wandering-writer-poet

[wandering-writer-poet]

There is beauty 

in the silence, in the stillness, in the gone-ness.

In the dripping water casting ripples in puddle—

who is left to see it?

In the soundless streets—

who is left to hear it?

-

There is beauty

in the empty, in the quiet, in the ghosts.

In the burning lights, haloes silver and rose—

who is left to see?

In the winding roads, snow pristine and clear—

who is left?

-

There is beauty 

in the dark, in the soft, in the peace. 

Silence is a commodity rarely found and never sought, 

An extinct creature killed by advancing times. 

There is beauty in its return; 

There is beauty in its resurrection.

-

(who is left to hear?)

-

—beauty in a time of mourning (Yushan C.)

#poetry #poets on tumblr #spilled ink #winter #beauty #silence #january is a melancholy month #it's almost as bad as december #darkness #nights #isolation #peace #copious use of repetition #my wriitng #copious use of imagery

[wandering-writer-poet]

Everything feels the same, now. 

That is to say, 

Everything feels like coming to life. 

That is to say, everything

Feels like dying anew. 

.

—resurrection (Yushan C.)

#poetry #poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #spilled ink #resurrection #coming to life #full circle #short #my poem #familiar #yet not #two sides of a coin #autumn vibes #melancholy #Romanticism #dark academia

[wandering-writer-poet]

WHAT TO DO WHEN THE DARK STARTS CALLING

Don’t say you’re fine. Every lie amplifies its siren’s call. 

Play music. The soft sort. The sort that sounds like lullabies and freedom, maybe a pinch of adrenaline. 

Work. Anything is enough to plug your ears, dull the dark’s edge. 

Lie. It’ll amplify it, but we’re all masochists here, aren’t we?

Punch something. A wall, maybe. The blood looks like eyes. The pain feels like teeth. 

Don’t say you’re fine. Fine doesn’t mean a damn anymore, anyways. It’s a cop out, a run out, a blindfold.

Close your eyes. 

Close your ears. 

It can’t get you here.

#writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #urban gothic #spilled ink #list poetry #is this poetry? #idk let's call it poetry #dark poetry #literally dark #and metaphorically #I guess #can you tell I didn't sleep when I wrote this? #anyways #night

[wandering-writer-poet]

Years ago, my friend had a ganglion cyst, right on her wrist. 

Fluid build-up. Best to let it rest. 

Don’t aggravate the joint. 

It’ll go away on its own. 

.

Some days, I think memory is a bit like that. 

A build-up in oft-agitated joints, 

The nerve bundle harmed by relentless back-and-forth that has become

       habit, 

Become routine. 

It goes away on its own, quiet as a last breath stealing out of a lung. 

Fades as time wears on.

.

Other times, it’s more like a broken bone, never healed right. 

You remember the crack, the pain, the wrong-ness

       of the displaced shards of calcium. 

You remember the painstaking, irritating, frustrating process

       of healing and relearning simple tasks. 

.

On rainy days, the bone twinges. 

On rainy days, you are right back to the break. 

.

—you can always wait for the sun (Yushan C.)

#poetry #poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #spilled ink #medical references #from someone who knows nothing about medicine #memories #revisiting #rain or shine #routine #time passing #broken bones #healing #not a linear process #is it? #rainy days #not the happy sort #patience

[wandering-writer-poet]

Sometimes forgiveness is swallowing a match, 

          swallowing ten. 

Your veins ignite like gasoline-soaked wood 

(are your doubts the gasoline or your convictions?)

(does it matter?)

.

Sometimes it’s a bit like suffocating,

Water rushing in through your nose and you’re

Drowning 

(are your memories the water or your dreams?)

(does it matter?)

.

—Yushan C.

#poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #spilled ink #poetry #dark poetry #forgiveness #fire #water #(earth and air) #(jk) #this isn't atla #it's alright not to forgive #sometimes it isn't possible to #angst #all the angst #wow i really don't write happy poems huh #wildfires #riptides #untitled

[wandering-writer-poet]

I do not know how to go on 

With you, 

And I do not know how to go on 

Without you. 

This is our liminal space, our

Handcarved pocket of eternity. 

Always here and always leaving and maybe, 

in a hundred years or a few seconds, 

we will find our way out of this trap. 

.

—Yushan C.

#writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #poetry #spilled ink #liminal spaces #moving on #time is meaningless #basically #you build a home and a space with someone #and they leave #or they stay #but nothing stays the same #friends #family #time passing #stuck in the past #regret #stagnant

[wandering-writer-poet]

I am rediscovering how to love

The way I used to when I was five. Before Love

Was swept under the rug and 

Freedom became the only prize. 

