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Jun 2022 · 146
Untitled
M Jun 2022
Silent
Still
Dark

The faraway, rhythmic jiggle of a dog’s collar
The arrival of a soft breeze and the pull of its departure
The deep pink roses standing out like secret beacons in the corners

Stop and smell
Nose damp
Free rose water
Grin

You could skip if you wanted to, and sometimes you do
You could sprint like a child
The exhilaration of running on carpet indoors
No elements to stop you
And you’re outside, even better

Dirt
Grass
Tiny wildflowers
A stick
No moss

Put it in a jar and label it
Dickinson Square Park
Then
Aug 2021 · 351
A Regret
M Aug 2021
I wish that I had
given love more freely with
no fear of shortage
Aug 2021 · 655
Emerging
M Aug 2021
I stepped outside and
the world greeted me as if
to sing, welcome home!
Aug 2021 · 834
Apathy
M Aug 2021
It was hot today.
I sweat putrid droplets of misery.
Everyone around me could smell it -
   apathy, fear, and disgust;
   otherness.
I wish that I didn’t have to speak at all.

It rained,
   but I wasn’t washed clean.
I went to the bathroom.
I couldn’t stay there,
   so I tried blotting them off with a paper
   towel.
They stubbornly clung to my surface like oil.

I joined the others.
We went back to the crowd.
I waited for the music to wash over me, but I felt nothing.
Dec 2017 · 296
Untitled
M Dec 2017
I felt fake,
   so I stopped trying to be
   anything.
Now, I feel like I am
   nothing.
Dec 2017 · 637
a part of me that i hate
M Dec 2017
love me, love me, please just love me...
i promise that i will love you in return! (this is true)
i can find unique beauty in everyone and everything

i'm not asking you to fill this ragged hole within me. it's been patched up before
you don't have to do anything really (am i lying?) but your love is enough (is it?)

i'm sorry, maybe i'm just making excuses
maybe i'm just needy- but this love, this love is genuine i swear
my love is always different; everyone[thing] is different
(does that make it the same?)

scratch that
i can't expect this from anyone but myself, or maybe mom and dad  (why am i cringing)
...that ship is still at sea

you're just so beautiful to me (or do i need to be told that i am?)
Jan 2017 · 833
Vulnerable
M Jan 2017
I was going to write a poem

   about how I stood on the corner after
   work, gripping a squishy handlebar with
   my left hand and holding K’s flip phone
   in the other.

My stomach flip-flopped across JFK blvd, down 20th street, and to that little alleyway where I stood alone for a while.

An old lady stared at me...

   did I trigger a happy memory of her
   youth,
   or was she just smirking at the beads of
   sweat on my forehead and disintegrating
   soles of my ballet flats?
   My black dress slouched over my body
   like I was going to a  funeral.

And even though my acro class was yesterday, I still felt upside down. There’s no way I could stay in a handstand that long, but I would’ve done it if it gave me a different explanation for why I was so sick.

Inside of me were those cropping rainbow scribbles that I used to make on Paint, you know, the ones that seemed like they could create a picture but ended up turning into shaking lines?

I could feel the lack of your presence, I could FEEL your not being there. As the minutes passed and I kept standing and waiting my face drooped and it was hard not to cry right there on the spot.

It was just past lunchtime but there was still a steady flow of businessmen filling the sidewalk.
   They glanced at me but I just looked
   away because they were my father's age
   and gave me familiar half-smiles.

I said that I was going to write a poem because I didn't have enough energy to do anything but list words,
but I guess this just turned into a ******
one.
Nov 2013 · 1.4k
Will they ever be sincere?
M Nov 2013
i.
when will my hopes
become existent enough to pour out
                       words of sincerity  
to speak of a genuine warmth filling my chest
instead of the lines full of teenage angst
and the desperate cries of prisoners inside me
                       who are trying to escape
all I can think of are cliché sayings
that tell of gloomy times
occasionally ending with half-hearted
                       attempts at optimism
does that please them?

