Kelly: Poems

lack.

Kelly Oct 2021

lack.

my world is too heavy for me
it's weighted in my bones
i cannot fathom life without
this deafening, silent drone

the pile has grown, i've thrown it all
and all are taking back
i guess i'm the exception, cause in everything

i lack.

2016, sometime when i gave a **** about rhyme and meter

lately.

Kelly Mar 2021

lately.

the more time i spend looking inward,

the further i pull away

in fear of the person i've been lately

a product of your environment

lead.

Kelly Mar 2021

lead.

no lead between my chest,

just love.

only once, a long time ago

leave.

Kelly Feb 2021

leave.

what if i don't miss you?

what if i just want to leave this place?

haunted by the issues.

less.

Kelly Sep 2021

less.

without work i feel purposeless
without direction i feel aimless
without persistance i feel useless
without motivation I feel hopeless

but even with all i still feel like less.

who am i and where the **** am i going

liar.

Kelly Feb 2022

liar.

I wish when you said you loved me
you didn’t have your fingers crossed

liar.

Kelly Oct 2021

liar.

The hardest part about honesty
From somebody of avoidance
Is once you start using it
They’ll only hear the shake in your voice

it doesn’t matter

lie.

Kelly Oct 2018

lie.

I hate how I succumb to your every
incline
Subdued by the laugh that emits
through your eyes
The weight of your body pressed hard
on my chest
I know not now what I would do if you left.

But you leave.

You are leaving.

You leave me in ruins each time we exchange
For my wanting is higher than the price
you paid
How am I to know if your mind ever
swayed
Past the point of a one night you wish
I had saved

                                               For you.

There's two that'd give two on the bet
that we'd work
Though my fear-stricken mind paints these claims
as absurd

You're not what I want

You're not what I want.

Then why am I sitting here wondering what
                                                                                             you taste like

I threw down the pen as I wrote these words
I wanted to Lie
But they wanted to be heard
What feelings of body from you
I could've learned

Would I have wanted to go there?

No.

NO.

Oh god no, I do.
To see if your colors held
new shades of Blue.
I couldn't to my own intentions stay true
I wanted to because
I thought
                                                       I couldn't love you.

locksmith.

Kelly Mar 2021

locksmith.

I locked my heart away in a body
I swore did not exist

Still somehow handed her the tools
to push on, and persist

how do people get in without a key?

lonely.

Kelly Jun 2021

lonely.

I used to wrap around myself
curled inward and broken
compressed to my desires, spoken
to my loneliness

And then I met you.
and you.
and you.

But then I met fire
and tears
and rain
I met heartbreak
and sadness
I met immovable pain

now here I remain,
curled inward and broken
compressed to my desires,
returned home to

lonely.

even somebody painful to love

lousy.

Kelly Mar 2022

lousy.

if somebody is lousy to everybody but you,
some day you'll be everybody too

loveless.

Kelly Oct 2021

loveless.

surface deep on surface thin
but under vacant stares
my body's screaming for their heart
my pulse cannot match theirs
The faithless actions in my bed reflect my tempest mind
My sheets hold saturated tears
to my anguish, keep them blind.

rhyme but no reason

lust.

Kelly Feb 2021

lust.

i still remember everything
as he fell short asleep
his patterned breathing echoed
in the ears of faded dreams

I'd wanted this
i'd wanted this
the moment came and went

why do i keep on giving in
to fleeting tests of skin?

unfulfilling

manic.

Kelly Jun 2022

manic.

i prayed for this
now i don't want it

the highs fly by and my eyes can't catch any moments
i ride on attention and affection

i spend time between the sheets with people i'm dying to meet
and wake in the morning begging for solitarity

i pathologize my feelings
and
i want to be alone but my thoughts are my loudest company

my brain is stuck in cyclical relentlessness
i speak to myself and somebody else answers

manicmanicmanicmanicmanicmanicmanicmanic

me.

Kelly Dec 2020

me.

I hate my inner *****
                                 who flares recurringly, consistently,
        cruelly to the surface upon those
                                                            who least deserve it.

