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62 · Jun 15
Prisoner
S E Pope Jun 15
I get all
Twisted up
Inside
And that part
Of me
Is fleeting

Passing through
Like leaves in
The wind

Only to
Break free from
Myself
Through simple acts
Of admitting
Who I am
On this page

I don't need
Anyone
To accept
What is necessary
For me
For what happens
Inside of me

I just wish
I wouldn't
Do this to myself
61 · Jun 1
The Prologue
S E Pope Jun 1
My mind thinks in poetry
I hope you understand
This is where I’ve always belonged
In the glow of a sunset with pen in hand

My heart feels in poetry
I hope you understand
This is an evolution of soul
I’m leaning into what I am
61 · Jun 14
Earth Medicine
S E Pope Jun 14
I stare at the walls
In awe as they breathe
My couch is a hole
Helping me sink

My circular thoughts
Begin to dissolve
The doors creep open
An invitation to evolve

Eyes open or closed
Either way I can see
The glasses on my nose
Become a silver screen

I look out at the trees
For their vibrational touch
Tears streaming down my face
They love me so much

Strolling into the grass
Becoming one with the ground
Each blade tells a story
A new truth to be found

The clouds are dancing
In colors never seen
Taking away my breath
And giving me peace

My soul starts expanding
Reaching across space
Loving every particle
Receiving yellow warm embrace

The things that were heavy
Have become lifted weight
The reality of oneness
Eases the burden of fate

Another voyage through the stars
The peak begins to fade
I feel nothing but gratitude
For medicinal earthly change
59 · Jun 26
The Feast of Elephants
S E Pope Jun 26
I am an elephant
Quietly observing
The crowded room
Of your mind

I take up space
Sinking further
In silent caverns
Eating away at time

I do not speak
However linger
To remind you of failure
Leaving you blind

I am a master
Harboring control
Over chemicals of joy
Stealing light from your eyes

I hold the weight
Pinning down
Your hope for freedom
While you are mine

I am the end
Pursuing possession
With mindful haste
To bury pieces of you alive
58 · Sep 23
The Passing Storm
S E Pope Sep 23
You are a storm cloud
Heavy with tears
Flooding me with your misery
But you don't live here

I am a sunset
Colorful and calm
Shining light into the darkness
Your poems don't live here anymore
S E Pope Aug 27
I celebrate your birthday
Year after year
With Fight Club and tacos
And Pink Floyd in my ears
I mourn on your death day
The same day every year
The day you entered the world
The same day you left us here

I think if you most days
November being so cold
I write of you from my memory
As we enter another year of you gone
I hold onto the idea
You’ll meet me again down the road
I see you in so many faces
And know you're guiding me from above

For my beautiful friend.
Randal Scott Cobb
11/10/90 - 11/10/12
55 · Sep 23
Made of Gold
S E Pope Sep 23
There are things we think
We will always know
However troubles continue
To come and go
There are people we were
And places we've grown
The scenery changes
But our roots are deep
And forever gold
55 · Jul 26
Severed
S E Pope Jul 26
You don’t know alone like me

Seeped in thoughts and isolation
Regrets of how I couldn’t maintain a connection
I don’t know how to be
A good friend
Or lover
Or kind to anyone, especially me
I imagine a life of peace
Not rage
Or despair
Or endless longing

I crave beauty
In my cave of screaming
Sometimes I convince myself I’m okay
And happy
But when the glass walls crack
And break
And shatter
I’m cut open by my own
Shards of self loathing

Some say I’m too honest
Except with myself
I live in a delusional mindset
Where I’m happy and carefree
I’m healthy and active
Aware and enlightened

The truth of reality is
I’m bold and assuming
Enraged and pessimistic
Seeing things for what they are poisoned my psyche
I trained myself to let go
And I have
Of everything

Now I’m alone
Abandoned self worth
A sulking fate of nothing
Terrified of the end I historically accept
From the moment I was told
I’m nothing at 7 years old
I believed it
I gave in
And I’ve been fighting a losing war
Within myself ever since

I’ve been gone
From my body
And my soul
The tie was severed too young
And I don’t know how to return

No one knows alone like me
52 · Sep 25
A Bump on the Head
S E Pope Sep 25
I don’t know what it was, but it was beautiful, and warm. It was almost blinding. It was something I’ve never seen before, but it felt like a place that I had been many times. There was a sharp pain, but only for a moment. The pain left my body, and I assume so did I. In plain view, high above myself, I saw my small body and the blood pooling around my tiny skull. People rushing to help, touching my head to help the bleeding stop, but I felt nothing. They called for help, and I heard not a sound. I looked up, felt no fear, and I flew high above the ground. Faster than I’d ever seen anything move.

The higher I rose in the atmosphere, more parts of me began to fall away. My skin, clear. I could see my insides and my lungs as they breathed. The mechanism of this physical life. Then it was gone.  Everything that I knew I was had completely disappeared. I moved out of time, leaped into space. There I was, no longer anything. Surrounded by nothing. I became a God just riding my bike.

