──( the stars glitter above✦ )

[basil!]

i open my eyes, but no,
perhaps i close them too.
sweet miasma fills my throat--

and trailing smoke, trailing smile,
i hold a sweet and bitter vial.
head listlessly bobbing against yours
and i open my eyes, but no,
perhaps i close them too.

the eye's brown, your sky's blue.
this is the fuzzy warmth i crave,
the confusion i sigh into.

trailing smoke, trailing smile,
dirty clothes thrown into piles,
my smile's warmer as i take
and take and take and tear and break.

when the world blends into itself and colors run into colors
and i feel everything melting in my eyes, i can't breathe
and i can't feel and i can't see but someone forces me to live,
to breathe, to live, but i think i'm already dead, that moment
before waking up when you know you're asleep but your head is empty
or when the fog drenches me in morning dew and i struggle to think;

then i think i open my eyes, but no,
perhaps (i hope) i closed them too.

[basil!]

it's not that i'm dizzy but still the world spins around so sickeningly.
the core in my heart cries out for pain to drink and the edges long for hugs
but my skin, oh, my skin burns and itches from every single touch,
my body betrays itself and then it curls into its own flesh and screams.
how stupid such a body is when it yearns for tears. how stupid
and preposterous a body to long for the swaying of a death;
how stupid! when it cries for suffering and the warmth of bedsheets;
that part of me is shriveled up and dead.
it's stabbed again, again, again, again, again.
each wound can stitch itself back closed and crawl for more.
and then disgusting satisfaction, the hatred that comes pouring in;
it feeds. it breaks itself for more.

[basil!]

it scratches inside my brain, scrapes and tears
and claws at the sides of my head desperately.
water swirls in a whirlpool with no center, no eye of the storm.
it's just the waves crashing, crashing, sloshing,
dripping over the edges and splattering onto the floor.
that small hand wiping away tears-- disgust, disgust!
it roars in my head and makes me sick, i cover my mouth with my hand,
i gasp as the water floods my throat-- those salty tears from years and years ago---

[basil!]

My dad reaches out to tell me that the sun always falls back
Into the sky– that the moon doesn’t always come out, sometimes
It flounders at the edge of visibility, wavers, considers, and turns
Back around.

My mom tells me that the sun hangs on a tapestry for us to see–
It sways gently and gets covered by the clouds performing on
Its grand stage. As for the moon, she says, there isn’t much
To talk about at all.

Which one would I choose? Laying on the grass, i like to smell
The damp night-time air and hear the gentle sounds of sleep,
And yet the stars aren’t visible at all. Sometimes the moon, too,
Plays games of hide-and-seek into the dawn. The kind of kindness
I look for is never present to begin with.

I want to be found with the backdrop of the moon, my features colored
Pallid by the light. A burning fire crackling at my side– a warm hand in my hair–
Not in daytime, in the hot, revealing light of sun, but somewhere
Dark and damp and silent.

The moon’s the witness to these silly wanderings; the sun
Burns brightly overhead.

[basil!]

i feel like i've been violated in some disgusting, horrible way,
the kind that permeates all through my body, the kind that i feel in my bones--
something's festering in my ribcage, beneath all the flesh and blood.
i can't remember anything.

[basil!]

Tangles of wire and electricity: the floor was ugly, scuffed, tipped-over can to the left leaking green liquid that slightly bubbled; I could feel sickness roil in my very bones. It weighed me down evenly and ripped at my skin and my eyes and my mouth.
But I could still write. By the lamplight the pages themselves shivered; sometimes I could not bring myself to touch them, terrified they would disintegrate in my hands. Things did that sometimes when I was around, as if even inanimate objects could be scared of monsters; I used to stare at those joyless fingers and try to scrub them clean. The pointlessness sunk in, usually, eventually.
My head spun and my throat was dry.
There were stacks of papers near the corners of the walls, crumpled and covered in stains and thrown and torn. When I first came here and they started piling up, I think I’d imagined jumping into them and seeing the stacks come flying down. I could just as well have done so; but my hands were cold, my head spun, my throat was dry, and the papers had stopped including dates some time too long ago.

