Ashe Vernon's Blog, page 165
August 10, 2015
"She says, I want to kiss you.
I say, okay–but just so you know,
it’s a shit-show over..."
She says, I want to kiss you.
I say, okay–but just so you know,
it’s a shit-show over here.
I’m good at making promises when
I don’t have to keep them.
She says, no strings attached.
She says, shake me up. Yeah. Just like that.
I know skin
better than I know what’s underneath it.
I’m looking for love, but
I ask for her fingers.
(I don’t know what to do
with her heart, yet.)
- SIDE-EFFECT by Ashe Vernon
"So you see yourself as a revolving door:
a place people keep passing through
but never want to..."
a place people keep passing through
but never want to stay.
You get used to the idea of impermanence–
never fall in love without an exit strategy,
a way to untangle your heart
when they leave you.
(And they always leave you.
That part, at least,
is constant.)
When you become, instead, a dead end,
a back alley, a Do Not Enter,
they want to know why you are suddenly
unavailable.
You show them hands calloused
from all this giving–ask if they have ever loved
a day in their life, ask
why everything you had was
never enough to satisfy.
Trouble is, you see yourself as a peace offering:
a willing body meant to keep the quiet
quiet.
And you throw yourself at every open mouth.
So your method of coping looks more like
taking your body to market
just to see who’s willing to buy it.
This is how you give yourself up in pieces, but
never notice what you’re missing.
It’s how you use sex as just
another way to hurt yourself.
How you become nameless in the face
of all the things you want in parts and pieces
but refuse to accept in full.
Love becomes a fairy tale that scares you.
Kisses, safe only in small doses–it’s dangerous
to get attached to the things that never
want you.
Or worse,
the ones who want to keep you:
like an animal, like a trophy, like
bragging rights.
When all you’ve ever wanted is somebody
who would keep you
like a promise.”
- STAY by Ashe Vernon
"I wanted to believe that
everyone who wrote beautiful poetry
must be a good person.
But then there..."
everyone who wrote beautiful poetry
must be a good person.
But then there was you.
And then there was him.
And I still haven’t made up my mind
about the person in the mirror, yet.”
- Ashe Vernon
"It’s not like I’m the first person
who doesn’t take their own advice.
So when you come to me
looking..."
It’s not like I’m the first person
who doesn’t take their own advice.
So when you come to me
looking for the secrets to happiness,
I will pretend like I have them.
Conveniently, I will neglect to mention
my own clinical depression–that is,
unless it’s used to demonstrate
“overcoming hardship”
or some other self-help bullshit.
What I won’t admit to are
the three months where uncontrolled panic
made it impossible for me to leave the house or
how sometimes I still get anxious
being away from my apartment.
Listen,
I don’t know how to be happy
any better than you do.
But I’ll pretend–
because broken hearts are my favorite to kiss,
because I am desperate to be needed, because
I am disgusted with my own goddamn
Messiah complex but, god, you look at me
like I am something to believe in
and I’m weak for it.
The thing about being useful
and being loved
is I’ve never been able
to tell the difference.
It’s no wonder I got good at being used.
I’ve had a lot of practice.
And then I go and fall in love
with people who have no time for me.
I used to think it was a cosmic joke–
some terrible coincidence, but
I’m starting to wonder if a part of me
craves the non-attention.
If I only find myself worthy of love
when it comes in the shape of
unanswered phone calls.
After all, I have a pattern. And
I’ve dated people who loved me, but
I’ve never loved them in return. No,
that I save for the ones who lose interest, or
the ones too afraid of their own heart
to let themselves use it.
I don’t know how to walk away before
it gets hard.
I don’t understand this part of myself,
or why she won’t listen to the same advice
I’d give any friend:
You don’t deserve this.
Your heartbreak is a hand grenade;
you’re going to set it off again just
to spend months picking up
the aftermath.
It is time to bring this to an end.
Someday, I will love someone
who loves me back
and does it well,
and does it right.
And I will have to catch my breath,
because they will have knocked the wind
right out of me.
- LOVE, OR WHATEVER THE HELL YOU CALL IT by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)
August 9, 2015
"He told me he’s afraid to die in Texas.
Says the roads here go on forever,
and he thinks he might..."
Says the roads here go on forever,
and he thinks he might get lost
somewhere on I-45.
He wasn’t a brave man,
but he was a wise one.
And I’ve noticed how that the brave men
keep dying, and the wise men keep talking
‘bout what it means to be brave.
He said “they call it heart-in-mouth,
‘cause your heart, at least,
has the good sense to get outta there.”
Now, I was never half as delicate
or tender as I was supposed to be.
And I am no wiseman, but best I can tell
it’s us cowards who stay standing.
It’s the ones who take off running
who find their way back home.
It ain’t profound,
it’s a goddamn tragedy–
that the best of us wind up buried
and the rest of us
go walking wild-eyed down the road.”
- The Roads in Texas, by Ashe Vernon
So i was just wondering... Do you speak any languages other than english?
I don’t. I wish I did, and I would like to learn, but no–not currently. I took French for a few years back in high school and I got great grades in it, but I never had a reason to practice is and I remember next to none of it, now.
Where do u get inspiration for your poems? I feel like i've written about everything i've experienced and i've got nothing left, no new material, no new ideas and no way to twist old ideas. I've run dry.
That’s okay! Sometimes we have to take a break from the writing and let ourselves just live! You have to experience things before you can write about them. If you’re feeling like you’re running dry, put the pen down for a while and throw yourself into the things you love doing. The words will come in their own time. What matters most is living.
"This is the story of how I never stopped running.
This is the story of how,
when the wolves..."
This is the story of how,
when the wolves knocked,
I met them at the door
and I became the beast, instead.”
- Ashe Vernon, from “Little Red,“ Belly of the Beast (via paradoxdepriety)
My ex boyfriend loves his new girlfriend, like all the time we had spent together didn't matter anymore and i don't exactly know how to feel about it.
Baby, he’s allowed to love her. It doesn’t mean he didn’t love you. It didn’t erase the time you had. Sometimes people change, grow, move on. I know it stings, but his loving her doesn’t take away him loving you.
You aren’t together, anymore. You have to let him move on. You have to move on, too.
August 8, 2015
"It’s you and I,
Sightseeing around the oldest town in Texas
With it’s brick buildings
That look..."
Sightseeing around the oldest town in Texas
With it’s brick buildings
That look like infants next to the ancient atoms in our skin.
Holding hands through moss-covered alleyways,
We are older than the cracked foundations and sullied windowpanes.
There are words on our tongues that could make the Parthenon
Feel young again.
We are old on the inside,
Where the last wheeze of a dying star
Still echoes through the universe,
masked by the sounds of our voice.
.
It’s you and I.
I am in your mouth; I am curled up
Next to your bones
And they hum my name the way
Gregorian monks sing of God.
I wonder if they’ve always known me—
If every cell in your body has just been waiting for me
To come home.
I tell them I am here now.
I let my bones sing with your bones.
We are the kind of harmonies that make the moon rise, at night.
We are the reason the tide comes in.
.
It’s you and I.
When they write of young lovers,
They are writing about the way your body feels against mine, in the dark.
Your mouth loved me better than any god.
I was the altar you lay prostrate in front of;
You were the confessional where my sins
Grew tongues and learned to talk.
.
We are ancient, you and I.
We are clumsy newborns with curious hands.
We are the stars that caught fire in the cosmos
Generations before the Earth pressed it’s molten clay together.
Once—we were the youngest creatures to ever exist.
Now, we are poets and landmines.
We are volatile and reckless and in love.”
- Old Souls, by Ashe Vernon
