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Best Poems Written by October Mist

Below are the all-time best October Mist poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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For the Children With Fire In Their Blood

‘I didn’t sleep well last night’ is all you say, as if you sleep well every other night, as if you don’t have more important things to do, heavier burdens to carry. Rivers running through your fingers and vaulted ceilings made entirely of stars. Nameless faces, unfamiliar voices in song; lulling you to sleep, to drown. 


The dark rings under your eyes are a permanent fixture, no amount of vanity will take them away. They are a part of you now, just as much as the dirt under your fingernails and the eyes that constantly feel as though they stare into the depths of your soul.  You hide the scars from the world behind forced smiles and a gentle voice, clutch at the wolf teeth strung around your neck and repeat prayers in your old tongue until your voice is cracked and hoarse and these are the only words you will ever know (besides the names that are too sacred to speak aloud)


Is self-deprecation an act of devotion?


You’re no prophet. Your place is not to sing and dance in their praise but to silently shoulder the weight of their wickedness, their monstrosity. You feel their divinity like a thousand knives in your back, between your ribs. You’re no prophet. Your place is not to teach others of their pain. You are wild; born of the wolf with forest fire burning hot in your veins. You’re no prophet. You’re just a child who howls with the wind and dances in the rain. Notebooks filled with words that can never pass your lips, ancient languages whispered in your ear even as you struggle to hold yourself together. 


People hear the words ‘sacred, holy, divine’ and think of cathedrals gilded in gold and silver, ornately carved statuettes of the virgin mother, sunday mass and quiet contemplation. You know this to be untrue. Your prayers are selfish and your altar is the ever changing landscape which surrounds you, mud and moss and snow. 


‘I didn’t sleep well last night’ is all you say, even as war rages in your head and the will of the Gods is enough to force you to your knees.

Copyright © October Mist | Year Posted 2016



Details | October Mist Poem

Monstrous

monstrous

/'m?nstr?s/ 

adjective

1.  I want to tell you about a boy born from the ashes of His mother, His father’s boiling rage. The rain that falls on His skin. He will grow to destroy everything, or so the prophecy says. Is the future set in stone? They will tie Him down and torture him and He will take his namesake with all the violent fury that He deserves. Worldbreaker. Is there not something so romantic about the gentle destruction of everything that we hold dear?

2. I want to tell you about a woman. Her name means bringer of sorrow and the very sound of it sends a chill deep in your bones. She is not afraid to take what she deserves, not even if it leaves you bleeding.  She knows not how her fate will become so entwined with His that His grief will be felt – raw, visceral, within Her breast. Her love will start a war. They will take Her children but She will return with more, snarling, brutal, ready for battle.

3. I want to tell you about a child. I want you to know that nothing is what it seems. Dreams of sorrow, of dark moss beneath my toes. The knife at my hip. The destruction of all fragile things within.

Copyright © October Mist | Year Posted 2016

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Empty Victory

Grave dirt under your nails; God and all of His beautiful, brutal angels cannot save us. We recite rosaries in blood and smear ash on the linen sheets. 

Greed is a sin but you're too pure to be unholy, are you not?

We met in a dream, your eyes in the sunset, sparkling with a life long lost to you now. Long lost to us both.

You renounced God. No. He renounced you, is that how the story goes? 

See how you have fallen. See how your hands shake in the dim candlelight.

(And I am Daedalus, clutching the tattered remains of your soul in my hands like a broken bird)

Copyright © October Mist | Year Posted 2016

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D I V I N E

He walks barefoot with the moonlight shining around his head like a halo;
It seems ironic. He laughs with you about it beneath a sky pregnant with stars,
Plucks the cigarette from between his lips and grins,
Razor sharp teeth,
You think, if looks could kill I'd surely have been dead long ago. 
Take my hand, he says
And you do, because how could you refuse a boy so bewitching?
But he is not a boy, the gentle wind whispers from somewhere between the trees,
He is a monster, a demon; 
Half boy half darkness,
And his wrath will swallow you whole

Copyright © October Mist | Year Posted 2016

Details | October Mist Poem

Burnt Umber

i. she will break your heart. dont get too close

ii.  watch the sunlight reflecting in her eyes. burnt umber - like a pool of gold. (get too close anyway.)

iii. hold her while she cries, even though it makes you uncomfortable. where do you put your hands? what do you say? kiss her hair and tell her its okay

iv. squeeze her hand when she runs her thumb over the back of yours. its a silent ‘i love you, you know.’ you won’t reply. you will regret this, later. you will regret a lot of things when she is gone. 

v. you break her heart. she breaks yours. you suppose this is fair.

vi. it doesn’t feel fair at the time. not at midnight when you’ve nobody to talk to and the only thing on your mind is her eyes and how her voice sounded when she said your name. 

vii. you loved her. you realise this only when it is too late. 

viii. you dont love her any more but this doesn’t mean the memories don’t still ache somewhere deep inside your chest. 

ix. you see her in somebody new. remember the butterflies in your stomach when your eyes meet over your cup of coffee. they’re not the same colour but what did that matter, anyway. beauty is beauty, and you've always craved beautiful things. 

x. she will break your heart. dont get too close

Copyright © October Mist | Year Posted 2016



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Optatus

Tell me you don’t want this;
These hands that burn everything they touch
These eyes that have seen too much yet somehow, still not enough
Tell me we weren’t made for this
I was born screaming
You, a forest fire
Tell me I wouldn’t die for you
I would sacrifice myself
A hundred times over, a hundred times again
Tell me –
But oh, you can’t

Copyright © October Mist | Year Posted 2016

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Phoenix

I’m sorry for loving you too much
Or for not loving you enough.
I mistook your love for mercy, once
(I will not make that mistake again)
You are the only one who can,
With a single hand - a single word
Ruin me, and pull me from the ashes
And so I'm sorry
I'm sorry.
(but I wont burn myself out to keep others warm ever again)

Copyright © October Mist | Year Posted 2016

Details | October Mist Poem

Caelestis

I want 

to write you poetry;

about skies, painted with fire,

fingers stained with blood, ink, rust

and the sunlight, 

shining like gold, like honey and amber upon your hair

but words are weapons

intended to bruise,

and I am not divine enough

to make them holy.

Copyright © October Mist | Year Posted 2016


Book: Reflection on the Important Things