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 Apr 2022
Amanda Kay Burke
Insomnia strikes some nights

Tangible darkness standing tall
Proud like a protective friend watching over me as I lie in bed awake

Let me take trip to someplace sunny or warm
Any adjective that doesn't describe my room

Paint you on ceiling in vivid colors

Scribble your name over the walls in blood

In naked essence you are this-pervasive

Bend so you resemble something easier on my battered heart to feel

Knows you
Doesn't know who you are

Other nights I am not an insomniac
The darkness tucks in my sleeping form like a parent lovingly telling their child a bedtime story

My muse visits dreams and won't let me forget for even one second

Bewildered like arrows flying backwards from the target

And white birds sing melody similar to ours and it intensifies my agony

Surreal as falling snow in sizzling July

Tongues no longer twisted like tree roots

Moist darkness kisses goodnight like you once did
Not nearly as sweet

I yearn for it to be you instead
 Feb 2022
Tom Turner
When we are in pain,
why do we remain
in the very place
causing the pain?

We are like vultures,
able to fly away
but choosing to stay
and watch the carrion decay.
 Dec 2021
Amanda Kay Burke
Loneliness steadily chisels away my soul
Colder each moonlit night
Where heart was located is now just a hole
Empty bed without love will never feel right
But where has it moved to?
 Dec 2021
Ziv
When my rib cage splits open
and displays the rotting creature inside
will you still love me?

When my bones are replaced with
flowering hemlock and nightshade
and my blood turns to muck,
Will you still love me?

When my skin becomes ash, my hair
turns to vines and my feet grow roots,
Will you still love me?

When nature prevails
and I am no longer me,
I must ask this of you:
Will you still love me?
 Nov 2021
Amanda Kay Burke
I'm not pretty but that is what they say
Do not believe yet still I reply "okay"
I have cuts across my heart
Sorrow portrayed as a work of art
I'm always sleeping in late
Life lived in a foggy state
Dark circles rest on face
I've had plenty hours
In dreamland dancing barefoot picking flowers
Permanently bitter due to much neglect
Too far gone for innocence to ever ressurect
I'm too cynical to let anyone near
Not warm enough so people disappear
And I cannot fathom why anyone would stay
It's no surprise when good things slip away
I fake laughter to disuassade any concern
Joy is a blessing for which I desperately yearn
But in conversation I act like I am fine
Do very best not to reveal a single sign
I wear dark eyeliner to match my point of view  
Even black isn't quite enough to mimic the hue
Because insecurities constantly bring me down
Erasing smile then replacing with frown
I self isolate
I know deep inside
Loved ones would be better off if I died
Why are my demons so persistent?
 Nov 2021
Cydney Something
All I know
Is how
I feel

And sometimes I
Wish I
Knew nothing
 Oct 2021
Poetria
hearts are pounding on my window
i sit in my skull, miserable smoke
there is no real thunder anymore
just my machinations, crippling the doors

i have choked on this poem too many times
i have loathed it each night since the sting of July
i am leaping through time to find someone to love
without stabbing my way through their skin to feel something

would you wait a few years for somebody so stuck?
would you sit with the shell of a girl you once loved?
i pay in patience for this world, a cost that always comes
i can't disinfect these splinters without smothering the Sun

a dull fog, a dark cloud, an omen that grows
the more that it swells, the less i seem to know
i miss my own love with an ache i can't date
i miss the story of the girl that i could have been
i sat down to write because i felt the need to. i didn't expect to realise that i am so scared to be close to anyone, to love anyone in any form as truly as i know i can because i have never recieved in my relationships the love i give back to myself so freely, every forgiveness, every kindness. i also realised i cannot love anyone truly until i learn to love myself better. but i am so lonely. i am isolating from everybody i know with a dull awareness about it all. i can feel my friemdships slipping between my fingers. i am watching, letting it happen, pushing for it a little because only i know how to hurt myself best. why am i doing it? a thousand reasons and not one i can name. bottling and not sorting and living here in this house hoping to write something that strays from the topic of me, and my hurt, and those who hurt me, and the hurt in the world, and the hurt and the hurt and the hurt. i want to write a poem so rich in flavour but i write a variation of the same thing every time. i think i want to disconnect from feeling like this but i am so scared of becoming the people i live with. i think i don't know what i want. this poem is nothing special but i'm surprised to find myself liking it.
we here hope things there

are more settled than yesterday

yesterday in trying to say the right things

whilst also saying things

wished

possibly uttered the wrong things

wishing you well while realising that it is not at all well
 Sep 2021
Amanda Kay Burke
A sky of blue above
Miles of dirt below
A world of everything between
Beyond that?
I don't know

One foot in front of the other
I stumble through existence
When I began I never imagined
I would travel such a distance

Caring too much about the wrong things
Not enough about what I should
Mixed up from every angle
Feel bad but am told I'm good

Friends fade further from me
As the years steal memories
Moments indistinct and grey
Wishing I could make time freeze

Take me back to certainty
Before life got so off track
When the world was full of color
Instead of shades of black

Now depression is my ball and chain
Following wherever I go
Heavy and awkward to carry
Have no choice but move slow

It is easier to just stand still
Than to pull with all my might
So everything changes around me
While I waste away night after night

I see smiles on faces all around
But when I paint one to match
It just doesn't look the same
And it wills me to detach

Hope used to sit in the palm of my hand
Now I grab and it's not there
In it's place is a sticky substance
I've come to learn is despair

Fall apart over and over
Every time I manage to sew my seams
Doesn't take long for a stitch to break
And out pours joy in little streams

Until I am left deflated and empty
Wondering where I went wrong
I could conquer my misery
But I've found I'm not that strong

Wading through a sea of distress
Shore further with each crashing wave
So I carry on way over my head
Too deep for anyone else to save
I'm a good swimmer but my arms are getting tired
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