wonderlandramblings

[wonderlandramblings]

Even my hair has bruises from your hipbones

I usually try to inhale on your outbreath

I might be talking about drugs

I might be talking about the heartbeat of the trees and the humming

of power lines

or taking whatever I can of you

Sometimes I can’t unwrap the umbilical cord 

from my own neck

Sometimes you imagine it

away by rubbing my back only to find it

hanging loosely from your lungs the next night

when a drunk friend throws a bottle at the wall

It took multiple years to gather the courage 

to say I love you

I started gathering before I knew you, before

I knew what it was for, I have been

storing it in my fingernails and the bottom of my

tongue, biting

my nails to keep it small, biting

your nipples and your jugular

you've been tattooing a mirror trail

between the two on my chest

creeping further and further towards my bellybutton

I might be talking about the footsteps of someone a mile away

or taking whatever I can of you

[wonderlandramblings]

All the window panes ran red The day I found the old man dead Seeking solace, vision blurred I prayed, and prayed the old man heard

[wonderlandramblings]

It Is Time For Me To Die

when I see this later

I hope it is through new eyes

bathed in grief for my old self

it is time for me to die

let the void chew me up and spit out my body

so new things can grow

so i can reform from ashes

let the diseased parts go

let me fill myself with stars

instead of black holes

let me grow my roots into the soil of golden life

instead of lead

let my voice echo through the universe:

"Welcome to my rebirth"

[wonderlandramblings]

i thought 

your heart

was an open door

right before i crashed

into the glass

i hope 

you’re practicing

being less clear

[wonderlandramblings]

I’ve discovered the secret to crying pretty. It’s just crying, I’m already pretty.

This Isn’t a Poem, This is Just My Life, Emily MacCalman

[wonderlandramblings]

[wonderlandramblings]

My, My, My, My, My

Take that thing that happened. To you. Open it like a concealed rose. Hold it up to the nose of someone else. Let them tell you that you still smell sweet. So

sweet. Let that person who loves you pluck petals out of the gully of your wound. Let her shave them into points and sail them back into your heart like paper airplanes. For

that fist at the center of your pulse is of what you have always been made, despite your fingers being tipped in thorn. Use them now to shred the sheets. Shred the night.

No one needs to sleep under that much cover or on that much polite. Slit the sky. Let the Gods fall out. The ones who could’ve let that thing happen in the first place.

Catch them in your pockets. Catch them in your chest. Put the God back in your chest, God after God after God. Until you know yourself. Again. Repeat.

Take that rose, the one your flesh wounds around. Open it and open it and open it. Toss bits of your scar into the air like goddamned wedding rice. Or bird seed.

Let some of them sprout. Into so much green green new day it makes your shins hurt with how much you want to run. Forward. And meet the world without all those

red whorls, those old scars, those stuck stitches in your side. And we, we will marvel at your silhouette. My, we’ll say. My, my, my, my, my! Doesn’t she run like an un-flowering?

-Tara Hardy

[wonderlandramblings]

Phantasm #1

Sometimes I think of never looking back but it’s one of those days when my claws are stained black and my lungs are made of blood-silver Yesterday I thought my heart had grown fatter Today I polished a silver platter with a tentacle of lace, blood-stained, love-worn; warm blood, warm silver Sometimes I think that you no longer matter Sometimes I dream of your head on a platter An axe splitting blood-cherry, blood-silver

[wonderlandramblings]

Phantasm #2

I am a seizure witch I am a sick Buddha I am a living sidewalk I am a sad and lovely Madonna

[wonderlandramblings]

Phantasm #3

I feel I feel I feel unreal

[wonderlandramblings]

[wonderlandramblings]

PSA Your body Trapped in its jeans Knows better than that But you untaught it

Road of a Thousand Wonders, Jeffrey Joe Nelson

[wonderlandramblings]

Whiskers

I am dripping off your whisper I am wrapped around your finger I am falling off your whisker I am drowning in your room As you soft-skin warm me I am drowning in full view And we're fooling only two

[wonderlandramblings]

[wonderlandramblings]

BB

Dear bb

you are so confusing

I never know where I stand

we can pinky swear for hours

but I still can’t hold your hand

I want to learn every you

I want more than a mirror

Dear bb

if you’d tell me your weak spots

I’d plug them with my fingers

you might leak but I’ve never

been a boat builder

my ark is shoddy

but it can probably fit your animal feelings

Dear bb

you remind me of a bronze statue

your smooth contours disguise your

impermeable edges

Dear bb

I worry I am not hot enough

to melt you down

I worry that if I was

your molten metal might drown

us both

[wonderlandramblings]

You are the flood that is scared of the rain

[wonderlandramblings]

Exploded View

I studied physiology because acid made me fascinated

with what could kill me. When I got back my blackbird, the teacher

said: here is your magnifying glass, your tuning fork,

your one-way mirror. Lady touching holy beads, lady touching

*

herself in formaldehyde. On Tuesday my lab partner

said he could toggle 'acid vision' (that's what he called it) on

and off. He gave me his glasses and made the dead thing

breathe. On Wednesday he went crazy. After that it was just me

*

and the blackbird, styrofoam-pinned, hypochondrial sundial

misunderstanding itself into exhaustion. At home I couldn't stop

opening my wings. My parents said it was real bad luck.

The lady selling nail polish on television and the corpse wearing it

*

both look equally pale. The ripe blush of them

only exacerbates the effect. In class I noticed the blackbird

rotted where I touched it. I mean me. I mean I decayed

the bird. I mean none of it seemed like a coincidence. 

-Annelyse Gelman