Saccharine Fire - A Poetry Thread

[Kiki]

The First Suspension

And you say quietly, pensive, “The dream is collapsing.”
But darling, hasn’t it only begun?

I’m afraid you can’t hold me.
Not physically. You have arms, I know that.
I mean all of me. The wilding, bucking, challenging, testing me.
Can anything hold in a hurricane?

The darkness cracks me open.
Like a smashed egg.
Crying into the dark.

I’ll never be able to stir you awake
Not as others have done so.

As night fades, so does my hope.

[Kiki]

March

The ache
like
watery cold that settles into the bones.
Rainwater.

I've got messy hair
and a thirsty heart
And I don't know which to solve first.

What can I say
that will knock you sideways?

Coax me back.
Warm me.
Tell me it's almost over. Show me the
d a y b r e a k
and say
"The clouds will pass. This is only temporary."

[Kiki]

Too much energy.
White-knuckled on the couch. Fetal position on the bed. I can't bring myself to get up.
There's a storm brewing in the center of my chest.

And he don't know what the storm entails
but somehow he's thrilled by it.
Just more entertainment for somebody else.

I turn my eyes up, skyward,
But I ain't talking to a God. I'm talking to myself.
And the words just repeat - a mantra. Over
and over
and over.

This goes beyond uncomfortable
I feel downright murderous.
But my criminal intent never gets past me
as I turn it inward.

The energy crawls in the layers of my skin.
Were I weather,
This is the part
where
the lightning

s
t
r
i
k
e
s.

[Kiki]

The Lighthouse

Like ships in the night
We've passed many times before
The significance of which only now
Draws me to your shore.

Perhaps within the same room
Perhaps in the same breath
We've rubbed shoulders metaphorically
But never in the same bed.

And you're drawn to my light
As I am drawn to you
Who says you can't have all you want
With something of a view?

So I shower you with sunshine
And we bathe within the glow
Of something new, but not so foreign,
Something scary, but we know.

So I'll stand here like a lighthouse
Gazing at sea just like your eyes
Wanting, wishing, hoping,
That the passion never dies.

For I stand here tall upon this ledge
Strong, and made of unfeeling blocks
My will on the horizon guiding you
So you don't smash upon the rocks.

[Kiki]

The Splendid Word

How much of me can I hide (from you)
before it becomes lying?

I've given up being a liar
but not in finding loopholes.

How many empty glasses can I stare at
over the weekend(s)
and wonder -
Just how much longer?

I don't want to need (you)
I don't want to feel helpless.

What is the point then?
To fill the middle? The void? The darkness
is insatiable and if that's your hope
we best pack it in now.
You'll only be another far-flung hope.

[Kiki]

Indentation

And she doesn't know but when she leaves
Suddenly the silence of her departure is deafening.

How did I live in the quiet so long?

Her raucous nature
It permeates every hole I've ever claimed to feel safe in
Like the rushing tide
The water filling up a chamber
No crook or cranny left un-tampered with.

I can taste the salt in the back of my throat.

It started as a whisper on the wind
But now it's screaming at me
Her voice.

I love you.

Every day does not have to be a roaring exaltation, an exclamation,
But I feel we may get lost in the monotonous lolling of the ocean
We might forget the pleading
She might not know.
She might leave.
And I hope she knows, that I'll crack if she does. I'll snap. Break.

I'll be dust if he leaves. I'll be forgotten. I'll forget.

Forsaken.

Lost. Adrift. Wasted.

I want to spill my guts all over the sidewalk. The prettiest picture for a vulnerable act.

Maybe then she'd know.

[Kiki]

Hostage

I glimpse off, stare at the horizon
just to avoid your gaze. I doubt my abilities.
I doubt myself because of you. It's what
you've instilled in me: failure.
You sow your ugliness when I think how
far I've come only you nag how far I still
have to go.
I lose faith that I will get there.

You're a hateful bitch. When did the
tenderlings of maternal nature subside?
When did you start to harbor you
jealousy?

I wish I could throw back my head and
laugh at you at your pettiness. But it only
wounds me.
The deception that you invaded me with
that I'm never good enough. I need to do
more. Be more. Say more. More accolades.
More success. More.more.more.

I tout a hefty pile of success, present it to
you, try to hesitantly welcome you into
days celebrating my success
and you only rear back and spit venom in my face.
Tear me down.

What good is a trophy, another medal,
an additional degree to a mother who only
finds her daughter just below par?

[Kiki]

Moxie

This feeling only crashes rather than undulate.
Unmoored from my foundation,
I fall headlong into you.
Careening fully into the darkness.

The notion is preposterous
As an offense to the scheme of things
Out on a limb
And yet here I sit again
Within this darkness
Filled to the brim.

I'm sincere for the first time in a long time.

I stare peaceable at you though there's a storm brewing
One that draws me into the riptide
Nervous, this lip I'm constantly chewing.
I get tossed out again. It's a crime.
What am I? Nothing.
Just a fish on the line.

I tried to envision your face when he yells.
It's feeble at best,
But it helps.

I steel my insides when I hear the door.
It's a work in progress,
And I just want more.

I draw strength from somewhere.
The first breath of your voice,
Trapped in my ears, my hair.

From the last time I said I loved you,
It was from the safety of my bed.
And it spins 'round and 'round the mental drain,
A proclivity in my head.

I get threatened to change,
Pushed to be inauthentic,
But the darkness only seems more attractive to me.

I grow in my strength each time.
"You don't scare me."

[Kiki]

Childish Entreat

When you ask me what I want
It's hard to be concise
True love's never easy to explain
As it comes with such a price

Of honesty and truth
As I said from the beginning I would give
Not knowing it would be thrown back at me
Making it that much harder to live

With myself
As if guilt was a commodity for me
Feelings of inadequacy, shame
Only add to the grief

So when you ask me what I want
It's much harder to just say
I want you now, I want you then
Each and every day

My striving for honesty
Falls on only your deaf ears
The small chiding voice in my head
Only reaffirming all my fears

I just wanted to be happy for a while
That seemed too easy to keep
If dreams are all I have now
You can find me in my sleep.

[Kiki]

Motted Gilding

Saturday is nothing but a crumbled paper in the stack of a thousand others like it
I've tossed carelessly in the corner of the room.

I've been awake all night, but the sun still greets me
with a mixture of stabbing knives in my eyes
and a pleasured release of air.

Smelling of last night's whiskey, Sunday has come to me.

We both breathed in, and by the time that inhale transformed into an exhale,
I was yours, and you were mine. A soft greeting. Nothing more than an exchange of glances.

Sunday is a stripping off. A cleanse. I feel the pounding of my head
I know I drank too much last night
but it was a necessity.

And as Sunday's morning fog burns off
and the day is exposed to me,
I fall into the night with a rush of hope, for a new week has come to me.

I greet the evening with a soft smile, a suppressed desire -
a design is already at work.

Fall into the light of a thousand stars, dreams into the nightmares,
I'm awoken from the choked breath caught in my throat.
It's no matter - it's lost now.

Last night's laughter is still in my hair, like dewdrops on leaves,
but my hope is already content on today.
Fallen nonsense, you pull me with you,
"It's Sunday," you say, and I nod with you. Another stolen glance
another silent affirmation. We've made it this far. Another week gone.

Soft heirloom quilts hold in the dreams of tomorrow, on this Sunday at the edge of today
in shades I can't quite describe. It's here where promises have been made. It's none too surprising
that I lay with them,
every Sunday. Clutching them as I come down
from last night's heavy, blackout imbibement.

I hold the hangover gently, as I would your hand
for both are fragile,
and my mental stability,
hinges on both.

Sunday, love.