literature

myths and the things that really matter

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intricately-ordinary's avatar
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Literature Text

in a season of wavering will
and ripe regret, I was born
too old - into a fragile world
of butterfly feathers and
springtime secrets, tied tenderly
around hollow hallucinations and
carefully called a "dream"

they promise you things
when you are too young to
understand the monsters under
your bed are really fragments
of you, left to disintegrate
in the dark. they say: you
will touch the world, you will
know the stars by name, you
will be our deliverance from
all the things we were not

you will be strong.

but they don't know, no,
I am a yard sale:

I sold my heart to a boy
with lilting lies and eyes
that looked human

I lent my bones to an
unstable night

I whispered my wishes away
down empty wells, and only heard
the shallow echo of myself

I sent my lungs down the
river – gasping for forgiveness

and I gave my voice
to the ocean, in exchange
for a little sleep

when they finally see me, I say
with a sawdust screech, I am
not all these pieces of me--

I have to believe somewhere
behind the complex of a mirror
and fluorescent flutters,
there exists a version of myself,
untouched--
a glass skeleton, unscathed, and
living out its life for you.

(no one ever warned me that stories
were better told untrue.)
Once upon a time in a far off kingdom behind the words you'd never say...
© 2013 - 2024 intricately-ordinary
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camelopardalisinblue's avatar
This is absolutely breathtaking in its beauty and mastery. Gorgeous.