ii.
I give enough of myself away
that I am kept from prevailing
but keep enough behind my dialated pupils
                       and shaky hands
to never be trodden on or crushed to dust
I sometimes murmur the thoughts that
                       clamor my mind
but barely above a whisper because they will be misunderstood

iii.
reflections hit me seemingly everywhere I turn
the images on the water’s surface
the gaunt faces that stare back at me in the
                       broken glass
when I look into my sister’s eyes they
                       slap me in the face  
these are the many people I used to be

iv.
I want to be that person
that soul
who filled me to the brim
                       when I was shaking remains of
                       mulch out of my scuffed up sneakers
and running off to seek boundless amounts
                       of a word that never escapes my mouth anymore
I don’t want to be known for
spewing out pink pieces of pathetic misery
                       onto the white carpet
No one truly wants a sad girl
the reality is that they are not mysterious and full
                       of dark beauty
at least I am not

v.
I carry an expertise
of driving myself into a dark hole
making it powerful enough to either
                    drag others in or ****** them out
someone gets hurt either way  
I leave the classic images of sorrow
                    and dark-lined eyes
for my own destiny
I consist of burrowing under my covers
Laying unconscious until the sun disappears from my view
Inspired by Vestigial cleats on derelict streets by Lauren Lamarca.
Oct 2013 · 607
Untitled
Oct 2013 · 1.1k
I was looking to be loved
M Oct 2013
Red bits flew into the air as my heart let go of the pieces that were so numerous
that to count them would be like trying to count each and every gray hair on your head.

The pressure that it had held grew too heavy to carry.

Each piece carried a part of me that I had collected with love and each piece shaped me
and each piece kept me from freezing over like you did and your father did and his father probably did.

You didn't fill much but you were buried somewhere underneath all of the others, in the smallest part that I clung onto, desperately hoping that somewhere inside of your cold body there was a place of warmth that held a piece of me, too.

I kept hoping and wanting even if it was tiny like my little sister's toes, your second daughter's toes, when she came into this world and fit into the palm of your hands.

I thought that maybe one day your eyes would show it and your mouth would express the love that I wished a piece of your insides contained and I held onto this idea for a long time.

I carried the wish from when I missed the ball too many times to run and my hands shakily filled in "b" when it was supposed to be "c" and your angry words tumbled out of your mouth and made themselves comfortable in my bones.

I brought it with me until your lips refused to speak the words that I wanted to hear.

All I wanted to hear was that you loved me and when the sound of those three words didn't escape your mouth and never reached my ears and my mind and my heart and my soul, I let go.

I let go of this desire, this need, as I filled my blanket cocoon when I was supposed to be making you proud- you hate that, when I lay there; useless

I let go of it as my mind refused to think of your face and as my heart turned a little bit colder when your small piece that remained to warm me left just like everyone always does;
even when they say they won't, even when they say they are certain that they love me. They just don't.

It always happens.

I let go of you just like you let go of all your pieces and I should have known that this hoping and this wishing and this dreaming would be for nothing,
because the love that I was looking for, the love that I had been searching for my entire childhood had been long gone.

And I'm so sorry, my lungs are screaming out apologies and regrets along with words of bitterness because I can't help but be angry for all of these disappointments that hit me day after day hour after hour minute after minute.

I'm trying not to let them heard; it's not like you've had any empathy or shared a hint of understanding.
Did they ever even exist? Do you even care?
Oct 2013 · 848
I am not here
M Oct 2013
When you see glimpses
of me walking through the hallway,
climbing out of my car,
and holding the door for the person behind me;

When you see
my eyes blinking,
my legs moving,
and my hands grasping a pen
   that is moving across a page;

When you hear
the rhythmic beat of my heart,
the soft breaths exiting my body,
and the words that flow out of my mouth;

it seems so real to you.
(It is not to me)

I am not talking and walking
   and pumping and breathing.
My body is
I am not here;
I am in a place that does not exist.
I haven't come back in years (I've tried)
*Do you think that I will ever return?
Sep 2013 · 381
Untitled
Sep 2013 · 1.1k
It's all so wrong
M Sep 2013
Maybe my mistake
Wasn't keeping everything inside
Maybe it wasn't sleeping all day
   or drinking by night
Maybe it wasn't caused by the blade
   or the puking or the 85 pills

I think it was the "I love yous" that became
   said (and heard) too often
Simply because people were told that they
   needed to make up for the first 16 years
I think it was the heart-to-hearts often taking
   place at 2am
And being taught to have faith in others  
I think it was the hugs that were the worst
   since they were given so that they would no longer
   feel foreign as they once had

For I am not supposed to be as  fragile as I
   was reshaped to be
I am not supposed to be filled with false
   hope or urgent voices saying "it gets better"
Pain isn't always temporary
Although joy often is
Maybe if I had been enlightened with these truths
   instead of taught ignorance through those lies
Then things would be different

(But my only fear
is would they?)

— The End —