pretend .

you covered me with burnt kisses —
with siren songs
waving your heart outside yourself
like a beacon
but it was just illusion —
smoke and lights and mirrors
aimed at those with simple minds
and i came running.

you tore me down
not all at once but in strips
thin as paint
one room at a time
until my body was made only of
the most basic elements —
nothing of substance
nothing to hold up to the light.

you seduced me with lips that tasted of
clementines
and words that sounded suspiciously like
my own
recited backwards.

· · ·

i only wish i had learned to speak firmly without
sounding mean
i wish i had taught myself the art of
grace
in tension
and strength
in the sea of vulnerability you swept me into.

i only wish
you were everything i imagined
and i was the person i wrote as myself.

i wish
but we don't exist outside of the walls of what-might-have-been.

[don't listen to a word i've said
i've been crying bathtubs full
of crocodile tears since you left me.
trying to find the last shred of you
i lost somewhere inside these veins].

S.

{Photos: woronowska dorota Flickr; Laura Makabresku Photography}

wreckage .

when he found me i was a pile of bones and embers and broken words
a kaleidoscope mess
who said yes to things that made me sad.

i let him tear out pieces of me and
wear them
i watched him parade them around like a trophy
that he had won —
conquered.

and i found that when i went to
pull myself back into something i could recognize
i was missing some important bones
to stand on
to reach
to run.

i found my embers did not reignite
because he had stolen the ones
that still glowed
and left me the ashes.

and i found that the shards of words and promises
that once made up my soul
no longer fit together like they should
no longer held meaning —
pages of my favourite book ripped out and
tossed to the wind.

and i hated him
for a long time.

hated him for coming to me when i was weak
for taking what wasn't his
for sitting on my chest until i couldn't breathe anything but him.

but i have learned
that i still
can dance on broken bones,
that there are parts of me that will catch fire
even when i'm most numb,
that i was born with a pen at my fingertips
and i could re-write every last word that i lost
or i can leave the torn and crumpled papers where they are
and write a new part.

S.

{Photo: MillyCope Flickr}

tracks .

this house shakes when the train passes through town
and i've been sitting on my floor trying to feel it all. everything. 
waiting for something to finally give way
and send this old brick building falling
onto the nighttime traffic. the lovers, the brokenhearted, 
the people who believe in late-night apologies or ice cream runs. 

it isn't working.
my sensory neurons have all given out (it's about time)
my legs are too weak to walk to where you are
my mouth has forgotten how to say things like "i'm sorry" and "please take me back".

and i've been trying to see how this makes me feel
but all i can feel is the goddamn train.

and.

an imprint of your hands on my neck
your lips on my waist.

and yet
still.

i can't connect these marks on my skin 
with the way the blood pumps through my veins
can't make out a clear path between the places our skin met
and the place in my brain that knows how to feel and express and understand  
that knows, 
when it comes down to it, 
what it all meant.
what you meant.

and i've been thinking
that if i don't get some feeling back under my skin
i'll hitch a ride on the next train through town
and see where i go.

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

poison .

i never trusted doctors or technicians
or warning labels on bottles and bottles of arsenic
never trusted your smile

you're a fool to love
but not to say it
because someone somewhere is bound to believe you
and maybe it feels good to make a fool out of someone else
for once

maybe it feels good to drink down
bottles and bottles of arsenic
and not believe the doctors and technicians when they say things like
"you are going to die"

because there's a thing called double jeopardy
and i can't kill twice the fool that already died
the first day i trusted your smile

S.

{Photo: Alessandra Celauro Flickr}

listen .

something strange
in the way
her voice has a tone of purified anguish

it reminds me of a summer spent with you
at the edge of innocence
peering into the abyss of experience

that final kiss before the fall
and
how every summer since has held a sense of loss.

the girl's voice - sweet and heartbreaking
carries the same tune

maybe that's why you love her
why i can't look her in the eyes.

S.

{Photo: Els Vanopstal Flickr}

hollow .

it's hard to believe (no it isn't) how easily I fit back into your hand.
how our voices dance back and forth again -
as if the choreography never stopped (i'm not sure it did).
our months of silence melting into the last time i saw you
until there was no silence, only a desperate goodbye to hello-again
one after the other.

your presence somehow cancelling out
everything that came between:
the chill of winter seeping into spring, summer, fall,
the bitterness that bled into my bones,
the side of the bed that i named loneliness (after you).

there are some things that i know in life (things that you taught me):
i know that though we work in theory
we will never work in practice
i know the clock is never on our side
i know the way the world ends is not with a bang but a whimper
(eliot warned but you showed).

but for just one day - today - lets pretend that all it takes for us to be
is what we are in this moment
that the force driving us together is stronger than all else
tomorrow we can put miles between our sea salt lips
and forget our dance for silence
but today lets say the world is what we've asked it to be
since the beginning (a place safe enough for both our hearts).

S.

