sit the sun in moonshine, inviting a blistering high unmatched by the tonsils' burn or a rosy-cheeked dram; something stiffer but somehow less painful. suddenly you seem so alive. across the bar, sugar turns to molasses coating a rum-drinker's burned throat and rosé girl asks the tender for something sweeter. are they drinking to soften the memory, too? do they notice how low the sky lays on the walk home? i ask for one more last drink, and nod my glass to a promise i know i won't keep. now i've got enough time to wonder, how often does your broken promise cross your mind? is it a tender bruise that softly aches when touched as a reminder? or a wrist's scar in plain sight? or maybe you can't relate to the shame. i ask for one more last drink, neat so the heat lingers like moonshine afternoons, and promises written in paisley - times we actually wanted to remember.
forgiving the current by purgatorygray, literature
Literature
forgiving the current
i. trying to picture myself with you as something other than company to sooth the ache leaves a haze over my vision - soft bruises on my cornea; you don't know how to comfort the loss of sight. i tell you i live my life 6 months at a time. treading water, struggling to stay afloat, i can never see past the upcoming weeks. you offered me swimming lessons then tied stones to my feet. is it still considered drowning if i let the undercurrent have me? ii. betrayal is sobering the same way forgiveness is deeply intoxicating. even blinded, i can see the look on your face and the tremor of your hands - the guilt is inhumane to the soul. the heartbreak, equally cruel though undeserved. did you ever think your suffocation would be self inflicted? iii. i keep trying to picture anything other than her tiny frame hunched in embarrassment, dripping in guilt - wondering if you wish i was smaller, and if i can shrink into myself completely until i disappear. i keep trying to picture forgiveness
feeling older: i don't know when it happened. melting everywhere: dripping in guilt - the most secluded nights are often the ones to flood the soil. pouring my heart out into the empty rocks glasses and the songs that remind you of me - why does this isolation bring a comfort no other solace does? how many times did i unsuccessfully spill the parts that ached the most? i let the scars slowly rise to the surface the same way you told me you loved me: an unnoticed notion - a naturally ruthless progression. reflecting on the way your touch was soothing but never settling, i never understood how anyone could miss the poison - never thought i'd be suicidal in a way that craved your affection. (were you settling, or was i?) but after 16 months of rage (9 months of wanting to die and at least 7 months of pretending that the bruises were fading) i have found the answers. at age 25 i am seeing with new eyes understanding the shortness of
i don't write love poems by purgatorygray, literature
Literature
i don't write love poems
syrupy sweet sentiments rolling to the tip of your tongue from the back of your sparkling cider crackled throat and out of your lavender lemonade stained lips - you are so fucking eloquent and i am a bitter mess.
we clench like cogs, exchanging breath and seconds, ticking. they call it kissing, or snogging. the latter feeling slightly more appropriate, (a bit rougher round the edges) but still not quite right. because under the halogen light it feels more like acknowledging a common feeling of existence and the aching lack of sharing it. like praying to the same secular emptiness with our mouths, not lavish, but necessary. more like a noise than a sound, less like a game than a question, charged with passive urgency, we were. just. ticking. then. parting like tomorrows we skipped into morning. (plugs are temporary. ticking is jarring. it is hard to be made aware of your own being alive and the few breaths that you actually decide to share.) the rhythm of lonely is best tracked by tongues. but now I remember why I choose not to wear a watch. and now I remember just how much more it was than all of this and how I'm describing it, that's all just bullshit. it's the
on making me a garden by purgatorygray, literature
Literature
on making me a garden
you planted seeds in the center of my palms, tied sunlight to the roots of my hair; you always encouraged the growth. i begged you for rainwater after months of being planted in a drought, you flooded the soil and uprooted my being; i just wanted to be grounded. you wanted the sky - blue and vast in blinding light, you wanted me to heal enough to be swept away in the wind; i just wanted to survive.
tired from a long week of stifling a heavy heartache - sinking into your sigh has never felt better. [how can i explain to you that the void doesn't scare me, in a way that won't scare you?] the chasm in my chest no longer blocks the airways but it still collapses at the sides, widening every so often. my hands no longer shake but the skin is still a soft purple - fingernails still chewed to stubs, knuckles bruised from the battle. [how can i ask you to surround yourself with this? what would give me the right?] because the heartache speaks in a foreign tongue that even the sickest of minds can't interpret alone. late night talks and soft bathtub embraces won't sooth the soul enough to completely stop the room from spinning. [i never asked to be a missing piece and you were never provided the heavy burden of knowing how to ease the trauma's hold.] the coldest days no longer freeze me and the wind's howl has become an anthem of comfort. your embrace in linen sheets feels like
to be an ocean - roaring with rage softening the edges of the earth with the ebb and flow of all that is and all that can be salt water creating a labyrinth in your fingertips, crisp air scratching at your throat - the inconveniences of your beauty are so distracting when you’re depressed. because to be an ocean is to be the wind. howling in agony, crying with every billow to the shore - sometimes it hurts so much to move. i visited you every summer and dreamt of you every winter - wishing I could swim past where your waves broke. to put it simply, i am always aching for high tide. your intensity pulled me in and your depth held me far below the surface until I crashed to the shore; rolling, turning, gasping for air - you never wanted to hold me afloat. and I learned that to be an ocean is to be ever flowing: steadily suffering full of everything and still neglected, full of everything and still never full enough.
rooftop fireworks and a bottle of jack daniel’s honey whiskey - i leaned into you and you softened my sorrows with ease. i was 19 or 20 and you were 24 or 25 but what difference does it make when time seemed to stop in your presence? and when you walked through my room for the first time, your eyes gazed at my walls delicately - studying every piece of artwork and every memory carefully. and when you stripped me for the first time, you moved slowly but never gently. our beginning was soft, the way the sunlight's fraying edge rose into our skyline, delicate. and our ending, abrupt.
eyes rolling, heart pounding, skin on skin - never stop. in perfect rhythm she hums an endless tune - and her crescendo is my favorite song. ribs like mountains, sloped over heavy breaths - i want every inch.