Tag: long narrative poem

Poem: Anxious-avoidant attachment

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Poem: Anxious-avoidant attachment

Anxious-avoidant attachment
A comatose, ever-encompassing detachment
This girl is officially a has-been
A messy state of internal affairs
When nobody in the world but you compares
When I wanted what was mine, but you said you were theirs
All the times you didn’t show up, I knew you were there
Saturday evening, I’ve never been so scared

I’m moving like waves in the sea
And all the world is crashing directly into me
Strangers tell me they love my poetry
It’s not as rosy as I sometimes make it out to be

The airfare is wavering thin
You’re crawling all over my skin
I try dancing, but my headache won’t let me spin
I try drinking, I keep ordering lime & gin
One love goes to sleep, another begins
No, not for me
He was my only prince
I don’t want anyone to see me like this
I don’t want your love if I have to convince
You want to get married, you better put it in print
But I found her belongings, trust me, I got the hint
I’ve been searching for you in everyone else ever since

Out of all the people to know, you can depend on me the most
I accept all the virus, I’m even pleased to be its host
I am the amphetamine Queen, born and raised on the West Coast
I spell out “I love you” on your cinnamon toast
You look up at me
You’re too blind to see
The emptiness that has overtaken every part of me
A bottom-feeder
A failed transplant
Organ harvesting on Michigan Avenue & Grant
It hurts like hell
I will prevail
My visage is pale
My words are sharp, but they soon go stale
They mean so little
I’m not really interested in anyone noncommittal
My hands always shake, my frame is so brittle
I looked so pretty in the blue gown at the hospital

I’m scared history will repeat itself
I have your shot glass on my grey bookshelf
The glass breaks over and over again
The hollowness of it is really my only friend
If this is the end, I want a boyfriend
To bury me with the roses just so I can pretend

That I’m happy here
No longer ruled by fear
And eventually I’ll disintegrate, fade to black, and disappear
Don’t come visit me
Don’t bother telling me

That your love was feigned for my sobriety

I’ll tell the truth, I lied
I drank every night
I kept mint juleps & lemon drops right by my bedside
Pink bubblegum
My favourite sparkling gun
You can’t be alone if you’re bathed by the sun
Some people watch films, I make them in my head
Every morning is a fresh start, so I always make the bed
All the texts you sent me, I left unread
When you said you couldn’t do it, I know what you meant
You won’t be invited to the day I wed
You’ll likely be drinking again, trapped in your mind instead
You got what you wanted, you don’t have to confess
Recovery is a palace but for you, it’s a stretch

I used to wake up vacant
Now I’m filled with love
I’m devoted and gentle like a little, white dove
I want to drain somebody with the dust dreams are made of
I want the kind of warmth you said I was unworthy of
I know now that you were wrong
I wrote you the sweetest song

And I sing it to my dog so that she can fall asleep
And I sing it to my dog so that she can fall asleep
And I sing it to my dog so that she can fall asleep
And I sing it to my dog so that she can fall asleep
And I sing it to my dog so that she can fall asleep
And I sing it to my dog so that she can fall asleep
And I sing it to my dog so that she can fall asleep
And I sing it to my dog so that she can fall asleep

I give it to her because her love, I can keep
I give it to her because her love, I can keep

In my darkest times, there was no you and me
I’d rather be alone if that’s the way things will be

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Poem: Femoral artery (fever dreams)

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Poem: Femoral artery (fever dreams)

I watch you when you’re bad
I take careful notes
I set them on fire and summon gentle ghosts
They won’t scare you or hurt you the most
Nothing like true love taken away, not even close

I’m sixteen in a few days, I’m trapped in this body
I want you to mimic a system like monoclonal antibodies
Feed the hunger
Burn the rage
Set flames to whom I accused you of being
Prove me wrong
Come as a surprise
I’m finding I don’t make the impression that I imply
Sunsets after jazz concerts on the lawn
I try to find stingrays in the ocean when I swim
I think if this life is a fight, then I’ll most likely win
But they’re doing a good job of telling God that I sinned

