anna-louise - Hello Poetry

here's to the ones who hold on. who look back, who still check their phone. who stay signed into Netflix, letting their ex still log on. here's to the ones who continue, the people who don't thrive. the break in breaking up. the die in alive. here's to the ones who stay, who feel better, who taste decay. the ones who make excuses, who speak of love, who tie their nooses. whether we stay or leave we're still holding on. the go in going never turns into gone. yesterday's actions brought back from the grave. forced to be the savior when you need to be saved.

0

Sep 16, 2016

Sep 16, 2016 at 10:43 PM UTC

hold on

here's to the ones who hold on. who look back, who still check their phone. who stay signed into Netflix, letting their ex still log on. here's to the ones who continue, the people who don't thrive. the break in breaking up. the die in alive. here's to the ones who stay, who feel better, who taste decay. the ones who make excuses, who speak of love, who tie their nooses. whether we stay or leave we're still holding on. the go in going never turns into gone. yesterday's actions brought back from the grave. forced to be the savior when you need to be saved.

18

I am at a loss for words when she tells me that she’s not pretty. I try to tell her how wrong she is but I’ve already been labeled a liar and I can already hear the words passing through my lips and fading into the air like a plea of “not guilty”. I realize I’m not equipped for this. I’ve never known how to reassure people. I have such strong, misguided opinions on things, and all these high, impossible expectations for myself. Am I vain because I look in the mirror and search for a piece of myself to hold onto that feels real and right and pretty? I guess I judge other people, too. But I’ve never looked at her and wondered what parts were real. I’ve never wondered what she would look like if her nose was different, if her arms were different, if her lips were different, if her voice was different. It took me a while to realize that when I sit near her, I feel a person next to me. It was such a strange and new feeling. She turns her head towards me as she leaves a room and I understand why people start wars for women. But she’s already labeled me a liar and the moment has passed, and I can’t very well say all of this out loud. I don’t know what she thinks about me, but she rolls her eyes when I try to say what I feel and darts a doubting glare towards my confessions of insecurity all because I know how to hold a conversation with people on the street and I barely fill out a size 10. How funny, the one person who feels more to me like an actual person than anyone else doesn’t make me feel like one.

0

Mar 17, 2015

Mar 17, 2015 at 11:46 PM UTC

Unequipped

I am at a loss for words when she tells me that she’s not pretty. I try to tell her how wrong she is but I’ve already been labeled a liar and I can already hear the words passing through my lips and fading into the air like a plea of “not guilty”. I realize I’m not equipped for this. I’ve never known how to reassure people. I have such strong, misguided opinions on things, and all these high, impossible expectations for myself. Am I vain because I look in the mirror and search for a piece of myself to hold onto that feels real and right and pretty? I guess I judge other people, too. But I’ve never looked at her and wondered what parts were real. I’ve never wondered what she would look like if her nose was different, if her arms were different, if her lips were different, if her voice was different. It took me a while to realize that when I sit near her, I feel a person next to me. It was such a strange and new feeling. She turns her head towards me as she leaves a room and I understand why people start wars for women. But she’s already labeled me a liar and the moment has passed, and I can’t very well say all of this out loud. I don’t know what she thinks about me, but she rolls her eyes when I try to say what I feel and darts a doubting glare towards my confessions of insecurity all because I know how to hold a conversation with people on the street and I barely fill out a size 10. How funny, the one person who feels more to me like an actual person than anyone else doesn’t make me feel like one.

1

I look in the mirror and I am positive I see someone. But I stare longer, and fuller, and I wonder - How does this someone become real? become real to the man who saw me in the coffee shop, when I turned my head and the light fell from my hair to my cheekbones. to the driver who passed me at the intersection seeing the slight tilt of my chin my eyes glancing quickly skyward. I look in the mirror and I see bruises under my eyes, the marks of heavy tears, and heavy scrunched up eyelids that have left nights of despair on my face as I've crawled to bed clutching my knees to my heart. I look at my hands and they have shadows, valleys where dark green veins rise and fall in tidy pulses. I stare and I stare and I wonder when do I become real? when the brains of brains of brains set eyes on my sunken cheeks my rushing veins my scalloped knuckles? I am embarrassed to be real, but I crave the pulsations of brains of energy of connections connecting to flesh and eyes and heart and vein and I sink into myself and scratch the pen and paper with red ink and I am silent. I pulse. I pulse. I pulse. but who would know it?

