“Lunar Shatters” by Melissa Broder

I read this poem yesterday and just had to share it with you all, sort of as my Holiday gift to you. Hope you enjoy!

***

I came into the world a young man
Then I broke me off
Still the sea and clouds are Pegasus colors
My heart is Pegasus colors but to get there I must go back
Back to the time before I was a woman
Before I broke me off to make a flattened lap
And placed thereon a young man
Where I myself could have dangled
And how I begged him enter there
My broken young man parts
And how I let the mystery collapse
With rugged young man puncture
And how I begged him turn me Pegasus colors
And please to put a sunset there
And gone forever was my feeling snake
And in its place dark letters
And me the softest of all
And me so skinless I could no longer be naked
And me I had to de-banshee
And me I dressed myself
I made a poison suit
I darned it out of myths
Some of the myths were beautiful
Some turned ugly in the making
The myth of the slender girl
The myth of the fat one
The myth of rescue
The myth of young men
The myth of the hair in their eyes
The myth of how beauty would save them
The myth of me and who I must become
The myth of what I am not
And the horses who are no myth
How they do not need to turn Pegasus
They are winged in their un-myth
They holy up the ground
I must holy up the ground
I sanctify the ground and say fuck it
I say fuck it in a way that does not invite death
I say fuck it and fall down no new holes
And I ride an unwinged horse
And I unbecome myself
And I strip my poison suit
And wear my crown of fuck its
***
Also, I highly suggest that you all follow Melissa Broder on Twitter, if you have one. And if you don’t, I suggest getting one just so that you can follow Melissa Broder. That’s what I did, anyways.
***
Here are some gems from her Twitter account:
glad that nurture fucked me up and not just nature
brb, dismantling my belief system
roll up 2 the club in a vague feeling of impending doom

What are real ramblings?

I’m giving myself 10 minutes to write this. No editing, no going back and erasing the part of myself that lay in the black and white symbols.

I have a question—a dilemma—that I’m not sure what to do with. I want to write poetry, and I want to share that poetry with the interwebs. But what is the line between writing poetry for myself and writing poetry for the excitement of the share? I want to write for myself, and I want my emotions to be real and true, but can they be when I feel pressured to post something, anything, just have some words on this page that is some reflection of myself?

When I write for the interwebs and not myself, are my words actually my own?

When I edit my words for the interwebs, are my thoughts shifted and altered in the process?

Autumn’s Ownership

Swimming on trees and sleeping on ground,
veined sunrises flurrying miniature.
Afire in water, omnipresent they abound
through series of cyclical erasures.

Lighting the sky as earthbound stars,
as daytime’s constellated ranger.
Dancing the wind to lands afar,
those faerie-lifted spirits of nature.

Now: collapsing into possession.
Groped by an outstretched hand,
the vain outbursts of self-indulgent colors,
the leaf, is one with man.

I hate men.

I fear I’m falling into the trap
bitter bra-burning “that’s not what feminism is” claptrap-mousetrap

but what’s the alternative?
Loving them? Loving the rape, holdingdownforcingdown-pillage-penetration—blood+bones+brains?

Should I love you, men? Are you worth it?

Are you really worth it when you
you hurt me/you hurt her
her
her

But don’t worry cause it’s all part of the thrill: cockdrip-powertrip
so you can rest your foot on our cracking backs

you really can;
you are man.

(((how can I love?)!)…)

He Loves Me, He….

Haven’t posted in a while, but then again, haven’t been sane in a while too.

And yes, that does make me sound like an immature, crazy teenager, but actually, right now, I feel like the most sane and mature I’ve ever been.

Let me backtrack for you.

Today, I told him that I had feelings for him—feelings that were more than the feelings of friendship. And today was also the day I found out that even though a person can have the most intense feelings imaginable for someone, these feelings do not have to be reciprocated. Yes, today I found out that he does not and never has felt  the same way about me.

And though he told me sweetly and clearly that he only saw us as friends, I still felt like my heart was melting—dripping down and cascading into the crevices of the dirty sidewalk until I could no longer find it.

It hurt, I’m not going to lie. It still does whenever I think of him or people talk about him. But there’s a silver lining to every cloud, as I’ve found out through this experience.

First, I have discovered that getting your heart broken does not mean the earth comes to a standstill. I know, this is radical information coming your way, but it was somewhat comforting knowing that I didn’t die after getting my heart broken, that my world didn’t crumble and that I was physically okay. Second, I realized that my life does not have to revolve around a boy. Again, shocking news for everyone out there, but today was the first day in a long time that I didn’t walk back to my college dorm thinking “I really need to see him. Please let me just see him once.” It was actually pretty liberating.

