River

Life bleeds into itself, intermixing 

Oil and water into one messy whole flowing 

One day into the next all the 

Small triumphs and tribulations that define a day

Extend into a lifetime

As the tiniest particles fill a steam 

Creating sticky clouds or shining clear paths 

Through the ending river 

Being swallowed by the sea

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Struggling with Poetry

I’ve always loved poetry, 

And never really understood it. 

In bare terms the world is simple and beautiful

Poetry just dresses it up 

To get down to the heart of it. 

How can flowery layers reach down to the Earth? 

Maybe if I just put down roots, lacey and strong 

Down to the dense core as 

Thick dirt imprinted dark moisture onto my fingers, maybe

Then I could understand and sip 

From…

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When the Rain Comes

When the Rain Comes

When the water comes back to the stream again

When the summer drought flows away, 

And pained skin knows relief again, 

Forgive yourself the sins born of thirst and fatigue

The cracked dirt of your life will be submerged

It is on you to wash, for the sake of your own ease,

But it is not moral burden. Forgive yourself

Your fatigue, you would not have chosen this

Had your choices been…

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Drought

When the river bed begins to dry

Skin scratching on to stone

Bleeding heavy, numb blood

A poor imitation of sweet water

But all you have to give, thick and hot

In the buzz of your skull you know it’s not

Enough; follow the bends of the bed

Find the flow and parch your skin

Only the soft feeling can save you now

Though you have none to give

Every irritating contact too physical

Gritting…

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Plot twist: you become your own hero

mayapoetbe:

There is a maiden

running around

with a cylinder

and she is wearing pants

head held high

going straight towards a goal

carriages make a sudden stop

kids look curiously

the police are on their way

I stop and stare

and smile

wondering why

everybody else seems to care

-mayapoetbe

mayapoetbe:

tell me

is this forever

am I doomed

to feel this way

-mayapoetbe

mayapoetbe:

you are not trying to forget

what I did to you

you are trying to forget

everything at all

- mayapoetbe (draft)

Generosity

Of spirit, how fantastic

Joy emits unchecked.

Happy birthday @bluearrejon, here’s a little haiku written for you in celebration

iiicarus0:

gray

it’s difficult, it’s all just so difficult in a way that doesn’t quite make sense.

we go out to get something to eat together and there’s moment

after moment where i look at your hands or make you laugh and all

i want is more of it, more of those little moments and more,

your eyes on me, my head on your chest,

fingers moving deftly around a knife in a kitchen flooded with light,

something warm and soft and full that stings in a pleasant sort of way.

and it should be easy, i’ve always liked a little blood, always liked

the way a knife glints, always liked how it hurts when people turn away.

but it’s something different altogether, the scene’s washed in

some different kind of light. the actors are moving the same way,

we’re moving the same way, but everything is washed in red and crimson

instead of yellows and blues like it usually is, everything screams

danger and panic and grief, and it’s not familiar. it’s all wrong.

the knife raises and raises and then falls, and halfway down i can

see how it’ll all turn out, see the reflection in the camera lens, and it’s what i always wanted;

a hand reaching out to a flame and getting burned, then recoiling,

something glass and fragile being dropped from a height and shattering,

destruction and desolation and isolation and failure,

all these things i usually wanted, destruction just the way i liked it,

so why is everything crimson? where’s the horror movie soundtrack coming from?

fine, let’s change the scene. we’re on a road trip and i’m driving even

though my hands tremble on the wheel and you’ve got the radio cranked up

and you’re laughing and tossing an energy drink at me

and you look beautiful in the golden hour light and suddenly i’m hitting the brakes

and pulling off to the side of the highway because the gold shifted to crimson again.

this shouldn’t be difficult. it isn’t for everyone else.

they’ve always said it’s what makes us human. so why is it so difficult?

the director shouts again, again from somewhere and the scene shifts once more.

i’m sitting in a room illuminated by a screen your name is on and your voice is

in my ears and i’m laughing, and you’re laughing, and everyone is laughing.

