sam-miller
American
Asking a teenager to write their biography / Have you ever heard of something so absurd? / You cannot ask us about our life / When we have barely lived one third. / / I will not write my biography, / I will not tell you who I am. / Because I do not know my story / Any better than a Christmas ham knows that it’s ham. / / We are still babies, / Fresh and innocent in the eyes of the world. / Maybe not so naïve as they would believe us, / But that doesn’t change the state of our swords. / / Unfinished, raw materials, / Waiting to be molded and shaped / Waiting for the right moment / To wield these swords and escape. / / I cannot tell you about myself, / But I can give you this gift. / A haphazard poem about biographies, / To be read with patience and thrift.
I tell people I’m broken,
traumatized and terrified
of trysts with troublesome
feelings that fill me, fill me
fill me with butterflies
that paint pretty lies
all over the walls of my
beating broken heart.
The truth is that I am afraid
because every time I gave my heart away
it got thrown back in my face
and now I’m left here clutching
a hunk of ****** throbbing muscle
like, “What the **** do I do with this?”
If this is the thanks I get
for loving people but also
loving myself then you can take your
stupid holiday and shove it.
Because I want no part in
an ideal that says I have to
love people that hurt me.
Just because I’ll cut people out
faster than I cut out this **** heart
doesn’t make me cold or frigid.
All my apprehension,
all the distance I create,
all my reluctance to feel
the things I used to feel so freely,
that’s just walls.
I built walls to watch
as nobody tried to break them down,
as I ran away from letting people
get close enough to want to.
I’m holding out for the best,
the person that doesn’t make me
want to run anymore.
The person that takes TNT
to my walls and says,
"Let me love you,
you stubborn *******
I don’t know where they are,
I don’t know who they are,
the only things I can be certain of are
their existence and the fact that
they will find me.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 10:19 PM UTC
The sky is dark,
not pitch black but a deep
and dangerous blue.
Dark enough to hide the stars
but not enough to hide the clouds
looming above me.
My heavy boots thud
against the sidewalk
and they thud harder when
I walk against the howling wind.
I feel it blowing through my sweater
and chilling my bones as
bare-bones tree branches wave
above my head.
The darkness wind and chill
all point to the end times,
where green grass will never return
and the sun will never again
show its bright face.
Nights like this
are a spiritual experience.
The air speaks to me
in ways the sunlight never can.
I feel the apocalypse every time it storms.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 10:18 PM UTC
Sitting here,
late at night
with my coffee stained breath
going nowhere but towards
the screen of my computer,
I think how nice it would be
to have a reason to put it away.
To have someone pleading with me to
"Come to bed already".
To have someone see stars in my eyes
the way I see entire galaxies in theirs.
To have someone love me
half as much as I love them.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 10:16 PM UTC
The candy red heart I wanted
came in a velvet box
wrapped with a satin bow.
I eagerly tore the ribbon away
and ran my fingers over the velvet,
reveling in the touch of something so delicate.
Tucking my mismatched,
***** fingernails under the lid,
I tore it open like a kid with a big Christmas present.
And what I found
could barely resemble the heart I wanted
for it was nothing more than a lump of bleeding muscle.
The blood’s leaking through the bottom of the box
and I’m not quite sure how I ignored it before,
but now it’s all over my hands and I don’t know what to do.
All I wanted was a second chance.
How foolish of me to believe it would be like a fairy tale,
in which my damaged soul can slowly put itself back together.
Instead all I got
is a blood-soaked box, sticky hands
and another kind of broken heart.
I thought it would work,
even though I kept telling myself
that this is was all a dream in my head.
I knew better than that, I know better,
but the hope filled me up anyways
and hell, it was great while it lasted.
But this heart is no good,
and just like the last one,
it has to be thrown away.
I have to dispose of the velvet box
and the grotesque thing that’s inside of it,
but I think I’ll keep the ribbon.
One little reminder,
so that even when the blood is washed from my hands,
I will always remember.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 10:14 PM UTC
When I was young, too young,
I stopped believing in beauty
and all the things that came with it
like hope and trust and
the magic of pixie dust.
I felt the light in my eyes
drain like sand through an hourglass
and no it’s not Days of our Lives
more like Nights Spent Slowly Dying
alone with only our ragged blankets
to keep us warm and breathing.
I got older, and I learned
how to get beauty back.
it wasn’t easy to rewire my brain after so much of it
had corroded and poisoned
but I did it. I learned to
look into a mirror and be okay
with what I saw looking back at me.
Now I’ve tried to share this power
with everyone I meet but it’s
really ******* hard to change
your own mind and trying to
change someone else’s is like
showering at someone’s house and you can’t figure out how the
**** their faucet works.
As I get happier
I run out of ways
to make other people happy
and I find myself choking
on words that mean **** all
to a depressed bulimic or
someone who can’t adjust to college life.
I can’t play therapist anymore.
But I’d cut out my eyes
for a blind man and
I’d give my limbs to amputees.
I’ll donate all my organs,
tear out my heart
and give it to someone
who’s had theirs broken
too many times before.
I would rip my self to pieces
just to save this world,
because how can I love myself
when the world can’t do the same?
What’s the point of being happy
in a world drowning in pain?
Maybe that is the point.
Maybe staying awake
in this sleepy universe
is the shot of espresso
it needs to wake the **** up
and finally smile a little.
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 12:05 AM UTC
Every time I turned my eyes up,
staring at the ceiling to force the tear drops back inside of me
with my hands clasped beneath my chin,
people might have thought that I was praying.
