- filed under: things i hate that i owe to you.
you
weren’t
the first one
to tell me
they would
kiss
my scars
so pretty,
but
you were
certainly
the first
i believed.
- now i know you can’t fix someone else.
everything started to make sense once i learned that you don’t need to be caught underneath an ill-tempered wave in order to drown. i’m talking about how it feels when your fingers are twisted
up in my long, blackwater hair, pulling just enough to hurt. pulling just enough for me to not want you to stop.
- dry drowning.
i don’t mean
to frighten you,
but i would
seriously
consider
drinking
the atlantic whole
if only you
asked me
to.
- what wouldn’t i do for you?
i wish you had been my first love.
i would have even settled for second love.
- third is the worst best.
shiny gold flecks coat the tips of my fingers the first time i place them onto your skin. bringing them to my lips, i cannot help but to think that it tastes like something not of this world. carelessly, i misplace the age-old fairy lore which warns humans like me never to eat or drink anything that seems too good to be real, lest you lose yourself too completely.
- my midas.
you’re
the kind of
intriguing
that
inspired
thousand-page
epics.
- how many centuries have you lived?
finding
a way to fit
into your
sun-kissed
arms
was almost
excruciatingly
easy.
- you were always my favorite wreck.
each morning before school, my mother did not feed me breakfast. she fed me wisdom. first, she brushed my hair with a fork. soon after, braids fell to my waist as she kissed the top of my head, whispering against it, “now. don’t you dare lean out your window & let it all fall down. you never know who will show up & climbclimbclimb on up. heed my advice: even villains will go all dizzy & heart-eyed for you. do not ever become fooled by such trickery.”
- mother knows best.
II. the shipwreck
“
but the stars—
they see
everything & are
loyal to no one.
when she
whispered
her wishes
into them,
the voices from
her nightmares
came crashing
down.
problem
is,
some
people
are living,
breathing
I C E B E R G S
just
waiting
for the
perfect moment
to pull you
under.
- titanic.
swallowing
the memories
is like
biting down
on
a mouthful
of
sea glass—
the iron
filling up
my her
throat
is the
only way
she knows
she’s still
alive.
- try as i may, i keep spitting you up.
the first time you take me home & introduce me to your parents, your father takes one look at me & says, “that girl looks like she’s much too smart for her own good.”
- why wasn’t i smart enough to stay away from you?
a smile.
irresistible lashes.
a dark room.
legs tangled.
peace.
- this is how i’d like to remember you.
he
told me
he was
fond
of
broken
girls
like me
&
i
didn’t
so much
as
blink
an
eye.
later,
i thought
to
myself,
if only
they had
taught
me
how to
recognize
the warning
flares
instead
of
wasting
their time
teaching
me
how
to
mistake
them
for
flattery.
with
his
pocketknife,
he
sheared off
my her hair
while
she slept
curled
as
a quiet
comma
into
his
side,
only
for him
to
glue it
all back
to the ends
so
he could
show her
everything
he could do
to her
&
still
manage
to
get away
with it.
- maleficent.
he
held
her hand.
he
grabbed
her breast.
he
turned
off the light.
he
walked
her to his bed.
he
laid
her down.
he
tore
her shirt.
he
told her
he loved her.
he
shoved his
tongue inside.
he said
he wanted
to marry her.
he
placed his
hand between.
he
kissed across
her collarbone.
he
sobbed
onto her cheeks.
- he split my her tail in two.
no matter
how hard i
scrub
scrub
scrub,
you’re
still
everywhere
i don’t
want you
to be.
did she, in her last waking moments, forgive him, or was she secretly sending her curses to the gods who did not let the roof collapse on the notches of her beloved’s traitorous spine, even if it proved fatal for them both?
- desdemona.
(homage to the play Othello by William Shakespeare)
she’s come to the conclusion that they like her because she’s sad & even more so because she’s quiet. it’s a lethal combination that makes it impossible for her to tell them:
- stop. / no. / don’t.
i
acquired
a gift
for living
outside of
myself
whenever
i needed
to swim
away
from you.
- mermaid escapist III.
how he
managed
to choke
me
with
both of his
wrists
roped
together
behind his
back.
- “i know you wanted it.”
how she
managed
to choke
me
with
both of her
wrists
vined
together
behind her
back.
- “but you didn’t say no, right?”
the day
i handed you
my
ever-glowing
heart,
i
did not
hand you
anything
else.
- on being called a tease.
you still watch me while i’m driving & i still pretend i don’t notice you watching. you still hold my hand & i still hold yours right back. you still tell me that you love me & i still tell you that i love you, too. we still kiss when we think no one else is watching, secretly hoping that they are. we even still go for hot coffee when it’s a hundred & two degrees outside. we pretend until our teeth disintegrate & our gums bleed from the effort it takes to smile it all away.
