Marlene Bailey: Poems

1h · 39

Marlene Bailey 1h

You know? Today I started crying out of nowhere.
Lying in bed, phone in hand, photo gallery open,
and a picture you once took of me, distracted,
where I swear to heaven, I look terrible.

The tears slid endlessly down my cheeks
and fell onto my bare chest,
knocking at the door of my heart,
asking to be let in to clean a little of the dirt
left by the footsteps of an old love—
if it can even be called love.

I tried to stop them, but they were insistent, relentless, burning, enveloping.
And the worst part is, that list of words isn’t meant to describe pain,
but to show you how much they… how much you make me feel.

The last time I wrote about love…
No, I’m sorry.
The last time I wrote about what I thought was love,
I did it with tears in my eyes—just like now—
but those tears were crushing, piercing, devouring.
They didn’t knock at the door to clean; they barged in, ready to drown.
I guess that makes it seem like I’ve never really known what love is.

But looking at that photo in my gallery, for a moment I thought
that for the first time, I could see.
I could feel, I could believe.
For the first time I was close to understanding love—
to drinking it, to savoring it, to living it.

Do you know why I cried?
I cried because I saw myself in you.
I saw myself through your eyes and I was beautiful.
I was funny, I was smart,
I was a glass of water to a man who had lived his whole life thirsty.
I was me, in all my splendor.
And I have never been splendid.
But for you, splendid is a word too small.

And I hate to tell myself this,
but I’m about to believe you.
I’m about to believe that I deserve to be loved the way you love me,
that I deserve to be listened, no matter what I speak of,
that I deserve to walk on flowers and fresh grass
and stop dragging my feet across a road of broken plates,
that I deserve more than the cold blade of despair.
That I deserve you.

But it scares me so much to believe.
It scares me to open my palm and receive without trembling,
to fear that one day you’ll wake up and decide I’m not enough,
to fear that this too will turn to dust in my hands
and I’ll walk on splinters again instead of petals.
It scares me that my heart won’t know how to hold
what it has always asked for.

And yet here I am, with open hands.
Willing to let you see me and name me without masks,
to let your eyes rebuild me with every glance,
to walk without fearing that my steps will be heard,
to stop being afraid of love,
and to believe, even trembling,
that this time, at last, love belongs to me.

I wrote this after watching a video of a girl saying that her husband never deletes the pictures where she doesn't look good because there is nothing like his wife looking anything but perfect for him

#love #photos #tears #heart #deserve #afraid

Sep 7 · 1.9k

We will be sad together

Marlene Bailey Sep 7

We will be sad together

Since I was a child,
sadness has walked beside me longer than I dare confess.
She stayed through chaos and madness,
through the murkiest nights (for she is all I ever knew)
and even through my brightest hours (for I felt I did not deserve them).

Since I was a child, I was taught not to be sad—
not to feel so fiercely,
not to show who I truly am.
I was told to lock my sorrowful eyes inside a vault
with everything that made me imperfect to the world.
And so, I did,
all my life…
until you came.

You opened the vault of miseries
and embraced them one by one
until you reached my forgotten sadness.
You held her long enough to make her weep,
and for the first time in years,
I felt free to be.

You caressed her hair
as if touching a secret of the universe.
You kissed her cracks
and stitched together the frayed threads
that lashed against you, eager to cut—
and they did.
But you licked the blood from your fingers and smiled:
“We will be sad together,” you said.

And you wept.
You wept with her as she unveiled
all the times I hid her,
cloaked her in masks,
denied her the right to be mine.
All the times she was cast out as a curse,
named poison instead of balm.
All the times they tried to tear her away from me,
blind to the truth that she was
my most human refuge.

You saw her for what she is:
another way of feeling.

Thank you
for teaching me to feel.

Wrote this will sad and my boyfriend decided to say "we will be sad together" and I bawled my eyes out and this came from it.

#tears #together #sadness #free #vault #hiding #loving #feeling

Jul 6 · 688

Lilies in the park

Marlene Bailey Jul 6

Lilies in the park

How can one be that obsessed with someone?
How could anyone in the whole world wake up one day
With the eagerness to see just one face for the rest of their life?
How could anyone grab oranges and not even think of eating them as soon as they touch their hands
Because they can’t think of anything else but getting home to share them with someone?
How, how, how?

