Zabira Silver's blog

Sick and tired, I close my shaking eyes

Trying to wash out my hollow mouth

Water pounds upon my shoulders and I cough

As steam rises, to the dawning sky off the wooden floor Read more »

(Based off of one of the daydreams I had while listening to the first verse of this song.)

Millions of years in the future, a girl named Sera watches the world burn... Read more »

Emerging from my cotton-down dreams,
pillows roiling from wild thoughts of the id,
eyelashes dusted with the sand of sleep
the world is blurred and warm.
I shift and flannel rustles, marshmallow static sparks
under my bones, knees and hips
cradled by nylon and springs.
I pull myself under my cave of covers, I am Read more »

Attempting to calm my blittering brain,

I frolloxed into the flumpy night,

the trees in the streets throshing with rain,

the sky a-xundering with floxy might.

I martled a while, not sure what to do

as the birds shreeped in the crabbling fray

and tweepers in their beds huddled afru

so sny Snuckleheads wouldn't snorket them away!

And as all this fuffling happened around,

I took in my ears a flensing sound,

the snap-clap of lightning, brittle and bray,

and the pippering in my head slowly passed away.

when the snow melts

(if it ever

melts)

in my room, you might find

rows of nail polish, shining, 

clamoring to be worn.

You might find

silken ties

though their color will have faded

spread into the melting snow

and they would lie, soft and wrinkled,

on the wet rug.

You might find

a warped bass guitar,

thick strings crackling from the ice in between,

body warped from water and time,

each deep note would sound bent,

if you played it.

But mostly,

if the snow ever melts in my room,

you'd find reams and reams of books - 

notebooks, drawing books, fiction and nonfiction - 

pages all stuck together

words finally bleeding into one another, set free from their pages,

making a massive blur of text - 

one mighty story, no longer readable

but meaningful

all the same.

Would you not like to know

that on this earth

are 7 billion residents

of the same race as you?

Presto! They grow!

From the dark glow

of their mother's womb

they emerge, to undergo - 

if nothing else - 

some life!

So!

Away we go.

You never know

who you will know

outside your home, my friend, lies the world;

it awaits your first

"hello."

She stumbled home so sloshed
the lights dimmed and danced around her,
so insensitive was she
to the weeds on her land
and the dust in her house, so insensitive,
as she clung to her last keepsake, a charm
once on a fine-linked bracelet, now held to her wrist Read more »

no, please, i couldn't bear

hearing my own pleas in the windless air,

alone in my room with a heartbeat, no,

please, i couldn't listen 

to my empty hands in an empty bed, 

couldn't live in a room filled with my own smell, i couldn't 

live in only 

my own skin,

not with you 

sitting right next to me, not with you

sitting

right 

there

breathing in my atmosphere, looking in my eyes,

filling up my empty hands and staining my sheets

with words, promises of comfort, promises of love, trust,

how you will keep me

safe, warm, happy.

please, i couldn't bear

to face the dark of unfinished laughter

alone.

  Read more »

  Read more »

take me in your hand

crush my spine to marble dust.

just go, 

just go.

let me be.

i'm done playing.

i used to submerge myself under the water and try to grasp

at the silvery strands gold light that tripped and twinkled in the H2O structure

i tried to grasp 

and become the ripples in the water and the light and lift

myself up from the sentient bundle of darkness i could feel on my back -

so make me a shroud

out of sunlight that skips on the surface of the sea,

make me a shroud 

out of waterfalls and love and when it rips i will patch it up 

with constellation patterns from your universe -

it doesn't even matter that we don't see the same sky -

won't the stars always burn for you? 

and won't they always burn 

for me? and can't we

tear through dark matter on a night with no moon and find ourselves

in each other's arms?

how sickly sweet their overshading fades as they erase,

the Sculptor watches as their paints & easels are packed away,

He touches her newly painted face, now in colored gaudy grace,

brushing off the last trace of rust & decay.

He had found me, He said,

in a block of cold stone,

inside veinéd ivory my silhouette had shone

and so He had chipped me out,

and now I stand before Him,

with an unmoving mouth I try to tell him I adore Him,

but He is too busy, his critival 'eye' roving,

and the 'I' i see tells me

His heart is not for Loving.

so i will stand here as his statue, 'til Venus thinks i've learned

enough to be Alive and Free, and leave him as i've earned.

