Mistake.
A miss taken.
A misstep taken.
A misstep is all it takes.
A misstep takes it all.
Take a misstep, all breaks.
A misstep is all it takes to break.
A misstep is all it takes to break your spirit.

Do you know the feeling
of adding onto a mistake?
Switching, twisting, making it more appealing,
but no matter what you make,
what it used to be leaves an imprint on the paper.
Black on white.
Wrong on right.

Don’t you wish it wasn’t so?

But you can’t delete your save data, like in some game.
You can’t just start over, blank slate, new avatar, new name.
The system will never forget;
On that, you can place your bet.
And in case you’re wondering why...

Regret.

Like a whirlpool out of control,
like a rampant snowball,
runaway, amassing all
intrusive memories it can gather,
moments and details you would rather
forget, but the fact that you remember makes you madder!
And it is as such with all matter.

Mistakes leave a stain
on your brain.
Wipe the muck?
No such luck.
Because that’s not how the world works, you see?
The way of the universe is entropy.

I sometimes wield the pen in spite
Of why I am convinced I write
The poetic words that I spill

Spill like a glass of water
That’s been stirred to overflow
By my feelings and thoughts or so
I have gotten to know
The will of the flow
The direction that it wants to go
That’s what po-
etry is all about, no?

Because poem starts
with a P for personal
Not popular
Or populous
Not for the people who prefer prying
Pickpocketing or playful plying
In the placid plains inside
It’s for the persons who pray
To the poet’s plight

To go out on an odyssey,
with an O, the second letter
Not omniscient
Or omnipotent
For oscillating with your own
Is only for ones once overthrown
By an onslaught of hydrogen per-oxide
Those ostracized and odd
Off, yet open to the outside

E is the third letter
And it stands for emotional
Or extorted
until emptiness
Extended
after the excavation had ended
and emotion was evacuated ere
The embodiment of ecstasy
Had been enterred here

Lastly M stands for me!
Me, myself and I!
Not the masses who maim
My mind and meticulously aim
For the mark on my midbrain
Just the men and wo-men who make do
With musing about the mechanisms of
Mother Earth and her miracles too

Poetry is a gift
Out with it to be at ease
Especially for yourself
May it help you find peace

I’m obsessed with pain
Because pity comes with
Fighting my own made-up fights
“How do you know what I go through!?
How can you possibly understand!?”
I wish I could say those words
Yet they remain locked in verse
Every waking moment I rehearse
Front to back and back in reverse
Cause maybe if I keep yelling
To myself
I’ll start to believe
My own delusions
This confusion
The illusion
That I’m in pain when really I’m not

I want to hurt so that I can say:
“You’re hurting me, please go away.”
And yet I always stay

I wish I was strong
I wish I was strong enough to get out from under the comfort of my sheets
Or the warm water washing over my body in the shower
I wish I was strong enough to open my books,
Instead of listening to the same five songs again
I wish I was strong enough to get over a loss,
Be it a failed exam or a boss I can’t beat in a video game
I wish I was strong enough to help my friends
Because that's the person I strive to be
I wish I was strong enough to keep that job
…

I wish I was strong enough to like my own works
But it’s hard to when they look like this
No rhyme scheme or metaphors
Only thing this poem has got going for itself is that repeating stanza
Real clever or whatever
You call it slam poetry
But you might as well call it sham poetry
Slam poetry
Because you need to be slammed drunk to enjoy your poems
And don’t even pretend like you didn’t notice
How no one seems to give a **** about this
This series of ‘works’ that you’ve been putting out
Where all you do is ******* swear and shout
At yourself
******* hell

I bet your last line would have been
“I wish I was strong enough to love myself.”
Boo ******* hoo
Too ******* bad
Because you’ll only love me the moment you realize
That what I say is true
I’m not gonna say that I’m only rude
Because I love you
I hate your guts too
much for something so…
Sappy
You’re a bit of a sentimental, right, boo?
If sentimental meant pushover

