Ashe Vernon's Blog, page 127
November 25, 2015
I bought "Wrong Side of a Fistfight" from Whereareyoupress, and I just wanted you to know that I found it to be absolutely phenomenal. I don't think I've ever felt poetry so deeply as I did while I was reading it. (I most definitely cried- more than once.
I’m a little bit speechless. Even though it did go through a thorough editing process, something about that book has always felt kind of raw and unedited/uncensored to me. Maybe it’s just because of the place in my life I was in while writing it, but there’s a part of me that’s always a little anxious knowing those poems are out in the world for anyone to read. To know they affected you like that–thank you. That means so much to me.
I bought "Wrong Side of a Fistfight" from Whereareyoupress, and I just wanted you to know that I found it to be absolutely phenomenal. I don't think I've ever felt poetry so deeply as I did while I was reading it. (I most definitely cried- more than once.
I’m a little bit speechless. Even though it did go through a thorough editing process, something about that book has always felt kind of raw and unedited/uncensored to me. Maybe it’s just because of the place in my life I was in while writing it, but there’s a part of me that’s always a little anxious knowing those poems are out in the world for anyone to read. To know they affected you like that–thank you. That means so much to me.
I bought "Wrong Side of a Fistfight" from Whereareyoupress, and I just wanted you to know that I found it to be absolutely phenomenal. I don't think I've ever felt poetry so deeply as I did while I was reading it. (I most definitely cried- more than once.
I’m a little bit speechless. Even though it did go through a thorough editing process, something about that book has always felt kind of raw and unedited/uncensored to me. Maybe it’s just because of the place in my life I was in while writing it, but there’s a part of me that’s always a little anxious knowing those poems are out in the world for anyone to read. To know they affected you like that–thank you. That means so much to me.
I bought "Wrong Side of a Fistfight" from Whereareyoupress, and I just wanted you to know that I found it to be absolutely phenomenal. I don't think I've ever felt poetry so deeply as I did while I was reading it. (I most definitely cried- more than once.
I’m a little bit speechless. Even though it did go through a thorough editing process, something about that book has always felt kind of raw and unedited/uncensored to me. Maybe it’s just because of the place in my life I was in while writing it, but there’s a part of me that’s always a little anxious knowing those poems are out in the world for anyone to read. To know they affected you like that–thank you. That means so much to me.
I've cried three times already watching and hearing your poetry today. Thank you for existing and surviving.
It never ceases to amaze me the way words can move us and reach us. This means so much to me. I hope they were good cries; sometimes we need those.
All my love, little bumblebee.
Your poem "Decent Exposure" continues to be my all time favourite. I read it quite a long time ago and it still shakes me down to my bones. Thank you so much.
Aaaah, I’m so, so glad. I don’t know what it is about that poem, but it came from a strange little corner of my heart and it makes me feel warm to know someone loves it like I do.
November 22, 2015
"A married man flirts with you in front of his wife.
She wears a plastic smile and his ring
and does..."
A married man flirts with you in front of his wife.
She wears a plastic smile and his ring
and does not look at you directly.
You know, in that moment, that you are one of many.
You are flavor of the week.
He leans in–
close, but not too close.
Men like this know a thing or two
about plausible deniability.
You are sixteen.
A man in his sixties follows you around
the bra section of Walmart for twenty minutes.
Watching, he doesn’t speak.
He shadows your steps like he doesn’t care
if you see him. He comes close,
but not too close.
Men like this know a thing or two
about plausible deniability.
You are fourteen.
A boy you’ve been friends with since middle school
sits next to you on the bus, one morning.
He does not ask before shoving his hand
down the front of your jeans.
He laughs at your reaction,
pitches his voice low when he says
“But you’d let me, wouldn’t you?”
You will ride that same bus for the next four years.
He will never apologize.
To apologize would mean to admit
he did something wrong.
You’re sure he still believes
he didn’t.
This is where “she was asking for it” comes from.
Boys like this.
The one you don’t call by name
doesn’t take no for an answer.
He pushes until silence is the closest thing
to a yes, and you realize
men like this don’t care
about plausible deniabilty.
Men like this know
no one will believe you,
anyway.
When he leaves, the first person you call
will answer, but refuse to come over.
In his defense, you don’t tell him what has happened.
In your defense, you are sobbing into the telephone.
Two years from now, when he knows the whole story
he will hold in his hands the most sincere apology
you’ve ever been given.
He will hate himself for this reckless abandonment,
for calling himself friend but not being there in crisis.
You will forgive him.
Men like him
know a thing or two
about the ones who don’t take no
for an answer.
He will hold your hand.
He will ask when he kisses you.
He will ask for everything you ever give him.
He will never take from you.
The two of you will not fall in love–
that would be too easy.
But you will understand one another.
You will wear matching scars
on the inside of your mouths.
When you eventually fall into the beds
of other people,
you will both make sure
to ask.
I know
how they tell us that we’re dirty
for what we could not control.
I know the vicious things people say
about the ones like us—how the media
can spin the story backwards, until
rapist becomes victim.
I know the way silence feels the safest.
I know the ones who spin
straw nos into golden yeses
so that if anyone asks, they can say
that you wanted it.
I know the moment when ‘stop him’ becomes
‘just get it over with’.
I promise you,
I promise all of us,
he walked out filthy, but you–
you came away clean.
- MEN LIKE THIS by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
latenightcornerstore:
This poem is a hard one. I kind of broke...
This poem is a hard one. I kind of broke down in the middle of performing it. But I felt so much lighter when I was done.
wanpoetry:
You don’t know who you are yet so here are a...
You don’t know who you are yet so here are a couple of hints. Red meat makes your stomach hurt. Pink is not the enemy and girls are really really pretty & it’s okay to want to kiss them.
Ashe Vernon, latenightcornerstore
November 21, 2015
"For years of my life
I treated my body like a fixer-upper
Or a home improvement project.
Maybe a new..."
I treated my body like a fixer-upper
Or a home improvement project.
Maybe a new coat of paint will
Make me worth something this time.
Maybe if we knock out a few walls
And build a walk-in closet,
There will be room in me for all the love
My heart pumps out like blood
Like tap water.
Maybe I can build a levee to hold it all in.
It took until I was nineteen,
With a Black&Decker buffer
Trying to smooth the cellulite out of my thighs,
It took until I had broken my own back over my knee.
It took until I was aching
From all the empty rooms in my renovated house
To realize that a body is not a rental.
A body is not a work-in-progress.
A body is not something to be ashamed of.
They gave me names that stuck
Like coffin nails in my bones.
I gave them years of believing they were right.
I am not a town home.
I am a goddamned temple.
Frightened hearts leave their hymnals at my feet.
I spread my arms and take up space, I am sprawling.
Eight stories high with a heart like climbing ivy.
They told you lies.
Girls are not just small things
With tiny hands and bleeding hearts.
Girls are big as the ocean with mouths like the Barrier Reef.
Girls carry love in the bend of their shoulders
That could bring a country to it’s knees.
When I say I am bigger
Than the things that try to hurt me,
I mean it literally.
I am not ashamed to be a big woman.
I’ve had mountains in me from the day I was born,
And shame on you, if you are too small
To reach them.”
- Mountains, by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
