a-book-of-pleas

[a-book-of-pleas]

[a-book-of-pleas]

Red

I'm looking for a kind of unpolished Dirty, loud, quiet, rowdy Type of love The kind that burns and binds In ways unknown to you The kind i can trust even if just Because it's made me hate before So many times, tried, And then I'm pulled back. I'm looking for my mother In all the corners of the world I've found I've been given the best But I can't have it, it's not for me I'm not an enjoyer of finer things I need to taste blood in my mouth When I kiss you And then I know I love you And then I know we'll stick together And you'll be mine in a way so, Violently, vividly, brokenly, unspeakably Intertwined The only way it can happen Almost as close as a blood bind More bitter than a promise None of my friends bite when they kiss And I'm alone in my room Waiting for her To come back As another Maybe I'll find a cure And then maybe I don't want to They don't know the sweet flavor Of a love gone bad They can't understand my craving for Rage And red

[a-book-of-pleas]

dying a little bit more every time.

And i guess 

I guess a part of me will always long for it.

Death. Such a respite

I'm drowning, sometimes

More aware of it than other times.

I'm alive and it hurts

And to be someone is not an easy task

Every day it hurts, because

I have to stretch my limits

Stretch outside of my box, of the things I've learned

Things that keep me safe

I have to stretch and live outside

To be someone

To be loveable

It's so hard to be lovable. It was something else 

When I was a child. Now,

I have to do in order to be.

Not to stay still, wait for the love to come

I have to exist

And it's so exhausting

Nothing I can be is worthy of being loved

So I have to try and be something else

And I have to pretend it doesn't hurt me

That I know I'm unlovable

That I know I only deserve cold tiles and silence

The kind that accompany me home

The kind that lives in me

And so sometimes I sit on my tiles when

No one is watching

And I think about how hard it is to be alive

To exist.

It's so taunting, so tempting

To cease. I've dragged that wish

That desire to not be

With me since I was so young. Already

Knowing I couldn't be anything

Worth loving

Because that's something so easy to get to know

When you are young.

And my cold tiles and silent rooms know it

And they remind me of it every evening

Hey, it was in you all along

Everybody sees it in you. You are sitting here,

Waiting for death

Like a hanged man whose not been hanged yet, 

waiting. Longing for it.

The bit of light that always fades, the bit of peace you never got

The little bits that make life livable, that always fade 

After a while. They're waiting for you, all

Sitting on cold tiles

Aren't you married to the idea? Of being dead

Yes, I say. Yes, I am all that. 

I wish I was dead, and I am embedded with the coldness of the tiles

And the silence of my rooms

But

My friend loves me. My cat loves me.

To them, I am warm.

Sometimes, I have to hold onto that thought

As if it were a drowning man's last hope.

[a-book-of-pleas]

my mother and i. monsters.

Doesn’t it mean that I am a monster too, if I was raised by one?

I’ve only ever learned the monstrous ways. I’m sitting here, lost, looking, unfound. I have the remains of my broken hands that can only hurt, and a deep longing for more. I sit and wait for the love I never found. I sit and wait for the love I can’t see, because I didn’t learn to see it the first time. I sit and force the love I learned.

I sit and suffer, suffer, suffer. And I guess I can only ever inflict pain now. I am a monster, because what else could I ever be? I learned the monstrous way. I had a monstrous mother. I was a monstrous daughter.

I sit here and try to stay still so I never get hurt. I try to stay so very still so I’m not seen and loved because I know how much it hurts to be loved the wrong way.

But. Is there any other way?

I am made of pieces. I am made of her own pain. The sharp cuts her own broken pieces opened up in me.

I am broken pieces myself, now. I can only cut my way through other people to get in.

Looking back, I can understand both her pain and mine, and I can see how everything I’m saying is a lie. I understand that I am more, that people learn and things change. I can see cuts heal, and edges soften.

But that, too, is the scariest thing I have ever heard. Soften my edges? Temper my monster? And then I’ll be left belly up, completely vulnerable to the world that I’ve learned can hurt me so badly? How can I put down my defenses, if the monster that hurts me is now me? I know I’ll hurt myself.

I am a monster to myself and others, like my mother was. I know I’ll be safe if I am. I know I’ll survive. The monstrous way is the only way people like us survive.

I sit here and tremble, and I try not to move. Everybody soothes me, everybody tells me it’s alright to let go. To be kind, to be loved, to be soft. But they’re not me. 

I don’t really know who I am without her, truth be told. The monster she raised inside of me. I’ve never hurt anybody but I’ve kept them ten feet apart, and isn’t that monstrous?

Miles of pain in my family; the pain I have, the pain she had, the pain her father had, the pain his mother had. We’re all made of the little pieces of love we managed to get in between the hurt. And they’re sharp, and they hurt us, and they break us, but it’s love.

I can’t get any other love to me as valuable as the little sharp broken pieces of love my mother gave me. I cannot get anything as valuable as my mother’s love.

And you ask me to give it up?

I’ll die a monster, if that’s what it takes.

[a-book-of-pleas]

Concrete Walls

I was born and raised between walls

Walls of concrete, grey and solid.

