Ashe Vernon's Blog, page 103
February 18, 2016
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I got an answering machine for my phone. Now when I'm not home and somebody calls me up, they hear a recording of a busy signal.
You’re an evil mastermind and I like you
February 17, 2016
"I know you don’t want
any more of my apologies,
it’s just that there’s this
buzzing in my mouth..."
“I know you don’t want
any more of my apologies,
it’s just that there’s this
buzzing in my mouth and
I made a promise not to hurt you
like the last girl did.
And the thing is,
I didn’t.
I hurt you different.
But I feel like I still
proved you right.”
- WHEN THE BEE STINGS BY ACCIDENT by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
any more of my apologies,
it’s just that there’s this
buzzing in my mouth and
I made a promise not to hurt you
like the last girl did.
And the thing is,
I didn’t.
I hurt you different.
But I feel like I still
proved you right.”
- WHEN THE BEE STINGS BY ACCIDENT by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
February 16, 2016
"I tagged my father on Facebook by accident, yesterday.
I’ve heard lots of people speak on..."
“I tagged my father on Facebook by accident, yesterday.
I’ve heard lots of people speak on these
social media eulogies—heard them say
the comfort they take in the lingering presence
of names too easily forgotten,
heard them say they are grateful
that our footprint on this world is
just a little bit harder to erase.
But I am so tired of making gospel
of a dead man.
I hate the way he shows up in the suggestions
every time I type my own last name;
this is a strange kind of haunting–
one where I do not see him in the shadows
of my parents’ home, but instead
at three AM in my own apartment,
cities away from the place where he died.
Two and a half years later,
and he is still smiling in his profile picture.
I didn’t do poetry when my father was alive.
But a few weeks ago, I accidentally invited him
to a poetry slam in a city he’s never been to.
And maybe there was a part of me
still hoping he’d show up to it.
I have a lot of things left to say to my father,
got a lot of heartbreak that went unanswered for,
apologies on both sides that were never given.
But this is not the kind of grief you leave
on a Facebook wall. This is not
“I thought about you, today” kind of pain.
And I can’t help but resent all the people
whose aftermath is so simple
as to be parsed out in a three hundred character paragraph
on a page my family does not have the password for.
How dare their grief be so succinct.
I have spent two and a half years
trying to put words to this,
I still don’t have enough of them.
I cannot stomach the “I miss you”s from strangers:
people he hadn’t spoken to in twenty years,
people who did not know the ugly of his last moments,
who remember the man before the sickness,
who did not grow up in a house full of landmines,
did not kiss their father goodnight knowing
he was a time-bomb.
I know it’s selfish, but
I do not want to be privy to their second-hand grief.
I don’t care what his college friends have to say about him.
His wall has become a morgue I did not want
to be buried in.
So instead, I resurrect his ghost on a microphone,
I pray to half-forgotten echoes of a childhood
where his love did not come with a caveat,
I refuse to lay him down to rest and yet
I have the gall to be sanctimonious.
All this time, and I am still willing
to put parameters around everyone else’s grieving
without taking responsibility for my own.
My father’s Facebook wall is a reminder
of all the people who have managed to move on
from his passing, when here I am:
writing the same poem
for the hundredth time,
no closer to being able
to say goodbye to him.”
- FACEBOOK EULOGIES by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
I’ve heard lots of people speak on these
social media eulogies—heard them say
the comfort they take in the lingering presence
of names too easily forgotten,
heard them say they are grateful
that our footprint on this world is
just a little bit harder to erase.
But I am so tired of making gospel
of a dead man.
I hate the way he shows up in the suggestions
every time I type my own last name;
this is a strange kind of haunting–
one where I do not see him in the shadows
of my parents’ home, but instead
at three AM in my own apartment,
cities away from the place where he died.
Two and a half years later,
and he is still smiling in his profile picture.
I didn’t do poetry when my father was alive.
But a few weeks ago, I accidentally invited him
to a poetry slam in a city he’s never been to.
And maybe there was a part of me
still hoping he’d show up to it.
I have a lot of things left to say to my father,
got a lot of heartbreak that went unanswered for,
apologies on both sides that were never given.
But this is not the kind of grief you leave
on a Facebook wall. This is not
“I thought about you, today” kind of pain.
And I can’t help but resent all the people
whose aftermath is so simple
as to be parsed out in a three hundred character paragraph
on a page my family does not have the password for.
How dare their grief be so succinct.
I have spent two and a half years
trying to put words to this,
I still don’t have enough of them.
I cannot stomach the “I miss you”s from strangers:
people he hadn’t spoken to in twenty years,
people who did not know the ugly of his last moments,
who remember the man before the sickness,
who did not grow up in a house full of landmines,
did not kiss their father goodnight knowing
he was a time-bomb.
