It’s five thirty in the mirror maze,
and you’re all standing still,
surrounding each other at every angle.
There’s a way out but do we deserve it?
And the answer is no, no we don’t.
So we don’t try it and then it’s just you
and you and you in the mirror maze,
making yourself claustrophobic.
It’s hard to stand yourself in here
and it makes it hard to move.
We spend so much time alone together
that we begin to loathe each other
and then how can we get out?
If we can’t tolerate our self,
how do we leave the mirror maze
and inflict our self on others?
See, it’s better to just stab yourself
in the back three times over.
Let’s call it penance.
Let’s call it a lazy sort of suffering,
a selfish sort of punishment,
a *sorry I’ve been such a bad person
but look at how much of my life
I’m wasting, look, I’m suffering now,
and I know I deserve this, I’m so sorry.
I understand I’m a terrible person.*
We make no attempt to escape the
mirror maze that we’ve made for our self
so the life outside goes rotten.
It withers or it outgrows us,
and still, we’re standing in the mirror maze.
*One day, I tell myself, I’m going to make it.
One day, things will be different.*
But you can’t see it in the mirrors.
See, you’ve tried happiness before
and each time you find that beautiful blue winter,
that purple evening, that wide ocean,
you blink and you’re back in the mirror maze.
In the happy spaces, the mirrors put themselves back up.
Each perfect place and each perfect moment
becomes another mirror maze because we’re so stuck here.
*You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve this.
Why should you be happy? You don’t deserve this.*
I hate you, we tell each other and try to turn our backs
on our self but you can’t do that in the mirror maze.
We ought to be sad. Why aren’t we sad enough yet?
It’s unproductive, it’s toxic, it’s pathetic,
all this self-inflicted sadness, but aren’t we
all supposed to hate the girl in the book
who refuses to be sad? I don’t know what to do anymore,
so today’s yet another day gone, six o’clock in the mirror maze,
wearing yesterday’s bad feelings because new ones don’t feel right.
Jan 4, 2018
Jan 4, 2018 at 7:38 PM UTC
You are my start and my end
My solace, and my best friend
The keen listener at the end of a long day
The only light when shadows are at bay.
And yet, I can feel myself slipping
As you guide me across the frozen water
Even with your reassuring hold on me tight
Somehow that just isn't enough tonight.
There are too many missing pages
Endless questions left unanswered
That I am left torn by the discrepancies
From those who claim to know you better.
Faith does not exist without trust
And trust does not exist without clarity
Realizing this I feel as if I have only been pretending
To understand more than I actually do.
I witness as the structures surrounding you collapse
The fear creeps in for I know nothing
Of the world without their shelter
And here I am left to design my own skyline.
I may wobble and crash onto the cracked ice
That threatens to swallow me whole with every impact
But nothing counts unless I've earned it on my own
So hold on to me and the hope for my return.
For I am your catapult, my Love
Stronger the further I am pulled back
After all, you are my start
And my end.
Jul 30, 2017
Jul 30, 2017 at 12:56 PM UTC
Busy people rarely ever feel sad. Why? Because sadness requires a certain depth of epiphany, a subtle but constant blow in the gut. You can never find sadness lurking in the corners of a busy office or in a library full of curious young minds.
Sadness, I think, is when the world has momentarily left its orbit to embark on a dim lit path. It is there when the day is over and the lights are out and you are left sitting in the dark feeling every bit of human. It is when you'd rather stay in for the rest of the night- and day, as well -because frankly, you have forgotten the difference.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 3:59 PM UTC
I walk the fine line between love and hate
Consecutively losing balance and falling
Into the deep abyss of either one
Just to climb my way up and slip right into the other
Every landing just can't seem to arrive any sooner
Consistent with it's tasteless teasing
As if my mind has not sat through enough horrors
I reason with myself, that it probably really hasn't
My vocal chords have no more screams to release
Aware that they would just be consumed by the echoes
From the last time I was there
A shift in amplitude never changed a thing.
And still, I walk the fine line between love and hate
Despite the times my body slams onto the cold, hard ground
For it is the only path I have
To absolute indifference.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 3:54 PM UTC
I live my life in hues of blue
I live my life in spite of you.
---
You once drew a picture
Of the land and the sea
With our names scribbled across
There was you, and there was me.
Always a few steps ahead
You saw the divide
As I stubbornly attempted to prove
We belonged on the same side.
The pin-drop silence and still air
Distinguishes the wrong from right
I keep my eyes glued to the ground
Embarrassed, with my lips sewn tight.
Rather than intersecting lines
With a single momentary collision
We are more like those parallel
Dangerously close up until infinity.
So though you never asked
I've come to fix your little metaphor.
Me and you, we're more like
the sea and the sky
Each passing second
As my waves rise and fall
I tirelessly beat my own record
Of new heights, just to get on yours
But all you do is look down on me
With a hint of amusement.
I lay defeated beneath you
On my back, lost in your vastness
My clear waters reflect everything
That is painted across your horizon
And I am most beautiful when mirroring the color of you;
Your favorite, that powder blue.
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 14, 2017 at 3:00 AM UTC
Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
Who tells you there won't come a time he won't be around,
But as the days turn to months and the months turn to years,
As you choke back your tears while you drown in your fears,
He is nowhere to be found.
Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
He'll find 100 different ways to say that he loves you,
Each one sweeter and more heart-tugging than the last,
Watch him use them for his own manipulation,
Up until he decides that this is it, that his "love" has come to pass.
Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
He'll express how he hates seeing you sad, making you cry,
But like a stubborn child, he never learns from his mistakes,
Protecting his ego and his sense of pride,
when all you wanted was to see him try.
Fall in love with a man who's good with words;
He'll need you to know that he thinks you're a goddess,
And oh, will you believe his overdone flattery,
But realise this: once he's done and he's gotten what he came for,
Every single flaw and secret will be made into a mockery.
The same voice that sang you praises,
will be shouting words shaped like knives aimed at your heart.
The same tongue that formed you personalised spoken poetry,
will lash out at you,
further crumbling the pieces he promised to put back together.
The man who's good with words rarely means them,
He's mastered them because they are all he has to offer, all he has to bring to the table,
But still you need to fall in love with him and his words,
So you'll know how to treasure the man who _doesn't need them_.
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016 at 2:30 PM UTC
rewind; replay
we're standing in a canopy of sunlight
and laughing, constantly.
our faces are tired of moving up
but our eyes are used to crinkling;
they fold, and shut, and open like buds
with the spread and shrink of our grins, in
and out, with our lungs.
Pauze. Zoom.
Your nails are chipping now, but
You're really a halfwit,
So that doesn't deter you the least bit
From scratch-scratch-scratching at their shook ends:
They fall apart as we fall out.
We're spinning, we're dizzyingly quick,
Hurtling at the speed of 28,800 kilometres an hour; we're brisk
At best. (Inconceivable at worst.)
And I can feel, already, you slipping away.
You're outside of my grasp; you're far out.
rewind; replay.
We're ripping at the seams;
Our faces are like bad make-up
That doesn't move with our smiles;
Our eyes stay impassive,
Uninterested at best. Incensed at worst.
The crinkles in their corners are crusted
And new folds form on the frowns of our foreheads.
We're smothering each other in pillow talk and blankets.
Flash-forward, play.
We're bathed in rain, we're in a
Canyon, in a chasm.
We don't know salt from wound
Or snake from bite. We
Bring out the worst in our best selves.
We're drowning in suitcases and bedding.
We let it fill our lungs and we
Don't look back.
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 2:50 PM UTC
I almost wrote a poem
saying it would be
the last one
I ever write for you.
I almost meant it.
But I reside in a forest of words
I long to lay upon your feet.
You are the only tenant.
Though I have already seen you hunger
for a wood more abundant with beauty.
You yearned
for the abstract; the colorful.
This is where I failed you, love,
for all I have to offer
is the pattern of my handwriting
against a bleak sheet of paper.
How is that to contest
a canvas
that turns heads
with its baby pinks and powder blues?
So I lay here
in the woods
that swarm with lost things,
longing to see the sun again.
And I am always reaching
and reaching
and reach i n g
But I am never quite there.
I lay still in the forest
with an abundance of almosts.
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 2:49 PM UTC
Time has stopped without you here
In your absence I hold you dear
The intensity grows into the night
With only the void to speak of my plight
You run around with looks that could ****
And yet like stagnant water I remain still
The cutting of ties you grew accustomed to
In my place they are all completely new
So forgive me for forgetting the days
For reality itself has become such a haze
I know the clock will one day start again
Or that's what I say to take away the pain.
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 5:22 AM UTC
Every morning, I wake up and tell myself to seize the day, and every evening, I'm still where I started: happiest when daydreaming, worst when living.
So I'm trying to write this out, as if it will help.
To write from the heart, or straight from the mind, as they say, but my fingertips and realm of feelings don't always connect to one another.
But here it is, How I Feel:
It's like an itching beneath my skin,
one I can't scratch unless
I peel it off and claw at veins.
It's a pain in the chest, that doesn't lift.
It's a restless sleep, half awake, half not.
It feels disgusting inside, like I'm tangled, mangled up.
It all feels disconnected. Like this Is Not Real.
Like the wires to reality have been severed.
It's the Big Cliche.
What can I do to make my feelings original?
I'm just smiling on the outside, to make it up to you,
to pretend, again, but I hold two conversations
simultaneously, one in my head
and another with you.
It feels like I can't move.
But I do and I don't want to.
There's a world out there,
but I'd rather be in my head, but maybe it's that which makes it all worse.
And yet going out only makes me feel more useless.
Look, how I've descended into whines and plain language. I guess this mind's just not poetic enough to make these feelings look pretty.
The problem is is that the problem doesn't go away.
It won't get better because I keep scratching at it,
it's out of my control because it will inevitably happen, there is nothing that will make it go away.
That double is. It's ugly. But how do I operate on language and make it work my way?
But these are excuses, everyone else's and mine too. Just stop worrying, as soon as you get on with it,
it will be over.
Smile, it might never happen.
(It has.) (It will.)
Yet here is the Problem, the Contradiction.
I don't know what I want.
It's wandering aimlessly, looking for approval and appreciation that I can't take when it's given. Everything feels tacky, everything feels bad.
Life's like a gift shop.
It only looked good when I was seven.
It's like being crowded, when nobody's near.
Don't touch me, don't talk.
I'm making monsters from all the bad I can find.
I'm running from the things I've made with my own hand.
I could explain, but take it as you will.
(Can you guess?)
(I bet you can.)
And these are just images I've described so many times before.
But they're the ones that stick like worn out phrases in conversations.
Dead metaphors.
It's like itching, like mosquitoes
have landed beneath my skin and are eating me alive.
I'm torn between wishing today was over or hoping it will stay to put off tommorrow. Just go with it, I try to tell myself and nothing happens.
Mar 5, 2016
Mar 5, 2016 at 3:03 AM UTC