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Birdie Nov 2023
Soft lyrics billow from the next room,
Wrapping their syllables around my body.  
Drenching my skin in warm, buttery tunes.
Floating behind the words on the page,
As I watch the stories unfurl from my book.
Sometimes I forget that I’m reading,
I can see everything as clearly as the island
From my beach on a still July morning.
My eyes stop seeing and my fingers
no longer turn the pages,
I am part of the tale.
Engulfed by the stark poetry of being alive.
A passive, invisible witness to the lives of the characters,
As they run across my mind and live onwards in my imagination.
A little outpouring of how it feels to be lost in a good book with some relaxing music playing in another room
Birdie Jun 19
What a strange irony
To miss a past so intensely
That in the present was hell
But I knew it so well
In retrospect I was taught
To be strong with the fraught
And learn to appreciate
What once felt desolate
A strange irony indeed
To suddenly need
The things I was wasting
Flavours of pain I miss tasting
Birdie Jan 2021
If I ever die at the side of the street
Please don’t tie flowers and cards to a tree
Please leave the lamp posts and road signs alone
Pack up your sympathy
Take it all home
Remember me as the girl you once knew
And I’ll promise that I’ll do the same thing for you
Birdie Sep 2023
If I ever die at the side of the eastern road,
Where the broken bumpers and crisp packets collect,
Where the snow is shovelled into grey slush streams,
Please don’t buy the garish posie from the petrol station,
Don’t buy my memory a card factory teddy bear,
Leave the cards’ platitudes and poems on the shelves at Clinton’s,
Leave the lamp posts and road signs alone,
Pack up your sympathy, take it all home to your mums house.
Remember me as the girl that made you laugh,
Unpack your tears if you have them and give them to your pillow,
Give them to Facebook if you must, or give them to your friends.
I promise I’d do the same for you,
Unless you’d rather be remembered by straggling tinsel clinging to a lamp post by one piece of damp, desperate sellotape.
By wilting white roses dropping sad brown petals onto chewing gum tainted tarmac.
Unless you’d like to be known as the man whose name is scrawled in biro inside of a cheap card blutacked onto the sign for the Havant bypass.
In which case I’ll drag my sympathy to Clinton’s, to card factory and my closest petrol station.
I’ll say goodbye to the tune of sirens and rattling sainsburys lorries.
Then cry alone each time I drive past your withering memorial and try to remember to clean it up next week.
Birdie Feb 11
Ocean, sea, water I love,
Hold up his head,
Keep him above
Your swell, your waves, your deepest
Depths,
Sail him on back to within
My bredth.
Make it go fast,
But keep it slow,
Slow enough that he stays far
From below.
Water I love, ocean, sea
Bring my sailor back to me.
A little poem about someone I care for who is sailing away for a little while
Birdie Jan 15
I could be at the lowest depths
The most sunken death
But when I see the sea
That’s when I’m free
Birdie Jan 21
It’s a chasm of nothingness
A gaping void that doubles in on itself
Like how I imagine a black hole would
I’m in it and I am it
Can’t see into it or out of it
It makes me heavy like a wet towel
Thick and slow like dripping tarmac
It is pain and it is anaesthesia
Feeling nothing and everything
Dragging myself through days and weeks
With proverbial broken ankles
Stumbling into potholes and falling
Flat on my face
Over and over again
Till the sun comes back
Just me being a drama queen about how much I really don’t like the winter
Birdie Jul 2023
Love is a sham and
I am what I am
Said me to myself
And I
I don’t understand and
I will not withstand
This criminal
Evil lie
I can’t and I won’t and
I just simply don’t
Want to live if living
Hurts so
I may just check out and
I won’t cry or shout
I’ll just quietly get up
And go
Birdie Apr 21
My trousers shrunk in the wash
The water was too hot
I wish I could put on a load
Filled with all the things they did
Everything that hurts me
The knives that twist in my gut
Day in
Day out
I wish I could shrink them too
So that they fit
The basket is overflowing
With items too large to wear
It’s all too big for me now
Birdie Nov 2023
If I lure myself to a watery end