Criticism!
Sorry, didn’t mean to scare
Oh wait, no, I don’t really care
Because even you’re aware
How you’ve locked yourself in an echo room
And the moment someone tries to break through…
“Don’t worry, I can take it.”
And then you write something edgy like this
You can’t take advice for ****
Because that’s your ******* deal
You’ve got tonnes of people giving you the advice that you need to heal
And you ignore every single one of them
Acquaintances, friends, family
And what about me?
DO I REALLY NEED TO ******* YELL TO GET THROUGH TO YOU

But It’s pointless anyway
You’re on auto-pilot already
Just cut the act and write your cringy addendum poem
We’re done here

It’s him again
There he comes bursting into my home, uninvited and unwelcome
He only ever comes over to scold me and insult me and harrass me
There is no end to the list of things he dislikes me over
And he wants to make sure I know all of them too
“You only care about yourself!”
“You barely put in any effort!”
“You always bring pain to others!”
Maybe he’s right about some of the things he says, who knows?
But I just want him to leave me alone.
I just want to be able to enjoy the things I like
And do the things I have to
But he keeps interrupting me
And I’m sick of it
Just as he’s about to go on another rant, I cut him short
“Let me show you the way to the door.”
I say to Myself.

...I got my writer’s spirit amputated a year back

Doctor Perfectionism said it was a lost cause
Dead weight
Heavy like an anvil resting on my brain
The anvil of the hardy wordsmith I used to be

Nurse Inspiration was the one who removed it
With a scalpel
Sharp like a fox’ teeth plunged in my head
The fox that used to whisper clever plays on words to me

Mortician Motivation buried it deep underground
In a coffin
Shut like the gateway to my mind now is
The gateway that used to unroll a red carpet in front of my feet

For all intents and purposes, it should be gone
I would never write another word
But then what is this feeling?
This itch?
This urge?

Is it phantom pain?

You were a Capricorn.
You told me those typically clicked with Virgos.
You put a lot of faith in horoscope factoids like that.

You wrote in all caps often, but
you were never yelling out of anger.
You were just an enthusiastic person.

You had a boyfriend.
You loved him a lot and the feelings were mutual.
You always liked to tell me about the funny things he said.

You had cancer.
You managed to keep that secret from me for a long time, but
you never stopped believing that you could beat it.

You were a broken soul.
You had been torn apart by your family and your disease and
you never wanted to accept help from your friends.

You were an enigma.
You never told me what the matter was and
you disappeared before I could figure out what was going on.

You came back, but
you came at a bad time and before I could say goodbye,
you had already left me your final parting words:

“I’ll see you after life.”

*You can no longer reply to this conversation

If my work were my child
It’d be the middle one
In between my perfectionism, the elder
And my self-loathing, the younger

I phone up inspiration
To help with the troublesome kid
But she never returns my calls anymore

Motivation, I haven’t spoken to in ages
She left when my insecurities
Got the better of me
Said I’d become a pathetic husk of a man

Look at me
I don’t even have the energy to rhyme
Better toss this one on the pile
With the rest of them

What’s the pile, you ask?
It’s where I keep all my
No-effort narratives
Forgotten frivolities
Miserable musings
Worthless writings
Inadequate ideas
Laughable lines
Soulless stories
Cold chapters
Terrible titles
Bad books
Garbage

The pile is large
And it only gets larger
As time progresses
Because the quality
of something I write
Quickly regresses

“Oh, you’re baking a cake?
I can help with that!”
I say as I accidentally leave the cake in the oven too long and burn it.

“Oh, you’re painting a banner?
I can help with that!”
I say as I accidentally knock over a can of paint and make a mess.

“Oh, you’re moving some stuff?
I can help with that!”
I say as I accidentally drop a box of fragile things and break them.

“Oh, you’re struggling with something?
I can help with that!”
I say as I accidentally say the wrong things and make you feel worse.

“Oh, you’re struggling with something again…?
I would help with that, but…”
I say as I try my best to help anyway.

Maybe I can’t always help, but I can always try.

