Ashe Vernon's Blog, page 148
September 17, 2015
"So, when I was a kid people always asked me
what I would want my super power to be.
I mean, if I..."
what I would want my super power to be.
I mean, if I could have one.
And I took my time, at first–really thought about it.
Because this is a big deal when you’re a second grader
and you can’t get it WRONG because
what if someone actually gives you that power
and then you’re stuck shooting cheez wiz from your nose
for the rest of your life?
No, I agonized over it: tried to imagine life
with the power of flight, or invisibility, or telekinesis–
and I finally figured it out.
I want to heal people.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted.
It wasn’t until later that I would realize
my own addiction to giving my body like sacrifice.
I knew when I was eight that I wanted to make people better,
but I was an adult, three years into therapy, before
I understood just how many limbs I was willing
to cut off to keep the people I loved
standing.
And suddenly I knew my limits but
I didn’t know how to respect them, and every
desperate ounce of selfishness in self preservation
weighed on my back like an anchor
and I realized: I was drowning whether
I saved everyone or not.
There is no survival in turning the people
around you into altars and laying at their feet.
There is no room.
They will keep pieces of you, but
they will not leave the light on.
They will not make the bed.
They won’t do it to hurt you, it’s just that they
will have learned to love without making
communion wine out of themselves.
I learned the hard way that people
do not have to be selfless
to be good people.
I just never learned how to love them right.
My heart stalls at sixty miles per hour–
I have only ever known how to floor it.
Full speed ahead.
With my own two hands
wrapped in tissue paper
like an offering.”
- I AM NOT A SUPERHERO by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
tristamateer and I being embarrassing on twitter (if...
tristamateer and I being embarrassing on twitter (if you’re not following us on twitter, you are making a m i s t a k e)
workingonhumble:
This is a video of my poem PTSD.It’s from my...
This is a video of my poem PTSD.It’s from my feature with latenightcornerstore at Write About Now Poetry in Houston,TX.I hope ya’ll like it because this poem means a whole lot to me.
I literally never reblog things that aren’t my own work but hOLY SHIT you guys. This is my best friend and tour partner KILLIN IT on the mic during our tour. Go give him some love
"Sometimes it feels like beautiful
is the party of the year, and I wasn’t invited
(but I went..."
Sometimes it feels like beautiful
is the party of the year, and I wasn’t invited
(but I went anyway).
And inside, the baseline pulses
with my heartbeat and there are all these
perfect mouths: open and laughing
in the strobing darkness.
A boy who is all sharp jaw and white teeth
settles in behind me, hands on my hips,
close enough to kiss–
he leans in, licks his lips, says:
Sorry. I thought you were somebody else.
The joke
is that I am always trying to be
someone else.
It’s a magic trick, and
I haven’t gotten the hang of it, yet.
But it is a chore to love this body.
And on the days I do love it,
I usually don’t like the person inside of it.
I used to joke that all my sex appeal
instantly disappears the minute I open
my mouth.
I don’t say that anymore,
because that’s a shitty thing to say about yourself.
But the point still stands
that I feel helplessly awkward
being the person that I am.
Sometimes, I think my heart is actually
that sweet, pale pink you find
in babies’ bedrooms:
an organ made, not of blood, but
of the compressed powder from
a makeup compact. Softly blushing.
Given to crumble.
Sometimes I think that I’m only loud
so you won’t see how bad I’m shaking.
All this bravado to make up for the fact
that I am inherently fragile.
All these panic attacks dressed up as poetry,
just cries for help, desperately begging you
to love me.
You have no idea how many years I have been
second choice.
Imagine, being nobody’s first priority:
the one who’s left but never the one who leaves.
Trust me when I say, I know what it means
to keep swallowing pride
just to give your heart something
to eat.
Because when you don’t feel worthy,
you’ll take anything.
In the aftermath,
I stitch my body up with
one night stands and stolen kisses.
I write myself into my own story
as the villain, because I feel like
a poor excuse for a hero.
I keep collecting compliments in a jar
on the bedside table, hoping that maybe
if the jar gets full
I might finally be able to believe them.
It is hard to believe the people telling you
you are beautiful
when there is so much evidence to the contrary:
when there is so much unrequited love,
an entire childhood full of bullying,
when the ones who kiss you are
never the ones who stay.
So today
I am rebuilding what it means
to feel beautiful.
Today, beautiful is
knees covered in sidewalk chalk.
Today, beautiful is
hands riddled with paper cuts.
It’s bitten nails and bedhead.
Beautiful
is a warm cup of coffee and
someone to share it with.
Today, beautiful is something tangible:
something that I can get
and I can give
and I want all of you
to have it.