I’m not a religious person
but I think that in my moments of desperation
I’d pray to a ******* ceiling tile
if it would make me feel better.
I’m not that desperate yet,
but if the churning in my stomach
and the burning ache in my chest get any worse
I might just ******* do it.
I’d pray to the dead skies if the clouds would absorb my pain
the same way they absorb the moisture in the air.
I’d pray to the holes in the ceiling above my desk
if I could send my tears up there
instead of having to continually force them back
when my shoulders start to shake.
I’d pray to the jar of paper stars
given to me by someone I thought I’d never be without
if I could be with the friends that truly care about me again.
I’d pray to my car
if it could just take me back home for the weekend on autopilot
so I wouldn’t have to think about concentrating on the road
when all I want to do is go to sleep.
I’d pray to my zombie pillow pet
if it would take away my responsibilities
and allow me to rest for just one whole day.
I’d pray to the pictures of random cats on tumblr
if I could hold my own cats and cry freely into their fur.
Thinking about it,
it’s pathetic how willing I am to pray
for just a little relief from this dark wave
that seems to be rising like a tsunami,
ready to drown me in all the negativity
I thought I had been able to lock away.
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 12:04 AM UTC
Beating, pacing
thumping like a drummer with no rhythm
and no purpose other than to hurt.
Once candy box red,
now black like tar
and twisted and scratched
until it is no longer the muscle it used to be.
It pounds and thunders
in ways I wish I couldn’t feel
because these beats don’t give me butterflies
they give me disease,
they give me panic and fear and
a horrific feeling of, “Please Don’t Hurt Me Again”.
I didn’t ask for this,
this broken thing you gave me,
this abomination of an *****
that calls itself a heart
but only wishes it was something so beautiful,
so excuse me for not having the receipt
but please, please, let me exchange it.
Give me something that’s candy box red,
something that isn’t riddled with scars
and beats in a way that hurts but
in the best way possible, the way that
breathes life into everything I do
and not the kind that burns.
I’m not asking for much,
maybe just a second chance
a do-over, to feel again
and be okay if it doesn’t last.
I don’t want to be afraid
to the point where thinking about trying
makes my filthy heart stop.
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 12:01 AM UTC
Two in the morning,
Reality calls for me,
to come back to her.
Her arms wrap me up,
A blanket of bold, harsh truths,
Slowly suffocate.
No no let me go,
Don’t take me back there again,
I wanna stay here.
Bright light of the screen,
I cling to virtual comfort,
and avoid the world.
Keeping my heart safe,
from the pain drilled into it,
when I turn away.
I don’t know real life.
I only know what I see.
I see ugliness.
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 1:25 PM UTC
I walk down sugar-coated streets,
stumbling over rumor weeds poking up through the cracks
and fearing the whispers that I think I hear.
I watch the candy people walking around,
******* each other dry one way or another
like leeches with sweet teeth.
They make sour faces,
like ******* lime soda through a Sour Punch Straw,
but they keep ******* because there’s nothing else to do in Candyland.
I have to look really hard to find the sweet people.
The gummy ones, the melt in your mouth chocolate ones.
Sometimes I find them half-eaten and discarded like office lollipops
and sometimes they’re melting under everyone’s Red Hot gaze.
Sometimes I only find wrappers
and I get so angry that I think I might melt myself.
Because these people have been eaten.
****** nibbled, gulped down
like nothing more than a quick Kiss that means nothing.
But no matter how small they were, they still mattered.
They mattered to someone,
but now they’re just slick remnants on cellophane or foil.
And what hurts even more is that I couldn’t save them.
I’m not Princess Bubblegum,
I can’t protect a candy kingdom.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t try.
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 1:25 PM UTC
A mirror is only as good as what you see on its surface
and when what you see isn’t what you want,
you start to wish the mirror was broken,
that someone bought it from a fun house,
that what you see isn’t really you.
You start to avoid the mirrors in your house,
pretending not to worry about how you look,
claiming that you’re not a vain person.
But the truth is, your vanity hides
beneath a layer of disgust
like a sheath of decaying sanity.
You want to curl up,
curl up until you disappear,
because maybe then people would look at you
the way you want them to,
they would look at you fondly,
missing your little quirks and they would say things like,
“They were so beautiful, it’s such a shame.”
But the thing is,
that’s not what happens.
That is not fondness,
it is pity. They feel bad for you,
but they feel no guilt
for how they ignored you.
Disappearing won’t make people look at you.
I thought like that once upon a time,
and sometimes the thoughts still creep in
like little worms trying to eat away at the confidence I have built.
But **** it,
I have worked too hard to go back now.
When I look in the mirror,
I no longer see that layer of disgust
that sheathed my decaying sanity.
Now I look in the mirror and I think,
**** I look really good.”
I do it anytime I look in the mirror,
because now it’s true.
I believe every word of it,
I finally like what I see.
And if that makes me vain
then I will gladly accept the title.
I have wasted too much time avoiding my own reflection.
For once in my life, I’m finally happy with what I see.
And nobody, nobody, is ever going to take that away from me.
Look at yourself.
Embrace what you see, love it.
If you don’t like it, you can change it.
You can change the cut and color of your hair,
you can change the clothes you put on,
you can exercise and you can eat right,
you can even change the color of your eyes.
All I ask of you is that you don’t hurt yourself in order to change things.
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 6:40 PM UTC