Does that make me the siren
Or the sailor
Am I another victim of the myth
Or am I mythical
The strong or sorry swimmer
If I fill my lungs with salt and foam
Will a song arise
Or a final fateful splutter
Sink or swim
Breathe or falter
Birdie Jan 28
So small
I’m so small
So so small
That’s the only thing
Making me big enough
To be strong enough  
To be
Birdie Sep 2019
I do my best to fill my time,
With friends and family,
Work and plans.
I distract myself with empty flirtations,
And TV, and alcohol.
Every day I try not to think,
And sometimes I go a whole day without remembering.
Sometimes I’m happy for a long while and I think
“I’m starting to feel better, I’m going to be okay”.
But when the days out end.
I come home from work, the Netflix credits roll across my phone screen,
Suddenly everything is silent.
And I’m so small,
And I remember how alone I am.
Just a little something that suddenly struck me this evening, I’ve been trying to sum up how I’ve been feeling recently and I think this explains it. Sorry all my poems are so depressing!
Birdie Sep 2019
Only twice in my life
Have I ever felt entirely safe.
Once when my dad told me when I was little
That if the house caught fire in my sleep
He would carry me to safety wrapped in my duvet
To protect me from the smoke.
And twice,
When I first met you.
Birdie May 15
People ask me
‘What have you been up to?’
And I say ‘staying alive’
People find it funny
Another silly joke from
Silly little me
But it’s not a joke at all
For here I am
On a Wednesday afternoon
Eating a cheese toastie
Instead of killing myself
Birdie May 3
As I take a reluctant step
Outside the endless circle
That is our one sided love story,
I can see that you were never
Running the race alongside me.
The circle drawn by only
My footsteps. Dragging, tired
And restless round the same
Old road is dusty and old.
As I pull my heavy heart
Outside the reach of your radar,
Which has ****** me back
With magnet force each time I’ve
Left before.
I see that though you and you alone
Have been the driving source
Of all my life for nearly 2 years now,
You are just fine without me.
The circle was mine alone.
A tentative look outside the love that has kept me tethered for so long
Birdie Sep 2023
Just twenty minutes
Laying on your sofa
My head on your chest
Your hand on my rib cage
Feeling your breath
Moving in my hair
Feels like a lifetime of love
And that’s why I can’t
Give you up
Just another silly poem about that idiot I’m in love with
Birdie Apr 28
I suppose that now
I write poems on Sundays
Somehow
We have a sordid routine
A sombre love song
Come now
See my silly daydreams
Sometimes seriously
Your brow
Where my saddened kisses
Make their misses
Somehow on Sundays
Sometimes now
Birdie Sep 2020
The changes in me between now and then,
The who, the what,
The where and when,
What a bittersweet way to begin,
Take me back to sunny hours again.
Sorry I’ve been gone so long poetry world. I’ve had a very rough couple of months. But here I am back with the creative juices flowing!
Birdie Apr 1
Take me to Antigua,
Fall for me under the sun.
Love me for my soft, tanned skin.
Make me your only one.
I know you have it in you,
I know that you feel for me.
If you didn’t I would know,
I know more than you can see.
Just take me to Antigua,
You nearly flew me to Dubai.
Tell me that you love me,
It’s not your style I know, but try.
Rub sun cream on my shoulders,
By an infinity pool.
Tell me that no'one  ever  
Made you feel this way at all.
I’d make your life a daydream,
If you would only say you will.
Just take me to Antigua,
I’ve been yours, 2 years and still.
Birdie Nov 2019
I don’t know if I even want to meet you anymore,
Because if I do,
I’ll still be convinced you’ll leave me,
And I’ll **** it up so you do,
Everything is temporary,
And that’s just true.
Birdie Aug 20
Thank you
For giving kind to my worry
For reacting to fear with calm
Thank you
For teaching my mind to trust yours
For gently proving me wrong
Thank you
For offering peace in my chaos
For saying and doing what you mean
Thank you
For slowly but surely
Starting to uncover me
A new love after a bad one is a hard one but a sweet one
Birdie Aug 19
There once lived a boy called freedom,
And his twin brother loneliness too.
Quite the same in face and body and mind,
But the townspeople saw them as two.

