Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
557 · Jun 2014
Allergies
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
Only one nostril works
Only one.
If I am lucky.
I can breathe.
My mouth turns dry like the
Dust on a two hundred year old piano,
My teeth, like the keys, are slowly yellowing.
I'm breathing like I'm opening
Only one eye,
I'm lopsided.
And why must I breathe at all?
Iris Rebry Apr 2014
The lamplight is
dimly lit.
here am i,
shoving
panda express
into the dark cavern
called my mouth
where the stalactites
and stalagmites
dance together and apart
it's a bit tangier than usual
my taste-buds concur
the rice is lukewarm
and falls off my fork
paperwork due tomorrow
SAT prep
projects
my future
and all i want to do  is
write poetry
7:18 pm
and i sit,
writing poetry
for me writing is breathing
air
and sometimes i hold my breath for
days at a time
i cannot be a hermit
i must have interaction
though i
want to be alone
far away
where even
beethoven's fifth symphony
wouldn't drown out the noise
he laughs at me
who?
who are they that mock me?
beethoven
shakespeare
poe
conan doyle
even
charles dodgson finds me funny
"so you want to be a writer?" they boom, and suddenly i
am as
small as dust
"YOU a FEMALE WRITER and MUSIC LOVER? ha! i never heard anything funnier!"
and the voices mush into one
and it softens to become the voice
of my inner critic
my nemesis
my arch foe
my ennui
and that is only the 14th
of April.
549 · Jul 2014
Pitiful wretchedness
Iris Rebry Jul 2014
Ever feel lonely?
I just want a soul
To talk to.
I'm in
Pitiful
Wretchedness.
I want to talk.
Someone listen
Let me learn about you.
I'm a wretch
A pitiful wretch.
Talk to me
549 · Jan 2015
Loving
Iris Rebry Jan 2015
Not romantic I mean
But loving each other for struggling through
For being fellow humans on the planet
For trudging through the sludge of daily life
Do I love my fellow man.
503 · Apr 2014
Number one
Iris Rebry Apr 2014
this is it
the one,
number one.
Do you know what this means?
I have a purple pen
I like pens.
I am the purple pen
rolling a passionate ink
onto the white lined
ballroom floor called
paper, having a
history of many generations
Egyptians, Sumerians,
Asians and Americans,
but never any
butterflies...
I am the butterfly,
the Queen of the sky,
my scepters are antennae,
my gown is fiery black
I am the fiery black
on a chalkboard,
on a cloak
on a
secret.
I am the secret
flitting through conversations,
I am the conversations,
hoping to be spread around,
until I am number one.
I am number one.
at the top of the list,
until someone passes me.
I crumble, I crack.
my palace is no more,
I am not number one,
but number two,
number nineteen,
number five hundred,
number one million
It doesn't matter,
Only that I am not
number one.
My heart rips,
the white lined ballroom called
paper burns,
the purple pen is smashed,
the butterfly eaten
by a bird,
the fiery black turned to white
the secret told,
the conversations stopped.
Because I am not number one.
Will I ever be number one?
Will I ever be close?
I am the phoenix,
rising again.
and I WILL BE
number one.
or will I be?
503 · May 2014
The eighth of may
Iris Rebry May 2014
It's cloudy weather
Weather like London weather
Like the fog that hides
The villains of Sherlock Holmes
In the mist of the clouds
Yeah that weather.
And I write this,
With headphones in my ears
But no music
Listening to a teacher
Mutter like a mosquito
Insignificant
For now
She says she wants to read books
And all I want to do is curl up by a fire
With a flannel blanket
And a cup of cambric
And write
496 · Feb 2015
Truths
Iris Rebry Feb 2015
Poets struggle to try to tell you the truth
In a world of lies,
Where everyone screams for nothing but the truth.
They are the singers of the soul.
494 · Aug 2014
To my best friend M.S.
Iris Rebry Aug 2014
You could relate.
