jadie0 - writings

jadie0

writings

the occasional musings of a minecraft salmon19 // she/her

31 posts

Latest Posts by jadie0

jadie0
6 days ago

shuffle

Shuffle

i think that when i saw something pleasing in the cut of your cheekbone and the cruel uptick of your lips, that i wanted something to call mine

and i knew you looked like someone who would hurt me but the all the tv shows in the world taught me that danger is exciting, and all the warnings in the world couldn’t stop me from getting in too deep

even though i never really lost anything, it sometimes feels like i lose everything, again and again

and i want to find that happiness, the sparkle of an eye and the softening of creases, i want

someone to make plans with, i want to be so in love that it’s disgusting, and all the tv shows in the world convinced me that to get to the happy ending, you were supposed to find love on the way

but i’ve kissed a couple guys, and none of them stayed, and as they fragment my trust and my perception of loyalty, 

i’ve more frequently stayed my hand, and perhaps a part of me looked at the patterns and recognized that something easy might not be in the cards

and that i was maybe unloveable or simply incapable of loving in any way recognizable by someone with the capacity to love me back

so i try to decline the danger to protect my heart from getting hurt, but its a self fulfilling prophecy, that when you don’t show your hand youre on the defensive

and it’s a perverse self-torture, but i imagine you reading these and knowing me, an exchange of understanding that doesn’t have to involve spoken words

so often buffered by meaninglessness and impulse

but there’s hurdle upon hurdle of expectation on reality and movement slow and fast, and besides, love isn’t real anymore but simply fighting, in a game that was never supposed to have sides

and once we draw, we reshuffle and try again 


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jadie0
3 weeks ago

smoke and mirrors

Smoke And Mirrors

i want you to make me pretty

unmake who i was beneath your hands

take all my soft parts and sharpen me

press me to you to find no curved edge

i want you to push down where it hurts

i want you to yield me a secret

you can’t break something already broken

i already know you'll never keep it

don’t ask to know me,

go on, make me anew

see me where no one has seen

i can pretend i was what you drew

look in the places that matter the least,

lick the tears from my cheeks and bite down

strip me to skin to skin, but

there will always be space, no matter how thin

i want you to taste me

take a day or two to wash the scent

miss me when i’m gone; won’t you?

convince me not to pretend

it isn’t kind, is it? to yourself, nor i

making mirrors and posing and refracting light

you can try, but we’ll never see eye to eye

even when silk drape isn’t on your mind

smoke and mirrors, painful prayer, nothing to see

you will never make a beggar of me


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jadie0
3 weeks ago

fine wine

Fine Wine

see me

strip me with your eyes

my witness to my life

break me

recreate me in your image

phyletic mental fission

taste me

twisted essence on your tongue

claw-foot decanter drunk

i want you to want me like a fine wine

a taste you cant get out of your mind

i wish you’d drink me down

and tell me that you’re mine

ruby splatter on a white shirt

the way your fingers make a clean cut

chanel on the collar that brushes my hip

a pornographic shine to your lips

press them to me

let me devour you

twin souls entangle to one

let me bury myself under your skin

stretch to make room for the fit

a flush to your cheeks

wandering eyes across the room meet

take a slow sip, go on, let me see

the things you’d do to me

if i were a fine wine

spilled carelessly on the bed

red bleeding like ink hair from my head

wrist pinned to the sheets

would i gasp,

would you plead,

we’d make a pretty picture, indeed


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jadie0
1 month ago

on spring

On Spring

pastel sunrise, mottled green

flower bloom, thawed stream

spring is upon us, the air is clean

crisp cloud cuts the sky

and there’s a gleam in your eye

an adventure there, and i want to follow

outstretched hand, t-shirts at dusk

grassy knoll, abandoned park

mosquitos buzz and bat them away

air cool and perfumed with the breeze of the day

and there’s a bed waiting when you get home

and the silence is warm when you’re alone

sky open above you and dizzy with fear

the grip of nostalgia never felt so real

until now, grass flat beneath your back

and sand between toes, pretty rock in backpack

teetering on the precipice of all you have known

at once still so young, at once so near grown

living felt stagnant but the answer was clear

every me nested in me, stacked years upon years

the coming of spring still awakens such thrill

and the promise of budding spreads dreams anew:

this was never a middle, as the pond is never still

but the beginning of everything, and everything that will


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jadie0
1 month ago

lucky charm

Lucky Charm

i would look at a text

thumbnail skitter over message, scroll,

and think that this must be how real people talk

i looked for the answers to the universe in the

scuff of nail polish on my desk, or

scried my future in the blue tint of

lucky charms milk,

but there was no supernatural to be found in the ordinary,

no simple magic to the daily

and i woke up before the sun rose, but even then i

couldn’t find anything to be happy about

or any beauty in the darkened world,

until the gray light crept over the sky, illuminating the ugliness

the bus stop smells, and

fetid streets, and

the ants on the counter, crawling over their dead friends’ bodies,

among the pesticidal waste

and i wonder if someone wished me out of existence,

or if maybe, it stuck, when you told me i couldn’t be real


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jadie0
1 month ago

temporary paralysis

Temporary Paralysis

maybe i need practice with heartbreak

maybe if i hold on i'll learn to let go

maybe good things were never destined for me

maybe futures aren't written in stone

i hate when things change

i want everyone to stay

people in my mind are unpredictable

and rarely comply to the rules of real life

it feels like a sort of self-harm,

to throw myself into it again

this cannot be good for me

every instinct tells me to protect,

every experience tells me to listen to my qualms

withdraw, reel back, just stop, deflect

my hope is incessant and endless,

don't talk to me if you don't want a fright

my spark of interest cannot be drowned

when i wake up and remember myself,

it will be you on my mind

until i create a caricature in my head

until i forget your face,

your actions wrought by shadowed features

memories in feeling, if not in sight

a day stretched into a year of groundhog memory

don’t hurt me, i want to tell everyone that talks to me

don't make me care for you when you won't care for me,

it will only make me hate you

and it only takes one night and one day

for nothing to be the same again


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jadie0
2 months ago

the world

The World

entropy must increase,

disorder in your brain

impossible to untangle in music

can’t sense-make nonsense and expect to gain

there’s got to be another way,

there’s a pounding in your head

there’s a solution, thermodynamically

excise the pain, release the dread

but when you stop running

all you hear is your breath

the sear in your lungs

pounding in your chest

stripped away, immortalized

beastly, energized

your face hot against warm water

the body is all that remains, unclothed

a shock to the eye,

stripped of ego, stripped of pride

curve of waist meets slant of thigh

without facade, it’s who you are

truths tantalizing and terrified

feared to face, close your eyes

but its you, you cannot hide,

so open.

see on wide;

the messy marks of an existence cried

unfortunately, agonizingly alive

smeared grease stains on phone screen

and passed a joke from video to friend

statistically significant,

node on the web of connection

sticky fingers push cheek,

mold skin to who you are

physical barriers between us,

but our minds touch, less individual

more undefined,

more unknown

split between the bodies of friends

and everyone i ever met

self-description entailed self-destruction

and a greater whole emerged from the mess

ridiculously vulnerable

a populace in fetal form

the world, it was me and you

the individual a self-serving lie

all born with fragile skin that breaks

all born from the same blue sky

all born vulnerable

to the world, expecting attack from all sides

i ran, and it worked, because entropy increased

but my energy went to another cause

a difficult pill to swallow,

that things don’t disappear when they're gone

the world is a closed system,

and we are who you are

and i fear you

and i love you

and you are me, and i am you

and when i see something i recognize

in the reflection in your eye,

and when i run and try to hide,

we are the world, it’s all around

it’s within me.