Everybody loved the boy freedom,
But loneliness was hated it’s true.
With love for one and hate for the other,
They grew apart like most differences do.

As the men grew older, free lived like a king,
But lonely, he rotted and withered within.
One of lonely’s enemies, Naivety by name,
Plotted all night and came up with a game.

To Naivety the only way to be free,
Was to end this man loneliness for all to see.
So he packed up his case with all manner of terror,
To set about making lonely a horror.

On the day of his reckoning, loneliness sat,
Wearing an old gift from his brother, a ******* hat.
Whilst freedom, about in town was adorned
In a red shirt that once loneliness had worn.

So when naivety set out to do the deed,
He crept up to lonely’s house and what did he see?
But freedom standing there in a ******* hat.
‘Hello freedom’ said he and that was that.

He strode on into town and caught sight of some red,
‘I know who owns that red shirt’ naivety said.
With a swish of his knife and a click of his gun,
Naivety believed that his deed had been done.

When loneliness learned that his twin had been slain,
He cried for the fact that his face was the same.
‘If only they knew’ wept lonely in pain,
‘Then freedom and me might have been brothers again’.
Birdie Aug 2023
Better the devil you know
They say
Better get watered to grow
But wait
You’d better be careful and think
She warned
You’d better be quiet and shrink
Or else
They’ll find someone better and leave
You there
But maybe you’re better alone than shared
A poem about the irresistible, incomprehensible, irritating reality of being in love with men who won’t love you back
Birdie Apr 28
You say you’ll never fall in love
And that’s okay
As long as I’m your favourite nothing
I will always stay
It’s enough for me to live my life
Floating in your peripherals
As long as you don’t find a better
Way to spend your intervals
I live in fear that one day you might
Meet a girl and change your mind
Then I won’t be your favourite
You’ll have no reason to be kind
Nothing won’t mean anything to you
Not like it was
I fear that one day you won’t need me
Because you will be in love
Birdie Nov 2022
The loneliest feeling
I have ever felt
Was laying awake
Next to a sleeping man
Who didn’t care
Birdie May 15
It must be nice if the
Worst day of your life
Is really just one day
Mine looks through my windows
It knows my email address
It feeds on my fear
And sleeps in my stress
The worst day of my life
Is eighteen months long
So far, and I don’t know
If I can go on
In this sleepless nightmare
Each day is the same
Many more months of worst days
And I’ll go insane
Birdie Nov 2023
Silence like treacle
Dripping on my ear drums
Drumming sweet beats that
Match my slowing breath
Thicker than blood and
More rancid than bile
Sitting on my forehead
And telling me to sleep
Someone say a word in this
Congealing quiet night
Make shapes with your mouth
And speak directly to my soul
I have no idea what this is actually about, enjoy
Birdie Nov 2022
Boundaries
Saying no
Self respect
Moving slow
Sensible drinking
Eating enough
Sleeping schedules
Calling their bluff
Saying goodbye
Letting go
Forgiving myself
Staying at home
Telling the truth
Falling in love
Reading whole books
Acting tough
Playing sports
Doing maths
Waking up early
Avoiding his wrath
About the only things
I am able to do
Are make bad decisions
And regret them too
Birdie Oct 2023
I am a twisted root
Bent in broken directions
So that now
The sweetness can’t get to my leaves
And my tree is dying
Birdie Jun 2023
‘Don’t you miss me?’
Said the girl to her phone.
‘Wouldn’t you rather be here than alone?’
‘Don’t you dare text him’
Say her friends, and she won’t.
But she wishes he would so that she could let go.
‘Will he try harder?’
Like she did, she wonders.
Innately she knows that he won’t, she slips under.
‘Am I that unlovable? Why can’t they love me?’
She sits on her bed and cries tears that aren’t seen.
Birdie Dec 2020
I feel too strongly
I think too much
I say what I feel
And I don’t understand
Why nobody else can
Understand me
Birdie Sep 2023
What a beautiful morning to be
In Jacobstow cemetery
Just sixteen degrees
Dew on the grass and trees
A damp wooden bench beneath me
And quiet souls around me
Taking in the scripture
Carved in moss covered stone
Nodding good morning to
The families long gone
Dandelions flick their mottled homes
As insects comfort resting bones
I could sit here every morning
And never feel alone
Birdie Mar 24
My life is full
As is my heart
My soul is settled
Nothing is halved
I am whole
I am me
I have nothing
I don’t need
My world is mine
And I am too
The things I’ve found
Can’t be taken by you
Birdie Jun 4
Act like I’m the love of your life
Then ignore me the next day
Give me an inch
Then drool over my neighbours little sister
Tell me you care
Then tell me you don’t
Act like you do
Then insist you won’t
Say you will not ever want more
Then treat me like you can’t stay away
Say you won’t get jealous
Then get angry every day
Treat me like you hate me
Then love me again
Birdie Jun 2020
I probably deserve it,
Being ripped apart by a lonely heart,
For all the men I’ve made lonely,
For all the ones who’ve wanted to love me,
But I wouldn’t let them.
For them I suppose I deserve it,
To fall in love with beautiful strangers,
Who want me just to use me,
To be broken once again.
Its a strange affliction to constantly be
Underwhelmed by kind men,
Only to be charmed by the...
‘You’re too intense’
‘You’re a nice girl’
‘I’m just busy’
...from a blue eyed devil.
Maybe my heart is back to front.
Birdie Apr 21
You may be the death of me
You might **** me soon
You’ve turned me to a wild thing
I’m howling at the moon
If it kills me, it’s my fault
For falling for a dream
If it doesn’t I am lucky
If I ever can get clean
You to me are the whole world
But I am just your favourite
Stupid girl
Birdie Apr 14
If heaven had a smell
I know it would be your cologne
If hell had a name
It would begin with J, then O
If purgatory felt like something
I know it would feel like you
If anything is anything
I know I never knew

— The End —