You listened to my fate.
You understood.
I loved you. I love you still.
I hugged you goodbye on
The last day of camp.
You were crying.
I missed you. I miss you still.
Those fun summer days.
Bus rides, museums, shopping.
Dreams now they seem.
You were the middle
Yet the smallest.
I wish I could see you.
Thank you best friend, for understanding,
And relating,
I love you.
A true story
489 · Aug 2014
The lightning strikes
Iris Rebry Aug 2014
There's never any warning when
An idea hits you.
Bam!
Pop!
Zap!
Wow, it's like love at first sight.
Both are so rare,
Epiphanies are like lightning.
One minute they're there,
And you see their shape,
A tangle of nerves,
Cracks in the sky,
And the next you look at nothing.
Where did it come from?
That I don't know.
They won't come with a warning.
You just better be ready with an open jar waiting for the lightning to
Strike so you can catch
Your sparkle.
Forever.
Hold it tight,
Don't let it go,
For when the lightning strikes,
You'll know
483 · May 2014
Gas station
Iris Rebry May 2014
I lean on the side of my car
Watching the numbers perpetually spin
And realize it's not gas I'm buying
It's time
Time that I will spend in the car
Uselessly driving around
Wondering what I'm doing with my life
But I'm also buying distance
Distance that I can drive away from
My family my friends
My enemies
Distance I can sit there and zone off
And think
But if I'm not buying gas and instead buying time
What in really buying is money
Because time equals money
But it doesn't feel that way
It's always negative
And the equation in the end will equal zero
476 · Sep 2014
Disease
Iris Rebry Sep 2014
I am a disease,
Avoided by everyone around me.
My own sister on the phone
So she doesn't have to speak to me alone.
I am a lost cause
No one gives me a pause.
I am alone.
My disease undone
468 · Jan 2015
A note
463 · Nov 2014
The isolationist
Iris Rebry Nov 2014
I want to be alone,
Yet I don't.
I don't want to see a love poem every time I scroll down the screen,
Telling me what I don't have
And what I'm not wasting my time on
I'm in isolationist.
And I've forgotten how to love
The world.
And I've forgotten how to love
Being with people.
457 · Jun 2014
Non fiction
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
Is what we seemed to have
Labeled as
Truth.
Lies are fiction.
Or so we say.
Fiction is what we make up and
What we make up isn't real.
Or so we think.
Non fiction is the boring facts
About someone's life,
All stretched out on a line
Going twice around the world
Before it gets back to us.
But what if fiction is just as much
Truth
As non fiction?
What if we aren't making facts up
But only embellishing
On the inner, whispered facts of
Ourselves,
The inner battle we hold,
And it comes out
Fiction
456 · May 2014
Board
Iris Rebry May 2014
I'm board
Board out of my mind board
Board as in so board
That I can even saw through my own
Boardom
I'm so board I have to nail myself to
Something else so I'm not board
Board as in board that I paint over
My fatigue and lack of enthusiasm
Board as in obstinate
So obstinate I don't even know what
Death is anymore
It doesn't visit me
There is no gravitational theft here.
Board as in people step on me
To get to something board
Board as in I've been hung under something else for stabilization.
Yeah that's it I'm board
455 · May 2014
Poetic
Iris Rebry May 2014
I combat my urge to run from math
Class by being poetic
I let the words flow out of my mouth
Like a waterfall and my
Friend laughs as I attempt
To make poetry out of thin air
It's easier to make it out of thick air
You have more to work with.
I tell her I'm figuring out the
Meaning of life is life
Because I don't get what I'm
Saying I just don't want to realize
I can't count to three
As my friend pointed out
During a card game
In which I lied and they called me out
I'm not superman you know
And I can't even figure out
What the cosine is of 23
Without my calculator
And I want to punch
The people who say English
***** because it's hard
They don't see what I see
If English *****
It ***** like a vaccum
Or a straw
A good *****.
