Ash Perri: Favorites

May 2020 Ash Perri

2:32 am

May 2020 Ash Perri

mks

2:32 am

It's 2:32 am and I'm thinking about him and how he thinks and speaks and I wonder if he's thinking about me too as he crawls into bed tonight. He is so wonderful, it's like nothing can taint him, his simplicity. Every time he looks at me it's like he has hand painted my most inward corners with a fresh coat of paint, and when he laughs I can feel the ground shake as the earth shivers into itself absorbing his warmth. And his smile is so incomparable and it makes me wonder how something so simple can put me in such a place, isolated from words and pictures and logical thoughts and there is just him. Like an outstanding presence that won't go away and I'm not quite sure if I want him to anymore. It's as if merely trying to think of a word to compare him to rids that word of it's meaning and replaces it with him. I have written books in my mind about his smile but they will never compare to the stories and questions and really bad jokes that pour from his being. He really is something special, and being around him makes me feel like I must be, too.

May 2020 Ash Perri

planets and constellations and other astronomy

May 2020 Ash Perri

Beth Taylor

planets and constellations and other astronomy

it should be noted that girls don't always come from venus, that some boys might be a little deader than they were before they claimed you took their breath away.
some girls have barbed wire around their hearts, and others have white flags. some boys have touched more cigarettes than thighs, more blades in the bathroom sink than the ones in her shoulders. the city might whisper the name of one boy and tremble at the thought of another; a girl might have a hit list with only one name on it — her own. some boys will **** just to say they lost their virginity and some boys will spend the rest of their lives making love as though they could gain it back; some girls have lost their tears and sweat in the upholstery of the same car that might belong to one of these boys — and some of those same boys are sweaty handprints on the backseat windows while others are fingerprints on your throat, but no matter how you look at it, he will always leave his mark, won't he?
it should be noted that some girls will miss you like hiroshima playgrounds miss the laughter of young children, but others will miss you like an 11:30 flight at 11:31, and i bet you never knew that some boys will never tell you that they miss their father just as much as some girls calling everyone else 'daddy' except for the one they truly need; you'd never believe me if i said that some girls look at the night sky where they used to see their reelection in the stars, but now only see another broken mirror.
it should be noted, that not all boys are from mars.

May 2020 Ash Perri

130 bpm

May 2020 Ash Perri

Beth Taylor

130 bpm

you should’ve never unpacked your bags,
because it gave me this expectation that you were in this for the long run. i’m still running. i have swallowed so much blood that tastes like your regret from biting down my tongue to cage it behind my teeth from screaming about you to a world that wants my blood for ink.
i am more than a number, but 24 makes me feel better than 26, so i sit in jeans that leave red marks on my hips and make it hard to breathe, but see it’s two inches and
i am more than a number, but i know every test score i ever got and still remember fourth grade and question three and crying because suddenly my mistakes had weight and i couldn’t fix things by saying sorry and
i am more than a number, but i was always the middle child, always the not-quite one, not the best friend to anyone, just a girl with kind eyes and jeans that are a little bit too tight and
i am more than a number but to you i am seventeen, ten and three. and lets be clear; it’s the three that haunts me, because *** doesn’t matter and ‘girlfriend’ is just a label, but i wish i was the first girl you truly loved, and sometimes i still wish i was the last, but with you i fear i’ll forever be just another number.
i drove over 17 bridges the other day and next week i'll do it again and i think nobody gets what that means except maybe you.
i just tell them i love the scenery, that somebody must've made these trees blush just for me.
you know how i love to change the subject?
i bet they'd love the view. i bet you would too.
and all these metaphors for other things are beside the point.
this is a metaphor for why i don't wear my seatbelt, a metaphor for why whiskey knows me better than you could ever try to.
all the buildings seemed to sag yesterday and all the stars are doing that cliche thing where they talk quiet jet noise and some lumbering giant made everything shake.
not those hand metaphors, not another one of those & keep the sea to yourself,
i think it was a train, it's sound hugged the embankment for a moment and then trailed off into nowhere,
and that's kind of like me
how there's a town called 'rescue' close to my home and it's no coincidence that i've never been there.
i’m just flatlining now and hoping that you can look at the next girl the way i looked at you.

