Ashe Vernon's Blog, page 143
October 1, 2015
"Who set the city on fire?
Was it you?
See, this is No Man’s Land,
this is wild country,
and that..."
Was it you?
See, this is No Man’s Land,
this is wild country,
and that smokestack is a beacon
for miles into the darkness.
I didn’t want to be the flint
and the kindling, for you.
But you were gonna burn
no matter how many times
I kissed that bellows out of you.
See, love isn’t enough.
Orpheus loved Eurydice, but
they still crawled through Hell, together.
Sorry for not sticking around, but
this broken thing wasn’t worth Hell, for me.
See, this smoldering town is your
bone kingdom. You’re
sharing sheets with ghosts, here.
Snap out of it, baby, please—
snap out of it. You don’t have to be
olive branch
and whipping post.
I know you’ve got brass knuckles
on your papa’s side, and you’ve
knocked knees with the parts
of yourself you’re ashamed to be.
I know that the River Hope seems
impossibly wide and
impossibly deep.
I’m not asking you to swim
against the current, for me. But there’s
a Promised Land waiting upstream.
And if you keep skipping stones
off the surface of your heart, one day
you’ll be nothing but rocks, underneath.
I’ve seen men go to terrible lengths
to make the hurting stop, and I don’t want
you to think the hurting is all
you’ll ever be.
This story isn’t over.
And if this is only the middle,
then I want the ending to be something
you’re still around to see.”
- SKIPPING STONES by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
Hey guys, this is really important: if you’ve ordered either of my books through the presses...
Hey guys, this is really important: if you’ve ordered either of my books through the presses and not received them, you need to contact the press, not me. I have zero contact with books shipped through the presses and I cannot help you.
whereareyoupress:
These limited edition prints by Whiskey...
These limited edition prints by Whiskey Writes, featuring quotes by Clementine Von Radics and Ashe Vernon, are on sale in our store! We only have a few left of these.
September 30, 2015
"The small of my back has seen so much–
my vertebrae are a printing press and
I leave copies of..."
my vertebrae are a printing press and
I leave copies of myself in every bed I’ve ever slept.
This ache is an old one, indeed; so I’m sorry
for all the things I made you carry for me.
But no one ever tells you that when
you’re picking up your heart, you
better be lifting with your knees.”
- LETTERS TO MY BODY: THE BACK, by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
September 29, 2015
"When he landed himself in the hospital
for what barely amounted to alcohol poisoning,
you were the..."
for what barely amounted to alcohol poisoning,
you were the one who told me
where he was and
we should have known,
from that moment on, that we
were more reliable than he ever was.
I’m sorry
that I let you watch him kiss me. I’m sorry
that your lipstick was still on his mouth. I’m sorry
that he held you when my heart was still
tucked in his breast pocket.
I’ve learned there’s no such thing
as getting someone out of your system.
It only makes a mess of everything.
After he left, you found me–
we cried our way through this.
Darling,
you were the softest sunset I
ever got drunk with. But to him
we were both just stand-ins. And when
he got the girl he actually wanted, we both
ceased to exist to him.
It took two of us to make half of her and
both of us to turn two halves into
what we thought would never be whole.
We stood each other up, when it was over:
a tower of blocks, too easy
to tip over. And
when I thanked you, you said
I know you love him as much as I do.
And I’ve never forgotten that.”
- WE WERE NEVER MAD AT EACH OTHER (HOW COULD WE BE?) by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
Do you still have signed copies of your first book available?? (I think it's your first book, not 100% sure)
I have a few left, yes!! Email ashevernonpoetry@yahoo.com with your address and we’ll talk shipping cost! [the book is $15]
"In middle school, the lunch room is
the worst place for feeling invisible; I feel like
everyone is..."
In middle school, the lunch room is
the worst place for feeling invisible; I feel like
everyone is looking at my mouth. I think
if I swallow fast enough, maybe
I can pretend that I never ate anything, maybe
someone will even believe me.
My best friend buys candy from the vending machine
and won’t stop talking about what a pig she is.
Sydney is a runner on the track team–five foot one and
barely a hundred pounds and
her favorite word is “fat.”
It’s her own private joke and
it’s fucking hilarious. I guess I just
always forget to laugh. See–
I am twelve years old and
everyone who has ever called me fat
meant it.
Later, when another friend of ours–a girl who is
bigger than Sydney but smaller than me–
pats her stomach and cracks a joke about
“not being the thinnest little thing,” she
looks straight at me.
And while our other friends laugh, we only nod:
the smiles on our faces looking out from some place
far away and vacant. The difference between us and them is
we are in on the joke and
we both know it isn’t funny.
Seven years later, and the poet on the microphone
is talking about her body–badmouths it, like it’s
a warzone of a country we have no business being in,
like she is a factory of fun-house mirrors and amidst
the mirage of distorted reflection, she’s
forgotten who she really is.