Fear runs rampant, dominates—Panic is seeds sown by a 

         careless farmer—

But here, in this moment, without distraction, 

        without fear, 

I am rediscovering what it means to love despite 

       the flaws we hold. 

Here in this moment, 

I am redefining who I choose to be.

If one thing must come from this living, 

barring death, 

let it be the choice to love again, 

despite Love’s faults in the past. 

.

—in the space between here and then (Yushan C.)

#poets on tumblr #poetry #my work #spilled ink #writers on tumblr #love #choices #reinvention #discovery #growth #remember when we were little #and everything felt a bit like starlight and fireworks? #yeah that's the shit #time passing #freedom #values #who are we #really? #life #seems fitting for spring #for my friend who's bday is today

[wandering-writer-poet]

this has 100% been talked about before but younger members of the lgbt community (especially on tumblr) NEED to understand that “gay panic” doesn’t mean “oh no i’m a teen panicking because i might be gay” it means “literal legal defense used in cases where a person has murdered someone upon finding out they were gay”

[wandering-writer-poet]

Maybe I should’ve known romantic love was a lost cause

      for me when I fell 

More in love with the moon than any person; 

When my soul ached for one more minute under the stars, 

Rather than the company of someone else. 

.

Or maybe I should’ve known when the forest beckoned 

       me home—

Craggy trails and footstep-less dirt singing a siren’s song.

When disappearing into the wild seemed more right

Than handing someone my heart; 

When emerald pines and russet ground seemed a more 

         welcome place

Than someone’s embrace. 

.

Or maybe there was no way to know. 

Maybe it always would’ve been this—

the moon and the stars and the trees and the earth—

the persistent sense of wrong—

the slow discovery, the quick recovery—

Maybe, in the end, it would always have been like this.

.

—Hindsight (Yushan C.)

#poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #poetry #aromantic #asexual #yes i'm aroace what made you say that? #night #forests #self-discovery #lots of colours #cottagecore #queer #hindsight #romance #or lack thereof #moon #stars #trees #disappear into the wild #out of place

[wandering-writer-poet]

(I will never forget this—)

.

They brought siege engines to your town, 

Armies to the valleys of your body and the plains of your skin. 

They brought mercenaries to carve the sword off your arm. 

The fires are lit; the people

.

are afright. They run akimbo, packing what little they have to hide in 

       the citadel, 

Protected by cranial bones and a mouth barred shut like a gate. 

We are hidden, but we are not. 

Your eyes are windows

.

To your castle—see the servants rushing to prepare, prepare

For siege, prepare

For battle, prepare

For death. 

We bear scars from the last skirmish, 

Blast marks from the last catapults to try and bring down these walls. 

.

Yes. That is where these bruises are from. That is where these fears 

           are from. 

.

They light their catapults. 

.

(—I will never forgive this)

.

—knight in broken armour (Yushan C.)

#poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #poetry #dark poetry #knights #medieval #aesthetic #siege #metaphor #windows to the soul #and all that bullshit #castles #battle #spilled ink #life

[wandering-writer-poet]

I think we’re all broken, 

you whisper to the dark shimmering water lapping against the hull. 

I can see our reflections—

You, halved in white and 

Me, fading to black like an old film reel. 

Broken how? 

I don’t really need you to answer, not really. We’re cursed,

I know and you know, too, so you just laugh. 

Even that sounds like shattering glass. 

What is it about stars and streetlights and silent European nights 

          that tear us open to the core?

Cursed, you whisper, 

And suddenly thousands of years worth of history and ghosts and 

          fiends are clamouring for release beneath 

The liquid obsidian rocking the boat. 

Cursed, I whisper, but remind me:

Aren’t curses simply blessings from below?

.

— Cruise on the Danube (Yushan C.)

#this author is NOT a Satanist #I just had a spn phase and it's unfortunately become part of me #writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #poetryisnotdead #dark poetry #happy birthday to my friend #who I really did spill my soul to on a cruise on the Danube #in April two years ago #so there's that #imagery #boats #rivers #they're lovely at night #aren't they? #starlight #reflections

[wandering-writer-poet]

I thawed, didn’t I?

Like winter ice in spring, 

Mountain run-off streaming into brooks and rivers. 

I felt the warmth of life—

Blossoms bloomed crimson violet vibrant blues. 

The sun was on my heart; I felt it melt, felt it give. 

Yet now, I stand staring into nothing searching for something; 

I stare at the placid blue surface around me, 

Not a ripple in sight.