Why do I feel like the sun is not bright enough if I don’t get to see your smile?
Why does chocolate taste like charcoal when I’m not eating it with you?
And why do I go out of my way to have the pillow always ready for your head,
Because I’m scared your thoughts might drift away and lie to your face about how beautiful you are?
Why, why, why?

What is it that makes me want to write you poems,
Even when the alphabet of my life is missing the letters y, o, and u?
What is it that screams at me to wash your shoes,
When mine look like dirt was made for them?
What is it that runs through my veins every time the stars you call eyes
Look through the cloth I call soul?
And I know it’s more than blood, and I know it’s more than love.

My love, how can someone beg for you
In the middle of the night, between the sheets of a broken work of art?
My Lord, how can someone love with such clouds and lilies in the park,
And chamomile tea in the morning, while you fill up my heart?

Sometimes I think I just write everything I wish someone would say to me

#lilies #world #love #oranges #tea #clouds #park #beg

Jul 6 · 471

In your waterfall you heard me

Marlene Bailey Jul 6

In your waterfall you heard me

Like cold water that makes your skin tingle,
And the shining rocks that hold it,
Like the strength of tiny waves that drag you to dream (to live),
In your waterfall, you heard me.

And your sweet touch on my burns set me aflame,
And your hands awakened in me what I thought was dead.
And my tongue grew again, after years of having cut it with torment,
And you showed me the sky, you showed me the uncertain.

And I began to speak.
And I spoke and spoke so much that my heart grew tired and my words ran out,
Yet still, you listened.
And you were so bold, so harsh, so kind,
So difficult, so sad, so tender,
So cold, so fresh, so you—
That I created a dictionary just to compose words in your name,
And I started with the word “waterfall,”
And I sank into you.

I like how you listen.

I don't remember why I wrote this one but I love it (wrote it in Spanish first)

#waterfall #love #listen #torment #aflame #burns #skin #dream #life

Jul 6 · 631

Six-year-old me

Marlene Bailey Jul 6

Six-year-old me

I can't even remember six-year-old me.
I don't know if she liked yellow like I do now.
I don't know if she hated spaghetti the way I do.
I don't know if she loved the sky and the clouds and the stars and the moon the way my big self does.

And I always wonder...
What would she think of me?
Are we following the dreams we had at that age?
Are we facing life with the same joy I think we would’ve had at six?
Would she ask me why I like yellow so much if she used to love pink?
What if she loved spaghetti and wanted to eat it every day?
I think maybe she did like the sky like I do.

(What’s not to like?)

soft and tender little poem of me trying to remember the sweet kid I once was

#soft #six #yellow #moon #sky #reminiscing #wonder #tender

Jul 6 · 285

Sometimes I feel alone

Marlene Bailey Jul 6

Sometimes I feel alone

Sometimes... I feel alone.

And sometimes it bothers me, but sometimes it doesn’t.
And sometimes it feels nice, but sometimes it doesn’t.
And I find myself asking if there’s something wrong—
Something wrong with me, something wrong with my soul.
But there are no answers... maybe because there are no real questions.
Because I know there’s something wrong.
I just don’t want to believe it.
So I just say:

Sometimes... I feel alone.

Wrote this little one on August 2021 and found it today looking through my notes

#alone #bother #soul #wrong #questions

Jul 6 · 1.2k

Between wings and tears

Marlene Bailey Jul 6

Between wings and tears

What is this feeling in my stomach?
The butterflies flutter nonstop—I can hear their wings beating beneath my skin.
I feel them shift from side to side,
Claiming what little remains of me.

What is it?
What is this bitter taste rising through my throat, resting on my tongue?
Why can’t I hear the butterflies anymore?
Why do I still feel this?

My mouth opens, and all I spit is blood and glass.
The sour bile of what the butterflies once were grows thick—and I can do nothing.
“Spit them out, regurgitate them, let them go!”
I can’t.

I press my chest, and slowly my arms bind themselves around my belly,
Cradle of cutting kisses—kisses that now hurt,
And no longer heal the way they used to.

I rise from mourning, only to fall again, and the butterflies begin to flutter once more,
But they no longer beat like drums or echo like thunder.
They don’t crash against my walls or hide in my corners…
They are there, but not alive.

They try to climb.
I feel them fighting each other, pushing for space up my esophagus—
Once a path for all things good,
Now a tunnel for all things painful.
I hear them scream; their tiny voices pierce my eardrums and shake my bones.