I hate my inner narcissist
                                        who rears herself
                                                                            so cleanly
                              on the outer sleeve of
                                                   Me
          bashing down while lifting me up
                                                            on the shoulders of
                                            comparison

I hate my learned complexes
                                    bred not of my parents
            but of a woman who saw                       a light
                             and sought only to
                                                                         consume it.

I hate how amid the dread and sin
                               every rippled part of these indentions below my skin
                                      I must completely forgive them.

what is me, what is not?
11.20.20

#forgiveness #self #love #hate #me

melancholy.

Kelly Apr 2021

melancholy.

pack up those ridged teeth
step outside your crooked heat

I'd have loved you

if you'd wanted me to

i missed your absent touch

misery.

Kelly Feb 2022

misery.

i was asked if i find comfort in my misery
             as if sadness is a part of me

and for the first time in a while, i cracked a smile --
            and light shone through the gaps between my teeth
spilling truth onto polished wood
  and knowing i was understood

the matte felt blackness around my heart
  the cold abhorrence
        padlocked behind a push-pull door
that always falsely blocks exertion
                                 despite direction

crumbling walls with little force
                  just push a bit, and you'll get more

than you asked for.

mistaken.

Kelly Sep 2021

mistaken.

if you think i wanted this
if you think i awoke with a desire to bring agony,
twist the knife deeper into a wound I never wanted to make
you are so sorely
and sorrily
mistaken.

everything i feel or nothing at all.

more.

Kelly May 2021

more.

inner contention wrecked my mind
and rocked me to my core
loving you would be a ride
unrivaled, craving more.

darkness, how attractive

move.

Kelly Oct 2021

move.

i'm sad
but i should walk my dog

so only one of us is sad.

myself.

Kelly Feb 2022

myself.

i wake up each morning with myself
i fall asleep every night
with myself
I hold myself when I'm sad
and hurt myself when
i'm angry
i wipe my tears through the difficulties
and berate myself through
my failures
i love everything i hate about myself
and hate everything i love
about myself.

i'd leave me if i could, i wouldn't want to be anybody else

nervosa.

Kelly Mar 2019

nervosa.

In darkest times of darker nights
the cold impounds my legs
I've curled within myself again
And satisfied the pain
Tense corners of the feign drawn air
the power hidden plea
And all I care to delve in now
is how it's taken me
So flexed in shaded hell bound grips
I'm biting hard in vain
In one swift motion,
stifled moans
My life seeps down the drain

#help

nice.

Kelly Feb 2023

nice.

i wish i hadn't spent as much time
                                    fantasizing
i wish i hadn't spent as much time
                                   idealizing

because I passed a stop sign on the road
somewhere in monroe
and i cried
and i cried
and i pounded the steering wheel with tired hands
and i thought about how you abandoned me

i miss the heights of the bridge
above rushing water
i miss throwing pine straw in the cold
when my sadness grew hotter

i miss black coffee in bed
and endless songs
i miss learning the drums
and the long
                                                  saturday afternoons

the blues in your eyes turned from water to ice
the last time you looked at me,

when i realized you aren't nice
                                                                                          anymore.

i lost you friend. i lost you

nightmares.

Kelly Feb 2022

nightmares.

dreamt I got to say all the things I felt to the people who made me feel them

and it didn’t make a f*cking difference

selfish people give selfish love

nightmares.

Kelly Mar 2020

nightmares.

A comforting sigh in a sickening night

the ink of your arms on the satin of my sides

nothing.

Kelly Oct 2021

nothing.

sturdy insecurity
an oxymoron
juxtaposition not akin
to the feelings I feel in my
chest
solidified, black lead
when driven deep into the sunken fronts
of lust vs a crush
which is neither nor nothing
                                                          i suppose

and how i hate feeling victim to
my own insidious head
holding firmly the affirmations
turning over and over
since i've known her
stating plainly that i am entirely
                                                                 wholly
                                                                                     completely
                                                          and utterly
                                  nothing

to the people around me.

chronic perceived inadequacy

numb.

