Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
BEEZEE Jul 20
I have retired from temptations of attention.
I’ve retired from the need to judge.
I’ve retired from feeling like I need that moment,
And I’ve retired from feeling too sad.

I have retired into a place of contemplation —
A place nearby, and where I sit.

I have retired from feeling guilty,
And I’ve retired from needing your yes.

I am retired.
Arna Jul 4
If you can’t hold on others secrets with you, better stop listening to them.
Not every story is yours to share.
If trust isn’t your strength, silence should be your choice.
Because some secrets deserve a vault, not a voice.
Broken Halos Jun 27
They didn’t quite know how to express it, but deep inside, they, too, were afraid of losing someone they love. Pride often stood in the way, a shield built from past pain and lessons learned the hard way. They had always promised themselves never to repeat the mistakes of their past, never to be as vulnerable as before.

There was a longing in them, a quiet desire to know what it felt like to be cared for deeply, to be love like a child for once. But in trying to protect themselves, they may have gone too far. The very walls they built to keep heartbreak out had begun to suffocate those who tried to get close.

They didn’t regret building those walls; they were necessary, a form of survival. But a part of them did wonder, had they shut out the very experience they longed for? The chance to be loved for who they truly were? Perhaps. And yet, even with that bittersweet truth, they carried on, not with bitterness, but with acceptance. For now, that was enough.

N O I R
My thoughts lately
Human beings,
Akin closest to the creatures of the void,
As we consume.
Dictates of wrath falling from our hands,
Onto tablets of conversational truth.

I am conscious,
I think and do,
Still I consume too.

Leeching off the fuel writing gives me,
I run, an engine breaking through rocky walls,
Testing the boundaries of inspirational energy.
Aching with the feeling of being restrained,
Tortured by carrying,
Some few echoes of truth.
What if I loved you deeply
Just the way I am,
What if we opted out
Of this program?

What if I created
With only you in mind
And you and I excised
delicately
a life of our design?

Will you still love me,
In my real voice
In this body
With this mind
In this our only lifetime?
AJ Jun 21
What’s the worst that I could lose?
Just myself, and that I choose,
Again, again, I set the stage,
Then hand the script to someone’s rage

They smiled, I bent, I let them take,
Till I was hollow for their sake
I stitched my wounds with quiet grace,
And wore the pain like silk and lace

What harm could saying “yes” have done?
Just one more time, then I’ll be gone
But patterns loop like haunted tracks,
And every step just pulls me back

A softer voice, a trembling hand,
I thought that they would understand
But wolves, they come in human clothes,
And kindness is the path they chose

I saw the signs, I knew the script,
Yet still I let my edges slip
And in the name of “keeping peace,”
I fed the beast and called it “lease”

My heart was built to house a storm,
To twist itself in every form
And though I tried to say goodbye,
I let them in, I don’t know why

The bruises weren’t the kind you see,
They grew like roots inside of me
But I have learned: I am the gate,
Not every guest deserves my fate

So if you knock with hungry hands,
Expect to meet someone who stands
No more of me will be poured out to fill
The hollow space of someone’s will
for those who bleed politely
Joshua Phelps Jun 13
call me,
tell me
how i wronged
you—

paint me
as the villain,

but we’re both
living in sin.

you take this
like an attack,
like i’ll let you
down

one
last
time.

but listen—
there’s nothing
left to lose,

and no one’s
in the right
this time.

i rose
from the coffin
i buried myself in.

got tired
of searching
for miracles,

'cause all i'm
left with
are endings
gone bad.

and i’m so
**** tired

of spiraling
again.

so when
i told you
i needed space—

the last
thing
i wanted

was
to hear
from you.
third installment in a trilogy about heartbreak, confrontation, and emotional survival.

this piece is a reckoning—and a reminder: when the spiral returns, you don’t have to ride it.

inspired by story of the year’s “miracle.”
Ellie Hoovs May 25
Your tongue is tied,
cramped from its labor:
lip-service and laments,
twisting prophecy from parking tickets,
doom from unloaded dishwashers.
You monologue like a thundercloud,
over breakfast,
foretelling despair,
in the sogginess of cereal,
and how the day didn't start off
with just the right tone,
the sun glinting through the window
"wrong".
Every spilled cup is symbolic
every sigh a soliloquy.
You speak in psalms of pity
as if your calendar
were made for tragedies,
names written in expo,
scheduled to take turns
making you the victim.
Imagine the audacity
And when the world doesn't end,
exactly on time,
you sulk in darkened corners,
complaining about the shadows,
as if the loneliness your ego creates
isn't an apocalypse of a different kind.
The intent behind every word I utter
is spun into serpentine silk
in your ears,
so you paint me the snake,
accuse me of hissing,
when all I have done
is refused to speak Jabberwocky.
Cadmus May 22
Sharing my pain would heal me, i thought.
So I opened up
told them everything.
The sleepless nights, the buried fears, the truth.

And they listened.
But not to understand.

They turned my story into gossip.
My wounds into entertainment.
Some even laughed.

That’s when I learned
not everyone deserves your truth.
Some people don’t hold your pain.
They dance to it.
Some hearts are too shallow to hold deep wounds. Share carefully , not every ear deserves your truth.
Next page