I Am Three

I am three

I ask my mother to have ice cream for dinner

And she says no

And I promise myself that

When I grow up

I will have ice cream for dinner

I am ten

The people at my new school make fun of my hair

My arms

My legs

My teeth

I tell my mother I want to take my skin off

I want to pluck my bones out

She tells me I could try waxing

I could get braces

She tells me it will hurt

And I promise myself that

When I grow up

I will be beautiful

I will be able to handle the pain of changing my body

I am fifteen

The doctor says I need to be admitted to the hospital

I say no

My parents say I do not get a choice

I'm a minor

And I promise myself that

When I grow up

My "no" will matter

I will get to choose when and how I heal

I will get to choose if I don’t

I am 17 and there is ice cream in the freezer

And I eat it for dinner

But the satisfaction isint as sweet as I thought it would be at three

I miss my mother and decide to have a side of vegetables too

I am 17 and I am beautiful because I say so

I am 17 and decide to heal because I deserve to

I am 17

I am not grown up

I am still growing

I think I will be for a while

I would like to be loved

And perhaps this is selfish of me

But if the most selfish thing I do

In this life

Is long

To be wanted

So be it

For I have already

Burned for this sin

My desire a fire

That has left me scarred

And my heart

Disfigured

And life is funny that way.

In the way she gave me the ability to speak, only to render me speechless so often.

In the way she gave me a voice, and a dread of using it.

The way she gave me all the words in the world, and feelings none of them could describe.

And life is funny that way.

In the way she sends me desire for those who will never desire me.

In the way she gives me a heart made of grasping palms and nothing to hold.

The way she shows me religion then baptizes me in doubt when I most need to trust in something other than myself. And in this way she keeps me close. For what do I have if I do not have her?

And life is funny that way.

In the way she gives me the world to write about and yet sends me poems about you over and over and over.

In the way she compels me to write about forever and eternity and the vastness of space, while hypnotizing me with my mortality on a heart string swaying in front of me always.

The way she asks me to write about love and gives me only tastes of it. Watches amused as I pen page after page trying to recreate a feast on paper. Trying to quench the ravenous appetite she left me with, only to witness me fail time and time again. Smiling as I go to bed starving.

And life is funny that way.

In the way she gives me the will and yet no way.

The way she teaches me how to want, but not how to have, not how to keep.

The way she makes it my deepest desire to be known completely and yet my greatest fear.

The way she gifts me already broken promises.

And life is funny that way

By which I mean

Life is a cruel mistress

And every piece of my shattered heart

Is hers

Everyone says they would rather skip the small talk

Get to the deep stuff

The important things

As though the little things are not the entrance to the heart

The cracks and crevices not the softer way

To make home in ones affection

Over breaking open the ornate doors

Of their chambers

Leaving them bleeding out

So tell me

How you take your eggs

And that ponytails make your scalp itch

Tell me how long it takes you to drive to work

And where you like to sit on the train

Talk to me about weather

And about how you keep forgetting to take out the trash

So that one day when I show up with a cup of tea just the way you like it

And we talk the long path home

Just past the mural you love on 22nd street

You will know

Just how important

The little things are

To me

When they belong to you

~ i met her in September

I had a dream that the king and the queen of a small country had a daughter. They needed a son, a first-born son, so in secret, without telling anyone of their child’s gender, they travelled to the nearby woods that were rumoured to house a witch.

They made a deal with that witch. They wanted a son, and they got one. A son, one made out of clay and wood, flexible enough to grow but sturdy enough to withstand its destined path, enchanted to look like a human child. The witch asked for only one thing, and that was for their daughter.

They left the girl readily.

The witch raised her as her own, and called her Thyme. The princess grew up unknowing of her heritage, grew up calling the witch Mama, and the witch did her very best to earn that title.

She was taught magic, and how to forage in the woods, how to build sturdy wooden structures and how to make the most delicious stews. The girl had a good life, and the witch was pleased.

The girl grew into a woman, and learned more and more powerful magics, grew stronger from hauling wood and stones and animals to cook, grew smarter as the witch taught her more.

She learned to deal with the people in the villages nearby, learned how to brew remedies and medicines and how to treat illness and injury, and learned how to tell when someone was lying. 

Every time the pair went into town, the people would remark at just how similar Thyme was to her mother. 

(Thyme does not know who and what she is. She does not know that she was born a princess, that she was sold. She only knows that one night after her mother read her a story about princesses and dragons, her mother had asked her if she ever wanted to be a princess.)

((Thyme only knows that she very quickly answered no. She likes being a witch, thank you very much, she likes the power that comes with it and the way that she can look at things and know their true nature.))

The witch starts preparing the ritual early, starts collecting the necessities in the winter so they can be ready by the fall equinox. Her daughter helps, and does not ask what this is for, just knows that it is important.

The witch looks at Thyme, both their hands raised into the air over a complicated array of plants, tended carefully to grow into a circle, and says, sorry.

Keep reading

Hurricanes blossom

All disasters were once children

For they had to grow

Learn to be

The tragedy they were destined for

And in this way can any crisis

Be averted?

For who are we to interfere

with fate?

~

My lips are bruised peaches

My melancholy a docile creature most days

I wonder if in another life I will become

A medium size star for what I have done

Or for all I have not

Ordained for the most gruesome of celestial deaths

Planetary nebula

All the violence of unbecoming

Without the supernova beauty of unravelling

~

I have never been kissed

I have never been held like

Blooming daffodils

Like the black hole before it

Becomes.

Do you think the black hole is

Deserving

Of what it takes?

Do you think it cruel?

Do you think it does not hate what it has become?

Do you not think it tries to be

Small?

To take less?

Do you think it is easy to

Devour the world

To hold the universe in the pit of yourself and still feel

Empty

To be insatiable

To repent for the hunger

Gifted to you by oblivion

~

We have only ever seen

One side of the moon

And in this way I mourn

But who could I still become

If I stopped grieving the loss

Of the woman I thought I would be

~ and even the end must first begin