poets lie, but I’m not a poet a stream of consciousness or some shit by emma
1.this morning I woke up with my face stuck to the pages of crush by richard siken the pages were kind of crumpled but that’s okay because crumpled pages are important my face was kind of crumpled too ((but that’s just every morning really, it only takes ten seconds to fasten it back up around the edges and pretend it was that way all along)) carry on self-deprecate pretend you’re not proud of the things you’re proud of just in case someone thinks you’re wrong for being proud of them I don’t even know any more if it’s compliment fishing or if it’s genuine self-doubt or what I don’t know I think it’s both I don’t know but in any case, as long as someone keeps telling me they don’t want me to throw my drawings out the window I’ll keep drawing them and that’s bullshit and I wish I could cut myself off and not care but if I draw something and there’s no-one else to see it, did I really draw it? here’s my attention-seeking heart, please cut it out for me please teach it how not to care I’d really appreciate that
to be honest, one day I’ll probably get sick of everything and crumple up all the pages and throw them out the window and throw myself out after them, reciting siken all the way down until my body hits the concrete and I hope enough people read the obituary
2.the idea of you still makes me feel faintly sick and I don’t want to write about all that domestic crap three years of you deluded me into cause fuck that shit, a life that doesn’t change that doesn’t move or travel I’m still trying and failing to comprehend what the hell was going through my head I don’t want to write about that. I want to write about this beatnik sensibility, this 3am-on-the-streets-of-florence feeling if I could have a night like this in every city I travel to I’d die richer than anyone who has ever lived keep tipping shots of jack down my throat keep pushing the bike over I want ten thousand nights of this ten thousand cities I want ten thousand mornings still full of stars
3.I swear to god I will drench your past in petrol my darling my darling my darling no I’ll strike the fucking match, I’ll build it from words and poems and conversations through the night and I’ll strike it when I kiss you and drop it when I say your name in your ear and everything and everyone who has ever hurt you will burn to ashes because no no no no no my darling no I will have fucking flamethrowers for hands if it will stop this my darling my darling no no no I wish I could find something else to say but I’m so fucking angry and so fucking sad that those are the only words I can push through my twisted teeth and I hope you understand and I know you understand maybe your pillow has heard them enough times too maybe the dents in your walls have felt your fists scream them I want to shoot them as bullets from my tongue and I wish I could do more than just whisper them through shaking lips no no no my darling no
4.you asked me how to fall out of love with someone who has forgotten you and I told you I wasn’t sure but I think I’m getting there it’s replacing the memories, building new ones it’s time, but not just time you let pass watching the clock and the calendar and wondering what biological failure somewhere inside you has caused you not to have moved on yet it’s not just the days and the months and the decades
you have to grab that time by the fucking throat and squeeze
I want a million more people to fall in love with you I want you to fly a thousand miles and see city lights spread out like blood vessels from thirty thousand feet I want you to know how it feels to get high on a balcony in florence in the witching hour and see a light come on in a window across the street and think aw, there’s a person there with their whole own life and thoughts and it’s all so different to yours and it’s all so crazy fall in love with life and fall in love with moments like this, angel until there is no room for him in your heart any more
and if all else fails, the satellite muscle cells that pump your blood will die and be replaced and white blood cells live a little more than a year, red blood cells just four months so your heart will be a whole new entity soon anyway.
5.there’s a woman who strides through my head in high heels and red lipstick but I’m not sure if I know her. I don’t think I do she isn’t scared and I don’t think I know anyone who isn’t scared you say I’m a poem and sometimes I get bored talking to you but mostly I get terrified because touch can be ambiguous but text is always explicit I can tear you apart and climb inside your skin no problem no problem at all but I can’t TELL you (take my childhood fears and add a splash of sex) (because I never used to let anyone read anything I wrote even ten years ago, even fifteen) (even then when I could barely hold a pencil) (it’s the same kind of self-conscious and it’s everywhere it’s in everything I write and draw and it’s in my words when I tell you I can’t sing because then it makes it okay when I sing anyway – and sometimes it escapes and sits on my stomach rolls when you’re fucking me on the bathroom sideboard) and how fucking ridiculous to pretend to call myself a poet when something falls out of my chest every time I think about having to spell out the humming in the bottom of my stomach when I think about your skin but I think about the woman and I paint my lips and press send and pretend I’m her because some nights I can almost believe it myself because she will climb inside your skin and be gone when you wake in the morning and so will I.