alexis-lewis - Hello Poetry

Life, as it presents itself, is pretty straightforward. School-work-family-grandkids-retirement. It's all laid out for us like clothes on the bed when we are kids: "This is how your life is going to be." And we watch Disney and see all these people that have adventures And lives that aren't normal by any stretch of the word And somehow we're expected to still have normal expectations of how Our lives are going to play out. Well, I'm sorry, world, but I have a longing to be better. It's a cookie dough mix made out of both 1. Longing for recognition, 2. Wanting genuine friends, And 3. Wanting to be valuable to someone. Its a want to be wanted, Like the characters in TV shows that get kidnapped and told "You have a specific skillset that we need" By a man in a black suit with a grave expression. Wouldn't that just feel great? Like FINALLY Someone thinks that I'm important, necessary, talented, special, DIFFERENT. It's my greatest fear, the fear of living 9-to-5 Going to work, day after day, Sliding the project in the inbox, leaving to grab a drink and watch some Netflix alone before bed, then Doing it all again. Even if I wasn't alone, if I had family Wouldn't that get dreary? Like, Take the kids to school, go to work, pick them up, go home. Day after day until they grow up and are gone and I retire and then What? What was the whole point? I need something bigger//something transcendent I need a purpose or a goal or a mission I need someone to tell me, okay, we need you because _________ And then I need to feel the thrill of the moment, the thrill of doing Something I'm inherently good at. Is it just me or Am I the only one dissatisfied with life as it presents itself?

0

Jun 8, 2016

Jun 8, 2016 at 2:49 PM UTC

alexis-lewis

Life, As it Presents Itself

Life, as it presents itself, is pretty straightforward. School-work-family-grandkids-retirement. It's all laid out for us like clothes on the bed when we are kids: "This is how your life is going to be." And we watch Disney and see all these people that have adventures And lives that aren't normal by any stretch of the word And somehow we're expected to still have normal expectations of how Our lives are going to play out. Well, I'm sorry, world, but I have a longing to be better. It's a cookie dough mix made out of both 1. Longing for recognition, 2. Wanting genuine friends, And 3. Wanting to be valuable to someone. Its a want to be wanted, Like the characters in TV shows that get kidnapped and told "You have a specific skillset that we need" By a man in a black suit with a grave expression. Wouldn't that just feel great? Like FINALLY Someone thinks that I'm important, necessary, talented, special, DIFFERENT. It's my greatest fear, the fear of living 9-to-5 Going to work, day after day, Sliding the project in the inbox, leaving to grab a drink and watch some Netflix alone before bed, then Doing it all again. Even if I wasn't alone, if I had family Wouldn't that get dreary? Like, Take the kids to school, go to work, pick them up, go home. Day after day until they grow up and are gone and I retire and then What? What was the whole point? I need something bigger//something transcendent I need a purpose or a goal or a mission I need someone to tell me, okay, we need you because _________ And then I need to feel the thrill of the moment, the thrill of doing Something I'm inherently good at. Is it just me or Am I the only one dissatisfied with life as it presents itself?

34

have you ever sat and thought about how everything is nothing and how nothing is really everything how nothing matters, really, and nothing you say to someone is really exactly perfect for that moment because later on, you're just going to go back and think "saying this would have been better" and relationships, love, hate that's not anything either because it all ends and who is there to read the story afterward and if there was a story, who would stand to read the heartbreak? thinking about thinking thinking about thoughts about how everything is actually tiny little cells sparking their tiny existence as if to get something else's attention but they are too tiny to notice we can't see the trees for the forest and really, i wish all that i was was just the tiny invisible cells so i could drift through matter without being noticed just drifting along sidewalks and across streets drifting through existence without a glance from a human because then i would not feel so acutely conscious of the stares of others at my broken, huddled, hurting heart and the hearts around campus that i love hurting too, because my love could not stand theirs. it hurts so much, parted without knowing why and simultaneously knowing it was for the best. why must anyone have to leave someone they love just because rationally they know that's not the one for them? rationalization trumps emotion if you want to continue living because we all know emotions **** so we give in to what we know we have to do: break ourselves, break the other person and live broken and apart and bleeding all over the concrete ground wishing for invisibility and refuge.

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Dec 2, 2015

Dec 2, 2015 at 12:02 PM UTC

alexis-lewis

Metacognition

have you ever sat and thought about how everything is nothing and how nothing is really everything how nothing matters, really, and nothing you say to someone is really exactly perfect for that moment because later on, you're just going to go back and think "saying this would have been better" and relationships, love, hate that's not anything either because it all ends and who is there to read the story afterward and if there was a story, who would stand to read the heartbreak? thinking about thinking thinking about thoughts about how everything is actually tiny little cells sparking their tiny existence as if to get something else's attention but they are too tiny to notice we can't see the trees for the forest and really, i wish all that i was was just the tiny invisible cells so i could drift through matter without being noticed just drifting along sidewalks and across streets drifting through existence without a glance from a human because then i would not feel so acutely conscious of the stares of others at my broken, huddled, hurting heart and the hearts around campus that i love hurting too, because my love could not stand theirs. it hurts so much, parted without knowing why and simultaneously knowing it was for the best. why must anyone have to leave someone they love just because rationally they know that's not the one for them? rationalization trumps emotion if you want to continue living because we all know emotions **** so we give in to what we know we have to do: break ourselves, break the other person and live broken and apart and bleeding all over the concrete ground wishing for invisibility and refuge.

