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Brianna Duffin Mar 2019
All the songs always told me
When you know, you'll know
And I know
I know that I've Done this before
But I also know that it's never
Felt
This
Right
So come on little heart of mine
Let's give this
One
More
Try
Come on you beaten golden thing
Give it one more try.
This is the first part of a piece I recently wrote that a lot of people liked. If you liked this excerpt, please check out the full poem. The best place to view it is here:
https://medium.com/@briannarduffin/a-long-time-ago-5fe8b644f597
Brianna Duffin Mar 2019
Whatever you seem to think I have
Is what you seem to want from me
Seventeen is too young for life,
But real to you became real to me
You were only interested in love
When all I wanted was space.
I know you demanded I stop running.
It’s just that I wanted to run from you.
Diamonds sparkle for people like you
And still, I’d rather not hold the cold.
Brianna Duffin Jan 2019
You bring ineffable beauty
into a world that has never known it before

You bring infinite love
into a world whose hatred seeps through
every crack in the unending turmoil

You bring infatuating joy
into the life that needed hope’s sweet touch
to pry open the heart’s shuttered windows
and draw laughter’s tattoo over the scarring.

You bring inescapable light
into the world plunged into darkness
for when the sun jumps ship on us,
you are every other star still shining
like you see tomorrow dancing on the horizon.