And I remember falling asleep with a
Book on my head in the hallway
Hoping for tomorrow
When I get to slam poetry
451 · Jun 2014
Living alone
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
Part of me hates rejection.
Hates to be shunned into the
Dark corner
Of the world
Dimly lit, dank, dark
Crying.
Perhaps I'll end up being the
Stereotypical old lady
With too many cats
I could bear to give them up.
446 · Jul 2014
Din
Iris Rebry Jul 2014
Din
Rain can be heard anywhere
Not just on a tin roof.
I hear it on the car top as
I curl up
Drivers seat
Writing this poem.
I heard the rain in my
Brain.
White noise
Background din.
Rain was once appreciated.
But I've blended it into the background
Like a chalk painting,
Wiping it again and again
Until it's nothing but
White noise din.
Rain rain come and stay.
Don't ever go away.
I want to hear you.
444 · Jun 2014
Dance and talking
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
Both communicate
My feelings for you.
I could dance forever in your arms
Like a twirling ballerina
In a music box
But if rather talk.
And dance
At the same time.
Hang into my words like
Your life hangs on by a thread
You're not dead,
Don't be led
Away from me.
Live within my words
And dance within my dreams
And I will breathe your words
Back to you
442 · May 2014
7:18 am
Iris Rebry May 2014
Do I plan to get up
Early on weekends to finish my
Homework?
Do I plan to celebrate my grandmother's birthday
By saying:"happy birthday I'll be upstairs learning about photosynthesis?"
Of course not.
Homework interrupts the daily life
The life I planned out
I have so much I want to do
And so little time to do it
I want to fly in the sky, arms outstretched
I want to hide in the dark night of
My soul and talk
I want to swim in the warmest water
Until my skin withers like a raisin
I want to watch the sunrise
And wonder if it had any homework
So this is me 7:18 am
And I'm doing homework
On a saturday
440 · Sep 2014
A friend like death
Iris Rebry Sep 2014
Hang on me on a telephone pole
And let my skin crackle and
Crinkle in the sun.
Let the ravens make nests in my hair
Until they cloak me with a cape
As feathery and black as death
Who comes to say hello.
He embraces me.
Tells me my soul is desirable.
He wraps his arms around me.
And kisses my mouth.
The kiss is soft and cold
And permenant
439 · Dec 2014
Water
Iris Rebry Dec 2014
If pain is a river, I'm drowning
If sorrow is a swamp I'm wallowing
If desperation is a waterfall, I'm falling off of my tight rope because
I'm desperate to live
435 · Jun 2014
I'm sorry but no
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
I'm sorry,
But no,
I never liked you.
You may accuse me,
You seem to have every right,
I've dragged you along like
A fish on a line,
I've caught you like a fly in a web
And no fool,
I'm sorry but no,
I never liked you.
You may have thought so,
With my bewitching gaze,
Those deep puddles of blue
Like sapphires,
You seem lost.
I'm sorry but no,
I'm not returning your gaze,
And starring fondly in your eyes,
I'm staring into your soul,
And I don't like what i see.
So I'm sorry but no,
I never liked you.
435 · Jun 2014
Stranger
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
I am a foreigner
A stranger,
Unimportant,
I am nothing but the green screen
Background to your
Ocean.
I blend in
Like paint being rolled,
Like the foundation
You rub on your face,
To hide the blemishes you think you have
I am a stranger,
Setting off the red alert
Alarms,
Though I am no more a threat
Than ice cream.
Think nothing of me,
But silently accept my presence
As ordinary to your world,
As if I'm nothing but a tree in it.
