#poemtober 2020

[starliighting]

3. delirium (whumptober) orpheus 

I refuse to greet the harsh reality that is morning—not when I could lie here, pretending it is still night because anything is possible in the dark. Some invisible lover’s arms will twist around mine, weighed with world-weary fatigue equal to my own, brushing like the wind over my flesh, warm as the nearby fire. Hide me from the incoming light, I will scream— love, that deathless wanderer, will comply.

[starliighting]

1. shaky hands (whumptober) wherein fruit is a synonym for love

It is cold tonight: the kind of cold historians write about, tumbling avalanches and ice that refuses to melt — it is cold tonight and your vision is blurring and your head is full of noise and static — it is cold tonight and nothing stops moving — your hands, they shake, your body knows that motion makes energy makes heat, but it is cold tonight — the kind of cold that plants itself deep in your chest so you cannot find it and pluck it out — it is cold tonight, and your heart is in the Arctic, but

your body is at home: the flickering lights on your ceiling steady into a solemn buzz, the clementine your grandmother peeled now sits at room temperature in a porcelain bowl. She gestures for you to eat — the tears you hide glisten like runoff from the mountains after snow caps thaw. You remember why Classicists adore the still life.

[starliighting]

wow!! remember when this existed?

long story short i’m converting this to a poetry blog now because i don’t feel like setting up a theme and everything for another sideblog and while i feel bad about not using this one, i would feel equally bad deleting it because making moodboards was something i genuinely enjoyed (and still enjoy doing!! just maybe not in the way i was doing it for a while). right now i’m doing what my friend has dubbed “poemtober”, where every day of october i write a poem (i’m using the oc-tober and whumptober prompts!), but feel free to unfollow if this isn’t your thing!! i won’t judge. :))

[starliighting]

13. grow (oc-tober)/adrenaline (whumptober) speed up // slow down

It is often said that we are all made of stardust, metallic and shining, celestial bodies tethered to this frail reality, but we never stop to think that we are why it is so frail. // Define

matter: anything that has mass and occupies space, anything that is even remotely capable of taking the space-time continuum in its outstretched hands and pulling it around itself like a cloak, and here we are, all cloaked in the stars and the vast, a shining thing surrounding it in another shining thing, and we never stop to put ourselves under a microscope and consider the small things. // Define

atom: the most basic unit of matter, and as we are anything but basic, we have more than our fair share, these electric, volatile things that work in our name, colliding and combining in the ecosystem we call ourselves like they are bodies in a universe of their own, // and do you know how the big bang happened, when fourteen billion years ago a shining electric volatile thing imploded and then exploded and sent its remains thinning across all of space—imagine stretching fabric taut over a dress form and it holding still and safe as ever, and like children on a trampoline, matter weighs down, and like a safety net, the universe holds us up— // how many

new cells do you think you produce every minute, and how many atoms do you think are in your body right now, in and out of nuclear bonds and life cycles, define life cycle— // that is to say, define life, and that is to // say, define human, and that is to say

that we have the ability to shape the fabric of every dimension to fit us, that we are made of small brilliant volatile things, and small brilliant volatile things often explode, and expand, and expand, and expand, and as long as you are, that is something you can always hope for.

[starliighting]

12. drip (oc-tober)/”don’t move” (whumptober) hydra  

The world freezes, all of a sudden, all around you, or maybe it’s only you that’s frozen. Don’t move if you don’t want to be caught, dead center of this dark place, hands dripping full of shame. Why did you do this in the first place? Pointing the blade away from someone is still holding a knife. You begin to think some people are unforgivable, or unhealable, or both— that when you hack away one head, two more come back to take its place.

[starliighting]

10. silence (oc-tober) fresh light in her arms

If given the choice, would you leave the world alone and bury yourself in a hidden corner or undusted cranny somewhere? When we are first born, we have no concept of object permanence, and as we grow older, we begin to understand that there are things can exist outside of our perception, and maybe there are things within our perception that can’t. Cogito ergo sum, I used to recite to myself, over and over until it was branded on the roof of my mouth, but I have long since learned oblivion, all its shades and values, the difference between stillness with a purpose and stillness as a result of inability, the difference between peace and lonesomeness. If given the choice, would you seek out that undusted cranny somewhere with a flashlight? It illuminates your palm rosily when you wave the glowing end at yourself, and you could almost believe that you are a torch, seeing with one hand, searching with the other.