[basil!]

i am not me.
what a silly thing to say, really, but i feel all broken up inside. there are shards digging into my organs and i'm bleeding but those shards are pieces of myself, pieces that were chipped off from places i don't remember. looking at "myself", i think i'm gazing into a pitch-black abyss edged with jagged rocks going down forever. god, there's something festering in there!
i guess it's best not to think about it.

(i just looked at the posts on this page again and like wow i am troubled)

[basil!]

i hope your hands are cold.
i don't want to hold someone that reaches for me fervently. so i hope your hands are cold.
even under flower petals, listening to branches knock against each other, the air still and humid and warm,
i don't want to see an eager expression on your face.
erase that trepidation and the way love sounds on your tongue.
it fills me with disgust, cold, so bitterly cold.
i'm wavering on that precipice between being and becoming
and i don't know if it's me who wishes to take on your expression.
standing on the sidelines, i wanted to watch the you always a step ahead of me
and feel you and love you wholly, both your brain and your body and your flaws
but i don't want to touch. if we are to touch i might disintegrate
as horror fills my throat. i love the you that cannot fall in love with anyone.

[basil!]

there's some cruel part of the universe or me or maybe both of them that understands me.
i could cry.
(maybe they are one and the same.)

[basil!]

waves washed over the blue-and-purple ocean like gems shimmering down a slope. a red dim hung over them as the sun began to rise at the back of the sky.
"it's gonna be day soon. we better head back home," i said.
the figure in front of me gave no sign of replying as she continued forward, her feet sinking into the purple sand. her head was faced intently forward, as if the only focus she had was the horizon far ahead of us. it was a desolate place we were standing in. i had the impression she just didn't want to see my face.
"i'm serious. let's go back home."
the waves were starting to gather into foamy mounds and hills. they hissed as they slid up the bank, reminding me of hands slowly crawling upwards. the water would soon be eager to lick our feet.
i had stopped, staring at the water with fearful respect, but when i turned around her sillhoute was smaller against the dark sky. she was walking at the very same pace. her path was methodical and straight.
a feeling washed over me, the same shade as that painful ocean, that made me want to crawl out of my skin. it was disgust, i guessed, or maybe fear.
i didn't want to run, but i did. i knew she could hear my footsteps both when they stopped and when they approached her with their unsteady gait, but she just continued to look forward and walk without even a hitch of breath.
the waves were gathering now, swirling and roiling, and a faint streak of red ran through the glittering sea.
"we need to go," i said, not trying to hide the tremble in my voice. "i'm serious. we need to GO."
she took a step forward, her foot sinking into the sand as she raised her other leg. the purple rushed around her toes and into the spaces between them.
disgust-- now i was sure of it-- filled my chest, as well as hatred, as well as despair.
"what the hell is your issue!"
jesus christ, the waves; they were coming. the most recent one reached toward my foot, splashed an inch away from it, before receding to regroup. this minute defeat meant nothing; the ocean was hungry, and it would come.
and she kept walking.
"can you not even spare a minute to look at me?" i screamed. i had stopped and let my feet imprint into the sand below me even as the waves edged closer.
her step halted. my eyes burned.
she turned her head slowly, and the rising sun cast a glowing line of red onto one side of her face. it traced her cheekbones and hit one of her eyes. the stark shadows dipped under it.
her eyebrows were drawn together, but only slightly, and her mouth was a fine closed line. she was looking at me, one of her eyes cast into an amber that shone the way the ocean did. even then, there was something cold in them. the half of her cast in shadow seemed to draw its eyebrow in sorrowfully and pensively. the part in the light looked at me with a careful distance. she stared at the face i felt contort as that freezing color washed over me.
the first wave found my skin, crawled over it, soaked into it.
cold, pure cold. it was so purple as it ran up my veins. the wave receded and the second one seeped a little further, caught a little more. the ocean was hungry.
she was walking back home.
numbly, i followed her. blindly, i stumbled. as i scrabbled up a wave ran around my hands and distorted them.
she loved this ocean, didn't she? it matched whatever silent hell she had embodied.
or was this just an ocean?
the purple bled out of my vision and then ran back in. maybe it was just an ocean. maybe it was just cold. maybe she was just tired.
cold. i was cold.