May 2020 Ash Perri

Sitting In An Airport With A Sign That Says "Who You Used To Be"

May 2020 Ash Perri

Beth Taylor

Sitting In An Airport With A Sign That Says "Who You Used To Be"

Sometimes the words I love you swarm like hornets behind my teeth, a phrase so heavy it only has eight letters just like I lost you.
Sometimes in the pause you take before you speak, I wonder if you’re fighting to keep down the same things as I am; trying to swallow a confession that seems less like a secret and more like stating the obvious.
We were funny, we were bad at holding hands, I hated when a car goes over the tracks, you had this way of making silence the loudest sound in the room when it hit the floor.
I made a home out of your hands just like how many beautiful things go without reciprocation.
We seem to have found fault in being whole, somewhere alone the way, we’ve started enjoying breaking things;
Like my ribs when you’re gone and I want to know if you can tell the difference between the absence of my voice and silence.
You are the only thing I’ve ever let go that makes my hands ache.
I’m still trying to piece together what made you lose your faith in me, was it how everything starts with gritting teeth and everything ends with you walking away? I should’ve known, the way you used to hold my back like you were checking it for exit wounds.
It took me 2 car wrecks and 6 shattered mirrors for me to realize that the world has so much more to say when it is silent;
if I didn’t bruise so easily, if I wasn’t looking for a way to be made of a river, if I needed the silence to mean something, then I would ask you to build me out of quiet revenge and goodbyes that stick in your sides like tree branches, I would need you to build me out of reasons to believe instead of reasons to be afraid, I would turn my kneecaps into strawberries in exchange for potter’s hands so I could mild you a bulletproof spirit.
It was silence and your lighter, I was cold, you were drinking; that was our backbone.
You were alone, I was going too fast because sometimes you don’t have to be in the wrong place to be looking for the wrong thing.
I am afraid and you are warm; this is the beginning of a forest fire filled with broken glass shattering in broken homes with broken people inside on a broken piece of land in a city that has too much rain for someone to build an emergency room in.
I spend nights up until my body can’t handle itself any longer,
mornings have come like a hammer to my head-
instead of my face, all I can see in the mirror is an unfamiliar expression,
something like a dead battery.
All I ever wanted was for you to be my fire, I am tired of these old lives and would like to see them burn.

He Left.