[starliighting]

7. cliff (oc-tober) disregarding air resistance,

calculate the velocity of your downfall. On the precipice of something is the worst place to be when your anticipation overtakes you and you lean to peer over the edge too soon, too far. Curiosity killed the cat, you know, but you have never been as quick to land on your feet. Time is irrelevant to the air pressure pushing against your face, simulating wind, rendering you seemingly immobile, unable to manipulate your body, and your body is a husk that doesn’t protect you anymore, leaves you victim to the atmosphere weaving itself into ropes around your wrists, chafing and burning and scalding the thoughts out of you. You know that in reality, the world stands still around you while you are the only moving object, unable to do anything but accelerate. How long have you been in this liminal state between a cliff and supposed touch down? You doubt you’ll survive the landing.

[starliighting]

6. dragged away (oc-tober) creation story

The waters will prevail time and time again, but when will we the survivors get to stop learning? Maybe the better thing to ask is why we will forget the lessons we have already been taught. We will feel the eyes of martyrs in the back of our skulls, and they will never leave us, and we will sail and settle and forget again, and slowly they will begin to feel no different than the hands of gods. From deep in a half- flooded village somewhere, the survivors’ tenacity will give out. The bard will scream and not realize the weight in his diaphragm. He will have only ever seen himself through someone else’s eyes, only ever heard his voice from a distant room. outside himself. We will learn that the essence of being a vessel is living in someone else’s memory, and that that is not a noble life but a drowning one. In some ways, we did not survive the flood at all. We learn that there are no prophets left, but

maybe it is for the better when we learn not to look to the future for answers when the present is so desperately inundated. The tide returns and the water does not prevail, because even if we are forced to change, this is another one of nature’s metamorphoses, not a death, and we do not need stagnancy to be people. We learn that we are never allowed to really rest, and we feel the eyes of martyrs in the back of our skulls, and the best we can do is find some small pool of standing water to wade in. Have you ever felt the water like this before, like liquid silk around your ankles, weaving in and out of itself like a tapestry? Have you ever stopped sailing to become a sail yourself, to feel the breeze bare on your face? When the floodwaters settle down and you are home again, let the eyes and the waters fade into white noise and put yourself in the line of sight of the living and loved and pour yourself out of your thoughts out into the open world and shout for it to chase after you.

[starliighting]

2. mercy (oc-tober) a lesson in exposure

I have only seen light in photographs, where even the greatest structures bend to the whims of photons—awash and overtaken when honey drips down the roof and paint the color of noon splashes over stone walls. I have been told they are seized by their red red bricks and faded out, that this robbery is as far from welcome warmth as it gets, but I have only seen light in

photographs, where children wear the sun on their backs, tilting their faces up like flowers, dappled gold dancing between the creases of their clothing. The photographs are long faded by time or light or a mixture of both but the children always smile—what color, I cannot tell, but maybe yellow. I have been told yellow is the color of rotting broken things, but then I have only seen it in

photographs, where maybe honey tastes sweet, maybe the yellow is welcome warmth after waiting for the night to disperse, maybe color is not equal to vivacity, maybe it’s okay to smile off-white, maybe when no one is looking, I will open my blinds and let the yellow and the light wash and overtake, drip and paint and dapple and fade me a new amnesty.

[starliighting]

8. festival (oc-tober) ode to the streetlamp

It is as dark as always, but you can’t see the stars, or the moon, and it occurs to you maybe the streetlamps mere feet above you, flooding the pavement deathly pale, a festival lantern’s less reserved counterpart, are as good a replacement as any. You couldn’t count them into constellations, though, not even if you wanted to, not with their alignment in straight, perfect rows, no room for human error or interpretation, no room for the shade.

[starliighting]

 14. myth (oc-tober)/scars (whumptober) heel

Legend says damage and irregularities have something to do with your past life, that birthmarks are the places your soulmate kissed, or the face you scrutinize so deeply is the face of the one you loved most, but you cannot bring yourself to care about fiction and wishful thinking, and you will never wear your injuries like some piece of jewelry. You are a man made of history, and history says to know better than to show your weaknesses—like scar tissue piled on top of itself until it is impossible to tell what the original flesh looked like, like the spot between your fourth and fifth ribs where someone could reach and pull out your overworked heart, the gleam you get in your eye when you’re being genuine, the minutely-softer cadence of your voice when you’re alone, with no one to listen but yourself, and you don’t have to project your voice to the end of the room to make sure you are heard and seen from every direction.

