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Jeremy Betts Dec 2023
I'm not in a good place, it's written all over my face with a permanence I can not erase
The ace up my sleeve turned out to be a joker with my super imposed face
Lost in the twisted maze that is my head space, I'd chase the cheese but it'd be a waste
Fear infused with a terror base so potent you swear it almost has a taste
The dark haze of my past short circuits any new interface
Filled with a technology way out of date but never had the means to replace
I watch the life I thought I'd be a part of race by at a dizzy pace
But it always made time to come back 'round and knock the taste out my mouth like 808 base
Then leaves post haste without a trace before catchin' a case
Just one more missing personality cold case, chalk it up to another looser fallen from grace
They say to pick yourself up by you boot straps, I'm always breakin' the shoe lace
Bet they didn't think I'd use the bootlace to replace the slipknot necklace I misplaced
The bright young man with aspersions worth the chase now incased in blue skin wearing deaths face

©2023
Mark Toney Sep 2021
Ace
rocket power serve
up the T on the deuce side
~ point of no return




Mark Toney © 2021
9/26/2021 - Poetry form: Haiku (for you) - Mark Toney © 2021
Juliana Apr 2021
Winter comes and goes,
white fleece coating games of tag,
petals of all colors shriveling
into an anxious fret,
buried in the soil
just as those before them,
only to grow and flourish in the spring,
a new game of tag emerging,
a new friend found,
included like family from day one.

A family may be tied
with the thinnest of knots,
a frail reminder that blood
is nothing more than a liquid,
draining as the dust settles,
going extinct as the calendar renews.

Or, in the sweetest of holy dreams,
a family may be sautered with stardust,
existing into infinity,
something even distance
couldn’t dare to separate.

That is what we are.
A living slumber,
a mother too young
to understand heartbreak,
eyes closed for so long
she may never wake.

You are my children,
brighter than the colors on a rainbow,
the trail leading to the gold
of your brother’s hair,
the trophy you’ll never win,
the ring he’ll never give you.

Because he doesn’t exist,
my angel, and like the heavens,
you shall always remain a mystery.

A mystery I will continue to solve,
but a mystery I will never close.
Juno Apr 2021
These poems I write, they’re my escape,
though from what I do not know.
My troubles seem to evaporate
the moment I let them show.

I write about love, which is ironic
because I’ve never had a lover.
I used to think maybe I was sick;
for I’ve never longed for one either.

I write about death when I’m feeling down
so I can cry to something new,
but thinking to when I lost real tears,
maybe they weren’t mine to lose.

Even now as I write this down
- my headphones on but paused -
I wonder where my motives are bound,
for I always feel like a fraud.
Juliana Apr 2021
to be okay with one’s intrinsic self,
to march the streets, screams of joy
escaping their lips, saying this is me,
wearing colors of sunshine and pastel flags,
pinks, whites, blues, blacks, purples, yellows, reds,
fostering community, littered in hope, hope for
change, hope for family, hope is pride
Juliana Feb 2021
Look, I’m ace.
This is the first year I know this,
which means it’s the first I know
that I may never have a valentine.
At least none in the traditional sense.

No lover to get me chocolates.
Hubby to bring me flowers as
we’re sitting by the fire.
No homemade card to reclaim
the capitalism of the so-called holiday
all for ourselves.

Yet, what saddens me most,
is that I don’t care at all.

I don’t feel sorry for the nine-year-old me
who just knew that the picture she took
during the class party with her one and only crush
would be in the yearbook forever.
The one she was ecstatic about,
but always felt a little odd
and she could never pin why.

I don’t long for the ability to love
when the selfie he and I took a year ago
popped up on my phone.
The one I always knew was useless to take.

I don’t wish I had somewhere to be last night.
My online community raised
over 2.2 million dollars for charity,
the most we’ve ever done.
I painted for the first time in months,
the first items of pride I’ve ever owned.
A call from a friend that I haven’t seen
since another time,
another place,
another me.

I used to love Greek mythology.
I was a hopeless romantic.
I blasted love songs
and screamed them with all the air
from my lungs.

And I still do.
And I did.
And I always will.

Because I know that
love doesn’t only come
in one shade of red.
Because I always have
loved purple.
Juliana Feb 2021
I don’t want to date you.

And no, before you ask,
it’s not because I’m ace
although I am.

It’s because when I say no,
—and I’ve said no—
I mean no.

It’s because when I say
that you are my only friend on campus
I mean it.
My friend.

It means when I ghost you
for the entire summer
it’s because I’ve asked you time
and time again
to stop.

So stop.

Because I said no.
Because I meant no.
Because I mean no.

So no.

I will not answer your text.
I will not go to your house.
I will find someone else
who I can trust,
because it’s not,
and it will never
be you.
Juliana Jan 2021
There are days in which it seems as if the whole world is falling down.
These are the days in which the ceiling crumples at my feet.
The days where everything I’ve ever known,
my very sense of being
is destroyed.

Who am I?
I thought I knew.
I have lived over seven-thousand days traveling on this earth.
Seven-thousand days as myself.
How didn’t I know?

My entire life,
one could say I was boy crazy.
Has that changed?
I have never been one to change childhood crushes every other week.
If I had a crush, it either lasted years,
or it never existed at all.

Just a wanting.
A wanting to feel.
A wanting to love.

But I can love.
I love my friends, my family.
I love the stories I read,
the characters I create,
the fabric of our reality.
I love being alive.
But I don’t love like that.
And I want to.

Now, I watch as the dust starts to settle.
I kick the white powder at my feet,
starting to regain my breath.

Focus, breathe.
You’re okay. I’m okay.
This is me. I am real.
This is me. I am real.

In the corner, by the rubble,
a slip of cardstock lies innocently.
Cardstock.
This is what my life has succumbed to.
A piece of paper with three humps and a tail.

I am okay.
I will learn to love myself.
I will learn to be proud.

Maybe one day this card will slip away,
the rubble will disappear,
and I will wonder what the fuss was all about.

But not today.
Today I will hold this card close.
I will slip a metal band around my fingertip.
I will do what I do best
and learn, and love, and feel.
Because that’s all we can ever do.
We can grow.
I want to grow.
I am greysexual. This is me.
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