rebecca_v's blog

Have you ever felt like this, 

Like I do? 

Have you ever had to press your hand

To your chest, 

Stop everything, 

To feel your pulse? To make sure

You are still living? 

Have you ever made a promise to

Your own skin. 

I won't break you, not today. 

Have you ever drawn a map to

Nowhere

In your head, followed it with your Heart until it fell away

And now you are lost on your way to nothing. 

Ever seen the inside of your head Read more »

We whisper in the quiet, 
a word of our own in the crevices
Of skin and tone and melody. 
We make music with our tongues
let the vibrations linger in our ears. 

You understand me like no one else,
In a world where 
A growl in your throat
The whoosh of your breath
The clicking of your lips
Mean 'I love you'. 

I almost called you last night.

It was late.

I was trapped in memory again-

a bird in a cage with the door open

but no way out.

I remembered the tents we build out of draped

blankets, the

spark of your laugh in my ear in bed in the early

morning, when

no one was awake to end our game.

I almost called you last night,

but I know my voice would crack,

knew the tears would jumble my eloquence.

  Read more »

Perhaps you truly do not understand the reason for my deep-rooted anger toward you. I cannot imagine you are as innocent as this, considering the pain you have caused me. But if you are so naive, I give you an explanation now. Read more »

We were a fragment of time. A glimpse into worlds unknown. There was no breath, no skin. A time when we were one, when we did not need air, we breathed only the essence of one another.

But that was long ago. Ages ago, and now all I see is ice, lashes caked in crystals. I am blind but for white, lulling me to sleep after centuries of waking. I am growing colder, the frost becoming my blood. Insides congealing and stiffening until there is no trace of warmth, no trace of life within me. Read more »

*Credit to Geof Hewitt, for use of a line from one of his poems to help get me going*

  Read more »

They write beautiful things

about love.

They, who look back in rearview mirrors stained with soot

and see their lovers standing alone.

Left behind.

I am that loner

in the midst of deep-burning fire.

You say love is beautiful

but I cannot see it's delicate fronds beyond the scorched

circle of my psyche.

Blinded by love.

Blinded of love.

Blinded.

I have a broken heart

a broken mind

a broken soul

a broken will to love,

if any at all.

My dignity is the fleeting spray of snow

that disappear into green grass lawn in October.

My God, I wish for snow.

I gave away all I had

and now I am a ghost, a skeleton,

incapable of anything.

Trick or treat?

Death is like my god,

salty and ever present.

But I won't give myself to him -

not for you.

  Read more »

I don't need you to survive today.
You,
who used to be my food and drink,
my sustenence.

I don't need you to live here,
my dear,
for I have the fog in the morning
and the grasses in the spring.

I don't need you to breathe
like I used to,
my oxygen in your skin.
I breathe my own air, now.

I don't need you to survive,
but I invite you to stay.

Will you love me still?

In my dreams
you still disappear.
Out of my grasp
and you won't come closer.
Your wide eyes staring at me
urging me to touch you.

And I beg you, on my knees pleading
for just one step in my direction.
Just one step,
and I can let my fingers brush your sleeve,
your hair,
perhaps even your skin.

Oh, that silky white skin,
I grow weary with its closeness.

You are taunting me;
I am right here, love,
can't you see?

Mocking me. Read more »

Listen.

Look at me.

Remember my perfume.

Her voice like glass

She said

Dance upon a star

She said

Laugh at the morning breeze

She said

Live.

"I've lived here my whole life
and the cold still shocks me."
he whispered,
whistling steam from his lips.

"It looks like snow."
She breathed.
She was a ghost in the grey light,
her ruddy cheeks roses against
powdery skin.

"Why can't we leave this place?"

"The snow is like photograph of a place you used to know.
It makes you cry,
but you just can't leave it behind."

"I can't imagine life without it." Read more »

She fascinates me,

Storybook Woman.
Weak,

unbearably weak.

She is so sad,

and I see myself in her.

She bears her wounds

and lets the world fill her

with poison.

Bacteria coating her, she breaths

it all in

and it makes her gaunt,

weaker,

killing her from the inside.

She gives in to her temptations.

Yes, starve yourself.

Yes, drink it all away.

Yes, let your thoughts take hold.

  Read more »

Good mourning beautiful,

It's best you stay in bed.

Perhaps you can't remember,

but another dream is dead.

You are an excellent killer, my dear

but we won't speak such things.

For now it's best you sleep eternal,

so you can't feel the sting.

And I will watch you dream so soft

and ponder all the while,

How such a lovely, lovely girl

could kill her own sweet smile.

A reminder of you 

Broke the sky above my head today. 

Broke it in two 

And let the pieces rain down 

So I could catch them in my fingers. 

Geese, an arrow piercing the flesh of Heaven

poured the sweet air of immortality upon me. 

I live forever because of you, 

Forever in your heart. 

I get angry like my mother.

Quiet, tip-toeing anger,

grim and emotionless.

Blank-faced.

A reflection of a woman, a mirage

delicately fuming

    but not quite real.

I smile like my father

and I get angry like my mother,

But the tears I cry are my own.

God only knows why I love you,

but I truly do.

You make my mind race,

have from the beginning,

with worries mundance and painfully extreme.

And yet it is you who I seek

to cure my hyperactive mind.

You insult me, you chide, smirk,

and I remember it months later, laying in bed alone.

