[x]

a ribcage drenched in dust i have your ribcage, you said.
what should i put in it?

i told you i'd always wanted a fire,
the kind that would fill my eyes with starlight
and pump my blood full of passion, but

you're made of wildflowers, you said.
a fire would burn you to ash.

you wanted to fill my chest with
the sound of a train, whistling
far away in the night;
with the sound of rain smacking leaves;
with the sound the wind makes
when it seems like it's trying to speak

and you wanted to throw in the
smell of midnight in august
and the feeling of sand being
sucked out from under your feet
when the ocean inhales,
and the strange little moment of
bitter

bird heart and burning soul in art, mistakes are beautiful when they're made with confidence.

the same applies to

anemic, broken, and growing up anyway when my sister was five, she dictated a letter to me in her strong little voice
while dust drifted in the sunshine
of our creaky old room.

dear me [she said],
barney is the best. i will wear blue all the time even though i'm a girl. my heart beats without me telling it to and that's pretty cool. i think people always feel better if you tell them you love them. i will always smile because i have dimples when i smile.
love,
me.

"did you write it?" she asked, and i told her i did, every word
with the chunky yellow pencil i'd fished out of my school bag.
i handed her the letter, and she folded it up carefully
and she smiled.

when my s

the wind's story the air was thick and sharp with the smell of salt. wind gusted across the beach, kicking up dusty piles of sand. it was midnight.

a young girl with fiery hair stood there, digging her toes into the cold, white sand. she had the anxious, exhilarated look of someone breaking the rules, and yet she couldn't bring herself to regret coming here; the alternative was being at home in bed, watching the walls around her shiver every time her father sucked in a loud, rumbling breath. best case scenario, she'd simply be dreaming - and this was better than dreams.

she took a deep breath and called the wind by name.

it was loud at first, coming in a

twenty four hoursi. the sun tiptoed into the sky this morning, and the clouds laughed as they caught fire. perhaps it foreshadowed the events of the day, but as i sat there drinking thick coffee with heavy cream in an attempt to make my eyelids lighter, all i could think about was how beautiful it was.

ii. the sun was hidden behind a grey veil in the afternoon, and your seafoam eyes were careless as you said you didn't love me anymore. at least, i thought they were careless at first; but every time i thought about it the emotion changed, so that you pitied me, you laughed at me, you held back tears. the moment was blurred and clear at the same time, burned i

the widow she sits in a bathtub,
drenched in the warmth of late afternoon,
and wonders about love.

it is cliche.
it is also important.

her fingers slide along her
chest, counting the hidden scars.
seventeen that she can feel,
more that she can't.
but that isn't important,
not right now,
because she's thinking about love.

it isn't passion she remembers,
not fingernail scratches or gasps
or quiet suggestions that maybe
the slipper-socks should come off.
she doesn't think about the secret smiles,
or the smell of cinnamon,
or even the voice saying i love you, you know
[because she did know].

she thinks about silence
about those moment

weak bones and sleep-starved eyes he made wishes on gunshots
and sent out empty prayers to an empty sky

and sometimes, while he slept
[a vicious, taunting, halfway-sort-of-not-really-asleep-at-all sleep]
his fists would clutch at air,
and his swollen strawberry lips would twist and
turn
and his too-young, too-pale face would
grimace and scrunch
and when he cried out,
the babies in the next room would start crying too.

eventually the shadows under his eyes got
so big
that they swallowed him up
and his arms got scarred and broken from all the times
he'd checked to see if his heart was still beating

and he stopped having nightmares because he
stopped chasing sl

blue hour eyes people say
sparks fly when you meet your somebody

but it wasn't like that with you.
there were no sparks when we met,
no birds singing, no cartoon
hearts.

you were reading.
it was a thick book, and old,
and dogeared
and you glanced up at me,
and smiled
and i remember noticing that your
eyes were blue
[not blue like the ocean
or the sky
but blue like mountains that are fading
into the distance
blue like the moment after the sun sets
blue like snow in the twilight]

and when i heard your
voice for the first time,
it felt familiar
and new
and strange, but beautiful
twisting around me
like the music you sometimes hear in

the discovery this endless morning made my
eyes ache and i found that
lying in bed doesn't really solve
much at all.

and endless words tore up my mind
[the worst kind of words, too - ugly
wrapped up in beauty
the kind that used to find their way out of
your twisted lips]
and by the time i forced them
away, my brain was in shreds

and an endless thumping exploded
behind my eyes
and through my veins
rattling my bones, and
chattering my teeth
and i couldn't make it stop
no matter how much
muddy tea i drank from clinking china.

but today i finally looked out
the window, and
the sun was beautiful and
the wind was gusting like it had
so

tangled up thoughts when she was a little girl, she
never wanted to be a princess.

