I comb dolphins out my hair,
cough out peonies and sit in the nook of the moon,
catching comets and planting their seeds
so they can grow back up up up
to the moon.
I create tempests, swell the oceans
and they are moved to applause.
I have primrose fingers and a fountain pen
that blossoms,
a springtime secret garden spilled over the page;
an entirely purple creation.
Lavender legs, I have lavender legs
and I stride down cloisters
leaving a violet mist.
A tea leaf smile, distilled and warm,
flora tumbling out of my ears.
Lavender legs, lavender legs,
I have lavender legs
and dolphins in my hair.
Anonymous said: I think a lot of people, myself included, love to hate you. You write great stuff, but don't necessarily participate in the writing community or support other people. This makes me which makes me not want to like your stuff and hate when I do. I think you frustrate people by saying that you don't give a fuck what other people think about your blog whilst incessantly reblogging your writing (presumably to get more notes). Clearly you have talent, but it also seems like you know that... too well.
You do understand that what you are basically saying is that you admire my writing but refuse to actually heart it just because we aren’t friends or have never talked before, right?
If by “not participating in the writing community” you mean that I do not talk much to other writers on tumblr then you are absolutely right. I don’t do that. I’m not here to make friends. That does not mean that if you want to get to know me better or simply talk to me I will tell you to fuck off. I never ignore the messages I get from my followers or even non-followers for that matter. In fact, I greatly appreciate each and every one of them. It’s just that being friendly to people I don’t even know is not my kind of thing. I appreciate that you follow me and enjoy the stuff I post but don’t expect me to send you messages and be all like “Hey, let’s be friends!” because that won’t happen. But, like I mentioned above, if you want to be friends or talk to me, you are more than welcome to do so.
I don’t know what you mean when you say that I don’t support other people. I do read what other writers post and if I like it, I will heart it. If you are a writer and I am following you then chances are that I have read your posts (not all of them, of course) and hearted your writing at least once. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.
I honestly don’t recall saying that I don’t give a fuck what other people think about my blog and I certainly don’t reblog my writing incessantly. In fact, I don’t even remember the last time I reblogged my own writing. But yes, when I do, I do it for notes. Or rather, I do it so that more people will read it. I don’t know who you are and how popular you are on tumblr, but if your writing ended up with 5 notes I think you’d feel the need to reblog it and give people that haven’t read it the chance to read it, too. After all, the main reason why writers post their writing on tumblr is because they want to share it with other people. And what other people think about my writing does matter to me otherwise I wouldn’t feel the need to post it on tumblr in the first place, I’d just keep it hidden inside my notebooks where no one can read it. Truth is, my writing does not get notes. Unless some editor features it, it hardly gets 10 notes more often than not. I feel ignored. I’ve tried for so long to figure out why my writing does not get a lot of notes even though I do have a lot of followers and I have always thought that it was simply because people don’t like what I write. But your message has helped me understand that it’s way more complex than that. It is because of people like YOU that my writing often gets ignored and ends up with like 4 notes. People like you are who are shallow enough to think that just because a person does not interact with other people on the internet then that should be reason enough to “hate” them and their work even if they are actually talented.
I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong.
I appreciate that you think I’m talented, though.
Vladimir Nabokov on different Lolita covers [x]
Will you still love me when I’ve got nothing but my aching soul?
Sometimes just one time can be enough.
Depreciate
My spine was the most unappreciated part of me. You had never seen it in its bare nakedness, satiny skin stretched tight over a sensuous serpent of bone, but now, while the moon squirmed in the sky like a bug struggling feebly in a puddle of ink, you could reach across the cushioned expanse of the mattress and touch it.
You brushed my unclothed spine with your fingertips, examining each curve, each crevice, as gracefully as an art fanatic handling a rare vase. You could feel all the beauty in the world, a lone daisy growing in a festering swamp, a premature baby’s first intake of breath, a freak oasis in a desert full of wandering souls, epitomized in a single stretch of interlinked vertebrae and cartilage and milky white bone.
Beyond the window, the night trembled, like an alive thing. Your breath caught in your throat.
You wondered how it was possible for me to exist. I was as vulnerable as a naked flame in this world, this world full of gunpowder and venom and melting ice caps, this world where the sound of slaughter scratched desperately at the glass bubble of the atmosphere with bloodied, ragged fingernails. I belonged in fairy tales; I should have been fluttering my delicate tissue paper wings in a child’s dream-cloud somewhere, not lying here with you beneath blankets that smelled of sweat and mildew. it didn’t seem real. it didn’t seem right.
You told yourself that one day you would climb my spine like a ladder, use my ribs as rungs. You would clamber up into my head so you could see how you looked through my eyes, with your corkscrewed hair and your shadow-ringed eyes and the coarse stubble fondling your cheeks, creeping up the column of your throat. Maybe I could do the same for you, feel the ache that you felt when you looked at me, because I was the closest thing that anybody could ever come to seeing an angel while their heart was still beating.
“Why can’t you see how beautiful you are?” you whispered into my hair.
Unaware, I dreamed on.
Essence
I spent my time
memorizing your essence.
The texture of your skin
as my fingertips danced upon it,
the warmth of your mouth
as you kissed me goodnight.
Everything started
and ended with you,
you had become routine.
Now my hands search for you
in the midst of the night
grasping sheets
until I grasp reality.
Fast Food & Road Trips to California
I have my fears and they hold me
close as if I am their daughter.
The sun rises and I feel the love you
planted in my heart dying, withering
away like an ocean shore,
high tide.
I rise above the Nevada heat
and I become your favorite song —
something you can hear of a thousand
times but never touch.
I become something intangible,
something far away,
something unreal.
I hope you write to me like I am your
daughter, away at college or
overseas,
I hope you watch plenty of Seinfeld,
and eat plenty of TV dinners,
I hope you do your duty as
a citizen, preventing forest fires,
no car accidents, feeding the cat.
I am not who I am,
but I am sorry.