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jadie0
2 months ago

the heart

The Heart

i want to write poetry but there’s no words in my mouth

saliva foams to the surface and there’s no sink to spit it out

clogged with frustration and rage,

i tell you:

i stopped trusting myself a long time ago

the heart is not the guarantor of interest.

i go back, again and again

find solace in the cage,

my present moment unsatisfying, and yet

more concievable than a future where i changed

the heart beats and tells me to listen.

mortal hand, electric flow, i tell it no.

action potential, depolarization

numb limbs, itching skin, proof, here;

that my body mattered, in a way, in the end

when they pressed an ear to my chest

still warm with fading beat,

ready to rest,

it told them, whispered secret;

she tried to escape me, separate me, deflect

and when the soul goes unnourished, body suffers

the energy pervades, more spent on the physical

on mental toil, means none for the rest

when she hated herself, she knew it was wrong

but she couldn’t convince herself of the best

good was not worth it, and she sunk, and i beat

until she finished me, too, inevitably, like the rest

‘now bury me quietly’ it said happily, contract and release salted life

the heart was right, in the end, as it is

neglect mind, neglect body, neglect soul

i tried to love you, it was supposed to be you

but you were never the goal


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jadie0
3 months ago

sleepless

Sleepless

it whispers to me, 

it wants to know

it will not quiet

it can’t let go

beside my pillow,

loud beat of heart

it cannot stop,

it cannot start

curiousity disquiets the head

circulate, metabolism

energified, stomach dread

tap of toe, pick of finger

sensual slide of bared leg

i cannot settle, unscratched itch,

i will not ever be at rest


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jadie0
4 months ago

three thousand

la glorie // jean andre rixens

the days pass so quickly,

resolutions so fickle

and there is something old, very old, inside me

that spits on it all

the lecherous gluttony and

sick indulgence, stuffing soft, pink bellies

full to bursting

built into that, a stopping point

the shining stretch of flesh, hesitant,

untested, afraid to try

energy must exist in equal balance,

and the beast takes

yawning cavernous hunger,

a need never satiated, swallowing the world.

hurting, hunting,

it does not forget – it does not want to forget.

content in its loathing, superior in a void.

hating and hating.

but it forgets itself

fed by another hand, before it learned to take.

hurt by another's mouth, before it learned to snap

someone else's creation, it is not itself

it is residue,

it is fear

the days pass so quickly,

without reprieve, in delay

i walk alongside them,

and the beast always stays.


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jadie0
4 months ago

on winter

On Winter

come winter, i am flimsy,

waxen paper on dry breeze

crumpled by the pressure, and

hardened by the cold

come winter, i can’t. 

every breath hurts to breathe

frost forced down your lungs, 

spider fingers in your veins, it

peels off your jacket

it ignores whimper of pain

biting your skin,

frozen heartbeat gone

come winter, it hurts

and you don’t want to fight

it is someone else,

naked, battered,

beaten, bruised 

but it is you, knocking on that door

it is you, begging to be let in

ember dying in the cold,

frost-bitten fingertips and

stone cold pit to be thawed.

it is you, feathers sodden by rainfall

petrichor dirt freshly churned on your grave

and desperate plea,

and hope for something better

it is you, who shakes off the water

and emerges, drenched in warmth,

ready, now, yearning, 

to be set alight


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jadie0
4 months ago

breezeblock

Breezeblock

it is beautiful, quietly beautiful

it needs no announcement nor gaudy proclamation of arrival

gentle patter of snowfall,

whispered brush of leaf

it is there through blustering sunshine

it is there in deadened sleep

the silence is a thing in itself, the

backdrop of every play

you are never not without it

it's patient, it lies in wait

and when you are ready for it, though you may never be

going out a thing of rage,

riotous against the peace

they'll tie you to the bed

and you'll spit out useless fury

it will greet you, with open arms and heart

it begs you to forgive

but you're animal, not god

and love spawns hatred in your heart

when you're tired and heaving

back bent and wrists red,

the silence will creep

aimless night will descend

and if you've never lived without sound

the quiet is unfamiliar, in the end

it's just you and the trees, and they're scary, yes

but they are soft,

but they are friend


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jadie0
4 months ago

to the one --

death of the artist - the last friend // zygmunt andrychewicz

you’ve been forever a lack,

a hole, an absence

i cannot imagine you,

because i idolize you

i want, so desperately, for you to be

an absence yet constant presence

you lurk, a nagging feeling

an abcess, an itch

and yet i could not seek you out

because a part of me still thinks

we will crash on the street,

or touch hands at the bookstore,

we’ll smile shyly and pass,

gazes will linger

amid flashing lights or buzzing drone,

or elevator music, or raucous home

any way that would seem

like the stars drew our fate

but you can’t argue that from a swipe,

so it scares me, to find you that way

in the pit, the emptiness of my soul

when i should’ve been looking to the ones who fill,

to the excess, to the outpouring

to the ones i know.