Like fever dreams
Like soft doeskin
That came from a being you shouldn’t have touched
I wonder at what point will it all be enough
Blew smoke in his face, he tried calling my bluff
I wake up strong, but I wouldn’t say I’m tough
My wrists are so small the cops use child handcuffs
I wish I was making all this stuff up

To live a romantic life is to surrender to passion
With the weather today, I would say it’s not in fashion
Love for me will never be everlasting

I want it to be
I desperately hope
But we always lose the ones we love the most
They hit your bare knees, the cascading blue waves
Make you stay up pacing around for days
I don’t have the time, and I’ve lost my own place
I was so far ahead
I was almost there
I thought I was close
I was almost there
I choked on my insides
I was almost there
I saw my femoral artery
Blood soaked my white underwear

Like fever dreams
Like soft doeskin
That you’ll always regret purchasing because your ex-girlfriend was a vegan and the way she wears pink ribbons in her ash blonde hair makes you go wild
You act like a child
And I wouldn’t even say your advantage was mild
Knock on my door
Stay a while
I’ll only be happy watching you char in the fire

I know the feeling
I know the daze
I know the brilliant, beautiful Autumn haze
I know Fridays spent alone and solitary Sundays
I’ll only respect you if you participate in the chase
And God, I love it when you try to plead your case
You lost the bet
The cops know you
You think you get me, but I don’t believe that’s true
You’re only with her because there’s nothing else to do

Playing with marbles on the carpet, so they don’t roll too far away
I don’t have the time
I’ve lost my own place
But I clean up nice and live my life with grace

You’re lucky I won’t let you see me face-to-face
You won’t forget my brutality for several days
It’s my milk white gentleness that you can’t replace
I used to tell you I love you, but now I’ll rephrase

The kind of girl you wish you had for the holidays
The kind of girl you wish you had for the holidays
The kind of girl you wish you had for the holidays
As vital to the body as acetylcholinesterase

It’s my resilient nature that will get me through this phase
I used to tell you I love you, but now I’ll rephrase

Lilac Dove

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Poem: 3 in the morning (God loves you)

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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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distantcaveLeave a comment

Poem: Love you in fragments

Love you in fragments – love you in fragments – love you in fragments – love you 




Author

The author of the poetry on Lilac Dove is a young girl living on the outskirts of Los Angeles, twirling her hair with her finger and eating sour candy, as she writes about the strangeness of her life.

Softness and silk

I love you in fragments
Like pieces of a puzzle

That no matter how hard I try to make out the shapes just right

I’m always wrong

I find myself thinking about things like
Do you paint pictures of me in your mind before going to sleep
Before resting your beautiful tan head on the mattress because you don’t like pillows
You joke they’re too soft
But I’m soft
Fragile in places I’ll never admit out loud
Paradise found
You call, and I’m the happiest girl in the United States of America

To dream is to escape reality

But you just ask me questions
Like I’m an encyclopedia of the world
And while I’m charmed that you value my intellect so
It still feels shallow
A jellyfish catching me after I lose out on a killer wave
When I’m with you, I always tend to misbehave
Reconsider my decisions later
Wonder if I could have done better
But you encapsulate me every time
Put me in a bubble with no oxygen, so with every one of my screams I’m losing out on life
Is that what this is like?

There were times when I felt divine

Reconsider my decisions later
Wonder if I could have done better
Thankful that I still have your sweater
Accept the parts of you no-one else sees
Parts of you that are rust- to me, are shiny
Pick up the phone every time you call

Which as of late, has been no time at all

Leave me a voicemail
Tell me you love me
Leave me a voicemail
Don’t let go when you hug me
Reconsider my decisions later
Wonder if I could have done better

Go to bed every night in your sweater


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