anundiscoveredelement

[anundiscoveredelement]

Sylvia Plath, from The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath; "Three Women,"

[anundiscoveredelement]

Nothing is worse than being a daughter listening to your father rant.

"It's not all men."

"But it is every woman," I respond.

"No it isn't," he replies.

And I look at my sister. Because he doesnt know, he doesnt know.

And we dont say anything. Because we must spare him the pain, we must spare him the pain.

We are women, that is our job.

-sml

#original poem #writers and poets #poets on tumblr #female poets #spilled ink

[anundiscoveredelement]

- j (x)

[anundiscoveredelement]

Antonio Corradini, Modesty 1752

[anundiscoveredelement]

Ada Limón, from "Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees," published in June 2022

[anundiscoveredelement]

“I had two longings and one was fighting the other. I wanted to be loved and I wanted to be always alone.”

― Jean Rhys

[anundiscoveredelement]

I'm ready to be done with you, and I think I'm going to say that to your face.

No more nice girl, understanding girl, kind girl, sweet girl, push-over girl.

I'm ready now, my foot has hit the pavement and I'm holding the line. I stand before it, knees bent, sword balanced in my palm.

You are not allowed to cross it. I am done.

Because I have so many more things to write about, than you.

-Beyond, November 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #writers and poets #heartbreak #poets on tumblr #female poets #sad poetry #prose #poetry #sad prose #new poets society #breakup poetry #spilled poetry #spilled thoughts #spilled ink #poetry diary #growth #blossom #angry poetry

[anundiscoveredelement]

I had no idea I could do it. At the moment of my realization, I was haunted. The weight drapped over my shoulders and began to crushed me slowly. Testing to see if my traitor heart was a witch or not. I looked at the trial before me and thought there was no way I would make it to tomorrow. I wrote a poem at seven days and I was heartbroken. A month later I wrote a poem and sobbed as I tried to let go of you. A couple months in I kissed a new boy, and another, and I realized I was going days, weeks, without thinking of you.

The other day, I counted the months, my finger bouncing along the calendar to settle on a day. Six months later.

In the blink of an eye, it is half a year later and though you will never truly leave me I am more than I ever thought I could be. I am healed more than I ever thought imaginable those few hours in, days in, weeks in.

If I could do this, find myself six months later. My God, what will I look like when I find myself years later?

That's hope.

-Beyond. November 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #writers and poets #heartbreak #poets on tumblr #female poets #sad poetry #prose #poetry #sad prose #new poets society #breakup poetry #growth #blossom #spilled thoughts #spilled ink #poetry diary

[anundiscoveredelement]

Talking to you again feels like forgiving you

Like my pain was meaningless

Or it didnt hurt.

"Let's just be friends now,"

But how can we be when you put me through hell?

It feels like giving away that crying girl.

I don't know if I am ready to let go of her yet.

- Beyond? November 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #writers and poets #heartbreak #poets on tumblr #female poets #sad poetry #prose #poetry #sad prose #new poets society #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #poetry diary #breakup poetry

[anundiscoveredelement]

It's my ritual. Late at night, when the feelings resurface I read through all the lines I have written about you. Some nights I skip over a few, those chosen few that are too raw to remember. Other times I drag myself down into the depths. It is like a ritual of grieving, watching the progression of my feelings. Before, after, beyond? Beyond. Those last two, they meld together at times but it's still progress that I can mark anything, Beyond.

-Beyond, November 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #writers and poets #heartbreak #poets on tumblr #female poets #sad poetry #prose #poetry #sad prose #new poets society #breakup poetry #spilled poetry #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #poetry diary

[anundiscoveredelement]

Mausoleum

The only thing as consistent in this world as the sin of human beings is the inevitability of my death and the dust of my forgotten bones. Through the many ages my bones have turned to dust behind the protection of stone, been worn by the weight of the dirt that pressed down on them and been burned to ash on many a pyre. My skull sits, bejeweled and gilded beneath the altar of a Cathedral in Europe. Somewhere, I know, lost to me in the shuffle, is an arrow carved from one of my tibias sitting in a velvet case in a museum. I still remember the day I dug it up, with a shovel and my bare skin, holding the sharp edges in my palm and running my thumb over the divots worn by time. It had been many years since I held a relic of my life and as the bone warmed in my palm, I felt those long forgotten sensations dust themselves off in my chest; the feeling of the kohl rimming my eyes, silk sliding over the skin of my thighs, the desert sun kissing my collarbones.