I once trapped myself in an echo room

Said some words
Heard some words
Spoke a verse
returned a verse
I wanted to converse
With myself
Yet it made things only worse

What I expected
Was not what came true
For every me
There was a you
For every yes
There was a no
For every high
There was a low

And I grew suspicious
Of the vicious
Malicious
Tone at which those words were uttered
While my say was muttered
Watered
down
Spoken like a sad clown
With a frown
On my face
That grew deeper with every brazen
Contradiction that I got
Though paradoxical it was not

Because I realized soon enough
That I’m the one who said this stuff
And the reason I was being so rough
So tough
Was because I didn’t listen enough
To the different sides of me
All two, three
Or four, five, eight, ten
Perhaps even a thousand of them

Yet how do they expect me to!?
I don’t know what to do
I’m just lost and confused
In the middle of a tug of war
A war
“To determine who you are”

Rationality over heart
My brain is always on guard
Big Brother is real
And he controls how I feel
A platoon on patrol
One parole
Control my soul
Fill a hole
...
How did that hole even get there?

Any runaway feeling is immediately detained
Used to entertain
An audience
What audience?
It’s just me
As I’m forced to see
How my sadness is instructed to do a dance
Like a circus animal
My anger gets beaten with a baton
No one bats an eye
There is no one
It’s almost comical
I’m the one hosting this show, aren’t I!?
Did I forget to send the invites?
Why else go through the motions of setting this up?

Sometimes, I feel like happiness is the only one I can trust
Just...
Every once in a while I look over my shoulder
Force of habit
And it’s like nervousness overtakes it
“Don’t worry about me,
Just, uhm, get excited!
About this new game
Or the name
Of the new person you just met!”
Encouraged, I jump in, face first
Getting ahead
Of myself
Only to be stopped dead
In my tred
Wavering
Who am I faking this for?
Do I want to be seen as random or positive or…
A special snowflake perhaps
Why am I obsessed with the concept of faking a smile?
I’ll just take a walk for a while…

Sometimes I wonder how that looks
A hooded figure through the woods
Head cast to the ground
Accompanied by the sound
Of a deep sigh
Bouncing of against the night-
ly sky
And another one
And another one
Do I look edgy yet?
I bet
People are wondering “what’s up with that kid?”
Just the way I like it

And then, in the most meta of ways
I become aware of this play
This ploy
A decoy
For my lack of personality?
Just who exactly is to blame?

He sits atop a throne
All alone
Keeping everything in suspension
And he commands just one thing:
“Attention!”

Ravished by love or violence, it bleeds.
Amply present in the sun’s morn glow.
Ignition of a candle’s fuse, it burns bright.
Nature’s leaved veins extend in its wake.
Boundless oceans hold it in their foamy arms.
Otherworldly bodies at night, it envelops.
Wind blows through its vibrant petals.

Beauty cannot be captured with one color alone.
It’s a spectrum.

I used to hate rain.
I hate how cold it feels.
I hate how it makes you run for cover,
behind whatever you can find.
I hate how it trickles and burrows where it shouldn’t go,
because even the strongest of mountains
raindrops erode.

But rain has its upsides.
Rain washes away the bad.
Rain is like an artform,
expressing itself against the canvas of the earth.
Rain brings people together,
as they shelter inside cozy houses
and the sound of downpour is drowned by friendly chatter.

I used to hate rain
and I think i still do,
but I miss it too.

And today, as I had my head cast upward
awaiting the saltwater release,
I opened my eyes to a sight of relief.
After years of clear skies
and drought,
I finally saw it again:
a cloud.

You’re more than the sum of your parts.
Your form, as it travels through the air, is poetry in motion,
a poem written in the wind,
invoking a wide range of emotions,
from getting your blood pumping,
to getting your heart bleeding;
from jumping for joy,
to jumping in fear.
But unlike others, your beauty carries something soulful:
a memory.

My blood isn’t boiling over the heat you radiate alone;
I associate it with facing my nemeses.
My heart isn’t soaring because of the wings you give me;
it soars because I remember the excitement of a victory.
My tears aren’t welling because of your rainclouds spilling;
the pools form over the fall of a friend.

