because we are so stupid,
they think that
our weak hearts whimper
in our uninspired chests,
that our blood pools like sludge in our feet
and fingertips,
that we aim our smiles vapidly
at our front-facing cameras
to capture nothing more than our
narcissism.
because we are so stupid,
they give us no choice
but to fight like dogs for atlas’s position—
unpaid,
but it might look good
on our resume.
(now, because we are so stupid,
we wonder why our backs hurt,
why it’s so hard to enjoy the world
when it’s resting on our shoulders, why
no matter how brilliantly our resumes sparkle,
our phones sit
dead
on our desks.)
but
b
a retraction of august's horoscope by aprilwednesday, literature
Literature
a retraction of august's horoscope
“aquarius, you have fallen in love with the storm again,”
the august horoscope reads.
it is almost—but not quite—correct.
for the sake of astrological accuracy
it might be revised to read,
“aquarius, you have fallen
in love—” (this part
may remain)
“—aquarius, you have fallen in love
in the sticky heat of summer,
the air as damp as your skin,
heat rising from the tarmac
of this flat swamp town.”
or perhaps, “aquarius,
it will not feel like a storm.
there will be no lightning bolts,
no thunder. there will be no fire
under your skin.”
“aquarius, your love will be
i.
my father is an electric guitar.
he spends most of his time displayed on the wall,
shining when the light hits him just so,
hovering in the perfect spot.
he is not new, but neither is he old--
used so rarely, he would gather dust
if he were not kept so pristine.
the only music i’ve ever heard him play is
carefully rehearsed,
read off a page of inky black notes,
perfectly following the italicized instructions,
con amore
bruscamente
diminuendo.
i never understood the words,
but they nestled in my psyche anyway.
i always thought he would be better if the instructions
were tossed away
and he was played instead of displayed,
his stri
through struggle to the stars by aprilwednesday, literature
Literature
through struggle to the stars
before you were born,
you scraped per ardua
ad astra onto the inside of your collarbone,
and injected glowing nebulae
in between your vertebrae
because you always loved finding shapes
in star clouds
and on your longest days now,
when the heat wraps its loving arms around you
in an embrace you can’t escape,
and the sun lays salty beads across your skin,
you trace your collarbone absently
and draw a little strength out of your spine
and you’ll stoop a little more with each passing year,
but that’s okay.
it just means the star stuff did its job right.
she swallowed the darkness like it was medicine
and didn’t stop until she knew it had turned to poison in her veins.
all she wanted was her skinny heart to shudder to a halt
and her blackberry blood to stop teasing her
from under the pseudoprotection of her skin
but poison doesn’t always work the way you want it to.
sometimes, like the wishes that a genie grants from behind his grinning mask,
poison likes to trick you into thinking you have control
until you’re too far gone to realize
or too far gone to care
so her skinny heart never stopped,
but her bones began screaming under her skin
and cobwebs wove themselves in fron
the boy who swallowed a star by aprilwednesday, literature
Literature
the boy who swallowed a star
the moon drizzles through the clouds.
i've been thinking of you.
sometimes during a storm,
i imagine that the electricity snapping through the air
is your touch;
that the rain splattering on the roof is your
fingers, tapping impatiently;
that the petrichor-infused wind
is your perfume,
your breath
and i walk,
letting the water kiss my eyelashes,
caress my collarbone,
tug on my clothes
i let the wind give me goosebumps
and fill up my lungs with the smell of
you, my nowhere boy
my shadow boy
the boy with constellation freckles and
sensitive veins, who would swallow a star
just to feel its fire.
it's been storming a lot, la
a ribcage drenched in dust by aprilwednesday, literature
Literature
a ribcage drenched in dust
i have your ribcage, you said.
what should i put in it?
i told you i'd always wanted a fire,
the kind that would fill my eyes with starlight
and pump my blood full of passion, but
you're made of wildflowers, you said.
a fire would burn you to ash.
you wanted to fill my chest with
the sound of a train, whistling
far away in the night;
with the sound of rain smacking leaves;
with the sound the wind makes
when it seems like it's trying to speak
and you wanted to throw in the
smell of midnight in august
and the feeling of sand being
sucked out from under your feet
when the ocean inhales,
and the strange little moment of
bitter