i've been so crazy busy lately, but i finally was able to write something last night!! it's a piece that's been wanting to spill onto the page for some time now, and i'm glad i could get it out. yk when you write that one piece that makes you feel so relieved, like a weight has been lifted off your chest? it's one of those.
someone i loved passed away recently. i had shut myself in my room, and bore most of the pain alone. in this poem, i wrote about the loneliness, the feeling as if a whole ocean is bearing down on me. i wrote about how i used to know very little about grief, thought of it as a feeling i wouldn't need to know until much later in life. but mostly, i wrote about the particular aches and sharps of grief i don't know how to express (except in lines of poetry).
edit: for a sidewalk poetry thing in my city, i used a few lines of this poem :) just a note for myself later
ANYWAYS- here's my bookstagram if u wanna check it out-- @ libraryofmari
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bare feet
wading through crushed glass
oh, these crystal paths
winding down cheeks
iridescence
in the splinters of jewels
that sing out
rivers of anguish
when brought to the
hollow
of an ear
—of an innocent, unmarred heart,
with hungry veins spiraling out
in curiosity—
straining to catch
a drop of grief's echo—
how far can your soul dip
into the depths of grief,
all the dark, love-burning shades of it,
without knowing it truly?
you will only splash in the shallows
your lips stinging from
the frothing white
of a single wave's kiss
to the shore
where you dig your hands
into its bleached coarseness
and come up empty.
it is only when
life has been carved
out of you,
when a heart stops
and yours staggers on—
that is when
you have touched ocean floor.
crystal paths are not walked on,
they are carved, they are felt,
they are chisels
chipping at stone cheeks.
and you bleed,
though all anyone can see
is the pain—it's tangible in the air,
visibly weaving through thick tangles
of silence and polite sympathies—
yet the tearing of will,
the stretching and aching
of a heart trying to draw taut
its loose corners, its caving-in chambers—
that's kept hidden,
buried beneath the piles of
sickly-sweet roses and pastel cards
that say the right things,
things that supposedly
won't crack my eggshell resolve.
i'm here, laughing, trying to love
while hanging back, reaching for a ghost,
because in actuality—
i'm there, off on an island of my own,
trying to keep to the shallows
where the sea wind can still
twine with my breath,
and the stars are all gathered
just above me,
as if they were painted there
and i was the one
who held the silver paintbrush
and willed it to be so.
but though i clung to the shoreline,
i was pulled,
dragged to the deep, moonlit waves
nonetheless,
because the depths don't need to be sought for—
they will find you in the shallows,
or else drown you on dry land, darling.
iron currents
looped around my ankles,
guided me to where
only loneliness dwelled,
crushingly quiet and raw.
there,
i faced grief
in solitude.
there,
i became a girl of crumbling stone.
lonely statue,
wailing waters eating away
at its features,
until it's smooth,
worn,
blank as a wordless page.
i wait for
my next inhale,
and the next,
gasping
for
the final breath
of destruction.
let my howling heart
meet the stone-cold sands
of the sea floor,
where the bones gather
and hopes shatter upon them
like golden plates.
love,
mari