Peyton Scott

Peyton Scott Feb 2014

I lost myself
when I uttered the words:
“it’s up to you now”
and laid my heart in your feeble hands.
I lost myself when I shoved my fate
in your direction
and turned a blind eye.
I wanted you to want me back,
and you never did.

I have been searching ever since
for the girl I once was.
I used knives and numerous sharp objects
to dig into my skin
to see if I was still there,
within the depths of my misguided soul.
I leapt into words and strung them
into poems
hoping you’d read them and come
rushing back.
Because without you
I wasn’t me.

I stopped searching when I found
that I could never be the girl
I was before you.
I had seen too many dreams die,
too many hearts break
to ever crawl back into my old skin.
I stopped searching when I found myself
lying amongst the *******
of a collapsed and failed life.
And I found that the new me
could never
live with
you.

Peyton Scott Feb 2014

The Epidemic of Love

I’ve read stories about
people who believed
love was a disease,
and I believe them, my dear.
I’m weak in the knees,
the heart,
the soul.
I’m sick to my stomach when you’re not here,
I’m high with a fever when you are.
I can’t focus,
I can’t sleep,
and when I dream,
it’s of you.

You’re a cancer
that I’ll never remove.
You’re a cough
that’ll never disappear,
you’re a sickness
I’ll put up with for the rest of my life.
Your love is a disease, my dear
and I hope they never find the cure.

Peyton Scott Feb 2014

When You Reach The End of Your Rope, Hold On

I use to be so empty,
I was drained like a sewer
and I was led to believe
that I would always be this way.
But the beautiful thing is,
I didn’t need anyone to fill me back up,
I did that myself.

I use to be so sad that
it was a battle in the morning
just to get up,
but I did it.
I did it -no one else.

I sprouted up
like a tree growing in the shade.
I was a snake,
shedding its skin
on a cold winters day.

Here’s the secret they don’t want you to know:
you can do it on your own.
You don’t need to be propped up
and led along,
because when you think
you’ve done just about all that
you can do,
you’ll realize
you can do so much more.

Peyton Scott Feb 2014

Up In Flames

My mouth tasted like sweet decomposition
while yours tasted of bitter revenge.
I hold grudges the way lovers hold hands,
and I will be in the backseat of your truck
for three years or more
reliving what I saw that autumn night.
I hate to hold you responsible
for something you didn’t know
you were breaking,
but it was your hands that I saw disappearing into the night
and it was my heart on the line.

You and those five drinks that were
8% alcohol
set my feelings on fire.
And now whenever
I think of that night
flames burst from the darkest parts of my mind.
I always knew you’d be the one to light me up,
but I never thought you’d be the one
to burn me down.

Peyton Scott Feb 2014

Airplanes and Heartbreaks

You left at 11:23 at night
and by 12:02,
it was as if you had never been there.
I stripped the bed of its sheets
and left them to be washed,
I scrubbed the dishes you had used
and stacked them when they were dry.
I hid your hat that you had left
but I slipped on your shirt
and tried my hardest
not to inhale you.
I washed my body of your fingerprints
and my hair of your scent,
because if you couldn’t actually be here
I didn’t want to remember that you had been.

I hear planes taking off every half hour
and it reminds me of the way your heart beats when you kiss me.
I write poems in my head when your lips touch mine and silently write them down when you’re not looking,
because I would never want you to know
you’re my biggest muse,
I would never want you to know
you’re all I can think about.

Peyton Scott Feb 2014

Hurricane

Your veins were like vines
your bones were the roots,
and like the trees
I needed you as a source of survival.

I was a river
flooding up, up and over
looking for a place to drain.

Your body was a landscape
in which I would discover
had much more beauty
than any continent.

Inside me lies a hurricane
growing fast and strong.
It’s on its path of self-destruction
and I fear
it will take
you down
with me.

Peyton Scott Feb 2014

Morning Forgiveness

On mornings when I wake up
panicked with a troubled heart,
it’s because my dreams can not forget
the ever pressing past.
On mornings when I wake up
bitter and regretful
it’s because the past was reoccurring
while I was in a slumber.

There are days when I have to wake up
and have forgive you all over again,
because I was forced to remember
what I try so hard to forget in the daylight.

Your words and your actions
and the feelings built up inside my chest
come back alive inside my imagination
and I’m afraid that one day
I will grow tired of
dismissing what you
have done to me.