We live in such a minimal world, so much unknown an so little perceived. The colors I could see are like nothing anyone has ever seen. They are brighter, and they can talk to me. They told me this was where I belonged, and this was my home and I’m welcome any time, but that I’m earlier than expected. They knew me. They knew my entire life and all the ones before. The longer I stayed the more I understood. My soul, still in the age of a child, so they told me to go back. This is just a small step on a journey of excellence. I have too much life to live and learn. This experience, would also serve its purpose.

Time seemed to go on for years and with every passing moment my own colorful form would expand. The longer I lingered the harder it became to collect all the parts of whatever it is I had become. The images before me spun and swirled. Their movements were seamless and graceful. I experienced all these sensations no human had ever described. Then one, finally felt familiar. I felt the sensation of falling. Whatever I was, color reaching across space, was ****** back into itself and it blurred my vision.

I began floating downward, slowly. As I descended I gained lightning speed, and took back my recognizable form. My physical body, my fingers and toes had returned, and I felt the wind on my skin. And there I was, still lying on the ground. A blanket over my shoulders, my lips still pink. I hovered there for a long while recalling all that I had just experienced. I knew as soon as I returned my memory would betray me. My selfish attempt to recall the colors I had grown to love. My physical body was merely seven years old, but that’s old enough for the ties to be severed, to have lost that connection to the spirals. The innocence that gets buried by death, and I wanted to remember.

So I gave in. I opened my eyes. The clouds were bright and my mother’s eyes ignited. Her screams of joy were shattering, and her voice a familiar sound from my journey. I sat up, touched the blood that ran down my face, and flew again, this time into my mother’s arms. She held me and cried, thanking God for letting me live. Unknowingly thanking me for my own decision. I sobbed, grateful for this home.

I was back, I was alive, and I remembered.
50 · May 17
The Anchor
S E Pope May 17
We live in layers like the ocean
Some swim deep enough to drown
Reaching out to the warm surface
For a single gasp of sunlit air
To keep from sinking further down

On the bottom of the sea floor
Lungs filling with fear and doubt
We crave the shallow end of simplicity
A thoughtless shell spread across the banks
Yearning to dry out

A mind moves fast like a current
Strong waves keeping us bound
Living to be free like the water
We hope for an anchor to cut through the layers
So that we may be found
50 · Aug 4
The Criminal
S E Pope Aug 4
I was a petty thief
Committing celestial crimes
I bounced between the eclipses
Convincing stars to dim their light

Caught in a conjunction
Aiding the planets collide
An orchestrated sunset
Burned out for the last time

Galactic enemy number one
They searched for me far and wide
I hid in constellations
Calculating their divide

An attempt to travel backwards
Found me scaling an event horizon
After searching millions of light years
I was sentenced to human life

I made destruction and chaos
Turned love into painful lies
Tinkered with eruptions and cyclones
Until all of us quickly arrived

I don’t come from here
These streets I was raised
Glorified battlefields crushed
By heavy emotional chains

I’ve lived every life imaginable
It was my punishment to create
Time that moves fast and feels slow
A petty criminal condemned to fate
What if god was a criminal and we are his prison?
48 · Aug 27
Left Behind
S E Pope Aug 27
I expect to be treated like an equal
When I have nothing to contribute
I am a well of interesting information
That dries up in the middle of inclusion

What do I do with my hands
Except inhale anxiety relief
Always dissecting the surrounding voices
That somehow begin to exclude me

Two by two breaking off into stories
Bared witness to the unbearable mess
I had something to say minutes ago
My burning lungs were left behind in distress

I don't know how to be me anymore
Broken so long the pieces have scattered
They fly through the gusty winds of my mind
Smiling through conversations that don't matter

I watch everyone move on with their lives
As I stand alone in crowded space
I reflect on how I could be better
Quietly searching for the right words to say
About isolation and never knowing where to fit into a crowd.
48 · Sep 24
The Forest of Corpses
S E Pope Sep 24
The universe was on my side when I bought that winning ticket. I stumbled upon more money than I knew what to do with. The first objective on my list was to get out of that awful apartment. The paper thin walls made it hard to exist. The musty smell of leaky faucets. Now I could go anywhere. Do, or be anything. The run down city I used to call home, became old news so I left it behind.

I flew across the sea, traveling along northern European lands until I found a little forest on the boarder of coastline. I made an appointment to procure this piece of land, a blank slate that I could manipulate into whatever I desired. A quiet place I could finally create the peace I always craved.

The day was damp, foggy, and gray. I drove up the gravel road I had already explored. A powerful sensation of dread crept into my spine, and burned my chest, it grew the closer I got to the little shack in the grove. I refused to acknowledge any thoughts of negativity, this was everything I had ever wanted, and needed. All my life I longed for a secluded little space to be inspired from, to evolve into my personal sanctuary.

