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Augustine Peters Jun 2016
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Just do what makes you happy my mom says to me
I reply: What makes me happy is other people being happy
She tells me this is no way to live
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Augustine Peters May 2016
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all of a sudden I can feel everything
and then
nothing
Augustine Peters Nov 2016
Sometimes I just lay in bed breathing
Just breathing
Hoping lightning will strike and the world will feel as pretty as it does in pictures
Bright
Frozen
Illuminated
And then it will set me on fire
I will burn brighter
Feel more
Feel something
Something besides yearning
Feel fulfilled
Feel filled
Feel more than nothing
And then the room will go dark
But I will still be
Lying here
Filled
With lightning
Augustine Peters Mar 2017
Well misery loves
Company and luckily
I am always free
Augustine Peters May 2017
Hard is a life you feel out of place in
You slide into the spaces but there are gaps along the edges

You almost fit
You've mastered the art of almost
You are the man behind the camera
Inspecting your life and trying to get the perfect shot
Commanding the things that don't fit against the backdrop of all your insecurities

Tilt
Lift
Squeeze
Freeze
/flash/
There, almost

Chin up
Back Straight
Smile
Freeze
/flash/
There, almost

Quiet down
Be careful
Not too fast
Freeze
/flash/
There, *almost
extension of an earlier work
Be
Augustine Peters May 2016
Be
I think I would not mind if I were not me
To be me is an awfully taxing thing to be
I live and I breathe
I hear and I see
I am grateful to live and breath
Hear and see
But I wouldn't mind all that much
If I could just be

Like the wind or a tree
Being just to be

Yes I think it would suit me
To just be
A tree does not concern itself in the matters of humans
Be
Augustine Peters Dec 2016
Be
I think I would not mind if I were not me
To be me is an awfully taxing thing to be
I live and I breathe
I hear and I see
I am grateful to live and breath
Hear and see
But I wouldn't mind all that much
If I could just be

Like the wind or a tree
Being just to be

Yes I think it would suit me
To just be
Augustine Peters May 2016
Father
You are not always right
Father
I don't always need you to be right
Augustine Peters May 2016
I am not good at big things
I do not sing like the birds outside my window
I do not paint like the spirit of Picasso is guiding my hand
I do not love like romance novels
I do not shine as the sun does
I am not as resident as the moon
Or as steadfast as an oak tree

I am good at small things
I am good at being alone
I am good at thinking and at wishing
I am good at smiling
I am good at making breakfast
and humming small tunes

I am glad not to be good at everything
I do not pretend like I can encompass
the qualities of the world around me
To have a piece of the immense world around me
Is a small enough wonder for me
It is okay not to be good at everything. Nobody calls the sun a failure for setting.
Augustine Peters Jun 2016
Every breath is ripped from my body
It burns like a dragons fire
My eyes stare forward
Fixed, unseeing
My flesh is no longer gives
It is steel wrought from the heat of my fury
Too much
Words float on the edges of my tortured mind
Red and sharp
Begging to be strung together
But through the ****** haze my mouth refuses to move
My lungs refuse to help the words along
I see nothing
I say nothing
But I feel everything
there is so much hate in this world and I am angry
I am so angry
I am so angry
I am so angry
I am so angry
Augustine Peters May 2016
What happened to you?
Why are you like this?
The answer is nothing
I was born
I was born curled in around myself
Donned in barbed wire and caution tape
A princess of precaution
No hurt caused my recoil
I must have sensed it from inside the womb
Known that I would never be safer than I was before I took my first breath
Always careful
Not too fast, not too hard
Not too loud, never too proud
No action, no damage
To open up is to allow hurt

I've heard that it's worth it
but there are so many sad songs that I'm not sure
Nobody can break your heart if you don't let them
I am trying to learn how to let myself be hurt
Augustine Peters Mar 2017
The barbed wire in my chest
Pokes and prods with each halting breath

Nothing is easy anymore
With it sitting there
Unwinding slowly

It rakes its claws against my insides
Around my bones
Into my lungs

Any sudden movement
Any risk
Any chance
Digs it only deeper

There is no room for error in this body of mine
I am a walking keep out fence
To me this is what anxiety feels like.
Not heavy like depression but cutting like wire.
Augustine Peters Mar 2017
The biggest tragedy in this life is when
extraordinary things become ordinary

Not because their sparkle dulls
or because they refuse to shine

But because we have taken
their beauty for granted

It is a little death to be sure
random thoughts
Augustine Peters May 2016
With a start I wake up in the middle of a conversation
I didn't know how to follow up this line, I think it speaks for itself
Augustine Peters May 2016
Oh
What would I do without Misery?
My sister at arms
What is a day
Not tinged with gray?

Who couldn't she ****** with her charms?

If shes always there
Happiness has no place

Get out!
She says with a frown on her face

Misery is a tragic beauty
Like a frown behind a smile

I invited her in
Told her to stay for awhile

If I wasn't sad who would I be?
Misery loves company

And I am always free
Augustine Peters Mar 2017
When you meet someone you know could swallow you whole
You have two options

One:
Jump into their mouths
Make their teeth your roof
and their tongue your bed
Hang on their every word
Roll with the waves of their words
Let their hot breath shape your being
Fall down their throat into their hot belly
You have no home but here
Outside is no place for you now


Two:
Run as far away as your can from the gaping cave
Plug your ears against the siren call of their voice
Do not let the inhale of their lungs pull you
Do not be small enough that they could fit you inside
Stand on your own
They are no place for you
you are your own
Augustine Peters May 2016
A dysfunctional family is not easy to break away from
You will love them as much as you hate them
The acid burning holes in your stomach will be soothed
By the smell of your fathers cooking
The bags under your eyes from being woke many a time by screaming
Will be covered by the makeup your mom buys for you

The hugs of your littlest brother will bind the pieces of your heart
that you swore had floated away in your bloodstream

You will catch yourself becoming them
Donning your battle armor
Hurling your fighting words into the fray

Don't
Take a step back
Remember love
Remember joy
Remember that this house is not to scale with the rest of the world
I give up believing that my family will ever stop
Augustine Peters May 2016
I just wish the world was softer
I am so overwhelmed by it all
I need muted tones
Feathery emotions
Fleeting fear
Wispy worries
Downy desire
It's all too much
Too loud
my anxiety agrees with me
Augustine Peters May 2016
Today was the first day
The first day that you weren’t first thing I thought about when I woke up
The sun rose and I didn't think about you
I stood on the linoleum floor of my kitchen
The sun shined through the little window in front of me
And I did not think about you
My eyes joined my mouth as they crinkled in a smile
And I did not think about you
I must have thought of five hundred things today
Before I thought about you
Even though I did not make it to five hundred and one  
I hope tomorrow
I can make it to five hundred and two
Before I think about you
Augustine Peters May 2016
We are all just collections of words that mean something else
And when he said I love you I tried to decipher each syllable
As it fell out of his mouth

Words have a nasty habit of trying to be something they're not

I always thought words were my thing until I met him
I used them as swords and flowers
As poison and decor
But with three he brought me to my knees

He was like one of those words that he come across
And you have no clue what it means
And when you look it up all you find is another word you do not know

And it made me wonder if my vocabulary just wasn't big enough to hold onto him
note to self: try not to read into everything
Augustine Peters May 2016
Hard is a life you feel out of place in
You slide into the spaces but there are gaps along the edges
The light of doubt and insecurity shines through
If not here then where?
I'm dramatic okay.

— The End —