Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
  Aug 2018 Patricia Kennedy
Beaux
If I die in a school shooting
I'll never go home again.
My room will sit unused,
A capsule frozen in time,
A snapshot of how I was.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my dog again.
She will sit at the front door
Waiting for me and wondering,
Why I never came home.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never graduate from high school.
My yearbooks will sit stacked
Stopped short of their goal,
Missing years that should have been.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my mom again.
She will sit distraught,
Planning a funeral
For a child taken from her.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my friends again.
They'll sit together, missing me.
One empty seat among them,
A constant reminder of their loss.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my little sister again.
She will sit through high school
Knowing I can't guide her through,
That she has to figure it out alone.

If I die in a school shooting
My school will be stained.
Pools of students lives will sit,
Blood tattoos on the brick structures,
Marks of death ground into it.

If I die in a school shooting
Everyone will wear black.
They'll send their thoughts and prayers
To a town marred by death,
Forever to be the home of a shooting.

If I die in a school shooting
Will the world change?
Or will I become one of hundreds  
Of kids who have to die?
What will it take?

If things continue this way
Children will have to live in fear.
They'll look over their shoulders
Always worried and wondering,
If they'll die in a school shooting.
The state of Florida is now home to the two most deadly mass shootings in American history. Pulse Nightclub was attacked in my city, I have friends who attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland. My little sister often fears going to school. I'm afraid to graduate and leave her. I want to be able to protect her if something happens. I hate that we have a reason to be afraid... That it's reasonable to have these fears. I hate it so f*cking much.
  Aug 2018 Patricia Kennedy
egghead
We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.
Inspired by the Vanity Fair article of André Aciman's reaction to his book *Call Me By Your Name* being made into a movie. Specifically the quote, "I couldn't write silence."
  Jul 2018 Patricia Kennedy
cecilia
It was only a sunny
smile, and little it
cost in the giving,
but like morning
light it scattered
the night and made
the day worth living
  Jun 2018 Patricia Kennedy
nora
ice
Nobody sees it here, but
falling apart at it's made-up seams,
bringing life to an orifice
sits my heart, breaking from within,
tearing to shreds as
I go on about my day

It nauseates me, your happiness
I want to release my insides from their
hiding place, whenever I think of you
loving you makes me sick
what used to give my heart
warmth, now brings it nothing but
ice, releasing a cold frigid sensation,
numbing the world around me.

Your world keeps on turning,
as mine was frozen in your storm
the snow enveloping me
in a pit of empty glee
my patience is wearing thin, of
how I've grown too accustomed
to your form of love.
toxic relationships will be the death of me.
Words, once set to open air,
Gain weight.
Like boulders they can roll
from your mouth down a
slippery ***** of destruction to
eventually settle heavily on the shoulders
of innocent individuals, the weight of which
often proving too much for their
fragilely constructed foundations to support.
Like a gun,
keep the safety on what you speak,
Don't point hateful words,
at anything you love,
unless you intend to **** it.
Because more deadly than any
lead based projectile what you say
will leave your mouth like
a tomahawk missile loaded with
a poisonous and corrosive payload
capable of entering a persons soul and eating it up
from the inside out.
They'll tell you your whole life,
"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
Perhaps more people would heed this warning,
If they said,
"Your words are a thermonuclear bomb capable of disintegrating
egos quicker than Fat Man did Nagasaki, the lasting effects of which may resonate through time in a cataclysmic downward spiral you could not possibly begin to imagine, so be careful."
  Oct 2017 Patricia Kennedy
Chi
People often ask me what love is  

And I seriously don't know what it means

All I can think about is you

Your eyes, those brown eyes

Those eyes which saw me naked  

You saw every scar on my body  

Yet the only thing you said was

“You are beautiful”  

Love, I am not beautiful

Scars, stretch marks, blood, wounds

Doesn't mean beautiful

I am not an art

Yet your lips kissed me

The way the sun kissed my skin every morning

Without a fail, without any doubt

You smiled.  

And the only words that came to my mind was

"****, this is trouble"

My love, your words hold me like a hostage

Trapped inside an empty box, finding a way out.  

A way I can never ever get a glimpse of.

I knew that this love

Our love would last a lifetime  

Or so I thought



We were torn apart by hatreds, insecurities, confusions

Maybe if it wasn't for distance  

We would be still together, we could have worked it out

But maybe, no matter what decisions we'll make

We will still come to an end

Confused about the future

Insecure about other people

Hating each other

You, giving up

And me, craving for more

Craving for something that can fill up the hole inside my chest



I wanted you to stay forever, here beside me

But every time I would ask about it

You always said

"You deserve so much more"

You were once my everything

My other half

My partner in crime  

You were someone so freaking important to me

You were the kind of mistake, I wouldn't mind repeating

I fell so hard for you

And guess what happened?

Love, I am broken



How many days, months, years

For me, to forget

That once upon a time

You were here

I was there

Hands holding tighter

Eyes locked to each other

Hearts that beat in a synchronizing manner  



How much would it cost?

For the pain to stop

For the memories to abandon

For the feelings to fade

My love, I did not expect any of this

I didn't know that love can be deadly

A love that can force someone to commit suicide  

That loving someone means tearing every part of yourself





Now, do you think I'm suicidal?

Love, do not be afraid

I'm not going to die

Being suicidal doesn’t mean killing yourself

Suicidal means I wouldn't mind dying

I kept on dying anyway

I kept on dying at the same place I thought was giving life to me  

Because the day, you decided to give up on me

I already gave up on myself.
Next page