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Apr 2015 · 808
Slowly but Surely
Rachel Herrmann Apr 2015
Ever since you left this world
I've gradually been losing myself.
Ever since you deserted me,
Left me to fend for myself,
A trickle of water has irrigated my mind,
Slowly but surely.
I no longer get joy from silly putty,
Because that was ours,
And isn't meant to be mine alone.
Just like our fingers shaped the putty,
Your absence has shaped my world.
I no longer invent alien drag queens
With a mixture of our names,
Because that was our creation,
And your name is now etched on a gravestone.
I no longer carry around the alarm clock
That we used to pretend was our phone,
Because that was a time when connection mattered,
And now I know when I call it'll reiterate you're gone.
I no longer smile at the idea of my own recovery,
A thing I pushed onto you so strongly,
Because I wasn't there to get you through your own,
And you needed me more than I knew.
So as this trickle of water creates cracks in my mind,
I know that insanity is coming for me,
That I'll break at any moment.
But for now I'll stay in denial,
To the fact that the death of a best friend always comes
Slowly but surely.
RIP Aleigha Gutierrez
Feb 2015 · 1.3k
Impermanence
Rachel Herrmann Feb 2015
The only constant in life id impermanence.
As hard as it is to accept,
We will all have our day.
Rocks will weather.
Our bodies will decay.
My only goal in this life
Is to become, to be.
It's not something tangible,
Nor is it a title.
It's just being.
Being one with life.
Sitting with a delicate flower,
Whose petals are so fragile and vibrant,
Knowing one day it will darken and wilt
And with tears in my eyes
That I know soon will dry
I will become aware.
I will be.
Jan 2015 · 682
I Need Inspiration
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
I need inspiration.
I need a new muse.
Not the kind that impresses
But rather undresses
And leaves you with the essence
Of a poet, raw.
Exposed but not defenseless.
I'll be open,
You're all welcome.
Come in,
Kick off your shoes,
Get comfortable.
For maybe if I let you see,
I will have some new vision
Of myself and who to be.
Maybe your eyes will tell me-
When I drop my guard down
-What I really look like
From the vision of
An unfamiliar gaze.
It's possible I'll see horror
Or maybe some pain
In the eyes of the many
That witness me plain.
I'm sorry to sound dramatic,
But this is what I must have.
To feel what you feel
When your eyes grasp my spirit.
I must know.
I simply need inspiration.
Jan 2015 · 830
The Recipe Given to Me
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
I didn't follow the recipe given to me.
Instead of adding love,
I added the hate you gave to me
On a silver platter.
As if it was something holy
That should be accepted with gratitude
And not the resentment you received.
Instead of adding purity and innocence
I added the corruption you placed upon me
With your ***** hands
Always searching
Never seeming to find just what they're looking for
Always going back for more.
Instead of adding beauty
I added the ugliness
Your words showed me I was.
The mirror proved this true
With every stolen glance I took,
Always hoping to see something different
And always being disappointed
By the reflection I eventually shattered.
But what good is a culinary delight
Without it being properly prepared?
Because of you,
I was put away in the Utah heat,
The sun slowly cooking me.
And when I was finally released,
I was no longer my ingredients.
I was something new.
Because of what you gave me,
I became one hell of a treat.
No longer was I hate,
Or corruption,
Or ugliness.
Instead I emerged
With love,
Purity and innocence,
And beauty.
It took all that negativity
To teach me what to be:
The real me.
Written for #recipechallenge
Jan 2015 · 945
I am my Words
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
These words are an expansion of myself.
With every letter my pen forms on paper,
My heart joins it.
A written contract,
Formally bonded
When the ink sets.
I write not for the recognition,
But for the sake of my sanity.
For without this action
The emotions flowing through me
Would have no place to go.
Backing up until they could no longer course through me.
Stopping still.
They must move
Or else they'll solidify.
Turning me into stone.
A statue whose visage
Does not smile nor frown
For there is no sculptor
To define it's countenance.
It simply goes with the fate
It was handed-
A girl lacking the emotions
Only her pen can form.
Jan 2015 · 464
Then and Now
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
When I was younger,
I thought the moon followed me
In the car on the ride home.
When I was younger,
I thought my tears
Made the look of streetlights
Magical.
When I was younger,
I thought I was the only one
Who could hear fuzzy noises
When I rested my head on the pillow.
When I was younger,
I thought I was the only one
That saw orange
When I closed me eyes
After staring into the sun.
When I was younger,
I thought I was special.
Now that I'm older,
I know death is inevitable,
Even for me.
Now that I'm older,
I know that my friends
Won't love me forever.
Now that I'm older,
I know the books I read
Aren't written for me.
Now that I'm older,
I know suicide is real
And that it can affect anyone.
Now that I'm older,
I know that I'm nothing special.
Jan 2015 · 991
Worthy
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
Who is worthy?
How do I know?
I see so many others
That I know deserve
Only the best.
So why do I not.
Why do I see myself
As something less?
Am I wrong?
Am I bad?
Did I sin unforgivably?
Is there even such a thing
As unforgivable?
I forgive all,
Except for myself.
What different trait
Do I possess?
Is it just inevitability
That we all hate ourselves?
How do I learn
To let my wrongs go?
To accept the past
And be okay
With having a future?  
I say it's time,
Time to love.
Self-love.
Unconditional.
