zaphs-lost-cat

[zaphs-lost-cat]

You left like a season—slowly, beautifully, and all at once. Now every breeze feels like a memory

[zaphs-lost-cat]

GIRL, SALTED

they ask why the sea is undrinkable & i show them my hands, ridged with the memory of someone else’s weight. i have taken every name that did not belong to me & swallowed it whole. it does not dissolve. my tongue turns to paper. my throat, a dry riverbed, gasping. i have been kissed by men who left salt behind. i let them eat. i let them take. i say yes, because no sounds like a curse in the wrong room.

i have been told my voice is too much like a storm—so i keep it pressed between my teeth, let it weather my gums into something soft. i could have screamed, once. but the body is a clever thing; it learns when to be still. i learned when to be still. i learned how to salt my own wounds before anyone else could do it for me.

they ask why the sea is undrinkable & i open my mouth & let it flood. my ribs crack open like a fault line. a lesson in topography: i have been mapped & remapped & claimed & carved into something that fits. i ask if they are thirsty. they look at me like i am saying something awful.

i was not meant to be this body. i was meant to be water.

[zaphs-lost-cat]

[zaphs-lost-cat]

"Feelings fled under pressure; Feelings did not light the darkness. What remained strong in the deep, the hard times, was love as an effort, a doing, a conscious act of will."

-- Emily Habeck, Shark Heart

[zaphs-lost-cat]

"Soulmates, like her & Lewis, were not theoretical & found, They were tangible, built."

-- Emily Habeck, Shark Heart

[zaphs-lost-cat]

"The surface of love was a feeling, but beyond this thin layer, there was a fathomless, winding maze of caverns offering many places to see and explore."

- Emily Habeck, Shark Heart

[zaphs-lost-cat]

Are you lost, my dear? I am waiting to love you.

[zaphs-lost-cat]

I dream of quiet conversation flowing, slow & sweet, like honey from a jar.

I dream of a kind of courage that only ventures out when stars hang overhead.

[zaphs-lost-cat]

Find me and I will tell you I love you in more syllables than three.

[zaphs-lost-cat]

i think i was meant to have scraped knees & dirt under my fingernails

[zaphs-lost-cat]

I built everything I am.

But I built it on the foundation laid by a broken man

whose sharp edges leave jagged wounds on those he loves.

I wonder if my father's redemption is wedged between those bricks.

[zaphs-lost-cat]

Even damaged as I am, I could love you;

I promise.

[zaphs-lost-cat]

my lips were made to leave stains on your collar

[zaphs-lost-cat]

— arealliveghost

[zaphs-lost-cat]

Come, sit with me on the edge of sanity.

[zaphs-lost-cat]

Like honey from a jar, we would pour ourselves out,

our lips sweet & sticky with being known.

[zaphs-lost-cat]

My bones grow brittle as I wait for you to love me.