nosebleedclub:

Do you keep your anger in or do you let it out?  If you let it out, is it in secret or do you make it known? 

There’s this clenched fist right in the center of my rib cage at all times, and I want to know why people behave badly. Why do we made the wrong choices. Why does it have to be so complicated. Why can’t we be kind. Why. Why. Why can’t we just see each other?

There’s this clenched fist right in the center of my rib cage, and when the pressure gets too much, I open it.

I open my hands.

(Originally posted on my old blog)

after the rain

slow, pent up morning. hot milk warming my tongue. a crow flickers in and out of sight. my neighbor’s dog whines. somewhere, the world is ending, by which i mean, it’s storming in Oklahoma right now. and have you heard the news, the terrible news? are you prepared for what might follow? do you still hold your breath under your tongue like a concealed weapon? i wish to be druid-like & never there, the empty space in between fingertips. i wish to be small-boned & noiseless & like the static in the air before it rains. before it rains and rains and rains and our ribs are flooding with it. i read somewhere that hyenas are not cruel, simply misunderstood. and that the lion king lied. i think we’re too quick to jump to conclusions. i think we’re afraid of things we deem ugly because we’re afraid to See ourselves for what we really are. rotten & quick to bleed. the sky’s blue-grey and it reminds me of the summer we caught mudbugs at the lake & j’s eyes. stillwater-like. reeling. i’m going to fall asleep on the kitchen table. my hands too fragile to hold. there must’ve been a black bird in my window, but the world moves it out of sight.

i’ll learn to be small. i’ll learn to be quiet. i’ll stop asking things of the world, i promise. i’ll be the husk of a moth on a dust-rimmed wooden tile. i’ll be the flickering kitchen light. i’ll split the universe open down the middle & carve an X into its chest & when it says “ouch, that hurt” and curls up on its side i’ll walk away from the murder. i’ll stop asking for things i can’t have, i promise. i won’t demand anything of the sky or its trembling knees. i’ll bite down on my tongue; swallow it whole. i’ll be an apparition in the mirror. i’ll be a late october chill. i will close my fist so tight the white of my knuckles will be all that remains of me. i’ll be Nowhere. a childhood bedroom forgotten. all my 22 years of growth or a crucial lack there of. i’ll be a primal regression, a sad inching back. i’ll delete every poem i ever Wrote about you i’ll be Covert. i’ll be two fingers crossed behind your back i’ll be Liquid sunlight. on warm waters. i’ll be a child gone missing i’ll be listening to ‘nobody’ by mitski on repeat for 4 days. i’ll be blue. a picture of a moon in a storybook. bent nose, soft eyelids. see, i’d very well like to be Nonexistent. the bee that bit into sweet skin and died instantly. the mouth never meant for speaking; the teeth rotten and skeletal. the body that sits down in the middle of the road and patiently awaits being run over. the thin, frail light. the pulled curtain. a body that is not a body so much as a silhouette of one in white chalk. caution tape & police sirens. i won’t Write about you. i won’t write. i’ll keep the words in my throat until they make me sick. i’ll hold back. i’ll say, here, you can have all of me. or none of me. i throw an ultimatum like a knife that never lands its target. i become a lake. i become a dried leaf in autumn. i have nothing. Left to Give anymore. nothing makes any sense. i’ll just close my eyes. i’ll run screaming into the woods. i’ll be an incomplete thought. i’ll wake up and i’ll take it back. i’ll take it all back. the hurt and the spit and the body bag. i’ll listen to my ribs hum. and nothing. not even the stars with their eyes rolled back into their heads–will be the same. 

we all want our deaths to mean something, however small, to someone to anyone. but the universe is so vast, our lives are not even dust. the sheer scale of what surrounds us is sometimes beyond what we can even comprehend. sometimes, if you try to understand it all you go mad. then death follows. 

no one remembers the death of mad men. 

-excerpt from The Novel WIP

Yeshua is more mouthpiece than human towards the end. Revered and untouchable, immortal and mortal. His flesh no longer flesh, just sand and stone against Judah’s metallic frame. They sleep side by side in the desert, in the train, in the flimsy buildings left behind by the devastation of a never-ending war.

||☕|| For @ibuzoo|| AO3 HERE

Yeshua has never considered himself a divine being, though he’s been told since he had been old enough to rise from among the dead that he was. A god or His son — both, depending on who is asked. But Yeshua himself has considered himself a being of luck and opportunity.