There was nothing much to say.

The years went by and I still miss them.

I miss them so much, It ackes.

Days in which the air smells like a schoolday

When I was eight and it was almost cold,

and there was nothing to worry about because you were there.

You were always there. And today smells like you.

I’m sorry I was born.

I think it’s a part of our family to feel this way.

It’s unnatural not to feel sad, pulled down, grey. 

Like the walls that made me.

Walls and screams and cries. Walls and silence, and me.

Loneliness is who I was raised to be.

Loneliness is who we were to become.

Grey concrete walls. Silence and screams.

Feeling sorry for the space we take.

That’s my name. That’s yours, too.

We are made of stone.

We carry the concrete walls inside us;

the ones that still cage you,

the ones I miss.

And I miss them so much, mother,

I miss them so much it hurts.

I miss their solidness, I miss their silence,

and their coldness, their sternness.

I miss the way they make me feel me.

I’m surrounded by grass and glass and people,

trying to keep myself grounded.

I miss you. Where are you?

You’ve changed so much, could I ever have you again?

The way it was. The way it hurt.

I miss the pain. I miss the certainty.

I want to feel scared, as long as it’s of you.

You were my certainty. You left me stranded,

without my walls.

I need you. I was alone, once, but now

in solitude, I can feel you’re becoming nicer.

Why don’t you understand?

I’ll crumble without my concrete walls

to keep me upright.

It smells like you, today. 

Who you were to me, once.

[a-book-of-pleas]

There was a catastrophe hidden in the corner of silence. Sokka stood still, hidden. Nowhere he could go, now. Nowhere he would want to go, anyway. He liked standing in the corner. He’d always stood in the corner. ‘If you wanted a better life, you should’ve been better’ she had said. Sokka hadn’t. Wished to be better, that was. Not enough. He didn’t want a different life, then. Now he was hidden in the corner of silence. There was a beast outside. Someone was killing. Someone was being killed. There was nothing he could do, now, so he stood still. ‘You should’ve looked me in the eye, then’ she had said ‘maybe you would’ve remembered to be good’. Maybe she was right. Maybe then he wouldn’t have to stand and wait. He would have a different weapon in his arms. Not the broken remains of his hands, clutched against his chest. ‘The war has started, Sokka’ she had said ‘you have to be a man’ Sokka had tried. It wasn’t enough, but he stood against the corner. It might kill him, but silence is all he knew. His thoughts were shielded even to himself. He laid against it. Silence swallowed him. He opened his eyes and he was still there, a little less whole but just as bloody. Self scattered, a little lunatic, screaming in the background. It was probably his own voice. Still laying in the heart of his own catastrophe. Sirens singing at night, Sokka felt like vomiting. Wake up and feel afraid. Wake up and feel alive. And it’s all too much, what do I do with my feelings? Who the fuck cares? his mother would say. In his head, in his dreams. You’re not your sister. Throw up, Sokka. Move on. Die. Protect, die. Let her live, die. There’s a weight on his chest like there can’t be a second guesser. Systematically shutting down. Zuko talked to him about his feelings, once. Sokka could only comfort him somewhat superficially. ‘What about you?’ had Zuko asked, Sokka could only think to answer ‘I don’t feel’. Maybe he doesn’t, anymore. He’s too tired to feel. He’s too nauseous. There’s nothing to be done at night, because silence crushes him. What do I do? Mom, mom, mom, are you my mom still? his head hurt balloons full of light, life, eroding him what can you do if nothing is ever enough if everything is always too much can you walk down the sun and feel like maybe you were meant to exist? i live everyday like i’m waiting for it to end but i don’t sleep i don’t sleep anymore. i dream of needles and pain, and all the things i don’t understand somehow i learned to loathe things that make me, me if i could erase who i was who i will be, who i am i would spit on it first, just to make sure this mistake doesn’t happen again wouldn’t you be proud to know i will die someday heavenly, cowardly, the way silence feels against my skin almost feel like crying again maybe i’ll die before i remember to cry stunted and raw clawed already half eaten alive.

‘The Reveries of Southern Lights’, MissFenixx (AO3). Extended version.

[a-book-of-pleas]

A Meaning

As I pour my coffee in the morning,

I’m still trying to find meaning to my life.

As I get dressed and catch the bus,

the morning is cold and a stranger sits next to me.

I’m still trying to find meaning to life.

I buy a warm and comfy sweater at a sale,

the lady talks warmly to me, it’s sunny,

and I’m not worried about looking pretty.

Still, I’m trying to find meaning to my life.

I walk my dog, I take out the trash, I cook dinner.

My lover is watching TV as I set the table. My mom calls me,

and asks me to hang out on Sunday.

I sit down after dinner, and I ponder over my unread book. 

I’m still trying to find meaning to my life.

My lover kisses me, sweetly, goodnight.

It tastes like a wound; I know it mine.

Life is my puzzle and repeatedly, everyday, it drags on like a long workday.

I am still looking, then, for its meaning.

But maybe I’m looking too hard, and too far,

and I can’t see what’s next to me.

I can’t see that, now, there’s nothing to be found.