Month: September 2021

Poem: Your candlelight (my escape)

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Poem: Your candlelight (my escape); Monday, September 27, 2021

There’s no “do or die” with you
Because I’m – I’m not with you
That’s the “want to die” part

Sleeping until morning with you sounds okay and fun
But I want to stay up arguing until the morning sun
Blinds you if only to bliss you
Close my eyes and my ears when I kiss you
Tell you to great lengths of how much I miss you
But is this you?

Am I seeing the real you?
Do I know you?
I understand the role you’re playing, I see the person you’re trying to be
The goals you have written on your whiteboard that hangs at a slanted angle because you like it that way
The monster inside you that I told you [no matter who it is] I would accept anyway
Wouldn’t have you any other way
Mine,
Stay

Then August came
Like a wind of wrath, it spit fire
You turned a year older and converted your carcass into a liar
Missed phone calls
Train tickets
(You tore my insides apart)
You made me so scared that you would depart
I stopped writing poems, stopped working on my art
Unexplained visits
(Who were they?)
Missing car keys
(Who was driving?)
You kept saying I was beautiful, but then you kept lying
Was it impossible for you to see how hard I was trying?

When you punched the dashboard
When you punched the backdoors
When you punched the bathroom floor
And I took pictures of your chaos
Because I was so in love
I was so in love
I was so in love
I was so in love
My sparkling white haze, my lilac dove
I knew only in God’s world could this be true love
Maddening, maddening
Crystals, crystals
Rocks and marbles of all different colors
Aquamarine and thirty shades of green
I’ll be there for you, both in terror and the serene
You’re too perfect to never be seen

You were my favourite crazy, convoluted gemstone and I chewed you raw until I broke my teeth on your intricately segmented bones

Crystallized and pure, the gem of residue
The glue that connects my creepy insides to you
The magnetic essence of hot beach days in Malibu
You were so soft, what happened?
Did I do the damage?
Did all my hard work crash down onto your beautiful face?
Is it my own blood that I taste?
And have begun to crave?
Is there redemption in the aching, perplexing guilt
The unmanageable, chaotic, disabling tilt
Of your glance when you look at me in the mirror
In my head it’s assembling, it’s only getting clearer
You are not someone to love but someone to fear
Oh my god
Oh my god
What am I doing here

I’m hyperaware of the feelings you have in regard to the weight of what we were
But I no longer recognize myself in you
I stare hard, I stare harder, but I cannot undo
The wreck in the hard-wiring I thought that I knew
I’m no longer magical to you
I’m insignificant to you.
In everything I do
In everything I do
When you look at my softness, you only see two
Blank, black pupils staring back at you
Blank, black pupils

I’m brave when I’m lost, that means nothing to you
Gemstones, gemstones
Endless incumbent residue
You’ve got a magnifying glass to a tulip, and you’re scarring the seas, the blue
Is this madness particularly painful for you?
Do you sickle like a cell, like the tragedies do?

My escape was you and only you

Five in the morning, I wake up every day to a melody that takes me away
(somewhere pink, somewhere nice, dazed and upbeat)
But when the record comes to an end
I can’t continue to lie, I’m too “adult” to pretend
That I don’t dream of you wrapping your brooding arms around me and holding me tight
Asking me fondly if I had a good or rough night
And kissing me goodbye before work, without any fright

If I could just be your candlelight,

But I’m too pitch black.
I didn’t mean it
Please come back

I didn’t mean it.
(I’m too pitch black)
Every night without you, it’s the light that I lack
I’m too pitch black

I’m too pitch black
I’m too pitch black

Poem: Crimson blood galore (underwater)

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Poem: Crimson blood galore (underwater)

They say, why are you this way
I don’t get it
Why can’t you change your ways?
And in response to my long-overdue dismay,
I smile
A bit
A tad
A cinch
Enough to make you spontaneously disappear
From my mind
That’s clear
Ocean water flowing over here
A water goddess thick with cement and tears to spill
Over-emotional until
Over-sacrimonious until
The water in the faucet gets swallowed up by the drain
And I lie beside my bedroom window, staring fondly at the rain
The pain, the aches, the pain
To my dismay
I’m born again today

We missed you last winter
And the three winters before that
You disappeared at the drop of a hat
A raccoon, a skunk, a snake, and a bat
Can I have my healthy father back?

You disappeared until
The cockroaches, in vast numbers, grew taller and taller
I prayed and I wished to get smaller and smaller
I knew by December that you weren’t coming back
I knew in April how to rehabilitate a heart attack
But it wasn’t yours upon which to act
And I wasn’t getting you back
It hit hard and felt sad and drove me straight into the deep
Underneath where I’m found now
Thick layers thus far I seep
And everybody around me weeps

I unfolded and turned out to be obsolete
I’m not particularly pretty, but I’m sharp on my feet
In battle, I know the right point to retreat
I’ll take the heat
Swallow it up
I’m shallow, but in ways you’ll come to adore
Me, untangled – me, free
Me – hopelessly, irrevocably
Come see me
Stay by my side and wait
Don’t grow impatient, stay
Watch my most beautiful act of decay
And disappearance
From the trenches
Last that you hear
I’m over the fence
And gone with the wind
I’m tired of the things everybody does to each other here

