i am a grown ass woman, an academic, a published researcher, a criminologist, i even pay taxes and have a lease on a comfortable but reasonably priced sedan, but the second i see the number “69″ in any context its like i’m being possessed by the spirit of every 13 year old boy worldwide simultaneously. the lizard brain frantically slams the shutdown button on my reasonable mental processes with manic glee and the word ‘nice’ is out of my mouth quicker than a wildfire during a drought 

Art is the stored honey of the human soul.

Theodore Dreiser (via wordsnquotes)

Insomnia

It’s hard to sleep when you’re a Stranger In your own home The coffee tables stare haughtily and jab at your toes Whispering just loud enough to hear Who is THAT? The floorboards scream in indignation And even your bed That sweet, safe harbor Squeaks angrily in protest against your unwelcome invasion

To The Opportunists

Sometimes love is a liar and a thief It whispers impossible promises and pipe dreams And delivers just enough to keep you hooked Love is dirty, it has no moral compass It doesn’t care Not who it touches or who it punches or who it leaves in the cold Its hands look like a mother’s with the touch of a lover But have the grip of a steel clawed gangster And a sense of compassion to match We worship it because above all else Love is power

Dear Ocean

I get you. I know what it’s like to feel so huge and invincible and majestic that you just want to scream with joy, shout, crash victoriously with the glory that is life like a thousand waves on a beach. I know what it’s like to feel beautiful. I know what it’s like to be loved. The special way you sparkle in the sunshine is mirrored in my heart and in my eyes and I understand what it’s like to still have places so deep that the light can’t even dream of touching them, places that are best left to the shadows but are no less awe inspiring in the tenacity and determination it takes to even exist in such a dim world. I know what it is to be strong even when I don’t know why I’m still being strong at all. Things like us weren’t made to draw strength from others, and neither were we made to fall or break. We were made to embody vicious joy and solemn stoicism and above all love, love, love. Dear ocean, I love you

Dear Ocean

I understand. I’ve felt what it’s like to feel trapped, over shadowed by the impossible. You hurl yourself at the shore day in and day out begging it to take you in, take you back. No matter how hard you try, you always slip away. Dear sweet ocean I know how lonely it is to have sunless voids held close to your heart that no other soul has ever seen or could hope to see. No matter how much you wish you could share them you can’t, you can’t, you can’t, and you feel like a failure. You feel like a burden. You feel like a worthless pit. I understand how it feels to be constantly treated like garbage, to be thrown second hand left over scraps that even the hungriest sharks are too proud for. To have all your secret and beautiful places stolen from you and trashed and then abandoned because they weren’t worth the time it took to find them. I know what it is to helplessly love the ones who make you ugly Dear ocean, I’m sorry

There’s a bluebird in my heart that Wants to get out But I’m too tough for him I say, stay in there, I’m not going To let anybody see You There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but i pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he’s in there. There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him I say stay down, do you want to mess me up? you want to screw up the works? you want to blow my book sales in Europe There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody’s asleep. I say I know that you’re there so don’t be sad. then I put him back but he’s still singing a little in there I haven’t quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it’s nice enough to make a man weep but I don’t weep, do you?

Charles Bukowski, the bluebird (via drowninginunspilledink)

Goodbye

My heart hasn’t screamed like this in years I don’t know why I thought this would work I’m the one you want, I’m always what you want But it’s never enough, no, it’s never enough Because she’s the one you need I’m the honest gypsy All sunshine and laughter You fell for the way I chase sunsets and dream in hammocks For the way I work for and hold on to the wind She’s the snow princess All hot chocolate and caution You fell for the way she never did, for anything For the way she fixed her eyes on her dream and never hesitated You never love us. I know you don’t. You wouldn’t know how to Even if you wanted to Love for you is a tsunami of things you wish you could feel But greed and a need for conquest are all that sweep over you Over us. I’m the one you want to run away with She’s the one you want to settle down with You can’t have both But you always try And when you try The honest gypsy becomes a hurricane The snow princess becomes a blizzard I sling pain like fists and hurl words like daggers Always knowing where they’ll hurt the most I drown our world in torrents of agony She goes cold and gets quiet and bides her time She burrows down into the snow and vanishes Because she knows what really hurts the most And that’s silence. Because you never loved us. You only love the chase. She finds her solace in her igloo I find my solace in the devastation I leave behind You have to hunt her down and dig her out. I’m the only thing left standing for miles. I don’t know why I thought this time would be any different.