- trying to keep my eyes on the road.
what
if
he
just
does it
to another
girl?
- this is why i can’t go.
some days, i still want to believe we can traipse into the forest & come across an enchanted pocket watch that will take us back in time to erase it all & start from scratch.
- this isn’t that kind of fairy tale.
cages
are
still cages
even
when they’re
designed
to
look
just like
castles.
- illusionist.
at
this point,
staying
with you
is nothing
more
than
muscle
memory.
an
apology
has
never
known
the walls
of your
mouth.
- how can you just walk away?
we
put on
a hell
of a show,
but
the curtains—
they
cannot hide
the history
of you.
- this cannot go on.
&
one day,
you were
nowhere
to be found
anymore.
i swear,
i ran to the edge
of
every cliff
just to prove it
to myself.
it
was as if
the wind
simply
did
away with you
like it does
with
plastic
shopping bags
& remainders
of autumn,
sweeping
you up
like it
didn’t just
take
away
every
last ounce
of
proof
of
what
you did
to me.
- i wondered if you were a changeling, except someone forgot to replace you.
some
stories
don’t have
happy
endings.
some
stories
don’t have
endings
at all.
ours didn’t.
ours couldn’t.
ours won’t.
it was
easier
to
pretend
you died.
it was
easier
to kill the
sleeping
prince.
- i wrote my own ending in blood.
give me lavender. give me valerian. give me warmed milk. give me the sound of every raindrop to ever slide down the side of the earth. yes, i will still have trouble falling asleep. because of you, i’ve never been able to see a bed as a place of rest—only unrest. even when my bones & my eyelids beg for sweet mercy, the second my head hits my pillow, something in the back of my mind will always be trying to remind me of those moments when i learned that sex & violence are not the same thing.
- unsleeping beauty.
you do not have
a bed anymore;
you only have
a casket.
- why do i find no relief in this?
the heaviness of your hips
never goes
- phantom.
he sort of
looks like you,
but i know he
can’t be you—
not unless
dead men
have learned
to walk.
he
just has
that long stride
about him—
that
mischievous
wide-eyed look
about him—
that
laugh—
my god, that apocalyptic
laugh about him—
& the family
of cicadas
nesting
in my lungs
cannot
listen to
logic
or reason
because
when it
comes
to you,
i’ve only
ever had
the chance
to t.
teach them h
fight or g
l i
- f
you stopped
leaving bruises
around my neck
so i started
leaving them
everywhere
else.
- bookends & knuckles.
every
touch
that comes
in sequel to
y o u r s
feels like a
grenade.
- tick, tick, . . . boom!
i want
to believe
that
most people
mean no harm
to others.
that
not everyone
is capable
of the
same things
you were.
that
someone can
touch me
& do it
out of
tenderness.
- sometimes we have to feed ourselves lies just to live.
will i have to spend the afterlife
finding ways to hide from you?
on the weekends, my mother used to drive my sister & me down to the beach, though she so rarely liked to get in & swim.
instead, she would take each of our hands & lead us just a few shallow steps into the water—only up to our ankles. she would say to us, “stand still & wait for the next wave to roll in, then close your eyes. when it drifts back out, it will feel like it’s taking you along with it. don’t worry, though. i won’t let anything happen to you, my babies. it’s perfectly okay to let go.”
sometimes, i want to be able to let go like that again, except for the part where i open my eyes & i’m disappointed to find that i haven’t been carried far, far, far away from here.
- a mermaid escapist IV.
mostly, i just want to know what it’s like to feel something between elation & despair, besides nothing at all.
none of my
favorite songs
sound quite
the same
in your wake.
where
there was
once
a glorious
orchestra,
there’s
nothing
except doom
& screeching
violins.
- kill the conductor.
when you left this earth, you left behind someone who will always feel like they’re a body for the taking, first; a person, second. i used to want you to be wracked with guilt, but these days, i’d settle for you feeling even an ounce of it.
- on the other side II.
what’s
the
difference?
- victim or survivor.
&
where
do i stand?
- victim or survivor II.
i thought, then, of all the forgotten stories of those victim-survivors whose hips were bashed against the wall by the cruel ones until their skin rolled up&up&up like canvas
&
the woman who did not stop until their stories splattered across the skies, even while she struggled like hell to keep her own skin pinned down.
once,
i came to her in a dream & begged her to do the same for me as she did for them, only for her to take me by the shoulders & turn me the other way, saying,
the mermaid's voice returns in this one Page 2