They want out.

And I understand them well:
What good is a body that dances among broken hearts?
What use are shards beneath my feet,
Reminding me how little I’ve felt?
What comfort is the weeping of a soul grown weary?
What joy lies in the bottomless hollow of a body fed by illusions?
They were made for the sun—for joy, for love—
And all I can offer is an umbrella
For the relentless rain storming inside me.
Cold, decaying rain that stains the walls and soils my shoes, instead of washing them clean.

They’re almost free—
About to escape.
But I swallow them down once more,
Just as I’ve swallowed the bile of melancholy,
Just as I’ve swallowed the tears that swore, they would soften the blades of my sharp-edged heart.

I feel them sink slowly,
Their wings now still—they’ve accepted their fate.
I don’t want to let them go,
Because they’re all I have left.
They’re all I have of what once was pain.
They’re all I have of what once was passion…

They’re all I have of what once was love.

I'm going through another heartbreak and I'm starting to believe I'm bound to always pick up the pieces of my heart until my days come to an end.

#butterflies #brokenheart #wings #tears #bile #kisses #thunder #echo

Jun 22 · 1.2k

Petite chanson d’un cœur brisé

Marlene Bailey Jun 22

Petite chanson d’un cœur brisé

Let me paint you a picture.

Red glasses filled with empty words.
Mirrors that don’t catch your reflection.
Blue and white lilies covering the floor—a floor I once knew.
It is the same floor I spend half of my days crying on.

There’s music.
Music filling the voids of an empty space where my heart was supposed to be.
It resonates through every cavity, through every bone, but my dead soul cannot hear it.
The blood is no longer running through my veins,
And my lips—once filled with love and affection—are as dark as the moment.
How easy is it to die of a broken heart?
Is it really broken? Or am I going crazy while I watch it fall and shatter around my lily-covered floor?

I crawl to pick up the pieces,
And I cut myself on every little bit,
But there’s nothing coming out of my fingers—just the sorrow of a few tears.

Empty.
Empty body, empty eyes, empty mind, empty soul of mine.
Should I remake my heart? Should I get the glue and put it all together again?
Or should I just keep cutting myself with the pieces?

Maybe I should let it be as it is.
There’s beauty in a broken heart.

I wrote this up in the bus on my way to work after hearing “Comptine d’un autre été, l’après-midi”

#red #glass #dead #soul #music #veins #blood #affection #lilies #tears

Jun 22 · 457

The black woman in I II

Marlene Bailey Jun 22

The black woman in I II

There’s something about the black woman in I.

There’s something about the Black woman in I that I can’t figure out.
And there was a time where I spent my days basking in this not knowing situation.
A time when I blamed the men and women around me—
The people who couldn’t see what I wanted them to see but…
How would they see what I can’t?

I kept crying about how disrespectful ****** were to me,
How the women around me didn’t understand the feeling of not feeling enough,
How I blamed myself for everything that was happening because of me.
And yes,
If it was because of me,
Then I am at fault
And should blame myself for it.
But the picture is bigger than that.
It’s tougher than that.
It’s darker than that.

A few years later,
There’s still something about the Black woman in I that I can’t figure out.

Always complacent.
Always trying to be soft after a life of being the hardest rock.
Always trying to be mellow jazz when I was the heaviest metal.
Always trying to be touched like a piano,
But I kept on being the drums.

I’m still my own weakness, you know?
Now I’m not lying to anyone—
I’m just lying to myself.
I walk in this made-up power that I’m supposed to have,
And I built a whole bridge out of it… but it always trembles.

    “You’re so beautiful for being a Black woman.”
    It trembles.
    “Oh, you’re so well-spoken for coming from the hood!”
    It trembles.
    “Are you sure you didn’t have any help making this?”
    It trembles.
    “You’ll never be like her.”
    And it trembles.

Still, I keep walking over that bridge because—
I need to fake it until I make it, right?
I’m so tired of faking it.
I’m so tired of feeling this way.
I’m tired of being policed over my blackness,
Over my hair and my body,
Over my womanhood and my mind,
Over my sad little soul.
Still, I keep going through it,
In the hopes that I find what I want to find in the end.

    “Oh, what do you want to find?”

…

Oh, dear heart.
We were supposed to walk on lilies and green grass.
I’m sorry that we can’t.

