Bailey: Favorites

Jun 2016 Bailey

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Every time
I feel my veins begin to rush
And the slow throb of pain begin to pulse

I will stop,
And I will stay the flow

Until I have means
To channel it
Through paper and ink.

1

#loss #lovepoems #157

Jun 2016 Bailey

Gray

Jun 2016 Bailey

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Gray

Wow.

I have found out
That someone brutalized you
And as much as it pains
And confuses me to say -

That terrifies me.

2.

#loss #lovepoems #157

Jun 2016 Bailey

Who I Meet

Jun 2016 Bailey

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Who I Meet

I will write a sonnet
For every lover
Who has entered

(Or thought to enter)

My womb

And I will clad them
In the scent of destiny
As I forge their names immortal
Upon the sand.

I've been watching a lot of Spartacus lately

This is number 3.

#loss #lovepoems #157

Jun 2016 Bailey

Untitled

Jun 2016 Bailey

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Untitled

Waking up and remembering
That your life is not sleep,
And your dreams
Are in fact reality -

[Things are this bad,
You are not better]

These thoughts are the sharpest,
Barely worth living for

Number 4.

#loss #lovepoems #157

Jun 2016 Bailey

A Note to the Reader

Jun 2016 Bailey

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A Note to the Reader

Hello,

Lately my poetry has been shifting and taking new shapes. Instead of my typical, drawn-out style of editing and composing, I'm now limiting myself to the following rules:

1. Only write when you need to, and write as soon as you need to
2. Edit minimally - only three revisions per poem
3. Feel a lot.

Additionally, I've embarked on a journey to cope with loss, writing a total of 157 love poems (or rather, emotionally charged poems). The goal is that the final poem's completion will also bring the advent of my catharsis.

It's my hope that these vignettes will provide you an authentic and rough window into my own urban and dazzlingly hellish experiences.

All the best,
Sam

#process #notes #musings #notetothereader

Jun 2016 Bailey

Some Things You Need To Know Before Dating Me

Jun 2016 Bailey

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Some Things You Need To Know Before Dating Me

Hello, I'm

Very pleased to meet you, it's just
you can't see it underneath my chronic "resting ***** face."

I've actually been told that it's more of a chronic "sad and brooding" face, but, I'll take what I can get.

Some things you need to know before dating me are

I do like long walks to the bottom of the ocean,
and I spent most of my childhood under bridges. I know what it's like to walk with two left feet - or no feet at all, so to speak.

I smoke cigarettes when I'm sad because I like the feel and when I was a teenager, I wanted nothing more than to be Morrissey when I grew up.

Plot twist:
I grew up, and I'm still not Morrissey.

But I can write you a mean love poem, and I'll do it on many occasions, even if I'm just meeting you. There won't be a second when I'm not falling in love with something, and, to be honest, I don't know how to live with (or without) that feeling.

I guess I'll just fall in love with trees, then
or something inanimate
to break my fall.

But in the meantime, some things you need to know before dating me are

That there are often days where I can't even stand to face the wind that greets me
and I flinch at every turn when I hear noise.
I'm more timid than I look and yet
I find comfort
in dark things, a fake sense of the macabre
and a firm grasp of words, see

I could make anyone want to want me
I just don't care to
because people are ******* terrifying.

And, in the end
when my star burns out,
all that is left in the center
will be old words
and photographs.

Number 5 - a spoken word piece. Inspired by Jamie Mortara's piece by the same name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BaO3iU2ICA

#loss #lovepoems #157 #number5

Jun 2016 Bailey

"My Memoir"

Jun 2016 Bailey

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"My Memoir"

You kept asking me
about my memoir, as if
you'd be there
to see it's completion.

Now,
you will fill its pages
if only in vague form,
for months to come.

You, the observer
have become the subject
of this torment.

Number 6.

#loss #lovepoems #157

Jun 2016 Bailey

Vignette

Jun 2016 Bailey

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Vignette

"You know,"
he says
as he fiddles with his Joy Division shirt,

"The human race
has escaped the food chain
and that is why
we are ruining the earth"

This actually was said to me today by a stranger in my home and I found it very profound

#earth #savetheplanet #ecopoetry #ecopoems

Jun 2016 Bailey

Dysphoria

Jun 2016 Bailey

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Dysphoria

How I wish that I was small like you, that
my chest had less room
to expand when broken

and my mind less chatter
for me to pay heed to

Number 7

#loss #lovepoems #157

Jun 2016 Bailey

I'm Sorry

Jun 2016 Bailey

Star Gazer

I'm Sorry

I stay up at night, late into the AMs riddled with guilt
Over how I grew too fond of one petal plucked flower
Watched it slowly rotted,decaying praying not to wilt
As I admired what once were stems in a indelible vase.

I hear of the ambience, lit up in a different hazy smoke,
Forced to let what I feel cascade into obvious oblivion,
Keeping clear calmness behind a messed mask that chokes
As the days drew long and the nights drew even longer.

Sunrise doesn't rise soon enough, and sunset sets too soon,
For fiery shadows built a furnace from my cold walls,
And before I could awake to the moon, I awoke to noon,
As you held every bit of a different burning candle light.

I'm sorry that I paved the pebbled pathway that you walked,
If I could reverse the sands, unsift across my hands,
Or captured every droplet of grain, wishing it wasn't caulked,
But I made the road that you tread on with you feet.

I'm sorry that every step you took only led you further,
And though I know you didn't want to be near after time taken,
I had hoped I could watch you stay afloat on a life preserver,
Rather than watch you drown, taking nothing but yourself.

I'm sorry that the days drawn out a different tale,
If I could bend time and stick it back together,
Just to make things better and watch as things unflail,
I'll always know I tried my best to give you my shoulders.

I set fire to your life, watched the smouldering ashes cast away into the air,
And for that I am sorry.