I Fell In Love With You In The Summer.

I fell in love with you in the summer. 

It was hot and dry and my lips cracked and bled every time I smiled. You made me smile a lot. I like to think it was a metaphor. You made me taste death every time I laughed. Or maybe life. I could never distinguish the two with you. 

Anyway. I dreamed of you, sometimes. You made me laugh and my lips would crack and bleed and you would lean over and kiss me. My friend said it means I desired intimacy but that the blood meant I was scared. She was into Freudian dream analysis. I never liked him, anyway. 

I guess she wasn’t wrong though. I dreamed about you more than I’d like to admit. In my dreams, you were poetry. In my poetry, you were the dream of you. I laughed and my lips bled and you kissed me and I tasted death. Sometimes you wouldn’t stop at kissing me. Sometimes you would keep kissing me, keep swallowing me, keep consuming me until you’d devoured me entirely. 

“Cannibalism as a metaphor for love,” I’d once said. “What do you think?” 

You’d made a face. “I think it’s gruesome. Romanticizes weird things, you know? Like those people who defend the serial killers ‘cause they think they’re hot.” 

I didn’t tell you that sometimes, I dreamed that I bared my neck for you, and that you’d torn it apart, my heart between your teeth. A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism. 

Anyway. It was summer and school was over and everything was golden. When the light hit your eyes right they looked golden. Sometimes they were dark, a soft brown like the piano I tried to teach you to play on and the damp earth after the summer storm. Sometimes they were blue like the sky or the sea and I was suffocating, drowning. When they were gold, they were like amber, sweet-sticky-thick, trapping me. Everything looked golden when you looked at me like that. I didn’t protest so long as you kept looking at me like that. 

It was your birthday yesterday. I wish I didn’t remember. I wish I didn’t text you even though you hadn’t talked to me in months. “Hey. Happy birthday.” It’s dinner time and my mom yells at me because I keep checking my phone. You text me the next day. “Thanks.” I don’t know if I’m disappointed or relieved or angry. I bite my lip. It’s bleeding again. “No problem.” 

You don’t reply. 

Anyway. I quit piano. I look into my father’s eyes and see you. Blue eyes that make me feel like I’m dying. “Oedipus complex,” my friend says knowingly. “You go after the familiar.” Sometimes I wish I didn’t remember your birthday. You didn’t remember mine. My father didn’t remember my mother’s, but he bought a girl a multi-hundred dollar gift for her birthday. She was closer to my age than his. You sent me a picture of yourself shirtless. My father sent a nude to her. I dated a boy just to see what it was like to be wanted. Maybe that’s why my father cheated. Maybe that’s why you kept talking to me like you could love me. It was summer and everything looked golden and I let you keep using me so long you looked at me like you loved me. I don’t know if I am more like my mother or my father. They are both unhappy. It scares me. Who am I?

Anyway. Sometimes I dream that you kiss me and I taste my own blood on your lips. Sorry about that. Sorry about the mess. Sorry that I bleed every time you speak. Sorry that I gave you my mess of a heart. Sorry that I loved you. I’ll keep bleeding for you. Just keep looking at me like that. Just keep telling me you love me. 

I fell in love with you in the summer. My lips cracked and bled every time you made me smile. I like to think it’s a metaphor. Maybe this summer I won’t remember your birthday. Maybe. 

First, her hands are cold when she touches you. Her lips are like the cool breeze of winter. When her fingers intertwine with yours it is like holding a corpse. When she exhales her lovely sighs ghost across your skin like fog. 

Second, you bare your throat for her, all jaw slope nape collarbone, all warm wet blood and soft skin. She runs her fingers down your neck, trailing down your skin like a half-finished sentence, tracing circles. 

Third, the pain is brief. Her lips graze your pulse, your heart caught between her teeth, and for a moment you are a rabbit in the jaws of a fox. Then it is her hand cradling your face, her skin against yours, hazy bliss and red running down your throat and her lips. 

