on fire, and who we've become.

i called you an old flame
to a new friend
who has never heard your name out of my lips
before

an old flame

it makes you sound like a candlestick affair

simple, small
a dinner for two
glowing dimly on
the outline of a person i could love
or did you just flicker away?

i should have called you a furnace

deep in the belly of the beast
heating everything up from the inside
thawing out the winter of my bones
defrosting a human heart
we weren't sure was there
until it started beating

i should have called you a bonfire

fueling the drunken nights
the summer nights
when everything was good
but your warmth made it better
more alive

i should have called you a wildfire

taking out everything in your path
swallowing up all the cities we dreamed for ourselves
in one great gulp
raging, as one does, until everything you touch
changed

(i lived through the night
but
for better or for worse, i'm not the same).

S.

{Photo: Rita Ji Flickr}

where i've been -

You see, we’re tired, my heart and I,

We dealt with books, we trusted men, 

And in our own blood drenched the pen.

― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, excerpt from My Heart And I

{Photo and Art: Lauren Muller/Instagram}

unanswered —

questions for the woman i was last night 

how far have you walked for men who’ve never held your feet in their laps?

how often have you bartered with bone, only to sell yourself short?
why do you find the unavailable so alluring?
where did it begin, what went wrong, and who made you feel so worthless?
if they wanted you, wouldn’t they have chosen you?
all this time, you were begging for love silently
thinking they couldn’t hear you, but they smelt it on you
you must have known that they could taste the desperate on your skin
and what about the others that would do anything for you?
why did you make them love you until you could not stand it?
how are you both of these women, both flighty and needful?
where did you learn this, to want what does not want you?
where did you learn this, to leave those that want to stay?

by warsan shire

{Photo: Ennevia Flickr}

lessons .

things i wished i'd been taught:

        how to respond to a man that won't leave him angry
or me sad.

        no.
reverse that:

          that won't leave me sad
or him angry.
 
                     there.

i think that makes a difference.

                      there.
another thing i wish i'd been taught:

                  how to put my needs above
                      someone else's wants.

         my whole life has been filled with firecracker men
loud and fast and angry
      that burn for a second and then blow up
                          in my face
           and disappear in a mess
                            of smoke and debris.

                                               that live for the reaction.

                and i don't think i've ever been taught
                                 how to stop a fuse that's already lit.
                                          or where my body will be
                                                                                                     least likely
                                                    to get caught by the shrapnel.


                i wish they had been taught to be softer
i wish i was taught to be stone.

S.

{Photo: © quentin de briey/photography}

to the men .

the inside of my cheeks
are raw
from biting them until they bleed

i know that you're just asking me to smile but

i would rather spit blood
into the bathroom sink
and wait for the
stinging to
subside

wait until my tongue
gets used to the walls of my mouth
again

wait while a new layer of skin grows back
stronger this time

than open myself up

for you.

S.

{Photo: Matt Fry Flickr}