[x]

monotony.we went to vegas. you drove and i pressed myself against the side of the door and breathed out pictures onto your window. you planned to make it big, and i planned to make it a memory. i fell asleep through the city of lights, and it was then i decided that christmas didn't feel the same, and your hands were always cold, even through your gloves.

i sat on the hotel bed and thought of how many people sat exactly where i was. you were in the bathroom buttoning up your shirt. i clenched mine so tightly closed my back pressed through the fabric. this was when i decided this is what suffocating was like. you were talking to me but i only remember

her.she is one hundred percent alone, minus him.

meet her.

she has milk white skin, and jagged bones. her eyes are pale and soft, and could make you surrender under her breath (and they will.)

every night she goes to sleep with a man who touches her, and she feels sick. and she wishes he'd just leave the hair in her face.

(because it's easier to hide tears that way.)

she dreams at night.

her milky skin is spilling over unfamiliar fingers. the freckles on her back match the ones in his eyes, and she feels safe. she offers him her heart, and he closes it into a box.

(she wakes up feeling nine

annie.annie paints the end of her erasers red, so every time she erases something, it reminds her she is made of mistakes.

and her mother would be proud, really.

annie has long fawn legs and can't remember the last time she actually drank a glass of water. the feeling of being dehydrated reminds her that she can in fact feel, and her father spends too much time away from home.

and her mother re-named herself "alone."

when she was six they found out she was dyslexic. her father told her she just couldn't see things right. annie went home and stared into the lamp light until her pupils dialated and tears ran down her fac

charlotte.it was halloween and charlotte was dressed as an obnoxious pumpkin, because her mother tries to make her a normal child.

(and charlotte will whisper that normal children smash pumpkins, not wear them.)

when charlotte was seven she decided that she would swim far out into old pine lake, and hold her breath until the colors in her eyes turned purple, like the bruises that slid down her thighs and touched apon her fragile feet.

(and it was then that charlotte realized, that no one would be around to save her, and that just wasn't the point.)

charlotte decides to be called "char" because it sounds like something silent

still.one.
-

her name is alice. there is a slight blood stain on the valley where her lips part, and her eyes are two supermassive black stars that can't show anything but hurt. she can't bring herself to look in the broken mirror puddles that are all over the ground.

(and i don't blame her)

two.

-

she borrows her mother's raincoat because it smells like home. not the homes that are flooded with laundry soap or soft candles burning in the family room, but more like the paint she spilled on the carpet, or the whiskey on her father's breath.

because i am a cynic today.today
you give yourself
away

to roads
seen only
through windows
wet
with rain; a sign
says

we are fifteen minutes
out of town,

but we say
we are
two years
out of luck

you surrender
to a map

(but it can never be
of life)

and so
we are still
lost

and no,
we will not find god here.

a fairy tale' you know leo, the stars we used to wish on don't even exist anymore '

the early morning evil had engulfed her hope and her shine – she shook, crying and dying to hear his voice - to escape her reality and enter someone else's. she had grown tired of trying not to cry. the grass in his back yard had grown tall with neglect and it loomed up around them and their blankets as they stared into the night sky. he watched her eyes gaze into the never-ending darkness and admired the way he could see little stars, floating like sail boats in the calm sea that was her eyes. inside though, she is a storm - a raging, violent ocean dying for an esc

it never really was
forget the ocean, you've never been there
your feet don't know the difference between
sand-papered wooden floors and ocean scattered sandscapes.

forget canyons cause you've never seen one
the only edge you know is self-imposed,
or is the tip top of the stairs.

forget the stars cause you've never reached them
you only believe in their fantasies and
admire them from a distance.

forget the moon, you've never landed on it
left a footprint in its crater, or
taken a glowing rock back with you.

forget history, cause you haven't seen it
you only know it,
just read about it in books.

forget time, it's invisible
you never see it or
h

bipolar hearts.we use to watch Fight Club together, because she said that it made her feel a little less alone, and i could never reply so i held her in my lap.

and she told me she was kalea's dizzy mind.

and in real life, you would think nothing of anything really, because she watches the birds fly just like you do. the morning rises on the same side of her window, and she can watch the clock tick away hours, just like you.

and she told me she was kalea's spinal cord.

i watched her pick at her fingernails for too long, and alway

inadequate science.and for you, i write.
there are three times when the clock stops and my eyes open.

1:00

-

there's something i want to say to you, but it stops in my throat and i can't form the words
remember when our skin created valleys, and hills on the bedsheets?
i counted your freckles and you smiled because I was too impatient to finish
my throat finally clears and my lips begin to form, but you're always gone.
always.