And even if I’m sitting all alone in my bedroom
screaming at the voices in my own head- shush!
something about you means life’s worth living.
Brianna Duffin Jan 2019
I still search for you in the boys
I mistake for bandages,
The delicate deer I mistake for lions,
The ones with eyes almost the same shade of you,
With hair just like you lips resounding your laughter,
Resembling a wisp of your smile, but they aren't you.
I don’t think about them the way I think about you
And they don’t look at me the way you looked at me.
Look at me like a piece of dead meat for the chomping.
Sometimes I pretend you're dead,
Fantacise about all the deaths you could die
Because it's so much less painful
Than the alternative you left me with.
You left me to deal with all that’s happened.
My mom laid the blame at your feet
for everything that happened that awful year.
She was on the outside the whole time-
What a luxury, don’t you think?
A luxury like melancholy poetry.
Did you know I love Sylvia Plath?
Especially that really smart poem
Where she talks about expectations
And disappointments. Disappointing.
You'll never know that even now I think
Most of us are so selfish, we can’t help but
Always, eventually, go down Plath’s path.
Even you. Eventually you. Especially you.
Every version of you except the one I know.
I don't know if you still think of me
But, boy, I sure hope you do
Because God knows I remember you--
You’re insist on dominating everywhere I go
And you turn everything your shade of blue.
That blue haunts me in everything, everyone.
It's useless, no matter how much I try to forget.
No matter how much I just want to forget.
And the pieces of me so desperately want to forget you.
But how could I forget you?
When forgetting means forsaking
And I’m not sure it’ll be you that’s forsaken
Because erasing you might mean
Accidentally actually erasing me.
Because the worst part is I lost where we stop and end.
I was so afraid of you that I gave everything
Trying to make you happy, to satisfy that appetite for blood,
Hoping in response you wouldn’t hurt me so badly
But you burned the empty pieces of my soul
And you desecrated the ashes.
Did you forget me when the room went dark?
Because that’s when I think of you the most.
Because when I go blind is when I see it all
When I can’t see a thing through my tears is when I hear you
I can see you sitting there while I bathe in my tears
Your Cheshire grin and sick laugh bordering my thoughts…  
While I grimaced and wondered if I had yet died
Your deadly force overpowered all of my NOs like a joke,
Your army all prepped and primed and ready for the show
You made yourself the atom bomb, renamed me Hiroshima
So even now I'm up all night, licking wounds, crying myself to sleep
The will in my days no longer mine to have or to hold these nights-
I wake up in the middle of the night, you know,
Gasping for air and I can never seem to breathe.
The sound of your voice, the sound of your grunt,
The smell of your sweat, the smell of your hair,
The look in your eyes, the look of your mouth
They say time is this grand solution, but I haven’t been solved.
But this is not the way to heal, not the way to be whole,
Not the way to get revenge, not the way to get justice.  
Because something horrific happened and ignoring it can’t lessen the imprint
Because lo and behold, after all this, I’m still stuck here knowing how sickly
Your friends enjoyed the show, in fear. So stupid I can’t get it out of my head.
I wish I wasn’t, how you say, “just a stupid girl”,
Wish I wasn’t a ball your grins could toss back and forth
Until it comes time to- Stop, drop, and move on
I should have shut up, listened to the song of my dying heart
You all wanted to play and you all wanted to touch
But you don’t get to use me as stomping grounds
Even though you seemed to think NO wasn’t enough
Another moment closed are my sunken eyes
As the tears gracefully crawl down my face
My body is a deflated puddle of numbness
All it knows is the inkblot of mascara tears
On my skin- and surprise, what do you know-
It’s just enough to paint a dancing mask over
The scratch running dryly down my chest,
And- oh look- it complements the purple
Of the scattered map drawn through bruises
And to top it off, red paint decorates the scene
With a knot full of knots, I fantasize about
Swallowing just enough pills
To make my pain as numb as my (everything else).
I lost my mind as I lost that war over and over
You desecrated and disintegrated the fibers of my soul
Over and over as you forced your poisons deeper inside
The world slowly went dark from the fighting and pain
And still, I scream like the wind and cry like the rain.
Brianna Duffin Apr 2018
Her lips were petals of flame against the icy fingers of her lost love.
She left a soft and sweet pinkness on her flesh
Charlotte knelt down by Lana’s casket and talked to God
Please. Please. Please. I won’t ask for a happy wife, happy life
But I really need you to bring her back to me.
Lana’s eyes remained closed. Her fingers were icicles of elegance.
Charlotte didn’t think she could climb to her feet. So she cried.
0 for 2 in terms of dry eyes in the room, Charlotte thought.
The candles all around continued to shimmer. They began to flicker
And then all the flames in the room were gone.
-----------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------
Oh sweet precious flower
Whose final petal has fallen after nine decades in bloom
You’ve brought the crushed pieces of my heart down
Oh sweet precious flower
Whose withered stem returns to the earth this grey day
It is cruelty for you to leave my side now
If I shall live and you shall not
Oh my sweetest flower in the vines
Let me hold your scent, mirror your beauty,
And always remember the depth of your faith and your grace.
Oh sweet precious flower
My grandmother so dear
Whose matriarchal beauty inspired me so
And who gave so much with every breath
You shall be missed as you were loved
And honored as you were obeyed.
Brianna Duffin Mar 2018
I can’t imagine all the beautiful places you’ll be someday
But I see that the world will take you from me, sweep you far away
I know it’ll be awhile before both my pillowcases are dry
But they’re still here if you ever want to give them another goodbye
I smile to hide the truth that I want to run to you
But I’m not happy at all, another thing you can see through
I know all about that talent and the charm you use
I should’ve known it was foolish to become your muse
Only issue is I look back on the days when the sun shone and we both would sing
And I glow in sweet memories, shining so bright I know I wouldn't change a thing
Don’t bother looking back, cause you already know what you’ll find
You know I’ll be pretending you’re not the only thing on my mind
It was always you
It was always us
Brianna Duffin Mar 2018
Where there is hope
There is some faith
And with just a little faith
There lies possibility-
For huge miracles,
For great achievements
For a brand new sense of home.
At least that’s what Mom told me.
She said, look in the mirror
And if you see something,
You’ve got hope.
Only problem is I hate mirrors
They always seem to show me scars,
Even the ones below my skin.
I’ve never felt faith, never seen hope
It just doesn’t work like that, I think.
Mom always said all we need is love
And I’ve got love in my heart,
But not the beauty she promised it brings
I can’t stand mirrors- so full of scars
The one thing I can’t hide my scars from-
Mirrors.
They glitter in sunlight,
But then they go face to face, toe to toe
With a real person.
No, no, no.
It’s so different,
They’re cold and mean, always hurting
And watering. Always somehow ugly.
Mom said if you look in the mirror
And see something you’ve got hope.
Maybe she meant if you have hope
Despite what you see in the mirror,
You know you’re really strong.
Mirrors. I hate them and all their scars.
Full poem can be read here:
https://medium.com/@briannarduffin/mirror-me-7f2397234d4
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