0

Jul 16, 2014

Jul 16, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC

Untitled

I look in the mirror and I am positive I see someone. But I stare longer, and fuller, and I wonder - How does this someone become real? become real to the man who saw me in the coffee shop, when I turned my head and the light fell from my hair to my cheekbones. to the driver who passed me at the intersection seeing the slight tilt of my chin my eyes glancing quickly skyward. I look in the mirror and I see bruises under my eyes, the marks of heavy tears, and heavy scrunched up eyelids that have left nights of despair on my face as I've crawled to bed clutching my knees to my heart. I look at my hands and they have shadows, valleys where dark green veins rise and fall in tidy pulses. I stare and I stare and I wonder when do I become real? when the brains of brains of brains set eyes on my sunken cheeks my rushing veins my scalloped knuckles? I am embarrassed to be real, but I crave the pulsations of brains of energy of connections connecting to flesh and eyes and heart and vein and I sink into myself and scratch the pen and paper with red ink and I am silent. I pulse. I pulse. I pulse. but who would know it?

45

Any moment is the time to begin again. It is up to you.

0

Mar 25, 2014

Mar 25, 2014 at 12:32 PM UTC

Haiku

Any moment is the time to begin again. It is up to you.

3

All I’ve ever wanted  was somebody who would understand.  Someone who would say  yes, you should **** yourself,  things really are that bad. But you are not your circumstances  and you are not tied down by the choices you are ashamed of. And I know that tomorrow  you want to drive down the road,  with your windows open   under the sun,  listening to your favorite song. Because the sun does not discriminate  against those who want to feel it’s warmth, it only asks  that you make it until morning.

0

Mar 19, 2014

Mar 19, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC

Anti-Suicide Note

All I’ve ever wanted  was somebody who would understand.  Someone who would say  yes, you should **** yourself,  things really are that bad. But you are not your circumstances  and you are not tied down by the choices you are ashamed of. And I know that tomorrow  you want to drive down the road,  with your windows open   under the sun,  listening to your favorite song. Because the sun does not discriminate  against those who want to feel it’s warmth, it only asks  that you make it until morning.

17

tell me what to be I've spent my life as a chameleon. my head hurts from the smoke of crashing and burning too many times to count, and I've turned into the flames this time. you don't mean a thing to me and yet I can feel my skin changing. you don't mean a thing to me but I'm tired of being grey and searching and camouflaging and I can feel my skin crawling. tell me to be brilliant and I will swallow the stars. tell me to be heartless and I will sharpen the blade myself. my head hurts, just tell it to be okay. I am a chameleon tell me to be myself.

0

Feb 25, 2014

Feb 25, 2014 at 11:33 PM UTC

tell me

tell me what to be I've spent my life as a chameleon. my head hurts from the smoke of crashing and burning too many times to count, and I've turned into the flames this time. you don't mean a thing to me and yet I can feel my skin changing. you don't mean a thing to me but I'm tired of being grey and searching and camouflaging and I can feel my skin crawling. tell me to be brilliant and I will swallow the stars. tell me to be heartless and I will sharpen the blade myself. my head hurts, just tell it to be okay. I am a chameleon tell me to be myself.

