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holyoak Dec 2014
are you afraid of parking garages
do you think of empty parking spaces
with empty cars beside them
like your own compartmentalized mind
do the empty spaces scare you
like my own scare me
are you afraid of the dust
are you afraid of the ghosts
sitting where people once were
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of the lonely silence
are you afraid of the concrete walls
that are more solid than anything
that you have ever created
are you afraid 
that you'll be just as cold
just as lifeless
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of where they take you
are you afraid of the airports 
that you always end up in
missing those that never come back
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid that you'll park 
and that you'll never leave
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of the flickering lights
and your own shadow 
bouncing in front you
are you afraid of going somewhere 
and never coming home
are you afraid of your home
and when they asked you where home is
did you stutter 
because you almost said someone's name
instead of a place
or is your home that parking garage
blank and grey 
empty and hollow
are you afraid of parking garages

[holyoak]
2.7k · Aug 2014
Droplets
holyoak Aug 2014
i'm stuck in traffic
during a rain storm
in the middle of the night 
and i'm subtly reminded 
of when you stopped 
holding my hand 
as much as you used to
the cracks in the windshield
remind me of us
i cross another county line
and i think it's just like you
same place
new name
my veins are power lines
running through this ghost town
i'm so full of electricity 
but no one taps into it
i guess i'm useless
it's been a long time
since i've seen anything special
in the shapes of the clouds 
i don't think hurricanes
know that they destroy so much
maybe that's why you don't know
that i'm in this kind of pain
the cracks in my windshield 
are getting bigger
i think it's going to shatter soon 
could you imagine
the window shattering
and the glass coming at me
as i'm speeding
down this dark and rainy road
i don't have to imagine
i've already met you

[holyoak]
holyoak Apr 2015
A CRUISE SHIP
STRANDED IN CITY STREETS
A FIRETRUCK
ON FIRE IN THE RAIN
DO YOU UNDERSTAND
MY LOVE FOR YOU YET
THIS IS DRAMATIC IRONY
YOURE KILLING TIME
IN THE BEST WAYS
AND SOON ENOUGH
IM BLEEDING OUT
TO YOUR VOICE
BOUNCING OFF THESE WALLS
YOU ALWAYS PUT THE LAUGHTER
IN MANSLAUGHTER

[holyoak]
holyoak Jun 2015
no one believed in ghosts
until we realized everyones transparent
no one holds on tighter
than when they realize
they have to let go
but the terrifying part
is that im not sure
if ive ever been held
my hands are made of smoke
my heart is caged vapor
im reaching
for so many people
but im a phantom
made of lies & half truths
how can i be honest with you
when i could never admit to myself
that im a ghost
im a real boy
i chant to myself
as my strings get pulled
a marionette made of fog
the realest ill ever be
is when im spouting
the opinions of others
out of my incorporeal mouth
tying together borrowed words
with my ethereal tongue
as if i have a thought process of my own
whats it feel like to be a ghost?
id say like hell
but ghosts dont feel much anyway
were all living on borrowed feelings
donated sympathy
& hand-me-down ignorance
an army of ghosts
that cant even defend themselves
we bash each other
with words that are almost
as hollow as our chests
no one knows anything
about themselves
but everyone knows everything
about everyone else
we see through each other
but we cant see ourselves
we try to reflect one another
but the vapor is always shifting
its maddening
being so shapeless
yet so defined
i want a body of my own
i want a place i can call home
i want to not be shamed for my opinion
i want to respect others fully
ghosts are meant to terrify
& let me be honest when i say
ive never seen anything as ghostly
as this generation of opinionated plagiarists

[holyoak]
1.7k · Oct 2014
i hope you're happy
holyoak Oct 2014
i'm sleeping
on the left side 
of my bed
to take up the space
that you left empty 
because you left me
with no kind of backup plan
i was left to miss you
and you were left to wonder
and in the end
all that is left
is left hand turn signals
in the car i'm driving 
parking on the left side of the road
where i walked you to your door 
and left you to go inside alone
it was a fine first date 
but i remember thinking 
"i shouldn't have left her so early"
and now i hope you think the same
i got stuck in the revolving door
into your old apartment building
it reminded me of you
i used my left hand
to push it forward
and felt as though
this is where i would be
for the rest of my time without you
i left the building 
without a vocalized thought
but in the back of my mind
the only thought that was left
whispered
"why can't i be right for once?"

