Upon these strings you tug
on me, you are a puppeteer
always pulling on my limbs
moving me, pushing me to
the floor.

But still I rise,
I never fall too far
from a stable place,
stumbling but still
I rise and shine like
a star crossing the night sky
leaving my dreams behind.

Upon the setting sun
I slowly rise beyond
the pitch black of the sky
burning bright for all to see.

I bow in my orbital frame
smiling for you and all
who gaze upon my
dusty surface.

© 2019 By Amanda Shelton

It's quite and calm
when the lights go out.

Burning candles in the
night for the electricity
shut down in the
middle of the night.

We don't realize how much
we depend on modern
technology until it collapsed
unto society causing silence
through out the land.

Some will cry for help,
others will be helping,
the few will survive on leftover
fuel supplies.

No internet,
No lightbulbs burning in their
sockets, no refrigerator to keep
food from spoiling.

What would happen if the world
was to plunge into darkness?
We burned all of our reserve's
we used every ounce of oil?
We burned the last candle?

Science says everything runs out of
gas eventually, just as we age our
bodies decay so does the earth.

Without power we'd have to start from scratch, preserve what is left
before we have nothing.

© 2018 By Amanda Shelton

"If only I were a toad,
I would be in heaven living on a lilypad."

**© By Amanda D Shelton

Okay

I wake up with a fog
hanging around my head.

The pain reveals itself,
it burns, aches and scratches
at my brain.

I am a walking pain pill,
asthma follows me like a
stalker it's my biggest fan,
my scars are deep and pink
raw like meat.

Depression was a fan as well,
but I block it before it hit
the swell rolling in the deep.

My immune system is broken,
it doesn't seem to understand
the difference between infection
and itself.

As for my brain, it's perfectly
sane. My sanity hangs by a thread
with boredom as its friend.

Okay cool and fine.

For now I'm just okay.

©️ 2022 By Amanda Shelton

I hate migraines.
They don’t tell you
when they are coming,
and they never knock.

Instead you get an unwanted visitor
who is rude, loud, and causes pain.

It’s not fair
Who’d want that kind of visitor
coming again?

Stupid migraine!

**© 2017 Amanda D Shelton

Who’s got a pickle? I got a pickle.
I got a pickle, a sweat cucumber friend.

I’ve got a pickle, a pickle indeed,
You want some?

Now I’ve got a pickle stuck on my thumb.
Yum yum yum!

**© By Amanda D Shelton

I don't dance when I am told to,
I don't talk when I am spoken to,
I don't follow your directions,
I don't live to love,
I love to live and to break your rules.

I don't walk when I am done,
I don't yell when you can't hear,
I don't think like you do nor care to.
I don't live to love,
I love to live and to break your rules.

I am that shadow on the wall,
I am that black cat sleeping on your roof,
I am that purple colored hair wearing a hat,
I am the poet your teacher's warned you about,
I am the mountain that moved.

I don't write for your entertainment,
I don't write for your amusement,
I don't write to please you,
I write because I love to.

This is not for your entertainment.

**© By Amanda D Shelton

It burst into millions of pieces,
shards flew to the deepest
depths of my life.

What once was my heart
is now ruins, shards of
memories you left behind.

Shattered!

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton

I once was boarded up
inside my mind,
played with shadows
I thought were mine.

I felt so small
because I knew how large
life was compared to me.

I never saw the star
I was meant to be.

Until one bleak cloudy day,
I put my shadows away.

I looked up to find my way,
I saw the sky and I noticed the
stars.

I thought I want to be like those
burning lights above your head
burning brightly for all to see.

So I started blogging my poetry.

**© 2017 By Amanda Shelton

You stole my time, self-esteem,
and views.

You took something so naive and blind, you molded it with your photoshopped
coverage, blending models
into walking stick figures,
telling girls you can’t be
beautiful if you can’t fit the design.

To Beauty, I am ashamed of you,
you lied, you abused my time,
you wasted your designs
on a woman who is too real
to fit your stitched together designs.

I am 5’9″ 225 pounds beautiful,
with my wide hips I can sink
battle ships, I walk proudly.
For all should walk proud.

You are the perfect design,
you are beautiful on the outside
and in. We all shine.