{Photo: Patrycja Dolata Photography}

a lullaby .

there was a night last december when you sang me to sleep.
a husky half-whisper
your heart drumming out the beat.
i tried to harmonize with you but my head was drowned by a pounding force
iloveyou iloveyou iloveyou iloveyou 
and i couldn't form my mouth to spell those words
couldn't wrap my tongue around such heavy things

your lips brushed at the top of my head and i could feel your pulse
in my throat.
it hurt to breathe but i kept doing it
inhaleexhale inhaleexhale inhaleexhale inhaleexhale
and you hummed out your night song
so soft and easy
as if the whole world wasn't charged by the energy of our two hearts

i knew times like that are transitory
and so, before i fell asleep wrapped up in your voice and arms
i tore away a fragment of myself and left it there,
with you.
some nights i still dream to the sound of your heart
ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum

S.

{Photo: Julien Chapsal Photography}

diary of the pathetic .

I crossed land and ocean but it
was never far enough to stop a
reckless soul, aching hands and a
terribly ill-trained heart from pointing north.

You always said you were not the
jealous type, and maybe you're not, but I took a
lover. I took him to numb me and to burn you.

I, who crossed land and ocean to escape
You, who are not the type to be jealous of
Him, who could only guess that his hands were
surrogates
for a tighter grasp and softer touch.

And I could only wonder if maybe you are
the jealous type.

But I haven't heard from you in 113 days,
so I guess
after-all
you're not.

S.

{Photo: Adriano Sodré Flickr}

there was a boy

whose touch felt like heartbeats, deep and fierce  –
strong enough to loosen their bony cage.

whose voice was an open window in a thunderstorm  –
surging through the heaviness of earth wind and fire.

whose body was the stones of Pompeii –
still standing, after everything.

whose stare was a handgun in a purse – 
unassuming and treacherous 
all at once.

there was a boy whose skin felt like the last page of a novel – 
inked with story. inked with finality.
(we get no sequel here). 

S. 

{Photo: Alatoran: 24/31}

one, two, infinity .

you have a mole under the corner of your left eye and it was the first thing i loved about you.

you have a scar that runs down your stomach that you got while play-fighting in the woods when you were six, and it was the 5th thing i loved about you (after your lopsided grin, the ruddiness of your cheeks, and the calm of your voice).

you have a patch of freckles on your right calf that look like ursa minor, and I'm not sure what number this was because somewhere after five i stopped counting parts and started seeing a whole. 
and this would have been terrifying had it not happened so slowly and so without me realizing that the pieces were adding up to make someone who would, one day, become a part of me.

if you like, i could write the whole long list of everything you made me love, but i've found the things i didn't fit easier on a page: 
when you stopped smiling with your teeth, 
how your words became smaller and more sharp over time, 
the look on your face when you said goodbye and meant it. 

and i understand the goodbye, i do. it's just, some days i miss that mole under your eye. 

S. 

{Photo: Ian Richardson Flickr}

ps. hello my lovely readers. this month marks 3 years of writing in this space(!), and in all that time the appearance of this blog has remained mostly unchanged; this month i decided change was due. i hope you like the new look! i also just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who reads and comments on my posts, you mean more to me than i know how to express. thank you for your kindness, encouragement, and support; i genuinely love and appreciate every comment and i'm sorry that i'm not better at responding to them. i'm going to try to be more interactive, so if you have any suggestions for the blog, any writing prompt/subject ideas you'd like me to try, or any questions about myself, i'd love to hear them! i also have an email you can contact me directly at: eachinfinitehorizon@gmail.com . thank you all again. 

on things more alive than me:

the mid-morning tea
burning my tongue
when i haven't burned for anything
in years.

the cherry-blossoms
lining my street
fearlessly unfolding
to the world.

the moon
pouring into my window
to reveal something different of herself
each night.

the currents 
coursing through my bedside lamp
when all i know is how to be
static.

S. 

{Photo: Mine}

sounds and meaning .

One day I plan to tell you how I really felt feel about you, without the wordplay and best guesses. One day I plan to spell it all out in a language we can both speak and comprehend.

You will know that day is here when my heart is bleeding onto everything I touch. When my skin is all but screaming to be wrapped up in your arms.When my every bone quakes at the sound of your voice.
(Or am I back to wordplay?)

You will know it is that day because it will sounds like this: I loved love you. 

I love you, dammit. 

S. 

{Photo: Flickr Anna Blundell}

still .

I can see right past your fake thick skin
You've been writing about me again
My lips you swore off as a sin
But sweet temptation took you in. 

My skin is thin, I do admit
Your every touch still bruises it
Still, my dead heart's fire was re-lit
So as to grant me one last kiss. 

S.

{Photo: Laura Makabresku Flickr}

Creation .

I am made of dirt-caked carrots from the backyard garden, 

            of scars that I can live with.

I am made of classic rock 

            on roadtrips with an old man. 

From the oceans push and pull, 

            missed curfews and long goodbyes. 

