#antiopa

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

ive posted this before, i think, but. yeah

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

life is a long memorial service

there’s a lady on the subway looking at me like she misses someone.

[i’m lying on the wood floor of my apartment and in the moonlight i see healed gouges in the lines of the rings. lovers’ hearts carved, covered by time. flaws to a carpenter, poetry to a romantic. growth heals, but never erases.]

[the snow doesn’t muffle sound nearly as much as it’s supposed to. i can still hear every car passing by, mirroring every conversation i wish had happened differently, everything i wish i had said, every regret i have. flakes fall on my eyelashes and i squint them shut. now, instead of the road, i see you.]

[i still think about that boy i knew for a few days in mexico, years ago. i’ve long since lost the notebook with his email, but i still know his name and how his grandparents were raising him. the girl in kindergarten, whose smile i still have burned into my memory. the neighbour in the pink house who refused a caregiver as she aged. my great-grandfather’s joy, and the last time i saw him. the way my grandfather never gave up. they’re all part of me. my soul is a mosaic of other people i’ll never see again.]

[you never realize, at the start, just how important they’ll become. how much of an impact they’ll have. nights spent awake, staring at the ceiling, a montage of moments and people and love and grief. the moonlight reminds you of her, the wood beneath you of him. the water by your bedside, candy from the convenience store, the door to a room you haven’t entered in years, a smell, a colour, a word. it’s inescapable. it’s beautiful. it’s tragic.]

how many more rings on the trees outside my window before i start looking at strangers like that too?

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

the radio is playing some niche band neither of us has ever heard of and my mind is playing catch-up.

you look at me and my tongue itches to say something cheesy but my throat is dry. drier than the white we’re sipping in the near dark of sun-behind-mountain.

i think you’re the prettiest thing this side of that mountain. any side of it, really, and with the way the sun’s last rays look like a doorway into heaven, that’s saying something.

all the time i’ve known you you’ve been spilling poetry and i’ve been spilling my guts. you’ve got colour and all i’ve got is lack.

suddenly the red and white checkered blanket seems too small, too tight. i’d move to the grass, but my jeans are white, and despite all my protests i’m one hell of a coward.

i guess that’s the difference between us.

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

new pin

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

there’s something hauntingly permanent about ink on a page. black staining your fingers along with the cellulose, a lasting reminder of all you’ve let out. matter does not ever disappear, it only changes forms. the scratches of ink feel wrong now, and so you hold it to the flame of a pomegranate scented candle. the flame eats away at the page, leaving smoke and ash in its wake. carbon that will flood the air, leaving the mark of your ink, your words, your mind, all through the lungs of every person on earth. the plants will absorb your thoughts, and the next time you eat a pomegranate, the ink you set out on that page will be back inside you, a spectre of what it once was. a reminder of everything you tried to forget. now, instead of black staining your fingers, there will be red. it looks the same.

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

who wants to love me in a way heaven is not fit to house

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

i need to see devil and the deep blue sea as a 14hour (at minimum) movie. for my soul.

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

decided to look at the unsent project and now i’m emotional

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

when is it my turn to have a vampire gf? or be the vampire gf. i’m not picky

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

i should fucking [remembers suicide jokes are bad for my mental health] lie down

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

i cant tell if i need to be kissed or hit by a bus

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

i never understand it when i end up scrolling the for you page instead of the following and i see poets posting their work with ai images. i cant think of clear enough words for it right now but its jarring and truly incomprehensible

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

after a night out at an indie rock concert at which they played a few love songs which are dear to my heart

the first song they played had your name as the title. i sat there with my ears overloaded, eyes blinded, trying not to write poetry in my head. the view of the city on the way home was beautiful, all tall buildings with speckled lights, looking like magic through the fog. i’d have liked nothing more than to climb up onto a rooftop and stare at that view for hours; my jacket wasn’t waterproof, but the rain only bothered me for a moment. i would stand out in the mist for hours, neon lights behind me, trees ahead, soaking up the fairy dust that always seems to follow love songs raw as scraped knees.

shimmering dragonfly on stone-cold finger, knees on leaves upon the water, a thousand contradictions all wrapped up in silver ribbons, love’s a far-off distant wonder, honey falls just like a river, your breathing echoes off my walls, and takes me right back to the start.

that first shock of violet and vine. it felt sweet, and a little like i was dying. i sucked it up for months on end, over hill and around each bend with a gaslight at the end of my every tunnel. using dynamite to fix the gaps was never going to work, but i’ll be damned if i didn’t try it anyways.

it’s dark outside, the rain is still falling. puddles form the perfect mirrors.

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

hand holding in the park 🤝 rough fucking in the dark

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

i love all of you 🫶🫶🫶 please stay as safe as you can