© 2018 By Amanda Shelton

Boop boop, boop that snoot,
meow, meow, boop that snoot.

Fuzzy wuzzy was a cat,
fuzzy wuzzy booped like that,
snoot snoot boop boop,
boop that snoot, happy cat.

Let’s dance, wiggle wiggle wiggle,
wiggle wiggle wiggle, snoot snoot yeah!

Meow like a cat.

Now wiggle wiggle wiggle,
cat ***** be a wiggling like that.

Zoom! Cat be zooming
faster than lightning,
superkitty be frightening
quick and oh so fluffy.

Cat, boop that snoot let’s
dance.

©️ 2021 By Amanda Shelton

As the sun reveals her
glowing boosm, the star’s
fade into the darkness
as the sun lights
the world bringing life
to the shadows.

Upon the dew drops of mornings
breeze, I am pondering as I am
left wondering within the forest
of ideas within my mind,
and the beauty of the season
breaks the struggle from
the heat of summer.

Adieu to summer, Autumn has arrived.

©️ 2021 By Amanda Shelton

The outside perfume rushes
through the open door,
reminding me of the season,
Fall is making home
upon the land.

Autumn blows her kisses
upon my cheeks, leaving
a cold chill to roll down
my back.

The trees bow their leafs,
as they slowly fall and
change color.

Mother autumn is no stranger
to the Meadows and Hill’s,
she visits once a year.

© 2018 By Amanda D Shelton

"Lover's collide with stars crossing their sky's."  **© By Amanda D Shelton

Chaos and free,
judged are we who don’t conform
to your views of reality.

With society’s broken ideology.

A pretty face in a magazine,
stitched together with fake
believes, judged for not being
pretty enough,
Photoshop can’t fix me.

Oddly enough you think I am
odd because you don’t see like me.

My mind you say is broke
because I don’t think like you.
You act like everyone should be
the same,
if one goes off frame,
their judged for not sticking
to your guns and your filming rules.
Are no joke.

Such hatred you reflect,
yet you won’t admit you are
the ugly and bad,
not me.
You make me choke.

Ideology.

**© 2017 By Amanda Shelton

Don’t lie to the rose,
telling it you picked it
out of love.

When in truth, you picked it
to preserve it’s sent in your
memory out of ignorance and
selfishness.

Between the times we are together
and apart my heart waits patiently
but eager for your returning.

Time is like a shadow,
I can't see it but I know it's there,
our love can seem the same.

Like unforgiving waves
the destination is always the same,
I crash upon your shores,
like a storm you crash into mine.

We need not climb alone,
for we've got a forever home
inside each other's arms.

Love is like a stone,
it can seem hard at times,
but it takes thousands of years
to degrade.
Our love is the same.

**© 2018 By Amanda Shelton

“To love is the greatest adventure”

© By Amanda Shelton

Winds blow kisses,
flowers blow wishes,
while seasons bring change;
Meadows grow green.

**© By Amanda Shelton

” I might have a phobia of clouds but I still find them beautiful. I might suffer from chronic life but I still live it to the fullest. If you say I can’t, I will prove you wrong by showing you I can. I don’t live to love, I love to live and to break your rules.”
**© By Amanda D Shelton

You watched me grow,
my colors shined like diamonds,
but you forgot about me.

You forgot how fragile I can be,
now I have fallen at your feet,
yet you can’t see me.

My tides break, My shores quake,
and my coral fray
washing away with the waves.

Climate change can be a serious thing,
it’s up to you how it changes.

You think you’re so small?
You think you don’t cause change?
Oh how ignorant you are,
you are too blind to see,
you even effect me.

Just because you can’t see something
doesn’t change if that something is real.
Just because you can’t feel something
doesn’t make it less physical.

You think you are insignificant?
Then look closer at your life,
for even now you’re affecting
your surroundings just by being here.

Is that not the point to living;
to experience and grow with
those experiences?

Well I am serious
we need to make a change.

Our Earth needs us to wake up,
and take notice of what we need to do
to help her to keep growing
and stop life from dying.

We need to make the change
before the climate makes it for us.  

**© 2017 Amanda D Shelton

Oded to vintage,
dirt wrinkles and grime.