[starliighting]

14. cornered (oc-tober) mark for later 

Somehow it is almost worse to have to perceive yourself alone than to be seen by others—at least then you know that you are not the only vulnerable person in the room, that you are all, to some degree, exposed—but here you are again, tucking yourself into a corner like the licked-damp edge of the page of a book, hoping that its edges and angles will not cut you when those are all it is made of. At least now if you are damaged, you can push it to the side, mark this chapter for later, and the darkness is blinding, and no one will be able to tell, least of all yourself.

[starliighting]

11. craft (oc-tober)/stitches (whumptober) first do no harm 

Gather up all the spare materials you have—stitch up another’s split seams with fishing wire and a makeshift bent- paper clip needle—listen to them when they cry that the plastic digs too deeply into their satin skin, that the tiny pores left by the metal will never heal over and disappear—can’t you be more careful? This is my life you have on your fishing-line here, be gentle, lest you scare it off—so the stitches you make are fine, your motions as if you were skipping stones, as if you were the stones themselves—they graze delicately over the surface of the water, not daring to submerge themselves, much less give in to gravity and their bodies—aching in their fatigue—to drop down to a place of rest. Find a bone needle next, hidden under miles of earth—the kind that would have been used by the primitive cavemen—do not flinch when you prick yourself accidentally, it is only practice. Gather up all the spare strength you have—finish the stitches, sew another’s split seams to yours, share your tired, aching body—listen to them when they cry out that they might drop down from fatigue, pull them up so that you might not both fall—hope one day you can drop down to a place of rest, return to the bottom of the river to let the water polish you, cover up the seams you split to heal another’s, pretend those seams were never there in the first place.

[starliighting]

9. mentor (oc-tober)/shackled (whumptober) pygmalion

I put myself in your hands because it was easy to convince myself that they were warm, that your vision for me was something greater I could have if I only complied, molded to your every subtlest motion, grew a spine when you said to and lost it when you pulled it out, because it was easy to convince myself that obedience and satisfaction were the same thing as love. I forgot Pygmalion was in love with the potential, not the man, and Pygmalion was in love with the promise, not the man, and Pygmalion was in love with the statue, not the man, and Pygmalion locked his creation down in marble and made its own body its chain and ball, and Pygmalion’s statue never had a name.

[starliighting]

5. beloved (oc-tober) scavenger hunt

When you look at your skin, do you see the warmth and cool in its undertones, and when you look in the mirror, do you see those endless reflections of yourself in your own iris, and when you look in the water, does it stay still for you? Does it let you observe, or does it ripple out at the slightest movement, obscuring your face from view? I stole words, whole languages from scientists and scholars and the ancients, heliotrope and tyrian and wine-dark. You have always existed, but there have not always been words to describe you, either because I could not find them or because I didn’t want to, too afraid to use them, to look the creature in the eyes and recognize it, to see its face and know its name, but now, show me your hand—here is the color of a perfect octave, here is the color of the tangible strings in the riptide, here is the color of raw sugar melting on the roof of your mouth, here is the color of knuckle bones bare and sharp in your palm, here is the color of the diaphragm relaxing enough for me to feel the wind in my lungs when I breathe.

[starliighting]

4. human shield (whumptober) flood story 

The waters will prevail, as they always have. Circling up from the deepest parts of the earth will come those restless tides, the razors of the gods, dragging deconstructed worlds behind them as they pass through. It is a near-impossible task to rebuild something with no remainder but yourself, but we the survivors will feel the eyes of martyrs on the back of our heads, and they will be far more compelling than the hands of gods, and we will have to learn how:

the sailor will rig ships relentlessly, hiding the sweat on their brow with a hand raised up to look on to the horizon; the farmer will make the soil black again; the architect will point to the edge of the world and build a bridge; the bard will sing a song about someplace born and killed long ago. We the survivors will hope martyrs can still hear their names called out. We will learn that we cannot be dams, but we can be vessels. 

The waters will prevail, as they always have, making their pilgrimage shore to fragile shore, but we will become razors to the gods. We will learn to make and make and make when there is nothing remaining, cut the tide at the root, hold out just a little longer, and longer, and longer, and we will feel the eyes of martyrs in the back of our minds, and they will be far more loving than the hands of gods.