you must notice that something is off because you remind me that you love me, that i’m a great friend,

but suddenly my hands are shaking again, over the keys now, and i hope

you don’t notice how unsteady my voice is when i laugh back at you,

that you don’t notice how the blood seeps out from the hollow of my chest

and trails down my ribcage, each beat twisting the knife a little more.

once more, with feeling, as if just saying that doesn’t wrench open the wound again.

we’re sitting under an old magnolia at the edge of my yard, secluded and rural.

you could scream and no one would hear you, you tell me,

and so i scream, and keep screaming, til my throat’s raw and

everything comes out red and half-gurgled. i scream and you look at me

and hold out a magnolia blossom, and we lie there together under the branches

in the hot july heat, waiting for the bad feelings to be chased away,

the knife cast away and left to rust in the tall grass somewhere else.

but that’s still not right.

but now i’ve pushed too hard and something’s wrong with the lighting on set,

crimson to green and grey and white, everything’s flashing and it’s hard to think,

and i think i see someone’s face, and i think they’re good and lovely and beautiful,

but everything is flashing and i can’t be sure, because everything is flashing

and my head is pounding and it’s too difficult to put a name to it.

what i’m feeling must be fear, but which kind? what i’m feeling

must be panic, but in what way?

when i see their face, am i afraid because i want something normal and friendly?

when i see their face, am i afraid because i want something else?

i keep trying to ask but the lights keep flashing and nobody answers.

this page of the script is blank and the director is shrouded in shadow and unresponsive.

tell me, which is it? is it love or not? can i feel love or not? can i be loved or not?

but there’s nobody working on set and i don’t know how to make the lights stop flashing.

the way they blend into each other, the way the crimson always finds a way to peek through the rest,

the way it’s all so overwhelming and god damn it’s so hard to think.

it’s supposed to be what makes us human. how are you supposed to know?

how can anybody know when it’s like this? are the lights flashing for everyone else?

fondness either grows or festers, then it’s shoved into my arms

and i have to figure out what to do with it. how am i supposed to know what it even is when the lights keep flashing?

i want to have someone, i want to be certain,

i want the scene to be holding hands in a well-lit room instead of being blind in the dark,

i want light, and i want gold, and i want the bad feeling to stay away.

-

hi, i’m ic and i’m grey-aromantic.

i’ve been feeling and thinking a lot about what that means to me lately, and figured that valentine’s day is as good a day as any to make a bit of that public, partly because i know i appreciated reading about other people’s experiences when i was trying to figure shit out, and partly because i’ve had this on my mind for so long that i kinda just want to share it.

until recently, i never had crushes. as a kid, i always figured i’d have a high school sweetheart, or find someone who makes me nervously excited with just a look eventually. and then i didn’t. for a while i thought i was aromantic, but when i found the term grey-aromantic (or grayro), something just clicked. here was a word for what i’d been feeling, or maybe what i hadn’t been feeling. here was validation for never having dated or had a crush, for feeling drawn to people but being uncertain regarding whether it was platonic or not, for having such a strange relationship with relationships.

a little over a year ago i started reading up on grey-aromanticism and felt that click. i finally stopped lying and telling myself i was completely aromantic (which was partly because of low self-esteem and partly because i’d never had a crush, which isn’t to say that aromantics are invalid because they’re just sad, not at all; that was merely my experience), and told myself that if i felt drawn to someone, i’d genuinely explore it instead of shutting it down like i had before.

onemaybe-a-crushand oneprobably-almost-certainly-a-crush later and my perspective has changed a bit, especially after the former. it made me realize that a significant part of me, in spite of all the anxiety and self-image issues, actually wants a partner. which sounds lame but as someone who spent a long time convincing myself i’d never have or deserve that, it feels nicer than i expected.

so yeah. happy valentine’s day, especially to my ace/aro spectrum folks. you’re not broken, no matter what a holiday might try and claim.

ceilingfan5:

Love

Love

Love love love

Sticky stuff poetry’s made of

Shines like syrup in the bottle 

Burns like acid, twists and mottles

Curls like ribbon, sweet and charming

Leaves a hollow pit, alarming

Surely this can’t be the stuff 

That makes your guts marshmallow fluff

Consider, hollow, haunted, aching,

Certainly they’re not all faking

So what makes you the odd one out?

