He was dark, he was filled with stories like the serpent in myths; each white tooth contained a story and each story a hundred others, they were all within him, intertwined, sleeping. The stranger, flashing with legends, he cannot be overcome. Once they have escaped him, these hymns, these jokes, these lies join with air, they are breathed, they cannot be filtered out. He is like the prow of a ship cutting through seas of sleep. Silence is mysterious, but stories fill us like the sun.

I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you. Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through. Tell me what the word “home” means to you and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mothers name just by the way you describe your bed room when you were 8. See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate and if that day still trembles beneath your bones. Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow? And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms? Or would you leave the snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree? And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek? Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad, even if it makes your lover mad? Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? See, I wanna know what you think of your first name. And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mothers joy when she spoke it for the very first time. I want you tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind. Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel.

Here’s what our parents never taught us:

You will stay up on your rooftop until sunlight peels away the husk of the moon,
chainsmoking cigarettes and reading Baudelaire, and
you will learn that you only ever want to fall in love with someone
who will stay up to watch the sun rise with you.

You will fall in love with train rides, and sooner or later you will
realize that nowhere seems like home anymore.

A woman will kiss you and you’ll think her lips are two petals
rubbing against your mouth.

You will not tell anyone that you liked it.
It’s okay.
It is beautiful to love humans in a world where love is a metaphor for lust.

You can leave if you want, with only your skin as a carry-on.

All you need is a twenty in your pocket and a bus ticket.
All you need is someone on the other end of the map, thinking about the supple
curves of your body, to guide you to a home that stretches out for miles
and miles on end.

You will lie to everyone you love.
They will love you anyways.

One day you’ll wake up and realize that you are too big for your own skin.

Molt.
Don’t be afraid.

Your body is a house where the shutters blow in and out
against the windowpane.

You are a hurricane-prone area.
The glass will break through often.

But it’s okay. I promise.

Remember,
a stranger once told you that the breeze
here is something worth writing poems about.

What Lot’s Wife Would Have Said (If She Wasn’t A Pillar of Salt) / Karen Finneyfrock

Apple Tragedy - Ted Hughes

For the Men Who Still Don’t Get It

It’s midnight now and somewhere in a November
that still exists tonight, we’re kissing each other’s knuckles
for the first time.

I’ve swallowed hearts like apricots
and I’ve watched as the juice of being in love
dripped down my chin and spread like watercolors
across my skin.

— I’ve seen what shades I feel in
when I feel in shades of
you.

I’ve lived through seven seas of heartbreak
but I wouldn’t take any of it back
because on each shoreline I found another reason
to let someone lead me into the waves
with my eyes closed.

Do you remember how raw the night seemed
when we cracked the moon over our teeth and let its
yolk run down our throat?

Salmonella or not,
I loved you then.

It’s April now,
and there are showers, like they promised.

Driving around in the rain today,
someone told me that May would be
beautiful again.

But fuck it. I don’t want May flowers.
I only want
you.

in the rain-

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste, 
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ‘tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

~Emily Dickinson

(via arcaniums)

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topographe:

art history

(via topographe)

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thoughtsofaangrylittlelady:

rachel-menard:

Saw this guy just after we ate- people would walk up to him, hand over some change and spit out some words, and his fingers would begin to fly. I was too intimidated to ask him for a poem, but Sarah bought two, for $3 each- “Indecision” and “Age”. Indecision was for me, and read as follows:

“Perhaps she’ll love the green of Portland

Flowing off into the hills

Where again I learned to feel

Or maybe the crowded hive of New York

Buzzing into the seam of morning and night

Or the path not yet displayed

and I am lost in so many ways

Like Carolyn’s smile in Ireland

I can contemplate again and again

But knowing is just a thought back to when.

Lynn Gentry

lynngentryprose.com

Indecisive

985 Valencia

July 1, 2012”

Nice

(via yamino)

You could drown in those eyes, I said, so it’s summer, so it’s suicide, so we’re helpless in sleep and struggling at the bottom of the pool.

I want to write a sad poem but I’m not sad.
I am less than sad. Negative sad. I am looped
television laughter. I move through the trail
cloaked in bath water & the water never gets cold.
I shouldn’t be sad or sleep all day, I should lie
under the floorboards of our wagon, tell the spiders
to mind their distance, just swallow the poison.
i want to wrestle the bear that haunts your dreams
& eats our children. They are beautiful children,
in their hiking boots, climbing hills like they’ve
done this before, like they know why we sleep
on top of each other, so preious all of us humming
last spring. I want to lust for lust & your tongue
over my shoulder blades, but all I can think about
is building a snowman with your face on its white
frame. Your teeth look the best when you’re naked.
I close my eyes, count to ten thousand. I close my
eyes & forget why I closed my eyes. On the trail
everything smells green. You tell me I always want
to smell naked. A thief comes in the middle of the night,
leaves wild fruit, a note that says he found God
in a Wal-Mart parking lot. When we’re older I’ll lock
the front door of our house so tight the calcium
in our bones won’t be able to get out.

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(via newton-pulsifer)