The only thing as present as my death is his own. It has happened more times than I can recall in this age though, some of my sharpest memories are often those littered with my own agony; as I see him finally, my lost companion, marching along the front lines of my army before the slaughter. I can so crisply recall the soft strands of his hair soaked in blood, body littered with wounds on the steps of a great building, surrounded by traitors. Some deaths are even more agonizing as I miss them entirely. Hearing about it from an advisor, reading about it in a book, the newspaper. A new memory, not greyed by the act of distant remembrance, often plays before my eyes as I drift off to sleep; standing before an exhibit as people mill around me, mothers corralling their children, teenagers huddled together as they shuffle past, and me, looking up at him for the first time with my new eyes.

He was smiling in the picture, arms thrown around two other men as they stood before a car, a 1932 Ford Model 18 V8 read the small plaque below the picture. His dark hair was slicked back beneath a top hat, and his coat was fitted to his lean frame. I was so transfixed; I did not realize I had stepped forward and placed my hand on the glass of the photo until a guard sternly asked me to take a step back. The moment was distinct, when the world came rushing back to me and a sharp pang took over my chest when I realized it, when I knew it in my soul. I had missed him entirely. It happened from time to time, when the only way we knew of one another was through a history book or a passing mention from a stranger. I was only eleven when I listened through the crack in the door of my father’s court as his advisor told him the tale of the Great King who had died in Babylon, as was prophesied. Not even the muddled understanding of my youth could keep me from the crushing loneliness of knowing, in my soul, that I would be utterly alone through my life.  

The memories come slowly at first, a morbid understanding of a wisdom beyond my years is often recognized by those around me, though considered the quirk of my personality. At some point, an understanding settled in me to hold those memories close to my heart as the smell of smoke still burned the inside of my nose from time to time, the echo of my charred flesh shaking me from my slumber. I think, sometimes, that I can hear the timber of his screams paired with taste of ash in my mouth. I singed myself once with a candle; I watched the blood drain from his face as he cradled my burned skin and he wept. It was clear that our shared memory was much sharper, in his mind, than my vague impressions. There are many stories we cannot bear to tell the other that haunt the space behind our eyes. At some point he stopped looking at fire the same way and still, he has yet to understand why when he turns his head to the side, just so, tears slide down my cheeks as I see him sprawled on the dirt, neck broken as my husband towers over him in a foreign land.

Sometimes, warming ourselves in the light of a fire, the night settled around us where no prying ears could hear we would fill in the gaps of each other’s forgotten experience. The name of our first born child, the war we fled from, the court he presided over, the last name he wore. Our own names were long forgotten along with the life they lived, a sad but relieving tragedy in the face of our endless existence.

His favorite story was that of his time as one king or another, the kingdom forgotten in the cracks of his memory, but he could still remember the sweet smell of my hair as I poured wine into his goblet. He had never noticed a servant before yet found himself slowly lifting my trembling chin. His mouth had stretched into a grin when our eyes met and he often teased that his first thought was that of triumph to finally be the towering authority to my submission after so many moments standing before my many thrones age after age.

My favorite tale is always that of the wide set of his eyes as he was introduced to the visiting sister of a fellow priest as we stood on the steps of a great cathedral. His surprise was so great, he tripped on his way down the steps and landed in a heap before the hem of my skirts. I would always tease him for how he could barely make eye contact with me once he righted himself and he would defend himself with a scoff and a waving of his hands. How was an old soul in the body of a young man supposed to react when he realized how sorely he regretted taking his holy orders not even months prior as he was now faced with his lost love.

Our journeys to finding one another were mostly a waiting for fate, which we both had decided must exist, and would lead us together eventually. Though, the fear was always there of when, and how, and if that meeting would happen, our hope scarred by many missed opportunities. In the meantime, how were we supposed to live our lives? Sometimes the waiting would be too much, and our indifference would grow as our years passed in one life or another. One cannot cease living to wait for the companionship of another and the years after that realization were often better for it, and the meeting if it did come, was a gift more sweet.

