nosebleedclub - Tumblr blog

nosebleedclub · 23 hours

Text

Two winter blossoms that signify eternal rest:

Violet and Narcissus

But how is it fair that the way I bow my head

Is interpreted as humility, of being modest

When your head also hangs low?

But you've been grown to accept

You are unlucky, a sign of misfortune

They place me on graves of the innocent,

While you are a portent of death

Nicknamed "heart's-ease,"

A vital part of old love potions, perfumes,

For a flirtatious scent

You have always been a lure, a trap, an end,

Rumored that your gentle fragrance

Is laced with a narcotic effect,

Fatality being imminent

"Where the oxlips and the nodding violets grow.."

"..And the daffodils fill their cups with tears"

We find ourselves together

As your Valentine, I write to you in ink

Created from my petals, my flesh,

To tell you that you are good,

That you are more deserving than this

@nosebleedclub April 20th - Birthday Flowers

24 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 1 day

Text

Poetry Month Prompts

1. as good as you'll get 2. girl names 3. lacrosse 4. swan 5. house with a name 6. one year after the accident 7. profiteroles 8. potholes 9. vivisection 10. adult revenge 11. "safe" place 12. road sign 13. glam 14. oyster mushroom 15. mother's footsteps 16. what life was like 17. almond milk 18. lagomorph 19. physical therapy 20. birthday flowers 21. book of miracles 22. ferment 23. brick 24. routine 25. days spent waiting 26. infirmary 27. hallucinogen 28. supper club 29. deviant 30. age

462 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 2 days

Text

Purge

-

I wake up,

Filled with the rage

That could only belong to

My father's daughter.

Overflowing from my lips,

Curling the edges of my existence.

Flowers wilt at my arrival,

And birds silence themselves.

They silence themselves.

I dig through my shelves;

Dig through cupboards desperately,

Trying to find the antidote.

A solution to the blood

With which I was created.

My touch burns things

I know I love outside of anger.

This isn't me,

I plead with the universe.

Grabbing a notebook in panic.

I begin scribbling nonsense,

Letting the words sear into the pages.

The birds begin chirping again,

Quietly.

The flowers quiver,

But bring their color back to me.

A temporary solution

To a lifelong ailment,

My grandmother had taught me.

When the darkness overtakes her light,

I reach for that little notebook.

Full of burns,

Bleeding with sins,

A hand to hold the damned.

My little book of miracles.

x

..

..@nosebleedclub April 21st- Book of Miracles

21 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 2 days

Text

"safe" place

Susie asks Steph how she likes her dorm at Central. Since Susie never went away to college, she’s always been curious (always been pushing, but that’s a story Steph isn’t willing to tell right now, maybe not ever). Steph talks about her roommate Jill, how she has interesting posters of movies that Steph has never heard of, how she listens to all kinds of music (but not as much music as Sam), how she mostly wears black to emulate the Beat poets she thinks she should love so much. And then she calls the dorm a “safe” place. With air quotes. Without even thinking about it. “Safe” place.

It makes Susie laugh over her arugula. What could possibly be sarcastic about safe? She wonders about Steph’s doubts, too, because she doesn’t really seem to have any. But she doesn’t push. Thank goodness she doesn’t push.

Because then, Steph might have to tell her about how pretty Jill looks when she ties her hair up before studying … how great she smells when she puts on that cheap chocolate-scented perfume, best suited for a little girl trying on perfume for the first time. Drugstore chic really shouldn’t work this well for someone who’s nineteen and not nine. Steph might have to tell her mother about how Jill is into her until Steph reciprocates too hard, too obviously, too much. She might have to tell her mother that when Jill isn’t there, she spends a lot of time wishing she was … a lot of time wishing they could work out whatever it is Jill is afraid of. Whatever it is they’re both afraid of.

But Susie doesn’t push.

And Steph holds the door shut.

(part of @nosebleedclub poetry month challenge -- day 11!)

6 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 2 days

Text

Paperwhite Narcissus

-

You string together white flowers,

Sharing with me facts about

How I was created.

That the earth cracked open,

To allow beauty to surge forth.

That fire collapsed and gave way

To a luscious forest.

That I was not simply created on whim,

But for intentional worship.

You place the flowers in a crown

Over my messy dyed curls,

And beam with a light unfamiliar to me.

"I told you so!" You say,

But your voice holds no spite.

No lingering resentment,

Only friendship and admiration.

My throat tightens in such an odd way,

And we both laugh.

Yours, musical.

Filled with knowledge I could spend years

Unraveling.

Mine, thankful.

To have met you,

And to have finally received the flowers

My birthday, Goddess, and given name

Somehow wanted me to receive.

x

..

..@nosebleedclub April 20th; Birthday Flowers

23 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 2 days

Text

Spring where you are -

Location: (can be a general region like “Midwest” or “city” or something)

What it’s like: (observations, ecology, who is out and about, quiet moments, hiding places, etc.)

How it makes you feel:

168 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 2 days

Text

adult revenge

As a child, getting revenge was one of the easiest things Amy could do.

