ashtonbrandywritesthings

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

i started to stop feeling bad when i’m mean to

you and i realize that isn’t good

not really

not

when you feel it as deeply

as you do and i don’t

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

Growing Pains

Life, I have eventually come to realize, goes on whether I want it to or not, even when my mind cripples me, and my heart bottoms out into my stomach, far too deep to feel the beat anymore; the sharp, poignant pain whittles like an arrow piercing layer after layer I’ve spent years building at the thought that yes, things will march on even though my dog will not always be there to greet me at the front door, and “mom” will stop showing up on my caller ID, and the quiet Sunday breakfasts with my best friend, sending whispers back and forth across the steam from our coffee, will fade into breakfast for one.

I think, perhaps, at this realization, it may be time to nourish something more meaningful than my apathy, less cancerous than my anger, and I can plant softer things in my garden to grow.

-Ashton Brandy

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

No Leap Year

I’m older now, you know.

I keep changing in ways I don’t understand.

I’m drinking coffee in my car before work,

and the view isn’t very nice, but it’s stirring something in me.

I talk out loud like you’re here next to me-

I didn’t need a blood pact, I tell you,

I didn’t need a commitment that involved all of your time and space,

I just wanted you to want me mind, body, and soul,

and if you at least wanted one of three, I’d have taken it.

It doesn’t matter now.

The sun rises behind me.

It makes a shadow on my dashboard that looks like a fish.

(Like I said, the view isn’t great)

But I think if you were here, you would’ve liked it.

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

Maybe I did it because you smelled so good, like the bonfire burning and the perfume lingering in your hair- something like vanilla and pepper. Maybe it was because i felt so dirty from the smoke, and my eyes were stinging, and there was only one thing that could make me feel clean.

I kiss you, diving in the same way I dive into a lake on a summer day- cold shock followed by blissful relief.

(Ashes to Ashes)

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

One summer when i was a child, my Aunt B came to stay with us.

My mom said it was because she broke up with her boyfriend, and we weren’t supposed to talk about it.

“Mind your business,” she said.

“Don’t ask her a thousand questions.”

I didn’t really have to. Aunt B talked about it a lot while she was there.

She ranted and joked and scoffed and rolled her eyes, and the thing about Aunt B was that she was so funny. She was one of the funniest people i knew. She was so funny, in fact, that I thought that breakup was the funniest thing that ever happened.

But then she would cry - and cry and cry with big, fat scary tears and big fat scary sobs.

I had never heard crying like that before.

“Boys are mean,” was about the only explanation she would ever give.

(She said it a lot that summer)

I had two older brothers and I thought they were pretty mean, pushing me or teasing me, and they would make me cry but not like that.

Never like that.

I asked my mom about it once.

“Some boys are a lot meaner than other boys,” was all she said. She told me I would understand when I was older.

I did eventually, when I found my own boy that made me cry like that.

It was grief, i learned though i wish I hadn’t. Yes, a grieving, not for the boy, but for the part of you that got lost while loving him.

It’s almost a right of passage for girlhood, isn’t it?

Figuring out that boys are mean, yes, but some boys are a lot meaner.

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

Thumbelina in Tatters

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

Southern Gothic (1)

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

Phantom Pain

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

Feeling Feverish

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

October 9th

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

Feeling this way lately

Lazy Susan

It was the southern classic way-

cabinets full of China and tiara that you look at but never touch, never hold, never use.

(They were pretty and delicate and breakable)

“It’s for special occasions,” but those occasions never came

There was nothing quite special enough.

It’s no wonder I was so scared for you to touch me.

(I was locked in that cabinet too, don’t you know?)

I was meant to be admired on an unreachable top shelf.

(You weren’t meant to stretch for me, to stand on your toes and grasp at my edges)

Special occasion, special occasion, special occasion or else it’s just not special anymore

I wouldn’t be the ivory tower anymore-

singular in my only job of carrying on the family tradition of getting pulled out at weddings and stunning everyone with how pretty and delicate and fragile I was.

(Your hands roamed over porcelain, slipped underneath amber glass, kissed my summer-set patterns)

“Handle with care” I tell you because my mother can spot a crack within seconds, and blemished decor is kept in storage.

(Your fingers gloss over garden groves and opalescent silver, and they find purchase in colonial-blue lips)

“Maybe you should put me back,” I say. “I’m starting to feel dusty.”

You drop me eventually.

(My mother was right, in the end)

I didn’t shatter, which surprised me.

Maybe I’m not made of glass; maybe I’m made of plastic.

(There’s no room for plastic girls in the cabinet, only porcelain dolls)

I’m still pretty, though,

so I sit quietly on the lazy Susan in the dining room,

(The one that no one uses)

and I spin myself around and around and around.

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

The question of the day: If I’ve already had the great love of my life and it ended as unceremoniously as it did, does it really matter who I kiss after that?

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

I don’t even remember how to get to your house anymore.

Can you think of anything sadder than that?

-(i’m just a little drunk on Christmas)

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

I think of you, i still think of you and think of you thinking of me and i want you to reach out so bad. I want you to call me under false pretenses. You don’t have to say you miss me or anything. I want you to recommend a song just so you can call me and hear my voice, hear me say i like it, hear me say hello and goodbye. And then maybe we won’t talk for a while but that’s ok with you because you needed the hit and you got it. and maybe you’d reach out again later to tell me merry christmas

However, I don’t think any of these things have crossed your mind. It makes me tired. So tired i could sleep and sleep and sleep

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

October 9th

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

Southern Gothic (2)

[ashtonbrandywritesthings]

Spring Cleaning