Less human, less divine.

He fills his mouth with silver and spits out gold, his followers lining up to follow the path he crafts. Yeshua has no more, no less feelings for those that step in his every step, that stay in his every shadow.

Not everyone is made to stand in the sun. Not with its scorching light and how frail human skin is. But Yeshua stands in its direct glare, feels the edges of him dry and flake.

Less human, less divine.

Judah though, he does not burn like the others would under the light. His skin turns cool, cooler when the sun reaches its pinnacle, smooth like metal and just as impenetrable to Yeshua’s entreaties. He will not beg for a return but he does miss it: the ease, the trust, the humanity between them.

Bloomed in the desert shade, watered by the light of the moon and having grown from weed to flower, to something stronger with branches and leaves — enduring against the arid environment. Yeshua thinks he cut it down late one afternoon, but he can’t recall.

Maybe it had been Judah who pruned it too far and left silver coins in its place.

Yeshua has not returned to look at it again, certain that if it is meant to endure it would do so without interference. Yeshua is like that sometimes.

Less human, less divine.

Leave the course of the sandstorm to nature to decide. Watch the tearing down of buildings and institutions brought on by his words following their own due course. For all the claims surrounding him, Yeshua has very little control once his actions and words are out in the word. It is flattering people think of him as omnipotent, even those around him who should know better.

Judah knows better.

That is perhaps why Yeshua hates and loves him in equal measure. To feel so frayed and exposed, and yet to be seen as he is.

No amount of smeared oils and scented crowns will hide the stench of blood that follows Yeshua in his wake. But they never blame him for it, they never seem to notice.

Less human, less divine. More monstrous, made of infinity and luck and destiny. Whatever those were, stitched into the fabric of this world and guiding its outcome.

Yeshua is more mouthpiece than human towards the end. Revered and untouchable, immortal and mortal. His flesh no longer flesh, just sand and stone against Judah’s metallic frame. They sleep side by side in the desert, in the train, in the flimsy buildings left behind by the devastation of a never-ending war.

Every day he feels more distant, even in the growing disapproval that Judah wears like an armor. Every day he feels it become more impenetrable, until the softness only remains in Judah’s eyes, dripping like blood when he looks at Yeshua.

He doesn’t look at Yeshua often now, if at all. Avoiding it with no subtlety. Yeshua knows, he always does. But he lets the lie lay between their bodies at night.

Yeshua finds it difficult to breathe in those moments. He would forgo doing it if he didn’t worry what Judah would say to find Yeshua living and not breathing — an impossibility that would upend his neat narrative about what and who Yeshua is.

It would be easier not to breathe.

It would hurt less to stop pretending.

Yeshua does not hide the way the holes in his eyes widen daily, how his skin continues peeling away, how his muscles follow by unraveling like kite ribbons.

He is barely human, barely divine.

He pens a letter to Judah, the night before it all deserts him. Leaves it tucked in Judah’s worn backpack, between the laptop and the memories of their first meeting, spilling them all in ink. What a mess they made, and what a mess Yeshua is leaving behind.

He knows Judah will forgive him. In time.

Yeshua is no longer human, no longer divine. And monsters are immortal and eternal, he has time to spare. He will wait for Judah’s forgiveness.

Loneliness makes for a constant companion, my fingers tangled with their — wishing for a shift in the stars, an end to this companionship and the arrival of

A thing that does not have a name when it takes root in my mind. I dream of the open highways and the twisting trees that grow wild alongside. I dream of driving down those roads with

The static of broken radio stations punctuating the silences between us.

The family never quite understands
the curse that over their heads hangs,
for how are they to know that their precious
jewels, are the very thing that’s cursed.

-Ely C. Winters. |@nosebleedclub#29

It is, during a tear filled vision
that the Princess sees her father, the late King
who beacons her to move on, to live
her life and to never go back to the ashes
that were left of his crown.

-Ely C. Winters. |@nosebleedclub #13 &15

nosebleedclub:

What does power feel like?

