Submissions by toniscales (Lost Girl)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
I am very critical of my own work but I tend to love intensely, and writing is an emotional release and catharsis I can't seem to resist.
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
31st Jan 2023 2:09pm
31st Jan 2023 2:09pm
collages
(Hi. I hope everyone is doing great. I'm honored and excited to find out that dancing girl press will be publishing my first poetry chapbook called Blue Rebecca later this year. It's the first time I've ever truly felt like a writer, since I struggle a lot with confidence in myself... This morning I worked through some old pieces of mine and edited them, and this is what I came up with. Thanks so much.)
How the objects break my heart when they're grouped together. A deer and a dress and a baby carriage. I'm drunk on all the pretty, dangerous things. Moths crackling in the...
How the objects break my heart when they're grouped together. A deer and a dress and a baby carriage. I'm drunk on all the pretty, dangerous things. Moths crackling in the...
#dark
#women
#gothic
58 reads
5 Comments
EROTIC POEM
Published
30th Jan 2023 12:23pm
30th Jan 2023 12:23pm
mementos
We're a little in love with lust. Not so much explosions but that endless open falling. Smacking strawberry gum on my glossed lips and hanging Polaroid after Polaroid. His brown skin pressed against her white. Such beautiful latent violence. It's not so much the language of the body but the aftermath of ache. That sweet suffusion of pink as we open our legs to the shadows. Throw lockets and Scrabble tiles down the well. Listen to the lull and hum of the river and throw our panties in the grass. There are endless equations of wanting. Your teeth pressed against my perfumed wrists, my mother...
#lust
#erotic
117 reads
9 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
29th Jan 2023 6:05pm
29th Jan 2023 6:05pm
ghosts of Titanic, a gothic
Look, here. Where the longing gets soaked into the lace handkerchiefs. The chandelier lights glimmering across the ocean floor, her slender throat perfumed by rosewater and lavender, the most secret of kisses. Shoes of exquisite crimson while hungry fish swim the icy interiors. All cameos and cuttlefish. How the piano keys tinkled as he licked the velvet lining of her ear. The ladies finger the gold rims of broken dishes clinking in smoke-filled rooms. Nothing to do but waltz all night, all porcelain figurines as they pass breathless from gentleman to gentleman. Their braceleted wrists and...
#dark
#gothic
36 reads
4 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
29th Jan 2023 6:03pm
29th Jan 2023 6:03pm
house of open yearnings
It creeps up on you, this soft decay. On Tuesdays the words get caught in the dream catchers. My bedroom a litany of strange music and moans. A woman crooning from the Victrola and voices carrying through the wallpaper. Despite everything, there is always ache. All hanging lights and star charts. My mother's face haloed and strange as she reaches to turn out the lamp. We huddle under blankets while the ice thaws in my father's whiskey. Vats of face cream like canopic jars and limbs of broken mannequins bending towards the light. All the brass keys lost in my body's curves and folds, the...
#dark
#gothic
44 reads
2 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
26th Dec 2022 4:05pm
26th Dec 2022 4:05pm
Secret Santa
The Secret Santa shop came to school
That year. My eight year-old hands trembled
As I saw the necklace cradled so softly
In a tiny box of black velvet.
A vee of gold culminated in blinding diamonds
More dizzying than love itself.
I knew it was the perfect gift for you.
As I paid the five dollars, my fingers
Itched to touch the beauty and brilliance
That I had bought for you.
Feverishly I brought it home, caressing
Its invaluable preciousness with silent glee
As I wrapped it as carefully as I could.
On Christmas morning, you...
That year. My eight year-old hands trembled
As I saw the necklace cradled so softly
In a tiny box of black velvet.
A vee of gold culminated in blinding diamonds
More dizzying than love itself.
I knew it was the perfect gift for you.
As I paid the five dollars, my fingers
Itched to touch the beauty and brilliance
That I had bought for you.
Feverishly I brought it home, caressing
Its invaluable preciousness with silent glee
As I wrapped it as carefully as I could.
On Christmas morning, you...
#love
#grief
#mother
#Christmas
#daughter
68 reads
4 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
27th Nov 2022 10:51pm
27th Nov 2022 10:51pm
Rose-blood
Today you almost died.
The car wrapped around you
Like silver, jagged arms
Wanting what was mine
Since you were an infant.
That's all they told me.
You were lifted from the scene
By the indifferent, whirring hands of a chopper.
I searched frantically for you,
Calling hospital after hospital,
But to no avail.
And in those few hours
I assumed the worst.
But business was happening
Frantically around me.
There was no time
To sit quietly in a grove of quiet trees
Listening to the birds and the...
The car wrapped around you
Like silver, jagged arms
Wanting what was mine
Since you were an infant.
