six-white-venus

[six-white-venus]

Too scared of... being forced to sleep in the yard or take a bath. in ice.

2.05 "Daddy's Boy", 3.12 "One Day, One Room", 5.04 "Birthmarks".

[six-white-venus]

hand / god / knife

half of the poem is in the reading. some poems you have to lay out exactly what they need to understand, no forgetting, no misinterpretation, but if it gets across wrong in the end then that's on them. and some poems are just words floating like a rorschach test and whatever the reader reads is what the poem is. this is how i read e.e. cummings.

where i'm going with this is that i saw a prompt called hand / god / knife and i wasn't sure what to do with it. is the connection not obvious? the hand of god, wielding a knife? but maybe only to me, and as i write this i'm thinking a little more.

maybe god is the hand, a creation metaphor; maybe you are the knife, a destruction metaphor. cut the clay, the vegetables, the starving thing's neck. wash your hands in blood.

or maybe - maybe god is the knife and it's a human hand wielding faith like a blade, a reason to spill blood. the first time you saw a candle flame, wide eyes trailing it in circles around your face - do you remember? did they give you a knife and tell you to make something? did you make death?

rorschach test with blood. are you bleeding, is god bleeding. are these tears. maybe we can't see, hear, smell, taste, maybe all we have is the hands and the knife and the desperate hope it won't hit somewhere vital. maybe that's god. on your guard inside the nothingness, praying you don't kill something. praying something doesn't kill you.

[six-white-venus]

and it's so funny because like. i have math homework.

you would think it's an incredibly trite thing to cry over and i would agree with you, but here i am anyway. i haven't studied in bed since last year - the nostalgia rolls in like a bruise-purple fog.

long nights staying up until 1 am, sobbing over my english grades and sometimes my own mental health. but it hasn't gotten this bad this year, i haven't lost my last bastion of self care.

sleep is the one thing i learned not to deny myself because losing it makes everything worse. i don't do homework in bed but it feels so fucking nice to sit with my blanket over my knees, to feel like i'm being held.

maybe that's why the touch starvation has been so suspiciously absent in the past six months. the heavier blanket must be doing it.

but anyways.

i have math homework.

it's the last straw on my computer-hunched back, apparently. as if the friend with some undiagnosed disorder whose name we don't know wasn't enough. as if the other friend who only just came home from the ER for a suicidal intent checkup wasn't enough. as if the friend who says nothing is wrong isn’t enough.

it's not that i don't want to help them, that i don't want to love them, i do. god there is no one who wants it more than me. it's just that for all that i have kindness inside me i don't have much love, for all that i have empathy inside me i don't have the strength to carry it.

i shouldn't be writing this. it's procrastination. but i have math homework that i forgot i had and i'm already ignoring an essay that's due tomorrow morning and fuck if something doesn't have to give.

so many thoughts are floating around in my head, scraps of sentences that sound like they have meaning. i feel exhausted.

and shit has it been this bad in years? has it ever been this bad? it used to hurt so much to ease my mother's burdens but god, i just want her to hold me again. the idea of her, more like. i don't want to settle for reality.

i'm tired, i'm tired, i'm tired.

the thing is - i'm so good at being helpful, you know? i'm so fucking good at it. i have what i call therapist voice, which is a soft, soothing tone that puts people at ease, and it also carries over to text, all my frazzled awkwardness turning into a gentle version of itself. rough edges coaxed into smoothness. into something that you won't cut your hands on, that won't bleed my throat inside.

i'm so good at being good.

therapist voice has been used entirely too often in the past two weeks. everyone's crises seem to come at once. i say i'm good at setting boundaries but i'm really, really, really not, not when it comes to people who i'm scared will hurt themselves or literally die without someone intervening, and - guess what!

you, ink, you're the most emotionally stable person! you're the most understanding, the most validating, the most kind! you're so good at this!

and the thing is, i like being good at this. you know?

it's a carryover from how i was raised, i think. i cannot stand being bad at anything, and the most fervent wish of my heart, i think, is just to be able to help. anything, anything, to know i can make things easier, to know i can fix your problems. i will always be the listening ear.

i'm far better at validation than at my own speaking - it shows, when people ask for advice. but i'm good at that too. i'm good at everything. i have to be.

