❝I’d write love poems to the parts of
yourself you cannot
stand.
❝Before
I die, I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place,
the place they can put everything they know they need to
survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer,
and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it
safe.
The night I was
torn from the pages of their Bible
and burned alive,
my ashes came down like snow,
and a girl who had never seen my face
saw me falling from the sky,
and laid down on her back to make an angel
in the powder of my bones.
From heaven, I watched her,
‘though my eyes were still flame,
and my ribs were still blue.
"They didn’t win," I whispered
as her arms built my wings.
They didn’t win.
Look at that moon;
it is a pebble in my hand.
Tonight, I could skip it across that fog-drunk sea
to the lashes accordion in the night,
and all they know of hate
is that it couldn’t beat the love out of me,
that when they dropped me to the grave,
I fell like a bucket in to a well
and came up full;
carving my lover’s name in to the skin of a weeping willow
that had spent its entire life laughing at the rain.
Hold me like a lantern;
staircase my spine.
When they bring the children to my funeral
to scream fàggot at my dust,
tell them
I was born in to their casket
but I wouldn’t pull the splinters from my heart
any more than Christ
would’ve pulled the thorns from his crimson head.
They can come a thousand times
with their burning match
and their gasoline;
with their hungry laws
and their empty mouths
full of prayers
to that God that greeted me at his gates
with his throat full of trumpets
and his tears full of shame,
as his trembling palms
collected the cinder of his children’s crime.
I know what Holy is.
I know that the soul is shaped like a bowl.
I know the lies we try to fill it with,
and we spill too often the orchards inside,
but my lover’s shoes were tied with guitar strings
and when I walked beside
there was a silo in my chest;
there was a field full of sun;
there was a river full of gold
that we left
to pick our sweet hearts from the trees
that kept uprooting tombstones
so the names of the dead
would crumble in to poems.
Write me down like this:
say my ashes never made the news;
say the jury was full of shotguns,
and say the snow that fell on the tip of your tongue
refused to melt away.
Say this:
to the kids hiding their heart beats
from their father’s fists
I planted the garden of my kiss;
I opened the night with my teeth;
I loved so hard that when they pressed their ear to the track,
the train they hear coming will still be my chest -
a rumbling harpoon; a sky they can not bury.
Look at that moon
I am a pebble in her hand;
a harmonica held to the mouth of the river where
nothing
ever
burns.
and burned alive,
my ashes came down like snow,
and a girl who had never seen my face
saw me falling from the sky,
and laid down on her back to make an angel
in the powder of my bones.
From heaven, I watched her,
‘though my eyes were still flame,
and my ribs were still blue.
"They didn’t win," I whispered
as her arms built my wings.
They didn’t win.
Look at that moon;
it is a pebble in my hand.
Tonight, I could skip it across that fog-drunk sea
to the lashes accordion in the night,
and all they know of hate
is that it couldn’t beat the love out of me,
that when they dropped me to the grave,
I fell like a bucket in to a well
and came up full;
carving my lover’s name in to the skin of a weeping willow
that had spent its entire life laughing at the rain.
Hold me like a lantern;
staircase my spine.
When they bring the children to my funeral
to scream fàggot at my dust,
tell them
I was born in to their casket
but I wouldn’t pull the splinters from my heart
any more than Christ
would’ve pulled the thorns from his crimson head.
They can come a thousand times
with their burning match
and their gasoline;
with their hungry laws
and their empty mouths
full of prayers
to that God that greeted me at his gates
with his throat full of trumpets
and his tears full of shame,
as his trembling palms
collected the cinder of his children’s crime.
I know what Holy is.
I know that the soul is shaped like a bowl.
I know the lies we try to fill it with,
and we spill too often the orchards inside,
but my lover’s shoes were tied with guitar strings
and when I walked beside
there was a silo in my chest;
there was a field full of sun;
there was a river full of gold
that we left
to pick our sweet hearts from the trees
that kept uprooting tombstones
so the names of the dead
would crumble in to poems.
Write me down like this:
say my ashes never made the news;
say the jury was full of shotguns,
and say the snow that fell on the tip of your tongue
refused to melt away.
Say this:
to the kids hiding their heart beats
from their father’s fists
I planted the garden of my kiss;
I opened the night with my teeth;
I loved so hard that when they pressed their ear to the track,
the train they hear coming will still be my chest -
a rumbling harpoon; a sky they can not bury.
Look at that moon
I am a pebble in her hand;
a harmonica held to the mouth of the river where
nothing
ever
burns.
It’s two a.m.
The emergency room psychiatrist looks up from his clipboard
with eyes paid to care
and asks me if I see people who aren’t really there.
I say, “I see people
how the hell am I supposed to know
if they’re real or not?”
He doesn’t laugh
neither do I.
The math’s not on my side
ten stitches and one lie.
I swear I wasn’t trying to die.
I just wanted to see what my pulse looked like from the inside.
~Andrea Gibson
The emergency room psychiatrist looks up from his clipboard
with eyes paid to care
and asks me if I see people who aren’t really there.
I say, “I see people
how the hell am I supposed to know
if they’re real or not?”
He doesn’t laugh
neither do I.
The math’s not on my side
ten stitches and one lie.
I swear I wasn’t trying to die.
I just wanted to see what my pulse looked like from the inside.
~Andrea Gibson
I'd write love poems to the parts of yourself you cannot stand.
SOME
PEOPLE WILL NEVER
UNDERSTAND THE KIND OF SUPERPOWER IT TAKES
FOR SOME PEOPLE TO
JUST WALK OUTSIDE.