you are quiet giggle

confession stuck as it leaves,

weaving through the crowded street

you are late nights texting,

and the last one to put the phone down,

and borrowed shoes for the night or the week,

and fingers gripping my back when we hug

you taught me ‘i love you’ when i leave the car,

and you taught me to face what i truly felt

you taught me it would turn out okay,

and you taught me when to fight back

love is a whole,

tangible and real

i’ll recognize you when i see you

when i know you, it will mean

i was not fixed,

didn’t find my other half

you were never the first,

you will not be the last


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jadie0
5 months ago

from a fall walk home

murmur // ann magill

i walked a stranger's footsteps today,

there seemed a poem in that

i turned my feet to match his gait

slowed mine to his own crooked path

he walked with haste irregular

tempo change could not meet the eye

but i felt it, for a minute, we were one

on that path, in that space, he and i

he does not know, for a minute there

another walked his rhythym

his stride was longer, his steps were quicker

perhaps he sought to make haste

and sure, it was weird

he would have found it so, too

but for that minute i was him in delay

i understood his perception

and the give of his limbs

i knew of his body's affections

soon our steps fell into disfavor

before leaf underfoot gave way

we were entities once more, unique paths on the ground

before my door, i turned but he walked away

maybe i will see him again, on my mellow walk home

maybe our eyes will connect

i would not know him by feature nor face

but maybe i’d fall into step

and recognize a gait from a dream long ago

a temporal space once inhabited

it was you, i would think, i was you for a minute

and we’d pass by and walk on again


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jadie0
6 months ago

cowardice (2)

Cowardice (2)

it's not you now, its something else

it's easier to love

a vesicle for influence,

torpid machine of thought

and its better this way, it doesn’t hurt

when someone hurts something you’re not

but when the colors blur,

it always comes to end

in the darkness of the bedroom,

in the darkness of your head

when you close your eyes to sleep

when there’s noone there to tell you

a part of you, the one thats you,

always, it will know:

the truth is the lump in your throat,

the truth is in dexterous hand

the truth is in a crooked smile,

pointing to the sand

they taught you to hate yourself,

but what you should hate is them

we were borne from the lake,

to the lake we meet our end

the mirror was not meant to be

neither silver nor black facade

something we weren’t meant to see,

wan face reflected back

it's your fingertips on petals,

it's your toes in the grass

it's your lungful of fresh air,

even if it is your last

you wish to fulfill potential,

you wish that you were tough

don’t weep nor mourn what cannot be

you always were enough


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jadie0
6 months ago

cowardice (1)

Cowardice (1)

you wish to hide from your mind,

you wish to not be real

you hunger for experience

you crave their artifice

you yearn for something better than this

the curve of smiling lip

you let the colors consume you

if attention strays, it never dips

you want to look and not be seen

you want the mouth to open

you talk of vulnerability,

you hide behind a screen

you indulge in habits you hate,

you hate yourself by proxy

it holds no violence, but it festers

a sight you cant unsee

you wonder how you got here

you wonder how to flee

it draws you back, time again,

its a funny thing like that

habits form, but once they’re there

they’re awfully hard to crack


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jadie0
6 months ago

agape

shared pain // alfred de dreux

i love him the most in the gentleness of sleep,

he is at his softest then

eyes closing to the sounds of the world,

nose buried against my leg

claws retracted,

mouth soft and yielding

no twitch of the ear,

nor flicker of the eye,

vulnerability earned and cherished,

a kiss and gentle pet accepted,

i adore you most in the quiet of the night,

sparkling eyes slip shut,

soft belly bared to the world

breaths even and unmeasured,

curled up, awaiting

indefinitely, unknown


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jadie0
7 months ago

on fall

autumn landscape, saurgerties // jasper francis cropsey

fall is a season for the lovers

transitory and fleeting,

never quite settling in one place or time

fall is never landing,

a leaf carried by the wind

pushed by forces outside you

to places you didn’t want to be, perhaps

but you find yourself there regardless.

