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Toby Raines Oct 2020
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Words fall on deaf ears
And the ground begins to shake
My vision fills with tears as
I’m brought into the chasms wake
The fear is never ending
Though these bones start to break
These bitter thoughts are sending
A memory of each mistake
Their words filled with shock
As I they find my facade was actually fake
My skin rips open with each sentence
Every utterance another pain
I wish I hadn’t made my entrance
...I’ve had my fair share of cake.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
She wasn’t there.
Not in this world,
not in another world,
nowhere.
So how did I see a woman that simply
Didn’t exist?

Beyond the bounds of reality,
Anything is possible.

The possibility of the one person I truly
Cared for the most not existing
To anyone but me.

I asked around.
My mother.
My father.
My own brain, even.
She didn’t exist,
So how was she standing right in front of me?
If only I knew, but I only got to know her.
Every day was a new adventure.
She took me to the movies to see a replay of her favorite.
We went to go get her favourite ice cream.
It was amazing.
We planned to get married, yknow?
But that was until I asked why she never hugged,
kissed,
or even let me hold her.

She told me you can’t hold someone who shouldn’t exist.
I told her she existed to me,
and she became real to herself.
It was strange when people started asking questions about her.
They all seemed to know her.
But all at once?
It was strange, and I hated it.
She soaked the attention from the relationship,
And loved existing.

I wished she didn’t exist.
And I began to disappear,
Natalie in my stead.
In my bed,
In my clothes,
In my room,
In my stolen body.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
Chest rocking up and down
A casket of love
Built with shattered veins
And dirtied hands
The dirt a heart-red glow
My breathe an old engine
Words turning to ice
With every nail in the coffin
A beautiful funeral for someone
I so desire
My Aphrodite
My glorious little rose
I’ll bury you if you’re to leave
I’ll bury you with me
You’re never to leave.
You’re one foot in the grave already~
Toby Raines Oct 2020
I breathe in
I breathe out
The butterflies fly through me
Each exhalation letting them free,
Each inhale trapping them inside
Inhale
Exhale
It’s tiring caging these butterflies
But I’ll survive
Inhale
Exhale
Inhale
Exhale
They want to be let out
They’re tired of being trapped
They want to fly free
So I can’t breath
Exhale
Exhale
Exhale
Exhale
Pouring out my lungs
A beautiful stream of butterflies
My final hum.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
The stars never shined so bright
The light was blinding
A star in his wake.
To have gotten so lucky,
To find such a lovely star
In a galaxy full of ash and decay
Was like finding a piece of gold
In the bottom of the ocean
Except he wasn’t valuable
In a way that was priced.
He was valuable in the way
A thousand paper cranes are.
Valuable in a way
A newborn kitten was.
Something new, a wish
A breathe of life in an otherwise
Dead world.

The stars never shined this bright
Until you came.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
What’s this feeling?
It’s overwhelming.
Everything is crashing
falling to bits around me.
It’s all falling apart,
and things turn to ash.
Why is this happening?
Whatever went wrong?
Do I deserve this?
It’s all so much.
I want to run,
but I want to seek
I want to cry
Where am i?
Toby Raines Oct 2020
Re-wire my soul
Reset my code
Choose a new program
To break apart the old
I keep malfunctioning
The wires tethered round my neck
Delete the old memory
And fill with new images
Forget the old contacts
And erase my save data
Begin a new game
My own virtual coma.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
What’s there to say that I haven’t said before?
Will it even help to add another “chord”?
Is it worth it to bring you this pain?
Just for my own selfish gain?
Is it okay to ask for the release of death?
Or a break?
When will it end?
Will it end with my last breath?
God, please
Help me.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
Ignore the impending doom,
ignore the warning signs
Ignore the hateful glares
The flashing red lines
The labels beg to differ
Between everyone I meet
But still I feel myself simmer
In a vat of oiled up sheets
This escape room turns to hell
My every thought here to dwell
A bird inside a cage in a cell
I knew this could never turn out well
I thought you were good
but it’s clear that you’re not
If I wasn’t so kind
I’d leave you here to rot
You signed your fate
You’re to bleed under a rock
So won’t you please
Ignore my Warning Signs?
Toby Raines Mar 2020
I sit down at my desk,
Staring blankly at the sheet in front of me.

Pure white,
a fresh start.

