramatic forms of destruction,
and i have yet to find them all.

monster dreamsas she climbs, she swears,
her children will never fight this monster.

shh.
darling, there's nothing under the bed.
(mommy would know, mommy fought them all years ago.)
don't fret dear,
momma's a warrior, and momma's
going to keep you safe.

once,
there were padlocks on
the blankets,
to keep momma from leaving
her mind behind.

once upon a time,
the stories start, but don't forget,
once upon a time, was never
all that long ago.

that's nothing,
momma fell a long time ago,
these are the scars from the cuts,
don't worry, it didn't hurt.
(actually, mommy didn't get them from falling,
she got them from climbing deeper,
and

palpitationsMy veins,
blue born licorice whips,
weaving webs for blood spiders on my thighs,
thin cerulean shoelaces tying knots around my wrists,
hold fast, heartbeats pumping like gasoline,
I am living, but I am not alive.

meltingshe spilled across her bed,
an oil-spill of excuses why.

they promised they would mop her up,
but how could she possibly believe them
when none of them could see the
oil that dripped out of her?

they were all blind to
the stain eating her up,
polluting her insides.

the pain, the ache,
the never ending cycle of
pretending she was okay.
if only to prevent a national
disaster.

sunset bluesThe curtains are closed tight, she thinks, wary of the boogie monster since age eleven. She hides under the blankets at age seventeen, ocean tears slipping from under her dirty brown eyes. Her mind is racing, simple things turning into complex events. She wishes for the silence to go away, the silence louder than her mother yells from outside the door, incoherent ramblings about clean dishes and a dirty report card. She knows she shouldn't care, that she should just let the knife slice right through, but the voices gather into a cult, chants unguarded and menacing. Soon it's the only thing she ever hears, even over her fathers growl of disapp

welcomedarkness, welcome.

cross the threshold,
a groom carrying his bride,
marry me to fuck-you-very-much sentiment.

hold your hands over my ears,
ignore the way i ask you to leave.

i'm only serious when i'm conscious,
and i've been dreaming since i met you.

let you downand in the night, you whisked me away,
so that i would not live, to see another day.

pray do tell me, dearest one,
of the time right before the rising of the sun.

tell me what it is like, to face things head on,
and tell me what it means, to live to see the dawn.

-

once more i will swear,
with my hand in the air,
that not once have i had the bravery,
to stand up in the face of rivalry.

but i swear to you,
if all of our nightmares come true,
i will stand my ground,
and never let you down.

mobileyou left me dangling,
like a baby's forgotten mobile.
you grew up,
i hung.
we no longer meet.

communication must be
established by you.
i can no longer move.

lady( fog. )

she once believed that there was a world out there.

there used to be an island.
i wove my world into color,
on a loom of shining wood.

vaguely, i remember a curse.

( light. )

the days pass without her notice.

once, i almost looked through the window.
the flash of my mirror caught me instead,
holding me in its reflection of the outside.

faintly, i remember a voice.

( captivation. )

his voice floated through her window.

the first time, i did not hear.
voices and music always passed by me,
not a care for the hazy days i lived.

dimly, i remember a funeral.

( emptiness. )

the mirror cracked from side to side,
as i look

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a shell of mewould you join me, if i
stood up and danced?
to the music
that only i can hear

but maybe you
have a chance to
if you would
take a chance
on me and a
chance on love

you never knew how to live
because your eyes were too pre-
occupied with what
you could not could never have.

you never let me
hold you tightly
and swear to you that
fam(ily) would never
leave you behind

all you wanetd was
love but all you got was
pain. it did not matter the
source of affection
because that was never the
important thing to you.

girls boys adults peers
as long as they would
accept you for who you were
and love you as a friend
or maybe s

and sang a songi see you from a distance,
and hate what my eyes do see,
for this is not how we were meant to be.
still i write this poem just to see,
if you could ever please forgive me.

i made a mistake,
when i held your hand,
and i made a mistake,
when i let it burn like a brand.

i made a wrong decision,
when i said yes,
and i made a wrong decision,
when i fell into that mess.

i will take the blame,
for playing this game,
and i will take the blame,
for broken promises made.

if you promise to remember,
the times back then,
when you were my
very best friend.

