Scooping Honey from the Sky, by Tyree Storey


Poetry Magazine featuring poetry, short stories and informative articles.
dine exotic
pack light
clothes carefree
showers sparse
hunt warmth
bathe in rivers
learn to surf
slink into cafes
feign a holiday
explore this city
romanticize it all
escape your homelessness
the way you cast me aside.
Loved me less.
Ignored my cries for help.
when I begged you to take a stand against the constant drinking,
You simply pointed at my self inflicted wounds and said
“We all have our vices.”.
when I let myself recall
the way I pleaded for a figure
with no maternal instincts at all.
Make me believe that you love me
only when I have something to offer.
You live your life with the selfish belief
that I owe you my everything
because you created me.
of those with mothers whom they can call close.
Can’t accept I haven’t much to lose.
This constant heartache is my living hell.
Why is everything always about you?
Don’t you know I have a soul too?
To be a mommy too.
What if the best love I can manage
Is a love like you?
and promised myself
I wouldn’t come out
until I was “better.”
no one taught me
that better
is not a chalked line in the dirt,
that there is no
bronzed medal with gilded rim
reading:
Better. Fit for consumption.
so long
that my lips became my eyes
and my eyes become
huge craters
I couldn’t climb out of.
But I didn’t care for climbing anyhow.
I became a master excavator.
albeit lonely.
refusing hands of rescue
reaching out from the rim.
in fact,
not fine,”
reads the narrator.
that dogs see in black and white,
but I am not a dog.
I am human.
so I err.
I am human,
so I am flawed.
so no amount of
excavation,
recreation,
reflection
or divine inspiration
will deem me “better.”
I am human,
so I am enough.
I look amazing.
They beg:
tell us your secret.
what have you been doing?
I’ve made some changes to my diet.
external validation
in my morning coffee.
packaged sweetener
made of
artificial
Instagram likes and
bending over backwards like
acrobatics for attention;
blending myself into
you for approval
like stirring in your
favorite brand of
soy milk even though
soy makes me sick.)
I opt for the real thing these days.
Organic
connection and
act natural, which is to say:
Don’t act.
Be.
I’m not perfect at it, but –
I tell them –
Life is much sweeter this way.
Bars mixed to an intense temperature open in front of me, leading through halls of red hot lava.
While the absence of darkness deafens.
Heat shivers away, and I’m not scared.
Even while the ground sweeps, and god kicks my legs from contentment.
Falling, Into what I think is damnation.
There’s no fire, no sorrow; just me and the wind.
I hold my eyelids ferociously, air rushing so fast as to strike the tears out of reach.
Sight returning as I’m bestowed beautiful memories of you.
Wanting to hold on as long as possible yet I’m descending towards a visible surface.
My body tenses up for impact.
As I glance back, the sky fades along with you.
This view so real, realer than when I trace my finger across your gentle hand..
Accepting the true damnation of life.
Of love.
Of you.
The bones underneath my skin get smashed with newtons of force, grounded to minerals that wisp away with its long awaited gust of wind.
And even through death, the only pain I felt was falling faster than my wave goodbye.
To everything.
Feeling chances rain that couldn’t be brushed, touched, or comforted.
My breath steadied from your touch.
Fingers never stale at numbness.
For your warmth helps me clutch and never let go of what I’m told.
“Hun you mean so much, even when you’re the biggest dumb dumb.”
It’s like there’s nothing but us.
Heating from a single caress.
As a gentle and careless genius with sparkles in each eye.
I can’t look away.
You’re so damn handsome, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
It’s from my long due absence of emotion.
Given in lessened breathing as I wasn’t concerned to live, I never knew at the present.
Never felt devotion towards all I care about until you came along.
I was always so content with the cold-
Either because it draws us closer, or helps realize how much love we take for granted.
It’s just.. I’m enchanted.
Where it makes me happy!
Where I can’t ever stop smiling.
Where I’ve never been so relaxed, where I’ve never been so close to you.
Give upon your hands to mine and spread it’s forgiving heat, melt my hands as you do my heart.
With tears, you’ve brushed away.
With chills, you’ve struck away.
Leaving me desolate of thought as my body retracts your prowess.
Lifting me up to be breathless. From then on I give you mercy.
But right now, neither of us need that.
We need each other’s warmth within the season.
I’m weak.
Weak and desperate for your warmth.
Their blood splattered on your mahogany walls,
And you handed them a bucket to clean their shit off the stalls,
And perhaps who you’re blaming is you.
Against your venom spitting games,
And these lessons they had in bruises of black and blue,
Your poison penetrating,
They screamed and cried, but you turned a blind eye,
And perhaps, who you call fucked up is really you.
Take a step back, you’ve lost the respect you once had,
We stand against you in exteriors of funeral attires, piercings and tattoos,
Getting laid for the night just to feel some human,
But in the morning,
We’re here and burying you.
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A refraction of light whispering a story of how life came to be.
A curious passerby insisting on remembering.
All of life has a story.
A reason for being.
I quietly listen.
Hoping nature will enumerate my own.
Until then, I’ll skip rocks along a river bank.
I’ll write poetry.
I’ll pray at night to the one I love.
I’ll push out emails and shuffle papers on Monday afternoons while I look longingly out the window, wondering how earth got it all right.
about keeping others at arm’s length
because you don’t need them, don’t need their approval, you’re fine on your own
when you fall through the sky and can’t remember how to breathe
there’s no one there to hear the resounding crash
no one holding out hands and wearing furrowed brows
it’s just you
screamed stay away, don’t even try, you’ll never be enough
fabricated sneers keep you safe, ensure no one sees