432 · Nov 2014
I hope 10w
Iris Rebry Nov 2014
I hope for a day
When I won't be judged
426 · Dec 2014
Iwrite
Iris Rebry Dec 2014
I write because
My inner soul leaks out onto the page
424 · Nov 2014
One
Iris Rebry Nov 2014
One
I have been one
Al-one
D-one
My t-one is to be below a
Thr-one holding the sorcerer's st-one
Feeling power in my b-ones
I have been the one
Al-one
On the ph-one with no one but myself the one
While the words dr-one on and on inside my mental z-one and I wonder if this is what it's like to be a l-one ranger
A-lone
I have been one
Just thought i would write another poem
422 · Aug 2014
Missing you
Iris Rebry Aug 2014
Sometimes we talk.
Like every weekend.
We're both busy.
That I understand.
Sometimes I look at
Our Facebook messages
Just to see your profile picture stare
Back at me,
So I don't forget your face.
I miss you.
I want to cry out to you
And tell you I miss you
And love you like a brother.
But you don't talk.
And I feel naked
And embarrassed.
So I shut up
And move on.
Still missing you inside.
A true story.
418 · Jul 2014
Holmes
Iris Rebry Jul 2014
He has no home
But pulls
His head into
His head
And Holmes comes home
He smokes a pipe
He does not type
And Holmes comes home
He befriends a doctor
Considers every factor
And Holmes comes home
A genius
Almost a superman
But yet explainable
I understood
414 · Jul 2014
Reading
Iris Rebry Jul 2014
I can't believe how heavy words are
They drip like wax into my soul.
They swirl and swirl
Until the thick mixture has the texture
Of brownie mix.
Words pile on me.
I feel their weight upon my back.
Cute
Fat
Ugly
Unique
Apocraphayl.
They crush me.
They are heavy.
Words are heavy.
412 · Oct 2014
Contests
Iris Rebry Oct 2014
Life is not a contest
There is no winner or loser
There is only the survivor and the dead
The survivor, while they live on,
Feel like a loser for living
And the dead, while they cannot speak,
Feel like winners for reaching eternal rest.
Yet they have lost their lives,
They are losers,
And the survivors are winners.
Or are they not?
411 · Jun 2014
Coughing at 9:00
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
I wheeze
And my throat creaks
Like an old door
That needs oil.
I gasp,
Like a fish out of water,
And I cough
Like an old man with a pipe in
His hands, about to
Meet death face to face.
406 · Jun 2014
Cry at 10:00pm
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
I shudder,
My face is drenched in tears and snot
And I quiver
Keep it together keep it together.
I cry to God to come upon my soul.
Save me
Keep it together. Keep it together.
My eyes fill with tears
Puffy eyes,
Save me
Keep it together, keep it together.
I wipe my nose .
I need a tissue
Puffy eyes
Save me
Keep it together, keep it together.
And I feel myself being held like a small child again.
Hold me
I need a tissue
Puffy eyes
Save me
Keep it together, keep it together.
And I cry
Hard
403 · Sep 2014
Umpteenth depression night
Iris Rebry Sep 2014
I'll probably cry myself to sleep again
It just can't be helped.
I've burdened those around me
With my happiness.
Am I not strong enough to stand on my own two feet?
Do I not trust myself?
I am despicable.
Ugly.
Worthless.
Why, why must I hate myself?
Because I don't trust myself?
I am alone. I have always been alone. Hiding inside the books,
Wearing multiple masks that no one
Bothered to take away.
Say something I'm giving up on you
398 · May 2014
Waiting
Iris Rebry May 2014
Time is a cruel mistress
With a smile so hot
You think it could cook a pizza
All by itself
Time stays with me when I wait
It taunts me
Giggles at me
Laughs at me like a
Silly school girl.
And it never leaves.
I cannot ignore it.

But when I can ignore it,
When I'm having such a
Glorious time that time
Is on the back burner
It gets pouty and runs away
And then I am again waiting
And it laughs at me
Payback for my efforts to ignore it.
Time is a cruel mistress
395 · Sep 2014
Passions 15w
Iris Rebry Sep 2014
Anyone can be a slave to their own passions, only the brilliant ones release themselves
394 · Sep 2014
Depression 2
Iris Rebry Sep 2014
I was bullied once
Seventh grade. I hid myself in books.
