• tiffanylu posted a new activity comment 1 month, 3 weeks ago

    simple but powerful, much love!

    In reply to - drew commented on the post, destined when you want to give up on the world, think of earth. • View
  • tiffanylu posted a new activity comment 1 month, 3 weeks ago

    i’m glad you like it :) you think i should continue and add to it?

    In reply to - tiffanylu posted an update cities, pt. 2 the city breathes smoke into the night, ghosts lit through the windows of seedy bars and other desperate places. her red lips stretched in a wolf’s smile are no consolation you can fathom. you find yourself in a crouch, knees collapsing like brief empires. strangers with hollow eyes cry emergency, beckon for resurrection. here, filtering breaths through your hands, every second spreads down your back like a burning forest. no angels survive in war zones like these. • View
  • tiffanylu posted an update 1 month, 3 weeks ago

    cities, pt. 2

    the city breathes smoke into the night,
    ghosts lit through the windows of seedy bars
    and other desperate places. her red lips
    stretched in a wolf’s smile
    are no consolation you can fathom.

    you find yourself in a crouch, knees collapsing
    like brief empires.

    strangers with hollow eyes
    cry emergency, beckon
    for resurrection.

    here, filtering breaths through your hands,
    every second spreads down your back
    like a burning forest.

    no angels survive in war zones like these.

  • tiffanylu posted an update 1 month, 4 weeks ago

    cities. signals. smoke. (amalgamation)

    ii.

    always hand to mouth, eating up the crumbs of your heart
    that you vomit and swallow and vomit and repeat–

    he moves to the side, at the edge of the mess you lay in,
    shoes and pants clean.

    the way his face stills is a filthy thing.
    all you hear falling from the chimney of his mouth
    is a steady litany of suicide notes, manic
    encouragements.

    you could bury yourself in them.

    i.

    each day is a struggle. you say the sun will not wake with you.
    lonely street lamps exhale steam through
    a third floor window.

    you breathe it in like second-hand smoke, let it fill you
    until you become a pile of ashes
    rising to the ceiling.
    a sorry imitation of a phoenix.

    iii.

    “don’t you have anything to fight for?” he asks.

    you nod yes. “myself,” you say,
    but the one skewered on the end of your sword
    wears your face,
    smiling through a mouthful of blood.

    if you were still capable of it, you’d both be crying.

  • tiffanylu commented on the post, signals 2 months, 1 week ago

    always hand to mouth, eating up the broken crumbs of
    your heart that you vomit and swallow and vomit and repeat–

    he moves to the side, at the edge of the pool you find yourself kneeling in,
    shoes and pants clean as he yells manic encouragements.

  • tiffanylu commented on the post, signals 2 months, 1 week ago

    each day is a struggle. the sun will not wake with me.
    lonely street lamps exhale steam through
    a second floor window.

    i breathe it in like second-hand smoke, let it fill me
    until i become a pile of ashes
    rising to the ceiling.

    “don’t you have anything to fight for?” you say.

    i nod yes. “myself”, i say, but the one skewered
    on the end of my sword wears my face,
    smiling through a mouthful of blood.

    if i were still capable of it, we would both be crying.

  • tiffanylu commented on the post, knock 2 months, 2 weeks ago

    a stranger comes by on a sunday evening,
    trying to sell me the grace of God
    with promises of love and fulfillment

    the pamphlets he hands me feel like
    cheap napkins fallen off of diner tables,
    the ones with neatly scrawled ‘call me’s,
    an invitation to lonely bodies.

    i don’t know what i’m waiting for.

    he adjusts his glasses.

    genuinely: no miss, i can’t stay for tea,
    i’ve got so many people to speak to
    tonight. and i think, what is this new life
    i’m supposed to find if i’m still standing
    by the burner alone?

    i close the door on him when i can no longer
    meet his eyes

    and even that is done without conviction.

  • tiffanylu commented on the post, sanctity 3 months ago

    a refraction of light across the ceiling
    smooth like prayers in a language you
    don’t know how to speak.

    laying in the dark, hands still on your chest
    pull loose threads until they give.

    breathe it in, the taste of tears
    again in your saliva.

    (you could be looking at stars.
    these are your stars.)

  • tiffanylu commented on the post, think 3 months, 1 week ago

    black tar rushes up my throat again.
    i shut my teeth, but it leaks. it leaks, it leaks,
    and my white dress, the one my mother gave me
    when i once made her proud–
    i feel the silk stick to my skin.

    i can’t think. the room is stifling
    with the quiet of your arrival. it feels like loss.
    my blackened smile is something hideous that you
    force yourself to look at.

    you never asked, and i said too much.
    my heart is running on black tar,
    each beat a violation.

