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janelle Dec 2018
.            
             "you're killing me
               in that dress."

                                                        ­            
                                                    ­                            "then, die."
<3
janelle May 2017
<3
this is my heart in all its raw glory
dipped in red hues; binded by blues
wires attached, pulsing electricity
throughout my entirety

teach your eyes to tell me a story,
wear rose-tinted lenses,
and see the world in pink and pretty
unravel sunsets by the beaches we have never been to
as my fingers nearly but never will touch you

my colors are namely grey, blue and sad
if it was my fault, then i'm sorry, my bad
stalactites drip from my faulty faucets
for my heart is a mess,
but it's all yours if you take it
wrote this during the peak of poetic inspiration (aka in the middle of the night)

p.s. i can't really think of a proper title
janelle May 2017
this is a love poem,
but i won't be gushing
about your enticing eyes
and perfect hair,
and to be fair,
i frankly won't care
if you lose them
because you are
so much more than
the strings on your scalp
and the stars in your sockets,
for your heart alone
punctured holes in my soul
and the way our fingers entwine
ties these bows
through the holes
in my soul
to keep me whole
and alive
= sorry, idk when to hit the enter key =
dedicated to him
janelle Oct 2017
I love your stories,
your bright eyes and lucid dreaming;
your realism, despite believing in more days on your fingers
or a memory that lingers
without having to remember how warm your hands were
before they grew foreign and cold

Every day I watched the sun peak and cower behind concrete jungles,
I have witnessed every color that the sky could offer,
but it grew duller and duller,
and for a moment, my eyes were not any different
compared to the weeping clouds above me

So who was it to blame?
For me to see you die every day;
for you to suffer like a sinner
when you have done anything but
because you are the prettiest flower
pure and iridescent
from past until present
and maybe that’s why you were picked first
i love you, mom. i miss you every day.
janelle Nov 2018
i look at the stars
like i'm connecting them
into constellations
to make you a map
in case you got lost

they'd trace over horizons
like faint strobe lights
hovering over rooftops and lamp posts;
treetops and seacoasts,
until they get close
to you
and guide you back home
to me
janelle Oct 2017
This is my story. These are the memories that remain etched in my brain, and made my pen struggle to keep up with what is left in my heart. This is me with my pride down to the soles of my feet, and my tough skin peeled off layer by layer until I am nothing but honest. I am unveiling myself raw and vulnerable like the scars I was left with, and the wounds I am enduring because I have chosen not to plaster an old band aid on something so hard to heal. This was me at my worst.

It began last 2014, while I was in the middle of my usual academic chaos, home responsibilities, and other stressful things. That one day felt like the beginning of the end for me. It became the prologue of a novel that had me hooked ever since my eyes first laid on the first word. Cancer.

Saying the word felt like tasting something so bitter; something like poison. The aftertaste resided in my tongue no matter how I much I try to smile. I always knew what it was but never how it felt like. It had always been that dramatic plot twist in books or movies that I never gave too much thought of, or that incurable disease that a lot of people die from. Was it wrong of me not to expect that she was next in line?

Chapter 2015, she asked me if she had gotten thinner. It was weeks after her chemotherapy.  

I answered with, “No, you look okay.”

She did not like it when I lie, and I knew that she knew I did.

I could only imagine how hard it must have been, to be stripped off of something that made her used to feel more like woman rather than someone dying. She could have cried. She could have told me how painful it was for her. But she didn’t. Even though she saw me through my lies, she just smiled and asked me how I was in school.

Chapter 2016, she asked me if I was sad to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve alone. Again.

I answered with, “No, it’s okay,” as the sound of fireworks crackling and my dog barking emerged in the background.

She did not want to show her face during our calls anymore. It was only her voice that accompanied me while I was in denial of my lonely disposition. It was her same voice that quivered through my phone’s receiver and told me that Death had found solace in her bones and started to **** them slowly part by part. But despite how utterly impossible it was at that time, she assured me that she would come home soon.

Chapter 2017, I told her to get well soon when she told me she had a fever for a few days from then.

She answered with, “Thank you, I’ll be okay.”

And as if it weren’t enough, Death also decided to clamber inside her brain.

It was then decided that she’ll be flying back here in the Philippines. If life was easier, I would have seen her at home when I just arrived from school. But it wasn’t, so I had to skip school and meet her at the hospital.

I stayed with her as much as I could. I tried to make things easier for her so she could recover faster. She often stressed about the smallest things because she wanted everything to go perfectly. I often told her to tell me or my dad if she was uncomfortable or in pain because I wanted her to feel okay. I wanted her to be the real okay, and not the ones we used to lie about.

On the first day of October, I knew that the One up there heard me because now, she is okay. It was not what I meant at first, but I’m okay with it.

That was not and will not be the end of my story. That was not me trying to ask for sympathy or attention. That was me sending a message out to all of you, to hold on to whatever and whoever you have with you right now. If you’re not in good terms, settle it. If you’re holding back something you’ve always wanted to say, say it. And if ever things don’t work out like they planned, I want you to know that it will not be the ending of your story if you don’t let it be.