Eight years later,
There’s something about the black woman in I that I still can’t figure out.
And just like before…

I never will.

It’s so funny how you spend enough time forgetting something that once broke your heart in a thousand pieces

#blackwoman #black #lilies #darkskin #feeling #notenough #heart

Apr 2020 · 481

feel

Marlene Bailey Apr 2020

feel

i feel.

disconnected
helpless
tiny

in agony.

i feel like the world is ending
but I have no one to turn to.
i feel very happy for a moment
and very sad to the other.
i feel like i can't do anything right
as if it were mud, as if it didn't hurt,

as if i was worth nothing.

this is exactly how i feel right now, not my best work but i needed to vent

#agony #sadness #tiny #helpless #worth #nothing

Jun 2018 · 541

The black women in I

Marlene Bailey Jun 2018

The black women in I

There’s something about the black women in I that I can’t figure out.
I wake up in my bed every morning wishing I could go out and spend time with my friends
Without some disrespectful ***** yelling at me:
“Ay, yo ma!” or “What a *****, mama—let me taste you.”

I’m sure my name isn’t Ay, yo ma.
I’m sure I’m not your ma.

But I used to blame myself for that.
I used to tell myself that all those men were attracted to me because of my body.
I used to tell myself that, if I ever got *****, it would be my fault.

Every day, I’m inspired by all these Black queens out there
Trying to save themselves from men's speculation—
But I seemed to be more on the men's side than the women's.

That’s why I started to hate my body.
But deep down, I was sure my heart didn’t match what my brain said.
Didn’t match what I thought.

Because of men’s disparaging opinions of me,
I began to hate my body,
The way I dressed,
The way I spoke,
The way I expressed myself…
The way I wrote.

I used to open up to others so they could understand what was happening,
But the women I spoke with seemed to agree with the men just as much as I did.
Now it wasn’t just the men calling me “*****” because of how I dressed—
Now it was also the women making me feel ashamed.

I realized that women could also be sexist.

All this time,
I’ve been hating myself for the opinions of people
Who might be worse off than me—
Economically, socially, physically, or mentally.
And I knew it.

Still,
There was something about the black woman in I that I couldn’t figure out.

I’m not going to lie—
I started dressing again like I did before.
I talked about whatever I wanted without fear
Of being labeled a ***** or a *****
By the people I spoke to
Or the ones who overheard.

I was finally following the example of all those Black women who inspired me.
I felt free. Liberated.
I no longer feared the critical eyes of the men and women who once made me feel so small.

But we all have a weakness.
Mine was myself.

I no longer needed anyone to say those horrible things to me,
Because I said them to myself.
I woke up every day telling myself how disgusting I was,
How no one would ever love me—
Not with the way I am,
Not with the color of my skin,
Not with the way I think.
Not if I’m just… me.

My friends tried to help.
They gave me advice.
They told me things like:

“I hope you realize how valuable you are, so you don’t let anyone underestimate you.”

But the only one underestimating me…
Was me.

I always try to be strong for the people who love me.
I always pretend to love myself so they don’t worry.
I always keep in mind that I don’t want my daughters to go through what I’m going through.

It’s difficult—
I know.
But I have to do it.

Maybe that’s how I’ll learn to love myself the way my friends love me.
Maybe I can overcome all this and become the great woman I want to be.
Maybe I can teach my brain that what it says about me doesn’t define me.

I am sure that I’ll achieve it.

But even then—
There will be something about the black woman in I that I can’t figure out.

And I never will.

I wrote this in 2017 after a man told me I was cute for a black girl

#black #women #underestimate #gender

Jun 2018 · 443

until now

Marlene Bailey Jun 2018

until now

To think that I wrote to you when you were never mine.

Until now, I thought we were meant for each other.
Until now, I believed it was real.
Until now, I see that you only used me.

I hope you had fun.

I always wondered why illusions get to me so fast.
Why I give love to anyone, why I fall in love without thinking.
Why, whenever I told you “I love you,”
I believed your “Me too.”

And until now, I realize I was an idiot.
That I am an idiot.
For the simple act of falling in love with you—
For the simple act of falling in love alone.

“All my friends tell me I should move on,
But I’m still sinking into you.”

Plunging into your thoughts,
Drowning in the insomnia you cause day by day.

Or maybe…
I just miss you.
Although I guess you already know that.

