Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
If you were me, and I was you
Wouldn't we be right here
I can’t quite seem to catch my breath,
You wouldn't leave me this way right?

If you were me, and I was you
I can’t see what you’re so afraid of in that mirror
You wouldn't believe what I heard today
So I ask you please

If you were me, and I was you
Wouldn't we see so clear,
All that we fear, and brings us to tears
Like growing old without a soul to share

If you were me, and I was you
I’d bring you right down, back from the clouds
That swept you away from my embrace
And back to my arms, I hope you would stay

If you were me, and I was you
At least I'd be the one to leave
And head right down to what I deserve
So you could be free to love yourself
More than you showed in that awful last step.
I'm under the impression
I'm under the impression
That everything is in suspension
I'm sliding on home trying to avoid the issue
I think I'm going crazy, I know I'm going crazy
hearing all your opinions,
I wasn't really happy
I wasn't really happy
You'll win the battle, but you lose us the war
I'm under the impression
I'm under the impression
that this subtle depression will subside in the morning
I wasn't really happy?
dealing with losing someone you love is a horrifyingly miserable experience that no advice can help as much as a hug.

(I wrote this when I was probably 14 or 15, and I've only made a slight edit in the poem to adjust its meaning to more appropriately fit my morals, that being of which I believe that affection is a choice, love is a force you can not ever control. You either do or you never did/haven't yet loved the individual, there is no in-between, love can not be lost just neglected and abandoned.)
The sound from your lips,
Their not so innocent,
They crave to be kissed.
I bet you won’t miss me much.

You spin on a dime,
Not taking your time,
To let it sink in, to let it set in,
The medicine the medicine,
O what a sin.

And from such a distance, you seem so sad,
So why are you mad?

You shouldn't mingle when your not single.

Didn't you learn from your dad?
Did you think I deserved the things I shouldn't have heard?

The sound from your lips,
Their not so innocent,
They crave to be kissed.
I bet you won’t miss me much...
While I promptly refuse to allow a poor situation to destroy my commitment or image of an individual, once somethings become a habit I can understand why and how someone can want to turn their back on theirs.
  Mar 2015 David T Carratola
Ivy Swolf
When
my body starts to
shake, I imagine the
worst thing that could
happen. There's a riot
in my heart, ambulances
speeding along the
veins in my wrists.

My blood can paint
firetrucks that
hose down the cities
and bridges I've burned.
My lungs: a house on
fire, smoke floating out
of mouths and charred
skin pealing away
like dandelion seeds
on a summer day.

This is chaos and I could
find beauty in it. I could paint
a picture for each of my nightmares
that I dream in color. I could call
empty streets Home
and I could pretend that thunderstorms
are really angels crying for me
and that the mud I roll myself in
is their wet mascara.

But sometimes its easier
to be compassionless
to myself, and sometimes
I feel better after imagining the
worst, because I'm not there yet.
just something that came to me..
-ivy
Its been a good day I'd say

But that notion of motion in the back of my head

Keeps tracking the hours as they fall like towers

Around my head, and in my bed there's no sleep

As the sweeping hands of the grandfather clock

All but weep for me.
The Rotation:

I’m hardly awake in these passing scenes. Each breath I take seems a moment too late to catch my rest, and as I debate what really relates to these hidden dreams behind the sky and what’s within my own eyes. There’s not too much to say as I spiral from the clouds straight to the sound of rushing water and fluid memories they don’t quite flow as softly as they should. And I’m hardly awake in these glazed over days but their value still remains and all I can hope to make is a smile on the clock that just keeps ticking away as I gravitate towards the moon but soon That won’t be too far away and I can barely see my life from here and I’m sure it’s what it appears to be but so suddenly my mind drops and climbs these endless mountains chasing the wind head on, Two steps forward four steps backwards but either way I’ll arrive to the other side of this great circle. And what should the path matter to the destination and why should the visit be all that remains.

Is it so strange to speak so softly to a lion or roar so loud to another, whom other then you've loved? But that’s what I witness and that’s what I hate, but I’m hardly awake to change a fate that drips on down from the rooftops filthy and diseased, as far as some perceive it. Encouragement no longer creates the convinced, but furthers the doubt and in-circles the back of my eye lids as every narrow hallway fails to take us to broader horizons. And what should the path matter to the destination and why should the visit be all that we remember.

I’m at the point where I should have something to say or show for it, but I do believe I’m entirely over it. Left as empty as I began and it’s getting hard to stand. But the depths have not quite got their man, as I’d like to think I’m hatching a plan from these run down streets to the corner of the ring I continually find myself in. So let’s begin another round around this town I’ll take you to it, a place where I once could sleep. But that’s been long since buried in the rubble floating through these skies slowly homing in on me a little weaker then gravity.

As if only to delay and antagonize me further. These rumbles keep finding new fights. And I feel no shame because there isn't much blame for me to claim, but what if I could have. I often stray and stay hidden away within myself and when asked about it all I just can’t seem to stop the fall of these footsteps when they slowly lead away and its not to long after I find beauty in this exotic normality plainly seen but entirely hidden sifting through this trouble floating through my memories slowly homing in on me a little weaker then gravity.

A Wandering Eye:

And I've lied to you, I do believe in love, it’s just never enough.
These hands I swear have worked to long and not to hard. But the earth beneath my feet moves to rapidly, and the scenery keeps my plans far from my own hands. And the distant lands I’d like to see seem to keep growing further away, but there’s no end to my resolve. And dignity no longer holds its own as what I see around me limits the prospect of my soul, as one spoiled drop contaminates the rest, and also the best.