Kelly Oct 2021

numb.

i'm fighting losing battles,
i wonder what i've done
still searching for a beating heart
inside this empty one

hold me in the morning.

nyc.

Kelly Dec 2021

nyc.

I used to think I fell in love with possibility
Concrete walls brimming with opportunity
And sudden metallic jerks
Running Rails on Halsey street
As well as the bathroom stalls
Of Brooklyn beer bars
Funneling my vision through crooked teeth
And clippings, semantics separated by seconds
Between moments of forgotten clarity
But now I see

It’s just a city

And I’m still painfully me

oakland.

Kelly Jul 2021

oakland.

Careful about who
you reach into

The ones who bite the
hand that feeds them

Mark your red flags,
and ignore them

Watch your back
or you're condemned.

the vacant stares, the ones who don't care

okay.

Kelly Apr 2022

okay.

I am okay
it's just extremely ambiguous

              A word that holds just as many different meanings as there are languages in the world

i've heard almost every tongue i've encountered use it
           it means the same thing to us all
           it means everything all at once

Am I okay?

I still claw through dense sadness
I still dwell on impenetrable pain
                   I still mask wells of fiery anxiety -- ripping the pit of my stomach
                 I question the validity of my own feelings
    I struggle desperately to heal
                                                                       I'm trying, truly
I'll keep trying.

Because I am okay, I really am.

                                               I'm just within several definitions of that dangerously ambiguous word.

everything is relative, but nothing is fixed.

ouch.

Kelly Feb 2022

ouch.

i was told i need to let peoples' actions prove their words,
while i've been using their words to justify their actions.

will i ever learn

over.

Kelly Jul 2021

over.

dreams resume

where slipped between the sheets again
with you

lazy afternoons
intrude and coat my rash decisions
with regret

i will let this us be over.

ow.

Kelly Feb 2021

ow.

ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow

sometimes that's all you feel.

pain.

Kelly Feb 2022

pain.

I fit in my body pretty great,
but not so much in my brain

you are going to struggle kid, but you’re going to be okay

panic.

Kelly Oct 2021

panic.

i tried to abandon thoughts of you
the sudden break from the lines we had fused
spurred my slip into darkness
cold
hot
Abyss.
I never envisioned my knees to my eyes
tepid in your contemporary implies
I never wanted to be here
Holding myself together
The Hundreds could not save me from your tempest weather.
Pounding and pounding
relentless rain
Turned hardened to hail
as you sullied my brain

Stop.

Indulged in the concept i'd been offered thus late
Attempting to turn panic into hate
I hate you
I hate you
When you said "i'll break you"
i didn't believe that I'd drop my walls for you

Stop.

You care more for yourself and this need to be wanted
I didn't like feeling like something you'd hunted
I wanted to love you
pure, absent of lust
I gave you small pieces of forgotten trust
You didn't fit in that faction
set in safety of heart
your colors bled swiftly into abstract art
Painted within me
you saw my unjustly
please tell me this was something more than my body

Stop.

I want to
to hate you
I want to ******* hate you
For playing these games in my ready-****** head
before you i'd witnessed more lenient dread
But now that you're in me
you're left of my skin
I've washed you away
tried to forget my sin

I should've been your friend first.

I should've been your friend first.

But honey, you too, you should've been my friend first
and now i am strewn out in pieces, debris
from your choking grip you will not set me free
Your need to be wanted
your lust for my soul
Let go, I'm not breathing
i've lost all control.

this was weird to rewrite

passion.

Kelly May 2021

passion.

I finally found a pulsing draw
to pull me from my faults
Something that brought my heart to life
and sang beyond past falls
I fell in hard, I fell in fast
and in it I found ways
To free the darkness of my heart
and let it roar in waves.

something beautiful

patience.

Kelly May 2021

patience.

Please know I’m always working and know I, too, will Falter
Just remember what molds best the stone
Is soft, consistent water

be kind to me, I'm trying

platter.

Kelly Mar 2021

platter.

