tonight, my heart is foundering
but i can't let you see me floundering
because god forbid i show weakness
or ever be any kind of vulnerable
so i isolate myself in silence
and try to become more artful
in the lies i tell to convince you i'm fine
while i try to drown my sorrows in whiskey or wine
and numb all this pain whose source i can't fathom
all the while holding out hope that i might become
someone who is worth it
all this
this fighting and struggling just to make it one more day
this going from doing just fine to aggressively not okay
without warning or reason or trigger
and i know the root cause must be something bigger
than just the **** in my head, but somehow i can't figure
out what it is that causes me
to be like this, i just can't seem to see
what it is that this hole in my heart needs
what would make me feel complete and stop this bleed
of emotions and tears and words onto tear-stained pages
while i write down what has become my lament for ages
why
the ****
am i like this
Mar 14, 2020
Mar 14, 2020 at 9:03 PM UTC
i can't fight this feeling anymore
you've pushed me down so hard, so low
never thought that in my life i would come to know
a pain so real it makes your whole entire life feel cold
you've been telling me
in ways roundabout or directly
that i'm not good enough
and that you're confident i never will be
but you still won't let me go
it's like you get some sick thrill
out of my suffering and pain
as if you live to further break my will
and tell me lies about who i am
but are they lies? i used to know
now i fear you might be right and i might be ******
useless, a husk, too old
not smart or capable enough to keep this going
so you're finally going to get what it seems like you want
i'm giving up, giving in, going down
no swinging, no whimper or bang
just a quiet, emotional suicide because i've found
as far as you're concerned, my only worth is in you
and if that's true
i'm not going to risk feeling this anymore
Nov 1, 2019
Nov 1, 2019 at 9:58 AM UTC
your fingertips across my skin
the palm trees swaying in the wind
memories
you told me you would never lie
the sweetest sadness in your eyes
you never did
i truly want to see you happy
and i know you want the same for me
but it's hard when all i want is
your hand holding mine
and to hear you whisper softly
i love you and i'm glad you're mine
and it's getting harder these days
to pretend i'm over you
should have known you'd bring me heartache
boys like you always do
we walked along a crowded street
i took your arm and you smoked with me
memories
and when i left you held me tight
and said that you would never ever forget
our many nights
i truly want to see you happy
and i know you want the same for me
but it's hard when all i want is
your body entwined in mine
and to hear you whisper softly
my darling i'm so glad you're mine
and it's getting harder these days
to pretend that i'm just fine
should have known you'd bring me heartache
boys like you always do
i cannot walk by the beachfront
i cannot smoke beneath the moon
i've abandoned so many records
because your ghost still haunts their tunes
so now you're gone and i'm broken
and i bet you are just fine
i wish i knew a way to live
without you by my side
but it's hard when all i want is
your arms around me tight
and to tell you just this once that
i love you and i'm glad you're mine
and it's getting harder these days
to live life without you
should have known you'd bring me heartache
boys like you always do
Aug 21, 2019
Aug 21, 2019 at 10:12 AM UTC
"I slept with you to see if I would feel something,
because I wanted to,
and I didn't."
twenty-two syllables
and eighteen words
that was all it took for you to enter the annals
of all of the ********
who have used and abused my deeply wounded heart
further compounding the damage that has been there from the start
how am i meant to get closure from that
when there's no reason, or in fact,
any black box to recover
or mistake from which to learn
all that there is is a breaker
of hearts and worse of trust given, not earned
the conclusion, therefore, is to simply give up
and stop wasting my time looking for love
because, truth be told, my worry is
should this happen again
i'll be unable to mend
and left to live out the rest of my days
stuck with permanent overlays
of mistrust and suspicion
of any romantic intention
because ********* you knew
you knew, full well, that i loved you
Jun 4, 2019
Jun 4, 2019 at 7:30 PM UTC
i've never been so grateful
to lack the courage to be honest
than when we spoke at long last
and you revealed you'd been deceitful
to find out that to you
i was purely an experiment
to see if you would feel something
when i was in it for the sentiment
and loved you without reservation
unaware of your motivation
was like a reinforcement, yet again
that all my struggles are in vain
and that i'll wind up, in the end,
trying to excise my feelings
and my shattered heart to mend
but if these things you say are true
and it's pointless for me to go on wanting you
when you don't want me, too,
why is it that every time
your blood-alcohol balance is tipped
you seem to find me sublime
more than merely a pasttime
and, time after time,
into my arms - my bed - you've slipped
because i know you know the phrase
in a dead language, nevertheless
if "in vino veritas"
then maybe you need to reassess
or maybe that old saying
contains less truth than i had hoped
and now that your words have stopped ricocheting
like a bullet cavernating in my ribcage
it would appear that i haven't coped
and how could i after that level of stun
but now that the damage is done
those wounds should eventually fade
evaporate off my skin
like dew in the face of the rising sun
Jun 3, 2019
Jun 3, 2019 at 11:21 PM UTC
you and i
we hate cliches
just another thing we have in common
another amongst the many, niche
shared interests that broaden
the connection
between us two
i fancy myself a writer
you used to teach english
so both of us cringe when hearing advice
like "love is blind" given to someone in relationship anguish
and that's why it pains me to be the inciter
asking for communication so precise
having to risk looking foolish
or even losing you completely
as i look in your eyes and say to you
"so... what are we?"