But to me being bullied is better than being depressed.
Being bullied you are at least
Significant enough for someone
To pick on you,
Call you names, and hurt you.
Being depressed, you're as insignificant as a quintessence of dust.
You're nothing.
Even to yourself.
394 · Jul 2014
Museum
Iris Rebry Jul 2014
Sometimes I go to see paintings
Of people,or sometimes I go to see the
People watch the paintings.
Which is more artistic:
The thinker,
Or the furrowed eyebrows
Of the face thinking about the thinker?
There's more screaming inside
Our eyes than the scream itself
When we see it.
We heard the screaming in our heads
Painting is silent.
Sometimes I go to see the live people.
To see the moving exhibits.
To see what they think
Of art.
393 · Jul 2014
And you missed it
Iris Rebry Jul 2014
Yeah you said you
Couldn't make it,
But a tiny sliver of hope in my heart
Festered itself down in the cardiac
Muscle and I thought
For one second,
You might open the door with a
Dramatic
Whoosh
And walk right in.
And is stop performing
Just so you could take a seat,
Then is continue.
But you missed it.
You weren't there.
And the sliver shattered into a tiny
Splinters that I now have to pick
Out with some tweezers
Because you weren't there.
You didn't hear the words I sang to the
Crowd
The tune I played to the audience,
That I dedicated to you.
Nope,
You weren't there.
393 · Aug 2014
It's been a while
Iris Rebry Aug 2014
It's been a while
Since I opened my lips,
And wrote the sweet words
With a voice that drips,
Sincerity.
Clarity.
Charity,
Hardly ever disdain in this voice
Of mine,
But plenty of it,
In the race of mankind.
It's been a spell
Since I wrote poetry well,
And where's my mind?
Neither in heaven nor in hell.
But on poetry,
How sublime
391 · Aug 2014
Severing
Iris Rebry Aug 2014
Today I must end our friendship.
It hurts,
Like acid burning your skin.
And I wish I would have scars to
Remember by,
But instead all I have is the heartache
That will one day go away.
So today I sever us.
I tell you I need space,
I need to be alone.
To fight this depression on my own.
But I so wish you were here with me.
I am afraid.
And if I lose you,
I'll be alone.
But it's for the best that I do this.
It's for your sake,
So you don't get hurt.
I don't want you to end up like me.
So I must sever this.
386 · Jul 2014
Writing like Shakespeare
Iris Rebry Jul 2014
Am I not a poet?
Yet poets speak,
Ere the moon doth move
In her heavenly orb
Or Jove doth sit upon his golden
Thronez
Poetry is the fruit of love,
Nay passion.
For I love the flowers
The temperant wind in May,
Yet I do not write on those subjects,
Yay passion is the fruit of love.
Ere I spake to mine own heart
It did grow the delicate fruit
That called itself poetry.
And indeed I call mine self poet
And writer
And I am one.
Nay to those foul tempered men
Men of rank,
Yet there's more rancor to them
Than ranks of their own.
They do not believe
And yet poet am I.
And I write and they listen not.
Fool fool they are
Fool fool I was.
Am I not a poet?
Nay they will never believe.
They believed in Shakespeare
And am I not he?
Nay I am a poet
Humble
Not a playwright
Not a bard.
Not he whose words are held as celestial alone
I call mine self a poet
And a poet I be.
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Why do we wash bath towels?
Aren't we clean when we use them?
How do I respond to your silence?
Why do you hate yourself?
Does this really matter?
377 · May 2014
Hello again
Iris Rebry May 2014
Hello again to the words
On a blank page of my
Heart that got crushed
Under the rotating tires of your
Rejection
Because I'm not good enough to
Be seen as anything other
Than a human being
Not an artist or an imagination
But numbers and a name
An address and a telephone number
And haven't even told you what my favorite color is.
