Literary Series Feature

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Daily Literature Recognition's Literary Series Feature


In this series we will be featuring multiple deviations by a single deviant that come together to form a single literary piece.</h3>

Words I Need to Say by Nullibicity

A series of vignettes. Emotional, gripping, and artfully presented, they provide a very personal look into the human condition. Every piece is a testament to the power of the written word, and how leaning into our own vulnerability can be liberating, terrifying, and poignant at the same time. There are currently 27 pieces in this series.

  after himclutch tight to Gandhi and Plath—
and maybe the sicker works of Poe,
his Annabel Lee—
and open cotton ears to the streetlamps
covering shadow streets, shadow people,
and tell me why we breathe.
there’s space in your sheets,
and I’m glad I didn’t crawl in and nest
like blue jays in the spring...though one
time I did fall in, and it was far from graceful—
dirt and mud on your quilt and just hand grenades
in my right breast, waiting for your fingers
to pull out all the pins.
 
collapsei.
“You’re winter… someone unknown—unfeeling,” I am told by the inferno minds of mothers, poison ivy-handed and strangled by a sorrow far deeper than blue trenches… and perhaps, then, bruises are truly meant as warmth for starving hearts.
When you browbeat desolation with the same fist, I drown and sob in nailboards, your absence pinned within my throat.
ii.
“You’re nothing but deserving,” I am told by stainless steel and death, angry and hidden alongside pillow-roofs and prayers. And maybe I don’t believe in god as I believe in it, directing midnight shadows through the intersections of scar tissue. I am only known by five white walls.
weightless and dizzy-faced, they are the only true friends: iron-lipped and stable.
iii.
“You’re too pretty to be so shy,” I am told by a man with fishing hooks for fingers… so I sing and sigh in song, like sirens ‘neath his boat.
I am skinned from the sea three
 
teach me to forgetPasts unfurl in rain-puddled irises, and I wish staring into you would not reflect me.
It’s a one-way mirror you say, because I’m shut up tighter than conch shells at the bottom of whale-wide trenches, enough salt and death to hide the tears pooling from every twitch of these dream-broke fingers. I just cannot hold onto them, like I can’t hold onto myself, without cracking and breaking into shards of seven-year’s bad luck - that same, stupid “save me” smile plastered into each mask I grow to fear; it doesn’t apply, it seems, to girls who break for conversation (and as easily as ‘broken’), just because pity seems the only greeting worth remembering her for.
(Please tell me I’m not her anymore).
 
blujayHer spine is crumpling into origami cranes, left in jars beside a dreamer’s dresser (I childishly hope they stretch bone-wings to heights, little Icaruses, as they tempt the gods in flight).
I don’t wish to be nomads, wandering through the birdhouses of “if”s and “when she dies…” for I’ve been a gypsy of apology, ghosting through sterilized rooms and bed-feet, as much an apparition as Reapers; and because I could not see Them, I learned to say “goodbye.”
I do not wish to make my nests of broken bottles and her flattened dreams.

spiders and flieswe are not children
who pinwheel through my mother’s garden,
who blur reality before we’ve even known the bliss.
not anymore.
we are not children who forgive easily
(like hearts aren’t robin eggs)
or who’ve never tasted the assurance from pinkies
and rattle-sore lips. and our sandcastles?
they will not house rapunzel but tumble before the sea.
It will not remember our footprints.
not anymore.
we are not children, though we may wish
to turn time like the three stirs in exciting, grown-up coffee,
like daylight on my father’s old clock, the one that
ended days too quickly
because we made chameleons of feasted lamb skins,
(because time was stolen, and time was precious),
and as hard as it is, we must adapt:
make-up masks and push up bras, to appear
inexperienced, but desiring, of a pleasure,
because although we’re deceiving, we can’t dream of blending.
You should know best of all,
that after everything, we couldn’t.
not anymore.
 
MotheatenIt's louder still
but you don't hear it
(and that has to be okay).
Darkness holds me close again -
so safe like warmth and
death.
I am hypothermia
shivering within
hallow catacombs;
hurtling towards
asphyxiation.
Then it gets louder.
My ribs overflow with moths
and bone;
they devour all my light.
It is the fearful thunder
shooting down my arms,
too uncertain for one place.
It vibrates blood and scars
until my fingertips are earthquakes
cracking open famine soil, and
I curl them tightly -
control the fear.
Then it gets louder.
It starts small -
the little things -
amateur acupuncturists
stabbing away at the vitals
of what ifs and could bes...
it's always just the little things.
 
lessons in surrenderi.
She wished to be dressed in poetry
but she didn’t understand that
imagery fades and that metaphors
are too easily forgotten.
ii.
She asked why I didn’t utilize my
alliteration eyes—why I hid the tag
‘ hello my name is: writer
beneath San Francisco bays
and rotting ink grenades,
still in dead crusade.
iii.
I broke pencil shavings in
skybound veins, just to taste
the words
and I bled like a sinner
for mere dreams of some redemption.
“I’m only a poet of capitulation”


prepared by: callerofcrows and VertigoArt


Skin by SimplySilent
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Comments4
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Nullibicity's avatar
:faint: oh my... I don't even know what to say! I wish I had the right words. It's just the fact that you all thought my work worthy enough to feature here... and in such a generous amount! My word, I'm so honored, and flabbergasted, and in a state of such gratitude. Thank you so very, very much! I'm only sorry that I cannot produce the proper words to express my appreciation and love. The fact that people are interested in these words I write... it is a great encouragement! Thank you so very much!

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and thank you so incredibly much for paying my small corner of dA such a visit. It was so unexpected, but so warmly appreciated. Thank you, again. I am very grateful. :heart::rose: