Metamorphosis: I Don't Want to be Alone Anymore

courtneykrystek:

I need you to wrap your arms around my chest,
I need you to twist your legs around my spine like velvet ribbons
too fucking frayed to ever fit through that needle again.

I need you to press your palms into the hollow of my collarbones and feel the pain there
yes, yeah I know I skip.
I know I stand tall.
But it doesn’t mean I don’t walk around shattered from these
thousand bullet holes inside of me.

I need you to run your fingers through my hair
because I can’t remember what it feels like to be touched,
I can’t remember what it feels like to have a pulse beating
against your own
a pulse that says ‘we’re in this together.’

I’m tired of acting so damn tough
with my closed off lips and my hands tied to my sides
like unloaded guns ready to spring
I want to feel,
wrap your arms around me,
hold me together while I string the broken keys of my past together
until the tune of my life knows how to sing again.

Metamorphosis: Don't.

courtneykrystek:

I know I’m not sick anymore
but it doesn’t mean I’m healed.
You don’t have to tell me I feel better.
You don’t have to cut off my pain like it’s a line
and you’re the only one talking.

I’m the one in this body.
I’m the one carving through these hollowed out bones
working my way from the inside out
using every ounce of my strength just to breathe,
just to catch the breath in my bloodstream
that got lost somewhere between the third and fourth heart stopping melody.
I don’t need you to tell me my past is gone.
I know it’s fucking gone
but it doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.
The past is a ghost with claws intense enough to continue a storyline even when the ending pounds like a fist against your cheek.

I am not a sheltered storm.
I am a bird with paper back wings
that need to fly even though each time they cut through these chains they crumble all over again.
I’ll spend my whole life folding them
again and again and again.

My body is a gate that everything washes through
and my heart is so heavy not even a shovel could dig it out.

So don’t tell me how to heal. These bones will always feel.

(via crtnrssll)

Metamorphosis: Not Even I Can Breathe Underwater

courtneykrystek:

I swear this fire might just be the last of me.
I can’t help but stay riveted at the bottom of the tub
waiting for the ash to rise to the surface
but all that ripples across the surface are waves.

With only an ounce of oxygen I’m still left gasping your name.

Rip me up from the stones.
Kiss me like you never thought of leaving,
like there was never a choice.

I don’t want to tap this faucet with my toe anymore
I don’t want to overfill this bathroom with steam anymore.

But the mirror only kisses me back when it’s lost in fog
and I can only pretend your hands are wrapped around my thighs
when the fire feels like my skin.

These shivers are black shocks
and your voice echoes from deep within the ceramics,

I break for air.

Metamorphosis: It's Okay To Love

courtneykrystek:

Hey now, it’s okay to cry. You’re allowed to rip the paper wrappers from the walls just to feel the hearts beating beneath. You’re allowed to slam the door against the wall so hard the brass hinges begin to spin like the sun.

Hey now, it’s okay to scream. You’re allowed to clutch your chest, you don’t have to muddle those sobs in the pillow. Let the voice out. Let them all out. Even your tears are a song, and hell, life is heartbreaking. Let the sigh out and the blackbird free.

Hey now, it’s okay to run. You’re allowed to be terrified, you’re allowed to turn the fan all the way up over the bathroom sink just so you can let the breaths come easy. The storms behind your eyes are the same storms that haunt the ocean. They are pushing you towards a shoreline.

Hey now, it’s okay to laugh. You’re allowed to smile even though you’re so broken shattered glass looks whole. I know you can still feel all the cracks. I know you still run your fingers over the sore spots, the empty crevices, but remember that prisms are only beautiful because they have seven different ways of reflecting light, and without pain you’d have only one.

Hey now, it’s okay to reach out. You’re allowed to call up your best friend in the middle of the night weeping. Birds travel in flocks, and when winter settles in they sweep through the trees together. So don’t be scared of the dependency.

They need you too.

