Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
1.4k · Mar 17
It’s Not Me, It‘s You
Selma Mar 17
I am not hard to love.
I am not unreasonable,
and I don’t distribute headaches, like candy,
when I wish to express my emotions.
I simply express.
I am allowed to voice
my thoughts,
my opinions.
If it is a concept you cannot grasp,
take the problem off my back,
and dig deep within yourself.
543 · Mar 12
Suicide Tide
Selma Mar 12
I used to be able to hold the tides.
They bent to my will,
with such ease.
Now, they pull me under.
Deep down, I always knew -
water would betray me.
355 · May 15
An Orange Flower
Selma May 15
An orange flower
sways in the wind,
like the curl that falls across your forehead.
I am reminded of the shape
of your eyes,
the curve of your hips,
your smile in the sun.

One day,
I‘ll hold your hand
while you carry a little version of you
and my life will be absolute.
It’ll be all of you,
all of me,
cradled in your arms,
always.
305 · 1d
Empty Figure
Selma 1d
If paper and pen
understand me to my core,
then it is my voice that betrays me evermore.
I know better, yet opening up
stays my biggest fear.
I am surface-leveled,
neither there, nor here.
And so comfortably, with no fuss,
I stay a projection,
nothing more than dust.
I am your imagination,
no depth,
no width.
I am only but a shell.
An empty figure,
stripped of will and vigor.
284 · May 9
Life‘s Regrets
Selma May 9
When you looked me
in the eye,
and said you wanted to die -
to let go of Life‘s grasp,
I saw her cry,
and beg for your forgiveness.
229 · Apr 17
Loveless Drawer
Selma Apr 17
A wound I mistook for healed
opened itself last night.
I slipped and spiraled
in my skin,
and I remembered what it was like
to be fourteen again,
and miserable with every glance
in the mirror.

Oh teenage girl,
I wish I could love you
into healing.
I long to soothe you
into breathing.
For now,
I keep you shut
in the back of a dusty drawer.
One day,
I‘ll learn to love you.
160 · Mar 19
Alternate Universe
Selma Mar 19
In any other world,
during any other time of day -
things could be different.
And yet,
maybe they‘d be just the same.

Every version of me
has to let you go.
139 · Mar 29
The Deadly Loop
Selma Mar 29
I spiral
Until I have talked myself
Out of living
137 · Mar 12
Death by 1000 Cuts
Selma Mar 12
Harsh stabs in my throat.
I let them slice through.
Your words cut me sometimes,
but I let them go for you.

I wonder why I always tiptoe,
why I swallow my tongue,
like I swallow food.
Why I abandon myself,
to enjoy the pleasures of you.
101 · Mar 19
A Haiku For You
Selma Mar 19
Gave up the battle,
Oh, but then God brought you here.
I have lost nothing.
91 · Jun 10
First Time Living
Selma Jun 10
I searched for you
in warm hands,
in soft eyes,
in more hellos
than goodbyes,
hoping to stitch
what you rarely gave me.
Anyone
to call Mother,
to save me.

I learned to fold myself
smaller,
and smaller.
I became a piece of paper.
Never felt safer,
turning into nothing -
air,
distancing myself
from you,
in despair.

I wore perfection
like my favorite dresses,
hanging.
My mirror knew my emptiness,
twirling, changing.
I thought if I sparkled enough, just right,
you might finally see me,
maybe even
appreciate my creativity.

But you were carrying your own
ghosts of the past,
nowhere to come home.
And I held your silence
like a secret,
thought it was mine to keep.

As a woman myself now,
I see the cracks in your face.
Beneath the pretty bow
and lace -
an unwanted woman,
an unspoken ache.

So I loosen the bow,
and decide, in time -
I will forgive you
because it’s your first time
living, too.
ah, the mother wound.
40 · 3d
Bird in a Cage
Selma 3d
A space once large enough for
my emotions and thoughts,
is now caving in.
It used to hold me- being and body,
in turn I carry resentment.
I am too big,
too strong,
too ambitious,
to stay caged.

— The End —