By Jason

So when you ask me why I cannot love you more calmly, I answer that to love you calmly is not to love you at all.

Jeanette Winterson, from The PowerBook (via lifeinpoetry)

Her fingers moving fast & brutal as if mapping blue edges of the unseen sky.

This is what it means to really want something. Her open mouth an iris ringed

with desperation deeper than shame. You’ll forsake everything if only to be real—

— Natalie Wee, from “Mirror,” Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines

My friend makes me a mix CD and it’s the only thing that will keep me both  grounded and above ground for the next few weeks. But,  I don’t know this yet. Right now, all I know is that I must’ve walked through a fist fight in my sleep – I have the bruises, the bloodshed, but none of the glory. All I know is that I am a week of my worst days doused in gasoline. And somewhere, someone is standing with a matchbox in hand, waiting.

A.Y. // STARTING FIRES (via 2wentysixletters)

Tell me, Atlas.

You’re standing in a room you used to know so well, a hand on the doorframe when it starts. The walls blur and your shirt’s off; there’s a hand reaching for your waist. Almost an invitation. Almost something more. How many times has this body been almost touched? The world rights itself and you’re past the first exhibit. You move inside, past the books, the poems, the lists you almost finished. You’re sitting on the edge of a bed when it hits you again: a mouth on your mouth, a hand on your thigh. Almost an argument. Almost a mistake. You could call this the exhibit of personal significance. You move toward the window, making note of the sideshows playing out around you. The time you almost saw the streets of Spain. All the nights you almost saw the sun rise. All the times you almost reached out to someone but didn’t. Your mind’s moving someplace else now, to a series of snapshots. Eyes in different colors, blurry faces thrown back in laughter, hands poised around drawing pencils. Freckles on shoulder caps, tattoos in small corners of the body. Tell me, how many people have you almost loved?  Call this the art gallery. Call this the main attraction.

Kelsey Danielle, “Call Me a Series of Almosts” (via pigmenting)

skin the poet

skin open the poet to find out how books have been deceiving you: not all hearts pump blood; some, expand in rhymes & contract in line breaks.

skin open the poet to confirm the rumor that between the liver & the spleen lives a tiny being; an imp, absent in daydreams -a social drinker- & a lover of the sax.

1.- take the poet's arm, & rip off a tear of skin. behold a waterfall of metaphors soak your shoes in summer's breeze.

2.- on a surgical table, lay your poet down in such way that his pointy nose threats to drill into the ground.   & with the help of a sharp knife, split the meadow on his back into two nations that might have lost it all in war. proceed then to spread open these lands, & discover that a poet's spine abides as marble columns once did in falling rome: oh the burn or the glory? 3.- light a match & heat the poet's earlobes to 95 °. careful, the smoky smell of blue winter shades might stupefy your brains   whilst the poet's head gets caught in flames. if so: no stress, your poet's mouth muscles might stretch into a smile, but do keep in mind it's just an involuntary contraction. or not.

4.- once the fire's out & the buzzcut's ready, grab your baseball bat & crack the poet's tibia by the half. hollow bones & secret chambers. see that rolled up paper hidden in there? take it out & read it to the skies; correct, it is nothing but the transcripts of the poet's conversations with the moon. tally marks for bleeding hearts.  

5.- as a final act of this medical extravaganza, severe the poet's head & hold it between your hands. do you feel it slowly floating, as if being drawn toward the clouds?   stitch the head back in place using a silver needle & a thread of slurred speech. remember poets heal on empty illusions & broken things.

that is all for poetic anatomy 101...   ...now wake up the poet.

- @skinthepoet 

An excerpt from the poem Happy Poem by Sean Glatch (@7-weeks​); featured in his debut poetry collection 4:41 | buy it here!

it goes too fast. 

hi again, tumblr