UNDERSTAND THE KIND OF SUPERPOWER IT TAKES
FOR SOME PEOPLE TO
JUST WALK OUTSIDE.
© format coded by: br0kenwings
Please don't remove this, or make it invisible!
Image is from tumblr, photographer unknown.
Please don't remove this, or make it invisible!
Image is from tumblr, photographer unknown.
The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables,
Said my head would not keep flying away to where the darkness
lives.
The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight,
she said, “Stop worrying, darling, you will find a
good man soon.”
The first psycho-therapist said I should spend three hours a
day
sitting in a dark closet with my eyes closed and my ears
plugged.
I tried it once but couldn’t stop thinking
about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet.
The pharmacist said Klonopin, Lamictal, Lithium, Xanax.
The doctor said an antipsychotic might help me forget
what the trauma said.
The trauma said, “Don’t write this poem.
Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your
bones.”
My bones said, “Write the poem.”
I want you to tell me about every person
you've ever been in love with.
Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you.
Tell me about a day in your life you didn't think you'd live through.
Tell me what the word "home" means to you and tell me in a way
that I'll know your mothers name just by the way you describe your bed room when you were 8.
See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate
and if that day still trembles beneath your bones.
Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow?
And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms?
Or would you leave the snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree?
And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you
because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek?
Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you sleep beside them when they're sad, even if it makes your lover mad?
Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart
trying to beat away its pain?
See, I wanna know what you think of your first name.
And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mothers joy
when she spoke it for the very first time. I want you tell me all the ways you've been unkind.
Tell me all the ways you've been cruel.
Tell me—knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school.
If you were walking by a chemical plant,
where smoke stacks were filling the sky with dark, black clouds, would you holler, "Poison! Poison! Poison!" really loud
or would whisper, "That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy"?
Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?
Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?
And if you don't believe in miracles, tell me,
how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?
See, I wanna know if you believe in any god,
or if you believe in many gods.
Or better yet, what gods believe in you.
And for all the times you've knelt before the temple of yourself,
have the prayers you've asked come true?
And if they didn't
did you feel denied?
And if you felt denied,
denied by who[m]?
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you're feeling good.
I wanna know what you see in the mirror on a day a day you're feeling bad.
I wanna know the first person who ever taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.
If you ever reach enlightenment, will you remember how to laugh?
Have you ever been a song?
Would you think less of me
if I told you I have lived my entire life a little off key
and I'm not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarized the thoughts of the people around me
who have learned the wisdom of silence.
Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?
And if you do I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar.
See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living.
I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving.
And if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.
I wanna know if you bleed sometimes through other people's wounds.
And if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon that if you wanted to you could pop—but you never would
because you'd never want it to stop.
If a tree fell in the forest, and you were the only one there to hear it,
if its fall to the ground didn't make a sound,
would you panic in fear that you didn't exist
or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?
And lastly, let me ask you this:
if you and I went for a walk, and the entire walk we didn't talk,
do you think eventually we'd kiss?
No way.
That's askin' too much—after all, this is only our first date.
Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you.
Tell me about a day in your life you didn't think you'd live through.
Tell me what the word "home" means to you and tell me in a way
that I'll know your mothers name just by the way you describe your bed room when you were 8.
See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate
and if that day still trembles beneath your bones.
Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain or bounce in the bellies of snow?
And if you were to build a snowman, would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms?
Or would you leave the snowman armless for the sake of being harmless to the tree?
And if you would, would you notice how that tree weeps for you
because your snowman has no arms to hug you every time you kiss him on the cheek?
Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you sleep beside them when they're sad, even if it makes your lover mad?
Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart
trying to beat away its pain?
See, I wanna know what you think of your first name.
And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mothers joy
when she spoke it for the very first time. I want you tell me all the ways you've been unkind.
Tell me all the ways you've been cruel.
Tell me—knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old beating up little boys at school.
If you were walking by a chemical plant,
where smoke stacks were filling the sky with dark, black clouds, would you holler, "Poison! Poison! Poison!" really loud
or would whisper, "That cloud looks like a fish, and that cloud looks like a fairy"?
Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?
Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?
And if you don't believe in miracles, tell me,
how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?
See, I wanna know if you believe in any god,
or if you believe in many gods.
Or better yet, what gods believe in you.
And for all the times you've knelt before the temple of yourself,
have the prayers you've asked come true?
And if they didn't
did you feel denied?
And if you felt denied,
denied by who[m]?
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you're feeling good.
I wanna know what you see in the mirror on a day a day you're feeling bad.
I wanna know the first person who ever taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.
If you ever reach enlightenment, will you remember how to laugh?
Have you ever been a song?
Would you think less of me
if I told you I have lived my entire life a little off key
and I'm not nearly as smart as my poetry I just plagiarized the thoughts of the people around me
who have learned the wisdom of silence.
Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?
And if you do I want you to tell me of a meadow where my skateboard will soar.
See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living.
I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving.
And if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.
I wanna know if you bleed sometimes through other people's wounds.
And if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon that if you wanted to you could pop—but you never would
because you'd never want it to stop.
If a tree fell in the forest, and you were the only one there to hear it,
if its fall to the ground didn't make a sound,
would you panic in fear that you didn't exist
or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?
if you and I went for a walk, and the entire walk we didn't talk,
do you think eventually we'd kiss?
No way.
That's askin' too much—after all, this is only our first date.