Either way,
It doesn’t do any good if you know—
Because you can’t do anything about it.

I was so in love with this guy...he ****** my bestfriend.

#disappointment #love #stay

Jun 2018 · 519

art

Marlene Bailey Jun 2018

art

Today the teacher asked me what art was, and I mentioned him.

For me, he was, is, and will always be art.

His hair, his eyes, his lips, and his cheeks.
His arms, his legs, his neck.

All of him is art.

The way his hair moves through the air,
Or the way complete idiocy makes him smile.

His seriousness and his bearing,
His body when he sweats,
The way he sings softly.

His voice.
His voice is so perfect to me.
Every word that comes out of his mouth
Is like thousands of babies laughing endlessly.

Even in his saddest moments,
He is art.

The way he prefers to cry in a place where no one sees him.
The way his words become deeper, with a darker sense.
The way his dark circles show from sleepless nights.

His arms.
The way his arms hug me constantly.
The way he moves them just to get my attention (and he really does).
The way they wrap around my waist and carry me like a baby.

His lips.
The way his lips brush mine,
Making me want to kiss him.
The way he presses them when he’s upset.
The way he kisses me again and again—
Even then, I never get tired of his kisses.

And his eyes.
His eyes are my favorite part.
Why?
Because they’re bad and good at the same time.
He can lie to me while looking at me with those brown eyes.
He can make me lose control just by looking at me,
But in the same way he makes me lose control,
He controls me.

He can make me cry just by looking at me.
He can make my life spin a thousand times with a glance.
He can make my heart stop.
And just by looking at me...
I fell in love with him.

Do you know what’s wrong?
I never knew him.
And I never will.

But that’s what art is about—
To love the unknown.

And for me,
He was art.
For me,
He was a stranger.

#he #love #art #unknow

Jun 2018 · 2.1k

I fell in love with a black gay man

Marlene Bailey Jun 2018

I fell in love with a black gay man

I fell in love with a black gay man,
and I knew he was gay...
I didn’t know he was black.

You see, there are people who teach you how to think for yourself,
and there are people who teach you how to think like them.
That was my problem.

Those people taught me how to think like them,
so I went through high school thinking that white men were better than black men.

Every time a black guy approached me,
I made it clear from the beginning that I didn’t want anything beyond friendship.

And that’s how I met Reginald.

The first black man I fell in love with.
And I know I’m saying now that he is black,
but even so, I couldn’t see the blackness in him.

He was the white boy people talked so much about.
He was the dream boy of any living girl,
but he was locked in a black body that those same people didn’t understand.

The first time,
I saw a black man—
a man who wanted more than friendship with me,
but who wouldn’t.

In the end, we became friends—
and very good ones.

That issue of black men not being part of my heart went to hell
when I started getting to know Reginald better.

I started to love him.

For the love—
but above all, for how they had taught me to think—
I started to see him as a white man:
of high rank,
with a good family,
and a magnificent sense of humor.

But then, I found out that my beloved Reginald was gay.
Ironic, right?
The only black man I had ever fallen in love with—
and it turns out he is gay.

Still, I couldn’t keep myself away from him.
I started doing everything I could so that we were always together,
hoping that he would start to feel something for me...

He didn’t.

And I don’t blame him.
How was I able to notice his passion toward men
but not remember that he was a black man?
How couldn’t I notice that I fell in love with a black man?

Then I realized—
the same people who had put such an idea in my mind
were black people.
People who had decided to surrender to white people
and insisted on thinking like them.

But they decided that.
They inculcated that in me.

The day Reginald died at the hands of my brother,
I noticed his blackness again.

And no,
it wasn’t because I had lost the love I felt for him—
but because it was my brother who taught me to think like him...
who taught me to think like whites.

I lost the love of my life
because of my black brother’s decision
to think in the same way white people do.

Maybe I was the one who should have died
at the hands of Reginald’s sister,
because he saw me as a white man too
the night we,
thanks to a drunken stupor,
decided to be one—
consumed in mutual pleasure,
without taking into account the consequences.

How will I explain the death of his father
to my son who is coming?

Should I tell him his father died because he was a black man?
Or that his father died because I saw him as a white man?

Should I blame my parents
for teaching my brother to think like a white man?
Or should I blame myself for paying attention to him?

Now I don’t know who I fell in love with...
And I really think I never will.

#love #suffering #nothingelse

— The End —