Saturday 30 July 2016

Anywhere but goodbye



You ask me why
My thumb draws circles
On the backs of your hands
Round and round they go
Like that childhood song
Round and round they go
I bite my lip to stop
The tears from coming
My heart feels so low
You talk like we’ll have forever
Drawing castles in the air
It’s never been anything but a dare
You say goodbye like it means
Temporary
Like you don’t realize how scary
It seems to be
That if I kiss you in parting today
A week from now
I’ll have to walk past you like
We never touched
And that is the reality I must bear
Those pictures I took in your room
The yellow walls
They now entomb
The one I would’ve died for
But you didn’t care
And yet again
That is the reality I must bear
I’d rather be anywhere else
Than where you say
Goodbye

~Rachel Alexandrina N.C.L.

Sunday 24 July 2016

Don't ask me



We forget that our eyes speak
Even if our mouths close
Shut tight plastered with smiles
Our eyes weep silent tears that they don’t see
Nobody gets past the curves
And we fool ourselves thinking

This is right

This is right

This is right

I am alright

They don’t see the waterfalls
Etched down the grooves of our cheeks
The hollow bones carving caverns
Where our hearts don’t show on our sleeves

Don’t ask me why my eyes look hollowed out
Darker caves than before
Like someone blackened them with ashes
Of a heart burnt to dust
Like the bloody bruised remnants of a fight
Internalized so it won’t harm
Won’t make a sound
Not even when I hit the ground at night
Curled up in a ball
Don’t ask me

Don’t ask me why my collarbones stand out so
And my breath aches like a quiet whisper
Snaking past my throat to a smothered whimper
Why I can’t breathe and my eyes go blank
Like panic attacks?
Yes except my ribcage constricts like an anaconda
Winding itself around
Nothing
The emptiness feels like it's splitting me apart
But still
Don’t ask me

Don’t ask me why I wrap myself
Endless swathes of clothes when it’s burning
Furiously damning hot
Why though I sweat and sweat
The shivers run through me
Crippling this body
This same skin and bones  and muscles
That you used to trail your fingers along ever so lovingly

Don’t ask me

Don’t ask me

Don’t ask me

If I’ll be ok

Watch for the signs
Have you lost weight?
If only you’d feel my ribcage
You’d see it isn’t the weight I’ve lost
It’s the beating of a heart


~Rachel Alexandrina N.C.L

Monday 18 July 2016

Dealing with ghosts


His hair was rough, wiry even. Like a Scottish terrier’s the strands scratched my chin as I nestled against his head, his breaths coming even and controlled against my chest. His hands, smaller than yours and more delicate, the fingers long and beautiful, an artist’s hands but still a man’s rested softly against my back, one cupping my shoulder blade and the other pressed against the hollow. I closed my eyes and thought of you. The darkness in the room reminded me of the darkness in which you kissed my neck. The way he does now and as someone else will do from now on. It will never be you again.

I can’t say I miss you, truly I don’t. My love for you died about the time you ghosted me, that final unspoken message sinking into the depth of a heart long broken by your inability to love fully. By the way you crushed me beneath your cold pride and your ego threw that last shovel of dirt over the grave of our relationship. How that cut hurt when I poured salt into it, the pain of its sting lasting for a day, then two. Then gone, just like that. It’s amazing how fast anger heals more than melancholic remembrances. 

He cups my cheek in his hand and I sigh into the warmth that is both alien and home. For a moment I can barely tell the difference between the two, the reality of his hand on my skin and the mirage memories of yours touching me the same way. For a moment, I forget to breathe. He is clumsy still, a pup compared to your precision and your knowledge in bed. But he will learn. He is gentle and unsure, a combination I loved once, the good boy learning how to be bad. 

Taming a monster is never a challenge I back down from and God knows I’ve paid the price many times over now. Six to be exact. But this one has a beautiful soul that’s maybe just as broken as mine. The longing that rolls off his skin is a mesmerizing thing. It’s so heavy in the air till it seeps into my lungs; his yearning for human touch is addictive. I remember the way my skin remembers things. First kisses and awkward hugs that turned into breathless passionate stolen moments. He will remember this the way my skin does. Skin memory never forgets.