I'm tired of this platter,
the pieces I've served and the lies I've heard

you don't want me.

sometimes I think you do

possession.

Kelly Feb 2022

possession.

i've lost more than i care to admit
                          by battles of possession
to them i'm a trophy to win
                 a presence to dominate

so often i wait while longer they take

i still reach into my chest
give them the very best                   of me

i just want to love

possibility.

Kelly Aug 2022

possibility.

it's easy to digress and stress
over predetermined endings
and inevitable sadness
pain granted by the calling for its opportunity
in efforts not to rule out the possibility

it's easy to build bones thicker than walls
of resentment and regret
when the brick and mortar are laid
by the weak foundation that caused it to break

it's easy to place hate in the hands of owing grace
and half smiles face the tides
of even keeled
untimely fate

it's easy to blame the sand
for causing the waves to break
in forgiveness and space
no landslide wretched,
i always remained

with all the change, there was always space
in the marrow of my bones, i built homes
for you and me
plenty
for each time you may leave

and each time i will hope patiently
because maybe
it could be
or maybe it couldn't

let's just not rule out the possibility

you again

promises.

Kelly Jun 2021

promises.

I love hearing people make promises

fantasizing about the way they're going to

break them

you ruined me for a moment, there.

promotion.

Kelly Oct 2021

promotion.

i turned off my phone
closed down the internet
halted external allowance into my diseased brain
on the day
i was supposed to be most lively
and exciting

quiet.

Kelly Nov 2021

quiet.

Me to my brain: QUIET

radical acceptance.

Kelly Feb 2023

radical acceptance.

i haven't written since november
i haven't written since november

not in the way I'm used to.
Not within the depths of nothingness, clinging to words as if their air could steal my lungs' deprivation.

Not in the hungry pull of emotions
untethered, abysmal
not to keep my head above water

Instead I've learned to lay back on the waves
drift with the current
no matter how turbulent

acceptance does not equal agreement

rain.

Kelly Dec 2021

rain.

It hasn’t stopped raining since you left
And all I can think of is watching you running in it

To show how much you love me

rcnyc.

Kelly Feb 2020

rcnyc.

Do you think of me

In New York City?

release.

Kelly Jun 2021

release.

Hills are climbed for coasting
Trudging the upward *****
crunching your breath
legs burning and aching
pressing the pedals to the pavement
for the thrill of the drop

but darkness can hide in overactivity
insufficiency
inadequacy

and after the climb
I find myself pumping the gears
desperate to catch traction on the fall
to keep pushing
when all the wind wants me to do
is

release.

stop pedaling

reverse.

Kelly Oct 2021

reverse.

the people i've been
and
the places i've known.

ripcord.

Kelly Oct 2021

ripcord.

i tried to put on paper the way you make me feel
blotted onto a back lit screen
and on the pages littering the corners of my room

i tried to make sense of weighted absence in my bed
still sunlight, stripping my sheets,
golden as your hair in the morning

i tried these things and many,
my methodical, logical mind turning circles over and around
the shape of your body and
                                                   the walls of your mind
bouncing over the articulation of your voice
still resonating on the walls of my room

and i came to a comfortably uncomfortable denouement
that liking you
was absent of reason,
                                         conclusion,
                                                                         solution,
no resolution
                                       adequate for the disgruntled mathematician
                        hired for the rationalization of my brain

how insane

                                       so i'll remain

infatuated with the colors in your eyes and the dull thud of your feet on the earth
no attachment to acumen, let my hand off the rip cord
and trust that the fall and the pain it may bring

is so unquestionably worth having you, having me.

relevantly structured entropy.

robotic.

Kelly Nov 2021

robotic.

my limbs creak with metallic rust
and i dust off the wires in my brain
far less humane
than acknowledging the steady feed
of coded numbers contracting my muscles
and moving throughout the days

i hate this place

but there is absolutely no trace
of life within me
aside from the mundane fog of rolling admission
cycling through the space between my ears
dulling all my tears
and scaring me into a shackled hell
of cycled fear

and i feel
absolutely

nothing.