Disbelief becomes self doubt

Becomes a horror neverending

Destined for a bitter ending–

Maybe something here is broken

A thing that should remain unspoken

Lest they understand what’s missing

And abandon you for touching, kissing–

For partners, bedrooms, dates and marriage

How cruel of you to itch, disparage–

When it’s your turn, you’ll understand,

The promise makes you just feel damned

To be alone, alone, alone,

A fate like death to be bemoaned–

How could you forsake hope like this?

Love is fate, is home, is bliss

Is something you’re allergic to

Something you lack the point of view

To comprehend, to touch, to know,

This fourth-dimension puppet show

You grasp at frames one at a time

They slip away, like jello, slime,

A puzzle missing half the pieces,

Concept as grippable as grease is.

Big picture insight keeps evading

While friends and foes are serenading

You’re doing calculus to appear 

Like someday too you’ll be held dear

But ever aching, chilling, howling

The truth is always watching, prowling

The chest hole where your heart should be

It never seems to hear your plea.

Perhaps it isn’t what it seems–

Blow that dream to smithereens

And comb the ashes for some insight

A different game, with effort, still might

Give you something to make sense of

Perspective helps drop pretense of

Love, love, love, love, oh love love love:

End all be all, below, above–

Romance might be for them, but you

Have a life to live for too. 

It might take some renovation,

Letting go of a fixation–

The world gave you a gift at birth

Set the orbit of your self worth–

Sweet satellite, my moon, my stars,

The world is theirs as much as ours

For love of flavors vast and varied

And things beyond the hope you carried.

The end is not a bed, a ring,

A galaxy so vast it sings

Awaits your heart, and soul, and feet.

This feast will take a life to eat–

My un-damned creature, your echo

Expects you, and if you let go

You’ll find there’s more than survival.

Go! We expect your arrival. 

You do not have to be the same

To live a life without that shame. 

It may take time to understand,

But i know you can withstand

A world not built for those like you.

You will find you are not alone,

The shackles shed, the seeds all sown,

Love, love love, love love love love, it

Isn’t fate. Romance can shove it. 

Vocal Point

Body talk

I listen raptly, rapacious for

Every shift, every rustle

Blood rushing to

All the peak places

The sighs, the moans

Deciphering meanings

Translating tongues

Slipping and sliding

Teach me the intricacies of

Your language; make me fluent

Whispering softly at first

Then volume rising

With intensity of feeling

Heed the hedonistic glee

Following each other’s lead

We will both get there

Gasping for air then preparing

To again hit those high notes

In harmony 

Interlinked

Traversing my walls

Taking tender steps yet

Sure-footed steady as you go

Putting me perfectly at ease

Laid-back onlooking between relaxed blinks

Of crinkled eyes, thinking with a satisfied

Sigh that this feels oh so right

As stoniness buckles under

The gentle sway of thoughtful touch

Bringing joyfully energizing

Vim and vigor to my days

Turning up the heat at night

Until we burst into flames

Fireworks colorfully lighting up the sky

Fourth of July has nothing

On our pyrotechnics display

Then we fumble drowsily sweet

Into dreamy gratified sleep

Reaching out for each other

Circuit complete

Redress

Dug out that dress–you know the one

I wore when we met, all eyeleted sunflowers

Swore I looked approachably sweet

Yet had your heart racing uncontrollably

Je ne sais quoi to buck the quotidian

An enchanting chance encounter

If only you unearthed the woman beneath

Took a dip beyond the shallow end

Peered past the Sunday-in-bed appeal

So I slip it on for me now, a better fit

More oomph than you’d know what to do with

Shadows Of A Ghost.

This darkness is so vast
I feel like I’m falling so fast.
And with every fall I fear
I’ll never make it out of here.
That one day you’ll wake and
I’ll simply disappear,
as if I was never really here.

Sometimes I Wonder..

Sometimes I wonder,
if you ever feel remorse
or understand the gravity
of the pain your actions caused.

I don’t think you do
or you wouldn’t continue,
to put me through the daily abuse.

Sometimes I wonder,
if you could go back
would you do it all over again?
If you knew now what you didn’t back then?