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Literature Text
When I was seven
and you were eleven,
we’d watch the clockhands spin
and laugh as our lives sped past our eyes.
We were alive
(at least for a little while)
and after I met you everything changed.
It was a stormy October day
and you were sat hunched over the curb,
impersonating roadkill with glazed eyes,
lost in thoughts I could never fathom.
The lamplight above stained you amber
like you were one of the insects caught in the rock
and it made me want to throw mine out -
later when I came back and pressed the encased ant into your hand
you merely frowned and let it slip to the concrete by your foot;
the words died on my tongue and
I could only run back inside
trying to figure out why I was crying.
On a rainy November evening
you were hanging like a gargoyle off the windowsill,
hardly moving and hardly blinking,
and I gazed up at you from two storeys below
waiting for you to wake from your reverie;
and when your eyes snapped to life
you said -
bruises show where you fell from heaven
and scars are where your wings were ripped from.
I was young and in awe of you
so that night I spent hours twisting and contorting myself
to gaze at my back in the mirror,
but all I saw were the faint outlines of my ribs,
Smooth ivory skin, the odd freckle -
but no scars.
I was never an angel.
As our bones creaked and fused
and skin stretched to accommodate our new growth,
my eyes began to see more clearly
that you were not like the other boys in our neighbourhood -
they were tanned and broad,
boisterous and aggressive;
while you were willowy, with delicate paper skin
lilac veins threading around glass bones.
Your words were strange and sudden and
fleeting -
within a few years the river dried up
and that same summer your words did too,
wilting until all your talk of angels and
snow being liquid moonlight
and the air tasting of 8.02pm even when it was dawn
stopped.
It was about then that bruises
blossomed on your canvas body,
the boys didn’t believe like I did.
On the summer evenings
we’d sit on your chipped blue porch
and watch the crows gather in the distance,
the magpies hopping along the pavement.
You didn’t say much but I did -
I told you how I was so worried that sometimes
I felt like my teeth started to oscillate
and my stomach would wrestle with my gut to make me feel
sick.
But you only replied that it would be okay,
that they’d leave you alone eventually -
as if they were like the ravens you’d seen once
who got bored of a piece of roadkill.
I knew that for the first time you couldn’t explain something,
you didn’t know what to do,
so I was hardly surprised a few weeks later
when your mother told me you had a broken arm
In the autumn afternoons
when the world was tinged gold
and the trees burned crimson,
I watched as my life played on repeat
as you healed and grew and were injured again.
After five stitches were laced through one of the wounds they’d carved you,
you stopped impersonating roadkill and gargoyles too.
Instead I gazed up at you from two storeys below
as you gazed back forlornly
through the glass of your window
the whole room bathed in amber.
In the early December mornings
mist clung to our words
fog spilled out as we breathed so our figures became just as vague,
just as hazy.
I longed to melt the icy exterior
you had accumulated throughout winter
so I raged and fumed,
hot steam billowing between our eyes
and suddenly it was you who was bellowing
thawing and melting into
liquid amber -
alive and lucid
(the ant was freed)
and I ran away with tears foaming at the corners of my eyes,
wanting to throw up and throw it all away and throw myself over the edge and -
In the misty January evenings
I gazed at your empty room from two storeys below
wondering who would move in and replace you,
praying that I would forget you one day
(I never did)
After all the times you spent as a victim,
dead and still as roadkill, as gargoyles,
the soft fleeting words -
defenceless and submissive,
the years you spent waiting for the ravenous boys
to grow bored of your lifeless corpse
they finally did;
and in turn you grew bored of me,
left me in a flurry of oil-black feathers.
You became a raven
and flew away with your flock.
(I held the scars you left me with so tight
that they crushed my heart
marking it with jagged x’s
now I could pretend I was an angel
and it was you who ripped my wings out)
When I was seventeen
and you were long gone,
I’d watch the clockhands spin
and wonder where the tides would take me.
I was alive
(but only just)
and after you left nothing changed.