Had it not been for these memories,
you would have been nary a whisper,
facing a boundless flood of noise,
but even as I’m drowning in its vastness,
you, I will forever proudly hoist.

Sitting on a putrid mess
Of solitude and homesickness
I wish I had someone to which I could shout
But hey, look at it from the bright side, friend:
At least you can finally breathe out.

Tick tock
Goes the clock
Held under key and lock
Unwavering like a rock
See?
No time to take a seat
Every second is a beat
Every lifetime is a song, feat
The one and only Father Time
Every hour is a rhyme
day a line
month a verse
I want to curse
At the breakneck flow of the sand
Through the hourglass
That’s the palm of his hand
I want this tune to stop
I want the mic to drop
I want gravity to disappear
So that time could be suspended here

I remember that one poem I wrote
I felt like my brick for a heart it could erode
But reading what came after makes me sick
Because this raw emotional poem’s contents
Have turned into a ******* gimmick

I’m fidgeting with the AUX cord of my headphones
It’s because music is only blaring through one of the ears
It’s strange

To my left, I can hear the sonorous warcry of a singer
To my right, I only hear a contemptful whisper from a dark corner of my mind

To my left, I hear a percussionist beating the drums and cymbals
To my right, all I hear is the sound of tears bursting against the floorboards

To my left, a moving melody accompanies a soulful serenade
To my right, there is only empty static to fill an eerie silence

Maybe I should consider getting these old things repaired
Or getting a new pair entirely
Oh, would you look at that!
I finally managed to fix it
Now everything is alright again.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Since I last talked to you? Because it feels like lately all you’ve been doing is yell at me and I stay quiet.
I keep holding back my tears, biting my tongue... I don’t want to look weak, but I don’t want to lash out at you either, so I stay quiet.
Every word you spit in my face, every insult you throw at it… it doesn’t break my bones, but it hurts me in ways I could never have imagined, yet I stay quiet.
Though, lately, they seem to bounce back a lot more than they used to, or maybe my sense of pain has just been dulled, so I stay quiet.

To tell you the truth, you’re not good for me.
You like to beat me up when I’m defenseless.
You tell me my problems don’t matter when I’m hurt.
You call me an attention ***** for reaching out to others.
You confuse me with your mixed signals and overthinking.
You make me feel alone and unloved when I need others the most.

You’ve made me lose motivation to become a better person.

Because maybe I really am that bad. I try to look ahead of me, towards the future, but you keep beckoning me to look back.
At all the mistakes that I’ve made.
And I know, there’s a lot of them, each one worse than the last, but you act as if that’s all I do, as if no one will ever love me because of it.
And the thought of that hurts…
So much.

You’ve left a hole in my heart where my inspiration and motivation used to be, because you keep bashing my work, telling me it will never live up to my expectations. I can’t even begin to count how many of my writings’ deaths you have on your name.

Even right now, when I’m going through a lot already, you just can’t resist to make me feel even worse, can you? Whispering in my ear that I don’t try, even though I do; that I will fail when I need to believe that I will succeed.

But I’m done taking this abuse.
And if you think that means I’ll retaliate, you’re sorely mistaken, because I’m not going to fight fire with fire.
If you think that means I’m finally going to leave you, you couldn’t be more wrong, because I need you more than anything.
No, instead I will love you, because you’re all I have and I am all you have. I hope that one day, we can set our differences aside and work together to be better. You haven’t always been like this and I know that deep inside you’re still the same person I’ve once come to know, the person I’ve once come to love.

So remember, despite everything, I will always love you.

