Poem: Femoral artery (fever dreams)

Poem: Femoral artery (fever dreams)

I watch you when you’re bad
I take careful notes
I set them on fire and summon gentle ghosts
They won’t scare you or hurt you the most
Nothing like true love taken away, not even close

I’m sixteen in a few days, I’m trapped in this body
I want you to mimic a system like monoclonal antibodies
Feed the hunger
Burn the rage
Set flames to whom I accused you of being
Prove me wrong
Come as a surprise
I’m finding I don’t make the impression that I imply
Sunsets after jazz concerts on the lawn
I try to find stingrays in the ocean when I swim
I think if this life is a fight, then I’ll most likely win
But they’re doing a good job of telling God that I sinned

Like fever dreams
Like soft doeskin
That came from a being you shouldn’t have touched
I wonder at what point will it all be enough
Blew smoke in his face, he tried calling my bluff
I wake up strong, but I wouldn’t say I’m tough
My wrists are so small the cops use child handcuffs
I wish I was making all this stuff up

To live a romantic life is to surrender to passion
With the weather today, I would say it’s not in fashion
Love for me will never be everlasting

I want it to be
I desperately hope
But we always lose the ones we love the most
They hit your bare knees, the cascading blue waves
Make you stay up pacing around for days
I don’t have the time, and I’ve lost my own place
I was so far ahead
I was almost there
I thought I was close
I was almost there
I choked on my insides
I was almost there
I saw my femoral artery
Blood soaked my white underwear

Like fever dreams
Like soft doeskin
That you’ll always regret purchasing because your ex-girlfriend was a vegan and the way she wears pink ribbons in her ash blonde hair makes you go wild
You act like a child
And I wouldn’t even say your advantage was mild
Knock on my door
Stay a while
I’ll only be happy watching you char in the fire

I know the feeling
I know the daze
I know the brilliant, beautiful Autumn haze
I know Fridays spent alone and solitary Sundays
I’ll only respect you if you participate in the chase
And God, I love it when you try to plead your case
You lost the bet
The cops know you
You think you get me, but I don’t believe that’s true
You’re only with her because there’s nothing else to do

Playing with marbles on the carpet, so they don’t roll too far away
I don’t have the time
I’ve lost my own place
But I clean up nice and live my life with grace

You’re lucky I won’t let you see me face-to-face
You won’t forget my brutality for several days
It’s my milk white gentleness that you can’t replace
I used to tell you I love you, but now I’ll rephrase

The kind of girl you wish you had for the holidays
The kind of girl you wish you had for the holidays
The kind of girl you wish you had for the holidays
As vital to the body as acetylcholinesterase

It’s my resilient nature that will get me through this phase
I used to tell you I love you, but now I’ll rephrase

Lilac Dove

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Poem: 3 in the morning (God loves you)

Poem: 3 in the morning (God loves you)

Sometimes at night
I think of you
(I’m lying – I always think of you)
There’s nothing else I’d rather do
It’s the bittersweet sting of being hopelessly enamored with you

The more you want it, the farther away it becomes
You stay up late and say you’ll sleep next to the sun
He says he’s running late, but he never does come
That’s the sad truth about not being the only one
I twirl my hair
I spin around
I choke so hard I fall to the ground
And if you calculated my efforts, I’d pay by the pound
I’m lost in abysmal and undulating surround sound

He put black padding on the walls to keep the voices quiet
Asked me what my favourite wine was and said that he’d buy it
Passed me angel dust, but I said I won’t try it
This time I’m not lying
It hurts more to keep trying
Don’t blame it on timing
If I am dust, you are worn out leather from a cow that loved to live and breathe fresh air
You ran your fingers through my soft, blonde hair
I knew you were unaware
You had me right there
You had me

Boys have short attention spans, so I’m working on making my poems shorter
As if a somber gaze doesn’t scratch at the envelope
As if the disposable cardboard coaster I kept from the bar we went to last year isn’t practically at its wit end
But I stare at it at night and I like to pretend
That you and I will never end
(You spin me round and round, you scream, you bend)
I only liked when you were drinking
Because you never stopped talking
And I could listen to your words for endless summer days

I’m watching my step
I’m too sharp for this town
I reached the vault of heaven, but you pushed me back down
And every time I walk away from you, I turn right back around
You’re the most beautiful thing that I have ever found

And if you want me, please tell me
That’s all that I ask
Because I don’t know how much longer
I can contain this chaotic energy, it’s only a setback
It pays for my grave
Collects debt at the tollbooth
Serves me a clean slate I can’t afford and makes it taste like dry vermouth
A botanical celestial atmosphere where there was you and I appeared and you said come here, baby girl, my doe-eyed dear
Please, my angel, don’t you ever disappear

I say never
Won’t do it
I’ll always be here

But you’re so distant from me that my words sound unclear
And the walls are blurry and they’re bleeding red
And I bought pink satin sheets for my queen-sized bed
And I wait every night for you to come fall sleep
But if your love cuts my skin, it doesn’t go very deep
If your flaws were secrets, they’d be mine to keep
And I replay your laugh in my mind on fucking repeat

I know only one thing that’ll make me complete
But if it’s me against her, I’m too weak to compete
I am a glacier dissolving in sunburns and aggressive summer heat
But I still thank God because he arranged for us to meet
I know it as much as I love the window seat
But I see you and her, so I make a spreadsheet
Of all the ways this is going to kill me
Please stop, only you can heal me
I need you like candy
I crave all of you
I know that my hopes are too good to be true
So I lay on the concrete, I only see in ocean-blue