My mouth on his and I don’t taste you anymore. The taste of his lips, the shape of his tongue; there’s so much to explore again, so much I’ve forgotten in the time I was with you and things were routine, habitual. He learns to kiss me the way you used to do, and the way the rest did before you. He will learn yet. Lips closed, slowly, gently touch and let go. Come back up for air and repeat. 

Maybe this is lucky number seven, who knows? I will live through this and right now, the moment s we shared turn to ashes, smouldering in the heat of my pain and anger. But first remember his lips on mine, stubble brushing the soft skin of my nape and then my collarbones. Tingling and raw I feel every inch of my skin, hypersensitive and itching for more. Greedy. My body has always been a hungry thing and I’ve been starving it so long now.

I learned to let you go, the moment he touched me and felt the bones of my neglect showing through my skin. The way he skimmed his fingers over every bump and controlled his tone, light as possible, don’t pain her more than she has already suffered, that was when I knew it was time to let go. I was never that fragile really. I simply chose to mourn in the only way I knew how. In that grieving I found myself and remembered who I was before you. Maybe I can’t become her again but that doesn’t mean he will suffer for what you did. All the love I had to give you that you never deserved, maybe it will be his. 

Maybe it will be someone who I have yet to know. Someone whose face I have yet to see light up with a smile that will become my rainy day joy and a laugh that will make my belly ache. Someone who will feed me when I get too engrossed watching a show instead of tell me off for being slow. Someone who will nag me for my OCD habits yet still gently give me ground to control myself instead of forcing me the way you did. Someone who will love me and fight for me no matter what. I swear the tears that came as I wrote this are not for you. They are for me. 

I’m mourning the girl who gave all and lost. I’m mourning the love I gave without thinking and the draining emotions I forced upon myself. In those dark hours when I wept and howled to the empty four corners of my room, in the hours you weren’t there for me when you said you’d be, I learned to trust my heart. It has learned to beat again. Guess what, boy? It’s stronger than when it was before. But for now, I will enjoy his touch and I will melt, as I did for you not so long ago. As dawn breaks and streams in through his window I hope the ghost of you leaves me. I’m done praying for the heart and soul of us. 

~Rachel Alexandrina N.C.L.

Saturday 9 July 2016

You've got to breathe

I tell myself
Breathe
Breathe
Come on
You've got to
It hurts
Hell burning in my lungs
I would sooner die
I'm already there
But the voice goes on and on
Breathe
Come on
You've got to live
Even if I'm clutching
My pillow to my chest
To keep my heart from spilling out
I love you
I love you
Please come back
I hold it back
Push it all in and try not to cry
Breathe
Breathe
You've got to breathe
But all I want to do is die

Rachel Alexandrina N.C.L.

Friday 8 July 2016

Letting go

I spent the hours before dawn
Composing
It's impossible to sleep anymore
My dawning hours spent
Restful by your side
Watching you sleep with a gaze
That rivaled any cheesy romance
Gone
Now I lie awake
Restless fingers moving
To the beat of a
Racing mind
But empty heart

I'm learning to let you go
Even before you leave
Fighting in a war that rages around me
Like a ghost
My weapons fall unmanned
My cries tumbling into the void
That is you
The war rages around me
And I
Am its first and only casualty
But you will not save me
Nor let me die in peace


Rachel Alexandrina N.C.L

I write your name on my hands

I write your name on my hands
And in a quiet breath
Breathe in the memories you and I left
In the wake of your silence
I contemplate
The ink barely dried yet
It’s never too late
Chin up
Face forward
I’ve never been one to run


I write your name on my hands
And I kiss my palms the way you did
That cold June night
When it was under your blanket that I hid

I write your name on my hands
Because it’s the only way I know how
My hands typed these words
Just as they have typed ‘I love you’s then and now


Rachel Alexandrina N.C.L.