I imagined a pool house and detached sauna. Three stories of cement with skylights in every room on the top floor. I saw an acre of landscape with waterfalls and ponds. Oh the work I have ahead of me to transform this lost land. Time had done its damage but it will soon be mine to improve. There are trees to be cut, bushes to be trimmed, and grass to be uprooted for the driveway.

The atmosphere grew colder as I pulled up to the broken windows and chipped shiplap. The only structure within the vast acreage I would acquire. The foliage was overgrown leading to the tree line. Behind the tall grass, more acres of woods stood waiting to be explored for what could be the first time in a century. The sound of the creek, the large meadow opposite of the trees, it all seemed too perfect to imagine. Yet, those feelings of dread and displacement grew larger than the tip of the oaks that stood before me.

The little house was decrepit. Whoever built it left without finishing. The roof was missing shingles, and the walls were rotten with mold. The windows had broken from swelling in the misty morning fog. Food left on tables I could smell from a distance. The realtor said the last owners only stayed a few weeks before leaving without a trace. Surely everything here had to go, including the branches than had fallen in front of the door. Demolition was now at the top of my list. I would hire a team to quickly tear down everything in sight.

I had seen all I needed to see. The decision was easily made. I needed this place to be mine, but that feeling in my spine, in the chest, it crawled into my throat. I stepped to the edge of the tree line, and the wind blew so hard it ****** me into the branches. The sound of the forest grew louder than my own thoughts. There were different languages I had never heard before, for the wind, the leaves, and the insects that now surrounded me. These voices boomed and consumed my entire mind until they synchronized. They tried every language until finding the one I understood.

It was clear I was unwelcome here. This untouched place, full of ghosts and beech trees. The voices spoke and told me I should leave. Humans weren’t welcome in this part of their realm. The tornado of wind finally slowed down and I was able to see. Skulls and other bones, piled around me. Some more decayed than others, but all human. No animal carcass in sight. They intertwined with the roots, were half eaten by fallen leaves. The collective voice spoke to me again, it said if I were to linger too long this would surely be my end. That the forest would **** me in and use my body to bloom. With every corpse it claimed, the forest grew.

I felt breathless as another gust of wind spat me out. I wanted this place! It was mine! I needed the natural world at my side, but it did not want me. It wanted no part of my vision of planned destruction. It would rather feed on the death of the most natural parts of me.

I left quickly, as to not further disturb this evil sanctuary. The message was clear and I followed the instructions. I left all that beauty behind, untouched, and wondered if the previous owners had become part of the woodland graveyard. Did they stay and try to commune into nature, to learn and grow and speak their language? Or did they flee, like me?

I still value my life, and I do not want it to end.

Why would I when I still have all that money to spend?
47 · Sep 23
Boomerang
S E Pope Sep 23
Don't fall in love, no
Not with me
My misery is toxic
And spreads like disease

Don't get trapped, and
Twisted by me
You can't hold water
And I'm free as the sea

Don't hold on, don't
Reach too far into me
You'll lose grip in the storm
And get struck by my lightning

Don't look back, no
Look forward from me
Don't come back around
I'm a boomerang that leaves
46 · Jun 15
Release
S E Pope Jun 15
I won't be getting any sleep
Until I feel my fingers sting
When everything I've felt
Is on the floor left to bleed

Until I've washed off all my skin
And I'm spiraling forward to the end
My tired soul will find no words
Nothing to define a reason to exist

This battle leaves me in a daze
Behind my eyes lie nothing but flames
The only light allowing some hope
Erodes me to dust like crashing waves

One hundred years is so long to breathe
All while searching for a way to be free
With my heart locked away in stone
The only escape is in the bottom of my dreams
42 · Sep 23
Tonight's Sky
S E Pope Sep 23
The sky is so mesmerizing
I might be dreaming
The clouds are out
Changing and teaching
Beaming with colors
Connecting to my soul
My heart drifts so fast
My head can't follow
39 · Sep 4
What We Become
S E Pope Sep 4
I am going to change my life
Tomorrow

I have to make a plan
Tomorrow

I need to exercise and eat right
Tomorrow

I will get up early and go to bed on time
Tomorrow

I should appreciate the sunset
Tomorrow

I will finally get out of bed
Tomorrow

I believe I will be happy
Tomorrow

I have to start loving myself
Tomorrow

I am going to care about me
Tomorrow

I need to be better than this
Tomorrow

I know I can be better than this
Tomorrow

I will still be alive
Tomorrow

I’ll have something to look forward to
Tomorrow
26 · Oct 18
Sacrificed
S E Pope Oct 18
The villain
In my life
Showed her face
At an early age
I saw the evil
In her eyes and teeth
The rage of a mother
Who didn’t want to be

My failure was
Being told the truth
And then denied love
That was deserved
You didn’t believe
What was spat in my face
Victims to this veiled facade
Sacrificed my childhood

She’s haunted
My every move
While you bullied me
With your guilt
This truth of
Being unwanted
Revealed through my
Shattered innocence

The villains
In my life are
My mothers before me
Forced love is
Layered with disdain
So I suffer the weight
Of their unwanted children
Mine will never know this shame

— The End —