a year in the rearview mirror by MisfitableGrae, literature
Literature
a year in the rearview mirror
Dear Past Me,
A couple of months from March, you will forget about this book. You only ever wanted to fill it because your sister gave it to you, anyway. One day you will realize that maybe she never treated you right. That’s not really her fault, but you won’t be able to look her in the eyes for the longest time. You still can’t, not really. You’ve started trying to rebuild bridges that you burnt down between you and her, but it’s hard to create when all you have is a box of matches.
You don’t win your poetry competition—you will tell everyone that you knew you had no chance, but you and I both kno
in congratulations on your recent nuptials by MisfitableGrae, literature
Literature
in congratulations on your recent nuptials
i have spent the past three nights shaking and
thinking about how many poems i would write if i knew
where to send them. don’t think that i’ve forgotten you,
please, because i promise i haven’t. i still remember how you
take your eggs on saturday and how you make yourself
fall asleep when it’s four a.m. and you don’t want to leave yet.
it’s more than that too, okay, i remember your body,
firm against my body, your voice in my car,
your hair ties around my wrists, your chest rising
and falling with every one of my heartbeats.
you were
all my poems. you were everything significant.
you were my late nigh
dear sarah,
i wonder
if sometimes you can still feel the weight of your bed sheet
around your neck. heaven knows there were days i could count every thread.
last night i was cleaning up my desk, and i found the scissors
i used to crack my skin open four years ago
and when i went to throw them out, it felt like moving mountains
or graves. if you don’t know yet, you’ll learn that some types of grief
leave scars—some ghosts don’t know how to stay buried.
you will stumble through the rest of your life wondering if you will
one day forget how it feels to toe the edge of the cliff and turn the other way.
the answer is no
you tell me on a thursday that you can’t find
the god inside of yourself anymore, that
you think that you are finally
too much honeycomb and not enough human
because lately everything has been slipping
through your fingers, and you don’t know how you can
keep holding yourself together anymore.
if today is the day that you look
at the stars and you no longer
feel their burn beneath your bones,
i will show you the blanket i tried to make
when i was eight, and i will tell you all i know
about the string theory, which isn’t much, i admit,
but i do know the basics,
and that’s that everything in the universe
is composed
there are galaxies in your eyes by Tangled-Tales, literature
Literature
there are galaxies in your eyes
There's a universe
inside of you-
it's been there quite a while,
and I only hope
you see the constellations
that scintillate in your smile
and I've heard
there's billions of galaxies
scattered in the sky,
but I swear
at least half of them
are resting in your eyes.
what willy loman said by MisfitableGrae, literature
Literature
what willy loman said
i keep trying to tell you that
the woods are burning, the ocean is flooding,
but you think it’s the summer heat
and the summer rain and you think
this is how it has to be
but it doesn’t it doesn’t
it doesn’t—
and you don’t leave
because you think we have time, but the smoke
is a noose i could hang myself with and
we got jewels and riches and coins but
we don’t got a damn second.
a list of things colleges don't want to know by MisfitableGrae, literature
Literature
a list of things colleges don't want to know
1. i have a cactus named atticus that i bought
on the day i thought i was going to die,
and i never forget to water it, not
even when i forget how it feels
to breathe without my lungs rebelling
against my brain.
2. sometimes talking feels like walking on gravel
in a Georgian summer heat.
i try to keep talking anyway,
and hope that eventually
my voice will lose its softness and grow calluses.
3. once, a man whistled at me
outside of a grocery store from
the safety of his car.
four years later, i still haven’t stopped looking
over my shoulder.
4. i drive too fast and i take turns too sharply
and i never put enough sugar
in my tea
an open letter to my twelve year old self by MisfitableGrae, literature
Literature
an open letter to my twelve year old self
one day you will cut all your hair off,
and hang up a map of the world in your
room and you will look at it on days
you think your life is going nowhere.
i hate to tell you this, but this isn’t
your worst year. it also isn’t your
best.
one day you will cut all your hair off
and realize that some poems need to be read
out loud, to an audience, so you’ll take a hammer
and some nails and build yourself one
out of a girl whose veins look fragile but
whose bones are strong, a boy who isn’t as tall as
he thinks he is, but whose lifelines are the deepest
you’ve ever seen, and a girl whose eyes remind you of the
east
who i am far outweighs who i was by MisfitableGrae, literature
Literature
who i am far outweighs who i was
last night i pressed a hand up against my ribcage
and imagined how it would feel
to touch the bones there.
once, i could have seen them.
but it’s been years and years since then,
and sure, sometimes there are days i can only drink
tea and lie about how much food i’ve eaten,
but there are other days i even eat
breakfast and i know that doesn’t sound like a big
deal, but trust me, it is.
last night i went through my closet
and took out every shirt i shoved to the back
of my drawers four years ago like a dirty secret,
too small by half, but kept in the hopes that
some day in the future it might hang right
on my shoulders ag
i think you are lovely.
but i am not in love with you,
and by the fifth time you catch my eye and look
away just as quickly, i realize
that i cannot will myself into being so.
if love were as simple as a field of flowers,
i swear i would pick you a bouquet
of daises, and make sure that every petal you
picked off ended with ‘she loves me’.
if love were as reliable as the sun,
i would never stand so far away from you that our
shadows did not touch.
if love were as predictable as the weather,
i swear i would spend every storm
kissing you in the rain.
if love were as fair as Lady Justice
i would tie a scarf around my eyes
and sp