Category: Favourites

Love poem: As vacant (mine)

distantcaveLeave a comment

Love poem: As vacant (mine)

It scared me so
I knew
We were going down
I knew
You would not turn around
And still
Like a beat
I’m made of memories
Crystal castles
Made of ashes
My forgetful apprentice
With wrath like a vengeance
Misinterpreted my withdrawn
Glances at the sharp, flawlessly glamorized corners of the living room
(Mine)

Velveteen heart-shaped sunglasses
When I’m asleep, you know it plays
Again on repeat
The things
You said
When my hands were in my lap
I can’t
Even sleep
I can’t
Even sleep
I can’t
Even sleep

I can’t
Find a song
That makes you make sense to me
More than
The last
Few words you sent
And how
Fast I sank
My teeth
Into my hand
To keep
From setting my bedroom on fire

All the wires
All the while –
They surrounded me like filth
Carcasses of your hypnotic, granite, carbon imagination
An avalanche of insecurities, I thought I had
Swallowed
In a strawberry, lime, and gin cocktail
Held fragile

An escape would be too good to be true
Though it wouldn’t make me think less about you

Soft skin
In collapsing horizons
Pitfalls
Two doves on a swing
I’ll give you my everything
Every last piece of marble and copper

In the mornings, we eat vegan butter on toast
And our evenings of suffering remake every inhospitable, tarnished spider web
That fills us with a skepticism
Too delicate to absolve
(Mine)

In waves, so transient
A hospital bed
With white flowers for
For me, for me, for me
For me, for me, for me
For me

And I deleted my profile because
I can’t handle falling in love again
I can’t help
I can’t handle
I can’t handle falling in love again
I can’t help
I can’t handle
I can’t handle falling in love again
I can’t help
I can’t hang
I can’t feel

Anything that could get me close
Anything that could get me close

We were so close
I can’t help
I can’t help
Thinking we were so close,

Like an inopportune sky
Just there
Us two

Probably as vacant as each other

© Elle Silvestrov

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Free verse poem: Belongings

distantcaveLeave a comment

Free verse poem: Belongings

This is a free verse poem about attachment and detachment – defeat on behalf of simplicity’s sake.

I didn’t expect myself to still feel like this
And my mother laughs because it’s only been a few days
But I feel like it’s dragging on
It’s dragging on
And we didn’t even come to the conclusion of what would become our song
So what am I here to do
Sitting in the corner of the modern, moss-green, vibrantly street-lit café,
A damsel in despondency,
A variation of your favourite four-course strings
A broken-down parlor path with a shiny diamond entryway and glass slippers lining the blizzard-sinking ships,
That match my cruelty
My taste for rabid tongue
The whispers I wouldn’t let you utter
And the hesitation you’d be lucky to never have suffered

Portrait of Princess Tatyana Yusupova (1850) by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, oil on canvas

A chance for melancholia to clash with the force of nature
To detract from a foreign film
A lost, aching still
An avalanche of surprise
Beguiled by sheer imagination and phosphorescent icing

That smothers a kingdom like the holiest ghost
Always bittersweet to the liking
Made for sharp, pristine vengeance

Sans Titre (Untitled) 115 by Eliane L. Guerin, oil on canvas

In my own reserved portrait of solitude
Gazing vibrantly at the majestic cars that drive by
The classics, the tragic
The ancient and recumbent
Reoccurring in stunning ways I could not even think to properly illuminate in due time
Typing
Silently
Wishing you were next to me
Smiling
The way you do
The way you do
So magnificent
Eyes glimmering in concave and crimson, blue
God, I was this close to being obsessed with you

I feel like
A teenager
An angry one
A bitter fool
Mad at myself because I brushed away the
The fleeting thoughts of nah, he won’t like me if I say that
Nah, he won’t like me if I wear that
Nah

The Bath (1874) by Alfred Emile Leopold Stevens, oil on canvas

I’m moving in circles because I forgot how to dance
I forgot how to feel alive
I trip over my own words
Everything is in disarray
I thought you were going
I thought you were going
I thought you were going to make it work
I thought you were
I thought you were
I thought you were going to make it work with me
I thought you were
I so thought you would have
Made it work with me
And that would be
Meaningful
Hopeful
Spontaneously planned
Crimson and clover all over
Soft rubber bands

Now you’ve got me in a pit and you
Hung up on me
I threw my cellular device on the street
I don’t want to talk to anybody
Anybody at all
Anybody at all
Anybody at all
Anybody at all