  Read more »

(We have universes contained inside our tiny snowflake dandelion bodies, so we will never know ourselves, or each other, until we realize that we can be anything we wish or do not wish to be.)

I remember when you hovered over me and time froze for a second and I could see the roots of you, tumbling past your wings into the cosmic wind, and the irises of your hazel eyes expanded into a million branches and your arms and legs made a fortress of bone and branch around me. Your exhalations switched to oxygen and finally, finally I could get close to you and not suffocate. I watched your soul unfold in that pocket of time created by our symmetry. You were not infinite, and neither was I. We were not any different before or after, save the memories to be tucked away. The next time I took a breath I choked slightly on your carbon dioxide and you slid away, branches tucking themselves back into your universe. You stood up and stretched, grinning at me. (Perhaps, indeed, I was the only one changed.)

i. i warned you that i need to be alone.

you have seen it every time you push,

a wall of dark and stone behind my eyes

that lately,

has been tightening its grip around my mind.

ii. every time i try and peel the shell off my skin,

all you tell me is that you are hurt.

i am exposing my true blood to you,

it turns red beneath your ocean breath.

iii. this is an event caused by pressure, caused by

indirect suggestion and a forward flood of emotion

bowling me over and burning saltwater into my eyes

i have forgotten which way is up.

iv. you have managed to squeeze my heart of its oxygen

and still whisper to it which way to turn.

v. i want you out of my head.

Every day I am swept down your current,

I meet you in the same places,

do the same things.

Every day I come to you prepared,

and every day I leave,

slightly unraveled.

If I am honest, I will say

that you are the thread 

which constantly works at mending my broken chrysalis;

inside, my fully-formed and fingered self

clamours to shake you off,

to expand beyond you,

my safety blanket,

my fireplace.

(You have kept me warm and acted as a dim light,

only to flicker and reduce to smoke

whenever my tears fall on your shoulder.)

You said once to me,

"You need sunlight." Yet

you wrap me in the ocean of your arms

and I am helpless.

I sink to the bottom, reaching 

for the last shards of sunlight 

wavering on the distant surface.

You are my room of solace

padded on every side,

a blinding but stained white.

You keep me muffled,

you keep me safe,

you keep me hidden.

(I have not looked through my own eyes in a year.)

I fall into the pillow of your chest

wrap myself in your straightjacket sweater

and weep.

A boy of seven stands

in a box

with a sword, 

his shining helm

a simple boiling pot,

his chest guard

a piece of cardboard

spray-

painted

silver.

His expression is one of

curious rage, as if

his friend playing the dragon

had truly destroyed his castle -

an idyllic home

for a young knight,

with turrets & mossy stone & secret doors

between two lakes - 

the dragon roars, and

in the wake of the sound,

the knight stands his ground,

then,

charges.

No tears

are wasted tears.

(You are strong, and you can cry.

You can always cry.

You can always be strong.)

Let what comes out, come out.

It will surge through you like an ocean,

and eventually, you will taste

this specific tang of saltiness

on your lips

for the last time.

For now, let your emotions run their course.

You deserve to feel.

I am desperate in the way that rain falls
and flows and finds a stream and binds to other rain and falls;
I'm desperate in the way that horses run when wind comes
and their manes dance and their hooves fall with the rain and the wind
comes
crashing, I am desperate
like the leaves torn from their trees
that bury themselves in the earth, I am desperate
like the stars that are extinct but shine,
to us, anyway, while their light is still moving -
I am desperate
like your closed
eyes stay closed
when you feel you are alone.
I am desperate.
I am gasping
for breath
through clenched teeth,
blood oozes from my gums and lips, I am
pouring my life
into your shaking
hands
and
your fingers aren't tight enough and
the horses fall as
the wind comes crashing as
the river comes singing and my eyes
are white
as your shaking hands
and your fingers
aren't tight enough and I am desperate because
I'll slip away
if you can't hold on.

Dad - 

I'll miss the way you smell

& your overarching voice.

(When you want to throw it across a room,

everyone listened.)

I'll miss your sandy hair

& your hunched shoulders.

