Undercover Romantic

I’m an undercover romantic,

A safe keeper of memories,

It’s always the little things,

The little things that get the best of me.

I’ll never forget the night of the fire,

The true beginning of everything,

You simply opened your mouth,

And we talked well into the morning.

Every part of me was warming,

And every part of me felt home,

I distinctly remember wondering,

Where that comfort was coming from.

I watched you form your thoughts,

As the color of fire licked your lips,

You gave me your honesty,

And in return earned my respect.

There was something in your words,

That I just found so attractive,

It’s a rare day you find the truth,

Offered in the same way you give it.

A meeting of such like minds,

An offer of experience,

You carried yourself so humbly,

I thought you were fucking brilliant.

I didn’t want that night to end,

I would’ve stayed till the sky turned red,

But when I finally hugged you goodbye,

I somehow knew I’d remember it.

I woke up that next morning,

With your words echoing in my head,

I couldn’t shake the sound of your voice,

And this thing right behind it.

This strange sense of belonging but,

You were the last thing I was looking for,

And the timing of it couldn’t be worse,

I tried to tell myself it was nothing

but there was something I couldn’t ignore.

Just a feeling, a hint of longing,

As I found myself craving your presence,

And even when the days got busy,

I still made time for our conversations.

I fell in love with your mind first,

How you weaved your words together,

And I don’t think I had laughed that hard,

In what felt like a thousand forevers.

You asked me to get together,

And I was all about it,

We met at a park in the middle of summer,

And I knew that this was something special.

The way you smiled stopped me dead in my tracks,

And baking in that sun I was still so relaxed,

We went to get milkshakes because I didn’t want it to end,

And when we finally went home,

Your smile stayed in my head.

You’ve smiled at me so many times since,

And it still feels as warm as the first time I saw it.

I’ll never be more grateful for offered experience,

Because out of a talk came a forever I believe in.

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

Every Moment

I stand above this little girl, so peaceful and innocent, with skin that glows in a way that says nothing’s ever touched it. I watch her breathe in and out, hear the noises she makes in her sleep, and I think of a time when she was nothing but a dream. She was never supposed to exist, at least not without lots of medication, months of tracking schedules, years and years of waiting. Yet here she is, in the flesh, so full of love and happiness. She’s my little miracle, life’s greatest gift.

I’ll never forget the day that little plus sign turned blue, the disbelief in my veins, the look of shock on my face. I’ll never forget the first time I heard her heart beat, fast like a hummingbird, strong like a hoofbeat. I’ll never forget the night I first felt her kick, so subtle I almost missed it, but so monumental. I was so in tune with every little change. I embraced every moment, loved every single day. Even now, as I watch her dream in her sleep, I still miss when we were one, her growing in my belly.

But not a thing in this world, matches the love and peace I feel, when I watch my baby sleep like the world is standing still. I catalogue every second, snapshots in my head. I’ll memorize every moment, from her birth until my death. I don’t want to forget a thing, any step on this journey. Because the best thing I’ve been, is this little girl’s mommy.

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

Struggle

Some days I struggle.

I carry this sense of impending doom around in my pocket like loose change or leftover lint. I feel a little left of center, a little off balance. Maybe I’m crooked. Maybe I’m damaged. Maybe there’s too many things that I’ve left unspoken, and the weight’s got me bent… but still unbroken.

So now some days I breathe anxiety for oxygen and use anger for strength.
Cause I can only fight as hard as I hate.
And sometimes that fire lightens the weight…
But sometimes it burns me instead.

I never fear the shoe dropping, I fucking expect it and although the years have caused that to lessen, I’ve still learned well how to hold my breath in. I’m a little cautious or completely reckless, balance has never been what I’m best at.

I’ve carried this guilt my entire life, accepting blame for shit that’s not mine.
I was raised to feel responsible, for everything; and it didn’t go away when I got old enough to see. See how broken that thinking is, and how wrong my mom was in the things she did. I was born pure and molded into an apology. Never taught to stand up or fight what people blamed on me. I spent my first 13 years mostly saying “Sorry”.