Metamorphosis: I Can't Help But Wonder What This All Means

courtneykrystek:

I can’t help but wonder if the lights miss my pale body
when I turn them off for the night,
are they jealous of the street lamps?
The way they blaze through the window and caress lines across my skin?

I can’t help but wonder if the anxiety misses my concave chest
when I am calm,
when I’ve found peace

with my hands left open on my bare knees,
silence the only thing I’m thinking.
Does it try to find its way back into my skin?

I can’t help but wonder if you feel my absence like I feel yours.
Am I a paper plane cut from the room
or a cardboard box,
battered and used?

I can’t help but wonder if there is a child halfway across the world
with stars pressed to her chest like lightning rods.
Is she fighting for her life while war planes soar overhead?
Is peace impossible or can I find the thread?
Can I stitch the world together with my palms?

I can’t help but wonder if this care will turn into apathy
because I feel so much I’m shocked to discover
the blood is on the inside of my veins
not the outside of my skin,
and the pulse is inside my cheek,
not beating from my shoulder blades. 
Am I strong for weeping for your pain
and hers and his?
Or incredibly weak?

I can’t help but wonder if the trees feel our suffering deep within their roots,
trembling each time they drink in the rain. 
Can they taste my tears from the day before
when I took the apples,
my grief a flood?

I can’t help but wonder if the stars know they are beautiful.
I think sometimes distance is needed to expand the sun.
Maybe that’s why some days I stretch my fingers along this body
and others I pull the covers up.

I can’t help but wonder if you feel the same way. 
If you’ve ever felt these things.
If you’ve ever felt so damn broken you couldn’t remember 
what it felt like to be whole,
if you’ve ever been so afraid of the future you just had to cry,
if you’ve ever thought about that little girl tonight,
across the world,
drying her eyes?

If so, 
if so,
you’re not alone.

You’re not alone.

Arch Your Feet and Sing Again

courtneykrystek:

I remember the day the birds came back-
thousands in a flock
spreading shadows against the sun.

They sang against the snow,
their wings melted sunset,
their hearts worn and wretched,
travel torn and weary.

I remember waking up and standing in the first patch of sun
to hit the wood panes
in three months
and opening my mouth to sing with them.
My mother tells me when the birds start to sing
it means that summer has come,
and as I stood there,
the frost melting from my own shivering heart,
I could not help but wish you had stayed through the winter.

Metamorphosis: Slivers of Moonlight Howl Too

courtneykrystek:

Foxes shed disguises in the night

like ghosts that shivered

in your arms,

cold from the heat

that wrapped them up like gossamer

and placed them in the crescent moon,

a bed for the despised.

And you,

my love,

were the wolf

that so devoted

all attention and effort

to crawl

and beg

 and plead

and search,

grovel

and tear

the ground to reach

the unattainable,

stealing children from their comfortable

beds of hot chocolate pillowcases

and sneaky metaphors hidden underneath doormats

just to howl

at the night

even though you’ll never kiss her.

Metamorphosis: She asked me why

courtneykrystek:

And I said darling I’ve lost my mind
Because because
I don’t want to be fine
I don’t want to be okay
I want to taste ecstasy on my tongue as my toes brush
The chase of wind as the cars rush by
Millimeters from my hips.
I want to caress the waves to a thousand different tunes
Until my lips turn blueAnd the ice wears thin on my little loose wrist.

I want to taste darkness in the deepest caverns of the earth
And ask them their secret, their sin,
How do they stay alive when they can’t feel the sun?
I want to burn my heart thick with alcohol 
Until it pumps, pumps, pumps like the wild untamed beast that it is
And dance with my head back to the stars and my lips stretched wide into a grin.
I want to race you through the fire of pain
Through the endless maze of suffering,
I want to drown in anguish and hang myself from the clouds,
I want to feel my pulse in my ears 
Louder than the cries of the children in Rwanda
So I can look at you, blue in the face,
And say “fuck, this is living.”