I want to kiss you so
badly my lips burn like cigarettes.Sitting next to you is
torture if I can’t feel your skin against mine, even briefly.I want to back you up
against a wall and explore your mouth with mine.The smallest touches
make me want more, but I know you cannot give it to me.Kissing you would
mean breaking the façade I’ve held for so long.I savor every small
moment we have together as if I will be dead by tomorrow.If people paid more
attention they would notice just how much you mean to me.I want to feel your
cold hands against my burning skin.I need you more than
you know.~The innermost thoughts of Andrew Minyard and Neil Josten
Tag: poetry
i. I absolutely cannot stand the snares of your hands,
or how I catch myself on your barbed wire mouth,
when I choke on your gasoline voice,
or cut myself on your switchblade fingers.
I loathe these weapons of yours more than I loathe the actual tangible knifes you keep hidden under your sleeves.
I hate that somebody did something so awful to you that you were forced to wear hatred as a second skin.
I hate myself more that I wasn’t there to shield you from it.ii. I wonder how different our lives would be if we had been switched.
Me: Andrew.
You: Aaron.
Me: Given up on.
You: Kept.
Would everything turn out the same? Would we have led completely different lives? Would we be broken again? Made whole?
(Would she have hit you, too?)
(Would he have used me, too?)iii. I hear the way people talk about you when you’re not there.
Like you’re this awful thing.
Like they’ve taken a bite out of you and realized you’ve gone bad in the middle.
When they speak, they’re trying to get the taste of you out of their mouths,
Spitting and spitting until there’s nothing left to expel.
Sometimes I want to say something.
Sometimes I want to argue.
But we come from the same batch, after all.
How can I argue when I taste just as bad as you do?iv. I went to the Circle K around the corner one night and bought myself a pack of cigarettes: the same brand you use.
I stood outside and popped one in my mouth,
lit it with unpracticed hands.
I had seen you do this so often,
I thought maybe it would come almost naturally, like I had been the one catching fire to things all these years instead of you.
But the weight of it felt so wrong between my fingers,
the motions unfitting for me,
the taste acidic and raw and awful.
It reminded me too much of him—of that stray dog that follows you around all day—and less like you,
less like home.
I’m trying to understand this. I’m trying to be okay with you-and-him.
But there are some things that people shouldn’t get in the way of. This was one of them.
The box cost $7.89 and screamed your name. I didn’t even hesitate when I threw it away.v. Every once and a while I’ll dream about that night.
Sometimes it’s me instead of you, or I can’t move at all and I’m forced to watch, or I beat him over and over but he keeps getting back up.
Either way, the entire time you’re just laughing.
Like I told a joke and you think it’s the funniest thing in the world.
I’m beating him to death and sloshing his blood around and you’re laughing like you’re at a comedy show.
Whenever I wake up from those dreams, I never want to sleep ever again.vi. I never understand our fights.
Normal people throw around words they don’t mean and slam doors they would usually leave ajar.
But us?
We fight like our lives are on the line.
We fight like it’s a race and there’s only one winner.
You leave me aching and I leave you waterlogged.
We become such ferocious animals, all sharp teeth and heavy claws, ripping and tearing without a care to give.
The entire world comes to a stop when we have even the slightest disagreement,
a spotlight shining down to showcase our own personal brand of hate.
I sometimes wonder if that’s us making up for lost time.
All those years we never got to spend fighting like brothers.
Maybe we’re finally making up for that.
Maybe we’re trying to meet our quota before our time is up.
Before we can’t fight anymore.vii. One time when you weren’t looking, I stole one of your pills.
I saved it for when you wouldn’t be around and swallowed it dry, felt it run down my throat.
I thought that if they made you smile all the time, maybe they’d make me smile, too.
But all I felt was this hallow ache in my chest,
like something bad had grabbed hold of me from the inside.
I was used to flying high, higher than most people would dream to go,
But this was just wrong on so many levels.