fall is the gentle whisper of the breeze, transformed

to the violence of a hurricane

wind chapped skin, fingernails brittle, you fall.

clawing for something you’ll never have

praying for something you’ll never be

desperate to affix yourself to the branch

but you’re adrift now, and

there’s no going back.

fall is still falling,

after the storm ends

after everyone moves on and forgets,

fall is left behind.

memory trapped in a brittle, orange leaf

sliding to rest on the slope of a dying hill

“home at last,” it whispers, as it flakes away

“home at last”


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jadie0
7 months ago

unsent

after the bath // joseph lorusso

i don’t like saying ‘i love you’ because my heart catches in my throat every time,

the truth can be written with greater ease:

i love you so much it hurts.

and i know you so well, all of you

yet your favorite color still surprises me

i cannot think of who you’d get along with, or what you’d like

because you’re mine, even if i know, i know it’s just a little part.

i think the beauty and fear of knowing someone comes from the vastness.

because you are an endless impossibility,

a miracle.

shall i compare thee to a summer’s day?

or a winter’s night?

or the first taste of spun sugar, melting on the tongue?

shall i compare thee to a sunrise, all dusky blues and cadmium hopes?

shall i compare thee to the calm before the storm,

the silence that descends at the first pluck of a string;

reverent?

you are more than all of it, of course, and maybe one day,

when it feels a little less raw,

when a brush against my skin doesn't send ice skittering through my lungs,

maybe in a week or two,

i can show this to you,

all rapt nervousness and unmet gaze

even in the surety of reciprocity.

and maybe i would say, ‘i’m sorry’,

and you would understand that if i felt it any less

then i swear i would tell you so.


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jadie0
9 months ago

eggshells

the hesitant fiancée // auguste toulmouche

i don’t tread on eggshells,

i treat them as such

but i don’t expect the same for my own.

there’s always that shell i’m holding back

but when i give it out, with a delicate hand and feigned lightness,

somehow it seems to return safe

i’ve always been one to beg forgiveness after,

my cowardice so endless i can’t crawl out

it’s almost easier when someone doesn’t have the right to care,

so i cant tell them anything raw and exposing

what a strange stuttered half-life existence i’ve sown

little kernels of truth kept inside me

i say that with some they can see all,

but i’m lying to everyone to an extent

they all get little eggshells to keep in their pockets

maybe if combined, the shape would emerge

maybe if combined, i’d be known.

it isn’t for naught, theres a part of me that wants it this way

even if it feels like a punishment


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jadie0
9 months ago

summer

thunderstorm in the countryside // oswald achenbach

summer strings you out and stretches you

leaves you to dry like meat on a wire

frayed thin, tendons close to snapping

nothing but hot skin and buzzing flies

rough sheets and restless nights

summer is seamless and raw

leaves you prickly and itching all over

flushed cheeks and peeling skin,

tantalizing and torrefied

like something shaped for burning,

like something waiting to be set alight


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jadie0
9 months ago

elpis

orpheus leading eurydice from the underworld // jean-baptiste camille corot

nobody taught me what happiness was,

i had to teach myself.

i sought it in a golden fleece,

but it wasn’t found in riches

i sought it in the thunderbolt,

but it wasn’t found in god

i sought it in my mother’s hand,

but she never learned it either

i sought it in my own heart,

but the feeling wouldn’t linger.

nobody taught me what happiness was,

it’s simpler to stay sad

you have to save yourself, i realized

it’s easier said than done

when you’ve convinced yourself you don’t need saving,

that the bone-deep hurt is in everyone.

i made myself happy enough, i bluffed but i should’ve known

enough is never enough

my heart was never my home

i flayed myself at the altar

i bent backwards for pelias

his upward gaze did not falter, 

a midas touch could not settle the rest.

there was no reason, none at all

but i could not accept it,

i think i've always been a little scared of happiness

for me, it was never destined. 

nobody taught me what happiness was,

but i’m trying to learn it now

i’m sorry i hurt so easy

i’m sorry i didn’t treat you well

i’m sorry i stayed complacent, couldn’t face it, didn’t cherish what you gave me 

i hope you can forgive this 

i hope you trust me with your gift

i’d turn back for you, every single time

for one sun-dappled glimpse.

nobody taught me what happiness was,

i think i figured it out.

it's trying, with everything you have, to find it

you owe it to yourself.