These quiet streets, they whisper around me, about the winter nights I wander on by. I’m not searching for any signs, just wondering where my home has gone.
I won’t speak about love, nor does love speak of me. It’s not that I've given up, it’s only that I dream much more hopeful,
And I know there’s only a few more years left for all of this. Will she love me then? This city she’s leaving and I’m swept under the rug wondering where my family of friends may be. I play these perfect futures like feature films and guard them like a dragon its treasure against these awful waves of grim but inevitably I fail, I can no longer hold onto these childish fantasies seeing the mold growing over them all. And it limits the prospect of my soul, as one soiled word contaminates the rest, and also the best.

The Devils soul is not deep enough to haunt these vivid dreams maybe he’ll find a way to force his own hand straight through my comfort zone. And pull me on back to these treacherous shoals were I may run aground. But I’m not sounding any alarm at least these abandoned islands leave me free. I hear so often that a man who views the world the same in his youth as he does in his commanding age has wasted all his time. But should you not yearn to be correct from the beginning? Are we all simply due to inevitable and wasteful change of thought. Are my actions yesterday of less value to my mind of tomorrow? What about the stars I used to gaze so deeply into will I only see them through a haze of emptied and defeated dreams? These roller coaster rhymes don’t consistently connect, and I’m wondering where the actuality of reality comes into play. When all I realize is that I feel so young although I am old in heart.

And I don’t mind the rain it helps wash away the stains I've left around myself. But when you’re fooling everyone to be a simple man it’s hard to care for the land that keeps you standing. And I still only dream of escape from the future I’m building, this island paradise to most now becomes my prison, and the gate keeper has long since passed without relieving his keys. But every time I punch these concrete walls my blood soaks through their roots and seems to weaken them for a moment, but I’m to bruised to try again, I’d prefer to sit and pretend I’m starving, watching what I could or couldn't have slowly become harder to grasp. Like the spoon they now force feed me with. I’m a man but feel no stronger than a language-less child. Unable to properly voice my will. And though I seem so young I am old in soul.

Anxiety always seems like a new experience never the same as it was. My body trembles at the quakes of its most powerful moments, and the increasing variety of my own created stress presses heavily down around me as if I’m sinking in the darkest depths, but I only feel my heart crushing and my lungs panicking, desperate and tear driven to find an end, where my head can rest. I can no longer follow these maps around they seem so out of date and I’m so out of place, this concoction of emotions keeps changing and I can’t keep up with the ingredients. These small talks are drawn much further out to what I need them to be but only within my head, and whoever was lying beside it in my bed never got much through it. And I don’t feel there was much to it.

It seems inspiration escapes me, I used to believe there was a fine line between hatred and depression but I more often find they collide under the pressure of a day better to stay outside of my head. Waterfalls are seen as beautiful, awe inspiring, and powerful. But as I look at those rushing tears dashed against so many rocks, all I see is the loneliness of a river by name forced to a path it can only bend so far. And I forgot where I was going with all this, and I’m not sure that it matters since the words I spatter only travel so far when you’re across the world. And these thoughts are minimized to avoid regret. I often stumble into traffic unaware nor do I care that I’m only living in my head, and whoever was screaming through it, didn't stick to it, And I don’t feel they couldn't do it.

Simple is hard:

I always know when the hour passes but almost never when the moment will last. And running through this haze I seem to have lost my place in the race, but what were the stakes. I can’t break this pace as I’m marching steadily on trying to avoid these shakes from the earthquakes that tremble along with me. In my latest dream I sank my flesh into the fangs of a nightmare where I’m at that point when you can’t pay attention to a song anymore, you hear the theme and scream for the melody but it always ends so suddenly in a foggy daze and you can’t recall the names or why they ever mattered.

Everything is broken, there were so many other words here. But just like everything else they were shattered and lost, and left me tattered, torn, and here. Things that were supposed to rhythm and make sense of all this, things I know are there in my brain but I can no longer reach them, they are such a blur, an outline at best. This paragraph once mentioned the daze of a man approaching the plate of life without a single clue of what team he's on nor does the crowd recognize the numbers on his jersey. It related to the haziness mentioned before but no more, it is dead just like every single part of what I think is my soul that I've poured into this, although enough of its memory remains to tease me with encouragement to try again. I apologize that I have failed to bring my words to you in one piece, they are still so fragmented. I can't even form a rhythm, I used to at the drop of a dime, and that’s the best I can come up with.

I wanted to continue, I wanted this to never end, like the thoughts of love and truth that we all so desperately chase. But we know all too well that everything is circumstantial. And I suppose my never ending hunt for the truth is an uphill struggle against the landslide of change that in itself is the only guarantee of this limited thing called existence, a hegemonic existence at that.
This poem was originally going to be a life long poem where I added a few sentences every week, but as fate would have it. My computer crashed several times in  row and I lost a page or two and could only remember so much of it. So I wrote the last page in reflection of that event and decided that was a perfect fitting for the end of a self acclaimed master piece.
I hope you enjoyed it! I've never gotten the chance to perform this poem.
Grand father soon i hope to be half the man you were
Grand father please keep on watching over me

Stone cold bones and a beaten heart could never stop me
From teaching you the truth. Grand father said,

And Grand father soon,
I hope to understand how to be half the man you are.
Next page