elise’s poem

A head curls into my neck at 3:00 AM. I feel your chest rise slowly while your breath makes my … More

Ichor

Apollo hummed your name and I asked how he knew you. He’s an Erotes, dear girl, he says as though … More

Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor

Darkened eyes swell by firelight until they’re glazed with smoke. This hollowed heart echoes and it sounds like Bach, filling … More

Sour Breath

Holding the moon over crushed ice, I bite my tongue to avoid your vanities and you wrap yours around my … More

Achilles Marble

Three years I’ve been carved of marble, cold and desolate to emotion. I’d forgotten what it was to feel before … More

souvenir

heirloom heart and quilted skin, i hand myself to you and ask for safe keeping.  

Honeyed

I soaked my skin in honey & sun until I felt as brightened as you see me. Soon saturated, I … More

Shadow Projection

I have hidden parts of myself in other people and I hope they find her in these moments, when the … More

Erasure

Sitting on a bench at 4:27PM, burnt cheeks and glossy eyes. The thought of you warrants a pained laugh, a … More

seven daydreams

i.    i tell you and ramble and you cup my cheek with your right hand and grin. we’re outside. … More

Treacherous

Frozen orange skies in February snow coat each memory that I have of you. Cold, bitter, fragmentary, and distant.

Come in Waves, Leave in a Drought

When the permanent ephemerality of the words you whispered rang in my ears, believing you felt like safety. It was … More

Liberosis in Redamancy

My heart of excess and hollowed bones of flight float in empty spaces, filling in meaning where there is none. … More

Magnetic

Frantic & confessing, he chants of goddesses with sky light bodies & rosey coldness. I ask him not to lie … More

Siren Song

Fingers trace questions in open air and we create our own mythology. As a siren song sinks into your skin, … More

warm things.

new shoes. “I’m proud of you.” time taken to ask. quiet company. sleeptalk. clean sheets after a shower. showers. warm … More

Hedda.

Catch a bullet in my teeth and dress it in silk, engraving your name along the seam. Tuck it in … More

In Bodies Other Than Our Own

Brick sand skin feels like silk against mine, you hum and whisper in rhythmic rhyme. Softened syllables float on stone, … More

Polyglot

I dream in languages you don’t speak, whispering confessions in brave safety.   Is this valor or cowardice, a heart … More

Implicit

The vibrations ring through your chest and into mine, echoes of come closer and all this time floating in what … More

Dreamwalk

In my dreams, you walk me like stairs and consume my thoughts as sit-down meals. Your skin is radiant and … More

Sunbitten

Sunbitten voices echo through empty November air, reheating frozen-over skin until walls melt into softened stone.   A fear of … More

softening

brutal kindness is unfamiliar, my relearned heart reading welcomes as warnings.   how do you soften self sabotage? how do … More

Breezeway

A swallowed coast in your touch, you tangle yourself into me until I can’t breathe; your assumed thoughts suffocating mine.

tracing

satin sleeved & velvet hearted, i speak in silk. i leave you a bread crumb trail hoping you’re hungered and … More

Field Notes, Unnamed.

  black coffee and Christmas lights and clean soil after rain.   old ink on someone else’s receipts and pencil … More

with the dirt in my nails

I. humming city lights soften sounds of cicadas mimicking and muffling rapid hearts. fingers dance and pull the since-dried grass … More

Appalachian wind

the wind bites at my neck and I dare it to consume me. carve into my nape and chew me … More

Ventricle Map

From here, you can see my epicardium, coated in bookish quotes and names of playlists that have yet to be … More

Hope Isn’t A Dainty Thing

‘Hope’ isn’t a dainty or delicate thing— she is blood and grit, her voice of symphonic echoes and screaming doubt … More

Leaving Leaves Leave In Peace

she sighed and the air sighed with her a mutual release of exhaustion and lyrical breath. hair fell with the … More

Blue Hydrangeas

Rerouted apologies and and misplaced blame suffocate survivors until showers burn like flames.  

gibberish

come here, sweet darling dressed in rose and wearing moonlight like candy whisper your bitter everythings and bite my tongue … More

Contrasting Conflation

I am a saltwater soul with blue ridge blood peaking like Pisgah while the Atlantic ocean runs through my veins. … More

My Future Self Needs My Current Self’s Strength

Six months from now I am looking back at myself in this moment soft with pride.

remembering remembering, or trying to

This place is freezing, and I don’t know if it’s the lack of your presence or the AC set to … More

salted ocean, salted skies

it’s my first time back in these waters since you died and the sky has yet to clear. Sanibel skies … More

Thalassic Rubatosis

I sit down and sink in, letting the sun singe my skin while I bury sand deep beneath my nail … More

Growing, Continued.

One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is look myself in the eyes and admit I deserve … More

Complacency

My nightmares as a child had no echoes of falling or screams of teeth falling out; they held demons with … More

Cleansing

I have been rinsing myself of everything the year left on me cleansing myself of the scars, the wounds, the … More

Personal Complexities

You know a version of me. The girl who wears that old Elvis Costello shirt or the first year who … More

I Am From…

I am from Jaysun and Anne Stockdell-Giesler, from an artist and a writer. From learning to never end a sentence … More

Wildflower

I was born a chrysanthemum, blooming in the fall and finding home in cold winters. Wrapped myself in my mother … More

Rewrite The Written

They say I have your words your state of mind and your empathetic demeanor. They say I carry you and … More

*You’re

I almost wish we’d never met. You stole six months from me, only half of which filled with naive apprehension … More

The Way They Leave Tells You Everything.

I shouldn’t be laying on my bedroom floor in my now dried towel at 3 A.M. after my 4th shower … More

Promises

I’ve never known a promise that wasn’t broken so don’t promise me this isn’t the end when all that’ll do … More

Flicker

Just a little flame quick to burn out just a little something to keep you warm between bodies is that … More

Scintilla

And the worst part is, it was never even fully real to begin with. Was it? It was a rendezvous … More