With hesitation do I dedicate to the half-empty,
but there's a vision of a girl I can't quite shake:
up to her Achilles tendons in rambunctious folds
of rank, grabby, carnivorous sea.
Disgruntled and shivering, but there all the way.
She’s the rare bird convinced of common feathers,
not so much ugly duckling as self-deprecating swan,
never so bold as to lock eyes with the water
for fear of seeing herself in clearest view,
and never seeing for sure that she’s a heart of beauty.
Not that she cares, anyways.
She's got the sappiest music taste—
though I’m not supposed to know that, either—
characterized by aplenty
of heartfelt bangers we loved in youth and pretended to be over.
She's no Mr. Brightside.
But ****, when she cleans up...
The only silver lining she believes in is her sharp-edged contour,
cutting as the retort she’s got ******* on the pulse of.
She just doesn’t need to shout to prove it.
I've the off-and-on friend who resents without saying,
no words to spare when she's busy as of late struggling to breathe.
The silence I took for elegance is suffocation,
but at least black lung is still the vogue, I’ve heard?
And through the struggle comes a wicked perfection:
the ability to lay waste with a whisper,
and revere only in the rawest quiet.
Her humor, sometimes for the offensive,
is the most potent sense of feeling
that doesn’t take looking at her own self.
She as herself could light up a room.
If only it weren’t so much easier to fall short.
Because never would she outwardly want to be on someone’s mind,
(little does she know she jumps to the forefront of mine)
yet in that same reluctant, teeth-grinding urge she denies herself
in the desire to find her good lighting,
I have in the desire to let her know she is beloved.
But to tell someone they’re poetry to you is a pin in the grenade
that these budding wisdom teeth just can’t grasp.
She’s there now in the sea I still liken to her eyes.
Windows to the soul akin to a place she hates,
just as capable of resentment.
All I know is I’ll be torn asunder if she loses herself
beneath the brine of a bottle or the message of faux-hope within it.
In a churning silence of the drink,
there’s no honest sentiment with which to compare.
Lost at sea, with no quality control,
fool’s gold is such a fine, agonizing release.
Yet on she heads, carving mountains in her path, for a swill.
Still, every time I see her again,
I know I’ll never help loving her some,
while I pretend there's comfort in the fact
that most of us had to sink before learning to swim.
Dedicated to Mere. All of her.
Symptoms may include:
Anxiety, restlessness, or a sense of apprehension.
Blue-tinged lips
Rapid, irregular heartbeat
Cold, clammy skin
A feeling of suffocating or drowning that worsens when lying down
Difficulty walking uphill, which progresses to difficulty walking on flat surfaces
