Poetry

Empath

~ Purpleanais ~ 33 Comments

image

On the outside, I was
well put-together, a polished shell
luxurious mane of dark hair
skin delicate porcelain
bright cyan eyes
popular, clever, straight A’s
window dressing at best—
at worse, half-truths and lies
which were betrayed
by chewed-up nails
hands continuously restless
overflowing ashtrays
piling up around me like used cars
in a dealer’s yard
I ran with scissors
juggled with razors
under the cover of darkness
this, the predators
knew, felt
they could smell weakness
a need to love and help
so great
it would seal my fate
tie me to a runaway train
for more years than I could bear
they—could hardly believe their luck
couldn’t wait to fuck me
and fuck me up
defective and mean
they’d bite
claws digging into soft flesh
they’d forgotten or didn’t recognise kindness
perhaps never knew it,
lacked it, hence hated it
either way it came to the same thing
and it’d always end in the same fashion
I’d bleed, weep
my tears falling, for myself
but mostly for them
I hadn’t managed to fix my pain
but even worse, I hadn’t fixed theirs

*Posted last year but I like it. I’ve grown tougher over the last few years, thank f**k, but overall, this is such an accurate description of my (early) life. Oh, and on reflection, the pic of my eye is slightly creepy, sorry about that.*

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What if

~ Purpleanais ~ 14 Comments

Sadness

You say
You understand
That it doesn’t matter
That it’s fine
But I think
What if it’s too late
What if I pray
For nothing
What if
It’s the end?
And the guilt
Is suffocating
The regret
Of the scale

(For my beautiful friend
Who flew from halfway
Across the world
In May
To come & stay
Here in England
For a short while
And I didn’t make time
To see her
Because of my Master’s
End of year project
Because I was stressed
As she arrived
Just before the deadline
And it wasn’t until
Last night
When we spoke
And she told
Gave me shocking updates
That I realised
What a mistake
I made
Back in May
I lost sight
Of what really matters –
And it’s not Master’s)

Image Credit:  j3ff3rson.deviantart.com

Maybe – probably

~ Purpleanais ~ 55 Comments

Do you feel like you’ve seen me before? That’s because you probably have. Think back, was it maybe inside the Louvres where I stood still, as though turned to stone, mentally writing lines while a single lonely fly buzzed and twirled unable to distract no matter how hard it tried…
Could it have been in a bar, in my hand a tall glass, colourful cocktails with exotic names, inebriated laughs, climbing to the top of fantasy slides with a stupid smile and a desolate heart…
Perhaps in a palace or in a gutter looking up at the stars, it’s not given to everyone to be able to channel Oscar Wilde, lurching from disaster to triumph, melting in time to the ice in our drinks, being knowing and getting dirty without ever blushing – it’s pointless feeling shame in the dark…
Yes, you’ve met me at some point in the past, me or another very similar, and you wondered was there more to that girl than madness in fits and starts? The cigarette in hesitant fingers, the look in the eyes kinda febrile, can she really love books like she loves shoes, can anyone truly really successfully own depth and style, attend one of Gatsby’s great parties and retain the spirit and intellect of a French marquise…
It was me, it was others, the arrows from Cupid were sometimes axes stuck in our backs, the fever was not a curse but a gift, if you bleed you’re an artist, nobody wants to be empty and frozen and stare at a blank page, you shouldn’t spare yourself or anybody else,
must dance and carouse, feast and fail, fly and fall, always, to the end without regrets because the knell rings, deafening, all too soon — and a floating balloon just pops, deflates and there is nothing, nothing left.

*Written last night when back from the pub, I went out in crazy weather and took my usual blurry pictures because: new shoes – black suede adorned with gold spikes and, guys, I’ve gone bling with those and I usually abhor bling BUT I adore those shoes*

Do you remember?

~ Purpleanais ~ 26 Comments

image

Do you remember?
I used to wear candy pink for a dare, play the part of the prom queen for a day.
You never took ice in your drink, you liked to drop obscure hints.
We thought we’d be forever linked.

We lit innocent hearts plucked from unlucky bystanders, kindling in our palms we’d quickly discard and throw on the bonfire.

With the tip of our fingers we’d pick up the smouldering embers, watch them slowly die, and
laugh with the cruelty of youth… that has no regard for consequence & can’t comprehend the pain of absence.