- REBUILDING BEAUTIFUL by Ashe Vernon
"your tongue all thick with stars,
the moon on my back,
the future,
less than a ghost."
the moon on my back,
the future,
less than a ghost.“”
- Ashe Vernon, I always try to text you at 3AM
"This time of night
we used to take forever off the stove
and save it for the morning.
I..."
we used to take forever off the stove
and save it for the morning.
I remember,
your hands were feather-soft
and I wanted to stow you
in bottles and boxes
for safe-keeping.
I remember,
your promises could
chase away the monsters
in my heart and
thrill it back into beating.
This is the best time of night
for big, gentle promises
we have no way of keeping.
This is when I loved you
most:
your tongue all thick with stars,
the moon on my back,
the future,
less than a ghost.”
- I ALWAYS TRY TO TEXT YOU AT 3AM by Ashe Vernon
latenightcornerstore:
HEY GUYS, so here’s a cool thing: I...
HEY GUYS, so here’s a cool thing: I recorded a spoken word album a few months ago (click here).
The album is called Keeping Warm and it’s a collection of poems taken from both of my books. All of the tracks were recorded in a REAL SOUND BOOTH which means that they’re PROFESSIONAL QUALITY SOUND [pretty cool, right?]
The album is ‘pay what you can’ with a five dollar minimum, and you get 15 poems recorded by yours truly.
It would mean a lot to me if you guys could check it out! I put a lot of love into this little word-baby
tristamateer:
from “Post-Panic Attack” by Ashe...
from “Post-Panic Attack” by Ashe Vernon.
Alright, babes, it’s crunch time! I’ve mentioned before that poetry is currently paying my rent. Well, right now I am 26 copies away from making my goal [the goal being, y’know, rent]. We’re in the last half of the month so I REALLY need your help!
September 16, 2015
"This is a backwards love poem.
This is a–fuck, you fell in love with me and
I didn’t want you to and..."
This is a–fuck, you fell in love with me and
I didn’t want you to and I’m bad
at setting boundaries.
This is a–I feel guilty when I talk to you
even though I know your feelings are not
my responsibility.
This is a–I’m not used to being on this end
of the problem
poem.
The worst part about all this is that
I recognize the look you’re giving me and
I know what it feels like and I wish
my heart weren’t so tied up in fisherman’s knots
so that I could give you the answer you’re looking for.
But I don’t know anything that scares me
half as much
as being loved does.
This is the part where I put space between us,
not because I want to, but because I don’t know
how not to. My version of being careful
with your feelings includes
ducking out in the middle of the night
and never coming back.
It involves turning a bad memory
into an exit wound
and taking off with blood on my hands.
The problem is, I don’t expect anyone
to ever fall in love with me, but
I keep trying to fall in love
with everyone.”
- IRRATIONAL FEAR OF BEING WANTED by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
September 15, 2015
"My father was a Man of God.
My father was a liberal,
pot smoking hippie who cursed like a sailor
and..."
My father was a liberal,
pot smoking hippie who cursed like a sailor
and knew two dozen ways to kill a man
with his bare hands—my father was a pastor.
And he had a white-knuckled grip on faith that
I do not fully understand, but
he preached gospel like
him and Jesus were old buddies who
snuck out and went drinking together—
the bail-each-other-out-of-jail kind of friends.
He held hands and broke bread;
he had a way of making a
congregation feel like a family.
He believed in heaven
more surely than I have
ever believed in anything.
My father was just a man.
He had a lot of rage in him.
And when the pills stacked higher
than the pages of a hymnal, he
went looking for god with a spade
and a shovel, he
dug the gospel out of me. Tell me,
what do you call a washed up preacher
too sick and feeble to do the lord’s bidding?
Well. I don’t know what you’d call him, but
I called him Dad.
He had a lot of names for me and
one of them was Ungrateful but
it was hard to be thankful for
the shaking shadow of all the things
my father used to be. See,
my father was a sickness
in a suit of skin. Some days, he
was more pain than person and
he made sure we all knew about it.
I did not grow up in a quiet home.
There was no room for heaven at
the kitchen table, we
had to save a seat for
Pain and one for Loss and
one for all his medications.
They say absence makes the heart
grow fonder and
my relationship with my father
made a lot more sense
after I lost him.
Death makes a space for forgiveness.
There is lots of space in my parent’s house
without him.
I was never on first name basis with
my dad’s idea of god, but for all that
hurting he held in his hands,
my father was a good man.
Even if he was hard to live with.
And he was hard to live with.
And, Dad, if your god is up there, then
I hope he’s playing old blues,
smoking Marlboro reds—
telling dirty jokes and singing
hand-me-down gospel with you.”
- I DIDN’T SPEAK AT THE FUNERAL by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
