a.f. swanson
stories, poetry, and prose.
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catslaughter
We had an ‘outdoor cat’ named Isabella. My mother never got it right; always calling her Isabel instead, confusing her with the youngest daughter of a family friend.
read me -
a proliferation of sorrow
what is grief?
the anger that boils your blood.
the chill of your bones.
the string of temptation
in your tumultuous core.
the bitterness in your belly.
the salt of tears down
your flushed cheeks.
loneliness, pilled across
the surface of your skin.
disappointment lingering in
the condensate of your breath.do you dream of it?
perhaps, you awaken with
an ache between your thighs,
yearning ripping its way down
the length of your sternum, and
burying itself within your lungs.what is grief to you?
i only ask,
because to me,
it is the fruition of a dream, and
nothing kills a dream quicker
than its own fulfillment. -
drive
every night, he asks her the same question, and every night, she gives him the same answer.
but on a summer night like tonight, when she’s been pushed to the very edge of her waning patience for this fragile existence she calls a life, she’s thinking a drive is just what she needs to clear her head—even if it means getting into a car with the bane of her existence.“I’ll drive you home with the windows down.”
read me -
it’s late, go to sleep
it’s been a year.
life has gotten exponentially better since then, but i’m still so unhappy. it frustrates me that i’m so unhappy when everything points to things being alright.
read me -
i give the messiest head
i have my moments where i believe i could be loved by someone other than myself. if i think about it, and maybe examine myself from the perspective of another, i can see all the lovable parts of me.
read me -
the dawning
at the sunrise of my existence, it was decided that i would carry with me a special kind of burden. perhaps i did something to deserve it in a past life where i was ungrateful and wretched; a godless, wicked little thing of which he decided would suffer in every incarnation to follow.
read me -
break. build.
you.
you will get weaker.
you will break down into infinitesimal pieces as you try to fit the needs of others.
i.
i will get stronger.
i will build myself up with the infinitesimal pieces i broke into when i was trying to fit the needs of you.
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when you go away
there are so many things i can’t do, so many games i can’t play, so many songs i can’t sing along to, so many places i can no longer visit, and so many memories i cannot relive without feelings of devastation now, because it all makes me think of you.
read me -
—06.13.2024—
i was put on this earth to dream up great love stories and write them for others to enjoy, but an imagination like mine makes experiencing a great love story of my own an impossibility.
some days, it feels most unfortunate, but other days, i realize that i would be nothing without my imagination.
if the trade-off for that is love, so be it.
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—06.01.2024—
i am taking the parts of me that i’ve lost—parts that i’d always treasured—and attaching them to the person i have blossomed into. if the world will not love me, i will love myself, and if nothing else, i will at the very least become someone i want to love.
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a brief thought on yearning
someone can be a yearner while not allowing that yearning to interfere with their life. the real question is if you consider one being unable to continue on with their life normally a necessary aspect of yearning?
yearning doesn’t often take the form we expect it to. we don’t always give away our deeper thoughts when we move through life, and even if one compartmentalizes their yearning, that doesn’t make the feelings disappear. they’ve merely been moved to a new space where they continue to exist.
could these feelings be resolved through accepting one’s circumstances? sure, but acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean you have no regrets, and regret is the mother of those who yearn.