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

Poem: Lilac amphetamines (drug kings)

Poem: Lilac amphetamines (drug kings)

You and me in a state of departure / You and me in a state of departure / You and me in a state of departure / Y o u a n d m e i n a s t a t e o f d e p a r t u r e

I looked past the rainfall at the marble, right back at me, it gleamed
Our last fight in the kitchen, you so quickly got so mean!
You put your head in your hands
I trusted you to a fault
How come I never learn, that like fire you burn
And whatever respect is, I must be unaware of how it’s earned
Your speeches don’t follow rational thought
And I tell you each time, but you must have forgot
I love you a lot
I fucking love you a lot

The outdoors are crisp, you have chapstick on your lips
You’re doing me a favor, your hand ’round my hip
Baby, I can barely feel it
Come closer to me
I’m looking straight at you, but it’s always a different man that I see
I try so hard to look pretty
For you, always you
Never another
But you’re so paranoid, why do I even bother!
This scorching August heat, it’s getting hotter and hotter
And you’re throwing a fit – you look like a toddler
You said there’s a girl – you said that you’ll call her
I wonder what lies you tell to our holy father
You can pick up the tab
I’ll ride home in a cab
Call me when date night to you isn’t a drag
(Smoke like a chimney to that)

And you’re throwing a fit– you look like a toddler

At night, you space out; your glare is of steel
You don’t share the misty-eyed tenderness I feel
You’re a tiger, I’m a fly
Broken wing or two
I lay softly beside you
Afraid to touch you because I’m awfully shy
For my form I’m quite polished- I come in blue, white, and black
Switch the topic to us and that’s when you pull back
We’re selling amphetamines, I dye them lilac

Anything to get the kids off fentanyl
But they’ll still have heart attacks until
I tell the room I have the training, I know what to do
But then all of a sudden they rely upon you
Don’t sign up to dine on what you can’t chew
Strangers remain strangers, the days change like a ticking clock
Put the body in the bag, fuck I almost forgot
We didn’t make too much money, but it was worth a shot

I lay softly beside you
I’m so, so afraid
And when I ask you to stick to me
Your mind’s already been made

I’m too small for you to love
Broken wing or two
Before you fall right asleep
Realize I fucking love you

Only you
I fucking love you

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

Poem: Surface tension (poolside dreams)

I saw the skinniest girls at the pool today
They were all bone, with graceful flat stomachs
I started to hate myself again
And I considered if
Maybe I was going too far
Maybe they have scars to hide too
But I traced their gentle bodies with my disturbing eyes
And I couldn’t find a somber disguise
Or any evidence that they hate themselves too

Maybe I didn’t look deep enough
What’s on the surface conceals what’s underneath

I toss and turn wildly in my bedsheets
And maybe the spaces of my ribs and the lights in-between
No longer shine, no longer gleam
I look dirty even when I’m entirely clean
I try to smile, but I can’t hold back that I’m so, so mean

They splashed each other while in the water
I knew if I smiled I’d only bother
But maybe they were growing sick of each other
At that point, I’d be a newfound lover
But when it rains it decays what’s left of me
I only feel blissful when I’m swimming in the sea (I feel like it’s a part of me)
I am opalescent in matters of blue
Your favourite shades of Hunter green
Writing poetry with a ruptured spleen
I miss being a fragile and innocent young teen
Didn’t stop you from touching me

Didn’t stop you from touching me
You claimed that you were teaching me
But my skin turned dark like you were leaching me
I’d have the strongest, most bizarre of nightmares
Wake up sweating, alone, and scared
A modest, timid girl
Too small to be bared
You dragged my body up the crystallized stairs

What’s on the surface conceals what’s underneath
When the gun started firing, the bed I hid beneath
Is it always as rosy as the daydream makes it seem?
My God, being dead sounds so fucking serene

My God, being dead sounds so fucking serene

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