5:00

-

if i could tell you something quietly
it would be that i've never seen something so beautiful
my skin pulls towards yours and i crawl over your milky bones
you were on top of me, then my eyes closed,
i can't rememb

ask the butterfliesdear girl,

i have a brick house with old wooden floors. vines grow up onto my porch and i sit, thinking i can watch them grow. i have white stone paths that lead to my front door, made of old, heavy wood. the cherry blossom in my backyard sometimes reminds me of you - your bright eyes and gorgeous skin. sometimes their flowers are scattered across the yard; flecks of pink and white on wet green grass, just like your mind - scarttered but still more beautiful than ever.
the doors in my house creak when opened, and i don't own a comfy couch or matress. my porcelain teapot is covered in small, blue floral patterns and flowers grow on my window

love is not a noun,i never thought of a name to call him. he was a human, but he was my human.

his heartbeat reminded me of a rainstorm, or maybe the axis of a train wheel, but either way i hated how it mattered to me and how cliched the mutterings of a heart became.

i felt like a bird, a yellow-bellied sap-sucker, every time i heard it whispering blood, but that never meant more than an elucidated want for something prettier. it resonated in my own, an echo of some crossed wires and heartstrings.

my heart broke for his, but never in place of it.

i didn't know if it was wrong to want him solely for myself; he didn't know, either. and that was so beautiful-

william.dreams make him vomit.

meet william.

he has spider-leg fingers and eyes so cold they could stop your heart.
(and they will.)

every night william goes to sleep knowing that someone else is waking up with his only friend, and he wishes he could brush the honey-stained hair from her cheek.

(not the man, who can't even spell love without cheating.)

william dreams at night.

his spider fingers are creeping up the jagged edge of her spine. her skin is the color of milk, and lightly freckled. william keeps her safe, and has made a

what i forget to saylet me tell you something, dear-

i hate my knees
the same way that
elephant ankles
draw false attention,

the very same
attention that means

nobody ever sees into
the hearts of feral children or
the music they still feel
and breathe

i spent the whole of may
trying to change the
shape of my lips
because they are not
a mirror of yours

the reptilian love i
can never own is the
only thing i will not give to you
past that,
you can have my everything

and i pray that is enough
because you sang to me
so i wrote to you

and while i might not be enough
you can still have
all of the not-enough that i am

he's the bravesttoday he built a bridge
over the sea of tears you cried,
the tears you think he doesn't know about.
tonight you'll knock that bridge down.

tomorrow he'll fold a tiny paper boat
and he will set sail down your body of water,
hoping that maybe this time he'll reach you.

and when he does,
they'll all be talking about it,
they'll all be talking about him,
the boy who built the highest bridge even though
he was scared of heights.
the boy who set sail,
even though he was scared of drowning.

he's the bravest of them all.

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More from ~create-illusions

The Day I Met God II.
What do you say to the lonliest man in the world?
"I think you're doing the best you can."
but in my mind it played past tense.

the best you could.

For awhile I had this sudden urge to hold onto God's hand.
I wonder how long it had been since someone comforted him.
This time, I shifted, uncomfortably.
"It's okay, Kalea. You don't have to."

for some reason I forgot that he knew every moment.

God got up, and walked to the edge of the balcony
i watched him grab the purple clouds and pull them closer to us
"Kalea, do you know what it's like to destroy?"

Yes God, I do.

I knew he could read my mind, but

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mertha.

by ~create-illusions, Jan 4, 2010, 11:51:05 AM
Literature / Poetry / Narrative / Free Verse

i like to seperate my thoughts into names, to keep them in order.

my lonliness is named mertha, and she'd like to meet you.

mertha sits by me on my bed and we draw pictures of tulips and snails and wonder when that math test was. she takes my hand and grips it slowly, while singing that song my mother use to sing when i was 4.

(and i wonder exactly how she knew the words.)

mertha walks with me in the rain and understands that i don't like to be asked questions in the morning. sometimes when i'm sitting in the bathtub with no running water she won't leave me alone, and mertha knows that she is unwelcome.

(but she stays because she knows i'll come back to her)

she hangs over my head when i'm getting dressed in the morning. mertha pulls on my flabby skin and reminds me that this little fold just shouldn't be there. i tell her that i just can't get angry anymore over it.

(and this angers mertha)

i feel diseased. i don't let mertha in anymore and sleep with my head pressed against the back of the door. she bangs and yells, and sticks her fingers in through the cracks, and for a moment i almost cry. almost

(then i let her back in)

i tell her that my favorite color is melancholy and my favorite drink is despair. i hold her hand tight as i break in all the mirrors and scrub the bathtub clean of haunted, wrinkled-finger memories. i squeeze her hand so tight, that even i can barely breathe.

(because mertha is me)

mertha.by ~create-illusions

Literature / Poetry / Narrative / Free Verse

_{i really wrote this while sitting in an empty bathtub, dreaming of piano keys.}

~reni-girl144 Jul 13, 2010 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

This is really good (= I have a parts of mertha in me, like everyone probally does.

~jessssika May 17, 2010 Writer

_{just... just, wow. I almost cried. not only are you a talented and beautiful photographer, but your way with words really touched my heart.

I think we all have a mertha, by some other name, inside of us, but kudos to you for admitting it and sharing it with us.}