Holding a picture of my father in battle, in war
Until God forced out his last breath
Heaven-sent
I’m shallow, but in ways you’ll come to adore
But shallow waters weren’t what he had in store
Crimson blood galore

Save me before I keep on breathing
Save me, these people keep on leaving

Poem: The ones I love die

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I’m getting better at glamorizing myself
I like my safety pins and textbooks neat on the shelf
Can I have your permission to be ambivalent
About my whereabouts?
Don’t ask me why
Don’t ask me why
Don’t tell me not to cry
Don’t tell me not to cry
If God is mean and bad, then that makes sense
Why does he let the ones I love die
Why does he let the ones I love die
Don’t tell me why

Don’t ask me why
Don’t ask me why
Don’t tell me not to cry
Don’t tell me not to cry

Well, I met with your father at the café
We talked about you, pretty much the entire day
He said how you’ll have it is how you’ll have your own way
I’m too left
I’m too left
Toughen up
Toughen up
Decay is pressed petals and sorrow intertwined within one membrane
The words just spill onto the pages
I’m not even thinking as I’m writing, maybe

Collapse onto me, I swear to god, I’ll let you love me
Don’t suck your thumb at me
Roses and thorns, yeah, roses and thorns
Roses and thorns, yeah, roses and thorns
I like the way you cross your eyes
Yeah, I only really hang out with guys
Since my best girl friend hung herself out to dry

I’m not even thinking as I’m writing, maybe
The words just spill onto the pages
The words just spill onto the pages
The words just spill onto the pages
The words just spill onto the pages

Poem: A hundred drops per second

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When I met you, you hated yourself
Like you were afraid of yourself
As the storms went on,
You found it to be best to be by yourself
And there,
I was,
Watching a man crumble in front of my very timid but sparkling eyes
It was no surprise
You liked salt wounds and touching my inner thighs
But I –
I bask when I wake with the sunrise
And you –
You look down on me for loving everything until it dies
You hate the earth
And you wonder why
It doesn’t pity you back

I moved out, clean new apartment
Living with a friend
I’m working on my craft
No longer at my wit’s end
Looking forward to all the money I’ll spend
Me?
And you?
Will we ever make amends?

I care no longer
I wouldn’t bother
Oh, your poor father
He knows what’s in the water

I care no longer
I wouldn’t bother
Oh, your poor father
He knows what’s in the water

If I were to swim
To you
To build a new continent
I’d turn around
Find a river raft
You think I’m strange and daft
Never read any of my first drafts
Fell out of love just like that

Now you –
Hopefully you’ll remember the words I’ve said
But it no longer matters to me
Whether you’re alive or dead
Instead

Don’t lose your head
It’s not worth it
We were perfect
But we weren’t
And I’m gasping
For thin air like –

A hundred drops per second

©️ Elle Silvestrov

Poem: Lilac amphetamines (drug kings)

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Poem: Lilac amphetamines (drug kings)

You and me in a state of departure / You and me in a state of departure / You and me in a state of departure / Y o u a n d m e i n a s t a t e o f d e p a r t u r e

I looked past the rainfall at the marble, right back at me, it gleamed
Our last fight in the kitchen, you so quickly got so mean!
You put your head in your hands
I trusted you to a fault
How come I never learn, that like fire you burn
And whatever respect is, I must be unaware of how it’s earned
Your speeches don’t follow rational thought
And I tell you each time, but you must have forgot
I love you a lot
I fucking love you a lot

The outdoors are crisp, you have chapstick on your lips
You’re doing me a favor, your hand ’round my hip
Baby, I can barely feel it
Come closer to me
I’m looking straight at you, but it’s always a different man that I see
I try so hard to look pretty
For you, always you
Never another
But you’re so paranoid, why do I even bother!
This scorching August heat, it’s getting hotter and hotter
And you’re throwing a fit – you look like a toddler
You said there’s a girl – you said that you’ll call her
I wonder what lies you tell to our holy father
You can pick up the tab
I’ll ride home in a cab
Call me when date night to you isn’t a drag
(Smoke like a chimney to that)

And you’re throwing a fit– you look like a toddler

At night, you space out; your glare is of steel
You don’t share the misty-eyed tenderness I feel
You’re a tiger, I’m a fly
Broken wing or two
I lay softly beside you
Afraid to touch you because I’m awfully shy
For my form I’m quite polished- I come in blue, white, and black
Switch the topic to us and that’s when you pull back
We’re selling amphetamines, I dye them lilac

Anything to get the kids off fentanyl
But they’ll still have heart attacks until
I tell the room I have the training, I know what to do
But then all of a sudden they rely upon you
Don’t sign up to dine on what you can’t chew
Strangers remain strangers, the days change like a ticking clock
Put the body in the bag, fuck I almost forgot
We didn’t make too much money, but it was worth a shot

I lay softly beside you
I’m so, so afraid
And when I ask you to stick to me
Your mind’s already been made

I’m too small for you to love
Broken wing or two
Before you fall right asleep
Realize I fucking love you

Only you
I fucking love you