my heart is a half-empty glass
pouring what little bit’s left
inside my sinking chest
out to an abyss,
an audience,
that sometimes
spouts back.
what they see
and how often
is determined
by an algorithm
often favoring bare skin
and seething rants.
i won’t make it big,
and sometimes it feels bad,
but i write to survive
when i feel like i can’t.
bedroom walls look best adorned with art;
i like the tattoos on your arms.
why the cat and the burning cigarette?
why the cherries?
what’s the point of them?
what’s the point of any of this?
what’s the meaning?
not all things need some glorious purpose.
in 30 years, you’ll watch them wrinkle with regret.
in 30 years, we could all be dead.
and anyway, homes look best
tailored to the ones who live in them.
i like the tattoos on your thigh,
you’re like a human museum
with sky-blue eyes.
you look at blood stains and convince yourself it’s wine,
you looked at me and thought it’ll be better this time.
i’m a violent crime; you told me i have pretty eyes.
i’m an accidental house fire; you compare me to the sun.
i’m a sweaty nightmare; you pray you never wake up.
i’m a morgue with a palpitating heart,
but you herald my existence like it’s art
i’m an unnatural disaster with cherry lips,
and you kiss me because you’re into it.
i was garbage headed for the junkyard,
but you uncovered me and glimpsed a monarch.
i’m a disaster born in winter,
but you cheer like i’m a prize and you’re the victor.
you find weeds and pluck them like flowers,
i whisper i love you and you say it back louder.
exposing body parts like journal entries i wrote when i was fourteen and lonely in a house full of people i loved but couldn’t talk to. straps sliding past my shoulders like teardrops slipping down your cheeks on one of the rare occasions you sobbed “i’m sorry.”
with only the thinnest fabric concealing my pounding, perforated heart from your bare naked eyes, i shed my clothes like snakeskin, peeling away my jeans, my black skirt, my denim shorts, my tank top and t-shirt like an epidermis. the layers are strewn about, sometimes on linoleum, sometimes carpet. i pose myself like a doll just to please him, just to feel him pretend to worship what i used jackets and hoodies to hide, long before we first kissed.
he unearths my chest, unclipping my bra with his insatiable hands, pupils wide like a pilfering pirate beholding gold, but i just want to hear him say “i love you,” as we grow old, so i give him what he thinks he wants and i let him scour my curves and folds like a curious dog examining a new yard; with adoration, i watch as he salivates and whines like one.
but once the drool dries up and i become a home he knows too well, another dilapidated chew toy that’s lost its charm, he’ll dig through the fence, tail-wagging for something exotic to undress, another place with greener grass. and when he thinks of me from time to time, he’ll envision my undergarments by his bed and me tucked in it, before he ever recollects the way i crumbled like a stone erected just to praise him.
sometimes he’ll think of me with his tail between his cowardly legs, uncomfortably aroused with a pang of regret. and sometimes i’ll forgive him, and then i’ll recall all the skin i revealed like soiled secrets i should’ve kept, and all the bouquets i deserved, but didn’t get.
palm trees smolder, smoke clouds my sight, the planet’s on fire, and i’m a smiling whisper in your melancholy memories, an absent friend you knew way back when life was test scores and algebra worksheets. embers in the air, scorch marks on my arm, sometimes i miss when we were teenage girls sharing one town, but i’m a weary woman marveling at my phone because you look so beautiful in your summer wedding gown.
if you ever speculate how far i’ve gone, i’d hate to blow your mind and confess how it’s a crusade every day just to escape the confines of my bed. i’d hate to confess i’ve spent years restrained to an open cage like a parrot too afraid to spread her wings and glide in search of something different, something proud i could display, like an expression on my face or a merry photo in a wooden frame.
and if my absence has been weightless, just a chapter you flip over when you seldom think back, how on earth could i blame you for that? you see, i’ve always been purposely inconspicuous, like Sue Storm (still in search of her Mr. Fantastic). how can i resent existing unloved when i have always hidden what’s most precious from everyone?
a black sky in the day, our childhood street granulates; i can still recall how we would sprout joy from concrete. i can still recall how you promised me we’ll always be friends. i remember how a part of me, that was already seared to a crisp, didn’t believe what you said for a single cynical second. i knew back then, i was a crystalline catastrophe in the making, a ghost-to-be waiting beside a headstone that no one visits, a hazy thought that strikes with the proper breeze, an unfamiliar name never passing through your teeth.
repenting in question marks, pondering in paragraphs, poems, and conversations with people as clueless as you. dismembering and considering explanations that others suggest, but aging is realizing, with the cold hard truth lodged in your throat, that some things just don’t make sense.
some things aren’t fair, and some last for only a sentence, whizzing past you like blood-thirsty bullets and fleeting seconds. some things halt so abruptly, you’re compelled to write the ending yourself. you confuse the life gushing through your veins with incessant pain so you start thinking in periods, anything to bypass the ache.
