twelvegaugewire

[twelvegaugewire]

Nikita Gill, from Fierce Fairytales Poems & Stories to Stir Your Soul; "Seven,"

[twelvegaugewire]

7-11-2024

To hell and back

I didn't take pictures Crumpled and binned the map when I left Yes, I Exited through the gift shop Didn't bring anything But the claw marks on my back It was business, not pleasure I know my eyes still glare obsidian But the smoke that stains my skin This dark you find alluring I do not find the least bit interesting You scoff when I say I crave incandescence And ask about the blood, again You never ask me about My depiction Of Heaven

--- 7-11-2024, M.A. Tempels ©

[twelvegaugewire]

“September is a fade-in of a low light. Flicker once, then out again. Up goes the candle smoke. The needle in the haystack is never found or heard from again. The birds shroud the sky. All this silence, then a danger cry. Bluebird with the broken wing. Mockingbird with the missing voice box. The umber season. All smoke and mirrors. The low light. A strangled sunset. My voice goes out for a walk and is never found or heard from again.”

— September, Angelea Lowes

[twelvegaugewire]

Sometimes I think if I hold my head under the shower stream for long enough, the water will pour right through my scalp and my skull and into my brains. It might mush everything up and erase all I know and have known, and everything I worry about will no longer be a worry. They'll just be greyish pink matter under my feet getting squished into the drain. And time suspends with my eyes shut and my body warm like a womb.

[twelvegaugewire]

Sitting in the pitch black, in the closet on the dryer with you holding the cloth pressed into my arm. I could smell the mold on the walls. I could feel the mold sinking into my chest. The water running outside the door. A warm shower in the room where you pulled the bath mat over my blood so it could remain our secret forever. The funny thing about it that night was that I didn’t even feel it. The feeling I wait for when my skin splits and scarlet falls out. But it was like lidocaine limbs and I looked down and it just wouldn’t stop flowing. Falling to my fingertips then falling to puddles on the floor like raindrops from the end of the world. I thought it could’ve been the end of my world if you weren’t there to stop the bleeding.

[twelvegaugewire]

“If you leave her, make sure she’s not the love of your life. Otherwise you will meet her one day, on an autumn street, yellow leaves blowing about her, her arms full of her child and a happy marriage. And she will as you expectantly, her eyes gleaming, hoping you found happiness too, “What did you trade me for?” And you will not be able to answer. Because all you traded true love in for is empty hands and a half full life.”

— Nikita Gill

[twelvegaugewire]

it doesn't matter if you called yourself the asshole. It matters that maybe you didn't believe it. That to appease me is to love me and to love me is enough. But it's not. Even if it were the right kind of love it wouldn't be enough. Because what about the damage? What about the holes eating through your heart you refuse to work on patching up? What about the secret hate I think you feel? What about the secret hate I know I feel and can't name or explain in a way that will wrap around your brain? What about shrinking down to a size that fits into your palm, into your cheek, into your stomach? What about digesting me into nothing. What about every action you take that screams "I couldn't care less about what you think." What about the fact that we no longer touch. What about the abortion? What about both of our hearts breaking. Over and over again. What about the lack of glue to stick things back together? What about the rain that pours down endlessly to the point where we can’t breath and everything we’ve ever tried to repair is disintegrating again. What about the slippery hands grasping at fragments trying to pick them up again to save for later? To save them later. What about me not knowing if I care anymore? What’s the easy way to say “I’m waiting until the lease is up.”? What’s the easy way to say “when I look at you my heart doesn’t skip beats anymore.” What's the easy way to say I'm Sorry For All Of This. What's the easy way to make you to believe it?

[twelvegaugewire]

Satin covering her bones and with the movement of her hips sweat trickled down to pool in the small of her back where my fingers rest. Suddenly I understand what it means to be excited to be touched. And flashes hit me hard in the head that scream "this is all you’ve ever wanted". This is what the world yells from rooftops about. This is what melts the ice in my chest. This is how someone feels when they say "that was the best".

[twelvegaugewire]

A wave sucked me down and now I'm drowning

I look at the calender and I can't stop counting

The universe killed my careless, birthed it into something so heavy

To know there's a tiny heart beating inside my belly

So sure I was uninhabitable and broken

Never thinking this could split me open

And no apology can change a thing

To know you would've been born in spring

To know I'll keep seeing you in my dreams.

To know not a single person in the world could help me.

[twelvegaugewire]

How am I to grapple with the fact that maybe I could have saved you? I could have let you live a little longer. How are you supposed to know that enough is enough if you can’t understand their words? How do you know when the pain is too much to hold, and it’s time to let them go? How do you weigh out the pros and cons of a life? Or the pros and cons of going broke to just give them another day, month, year? Do they understand when you whisper in their ears that you love them? That you’re sorry? Do they know when it’s the last time they’ll feel your hands on their fur? Can he tell that when I held him in my arms while he died, that part of me died right there with him? I hope not. I hope it was as peaceful as falling asleep. But it’s so hard to believe that. And that’s what scares me, makes me feel guilty. And if I had just spent the thousands and thousands of dollars, maybe he would be sitting right beside me. Purring and sleeping and warming my lap.