I scream at God for letting me fall in love with you
It’s 3 in the morning
There’s nothing else to do

© Elle Silvestrov

I only liked when you were drinking
Because you never stopped talking
And I could listen to your words for endless summer days

Poem: 3 in the morning (God loves you)

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Poem: Your honeycomb (you were pure)

Poem: Your honeycomb (you were pure)

Respect
My angel baby, my love for you
Your honeycomb, bittersweet elegance
Pink nail polish on the highest shelf
With you, I’m my best self
Rest assured I’m in good health
All for the commonwealth
I have a thousand secrets I’m refusing to tell
But if you captivate me enough, entrance me into a maybe, lure me into your consensual cave where we can reminisce about our funniest, most awful, of heartbreaks
For the moment’s sake
I’m crystal-made
I’m dissolving in tangents made up from aptitude
I’m L-Dopa converting to dopamine
Transfusing to you my sweet nectar of the gods (hey, I love how that collar looks on you)
Hey, I love how that sweater looks on you
And if I wore one just like it
Interlaced your arm with mine
Would we be simply divine?
Would we look intertwined?
Would your heart, at the end of the night, be mine?

I’m silly
I’m running away from you
In the whitest of the white lace and tulle
A skirt so pretty it makes boys hurt
I’m not a pacifist, I’m quite the ignorant jerk
I repel people like diamonds in tunnel vision
I’m sparkly and iridescent, but they say I’m pitch black
They don’t know me like that
Don’t know I can be precious
Don’t know I can be sweet
Hot and heavy, sharp on my feet
Lose myself in the summer heat
I find myself when I choose not to cheat
I’m nobody’s mistake but my own
Crescent moon devour me still
Hold me until I’m candlelit
On fire, rupture, rapture, hold me, capture
I’m quite the disaster
But if you were to look away…

You’d never
I’d beg you
Surrender your hopes and dreams to my castle of what could’ve been and what was once was that is no more
I found you in a cave, you were mine, I found you!
You didn’t behave on your own!
You had to be tamed!
Was it foolish of me to pick up where we left off?
You glanced at me, took a sip of whiskey and scoffed
I don’t like how you look with that cup in your hand
I’d rather find you at the DMV, Tolstoy’s narrative in your hand
You’re so good at being grand
And when I’ll be queen I’ll demand
To share this bittersweet, homely, wholehearted world with you
Never shelter you
Always unsettle you
Make you divide by two
Alongside me in front of Lake Michigan, that’s a dream too sweet for me to save in my neural space
You always said I had the most perfect, soft face
But you couldn’t keep up with my vapid pace

I’ll outrun you in marathons, I’ll sprint past you in daydreams
I went to five stores to find a wedding dress that I ended up being unhappy with
So we canceled our plans
Were unsure of where we could stand
See each other in impure reality or dissolve into volatile pieces of sand
I’ll take you by the hand
Push you into the ocean, make you suffer some more
Until you’re practically begging me to take you to shore
But I’m not done yet, I haven’t even gotten to the gore
When you were in love with me, you were pure
When you were in love with me, you were pure
When you were in love with me, you were pure
When you were in love with me, you were pure

Fly me to Paris, I’ll take you on a tour
Of the rose gardens, I wanted to become your bride in
Of wife and of man
I’m laying in the sand
Drew a heart in the dirt, cobblestone made me hurt
You wouldn’t say a word

When you were in love with me, you were pure
When you were in love with me, you were pure
When you were in love with me, you were pure
When you were in love with me, you were pure

Now nothing I wear makes me pretty
I’m shaking, trembling, and fidgety
This is what the anxiety does to me

You were
Stained black and I couldn’t
Differentiate up from down
You closed in on me like atmospheric surround sound
And when you asked what I wanted to do, I didn’t lie, I said I wish I would drown

You used to tell me I was prettiest in the bathtub.

Poem: Anhedonia & daffodils

I don’t want to write all of these really dark things
It’s just what the anhedonia and isolation brings
I want to be with the daffodils
I want to cry from laughter
I want to bear children
I want to be graceful & filled with poise
But the things that bother me are making so much noise

Glendale Blvd and Union Ave
I read a nice greeting card and thought of you
But you didn’t like my personalized gift
It took weeks to produce
I’m wandering through the aisles of the grocery store picking up fruit
Putting it in my basket to look like I embrace my womanhood
Like my mother thinks I should

Alameda avenue
I’ll walk all over you
Two cigarettes in my hand as I’m walking to Grand
I want to observe the skyscrapers at night
The people that work late
The buildings that keep their lights on
Sometimes the poems I write for you, I sing like a song
I get to thinking that I wish we could just get along
I wish we could just get along

Hoping the rain comes soon so it can hold me
How come when you found out you never told me
I look like I’m texting, but I’m really writing a prologue
To a film I want to make in a silver-blue nightgown
Baby, how do I make that sound

I want to be beautiful in their eyes
But when I’m not, it’s no surprise
I sometimes wonder if I’d prefer the lies
I’d reach out and touch them through their disguise

Come down to downtown with me to find the daffodils
Understand that I’m an addict when I take my pills
Honey, I’m just trying
Honey, I’m just trying
Honey

I’m just trying