strings of pearls and breath by Pretty-As-A-Picture, literature
Literature
strings of pearls and breath
underwater they are mermaids. patterns of poolwater-caught sunshine dancing in soft-edged white upon their long legs (tails). red hair like ocean fire and fingers ever reaching for the bubbles, like pearls but from out their mouths. darting up between their fingers.
there are places here, beneath here, beneath the sound of their mother yelling at their father and the loud rough of the neighbours dogs bark, where they can breathe. breathe the dead leaves in water whirlpools beneath their feet and breathe the chlorine, leaving eyes red and hair green at the tips. breathe the quiet of their bodies and their imagined underwater world
my mouth is filling with sand by Pretty-As-A-Picture, literature
Literature
my mouth is filling with sand
my brother used to tell me to hold my breath until i could hear the ocean in my head. and i did, it was a soft roar of sky fighting sea. eventually when my eyes rolled back like waves, he would make me breathe so i didn't drown.
he was always there to tell me to breathe out but now he is gone and i am forgetting how to.
we were very young when our father died (fell from a cliff photographing the moon) and our mother started dating the milkman. he was gangly man with white hair but otherwise very handsome. we didn't mind him at all. he made our mother smile and brought warm milk every night. but we missed our father and his stories about sta
01.
We met at the singles' line at the amusement park.
"Looks like you have no one to ride with either, huh?" he asks.
I nod and back away shyly. He takes a step closer.
"Look! It's our turn!" he says, and before I can argue I'm led to the very front row of the roller coaster and buckled-in tightly. The straps feel like shackles and suddenly it's hard to breathe. He notices my anxiety and smiles. I notice that the right corner of his lip is raised slightly higher than the left.
"Don't be scared," he reassures me as the trains makes its slow climb up the metal rails. He smiles asymmetrically again. "Take a chance."
I want to tell him I t
you mapped out every inch of my being & whispered:
when i leave you, i want the next set of hands
to know everywhere i've been.
i still fall asleep with my body curved into
the shapes your fingertips trailed across my skin.
there are paths of stars stained into my shoulders
and the constellations you crafted are still nameless.
i tingle at the ghost of your touch,
i am tangled in the web of worries
you wove into my lion's mane.
you are a saber-toothed regret,
a raindrop in the ocean of my imagination.
forgetting you is the hardest thing i've never done.
i will ache for you always.
1. I sat, holding on to your hand like you would leave me if I let you go. The summer sun kissed your skin and i watched your clear blue eyes move between the sky and the sea. It was a perfect moment, but it's a moment you try to forget.
2. I've listened to you speak like your life is a waste, like every breath is one too many. I've pleaded that you understand the value of this gift. And you got to watch me stutter, trying, searching to find a good reason to keep you on this earth. I begin to cry and shake when countless reasons enter my head but i can't find the right words.
3. Those sharp white scars in your tan skin are tally marks of se
for Daniela Jara's 20th birthday on 6.21.04
three days from now
she will rise up to the playground of angels
fighter jets and zeppelins
burst open the door
translate her body into an equation
of one–hundred twenty pounds moving
nine–point–eight meters per second per second
and tumble from heaven
because she wants to taste the sky
on her birthday
this is the part of the poem
where I should drop metaphors
about falling in love with her
or how she's already fallen from heaven once
or something about shooting stars
or glass ceilings
but this isn't a love poem
I said I would fall alongside her
stretch out fingers to find her
fa
I fell in love with a boy who had greasepaint flowing through his veins. Like a clown, his mouth was constantly curved into a wide grin and he laughed, laughed at everything around him. Rainy days and concrete towers, a woman dropping her keys, a streetlight that did not work. He saw everything as a joke and in turn the world became his circus. When we’d wait for the bus, he’d balance on the garden walls as if it was a tightrope, arms outstretched for balance and feet awkwardly placed. Waiters and unassuming cashiers became an audience for his acts, his merriment. Once, on a day when the city was bathed in grey, he bought me a hel
she found fennel beneath her pillow,
and felt the familiar flutter
of glassfish between her ribs.
to distract herself, she
scattered the reddest petals
in her bathwater.
she braided poppies in her hair
and, gasping,
let regret invade her lungs.
She's a dancer; you can tell by the way she stands,
with her chin held high, slim shoulders thrown back.
You can see it in the way she runs; on the balls of her feet,
light as a dandelion seed, ready to fly far, far away.
She ties her hair back in a tight little knot at the nape
of her neck, but three little tendrils always manage
to escape and frame the delicate frame of her face.
The back of her leotard is covered in sand;
her leggings are pulled up to her knees.
She follows the coastline as though it is the long path home,
swaying with each swell and ebb of the tide.
Gravity is nothing and everything to her. She pauses