my mum tells me my poetry is too cliche

a collection by cassandra bristow on toxic love
with photos by jule wild

☆

a cottingley photograph.

to appear real, ethereal, you ignore
his winston gold arms wrapped around 
your body until the smell seeped 
into your flesh your bedsheets 
i toss and turn like whipping wind 
unholy in my childhood bedroom

you asked if i believe in god when we
both know how much time i’ve spent on
my knees begging for mercy or swallowing pride 
we both know i sealed a burned skin freckled skin fate
cancerous lips kissing shoulders like i haven’t ached enough

are you sorry for everything but the fact that you’ll never love me?

i ought to call my therapist.

self love (or something like it) has slowed down,
sputtering and spitting as i stare at the flesh 
in my mirror confused as to why the body
i’ve always been in is now different. is it renewed
inadequacy? or the inevitability of its apocalyptic embrace?

my mother tells me my poetry is too cliche.

the state of sleep in which we occur.

i think i dreamed of you once more,
my memory recalling the taste of your
lips, my mind shivering at your touch.
we used to tell each other of these things,
you would tell me you dreamed of me
like i was not within your reality’s reach, 
as though we were not desperate for
each other’s affections, fumbling for love.
and now, i dream of you without you knowing, 
for arm’s reach has turned to miles away, but you are
still there, in each hazy corner of my subconscious, 

and i will dream of you again, 

and again,

and again,

and again.

personal poem #43

another day of lying in a womb
hours dwindle, my heart hurts until
something stirs somewhere 
until i have come undone 
there is blood 
dripping down my thighs 
you lick it off my leg it 
dribbles down your chin you smile
you say what you think i want to hear:
my wounds taste like honey 
you can’t get enough of it
(you can’t get enough of me)

you, everywhere

bugs crawl up and down my skin
restless dance on and over my body
(your hands)
i want to grab them all 
watch them writhe in my palms 
squeeze until suffocation
buggy blood and guts seeping in my lifeline 

“just let this go.”