(I guess we switched places while I wasn’t looking
all I saw from then on was stained amber)
and you were eleven,
we’d watch the clockhands spin
and laugh as our lives sped past our eyes.
We were alive
(at least for a little while)
and after I met you everything changed.
It was a stormy October day
and you were sat hunched over the curb,
impersonating roadkill with glazed eyes,
lost in thoughts I could never fathom.
The lamplight above stained you amber
like you were one of the insects caught in the rock
and it made me want to throw mine out -
later when I came back and pressed the encased ant into your hand
you merely frowned and let it slip to the concrete by your foot;
the words died on my tongue and
I could only run back inside
trying to figure out why I was crying.
On a rainy November evening
you were hanging like a gargoyle off the windowsill,
hardly moving and hardly blinking,
and I gazed up at you from two storeys below
waiting for you to wake from your reverie;
and when your eyes snapped to life
you said -
bruises show where you fell from heaven
and scars are where your wings were ripped from.
I was young and in awe of you
so that night I spent hours twisting and contorting myself
to gaze at my back in the mirror,
but all I saw were the faint outlines of my ribs,
Smooth ivory skin, the odd freckle -
but no scars.
I was never an angel.
As our bones creaked and fused
and skin stretched to accommodate our new growth,
my eyes began to see more clearly
that you were not like the other boys in our neighbourhood -
they were tanned and broad,
boisterous and aggressive;
while you were willowy, with delicate paper skin
lilac veins threading around glass bones.
Your words were strange and sudden and
fleeting -
within a few years the river dried up
and that same summer your words did too,
wilting until all your talk of angels and
snow being liquid moonlight
and the air tasting of 8.02pm even when it was dawn
stopped.
It was about then that bruises
blossomed on your canvas body,
the boys didn’t believe like I did.
On the summer evenings
we’d sit on your chipped blue porch
and watch the crows gather in the distance,
the magpies hopping along the pavement.
You didn’t say much but I did -
I told you how I was so worried that sometimes
I felt like my teeth started to oscillate
and my stomach would wrestle with my gut to make me feel
sick.
But you only replied that it would be okay,
that they’d leave you alone eventually -
as if they were like the ravens you’d seen once
who got bored of a piece of roadkill.
I knew that for the first time you couldn’t explain something,
you didn’t know what to do,
so I was hardly surprised a few weeks later
when your mother told me you had a broken arm
In the autumn afternoons
when the world was tinged gold
and the trees burned crimson,
I watched as my life played on repeat
as you healed and grew and were injured again.
After five stitches were laced through one of the wounds they’d carved you,
you stopped impersonating roadkill and gargoyles too.
Instead I gazed up at you from two storeys below
as you gazed back forlornly
through the glass of your window
the whole room bathed in amber.
In the early December mornings
mist clung to our words
fog spilled out as we breathed so our figures became just as vague,
just as hazy.
I longed to melt the icy exterior
you had accumulated throughout winter
so I raged and fumed,
hot steam billowing between our eyes
and suddenly it was you who was bellowing
thawing and melting into
liquid amber -
alive and lucid
(the ant was freed)
and I ran away with tears foaming at the corners of my eyes,
wanting to throw up and throw it all away and throw myself over the edge and -
In the misty January evenings
I gazed at your empty room from two storeys below
wondering who would move in and replace you,
praying that I would forget you one day
(I never did)
After all the times you spent as a victim,
dead and still as roadkill, as gargoyles,
the soft fleeting words -
defenceless and submissive,
the years you spent waiting for the ravenous boys
to grow bored of your lifeless corpse
they finally did;
and in turn you grew bored of me,
left me in a flurry of oil-black feathers.
You became a raven
and flew away with your flock.
(I held the scars you left me with so tight
that they crushed my heart
marking it with jagged x’s
now I could pretend I was an angel
and it was you who ripped my wings out)
When I was seventeen
and you were long gone,
I’d watch the clockhands spin
and wonder where the tides would take me.