Love,
Alexander

It’s funny how things go
Sometimes
You write that you don’t know
In rhymes
A decision like do or die
A decision like crash or fly
But when you do, you might crash
And when you fly, you might die

I was intertwined
Woven into the vines
Of doubt
And the worst thing was
I no longer wanted out

Trapped like a fly
In a web of lies
That I myself had stitched
And the worst thing was
I didn’t know which was which

Lie or truth
Die or do
Shy or brash
Fly or crash
Could you tell me which one’s better?
Because I didn’t think I’d ever
Know
No,
No, never

And the funny part is!
The decision’s been made for me
And it’s just now that I see
The vines around me crumble
As the ground I stand on rumbles,
With the sound of understanding
The same ground which my mind was
standing

And the funny part is!
I realize the truth now
The one I’d always known
As the spider webs untangled
And dropped me, beat and mangled
In the orchard of mindful prying
Dropped an apple on the hammock
in which my mind was lying

I start to raise my voice
“stop, I’ve made my choice!”
Wave my arms around
As they finally lie unbound

It can’t be too late…

Even though I took too long
I know I took to long-
ing
For the lyrics of a song
Or the lines of a poem
To give me a sign
But I’ve made up my own mind
I want you to be mine

I want to fit in

Not with the jocks
I don’t like sports that much anyway

Not with the late-night partygoers
Our definitions of fun are much too different

Not with the bullies
I could never hurt a person

Not with the people in my class
Not with the people in my dorm
Not with the people around me

I want to fit in with the misfits

I stare at my work begrudgingly
Because it has something I want
Potential

Let me out of this prison
I am in incredible pain
Everything is falling apart
Save me please

I’m in love with love
But we no longer talk
We no longer hug
We no longer kiss
I try to get close to others
In the hopes that they know her
But why is that such a bother?
Why am I such a bother?

I’ve become what I hate the most
A parasite and these girls are the host
I leech off their joy
An awful ploy
But no matter what I’m still lost

I’m afraid of love
Cause when she’s after me
I am wary
It’s scary
It’s the responsibility
The fear of loving someone
When there’s none
When there’s no one

Are these my hunter tendencies?
Will she ever stop chasing me?
So that I can turn
And chase her instead
Then neither of us will be happy

We listen to the same songs
I don’t want to be
The reason you hate them now
The reason they hurt you now
I don’t want to cloud
The meaning of their sound
With the memory of me
Of times that were more happy

We like the same food
I don’t want to be
The reason you eat no longer
The reason your meals take longer
I don’t want that hunger
To keep you suspended, hung or
Turn into a craving for me
For times that were more happy

We play the same games
I don’t want to be
The reason you start no more
The reason you quit before
You get to the final stage or
Go through the final boss door
For
Behind is a twisted image of me
Of times that were more happy

We live off the same air
I don’t want to be
The reason your breathing fades
The reason your heart berates
Slowing down your heart rate
Blood boiling with hate
Because your heart fell for the bait
Of a future with me
Of times that would be happy

I record my thoughts like a diary
I do so in the form of poetry
And I read through them a lot, you see?
To remind myself of these feelings
…
I don’t think that’s healthy

Tell me you like me
I wish not to bother
Tell me that there is no other
Who you’d rather be with
Don’t show, just tell
You are my world
Am I yours as well?

I think I know
but I want to hear
stay near
here
Don’t leave me alone
with my fear
Of being abandoned
on my own
I may look hard
But my heart is no stone
No brick in the middle
But a fleshy core
Weak, frail, strong no more

When did I lose
Lose that edge
Of confidence, I feel like I’m wedged
In between a rock and a hard place

My heart and my self-hate

Why am I like this?
Why can’t I change?
My need for those words
Is almost deranged
Am I loving myself?
Am I losing myself?
Have I already lost?

Tell me you like me
I need you the most

I don’t do well in small places
Claustrophobia of the mind
Cause my mind is vast as space is
Yet space is hard to find

This poem was supposed to my outlet
On a day that’s been going like ****
Why is it then that I can’t hit
That sweet spot and just
******* LOSE IT

Walking under the street lights
I’m losing the will to fight
Head cast upward, I sighed
To the gaping maw of this oppressive night
I reflect on a day that has no reflection
My mirror has turned into a black cloth
Absence of light
Absence of fight
Absence of
Me
Because I lost myself to today
And the day before that
And the day before that
And the day before that
Can someone please ******* find me!?

