[x]

being in love.it's like when you were five, when your pet rabbit died
and you learned that nothing good lasts.

it's like the time you dropped him off at his house to watch tv
before you drove yourself to the emergency room, sobbing.

it's like the first time you saw your kindergarten teacher cry.

it's like ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes. ashes.

it's like when he went too far, and he said, "is this okay?"
and you said, "no," but it didn't matter.

it's like when he said, "but i want you."

it's like the number seven, or rubies.

it's like when you almost drowned in the pool in north carolina
and when you looked up through the

telling a sad story backwards-17.

it smells like grief and sterilized metal.

i climb into andrew’s bed, though the nurses have strictly forbidden it. he closes his eyes and holds me tightly, because he says when he can’t see me, it is easier to pretend i never happened to him.

15.

he pushes the cart aggressively down the aisle, pretending to mow over old ladies doing their sunday shopping.

"stop," i say giggling, lobbing a can of ravioli at him.

for a moment i think he simply didn't see me throw the can; it glances off his chest and falls to the floor, exploding in a pattern of red arrows. i don't notice his eyes rolling back in his head or the graceful wa

roadsigns.i.
i have searched maps, road signs,
songs, hearts. i have opened my eyes
and my hands to the rain, fairytales
singing in my ears. i have closed my eyes
and let my nightmares and demons
find me, i have

screamed on the insides, heart
barely beating. i have dreamed
of my own destruction, whispered
into the silence, prayed for the answer -

ii.
could i ask you for one last favor?

when you're sad, remember the way
i would hug you. when you're laughing,
remember that my laughter doesn't sound
the same without yours. when you're lonely,

remember that i tried to fill your empty spaces. remember
that i'd fall for you if it saved you

tetanus shot of the rainbow.i saw you in one of the slides of my viewfinder toy today.
you were the red sweater that i spent 7 months knitting,
the tomorrow that refused to come because
its seams were sewn shut,

but i spent yesterday seeing your reflection in the sun.
i burnt my eyes out, but none of it mattered because
i didn't need eyes to listen
to the canaries singing inside my ribs. they sang
'he loves, he loves you not, he loves you, he's
gone.'

you're gone. you're no longer in front of me;
you're inside my veins, playing bumper cars
with my arteries. i felt the collision when
i was eating plates off of a styrofoam cookie,
hiding under a tortois

kitestrings.you confessed that when you were little you would pull apart monarch butterflies because they were much too beautiful--
so beautiful that they made you feel uneasy.

(you always did call me the most beautiful thing you'd ever known.)

it's almost december now, and the only reason i wish you were here is so you could make snow angels and i could rip off their wings.

---

you wanted a kite for your birthday, so i got you one that was shaped like a bat and we took it to the beach, watched it crash into the surf over and over until it was bent and broken. i rescued it from the tide and surfaced dripping saltwater -- you told me i looked like t

dahlia girl.i used to let you backhand me across
the face because crying turned you on.

your palm stung and burned my cheeks
bright red, but it was strangely beautiful.
you called me your little dahlia, your little
candleflame, and kissed my jaw where
your fingers left treadmarks.

you said:
"love means making sacrifices."

i said nothing, just wiped away a few
premature tears and traced the fireworks
blooming on my face.

you used to fall asleep in the grass with
me, and we'd wake up with petals stuck
in our eyebrows and grass stains on our
lips. our lazy kisses tasted like rain.

i say:
"love means throwing handfuls of grass at
each ot

things that matter.1
even on the gray days, your eyes flicker dimly with hope. there is still a comet in the night sky, somewhere, singing your dreams and hopes for you.

even in the darkest silence, your heart is still beating, softly, musically. you just have to listen. you just have to hope.

2
you haven't lost yet.

sometimes, life feels like a horrible play, and everyone is outperforming you. sometimes, you lose yourself in the characters you play. you forget your lines. you trip. you screw up.

but it's not over yet. there's always a chance for a happier tomorrow.

but more than that - there's still the rest of today to be lived.
it's not too late.

3

you can't make them love you.He is beautiful, new, unexplored.  He has wanted to kiss her ever since they met one week ago and fell prey to helpless chemistry.

         “Don’t,” she says, moving her hands in a subconscious “yes” pattern along his arm as he rubs his cheek against hers. “You don’t even know my favourite colour.” The wind cuts through her thin jacket, and his chest is so warm.

         “Red,” he guesses, improbably correct. His ears are cold.