It lasted only four hours before I started to wind down, but that was one of the longest four hours of my life.
I wasn’t happy. But I smiled anyway. I couldn’t stop. My cheeks hurt after.
I think I understood you a little better after that day.viii. I voted to name your cat Sir Fat Cat McCatterson. And I’m not even sorry.
ix. (I’m sorry.)
x. I love you.
Ten Things Aaron Wants To Tell Andrew (But Never Will)
They call you a monster with a sneer on their lips like just the thought of you is bitter. They say it with a grin of fake fondness, a joke that you’ve never laughed at. They say it and it doesn’t bother you. Nothing bothers you anymore.
You were a child once. You were a child with golden hair and wide, hazel eyes full with excitement and wonder. Once you wore a smile on your mouth that wasn’t twisted by madness; it was easy and joyful because the world hadn’t crumbled in on you yet. You were sunshine and warmth before they stripped you of your youthful innocence and left you raw and hurting.
You think about how you’ve always had more tears on your cheeks than a smile gracing your lips. You think about how you know the taste of blood in your mouth, the crunch of your own broken bones, the raw flame of being torn apart from the inside out. You wish you could forget.
You’ve been screaming since you were small and you’ve never stopped.
They think it’s a war cry and you don’t tell them differently.
You’ve torn yourself into pieces to try and keep people who don’t want you. You’re used to the ache of broken promises, familiar and old as time. You do not break your promises. You expect others always do.
You were gentle once. A baby bird had fallen from a tree and you placed it in a shoe box. You couldn’t leave it because it’s helpless cries reminded you too much of yourself. You stroked its tiny head and nursed it back to health and set it free. It flew away and you were jealous. You’d been wishing you had wings for years.
You are too much and the world hates it. You hate it too. There’s too much feeling in your chest for your brother, for your cousin, for two boys who trust you to protect your lives and all you can think is “I will do for you what I cannot do for me”.
You keep your promises and you bury your pain. You let them call you monster because it’s easier. You let them call you soulless because it’s easier. You would much rather see their hatred than the pity you know would come in it’s stead.
-you’re not a monster, you’re a shield, c.k.b.
He smelled like hope in the cracks of the darkness.
Which was odd, because he thrived in it.
i.
mornings are stuttering things.
there’s the sun, slow and creeping as it pulls up;
there’s the quiet, subtle and soft enough to be notable;
and then there’s you, with heavy bones and that sinking feeling.the first moments are such unsure things—
where are you, exactly? is the skin you’re in your own today?
your memory is perfect, your mind is not;
everything is hazy and spinning, and you have to orient yourself.
this is the routine.you never know whether you’ll wake up and be yourself.
but the sun always rises.ii.
he is so—
fuck, he is so infuriating, that’s what he is.
he doesn’t know when to shut his mouth,
doesn’t care for seeing how high the risk is.
he’s a liar and a fool.
he feels like war,
(and he tastes like eden.)he’d walk through hell and back for you, you know?
he’d see it burning, maybe he even set the fire,
and he’d know it would hurt. how many times has he been burned?
you’ve seen his scars, he’s lived through the memory of them,
and he’d still walk straight through the flame for you.
he is reliable. a constant. he won’t change;
he is always going to be a problem.because you would do the same for him.
iii.
endings are something you are familiar with.
you’ve witnessed enough of them,
caused enough of them,
come close to having enough of them.
life is so fickle, so fragile.a hammer hits a mirror, and the glass warps before it shatters.
those last moments are haunting, lilted.
like you— casually cruel.
it’s the shake and the shudder, the final plea.
the last of life is unforgivingly honest.
death is a stuttering thing.
sunrise, abram, death // es
(via reynclds07)
(via reynclds07)
i.
he’s problematic.
you know it, you know it, day one, you know.
he’s trouble in every sense of the word.
he’ll burn your whole world with no remorse
and you probably won’t even mind it, because hey,
it’d be interesting.
