Ashe Vernon's Blog, page 167
August 8, 2015
Why do the people you love the most make you the angriest? I just want to love all the time
They make you angry because they matter. I know you want to love all the time, but it’s okay to fight, sometimes. You fight because you’re important to each other.
Your poetry makes me feel again. It's so honest and amazing. I just wanted to say thank you.
Little dove, I hope you hold on to those feelings. I hope they sing you to sleep at night. I hope they are beautiful, even when they hurt. I hope you are happy.
August 7, 2015
Let me just say: I have been a fan of yours from afar for years, just fawning over your poetry and passion and prose, and I am forever amazed by your work. I have both of your books and I savor them; I read them late at night when the lights are low with b
Oh, oh thank you, sweetheart. The idea of someone having been reading my poetry for years is–breathtaking. And humbling. And a little unreal, honestly. This means so much to me. Thank you.
Let me just say: I have been a fan of yours from afar for years, just fawning over your poetry and passion and prose, and I am forever amazed by your work. I have both of your books and I savor them; I read them late at night when the lights are low with b
Oh, oh thank you, sweetheart. The idea of someone having been reading my poetry for years is–breathtaking. And humbling. And a little unreal, honestly. This means so much to me. Thank you.
What is the name of the poem about "if I ever have a daughter" or something like that? I want to let my sister read it before my neice is born(:
The poem is called “Small Hands For Moving Mountains”–it’s in the middle section of my book Belly of the Beast and you can find a rough draft version online here, under a slightly different title.
Ashe, are you okay? You haven't been answering asks
I’ve been feeling very overwhelmed, recently–just in general. Life things. Depression things.
Right now, I have almost 400 messages in my inbox, and I keep promising myself I’m going to sit down and knock out at least a handful of them, even if I couldn’t possibly get to them all. But I just never seem to.
I’m okay, I’m just not handling certain tasks well. Right now, I don’t feel very equipped to give much of anyone life advice. I try to answer non-anonymous messages more quickly, but I’m not equipped to answer much more than that.
"I’ve got rage in my throat
Hot coals like screaming in empty houses.
I’m tearing through things I..."
Hot coals like screaming in empty houses.
I’m tearing through things I used to love
Easy as tissue paper—
The shrapnel of them too soft.
Nothing to throw that doesn’t drift downward.
But I can feel my insides collapsing
Toward the singularity in my chest.
My heart: the star gone supernova.
I will not apologize
For being so big I was insurmountable.
I will not say sorry for the fury in my blood
That had me burning hot
When you wanted me tepid.
I will not be small for you.
I will bear my teeth and dig tunnels through mountains.
Because I am magma and lightning.
I am a young Earth: red and broiling.
I am primordial hunger in the belly of the beast.
I am no
Wilting flower.
I am a force of nature
And I will not be soft for you.
Quiet for you.
Less for you.
I am tall and terrifying and terrible.
I will not ask for permission
Just because you said please.”
- Ladylike, by Ashe Vernon
August 6, 2015
"If I never stop to write about you,
it’s probably a good thing.
I am prone to romanticizing my own..."
it’s probably a good thing.
I am prone to romanticizing my own hurts,
making them palatable.
I am prone to making lessons of lovers,
mythology of heartache.
Sometimes, I am not half as kind on paper
as I was against your skin–
you do not want to be made into poetry.
You’d rather be put to memory
than have me put you in ink.”
- to the ones who hoped I’d write about them, by Ashe Vernon
August 5, 2015
"There is an ocean between
The first time I said ‘I love you’
And the last time I meant it.
I left..."
The first time I said ‘I love you’
And the last time I meant it.
I left that word buried
In the sand of a shoreline I’ve never seen
And took some time for myself:
To turn my life into a book
That didn’t read like unfinished emails
And grocery lists full of all your favorite foods.
I spent days
Scrubbing your name out of the grout
That lines the bathtub,
Shaking your dust out of my shoes,
Relearning how to spell my name
Without the letters tangled on your tongue.
It must have been
Months
Of waking up on your side of the bed,
And wondering where all this empty space came from.
I hope my teeth
Came tumbling out of your suitcase
The first time you said my name
To a friend in passing.
I hope I hung on like a remora
Until kissing her felt too much like
Sleepwalking down the stairs of our old apartment.
I hope bad dreams sent you out
To the beach
With a shovel and a good bottle of wine,
Digging through saltwater for proof
I ever even touched you.
While you go looking for that word,
I will be at home
In an apartment that looks nothing like you.
Drinking hot tea that tastes more like love
Than your mouth ever did.
And when you call at four in the morning,
Hands as empty as the bottle by your side,
I will be sleeping soundly,
For the first time
In a long time.”
- Speaking Of Love, by Ashe Vernon
