Category: Blues

Poem: Your short poem

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Poem: Your short poem

I’m going to write a short poem for you
Because your attention span in regard to me is dim, like my light
Like species survival in the afternoons by the Caribbean seas
Like a sunset that I swallowed because I was hungry and cold
How you lit me a half-broken cigarette, said I was engaging and bold
You shined your white teeth and like heaven I was sold

I took a section of your brain to look for “Fos” proteins to see which neurons were active
And I saw a glimpse of you and me on the playground
You were wearing blue jeans
Grass stains and all
I was wearing a pink gown like I was dressed for the ball
We were talking about being together and having it all
The wind blew
I got cold
You cradled me like a baby
Asked me to move in with you, I said screw you, maybe
I was so happy
I gleamed
Loyal like a preteen
So high on amphetamines
You kissed me on Seafoam boulevard, amongst the serene
By the ocean, strawberry cream lotion
Patches of snow, circles of rainfall
I’m in love with how you’re seventy-four inches tall
You call me graceful, for I’m patient and small
Call me once, just one phone call

Arachnoid hematomas
So thin you could see through my veins
Put me on the back of your bike, make me hold you real tight
Heaven shines in my eyes, it’s fluorescent and bright
White cerebral wave light
The stars and the apocalyptic tides
The places where my sensitivities hide

In your harsh but kind gaze I reside, and I don’t know why, I don’t know why

I wanted to write you a short poem
Because I can’t forget how much you mean to me
So I put words together, loosely, and tied them with a silver string
I asked you to light me up in the dark
But your attention span in regard to me is dim
Like my light

There is a light that always goes out

Poem: She could’ve been

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Cocaine kisses, send me off the edge into the abstract obscurity of my conception of time, space, life, youth, vigor, hate, and sour green apples

Cradle me
I’m an angel
Lying in a soft heaven encapsulated by aquamarine lullabies and the cries of a thousand little shadows
So hazy
Pretty baby
Little lady
Spiraling in clusters of neural cell bodies that extend axons down to their terminal buttons
I recognized her voice coming from outside my window
But she wasn’t talking to me
She wasn’t talking to me

Tiny clusters of dazzling diamonds
What, in your life, is priceless? Conceptually?
Sensually?
Horizontally?
I am a nicotinic receptor, please don’t bother me while I’m at work
It’s a little complicated, but I’m going to keep on going
It’s all I need to do – be brave, be strong, endure, go on
Lying on my pink plush bed staring at the ceiling fan
Circling and circling and circling and circling
Enzymes and substrates and catecholamines
I do my best work when I can’t be seen

Starships and amphetamines

God, I love your energy
It soothes me
Invigorates me
Calms me
Quiets me
Loves me

Cocaine causes your brain to sit in a bath of dopamine
I like to pour lavender-infused Epsom salts into the warm water and add bubbles because I’m a child at heart
And I’m trying to hold on and not break my own heart
But it’s hard
It’s so hard
I don’t know where to start

And you’re so far

You’re so far (we could have been as deep as the oceans)
And I think I’m okay
The mental image that I’ve created of you is slowly fading, and I’m returning to the reality, the vacancy
Encouraging normalcy
Doing pirouettes in my living room to French classical music
Tranquil lullabies
Cheap thrills
Hundred dollar bills
Poison in your pocket for the next martyr you’ll kill

Sit down at your desk, put your chin to your chest
Stretch your neck
Give feedback to the people you like in your life
Tell them how you’re doing
Ask them how they are
I’m overdosing in the bathtub from all this dreamy black tar
I’m racing a stranger 120 miles per hour in my fucked up classic car
They’ll say, she could’ve been a star

They’ll say, she could’ve been

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: 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: Anhedonia & daffodils

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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