i have taken the first step,
and i know i will fall,
but life is too short,

bottoms up.bottoms up, bottoms up,
bottle up the storm that is raging,
trying to eat you up,
( inside out )

she always wished she could be special
but one day she realized she only wanted to
fade away, so no one could make fun
of her stutter, her awkwardness, her too-loud laughter.

the little girl is all grown up
she knows that she must play
hide-and-seek - just the way
the little kids play

though this time, she is playing
with her heart. this time, she is
hiding behind a smile, and no one
is looking for her anymore.

bottoms up, forget it all,
forget that you have a long way to fall.
bottoms up, leave this behind,
leave them wondering

she's sorryshe wants you to know that
she's sorry
but she has to do this
she just can't stand the pain
she just can't deal anymore

( come dance in this pit of fire with me
we're just puppets on a string with no choice
at all )

my heart in your handshold my

dysfunctional
heart in your hands

hold my

broken
hands in your heart

over and over againi am good enough.

over and over and over
she tries to convince herself
of this very simple fact
but how could she possibly
ever in a million years believe
when no one else seems to
when her parents doubt her

all that crippling fear that
she is not good enough, she
will not succeed in life, she
will never be who she's supposed
to be overwhelms and takes
over and kills her hope
and joy and trust and love.

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biopsy

by ~Jadite, Jul 15, 2012, 8:47:13 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

_{put me under, cover my face, stuff my lungs with your chemical lies.

if they were to take me apart,
slice open my chest,
peel back the skin keeping me whole,
they would find:

a. one heart, slowly ticking.
(they would not find anything,
but they would have to say they did.
after all, girls can't live without a heart.
they forget that i'm not the first:
a score of girls walking even though
they should have faded long ago.)

b. each rib curved so perfectly,
a shield around my lungs.
(a cage, keeping my breath from bursting
out of my skin. know that this is just me,
held together by nature,
unable to lose control of myself.)

c. two sacs of cells, nestled beside each other.
(no first-hand smoke here, no sir.
only second-hand dust, only
things i could not get rid of,
only bits of places i've been,
caught in my body.
postcards of memories i can't see.)

d. a skeleton, still and alive.
(sleeping, with blood cells being produced
in the hollows of my curves.
the rattling of my bones cannot be heard,
but if it could, my skeleton would tell you
all my secrets. it would beg you,
please don't leave me.
i never fought the monsters under my bed,
i just turned them into the skeletons in my closet,
the skeletons i wear inside of my body.)}

biopsyby ~Jadite

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

_{just for the record, i know biopsies aren't done on the whole body.

i've been neglecting you guys terribly.}

~~love 0 0~~

~~joy 0 0~~

wow 1 1

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~wallabiesarechipper1 Aug 16, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Very clever and meaningful this is.

~Jadite Aug 17, 2012

_{thank you. (:}

*MarianDalton Aug 14, 2012 Professional Writer

This is marvellous! It never descends into sentimentality, but there's such a depth of feeling here. I love the structure, as though this is an autopsy report rather than a poem.

i never fought the monsters under my bed,
i just turned them into the skeletons in my closet,

This couplet in particular is so striking - the metaphors should clash, but instead they make a terrible kind of sense. Very sophisticated.

~Jadite Aug 17, 2012

_{i am very glad you enjoyed this. (: thank you so much for your kind words.}

~scribblingnooly Aug 13, 2012 Professional

A poignant, beautiful and wonderfully structured piece.

~Jadite Aug 17, 2012

_{thank you so much. (:}

~arabesque-o Jul 26, 2012 Student Photographer

_{i'va fallen for the last 3 lines of this<3
(does it seem creepy that i could help but whisper this out loud, because something this good shouldn't just populate my dusty monitor?)}

~Jadite Jul 27, 2012

_{thank youuu. <3
(nope. not at all. xD)}

*L0NE-W0lf Jul 21, 2012

Wow I absolutely love:

"only second-hand dust, only things i could not get rid of,"and"i just turned them into the skeletons in my closet, the skeletons i wear inside of my body.)"

A very thoughtful and creative piece.

~Jadite Jul 21, 2012

_{aw, thank you. i appreciate your kind comment. <3}

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