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Peel back the scales
the blackened bits
the blistered redness
the purple putrid scabs
inside are paper thin cuts
unhealed
20 Words on trauma
The edge of me has never rounded
it remains sharpened
razor cuts are dangerous
The muscles within choke
bent and barbed in wires

A fatal heart never takes a beat
sealed meat, so tender
A cage can snap closed like a vice
pounding at the cellar door
echoing through the halls
When its just you, not a wound
What is it about that visceral sting?
A slap laced in venom
Oh, how it rips the skin
tearing our scars clean
Opened to the air,
the wounded will scream

A sophisticated song
Rupturing a forgotten well.
What is it about that sting?

Painful cuts bleed masterpieces
Our art is within
The viscous call it out
The hurt pours the shroud
What is it about that visceral sting?
Why is pain so inspiring?
Gabrielle May 13
When I’m in the dark
All I want is him,

Blurred silhouette warm to the touch,
Skin to skin in the dim.

When the contours in the corners loom,
Hold me without sight.

In the dark, and nothing else,
We are one shadow, slight.

When the lights come on,
Unfortunate details grow.

Like a **** from a crack,
A blemish in the snow.

In the savage of the day,
The barriers of our skin discrete,

We just can’t make sense,
When light and eyes meet.
This poem is about wanting to be with someone who isn't right for you.
Thomas Harvey May 12
Stuck in this prison, behind the white walls
My eyes see them walk
My ears hear them talk
How could I be the fool that falls

In a room full of lights
I lean towards nothing but the dark
Even in my own thoughts I cannot find a spark
For I wish I could fly and take flight

I call, I call, an answer to be
Why, why am I here
And why is no one near
Who am I to flee

For now, I have left the room behind
And far shall I go
To a place that nobody knows
But yet I’m stuck in another room in my mind

Stuck in this prison, behind the white walls
My eyes see them walk
My ears hear them talk
How could I be the fool that falls
mace May 11
the lights turned off & everything was black

but for that millisecond, i was not afraid of the dark

the dark moved as if it never existed
a void abyss, yet it didn't consume my vision

because i trusted that my eyes

would adjust to the darkness

And it did.
october 25, 2020. i'm proud of this one. this was the only hopeful / positive poem i've written from that time.
Jess May 6
These thoughts
so dark
These visions
so bright
One cannot exist
without the other in line
Like the stars that shine
through empty space
Don't  you  see  it?

                         The
D u a l i t y
                 Of
L i f e

The                            
B a l a n c e
                 Of
L i f e

We hold the key
To destroy                                            
                                          To create

But to wield
such power

Who are we and
Who are

You
And that is the Journey of life. To find who we are, or rather, to remember who we are.
The stars shine in a vast nothingness.
the heat creates light and form, and with the right mix...eventually you get...life.
If there is no meaning, then what's the point?
Randomness breeds Nihilism.
And that breeds despair along with all of it's cousins,
creating a chain reaction.
As within, so Without. As above, So below.

We are responsible for what we create, weather we know it or not.

Artists create through pain, but also create through joy and love. We have intense emotions. They are both a gift and a curse.
We have the ability to transmute.
Everyone does in some way.
I think therefore I am. I speak, therefore I create.
What you think creates the world you live in. What you speak forms it into existence.
How we use it is up to us.
There is a blessing in every curse
and a curse in every blessing.
Otherwise, how would we know anything without it's opposite?

*If I don't believe in something beautiful than I will fall into myself into utter destruction and ruin and fall into the darkest depths my thoughts can fathom.
Seeing the beauty in the smallest of things keeps me...alive. It keeps me here it keeps me from falling, it keeps me from making myself disappear. Sometimes I want to die. Other times I feel nothing.
But what pulls me out of that is seeing the beauty of things,
the balance, the compassion.
Sometimes I need to fall really hard again to see it once again.
Because every so often, i need to be reminded of just how beautiful things are,
but to do that I need to pull myself through the darkest depths of myself and face the hell i created for myself to remember what the light once looked like.
Such is life. In all things.
But that's just what I think.
Jeremy Betts Apr 30
Given a hand to go hand in hand in the park
Only allowed to be enjoyed in the dark
And as I curse the idea of an always present silver lining
I notice it to be easier to witness the splendor of our spark

©2025
Jeremy Betts Apr 30
How does it always find me?
Easy,
It is me
At the very least it's in me
Darkness is part of this story
And it's not something to envy

©2024
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