(You are one of the few people I trust enough

to bite or nuzzle

without being stared at weirdly.)

I'll miss your small hands

& wide eyes

& the silent nods & smirks of bro-dom

we share across rooms.

I will miss your adfgkjkdsdhafjlkgfls

& the way that no matter how awkward you are,

you're always genuine. 

You were my first

real friend here, & you were my first

real ally anywhere.

I promise,

no matter where you go or

how you change or

how I change, I will always

stand with you.

& I meant it, too.

Every time I see it on my bedroom wall, I still mean it.

& I'm watching myself dig deep roots and grow strong branches

up out of the earth, tied to an endless network,

breathing in sync with my still-tender leaves - 

I will reach my prime, and then

I will descend. Time is on the move.

& I will find you, 

I will, 

I will gather

your limp limbs & set them back

into their place and pluck

stray heartbeats & tuck

them carefully

in your chest, where they belong.

I will trace the outline

of your cheekbone again, & your strong hips

& your graspable hair & soft lips

will all

find me again.

& Time is

nothing

compared to the endless universe you hold

in your hands & the deep

fire that burns in your chest

& you can breathe,

you will breathe,

and I will grow and give you room to breathe,

my tender leaves will brush

your hands as you climb into me.

& Life is

anything but long,

anything but short -

we will make it exactly as it is, and

somehow that will be enough, and

whatever forever ends up meaning,

I will be glad to have spent it well. Read more »

Oh boy.

A car without a realconsciousexistingpresentsoberhappy driver - 

Shattered windsheilds - broken glass,

harmless -

justlittlesquarepebblescrunch

crunch under my

bare feet as I

view a never-ending

accident

in my head that never

happened, neverreallyhappenedbut

everyone'stalkingaboutit

and I wonder why

such an image stayed in my head

all of yesterday and why 

word/thought choices like highway

and

carwithoutadriver

and

shatteredwords

and the ever-implied

suicide

appear on my screen and I

can see the blood

running from their heads as each dying breath is held in -

they all

blink

at me and a thought/word/memory runs

through bleeding brains -

alivesadbrokenmemorycarcrashopenfireopenfeildwaris -

painpainpainlossgriefplanetslosthusbandssistersbrotherswiveschildrenlost - simple - 

complicated&

ofthemind

thistime

&wehave

lost

I feel like all of time & space

& like shit

simultaneously. Really,

being a teenager

takes all the dignity

out of dissecting

the universe.

& I am sorry

I become so entranced

as I read other's words & I am sorry

that I rely so heavily

on objects that I can clench with my fist,

the shallow curve of my wrist flicks tears away from my face as I

become

so lost, again, so lost

in words,

merely

messages, ideas,

not even

put on paper, but I read 

and write

and become

dangerous, because poetry

has a nasty way of telling

the truth.

I am lost

in other people's words today,

sifting and swimming through the text I read on a bright screen

and I betray you - 

I betray

you, sir - 

through reading these words

and believing in 

messages that are always there no matter where I am

in space & time, they travel

with me and their deceptive stillness

on the screen does not stop them from climbing out

and wrapping themselves around my mind.

Poetry, my friend,

is dangerous.

It will stay there long after you are gone.

It will stay there,

long after the we

is gone - we

as in us,

a unit, a together-ness - 

the poems will stay there

long after

those words hold current meaning.

I read somewhere, once, that

"If a writer falls in love with you,

you become

immortal."

  Read more »

I laid down today and whispered to the ground,

"I am sorry, my old friend - I have misjudged you.

I am sorry

that you are sick."

The wind stroked my hair and face

with a whisper - 

a reply

of acceptance.

Every step I take today

is an apology - I curl my toes

into the blades of grass,

and they curl back in response.

I run my fingers

over the waking earth, trusting it

for the first time

in years.

Stop, just

sit.

That's it.

Breathe.

Now whatever you have to do - 

do it.

My head feels

like it should be cracking

open and dribbling phlegm

all over the carpet and 

the back of my

swollen throat has

become pain-numb

and the rushing in my ears

has made everything else

hard to hear over my heart

pounding in my head, forcing

blood through because my body

hasn't given up on me yet but damn

does it suck

to be sick

and I overheat

I can't eat

or sleep

or breathe

properly -

ick.