[holyoak]
1.5k · Dec 2014
&
holyoak Dec 2014
&
since you've been gone
i've written a few poems 
& not a single one 
actually says what i want
because i want to say
i miss you
& i want to say
i need you
& i want to say
come back to me 
& you left the door wide open
i thought it was a sign 
i thought it was some poetic way
of saying you'd walk back in
but now i realize 
you just didn't care enough to shut it
& now i feel a draft
a small cold wind 
whispering
"get up & change some things
she left you for a reason"

& now i come to find 
that there were never enough ampersands
to keep you & i together

[holyoak]
holyoak Nov 2014
i didn't want to turn you into a poem
i didn't want you to be my muse
you've ruined my mind and my pen
you've made me blind to inspiration
i can't hold the pages still anymore
i can't understand my own writing 
your hair isn't a waterfall 
your eyes aren't deep oceans 
i'm not held here by your gravity
i'm not sure that your voice is music
you won't own me
i won't turn you into poetry

[holyoak]
1.4k · Jul 2015
you faked your death
holyoak Jul 2015
& i dont mean physically
you turned your mind off to me
you shut down & backed out
i was staring at the corpse
of the girl that once laughed
she could breathe life into the room
but now youre a walking tombstone
with the words
i rest in pieces
carved haphazardly into the front
now the only peace of mind i have
is that it wasnt me who killed you
it was your own heart
racing faster than a freight train
& when it beats out of your chest
maybe ill see the real you
soaked in blood
& charging for the exit
not unlike the last time we spoke
i swear you threw the door off its hinges
like you ripped our pages
out of the book
& used them to wrap your cigarettes
breathing in our words
like tobacco
feeding off our feelings
like nicotine
you smoked yourself into a stupor
& wiped your mind clean
of any thought of me

[holyoak]
holyoak Oct 2014
hands remind me of you
they can heal
they can break
they can create 
they can stand idly by
just like you
touch is everything
but your touch is more
it's a hurricane 
that can't break anything
a feather 
that weighs too much 
everything you touch hurts
it's only when you walk away
that i can mend
your hands were never meant 
to administer to the beaten
your hands delivered 
pain and suffering
masquerading 
as peace and safety 
it's not as though i'm surprised 
i suppose that dying 
is but a side effect 
of living 

[holyoak]
holyoak Apr 2015
an armageddon
in a sundress
a walking tsunami
bent on whisking you up
and slamming you down
drowning you
with every word
that you wanted to hear
shes a monsoon
in the middle of july
a dust storm
clouding a freeway
if my veins are rivers
then she flooded them all
my home was taken
in the tornado that she was
ripped from its foundation
and later found wasted
she decimated my mind
with the hurricane she resembled
and to tell the truth
i guess ive always been a stormchaser
ive always sought out
the most dangerous situations
and she was no different
she left me in the street
with no one around
but she cant be blamed
i asked for it

[holyoak]
holyoak Aug 2014
you felt like music in my bones 
then suddenly you changed keys 
i was out of tune 
and we forgot the words
it's four o'clock on monday morning
and all that's left
is the memory of your head
on the pillow next to mine
it was here
like this
that we used to listen
to all my favorite records
but I can't now
because when the needle hits the vinyl
i start thinking of you
it's the early hours of the day
when the streaks of morning light
break across the clouds
that I realize
i'm not a morning person
i'm a mourning person

[holyoak]
1.2k · Sep 2014
How Do You Play This Thing?
holyoak Sep 2014
i learned a long time ago
that too much pressure
on the strings of the violin
would ruin the melody
but with too little pressure
the music you create
is inaudible
so which is it?
did we come to a shrieking halt?
or could you never hear us at all?

[holyoak]
holyoak Sep 2014
white knuckled pallbearers
for open handed corpses
silent as the pastor
emotionlessly
reads the rehearsed eulogy
i learn that funerals
were never meant
for the dead
they were always meant
for those left alive
because you haven't truly lived
until you've died inside*

[holyoak]
holyoak Aug 2014
your heart was always out of reach
and mine was always in your hands
but if you listen closely
you can hear my ribs cracking
to the rhythm of your breathing
your grip tightens 
my heart screams 
you laugh
i beg
you lie
we fight
"do you think I'll cry?" I ask
"you know I'll try" you counter
the sky darkens as you smile
nothing unusual 
i think about when I paced my halls
at three in the morning on a sunday
and how it was just like when 
you pulled me underwater 
and it felt like I was breathing fire 
and suddenly you're talking about
when we first met
in that church parking lot
when it started something
that was anything but holy
and I laugh at the irony
it was better than any poetry
i could ever write 