20

Lately our shower has been doing this thing where it shakes when it’s running. But not as soon as it goes on, first there’s a light buzzing in the walls then BOOM not quite like a volcano, but a seizure in the veins of the house. I think it knows I’m about to collapse the same way, too. I feel the buzzing inside of me, somewhere deep down where the emptiness sits. The pressure just builds up, I’m turning from cold to hot in a matter of seconds, and I’m losing the control I had. Maybe our shower just needs to bleed out the **** clogging all the nooks and crannies that nobody can see, maybe it’s freezing over somewhere in it’s bones, maybe it’s just crying out in its own, solitary way. Everybody uses it, washing off the dirt they’ve accumulated through their nightmares and the dark nights, warming their bodies to prepare for the frigid pulse of life outside these four walls. Everybody uses it but nobody knows what’s wrong with it. It’s been like this for weeks. The repair man said it should be fine soon. The professional should know, we say. It’s becoming an inconvenience, you know. We don’t like the rattling, we don’t know when it will burst. Still, everybody uses it. We have a countdown, the shower and I. Who will go first, who will shake the longest until we collapse, how many people will use us until we’re used up.

0

Feb 1, 2014

Feb 1, 2014 at 12:58 AM UTC

countdown

Lately our shower has been doing this thing where it shakes when it’s running. But not as soon as it goes on, first there’s a light buzzing in the walls then BOOM not quite like a volcano, but a seizure in the veins of the house. I think it knows I’m about to collapse the same way, too. I feel the buzzing inside of me, somewhere deep down where the emptiness sits. The pressure just builds up, I’m turning from cold to hot in a matter of seconds, and I’m losing the control I had. Maybe our shower just needs to bleed out the **** clogging all the nooks and crannies that nobody can see, maybe it’s freezing over somewhere in it’s bones, maybe it’s just crying out in its own, solitary way. Everybody uses it, washing off the dirt they’ve accumulated through their nightmares and the dark nights, warming their bodies to prepare for the frigid pulse of life outside these four walls. Everybody uses it but nobody knows what’s wrong with it. It’s been like this for weeks. The repair man said it should be fine soon. The professional should know, we say. It’s becoming an inconvenience, you know. We don’t like the rattling, we don’t know when it will burst. Still, everybody uses it. We have a countdown, the shower and I. Who will go first, who will shake the longest until we collapse, how many people will use us until we’re used up.

1

my veins are crying out for the places you created and my eyes search for the broken planets your tongue destroyed there were pirate ships in your breath when it was heavy outside last December please don’t leave me in the cold my veins are crying out and your galaxies are fading

0

Dec 29, 2013

Dec 29, 2013 at 1:39 AM UTC

Untitled

my veins are crying out for the places you created and my eyes search for the broken planets your tongue destroyed there were pirate ships in your breath when it was heavy outside last December please don’t leave me in the cold my veins are crying out and your galaxies are fading

7

You’re worth it. You’re worth every single joy you’ve felt, every single pain and every single star you’ve thought wasn’t listening while you screamed inside, begging for the universe to listen. You’re worth everything this world has for you because you are brighter than any darkness you feel. Don’t run from the pain, don’t make it harder for the happiness to find you.

0

Nov 25, 2013

Nov 25, 2013 at 10:29 PM UTC

things I wish you would have told me

You’re worth it. You’re worth every single joy you’ve felt, every single pain and every single star you’ve thought wasn’t listening while you screamed inside, begging for the universe to listen. You’re worth everything this world has for you because you are brighter than any darkness you feel. Don’t run from the pain, don’t make it harder for the happiness to find you.

1

I was raised on bubblegum dreams and fortune cookie promises. I was never told that the stars are just gas and debris, and the moon does not glow all by itself. I searched endlessly for messages in the constellations but the sun would always chase away the moonlight seconds before I found the answers. He touched me with the same flickering debris and fortune cookie intention that I thought I knew all about. He told me I was the moon, but failed to mention I would need the sun. In the darkness I would search for answers, desperate to find things I would not recognize when in the morning he would chase away my moonlight.

0

Nov 25, 2013

Nov 25, 2013 at 10:27 PM UTC

nothing's ever built to last

I was raised on bubblegum dreams and fortune cookie promises. I was never told that the stars are just gas and debris, and the moon does not glow all by itself. I searched endlessly for messages in the constellations but the sun would always chase away the moonlight seconds before I found the answers. He touched me with the same flickering debris and fortune cookie intention that I thought I knew all about. He told me I was the moon, but failed to mention I would need the sun. In the darkness I would search for answers, desperate to find things I would not recognize when in the morning he would chase away my moonlight.

28