red rusts the nails of hate in my chest puncture wounds nested in congealed thoughts that slowly creep into the open space i created to keep me away and safe twisted up in my mouth is everything i want to say but can't fit through the vines i've wrapped around myself
Today prayer is a place that holds your voice until it can speak - palatoglossal arches above rows, the pulpit, and its oration - hymnals pulled from pockets behind pews with a mouth that barely moves - mumbles, a lump in the throat - the voice splitting. As the congregation leaves yesterday's prayers surge the candles in the wind still sounding in their Ss between rows of pews with those who'd still come between sermons - linger in the oratory, take our prayer into their breast. I can see them better than the ghosts of loved ones filling the pit of the entranceway, and I wonder if this is faith dying or coming to life as we come with palms ready, with pockets filled and fumbling with keepsakes to lay on the altar like loose threads unraveled from the heart, our mouths tired.
CAN YOU TELL A LIE, OR CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET by RJBG, literature
Literature
CAN YOU TELL A LIE, OR CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET
Do you believe in magic The slight of hand or the trick of an eye Or are you of the enchanted A slight of hand a twist of fate A believer in the supernatural Or are you of the haunted A slight of fate a twist of hand A believer of the superstitious A penny for your thoughts A penny for your soul A pocket full of gold A saucer full of secrets A pail full of penniless souls The wishing well of hidden spells of broken wishes of spoken secrets Can you keep a secret, or can you tell a lie
sometimes i look down at my hands and remember all the love they didn’t bring. how hard it is to grow into being soft. i remember choking out love like a man scorned. i remember hiding its body under the bed. i used to be nothing but scars. i’m not that person anymore. this isn’t a plea for help. i once named myself mars and let my body be a warhammer. now i know that even falling stars are beautiful when they’re burning. i used to think strength meant no lovers, kept everyone out like there was some sort of prize to it. there isn’t. used to think people were just shit to be scraped off my shoes. it takes a lot of growth, to get where i am. people are in everything. it is not a crime to love them. please know that i’ve taken the time to file off the callouses. my hands will never be the softest ones to hold you but i will love you all the same.
maybe, my advice becomes be your own kind of gravity hold yourself or let yourself as much as you are comfortable fly from branch knowing your branch is ready to receive you shhhh secrets you are your own branch, gravity wings, flight you
This Cannot Be A Mourning Spot by Moonbeams, literature
Literature
This Cannot Be A Mourning Spot
I'm too small to understand the momentum
of your weightless frame sinking into your chair,
into a living room -- armrests
rising around you
as all the lanes, and avenues you traveled
sweep the arch of their precipice,
come crashing like bones settling,
like loss of height.
It never occurred to me
that holding on to you
could be so easy
as the scent of your cigars
still wafting on a wind
here, and there --
a current that knows you,
carries you
unbroken.
We huddled deep
in the recesses of our home
like a school of fish -
us and ghosts,
and the recluses before us
in the spotlight of the moon,
in the dim lights
like the fluorescenc
the moon is out in all its glowing glory, peeking through tree trunks and chimney sweeps and far across the land. + 2 girls sit on a rooftop with their fingers overlapping and their heads full of the sort of magick intention that young witches have. the stars are out spread across the skies with of outer space + Lady Moon is awake. 2 girls sit on a rooftop with their legs overlapping and their faces filled with moonlight and lust + dusk has come too soon. Lady Moon blesses the deer and the bears and the 2 girls on the rooftop underneath the moon before she wakes the sun. a fierce girl of yellowed hair she rules the night + makes a home + shoots the arrows through the sky without batting an eye. [ + she kisses girls! everyone knows ]. Lady Moon never gets bored of the night or the view or of looking @ midnight women. and she is a beauty which doesn't rival the moon [ but neither do you ]. the elk and the birds cross her path + they do not run she can see herself in wildlife and
here’s the thing; i want to ghazal. i want to sonnet and villanelle. glosa and ode but i can only do these things in sparsity like so many others. something doesn’t click right - i reach for the sound and it doesn’t come. i grab for rhyme in the same way i grab for love; clumsily, and without understanding - i wouldn’t even notice it if i got it i don’t think. i don’t think about much. my envy is cruel my envy has claws and i’ve already told you i grab; i am not gentle. to knit words i was not taught. i learned through pain. when i write it is not the needle and the thread but the wound to be stitched. there is neatness in the form that i have not been able to find through all the blood.