happy national poetry day!! sending my love to all the poets out there <3
this one isn't my best, but i wanted to post something for poetry day haha :)
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an ode to softness
and to holding yourself together
with the gentlest of hands,
letting yourself shatter
into a jewel-toned mosaic
of mortality
when the loose stitches
down your side
hopelessly unravel,
and ichor doesn't spill out
in sweet, golden waterfalls.
instead, the copper red
stains your hands
as you try to stop the flow
of screeching frustration,
quaking sadness,
and the mind-warping rush
of anxiety
that tinges every moment
with unease
and heart-of-the-fire red, the color of
urgency,
as if every second
is embedded with knives
dipped in the poison of
unpredictable, sprawling future.
as the deep red of sunset, of endings,
soaks into my palms,
i realize
i am not invincible
or godlike
when it comes to hurt.
i am flesh and bone and spools of nerves.
i only know how to feel.
how to push on the violet bruises
before they fade into my skin
like invisible ink into parchment,
before only i will be left
with its existence
engraved in my mind.
an ode to softness,
to the hurt that heals over
when you open up
to close the wound,
letting the locks and the walls
burn in the fires
set within yourself,
these small candles
little flickers of hope
that melt the icy chill
gathering in the hollow spaces
left behind
by the ones who stretched them full
with an unfolding, expanding love
before taking it back
like a mistake.
some candles were lit by those
who were first drawn to
the soft glow
that belongs only to you,
the kind
storms can't extinguish.
storms would have to
be gentle, curious,
reaching with churning-cloud hands
into the depths of your eyes
to find that small flame
—that brings alive intensity
to the slight blooms of color painted
onto your bottomless irises—
and snuff it out.
the softness there
curls into your short flash
of a smile,
wraps around the eyes
of another.
silver threads of connection
thrown out in all directions,
waiting to feel a tug on one end.
softness—
it lets in the world
and all you have left
to love
in this evolving mess of a universe
we've caught
in the middle of metamorphosis.
love,
mari
YOU ARE READING
for the tarnished hearts
Poetrypoetry for the hearts tarnished by love or the sudden death of it. for the hearts that find a soft lullaby in the pages when raw hope is not enough to put the worries to sleep. for the hearts that bleed ink to paint the chalky roses of life red with...