I know it’s selfish, but
I do not want to be privy to their second-hand grief.
I don’t care what his college friends have to say about him.
His wall has become a morgue I did not want
to be buried in.
So instead, I resurrect his ghost on a microphone,
I pray to half-forgotten echoes of a childhood
where his love did not come with a caveat,
I refuse to lay him down to rest and yet
I have the gall to be sanctimonious.
All this time, and I am still willing
to put parameters around everyone else’s grieving
without taking responsibility for my own.
My father’s Facebook wall is a reminder
of all the people who have managed to move on
from his passing, when here I am:
writing the same poem
for the hundredth time,
no closer to being able
to say goodbye to him.”
- FACEBOOK EULOGIES by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
Do you ever get recognition you feel you don't deserve? Like, I know my poems aren't that good but, people act like they are. Is it normal to feel this way??
Hey, sunshine. So, to answer your question–yes, sometimes I feel caught off guard or even undeserving of attention I receive. BUT, I think it’s important to remember that people give you this recognition because they believe in you. No matter how you feel about your own work, you receive this positive feedback because you made someone else FEEL something, and that’s important. You shouldn’t undervalue the way your work speaks to other people or the reactions they have to it.
Sometimes, it can feel humble to say things like “it’s not very good” in response to praise, but what it’s really doing is telling the person “I know you like this, but you shouldn’t because it’s bad” and that simultaneously insults their tastes/interest while also underselling yourself.
I know it may FEEL like you don’t deserve the recognition, but you wouldn’t be getting it if you didn’t. Try to remember that. Take nothing for granted. Put the work first.
All my love
February 15, 2016
"I didn’t want to be
your newest breakup poem:
long-distance heartbreak,
four AM text message..."
“I didn’t want to be
your newest breakup poem:
long-distance heartbreak,
four AM text message apology.
Us summer-struck girls
aren’t doing so well
in the cold.”
- COLD SEASON by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
your newest breakup poem:
long-distance heartbreak,
four AM text message apology.
Us summer-struck girls
aren’t doing so well
in the cold.”
- COLD SEASON by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
February 14, 2016
"I am trying to put a pin in this.
I am trying to call this finished, or
over, or
something we are on..."
“I am trying to put a pin in this.
I am trying to call this finished, or
over, or
something we are on the other side of.
But it’s hard finding closure when you’re standing
in front of a door you never opened.
See, you can’t finish a race if you’re still
standing, bashful, at the starting line.
I wonder
how many months we’ve already spent
watching each other fall in and out of love
with other people.
I wonder
if I’m meant to spend a lifetime
asking god about your mouth.
This boy is not my answer
to the question we never ask each other.
No matter what anyone says,
I’m not looking for you, in him.
He is not the echo of your hands;
he looks nothing like your ghost.
I could fall in love with him and
it would have nothing to do with you–
just like the boy who broke your heart
had nothing to do with me.
I shouldn’t have to apologize
for the state we find ourselves in, and yet
I catch myself dusting my own heart
for fingerprints, for motive,
for evidence of a crime.
So this is what it is to be in love at a distance:
measured in miles,
measured in time-zones,
measured in how often I’ve thought
about my hands and your hands and
your hips and my thighs,
measured in how high we can stack
the fear, the denial, the regret.
I guess this is us finding out the hard way
that a hundred thousand maybes
aren’t worth a single fucking
yes.”
- THE ONE I DON’T WANT YOU TO READ by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
I am trying to call this finished, or
over, or
something we are on the other side of.
But it’s hard finding closure when you’re standing
in front of a door you never opened.
See, you can’t finish a race if you’re still
standing, bashful, at the starting line.
I wonder
how many months we’ve already spent
watching each other fall in and out of love
with other people.
I wonder
if I’m meant to spend a lifetime
asking god about your mouth.
This boy is not my answer
to the question we never ask each other.
No matter what anyone says,
I’m not looking for you, in him.
He is not the echo of your hands;
he looks nothing like your ghost.
I could fall in love with him and
it would have nothing to do with you–
just like the boy who broke your heart
had nothing to do with me.
I shouldn’t have to apologize
for the state we find ourselves in, and yet
I catch myself dusting my own heart
for fingerprints, for motive,
for evidence of a crime.
So this is what it is to be in love at a distance:
measured in miles,
measured in time-zones,
measured in how often I’ve thought
about my hands and your hands and
your hips and my thighs,
measured in how high we can stack
the fear, the denial, the regret.
I guess this is us finding out the hard way
that a hundred thousand maybes
aren’t worth a single fucking
yes.”
- THE ONE I DON’T WANT YOU TO READ by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