One of my favorite pass times is reading about him, those details I don’t know or the people I missed entirely. Only years prior, I even wrote a thesis in my senior year of university on the phenomena of prohibition crime, inspired by that picture; the smirk on his lips, the gun in his pocket, looking the ever suave American gangster. I hope to remember my work by the next time I see him so I can ask him my curious questions. He will most likely tease me for being so obsessive as to write a thesis on him. Though, he’ll quickly blush when I mention the multiple volumes he wrote on a past queendom, by hand, when Gutenberg was but a young man.

In this life, however, my love for his past life is, I am beginning to see, a veiled acceptance. A hope that, if I dig enough, he will appear. If I just walk through the museum hall one more time he will be standing before that picture, waiting. I have yet to learn, once again, that waiting will only lead me to an agony too deep to encounter.

I hope, in the meantime, to leave something behind for him as I am now, so that when fate eventually brings him to stand in a museum hall, or see the names on a wall of alumni, or maybe read my name under the authorship of a paper handed to him by his professor, there will be something there to comfort him, to give him, until we see one another again.

(s.m.)

#heartbreak #writers and poets #female poets #prose #sad prose #new poets society #spilled ink #short story #sad writing #writing #short fiction #original story #short prose #magical realism #historical fiction #fantasy fiction #dark academic

[anundiscoveredelement]

I met a boy I think I loved in a past life and I haven't seen him for months.

I often wonder if we just barely pass by each other, unaware of the others presence in the room, or the building, or the world.

Where before my eyes would follow him as he walked, I have stopped looking. The heartache has become slightly bitter as the irregular beats still rattle in my chest at the thought of his curls.

I no longer linger in rooms waiting for him to notice me, though I wouldn't know, there are no rooms left to linger in, we don't even share the same space along a concrete sidewalk.

For some reason, the universe has taken my love from me once again, and this time, before it even had a chance to start.

I hope we find each other again in our next lifetime and those lovers don't remember this tragic indifference.

-my past love, October 2023

(s.m.)

I met a boy I think I loved in a past life. The first time we met, he sat a couple seats away from me in class and as the time ticked on he eventually looked my way and as our eyes crossed for just a second something in my heart exploded.

I never knew why but the second he walked into the room I was only aware of him and how he moved and the soft curls of his hair. I would glance out of the corner of my eye ever couple minutes to see the shape of his mouth as he talked or catch his eye, just once, like I couldn't stand to stop looking at him.

One time, he told me he liked my coat and I think I said that to him years ago, sliding the wool between my fingers, looking up at him through my lashes. I thought about his words for days after, like they were written on my bones.

My friend swears he looks at me like he is coming home from war.

I think he did, or maybe he didnt.

Maybe he never came home from the war and our love died in a foreign land and now, finally, we can lay eyes on one another again.

I swear we loved each other, but now we are strangers and I am stuck watching him, lingering in the room waiting to be acknowledged because my soul remembers and I am hoping his does as well.

We walk past each other on the sidewalk and I think of running my fingers through his curls as he gives me that small smile, but he keeps walking.

-After the After, July 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #sad poetry #heartbreak #poets on tumblr #writers and poets #female poets #poetry #prose #sad prose #lovers #new poets society #life poetry #love poem #love poetry #i met a boy i think i loved in a past life #spilled ink #spilled poetry #spilled thoughts #tragic love #love #poetry diary

[anundiscoveredelement]

Once, when I was 21, I begged my roommate to leave her boyfriend. I considered us sisters and no matter how angry she could make me or how annoyed I could be I decided I would love her.

It's always hard to realize that is not always enough.

I begged her to leave her boyfriend and she would almost do it so many times and then the next day would come around and no matter what vile things he said to her she would forgive him and they would move on.

On Halloween, I heard him screaming at her over the phone from across the room. All the roommates spent the whole night keeping her from her pain until we found ourselves huddled in front of our dorm tv with smeared makeup and popcorn.

He knocked on the door and I don't know why but I answered, I have always been the mediator. He was huffing and puffing through the crack I gave him to see me. At first, I thought he was worried about her, until the utter hatred in his eyes landed on me.

We all begged her to break up with him after that. Three girls crying on the floor as she shook in our arms.

