#deterioration poems on Hello Poetry

neth jones May 2023

watching for air                              a mad thing of static to do
unwashed  i hold it all foreign   my perspectives clothed as the enemy
an agreed muscle of tension       with pockets fracked into my hands
i look out the window   wide agape guidance                                                     invasive drills of heat   the giving sunlight ; punishing,
a tree,   the grieving buildings
the whinging of cicadas
and here i am     watching for air

one point for the weather
one point for the view
one big point for my ****** condition
one point for the passers by and their galling dramedies

and there it is ; the wiry plan that's built
from one small tickle of wild thought
                                 formed long ago
trickling to the current day
some whipped wit of poisoned psychology
     fed to the inbreed   (welcome   you panting imp)
decades of saved up fatty layers
a deed   of habitual sediment
retching until the tide laps become still
   a cured and congealed gladness
marbled, a butcher would say
i am full and hearted and heated and padded senseless
        turned under a heel   with my wastrel history
  i’ve accomplished this     a stifled condition
                               of poisoned obscenity

seated deep        almost fully incapacitated
in my armchair   on this chummy day
my leisure clothes greasy     sluck against my blemished hide
a packet of cigarettes   to my side
rounded upon  by sounds of the neighbours affairs
with a gasp of energy   i 'skin one off' vigorously
my system trembling   with years of hard liquor
borderline   to a state of unconscious whelm
retained final       prime for ignition
i could manage a spectacle
a blinding flare
                                  a glorious incineration
and the release
                      of my true oder

i light a match for my cigarette

a glass bottle
formed-to-conform-to-be
         and not simply shatter       with '*******' explosion
(though it is an option)

imagining the worst sinnings in the rooms surround

#deterioration #loneliness #combustion #vice #mental #illness #heat #madness #solitary #prayer

Hollow Steve Dec 2019

Displacement

Mispronounced chaos sways
With its ellipsis misplaced
And taking away
Its own verdict
That was left displayed
Its own hole
Grown
From displacement
Carrying concrete
Like broken shoulder blades
Mispronounced
Mismatched
Deteriorating outcomes
Commonplace is then found
In its unity
Disuniting it all

#chaos #swayed #displacement #outcomes #deterioration #unity

Carys Angharad Jan 2019

Age

His eyes were as blue as the sea,
they sparkled as he played with his young granddaughter.
He beamed as he watched her grow up,
he would never be able to express his adoration for her,
and she would never be able to do this for him.

Her heart sunk as she watched him grow old.
When she was younger she’d always joke that
he’d live until he was a hundred years old,
that age was creeping ever closer.
They saw each other daily and chatted as if
they had all the time in the world.

She couldn’t imagine a life without him…
She had always thought he was invincible,
but over the years his face had become hollow,
and he began to become short of breath.

She vowed to make the most of the time they had left,
she promised she wouldn’t view him differently,
the only difference now was that it was her job
to look after him, rather than the other way around.

#grandfather #granddaughter #family #age #deterioration #caring

Em MacKenzie Nov 2018

Those Three Words

Of all the words I never got to say
there’s still three that haunt me to this day.
They’re plaguing my skies to turn them all to grey,
I wonder if you ever would’ve felt this way.

I’ll make this cryptic so it stretches it out real long,
less descriptive but the message still stands too strong.
But it sounds so light that it’s become a song;
You were right, you were never wrong.

Of all the feelings I still have these in my chest,
weighing down the muscle slightly above my left breast.
First I thought it a lesson but now I believe it’s a test,
to see if I can beat my head and get some rest.

Read between the line,
when I say that I’m doing fine,
and try to translate my foreign sign,
if you care enough to devote the time.

I’ll make this cryptic so it stretches it out real long,
no intent to be vindictive but the time has come along.
My fear; I’ll fight, even though I’m too headstrong,
you were right, you were never wrong.

She said to always look at the stars
especially the ones that shine so bright.
I’ll keep the memory for my reservoirs,
but the constellation was her in my sight.
You weren’t wrong, you were always right.

#unsaid #sadness #deterioration #apology #bound

Tom Alan Quest Apr 2018

I

I, tired
synecdoches

For exhausted sadness.
I, fragmented animus,

(……….)Stilled air in a mutiny,
(……….)Sent afloat from mine eye.

I, aimless bounty
Missing bligh.

(……….)I, nimble crumbs,
(……….)Too mouldy and dry

To be scraped off the floor
Into bins, out of sight. I,

Too perilless,
Too stagnant

To die.
(I, tired)

From the depths of depression, the self starts deteriorating and collapsing on its own selfish loathing. This is what that infected ghost speaks and how the very speech gets chopped up, obfuscated, and verbally suicidal.

#depression #self #autobiography #deterioration #sad

Jessica Feb 2017

The night

The point beyond exhaustion
The place where you no longer hunger for the comfort of sleep
You'd rather stay awake through another agonizing night
Letting your mind run wild with obscenity
You'd rather be conscious through the pain out of spite
This is the point beyond mental deformity
The place where isolation is more than meets the eye
You'd rather be here alone, with no one to distract you from your self destruction
This is where you keep the torn pieces of yourself from sight
You'd rather be quarantined from their pollution
This is the place where you come to write

#depression #night #insomnia #longing #contemplation #deterioration

Kelsey May Daly Dec 2016

Deterioration

We reached our peak so we’re off to sleep
The singing summer’s now humming a lullaby.
Tuck yourself in, while I search for a new sin
I’ve already caught your yelling yawn.
The autumns nye and I a dying leaf
Still green, but barely hanging from your tree.
I’ll wrap myself up, in a hat and gloves
But your cold will still nip at the spaces between.
There’s no shield from the shredding of love
So I’ll sweep with the wind to better things.

#love #death #autumn #deterioration

Lou Morgan Apr 2016

Deterioration

I try to put on a front that
I'm okay,
but what they don't know is that
the image of you with a gun in your mouth
has never left my mind.
It haunts me, making sleeping difficult
and waking impossible.
While the days go by, I appear to be
more and more okay,
when in reality your absence is making me
weaker
and weaker.

#suicide #notokay #deterioration #antisuicide