[holyoak]
1.2k · Sep 2014
I Must Not Tell Lies
holyoak Sep 2014
i'm the bone that you broke 
that never quite healed 
the same way again
familiar
yet slightly out of place
then you asked for a storm 
to break you in a familiar way
so i gave you silence 
and it was more 
than you could ever take
i write so much about grasping
at things i can't hold onto
like your hand 
since it's been slightly out of place
and now i'm not sure 
if i've been talking about you
or myself
they told me that the ink on the page
would replace you eventually
but i think i'm writing in your blood
and once the poetry 
is out of my system 
my veins will dry up 
and i'll look just like you

[holyoak]
holyoak Mar 2015
and then
you come to realize
that your porcelain bones
can't take much more
you're falling apart
in her hands
and she doesn't
want to save you
she'll drop you
to the floor
at the first sign
of those spiderweb cracks
fractured perfection
mental misteps
up the stairs
as she loses balance
while she carrys you
porcelain bones
and parchment skin
how much more poetry
can your body take

[holyoak]
holyoak Nov 2014
no one believes in me
no one thinks that i can see what i want to be
no one thinks i can do even one thing on my own 
they say i have no ambition 
that i left home with no ammunition 
to fight in a war of attrition 
with no foreseeable outcome
but i'm not cattle to be herded
i am a voice to be heard 
and listened to
i will accomplish so many things 
i will set out to be anything
i will be set on the highest pedestal 
my life will not be some humorous spectacle
my dreams are so much more than skeletal 
i'm more than the hollowed out bones that no one knows 
where nothing but emptiness grows
because you don't know me
you don't see that i'll be free to scream
so take me from these demons
i am no longer the old shirt 
left hanging in your closet 
i am no longer a speck of dirt
floating aimlessly for you to witlessly grasp at me as i head to see the minds that i can change 
my voice will be heard from the high heavens to the depths of hell
my words will mend the broken skin that we all live in
my ideas will free us from the suffering and the covering of our eyes 
and i will not just be believed in
i will be known 
and you'll wish i could see you

[holyoak]
holyoak Aug 2014
I didn't think much
of the way flowers wilted
until I watched you fade slowly out of my life
It was like watching the hands on a clock
Except these hands were knives
And soon enough
Our time had come
And you were cut from my life
I think I understand the sky now
And how it longs to touch the earth
But it can't
Because it would destroy
What it loves the most
Lately my mind has wandered
I'm not so sure of where it goes
But it always comes back
With bits of you
To pour into my thoughts again
I watched a train race by at midnight
My thoughts grabbed at you again
I don't think I've ever held you as tightly
As when I'm only remembering you

[holyoak]
holyoak Aug 2014
you're the kind of girl
that they write books about
i always thought you were fiction
but i can't even remember
the last time i finished a good book
i always drop it at the ******
maybe it's because
we never reached ours
speaking of not being able to finish things

[holyoak]
1.1k · Sep 2014
Addict With A God Complex
holyoak Sep 2014
my father told me 
to change the world for the better
and suddenly 
i was a poet
but little did i know
that i couldn't change
the whole world
and i guess that didn't matter
because your world
was the only one
that was important to me

[holyoak]
1.0k · Jul 2015
worldfire
holyoak Jul 2015
empty lighters in shaking hands
reminiscent of our trembling fingers
touching for the first time
sparks lighting
but no fire catches
no pyroclasm ignites between us
a storm rages above us
i cant help but wander the maelstrom
& beg this lightning to start the fire for me
to strike the ground
with almost as much intensity
as i would
the small brushfires
just dont do it for me anymore
i need a wildfire
i need a firestorm
to set our world ablaze
& wipe our slate clean
a worldfire with such intensity
that it burns all traces of you
out of my head
to flood my mind with its fire
& sear it with a new pain
that doesnt involve you
there were never any sparks with us
the only heat i remember
was the cigarette between your lips
taunting me with the fire
i could never start
well
hand me a match
its getting cold here anyway

[holyoak]
986 · Sep 2014
Quick, Turn It Over
holyoak Sep 2014
if hourglass bodies
have taught me anything
it's that beauty
has a time limit
and it would seem
that you and i
were caught begging aphrodite
for just a few more grains of sand

[holyoak]
holyoak Aug 2014
i thought i was holding your hand
but i guess i was holding your heart
you said "don't let go" 
i said "oh" as it hit the asphalt
do you think gravity knows 
that it makes people fall
does it know we go down hard 
because i think you broke the sound barrier 
on your way down to me
but i just let gravity send your heart
straight down to the street
i wasn't thinking 
or maybe i was
just not about you
i'm selfish
and so is gravity 
so i guess you could call it natural
and you can call me gone

[holyoak]
956 · Apr 2015
letters & love notes
holyoak Apr 2015
sycophantic poetry
im only here to please you
im only here to ease
this starvation of attention
my words are only
hollow messengers
that mean only
that im devoted
but when
im gone
who will turn you
into the poetry
that you dont understand