(he’d be interesting.)
you’ll watch your world turn to ash, and then
you’ll watch his eyes glow in the dancing flames.oh, the things he could do to you.
oh, the trouble he could cause you.ii.
of course, he’s a liar.
they’re all liars. no one’s honest, of course, of course.
definitely not him, definitely not you.
but he’s more than that, isn’t he?
because trouble doesn’t just lie, trouble
goes to lengths too far to mask the truth. trouble
is burned trails and locked safes and carefully dyed hair. trouble
is a past desperately buried, gasping, scared.trouble is a rabbit that knows all too well what it’s like for a fox to pounce on it.
(a fox,
like you.)iii.
he’s entertaining, right?
there’s always another surprise, always another secret.
there are skeletons under his bed and monsters in his closet,
smoke rising in his wake.
he’s a rabbit, he’s scared, he ought to be.
a man who can’t keep his mouth shut,
a man who doesn’t know when to quit,
a man who has stopped counting risks—a man like that has a target on his back,
and the bullet’s already been fired.iv.
he’s dangerous.
he’s too smart, too quick, too willing to walk through fire to save you.
(to save anyone, come on, where’d your perspective go)
when did he become the fox?he’s a liar but so are you, you know you are
(lying by omission is still lying, where’d your goddamn perspective go)
he’s working his way around all your secrets,
finding all the things you won’t say,
all the things you won’t admit,
not even to yourself.
it’s just twisted enough to feel right.v.
how long until you’ll admit it to yourself?
you’re not scared of heights, you’re scared of
falling, you’re scared of him.
you’re scared of what this is, of what this means.
you’re scared of the fact that you stick up for him, too, now,
scared of the fact that you’re seeing this sober,
feeling this sober.
scared that maybe this wasn’t a hallucination after all.you’ve never liked problems. problems are things to be dealt with,
in any way you see fit.
(you should stop that. he’s seen enough blood spilled in his life,
are you really going to add to that?)
he is a problem and it scares you.
he is a problem and a liar, but
you’re amused. you are, you know you are,
you’re amused you’re entertained you’re scared.you have a list of things that he is.
that is not nothing.admit it.
i. over and over i’ve told myself: i can’t find a home in a person.
i’ve thought it and whispered it and howled it so much
that it had become my own personal mantra:
i can’t find a home in a person.
it’s too dangerous.
i will break.
or you will break.
or we will break each other
and we won’t be able to put the pieces back together—
not in the same way—
we’ll both come out different than we were,
before we decided that “love” was a good idea.
there’s not much we can do to prevent that
other than stop it from happening in the first place.
so i don’t find homes in people;
in fact, i don’t find homes in much of anything anymore.
my cousin comes along and i think,
“he can’t be an exception. he’s family but he’s not
because he’s been absent for seventeen years.
but i still can’t hurt family, even if i’ve never seen them before,
because they’re family and you don’t fuck with family.
don’t get close. don’t take refuge in that.”
and it works. until it doesn’t.
some drunk assholes threaten my cousin’s safety
and the next thing you know,
i see red and i’m locked in juvie.
except: i’m fine with that.
anything to keep my distance, right?
anything to stop myself from finding a home in somebody.
but then my brother comes along and i think,
“he can’t be an exception either. he’s not me,
but he is at the same time,
and that’s worse than loving a stranger
because i can’t stand to see myself shatter twice.
keep him away. make him hate me. make him despise me.
anything, anything–
just don’t get close. don’t take shelter in him.”
and it works. until it doesn’t.
we’re the same but we’re not
and we’re more alike than we’d care to admit. we grow close.
we get attached. family is suddenly more than just an empty word
in the dictionary of my life.
except: i’m fine with that.
at least i got to delay the heartache, right?
but then YOU comes along. and i think,
“now he really can’t be an exception.
he’s nothing. no— less than nothing.
he’s just a boy — albeit a problematic one — but at the same time,
he feels like falling and i’m terrified of heights.
i’m not ready for this — for him —
for somebody who can make a difference in my life.
he wasn’t part of the plan.”
and it doesn’t work.
i find my home.
i’m pushed off that cliff,
and i fall
all
the
way
to
the
ground
(splat.)