and, it's not in the vain way, i swear i'm not overconfident. i swear, please believe me, please (why am i begging once again) - it really is necessity. you don't understand.

people, the world, they make their demands. i meet them. i simply cannot afford not to do so. you know? cause and effect, people expect things and ink fulfills.

i can do anything, sometimes.

it's miraculous, sometimes.

it's just that i don't know who i am if i'm not useful. so i've been useful, taken on every single problem, and now i have fourteen fucking math problems to do from the textbook and i just -

i can't, you know?

i mean, i can. i will. but it's so hard. and it hasn't been this hard in a while.

it's twelve a.m. and i haven't kept the lights on this long since last year, and most of my friends are suicidal and whoever is not i am entirely unequipped to help other than vague mhm, yeahs when they hesitate between sentences.

i keep writing about it, too - it is spring and i can't think of anything else. and i have math homework.

[six-white-venus]

fun fact: grief is a wonderful hallucinogen

i first hallucinated when i was 14. i think. it's all a bit blurry. it's syrupy sweet and comes with a sharp sting behind my throat. honey, but not quite. i pick up a slice of mango and eat it with my bare hands. the juice drips down my forearms, the back of my elbows. i lick my fingers clean and wash my hands. scrub, scrub, scrub, scratch, tear, ruin-

the water is steaming hot. i've been in the bathroom for an hour. my sister looks at me with wide eyes. we haven't bought a mango in the last 10 months.

death does that. makes a film out of your worst moments and stores it in the back of your mind. innocent, stealthy. harmless. deadly. you close your eyes and watch the soap opera unfold. you are laughing! oh, look! it was all a bad dream, after all! you wake up and tell your mom you're going to visit your uncle. he has been dead for 10 months and 10 days. you are laughing! you are laughing!

there is a man in the corner of your room and he watches you with slitted eyes. you used to be afraid of him, when you were younger. then, you started seeing nothing but shadows of coat hangers and chairs dancing under the glow of your night lamp. but you are 14 and you look at him and he brushes the hair out of your face. you don't breathe. he doesn't have a mouth, but he is screaming. you would too, but you don't have a mouth either. he has a million hands and he is holding you down. no, he's not. he is holding you with all of them. in front of you is everything you've ever loved. you can't scream. the hands around you are cold. the kingdom falls and you watch.

you wake up. the hands are still holding you back and the kingdom fell 10 months and 10 days and 10 minutes ago. you are laughing! are you laughing?

-for @nosebleedclub 's april 27 prompt- hallucinogen

#my writing #poetry #prose poetry #words #writeblr #grief #hallucinations

[six-white-venus]

it’s there now with 7 other posts that i look at all the time

HONOURED!!!!!!

#digi you're so sweet and for what reason. #vi talks

[six-white-venus]

[six-white-venus]

the worst trait of me and my family is probably this: we never learned to say the word sorry.

i) my best friend and i, we are no people. knives? maybe. liars? definitely. but people? i’m not so sure.

knives were never forged to be tender (what a shame, what a shame) and we too, fall and slay what we meant to protect. him and i, we go for the throat when we clash. we hurt and bleed and oh, i should be terrified, i should be running for my life, but all i am is tired and a bit lonely and would really like his arms around me.

( “can we please stop fighting now.”

“oh god yes please.”)

because time and time again, this man has held my heart in his hands and cleaned its festering wounds with cotton dipped in alcohol (always the healer, always the lover) and wrapped gauze around them with clinical precision. and i have walked through the maze of his head and tended to his withering garden, have dragged the sun and fresh air and all the oceans to the barren land to make it bloom (always the poet, always the lover).

him and i, we have never needed words because we are knives forged in the same fire and at the end of the day, we both know that he will be the one who wordlessly stitches my broken heart and i will be the one who sings him to sleep.

ii) let me paint you a picture:

blue that fades into red that fades into black that fades into blue that fades into red. loud, clashing and nonsensical. a pit in your stomach that was dug with desperation and blunt fingernails. how do you colour anger that is also pain, grief, hate, love, fear and truth? the smell of the paint is foul and clogs your windpipes. blunt fingernails and blue and black and madness. can you bear to look at what you created without flinching?

that’s what anger looks like on my father. a horror. a mottled bruise. a hellfire.