[holyoak]
932 · Aug 2014
Marlboro Has Nothing On Me
holyoak Aug 2014
i'm holding your breath
so you won't leave me
and i see you slowly suffocating 
i'm too selfish to let go
so instead i suffer with you
i feel your lungs straining
and i ask you to take me in
like i'm the last drag
of your last cigarette 
let me fill your collapsing lungs
the ones that are crumbling into each other
the way we did
i was always your nicotine
and you always knew 
i'd be the end of you
but you couldn't quit me
i always knew
this would end
i'm an addiction out of style
we always knew
we would consume each other
in the worst of ways
so i'll tear you apart
from the inside out
we've always known 
that the smoke in your lungs
has my name on it
i've become a disease
i guess that makes me cancer
or at least 
something just as vile
just as ruthless 
just as deadly
just as selfish 
at least you'll remember me
i guess that all describes me
and i guess the smoke 
describes you too
and it describes us
how we drifted into each other
stealing parts of one another
and setting off again
losing ourselves
but gaining new parts
and maybe the point
is losing yourself in another 
but if we're the smoke
then we're the cancer
we're just as vile
just as ruthless 
just as deadly
just as selfish

[holyoak]
holyoak Jun 2015
its difficult
the crash
the seemingly endless skid
skin tearing
blood smearing the pavement
the shrieking of tires
burnt rubber
we stand up
weary
shaking
only to strap into the seat again
its difficult
the low
the drop after the high
the empty nauseous feeling
needing one more hit
one more drag
and ive been knocked down
and dragged out
so many
many times
and i keep begging
begging to get back
in the ring
put my gloves on
come out swinging
and i swear
if you crash this car again
because youre high
off of some fight we had
ill leave this belt unbuckled
i wont be walking away
from this wreck again

[holyoak]
holyoak Aug 2014
lately i've been day dreaming at night
and every time
you're grasping
at the smoke in my lungs
trying to make sense of the poetry
that you think is about yourself
the steam was coming off 
of the asphalt 
and i thought about 
how i was so breathless
when you told me
i float just out of your grasp
but at least you can see me
i've been blind since the day we met
and as it turns out
that was more curse than blessing
i could see nothing
except for the words you used
to keep me focused on you
you were always the selfish one
but what I gave
you couldn't take
it's not enough to just look away
because now I don't see anything
but that's better than seeing you 
you
in all your 
underwhelming 
overbearing
need to be seen by everyone
i wonder
do you think fire is scared 
of fizzling out and dying 
or does it just take pride 
in giving warmth 
and roaring while it can

[holyoak]
holyoak Aug 2014
A suicide note written in car-crash rhetoric
Telling me it was an accident
No one was supposed to get hurt
No one was meant to be in pain
The mangled metal
Tells me it wasn't all for naught
She put up a fight
She tried to fix herself
But when was the last time
A car was fixed without a mechanic
And then I'm reminded
Of why you left me
I was no mechanic
I was the faulty traffic light
Was i the one that sent you head on
Into the oncoming cars
Or the one that held you hostage
and started the sea of lights
Waiting impatiently behind you
Maybe I'm the reason you're gone
But there's nothing I can do but sit
Questioning everything I've ever said to you
I guess it doesn't matter either way
You're gone now

[holyoak]
724 · Aug 2014
Play It Again, Won't You?
holyoak Aug 2014
I don't like endings
These past few days have gone by slow
Like time is forcing me to think about what you did
I always thought my house was too big
Too much room to think
Both a blessing and a curse
I can think about the way your hair shimmered
How it glistened as you told me we didn't anymore
I can think about the way your hips swayed
And when you told me I leave you feeling queasy 
I don't like endings
I don't enjoy the feeling of something good coming to a close
The feeling of falling apart
We were fine In our little snow globe 
And then you shook us
Now I'm spinning around with the snow 
And you're anchored to the bottom
Tell me how that's fair
I don't like endings 

[holyoak]
515 · Apr 2018
dawndusk
holyoak Apr 2018
& we find ourselves
again
after everything
its as if i felt the sun shiver
as it met my skin
the dawn broke
just when our dusk
swallowed us whole
we sat silent
watching clouds burst
into violent oranges & purples
it was gorgeous
a fitting end to something
so
opposite
the sky looks awful after the sun sets
the lack of color
the lack of light
the lack of us
we exploded in light
it consumed us
we burned bright
& what was left behind
was something less
than the sum of our parts
not different but not the same
just
worse

[holyoak]

— The End —