But evolution is inevitable and eventually the change came. I got a new mom, learned what I didn’t need to say. I stopped accepting blame and slowly dropped the weight. But some things in life, never truly go away.

So some days I wake up, with a belly full of lead, from all of the times that I bit another bullet. And on any given day my spine made of steel can curve into a question mark because not everything is healed. But most of the time, I stand up for myself, I don’t accept blame and take care of myself. I don’t make choices out of guilt, I don’t back down from what I’ve built. I’m accountable for my actions, and nothing fucking else.

by Ashley King
© All Rights Reserved 2017

Substandard Love

I’ll love you when it’s easy,
I’ll kiss you when you’re sweet,
I’m careless and convenient,
I’ll support you when it suits me.

I’ll kick you while you’re down,
I’ll never lift you up,
I’m fucking fantastic,
And you’re never enough.

I’m all the ways you settle,
And nothing that you wished for,
But now my hooks are in you,
And I’ve pinned you to the floor.

Are you feeling trapped?
Baby that’s my speciality.
I’ll knock you down, wear you out,
Suffocate you, breathlessly.

Don’t you know? I’m everything,
And you are just my hostage.
You used to have self respect?
Well baby, you just lost it.

Come taste my love,
It’s nothing but substandard.
You swam onto my island,
Now you’re fucking stranded.

You’re welcome.

by Ashley King
© All Rights Reserved 2017

Dedicated to all the egotistical, narcissistic, one foot out the door, “I’m better than you”, demeaning, condescending, douchebags of the world. We see you. And you suck 🙂

I’m Just A Painting…

Incomplete. Unfinished. A rough draft. Work in progress. Far from done. Needs finishing touches. What do all these things have in common?

They’re all me. I have yet to become complete. I’m just a painting in it’s infancy. Still blobs of pigment, not ready to be seen. The brushes of life have formed my body, and the fingers of many painters have marred my surface. I have become a work of art, but I’m not yet ready to lift the curtain.

I have chunks of time slapped on me with a palette brush, that have built up my height, although sometimes too much. I have deep grooves in my body that almost ripped me in half, because someone dug the brush in, imprinted in my past. And I have memories forged by tortured painters, that have jabbed at my surface, riddled with anger. They set me on fire, left me to smolder. These things left their scars as my canvas grew older. Within my beauty lies many charred ashes, from all these artist’s who burned my canvas. I have lived a mix of a million life stories, transformed into color that hides all the gory. Details, details, the devil’s in the details. So many secrets, carved in with fingernails. I’m not a pretty painting, I’m violent, damned, damaged in red, the blue marks the times where people painted my depression. The grooves and scratches mark all my imperfections, that were forged on my surface, creating my reflection. But the yellow and pink tell a different story. They show the people who truly cared for me. They took their time, tender in their touches, and were ever so careful in choosing their brushes. The black shows the culmination of all of these things, some work isn’t as simple as the parts you can see. This work of art borders on vulgar, too crude for some, but perfect for the vultures.

Vultures yearn to feed off my painted pain; one artists’ trash, is the twisted man’s gain. The sick see the flaws, and want to add more. The loving see paws, that clawed at my core. The judging see a mess, that still needs some work; and ones like me see a soldier, that lived through it’s wars. Everyone has advice and criticisms to offer, but no one gets being the product of many sick authors. I tried to mold my insides, reform the bad paint, until I made it mine, but some damage withstands even the test of time. So I am a mix of sick fucks and loving artists, forever I’ll remain a work still in progress. Many people will gaze upon my incomplete surface, see an unfinished product, not knowing it’s purpose. They think they can judge how I’ve lived, score my existence. But never can they see, what painted this picture. So they sit in the gallery, critiquing a work in progress, but I refuse to be judged before I’ve finished the process. This painting still waits, for the rest of it’s artists. But from now on I’ll be the judge who gets to paint on it.

by Ashley Hebner

© All Rights Reserved 2016

 

Featured Image is a painting by Mary Barnes. Found at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Mary_Barnes_painting_(detail).jpg