I am The Fool,
hanging upside down from a tree,
hanging on your every word,
hanging in the balance.
The hangman,
a bag over my face,
blackness,
silence,
a sudden drop
as if god flicked his wrist
and said ‘I do not believe.’
Posts tagged writers.
When teleportation is invented,
it will be by a lover
who was separated
from his other.
I could feel my heartbeat in the skin of my back
the first time you laid me on your couch.
Like an envelope,
you sealed me with tongue and heat.
You created me,
then sent me away.
I am 21 and your fingers are poems
I have spent a very long time trying to write.
First draft, second draft, third draft.
I marry the fourth.
My dress is the color of revenge.
Our rings are knives and my eyes are feathers.
My stomach hurts if I think about you too long,
a clenching, a pulse low in my belly,
the same spot a baby grows in.
My mother tells me you should know,
so here I am,
telling you the only way I learned how.
Death takes many forms
but perhaps the cruelest is
just a little girl.
It’s true: Only the blind can have sex without pain.
It’s true: We’re not blowing kisses to the minaret’s barred window; we’re going to burn down the palace.
It’s true: Adults cry less than children, and have more need to cry.
It’s true: When you care about me, you care about you caring about me. And when I care about you, I care about me caring about you.
It’s true: There’s gold at the end of the rainbow. That’s all there is!
It’s true: I can no longer distinguish my pockets from my rips, my tricks from being tricked.
It’s true: I have been to this place before.
Excerpt from “If the Aging Magician Should Begin to Believe” by Jonathan Safran Foer, included in A Convergence of Birds
In the event that you should know me.
1. Don’t call me baby. My dad calls me baby.
2. I watch nature documentaries like some people read the bible. I pray to mountains, snowflakes, and bats. I worship waterfalls.
3. Antarctica was covered in towering forests 100 million years ago. Me, too.
4. Handle my fossils delicately. Read my bones. Piece me back together, fill in the gaps with plaster, but do not display me.
5. I am a beetle. I am a cloud formation. I am a stalactite. Do not contradict me.
6. I will always listen to my mother.
7. I was a dog once. It felt lonely, and I was fascinated by the moon.
8. If I wanted to give in to my desire to be miserable, my whole body would be off limits.
9. My poetry is not a gift. I will never scrawl one in your birthday card. My poetry is a ghost of me at 8 years old, crying, with her head under the covers.
10. Kiss my neck when presented with the opportunity.
11. If we meet a grizzly bear, I will not be running away.
12. Hold my arm while we walk down the street, not my hand. Remove your hat when you bow to me. Kiss my knuckles. Ask permission for an embrace.
13. I am a lady, you had better act like a gentleman.
14. If you’re wondering what I want, it’s a plane ticket to Peru or 12 crystals in different shades of pink or a still hand over my chaotic heart.
15. Animals are often soft beneath their shells.
16. My life is a suicide note with the length not yet determined.
17. When it rains, I want you to touch me.
18. Crocodiles often drown their prey before they eat it.
19. I am a mother to silence.
20. If I am painting, do not speak.
21. If I am crying over the beauty of a color I mixed on my palette, do not laugh.
22. If I am crying, do not laugh.
23. If I am crying, do not laugh.
by Amanda La Valley
My hands are glass
that leave no fingerprints
but are marked
by the touch of others.
My eyes are stars
that spark like lit candles
and drip wax upon the moon.
My eyes are white and hollow,
like the bellies of dead crabs
on forgotten shores.
When humans invented language,
they forgot to make up a word
for the way it feels to make love.
But we got orange,
tart,
monster,
maker,
macaroon.
I guess we’re not doing too bad.
Someone tell me how to get published.
I hate coffee and cigarettes and being dirty. How will I ever be a writer? Guess it’s time to stock up on the whiskey.