I’m not writing another poem about a boy that doesn’t have the strength to come
Tell me it’s not working
Stand there in your clandestine flesh
Stand there, giving me a real piece of yourself
Look at me with dandelions in my hair

Mending the Gown (early 20th century) by Adolphe Borie (1877-1934), oil on canvas, figurative artwork

Don’t say I’m too charming for you
Tell me I’m too alarming for you
Tell me I scare the living daylights out of you

And you’ve got other girls calling you
Answer the phone in front of me
Take the flowers out of my hair
Push me down on the tar-stained sidewalk
Bully me like you do on your bad days
Get your way

That’s how I want you to leave me

Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like
Not like

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Open-Air-Interior-barcelona-1892-Ramon-Casas-i-Carbo.jpg
Open Air Interior Barcelona (1892) by Ramon Casos i Carbo, oil on canvas

Worn desperation
Mixing in fevers of separation

But I thought I
Belonged

https://www.instagram.com/lilacdovee/

Thank you for reading, & be sure to visit paypal.me/LilacDoveCA to buy me a coffee for my birthday on September 14, 2022.

Thank you for your support – currently working on the cocktail party poetry collection.

xoxo

Free verse poem: Spiracles of abdomens (your story)

distantcaveLeave a comment

Free verse poem: Spiracles of abdomens (your story)

You, you
You
Almost make me melancholic
But if the symphony hasn’t heard of me
I’ll sit on cobblestone and write by the fence
I’ll engage, with soft-lit edges
Spiracles of abdomens
Golden youth, we marvel like
Ants in solitude
Separated from one another
But not for the entire evening
Not for the rest of our story

A smooth enhancement
A sharp critique
I step slowly, carefully
Catching my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror & readjusting my Chicago Cubs cap
That makes me feel like I’m home
In my skin
For the rest of my story

The white carnations are dying and they look almost more beautiful with acute angles cutting their dismay
I’m out of flower food
But a homemaker nonetheless, I pay tribute to my residence
I glide slowly through the streets on a white bicycle that has
“Seven Peaks” written in a cursive print similar to the tattoo on my right forearm
My tribute to a honeymoon that never occurred
My golden, sporadic sailing through a lake that ends in fleeting desperation
For water
For vengeance
And I withhold apprehension
As I look for a few more moments at my porcelain figure,
Beginning to admire the grace that I emit
On this spinning planet
Where God always knows if you’ve finished your breakfast
And thrown away your leftovers

To remind you of the fact that I
Am here, somehow, with a watch that is more beautiful than I could have requested
The cursive print is like the tattoo that reminds me that
Despondency in your wake is no reason for one to hesitate
An afternoon of slumber is fond of my delicate breath and the weight I put on my mattress as the bedspread confronts the curves of my legs
Dimly tan from summertime by the water
Cold and rotten is the fiber sheath that transcends what I’ve known to be
Detachment from minute frustrations and incidents that in my former being would have sparked marked uncertainty
And I, do, become uncertain
But find a cave to lay my head without needing feathers embedded in satin
On an August day, I am briefly saddened
Because his birthday is coming up and I won’t reach for the telephone

I’ve got to get out of here
I’m turning in western glances and forgetting romance is
Something to complement me, not complete me
A swan lake, a river with no riverbed
Flowers left at the gravesite because I, miss you in ways I hope you know
I hope what follows

Will give me more material to write, always
Reminding me that ants in solitude
Are only temporarily confused

And they find each other in the dark
Complementing each other

For they already felt complete

paypal.me/LilacDoveCA

Love poem: Coughing over the telephone

distantcaveLeave a comment

Love poem: Coughing over the telephone

I’m happy that I didn’t tell you
(I’m glad that you didn’t catch it)
I picked dandelions for you and I left them by the swing-set
That you walk by on your way home from the market
With non-dairy milk
Of your choosing

You don’t like when others catch you smiling
You don’t like being caught off-guard
You’re like a maze I never stop running through

Some people you can only admire from afar
You can never really get too close
They’ll feel you’re closing in
They’ll be suffocated
Whether you’re carrying ballet-slipper pink love in a cradle or stockpiled, cotton oversized beach towels with their favourite colour (black) printed on both sides
The vehicle isn’t of importance
The weight of your serenity is still too heavy
He’s distant, and he enjoys being distant because he thinks it gives him a better view of the world
He doesn’t know
He just doesn’t see it like I see it
And I don’t see it like he sees it
And we never see each other