Like a surge of electricity
running through my spleen, my blood.
The way it thrills in the knowledge
that I am mighty.
Something that raises goosebumps
in my flesh knowing
that my voice will be heard
and my command, obeyed.

-Ely C. Winters.

How easy you make my lips
say please.
You’re such a tease.
You, with that glint in your eye
and velvet voice.

My knees go weak when you
are near. There is
something magical about
the way you move,
the way you talk to me.

But I still can fight back,
so I raise my hands
and touch the tip of your elven ear.
How sweet it is to make you shiver
and return the please
against my lips.

-Ely C. Winters. |@nosebleedclub#30

One thousand warships set sail 
Against Troy,
To recover the fair Helen.
To heal a wounded pride
And yet no one asks,
What Helen wants.

-Ely C. Winters. | @nosebleedclub#31

He makes his new home
In a corner of her heart,
He sings lullabies and pledges
His love in the same way
She does with stars in her eyes.

-Ely C. Winters. | @nosebleedclub#4

a year ago, i would have died for certain people.. a year later, most of them are dead to me.

look, love is not something we wind up, something we set or control. love is just like art: a force that comes into our lives without any rules, expectations or limitations. love like art, must always be free.

I’m always kissing you like it’s the last time / Always hesitating, stuttering, stumbling over my words / Trying to make the moment perfect / Thinking this time it has to be perfect / Because the thought of anything less is unbearable / How do I reconcile myself to the fact that I will never have this back / This moment where the light is hitting your face just right / Where your eyes are squeezed shut and I want to hold you for just a minute longer / Stay a little while / Stay just long enough to feel like I have made the most of this precious time / I have to know that I’ve loved you right / That I’ve tried / That I’ve been stubborn and unwilling to settle for lukewarm / That I felt the weight of our lives and tried to carry them anyway / Kept the heaviest memories in my pockets like stones / Promised myself to skip them over the water later / There has to be space for more 

nowadays, i dream of warmth. of fingertips against skin, arms around a waist, of a mouth against a neck.

i dream of entwined hands. of feet pressed together, of leaning against a shoulder, of hair sticking to cheeks.

nowadays, i feel like a dream. insubstantial. like if you tried to place a hand on my heart, you’d fall right through.

it’s getting colder and i can’t tell when i’ll wake. i smell smoke but i can’t feel a thing. if i try hard enough, i can remember what it felt like, to carry more than embers in my fists.

tell me we’ll never get used to it / that we never take our entwined hands for granted again / that we’re grateful for every embrace / every meeting that isn’t through a phone screen / that we dance for hours the first time we can dance with each other / cry when we can blow out candles on a cake together / hold each other’s faces and say i’m glad you exist / i’m glad i met you in this life / i’m glad i got to live through the good the bad the ugly with you / i hope we never stop being amazed by all this love / how despite everything, it survived

he calls her komorebi; sunlight falling through the trees. he kisses you and the word seems to get stuck between your teeth. 

you stuttering poet girl, nothing but a mouthful of other people’s stories. you, with your stained hands and bleeding heart. you, graceless and tripping over your own feet, trying to keep up with the music, with him. you foolish girl, hoping that you’re worth more than a verse. you, perpetually messy, all your love spilling out of your arms and onto the floor. you, damaged but never delicate. only filled with light when it falls through the cracks in your armor, only golden for a moment. 

you who will never be as perfect as the light falling through the trees, but sometimes you pretend, close your eyes and let yourself float down with the leaves.

i’m sitting on the kitchen counter listening to that song i reminded you of. i feel seen, and for once i am not scared, i am euphoric.

i feel beautiful in all my messy glory; so incredibly loved, flaws and all. my hair slipping out of my bun and my favorite t-shirt off my shoulder, and now i’m dancing by myself to this song. i’m smiling for the first time in days, jumping over cracks in the tiles and hitting all the right notes. 

i’m aware that we romanticize tragedy far more than we should, that the sad poems are often the most popular, but i want to remember this. capture this mundane moment in these lines. if the future is dark, i’m taking all the light i have with me, keeping it my pockets and diving headfirst. jump with me.

you say, “the world is ending,” and i laugh and say, “when is it not?”