But the biggest silver lining is that, after this, I feel as if I can do anything. I feel grown-up in a way that I’ve never felt before, in that I conquered my fears of telling him. I feel as if I know myself more fully now, like I’ve just met a different side of myself, a confident, stable, brave self, that I didn’t know I possessed.

I am proud of myself for telling him. I am proud of myself for staying strong after hearing the very news that I was dreading. And I am also incredibly thankful for my friends here at college who supported me and made me feel as if I wasn’t crazy, but courageous.

Hopefully, I’ll come back from Spring Break and not want to huddle up in a ball and lock myself in my room every time I see him (and I will be seeing him a lot since we live on the same hall). I think that’s a doable goal to have. And I think I might be able to stay friends with him, and maybe now I’ll be able to meet a guy who does want to pursue a romantic relationship with me. Who knows. All I know now is that everything happens for a reason and maybe, just maybe, this will all work out for the best.

I’d like to end my mini-ramble by asking everyone to follow in the footsteps of Gloria Steinem and, tomorrow, do one outrageous act and everyday rebellion. I suppose this was my outrageous, rebellious act—what will yours be?

Lie to me.

Lie to me depraved heart.
Whisper nonsense of faded faces,
bring back warmth
to a world now tasteless.

Stop the blood from coursing
through my veins.
Pump backwards!
Please, lead me back there again

to a time before I learned
those aged lessons for mine eyes.
How to break.
How to cry.

If you have to lie,
I don’t mind, my love.
I’ll hide in your smile—
forever  live in those lines.

Sooner-than-later Proclamations

As you may know from my Firsts and Lasts posts, I am quite possibly head-over-heels in love with one of the guys on my hall. We’re close, but I’m fairly certain that he has no idea about how I feel. So, after three months of anguish, heart-wrenching emotional roller coasters and just some god awful days, I’m going to end this cycle of misery and flat out tell him. Tomorrow. At 2.

I’m just a little scared.

Which is why I decided to write out what I wanted to say so that I would at least have an idea and not completely freak out when it comes time to tell him. Tomorrow. At 2. And what better way to write out my proclamation of love than on my blog, so that the whole internet can read it?

That’s right, there are a million other ways. Yet, I think it’s only fair, considering how little I’ve been posting recently. So… here goes.

Hey B—, could we talk? I have something important to tell you, and I just need to get it off my chest.

He says yes, or at least, I hope he will.

Before I start though, I want you to promise one thing—to the best of your ability you will not treat me any differently after hearing what I have to say, and we will still stay friends. I get that it might be awkward for a little bit, but honestly, my friendship with you matters way more than anything else.

I can just see his eyes widen and his smile drop a little bit at this. What a cutie pie. But he’ll say yes and encourage me to keep talking in that adorable accent of his.

Okay. Here goes. I think that I’ve started to develop feelings for you.

He’ll try to interrupt with some exclamation: “What?” “Oh.” “Really?” “Shit.” “Huh.” (take your pick. Though most likely, he’ll say something in a foreign language). But I’ll steam-roller through to make my next point.

Honestly, I know that you don’t feel the same way. I know that you don’t reciprocate my feelings, and that’s totally fine with me. I just really need to get this off my chest because it’s sort of been driving me crazy for a while, and I feel like the only way I can stop feeling like this is by telling you. I don’t expect anything from you; I just want you to know how I feel. I really hope that our friendship doesn’t change because of this, but if you need some time away from me, I totally understand that.

At this point, I’m not sure what he’ll say. Maybe he’ll be shocked into silence, or he might try to say something comforting, but really it will make me feel worse. Maybe he’ll ask me how I actually feel, when I knew that I felt this way? But I do know for certain that he will tell me that he doesn’t feel the same way about me, but that I’m a great girl; I’m funny, lovable, and cute, but he just doesn’t feel the same way. It might take him a while to say this, but he is a gentleman, and I know (or at least I hope) that he’ll understand that this is taking a lot of courage on my part to tell him this, and that I will not be able to deal with a flat out “no.”

But then again, so what if he just tells me “no,” and we end our walk in an awkward silence? I’ll just have one more story to tell my friends back home, and one less thing to regret later on in my life. As long as we can stay friends, I think that I’ll be fine.

So that’s my sooner rather than later proclamation of love. Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.