ladyinthepines

[ladyinthepines]

Clouds swelled in the sky overnight while we vacationed in our heads, oblivious to weather patterns in our preoccupations with drowning, ice queens, and Southern Baptist renditions of Shakespeare plays.

By mid-morning, the sky cracked open, releasing electricity, its water weight, the mounting tension of thick, moist summer heat. 

Running in humidity is akin to letting go. Every outside event, self-judgement, and negative thought is a bead of salt and water pulsing out of pores, rolling off skin, colliding and dispersing against asphalt and cement. Every morning, we release pieces of ourselves to dirt trails, concrete, and coastlines. The earth is built on our dead weight.

- Kaitlin Meilert

[ladyinthepines]

unravel me at the soul spread the butterfly wings of my navel strip me down raw to the holes in my heart suckle me down to the pit

i am idle flesh waiting with bated breath as atoms dance between us

- Kaitlin Meilert

[ladyinthepines]

gold dusts the horizon / like the specks of stars that dazzled / in your rose-veiled eyes / the night you said you love me / you love me / you / love me

I was a child then / like I’m a child now /  fickle cat playing chase on playground / I never learned how to be caught / my heart goes cold when I am / my limbs are passive / my hand slips from your hand / like it’s doused in oil

what is it you see that I don’t / there is nothing there / there is nothing here / there is nothing / my rib cage is empty / my heart a prune /  dried up long before / it could learn how to love you

- Kaitlin Meilert

[ladyinthepines]

clouds roll like sky is ocean / sky is salt / rain is tears dropped from the pupils of cosmic tie-dyed galaxies / we are bathed in stars exploding across our skins in rainbowed oceanic wine-stained brilliance / blood running hot cold thin / laced in moon dust my heart races across your milky ways your star maps your meteor fields and supernovas /  I am mostly moon / you are all sun burning my stars my kin to dust

- Kaitlin Meilert

[ladyinthepines]

30

It’s true what she said about rain: it falls in tune with my lachrymose heartache.

- Kaitlin Meilert

[ladyinthepines]

29

I know the bottom. I know it with every tooth, bone, and organ. The bottom is a pit, thick with swarms of earthworms squirming in damp dirt.

I do not fear it. Death does not scare me into living. Death cradles and rocks me to sleep like I am a newborn baby, only knowing the encasement of a womb, the muffle of vocal chords, the distant chime of fork against plate.

This echo behind my rib cage, this gurgle in my belly: these are my dissatisfactions. I am nothing but empty. I lie with my hands draped over my breasts like I am ready. I would cry, but I’ve stopped that. I feel nothing but empty.

But some days I feel sunsets burn into my skin until I glisten, peached, full-bodied. Periodically, the moon reminds me my humanhood, dragging me out from the inside until I feel the stains of life seep out of me, thighs sticky with it.

In these thin tears between storm clouds dispersed, I unfurl myself from the grip of this dark thing inside me and watch it flap out looking, with its teeth, for something to kill.

I look to the same woman who inched me toward death for will. I lean into her rhythmic chant, body full of blood, irony clenched in my sweaty fist, and listen to the cry of my heart, the pulse in my wrist: I am, I am, I am.

- Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt

[ladyinthepines]

28

The trees are dead. The birds are dying. They’ll spring back to life come May, but for now, they are dying, their chirps slowly muffled by the quiet drifts of snow that will keep us from knowing grass exists and seeds bloom flowers. Five months to go. I’ve been here one. If Phoenix sits on the edge of the sun, Minneapolis bathes in Pluto’s icy pools and arctic glaciers. I spend my days dreaming of your skin tanning and glistening under the Arizona sun. The way its beams beat down on you all year round. The way palm trees look like pineapples and smell like paradise. Some days, when the snow is knee high and the temperature drops ten degrees below zero, I close my eyes and remember what it was like to live inside an oven: a reminder of both what it feels like to be warm and how the heat hurt more.

- Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt

[ladyinthepines]

27

I dare to stride about the garden with my wrist outstretched, its white scars gleaming in the sunlight. My lungs take in fresh air, exhale old breath that has rot in my chest like dead weight for three years too long.

Perhaps it’s Spring on my tongue or the flick of silver bouncing off my newly exposed skin that brings the chickadee to land on my wrist, like it was made of bark, and build a nest for new life in the crook of my arm.

And I am rounding corners in the garden like I’ve been here before or trust my instincts without second thoughts. And everything is so foreign, I must be in a dream, for when my eyes are open, only blackbirds cross my path.

- Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt

Tarot card

[ladyinthepines]

26

Spring swings in on a gust of wind, a momentary lapse back into winter. The chill prickles my skin, hair follicles reaching for sun, teeth and bones passing notes in Morse code. Snow is melting and shadows still catching up to daylight savings time, but the sun is in full bloom, warm honey on my skin. I pass an army of flowers— small, white, and fragrant little trumpets—as the birds chirp melodies in rhythm with my stride. I sink my teeth into my first fresh strawberry since last summer— its juice like nectar, flesh sweet and cool on my tongue.

- Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt

[ladyinthepines]

25

Warning: Do not feed more than two sweets per day to avoid uncontrollable bouncing, eye swirling, and incessant nonsensical talking.