Jan 2015 · 328
Untitled
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
I used to think my heart beat just for you but now I'm starting to realize it's just pumping my blood keeping me stuck in this disease we all call living.
Jan 2015 · 294
Untitled
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
To feel the rise and fall of your chest
And to hear your soft heart beat
Leaves me impressed.
Jan 2015 · 1.5k
Ribs
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
Ribs,
Protruding proof
Of a girl in pain
With a need for control.
Ribs,
A mark of willpower
Or is it weakness
A false sense of control
A puppet governed
By insecurity.
The monster inside,
Taunting.
Empty stomach
Is it applauding your strength,
Or growling at your cruelty?
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
A cigarette dangles from your lips,
And from it smoke arises
In puffs and celestial swirls.
Eddies of toxic exhaust,
In the process of a great ascension
To the sky,
So blue.
Black lungs to match a blackened soul.
What truth there is in your eyes,
As if the purity of the iridescence
Was a sign of unadulterated authenticity.
How infallible your arms
To be enclosed in them
Is to be enveloped in radiant heat.
Never shall I falter
In the presence of you.
Your gaze holds me steady
Even in the instability of this world.
Precariously you lie on the bridge connecting life and death.
You don't waver when the wind whispers deceptions,
A ploy it created to drive you off the edge.
The wind's jealousy creates deceit you will not fall for.
I am not so strong.
I come to join you,
But where you are planted firmly,
I am loosely placed.
And when the wind whispers my name
I turn to it,
Falling away from you
And into the vast expanse
Of broken elsewheres.
Jan 2015 · 745
Untitled
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
The longer you've been gone the more I forget what your face looked like, I thought it'd be etched into my vision forever.
I've almost forgotten what your voice sounded like,
how your lips curved around my name.
I almost feel guilty for forgetting,
as if it means that I never cared enough.
Almost like the guilt I have for having felt too self important to reply to your messages,
as if you being so far away was an excuse for emotional distance,
almost like the distance of our physical bodies paralleled with the distance I wanted to keep from you with vulnerability.
Maybe that's why when you first talked about suicide,
I didn't try hard enough to keep you safe.
I didn't want to be so close to someone that I be the thing that keeps them alive.
But I still tried,
tried to make sure you were okay.
That was when you promised me that you would never hurt yourself, that you were just stressed.
Who knew that five months later you'd be dead by your own hand.
I wonder what your thoughts were as you slid the blade along your wrist. He says it was an accident.
That you were just trying to relieve a little bit of pain.
But I imagine you sitting there,
with this thing that's almost as sharp as the pain you felt,
and I know,
I know that the extra pressure you used was intentional.
I know you.
I know the pain you felt.
I was there.
And sometimes I feel guilt for being the survivor.
As if one of us had to die.
I think sometimes about what it would be like to take your place,
to be nothing.
But as I sit here and ponder what could have been,
I know that I'm glad to be the one alive.
Because if the roles were switched,
you might have to feel the pain I feel now,
and this gut wrenching sting that's arising in my stomach.
Maybe if the roles were switched,
neither of us would have made it.
Because maybe you wouldn't have gotten the help that I have now.
And while it hurts that you're gone,
I know that you'd be proud of me now.
Because now I am alive,
like I never was before.
I'm just sorry it took your death to bring me into hell
so I could climb back up to life again.
In loving memory of Aleigha Gutierrez.
Jan 2015 · 787
Scarlet Begonias
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
I met a girl once, not older than nine or ten. She was wearing a little white dress with scarlet begonias running across the hem of her waist. She told me of her plan, the one she wrote up on the corner of Jefferson Street on a used paper napkin. It was brown, she said, as if having it been brown was of some sort of significance. On it she wrote her fate. Her plan was to find a raccoon, one much too wild to be sane. Once she found this rabid raccoon she would provoke it, make it agitated. Agitated enough to bite her. She wanted to acquire the rabies virus. She wanted it to course through her nervous system, advancing its way to her brain, slowly making her mad. Crazy mad, not angry mad, I asked her to clarify this for me. When I interrogated her more, eager to know why she wanted this she simply said, “I want to be like mommy.” Before I could stop her, she walked away and jumped on a bus, weak and wobbly.

                                                        *
      A week later, I was watching the news when I heard of the death of a girl. The girl with scarlet begonias and a wish for insanity.
Jan 2015 · 910
My Future
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
Dark days,
Late nights.
Staying up 'til three,
If only I could remain asleep
To avoid the lonely hours
That consciousness brings.
You gave me an idea for the future,
If you could even call it that.
I'd be a lady of the night,
As they have coined the term
Because they are too conservative to say *****,
As if the word would burn their self-righteous lips.
So I give my body to men
Night after restless night
Because you taught me that that was all I was good for.
A broken toy you used
Simply because it was available
Leaving me feeling worthless and destroyed.
Jan 2015 · 479
Weeping Willow
Rachel Herrmann Jan 2015
My thoughts race as I sit under a weeping willow tree. The branches firm but the leaves dangling in regret - a perfect metaphor for me. I have so much to support me, so much that should keep me standing tall, yet I wither and sway in any way that the wind wants me. I have no control as I move from place to place, external factors forcing me every which way. And while my leaves may be green with the life that is inside of me, I want so badly for my body to give up, but it betrays me. It keeps on living as if it has the passion to do so, while my mind wants nothing more than to be free.
More prose than poetry but I wanted to share it.

— The End —