I am made of real maple syrup and Sunday comics, 

            of slammed doors and inaudible apologies.  

      

I am made from skinning-dipping in early May 
            with a boy who 'wasn’t right for me' 

                                               (he wasn’t). 

I am made of packed bags and packed houses, 

            and the restlessness that comes with staying now.  

From a phone call made across the world 

            that has bittered the taste of everything I’ve since known. 

I am made from still moments and negative space, 

            from the sound of steady breathing in a single bed for two. 

I am made of words that someone else has penned, 

            when no one knows me like a stranger. 

S.

{Photo: Melissa Lunar Flickr}

Astrocytoma .

Iridescent and belonging to all the light  

            of the constellations, 

This was how she used to be –   

            a luminescent contrast to the greytones. 

But there are chemicals taking her now 

            capturing the luster of youth and  

coating her body with a blankness:

            A canvas untouched, 

                                or since faded. 

Her mother remembers her as a flame 

            There’s nothing wrong with being still 

                        she tells herself, 

But she remembers when her girl would leap 

            with all the energy of the sun. 

There is heaviness layered behind 

            pale green eyes 

That sprung up somewhere between 

            test tubes and CAT scans and negative results. 

She can’t fix this. No one is fixing this. 

There is a fault in the framework – 

            they’ve found the problem but not the answers 

So what’s the point in all the dim rooms and 

            holding tight to words like ‘hope’ 

                        if everything perfect fucking dies? 

S. 

{Photo: Jacob Sutton Photography}

new territory .

you are a country i want to learn. a culture i want to bathe in until my fingers prune up. i want to carve your language into my walls until they've been chiseled so deep they have nothing left to do but crumble.

you don't scare me with your history. with the wars that have already been fought and lost upon your ground, leaving you scarred beneath the wreckage. i don't mind the mess.

i want to discover the secret places. the ones the ten-day tourists never find. i want to know your safe areas and the ones i'm not supposed to go to after dark has fallen.

i don't want to just visit. i want to live in you. to walk every day with your air in my lungs. to search you over without a map because i will make my own. i will rewrite it a thousand times and i still won't get it perfect, but it will be my life work to try.

i want you to be the last country i go to, and me the last traveler you allow within.

i want to find my home in you.

S. 

{Photo: Margaret Durow Photography}

claustrophobia .

I never had a problem with tight spaces until I met you. You made my life so goddamn unbreathable. You, with your phone calls and your line of questions. You fired them at me and I didn't have a chance. You placed me in front of my grave and BAM BAM BAM, I'm down, buried under everything I never got to answer because you knew. You already knew. You thought you knew, so you buried me. But you didn't know. And now I'm underground, closed in by particles and dirt, and it's not unlike being with you, because you were like that, so close that I couldn't breathe. So maybe suffocating here is better than in your arms but I don't think so. I think you made yourself insufferable, I think you got so near because you wanted to drive me away, and I think you left me before you let me speak because you did know. You knew, but you needed to pretend that it was me not you who couldn't stand small places. And the thing is that I could, until you shot me down and I got trapped under the weight of everything but your lips. Because I could live with phone calls and lines of questions. It was when they left that I fell into this pit. 

S. 

{Photo: Tamara Lichtenstein Flickr}

scar

you are the wound that never healed

the itch i scratched 
until I bled dark onto eggshell carpets

the scab that formed 
that i tore at 

until you became part of my skin tissue
a distorted stain on creamy white

i cannot feel you any longer
but your damage is carved deep
and it shows on the surface

[i wanted you gone so bad
i let you stay forever]

S.

{Photo: Viola Cangi Flickr}

Corrupted.

there are nights we cannot touch again; held sacred by the innocence that once surrounded them. 
a naivety that we've since broken - in violent and gentle ways.

adam and eve traded paradise for a taste of fruit,
so we traded trust with the knowledge of what a grown heart looks like when it's wrung dry.
we traded wonder with books on the human condition. 
and I traded you for a sense of freedom and a list of things I never even wanted to do. 

[you traded me before I had a chance to change my mind].

so here's to us, 
and to everything we lost when all the deals went through.

S. 

{Photo: Alyssa Jiosa Flickr}

dead summer .

lips red as sin, 
and the smell of something deep and lustful
dabbed to the wrists, the neck, 
the small of the back.

the room is full of people
or it is empty,
[i don't know the difference]. 

it seems we are all here for one hundred years
just trying to memorize dates, and times, and schedules,
and the recipe to a good chicken casserole. 
trying to memorize how our bodies work 
before they change again. 

and you are sitting across from me
in a room that's full or empty
[me, lips red as murder
you, a dirt smudged tan].

i've memorized the shades of brown and green 
and grey that make up your iris,
and i could recite your name in my sleep like a song
[i do].

but sitting here, my red sea lips 
refuse to part
the way i want them to. 

S.

{Photo via: We Heart It}