That was me at my worst. But I’m thankful for it, because it made me become the best I could be today and hopefully for more days to come.  I know I will have more of these dramatic plot twists in the upcoming chapters, but once I get through all of them just like I did the first time, I know that she’ll be proud, like she always has been of me.
I was supposed to originally deliver this in front of the class at school. I figured it was too long so I had to revise it. I felt so proud of writing this and I didn't want it to go to waste, that's why I've posted the original one here :)
janelle Sep 2017
b l i n k,
b l i n k,
b l i n k,

watch the waves and the shore
reunite like star-crossed lovers;
them and their interlocking fingers
before the ocean and the others could keep them apart

t h i n k,
t h i n k,
t h i n k,

of the times you yearned to be free
and embraced by the ripples you hear in your sleep;
where the sun didn’t scorch your skin as much as it should be
because it was nice for once;
because everything felt 'nice' for once
and then you would start asking for more
more of the sun,
more of the ocean;
more of the 'nice'
but what is nice may not be nice at all
your utmost peak may become your greatest downfall
but let me tell you that
you may have more of the sun;
you may have more than you think,
and you may have more of the sea
but don’t you ever

s i n k,
s i n k,
s i n k
janelle Jul 2018
plot twist:

the earth is flat
everything is in 2D
and so are the people
we're stripped down
into nothing
but points and lines
as the universe depicts
what we can be
but not who we are
it's been a while
janelle Aug 2018
hello!
i'm here
i'm still here
here?

hollow!
i feel
i can feel
i can't feel
empty

hallow!
i,
the average actress
the drama
the script
the standing ovation
the tears
the backstage,
am empty

...

hello!
janelle Jul 2017
•...•...•...•

i want to hold you,
although the roses are dead
and the love is too

•...•...•...•
janelle Oct 2017
Ignite, spark, ablaze
Ignite, spark, ablaze
Ignite, spark, ablaze
Ignite the glowing ember from the spaces between my ribcage,
Burn the butterflies and set me on fire
Spark the curiosity you kindled in my brain,
As it is encompassed by the thought train
Carrying a cargo of irrevocable desire  
Ablaze is my heart beating rhythmically,
Synchronously each time your name comes into mind
I have always been told not to play with fire
But I left that advice behind
When I learned that it shed light and a new beginning,
Opened the doors of opportunity;
Gave warmth and safety,
Maybe, it would be easy
If fire did not ***** the tips of your fingers when you come too close;
If fire did not leave marks on your skin,
But… my patience is wearing thin
And I don’t think I can stop you –
I don’t think I want you to
So I let you engulf me in your fire once more
Until I fade into the ashes you will always ignore
janelle Jun 2020
i expect nothing less
from the steadfast skyscrapers soaring to the heavens;
as they touch the first star they could reach
and reach for dreams they didn't know they even had

in their slumber,
i dwell on these hours and the colors
that paint the skyline before closing my eyes;
then i dream of a more colorful palette
that changes the view, wakes the unliving, and lightens the weight on my shoulders

i expect nothing more
from me
as the nearest star i could touch is my lightbulb,
and the dream i'm reaching for is a whole new canvas;
i'm still yet to figure out if i fit in the picture
wrote this a while ago while i was pondering on what i want in life and staring at the city skyline because it was so pretty that night
janelle May 2017
•...•...•...•

and when the sky bleeds
tears of liquid mercury,
your lips leather mine

•...•...•...•
janelle May 2017
walk with me to the ends of the earth;

cross the limitless boundaries of land and sea

and most likely, you'll get tired of walking

but hopefully, never tired of me.
more love sick poetry because i'm a sad human being sometimes
janelle May 2017
Dear Tsukoyomi
Shine brighter, never dimmer
My dearest moonlight
:: NOT written by me but by someone special to me ::
janelle Apr 2017
I'm never really good with words
No, I'm not talking about my vocabulary strength,      
nor my ability to string words into a clean knot of similes and oxymorons at a perfect length
where I appease the regulations of grammar,
and please the cynical brains of strangers,
I am talking about the sound trapped beneath the fat folds of my brain,
the trains of thinking, never-blinking, that keep my outcasted thoughts sane,
I am talking about the voice of a teen filled with angst and unfulfillment
hellfire livid, mistaken as tepid, burning inside the sanctuary's core that is my heart lacking of discernment

I'm never really good with words
No, I'm not talking about my skills at spelling,
nor my knowledge of historical people invested in writing
although I could say I, myself, would become history
just because I write in my own disposition and misery,
but what good would that be?
That my pen speaks louder than my voice,
and that a stick of ink triumphs over the blistering fire raging in my ventricles
Are you not entertained?
Seeing me crumble like lava rocks beneath your toes
and soon, I will be one with the ash that aimlessly goes around
and around and around you and the others that detest my will to speak
because apparently I’m a silent know-it-all, too fragile and meek
to survive in an obstacle course that is my existence  
Enlighten me,
you people who hold the needles and threads
How dare you ask for my preference of color
if my liberty to speak is dead?

I'm never really good with words,
so maybe it would be better not to say them at all
janelle Jun 2017
I live in a bleak block of butter,
And then I wonder suddenly of the splendor
d r a p e d  
in dehydrated dandelions
I call my home

As I saunter inside my sweetcorn shell,
I  s w o o n
over the scent of my dad’s cooking,
and over the symphony of laughter resonating
within these four walls
so I could call it home

I’m entrapped in its grasp
since it ensures my ‘safety’,
it’s a prison that entertains,
but never enlivens me
Filled but  e m p t y;
this is not my home
I wrote this while I was home alone because it feels foreign without anyone around.
janelle May 2017
you are paper,
let yourself be crumpled,
and then tell me stories
about your creases, your scars;
memories living in jars

tell me how it hurt
to be molded impetuously
because you still feel pain
when your wrinkles look like veins,
fragile streaks of vulnerability
flowing within you,
all over you,
and i will tell you
that i could not care less
if you are a mess of crooked roads;
if you are no longer like the others
devoid of folds
because these folds define you,
and the others do not crumple
in the same way as you do

you are paper,
skinned from nature
let yourself be written,
and then tell me stories
about yourself, your tales
without ever having to use a pen
i am aware that the title seems illogical but i thought it would be a good one to catch your eye and warm your heart.

— The End —