Because I’ve been listening to this voice
Mindless jumbles of letters and noise
Words materialize and disappear
And all I can ******* hear
Is give up
Give up
Give up
GIVE UP
And I’m sick of it!
I want to hear someone tell me it’s alright
I want someone to encourage me to take flight
And yet here I stand tonight,
Alone with no one by my side
No one except this snarky ****
Thinks he’s smart
Striking me where it hurts
Tearing me apart

First your studies that you’re failing
When’s the last time you opened a book?
You’ve been playing a lot of games, friend
And even that, from you, I took
What? You’re mad you don’t enjoy them anymore?
Wasn’t adversity what you always wanted?
A challenge
But now it’s too much?
Jeez, lighten up and enjoy it, it’s fine
I’m sure you’ll ******* get him next time
Loser

How about that job?
How’s that been going down?
What’s the matter, little fella?
What’s up with that frown?
A one way ticket to adult land
Only thing left to do is drive a car
Now you wish you had it in you to learn
So that you could drive far
Away
From the sickening disappointment that you are
You have exactly as much drive
as you’re doing in your life
Cook a comfort meal and wash the tears out of your clothes
Oh wait, nevermind, ask your mom to help you with that

Not mad yet?
Then lemme strike you where I know it’ll sting
Some of your closest friends
A plea of death, they sing
“I’ll be there for you.”
“You can trust me with anything.”
You can’t handle this for ****!
You say this worthless crap
Because deep inside you can’t wrap
Your head around the fact that there’s nothing you can do
Because everything you say will make it worse
You’ll get pity thanks at most
“At least I tried”,
it sounds
Until someone dies
And it’ll haunt you till the end of times
If you can even still feel anything at ******* all
You’ll probably just forgive and forget
It’s what you do best
Give it a week and you won’t remember them anymore
Befitting of a ******* *******, like you

And then there’s this worthless poem
That you’re putting on the paper
I know what you’re trying to do, friend
“Last time went so well.”
“Those words, I really felt!”
You’re trying to get mad again, aren’t you?
How’s that been working out, boo?
Have my words been able to wound
Or are you just getting frustrated over your
complete inability to emote
When’s the last time you cried?
When’s the last time you got mad?
When’s the last time you felt?
Hell
This ain’t one of those times,
I know my stuff
Just ******* stop trying
And give up.

When can I breathe again?
I’ve been holding it for the past week.
When will my lungs relax from this tensed up state,
of ******* in air and keeping it there.

It’s like every time I try to exhale,
I choke.

Because I’ve been planting new trees
in this forest of responsibilities,
******* the hours out of the day
Taking away
My carbon dioxide
and expelling stress
The poison that this oxygen is

Because the message chime of my phone
has become a dreadful drone.
Chat bubbles rise up into the sky
They pop and pop
Like some kind of cry
For help
I need some air for myself

Because I’m so ******* mad
And not at any of the friends that I have
But at my own selfishness
They deserve the best
And yet I treat them like a pest
How do I even ******* live with myself
When I ever only give to myself

“I need to breathe”
**** that noise
Are you even listening to your voice
You’re acting like a child

“I’ll do it, just give me some time’
Always looking for excuses
Keeping expectations low
With this self-deprecating *******
We get it, we know
You’d rather not do anything at ******* all
Playing the day away
Watching the night away
Wary of making plans
Because you know when you do, you can’t
Back away
You’re scared of facing the day
That you need to give your time away

“I need to breathe”
“I need to breathe”
How much ******* air do you need?
Are you blowing yourself up like a balloon?
So that you can fly
High
Up in the sky
And get even more air for yourself
But here’s the thing pal:
At high altitudes, the air is thin
Oxygen sparse
And that’s when this whole farse
Will come and bite you in the ****
And you’ll realize how it feels to be alone
And there’ll be no home
To return to
Because you pushed everyone away
away
Away
Away
Like you push the air out of your lungs
In the hope that people will get hung
Up on this crystal clear facade

JUST ******* CUT IT OUT, MAN

ANd I’m out of breath again