I’m swimming in a laundromat, I’m stuck in the washer to my worn Lucky Brand Jeans
There are round lilac pellets that add fragrance to my worn Lucky Brand jeans, but I can’t smell how lovely it is in here because
I’m underwater
And there’s soap in my throat
And I’m calling you on the telephone
And my name comes up, and it looks foreign to you
And you decide not to pick up
And I need you in ways I can never say out loud
Not to you, not to God, not to my mother
Not to anybody at all
And I know if you unlocked the washer to let me out, I’d hit the ground
Hard
Spilling all over the floor
Wretched, ragged
A mess
And I’d be free at last
But forever without you
And my Lucky Brand jeans would find their peril as the homemaker that is my fragile, porcelain body never got to move them to the dryer
Coughing up lint
Missed dentist appointments
Missed phone calls
Missing you, always

I put daisies in a jar and I covered them with enough dirt so that nobody would know they were ever there
Like a corpse in a forgotten film
Like a B-rated whatever gets a B-rating
Like your cats above your vocal booth
Like the numbers you don’t have memorized
Like the girl you never call on the telephone
That only has your contact information saved
And nobody else’s

Coughing up dandelions
Coughing up soap
Coughing up lint
Coughing up fevers
Coughing up memories of you and I sharing a cigarette and laughing
Coughing up dirt
Coughing up the sound of the dial
Coughing up a sweet voicemail message that I didn’t leave because I’m not a sweet girl, nor yours
Not the hazel remnant of someone landing on the moon
The very first time
Ronald Reagan was robbed
Missed telephone calls

I miss you, on repeat

Poem: Sent from heaven

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Poem: Sent from heaven

You’ve got me fucked up
(You’re no one in particular)
I’m collapsing in fever dreams
I’m weighed down by the fabric
You could ask me about life and I’ll tell you it’s tragic
I wish I could feel euphoria like he does when he’s manic


We separate in altercations, bruises as big as a nation
You punch me in my throat just to watch me choke
Lillies in the garden in Houston
I saw your missed calls
I was too busy reading about the physics of waterfalls
If the water could wash my sins away I wouldn’t be any different
I wish I could feel euphoria like he does when he’s manic

I love dual-toned pickup trucks cos I love things that are fucked up
I’d write out my speech but I can tell you have had enough
I don’t like to share my thoughts out loud
I color your hair blonde, you stare in the mirror & frown
You hate yourself most when you’re lost in a crowd
I can’t feel myself breathing
I hope to God death is coming now
Please, God
Please

Fiber glass like serene amphetamines
I knew it’d only get worse when I left my iridescent teens
I’d drive on the highway
Close my eyes
Pray they don’t show me on the news
No one would be surprised
Feeling alone is an understatement but it’s my second nature
And I’ll write your worst character flaws down on crisp white paper
I want to be dressed in my favourite gown
God forbid they find me naked
I used to think one day in my twenties, I’d make it

I’m not lost or confused
I am led to think that in this life it is I who is to choose
I make my decisions best on a porch swing
I told you a thousand times to pack your things
If you find yourself in prison I said you know who to ring
And if I picked up would you be upset
Would you damage my ruins because I left
Spent a lot of time apart, me I spent the time in thought
I had reasons to like myself but shortly after I forgot


My best friend isn’t my friend anymore
These things are transient, nothing I’m of more sure
People leave because they’re make-believe
I hid somewhere deep in your treasure chest
Curled up in your father’s grey sweater that you love the best
I’m a soft dove, here I arranged a little nest
Every question I have, you treat like a test
When I took hint of the absence in your brown eyes
I began to admire the curved shape of my thighs
And I could hardly taste the sour sting of your lies
Validation from you is not something I ever looked for
The smooth r&b in this bar makes me realize that was a mistake
But if anybody ever loves me I will feel that it’s fake
I’m sent from heaven but for this world I’m not quite made


I drive down the highway to Texas in the pitch black night with my eyes closed
I don’t have my headlights on
The roads start to spin and I disengage within
I’d make such a beautiful corpse but would my father ever see?

Was living this life meant to be?
In the middle of nowhere is the only place I can speak

God, I love amphetamines
If I’m found and my eyes are rolled back, you know it was meant to be

Hell means nothing to me.


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