by all the gods,
is she lovely—
the sweetest lullaby i have ever heard.
and her fingertips soothe this raging nightmare
which roars inside, a decaying dragon
that one too many knights have slain.
if i could worship at her feet i would.
alas,
her temple is guarded by pale clouds and
a witch's moonlight; only ravens
may find their way into her tower
and break her chains with a featherweight kiss.
i do not feel her embrace every time the darkness whispers.
no, it is only when the ice in my veins
burns hotter than the sun and my voice is lost
in the supernova that hides itself behind a black hole.
it is only then that she is there,
this girl dreams
far too much;
her bed has turned into
a nightmare graveyard,
full of wilted roses
and broken spines.
wanderlust is a toxin.
one that fills her lungs with each
breath and with every poisoned
heartbeat, she yearns for a world
with moons of gold and a silver sun.
yet—
she would rather listen
to those sweet nothings than have
the philosophy of reality
shoved down her throat.
this girl does not want
to live in black and white;
no, she craves color
and the freedom it tastes like and if
the chains that that shackle her
starving soul refuse to unlock,
she will tear them apart
with her own two hands.
I dream of wolves every night.
There are times when I simply watch them race through cold, shrouded forests. When I stretch out a trembling hand and silently beg one of them to place their muzzle against my fingers so that I may feel true strength with my own skin. When my heart pounds louder than a summer storm as they sprint together in one pack, their breaths stirring together in savage harmony. When I long to run alongside them, my soul more free than I could ever possibly imagine.
And then there are times where I am one of them. I can taste the crisp moonlight on my tongue as my paws kick up half-frozen mud; I can smell the fervor of t
How to love a girl who can't love herself. by lupus-astra, literature
Literature
How to love a girl who can't love herself.
one.
When she cries herself to sleep
six out of seven nights a week you must
say nothing. You must simply take
her in your arms and kiss her gaunt,
pale cheeks and wait for her to
slumber at the sound of your heart.
two.
On the days where she wishes she
were part of the stars, tell her
no. Tell her that there are too many
lights in the sky and that just one
would be forgotten the moment you looked
away from it. Tell her that she is perfect
the way she is: completely human.
three.
Don't let her think about the scars
that no one but her can see. If she
says
the sun was a fool
when he thought himself worthy enough to
be blessed by the temple that
was your lips.
mad,
they all whispered.
mad,
like the delirium of a fever
that burns hotter than the
summer flames, turning skin
to paper and bones to dust.
but no -
not you.
for you shone bright
and the words that fell from your tongue
should have been enough to bring
all armies to their pathetic knees.
not you,
my dear.
the future danced along
your fingertips the way
fire flirts with kindling.
and if the rest of the world
turns their faces away;
if the rest of the world
sneers with a scorn that would make
a snake hiss in displeasure,
i will
when they pass me by
i cannot help but thank aphrodite for
the miracle that
is women.
for we have stars embedded
in our flesh and hellfire
burning in our eyes. we are
immortal. we are infinite.
we are celestial. we are
the penumbras that rip into
your feeble heart and the golden
dreams that make you wish
that you had been born to
a different universe.
we are persephone;
we are hecate.
some days and
most nights, i close my
eyes and imagine her—
the girl whose tongue
tastes like poetry and whose lips
bless me with a thousand
curses.
and by all the goddesses,
was sappho right when she was
awed by her splendor.
my head has become a
hornet's nest—
stinging, buzzing,
teeming with ugly whispers and most days
i just want to get drunk
on pesticides.
it's too much:
sitting in a history class where
the teacher just drones on
like a broken record about how in sixty years
we'll all be suffocating on the exhaust fumes
of our parents' sins.
driving on a clustered highway
in an empty car with half a tank of
gas getting passed by people too
occupied to live their lives.
contemplating a black hole pompous
enough to call itself the
future as an insatiable
debt worms its way into
the valleys and canyons of
my skin and bones.
please;
give me a scalp
do you know that feeling
the one where everything just sort of
stops and you're left
alone in front of the mirror and it's not
the same person you woke up to
but instead they're just this delicate
porcelain statue will shatter with
one touch into more pieces than there are
stars in the sky and the scorpions scuttling
up your throat keep stinging and burning with a
fire that you can't swallow back down into the
storm that's churning at the very bottom of your
stomach and the wolf in your chest is howling
and threatening to gnaw its way through your bones before
it suffocates beneath the desert stretched across
every inch of your skin and your
today is the day i grow my fangs.
no longer will i put my tail
between my legs when i pass by my
reflection; no more will i cower
before the wicked dreams
that whisper deceit in my ears.
i shall throw back my head
and howl to the moon whenever i
wish. the cowardly hunger will
be sated by the bones of my
monsters, crunched to nothing but
dust between my teeth. even the
devil will fear my rage for at
last, i am beginning to cherish
this temple that protects my
still-mending heart.
as for the dread that still threatens to cage my wild soul?
i will hunt it down
and tear it to bloody shreds with hidden claws
that once lurked beneath my
trembli