but then you laugh with your friends as you deflate into a cacophony of exclamation points. you sing out lyrics to your favorite songs and when they end, you play them again and again and again.
you catch yourself grinning in the silence after someone says they love you because you love them too. and when they say goodbye, you hope to see them again and again and again.
you think, thank god you took a moment to step back from the edge. thank god you let your blurry eyes dry so you could see the difference between a period and a
repenting in question marks, pondering in paragraphs,
poems, and conversations with people as clueless as you. dismembering and considering explanations that others suggest, but aging is realizing, with the cold hard truth lodged in your throat, that some things just don’t make sense.
some things aren’t fair, and some last for only a sentence, whizzing past you like blood-thirsty bullets and fleeting seconds. some things halt so abruptly, you’re compelled to write the ending yourself. you confuse the life gushing through your veins with incessant pain so you start thinking in periods, anything to bypass the ache.
but then you laugh with your friends as you deflate into a cacophony of exclamation points. you sing out lyrics to your favorite songs and when they end, you play them again and again and again.
you catch yourself grinning in the silence after someone says they love you because you love them too. and when they say goodbye, you hope to see them again and again and again.
you think, thank god you took a moment to step back from the edge. thank god you let your blurry eyes dry so you could see the difference between a period and a semicolon.
your father didn’t show you how to cry. it doesn’t have to be private and it doesn’t have to be quiet. you can tremble and sob, and i can hold your quivering hands when you want to punch them through bare walls. you can talk and talk. or you can say nothing, nothing at all.
your father didn’t teach you how to love; it doesn’t have to be booming voices and blood. you can be love poems and ambient songs. you can color your nails seafoam and fix a hundred cars. you can pour your insides at my planted feet and we’ll watch as a brand new you grows—your courage blooming.
your father didn’t tell you that men could be beautiful like posies—beautiful in your words and actions, beautiful in what you create, in your Sunday-morning smile, in your strength.
your father forgot to tell you that strength comes in many shades, not just bottled-up blue and scarlet rage. it can be patient pink and passionate peach, loyal lavender and gentle green.
your father should’ve told you, you don’t have to be anything. you can rise like the sun and descend like it. you can crumble like clay in my arms when life is too tough to take. you can be right, you can be wrong. you can be sometimes happy and sometimes sad. you can learn from your mistakes and you can tell me about your dad—about how he was a black cloud on a day already bad. you can confess how you’re terrified to become him, how you want to be different. tell me how your heart feels broken and we’ll figure out ways to mend it. your heart’s safe here, i promise.
i saw a guy who looked like you today. he was missing strands of my hair wound around ten fingers, unyielding and ready to control my every movement, like strings fixed to a puppet. he was missing text messages in his phone, pleas and typos sent through panic attacks and tears, begging for love, forgetting love is not something begged for. i saw a guy who looked like you today and if i still had it, my heart would’ve ceased beating. it bleeds in the pocket of your jeans, a morbid memento that someone gave their life to know you, hold you and love your entire merciless being.
time heals all wounds, they say. he claims he needs more of it, mouthfuls and handfuls to mitigate his rage. he’s a bull full of it, overflowing with boiling blood, and he calls me the red flag for being the cotton rag he swabbed his sullied hands on. i think i’m the fall guy for his pain, the scarlet target to his finger-pointing blame game. but i finally see him through crimson fumes, no longer blinded by rose-colored i love yous. don’t get me wrong, i still do, god i still do. but i’ve finally realized who to be outraged by—it’s not me, it’s you.
the sparrows trill and croon
and the sun bathes
the neighborhood in golden hues,
and some may say it’s perfect,
but when i picture perfect,
it looks different.
it’s his warm hand on my cold cheek;
it’s sitting with all these magnificent
sounds and shades,
but gazing at him because
he’s the most glorious thing.
i tumbled into his bed,
a creature renounced and soiled in sin.
you give hope to what’s been
ousted by God.
redemption exists,
nirvana can be found again.
so when stars fall,
they crash on his doorstep.
and the angelic ones still twinkle above;
they can’t understand a second chance,
a fallible human.
they’re just ambiance,
a backdrop for a masterpiece.
what color are the autumn leaves?
and i’ll imagine his eyes
and tell you, green.
where’s the moon in the sky?
and i’ll take you to his house
and he’ll welcome me inside.
when the earth is hellfire
and i wonder where paradise is,
i pass by orchids
and ignore apricot sunsets
to slip my quivering hand in his.
t. e. talbott’s books on Goodreads melancholia in the milky way reviews: 6ratings: 17 (avg rating 4.76) Strangers reviews: 3ratings: 3 (avg rating 5.00)
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hey there! my name is t.e. talbott and i created melancholy galaxies in 2016, a Facebook page dedicated to sharing my original poetry. over the years, i’ve expanded my social media presence in the hopes of sharing my work with as many people as possible. you can find updates on my current projects, poems and…