there’s still flowers blooming and people singing and your fingers resting on the small of my back. that pink dress you like, my legs pressed against yours, your smile against mine. you said you’ll love me till the end and i’m watching you prove it. we’re dancing in the ashes, leaving our hurt behind with the footprints.

you spin me around and i watch our memories on your walls. if we disappear tonight, i want us to be remembered for how fiercely we loved, how stupidly optimistic we stood in the face of the apocalypse, how we kissed through the darkness and held on till dawn.

i want the silver linings, something beautiful salvaged from this wreckage. tell them the world got ugly but we didn’t let it touch us. that we refused to take our rose-colored glasses off.

tell them it wasn’t all bad. that we held something lovely in the palms of our hands, and it wasn’t heavy. not at all.

i haven’t written in a while because all the words lead back to you, all these unfinished poems lined up outside my window banging against the glass screaming, “do you remember?”

i do

i do

i do

but writing about us feels like the time somebody tried to put a camera between us when we slow-danced, as if that moment of intimacy was meant for public consumption.

this is private.

my heartbreak is mine alone. i’m tired of offering up pieces of myself, waiting for someone to see something they can understand. something they can carry gently and take home and keep.

i understand if this is hard to swallow. if it leaves a bad taste on your tongue. i have burn marks on my fingertips from trying to rescue it. there is nothing pretty left here and i don’t think i can be it. i tried to be your beautiful girl, tried to be your favorite memory but, all i can remember is the broken way i asked you if you ever loved me and how you said, “of course”.

as if that fixed everything.

and i’m sorry, okay, i’m sorry that this was not the narrative you wanted. i tried to make it pretty, i promise. i cleaned up the blood and bile and hurt. i kissed you instead of telling you i was losing my mind, because you didn’t have space for another mess.

but i don’t think i have it in me to clear my insides off the floor.

you can take your knife and go.

our story is not just one of transformation, of seasons passing. it’s also a story of passion. of a love that has teeth. of a love that bites back.

a story where you call me persephone, and i look you in the eye as i crack a pomegranate shell. where i feel each seed on the palm of my hand. feel the weight of my decision. where i hold it up to my lips and smile at the power i can taste. where i bite down into our future, and you can’t look away from my reddened lips.

this is a story of indulgence. where we sink into the world, where we stay intoxicated off wine and each other’s presence.

if they call this a sin, i will gladly be a sinner. if they call you a villain, i’ll let them see my claws. my sharp teeth. how i’ve never been the damsel-in-distress.

i’ve followed you into the darkness, and i’ll laugh and kiss you through it.

you tell me that i’d reached the center of your universe, that i occupied the space you walled off from everyone else. 

i try to tell you that stumbling into love with you felt more like entering a hall of mirrors. i kept reaching out with my hands like a child hoping to find something solid, something real, something other than my fear and confusion. 

like i could hear music somewhere in the distance but couldn’t figure out the lyrics. 

like every time i said i missed you, it was just my own mouth repeating the words back at me. 

like i cut my fingers trying to feel my way out.

like i left a thousand different images of me burned into this reality and still didn’t feel substantial enough for you. 

There is a boy looking at you, holding your face with his artist’s hands, and you want so badly to take your own and crush his heart between them because the way he just leaves it out in the open makes you more angry than it should. 

You’re angry because he has the audacity to wear his hurt without shame, when you carry the stink of it on your skin. When anyone else who smells it on you looks at you like you’re damaged. Like whatever is left is evidence of ruin. 

You want to tell him that you’re hollow and that you ran out of the words he fell in love with a long time ago. You stand in front of this beautiful boy and can hardly breathe through your envy because he has the words needed to leave his pain outside, and all you have is your rage. 

When he calls you beautiful, it feels like a joke. 

And maybe you want to destroy any traces of hope because why should this boy, who holds his pain in his eyes like he isn’t afraid of how you might use it against him, have any? Why should he not learn the lesson they forced down your throat? 

But he’s reaching out for you with those gentle hands and you find yourself holding them, anchoring him, and he says, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”, and your anger goes cold and you feel absolutely nothing, all iced out and empty.

