The things I see, the things I love
Poem: Nothing left
I filed a
Lawsuit
Against the doves in my hallway
Told them they were too
Loving
And now I understand why there’s nothing left
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Poem: Ant colony (birthday balloons)
Nuclear envelopes
A testable hypothesis
Will you still love me if I –
Will you drown me out
Like the noise in a soundproof room
He always said he’d like to go to solitary confinement just to get away
For a honeymoon
Light leaks
Asparagine and leucine
Convoluted sighs and my pink floor-length satin dress
Eating three times on Mondays,
Eating four times, the day after
Consuming enough carbohydrates to be like a plant
A prisoner in your gardener
A wide-awake blooming orchid
Couch that fell from a truck bed onto the motorway
We could just make it ours
Watch the fires and fireflies swarm in the distance
Devouring apricots
A routine for my bedtime
Poem: Ant colony (birthday balloons) [continued]
Letting go of lethargic tendencies
But I don’t have the energy
I’m miserable, with or without you
Have to be the writer of my own memoir, the heroine in my own maladaptive daydreams
That serve me quite well
Like soft serve by the beach
Made from plant-based oat milk & Oreos
I’ll let the sea and the sun and the sky devour me, so I can merge with the ants and
Worry only about my colony
What a dream it’s becoming
Empty head
Empty thoughts
Your Percocet
My writer’s block
I’ve been too, afraid, to put this down on paper
A typewriter with no keys
Hands that swell
Knees that bleed
I know perfectly well
That I’m who you need
Will you be there for me, in the daylight and the evenings?
My handsome prince
Tread carefully
I’m exactly who I aspire to be
Poem: Ant colony (birthday balloons) [continued]
I believe in myself, most of all
Though, the cognitive dissonance gets swept like ashes
At a fireplace
Melting, blurring a reality that you swore was three-dimensional
You vase of a porcelain starlit galaxy
You atmospheric void, claustrophobic from your own apprehension
I’m so in love with every part of you
Especially the pieces you really disdain
I’ll take them in my hands
Like the softest of sand
Poem: Ant colony (birthday balloons) [continued]
I don’t know what to do with all these birthday balloons
The vinyl you bought me, thank you, by the way
You precious thing.
And the things I have to move on from
Tangled in grief-ridden spiderwebs
Merging through lanes with my blinker forever on
I follow all the laws
When the crows are watching, carefully
I’ll let the sea and the sun and the sky devour me, so I can merge with the ants and
Worry only about my colony
What a dream it’s becoming
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It’s the waves of sadness that trickle with madness
As I cascade onto the lost heavenly golden shore,
Like a goddess from a stolen shipwreck,
I swim upstream, like an airplane in the wind
I won’t press send yet
I’ll leave you diamonds and all of your belongings, arranged into their definitive but transient places
Sprawled amongst my living room
Garments, piles of yarn & cotton
I thought I had it, but my god I’ve lost it
The breathtaking splendor
Of an afternoon in November
When you cradled me like a little baby in your mariner’s arms,
Like a tomboy
Like a child
Like with you, I’d happily run wild
Any day of the week
Do you mind if I speak
Or leave love letters, here and there, for you to read
When your eyes are
Closing
In-between somber nighttime
The stillness I could never objectify
A smooth transition
Won’t you pay attention
I’ve got my hair in curls, a floral neckline
A passerby’s time
Glance at the clock
I almost forgot
I have to let the sheep out before the wolves come back
From hiding
They do like to do that
So rambunctious and eerie
They paint me quite freely
I do love their art – I go to all of their showings
Even when they take place on a Tuesday, or Wednesday, and I’ve got more work to do than I can account for
I’m a lady of charm
And you’ll always find me armed
That part you can disregard
I won’t shrink in your presence
I occupy a throne
I go to places where most would be too scared to step on their own
It’s my afternoon glow
When you find me on that smooth soft-stoned path,
The dismay leaving my eyelids as I cast you not an ember of a doubt
But a becoming smile
Welcoming
Almost
Briefly
Weeping
Holding to you closest, what you want most
And that is?
That is?
Something to never be replaced
Something I won’t touch lightly on
Whispering to those in particular who have the patience to sound my vowels and consonants out, deal with the aftermath
Elegantly
Soft in the evenings
Rambunctious – they all are
Their witch hazel broiler room ticking clock
Like apricots at a wedding
In the middle of February
For no reason, no reason
For no reason at all
I sat down with you, there, close to the prisoner’s fence
I wanted to inquire whether you loved me
I can’t remember what I said
But I did
And that’s that
You’ll run me a cold lavender bath
Finding my hazel glow a little too appealing
Hopefully, I hadn’t been too revealing
The room is spinning
And I am thinking
You’re like sweet nectar from a flower that’s never been held
© Elle Silvestrov
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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