Nov 2017 Ash Perri

Exhaustion, The Ventriloquist

Nov 2017 Ash Perri

Fritzi Melendez

Exhaustion, The Ventriloquist

I am tired with the feeling of being dismissed, criticized as to what I'm going to do next.
I am tired of forcing myself to choke back the tears, hide my barb-wired stained arms behind a long sleeve sweater.
I am tired of fidgeting to keep my sleeves past mid fingers, because my knuckles are swollen and bruised green and purple from yesterday's misdemeanor.
I am tired of insomnia always wanting to be held by me, being woken every 2 hours as if I was tending to a crying baby.
I am tired of running around and around my brain, always overthinking until I go past insane.
I am tired of how my energy stops out of the blue, leaving me nothing but to stare into the wall dazed and confused.
I am tired of making people run away from my presence, love and hurt and leave me until I'm left too sick to keep myself barely on balance.
I am tired of walking with wobbly and scraped knees, my palms are bleeding with skin peeling off, barely able to write more sad poetry.
I am tired of being hurt by everything and everyone, they say my heart is a blessing, but it has cursed my life since the day I was born.
I am tired of the cruel criticism towards me, years upon years of insecure comments that developed into PTSD.
I am tired of having to rely on someone else's heart just to make myself feel worthy and complete, I can't help sharing my entire heart just to get it back again obsolete.
I am tired of the sickness that tells me good morning each day, opening my mouth to cleanse my body of the food from yesterday.
I am tired of looking at my skin in the mirror, as my rib cage becomes more visually clearer.
I am tired of breathing in the oxygen plagued with depression, opening my eyes to a vast blur in my vision.
I am tired of smelling the fear raid out of my body, their eyes watch as I shake and choke on my spit as I drown in the sweat caused by my anxiety.
I am tired of feeling incomplete, my hollow heart filled with thoughts of the night my soul fell to my feet.
I am tired of crying on the bathroom floor alone, shaking with ***** dripping from my mouth whilst trying to type for help on my phone.
I am tired of wanting to be loved and adored, knowing full well they'll leave me when they get bored.
I am tired of scrolling through my phone to fill the space of pleasure, because his name is screamed to me until not my legs, but my brain makes me shake as if I was having a seizure.
I am tired of being vocal about my mental illness, if it only brings me back into a bigger mess.
I am tired of ruining everything I touch, shattering like a fallen sculpture, not being able to fix it much.
I am tired of thinking until I get ******, screaming with every punch on the wall because I'm alone and won't be missed.
I am tired of dreaming what could have been between him and I, instead I begin to think of different ways to die.
I am tired of seeing my window sill every morning, thinking about how I can just jump from it so I can avoid today's daily dooming.
I am tired of talking without words to speak, instead they're drowned out by wails until everything turns bleak.
I am tired of being told I'm going to be a failure, only because my suicidal thoughts have made me unsure.
I am tired of the pressure for me to do better in school, knowing they are just going to insult me for being an emotionally unstable fool.
I am tired of the tears kissing my cheeks goodnight, only to knock me out with the help of the looming monster that is impossible for me to fight.
I am tired of feeling and being weak and fragile, telling myself I'm strong are only words filled with false hope dripping with vile.
I am tired of the days I feel happy and alive, whilst also telling myself this is temporary and will soon deprive.
I am tired of my mouth being sewn shut as to not mutter a single word, trailed off when it finally unravels to people who refuse to have me heard.
I am tired of the numbness in my body after I break down, realizing the man-made tornado had once again ripped into my lonesome town.
I am tired of being alone and having no friends, because I'm still trying to heal from the knife twisted deep into my spine from the last person that wanted my life to end.
I am tired of keeping myself in captivity, when I know that I can free myself to feel amenity.
I am tired of the bipolarity in my decisions, always asking to be left alone but cry when I'm not given attention.
I am tired of being the family burden, an annoyance who can never do right with flaws that can not be undone.
I am tired of getting tangled into the constant mess I put myself in, they say I keep doing this to myself as I place my problems on my head with a pin.
I am tired of being ******* to the strings, in which exhaustion plays and moves me like a puppet's unescapable fling.
I am tired of being tired all the time, it's becoming so hard to find words that rhyme.
I am tired, I am just so
Tired.

Lately has been nothing but terrible outcomes and I feel worn out and exhausted. I don't know how much longer I can keep these shallow breaths going.

#exhaustion #depression #anxiety #ptsd #suicide #anorexia #tragedy #sick #tired #help

Nov 2017 Ash Perri

only this and nothing more

Nov 2017 Ash Perri

El

only this and nothing more

i'm surrounded by air but i still can't breathe
i'm laughing but all i hear is its faint echo
i'm with people but i've never felt so alone
i'm holding a smile but i've already stopped smiling long ago

a choked sob threatens to escape me
but i hold it down; i swallow it whole
only this good side of me should they see
this good side of me that's slowly slipping from my grasp –
this side of me that's nothing but a trap.

Oct 2017 Ash Perri

You're poetry.

Oct 2017 Ash Perri

TheLeaflessTree

You're poetry.

Your whole being is poetry,
from the way you talk,
the way you walk,
the way your lips,
form wrinkles,
each time you smile,
from your deafening silence,
to your soft voice,
poetry,
when you put your arms around me,
bringing me warmth,
against my cold, melancholic body,
when you hold my hand,
making me feel less lonesome,
making the moment grand,
you're poetry,
complex yet subtle,
defined yet undefined,
and I'm just a hopeless poet,
hopelessly trying to decipher,
hopelessly trying to write,
the ambiguous,
you.

uhhmmm hi! I'm new to this community and I would very much appreciate your criticism on my writing.