today I had my tea
with no sugar
strange
no difference

everyone must realize
how quickly it
can all disappear

the woman, the man, the job, the cat,
the boy with leukemia in Hong Kong,
your chinaware
crushed against the hardwood floor,
the blizzard, the aged wine in your cellar,
your beauty, your wit, 3 birds on
the telephone wire

and all your left with
is
desperation
dissatisfaction &
disillusion

and the waitress with kind eyes shaking you
you awake in the middle of the night
asking what is wrong
what could possibly be wrong

and you reply
I don't know I don't know I don't know...

I fell in love with a boy by the bayside whose mouth tasted like sour apples in a way i never thought so beautiful. And I'm sorry it was never you, you always tasted bitter and burned. But there's something you need to understand,that my existence has wracking side effects and scars on my skin are only a classroom of pain. Your tears always found a way in, and leaked onto my heart, playing a sad song about wishing wells and shooting stars and formed words on my tongue like four leaf clovers. And you still haven't apologized for emptying my lake of happiness and replacing it with rocks of sadness and filling my pockets with pebbles. A man once told me that anyone good for me would never hurt me. And i suddenly forgot that, when your eyes turned to icy corridors and your hands, tightened leather. I only wanted to melt away the emptiness in your irises and break away from the distraught grip. But didn't anyone ever tell you can't just set thing on fire because you like to watch ash float in the wind? You were always so wreckless. With my bleeding heart in your hands all you could mutter was, "I made a mess." All you could do was walk away with clenched fists leaving me on the ground trying to pick up shards of glass, ribbons of tears, and pieces of the moon; essentially you left me to salvage the pieces of myself. The truth is, you left me there in the dark. And i haven't emerged.

I

am

not afraid

of birth

People seem to fear

losing this chaotic

fight to the world

I see no fear in the newborn

I see screams owing nothing

I see a cry out to declare

"Yes I am alive, I exist"

and calm settles in after life's first breath

I

am

not afraid

of middle age

the ego death

the rending of the self

and the questions bombarded asking me

"is any of this all worth it?"

As I see many people on the path

of anxiety

I can't help but wonder

how one can fear death

if they worry so much about life being worth it

One doesn't worry about being robbed of

an empty bank account

They seek instead to fill it

to save

to leave something behind for loved ones

She left me

It hurt

Ow my heart

I will get better

I will survive

Love is pain

Ow

Our love was like a kite string

I couldn't hold on for too long

the wind was really strong

whoa watch out for that wind

****, it's like a hurricane out in this ****

Wow, I'm very heartfelt

Hopefully someone sleeps with me after I read this at the slam

I was broken
I needed fixing
and I was wrong
to think you could
glue me back together

You accepted me
when I couldn't even look at myself
in the mirror
and that feeling rushed through my veins
like heroine

You were another one
of my many secrets,
I kept you behind my back

Eventually, I realized schemes
and lies wouldn't put out my bonfire
because it was only getting bigger

Three words...

Three words was all it took
and I was burning
But I didn't want to drag you down
with me so I ran

Then you walked away
You told me you walked away
because you didn't want me
to see you cry
but the look on your face
was painful enough

I can still see it
in the galaxies
beneath my eyelids

That's the only place you exist anymore

By Chloe Elizabeth