She talks about being fat. She doesn’t use the word.
(Poets never do)
And I look down at my body: the one
I am still learning how to love.
The voice in the back of my head that
I thought I’d finally learned how to shut up,
rears it’s ugly little mouth and whispers,
if she’s fat, just imagine how disgusting you must look.
It’s funny, right? It’s funny.
A year after that, I stand my brutal body on stage.
What nobody in the crowd knows is that the blue puddle
of my cardigan in my seat means that this
is the first time in years I’ve let this many people
see this much of me. What nobody knows is
I used to be bigger than this and it was everyone’s favorite joke.
But nobody knows. And now, I am five foot two,
only a hundred and sixty five pounds.
I am thinner than I used to be but
I will probably never been thin enough.
And I’m sorry.
I know how it feels to hear women smaller than you
talk about their body issues. I know
how it feels like swallowing your tongue.
I never wanted to be that for anyone.
But this isn’t a contest. And if it were,
we’d all lose, anyway.
We’re already expected to be flawless.
And the inside joke of the beauty industry is
making sure we all know
we never will be.
We expect such violent perfection from our bodies.
I know how it hurts listening to a girl who
doesn’t look the way you think they should
talk about the pain that matters to you,
but we can’t turn ourselves into gatekeepers
for heartache.
We are all hurting.
There’s no litmus test for low self esteem;
no one deserves to hate their body.
The fact that so many of us do
is exactly the problem.
- LITMUS TEST by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
backshelfpoet I’m pretty sure you’ve tagged at least four of my poems with “I swear to god slap me”
backshelfpoet I’m pretty sure you’ve tagged at least four of my poems with “I swear to god slap me”
i'm in love with a boy and i have a crush on a girl. the boy plays with my feelings and won't even like me back, the girl is taken. why do i fall for these unattainable people?
Man, if you ever figure it out can you let me know? Because I am a champion at falling for people I can’t have.
September 28, 2015
"This is the story of two boys in love.
Boys who never knew any kind of life but running.
Boys who..."
This is the story of two boys in love.
Boys who never knew any kind of life but running.
Boys who kissed across the train track that carved
through what it was they wanted and what
they were told they could never have.
These boys put their toes to the rails
like runners at the starting line.
No time for that scuffed shoes, knock-kneed,
slow burn kind of love.
They had to love fast
or the train would catch them.
Had to love fast ‘cause
they’re no use to anyone
dead.
It’s the story of a boy named Rebecca—
a boy whose skin was drawn up in the wrong size.
A boy who spent the winter bringing snowflakes to his mama
because he liked the way they gleamed in the light.
It’s the story of a boy who hated wearing dresses,
a boy terrified of the nothing between his thighs.
This boy ran before he could walk
and dreamed of the men on Mount Olympus, because
they were allowed to be both beautiful and strong.
This boy, he swallowed his own heartbeat:
grew up in a house where everything
he knew about himself had to be wrong.
And he fell in love with a shipwrecked clutter of a heart
pulled up from the mud, and that bad memory,
bent beak, black eye of a boy,
he had it for him bad,
but he fell in love so good.
His is the story of a boy with a home like quicksand.
A boy with a papa who loved him well
but a papa who loved him bad.
Broken home, broken heart boy
went looking for love in all the hands
he knew could hurt him, because he thought
that’s what love actually meant.
They say we all go chasing the ghosts of our fathers,
and this boy, he chased with the worst of the best.
Hard knocks, hard head, hard liquor boy.
He fell in the love with an angel
the next street over:
the one everyone called a girl, but he
knew better, he
loved that boy all the way down
to the parts nobody else knew how to love right.
He loved that brittle boned, round faced, beauty of a boy—
he loved him right.
And they were always one flash flood from falling over,
a city on its way into the sea,
beaten up by the storm off the coastline—a hurricane
through the thresholds of their interwoven fingers,
love in the sea-sick belly of the beast.
They were clasped hands and timid hearts and skinned knees.
Life isn’t kind to two boys caught up in dreaming,
it doesn’t kiss like lovers at the starting line,
but for all their bruised heart, broken arm, split lipped kind of hoping,
they held each other like the eye of the storm
passing over the rockiest part of the beach.
This is the story of two boys in love,
who set off for the far corners of the sunset,
and ran the rails with the sound of the train at their backs.
They’ve never loved like people who could afford to take chances.
They love like outlaws on the run,
like comets out of orbit,
like the lit cherry on the end of a cigarette.
They love like they have to.
Like they’ve got nothing left.
And for them, that’s enough. For them—
that’s the best they’ve ever had.
- BEC AND HIS BOY by Ashe Vernon, from Belly of the Beast (available for purchase, here)
