therhyspieces

[therhyspieces]

A werewolf breakup

-- and back.

I wish

you had not

made me human

again.

To be a thing of teeth and claws is to be a thing

invincible, but a human

is a soft target.

you rip them open and they bleed

and bleed and they are too rational to realize they are bleeding

and too arrogant to know

they can die.

You put a piece of silver shrapnel in my shoulder blade and

I thanked you for it.

I was so grateful to feel right again,

to feel human, that I chose to ignore

I was bleeding.

It has been poisoning me all this time, the bullet,

and still I trailed you like maybe you didn't mean it, shooting me.

Maybe you had to do it maybe

you knew how to get the bullet out.

You told me once that I could be anything:

a monster, a murderer,

that I could cut you and you

would still love me.

I took this to mean that your love was unconditional but

there is a condition:

it is that I let you hunt me

whenever you want and, afterwards,

bleed at your feet and ask for forgiveness for things

I could not control and do not remember and did not do

so you can take my bloody paw between your fingers and say you love this monster anyway even though the only ones

who think

I am a monster

are people who want me caged

or dead.

I do not want you to hear from these words that you are a bullet.

Hear instead that you are a hunter and I am a wolf,

both of us killers,

that you think you are defending

and I am surviving,

and the intersection of our territories is not good for either of us.

Hear instead that I do not need to be human.

Hear us howl! there are packs of us,

our claw-trails sharp between the trees

and we do not need to be hunted,

do not need to be brought back,

do not need our names spoken or

hunters' bullets or

chained just because you do not understand things that are free.

I am sorry you take this as a threat.

I am sharp and wild but I will not cut you;

I love you still.

That is why I kept

turning back to the smoking mouth of your gun expecting safety.

I have shielded you for so long, and thought you might protect me, too.

I am sorry, too,

that I called it wrong.

[therhyspieces]

Things I have taken from girls who broke my heart.

A copy of "Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret" that a childhood best friend lent me because I needed to read 'real books'. I never read it, for the same reason. I was too shy to return it without a review. It has sat on my shelf unread for fourteen years. Maybe it was this, the stolen novel, which caused the falling out, which made her hate me. I never knew, though. She never told me.

An employee hoodie for a local homeless shelter. Two of the loves of my life gave it to me because I was cold despite the summer. I wore it home because the four of us got into an argument that didn't really have anything at all to do with me, and taking the hoodie was easier than holding my tongue while I sat with the drawstrings pulled right about my face like it'd somehow help me solve their problems for them. I couldn't. I can't. I still wish I could. I miss them both dearly, miss them when I'm standing in the room with them. I think sometimes we are echoes of ourselves, no longer the shout but the answer.

A tendency of putting corn on my chipotle burritos, from my second-oldest friend. It makes them ever-so-slightly sweet, like she was, like she still tries to be, at the expense, often, of everything else, especially herself. A girl who makes mincemeat of herself for the people she loves will soon cease to exist as something which is capable of receiving love. I love you, my friend. Please see it, I think. Please. It will not matter. She has made a tragedy of herself.

A pair of soft pajama pants, from a lover. "With pockets!" she exclaimed, thrusting her hands in them while I laughed. We still talk, but I don't know how to return the pants without being awkward. "Here are the pants that I took before you pretended I didn't exist for a week and then broke up with me?" Yeah, right. Besides, I like the pockets.

A copy of the game Battleship, from a different childhood friend. She lent it on the promise I would give it back but I never figured out how to because my mom stopped letting her over. Something about oversexualization. Or bad influences. I don't know. She used to cheat by taking her ships off the grid. She went missing in Maui a few years ago; I don't know if they ever found her. Maybe she's just taken herself off the grid like she used to -- C4, miss. I hope she at least found herself.

A profile picture from my high school graduation party, which still lives on some sites. I remember when she took it, my talented artist friend. She stood over me, behind me as I sat on the May grass with my knees pulled up to my chest, and I tipped my head up to see the lens. In the picture, my eyes are very blue and my hair is still long, because this was before I stopped playacting at femininity. I am smirking, like I know something the photographer didn't, which was maybe that I loved her. She had a clever eye for many things but not, I think, for that. You can see her toes in one corner of the frame, the photo's only imperfection.

The twitch I get when I'm stressed, the one that says "I need a cigarette." I didn't have it before. It's because I would smoke on the back porch with her, an excuse to be just us, with my hoodie turned up against the cold, and she would jokingly tell me that she'd always wanted to date an emo boy, even though we both know I am neither, and she'd take a drag of my cigar and kiss me and everything would be perfect, for just a crystalline moment, a shock of quiet through the noise of the world. Sometimes I smoke for just a brush of that feeling again, a taste of that shining rightness, but nicotine-quiet is different from love-quiet.

A smattering of other things from this little crowd. A love of pop-punk. Memories of Hebrew school. A dislike of watermelon. A particular method of doodling jellyfish. Drawing stars, drawing 3D boxes. A first kiss that didn't count. My name, my career, and half my stories or more. I am all stories, so I am all them. We carry cracks in us like medals. My shrink says that heartbreak is a form of grief not condoned by society, but I think for girls like us the problem is sharper than that.

This line:

Love does not conquer all. In truth, love is barely enough to keep you in the room with me.

[therhyspieces]

Today in poetry writing: Ragnarok!

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The gays have updated! Have fun. Chapter 1 // Chapter 2// Chapter 3// Chapter 4

[therhyspieces]

The ongoing Star Wars fanfiction I lovingly refer to as “the gays” has updated. Enjoy! Chapter 1// Chapter 2// Chapter 3// Chapter 4

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It's Wednesday, and you know what that means!

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remain tuned for space lesbians it’s just that i now have a dedicate tumblr for this stuff!

So I didn’t make a tumblr blog but I did give my wordpress a facelift. Check it out!

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It’s random backlog Wednesday! No poetry today but here’s a short story I wrote in 2014.

[therhyspieces]

Do you like Star Wars? How about lesbian pining? Yes? Well, you’re in the right place. 

Updates Fridays. 

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3