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: Mid-18th century French (intoxicating you)

Poem: Mid-18th century French (intoxicating you)

I’m baby blueprint in grid print intoxicating you
I’m the Fourth of July, 3 summers ago when we got high
We asked when did we stop having the times of our lives

My neck is so hurt, it’s too much for me to look down
But I always do
Redirect to separate avenues
Skateboard to my house, I’ll come out for you
Green apple lollipop, sour
Teach me your tricks and make it rain for a half-hour
Just enough to get the grill hot
Just enough to get me to take the most bone-chilling cold shower
I’m coming in hot
But I always leave so cold
In the cab I sit there- forlorn, morose, staring at the floor
Letting the kids run by and do what they’re told
I reminisce about the days when to be elegant wasn’t to be bold, and I coughed like raindrops like saran-wrap covering old left-overs
If it rains it pours, well you’re leaving – I’m sure
You always thought your music taste was so obscure
If it rains, it pours
Well, you’re leaving – I’m sure

I’m melting into hydrocodone bitartrate so crystallized you’d sell me for my Chemistry degree and put my name on your white t-shirts
Spray mist on your face until you’re reimbursed
Like daggers, how smooth you are when fatalities aren’t your responsibility, and you make your way down to the ferry where the starfishes know your name and keep it a secret
Nobody cares anyway

I’m coming in hot
But I always leave so cold

It’s too much for me to look down
But I always do
Reaching separate avenues

I said, life is a gamble
But I’m covering my face with my hands
My life is in shambles!
Can someone help me escape from this nonchalant misery I’ve so gracefully pretended is how to live a life?
I don’t make sense to anyone
I’m always deleting phone numbers
Past lovers
The smothered
The weak and the downtrodden, England in the shade
Four in the afternoon
Crisp, deafening cave
When you and I were little, we loved to misbehave
But now the landlord is asking for payments for our graves
And it’s mid-18th century French and it means
“Go fuck yourself”

Somber
Oppressively sober in mood
He looked at her with this decadent tone that I’d almost call smooth
If it wasn’t for the violence we heard up the street
The night skies were starless
I fell asleep regardless
I just wanted to escape for a week or two
I never knew my nightmares would come true
I liked the dark and the dull in colour but honey, what happened to you?
What’d they do to you?
What are you so scared of?
Why do you still try to write songs out of my poetry?
Why do you recycle and reread my emails?
Why do you send me false compliments in the mail?
Why’d you hire an attorney when you’d likely be better off in jail?
I don’t particularly adapt to being hated
I just deal
Fifty-dollar bill
I have a white dress that makes me look like a ghost and I thought I met a new boy that would love me the most
But he’s slipping out of my fingers, of course
Tell me I’m not predictable

Grey daffodils, crisp July skies
I just wanted to escape for a week or two
I never knew my nightmares would come true
It’s November and there’s not much more to expect from the undesirable residue
I just hoped I could sit down and paint you
Make something beautiful
Capture a black button-down shirt

Was it good when it hurt?
I’m stumbling over forgotten words
Insecure (or in great difficulties)
He was miserable without her

All is not lost
There is still some chance of success or recovery
But me, haha, me?
Sometimes when a defeat has been sustained
It’s better for everyone involved that you don’t speak my name

Not that there is much to be ashamed
It’s just
Was it good when it hurt?
I told you over and over,
I’m not a good flirt

I’m not a good flirt

If it rains, it pours
And it’s mid-18th century French and it means
“Go fuck yourself”

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: The ones I love die

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

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