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Amanda Stoddard May 2017
Nothing good comes from the sulking inside of my bloodstream.
And nothing good comes from writing these same lines and thinking these same thoughts.
Why am I no good at anything I do.
Why are these pills not enough to remind me who I am again.
Did I ever really know her?
Lost inside memories that never came to the surface.
Lost inside a face in a dark room that I never see-
only smell and feel
that makes this all worse.
That something was stolen by a man wearing a mask and I can't retrieve the footage.
Maybe this is where all the hurt stems from
or maybe I'm just using it as an excuse as of late.
Maybe I'm just ****** up
and maybe the blame is on me.

And maybe these lines I write will be good enough one day to remind me why I started writing in the first place.

But until then
I will wrap myself around this life and hope it helps me drown.

I will count out my breaths:
holding them in longer than I take them-

and I will wish for better days,
knowing I don't believe they will come true.

I will pray for a way outside of this life and into a new one, knowing I don't believe in God.

Missing you in pieces
Falling into the places where they lay.
Loving you in parts
because I didn't know you how I used to.

Everything is breaking
I don't have enough sticky tac or glue or medication to fix all of this.

I can't talk or write my way out of this hole.

So I'll tie myself around this life and hope it will help me drown.

But maybe I'll float

And maybe I'll never know.
Amanda Stoddard May 2017
I tried to call out to you
in my dream last night.
But you were lost
behind a fixation
I couldn't re-imagine.

Now I'm looking
at the way I'm coping
hoping to somehow
ghostwrite my way out
of this incessant grief.

We can't just spill loss
into a letter and hope
by some chance
they read it over our shoulder.

I am foreshadowing
someone else's demise.

I've spent a lot of time losing this year,  
and somehow this was the most difficult.

Somehow the idea
is worse than
the reality

Somehow these words
will not be enough for you.

Asking you to stay
sounds selfish,
but you leaving seems the same.

I can't tell if
this is a poem
for my best friend that died-
or to the one who tried to.

I guess it's both.
I guess I am both.

Somewhere between grieving
too late and too early
in the same breath.

Loss feels so much more
than empty,
I am a tea kettle
  with bad metaphors
left on too long
so I am just screaming.

This is an empty house-
no one can hear me.

My blood boils over
with emotions
never taken off the back burner.

This chest caves in
and I cave into
the mindset that
this scenario
isn't imagination.

This is real life
and death isn't
just a concept for me anymore.

It is object permanence.
Amanda Stoddard May 2017
It took time to rewrite my past
in a way that looked pretty on a page
but everything-
just eventually
turned
   uncomfortable.

It feels
like i'm always
wearing wet clothes,
sulking because I tried to drown
these memories I didn't want at the surface.

But I needed air-
so they came to catch it with me.
They demanded a home inside of my world
  and so they put me under.

Now I'm clawing my way to oxygen
but this doesn't feel like
  just water anymore
  more sheet metal than surface.

Every move made
by anyone-
  myself included
feels like a weight.  

I keep fighting my way
to sanity and
I keep fighting
  to remove this memory.

but it says with me
and it screams
every time you touch me.

How will I ever be okay
with comfort?

How do I cope
with something
so adamant about
keeping me under.

These dark images
invade the back of my head.

It's not my fault
someone
  took away my childhood.

So why am I the one-
drowning?
Amanda Stoddard Feb 2017
1, 2, 3, 4
What are women fighting for?

My father doesn't know-
about my past.
As the **** culture comments
slip from his tongue-
I mourn for the women
who experience the same.

Because every time
it is a knife upon my spine
chipping away at my backbone.

Some days,
it hurts to stand up straight.

5, 6, 7, 8-
Women need to procreate!

We tell women
their legs are an entry way
men can use at will.

But then they urge us to keep the seed
growing inside of us-
when sometimes it is just a ****
coming to the surface
because of an invasion
of our own garden
the one we spent
so much time growing.

