athenes-poems

[athenes-poems]

Its late. / But the light is still on in your room and / I round the corner with a blanket in my hand. / You don’t flinch when I open the door. / You don’t say anything when I climb onto the bed. / You roll over and pull the covers down.

-Excerpt from Depending on the Dream, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

I promised you I wouldn’t tell anyone. / I didn’t think, then, / that I’d ever love someone again. / So much. / That could be, in the same way, called love.

-Excerpt from Depending on the Dream, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

I never once lied to you, I don’t think. / Only said things I believed to be true.

-Excerpt from Depending on the Dream, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

Me and my brother are sitting at the kitchen table. / We’re eating fruit from the bowl and / you tell me things I assure you I’ll never repeat. / And I don’t. / I don’t.

-Excerpt from Depending on the Dream, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

Not a sinner, not a saint / But a third thing / A little closer to a rabbit, paws trampling ant hills / As it runs from a fox’s teeth; / Closer also / To the fox / Knowing it will starve if the rabbit remains alive.

-Excerpt from A third thing that always dies, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

This is the human effect. / A knock on the door and reminder that you have a gun beneath your pillow / And a pressed suit in your closet / And they are both yours, able to be held in your hands, / And both things for which you are answerable.

-Excerpt from A third thing that always dies, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

I am less scared of ending up in hell / than I am of settling for something that doesn’t make me melt / into the ground and get soaked up by the roots / of trees and run into rivers / and then the ocean and be the life / for children, blushed with wonder, to plunge into in the summer heat.

-Excerpt from Hopeful Romantic, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

I don’t need to be in love. / I don’t need anything else / but to make things that are beautiful, and that / I can do with my eyes closed and arms wrapped around my chest.

-Excerpt from Hopeful Romantic, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

I have nothing I need to prove. / I am not afraid of being alone. / Myself is a bounty I am only certain that I am deserving of.

-Excerpt from Hopeful Romantic, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

I think hell is not a place for sinners / but where you go if you complete your time on earth having never loved. / What could be named a bigger disgrace of life’s endowment / if not missing its only point?

-Excerpt from Hopeful Romantic, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

If heaven exists / it's both of us in an armchair / reading the same book.

-Excerpt from The Same Book, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

I don’t know much about death – as much as anyone still alive / but I know that if heaven is real / you will be there / or else it's something else.

-Excerpt from The Same Book, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

I would kill you / If you didn’t care more about knowing I was hurting / Than your own life.

-Excerpt from a poem by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

“He bit into my neck. / Warm. / And I felt the blood trickle down my shoulder / and I felt his lips against my skin. / I let him. / Tilted my head to the side / and closed my eyes. / Warm.”

-Excerpt from A Vampire and a Bag of Salt, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

Sometimes I whisper things to myself that I wish I’d heard, / like / “Your heart is beating” / like / “You are beautiful,” even torn open and with all the unseen parts of you spilling out. / like / “You are alive and I have proof.”

-Excerpt from Surgeons Table, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

“I remember that I wasn’t scared. / I wasn’t scared. / I can’t remember a single moment that I’ve been alive / when I haven’t felt scared.”

-Excerpt from Subaru Forester, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)

[athenes-poems]

“When you take a bite of out of a rotten apple, that’s when you stop.”

-Excerpt from Wasted Hunger, by Athene Marston (via @ athenes_poems)