Grinding the time,
one second at a time.

Hands up hands down,
ticking running around,
the face of time smiles wide.

Twelve, eleven, ten,
nine, eight let’s do it again.

The only way to turn back time
is to rewind the clock. No redos
just memories.

Tick tock, tick tock, oded to vintage,
dirt wrinkles and grime.

These are my vintage thoughts,
they aged wisely and I’ve been
digging for the time
deeper into the depths
of vintage earth.

Wrapped in lace and bonet,
skirts of mourning black and sad,
tears stain the cloth slowly turns
yellow.

Oded to vintage,
dirt wrinkles and grime.

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton

My friend the sea showed me her bow,
then she rolled over and kissed me.

**© 2017 By Amanda Shelton

Stinking, oozing, blistered,
and bruised are my
feelings and opinions.

You have all of me though
you are too blinded by your
selfishness to see me.

I am rotted away
like a bruised and gutted
pumpkin, my grin slouches
and my light burnt out before
you can use it.

You invited evil spirit's
by blowing out my candle;
No use am I without my light.

I am the rotted and used.

No more fun,
No more smiles to enlighten
your darkness do I portray.

My feelings have gone rotten,
you neglected me until
I turned black,
my body lies at your feet
like a welcome mat.  

The flies have come to eat
my heart, though it's lacking in
nutritional value for you over
prossesed my love for you.

You gutted my heart
causing an emptiness to grow,
all while your laugh grew like
an open sore.

You bit me hard,
I broke my back for you.

I left my life behind
when I chose to share
my life with you.

I am trying to regain
what you stole from me
year's ago. Slowly it's becoming
what it was before.

Time is rotten, decay, and wasted
upon the memory of pain.

This love will be the death
of me or a new beginning,
I don't know yet.

We'll see.

© 2018 By Amanda Shelton

Upon my waking hours,
I become a wildflower.

Slowly as my eyes open,
the mist clears, the fog
roll’s me over the hills
in my mind.

As the sun reveals her
glowing smile, dreams
fade into the darkness
as reality lights the world
bringing life to the shadows.

I am slowly aware of my freedom,
it’s like an itch burning to be
itched.

I am fully bloomed.

©️ 2021 By Amanda Shelton

In the end!

After humanity has caught the last fish, after they dug up all that is left, after they cut down the last tree, and drank the last drop of clean water, only then will human beings see the devastation of their activities.

Our tears will not be enough
to hydrate and grow what we
reap and sow.

Only giving and forgiving ourselves will stop this disaster that is humanity.

Our future depends on change,
its hanging in the balance, blowing in the hurricanes and tornadoes, its breaking the earth quaking our souls and shaking our lives to the bottom of its foundation.

Yet silence breaks the cries of
the world, ignorance is a disease, it drinks our tears steals our breath for the popular vote.

There's no freedom after you choke.

Climate change is no joke!

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton

Nobody is looking at
the Goth girl nextdoor,
She’s living in the shadows
away from the light, for the
light burns her skin.

Nobody is looking at
the Goth girl nextdoor,
Who once wished to be normal
behind the closed curtain’s.

Nobody sees the pain I’m in,
for my pain is underneath my skin.

Nobody nows the struggle I bare,
my unique condition bares it all
for you to witness.

Nobody is looking at
the Goth girl nextdoor,
as I bare witness to all
you share.

Behind my screen and darkened home
my passions reveal it all line by line.

My walls fall only at night,
undercover of the stars is where
I roam and take flight.

Nobody is looking at
the Goth girl nextdoor,
I am comfortable in my
shadow cool and collected.

©️ 2021 By Amanda Shelton

No color,
no warmth from the cold weather,
no charisma,
no freshness,
no love just loneliness,
no cover from the rain,
no drain for the tub,
no food in the cupboards,
no water to drink,
no end to the war,
no cooler for the heat,
no ice to make water colder,
no rivers flowing,
no flowers growing.

All is bleak,
all is dark and crawling.

Bleak that's all.

**© By Amanda D Shelton

Oh such sorrow upon mornings
break soaks my pillow with
tears of grief.

Darkness vails what I
seek but patients and
company of others softens
the shadows and brings the
light of hope.