Halloween never ended well for me and that night only told me it could get worse after he slammed the door open so hard our wall had a dent in it, ripping it from my fingers and all of his 6 foot mass launched my 5'5 figure into our fridge.

We begged her to break up with him after I spent an hour of my life with my finger over the call dial for campus police and watched him scream at her and me and my other roommate. He knew we didn't like him.

My one roommate called him a piece of shit and I have never been more afraid than when I thought he would hit her.

My other roommate sat paralyzed in her chair watching the scene unfold and I waited.

I waited for his hatred to turn back on me again as he screamed at his girlfriend.

That night we thought it was over. And that morning we thought it was over.

We didn't even make it 24 hours until she came home and told me and my roommate that she couldn't listen to our opinions anymore. She understood, wasn't sorry, understood, that he threw me into the fridge, he would never step foot in our dorm again. She promised.

And I felt my love die. Shrivel up in my chest.

Because, that night, if I had to, I would have killed him for her, I would have fought him with everything in me if he even tried to touch her.

But she couldn't give me the same in return.

Countless time she told me she wasn't in love with him. She was just afraid of being alone.

Fear of being alone.

That was worth how he threw me into our fridge.

That was worth how he left her three roommates in tears.

That was worth how he left her shaking while I held her.

Fear of being alone.

Just because you love someone doesn't mean you can save them.

-beyond one problem and onto another, October 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #poets on tumblr #writers and poets #heartbreak #sad poetry #female poets #poetry #prose #sad prose #new poets society #spilled ink #poetry diary

[anundiscoveredelement]

I'm so tired of being left on the other side of the glass. Looking in. Or looking out, like behind a set of bars, like a convinct unaware of the crime I commited.

Im so tired of caring with my whole being only to watch people leave my heart in the back of their bottom desk drawer to collect dust.

I am like a grain of sand falling through their fingers, nameless among the masses even thought I could have sorted them from amongst the dunes.

What have I done to be cursed in such a way? Two weddings forgotten and countless parties and every meal and all the things I did and they never did and I am stuck here.

Wondering,

Begging. To know.

Why does no one remember my name?

-beyond one thing and onto another, October 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #poets on tumblr #writers and poets #heartbreak #sad poetry #female poets #poetry #prose #sad prose #new poets society #spilled ink #poetry diary

[anundiscoveredelement]

It was your birthday today.

It took me all day to notice, to realize.

And for the first time after deleting the texts between us I clicked on your name.

"Happy birthday, you can now sing Taylor Swift's 22. I hope you are doing well."

God, I hope I don't live to regret that.

-Beyond, October 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #poets on tumblr #writers and poets #heartbreak #sad poetry #female poets #poetry #prose #sad prose #new poets society #poetry diary #spilled thoughts #spilled ink

[anundiscoveredelement]

Sitting in the front seat of the car, on one of the many days I have cried about you.

Mama said that sisterhood is a complicated road and right now, to see, that if we cannot be sisters, we can be friends.

I told her how terrible of a thing that is. Because, if we were strangers, passing by on the sidewalk. I said,

"I wouldn't want to be her friend."

I would have just kept walking.

- beyond one thing and onto another, October 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #poets on tumblr #writers and poets #heartbreak #sad poetry #female poets #poetry #prose #sad prose #new poets society #sisterhood #poetry diary #spilled thoughts #spilled ink

[anundiscoveredelement]

So long I have held my tongue for you I think I am beginning to choke on it.

My chest is caving in with those things that are left unsaid, always unsaid. You strike at me, oh do you strike at me.

I let your palm hit my cheek and feel the blood drip down my chin. There is a tange in my mouth. There is always a tange in my mouth as I bite through the soft flesh of my tongue for you.

Over, and over, until my nerves are raw and frayed and tangling inside my limbs.

How odd to feel so raw and so numb all at once.

We used to say God made us sisters because he was simply unable to keep us apart. Now, I think its because he knew it was the only way I would love you.

But what about me? Did he not regard me? I am cursed to love you while I am stuck in the grave of knowing even with our shared blood, you are incapable of loving me back.

-beyond one thing and onto another, October 2023

(s.m.)

#original poem #poets on tumblr #writers and poets #heartbreak #sad poetry #female poets #poetry #prose #sad prose #new poets society #spilled thoughts #spilled ink #daily thoughts #poetry diary #sisterhood