but as much as it pains me
uttering a phrase so trite
what would pain me moreso
would undoubtedly be suffering through another night
of trying to suss out what's going on in your head
or falling asleep alone, again, and thinking that i would be better off dead
set against the notion of losing sleep
over a heart that simply is not mine to keep
so i take a breath and i steel my nerves
to summon the courage to ask for the love i deserve
May 4, 2019
May 4, 2019 at 2:08 PM UTC
seventy days of ambiguity
with just enough put forth to confuse me
as to the nature of your intentions
so fleeting your shows of affection
and so vague your reactions to my own
that it left me no better off
even after i let you read that first poem
trying to figure out if i had a chance with you or not
might as well have been trying to read a long dead language without the benefit of a rosetta stone
and surprising absolutely no one
the result is that i am once again on my own
the victim of an opportunist who saw
that my heart's capacity for love is my fatal flaw
and chose to exploit it with no thought or regard
to how it might effect me, how it might raise my guard
because trusting does not come easy to me
and vulnerability scares me more than anything
so for you to just use and abuse me
has caused more damage to my heart than just a sting
and i will recover, of that i am sure
but you, to me, you will always be
it is this simple and pure
nothing more than another one who hurt me
and someday, maybe, you'll be able to see
exactly what it was you did to me
and render something more than some half-assed apology
but i won't hold my breath
because i have a feeling i'd be waiting til long after my death
Jan 1, 2019
Jan 1, 2019 at 1:22 AM UTC
i keep trying to write about you
and so far all these poems have turned out terrible
i can't begin to fathom why
because the way you make me feel
should be providing me with great material
but no matter how i try
i just can't seem to find the right words
so i'm left staring at a blank page
frustration in my veins
just wishing i had the courage
to tell you how i feel
how i'm... addicted to the way you laugh
at all my jokes, even the terrible ones
how your eyes remind me of aquamarine some days
and the storm-tossed sea on others
but they always take my breath away
how your opinions mean so much to me
i'd change the universe for you if i could
because i think that highly of you
and hope someday, maybe, i'll be worthy of your notice
i don't know what it is about you
but you've brightened my worst days
and eased my heaviest burdens
just
by being
you
i hope that someday
i can do the same for you
because people like you are few
and far between
and life has taught me to appreciate
the qualities in you i've seen
you are my greatest weakness
at this moment in time and space
but i think there's a chance that if you just take my hand
you might become my greatest strength
i don't know if you see me that way
- you're, like, the one person i can't read -
but even if friends is all we're ever destined to be
i promise, i'm going to stay
you're worth so much more to me
than just a potential romantic fantasy
and that's what makes you so amazing
it's the fact that you're gazing
out at the same ocean that i am
underneath the same sky
because, for some reason,
you were meant
to be in
my life
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 8:36 AM UTC
a few simple words
ones that i have heard time and time again
but even still, i feel
like i've just been
force fed
shattered glass
its jagged edges
like mountain's ridges
tearing the back of my throat into ribbons
making my screams
into running streams
of crimson and carmine
except i'm not screaming out loud
because outbursts of emotion are not allowed
so i scream in the confines
of my own tortured mind
until i drown out everything else
until i am beyond help
until the only thing left behind
is the long, low-pitched kine
of an animal in pain
and i am living it again
because no matter how much i train
ptsd is still invasive
and my memories are still pervasive
it's just that they're usually dormant
not giving rise to this caliber of torment
when my own mind holds the .45
how the hell am i supposed to stay alive?
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 8:31 AM UTC
it has been in vain
all my efforts come to naught
because no matter how much i struggle
all it does is tighten the knot in the noose that is looped 'round my neck
and further my development into this train wreck of a person
who can barely manage
to get up and fake it through one more day
when all she wants is to sit down and say
i am done
i give up
i am clearly not enough
i couldn't cut it
i didn't make it
i never thought it would be this tough
but failure has never been something that i handled well
and these events are to me nothing more than a bell
tone that signals the end of the death knell
that will sound for me at the end of my struggle
because no one will ever be as hard on me as i am
or as cruel as the thoughts in my own head
and as anxiety swarms, planning its next attack
i am still trying to recover from its first blow
the one that hit me like an all-star fullback
falling just short of a true death blow
because ending my misery is not in the nature
of the cruelest mental illness whose nomenclature
does not do justice to all its wicked wiles
nor explains truly how twisted and vile
it is to have the voices in your own head turn against you
and seek to break you down
no matter what you do
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 7:47 AM UTC