(i knew finding a home in a person could be a dangerous thing– that it would hurt, that i would break or you would break or we would break each other.
but i wasn’t aware that it would hurt this badly.)ii. we had both disappeared in the modern age:
fell into nihility,
became nullity.
you had dropped your name and dropped yourself in the process:
practiced shrinking; mastered not-existing;
took up muteness and swallowed down your clamors.
while you were running away from the life you never had,
i was busy taking refuge in myself,
and grasping the technique of speaking without talking.
i stayed holed up in bedroom after bedroom,
juvie cell after juvie cell,
closing my eyes and pretending i was anywhere but there.
you stayed on the road,
i stayed in my head.
until the people we once knew forgot our names and faces,
until we were both a distant figure
in the rearview mirrors of their lives.
until “andrew” and “nathaniel” weren’t people.
until nobody cared.
until nobody asked.
we were gone.
we were ghosts.
we were lost.
we were lost.
until–
we were found.iii. i don’t believe in god,
but i swear every time your hips
meet mine,
i feel so magnificent and blessed and ethereal,
i think that maybe we are something holy and good:
apart of a greater plan
that we cannot even begin to understand our place in.
i will scream your name like a invocation to god himself,
and summon a convocation
of everything sacrosanct and divine,
until all the heavens knows your goddamn name.
neil, neil, neil, neil, god yes, neil, neil, neil
neil, neil, neil,
neil, neil,
neiliv. a lament for icarus:
i look at you and sometimes wonder,
“how did icarus not see it coming?”
he loved the sun, sure.
she’s bright and brilliant and so impossibly blinding that it’s hard
not to bestow yourself to her.
but you’d have to be stupid not to see how dangerous she could be;
how easily you could be taken advantage of;
how easily you could get burned.
it’s an ever-present threat, looming just over the horizon.
and yet– icarus crashed and burned and died and now poets can’t stop singing his song.
sometimes i think that,
sure, icarus loved the sun,
but maybe that was the point.
maybe he was tired of breathing without living—
tired of inhibiting a body that he felt like a house-guest in.
maybe icarus didn’t forget his wings were constructed of wax.
maybe he just didn’t care.
maybe he saw the sun and saw everything else the world had to offer,
and decided that ‘everything else’ just wasn’t good enough.
because I, too, look at you and think,
“yeah. i’d burn for you. any day, any time, i’d burn for you.”
‘everything else’ is just an afterthought.v. love
/ləv/
noun
1. background noise
2. too many emotions, not enough words
3. valentine’s gimmick
4. hallmark card
5. stay.
6. don’t go.
7. welcome home.
3/? Five Things Andrew Wants To Tell Neil (And Eventually Will) Part One, Part Two (via deadravenkings )
metaphors on your tongue,
anaphora on your hips.
alliteration laces your lovely lips.
euphony cupped in your palms,
allegories down your spine.
symbols, apostrophe, metonomy, all of them mine.
your body is poetry (p.b)
Richard Siken
there is a difference
between wanting nothing
and not wanting anything.the first is a longing
for the kind of absolution only
death can buy / a desperation for
the end because the in-between is
cruel and you are so tired.you live your life
around nothing, until ‘nothing’
becomes a boy with a jigsaw past and an
attitude problem / until ‘nothing’ becomes
palms pressed to the back of shivering
necks / until it becomes yes or no and always
and stay and a key traced into skin.‘nothing’ ceases to be an abyss, forgets
how to be void / ‘nothing’ keeps you warm
at night, ‘nothing’ holds you steady,
‘nothing’ trusts you, ‘nothing’ begins to love you.nothing becomes many things.
and for once?
you want everything.
l.s. | NOTHING HOLDS YOU STEADY (LIKE HE DOES) © 2016
Nothing but My Aching Soul 