         “And h

Why there is Dust in Attics.Why is there dust in attics?

Well sometimes we travel up
Stairs of liquid vanilla marble
Around curling spires aglow with elven lights,
The city melts away to oil that’s swept up
By eight-legged brooms.
You pass the corridors of fractured golden ponds,
Mirrors of light ringed with baby’s breath and teeth
Charter your course across the sea of toys that bob
Up and down in waves of ashy sunlight.
Creep past the Grandfather Clock without waking him up,
A trickery of a treacherous game, you trouble-maker,
Tick-tock softly, “this is taking forever,
Grandmother, does this have a point?”.
For is it not always that y

Andabate I never knew before I met you that fingernails and blood were as effective in making a statement as the word Fuck during Sunday morning tea parties (the ones with porcelain teapots and flowery doilies).

.

You stuck “don’t worry I’ll fix you” nails into my bone marrow and bleached them skeleton white with the acid seeping from beneath your slick and slimy tongue. This way, when they turn to look at me, they will see a human deformity

dying to feel alive.we are the living.

we are the revolutionaries finding adventures on the tip of our frost-bitten noses, the pirates braving the raging ocean, the radicals setting our veins on fire. we are the buccaneers stealing hearts and leaving names behind, the insurgents tearing apart continents and draining the mighty rivers.

we are the rebels causing riots in the middle of the streets, the mutineers screaming songs at the top of our lungs, the bandits writing poems in all caps or with none at all. we are the ones making rules just to break them, slashing paint across canvases and calling the wounds art, tearing up roses to plant wildflowers because w

if you keep getting under.i saw you today and said ‘hey’
but what i meant was:

‘holyhell, you’re beautiful. you look like sunshine trapped in mason jars and fireflies stuck in moonbeams. you have a smile that punches straight to the spinal cord, did you know that? i just spent the last five seconds rebooting my heart, training my lungs how to breathe again. exhale, inhale. it should be simple but you’ve snarled it all in a giant mess. i’m unwinding the ball of yarn into a straight jacket and you’re as unaffected as the sea. i’d say i’m a boat but i’m hardly as sturdy. i’m a feather. it’s almost funny how li

compulsive liar.once i asked you your favourite
colour, and you said, "the brown
of your eyes," so i put in one green
contact and told everyone that i
came out of the womb as a factory
defect, half-priced, damaged goods.

-

sometimes i am from canada and
sometimes i am from england and
sometimes i am from spain.

i've carefully tempered my accents
and plotted out my stories with
yellow and purple coloured pencils
on index cards. my origin changes
like the seasons.

"why do you lie to everyone?" you
ask.

"why not?" i reply.

-

i wear nametags that read "alicia"
and "liana" and "samantha," because
i want to know how it feels to be
someon

New Orleans

So maybe there are too many flowers here
on the ground, and in the cotton;
weaving like lace through red dirt flesh.
Sun threatens necks and marinates eyes;
as balsa-spun bones tell laconic tales of age,
creaking and groaning like old southern mansions.
Mint juleps and almonds and peaches doze here,
and Eve has her fingers stuck down Eden's throat,
splashing sin and decadent fruits all over the city.
Our voices are slow and warping in the heat,
rising like egg steam off the sidewalks.
Honeysuckle flowers bloom with tarot cards
and suffocate the air with a drowsy nectar.
Stars are made to be read
nights are made to be wakened-
o

waiting.he has been there for so long that the girl sometimes wonders if he is part of the beach, if the seaweed and shells fuse themselves to his ankles at night and grow over his browned legs like ivy. he is always still, so still, eyes focused on something distant in the waves that the girl can't quite see, though she tries. the man has a face like a creased paper bag and she finds herself wishing that she could see inside his head.

she watches him all day from the corner of her eye but no one ever joins him in his vigil. he is alone in casting shadows that grow longer and longer as the sun sets. the girl wonders what it is like to be so alone an

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heart crossed.

"who's that kid?" i ask, pointing at the boy whose hair cannot decide if it is red or gold. he holds a basketball in his small hands, bouncing it, once, twice, before putting it through the hoop in a perfect arc.

"james," the counselor responds, and leans closer. "he's a foster kid, you know."

i don't know.

the boy turns at that moment and catches me watching him. unthinkingly i form my thumbs and index fingers into a heart and flash it at him. he nods to his teammates and leaves the court, climbing the bleachers to where i sit.

"did you see my shot?" he asks.