Silence Just isn't as Cheap as it Used to Be

I can’t sleep and it’s your fault I have too much of you in my head You’re running and racing and flying You’re bargaining and begging and crying But there’s nothing I can do Sugar, you tied your own hands on this one A week ago, I might have told you A week ago, I would have wanted to hold you And use the soft touch of your quiet skin to lull me to sleep again But there’s nothing I can do I have no one to pretend to sleep with and it’s your fault No soft lips to lay a kiss on my forehead No comforting weight for the other half of the bed It’s a quarter till 3 I wish I could wish for you to hold me But sugar, you’ve tied my hands on this one It’s your fault

New Year's Resolutions

I’m gonna eat myself sick from a batch of brownie batter I’m gonna paint my lips red and my hair blue I’m gonna write poems that don’t know your name I’m gonna learn where my limit is And I’m gonna learn someone else’s lips I’m gonna coax my voice out of its hiding place in my sternum Where it always hid from you I’m gonna fucking bathe in sodium laureth sulphate And I’m gonna smile thinking about it eating away at this skin that knew your fingers once I’m going to kiss my knees and forget your lips Honey, I’m going to bury you With love and with spite With everything you’d never do And everything you did Honey, you can dig all you want But you’re never going to find me Because I’m not here anymore Not for you. Not anymore.

When you leave a person’s life, it goes on without you. And that’s the hardest thing to face. Having only partial glimpses through a frosted window of a life you used to know as well as your own.

I will not dance to your war drum. I will not lend my soul nor my bones to your war drum. I will not dance to your beating. I know that beat. It is lifeless. I know intimately that skin you are hitting. It was alive once hunted stolen stretched. I will not dance to your drummed up war. I will not pop spin beak for you. I will not hate for you or even hate you. I will not kill for you. Especially I will not die for you. I will not mourn the dead with murder nor suicide. I will not side with you nor dance to bombs because everyone else is dancing. Everyone can be wrong. Life is a right not collateral or casual. I will not forget where I come from. I will craft my own drum. Gather my beloved near and our chanting will be dancing. Our humming will be drumming. I will not be played. I will not lend my name nor my rhythm to your beat. I will dance and resist and dance and persist and dance. This heartbeat is louder than death. Your war drum ain’t louder than this breath.

What I Will, Suheir Hammad (via manifesting-souls)

Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.

Carl Sandburg (via quotemadness)

i’m tired of glorifying your tired eyes, of writing poems to your freckles, of the i love yous coming out of the woodwork now that you’re not mine to say them to. i’m tired of this air thick with regret, of hooking up when we’re too exhausted to move on, of leaving the bed empty, of still missing you when you’re standing before me, of ignoring your texts to try to convince myself to stop getting wrapped up in this. i guess what i’m trying to say is i wish we had more time. i wish this wasn’t messy and ugly and we could chase the sunset like old times, drinking beer on your front porch with your friends and laughing so loud the neighbors shut their windows, when my depression wasn’t so loud and i knew what i wanted, when you were the only option in front of me. but you were beauty beauty storm clouds, and now we’re nothing but empty shells, and this isn’t working like it used to. i don’t love you like i used to and you don’t think of me at all. but i wish you did. i wish we could go back to the times when life was simpler than this, when i didn’t have to wonder if you cared, when i was too busy sleeping besides you to write you poetry. now every word tastes like your lips. now every word is nostalgic like black coffee bitterness. now i can’t find anyone else to give this love to, and honey, i’m so tired of giving it to you.

nostalgia / @scarredconversations (via scarredconversations)

11 p.m. is for single mothers who cradle a glass of wine in their fingers and wait for the sound of a child crying they hope will not come— it always does. 12 a.m. is for high school students to do homework they didn’t have time to do after lacrosse practice and dance rehearsal— they yearn to rest their tired eyes, but they cannot. 1 a.m. is for sneaking into your bedroom on a school night at seventeen, reminding yourself how tired you will be in the morning, convincing yourself it was worth it. 2 a.m. is for star-crossed lovers rolling in bed sheets smelling of alcohol and tragic dreams that ironically lull them to sleep. 3 a.m. is for hopeless romantics wishing under late-night skies for someone to talk to, for someone who gets it. And all of those people think they’ve got it bad, but when 4 a.m. rolls around the corner, the past sinks into your veins— 4 a.m. is too late for anyone to save you, for when 4 a.m. tells you, “You can’t do this anymore,” you believe it.

4 a.m. / @scarredconversations (via scarredconversations)