iinvocationss

[iinvocationss]

Night Poem, Leila Chatti

[iinvocationss]

Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems

[iinvocationss]

do y’all remember that short story where a scientist like, raises his daughter with no contact from the outside world and teaches her english wrong, like he teaches her that ‘yes’ and ‘no’ have the opposite meaning than they actually do and that ‘up’ means ‘down’ and vice versa, and then this guy meets her and starts to teach her what the words actually mean and she kinda sorta starts to get it and like, realize that it’s fucked up

and then one day she’s not home and the house is on fire and her dad’s inside and the firefighters are like ‘is there anyone inside’ and she says ‘no’ and we don’t know whether she understands what she’s saying or not

wild

[iinvocationss]

Susan Sontag, from As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

[iinvocationss]

11

i hear the angels speaking through my teeth i thought by now they all had gone away they stand watch in the field across the street i swear that i can hear them clear as day they tell me things i shouldn't get to know they scream their secrets softly in my ears i feel them rattle, vibrate in my skull and as they shriek i find i'm brought to tears brought down upon my knees in the tall grass so far away now from my cozy home, a strange turn of events has come to pass, and, knelt before this tower i'm alone. by painless trick angels no longer sing - simple and easy as blood offering.

[iinvocationss]

10

i know they say girls with red hair are bad but cherry complements my copper nicely she says that we'll be crazy hand in hand even when things turn out to be frightening to know a love like this is to know god a breath of fresh air through an open window uncomplicated, real, no grand facade just years of love and trust built up so slow. my cherry girl (she/her for sonnet's sake) my knight in shining armor come to life goes out of her way to make sure i'm safe my storybook savior, a grounding light safety, just a concept to me before to have it now in her makes my heart soar

[iinvocationss]

Anne Sexton, "The Maiden Without Hands," from Transformations (1971)

[iinvocationss]

9

roll all the windows down and smell the grass the warmth of valley air reminiscent of breath across my cheek, your sweet embrace a part of you i never will forget so tender like the breaking of fresh dawn my heart is fragile, damaged by all of what i have faced in my small life, alone while all the while i search for my true love i thought in you i'd found a perfect match a soul that fit so perfectly in mine aligned in many ways, but too attached glimpses of you in everything, i find. i'll light a candle for you to come home. i'm sorry for the things that i have done.

[iinvocationss]

8

now i feel a little bit pathetic for how much i think about you each day maybe it is just simply poetic an artist at the bar writing away i find i'm better at poems than songs although you'd think it would be contrary perhaps it has been us two all along coal miner and his sweet copper canary i admit i'm using hyperbole all this for just a simple little crush! i do think it could be fun, you and me, but fibbing for my art gives me a rush but maybe i'll just wait and see what's up maybe i'll even let you fill my cup

[iinvocationss]

7

i found a piece of you within my bed a long and insignificant stray hair something here belongs upon your head a burden i alone now have to bear a lipsticked cigarette graces my mouth i'm cleaning house, erasing all of you profane and sacrilegious while i pout - a tobacco smoke cleanse will never do perhaps if i burn it you'll go away and more than just to north carolina i'd prefer if you'd permanently stay away after you shattered me like china your effigy burns on inside my mind i hope one day i'll leave this all behind

[iinvocationss]

6

who do you pray to when you're all alone? to god, the great beyond, or maybe me? and does prayer start to sound more like a moan the more that you let go and become free? devoutly on my knees i sit and wait the perfect doll girl, pale and virginal red hair sits like a cloud around my face precious and clean and very versatile perhaps your name my sweet plump lips have touched a time or two, so caught up in the pleasure of imagining roughly being fucked imagining your body being treasured i want to kiss you softly, secretly and hold hands whole you sleep right next to me

[iinvocationss]

5

"the loneliness has crept on once again" a line i use so often in my daze maybe one day i won't have to begin repeating that same old and dusty phrase loneliness climbed through my open window, now hovers like a cloud above my head i know he will descend if i'm not careful demons like him aren't welcome in my bed. i wonder if someone out there will help, as oft my cries to god do go unheard. did someone knock the angels off the shelf, shattered like glass and crushed into the dirt? the light is lost, lord, bring it back to me holy father, let my cry come to thee

[iinvocationss]

4

the sun shines through my window every morn and highlights precious prints upon the pane she wakes beside me always, my adored her greeting my alarm to start the day hints of her lie strewn about my bedroom a tuft of hair, a whisker on the rug her namesake, vibrant flower in full bloom her personality moody and smug i tell her all my secrets every night as she in earnest lies beside me, listens in the darkness she reflects the light of the moon which softly, lightly glistens. and we are two and one, i love her dearly follows like a duck, she loves me clearly

[iinvocationss]

3

the end of august is a test from god sublime, holy, celestial attack to see who's strong, stands up and carries on and who gets separated from the pack the ears of trees disguise themselves as almonds and not a single whisper goes unheard living proof of Him, they bend and follow and what goes out comes back ten times returned. can't tell if endless heat is punishment for all the things we have done wrong this year a trial run of Hell for sinners - yes! act better once we've felt that godly fear. we beg forgiveness, crying on our knees the terror in our hearts must lead to peace

[iinvocationss]

2

i love you still although you've gone away i met something in you that felt like home i woke up next to you one autumn day and wondered how i'd ever been alone halfway through ten thousand tiny stitches i felt something i never could admit into every one i placed my wishes in days i was asleep in your jacket a love like that i'll never understand perhaps because it took me by surprise a simple matching ring upon my hand and you and i both know what that implies and how could i ignore a heart-shaped letter that talks an awful lot about forever?

[iinvocationss]

1

to blame your faults on grief is grief misguided a sorrow long forgot makes itself known grief is - as mem'ries often are - one sided, less bitter once the pain has been outgrown. lessons once shoved down our throats in haste too much at once, impossible to swallow pass through the systems, discarded like waste as waste away we do, becoming hollow given the space within to be refilled no longer forced to pour from empty cups our hearts aglow, uncovered from the still and heavy darkness in which we were stuck. with glowing hearts we meet and fill each other the burden of our weight shared by a lover.

[iinvocationss]

Aiskhylos tr. by Anne Carson, An Oresteia; “Agamemnon”