I love a darkness
So black and so blue
It swallows me whole
Like black holes do
His back is a mesh
A treasure untold
And there in the centre
Is his heart to hold
He carries the mark
Of an extraordinary mind
And pays back his dues
In blood and in kind
I love a darkness
His kiss is so sweet
He is the worst thing
I'll ever meet
His teeth like razors
His body like bone
He is the most beautiful thing
I ever left alone
I love a darkness
So black and so blue
Her smile is raging
Against the light too
She doesn't go gentle
But far on ahead
Into the night
To make sure we're not dead
Her skin leaves me blind
Her voice is so soft
She speaks to me roughly
And holds me aloft
I love a darkness
I'll lay down my head
Her breaths be my death
As I sleep by her bed
She breathes with my lungs
I'll lay down my life
And anyone else's
If they give her strife
I Love A Darkness, by Mallory M.
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you build your home like
coffins; impenetrable
and cold to the touch
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his name was not given by her
a rising star, flying colours
from yellow dwarf to red giant
life-giving and bright, defiant
he carved his own name into the void
with groups of friends
found it in his history books
matched it to his paltry looks
her name was drawn from a hat
electronically, magically
called and lost to anyone but her
she walked close to the fir
light house, eyes like a search light
but hard-earned wisdom:
the myths are right
if you come close to the sun
Icarus was a woman and the sun is a man, by Mallory M.
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sacrosanct papers
prayers in the form of a croissant
silver crescent
'round your neck
your heartbeat up your throat steady
steady beating drum against the noise of your prayer
your own voice lost
at sea
no land ahoy
Sacrosanct, by Mallory M.
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But perhaps you'll only read me in passing
juxtaposed with favourite writers and unknown alike
my words desaturated by their brilliance
like a scorching December sun
whitewashing your street
and even when there was no snow
it all seemed white in the blinding light
Or you'll read me only in parts
a line or four singled out by someone else
not your first choice
because you rely on others'
I'll represent an inspirational quote
and if you dare pursue the rest of the poem
I'll be the spitting image of disappointment
There was a reason they only chose four lines
ate me raw and moved on
burying me deep under that snow-covered ground
the cold skin that hosts your beating heart
inked it with just a piece of me
like a quilted blanket to cut up
and sow together with their own
One day I'll walk with you on empty grounds
and tell you something
you might find poetic
but I'll also ask you to stop reading my poetry
because I ink my pen with my soul
I scribble out the flaws with my shame
the thesaurus I use is written in tears
Excerpt from something I don’t know, by Mallory M.
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I'm sorry you were a coward
and I'll never be sorry for being honest with you
because I was always
It was myself I was lying to
myself I scooted out of the way
into the closet
the skeleton I'd told myself to wrap into
a thinly disguised ghost of my exuberance
because I thought you might like me thin
and vulnerable
and ultimately exotic
like your drawings
my imagined blueprint of your perfect woman
so I painted myself as a poet
a lyricist, a girl who shared her words
(my first and last defense)
without asking you to take a look
who let them hang in unremarked voids
A girl who was all dainty fingertips
and pink noses, rosy cheeks
a small, fragile thing
who only knew 'this way up'
the kind who wouldn't frighten you away
I let you come to me for so long
I heard our friends joke
with two-cented smiles
(and they will always have been your friends first)
and an underhand comment
as if they were paid in cash per snark
But more importantly
I waited for you
in that body, that package
signed, sealed, delivered
too small to breathe
the corset breaking at the seams
With waterwork pallets
scratching words in the surface of used cars
as if hoping to find something underneath
like covering coloured paper in oil crayons
and running a nail in the pattern of secrets
I saw my worth in your eyes
and you never had to say a word
it was your silence
that got me hooked
that gave me a hint
that made me think I didn't even deserve
the respect of your 'No'
I thought I wasn't small enough
that you could only see in microcosms
one pencil line at a time
so I never spoke of you
I matched you for emptiness
and without my words
I suddenly stood defenseless in everyone's eyes
so that when love came around again
I didn't recognise it
because I didn't recognise myself
Dreaming of your lips before bed
your smile at breaking dawn
Knowing I would see you
and when I did
hiding, turning around
because your silence still stabbed at my scars
like double-edged swords
heads, I'd go to war with my words
tails, I'd already lost
the two-scented battle I could never win
and as a poet
I have to imagine
I wrote my own justice
Poetic Justice, by Mallory M.
