9789178518166

I Want To Be The Voice Inside Your Head

POEMS Sallie Lundh

I want to be the voice inside your head

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For Me— A reminder to myself that I exist.

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Copyright © 2020 by Sallie Lundh All rights reserved Förlag: BoD – Books on Demand, Stockholm, Sverige Tryck: BoD – Books on Demand, Norderstedt, Tyskland ISBN: 9789178518166

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“Quietly, quietly, like this… just like this…

Nothing happened. Everything is already past.”

—Anna Margolin, Drunk from The Bitter Truth

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CONTENTS

I want you to listen to this page 17 My soul has glued itself onto my bones in discomfort 18 When in doubt make chocolate cake 19 Out of focus 23 A strange fruit 24 Boys want to hurt girls like you 25 I am afraid of writing about too many happy things 27 When the grave robbers take me 28 Moments 31 Suicide garden 32 If you know the name of this feeling please tell me 33 Depressed milk 36 Bug bird 37 A state of flux 39 I do not want to die 40 Cut flowers are zombies 43 I fall from the moon the way you fall into bed 45 Clown fishes giggle when they see me 46 A blue strawberry 48 She killed a bunch of butterflies and put them in her hair 49 The girl with 666 in her phone number 50 Manic pixie dream girl 52 Graveyard of bell jar hearts 53 To: Male poets romanticizing sad girls / From: Your romanticized sad girl 55 Onism 56 Beheaded 57 The grim reaper slips notes under my pillow 58 Moonlight in bandages 60 Lunatic 61 Sometimes when I look in the mirror my eyes turn into insects 62 Before I get dressed 63 The daisy game 65 Mercurial 67

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It’s the end of the world 71 Hands 72 In the dip of your waist 74 Touch me gently 75 Michelangelo love poem 76 Until the coral reefs turn soft 78 How I found out you’re not a poet 79 Poppies in June 81 I wanted to write a breakup poem so let’s pretend you left me, just this once 83 Like a ladybug in December 84 The girl with two pearl earrings 85 First kiss 87 Let me give you a beautiful poem about beautiful things 88

I want to be the voice inside your head 93 I turned my tears into pearls and hung them around my neck 94 Rat’s yawn 95 The whore who comforted Vincent van Gogh one starry night 96 Witches 98 I am reading Mary Oliver with your head under my arm 101 I twist my wrists into a bird 102 My living room carpet teaches me a lesson 104 Ode to Elin 107 Why I love the moon 109 Eventually 110 If your name is also Love, a letter to God 111 I am afraid of writing about too many happy things, but 112 Pharmacy girl 114 The boy I was at night 115 Even the stars will have to wait 118 The soul, a knucklebone 119 Why I am crushingly happy to be alive 120 Ray 122 A concept of drowning 123 Liz on top of the world 124

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a I am not sure of what I want to tell you, since this book is not written for you.

These pages are not written for anyone but me. And yet, when I write for myself, I write for someone. Some. None. No one. One—Anyone.

Most of these poems are rather sad, and a part of me wants to apologize for that but I won’t. Though, please do not believe that I am an unhappy person. The thing is just that sadness hits you harder than happiness, one cup of anxiety weighs more than one cup of joy. With that said, I write when my feelings are the most intense, which just happen to be quite often.

I also feel the need to address the truth in this book. My truth. A truth which I am struggling to accept myself, since many things that are true to me, have turned out not being true at all. Here is a small example: I have a vivid memory from my childhood of sitting on a bench inside the mouth of a mounted blue whale. My mother recently told me this never happened, and still to this day, I keep filling in the blanks this exact way. Half of my reality seem to contain memories I’ve made up myself without knowing it. Maybe this is why I walk through life feeling as if I am dreaming. Therefore, do not read these poems like a biography of what happened, but as things I merely remember.

There is no particular order in this collection, the poems are written during the year of 2019 (a few in late 2018), and solely aligned after what satisfied my heart.

They may not have been written for you, but if you read them, or rather, if you feel them, they belong to you, too.

—Sallie

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IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD Flame children of Armageddon play hopscotch in the back of my mouth, tongue bathing in the saliva of half words, anxiety rubber band stretched between half worlds from shoulder to shoulder, I think maybe my arms will get torn off like those of a barbie doll Plop! one arm, plop! another arm.

Hold me, hold me, I just need you to hold me because I am armless, sane-less, lend me yours; wrap them around me, a skin cocoon slightly sweaty but not too much, just enough for us to stick together.

Do not let go, not even when we do, stay with me even when I leave you.

Sallie has such an eloquent way of writing - every word is spun from pearls and gold.

Even the most painful topics are written in such a uniquely beautiful way, without romanticizing these topics. With descriptive language and powerful emotions, Sallie gives us a vivid glimpse into her life and her mind - each poem is a single moment, and they all come together to form the story of her life. Although the poems are about specific events she has gone through, many of them are things that anyone (especially women) can relate to. Her poems about mental illness, families, love, relationships, and abuse give a proper homage to all the famous women poets of our past. Sylvia Plath would be proud. — Jamie Wyman; author of The Hornets in My Stomach

Sallie Lundh is a Swedish Russian confessional poet who was born in 1997.

Currently living with her partner in an apartment in Sweden, she spends her days working as a cleaning lady at the city hospital of Karlstad while writing on her free time. You can find her on the Instagram account @apricityfairy.