Ashe Vernon's Blog, page 171

I could use a distraction. Ask me questions?

I could use a distraction. Ask me questions?

Hi Ashe! I just got your book and I'm so excited. I was just wondering, are you opposed to people getting your poetry tattooed on them?

AAH oh my god pLEASE I would LOVE if you got my work tattooed! Just please send/post/tag me in pictures because I WANNA SEE IT

This absolutely beautiful picture courtesy of @lovelyleeshuh on...

This absolutely beautiful picture courtesy of @lovelyleeshuh on instagram.

A fearless voice shouting from east Texas, Ashe Vernon writes of fierce softness, queer love and identity, God and family. With a gift for delicate, violent imagery, Ashe invites us to lose ourselves in her world. Wrong Side of a Fistfight feels like getting lost in the woods, with someone holding your hand promising to guide you home.

If you’re interested in buying my book, you can find it here!

It would also mean the world to me if you reviewed my book on Goodreads!

kenzfinn:Wrong Side of a Fistfight//Ashe Vernon

kenzfinn:

Wrong Side of a Fistfight//Ashe Vernon

Hey Ashe! I got Wrong Side of a Fistfight the other day and had a question. In Profane, there were lines missing from the poem (such as 'you fit, you fit, you fit' and 'I never knew sacrifice could be so profane') and was wondering if that was intentional?

I’ve gotten a couple asks like this. It was intentional! Several of the poems in the book that are also from my blog have gone through moderate to heavy editing. Profane is left mostly the same as it was, but there have been a couple tweaks. Whenever you publish with a press, you go through a collaborative editing process with your publisher. What you see in the book is the final result of that.

Take care!

"I’ve been on rooftops exactly twice in my entire life.At five foot two, I am not one for high..."

“I’ve been on rooftops exactly twice in my entire life.

At five foot two, I am not one for high places.

But I have so much space inside my rib cage,

I could fill up monasteries with the things I don’t yet know

and the things I want to.

There is an obelisk inside me, searching and hungry,

and the only thing it has ever known

Is how to climb higher.

On the bad days—

the ones where I take the ax to its foundations—

I can never quite find the tipping point to bring her down.

I’ve got hands that always seemed too small for all this knowing,

and holding on is hard with a fist no bigger than your heart.

I am sick of writing about love but

sometimes I keep writing about things I haven’t even felt yet

like the words might be able to open doors

that I’ve been keeping shut

for fear of letting the rain in.

All I know is that the person I’m writing about

is alive somewhere—

with a heart as tall as stars we don’t have names for yet.

So this is me:

spray painting every stop sign between here and Rochester,

drawing you pictures of what my ribs look like

when my lungs feel like they don’t fit.

I have never been one for high places

but I am standing on rooftops in New York City,

handing out fliers where I finger-painted my name:

every one of them saying

find me,

find me,

find me.”

- High Places, by Ashe Vernon

wordsdancemag:Pssst, all of our eBooks are only $6 &...

wordsdancemag:

Pssst, all of our eBooks are only $6 & under! Plus, you can download them instantly upon purchase! Check out our eBook section on Etsy!

All these books are by poets who are also on Tumblr! Check them out: writingsforwinter, almostmidwest, fleurishes, latenightcornerstore, amanda-oaks, alonesomes, five–a–day, 5000letters & melissamaynase!

"You were the one who held his handafter the fist fight that left his knuckleslike red wine on..."

“You were the one who held his hand

after the fist fight that left his knuckles

like red wine on fresh-turned dirt.

All this time, and I always wanted to ask

if his blood on your hands

felt some kind of sacred.

I don’t think either of us were ever

any good for him.

Because you loved him bruised,

and I loved him bloody—

I know how it sounds, believe me, and

I have torn through rabbit holes

hunting for a better heart,

but I’ve got a weak spot for broken boys

and that

is my most disgusting feature.

You may not have loved him well,

but at least you loved him halfway whole.

Me? I would have kissed

the broken teeth from his mouth

and kept them all for myself.

I would have cracked open his crème brûlée chest

and eaten out the insides—

hung up his twisted x-rays on my walls

so I could never forget the look of a ruined heart.

I don’t break them myself, you see.

I just go collecting in the aftermath.

Grave robber for the still alive:

I may not kill anyone,

but I have never been afraid

to take what I need

to survive.”

- Bad Habits, by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)

"Of the hundred times I’ve kissed you in my dreams,it’s never felt right. Every time,your mouth is..."

“Of the hundred times I’ve kissed you in my dreams,

it’s never felt right. Every time,

your mouth is all wrong; my tongue

is all left. We press together and

my metaphorical heart skips a beat,

but we are less kissing–

more slow-dancing out of step,

less kissing–more

teenagers with twisted cherry stems

we can’t Houdini into knots.

If this

is yet another red flag I have

mistaken for surrender, then I am sorry

for the selfish way I hold my body

for the both of us.

I wake up

and convince myself that the

make-believe car accident of our mouths

has everything to do with the months it’s been

since anyone properly kissed me and nothing

to do with the fact that even my subconscious

doesn’t know how to touch you.

I’m a coward.

Anyone else would have found the word “love”

somewhere more real than poetry.

You are not the first ship I’ve gone down with,

but you might be the fastest. So

you’re the prettiest anchor

I haven’t even kissed yet–

you’re prying out my teeth with a guillotine.

This isn’t the way I wanted to write about you.

This isn’t your fault, anyway.

See, it’s not that I made you into a god–

It’s that you were just a man

and I made you out to be a mountain.”

- LARGER THAN LIFE by Ashe Vernon

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whereareyoupress:

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