If Chris pissed her off, she’d just hide his shoes, put pepper in his water glass at dinner, or embarrass him in front of the whole student body, like she did during homecoming season in the tenth grade. That was easy. He’d get her back, and the cycle would start all over again. That was easy. They never hated each other – just couldn’t understand each other, refused to understand each other, makeshift twins who never asked to be born, trying to figure out how to share a living space when they never shared a gestation. That was easy. That was childhood. That was foolish.

Adult revenge is much harder.

Amy knows who Poppy’s father is. Very few people outside her family know the truth, and sometimes, when they ask, she lies and says she doesn’t remember. But she does. How could she forget where Poppy got those beautiful freckles – the ones you could forgive, no matter how searing the fight had been, until you were just burning up too much to cool down? Amy knows who Poppy’s father is. She also knows he’s a piece of shit.

Sometimes she looks him up online to see if anything has changed. Not that she’s wishing for him to get better. Sometimes, she’s even wishing for him to get worse. But it’s usually the same. He lives somewhat nearby. He’s married to a woman he met … somewhere. He has a boring office job, and he doesn’t have children. Thank goodness. Amy couldn’t even begin to explain that to Poppy, especially now that she’s old enough to understand.

He probably doesn’t look her up online. He never cared enough to really look her in the eye, so why would he bother typing her whole name into a search bar? But in case he does, Amy is sure to post lots of pictures of the food she cooks, the clothes she makes, the parties she and Poppy throw for special and ordinary occasions. If he ever types Amy Meadow Egan into his computer, he’ll see that she never needed him. He’ll doubt that she ever wanted him. She’ll dunk a bag of chocolate peppermint tea into an “I LOVE YOU MOM” mug, and she’ll enjoy her night with her daughter.

And that’s adult revenge.

(part of @nosebleedclub poetry month challenge -- day 10!)

5 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 2 days

Text

vivisection

When he was little, Sam heard a lot of stories about teenagers in high school dissecting frogs in their science classes. His babysitter (the one he was in love with, or at least as much in love as a little kid can be) told him about how when she had to dissect a frog in school, she got a lady frog. Sam wasn’t sure why that mattered until she told him that she and her lab partner, a surprisingly squeamish football player, had to scrape out all the eggs by themselves. The visual never left Sam’s head. For a couple years, he was picturing scrambled eggs inside a frog. When he found out they really looked more like caviar, he almost lost his mind.

Somehow, though, no one remembered to tell him that you dissect dead frogs. Until the day he and his lab partner, a quiet girl with Coke bottle glasses, found themselves face-to-face with their frog, he was pretty sure he’d have to do a whole vivisection. For a second, he’s relieved. And then he sees the frog on the sterile plate in front of him. Cold. Lying there. Dead. All dead. No. Not even Brian May could fix this one.

Sam is pretty sure nothing should ever have to be dead. Nothing and no one. He’s not sure he sees the point. He can’t say that in a Catholic school, of course, where he’s supposed to look forward to death – so long as it’s natural, so long as you don’t steal God’s thunder (another phrase he’s probably not supposed to use – too Greek, too pagan). But what’s the point of being dead? What can you enjoy? What can enjoy you? He looks at that frog, and he knows. If that’s what life means, why would anyone give it?

He agrees to slice open the frog.

About a million eggs spill out of her guts.

(part of @nosebleedclub poetry month challenge -- day 9! i know how late that is, but please see my last text post for explanations, apologies, insecurities, etc.)

6 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 3 days

Text

@nosebleedclub photo club

LIGHT

#omg the shadows #any photographers are welcome to tag @nosebleedclub #would love more visual artists to share

11 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 3 days

Text

As good as you’ll get @nosebleedclub

I grew up in a gaping wound

jagged, bloody, deep

Some say my mother did it with a knife

Some say my father did it with his teeth

Some say it happened the day I came

That I ripped them right in two

Because I came out sideways

and my chest beats out of tune

Its valves are made of mold

the chambers full of clots

And when it beats it makes a sound

that makes you think of rot

So you see it's not my fault

that my family tore apart

They were looking for a suture

but infection’s in my heart

3 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 3 days

Text

@nosebleedclub

HOUSE WITH A NAME

When I was eight my family moved into a haunted house. My first real memory of the haunting is not actually of the house itself, but rather of the two trees that grew out in the front yard. The first had smooth, pewter-pale bark and leaves the color of limes. Tall with sturdy limbs, and wide-reaching branches. It grew, technically, in the lot next door. The second tree, the tree that grew not ten feet from our front door, smelled of rot.

Its bark was thick and grooved, a rough coating of wood that left your hands scraped raw. The branches looked bloated in some places and starved in others. In the center was a hollow pit filled with stale rainwater and squirming fire ants. It was, as we would discover, a dead tree. When we dug it up we found the decay had started in the roots, thick vines that had split our small concrete porch. We drilled holes in the roots, filled the holes with rock salt and water. Waited. Most of the roots were deep under the house and couldn’t be dug up anyways, so the rot stayed. But we cut the trunk a stump, if just for our pride’s sake.