Warning: Will sing spontaneously, respond in giggles, make up children’s songs, and talk in riddles.

Warning: Do not leave alone for more than 48 hours, stick around more than 24, or ignore a text for over 60 minutes.

Warning: Will snap if prodded, twisted, and pulled, stretched in one direction, then the next, back and forth.

Warning: Do not place in a box or under a label or expect the same thoughts or actions. Water daily; allow growth.

Warning: Will shed tears at violent language or curl into a shell cave when sad, creating, or overwhelmed.

Warning: Do not stare in eyes for too long, or ye shall be lost for eternity at sea, bewitched into love or lust or both.

- Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt

[ladyinthepines]

24

I knew you but only enough to think of you when I’m writing poetry or seeing through a lense, brush in hand, sea green pants, bare feet kissing grass, flowers and paint stains dancing on my dress.

And thinking of you was like the sun sinking into my regrets. I envied you even in death. But death won’t do and wishing for death would be the worst way to honor you.

You are the morning sunrise, a beam of light and drip of honey in the darkest corners, on the bitterest tongue. You are a brush stroke, a turquoise ring, a June bug, a belly laugh teaching me from the grave to lie barefoot in the grass.

- Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt

[ladyinthepines]

23

Engines rev as drum beats, cymbals keeping time and bass counting 4 3 2 1. Some rockets blast off in underwater motion, some rockets are piano keys falling. Fingers high on hydroponic weed pluck slow spiral galaxies that crawl and sprawl through electric guitar strings. Lyrics coat my skin in stardust, Mayfield’s t’s are comets. There’s life on Mars, you’ll always love me. I’m sa-sa-seein’ starz.

- Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt

Songs referenced in this space-y poem:

Major Tom - Peter Schilling Brooklyn Baby - Lana Del Rey Seein* Starz - Jessica Lea Mayfield Life On Mars? - David Bowie

[ladyinthepines]

22

If the sun rose in the west and set in the east, what color would the sky bleed? Would clouds glow silver? Would sunlight paint the sky bronze, turquoise, and lavender?

Who says a circle can’t have corners? If you draw four equal-distanced loops in a circle, can you not find a crevice in which to cower?

If pigs could fly, couldn’t all animals sprout wings? And if all animals could fly, what of the birds, bees, and other airborne beings? Would they lose their wings like fallen angels, devolve to land dwellers, vulnerable to outstretched claws and gnashing teeth?

If the clock struck thirteen, would there be such a thing as bad luck? Or would we cross our hearts and hope not to die on Friday the 14th instead?

If stars could rearrange themselves, what would they say? Would other life forms pass notes to us from light years away? Would they fall from the sky and sprout star trees from the dirt? Would they put on nightly shows? Would the sun revolve around Earth?

So many what ifs and truths to flip, but I can’t fathom how a mouse could eat an elephant.

- Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt 

[ladyinthepines]

21

Balancing on my toes, knees splayed like a frog, I listen to the voice that says: look into the pond; what do you see? I see, or I try to. I try to see rainbowed koi, shimmering, instead of my dry, pale skin, lackluster & vitamin D-deficient. I try to see seaweed swaying in underwater rhythm instead of my hair, tangled, sparse & limp. I try to catch a glint of sunlight beaming off an oyster’s pearl instead of my dead eyes, grey as winter, cold as ice. But my arms can’t carry my weight, my toes can’t detach from the ground. The pond is only my reflection; today Narcissus has won.

- Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt

[ladyinthepines]

20

Last week they plucked cells from my cervix like petals from a flower: you have precancer, you have precancer not, you have… The test results written in fluent gibberish called my cervical cells abnormal. I swear I feel cancer sprouting as we speak, my cervix pocked with it.

Maybe this is the universe’s way of giving me what I want: the hunger for life that comes with the taste of death.

Next week they’ll shave off my abnormalities with electrical currents– can they shave off my anxieties while they’re at it? –study them under a microscope (you have cancer, you have cancer not…) while I clean up the mess of my cervix falling out.

- Kaitlin Meilert

[ladyinthepines]

19

Early morning: crouched to a squat, forearms balancing on knees, laughing, smiling. He, beside me, asked why I was so happy. “I’m just watching.” “What are you watching?” He doesn’t know. He, someone I’d never see again. - Kaitlin Meilert

Prompt 

Story the the poem came from:

He crouched to a squat beside me, forearms balancing on his knees. He noticed that every time he looked at me I was laughing and smiling and it made and early morning flight from Minneapolis more enjoyable. He asked why I was so happy. Was today a special occasion? “No,” I said. “I’m just watching shows that are funny.” “Oh, so you like comedy. What are you watching?” “The Office and Frasier.” He said he doesn’t know much about The Office, but he’s down with Frasier and Seinfeld. “Love Seinfeld,” I replied. “Well, I know it’s late in the flight, but can I get you a drink on me?” I declined. Then he offered me a chocolate chip cookie. Again, I had to decline. It was either that or ask if it was vegan, and that seemed like way too much information for someone I’d never see again. He thanked me again for the positive vibes. I thanked him for his offering.