There was so much love still to drink and no one had yet clipped our wings.

Do you remember?
We looked for art everywhere, prized intellect and quoted Voltaire, performed pirouettes, pretended to be the precious heir in a play by Molière.
Who did we think we were, all attitude and complicated words.
We thought we were deliciously sarcastic, delightfully ironic, we were – really – pathetic kids verging on the moronic, with impossible standards and a bad case of folie des grandeurs.

Do you remember?

As the violins cried behind the hills, we tried to imbue the bartender with the charm of Michelangelo’s David, but even the power of wishful thinking has its limits and we were left with nothing, not even a pale copy, not even an apprentice’s underdrawing, because the bartender, far cleverer than we were, had scampered with our tenners.

We made our memories and tore them into strips, scattered them to the wind, unable to believe that one day we’d want them back, if not intact then at least some kind of scrap.

Do you remember…
My purple eyeliner left streaks over my face. We still had to learn nobody ever wins this particular race, and that the best you can hope for is to reach the end with some kind of grace.

First posted July 26th 2016

Equality

~ Purpleanais ~ 9 Comments

Heartbreaking/stunning piece of writing by my insanely talented sister Candice

TheFeatheredSleep

The day I came out … all my girlfriends took one step apart

it can’t bethey collectively agreed

she’s too pretty, she’s too feminine, she’s not a dyke she’s one of us

didn’t she enjoy sex with that boy in the garden? you know that party the one where

they turned the lights on and saw them straddled in tall grass?

What happened? Did you get raped? Was it because you grew up without a mom?

What happened? Did you get bewitched? Is she a sorceress? A genie? A devil?

Soon after the invites to go out on the girls-nights

dwindled

the newly minted lesbian sat alone with her shadows and her eye make up

growing stale in their plastic boxes

virile boys wondered why they hadn’t kept her straight

cleavage girls wondered if she had looked at them in the shower the wrong way

why didn’t you try…

View original post 740 more words

Instant Crush

~ Purpleanais ~ 30 Comments

i_can_t_fix_it__by_slackbun-d8z3vda

my half-closed eyes
spy
our shadows
moving on the wall
unsubtle silhouettes
sketched in haste
in bold and frenetic motion
stark in its execution
we’re writing infinite stories
on each other’s bodies
raw scribbled lines
words without rhymes
rough caresses
laced with
occasional tenderness
we moan shudder and gasp
as if taking our last breath
on those insatiable nights
filled with perpetual fights
to stave off the darkness
and postpone death

*First posted in 2015*

They

~ Purpleanais ~ 47 Comments

They tell me
I know nothing about adversity
I’ve never suffered
Never faced prejudice
Thus denying
My tears
My scars
My entire history
Invalidating my feelings
Erasing my identity
Blatantly
While they are so keen
To assert theirs
When will they
Accept
Nobody
Has a monopoly
On pain

*For all the arrogant, self-obsessed fuckers out there who assume far too much when they don’t have a fucking clue. Just because someone doesn’t constantly act like a victim doesn’t mean they haven’t had it hard too – some of us don’t enjoy navel-gazing, wallowing in self-pity and don’t have any desire to play the victim card every day of our fucking lives. But, hey, maybe it’s because we have a full deck to choose from instead of one lonely single one? Just a thought*

Gelato

~ Purpleanais ~ 31 Comments

Dancing, lost to the music, nothing else exists but my body and the beat

Vaguely aware that somewhere
in the crowd, in the small pocket of shadows
you are watching
my hips roll,
the curve of my arse,
my fervid arms scenting the sky with Guerlain’s Shalimar,
my chest rising and falling though I’m not breathing

Here on my ship,
the bit parts, hangers-on,
walk the plank – you and I are the leads in bleached denim sprung back from the 80’s

3 songs and I’ll go take your hand because

I can’t resist

I’m greedy,
craving summery things,
ice cream
smeared on my lips, dripping on my skin, running down my fingers –

je lèche tout – innocence and prescience blended in one oblique look

Sugar shot from a gun triggered in the sun,
No wasting such sweet taste 

est-il trop tôt for gelato laced with innuendo?

senses overload,

tonight, ti voglio

I know

that you also feel

the need, like at seventeen, to explode
and never see tomorrow

*To mark my Saturday session on the beach with my French gang and our dancing to this perfect tune which inspired me in so many ways I ended up totally ripping it off*