Texts Between Angels Trying To Live As Mortals By Keaton St. James

“you’re like an angel, nothing touches you.”

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

↳ 3:27 AM — L.G.C.

in the kitchen baking cake, dodging our cats underneath our bare feet singing to amy winehouse with wooden spoons as microphones. god, don’t I love you like flowers love the spring, sweetheart. god, don’t you look beautiful with your head titled back belting out back to black, sunlight streaming in through the window, with a mouth full of batter and a heart full of love.

I love him, more than he knows. I’m waiting for him to come back from the farmers market with flour and bread and rum and peaches. Two hands wrapped around a mug, sipping strong coffee and sitting on the kitchen counter, evening sunlight washing everything in gold and honey and mauve. Please, leave your shoes at the door and shout that you’re home. Please, one more kiss before we turn the kitchen light off.

I love him, more than my mouth could ever admit. He sits in bed, blanket draped across his chest as he watches anime. He’s forgotten his glasses so he squints. I laugh. He calls me “my love” in our mother tongue and kisses my neck, telling me I smell of honey and coffee. Please, linger on my body for a little while longer. Please, keep your palms around my waist till I tell you it’s getting too late.

I love him in words that don’t fit comfortably in my mouth. Softness has never been my first language. Usually romantic jargon sits awkwardly in my throat but god, does it spill like glossy honey when I think of him. God, does it turn sour into sweet, bronze into gold. The soft glow of the lamp illuminates his face whilst he sleeps. He breathes softly and sighs, murmurs for me to please come to bed.

honey, you’re the sweetest thing.

come teach me why flowers grow better with blood-based fertiliser. come bury me in the ripe plum of your body, tangle around me like ivy. see, im so tired of dragging around this empty casket of a mind. see, i know I shouldn’t but baby, I’m fucking hopeless over you.

something so quiet about his kiss, so secretive. his mouth wide open, swallowing truths and honey and hushed moans. hands that render me silent to everything, weak at the knees and falling head first into something so soft. something that’ll break my fall. passionate love that is not loud or arrogant. a love that beckons me towards it with little more than a whisper.

it’s a sweet little fantasy. the way life runs it’s fingers through my hair and tells me that good things come in threes. the way she tells me cooking is a form of love, that sunday mornings spent in bed is time well spent. that food from my home is the best I can get, all those spices and sweets and freshly baked delights. she tells me that I’ve been working so hard. that this obsession for success is a form of self destruction.

and honestly, I know it is. I know that I destroy myself for a system that could replace me as soon as I falter. but how. how do I find the balance between legacy and enjoyment. how do I hold the little bird between my hands without breaking her wing.

so I wake up early (even on sunday mornings) and force myself to be productive. I order takeout and remind myself to call my mother because I miss the taste of home. I realise the language of my homeland has faded on my tongue. and that I’ve spent so much time outside of the sun that my gold skin has lost its shine.

complacency has made me lose myself.

salting wounds with poetry, and counting losses with a pen that’s run dry. tomorrow will be one year since you hurt me for the first time (oh how quickly time flies). and it angers me that everyone can still read your name in between these lines, that your pulse is still the rhythm of my poetry (and my life).

how casually you haunt me, old friend. i am no longer afraid of the memories you left on my skin (though i moved cities to escape them) so perhaps i can call this a year of growth. but is it really, when i spent months trying to fight the urge my bones had to rearrange themselves into a different woman?

the 29th was hot last year, and it is hot today too. but i’m not that girl who was complacent in her own destruction anymore, no. ive left the demolition site for good.

now, i kiss the girl i was and i thank her for staying alive, hold her and say that i’m proud she survived.

So you’re damaged goods, my ex boyfriend laughed after I told him about my abuse. 

I laugh with him as I feel the silence catch in my throat.

He confirmed my fears: 

That this body is worth nothing now.

It would never be desirable ever again. 

Never told anyone how I locked myself out of my own body, 

how I’d never be able to go back now.

Even if I did, what would be left? 

How does the burnt forest learn to trust the sun again?

He was probably right,

All the nights I spent tearing at my skin, 

Trying to reach something new,

Something that had yet to be touched by him, 

Something pure.

tag yourself: lana del rey edition

diet mountain dew: strawberry milkshakes, vintage diners, heart-shaped sunglasses and tennis skirts, party girl, glittery makeup, lip gloss, heartbreaker

national anthem: 60s soft glamour, expensive taste, gold and pearl jewelry, old hollywood black and white films, elegance, red lipstick

bel air: ethereal and angelic, picking wildflowers, butterflies and soft animals, believing in angels, pink blush, gentle and kind

ride: crushing on guys that ride motorcycles, 70s angel, free spirited, getting into trouble, independent, reckless, adventurous

brooklyn baby: slow dancing to rock music, low key nyc bars, kissing in leather jackets, cigarettes and jazz, smoky eyes, mysterious

florida kilos: tropical baby, mimosas, drawn to the ocean, sun-kissed skin, gold highlight & shimmer, short dresses, moonlight dancing

salvatore: would rather be in italy, grapes & oranges, sunshine, white sundresses, fresh cut market flowers, hydrated skin

honeymoon: romantic and sensual, easily broken heart, love letters, fields of roses and peonies, hazy afternoons in love, warm vanilla