the girl i did not run over
looks at me with eyes that say
that i am part of the problem,
when i could have been her solution,
looks at me like she’s blaming me
for swerving away, like she’s measured
every one of her steps from her door
to the curb, and i am the one thing she failed
to account for.
i almost double back to try and tell her
all the same things that i have been told
but i do not. her feet are too heavy, by now.
her stomach too hollow. she does not
need more empty words to swallow, she does not need
stop signs or yield signs or ‘for the love of god
think of everyone you are leaving behind’ signs.
i do no
I had convinced myself years ago that I had loved before- the way that is much different than family or friends. And maybe I slightly had. But I soon realized this summer that I had never loved in the way you hope to love. I had never had such admiration and strong feelings for another human until this summer. I knew what it meant to feel electricity in your veins and butterflies in your stomach. But even then, I did not truly know love. I finally knew love when the person I cared dearly about became sick, and I found myself distraught at the thought- totally engulfed in their well-being. I found myself thinking, 'Even if we never speak anoth
murder has its sexual side by snowveins, literature
Literature
murder has its sexual side
i. you look up at me with a smile
on your lips and your nose touching
mine. i want to kiss you. i want to
make you love me and love me
and love me and love me and love me,
again and again, and then i want
to rip it all away. for once, i will walk away
unscathed.
ii. you say that you'll never write
another poem about me again,
but is that true? can you resist
looking into my eyes and drawing
comparisons to andromeda herself?
you want to love me, and i say do it:
tear out your heart and rip out your veins
and hand it to me on a silver platter.
i won't give you anything back.
iii. now you listen to all my favorite
bands, you play all my favori
Exploring you is a study
in duality—
I walk the steps of your spine
& when I reach either end
anything could be waiting.
You exist in too many forms
for one body to hold
& I want them all.
I stick myself to your flesh
& the constant bones,
I want to possess everything—
the marrow of you
the violin bow of your clavicle
the sternum
the femur
& phalanges.
What already possesses me.
I am greedy & want to eat
every piece of you—
I want you to devour me
& leave me picked clean.
You’ve caught me like
a stray animal—
I am wild & an affront
I am tamed & pliant.
I am my own switching poles
& my mind complements
why did you gamble that night daddy? (remember) by XSwan-SongX, literature
Literature
why did you gamble that night daddy? (remember)
I.)
winter tendrils
choked a child in the
back-room as they watched
the storms collide -
splintered wood and burning
fire steamed their father's
glasses (they saw the devil
in his soul that night)
II.)
and shaking hands could
not write fast enough to spill
the hurt, the lakes dried
up when they got a counsellor who
talked about magazines instead
of why parents gamble and why
they stole the other's credit card
(but most of all, please take away
the guilt they feel for not asking
him to stay home instead of playing
cards)
III.)
the smashed doors were rebuilt
but never opened to a child that
was just another statistic,
their parents think t
i.
your words drip with crimson
as you bite your lip;
you always liked to pretend
you held the strength of metal,
and now all that’s left is the aftertaste of copper
trickling down your throat-
what happened to the child throwing pennies in the fountain?
ii.
hidden under the threaded sleeves of your sweater,
I can picture your hands shaking like earthquakes
and your fists held clenched;
I worry your fingernails cut dashed lines
into the palms of your hands,
like the ones painted on back roads and highways-
I’m worried where you plan on going
iii.
viewing your puffy eyes and hearing woebegone-winded words
tangle on your tra
begin. (disconnected like the lonely stars) by XSwan-SongX, literature
Literature
begin. (disconnected like the lonely stars)
gossamer threads
spin in the ceiling;
bitter green glass tasting
of ginger spices and
bottled
confusion. (dust in the back of my throat)
the phoenix took his
flight between the
strings of a violin i
don't know how to play but
wish i could, the notes
i know are on repeat
like
a
joke that's funny to
them but not to me
(i hate laughing,
i do it all the time.)
my thoughts are
s c a t t e r e d
in the winds
like Autumn leaves, hearing things
that are not real (pretending again)
but feel
real (more lifelike than this
cold skin on a warm keyboard)
i don't know how to
make the incoherency of
the human mind into
a language defined by
definit
i got drunk on the blue of your eyes again. by XSwan-SongX, literature
Literature
i got drunk on the blue of your eyes again.
i.) yellow:
you are sick, I've caught you
vomiting in the downstairs
sink four times this week (that's four times too many),
ribs jutting out from dying
canvas skin; maybe i'll play the keys
on your bones instead of playing your
sister's piano badly (it makes you
smile sometimes, even though we both suck.)
still, i hold you even when
i feel like you'll
ii.) snap:
the elastic band on your left wrist is
terrifyingly loud as we huddle in silence
outside of hell, waiting for the devil to
hook you up to his various
machines. maybe it's my fault i
called him but there's plenty of
blame to go around in our house
nowadays.
(you broke my gr
that the only thing i learned
from eating dinner at the table
was your opinions never matter
and it's better to be silent
than sorry, my Mother used to
box her ears in every time
i accidentally broke a biblical law
and what
if i confessed
that my sister is the one
my mother loves the best, even
when i came home with
certificates and commemorations
that never meant anything
in a Christian household
'cause i kissed another girl
in year 10 and the teacher
wrote an angry letter home
(and the girl eventually left
me alone anyway)
and what if i admitted
that the only thing i ever
learned in maths was how
to plot the angle of my
death and the r
I heard someone sarcastically sputter,
"You are what you eat."
But hearing that sole sentence
allowed me to finally understand
why I am
what I am:
Nothing.