to pieces-
only so she can
see the sky;
(she
wants to dance with the stars,
hold them in her sweaty palm
and watch them float
softly humming
and dancing
around her;
she craves light)
"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." -Sylvia Plath
she imagines cutting her ceiling
to pieces- only so she can see the sky; (she wants to dance with the stars, hold them in her sweaty palm and watch them float softly humming and dancing around her; she craves light)
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I reach up,
and feel the stickiness of the blood that runs down my lip. Passed out on the couch, Dad’s pale skin is glistening and his eyes softly shut. I don’t cry, I don’t know how. I’m flying as Nana lifts me over her shoulder. Her skin is soft and plump and I rest my head on her breast, Small circles of red spot her clean blouse. The taste of iron slowly Falls onto my tongue Through the newly formed Gap of ebony that outshines The ivory. I once felt beautiful
walking down the street. My head was raised higher than the trees that surrounded the city and my hands could almost capture the sun in my palms. People that I had towered over felt differently towards my pride. The words that quietly glided off of their tongue felt like a small sting around my body. My happiness started to dissolve away and the feeling of self-hate that had once been covered began to rise up again. My height became more and more meaningless and trees started to grow as I began to shrivel up. The self-confidence that once devoured me had moved on to it’s next victim and left me feeling that everything it had given me was a waste; I was narcissistic for thinking that I was beautiful. I want to go back and capture that young girl by the face and tell her that the confidence that resides in her make her beautiful, not the fat on her tummy. That beauty cannot be ridiculed by anyone since you have made it, you have gained it, and you have lived it. You are allowed to have your head held high at all times and be sure of the ballads that leave the cave they were carved in. I want to tell every girl that looks in the mirror and whispers that their stomach is too large, their breasts too tiny, their freckles too bright that they are all gifts; tell them to take pride in their bodies; tell them that everything about them is beautiful. No matter their weight, or other factors that have been handed to us through life, they have the right to hold their head up higher than anything in this universe and it cannot be ripped away from their hands. I want them to feel the way that young girl on the street should have felt. Love isn’t soft like those writers say.
Love is death, it’s poison that you can’t break away from. You desire it, you crave it at night, but it will kill you in the end. It’s the worst drug; it won’t leave you with sunken cheeks or messed up teeth, it will leave you with scars. It will leave you with dried up tears that run down your face. She has eyes that look like violets but underneath are serpents. They will suck you and you won’t realize it until they have you around the neck, choking you while you think about the mistake you made for loving her. Her voice will sound like honey dripping but it’s blood, it’s poison. When she kisses you she’ll have you under her spell and will never let you go, you can never leave. When she leaves you standing in your bedroom all alone you will feel like your lungs are collapsing; your heart will feel like it’s going to jump out of your chest and you can’t do anything to stop it. There’s no way to stop it. She’s killed you, and that’s that. Love isn’t nice. Love is just an excuse to get hurt. The world was not made to hurt you.
When your chest feels like it may collapse and your heart feels like it’s locked up inside your stomach, unable to break free, you aren’t allowed to blame anyone but yourself. The harsh reality of it all is that all the pain, all the suffering that lingers over you in dreams and waits for you at the end of the hallway was put there by you. When you wake up in the morning and the sunlight is streaming perfectly through your window and all you can focus on is that stain on your shirt, you’ve done that to yourself. You wrapped yourself in a blanket of sadness and you want to escape. You put so many layers around your body, hoping that it would keep you warm, but now you’re suffocating from the heat and feel like you need to rip it to shreds. These layers were supposed to help you, but, my dear, it’s not that easy. You’re going to have to wake up every morning and open your windows wide so you can greet the morning, so she can kiss your cheeks with warmth and fill your body with a feeling that you don’t understand. You have to smile at every living being, you have to talk to plants even if people think that you look like a psycho. The hatred that surrounds you will then fall, piece by piece, slowly but surely, around you. How could you let the sadness absorb you? It's January and you woke up screaming
but no one heard you. You feel like you're going to die. The pill bottle shifts from hand to hand but the sound of your mother's footsteps coming down the hallway stop you. It's February and you are watching the couples holding hands and kissing from your window and you feel like you'll never be able to love anyone. You've begun to cry during class and the friends that once stood by you for all these years are now standing with their heads casting downwards, finding more interest in their brand new shoes than helping you. It's March and the snow's starting to melt again and you can see the grass again. Maybe if the tiniest organisms can sprout after being buried for so long, maybe you can too. It's April and toddlers are splashing in rain puddles, singing "April showers bring May flowers!" You've begun to smile more and more each day and your therapist took your hand and told you that he is so, so proud of you and everything you've overcome. It's May and flowers have begun to spring up in every corner. You take this as a sign, that this is your future as well. You're going to come a long way from being a small, rotten seed under miles and miles of dull concrete only to become the most beautiful, colorful flower in the middle of the sidewalk. It's June and you've thrown away your razors, your excess pills, and your sadness. You can wear short sleeves again and not feel the need to keep your arms pressed against your side. You've stopped faking being happy to your therapist. It's July and it's your birthday. Your father's gift to you is to keep beer bottles from coming close to his parted lips, but you know not to trust this statement. You won't give your father the satisfaction of watching you fall for his tricks again. It's August and you're back in school. The friends that you had from last year have all left and you're sitting alone at your lunch table but you've never felt happier. You've always been afraid of people watching you but today you smile at everyone who catches your eye. It's September and your therapist tells you that this is your last appointment. He gives you a small book of poetry and a CD full of "grand music" that he says to listen to if you feel like you're going back into that state of mind again. It's October and the leaves are changing and so are you. It's November and you're sitting at the dinner table with your family, your aunt's casting you strange looks this year because you take two scoops of mashed potatoes instead of 1/4. Your uncle nudges your shoulder and tells you he's never been more proud of someone in his life. It's December and you're reflecting on your year. You loved you. You caught your life between your fingertips and got it to stay. You let it sing to you. You made it. You are here. You are not your grade point average.
You are the books you read at 3am curled under the blankets. You are the dreams running through your head. You are not your weight or the pimple on your cheek. You are the way you walk, you are a breath of fresh air. You are not your religion, your sexuality, your gender. You are light shining through a window in the morning. You are the skies and the stars and they are only litter clogging the ocean that you are. |