That’s what you tell yourself anyway, but some part of you wonders what it must feel like, 

to reach out and be offered kindness.

today, you shimmy on the train while people shoot you looks from behind their magazines / you sway from side to side in your old shoes / accept that maybe you’re not okay but you will be soon / realize that you are not ashamed to feel so much / that you’re ready to let emotions flow out your cupped hands and paint the floor / leave a dripping, surreal mess / you want to lie down and make angels in it / you want to color this town with all the shades you have / spill outside the lines / forget about picture-perfect / everybody lives like they’re being watched anyway / and you’re tired of rehearsing for the show / you want to let yourself feel everything / with intensity that leaves you unsteady / but still laughing through it all

sometimes, love feels like a bloodletting.

sometimes a slow murder, like take everything until i have nothing left, take my breath away, make me beg for it and forget to give it back.

sometimes a quick slash of the throat. like go for the jugular. tear it out with your teeth as you go in for a kiss. make it feel like an act of intimacy. bring me to my knees. make a mess and walk away from it.

like make your victim walk in voluntarily, accept the blindfold and cross their arms behind their back. let them feel butterfly kisses on the nape of their neck as you lean in to tie the rope. watch the sacrifice lie on the altar like it’s a bed of roses. watch them reach to feel petals but come away with scarred fingers instead.

like here take my heart and promise not to crush it.

like let’s play russian roulette and pray i can catch more than lies between my teeth.

like dig my grave and still give me hope that you won’t be the one to push me into it.

you once told me i appeared in your dreams amongst the most important people in your life.

i asked you what i said and you said, “nothing.”

i was more disappointed than i should have been, but i guess it made sense.

there were so many moments when you were curled up in my arms when i almost dared to tell you about my dreams. about how my churning thoughts left me feeling sea-sick and i tried to look for you to find stable ground, but you were too busy admiring the waves.

you said i was fascinating. beautiful. even when i cried.

so there were cracks all over me, more visible under a certain kind of light, but hey, it was good for your art, right?

i was the perfect muse. didn’t say a word. sat still and let you take me apart with yours.

smiled when you asked me if i’d be okay.

it was kindness, right?

you wanted to peel away layers just to see what lay underneath. i tried to tell you that i already felt rubbed raw. like i was lying on the beach like a piece of glass. that i would cut you if you held me too tight. that i might catch your eye but ultimately felt worthless.

but i said nothing.

there is nothing left to say.

i’m saying goodbye to you, and i think about how this will be the last time i trace your fingers with mine, kiss the back of your neck, let my eyelashes graze your skin.

i think it breaks my heart just a little how my hands will never again find themselves pushing your hair away from your eyes, how my chin will never again rest on your shoulder, how body will never again lean into yours instinctively.

i don’t know how to get used to reminding myself to stop reaching out for you.

sometimes writing feels like trying to breathe underwater.

like there are rocks tied to my ankles and meaning is just out of reach, sunlight hitting the surface of waves.

like my fingernails scraping the bottom of a boat, leaving a message in frenzied scratches.

like catching a glimpse of your hand trailing along the water.

what i’m trying to say is that sometimes all the poetry is submerged somewhere with me, and there’s only time to save one. what i’m trying to say is, most times, i choose me.

we’re sitting on a balcony on a summer night, and you’re trying to light a cigarette despite the breeze. i cup the flame and in that moment, you look more vulnerable than i’ve ever seen you. 

you blink away tears, pick up a bottle to take a swig and hand it to me, let your body slide onto the ground and ask me to join you. place your head on my shoulder and ask me why we can’t just be happy like this. just the two of us running wild around the city.

you hum that line about party girls never getting hurt. it’s the closest i’ve ever felt to you. it’s also the furthest i’ve ever felt from you. i almost open my mouth, almost tell you how i nearly died the last time i was in your room, almost tell you about how i nearly gave up on my life on your birthday. 

but this friendship feels like a blood pact, one that i signed when i was somebody else. a version of myself that i stepped out of when i started to suffocate. when words started to slip out from underneath my fingernails, from the laughter lines on my face, from within my rib-cage.

there was no more space for the version of me that was too messy too intense too real too much. party girls walk barefoot on glass and do not flinch, and i think i was tired of the bleeding. 

you entwine your pinky with mine and make me promise that i’ll save my last dance for you. just for the night, i do.