A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
I wanted to say,
lock yourself in a room,
scream until you have
a poem and no voice.
Open your veins and bleed
until you know that your bones
are pure words and sorrow.
Act as if you slit your own throat
and all you can bleed
are your own regrets
and all of the darkness
you boxed up for inspiration.
Write your mom a letter,
tell her you're leaving
and you won't be back for awhile
Because being a writer is traveling
through all seven layers of Hell
and denying anything is wrong.
Forget loving yourself
when all you have is a pen and paper
fused to your wrist
and Jesus is tapping at your skull
saying turn back now.
Warn the neighbors that if they smell burning
It's just your soul
clawing at the front door trying to get in.
Learn how to be alone.
Learn how to lose everything you have
in order to feel release,
learn how to only feel deceased
from now on.
A friend asked me
how to be a writer.
All I said was
don't
Dec 3, 2018
Dec 3, 2018 at 8:21 PM UTC
.
It
is
true,
you are
totally right.
I'm as dry as
a desert, I'm a dead
empty land. I used to be
a jungle when the clouds
where by my side, and now that
they are gone, my trees, my dreams
they dried and died. Because of this,
nothing grows inside of me, there is
only silence and despair. I can't feel
what I write, I barely feel alive
I want to feel human again
Oh god, I really miss
the rain
Dec 3, 2018
Dec 3, 2018 at 4:19 PM UTC
i only learned value
after i picked
through my wreckage
he left me as a broken house
derelict splintered wood
peeling paint
broken shutters
i fed myself softer things
rebuilt myself on a river
and married the earth
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 11:23 PM UTC
I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.
it was the first time I'd
realized
that.
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 1:58 PM UTC
“what are your special skills?”
well—
lately i have mastered the art
of silent tears
and wordless crying,
shuddering breaths
instead of wracking sobs.
my eyes don’t even get red.
if i do it right,
i have the exclusive ability
to break down in a full room
without anyone noticing.
also,
i can brush my weak gums in front of the mirror
and watch blood drip onto my uneven teeth
without flinching.
last,
i can give the best i have
every time
and still my brain can convince me—
worthless.
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 1:58 PM UTC
I sold smack on a playground today
biding time to scrounge the rent--
Two months ago I had never even seen the stuff.
I'd never procured it for personal use,
let alone sold it.
Now I'm a full-time pusher of prescriptions
for problems that can't be cured,
a modern-day snake-oil salesmen
schlepping panaceas for every conceivable ill.
*Trying to cope with depression?
This'll give you a shot in the arm!
Your boyfriend just broke your heart
mere weeks after breaking your *****
Here's a ***** that you can depend on*...
I thought I was better than this,
but who can afford scruples
with bills to pay?
Internally
I struggle to compete
with people who would never deign to take note of me.
My revenge is in undermining their immaculate lives,
a pill-peddling Socrates
keeping creditors at bay.
I'd always envisioned being someone's hero--
at least being remembered for an act of creation.
Instead I'm an enzyme for eradication.
A cancer cell at best--
A ****** wrecking ball.
One day I woke up a sidekick
to a heroine that's never saved anyone...
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 10:06 PM UTC
Let me tell you, I thought I knew love before you came around.
I mean, I’ve written a million love poems.
But the subjects, they’re more or less the same, black ink, red ink, graphite.
And the graphite smudges, and so the picture is never perfect.
I try to re-write it all without mistakes, but I don't have an eraser.
Which is to say that I have commitment issues, but no issue committing, I just commit all the time, to everything.
I've canoodled with paper, but there's never enough space on the page for all the love I have.
Sometimes, I’ll meet a crayon that brings some colour to my life, but they’re just too waxy and impressionable. Too immature, too naive.
Naive.
I’ve never actually been in love.
But you, you are so much different and way hotter.
You bring a spark into my life that I’ve never known.
Baby, you set my world on fire.
I tell myself, blue pen, don’t let this go up in smoke.
Let me tell you. I would do anything to know love.
You see, there isn’t much to me, but I’ve got this way with words and I’ll write you into every poem that’s ever birthed hope in the eyes of star-crossed lovers.
I’ll draw you a map of my heart so when you feel lonely after you’ve been put aside and forgotten in the back of a cupboard, I’ll be there.
I want you.
I want the good things and your sweet embrace of smoke smells really good right now.
I want the good things but I’ll take it all. I’ll take the bad things too.
Fill my lungs with your poison, show me what it’s like to love something so much it kills you.
Teach me how to give all of myself to someone just so they are satisfied, even if it leaves me crushed on the cement.
Let me become addicted to you.
My whole life is written in ink and I can’t escape the mistakes I’ve made so if you’ll have me, here I am.
I can’t guarantee that I’ll be right for you, who knows what you write with but I will be here.
Let me tell you, I will still love you after watching you kiss the lips of every person that craves your taste.
I will still love you after you steal the oxygen out of helpless gasps and sunken cheekbones.
I will still love you after your temper sets forests ablaze.
I will still love you when you suffocate me in your fumes, leaving me choking on everything I should have said to you.
I will still love you when you burn out and your ember softens against a pillow of ash, and your smell, your taste, your everything lingers in the air like a nostalgic dream that I never want to wake up from.
Let me tell you, I am forever.
I am infinite and I can create and write anything you want, even if it’s just prose on a piece of paper or a picture of the moon on nights when you’re the only good left in the world.
I can be anything you want, and if that is someone that will love you because they want to, and not because they have to, then I will be that.
I won’t quit you.
I can’t.
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 2:36 PM UTC