How to love a girl who can't love herself. by lupus-astra, literature
Literature
How to love a girl who can't love herself.
one.
When she cries herself to sleep
six out of seven nights a week you must
say nothing. You must simply take
her in your arms and kiss her gaunt,
pale cheeks and wait for her to
slumber at the sound of your heart.
two.
On the days where she wishes she
were part of the stars, tell her
no. Tell her that there are too many
lights in the sky and that just one
would be forgotten the moment you looked
away from it. Tell her that she is perfect
the way she is: completely human.
three.
Don't let her think about the scars
that no one but her can see. If she
says
last night i caught her with a finger so far down the back of her throat,
she pulled up her thoughts
into all the water
a refraction of light &
a trout
suspended until suddenly all the water in her head sloshes
(a faint inner ripple
as the pain leaks out her ears, her nose)
she was gasping to throw herself onto the next comma
but no
she sinks or swims [the cliche, a baracuda, drags her down]
but if this was a love song
she'd hate it
because she's already written 46 on her hand
to remind herself she's only human & a weak gag reflex runs in her family
so walk straight in, my love
& sink to the bottom
six feet under these bulimic stars
I do not like you poets by insomniaplague, literature
Literature
I do not like you poets
I do not like you poets
breathing into my sorry head
like the air hasn't been wasted a half-a-million times
folding up my lungs
to place them neatly into a wastebasket
how can you make me stop hurting
& then just leave me
a limp lettuce leaf
on the backside of some dirty napkin verse
I am not the jealous type
but I'm going to call up Melpomene & ask her where she's been
send her drunk texts
all night
because I'm too tired of filling up my skull
with cicada skins instead of led
while you make it all too easy
to sleep through a heartattack or two
my pygmalion, my god, my thing of legends
tell me
when you were being taught the siren's son
The Psychiatry Of Lonely Nights
I.
we open your chest,
we find his words tucked inside
they hide within each crevice
each folded, words from letters,
you stored them in your ribs,
you'd swallowed them whole,
flossing them between bones
and sealing them closed
only to open to us lonely nights
or a sleepless time
or a remembered phrase at the bedside
once covered over by parietal
peritoneum and solemnstitch,
hopethread, worryneedle,
pierce of each enunciation
and far-off thought
cut apart by an ample knife
a thoughtful gaze
heart hurt to see the sight
feeling like concrete
sifted around the valves
off-set with cracks
al