I want to be
like the waves on the sea,
like the clouds in the wind,
but I'm me.
One day I'll jump
Out of my skin.
I'll shake the sky
like a hundred violins.
Sandra Cisneros, “The House on Mango Street”
Henny Youngman says,
'Christmas is over, pal;
it's every man for himself.'
Dorotha Grossman “December 26th
grammatolatry reblogged
To say “I’ve never loved anything
the way I love you” would be a lie.
Before we met, there were days
I did not believe you existed.
I had more love than this body
could hold & Mama had always
said, give what you don’t need.
So I gave it away to dog park
pitbulls & summer orchids
& old books that smelled like
promises. Handed it out like
grocery store flyers to
seashell whorls & boys
with fist-shaped mouths
aimed for the walls of my
chest & girls who kissed
with the desperate thrash
of salmon on silver hooks
and still I had so much love.
For years I offered myself to
scraped knees & nails bitten
down to bone & lonely
parking lots, & no matter
what I did there was nothing
I loved enough to feel it back.
I was born an ocean
and I emptied it into hearts
too small for the overspill,
evacuated and left me behind.
Silly me. I mistook lighthouses
for the moon, dressed up
impermanence for decades.
And then you.
You, with arms the breadth
of deep space, discovered
the part of the eye
that converts belief into light.
You are not the sun
or the moon, but the hand
clasped in mine while we watch
clouds shaped like starships
trailing maps in the night sky.
I have no use for luminaries.
It is your voice in the dark
that reminds me nothing
need be seen
that cannot be felt.
I have no use for sight.
It is your lips on my neck
reminding me to keep one
last thing for myself.
“Hide and Seek”, natalie wee (via eleanorohara)
grammatolatry reblogged
I am sick of writing this poem
but bring the boy. his new name
his same old body. ordinary, black
dead thing. bring him & we will mourn
until we forget what we are mourning
& isn’t that what being black is about?
not the joy of it, but the feeling
you get when you are looking
at your child, turn your head,
then, poof, no more child.
that feeling. that’s black.
\
think: once, a white girl
was kidnapped & that’s the Trojan war.
later, up the block, Troy got shot
& that was Tuesday. are we not worthy
of a city of ash? of 1000 ships
launched because we are missed?
always, something deserves to be burned.
it’s never the right thing now a days.
I demand a war to bring the dead boy back
no matter what his name is this time.
I at least demand a song. a song will do just fine.
\
look at what the lord has made.
above Missouri, sweet smoke.
Danez Smith, “not an elegy for Mike Brown” (via oofpoetry)
grammatolatry reblogged
"In the Library," Dorothea Grossman
The library always smells like this: an ancient stew of vinegar and wood. It’s autumn again, and I can do anything.
grammatolatry reblogged
Hi, I was wondering if any of you could help me find a poem. It was written by a woman telling her stories with men she has had relationships with, but how she never felt truly happy with them. It included the line “I drown men in the sea of me” or something similar to that. I'm sorry if I'm being kind of vague, this is all I can remember and I would really like to read that poem again. If you can't help me, I'll understand. Thank you!
i don’t know but it sounds like something i would like to read - sorry!
merylstreeptease were you thinking of i am not the sea by lora mathis? shout out to the anon who submitted this - hope its the right one!
grammatolatry reblogged
‘Some men break your heart in two…’
—Dorothy Parker, “Experience”
Some men carry you to bed with your boots on.
Some men say your name like a verbal tic.
Some men slap on an emotional surcharge for every erotic encounter.
Some men are slightly mentally ill, and thinking of joining a gym.
Some men have moved on and can’t be seduced, even in the dream bars you meet them in.
Some men who were younger are now the age you were then.
Some men aren’t content with mere breakage, they’ve got to burn you to the ground.
Some men you’ve reduced to ashes are finally dusting themselves off.
Some men are made of fiberglass.
Some men have deep holes drilled in by war, you can’t fill them.
Some men are delicate and torn.
Some men will steal your bracelet if you let them spend the night.
Some men will want to fuck your poems, and instead they find you.
Some men will say, “I’d like to see how you look when you come,” and then hail a cab.
Some men are a list of ingredients with no recipe.
Some men never see you.
Some men will blindfold you during sex, then secretly put on heels.
Some men will try on your black fishnet stockings in a hotel in Rome, or Saran Wrap you
to a bedpost in New Orleans.
Some of these men will be worth trying to keep.
Some men will write smugly condescending reviews of you work, making you remember
these lines by Frank O’Hara: I cannot possibly think of you/other than you: the assassin/of my orchards.
Some men, let’s face it, really are too small.
Some men are too large, but it’s not usually a deal breaker.
Some men don’t have one at all.
Some men will slap you in a way you’ll like.
