When people read my poetry
they all have the same question
"Why does your poetry have to be so sad?"
The question used to offend me
I used to think that question deserved an answer
I even started changing the kind of poems I wrote to please the people who read them
I was satisfied with my work
but it wasn't really me
I began to feel guilty
I began to feel like a fraud
Charles Bukowski once wrote
"a good writer must simply let it all go, regardless"
I'm sure he meant for those words to mean something else but for me
it was as if I was being reminded to stop allowing other people to have control over my writing
It's not every day I gain advice from someone who has passed on years before I was ever born
I no longer feel the need to answer everybody's question
Hell I even ask myself from time to time
"Mandie, why must your poetry be so sad?"
Depression is another language to me
I speak it well
I write it well
I know it well
Bottom line
if my poetry is too sad for you
then don't read it

You once told me that you’ve always wanted to be an astronaut.
An explorer of the galaxy, an adventurer of the universe.
You said that there’s so much wonder and beauty
that the great beyond holds ;
That beyond our world was something
indescribable and phenomenal.
You told me that you wanted to be an astronaut
to see perfection beyond what’s within reach,
when all this time all you had to do was take a look at yourself.
Your wonderful and amazing self
that not even the entire universe could match.
Stop looking out and look in
because to me, you’re more stunning than any constellation.

There’s a reason why I keep it in.
I wouldn’t have bottled up my feelings
if I knew it wasn’t going to explode in my face.
But Dear God I just want to say it already.
There are so many things that I’ve wanted
to tell you since I’ve felt this way.

Let’s start off with this ;
You’re perfect (well, to me at least).
It’s funny how you don’t see it.
I love it how you can look at the mirror
and not see how everything looking back
is absolutely wonderful in indescribable ways.
You’re so weird sometimes… all the time actually.
But that’s what makes every fleeting moment with you
that much more memorable.
I love how you laugh at everything I say,
even when I don’t make sense 99.9% of the time.
Just believing that you’re smiling or laughing,
makes me smile and laugh along with you.
You and me are absolutely, positively different.
Sometimes we don’t have anything in common,
but hey, that’s never stopped us from being close.
I love how you bring out a brighter me.
There are days when I just get so lost and lonely,
like there’s no one who’d listen or who’d make me feel lighter.
Then I talk to you for about 20 whole seconds.
Suddenly nothing seems to matter anymore,
and I just smile.
I love how you bring out the best in me.
Although you might not know it,
you motivate me to do my best in everything.
You’ve shown me how I can always rise above anything
as long as I worked enough for it, and as long as I deserve it.

I guess that’s another reason why I haven’t told you.
You deserve so much better than me.
As much as I hate to admit it,
there are guys out there who’d be better for you.
I hate that. But the truth isn’t always what we want for ourselves.

Finally, I’ve never told you any of this
because I don’t want to lose what we have.
I don’t want to put our friendship at risk.
It’s not a risk I’m willing to take, not now at least.


I just wish you knew all of this.
I don’t know how I can ever say all of this to you.
Maybe someday, but definitely not today.
I hope that one day it won’t be too late.
I hope that one day you won’t leave me and all this goes to waste.
I hope that one day I can say this all to you.
I hope that one day you’ll feel the same.
One day.

Mom is drunk, talking ****
Grandma is drunk, laughing at her pain
Dad is drunk, yelling
Aunty is sobbing
Brother locked himself in a room
Cousin won't stop crying
Uncle passed out
I clean up all of their broken pieces with no one left to clean up me

Love is a fickle word.
I learned in anatomy today that the heart
isn't shaped anywhere near the way
we thought it was when we were kids.
And I've spent years trying to put bandages
on a wound that couldn't be healed
by short term romance and desperate company.
It turns out loneliness isn't an easy hole to fill.
But I still throw piles of words,
one on top of the other,
into the void;
hoping to make a poem that will take up the space.
I wonder how many times
someone can wake up beside you
and forget you're there
before you start to wonder when it was that you went missing.
Since when is it called letting go
if they were never holding on to begin with?
Here's where all the lost loves go--
hopefully they find home in one another.
                                   •••
This is for the ones you have to make into poems
because it's the only part of them that stays.