Vampire lady turned cowgirl
don't mess with me
I'm coming out of the coffin
in the 20 first century
riding a horse black as night with a deep red cape and
bats flying behind me.

**** I've got blood red neils fangs and boots.

I would send you a box of
flowers before biting you
with a family of bats
to welcome you. 🌹🦇

Don't mess with the ladies.

We've got nails and fangattitude.

©️ 2023 By Amanda D Shelton

Sometimes I feel alone
in a crowded room,
sometimes I feel cowded
when I am alone.

I am always alone in my thoughts,
pictures of the past hanging on
the walls of my mind
movies of my life rolling on
the screen.

Memories, never going back,
the past is behind me.

My shadow is what I leave
in photographs in my mind.
A ghost not yet dead.

Someday I too will be but smoke
in the wind, a photograph within
your mind.

Depression once told me
I am nothing,
I am but a piece of dirt
underneath your feet.

I fought its downing choke,
its pressure to be better than
myself.

I pushed myself into the light
scared and exhausted.

Depression is the heavest
ugliest monster waiting in
the darkest depths to pounce.

It knows your woes,
it becomes your fear,
it bruises your soul and
scars your self esteem.

Rolling in the deep,
towing your failures,
tugging on your heart strings
as it breaks one string at a time,
leaving you in silence
no more music for you
to enjoy.

Depression is the deep void
between nigh and day is nothing,
where I get lost amongst
the forest of my rolling thoughts.

Floods happen often here,
choking my breathable air,
clawing at my soul,
leaving me naked and afraid
deep inside the bowels of depression.

I beg myself, don't leave me here
reaching for my life with outstretched arms. Weak and
crawling on my belly from
the drenches of depression.

Depression taught me
I have only myself.

Depression also taught me,
the dirt is where life grows,
it is planted inside its girth
watered and fed by its growing roots. I chose where I plot my roots.

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton

If I fall would you catch me?

I once stood on mountains,
swam the depths of the ocean,
ran miles before going home
hiked bike trails and I climbed
Mammoth mountain.

Like a rose, I grew from a seed
slowly blossoming into a bud,
I took awhile before I stretched
my petals, once I did I was a rose
perfumed well and loved by many.

All I need is a smile and poetry,
people seem to like my unique
style and beaming smile.

Though, my heart was broken
I fell to pieces, I was shattered
by a monster who said I love you
and stabbed me in the back.

Now I am climbing new heights,
I am starting over with my life.

If I fall don't worry I can catch myself.

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton

I a dying rose, I have nothing
but perfumed words.

I a nobody, I have nothing
but poetry.

I a shadow, I have nobody
but myself beside me.

I a lingering sigh, I have but one
chance one life to do my best.

I am living on a breath, a wind that
blew from the west and settled
on your screen through poetry,
line by line I lay down my life.

I am like a seed, not like the rest
rooted in sand I started out half
sunk but grew stronger and
deeper reaching for the rocks
to build a stable foundation.

Here I rise, I shine and
grind the keyboard until
it lags.

Sometimes spell check thinks
I'm British French and Spanish,
once it predicted Romanian
was my first language.
What happened to English?

I'm white but am I really?

If you cut me do I bleed
white or blood? I swear
I am human.

I don't think my keyboard cares
it just sits and stares tries to
predict but fails.

Now I am a poet with broken English
not by choice but by design of
spell check, my skin is really
partly translucent.

Here I bleed poetry and prose spill
from my fingertips like a wizard
blowing smoke like a dragon.

Here you come to witness my strum,
my tugging and pulling brings you
closer into my cave of batty gloom,
that I resurrect from the deepest
parts of my mind.

Mute I am.
I arm myself with deeper meaning
to express myself, otherwise
I am silent and scared over communicate and second
guess myself.

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton

Oded to vintage,
dirt wrinkles and grime.

Grinding the time,
one second at a time.

Hands up hands down,
ticking running around,
the face of time smiles wide.

Twelve, eleven, ten,
nine, eight let’s do it again.

The only way to turn back time
is to rewind the clock. No redos
just memories.

Tick tock, tick tock, oded to vintage,
dirt wrinkles and grime.

These are my vintage thoughts,
they aged wisely and I’ve been
digging for the time
deeper into the depths
of vintage earth.

Wrapped in lace and bonet,
skirts of mourning black and sad,
tears stain the cloth slowly turns
yellow.

Oded to vintage,
dirt wrinkles and grime.

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton

He's trying to burn his bridges,
when we can see him starting
the fire. He's in denial but still
lights the fire on camera yet
he doesn't forget to smile.

Burn baby burn!

He's working for the devil
five to nine lighting fires
wasting time.

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton

I once was a traveler wishing to be free,
but time slipped through my fingers
like sand in an hourglass.

Now my age and suffering has come
to a crossing, in between my strife
and short lived life lies the future
and freedom of my personal possibilities.

I am like a caged bird longing for
the wind to blow between my feathers
so I can be free and fly above
the horizon of my dreams.

Here is where I set fire to your minds
and inspire your imagination,
through my words and expressions
I am free like smoke from a candle
left to burn in the window of my
poetic vision.

Aw, and here lies my beating heart,
below the open window panes
it is beating for you, it waits for you
to read the lines I've designed.

I know I beat to a louder drum
than most, my flame is hotter
than others, but my moment
has always been now.

For I live for the future
and dream of the past.
And so the past is nothing
more than a memory, and
the future is now.

I have hope that my vision will see
beyond this haze and I will leap into
the possibilities that I am searching for,
only then will my mind be as warm as
my heart that burns hotter by the minute.

This is kindling for my flame,
I feed it with my poetic shavings,
from the past I came and into
the future I blaze.

I have left a candle in my
poetic window so all who gaze
upon this page will remember
my name.

Amanda, Amanda where aret thow?
Where have you placed your poetic tongue?
Have you forgotten the vision?
Is there poetic justice?

I'd like to imagine that the crimes
of a doomed poet is nothing more
than ashes and ink smears smudged
across your screen.

I the poet, none has been forsaken
nor forgotten, for my heart will
forever yearn for a garden
to plant my poetic blossoms.

Here I have roots and a personal domain.

My mind is set free through poetry.

No cage can possibly keep
my inspiration from leaping out
and catching your eye.

I am a poet forget me not,
for my words are yours to devour.

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton