Silent
Still
Dark
The faraway, rhythmic jiggle of a dog’s collar
The arrival of a soft breeze and the pull of its departure
The deep pink roses standing out like secret beacons in the corners
Stop and smell
Nose damp
Free rose water
Grin
You could skip if you wanted to, and sometimes you do
You could sprint like a child
The exhilaration of running on carpet indoors
No elements to stop you
And you’re outside, even better
Dirt
Grass
Tiny wildflowers
A stick
No moss
Put it in a jar and label it
Dickinson Square Park
Then
Jun 12, 2022
Jun 12, 2022 at 4:31 AM UTC
I wish that I had
given love more freely with
no fear of shortage
Aug 23, 2021
Aug 23, 2021 at 9:57 PM UTC
I stepped outside and
the world greeted me as if
to sing, _welcome home!_
Aug 23, 2021
Aug 23, 2021 at 9:45 PM UTC
It was hot today.
I sweat putrid droplets of misery.
Everyone around me could smell it -
apathy, fear, and disgust;
otherness.
I wish that I didn’t have to speak at all.
It rained,
but I wasn’t washed clean.
I went to the bathroom.
I couldn’t stay there,
so I tried blotting them off with a paper
towel.
They stubbornly clung to my surface like oil.
I joined the others.
We went back to the crowd.
I waited for the music to wash over me, but I felt nothing.
Aug 21, 2021
Aug 21, 2021 at 5:08 AM UTC
I felt fake,
so I stopped trying to be
anything.
Now, I feel like I am
nothing.
Dec 19, 2017
Dec 19, 2017 at 9:02 PM UTC
love me, love me, please just love me...
i promise that i will love you in return! (this is true)
i can find unique beauty in everyone and everything
i'm not asking you to fill this ragged hole within me. it's been patched up before
you don't have to do anything really (am i lying?) but your love is enough (is it?)
i'm sorry, maybe i'm just making excuses
maybe i'm just needy- but this love, this love is genuine i swear
my love is always different; everyone[thing] is different
(does that make it the same?)
scratch that
i can't expect this from anyone but myself, or maybe mom and dad (why am i cringing)
...that ship is still at sea
you're just so beautiful to me (or do i need to be told that i am?)
Dec 19, 2017
Dec 19, 2017 at 7:09 PM UTC
I was going to write a poem
about how I stood on the corner after
work, gripping a squishy handlebar with
my left hand and holding K’s flip phone
in the other.
My stomach flip-flopped across JFK blvd, down 20th street, and to that little alleyway where I stood alone for a while.
An old lady stared at me...
did I trigger a happy memory of her
youth,
or was she just smirking at the beads of
sweat on my forehead and disintegrating
soles of my ballet flats?
My black dress slouched over my body
like I was going to a funeral.
And even though my acro class was yesterday, I still felt upside down. There’s no way I could stay in a handstand that long, but I would’ve done it if it gave me a different explanation for why I was so sick.
Inside of me were those cropping rainbow scribbles that I used to make on Paint, you know, the ones that seemed like they could create a picture but ended up turning into shaking lines?
I could feel the lack of your presence, I could FEEL your not being there. As the minutes passed and I kept standing and waiting my face drooped and it was hard not to cry right there on the spot.
It was just past lunchtime but there was still a steady flow of businessmen filling the sidewalk.
They glanced at me but I just looked
away because they were my father's age
and gave me familiar half-smiles.
I said that I was going to write a poem because I didn't have enough energy to do anything but list words,
but I guess this just turned into a ******
one.
Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 12:56 PM UTC
i.
when will my hopes
become existent enough to pour out
words of sincerity
to speak of a genuine warmth filling my chest
instead of the lines full of teenage angst
and the desperate cries of prisoners inside me
who are trying to escape
all I can think of are cliché sayings
that tell of gloomy times
occasionally ending with half-hearted
attempts at optimism
does that please them?
ii.
I give enough of myself away
that I am kept from prevailing
but keep enough behind my dialated pupils
and shaky hands
to never be trodden on or crushed to dust
I sometimes murmur the thoughts that
clamor my mind
but barely above a whisper because they will be misunderstood
iii.
reflections hit me seemingly everywhere I turn
the images on the water’s surface
the gaunt faces that stare back at me in the
broken glass
when I look into my sister’s eyes they
slap me in the face
these are the many people I used to be
iv.
I want to be that person
that soul
who filled me to the brim
when I was shaking remains of
mulch out of my scuffed up sneakers
and running off to seek boundless amounts
of a word that never escapes my mouth anymore
I don’t want to be known for
spewing out pink pieces of pathetic misery
onto the white carpet
No one truly wants a sad girl
the reality is that they are not mysterious and full
of dark beauty
at least I am not
v.
I carry an expertise
of driving myself into a dark hole
making it powerful enough to either
drag others in or ****** them out
someone gets hurt either way
I leave the classic images of sorrow
and dark-lined eyes
for my own destiny
I consist of burrowing under my covers
Laying unconscious until the sun disappears from my view
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 3:44 PM UTC
Red bits flew into the air as my heart let go of the pieces that were so numerous
that to count them would be like trying to count each and every gray hair on your head.
The pressure that it had held grew too heavy to carry.
Each piece carried a part of me that I had collected with love and each piece shaped me
and each piece kept me from freezing over like you did and your father did and his father probably did.
You didn't fill much but you were buried somewhere underneath all of the others, in the smallest part that I clung onto, desperately hoping that somewhere inside of your cold body there was a place of warmth that held a piece of me, too.
I kept hoping and wanting even if it was tiny like my little sister's toes, your second daughter's toes, when she came into this world and fit into the palm of your hands.
I thought that maybe one day your eyes would show it and your mouth would express the love that I wished a piece of your insides contained and I held onto this idea for a long time.
I carried the wish from when I missed the ball too many times to run and my hands shakily filled in "b" when it was supposed to be "c" and your angry words tumbled out of your mouth and made themselves comfortable in my bones.
I brought it with me until your lips refused to speak the words that I wanted to hear.
All I wanted to hear was that you loved me and when the sound of those three words didn't escape your mouth and never reached my ears and my mind and my heart and my soul, I let go.
I let go of this desire, this need, as I filled my blanket cocoon when I was supposed to be making you proud- you hate that, when I lay there; useless
I let go of it as my mind refused to think of your face and as my heart turned a little bit colder when your small piece that remained to warm me left just like everyone always does;
even when they say they won't, even when they say they are certain that they love me. They just don't.
It always happens.
I let go of you just like you let go of all your pieces and I should have known that this hoping and this wishing and this dreaming would be for nothing,
because the love that I was looking for, the love that I had been searching for my entire childhood had been long gone.
And I'm so sorry, my lungs are screaming out apologies and regrets along with words of bitterness because I can't help but be angry for all of these disappointments that hit me day after day hour after hour minute after minute.
I'm trying not to let them heard; it's not like you've had any empathy or shared a hint of understanding.
Did they ever even exist? Do you even care?
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 1:47 PM UTC