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December wakes up
and looks back at what you've done
shaking its old head
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The question lurks like
people in the dark
like representations of lives unlived
what could have been
big, looming shadows underneath
while you're flapping your fins in the deep, blue sea
watching all the colourful fish
as you allow them to float by
without a second glance
What if
fishermen only caught one fish
and stopped looking
What If, by Mallory M.
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"There's a skinny girl inside of me."
How does that work?
Is she my skeletal core
nothing more than skin and bones
the spine that keeps me upright
and the sensitive part of my hands
or did I eat her
a full-fledged person
I drowned with a glass of milk
to go with my feelings
I know she's not my heart
big and sick and still beating
because that part of me is fat
those stretchmarks that look like veins
is growth from when it broke
she is not the scars that stretch
and wither every time someone
comments on the way I look
She looks just like a little girl
because that's what I was when I last saw her
teacup eyes wide in wonder
that someone sees the way she looks
and thinks it means the way she acts
but I still have to ask
which part of me is her
and which parts of her is past?
The Skinny Girl Inside of Me, by Mallory M.
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I am Monica Geller
my poetry is a recipe
a list of all the things I do
Ingredients:
seven cups of rainy days
4oz of broken past
one book
a pinch of gumption
several exes
the right tools
i. You take the rainy days and stir them into a stiff mass. They are a token of the exercise you never had, the times you beat your brother sullen with failure and all the times you sat in a chair beside the window (because the sill was too small), looking out at your own street and reading happiness in other people's faces.
ii. You pour the broken past in gently, a good base of eating your own feelings and meeting the man of your dreams before you recognised him. Mirror the woman you are today in the girl you used to be and understand that the only difference is that what you once took for flaws, you now accept as part of your way to success.
iii. One book, it's the only one that's real; you wrote it yourself, and all your recipes (for strings of words and pallet tones, for skipping rope without falling and easy pinching points on your brother, for saying sorry and sounding sincere and for standing your ground when no one else stands up for you) are contained within.
iv. A pinch of gumption, because it's all it takes. All you do is win, matches in sports you've never played before, hearts of people who don't clean the way you do (and you do, not tirelessly, but ruthlessly, a clean home is a clean mind), arguments you wouldn't mind losing.
v. Finally, you mix it with the exes, shelled and peeled and holy from the battle that you both left in the end. When no one was ready to fight for you anymore, you realised that love was a war you didn't want to enter; they've taught you to treat people kindly and sow your distance.
The right tools are important, because the secret ingredient is exactly that, (said lovingly) a tool: a funny man, his goofy smile so ridiculous, his jokes a little forced, because he speaks only stale words and sarcasm, his voice hinting the scent of sacrifice and he's just as broken as you. He's not the core of your being, he's the icing on the cake; he can't be added until you are hole, baked good and through in the oven, the residual heat of your last breakup cooled by your rainy days, the ones you still save an extra pack of in the cupboard, just in case.
I Am Monica Geller, by Mallory M.
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I’ll gladly agree
with your view on hierarchy
just never expect
I’ll likewise accept
both modern hypocrisy
and (self-claimed) authority
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It’s you I write for
you I write about, brother
You broke my heart most
What you don’t know is
I’m fascinated because
I’m not quite sure how
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vi. Courage is watching the arguments against your life build up in your head and still stand by them in your heart.
vii. Don't let your life be a trailer for a film that never starts.
viii. You and autumn have unfinished business, but then again, you always have.
ix. Never forget yourself when you forgive others. Forgiveness is strength and beauty and cruelly underestimated.
x. When you imagine your perfect self, you look happy. Remember, it's a choice.
xi. If you drown your own voice when you swallow your prayers, perhaps it's because praying to dead gods wasn't meant to be an aesthetic.