It's purple.
So hello again to the life I once wanted
To be a diva
Because I thought I was such a star
In the universe
Next to Ursa Major
She's not my mother
No I'm an orphan
Alone.
Hello again to the sound of the discord
Of the out of tune piano
I've been playing my whole life and
My name is not Chopin
370 · Jun 2014
Jane austen
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
Your wit
Is like the wick of a stick of dynamite
Quick, sharp, explosive
You laugh and I laugh with you.
Such terrible creatures,
Mr. Collins, lizzy Bennet.
All figures of your brain.
Stay with me Jane.
I need your help.
I need your advice, your wisdom
Of such things,
Dangerous things,
As love.
Do not hide from me.
But give me your passion.
Help me to save Ms. Smith
And be the Emma I knew I could be
And do not let poor be by herself
But be with her.
Write her a gentleman,
Write her true love
Write a new story.
For me
364 · May 2014
They tell me
Iris Rebry May 2014
They tell me I'm not good enough
Too short, too fat, too crazy
Your curly hair seems eccentric
And you will never fit into society
I must wedge myself in between
Society's grooves
Like the knots in a board of wood
Only I'm bored,
My hair is in a knot
And the groove I seem to fit in is the
One labeled "weird" by society.
Perhaps I don't fit in that box
Packed in so tightly I
Can barely breathe.
So they tell me to get thinner
Get smaller
And perhaps
Don't even exist
362 · Aug 2014
To my best friend, I.S.
Iris Rebry Aug 2014
You are Sherlock Holmes
But so am I.
You are Watson, I am too.
Neither is greater than the other,
Yet were both superior in different ways,
You with your mind,
Me with my words,
You with your understanding,
Me with my cries.
You never once complained,
But said you were there for me.
You understood right off the bat,
Why I was apologizing so much.
You knew my past,
I told you. Willingly, because I trust you.
Do you remember that last day, of camp, we hugged, and I remember having to stand on tip toe to reach your shoulders,
You're the youngest but the tallest.
From then on you had my back,
And I thought maybe I was
Saddling you with too much.
But the yoke seemed light to you.
So my best friend, I love you.
Never forget me, and I will never forget you.
I trust you,
Thank you for listening,
And believing in me.
A true story
358 · Jul 2014
Isolationist
Iris Rebry Jul 2014
Some days it want to crawl in a
Corner and die
Of crying too much.
Some days I want to think
That the world does not exist around
Me
And that my heartbeat is
My heartbeat that beats
Like a free eagle in the sky.
Alone.
Some days I want to listen to my own thoughts
And say nothing to no one
Because I'm listening to my head
Phones and not saying nothing
To no one.
And I'm alone
In isolation.
Some days
I want to be alone,
Listening to myself
And wondering if the world
Exists.
357 · Jun 2014
Living in the past
Iris Rebry Jun 2014
Today I am living in the past .
I see the same bullies with their smirks
Wiped across their faces,
I hear their same jeers at me.
I feel the same anger boiling inside of me.
I relive my embarrassing moments
Of pure stupidity.
I grow hot with embarrassment.
I'm sure my checks flushed.
I really should live in the present,
But I want to perfect my past
So hard
I'll never do it correctly.
Instead I'll be stuck there,
Never able to escape
My moments of vulnerability.
357 · May 2014
Untitled
Iris Rebry May 2014
I write and write and write
Yet nothing comes to mind
That seems spectacular
Poetic and lovely
We have all been slaves to paper
Ink our words
Bound in printed chains
Of words.
We are captivated by each other.
Held like birds in cages
Like the first time you fell
Head over heels in love
That type of captivated.
Bound in other's chains.
And so captured by everything around us
We cannot escape
Death is a gravitational crime
That no law seems to prohibit
So I write and I write and I write
And I know, things will not be the same
Because I write
Next page