Feel pity for the turtle,
Born captive in a bowl.
Swimming in a circle,
A life been bought and sold.

He has his natural instincts,
Engrained in DNA.
I wonder what he thinks,
Being captive every day.

To him, it must feel wrong.
A missing link to life.
Pondering all along,
Why his surroundings don't suffice.

If released to the wild,
Survival would be scarce.
He's been captive since a child.
Born an artificial heir.

The turtle knows only this society,
It's what he's been born into.
His intuition - alive, indeed,
Tells him what turtles do.

I watch him in his tank, a curse.
How it must feel strange.
Born to fulfill a turtle's life purpose,
But forced into walls, by humans who exchange.

I feel pity for the turtle,
Then realize my foolishness.
Humans, too, know the artificial -
Yearning for natural happiness.

We build up our own glass walls,
And bear children to not see,
That there is life beyond this all,
That offers more than we think we need.

We, too, are like turtles,
Having a purpose to fulfill.
We overcome so many hurdles,
Within glass walls that ****.

I feel like I'm drowning
But I can see others breathing

And somehow
That's my fault

It's like if I could just learn to be normal
Everything would be okay

And back to the drowning thing;
It's like I'm just inches from the surface
But I don't have the energy to reach it

But I also feel like I'm burning
And freezing
All at once

I know that makes no sense,
But it's like being so cold,
Your insides are on fire

I feel like I'll never be enough
Like everything is pointless
And I have no energy
But I can't sleep at night

Like,
I haven't been posting
On this site
Because I couldn't find the strength
But now I'm posting
In a last attempt to hold on

And it feels like being sick
Like, you know you're going to die
And you know it will be soon
You just don't know when

And it's pointless
I'm pointless
Life is pointless
Everthing is pointless

And I don't know what to do

I'm dying,
Please,
Someone help me...

This is how I feel
I don't know what it is
But this is how I feel

(I'm so sorry)

Before I took up poetry,
I had no way to express myself
I didn't talk to other people,
They wouldn't care about how I felt
I've always found this difficult,
Uncomfortable to speak my mind
Ever scared to make a fool of myself
Of being judged and pushed aside
That I never spoke of my worries,
Not my doubts, or my fears
I kept them buried deep inside,
And ignored them all these years..

I don't remember when I started writing,
Only when I did, I wasn't scared
My thoughts no longer caged inside,
And my poetry I shared
Before I took up poetry
I was lonely, confused, and afraid
Poetry helped me find myself,
Brush aside old habits and forget mistakes
And slowly through my writing,
I'm healing every day
Poetry can save lives
Don't believe me but I'm proof of it all the same

he still doesn't realize
that beauty has a price

he plucks roses and
wonders why they wither
when he's never learnt
to check their roots.

with thorns between his lips,
he speaks softly about
the way love has eluded
him over the years.

his palms like written verse,
scarred and coarse, petals
falling delicately out of
time from his fingertips.

he sees beauty but he
does not see underneath

he has always been
one to see the flames
but never feel the heat.

his darkness became
tainted by my red

i burst like the sunrise
on the canvas of his skin,
raw and hot, red, red, red

i set flame to the somber
blues we'd once painted
our skin deep with.

kissing the echoes of
our past, but always
pulling away too soon.

i was too red, too vibrant.

he didn't like the taste
i left on his tongue
it was bitter like him,
it stung of the past he'd
tried to bury on my lips

my skin would ash
but he'd miss the flames.
my pulse would gallop
and intrude like
summer into his veins.

You made a poet fall in love with you
And expected her not to write sonnets about your eyes
Haikus about the way you kissed her in the moonlight
Expected the fire in her heart not to inspire couplets
You made a poet fall in love with you, and when you left
Expected her not to write pages about the ache in her chest
Write a soliloquy dedicated to her tears
Expected her not to feel every gut wrenching moment of the pen hitting paper like your words hit her in the most vulnerable places of her mind.
You made a poet fall in love with you, and you expected her to be silent.
That is no fault of hers.

Dear 17 year old me,

You'll fall in love with a boy this year that will bring you as much happiness as pain.
You'll fall in love with his eyes, and the dimples in his smile,
And dear girl you will cry when the loneliness of his departure makes the innermost of you empty and aching.

I would tell you to run now, that when your friend tries to give you his phone number, to turn her down.

But in this pain, five years later, five years of the highest highs and the lowest lows, as I ache from the innermost of me and feel empty, in this pain I tell you do not run.

Without him, you will not have a million poems, you will not have some of the best nights of your life. You will not sleeplessly wonder what you've done wrong, or sleepily whisper your "I love yous" into his ear.

And what is love without heartbreak?
What would I be without him?

Humor me, little past self. Fall in love with him. Write poems about his eyes, write letters to him with no end. Love him. Lose him. Fight him. Love him again.

And then come back as me, twice as strong and twice as weary.

You won't regret it.

Love, you at 21.