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jadie0
9 months ago

burning

aeneas works the hell fires from sybil // jan brueghel

to care for something is a delicate thing

to cultivate, to put a part of you into a vessel outside yourself with no guarantee of success

like chipping a piece of your heart that you might not get back

it's a gamble

but you take that risk because you always hope that what you feel, so may someone else for you

a singular attention

but people bite

and you don’t know if you’ll ever get it back

and what if you gave more than you realized

and when they’re gone, you look down and all that’s left is blackness

blindfolded in a ribcage, entombed by a heart that doesn't beat for you

by lungs that don’t breathe for you

by lips that don’t lust for you

and you are shunned and quiet and can only say, oh, okay

and give no sign of your smile chipping away, that skipped beat and the cold creep of dread

and give no sign of the disappointment, lest you look closer and know its because you had the audacity to have expectations

and give no sign of the hurt, lest you find yourself realizing it meant something

to be vulnerable is to be peeled open, raw and turbulent, strapped to a table with a knife hovering over you and a trembling hand against it

it's the pulse in your neck as something unknown grazes your skin

the flex of tendons desperate to recognize what’s beneath them,

the lump in your throat that never seems to go away 

it’s the hope that the contact was lips and not teeth

and some say the risk is worth it for the chance of love

but this year it is a brittle winter

and the truth is so warm within me, 

to the point where i may set ablaze 

and nobody will know why my body was charred from the inside out


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jadie0
9 months ago

neptune

seascape, night effect // claude monet

we are simply the universe interacting with itself, a tentative touch, a shared breath.

and we must be tender with each other, for we are fragile

and we are real,

and you are real.

and you know yourself best, so you should know best that you are deserving of joy and every delicate softness that you stop to rub your cheek against, to feel that conjoining of two forgiving things.

to know that you can love, wanton and gorgeous, sunlit smile touched by every person who has treated you with care,

and possibly treat someone else with care, too.

you can have everything you want, dear

you only have to know that you deserve it

you only have to forgive yourself

dread has no place in our ecosystem, in our tangled, finite hearts

we are the universe, of the same stardust sprinkled onto fertile soil

we are the universe, nursed and nurtured into our positions

we are the universe, laid gently to rest when we are done

we are the universe, and we can help make it a little more bearable before we take our final bow.

don’t go chasing the rest, darling, because you can care without reciprocation

you can simply love

and it is a vulnerability, yes, but not a weakness

it is not a weakness.


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jadie0
9 months ago

bygones

gaston la touche // the ball

i remember that time when the sun danced on your face on the bus ride and you thought you looked beautiful

once, long ago, when your hair was soaked with water and happiness

your friends asleep on your shoulders on a bus, your throat hoarse from laughter

the light left as the planet tilted, but so slowly you didn't realize it was night until you couldn't see the sun

you used to press pen to the paper without hesitation

without an eye for your own failings

you would stand outside and inhale the fresh air and feel a lump in your throat.

i wish i was like you

that i could draw forever, and play forever, and sit on a bus and laugh

i wish i had cherished you while you lived

your golden days, to you, were brown

overlooked the happiness for the homework

i wish i could go back to that time, when i was you and we were one and our memories were events of the present

i wish that the days hadn’t moved like the tides, puppeteered by the swiftly tilting moon

but the times have turned and sand once dry has been dampened

i still see the stars

i’ll cherish each light until i'm left in the endless abyss

and i’ll realize that these were the good times too.


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jadie0
9 months ago

on scent

On Scent

scent indicates familiarity; it’s always there but doesn’t really mean anything until it means something, 

and now its not just brownies cooking, but ours over stifled giggles at two am

and now its not just a car exhaust, but yours singing songs into a sunset 

and then, years later, you catch a whiff

and your head turns, inevitably, because it would be worse than shame, to miss something you love

and maybe a part of you wants you to be happy

and when you lose that forever maybe you’ll seek it in a bottle, or save it in fabric, or even try to rediscover it in the recesses of your mind, 

but scent is uniquely reserved for the here and now,

and i will never live this moment again, but 

maybe i will catch a whiff of it on the breeze 

and my head will turn ever so slightly, 

and i will remember oh, how i loved you so.