Some men will want to crawl inside you to die.
Some men never clean up the matter.
Some men hand you their hearts like leaflets
and some men’s hearts seem to circle forever: you catch sight of them on clear nights,
bright dots among the stars, and wait for their orbits to decay, for them to fall to earth.
Kim Addonizio, The Matter (via holdonmagnolia)
grammatolatry reblogged
A soft woman
is simply a wolf
caught in meditation.
Pavana पवन (via maza-dohta)
Hi, I was wondering if any of you could help me find a poem. It was written by a woman telling her stories with men she has had relationships with, but how she never felt truly happy with them. It included the line “I drown men in the sea of me” or something similar to that. I'm sorry if I'm being kind of vague, this is all I can remember and I would really like to read that poem again. If you can't help me, I'll understand. Thank you!
i don't know but it sounds like something i would like to read - sorry!
He stands alone in a pasture
but nobody can see him.
He has been made invisible
by his own wounds.
I know how he feels.
Richard Brautigan, "War Horse"
from Black is the Color, by Ruth Duckett Gibbs, 1973
grammatolatry reblogged
helllord-deactivated20220530
What are we doing to each other? Because I know that I am doing to him exactly what he is doing to me. We are sometimes so happy, and never in our lives have we known more unhappiness. It’s as if we were working together on the same statue, cutting it out of each other’s misery. But I don’t even know the design.
“The End of the Affair” by Graham Greene (via gotflavorlikeicecream)
grammatolatry reblogged
Love. I’m not capable of it, can’t even approach it from the side, let alone head-on. Nor am I alone in this—everyone is like this, the liars. Singing songs and painting pictures and telling each other stories about love and its mysteries and its marvelous properties, myths to keep morale up—maybe one day it’ll materialize. But I can say it ten times a day, a hundred times, “I love you,” to anyone and anything, to a woman, to a pair of pruning shears. I’ve said it without meaning it at all, taken love’s name in vain and gone dismally unpunished. Love will never be real, or if it is, it has no power. No power. There’s only covetousness, and if what we covet can’t be won with gentle words—and often it can’t—then there is force.
Helen Oyeyemi, Mr. Fox (via theoryoflostthings)
grammatolatry reblogged
When he says
He doesn’t love you anymore,
Roll your shoulders back
And look him in the eye
Even when it feels like your ribs
Are breaking inward, like spider legs.
When he digs up old aches
That he swore he forgave you for,
Smile
And ask him why he didn’t leave you sooner.
Ignore the way the words feel like sandpaper
Running all the way up your throat to your mouth.
When he blames you
For mistakes that wear his face,
Do not scream.
Do not cry.
Tell him that there are boys
Who would be proud to say they’d loved you.
Tell him that in two years
You won’t even remember his name
And don’t let him see the way you can taste your own lie.
When he leaves
Ignore the howling in your blood
And do not get up after him.
Not even to lock the door.
Do not, do not
Do not.
Smell his shirts when you box them up
To give them back.
Not one.
Swear off dating when you realize
You’re chasing ghosts that wear his smile.
It’s okay to cry over him.
It’s even okay to forgive him.
But do not go back to him.
If he did not know how to love you the first time,
He won’t know how to do it the next.
How To Pretend It Doesn’t Hurt, by Ashe Vernon (via morozovaaleksander)
grammatolatry reblogged
you are a horse running alone and he tries to tame you compares you to an impossible highway to a burning house says you are blinding him that he could never leave you forget you want anything but you you dizzy him, you are unbearable every woman before or after you is doused in your name you fill his mouth his teeth ache with memory of taste his body just a long shadow seeking yours but you are always too intense frightening in the way you want him unashamed and sacrificial he tells you that no man can live up to the one who lives in your head and 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
grammatolatry reblogged
queenofgaylia-deactivated202101
When I walk in,
men buy me drinks before I even reach the bar.
They fall in love with me after one night,
even if we never touch.
I tell you I’ve got this shit down to a science.
They sweat with my memory,
alone in cheap rooms they listen
to moans through the wall
and wonder if that’s me,
letting out a scream as the train whines by.
But I’m already two states away, lying with a boy
I let drink rain from the pulse at my throat.
No one leaves me, I’m the one that chooses.
I show up like money on the sidewalk.
Listen, baby. Those are my high heels dangling from the
phone wire.
I’m the crow flapping down,
that’s my back slip
you catch sight of when the pain
twists into you so deep
you have to close your eyes and weep like a goddamned
woman.
Muse - Kim Addonizio (via fucktodayitstomorrow)
grammatolatry reblogged
Tell me our story: are we impetuous,
are we kind to each other, do we surrender
to what the mind cannot think past?
Where is the evidence I will learn
to be good at loving?
Stacie Cassarino (via rarararambles)