Melanie Shupe Little

Melanie Shupe Little Mar 29

Just, you know,
How desperately I yearn for human connection
Or how impossible I think I am to love
Or how I find the best in absolutely everyone
Or how I'm out to heal every broken person I've ever touched

Or maybe how hands look like necklaces in just the right setting
Or how I yearn for someone to just take my breath away
Literally, figuratively, all of the above
How I wish to be claimed, marked

Or how the wild side of me tames in the mundane
And I loved being a wife, I just had a husband that never loved me
That I would lay the world open for the right man, that I would create a thousand universes and souls for the right man...

But no. We keep those things to ourselves.

Melanie Shupe Little Mar 26

Cell

If there is one thing that I know,
it's that the throbbing ache that's in
the cavern beneath my sternum

Feels a lot like my heart is held
Captive, prisoner, rattling
Against the rib-bone bars of jail

Melanie Shupe Little Mar 21

The Graze of Fingertips

Humans weren't meant to be alone
I know this in the empty pit of my soul,
I know it in the desperate ache in my chest
The burning in my eyes as I stare into the ever after

I fixate on it, so much, the empty darkness,
the last gasp of breath with no comfort,
the burning in my throat as I struggle to breathe
My one true fear is drowning in my own lungs.

But this, reaching for someone who isn't there,
who may never be there
This terrifying yearning to connect,
to feel like I won't ever ******* connect.
This is my damnation.

Melanie Shupe Little Feb 20

Exhausted

Sleep would be a literal dream
But I play it over and over and over again
Sitting in the dark, staring at the ugly pattern stamped into the ceiling
It just doesn't make sense.

How can you tell me to take up space,
But get frustrated when my feelings get
Too big, too chaotic?
I guess I'll always be too much.

I grew so big, I guess I'm the one that somehow created
This canyon between us
Where there was once mere centimeters.

I thought I knew who I was,
But that's just something I tell myself
When I need to feel better I guess
Because I've never known who I am
Without loving someone else.

So the minutes tick on, and I'm not sure whether or not to text you.
So the sun goes down, and minutes turn to hours turn to days.
And I blink again, again. Beg sleep to find me.
Call out for the sandman.
Or any man, I guess.
It doesn't seem I know how to choose.

Melanie Shupe Little Feb 19

Safety On

Hearts have brain cells. They know. They warn you when **** is about to hit the fan.

That sinking feeling in your chest? That's intuition babe. It always has been.

But when that sinking feeling feels so much like that flying, falling feeling, it's hard to unravel which is really which.

So I'm done. I'm done. I give up. I can't trust myself, can't trust a man, can't trust the words that someone says, can't unravel the "I love you" from the "I don't know what I want."

I am chambers fully loaded, blood pumping, always ready. So willing. Send me into war for you, I'll come back a victor.

Send me away?

They'll write back home about my efforts and valiant attempts, but I will be nothing more than a story someone tells someday, disintegrated bones, sticks and stones, she who didn't need love anyway, wanted it so badly, didn't need it... But only ever got herself.

Melanie Shupe Little Feb 6

Ego

I will claim this, the power I have over you
The intense attraction that pulls me back to you
Onto you
Perfect fit, so easy, so simple

I don't have to think about how much I want you
That much is evident in the waterfall
At the end of the hike
Both of which I enjoy equally

But *******, the power to make you fall to your knees
The feast that you're willing to make of
The famished
The way you are so willing to drown
Just for me

How could I ever pretend not to feel like a
Goddess
again?

Melanie Shupe Little Nov 2023

Too ****** to Sleep Right

I will never understand why I wasn't good enough for you

I cannot wrap my head around the fact that coming home to me was never your true dream
When I know I am someone's dream,
When I know that I wasn't always
Your worst
Nightmare

It's a struggle to look in the mirror, to be proud of the face and body I am forced to wear
When you choose that over this and never thought
Twice

I cannot truly fathom the depth of this betrayal
Cannot believe I held up the four walls around us, carved out our paths, let you exist in safety and love
To have the rug pulled out from under me again

I could never quite explain
Why I stayed, why I endured
Besides to say it was love that made me stupid
Faith and trust that made me shake my deepest fears, made me look the other way when the first signs of the ship sinking should have been
Enough.

I will never be able to shake the fear
That someone else will promise me the world, the sun, stars
That someone else will promise me they'll stay,
that someone else will try to love me
That this isn't how my story ends,
And that they too will break every last oath, pinky swears be ******,
And that I will never sleep soundly
Again.