McWriter's blog

This afternoon, I decided to have a love affair with watercolors.

They’re perfectly transparent

and they wash each other

away

without denaturing

their purpose.

This afternoon, I weathered the dust and must of the basement storage room and took up a set of old, forgotten paints.

Dilute, runny mediums Read more »

I spent today falling

-down the stairs

-over my feet

-back into

the state of mind in which

I grow to miss

the way things used to be.

I’ve found myself

searching

for old connections - bridges

that have long since

burned themselves out - and

my heart can’t seem to understand

why

there are so many gaps

that can’t be crossed.

There is a family of people

out there, not held together Read more »

She liked to think of herself as a bird.  Read more »

i.
i am two sides
of a fumbled, common dice roll

ii.
i am the silent air around them Read more »

I have never wanted anything more than I want to be with someone.
Read more »

I.
i put christmas lights up in my bedroom.

it feels like an accomplishment that i did it.
 

i.

remember when
things were simple?

ii.
or, perhaps
they weren’t, but they were
beautiful
and that was all the
simplicity we thought we needed.

it scares me the way Read more »

Nine times out of ten, I will choose

loneliness. I will choose to sit 

in a room

by myself

because to know me

is dangerous. 

My hands are cold enough

to burn through the walls that protect

hearts.

And I know how fragile those can be.

I shrink myself when I feel

eyes searching, gazing

begging me

to be to fight to

react to love to pretend

to exist.

I am only brave

when no one can tell.

I know how to conduct myself

only when it matters

to everyone else.

My insides are empty - but not

in a hollow kind of way - no, it's more

that they are

full

of nothing.

[And that's fine.]

I wish I could say 

that I look around me

and everything I see is

beautiful and heartbreaking

and that her lips make

fucking

poetry

out of what is really nothing.

I look around me and

all I see

are the things that move time 

around 

more quickly

as I remain

motionless

in a state of unnoticed panic. 

Sticks and stones

are nothing. My body 

refuses to bruise

and I can never 

tell

if that is somehow a reflection

of the 

me

I can no longer access.

I am not sad. I do not

ache for

warm, whispered comfort on Read more »

there has been darkness
in my mind - never
quite black, but
never quite light enough
to see.

late at night, when
the bumps that raise my skin
are all that remind me of my humanity, i
stare into the ceiling, pretend
i can see the stars, and convince myself
that this will pass
like all else.

she ties weights to my heart
with fleshy strings
in her sleep
and i daren't blame her.
(i am a notorious
enabler.)

her mind is made of things like
the sound
of the moments that precede
laughter
and the glory of the sight of
feasts and the heaviness
of the knowledge that
she can't take it back.

i loved her
with every nerve
that had survived the wreckage, i
loved her.
i let her see what she saw
because it was easier on her
and that made it easier
on me.

it surprised me, the
hollowness
that comes with being
disappointed
in someone.

for once, i am
glad
to be falling
out
of love.

i have a morbid fascination

with the end of the world.

i await storm clouds

and disaster

with half a mind wondering

if it will bring along

the destruction of humanity

that has been romanticized to the point

that i

wish for it.

there is poetry under the

skin that hangs in rags

and clothes that tear and stain, beauty

in broken teeth

and bloody lips, meaning behind

breaths that rasp

and wind

that moans

in unintelligible sorrow.

i believe that a

hero

would be made of me

and that

surviving

would be the least of my problems.

is this what it feels like

to be so far past

breaking point

that it 

doesn't know what it is

to be put back together?

i've reached a point where i

ache

for the emptiness of

yesterday.

at least then

it made sense.

i've been silent so long

that i can't remember the difference between

honesty

and telling them

what they are going to hear

regradless

of what 

slides past my lips

while i sleep.

someone told me once that i'm 

mysterious.

the only thing i could think

was that i'm

terrified 

to let people know me.

it feels as though i don't know how

to be anything other than

passive

anymore. opinions require

far more energy

than i have to give.

i can't imagine 

what has caused me to become

the way i am.

i cannot imagine 

the kinds of things

that build a person

like me.

I'm sorry for not
trusting anyone enough
to be a real friend.

I knew a girl, once. I did not know her well, but she came to know me and therefore, somehow, I felt as though I knew her. She was a lovely sort of aloof in person, and she had a put-me-at-ease smile. I knew her by her words and her connections and not much else, but it meant the world to feel included. I considered myself guilty by association, and it was almost as glorious as I'd imagined. I wanted to follow her through the night until the sky looked like two painters came together to create the clouds in separate styles. 

