[poem transcript: “in the dark of the room / i whisper to you / “you should get some rest, honey / you look tired / like the weight of your father’s expectations / is heavy on your soul.”
i found a love hidden / in a drawer in my kitchen / tucked away like a scared child / that cowers from / its imaginary beasts.
so bring her in, honey / let her join us.
in the kitchen / past midnight / my arms around your neck / your lips on my cheek / the fridge light bleeding out behind you.
in this room / god and all that is holy / are on our side / and this love will last / forever.
in the kitchen / past midnight / the two of us / alone together / always and forever.” [/end transcript]
[poem transcript] “i. He doesn’t know what it means to be gentle. It’s not his fault, he grew up watching his father’s hands tightening around his mother’s neck, every touch bruised and hurt. But the flowers look so pretty in their vase on the dining room table, don’t you think so, son?
ii. So the blood trickles from your nose but his touch on your cheek is soft and warm and safe. The blood will dry and the bruises will heal, so there’s really no use in crying over spilled milk, is there, darling?
iii. He’ll mumble an apology in your ear soon enough, low and ashamed, voice cracking from the tears threatening to flood the room. He’ll touch you again, slow and soft and kind.There’s an extra apology in that touch, one that says “I’m sorry I’m not this kind to you always. Please don’t leave me.” You’ll forgive him, won’t you, honey?
iv. One of these days, you’ll find the answer is no, no I don’t forgive you. And you’ll ice your own bruises and clean up your own blood and you’ll walk away while you still can, before your tattered body is thrown in a ditch in the middle of nowhere. You’ll find your strength tucked in the back of your closet and put it in your suitcase, you’ll find the value you hold and keep it in your bones as you walk out the door. Because you know you deserve better than that, don’t you, angel?” [/end transcript]
may the ones i leave behind never lie in their journals, in their conversations, or to themselves and call me “too good for this world,” when the world and i have always been two of a kind. let it be known that not all unsuitable things are too perfect or too light to be ill-matched for the place you were born into; some of us are heavy, some of us are undoubtedly flawed. no, we were never ethereal, we were mere mortals straining to be.
I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t hurt me a little bit when he just wasn’t that into me. This is becoming a circular motion of all the reasons why no one can love me.
Hello, and I am not sorry, this is not a goodbye, more like a salutation of a farewell, this is our little dark age watch me find light in this darkness, as I’m sat in the air conditioned emergency room, my eyes burning with mint, wearing a mask is worse when you chew gum. Everyone is staring, it makes me feel intimidated, I’m used to being the intimidating one, the scary one who makes their skin crawl. I’m the youngest one here, well minus that toddler who has barely been alive for a minute – he doesn’t count. This place smells of bleach and anti bac, and the all too familiar stench of the oncology wards all around, I remember you here, with your liquorice all sorts that were disgusting by the way, but I “liked” them still, only for you, I hope you know that. You probably do, you’re my guardian angel, I believe you still visit me every now and then, maybe my clairvoyancy isn’t as good as it should be, because I miss you every day. They say it gets easier as time passes, but everyday passes and it never gets easier, instead it makes my heart reach out to make me miss you more, because du er et minne (you are a memory) it’s time to let you go now, instead of grasping onto the smoke of my past, you need your peace and all I cause is chaos all around me.
let’s build a house out of blankets and pillows it seems like the perfect place to hide away from the world for just a second now, but just wipe your feet at the door before I let you in.
Dear Michelangelo, I’m writing to ask you if you could sculpt out my dream appearance, I’d like to start out with my body shape, a flat stomach and thin waist, wide hips and muscled legs, thin arms and less broad shoulders and collar bones as sharp as a knife.
I want to stay the same height, not any taller than 5″2 it’s better that way, because no one would expect a pretty little thing like me to fling a body across the room - yet there they are.
I would like to differ in skin tone, as much as I hate to admit - I want to be white, because why in this day and age, do people see colour as a barrier to “social norms”, what is it that white people can do that coloured people can’t?
I’d like to change my face too, a button nose, similar to mine now but with a slope and no bump, plump lips too, pretty pink, with a smile that shows off a set of pearly whites with a crocked tooth, not perfectly straight.
I’d keep my thicker eyebrows, and my hair too, but take away the puffy eyes, the chubby cheeks, the undefined jaw, replacing it with defined cheekbones and jawline sharp, and long eyelashes and slow growing facial hair that I don’t have to wax every week.
Dear Michelangelo, we have now designed my perfect woman, tell me how much she costs, I’ll pay it all to be her, because she is my perfect and I am not.
Do you remember when your mothers would say ‘this is how girls end up dead’?
That I’ve been trying to stay alive and not be killed my whole life.
Maybe it’s time we fuck the patriarchal society, this man run world, because this fucking queen wants to walk alone at night, with my hair pulled back and headphones in my ear, because “I’m tired and angry but somebody should be!”