That's all they told me.
You were lifted from the scene
By the indifferent, whirring hands of a chopper.
I searched frantically for you,
Calling hospital after hospital,
But to no avail.
And in those few hours
I assumed the worst.
But business was happening
Frantically around me.
There was no time
To sit quietly in a grove of quiet trees
Listening to the birds and the...
#love
#grief
#mother
#motherhood
#daughter
111 reads
3 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
19th Nov 2022 4:46pm
19th Nov 2022 4:46pm
The Order (Prologue)
#lust
#erotic
#sensual
81 reads
4 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
8th Nov 2022 7:26pm
8th Nov 2022 7:26pm
The Chair
Someone had left a large, black wheelchair next to the metal trash bin outside her apartment.
It looked to be in good condition. She dusted it off and slowly wheeled it through the front door of her place. It seemed sad for such a thing to be thrown away. She wondered if the person whom it had belonged to had maybe passed away.
She tried not to think about it.
Maybe she could have use for it. It would be a useful thing to transport trash bags with. She hated going to the trash bin, and there were already numerous bags of trash accumulating in her kitchen. ...
It looked to be in good condition. She dusted it off and slowly wheeled it through the front door of her place. It seemed sad for such a thing to be thrown away. She wondered if the person whom it had belonged to had maybe passed away.
She tried not to think about it.
Maybe she could have use for it. It would be a useful thing to transport trash bags with. She hated going to the trash bin, and there were already numerous bags of trash accumulating in her kitchen. ...
#depression
#loneliness
#dark
#bipolar
#despair
139 reads
1 Comment
SELF POEM
Published
11th Feb 2022 12:34pm
11th Feb 2022 12:34pm
From Ache and Rosettes, a Yearbook Volume 2
We're never ready for the dull pain of the
day. By fifteen I'm haunted by calla lilies.
The sad wilt of them from the vase on my
nightstand. A boy's voice on the phone
dripping with sex. The girl three counties
away who drank bleach til her throat
bloomed blue roses. My hair is in that
horrible in between stage, won't stay in its
clip. Little tendrils keep flying and adhering
to my glossed lips. That year the gnats came,
congesting the house with their tiny black
bodies. Choking all the white from the walls.
A strange sort of...
day. By fifteen I'm haunted by calla lilies.
The sad wilt of them from the vase on my
nightstand. A boy's voice on the phone
dripping with sex. The girl three counties
away who drank bleach til her throat
bloomed blue roses. My hair is in that
horrible in between stage, won't stay in its
clip. Little tendrils keep flying and adhering
to my glossed lips. That year the gnats came,
congesting the house with their tiny black
bodies. Choking all the white from the walls.
A strange sort of...
#sadness
#dark
#gothic
187 reads
3 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
11th Feb 2022 12:23pm
11th Feb 2022 12:23pm
From Ache and Rosettes, a Yearbook
I'm haunted by my childhood. Fascinated by pain. But it's good for a writer to be passionate about something. In middle school. The prom. How you told me to wear something white so my skin would look tan. Show a little cleavage. Never mind the black satin dress with rosettes my mother painstakingly sewed. The pink and white streamers, girls laughing at the tops of their lungs. Somewhere, the smell of stale beer. Somewhere down the hall, the echoing of screams.
It's exquisitely painful to see pictures of yourself from high school. You were so thin and pretty, then. But you hated...
It's exquisitely painful to see pictures of yourself from high school. You were so thin and pretty, then. But you hated...
#depression
#dark
#gothic #LifeStruggles
#gothic #LifeStruggles
203 reads
6 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
11th Feb 2022 1:58am
11th Feb 2022 1:58am
The Vanity
You sat at your vanity every night.
It was your evening ritual.
I heard you open the jar of cold cream,
Its heady, rose-scented fragrance wafting
Sweetly and comfortably in my nostrils.
In grand yet gentle strokes,
With long, elegant fingers
You rubbed it onto your face,
Skin pale yet luminous,
Taking care not to get any into
Ice-blue eyes like diamonds
That were never cold but only shone
With love for me. I remember
Your arched perfect brows,
The red Clara Bow pout of your lips.
The bed where you nestled me
In...
It was your evening ritual.
I heard you open the jar of cold cream,
Its heady, rose-scented fragrance wafting
Sweetly and comfortably in my nostrils.
In grand yet gentle strokes,
With long, elegant fingers
You rubbed it onto your face,
Skin pale yet luminous,
Taking care not to get any into
Ice-blue eyes like diamonds
That were never cold but only shone
With love for me. I remember
Your arched perfect brows,
The red Clara Bow pout of your lips.
The bed where you nestled me
In...
#love
#ILoveYou
227 reads
9 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by toniscales (Lost Girl)