34

I am a depressed little rain cloud My life moves in slow motion My dad is a bipolar manic storm His life moves in fast forward. How does that happen? A fast-forward man Marries a normal woman Gives birth to a slow motion daughter. Eventually as life goes on and on The normal woman starts moving slower And slower Until she too is going in slow motion And sometimes, her and me, We even live life in reverse, Entrapped in the whirling motion of our past that Pulls us ever backwards to live out the moving pictures That replay in our minds way too many times. Our life is a videotape And if my mom and I rewind And my dad is on fast-forward How can we ever end up actually going anywhere? We're one of those old videos that end up discarded With a mile of black tape fluttering forgotten against the Cement ground of this old, old basement called Time.

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Nov 7, 2015

Nov 7, 2015 at 5:00 PM UTC

alexis-lewis

Videotape Life

I am a depressed little rain cloud My life moves in slow motion My dad is a bipolar manic storm His life moves in fast forward. How does that happen? A fast-forward man Marries a normal woman Gives birth to a slow motion daughter. Eventually as life goes on and on The normal woman starts moving slower And slower Until she too is going in slow motion And sometimes, her and me, We even live life in reverse, Entrapped in the whirling motion of our past that Pulls us ever backwards to live out the moving pictures That replay in our minds way too many times. Our life is a videotape And if my mom and I rewind And my dad is on fast-forward How can we ever end up actually going anywhere? We're one of those old videos that end up discarded With a mile of black tape fluttering forgotten against the Cement ground of this old, old basement called Time.

23

I walk down sugar-coated streets, stumbling over rumor weeds poking up through the cracks and fearing the whispers that I think I hear. I watch the candy people walking around, ******* each other dry one way or another like leeches with sweet teeth. They make sour faces, like ******* lime soda through a Sour Punch Straw, but they keep ******* because there’s nothing else to do in Candyland. I have to look really hard to find the sweet people. The gummy ones, the melt in your mouth chocolate ones. Sometimes I find them half-eaten and discarded like office lollipops and sometimes they’re melting under everyone’s Red Hot gaze. Sometimes I only find wrappers and I get so angry that I think I might melt myself. Because these people have been eaten. ****** nibbled, gulped down like nothing more than a quick Kiss that means nothing. But no matter how small they were, they still mattered. They mattered to someone, but now they’re just slick remnants on cellophane or foil. And what hurts even more is that I couldn’t save them. I’m not Princess Bubblegum, I can’t protect a candy kingdom. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try.

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alexis-lewis

Nov 1, 2015

Nov 1, 2015 at 3:50 PM UTC

sam-miller

Candyland

I walk down sugar-coated streets, stumbling over rumor weeds poking up through the cracks and fearing the whispers that I think I hear. I watch the candy people walking around, ******* each other dry one way or another like leeches with sweet teeth. They make sour faces, like ******* lime soda through a Sour Punch Straw, but they keep ******* because there’s nothing else to do in Candyland. I have to look really hard to find the sweet people. The gummy ones, the melt in your mouth chocolate ones. Sometimes I find them half-eaten and discarded like office lollipops and sometimes they’re melting under everyone’s Red Hot gaze. Sometimes I only find wrappers and I get so angry that I think I might melt myself. Because these people have been eaten. ****** nibbled, gulped down like nothing more than a quick Kiss that means nothing. But no matter how small they were, they still mattered. They mattered to someone, but now they’re just slick remnants on cellophane or foil. And what hurts even more is that I couldn’t save them. I’m not Princess Bubblegum, I can’t protect a candy kingdom. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try.

25

Sometimes I wish you understood me Not like, hey, agree with me and let me do my own thing But like, really understood me How broken I am. I'm so broken. I can't tell you how scared you would be How fast and far you would run If you truly had an inkling, A tip of the iceberg, Of the manic depression that I experience every day Alone, And how much it shocks me And how much I realize, again, I am so. Messed. Up. It's weird, being a nursing student And knowing clinically EXACTLY What is wrong with you and why But you've hidden it from the world so long Locked it up inside and thrown away the key So that no one you know could possibly open And look inside, and understand And still love you for the sunbeams that you hold your hands open to In your daily search for warmth, Curling up in the shade of a tree like a cat Just hoping for hope.

0

Nov 1, 2015

Nov 1, 2015 at 3:34 PM UTC

alexis-lewis

Hoping for Hope

Sometimes I wish you understood me Not like, hey, agree with me and let me do my own thing But like, really understood me How broken I am. I'm so broken. I can't tell you how scared you would be How fast and far you would run If you truly had an inkling, A tip of the iceberg, Of the manic depression that I experience every day Alone, And how much it shocks me And how much I realize, again, I am so. Messed. Up. It's weird, being a nursing student And knowing clinically EXACTLY What is wrong with you and why But you've hidden it from the world so long Locked it up inside and thrown away the key So that no one you know could possibly open And look inside, and understand And still love you for the sunbeams that you hold your hands open to In your daily search for warmth, Curling up in the shade of a tree like a cat Just hoping for hope.

25

So many damaged people Why are we so hurt Ruined Rained on? We joke about dark, crude things So we feel better But it makes us feel worse about ourselves- Guilty ***** Unloved- Because really all of this is a pleading, A cry of the soul For love. See me Do you know who I am? No, Because I wear a mask. Like an XBOX avatar You see the me that I put on But not my soul. Now we see through dark glass Then, face to face. See my mien, See me, And I'll be appreciated and loved Or abandoned.

0

Oct 28, 2015

Oct 28, 2015 at 2:26 PM UTC

alexis-lewis

Glass

So many damaged people Why are we so hurt Ruined Rained on? We joke about dark, crude things So we feel better But it makes us feel worse about ourselves- Guilty ***** Unloved- Because really all of this is a pleading, A cry of the soul For love. See me Do you know who I am? No, Because I wear a mask. Like an XBOX avatar You see the me that I put on But not my soul. Now we see through dark glass Then, face to face. See my mien, See me, And I'll be appreciated and loved Or abandoned.

26