it wasn't because she didn't like them,
but because
where other girls saw beauty
and glitter
and beautiful dresses, silky and soft
she saw power.
she saw a power and a responsibility that
no amount of beauty would
ever make her want

and she read books about
anne boleyn,
and visited haunted castles
and tried to imagine the kind of life where
people were locked up in towers
and brothers murdered brothers,
husbands wives.
she tried to imagine what those
big stone castles would look like at
night, with the lights taken away
and she tried to imagine waking up
a

butterflieshe thought he was in love with her on a bright september day when the leaves were as red as her hair; every time he looked at them his heart stuttered, and his mouth followed suit.

he was sure he was in love with her the first time he went to her house. she showed him her impressive collection of comic books. then she showed him her even more impressive collection of vintage records. then she smiled, and he forgot how to breathe.

he was almost positive he was in love with her the first time they kissed. her eyes were the color of spring and her lips tasted like sunshine and she giggled when their noses squished against each other.

he wonde

supernova beauty and a green-tea sea it's like you put all my words in parentheses
(said in a whisper,
taken out of the conversation;
irrelevant)

and you say you love me. i know
that sometimes words are true,
but true in a different way than you first
may have thought
because our voices don't come out
in black or white or shades of gray
but in bursts of red
intangible emotions and thoughts that can mean
everything
and nothing

and i do believe you love me.

you love me like a tornado loves the ground
like raspberries love white clothes, like
rain loves joining in on people's plans
you love me like nighttime loves fears and
death loves the weak and the green-tea

the boy who swallowed a star the moon drizzles through the clouds.
i've been thinking of you.

sometimes during a storm,
i imagine that the electricity snapping through the air
is your touch;
that the rain splattering on the roof is your
fingers, tapping impatiently;
that the petrichor-infused wind
is your perfume,
your breath

and i walk,
letting the water kiss my eyelashes,
caress my collarbone,
tug on my clothes

i let the wind give me goosebumps
and fill up my lungs with the smell of

you, my nowhere boy
my shadow boy
the boy with constellation freckles and
sensitive veins, who would swallow a star
just to feel its fire.

it's been storming a lot, la

salty insomniait was a quarter past midnight
and everything spoke in the rain.

the trees, the windows,
the roof
all murmured softly

and the girl lying under the sheets
listened.

insomnia-riddled and morning-
crushed, she searched the darkness for
dreams she could only have while awake
and the monsters under her bed
whispered hush,
so she pressed a hand against her lips
and tried to stop her lungs from crackling
too loudly.

evanescent snippets of sleep left her drained,
itchy, lost
as though the rain had washed the rest of the world away
while her eyes were closed
and she had been left alone.

when she gave up on sleep entirely
[as sh

wanderlust she was a s e v e n t e e n year old girl from nowhere [or was it everywhere?] with dark hair and long eyelashes and skin that was always pale white. when she was young she played in the poppy fields of greece and when she got older her tongue started yearning to speak italian and russian so that she could travel to other far off places.

she was born on a friday between two ice storms, and the first word she ever heard was b e a u t y. her mama told her that when she first opened her dark blue eyes, her pupil was surrounded by a ring of pure white. the blue stayed but the white turned to green [and from then

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messages on the moon

by *aprilwednesday, Apr 7, 2012, 8:26:53 PM
Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

^{the moon had been full yesterday
and she looked up at it
nestled behind some trees
with clouds draping diaphanous
patterns across it
like lace

and she wondered just how many people
had sent love notes on
the moon
for their lovers to collect at a later date.
it swelled with the beating of
a million hearts
and glowed with the love
of a million eyes

and as she stood there,
staring up at it,
with the night breeze twisting
around her ankles,
she sent a message to someone she hadn't
met yet
and hoped that
somewhere
he was standing alone in the night
staring up at the sky
listening.}

messages on the moonby *aprilwednesday

Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

©2012-2013 *aprilwednesday

^{not sure i like how this came out, but i've had the idea for a long time.

i've been doing so badly on NaPoWriMo. but i'm trying! i even took a break from reading An Abundance of Katherines to write this. that's dedication.

comments are loved}

~Lady-Yume Mar 28, 2013 New member Writer

_{Your beautiful work has been featured here: [link]}

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*aprilwednesday Mar 29, 2013 Writer

^{thank you so much!}

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~ColoursOfHope Jul 30, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

This is so so wonderful. Ahhh I'm in love with your writing

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*aprilwednesday Aug 1, 2012 Writer

^{thank you so much}

Reply

~beautyinreview Apr 13, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

This is such a lovely, fresh idea. I especially love the second stanza. Really beautiful imagery, and such a sweet, ethereal sort of message.

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*aprilwednesday Apr 14, 2012 Writer

^{thank you so much!}

Reply

~DoveThunder Apr 8, 2012

I love your adjectives. It makes everything perfect

Reply

*aprilwednesday Apr 10, 2012 Writer

^{thank you so much}

Reply

~DoveThunder Apr 13, 2012

You're welcome!

Reply

~IWasOnceLikeYou Apr 8, 2012 Student General Artist

this

and an abundance of katherines. I'm reading it too. what part are you at? c:

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