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jadie0
9 months ago

all the people i wasted poems on

ophelia // friedrich heyser

i hope you get your peace

i hope this lets you feel release

i hope the hurt was worth it

i hope the feeling raw

i hope it scalds when you remember me

and burns the skin right off your lying maw


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jadie0
9 months ago

excerpt from ch 9

the chess players // william orpen

Zela’s place was not here. Not in this restaurant, not with these people. The sooner she recognized that, the sooner she could get over it.

Wiping angry tears from her blotchy face, she rushed out into the cool night air, retreating to the safety of her car.

She slammed the steering wheel. Once. Twice. And then she crumpled.

Was it so bad to have company pride? To love what she did? Should she not adore her workplace and the people who worked there?

She fished out the rook, placing it gently on the dashboard. She still remembered it as if it were yesterday – Christmas, age twelve. The snow was falling hard outside, and Zela had woken up to a wonderland blizzard. The family had stayed inside, yelling in joy, chasing each other, wrapping paper strewn across the carpet. Her father had swung Malin around, who, of course, was jubilant. Zela watched, wanting to join, but Darren couldn’t hold two daughters at once. So her mother had pulled her from behind, shouting and grinning. She had brought down the chessboard from the shelf, and said with candy eyes and a nutmeg tongue, I think it’s time you learned the game.

Zela refused to stop until she won, but hours passed, and she couldn’t. After her fourth checkmate by the rook and a break for dinner, Zela snuck the piece off the board. Her mother pretended not to notice. Kita won anyway – but she never asked for the piece back.

Zela didn’t win that day. Nor could she the next, or the next week, or the next month.

Within the year, they were at a stalemate. After a year, Zela was consistently winning.

After two years, Zela started high school. According to her mother, there wasn’t time for chess anymore. There wasn’t time for family.

Her chest ached.

She still remembered the scent, the laughter. The warmth of four bodies in the same room. She still remembered the music. 

Zela exhaled, half expecting to see her breath puff before her. But it was summer, and the snow hadn’t come in years. 


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jadie0
10 months ago

on friends

scene from the great flood // joseph-desire court

i love you because you know me

even when i’m scared no one does,

when i think no one will.

you are my mirror, but in your eyes i might be more than pretty

but rather something beautiful

and maybe the terror isn’t a bad thing, but an anticipation, waiting

for someone to love me like you do,

patiently.

you know to have a gentle touch with my heart

you know where it hurts

i love when things remind me of you

that we’re past insecurity,

that we don’t skirt.

you make me want to be tangible, perceived

in the little things like this, maybe there's value in belief

maybe i can find myself, to be a home for you

if you know me it must mean i exist.

i love that you inspire me endlessly

i love that with you i don’t have to pretend

thank you for being here, always

it's a heart swell to know someone who cares.

we have grown up together but we continue to choose

and every time i know i made the right choice when it's you


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jadie0
10 months ago

sealladh

blue water lilies // claude monet

their majesty was impossible to comprehend. 

it was not a view that could be captured and bottled in a picture, reflected as it was in the eye of a camera. it was more - 

vast and swelling even without an orchestral score. it was the impossibility, perhaps: 

the stretch of the water, endless in its breadth, the patter of rain against lush grass, the vibrance of flowers unfurled against an overcast sky. 

it was fog on the opposite coast, a river cutting through the hills.

 it was all at once a tender kiss and a giddy laugh, ancient and ephemeral and undisturbed. 

of course it inspired words - endless poetry, song, folklore, myth. for what was left when even pictures could not suffice? 

you needed to live it, feel it, breathe it, and even then it was not enough, an endless waterfall with only a droplet slipped between wanting lips. 

it was simply too much - for how could anyone begin to understand the edge of the world? It tasted of endings, 

it tasted of beginnings.


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