kiwis-scribblings - Tumblr blog

[kiwis-scribblings]

pre-pandemic life do be lookin a lot like mamma mia right about now

[kiwis-scribblings]

Escapril day 18 prompt: Nightmare!

Text:

Hold me down

I can’t fall asleep     

by myself  anymore, 

  my body knows        too well,

so I need a bit of        liquid-help

powder-help

                    and my sails

        are set, my seatbelt

restricts, but none

of it holds me

down. None of it holds

me down as I wake

on the hour,      every in-body clock

stirs,                    I know how much I

can take,          when it all stops.

I sit up and

scream

with an open mouth,

I shed my skin like a

lizard, strip down

organs.

Through the night I

collect cold-blooded bodies.

All of these bodies,

tied around my ankles,

parchment skin

crinkling, split down

the middle. When day

breaks They spread

behind me like cape,

my own waking ensemble,

transportable portent.

I walk out of the

room, dragging their

open mouths with me.

We spend the day reaching

pruned finger pads to the sky.

We spend the day catching flies.

- Rachel O’Sullivan / Kiwi’s Scribblings

[kiwis-scribblings]

It’s spring and you bud, as is expected of you.  Heavy with the burden of the pollen bearer. Boldening eyes take the world in and uncareful tongue spits it back out. 

Chronological inertia, you reek of zeitgeist. Starved of it all. It’s wrong —— all those lost syllables. Of course you’re confused. 

Drained fingertips, itching to touch. Nettle stings and hoarded things, lost to the tide, clogged with so many things that aren’t you. 

Your twirled hair, splitting fibres like entrails, piled in the bleached thistles. Waiting for unrequited caution. 

Your whirlpooling eyes, only a mirror and a daily dose of Lethe. I’m sorry darling. 

My silence is gilded, an absence somewhat omnipotent to you. 

You look at me like a prophecy of better days, your Orlando. 

It’s only Babel.

You cross the Styx on your way home to me, and I wish you wouldn’t. 

...

How can I lie to her? 

How can I allow myself to be in pieces?

...

I’ll meet you again in the summer. 

We will find our spot, under the warped bridge, beneath the laurels. Just beyond the wingspan of the sun, where we overflow. 

You will tease the water for a word, any word at all, and I will be patient as I have before, knowing that each ebb of you will flow back more fruitful than before. 

Your unscathed hands on babied wrists, i never forgot about them. I’m sorry about your arm, I truly am. A Monet cast irridescent with paint, for an impressionist July. 

I will cup your face and you will trace my eyes. Daisies, not dandelions, halo you -laughing at a cloudless sky. Your smile will still be coated with the same sugar. This time I’ll hold you. 

I’ll meet you again in the summer

I will return to you finished ( as you always thought me to be. )

{12/5/2020}

- Rachel O’Sullivan / kiwi’s scribblings

[kiwis-scribblings]

Dublin City during lockdown