The house itself was unassuming, suburban and uniform in its appearance. Not a threat. Pretty, even. The inside was also fairly pleasant- lots of natural light and an open floor plan. Cream-colored carpets and eggshell paint. But the air was sour, and the ceiling leaked. Perhaps most damning was the dead bird we found stuck in the chimney the day we moved in.

And maybe the house wasn’t really haunted, and the tree and the bird were just dead, but I don’t think the house knew it was a house. I don’t believe it was just dark brick over hardwood and concrete. It had breath. It had teeth. Most importantly, it hated that we lived inside of it.

Maybe it’s wrong to call the first house I ever lived in “haunted”, but it’s easier than telling people it was alive. Houses aren’t living things. But imagine if they were. Imagine that you’re standing in a house with a pulse, and this house has needs. Needs to breathe, and sleep, and eat. Imagine that it can see you. That it can hear you. Feel you. Now imagine that the house has wants. The house wants to breathe, and sleep, and eat. Imagine, if you can, that what it wants is something bad.

The word “haunting” also implies history. Something antecedent. This house had scrubbed itself clean of any past it might have had. Not just a jarring absence but an intentional deprivation. Devoid of anything anthropological. The house was empty because it wanted to be empty. And then your family decides to fill it up.

We called it Hemlock House, mainly because it was located on Hemlock Street, but also because, like hemlock, every part of it was poisonous- from its brickflesh to its cellarstomach. Everything it touched it slowly paralyzed. And it prided itself on its ability to consume. Swallow. Digest.

By the time I was twelve I was more ghost than girl. And by the time we moved I was barely anything at all.

And yeah. Maybe it was just our imagination and mold-lined air vents. A couple of kids scared to move into their first house, so they created a monster too big for the narrative. It would make sense.

We moved so I guess I’ll never have to know.

It’s funny, the first day the new owners moved in my parents got a call from the realtor. Apparently they couldn’t find any evidence that the tree in our front yard had ever been dead. In fact- sprouting from the stump was a little sprout.

They said it probably wouldn’t last long anyways.

It was covered in fire ants.

9 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 3 days

Text

Crutches

-

I didn't know ankles

Weren't supposed to crack

Until I was 18.

Lying in bed beside her.

Doesn't everybody's do that?

The shocked no

Shocked me too.

When I had broken it,

I was too young to listen.

Playing with the ends

On my blue frayed cast

While my mother seemed to chatter on.

I didn't know how much the doctors were

Stressing physical therapy.

I don't know how to deal with

The anger.

How many years of damage

Snuck up on me-

Simply because my ankle cracks.

x

..

..@nosebleedclub - April 20th; Physical Therapy

15 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 3 days

Text

Spring where you are -

Location: (can be a general region like “Midwest” or “city” or something)

What it’s like: (observations, ecology, who is out and about, quiet moments, hiding places, etc.)

How it makes you feel:

168 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 3 days

Text

it’s sweet relief, then agony, then warmth—

two, three; stretching taut, quivering,

vibrating like harp strings.

then, the oil spill of her laugh:

myriad of colors, prismatic,

electric on the nerves.

the ache in my muscles, the blood surging,

it all starts with her hands, my neck,

the arteries, capillaries.

skin pulls, the bones settling —

some sort of lingering comfort,

tittering along the undersided of the body.

xix. physical therapy — @nosebleedclub

4 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 3 days

Text

Genetics might play a factor

In the way my femur doesn't quite fit

Into the socket,

After all, it does affect my mother..

So I did a 6 week stint

In physical therapy

Not my first, either -

I've been at least twice before,

Various unrelated conditions aside

I skipped my last session,

My grandmother was in comfort care that week

It was rescheduled for the day after she passed,

I had no way of knowing that

And I honestly haven't done

Any of my exercises or stretches since,

Everything hurt too much

To be getting better as we watched her fade, slip

And the pain has recently returned to my hip,

I feel my left leg growing weaker

But it just makes me miss her

@nosebleedclub April 19th - Physical Therapy

18 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 3 days

Text

PHYSICAL THERAPY

i. the calamity happened there's no denying the whole ugliness of it penned in my spine

ii. what's there to do when the pain follows you everywhere?

one must turn to magic maybe cry a little

iii. i was taught witching movements i learned to channel my fervor my feverish and failing clairvoyant behaviors ceased

iv. yes, i killed the clairvoyancy. my future thus became a complete mystery (perhaps not tied to misery)

v. it was covered by insurance

vi. life is still not the same

my spine still recalls the calamity

but i don't cry and i have seen another side of all this and of myself

#mine

11 notes · View notes

nosebleedclub · 3 days

Text

LAGOMORPH

strong legs made for? keeping the fantasy silent

before we met someone showed me you in a picture

they said you were coming imminently

imminently like a rabbit in a field i fled

#mine

6 notes · View notes