Why is hellopoetry.com black and white? I've always wondered about this... why my colorful photographs are required to travel back in time. How does this effect the poetry in any way, shape, or form? But I understand the wisdom of this design now. And it sets a great metaphor for all of the people of the pen involved in this truly noble motion, this secret society for people with passion, talent, and troubled minds and souls. Hello Poetry is black and white not because it has to be monochromatic and modern, but because us poets fill these pages with enough inovativeness and color already with our words, ideas, thoughts, songs, senryus, ballads, heartbreaks, insecurities, that adding literal color to this website would be overwhelming. These soft undertones of gray, black, and white may be considered drab and depressing to some, but to us poets it represents timelessness. And this is probably why we are all here. Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly publishing poems. Because we all know we are not going to live forever, and we are so entirely insignificant in the broad scheme of things and of the universe itself, that it is a bit comforting and helpful to have this coping mechanism or soft blankie to calm our fears, that this literature we write, however insignificant it may be, is absolutley permanent. And that maybe someday it will be remembered so a small bit of us may live on. Tom Riddle knew the needs and wants of man kind before anybody else realized it. Maybe he was just trying to cope with the fact that he is insignificant. These poems are all our Horcruxes so *viveamus per camenam nostram.

I cry because happiness is a harder concept to grasp than sorrow.
Because sorrow greets me as an old friend.
Fondly reminding me of my mistakes,
my flaws, and my current inner desolation.
Reminding me of how I failed
and how I cannot fix my mistakes.
While we reminisce over a bottle of melancholia
and a plate of regret.
Leaving me with yet another notch on my belt
of nights I cried myself to sleep
People pass you by because
pretending everything is alright is more
convenient than noticing they are broken.
They are the people that hide their silent tears
at the back of a closet and bury broken smiles
into the corner of a sock drawer.
But soon …There won’t be enough room
for the hidden emotions that you think are irrelevant
and can be dealt with another day,
soon every emotion you hid will come out of the closet
and show its face in the most unpleasant way.
Tears. You can’t escape them.
I cry because she cries,
my best friend, drowning in her own sorrow,
I cannot help but drown with her.
For what is a friend if that friend will not jump
into the murky depth we call depression, sinking ever deeper?
At least we sink together.
Treading conformity, stress, humiliation,
we tread together.
As we sink deeper, we try to grasp
at the bubbles of happiness escaping our lips,
somehow bring them back.
We can’t, because once they’re lost no amount
of pretending can give us the air we sorely need
or the fake smiles to get by without question, day by day.
But at least, we drown together.
So many times I have looked out to a warm sunset
and felt chilled to the bone.
Because if I let go of the railing, life would go on.
Because if I did not exist right now nothing
in the world would change.
It would just erase any memory of all the ***** ups
I collected like stamps and baseball cards.
Because no amount of blankets and soothing words
can warm the icy thought in the back of my head
whispering in the persuasive voice of a friend, “What’s the point?”
I cry for the people who don’t think they matter,
who think that turning to something
to relieve their pain will fix it.
I cry for the people who think
killing themselves will make them feel alive.
For the people who get lost trying to find themselves.
For the people who put on a mask
desperately waiting for someone to see through it.
And for the people who cut themselves
trying to become whole.
Breaking themselves down bit by bit,
holding all the pieces,
and waiting for someone to put them back together.

I cry because this entire explanation is just eloquently realizing that

I am sad.

Trying on my sister’s makeup at six years old,
Seemed like the coolest thing,
Using all sorts of crayons for your eyes in different colors,
Like the ones included in my $1.75 coloring book,
I was trying to be beautiful,
But I knew I didn’t need it,
Using mascara on my hair,
Using extensions to make my hair longer,
Using blush as eye shadow,
Drawing on red cheeks with lipstick,
Taking her size B bra and stuffing it with toilet paper,
Trying on heels because I want to be taller,
Putting on a dress and finally be able to fill it out with my stuffed bra,
I thought I was beautiful,
Even though I probably looked like a carnival clown,
10 years later,
I know how to use makeup,
I use mascara on my eyelashes,
I use eyeliner for my eyes,
I use blush for my cheeks,
I use lipstick for my lips,
I have a double D bra and fill it without toilet paper,
I own heels but I can’t wear them because I am too tall,
I have hair to my waist,
I’m still trying to be beautiful,
But I now won’t show my face without makeup,
I wear a mask hoping someone will remove it,
To tell me I don’t need it,
But they don’t because I do,
Because in my eyes,
I still look like a carnival clown.

Your veins are the roads I will travel
As I unfold your body
And plot each point with a fingerprint
I try to leave the land
The way I found it
But a trip always changes the traveler
And I don't want to go home.

