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Happy and Imaginary.

@blithechild

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blithechild
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tristamateer
When you tell your best friend what happened, the only part she can grasp is that you were out with the boy she liked. The rest of it doesn’t matter. The rest of it doesn’t matter and this is what you hold onto for the next two years. That’s two years of Facebook notifications about his birthday. Two years of his late night text messages. That’s 728 days of just the possibility of this boy coming into the place you work and smiling at you from across the bar. He only does it a handful of times. You watch him sip beer with the same mouth he pressed to your neck. He comes in with his family and introduces you to his mother. The next time this boy comes up in conversation with someone, you are out to lunch with a friend at the Inner Harbor. You wear your hair down. You have a new green dress. You crumble crackers into cream of crab soup and his name slips out over a spoonful. So casually. You can say it without even wincing, but you can’t look your friend in the eye when she asks why she never sees you at the bar anymore. You tell her what happened without using the buzzwords. You just hand over the details like you’re passing bread or a salt shaker. You talk about his hands and ask the waitress for more iced tea in the same breath. This is the first time somebody calls it rape and it sounds like such an ugly word. A back alley word. Not a word for the kind of botched date you had. It could have almost been romantic until he pinned you down. And anyway you still let him drive you home. You didn’t cry when he hugged you in public a month later. You just stood still until he was done. Kind of like before only with witnesses this time. And that’s how you talk to yourself about it for the next three years. That’s three years of him watching your snapchat stories. Three years of your friends still hanging out with him. That’s three years of wondering if it was really as bad as you remember it or if it’s just the writer in you that likes to embellish your own stories. When you write your first poem about it, you talk about bursting instead of blooming and summer and the way hammocks make you feel queasy. You don’t mention the tiny American flags in his front yard or the fact that you had Electronics class with his brother in high school. You don’t mention small town dynamics or the way that trying to cut him out of your life while you still live there would stir up more trouble than his hands ever did. You don’t mention how five years too late, this boy texts you and says he’s sorry that he didn’t treat you right and then he asks you over to split a bottle of wine; how you almost go but your body works out the threat faster than your head and you spend the night dry heaving in your bathroom. When you write this poem, there are still things you’re not mentioning.

Trista Mateer (via tristamateer)

#trista mateer#this is the best thing i have ever read#poetry#poems#!!!!!!
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biancaphipps
I think it’s because there was no blood. or because it wasn’t violent, or because he didn’t enter me, or because it was quick, or because he was the first person to want to touch me, or because I was supposed to like it, or because this was supposed to happen, or because everyone had a story like this, or because others have stories that are worse, or because I let him into my house, or because I let him, or because I let myself lie there, or because I didn’t cry afterwards, or because it took years to give it a name, or because no one would believe me, or because everyone would, or because I didn’t want any more bad things, or because I wanted to want it, or because I wanted to feel something other than scared, or because I didn’t know what to call it, or because he said he had been in love with me for six years, since we met, two children in a classroom, sharing a smile that he read like an invitation, like we knew what would happen years later, like a love story, like a fairy tale, or because I thought he had earned the right, after all that patience, or because I wanted to believe him, or because he said he loved me and I wanted to believe him, or because I wanted to believe in love, because you should take love in whatever form it is given, right?

WHEN THEY ASK ME, “WHY DO YOU HESITATE TO CRY OUT?” | bianca phipps (via biancaphipps)

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clara-mcgowan

One Wake up. Your body will feel heavy with the weight of his leaving, Lift it anyway. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, Let your feet feel the floor beneath you. Remind yourself it is still there. It never left. Make your own coffee, Laugh at yourself when you forget to add the water. Try again. Do it until your coffee tastes like the day you want to have. Be proud that you made it by yourself.

Two Take a walk, Look at every stranger you pass on the street, Remind yourself you are not alone. Go to bookstores, Remember other people have stories too. Keep walking, until you’ve gotten as far away from his memory as you can, And when you feel yourself sprinting backwards Trap yourself in the love that is still around you. Let your brother call you twice a day just to say hello, Fall asleep in your best friend’s lap, Remember that his hands are not the only hands that can hold you. Everyone has hands, even you. Touch every part of yourself and learn how to make your body become an ocean. You will turn to waves, Learn how to do it all by yourself You are your own current, You are your own crash.

Three Cry. Cry again and again Because there is nothing wrong with trying to understand. Do not let anyone tell you to get over it, As if love were some tangible thing you can get over, As if it were a mountain to be climbed, Call that mountain Volcano Erupting, Dare them to try to make it all the way up and over Without getting burned.

Four Rebuild. When you’ve finished Love Actually for the third time And you’re out of chocolate ice cream, Use the fire he lit to burn down the box he put you in. His paper walls could never hold an ocean. Explore your own sea, Learn everything you possibly can. Buy yourself new hiking boots and Keep climbing mountains. It will be hard, but it will be worth it. Sacrifice your ankles, Let them blister. With time, they will heal. With time, so will you.

A Lesson in Being OK After the Door Closes // Clara McGowan

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clara-mcgowan

God, when I met you, I was too young ask questions. Dazzled by your brightness, Star peeling away from sky, I thought if I sat on my father’s shoulders– Tiny hands stretching into empty nothing– I would reach you. I would know what you felt like, I swore I knew what you felt like.

God, I am older now, A sort of in between girl, Not yet grown but too old for father’s shoulders, And I have forgotten why I loved you at all. I can’t see you anymore. Squinting towards heaven, I see no stars. Only an expansive blackness, A sort of vague emptiness. Sometimes I still listen for your voice, I built an altar out of my future And sacrificed my love for you, Why am I still so lonely?

God, I am standing on top of the cliff you built for us, I want to believe when I jump, you will catch me. I hear sea kiss shore below me, I hear wind shaking trees, I do not hear you. My feet stay planted. I can’t do it. I can’t move.

On Having Faith // Clara McGowan

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