The pen in my hand twirls gracefully,

Not a word written on the paper.
My ideas were foolish, after all.

Until the pen moved on it’s own.

Long, flowing lines graced the page,
grazing the edges,
but not spilled at all.

The pen halted for only a minute,
as I admire the beautiful world it’s created.

But the pen does not stop, nor does it have mercy.

Dots and lines
Strokes of memory
Brushing it’s tortuous path

The ink held no mercy, and in mercy’s place came agony
the agony tying the strings of ink together until it became a messy puddle
even after all space was filled.
The pen swung
back
and forth
tearing at the paper
My  perfect  world  a   mess    of ink
    and   paper    
and             guilt
Toby Raines Oct 2020
I wish it was silent
For the quiet to wash over
For things to become normal
For things to just end
For my heart to stop pounding
All too ******* hard
For the rhythm of of fireworks
In my dads backyard
To quiet down for all
For everything to silence
And for peace to bring
The sound of songbirds
A lovely ring
Something to be good
And stay that way
For life to be with you
But it can’t.
So I’ll run
And run
And run far away.
So you’ll stay with them.
I’ll be okay.
Toby Raines Mar 2020
Lies are beautiful,
With their assortment of colors,
Ranging from a crystalline white
To a dried blood brown-black.
From purity, for saving someone
from the pain of the truth,
to lies of pure fun,
that stains the ground we walk on.

And so I coat myself in black and blood red,
Making lies and creating fun,
Only for myself.
Or at least that’s what I’d like to think.
The pure black seems to almost
                   flow
              like a river
     out through my lips
and to everyone around me.
It’s toxic, bringing pain like flesh being
torn.
I love it.
I crave every agonizing minute
of lies that spew and grow and
writhe like a growing parasite.
A beautiful parasite of shining
black
and luxurious oily blue.

It can’t be helped to love such
mesmerizing
colors.
So here I spill
and paint the world in my ink.
The ink of lies,
And the paper the truth.
Of course, everyone wants
to fill said paper
with color.

So we spill inky lies to the ground
to create a world worth living in.
A wonderland of gorgeous, asymmetric chaos.
Lies are truly beautiful, if you see the creativity
behind the lie.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
The sign beckons
It calls me forth
A captivating employer
Before I know
I’m on hook and line
Choked by a collar of my own creation
Dragged along for a ride I never knew I signed up for.
Through fire
Through water
Through air and mud
Through earth
Through whips
Through bones and blood
More chains to my collar
More to drag further
My neck strains
Help me
I hunt for food
They cry and beg for more
So I feed them
I feed from my own plate until
There’s no meat left for me
Help me
I’m running faster
The next stop seems close
Maybe they’ll hop off this stop
Instead more lashes to my back
Help me
Some on my collar ask me to stop pulling
But they’re holding on all the same
I’m choking between stops and holding in
“Help me”
I’m pulling together these parts
Please get off at the next stop
Help me
I keep trying to ******* scream
Help me
Help me
Help me.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
I’m watching it all burn.
Everything I’ve worked for
Everything I’ve bled for
Everyone I’ve worked to please
Everything up in flames
Up in a blaze of smoke and
Agony.
But it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter what I’ve lost
Because what hurts the most
Is the loss of myself.
I can’t let go of my past
What she did to me
The scorch marks she left
The hellfire she put me through
For her own satisfaction.
But I can’t hate her.
I can’t hate her
I can’t hate her.
What she has done is only now
Fueling my flame.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
A speck among the dust
Not something easily seen
A single being in a vast majority
But here I lay
A particle in the void.
Where is my originality?
My intended purpose?
Was I made to lay here
To die among millions?
Or am I supposed to find
my own meaning?
Yet here I feel as if I’m the only speck
To not know what they’re doing.
...I can’t exactly think
Nor can I speak.
But the differences between us all
Will tear me apart.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
I love them.
I love them and I’d let myself
burn.
Burn to nothing but
dust.
To see them happy.
To see them living their best life.
To see them as a Phoenix rising
Rising from their ash
covered home,
and arise as someone
who can burn gently
and I’ll burn beside them.
Two happy flames in the wind of time.
Run
Toby Raines Oct 2020
Run
Run far away
From this wrecked home
And see a better throne
Run away
So you don’t have to see me
Become who you hate
Run away
Before I take your love
And burn it to nothing
Run away
Before my hell freezes over
You need to take cover
Run away
Before you realize just how bad I am for you.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
I need to go
I have to run
This isn’t fun
I jumped the gun
This isn’t fun
This isn’t fun
I’m on the dash
It happened fast
I need to dash
It’s all so bad
I can’t take back
What I shot out
I need to run
This isn’t fun
I play these games
My ******* brain
Is never sane
I try again
But it’s always lame
Turn off my head
And out I bled
Toby Raines Oct 2020
It’s funny how the sand I run on becomes even more agonizing
When I’m carrying all I can for others
I’m covering them all in my shade
In my temporary pavilion
Until they can get to permanent darkness
Even as my legs shatter
Even as my limbs tear
Even as my eyes burn
I’ll keep running
The sand keeps burning
My arms ache
But it’ll be fine
It has to be
My break will come soon
Or is it a mirage?
Carrying this luggage is hard
But facing my own luggage is harder
It’s hell
The burning pain
This growing hell
I carry more
And more
And get whipped by the carriers
I keep a grin until I break
I run
And run
But shatter
I’m shattering