  • tiffanylu posted an update 3 months, 1 week ago

    when you play the piano your naked form shivers,
    fingers slipping on each note, something of
    a scream.

    your throat clenches around wool.

    let it swallow your spit.

    -

    the pill:

    no one listens when you speak, not even yourself.
    and the only ones who might hear your song
    are the keys you are playing on

    but even they have come alive
    under better hands than yours.

  • tiffanylu posted a new activity comment 3 months, 1 week ago

    thank you. :)

    In reply to - tiffanylu commented on the post, speak our conversations lazy stretching into the dark the sound of getting to know myself again. words spill over the edge of your lips something we won’t remember but for faint watermarks left on the coffee table. • View
  • tiffanylu posted a new activity comment 3 months, 1 week ago

    thank you, with more sincerity than i can express.

    In reply to - tiffanylu posted an update my life is no different now than in childhood. i am still on my knees, foraging for beautiful things in the dirt: smooth stones, bright weeds, and any reason at all to live. • View
  • tiffanylu posted an update 3 months, 2 weeks ago

    one day i’ll burn down my childhood home,
    the one we sold over a decade ago
    when i still thought crying
    could change something.

    it is a tomb in my memories where i find myself
    at night, running and running on
    away from the demon i was sure slept under my bed.

    what i find in those dreams
    is instead a box, empty save for photographs
    of all our smiling faces.

    i want to burn it all,
    the room with one window where i
    used to daydream, where my mother tucked me in
    every night with a tired kiss.

    at that time, the only ‘i hate you’ i knew
    was in another language
    and i had not yet started
    saying it to myself.

    it won’t let me go, this place that has become
    a fish bowl, a draw bridge, blank walls with no door.

    once everything’s ash, there’ll be nothing left to run away from
    except myself.

    and i’ve long gotten used to that already.

  • tiffanylu commented on the post, speak 3 months, 3 weeks ago

    our conversations
    lazy stretching into the dark
    the sound of
    getting to know myself again.

    words spill over the edge of your lips
    something we won’t remember
    but for faint watermarks left
    on the coffee table.

  • tiffanylu posted a new activity comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago

    your writing is lovely.

    In reply to - MONO commented on the post, size My father and I used to fish in a murky sound. We caught only ugly things—muddily-scaled bloated bullheads, scraggly algae, and twisted tiny crabs. We let them all go. Gently. Not one of our catches ever died or gasped in air for very long. The most beautiful fish I caught fit in my palm. It was slick and spirited—every spasm caused it to spill silver and salt. I held an entire sea in a hand. • View
  • tiffanylu commented on the post, sound 3 months, 4 weeks ago

    my childhood was preparation for life without a father.
    not in the way a hand clenches a photograph, or even
    the tears product of divorce.
    i don’t mean loss.

    but i am quiet now. i sleep quiet, speak quiet, cry quiet;
    quiet burrowed in the pit of my stomach
    and there was never anyone
    to coax it out.

    when i was young, sometimes i’d walk downstairs on the balls of my feet,
    eavesdropping on the hum of late night tv
    and rumbling snores.

    i learned not to ask why my father slept on a couch
    for seven years; why
    he came and went from our dinner table
    like an unplanned guest.

    our family photo albums aren’t empty
    so much as they don’t
    exist.

    this is what i mean by absence.

    it is quiet, without the weight of
    a bombshell. it is dust in the sunroom
    where someone once sat
    but has since forgotten.

  • tiffanylu posted an update 4 months ago

    notes to self:

    little girls in nordic helmets, cheeks streaked with ash. the demon tapping your foot as you sleep. wild dreams. our distance measured in tugs on my skirt. once there was a boy i laughed with over umbrellas. art and artificiality. painted lips. testing the stretch and curl of the words in your mouth (spoken only with contempt). simple like the flatline of a heart monitor, gone silent when i looked away.

  • tiffanylu commented on the post, promise 4 months, 1 week ago

    every day we lived in some kind of fever,
    bodies thrown against lockers
    drawing blood with
    conviction.

    history classes spent watching
    taped documentaries–the worn faces
    of american heroes, their stories, their sorrows,
    but
    excuse me
    will this be
    on the
    test?

    high school wasn’t real life
    and it didn’t do a damn thing
    to prepare us either.

  • tiffanylu posted an update 4 months, 2 weeks ago

    my life is no different now than in childhood. i am still on my knees, foraging for beautiful things in the dirt: smooth stones, bright weeds, and any reason at all to live.

  • tiffanylu commented on the post, soil 4 months, 3 weeks ago

    my comfort comes from myself, words a hollow imitation of a warm hand.

    like this i bury myself in the shallow earth. i am not happy, but i also

    cannot breathe.

    it’s all i have, and the closest i have found to peace.

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