I knew a girl, once, when the world was falling into rivers. I looked for her, and I've still yet to be able to justify it. I lusted for a piece of her heart, because I knew it was broken and I've always been the one to make beauty of a shattered mirror. I wanted to believe that if I could just make her love me, then both of our lives would be healed. 

I knew a girl, once, and she was as sad I've ever known a person to be. Try as she did to be happy for the ones who surrounded her, the ache within her diffused through her fingertips to mine. She despised the hurt she found in the eyes, so she was the face of comfort and the arms of welcome and the shoulder of solace. I saw within her and I craved it. My depth perception was inaccurate as always, but the things hardest to let go of are the ones that do not make sense. 

  Read more »

Words resemble a time when I knew beauty.
I could create it from
finger-tips
& twirly-skirts &
imagined-smiles.

I knew you.
I knew you & I knew her & I let both of you
know me better than I did. You let me
break myself.
You never knew.

I've lost myself & the sand between my toes won't let me forget.

I listened for you when I went. Past
the alleyways & coffee shops.
I knew you weren't there.
The birds seemed happy
anyway.

My heart has never belonged to me
& I long for a cool touch.
My bones are slowly
deconstructing
by the merest of incriments
in hopes that I won't notice.

She's been chased into the woods
by the monsters
which plague her dreams
yet when she wakes
she drinks ambrosia from her
goblet-made-of-glass
& stretches her comfort
as far as she can
make it.
If I trusted her
she would be beautiful. (If I trusted myself
she would still be his.)

The flowers in my garden make me well & the one in my bed makes me worthless.My muscles are tired & I will not hear reason.

It does not matter
what air I breathe.
Dreamcatchers
perform too aptly
& the books on my shelves
reflect most clear.

I tell myself that I'll live forever
(& part of me hopes
I'll die young).

The dragon contained in my ribcage loses resilience with every day & unravels the frayed edges of my chest. I only hope it won't scar like everything else.

  Read more »

Another

Bug

Crawled 

Down

Eden's

Foot,

Gracefully

Hellbound.

In

July,

Karen's

Love

Manifested,

Never

Overflowing,

Peacefully 

Quiet;

Rain

Stopped

To

Up

Violet's 

Will.

Xenon

Yelled

Zealously.

for this is what i do best: stand my ground until we both refuse to give and miles dirty my hands. isolate myself in secret and fall deeper into the shades of grey. take away my own options until there's nowhere to go but down. create crawlspace,closetspace,headspace that anyone can leave but no one can enter. imagine the grotesque colors that would become me if I ever tuned out long enough to go through with it. watch ships with plaid sails weave between the clouds, covering the watercolor sun, and wonder how much more it'll take to sink them. wait for violence that isn't coming. [{relearn how to not rely on dreams.}]

it's hard to feel
another year 
older
when you've 
forgotten for so long  
to recognize 
time 
at all.

I first met Skit on a cloudy day in the park. Our meeting was, to be frank, unremarkable; I'm sure I'll come to forget it in the coming years. 

I was sitting on the swing set, dragging my toes trough the gravel as I drifted inactively back and forth. Skit approached wordlessly, sat on the swing beside mine, and offered up a name. I didn't even notice Skit until I heard that voice - slightly feminine, but ever so husky. From day one I never knew whether Skit was a boy or a girl. I don't think Skit knew either. I know neither one of us gave one single fuck.  Read more »

i.
 i don't know if
 she could understand
 why i do what i
 do.
    [i write in ink
    because you
    can cross it out all you like
    and it will still
    always be there.]

ii.
 layers of
 brick are

iii.
 crumbling, and no
 one seems to notice.
                         [they hand out those 
                         looks like
                         they're free, and
                         i want to tell 
                         them that
                         it's just nervous tension, but

iv.
                         then they'd  Read more »

i've gotten used to 

leaving the top-part

alone. 

that's what i'm supposed to do

that's how it goes now 

&

i don't want to get caught

on the wrong side

of a contradiction.

it's too easy to forget how it all worked

before -

you're used to the way

rulespeoplethings are 

now. you fall in

with the rhythm of the present

& suddenly you can't

remember

the old tune. 

  Read more »