I don't know how much I can handle feeling like this,

I still feel dirty, 12 years, 2 months, and 1 day after it happened,

You stripped me of everything at just 8 years, 1 month (to the day) old. 

You told me you'd kill me if I told anyone,

And at 8, I truly did believe you, especially with that knife to my neck and the match in front of my face.

Little did I know that you had already killed me,

I can't hear the name "Corey" without flinching.

I don't enjoy the 4th of July anymore,

Did you know it used to be my favorite holiday?

Now, the sound of fireworks send me to a panic.

Do you know how much I wish you had actually just killed me?

Because, maybe, just maybe, you would actually be in jail right now.

You were my older brothers' best friend,

I thought I could trust you.

The day it happened, 

I told my best friend

She said,

"Don't you know that's how babies are made"??

I didn't,

I stood in front of my bedroom mirror every morning, hoping my bloating belly wasn't a person,

Because what would I tell my mom?

What would I tell my dad?

That night, you spent the night with my brothers,

I stayed in my room the entire time sobbing,

While you were probably having an uneventful night of watching movies and playing halo.

I threw my swimsuit away the next morning,

My parents asked me why,

I just told them it ripped,

Little did they know,

You cut the strap off as you threatened me.

I was in a one piece floral swimsuit,

I can't look at floral patterns the same.

12 years later and I still struggle to go out in a swimsuit,

I don't want anyone to see my disgusting body.

Why didn't you just kill me a month after my 8th birthday,

So I wouldn't be here to deal with the pain of why,

Why you felt the need to take my entire childhood from me,

Why you just had to make it so hard for me to trust any man in my life,

Why you took what innocence I had left and just ground it up into nothing.

I don't really want to be here anymore,

And most of that stems to what you did to me 12 years, 1 month, and 1 day ago.

Why are you here? 

Can’t you see that I don’t want you?

I don’t want you to take control of my life anymore.

You started as a very rare guest, but now you’re persistent in taking control of every bit of me.

I’m tired of you, Depression.

Why do you always bring your cousins, Anxiety and Insomnia, with you?

You all make me want to die more and more each time you visit.

Only before, you had the courtesy to leave for awhile.

Now you refuse to leave.

Do you like hurting me over and over again by making me unable to sleep, then forcing my mind to remember events that I don’t want to, and making my heart race and breathing heavy. 

Explain to me why you hate me, or love me so much.

I can’t deal with you anymore.

I don’t know what to do, since obviously you’re not going to leave me alone.

Maybe if I could die you’d leave, but that’s selfish of me to think.

You need a place to stay, too.

I know that.

But, why take me as your place of refuge?

returning to my horror roots 😌

Hills

i started choosing hills to die on,

naming them after people.

i lay face up and splayed out

so the sky can see my face

before it starts to pour.

my goodbyes are quiet,

but they echo in my mind

until my ears are ringing.

maybe one day

you’ll hear my voice again

as it tries to tell you

how much i had been

missing myself.

Loving Girls

she loved a girl

who painted on her skin

and smelled of the fresh paint for hours after,

loved another whose laughter was a song,

loved another who soaked up sunlight

like a flourishing poppy,

loved another who danced in the rain barefoot

and dripped on the kitchen floor,

loved another whose smile could make

a room full of hearts beat deafeningly,

loved another who held

all the churning seas in her eyes.

she loved each one with a vigor.

but in the happily ever after,

she loved the girl she saw

when she looked in the mirror.

— Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

if that’s alright with you // hnl 2020

My mother once told me that every time a human dies, the universe lets them paint the sky. I am reminded of you especially on days the sky looks like a garden of poinsettias in bloom. I imagine you sitting on clouds that look like spun cotton candy, wielding a brush in your hand, painting away while I play our vintage radio. I never really believed in heaven, but I'm convinced that the souls of two people who loved each other will always find a way to hold hands, even when one of them becomes nothing more than the air that surrounds the other.

-Rupali Jeganathan • Pink

[Inspired by the first line which I read on a Tumblr post.]

// If you like my work, consider buying me a coffee via Ko-fi. //

I’m a self-employed, independent artisan making leather goods by hand. I left my job to go at it full-time two weeks before the pandemic shut everything down - including all of the artisan markets that I was planning on vending at. My expected income took a big hit, which is why I’ve broken character to promote my business here.

It would mean a lot to me if you’d consider checking out my website, or reach out via Instagram to place a custom order. LOVE YOU!

Email has been added as a contact option for those who don’t have Instagram. I also filled out the custom order page on the website with a wealth of info. You people are so sweet🥰

It would be the deepest of appreciations

To the Cosmos, the Universe IF I were

To find it, to stumble upon it instead of

Incessantly looking, searching for it -

I'd like for it to be a surprise instead of a

Mission, a task, something to plan for,

I want it unplanned, heady, raw, stuttery

But ultimately an accident on purpose by

Them; so Cosmos, Universe, please let it

Be found by me, or better yet, let it find me.

