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You used to love the beach, just like you used to love me.
Well, I mean you probably still love the beach.
When you told me you loved the ocean and the waves and how you wanted your little riptide tattoo
I vowed to you that I would take you sometime.
Even though I never got the chance to, I still imagine what our trip would have been like to this day.
I picture us building a sandcastle.
We shape it with our hands because we we’re to lazy to buy buckets.
As we build the base we talk about the dining room where our king and queen eat gluten free pizza and chocolate,
We sculpt their bedroom where they will lay and watch cheesy movies complaining about the bad acting,
We picture the bathroom where they will make bad makeup looks on one another and dance in the mirror
And when we’re done, we’ve built a castle made for the most imperfect of kings and queens.
A castle with empty hallways but lively rooms,
Except the queen’s study where she hides her insecurities in the folds of old notebooks,
Or the king’s bedside table where an old box lives covered in dust except for a few fresh fingerprints, holding faded Polaroids tucked away
In a slightly more careful fashion than the way he tucks his wife into bed.
But us building, we claim not to see the secrets
They’re too hidden in plain sight for us to notice
So we focus on the chocolate and bad acting and dancing.
And then
You complain you’re tired, even though your eyes are wide open
I say I’m hungry, even though I ate an hour ago
And as we walk away
neither of us notice the waves crash over our already flawed creation.
 Nov 2018 Theshygirl
Emeka Mokeme
Can't you see I'm
so stuck on you.
This heart beats
for you for sure.
Endearing and
captivating,
a happy soul,
with a voice like music.
The sun in her heart
radiates into her face
creating the alluring
beauty with the light
in her eyes giving it
an illusion of magic.
The sun in her subtle
smile will always
illuminate my life.
With her presence,
my life is better.
She touched my life by
the same fire burning
in her heart and now
she has taken over.
I am aflame and aglow
burning up for her.
Change has come
because something
beautiful happened.
Magically she has
transformed my heart into
a budding rose flower with
a beautiful alluring fragrance.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.
Swimming in honey is impossibly difficult.
Unless you don’t know it’s honey.
In ninth grade I started dating this guy.
I dove into the deep end with him and broke out into a sprint.
It took eight months to reach the other side,
eight months until the sweetness seeped into my teeth,
eight months until I recognized the bitter potential of this swimming pool.
Swimming in honey is impossibly difficult.
Unless you don’t know it’s honey.
My mind has always raced and I never had an issue with it,
up until the moment I was thrown a life raft.
It’s impossible to tell how sticky your situation is when all you’ve ever known is under the nectar.
Swimming in honey is impossibly difficult.
Unless you don’t know it’s honey.
We’ve been friends for so long that’s all I’ve ever thought of you as.
Yet after my thousandth lap you dragged me out of the pool, scraped away the syrup, pointed out to the place I had been for so long and told me
“Honey, I love you.”
Swimming in honey is impossibly difficult.
Unless you don’t know it’s honey.
Knowing your flaws confused my heart
so I only wrote about the things I liked about you.
And when words on a page are screaming good parts,
you forget the bad, and become a fool.

Knowing you had good qualities made my head throb
so I only wrote the things I hated about you.
And when thinking about how hard you made me sob,
I forgot the good, and rewrote what I knew.

Knowing the truth makes my body hurt
so I only write my versions of the people I know.
And when my poems read as if the roles were reversed,
I forget what really happened, as if the truth was always faux.
Sticks and stones
May break my bones
But words will never hurt me

And if they do
You’d have no clue
They leave no scars in reality

Yet in my head
The words they said
Are spreading like wildfire

When I explain
All my pain
They brush it off as satire

Just to prove
What they do
I paint my arms with scarlet

They say it’s me
But in reality
It’s them that are the artists.
I stand naked in the wake of the mirror,
criticizing everything about the way I appear.
Everything seems just a little off, misplaced maybe,
like a baby did a jigsaw puzzle
shoving pieces that don't belong together.
My small chest superimposed on my thick stomach makes me sick to it
My dimples indented on my cheekbones and not next to my crooked smile are anything but picture perfect
The list goes on and on
I criticize myself about everything under the sun for so long
I run out of things to say.
I wish the ugly parts of me would just go away.
I stare into my own ugly eyes with ugly tears in them and scream internal ugly words until I can't take the ugly hurt, and I cry out:
"I don't want to see my imperfections!"
My wish rattles against the glass.
I blink and gone is my reflection,
then all too quickly I beg for it back.
The last four lines are my favorite. I wrote another poem like this one with those last four lines, but I didn't like the rest of the poem, so I wrote this one instead and I think I like it a lot.
How come anger is so strong?
Why won’t it just let me move on?
Instead of forgiveness and understanding,
Anger is still standing in my way.
I say that “it’s okay”,
Because being mad and hurt
Only makes it worse.

If I move on,
If I step aside,
Will anger let me by?
Will it let me fly on my own
Without holding me down and
Suffocating me with tears,
With lies going into my ears
and coming out my pen.
I don’t want to love them again,
but that doesn’t mean I have to remain
dripping in anger, hurt, regret
I really want to change my mindset!
But...
          not quite yet.
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