Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
ASB May 2015
silence is black ink and it fills the room around me
until I cannot see cannot breathe until
I cannot taste anything but your last words in my mouth.
darkness has not fallen but rather it is
dripping
from the ceiling and onto my hair, hands, my face,
spilling over notebooks and cups of coffee.
silence is flowing around me as if someone
has knocked over a jar that contained it
and as if it has been fighting the walls
of that jar
for a lifetime.

it is that empty feeling -- I'm sure you remember --
that feeling you get when you
run out of feelings and salt water and your heart
has stopped hurting but only
because it is gone -- you are sure.
there is only that gap
and it is filling up fast
with melancholy music that you play
to make you feel again
and words you scribbled down
in vain attempts to breathe again.
it is human to hurt this way or so they say
but how does the world still spin when everyone is broken
as broken
as I am?

there is nothing but blank ink
spilling from pages and pages of
where my soul used to be
filling and filling the gaps of hearts long broken
and it is silent and there is no comfort in it
this time
because it is the kind of silence that sounds
like loudness, sounds like screaming, feels like
cars driving in the desert with no airconditioning
feels like traffic jams on highways feels like drowning.

still I write because I
can't.
betterdays May 2017
what days are these
when we sit to ponder
lifes big and small mysteries
with tea brewing
in the ***
and biscuits crumbling
in our hands

we sit and watch
the colour leach
from trees
and grass wither
underfoot

we gather
old clothes and blankets
to give to those
whose houses
are sky and ground
whose airconditioning
is frost and wind

we dread the winter's
count and the summers
harvest of those elderly
left frozen and unfound

some lose just little bits
who needs fingers and toes
some lose more and more again
we puase to remind ourselves
a life is a life no matter the choice
of the living....there is a purpose
to be found in each soul set upon
the ground

so we gather small comforts
to be bestowed on those
who live harder and meaner than
ourselves  and then sit in front
of roaring fires and suppose
our good deeds become us

yet we have treated but a symptom
of the cancer that is fed by greed
we have tried to answer need
but while we give a pittance
with one hand, the larger
beings of this land,
take with both, leaving
nothing but grist and sand
and lives with little
have a little less

it is hard to live
on crumbs

harder still
when the
big end
of town
is blind
and numb

to those who
are suffering
they do not see
the social buffering
blinkers their sight
and so continues
the cycle

whilst blankets and swags
and soup kitchens  all help
something more is needed
to bring the homeless, home

the leaves are pretty this year
Aleeza  Nov 2017
[ restless ]
Aleeza Nov 2017
I don't know what it is
that shackles my ankles and my arms and my heart to the bed
that every time I have to get up I feel like I leave a piece of me behind
that every time I see sunlight I can feel weight on me

and maybe things are okay
no rain taps on my windows
no shouting is heard through the walls
no devastating stories are to be heard

and the clunky shoes are not so bad today
and my jacket is freshly washed and warm
and everything is in its place
and the radio plays all the good songs
nothing is really wrong

and yet it is 8am and all I feel is the cold bite of the airconditioning and fear
fear that I can go wrong and all eyes will be on me
fear that they will be overly confident in who I am that they forget that I am human
fear that I have to keep this smile on for long

and yet it is 1pm and all I want is a hand to hold
so instead I write down my remaining notes
I try to pretend my life is put together
highlighting important words in my too-new planner

and yet it is 3pm and I try to lull myself to sleep
saying goodbye to who I'm talking to because it's only polite
listening to songs I know too well
trying to find a way to drown the scratchy lines in my mind

it is dark when I wake up
and I feel more exhausted than before
and there are messages for me waiting
and yet I don't answer them at all

I pull myself up and I stare at your name
it has been a while since we really talked
I don't want to start anything
since the last time, we only lasted for mere minutes

and I don't know how to handle losing the only one who really knew me
I don't know how many times I have tried and failed with you
but I know how you talk to people
and I know that you don't want to talk to me

dinner is not much better
they question the things I do and the places I go
so how can I explain
that I don't want to stay here
and be given the chance to be alone

they say that I can easily pass the exam
they say that I can do these things for sure
when I know that I will be lost there
and be the very first one to disappoint

and people keep saying hi
how are you?
what's up?
and I am tempted to tell them
but decide not to burden them with my darkness

I appreciate who they are
I appreciate the fact that they care
I love them for trying to connect with me
I love them for thinking about me, even for a moment

but why is it
that every time I tell them I'm doing better
I cry even more?

and it's 8:15pm and nothing is helping
not the jokes or the songs or the video clips
all I can think is how easy it could be to go
all I wonder is about who might notice first

if I fall from the graces of a heaven on earth
my everything crushing who I was
if I let my emptiness be filled with water instead
my words sinking with me

I told myself I wouldn't do that
I told myself I would never let myself get to that
yet here I am
my insides ripped out
the light I once knew gone

how can I tell people
that I hold hands because I am scared
needing to have someone to hold onto
needing to be reassured that they are there

how can I tell people
that I want to be held
held in the silence of all the words I forgot how to say
held despite of how I crumble

because I know that everything comes and goes
and yet this feeling has never left

and I don't know how to answer the question
are you okay?
when I don't know if anyone can hear my whispered
I'm not okay
and I don't know when I'll be.
betterdays Jul 2018
the smell of used books
and years of young love
wafts through the
airconditioning

it is quiet, but not silent
with mumured questions
and conversations being
puntuated by electronics

still there are heads bent
in the pursuit of knowledge
some deep, some philosophical
some kardashianesque.

i sit in comfort, in a nook
breathing in must and thought
and ponder the quest for knowledge

the tour passes by, the guide intones;
there is over 46 kilometres of shelving
in this library, each shelf stacks six high.
just under two hundred computers
and of course access  to wifi...this is
the hub of  knowledge and should
well become your second home

i smile as i watch the bright young things
in the nook across  from me,  
devour  the knowledge of each others face
learning diversified....
Meredith Ann Aug 2020
On slow summer afternoons,
I'd clime the crabapple tree next to my house,
as high as I could, book in hand,
and read until the bark bit my skin too deep.

On my sure decent,
I would conemplate the emotions I had searched for in those words,
enveloped in melancholic relief,
and would begin my online mascarade.

The reds, the blues, the greens, the yellows,
identifying my peers,
behind profiles of butterflies and knives,
with the most tragic of stories written in comic sans.

For hours,
sprawled on my Hawaiian quilt,
I'd type up entire lives,
Desperate to fill the void with meaning.

My pink walls were wallpapered,
collected cards and magazine posters,
reflecting the must of crisp airconditioning in an old house,
my feed dancing between hardwood and synthetic wool.

Those years my pastel room
watched my online pursuits
and shielded late-night adventures
bringing light to my gothic pursuits.

Sometimes I regret the lies I lived,
wishing I could find abandoned bonds without shame,
but then I remember the way it sustained me,
and how many feet down I would be without.
A reflection of my middle school summers,
perhaps the most honest of them all.
Tessa, I miss you.

— The End —