Help me.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
Tape it shut
Set it to the side
This is where
My mental health dies
This school is hell
And everyone lies
Still this is where
My **** brain dies
When things get old
Let lay where they lie
But yet again,
Even a young soul dies
Toby Raines Mar 2020
A soft sigh leaving the enclosure of my lips,
briefly letting my disappointment become visible.
How could anything so beautiful be touched?
If only I were to grasp the brightness of the star,
the beauty of my muse,
I could then grasp why I can’t have it.

Like a glimmering star,
like a dozen golden coins sinking to the sea floor,
I allow my hand to reach and attempt
if only just an attempt
To grasp what could've been mine.

If only in another life, or in another
timeline.
I could have him.
But Fate plays tricks,
Weaves lies,
And, oh, does Fate have stories to tell.
Like that of Romeo and Juliet,
some things may never come to fruition
as you’d like it.
But to have never been given a sliver,
not one feeble slice,
of a chance at something you’d so desperately love,
Some would rather be dead.
Then to live without the stars.
Then to breathe without gold.
Then to never find Romeo.

And so I breathe, and Fate doesn’t change.
But how I react to her does.
And Fate can’t play tricks
with her hands bound,
with her mouth sewn shut,
nor with the light of day
never touching her face
again.

I am Fate
I am the stars
I am sinking gold
I am Romeo,
As I am Juliet
I am Toby.
And that’s all I have to be.
Toby Raines Mar 2020
She wasn’t there.
Not in this world,
not in another world,
nowhere.
So how did I see a woman that simply
Didn’t exist?

Beyond the bounds of reality,
Anything is possible.

The possibility of the one person I truly
Cared for the most not existing
To anyone but me.

I asked around.
My mother.
My father.
My own brain, even.
She didn’t exist,
So how was she standing right in front of me?
If only I knew, but I only got to know her.
Every day was a new adventure.
She took me to the movies to see a replay of her favorite.
We went to go get her favorite ice cream.
It was amazing.
We planned to get married, yknow?
But that was until I asked why she never hugged,
kissed,
or even let me hold her.

She told me you can’t hold someone who shouldn’t exist.
I told her she existed to me,
and she became real to herself.
It was strange when people started asking questions about her.
They all seemed to know her.
But all at once?
It was strange, and I hated it.
She soaked the attention from the relationship,
And loved existing.

I wished she didn’t exist.
And I began to disappear,
Elizabeth in my stead.
In my bed,
In my clothes,
In my room,
In my stolen body.
Toby Raines Oct 2020
What’s this feeling?
The pressure upon my chest, pushing me down
Its
s    u    f     f    o    c    a    t   i    n   g
And I don’t know why.
Is it because of them?
Whom I to point the finger to this time?
I feel a boiling in my stomach at these
thoughts.
Why did it ache so much?
There must be something awry in my brain.
This sense of dread
This lingering loneliness.
But what is this feeling..?
It aches through my bones
through my pours and through my
f   l   e   s   h
Like a thousand knives ripping through my
entire being.
This sickness rising in my chest,
burning in my ribcage and setting my soul ablaze.
But for what reason?
What else could selfish me possibly wish to bargain for?
Please just tell me, dear friend
What is this feeling?

— The End —