Fourth, the moon is the only witness as she whispers my love will kill you, darling. You raise a hand to her cheek, red and sticky, and tell her she is beautiful. In the mirror, you are speaking to a ghost. 

Fifth, you are bleeding and she is hungry and you are dying in her arms. You are torn flesh and cut jugular and blood spilling out far faster than she can drink. You think she might be crying but it mixes with your blood on her face, on her lips, on her teeth. She cradles you in her arms, hands trembling. Her hands are pressed against your neck but your life still seeps between her fingers. 

Sixth, she is hungry. She is hungry and you are the only thing that can sate her. You look at her, bloody teeth eyes face skin clothes, red like blush on her skin, rosy and full of life, red from your blood as you die. You look at her and tell her she is beautiful. 

Seventh, she says your name. 

You do not respond. 

you’re such a beautiful tragedy.

you’re so pretty

it hurts;

you’re just this sort of

painful pretty

you know—

the kind that makes you

sink to your knees in reverence

the kind that has you begging

knees bruised from crawling

the kind that’s doomed from the start

because you have more pieces of me

than there are stars in the sky

and I could drown in the tears

I’ve shed for you

but I’d drown for you

of course,

with your name on my lips

the words

I love you I love you I love you

a prayer—

because that lovely pain

makes this love

such a beautiful tragedy.

it is a slow and dampening torture when no one will listen to you. hydraulic press on your tongue. a whistle that screams through your blood. when-and-if you explode, you are treated as if radioactive; others flinch in shame.

are you sick? are you sad? are you actually in pain? it is selfish to be attention-seeking, right. they will tell you that it is "brave" to ask for help, but when you ask for help, they'll suggest a hotline. the hotline will suggest you see a doctor before disconnecting. the doctor will suggest you drink more water and lose weight.

are you asking him to put in more effort? to plan dates? to actually-clean around the house? to be genuinely interested in your life? someone tells you that you should never beg to be loved, but if you leave him, they'll ask why you didn't try talking it over first. if you leave because he doesn't wash the dishes, you're being unfair. if he cheats, you should have treated him better. you're a nag and a witch and now you're ruined goods.

are you struggling? how's that rent check. well, keep hustling! it'll be okay slapped in a bumper sticker over your face. good luck, babe.

at a certain point you stop trying to shout. there's no point anyway.

Was wishing there was a positivity post for original fiction writers since I see so many about how fanfic writers are doing so much for their communities even when they're not actively writing, and then I thought:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

So this is a positivity post for the writers out here who are working very hard on stories with no established community. Who can't talk about their blorbos and plot lines and brainstorming to anyone and expect them to know what any of it means. Who don't have much to share publicly, but are hoping they will one day.

You're doing a lot of hard work, and I recognize and appreciate what you're putting into the world, even when you're resting.

Of bad seeds, mad lies and wallflower

your town is grey. on a rainy day, it whispers to the permafrost that has kept you town folks buried up to your chests. you and your ice cocoon — have you lost your voice or never borrowed one?

o valley boy

the midnight sky has lent colour to your eyes, beneath the moon.

your deranged town plants seeds of infatuation / soaking them in tears of yearning / years of learning has taught them how to grow fruits of mad love.

l o v e

orange peels. pomegranate seeds.

last nail in the coffin.

twisted tongues ~ in acid wash.

you sell (demolish) bouquets of wallflowers — taking apart their withering petals, one at a time. they die screaming the hymn of love for your sake : ever parched, swallowing the last drop of your sweetheart ocean…

you hell hummers

melt in the slightest inconvenience of love.

like mad dogs on a bad day / you lick the leftover lies off a razor-edged knife / stained in scarlet promises of your carved frozen heart.

valley boy, cry a river

like a lovesick infant, choke on the pith of your forbidden harvest ~

moon witness / rinds of ebony & ivory ate your bitter town / when repulsive lies sprouted of rotten seeds / they made you sick.

s i c k

succulent eyeballs. perennial misfortune.

tendrils of affection: limb climbers.

in love ~ with love ~ for love ~ of love

speak now or forever hold your p{i}e{a}ce.

— circadeacademia