all his life, my father has been scorned, belittled, beaten, spat on. his mother didn’t love him right because her mother didn’t love her right. my dad loves like he hates. something is fucked in his head and heart and his words fade into black and blue and red and this shitshow always ends with me sobbing, bleeding, dying on the floor. my father watches with his hackles raised and his eyes red and wide and glowing. once wounded, an animal never sheathes its claws. it strikes the ones it loves and walks away with its head held high and hands trembling.

but here’s what happens when the curtains close: he pulls me into his arms and brings me tea. he wipes away my tears with hands that has moved mountains to make me smile. he kisses my forehead and tells me that his mom didn’t love him right. my grief is like anger and indignation and love. i wrap my arms around him and cry all the tears he never had the luxury to. who should say sorry, really? is it him or his mom or his mom’s mom or this stupid fucking world? my father has never said the word sorry. he never needed to. this is what love looks like on us. a horror. a mottled bruise. a hellfire.

iii) despite it all, i am not usually an angry person. i take after my father and my mother, after all. i rage like my mother (quick, loud, fire that burns out almost as quickly as it sparked to life) and fight like my father (aim, shoot, bullseye). my sister does something even mildly upsetting and before i know it, i’m cursing her to be miserable till she dies. not even an hour later i’m draping myself over her shoulder and bugging her till she rolls her eyes and smiles ever so slightly.

(“do you have no shame?”

“yeah no i don’t think so.”)

my family and i, we never learned to say the word sorry. because the word sorry never meant sorry, not to us. because at the end of the day, that’s all it is: a word. and it sticks to the back of my tongue and the dents of my molars and gets tangled in my mouth when i try to spit it out. so i grab it by its throat and thread it into my being. i find it so much easier to hide my pathetic inability to do one thing that doesn’t scream that there's something wrong with me with the truth of another three words:

“i love you”

and they are always echoed back to me, just a few million times more tender, in ways only we can understand.

“yeah, i know.”

“that’s great, but there’s no escaping dishes duty.”

“oh, shut up, you.”

“what’s that for?”

a pause and a hum.

“i love you too.”

#prose poetry #poetry #my writing #self rb #love

[six-white-venus]

How will the kingdom fall?

#dude i've wanted to write for this for so long #for a change here's something pretty which will not destroy you emotionally! #my writing #poetry #prose poetry #words #writeblr #poetry prompts

[six-white-venus]

hi ur poetry is super cool

that's so sweet, thank you!!

#vi talks

[six-white-venus]

new theme update!! me and @stars-and-wildfires are black and white loser dogs <3

#guys pls don't unfollow me i am the same emo poetry blog you know and love #tbd

[six-white-venus]

written for @lady-shadow-and-darkness 's prompt, 'translucent'.

#if you saw me post something else before no you didn't #i hated that one ngl #this one i'm more satisfied with #venus i hope you know your prompt killed me #ok woo. one more prompt to go #my writing #poetry #prose poetry #words #writeblr #love #prose

[six-white-venus]

Sylvia Plath "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath" / Anne Sexton, "The Sickness Unto Death" / Simon Stålenhag / Sylvia Plath "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath" / Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser "Ophelia" / Louise Glück, “The Unpainted Door" / Max Ginsburg "War Pieta" / Mahmoud Darwish "Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982" / August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck "Anguish" / Sylvia Plath "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath"

[six-white-venus]

for @nosebleedclub 's april prompt

9. vivisection

#my writing #poetry #prose poetry #words #writeblr #tw body horror #tw vivisection

[six-white-venus]

"so, two gods walk into a diner..."

entry for @skkbigbang-2023 for THIS FIC by my beloved @starrynightarchive

#art #this is wildly different from the content i usually rb but forgive me I can't not do it #this was made for my fic and it's GORGEOUS

[six-white-venus]

#poetry

[six-white-venus]

#web weaves

[six-white-venus]

perhaps if your still doing poetry requests i could make an ask for something silly about green apples? maybe even polaroids ^_^

#you ask and i deliver #here's your smth silly evermore #<3 #context: this is written based on a friend's au but #it can also be read as a story #a teen murders his abuser and writes her a letter #tw sa implied #tw grooming #my writing #words #writeblr #prose