My mind wonder’s upon
the possibilities of release
from this doomed existence
that can be so bleak.

It is of heavenly design,
and faith.

To grieve is to know love,
to be released by emotional
stress, its to be freed from
the minds caged thoughts,
seeking meaning.

Ode to grief an unwanted
friend to many.

©️ 2021 By Amanda Shelton

A miracle is nothing to ignore.

Like a grain of sand blowing
in the wind there is another
traveling on the same breeze
as yours.

With so many paths to travel
a crossroads is possible.

A dream is not but a dream,
it is reality within a sleeping
mind. For the brain knows nothing
of its woes when traveling through
its clouded dreams.

Until the mind awakens miracles
happen.

©️ 2022 By Amanda Shelton

I bow to the cause,
I grew into its hat,
I floated above its rim as I slowly began to trim,
it shaped into my mind
as it soaked up my thoughts.

I sat to have tea with my shadow and me,
as it began to rain,
we ran around catching each drop in our cups of tea.

I was awoken by my tears and my shadow crying
in my shoes.

This whole time I was dreaming of madness,
Yet I never knew.

Can madness dream?  


© By Amanda Shelton

Follow me under
slow and steady,
lower are you ready?

The shadows are no strangers
to my flight, for we hunt together.

Deep within the night
I take flight, upon
wings of death I come.

You will not see me coming,
lips of fear and eyes of
desire burn through your
mind pulling you into mine.

I am a beautiful monster,
a fanged Mona Lisa with
a heart of dust seeking
blood.

©️ 2021 By Amanda Shelton

Ode to loss, death, and decay
grief is never far away.

It walks with my shadow,
in between my steps upon
the paths of my journey
grief follows.

To say goodbye forever
is the hardest part,
to feel the pain of
loss and the empty space
it causes is a deep wound.

Grief is a chasma in the
heart, it bleeds and acks
for awhile.

The ack doesn't stop but
it becomes bearable
over time.

©️ 2022 By Amanda Shelton

In between the beams of light
grow the roses. With reaching
limbs like arms stretching
too the sky, and roots
dig deeply seaking hydration
and nutrients in the earth.

We are like the roses,
we grow in between the beams
of God’s light, we search the earth
for hydration and nutrients.

We are child like under
God’s grace and mercy.

Such divine intervention as
is the light God shines
through the smoke and
smog we produce and design.
Sometimes we are blinded
by our smoke and smog,
until we have time to
open our eyes.

© 2018 By Amanda Shelton

To write is like,
a powerful emotion that has
no words to explain it.

I have a passion to write,
like I have no choice
to want to write.

Poetry is a formate,
a type of writing I am good at.

Writing a novel is harder,
for how can I put all
my passion into a novel
without losing its patience
and feeling? I can’t.

It’s like bottling up something
that’s too large for the container.
It over flows to the next pages
until you have too many
for a novel.

I am pretty sure if I was to
write a book,
I would have to write
more than one.

I have more poems inside my mind,
waiting for inspiration
to push it over the edge
until I write it down.

I am patient,
I know when to write,
I also know when
is a good time
for getting likes
and followers.
But it's never on my mind.

Most of the time I post
not to please you,
but to release my mind
from the pressure.

I have a passion like no other,
it’s counted by the letter,
each line is devoured by the next.
Until you have a page full of
prose and my unique format.

**© 2018 By Amanda Shelton

I tried to live,
slowly it pushed me down,
I followed it’s rude rule,
it hurt it tugged and pulled.

It spoke up to say.
I am bad,
I am ruin,
I am suffering,
I am nothing but damaging,
I am not your friend,
I am not your support,
I am not your responsibility
but yet I share your life,
I am pain.

Today I sat with pain,
I drank his tea and shared
my life with his friends,
suffering and illness.

I have learned how to except them
in my life, for I have no choice.
Chronic pain stole my time.

Meowza!

Meow Gothic kitty meow!
Low and slow, watch her go.
Through the night
she’s a star shining brightly.

Yellow eyes and purrfect hearing,
she’s a kitty prowling the night,
but during the day she’s spoiled tucked away in my arms.

© 2018 By Amanda Shelton