[twelvegaugewire]

I told you that you were beautiful,

the rain of a hundred storms and the venom of a thousand fangs ran down your face and you said

thanks

and I tried a nonchalant shrug with a distanced

yeah, np

like I wasn't already writing you poetry behind my ribs

so many quills through my skin; I might turn bird

so much ink in my veins; I might turn squid but

I can't fly and I've

nowhere left to swim

I told you that you were beautiful,

my feathers tacky and useless from the rain,

I spread two fragile wings in

futile display,

muddied the waters,

swam away

[twelvegaugewire]

Nothing's working anymore. The machine isn't running and it never was well oiled, but at least it ran. It ran, and we laughed and we kissed and we touched. And I felt something. My heart use to grow big and feel like it was bursting. But lately it feels tired and worn out, like it's been climbing a staircase with no end; concrete clicking under my heels, sending shockwaves into my spine, and my body just wants to sleep. My nerves are criss crossed and fizzled out. I can't even remember when it happened. I'm scared that maybe my heart doesn't belong to you. But more than that, I'm scared that it doesn't belong to me. Scared I've got nothing left to give. That nothing can wake me up out of this fever. That I'll feel like a big ball of nothing forever.

And yet as all of this fear is playing on a loop inside my body, I can't even blink.

[twelvegaugewire]

may

her only friend is her little doll. and how she wishes she could be encased in glass too. mommy's girl. tired of being so alone. creating her very own human. perfect parts of everyone she's ever loved. everyone who's looked at her with a smile. stitched and glued together and sealed with a kiss. they kiss her with their cold lips and she thinks they're alive. swears she can hear a heartbeat in that cold, dead chest. the only thing they're missing are eyes to tell her how pretty she is. but she only needs one. so cut one out and paste it on. and tell her everything is going to be okay. they fall on the bed. may and the corpse with seams on every appendage, dried blood flaking onto the sheets. holding that thing together as she warms them to sleep. Their name is Amy, and now they can be best friends forever.

[twelvegaugewire]

Perhaps I'll never be satisfied with boring love. Safe love. Perhaps I'll always be dreaming of the car crash that was them and I. Romanticizing that pain. Mistaking that pain for true love. Hugging that little ball of light in my dreams, remembering crying on the floor while staining it with my blood. Like a sacrifice. Hungry for something so intense again. Praying for someone who can dig up the ground inside of me, all the way to the soft spots. And graze through me like a field. But I don't know if anyone else is meant to do that. And I am scared. Scared nothing can touch me anymore. Scared I spent all the feelings I have ever been allotted on them. while I sit at the dinner table, and look at you over the rim of my glass as I drink, knowing no one comes tonight. And say I love you, while my heart pitters on. Interrupted by no emotion. Perfectly rhythmically.

[twelvegaugewire]

everything is boring and i'm tired and sick and i hate trying and i hate screaming inside myself and i hate clawing up the floorboards until my nails rip off just trying to escape to somewhere that hurts less to somewhere where i feel more

and then I think about it and it really doesn't matter what my life feels like cause one day i'm gonna die and when you're dead you can't remember anything so my suffering will be for nothing any happiness will be for nothing and the way i cry alone and hide myself from everyone won't matter because no one will remember anyone anyways

[twelvegaugewire]

baby

I cry for my old self, I hate for her. I wish I could scoop her up and take her away from the dark alley she's walking to. A pretender guides her way. Holding candles out to light up the concrete but will soon enough snuff them out with his laugh. He laughs while I trip over my feet. His fingers dark electric with hexes. I can't see his thoughts yet but they read: I'll love you forever, while it's convenient. I'll never hurt you, except when I want to. You're so beautiful, until you won't fuck me.

He smiles big and his canines shift into fangs in the shadows. He looks right into my eyes and all I see looking back are deserted pools. Soul has been evacuated. He didn't want to be that way but he learnt it. He didn't mean to draw blood when he bit. He didn't mean to extinguish my desire while he smothered me but he certainly did.

I gave my power away and he loved it. As soon as he knew I was mouldable he jumped on that and sculpted me in his fingers.

I think what makes it worse is through all of it he thought he loved me well and, well he just didn't.

I was only a baby then, no one had ever felt me. No one had ever warned me. No one protected me. No one told me a 20 year old falling for a 16 year old was wrong. How was I to know that afterwards, for years having boundaries and just saying no could make me inconsolable.

Men kill children all the time. Though I was forced to grow up too early, no one is ever grown enough to be the lover of an adult while they're still a child.

Ten years later and I'm still trying not to waste energy on hating you.

I will never be told sorry. I can't wait for anything anymore. So I tuck my knees to my chest and I repeat again and again and again, It's Not Your Fault until the child in me believes it.

[twelvegaugewire]

...

I never liked you. You were just there to take up time because I had way too much and still do. Maybe that’s mean of me, but isn’t that what the boys do? Why can’t I be the same? I’m not so sure I’m a girl anymore anyways, but something in between or nothing. And I’m ok with that. I feel like nothing most days anyways, sometimes I think I could disappear and no one would notice at all. “But that’s not true!” If I feel it so strong, there has to be some truth to feeling so small. It’s my fault too. I’m my own prisoner. Solitarily confined. And as much as I like that, sometimes I wish someone could reach through the bars and just hold my hand.