Reminders 6-11, by Mallory M.
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I don't want to be your crush
The insincere attractions of a yet immature acquaintance
Can't be comfortable in a skin made from the stars in your eyes
For I'm not your universe
And you don't know mine
I don't want to be your flirt
The hooded eyes you cast across the room as I do something cute
You have no idea the acid I spew when in the mood
And I'm not cute
And you can't handle me
I don't want you to fall in love
For I don't trust you to see me for who I am and all my mistakes
I have scars that I love more dearly than any of my friends
And I'll let you go in the heat of the moment
You can't trust me to fight for you
I'm just not that interested
Not in the politics of controlling my fickle flame
Give me a curtain and I will burn down your house
To watch the roses of disappointment blossom on your cheeks
You're either water, or you're dead
I want to be your love
The slow, easy way with which you find me annoying but can't help loving my guts
Not because I'm unlike every other woman you've ever met
Because I'm not
I'm simply human
I want to be your life
With every breath you breathe into my chest
I want to know that I need you, because I'm strong enough to want to
Never to doubt that you could hurt me
But allow you anyway
I want to meet you halfway
Not in a dance or in a kiss or in a galaxy far, far away
But in a tainted alley, with tears for company
To grow into you there
Because we never saw it coming
I wrote this a while ago and I don’t know why I needed to
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Alexander,
you're a four-syllable title,
not a four-letter word
When I was only three
our parents asked me to choose
between who you are now and Oliver
Oliver, the name of your cat
to spite my choice
because you've always aspired for something you could have been
before you understood what you already were
Alexander,
because our parents wanted you to be recognised internationally
because you'd conquered my heart before you were even born
Alexander,
like someone who's loved by his epithet
The Great; a king; a leader
someone who reached for the end of the map and the frame of the world, just like you, wandering off with courage enough to leave a part of yourself behind and still conquer hearts in foreign fields
someone who was taught by a philosopher
and you with your philosopher's head and your king's heart
noble and righteous and for the good of the people
Alexander,
like a founding father
someone who understood the edge of the map and chose to dub it democracy
you, with your big, round eyes and what our parents mistook for weakness
you, the one they asked the rest of us to aspire to
But you, who always aspired to us
Our brother's charm and my wit
And sometimes even my acknowledgement
You, who thought my silence meant condescension
Who, when I took my distance to our parents,
crept inside it like a cosy duvet cover
and still took it personally
Who thought I fled from all of you like monsters under the bed
Shining a bright light in your face and asking you questions
you didn't want to answer
You, who thought that my taste in music was my stamp of approval
And my books were the only thing I could love
You, who failed to recognise that your name meant less than you think, and more than I did
who was marked for greatness but not for imitation
who was already flying
but still clung the white feather close to you
for lack of faith in yourself
You, who wanted to be an Oliver
less conspicuous, more yourself
who felt the strain of our expectations heavily upon your shoulders
who sought for my parents, because I wasn't there
But what you don't understand
is that I call you by nothing but
you and love and darling and babe
because your name was a token of affection
which you turned into failed appreciation
and I don't want to tie you down
to great men's namesake
when all you hear in my voice is disappointment
because if I don't call you by name
perhaps, one day
you can create
and live up to
your own expectations
Alexander, by Mallory M.
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Fantasize about
rejecting apologies
you'll never receive
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i. People say you don't have to be strong all the time. Bullshit.
If you want to get better, you have to be strong enough to stop hurting yourself.
ii. Transformation is scary. Your heart is a muscle and as with any muscle, you have to break it for it to grow stronger.
iii. Anything grown back together leaves scars, one sedimentary patchwork of skin after another, for people to better tell your strength and the cycles of your life. They should be trophies, age lines, like the maturity you so desperately seek.
iv. Love is stronger than fear, but only if you give it room. Let it breathe. Don't strangle it by fearing it.
v. If you think the world is running away from you, you're in the wrong race.
Reminders 1-5, by Mallory M.
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