And yet, I allow you to heal my wounds.

You hurt me,

you anger me,

you make me weep.

You kill me dead.

But you are the only one who can cure me, Read more »

You can see it in the images hanging on the walls. It is hidden, covered with layers of thick fabric, with intricate spider webs of lies. Sticky, like the wads of bloodied tissues saved from the trash can until late at night, when the sky is black and the world is silent and the hate is the strongest. You can see it in his eyes, but only if you look past carefully crafted red-orange foliage and the strong white teeth, the thick shade of blonde hair obscuring a broad forehead. You can see his prayers there, his pleas, kneeling among faux autumnal background. Read more »

I am
the clock's second hand.

Secondhand like smoke
on a winter morning from a necessary cigarette,
and you are shivering
and watch the ashes fall.

Falling like the leaves
on the trees here.
The scent of summer growing older,
greying
like the anecdotes it's told a thousand times.
A thousand and one.

One moment and we can disappear;
and would it look beautiful,
a ball of fire hurtling toward Earth?
A poem to tell the tale,
scribbled in a moment before
the flames turned us to dust.

Dusting the pictures frames on the mantel,
there is a child with somber eyes Read more »

Deep down there is Love,
hiding in your stomach, curled among your thighs.
Deep within the muscle,
it hibernates,
its eyes fluttering in a dream-sleep-dream world
of make believe.

You've lived without it for some time now,
you've given all the extra Love away,
saved none for yourself

and you can feel it.

Can feel it in the mirror
when the world seems to small for anything real.
Can feel it in your empty hands
at sunset
when you yearn to share your warmth.
Can feel it in a bird's love song,

Why can't anyone sing just for you?

And you try to cry it out, Read more »

I memorize the landscape of your skin.
A minute wrinkle behind your ear,
a line of freckles like soldiers,
crossing the bridge of your nose.

Your hand shifts as you dream,
and I fold my own into yours, fitting the crevices of our palms
together.
Melding skin and we are one.

Your eyes flit open as I whisper in your ear,
couldn't resist,
the gentlest voice.
My heart stands still when I see your eyes again,
blue like a forget-me-not,
and I never will forget.

How could I doubt
the touch of your hand on my back, my neck?
How could I doubt you
at all?

I'll miss the world when I am gone.
But I imagine how beautiful it will look
as I fly amongst the clouds,

a life only I have seen,
as it flashes before my eyes
and then the softness of the air
will envelope me tight.
Embraced by heaven as I leave everything behind.

And I stand here and see the milling beings
like ants below my feet.
"Come on down, love, there is so much more
to life." Read more »

You were covered with dust when I found you.
Hidden away in the corner,
discarded.
Perhaps forgotten,
but I saved you.

Your skin was turning grey,
but I could see the rouge beneath,
painted on long ago.
And I imagined you shivering through the winters,
left without even a blanket
to soothe you in your lonely years.

Doll face,
doll eyes,
beautiful but locked away.

How does it feel to be set free?

It is dangerous to love like this.
At any moment
you could escape
from the tower in which I have locked you.

And I would sit there in the evenings,
as I always had,
and imagine
how you could leave so suddenly.

But for now
I hold key
on a chain 'round my neck.
And you sleep safe beside me in our tower,
and you dream only of sweet things.

My darling, don't contemplate that open window,
don't dream of worlds outside.
Stay in the tower in my heart,
enveloped in my dangerous love.

Dangerous,
as I could not bear a world,
where I couldn't call you mine.

I remember that night.
You told me that you'd given up.
And you weren't lying.

Because I knew there was another girl
for you, out there.
A happy girl,
who could trust.
Who could love you.
Who never worried, and maybe even

kissed better than me.

It's okay,
I understand.
I would've given up

too.

You gave me your worries.

But I hide them like
you never could.
My panic attacks happen
after midnight
when no one can hear my wheezing,
choking on sobs and fear.

I wonder if you drove them all away
too. If you never let them in
because
it meant they'd have to know.
No one knows
about me.

And did they tell you
you were over-reacting?
And you were the cause of the force
pulling everything apart?

And did you cherish
those that loved you - almost?
They were your back-up plan;
called in when you tore the real love
apart.

Do you wear the mask
that I wear? Read more »

And aren't we all desperate
for a savior on that long stretch of road?
And when you see me through the panes,
smudged with fingertips and smoke,
will I look beautiful to you?

Perhaps I am more in tune here,
when I am alone,
trying and trying to call you on the phone,
but you can't hear it ringing.

Maybe I'll just stay here for the night,
wait it out,
call you when you want to listen again.
When it isn't so dark,
and I am not so lonely.

Tonight I'll be a Phone Booth girl.
Won't be afraid of the dark,
not, not here,
behind these glass walls. Read more »

Can you promise me
your voice?
Your sacred skin?
The sounds of your chest,
your heart?

Can you promise me
the wind
in your hair?
The red in your cheek,
snowflakes in your lashes?

Can you promise me
the Earth,
the ground we've walked?
The taste of ocean in your breath?
The sun that lingers in your eye?

Let me see my world,
promise me your love.

I picture you
in places that I've never seen,
and will never see.

They burrow behind my eyes
and I dream of them.
And you are there.
You guide me.

I cry there,
really weep,
because no one can see me.
And that is how I like it.

And you don't think I am cold,
hard, made of stone
there.

I am still young and fresh there,
in this place I'll never see.