This isn’t stoicism, 

This isn’t strength. 

This is calcifying into marble, is dying 

With your eyes wide open, 

Is stranding yourself on a lonesome little island and thinking it might

       not be so bad after all, disappearing.

I thawed, yes, but now 

I think all that was keeping me from sinking was the permafrost 

And now, that’s gone, too. 

(remind me: how did I ever mistake disappearing for flying?)  

-

—Spring Melt (Yushan C.)

#poetry #poets on tumblr #spilled ink #mistakes #disappearing #isolation #spring imagery #melting ice #lying to yourself #healing #or starting to #it never goes as smoothly as people pretend it does #in stories #on social media #lots of learning involved #lots of unlearning #too #winter imagery #mountains

[wandering-writer-poet]

I don’t love you anymore. 

-

I don’t love you anymore, 

But

-

There are days I wake up and I think I feel your arms around me 

And my lungs

Ache like I haven’t taken in enough air. 

-

There are days where I turn

with your name on my lips 

And there is nothing there, only empty air,

Dust motes and smoke. 

-

I don’t love you anymore, 

but

-

It’s been so long since I was alone, 

I’d forgotten the way loneliness tastes like regret 

when you’ve drunk enough of it. 

-

—Yushan C.

#poetry #poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #*slaps roof* #this thing can fit so much longing in it #spilled ink #posting it in honour of my friend #who is also filled with longing #for shit she's never experienced #i mean #same #loneliness #nostalgia #metaphors because what's a poem without at least one #abandoned house vibes #idk #moving on #it's about the *yearning*

[wandering-writer-poet]

You wanted a love story and this

isn’t 

it. 

You say you’re going through trials by fire 

but these are not the flames 

that birth phoenix

these are the flames that destroy forests so

Put it out.

He she they aren’t worth the 

Destruction 

of your soul;

Darling, 

You wanted a love story and listen to me. 

This

isn’t 

it. 

.

—Why do we mistake destruction for creation? (Yushan C.)

#yes i know it's february and valentine's day just passed #i'm kind of a cynic #i'm not really sorry #writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #poetryisnotdead #mine #reminders #liberal use of fire imagery

[wandering-writer-poet]

A friend of mine wants flowers for her room, she says. 

She wants to make it beautiful and vibrant and fresh, but

Blossoms fade and petals mold, she says,

Clutching her falsified flowers, 

Petals carefully crafted—

A forgery,

hundreds of days in the making in factories where they make 

          hundreds of petals that never die.

Immortality is the prize, beauty a side effect, and yet

How many of us choose both as a goal?

-

—Immortality comes with plastic petals (Yushan C,)

#writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #spilled ink #reflective #flowers #imagery #once again an incredibly old one that I dug up out of absolutely nowhere #aka my notebook #immortality

[wandering-writer-poet]

There are endings, and there are endings. 

-

It was snowing, I think, that last day. Snowing the way it hadn’t yet, that year. 

The thing with snow:

It wipes away everything you’ve left behind, 

Buries it, 

like a pirate burying hoarded gold. 

We lay down our half-finished hopes, the midnight musings we’d  incanted into streetlight-lit hollowness. 

Hello! we cried. We are here. We are

Here, 

Like footprints in the mud and the branches of a fallen tree jutting up from the ground, we are

Here. 

There was moonlight, stealing away our

whispers 

like the wind borrows secrets, 

like a faerie steals a child. 

-

Count down from five, love. 

The snow is falling, and the stars are bright, and

the moon is listening. 

Count down from five—

promise me you’ll remember this is not the

ending it seems to be. 

-

—this is what it means to begin (Yushan C.)

#poetry #poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #spilled ink #new year #begin again #full circle #goodbye 2020 #hello 2021 #please be nice to us we're all very smol and very tired from 2020 #sendoff #my poetry #countdowns #celebrations #nature is healing #folklore #presence #bittersweet #endings #new beginnings #happy new year

[wandering-writer-poet]

We make gods out of sinners and altars

Out of gutters. We bow, 

Heads down in silent reverence,

To fools who beat back the nonbelievers with

violent and wrath and the pious

Call it righteous.

The gutters birth no good saviours; these

streets 

Vanquish purity the way Heracles vanquished

the lion and Perseus vanquished the

serpent but they had gods on their side 

And we have only demons.

—modern sins equate salvation (Yushan C.)

#writers on tumblr #poets on tumblr #poetryisnotdead #dark poetry #hopeless #mine #greek mythology #I wrote this so long ago it isn't even funny #spilled ink #fiction