- love

The tarot deck speaks to me-

major arcana; the fool

I thought you’d understand by now

that the universe

ebbs and flows

karma comes back in threes, dear jester

are you absolutely sure

that you’re ready to reap

what you’ve sown?

I can forget, but the universe won’t // hnl 2020

I had a dream that I was talking to god in a greenhouse.

I walked around for awhile until I came to a stairwell that lead to what looked like the Garden of Eden, only darker. I started making my descent when a voice boomed overhead.

“You may ask me one question.”

I stalled for a second. My belief in god wavered over the last 5 years. The only spirituality I felt came from my own existence. Still, I wondered. I continued stepping.

“Who is my soulmate? Is that easy enough for you?”

I smiled like a jackass and looked towards the garden, hoping I’d see the face of the person who was meant for me. Suddenly everything in the room went dark. The flowers in bloom wilted and the steps started to disappear underneath me. The handrails I was grasping onto coiled like snakes and wrapped around me with a vengeance. I was lifted up towards the only light left in the room, a sunroof. The rails wrapped around my neck and I started to cry. The voice returned, but it sounded angry.

“That was the wrong question. You don’t have one.”

I woke with a start and realized that I had been crying. As I calmed myself down, I looked at my hands and feet. The realization started to flow through me like water.

I am meant for me, no one else. Maybe not even god.

the dream I had on Wednesday // hnl 2020

hello old friend

i want to say it’s been a while

but truth is you’re always hovering around somewhere close

lingering by the door

not because you forgot your coat

but because you left with mine

and you’re just waiting for the right time to give it back

well i’m cold again

so please return my coat now

oh yes and do come in

you look different

oh new diet

no i meant your hair

looks thinner

but come in let’s have a cup of tea

yes i remember perfectly

no milk no sugar

just like me

except i prefer coffee

i never could figure out where you find the energy

and i bet you aren’t hungry

well neither am i

come on old friend

now that we’ve got our drinks

say you’ll stay a while

let’s go watch the sunset together

today, yesterday, tomorrow// hnl 2020

God As My Witness (An Open Letter - Part 2)

Belief is an error in judgment, as faith is the fear which sings - a means of admonishing reason to nurture what soul gets lost.

It is beyond this strange discovery I catch my God at rest, sleeping beneath these memories of a life whose dreams make words - pure phrases said out loud along pages of raw feelings, inspired not by sacrifice but pursuit of a Lord unknown.

Whispers amid worry. Conviction out of darkness. Peace too undeserving for a man whose art costs work.

And yet His glory dictates, like passion from empty space - setting my fate into motion with a muse whose needs grow worse.

Her orbit finds me reeling at the center of doubt incarnate, juggling terms unsettling while Christ pours wine from sound.

Each syllable, an uttered gift - miraculous as they are fleeting.

Sweet, but never perfect - for heaven holds secrets well.

My suspicions of something greater drive pain pronounced as gospel, embellished across my margins as marvels revealing sin.

Such questions aren’t bad, it’s their truth which has me running.

I’m biding time expressing missing angels found through prose.

Aged as finest spirits, flowing rich like rivers endless  - shallower than I’d promised touting praises verse should fake.

No sentence written well ever told of hell within us, implied only between wisdoms spoken shyly veiling dread.

How death will always come, stealing further things of beauty - undermining seeking purpose by preserving flesh past tense.

And books, they hide those scars, without witness but our Father - a deity so expressive Bibles bleed their worth on stage:

A church where hearts can burst, hearing triumph came before them, learning endings penned by devils were just drafts our souls could read.

I confess my only choice had these poems drink of scripture, spilling answers better swallowed since divinity always lasts.

- J. Pigno

june 29, listening to heat waves

where there is love, i bury myself in azaleas. i wait until the sun burns up, leaving my street blacked out. fires encircle my city, but i never notice. my heart guides the way, footsteps echo & lampposts flicker. an early dystopia. i bathe in between the stars & trace your name in thin air. i call upon your body, floating among weeping willow tendrils. your lips never shape my name, but i close my eyes & pretend it’s me you whisper.

when healing from a person.. you will have thoughts like “I loved them more than I loved anyone, I never knew I could love someone so much, I’ll never love someone that much again..”

It is important to realize that your ability to love that person didn’t come from them, it came from within you. You were always a lover, already someone who could love deeply. Just because they are gone doesn’t mean that goes away. They didn’t give you the capacity to love, they just gave you a place to express it. Don’t give someone else the credit for how hard you could love, that was you and it still is.