YOUR WINTER TOUCH IS KILLING MY LILACS
I wrap myself in a bed of silk each night,
my own fragile armour, all that I have left,
placed in hopes of mending what was left shattered.
To heal wounds that not a soul has seen,
a heart that no one has touched with tenderness in mind.
Each fold of the silk, a whisper of protection.
Each thread woven in between, the desire for solace ignites.
If I am coated in a sheet of lilac,
if I am swathed in its gentle spring embrace,
the hands of winter will never find their way to my heart.
I will never feel the chill again.
No fingers will leave a mark on my soul.
The world will fall away, words will not barge into my home. Their sharp daggered edges dulled, unable to pierce the peace I’ve carefully crafted.
No inscriptions will bind me to someone else’s vision of who I should be. Not when they do not love me, do not pray for me on broken knees.
In this cocoon of softness, one I created on my own,
I am free to exist solely as I am.
Untouched, unmarked, unknown by another’s hand.
If I am lonesome within myself, in my own arms,
where there is only enough room for myself,
then I will not be hurt.
I will not be torn by longing.
Not by love that was never given or returned.
Here, in this breath of fresh spirit, I am whole —
and I am enough.
MELANCHOLIC MUSE
We used to go to the store after home football games.
Every single Friday that autumn on seventeen, I was piecing together reasons why it felt like our last, even though it was our first. Our first full fall together, where we swayed in and out of love. Come to think of it, you never had a taste for football.
I couldn’t tell you why we went to so many games, but I can recall every single time you made me cry on the car rides there. The car rides back. The patting under my sorrowful eyes before holding your hands in the store. The night air as you tell me all in the same breath that you would marry me one day, but that you would never be like a son to my mother.
The silent reaping, sitting in my driveway while the rain pellets down on our dying love.
The tears coating my lips, pressing into yours, before my departure, quietly fearing our next.
Knowing it would be ruined yet again by your daggered stabs and my forgotten sobs.
I knew it was over months before it was over, even if I lie and say I never saw it coming
when you knocked on my heart in December to rip
out my heart, bare and live-handed.
I can still see the steam rising from your palm into frightening winter air, holding my heart,
wondering why my cries went mute. Your convulsions under my touch, like I am your killer,
even though I have only ever been your lover. You are the murderer in your own murder fantasy...and I am your first and forever victim.
We used to go to the store after home football games.
I cannot remember every purpose for every trip, but I remember the one when I discovered the poetry collections in the book aisle.
When you bought the book for me, and you pressed it
into my chest, little did you know
you were signing your own contract with the devil. An immortality that would live on in my words, teaching me how to use poetic revenge in the best of ways. To keep you alive in my blood, ink ties binding, reminding all of how you left me in winter’s thaw.
You were once my safe place; now, you’re only my melancholic muse
THE FIRE I DIDN’T IGNITE
My presence doesn’t echo anymore.
You’d miss me without even trying.
My heart beat is a knock that keeps pounding,
but no one is there to answer the door.
I am a glass body, translucent vases in place of organs;
all that makes me who I am on full display.
I’m a set of see through flesh,
the kind that hides well in between the floorboards where you walk. Invisible.
You swear you saw me a time or two before,
but I am nothing more than dust in a crowded corner.
You say you still whisper for me at night, but you don’t remember
the syllables that make up my name.
You recall that you heard me, but you pass the hour without a word to me.
Does your heart still remember why you love me? Is it any better than mine?
I try to drown the reason to speak, but the glass shows all.
Every ounce of water filtering in until my vases are full and overflowing.
The empty echo, the heart beat that goes without answering, the floorboards I take shelter in, absorbs all of it and learns how to float, how to swim through the darkness I’m continuously left in.
I want you to know how it feels to be left in utter silence,
in a vast pit of darkness you didn’t ask for.
I want you to relive the hard parts of my nights, the burdens I was born into,
and the fire I didn’t start. Why should I be held responsible to set ease to flames I never set a match to in the first place?
I am tired of crowding corners, shrinking myself
so I won’t be moved elsewhere when I get in the way.
I want to be wanted, want to be seen, want to be more than my skin makes me believe.
My head tells me not to worry, that I have myself and myself cares, and myself listens, but sometimes, myself is not enough for myself.
May Garner is a young poet based in Ohio. She has been writing & sharing her work online for over a decade now. Her debut poetry collection, Withered Rising, was published in 2023. Her work is also featured in several anthologies, including most recently, Musing Around at Midnight, curated by Cozy Ink Press. You can find more of her work on Instagram (@crimson.hands).
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