"yes." pause. "i'm kelsey."

"i know," he says, and runs back to his game.

at

march 24th, 2008.there is a chinese proverb that says your teeth will fall out if you tell lies.

i used to always dream my teeth would crumble from my mouth and lay glittering on the street like coins. i used to dream that the slightest touch jarred them loose, knocked them from my jaw leaving only swells of broken tissue behind. i used to dream of rivulets of blood streaming from the corners of my mouth, of thirty two pieces of myself lying naked on the ground, thirty two tooth fairies that would never come. i used to dream of screaming.

"you know," said my psychology TA, "to dream of losing one's teeth is very common. it typically means that you're concer

the soccer game.the thing is, i need
the deer to mean something.

-

i go to the soccer game and smile
and nod while something furious
inside of me is screaming.
a deer appears while the sun
is setting and it's like a scene
from a movie: green grass and gold rays
that spread out, tingeing our feet
with one last bit of wednesday.
everyone watches the deer and makes
noises of appreciation and i look
around and i think to myself
"okay, this is it, i am happy."

-

the deer is watching me and i try
to decide if it's a metaphor.
i want the deer to be death, see,
to represent fucking or blacking
out or apathy or loneliness.

someone does something

encephalitis.she asks, "is it weird to have one day where you really intensely, for no good reason, think of a dead person?"

-

the intercom was the one to announce that his body had finally given up. i don't remember what i was wearing that day, or how my hair looked, or what noises fell out of my mouth. death has dulled the sharp edges within me. this is what i do know: some people burst into tears and some people sat frozen and pale and some people simply got up and left the room.

"are you okay?" someone asked me, and i found that i was lying on the floor, though i couldn't understand how i'd gotten there. the overhead lights were buzzing and humming

throwing rocks.so i want to grow up and get a job and make happy, make money, make forget. i can't though, i'm too concerned with windchimes. i mean, fuck windchimes, right? i lie awake at night and listen to rigs on the rumble strip and the windchimes, (mostly the trucks), but damn, the tinkling is enough to keep me awake all night. but sometimes not, and then i dream i drown or maybe i marry a serial killer who props up corpses in rocking chairs or sometimes i dream about my ex-boyfriend's little sister because why not. then i wake up and it's taxes and credit cards and grades and people dying and shit.

and windchimes.

i don't know what is wrong with me

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stop ruining autumn.

by ~estallidos, Sep 25, 2008, 9:22:30 AM
Literature / Poetry / Narrative / Free Verse

listen:

fall makes me think of leaving and of apple cider, though i never liked apple cider.
but i liked the idea of it.

listen:

two years ago i met a boy as fragile as dead leaves, who called me his little spring girl. (i'd always liked autumn the best.) he kissed the two soft dimples on the small of my back and told me helikedme helovedme hewantedme.

and oh, by the way, "everything good must come to an end."

listen:

on our one year anniversary we picked out two pumpkins and i drew elephants on them for us to carve. he cut his out so aggressively that it lost its shape.
lopped off tusks and broken trunks became just a large, jagged hole.

he put a lit candle inside, and we watched it flicker, illuminating the raw edges.

"what is it supposed to be?" i asked him, taking his hand.

"my heart," he said definitively.
like an afterthought.

after that i was too afraid to carve my pumpkin at all.

listen:

the leaves changed, or maybe he changed, or maybe i was brave enough to carve that fucking elephant on a faded pumpkin, weeks too late for halloween. (i screwed it up anyway, the elephant had three legs.)
maybe if he hadn't loved apple cider so much, if he had let the piercing in his lip close up, or if he hadn't cracked between my fingers like dead leaves, he would still be holding my hand.

but somehow i don't think so.
his hands are now too busy holding cigarettes. holding razors. letting go.

listen:

he left a gallon of apple cider in my fridge. maybe it is still there.

listen:

i kept my fucked up pumpkin beneath my desk for a week and propped my feet up on it, but i could never bear to put a lit candle inside.

there is just something entirely too hopeful about watching broken things glow.

stop ruining autumn.by ~estallidos

Literature / Poetry / Narrative / Free Verse

mas se perdio en cuba.

my book is out!

-buy a personalized paperback here: [link]
-see a preview and buy a normal paperback or ebook here: [link]

Daily Deviation

Given 2008-11-30

stop ruining autumn. by *estallidos is an exciting prose poem with some beautiful lines. ( Suggested by ~popsicle-culture and Featured by !lovetodeviate )