I was alive
(but only just)
and after you left nothing changed.
(I guess we switched places while I wasn’t looking
all I saw from then on was stained amber)
Literature
offerings from the day
a gift: despair & sunlight
loving me wrong
climax compels a risk
be it love, an ache,
teeth transforming,
the extinct alone
the isle path hatches into
toying labyrinth into
electric current into
hedgerow growing roses
finally still
I am wrong (a gift)
repentance tastes like shame to the tangled
a little magic outspread
cry doubt on a disgusting moon
my body holds a tempest
my mouth holds a century
Literature
SHORT STORY. (A day in the life of One Direction)
"Ahahahaha! Guys, Stahahahahap!"
Louis walked into the living room to see an amusing scene. Zayn and Niall had Harry pinned down, tickling the daylights out of him, while Harry laughed and squirmed. "Stop Guys, he looks like he's dying." Louis chuckled. Zayn and Niall reluctantly released him, while Harry sat up panting and giggling slightly.
"You guys are the worst." Harry said glaring at the two. The two lads chuckled. "Didn't know you were so ticklish Haz." Louis said with a smirk. "Don't act like you aren't." Harry spat at him. "I'm not!" Louis lied. "He's lying guys, look at his face." Zayn said with a smirk. "Shall we test it?" Niall
Literature
self-organized
the fatal attraction of civil mysticism and the ingenuity of the perfect aspect ratio fit me into my corner so I could cube myself and bloom under pressure never ending as expected new cubbyholes to place in my belly filled with grief and relief for the mes no one wants to see.
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March '14
This is a redo of an older poem [Broken Wing and Broken Promises] I did a few years ago that I'll put in my 'Old' folder eventually
I think most of the imagery is clear enough but the insect in amber represents someone being stuck in a situation unable to escape
You can take the narrator to be a childhood friend or his childhood in general, it is supposed to be a coming-of-age poem but from the p.o.v of the person left behind
My old poems were far more story-based, I don't know which I prefer...
This is a redo of an older poem [Broken Wing and Broken Promises] I did a few years ago that I'll put in my 'Old' folder eventually
I think most of the imagery is clear enough but the insect in amber represents someone being stuck in a situation unable to escape
You can take the narrator to be a childhood friend or his childhood in general, it is supposed to be a coming-of-age poem but from the p.o.v of the person left behind
My old poems were far more story-based, I don't know which I prefer...
© 2014 - 2024 comatose-comet
Comments2
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I don't think my cold and tiny heart can ever love this as much as it deserves, but I try my best. 
Usually when I see a longer piece of writing, I start to scan after a few lines because I grow impatient, I really want to know the story or meaning, and most of the sentences just feel like petty packaging around it. But not with this one. Not at all. I read it as slow as I could from start to finish (without even a hint of impatience) because every piece of imagery, every little word in this is beautiful and I had to savour it. (I'm dead serious, I even formed some of those words with my mouth while reading, and I didn't do that in primary school) Especially the atmosphere is so wonderful and strong, I felt really close to the events of which you narrate and got swept away. I thank you so much for writing this (and I'm terribly sorry for the long comment, I was speechless after reading and overcompensated)
Here, please let a random stranger give you a hug on the internet because you are a genius.
Usually when I see a longer piece of writing, I start to scan after a few lines because I grow impatient, I really want to know the story or meaning, and most of the sentences just feel like petty packaging around it. But not with this one. Not at all. I read it as slow as I could from start to finish (without even a hint of impatience) because every piece of imagery, every little word in this is beautiful and I had to savour it. (I'm dead serious, I even formed some of those words with my mouth while reading, and I didn't do that in primary school) Especially the atmosphere is so wonderful and strong, I felt really close to the events of which you narrate and got swept away. I thank you so much for writing this (and I'm terribly sorry for the long comment, I was speechless after reading and overcompensated)
Here, please let a random stranger give you a hug on the internet because you are a genius.