A GIRL DOES NOT NEED TO BE IN LOVE TO KNOW HEARTBREAK

 

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introduction

a girl does not need to be in love to know heartbreak is a short collection consisting of only five poems which more or less, was written over the course of a week. it is a focal shift on the aftermath of trauma and tragedy, and the sad truth that we cannot return to who we once were. rather, we bury that self in dead naïveté and innocence in exchange for survival and the ache to recover.

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things you learn at 20

  1. life becomes a little easier when you teach yourself to bat your eyelashes and sway your hips. it becomes instinct, and you no longer have to take because you are given.
  2. you like kissing but you hate being watched. you shut your eyes: underneath, on top—and fucking is different when you can feel their stare on your face and you refuse to stare back. sometimes you think about the expressions you make, moaning and vulnerable, and sometimes you wonder if you are worth waiting for.
  3. you’re thrown through a loop for once, in your silver spoon-fed life, when you are the pursuer and not the one pursued. he idles your thoughts in school and work and 2am loneliness and honestly, how the hell do you make someone fall for you? (you hope he never reads this.)
  4. it takes 12 minutes to get to your work, 30 minutes to your school and an hour for you to shower, choose an outfit and apply makeup. it takes 5 seconds for “hey, beautiful, come over here,” and it takes a lifetime for you to forget the way men look at you.
  5. you like to forget to text back your parents, and you like to tell them you fell asleep when really, you were just blackout drunk. you like to forget to text back your best friend who sends you five consecutive messages, asking where you are, who you’re with and where you’re going. you like to forget who you are.
  6. toeing the line between recklessness and responsibility is how you pass away friday nights in college dorms, in frat parties, in someone else’s bed. but when he’s drowning you in the front seat of his car and you forget how to breathe, you wish adulthood meant something more to you. you wish you could do everything over again.
  7. selfishness is out, self-martyrdom is in and pity is like a bittersweet honey. except you indulge more than you should, and it always comes as a surprise to everyone when it sticks to the back of your tongue and bile pushes the edge of your throat. no one tells you when you start to reek of artificial sweetness and artificial words.
  8. you know one-eighths of love and the honeymoon phase. you know that you really need to fix your diet, and you know that you will not wake up on time for your 4:30am shift. you know that you are twenty years old and one day, you will figure this all out.
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Katerina

Hi. I like your poetry style. I like your work. Well done. I hope you have thought of publishing a book. You are talented. Good luck!

i. how we ached to no longer be delicate, to no longer be slaughter

“is this enough?” she asks

lipstick half-smeared on swollen cherub lips

glazed eyes drowning in eyeliner, in dark churches

spilt on an eggshell wardrobe at seven-thirty

angel fingers tremble in perfection, in beauty


“no,” he says

calloused hands carving through leg,

violence and casualty intertwined with clashing

teeth and mouths pressed

he never cared for seraphs, but he touched her

anyway


“is this enough?” she asks

and summer comes tumbling headfirst

heat stroked goddess skin, the sway of split and

honeyed hips

lolita—


an uprising of chaos and bile climbing through


—lies in envy.


“no,” they say

and she is still sacred, still holy

but the crusade had not been for her

the names of conquerors scarred into bone

eden carefully trampled underfoot by its gardener


and look, i always had nectar dripping from my thighs

ambrosia overflowing from my throat

and o how wolves flock with open jaws and lolling tongues

how the dogs came running to lap at

naive lifeblood and twilight and girlhood

and let’s face it, it was only a matter of time before

you let them sink their teeth into something more fatal

something more precious than your collarbones or smouldered eyes

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ii. on sunday the birds stopped singing

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masochism is just another form of self-inflicted affection

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why no one ever tells you softness is a curse

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