In the case we let it flourish
into a flower, even though we don't
have the proper nutrients
all of those mouths
that told us to water it
are now dry and absent.

They don't return
so we are the ones who become withered..

Once,
a man who thought we was more
medicine than overdose
took away a child
that could of been my sibling.

And ever since-
my mother feels the withdrawal.

7, 8, 9, 10-
Will **** culture ever end?

Not when there's a vulture
among the white house
now painted blood red,
Caucasian white,
and bruised ego blue.

When the words
are noosing their way
around our necks-
we must give misogyny a kiss of death.

When some "feminists"
spew misandry from the pores
remind them to exfoliate
the hatred from their vocal chords.

Remind them to
look up the definition of feminism.

We can't forget-
about the boy who was forced
by his cousin and stayed silent
because "men can't get *****"
right?

We can't forget-
about the women of color
who fight harder than most
because their skin
gives them the greater war.

When this America
is etched with white supremacy
Don't let them fetishize
or demoralize our sisters.
We stand together.

Don't let these instances
slip through your fingers.
Grab them by the throat
and remind yourself
of when they made
you lose your voice.

1, 2, 3, 4
What are the people fighting for?

******* Equality.
Amanda Stoddard Jan 2017
What do you do
when you realize
you're the aftermath
of someone's abuse?

It was written in the subtleties,
not the clear skin on your face.

You find it etched inside
of a voided smile.

The byproduct
of back handed remarks.

You stayed home
convinced yourself
you weren't really lonely.
But when you went out
you were made to feel the same.

Second guessing became
second nature.
Proving yourself worthy
became a personality trait.

It's not always clenched fist
or hit and run

It's a quick wit
and a razor tongue too.

The kind of love
that makes you
question the lengths
you've walked in life.

Makes you think
the only way is stay put
or go backwards.

The green eyed monster
turned you pale again
and you don't see
yourself in the mirror anymore.

Only someone who paints
her face with a smile
and tells everyone she's okay.

But the aftermath
is still just as deadly.
and your eyes feel sore
from trying to see
the good in things.

It's not always black eye
and a pain in your head.

If the flags read red-
then run.
No matter how far
you have made it.
Green eyes as in jealousy
Amanda Stoddard Dec 2016
Died a thousand times
to watch you live inside of me
But with each house fire burned
We became nothing
but a cemetery.

Ashes became of bones
and I lost my place of comfort
but you conform to coincidence

and say it didn't happen
pretend it didn't happen.

Your eyes are the fire
that made this home a hell
And I'm having trouble
sleeping through this heat
when will you admit it to me?

You poured the salt
on these open wounds.
Drunken tendencies
leading you dependent
on a girl who never stayed.

Still you gave your words away
to a place that wasn't mine
and ever since
I've felt homeless.

You fueled this tragedy
with cheap beer
and desecrated the
aftermath of my remains.

and said it didn't happen
pretended it didn't happen.

Too hard to be happy
without a home
inside of my heart.
I guess it's time to start
rebuilding
But these bones ache
and this head hurts.
You're always
feeding the flames
You're always
burnt out.
I'm always
feeling the heat
Trust is a two way street
But ours was an intersection.
Too much stop and go,
Not enough direction.
So all we did ever did
was crash
And burn.
Amanda Stoddard Dec 2016
You have become nothing but a zip file inside of my memory,
taking up too much space so I had to make you smaller, and smaller
until this nostalgia didn’t overload my chest cavity
and you became minute enough to just forget again.

I have sent you into the backup file
laying on the desk in my room
Away where our pictures are.
Away where you should be.

It was always supposed to be give and take
But all you ever did was take what you wanted
and acted like I was the one who couldn’t give it.

Now I am found
one year after the fact
and each of the three I spent with you
has left me with nothing but resentment
and this animosity chained around my ankle
you always held me back.

I don't care enough
about you anymore
to finish this poem
it ended when we did.
I guess finishing is
something we were both
terrible at.

well at least not for me anymore.
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