Free verse poem: This is my castle (they built it for the queen)

All I want is some wine
To know that you’ve tried
But I don’t get what I want, but in case you forgot,
This is my castle; they built it for the queen
I’ve gone by my nickname since I was nineteen
I picked the cherry stems just fine
Wrapped them around you in due, hazel time
Not unsettled by rage, only burnt by hot sunshine
There is a time and a place
For letting me go tonight
I can only live in shades of blue for so long

You’ll call when you’re drinking
But the rosemary and fever dream has me thinking
That in this warm abyss, I’m finally putting myself first
I’m the most decadent of late-night desserts
(I don’t care if I get hurt)
Moving like the Chicago Transit Authority that picks me up every fifteen minutes,
To sit and watch the downtown splendor, the people having conversations
The luxurious skyscrapers with their gleaming reflections on the river
My god, if you could see it
My god, if only you could see it
Reels of the same film run through my mind

I look at the lilac flowers
That I picked out for myself
You handed your credit card to the cashier and made my head hurt
You didn’t want to be there
You pinched my weakest nerves
But they fired back, like dropped bombs on a 1990s Cadillac
I was confused when I looked in the mirror, and I wasn’t blushing
Why, as a young girl, did I feel nothing?

I moved, so briskly
I held them, so close
I always hold flowers so deathly close to me
Can’t help having something in my life I don’t intend to have and to hold, as the evening unfolds
I’m mesmerized by the dusky, disorderly, crimson, secluded, and mechanical sky
I can’t help having something in my life without keeping it close-by
I’m a porcelain and ivory, soft-hearted girl
All you had to do was try
All you had to do was try

Ice cream summer popsicle dreams
Muscle relaxant mixed with white amphetamines
To handle the chaos that you collided with mine
I think there’s a right place, and a right time
But if you call late at night, know I’ve had some red wine
So the pauses are longer
When you hold your breath,
No longer allowed to lay your head on my chest
Coming to terms with what I’m led to believe
You’ve been lying to me
I saw it; I grabbed it; I wreaked some fucking havoc
Internally, always
Internally
No longer lying awake as you, beside me, breathe

An exemplary paradise for your magical thinking
She’s the one, she’s the only one
Who cared to ask about
Things you couldn’t say out loud
To anyone, anyone
She’s the one, she’s the only one
She’ll be the one, she’ll be the only one
To tell you the truth
To show you who you are
She’s the only one
She’ll be the only one

I’ve moved in a geometric possession to the interwoven mention,
Of “boyfriend,” and “happy”
And “I don’t want to,”
A passing thought: was I gentle enough
As if in my lifetime, I’ve ever been rough
Like a foreign identity
I’ve latched onto lately
To remove your hesitation with no A+ on my exam
I rest my heavy head in my pale hands
I pull you back and forth like a rubber band
I’m swimming and I don’t want to come up to breathe

But I have to
I have to

Like fine black metal branches, delicate though not brittle,
The uncertainty
Is damaging
It feels
Like tragedy
Knocking on hell’s door asking if I’m ready for some more
Are you ready for some more?
The peaches were more vibrant than I could have dreamt them up to be
But they’re only on a painting that was completed in the 17th century
Find myself alone in this maze of lost equilibrium
There’s an error in your calculations
The past has nothing to do with the girl standing before you
It’s taken me 26 years to learn the blind cannot be cured by me
Even though it’s my specialty
Even though it was real to me,
Even though I

Count blueberries and pick off their tiny stems
On a blanket, it rains; I am hopeful again
For a time when I’m sitting in a boy’s passenger seat, and he looks at me
And he’ll feel so free
The thought of belonging to me
They have led astray me, but don’t go by a day
That I don’t count the ways

I grow softer, and softer
As I learn man’s ways,

I grow softer and softer
I don’t lose myself in the haze
If you knew what I know,
My god, you’d be amazed

Take that to the grave
My god, you’d be amazed

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Free verse poem: This is my castle (they built it for the queen)