Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Dear contradictions,

Deadly as you may be
You make me inaccessible to the general public

Of course the contradictions are
skin deep
Heart deep
bone deep
Water deep

They write a story I don’t want to tell
Of someone who fell
Then got up
But then fell again

You make me moody
A whirlwind of hard and soft
Weak or gentle? Strong and rough?

Keys to create words
Should it be burned
Like the paper

Multiple harmonies
Yet off key notes
Irony as an element of the periodic table

Brains that are blind, worlds in time
Left lonely with dreams forgotten
Shards of memories ignored
with deflections of the future

Dear contradictions,
You make me who I am. And for that I hate you
Advil,
Methamphetamine,
The words of e e cummings
Your sculpted sloped nose
and Lord of the Flies

These are all pain relievers

A hospital,
The voice  of Nelson Mandela
The softness of her back
And notes of Vivaldi’s four seasons violin concerto number 2

    These are all sanctuaries

Four letters,
A Christmas song in February
Streaks of sunshine
And a contact name

These are all love
softness
Like the way your body folds when you plie
A tear on skin, tracing a path through emotional wreckage
A spot on the small of your back, an Achilles heel

pain
Like when I can’t remember something that was so important to me
When people talk about “blood”
if I don’t cry out for help when I’m supposed to

complicated
Epimenides paradox
Trying to figure out how to moderate a filter
Reasons why to live

broken
A house torn by a hurricane
Your angular collarbones
my lifeline, thrown away

scared
Love in the form of a mistake
Tear drops bottled
A steady hand slipped

worse
A promise broken
No more feelings
the people my funeral due to age alone

goodbye
A couple of stanzas
Seven definitions
A love letter gone awry
For forever
Sometimes you are called too big for people.
Because the heart is too big
The dreams are too big
The expectations are too big

But I’ve learned what that means
Is that other people are too small for you
Maybe you burn too bright.

Maybe you DO feel too much

But in a dark world what people need is light
Shining hopes and glowing dreams
The glory of a valiant character

Maybe they will be brittle and broken and old
But at least you will have had them
Those pulsating memories of adrenaline and beauty
Effort is no foolish thing

You may put it into only certain things,
But the reason people like me burn out so quickly is because
We put so much into everything
That eventually we can’t put anything into everything but the thought of death

See, we glowing, shining, beautiful, people
We are the ones who see the glory in effort
The intelligence, the courage

We know that failing is only a small possibility
If you are already in motion

We shiny people are also the darkest people
But effort is beautiful and strong
And effort isn’t you
You don't get to be effort
Effort is me.
Growth.
Going, you know that you have gone.
Walking clockwise around yourself
I’ve learned that I know nothing
Other than that sometimes you don’t need to know

You need to know calculus and how to sing in 2 different languages
You need to know how to dress business casual and shake hands and beam people with your smile

But when do we learn how to comfort ourselves
Comfort found without the BPA of anything above a 0.8
Who taught us that hearts beating fast will become familiar.
Warm, even
I liked that night, we were flying
As the black cloaked your stars, you had your eyes closed
Sleep-deprived and half dead I thought of loving you
It seemed foolish

On the ground, it felt dizzy
like you spun me around
Friendly smiles were small
Everything was so dead I didn’t think of you

I don’t know the day where I thought of it as more
It wasn’t a day but a memory, a rememory
The buttons were pushed before I was ready

Anxiously I worked and worked and acted like your honey didn’t matter to me
It didn’t, I convince myself even now
But the moment came in capitals
You thought I was unattainable

The breaks were pressed by those closest
Of course they were, it’s what they’re there for
I waited and waited and waited and I got tiny answers

I got fragments, particles, portions
I never got it all
I still don’t have it all
Is this you
Is this my body?
Worse, is it my mind

Tell me now, if I ask too much
Tell me now, if communication won’t be our thing
Tell me now If we won’t be our own thing
But just tell me
Tell me anything
Because I need to be told
We are the teens who jump to conclusions who smash beer in the street, walk fast and try to soothe ourselves with ***** water

We are the teens who cry for a song feeling alone but surrounded by people
Who replace hurt with *** and hide our pain by waiting until maybe finally something good happens

We are the teens who go home every day and miss everyone who made our life worth living

We are the loud *** teens who smoke and drink and get 100s on tests and love themselves and are happy about it

We are the teens who get gelato and are homies with our host families and jump in with our clothes on

We are the teens who look at the waves and the height and think the wind blowing is beautiful

We are the teens who overuse the word love because we lack it in our lives

We are the teens who have to give it to each other because maybe not everyone loves us the way we want them to

Maybe that’s why we don’t love the people who want us to
Next page