I wrote I love you in the sand at the beach
Tide swallowed the words and drowned them
But the waves were not the reason for impeding speech
My awkward asocial character is the one to condemn
  Now the words are gone like the tearstains on my sheets that I have just  bleached.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Tulips are yellow
Leaves are green
My body resembles
An expensive flower bouquet
Bruises swell
Blood collects
But my lips are sealed
Want it to end
At all costs
I'd have no regrets
A new flower is laid upon me
When I do or say something wrong
Too bad they’re
Are always so carefully placed
Almost as if to hide them
From everyone
Leaves, tulips, and violets
Are artfully arranged
On my legs, on my chest,
On my back, and on my neck
I'm wrong he's right
No use putting up a fight
I'm terrified that if I do try to fight once more
Real flowers will be laid on my grave instead of my skin
Where I will rest forevermore.

I am black lace kissed with stardust
You are brilliant, well loved, faded tie-dye
Leaving the smell of campfires, afternoon naps
fresh showers, and sleepy smiles in your wake  
Bonfire flames licking the space between our skin
Heart beat rhythms drive the music
To sway against our heartstrings
Connected.
Summer rain runs down us steaming
Feel your heat getting closer
warming my bones
melting my center
A shiver runs through me
So in tune, I pulse for you
Aching with the distance
That seems to always separate
Our good timing

I look into those night-black eyes
stark against your moon-washed skin,
and realize.

You’re no longer there anymore.
At least not the you I once knew.
You are a stranger in my arms.
There is a shift, so slight but I feel it.
Like a soft creak in the floorboard.
Echoing
in the night.

You use my heart like you used my body. Wringing me out like a rag,
getting every last drop of
love and self respect that you can from me.
You lap it up greedily,
Knowing I always give everything
Until there’s nothing left of me worth having.

But you want me,
or at least want to get the last word in
one more kiss
one more sigh arching into you
You drink me in
your ungrateful eyes
memorizing the lines of my body
deep in the night tonight. 

Like lovers entwined, I know for the last time you will not be mine,
so I give you the night
tonight.

Ran outside, no shoes
Hot tears, cold wind, breathe it in
Realizations

As he stands there
on the edge of surrender
you let the fire spread
let it consume the air between you
until there is nothing but heat
letting him smolder
letting him yearn
until he's nothing
but ash and embers at your feet

until there is nothing
but a man on fire
and a woman who knows exactly
how to make him burn

The sea is a man who takes without asking
bruising you endlessly, soft as undertow
His touch a quiet violence
Yet still people come, drawn to the light
the shimmer of morning sun on water
The glint of shells and sea glass bright
Seeing only the beauty, the grace
not what lurks beneath the surface
The sea knows how to hit
To drag you back and carve his name deep
A quiet ache left in the wake of water
Salt water slips into the cracks
Spreads like fingers on skin
Darkening every place it touches
he takes what he wants and leaves what he likes
her pain eroding into the shore
and while the tide still hurts
and the salt still bites
she can do nothing but
whisper defiance
into the night

He sits there
A fresh new canvas
Ready for memories to be painted on him
Wanting me to paint him
My hand shakes
Wanting the memories to be beautiful
I step forth
My paintbrush trembles with anticipation

You are never together, you are simply alone with somebody else.

He scattered the fragments of their life behind, enticing her to follow.
The constant gnawing emptiness always
left her feeling hollow.

She still strode behind, hand outstretched
her hunger growling for more.
Even though she eats what she’s given
it was rotten to the core.

That toxic heart and what little it gave
Made her mouth fill with bile but salivate.
A starving rat doesn’t want waste
but with time and starvation
it develops a taste.

Anything tastes good
if that’s all you’re ever given.
He pavloved her to accept this life,
her heart has been conditioned.

But the trail runs out
no more love left to leave,
what he had to give was always finite,
finally, reprieve.

You’re done starving,
habits can break  
sit down my love
I’ll make you a plate.
♥

I wanted to be    
      With him all the  
                      Time, wanted the            
         Taste of his lips
          On mine, his    
                   Roaming fingers
    On my
                   hungry skin.

His fire
                          to thaw  
                                    my
                                                ice.

You miss people
When they are gone
When they are so gone that
You can't believe it
After they've been away so long that the photographs that you
Have of them start
To feel intangible
When you start to
Think you made
Them up in your head that
They never laid in your bed...

you stab me in the back
and I apologize for bleeding on your knife

The weight of words unsaid
lies heavy in the air between us,
each breath a burden
laden with silence,
a thousand things left unspoken,
and in that stillness,
I know
we're breaking.

I love you and I'm sorry
but I feel nothing
maybe you're the right person
in the wrong body