bearlyliterate

[bearlyliterate]

I love like breathing

Your name an exhalation

Your soul my pulse

Not an addiction

It’s more than an attraction

But a base need, life.

[bearlyliterate]

Recovery is not

Glue on my pottery, it’s

Sewing; it’s painful.

[bearlyliterate]

…When I was a child I wished to belong somewhere…

Then I looked up to see:

Two twin stars spinning

One for me to feel valued,

And one understood.

Both to fill my heart

To feel warm at night at last

To stubbornly stay

Despite every flaw

To hold you and say “you

Are enough for me.”

[bearlyliterate]

I feel wretchedly poisoned

As if the moment your fingers

brushed my skin, I was lost to it

The chemical fear saturating my brain

Blurring my vision, numbing me to pain

Only I found out it wasn’t numbing..

I only lost the ability to feel in the moment

And now it’s hitting me all in waves

Grief I had to put off to survive

Everything thrown unorganized

Like pitching Tupperware

Into the unseen depths of a kitchen cabinet

And slamming the door shut knowing

That when I would open it

Everything would come crashing down

I don’t even remember half of it

Feelings mismatched, lids missing and cracked

But I know I’m on my knees on the floor

Sinking into the scratched boards,

pressed against the cabinets

Just waiting, listening to the humming of the dishwasher

Waiting for your screaming to stop

Trying to forget the feeling of you touching me.

[bearlyliterate]

Growing up I learned the hard way

That friends always leave and people learn to hate you

When you stop pretending to be what they want you.

I’d accepted the fact I’m only liked by my mom

And I was ready to be alone and move on

But then I met that boy who smelled of post-rainstorm sunlight

He smiled at me and talked to me like he knew me

And his smile made me want to tell him my entire life

And in that precious moment I wondered to myself

What if I pulled my heart down from that dusty shelf

So I ran as fast and as hard as I could

After that kid who made me feel like I should

Start to love on myself because he said I made him smile

It took a while but I think he’s staying with me

And as I lay here thinking about him two years later

I’m not so afraid I’ll be alone anymore.

[bearlyliterate]

b ferguson, from "Parkside & Ocean", You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World

[bearlyliterate]

I think I’ve reached that moment

When a person has become a place

A feeling, and a song.

I would recognize you no matter what you were

Home, belonging, or lullaby.

Id recognize even the space you leave behind

And I’d lay in it, hoping you’d return there

To see me asleep, dreaming of you.

[bearlyliterate]

An open letter to old soulful things.

Old things have a warmth to them

They tell a story in the silence

Lives lived loving,

Stains from mishaps, worn spots.

The impressions of footprints.

Traces left behind from people

Who long walked away.

I hope I leave these traces

On the hearts of people I love

Leave a little piece of me with you

Like how I gathered jokes

Recipes and songs I cherish

From the people I love, who are now gone.

I hope I leave something as well

So I can become a part of your story

So I can become that old thing with a soul as well.

[bearlyliterate]

Meeting you must’ve been my reward

The universes way of saying “I’m sorry.”

Take him love, let yourself be loved

Without selfishness, or conditions.

Allow yourself to feel like you deserve it.

[bearlyliterate]

I speak your name

In dying languages

To tell you a secret

That my heart beats for you

In every one of our lives

It will find you, just to be near

And it will not stop

Until the star we were born from

Explodes in fiery waves

Engulfing our still embracing forms

Brought home, at last.

[bearlyliterate]

I think it was worth it

No, I’m sure of it

I’d go through it all again

The sleepless nights

The scars and the tears

The finally moving away

Just to walk in that room

Right when you were there

Love it was worth it

Just to meet you

[bearlyliterate]

The mourning doves coo

Somewhere unseen above me

the juniper branches arch

Around me like the arms of a friend

I would so often play pretend

Like a small creature, hibernating

But I was procrastinating

I lay in the needles and wait

To eventually be called back in

Dreading it, some.

Dinnertime was always hard

The table came with us to our new house

Scratches in the surface sanded out

But I still remember where they were

From the suburb to the country,

It’s so much quieter here.

The absence of noise reminding me

Of the phantom feeling of a hand

Still wrapped around my throat

As I catch my unhindered breath,

I wonder where the mourning doves went.

[bearlyliterate]

inevitable

Just as an apple Falls to the ground I too fell for you I can't help it You pulled me to you With those damned eyes. Ecstatically I floated over Out of the brine Gravity pulling me Onto the shore I seem to write of All of these things Of seas and eyes candles and frostbite, But truly, just you I only write of you.

[bearlyliterate]

"Your favor"

Only ever when something was wanted Only when there was something I could give Always conditional Always with a price And as soon as I lacked it, I was dirt on the ground.

[bearlyliterate]

Realizations

It's becoming harder to deny that these dreams have meaning. Fragments of events with sharp edges-- Long untouched, smattered with dust. My reflection in their surface, warped. I reel back, catching a glimpse of myself A glimpse of how it had broke.. How I had broken. How broken I still remain.

[bearlyliterate]

I want to know a childhood memory untainted,

A doorway unshadowed by griefs presence .

I want to feel protected by someone

But I feel the urge to fight for others,

To be a brick wall, to bloody my hands.

I wish I could believe the fight’s over,

That time would move forward and never back.

That I won’t keep waking up in that room.

Sitting at that table, counting grains of wood.

I forget so much, and I remember more.

People ask me where I’ve been, I don’t know.

The time flies past me, but it also crawls.

My body feels too real, my mind artificial.

My hands still ache from holding onto nothing.

I watch things happening, progressing forward

I feel dragged along, instead of invited

Along time’s passage, I am still out there

Waiting on that cracked driveway on Greendale

Scabby legs and wearing grandma’s sweater

Wondering if I will ever get out

That kid is hardly recognizable

Yet it’s unmistakably still me

After everything, those scabs turned to scars

[bearlyliterate]

"Boxes"

I keep all my things Tucked away inside boxes Label them in sharpie And stack them up tall The worst parts of me, taped shut Only the best on display I store away memories Let them collect dust I store away so much, I Forget where I am. The most painful thing Is going through the boxes And finding broken Pieces of myself I will never be able To glue together All that I am able to do, is keep everything together and safe. Maybe I will learn I'm allowed to take up space I'll put down the tape.