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Nothing comes to mind, each stroke and word aches inside me.

A fleeting thought coming up dry in my throat.

My temple, empty and abandoned.

Only traces of wine left, They have forsaken me.

They have cursed me, ripping out what made me alive.

I no longer hear the future only sinister laughter

Under the altar is a reminder of what could’ve been.

They think I am underserving.

They know I would rather die than be nothing.

Why make me believe it?
-Persephone
art block
Amy Childers Feb 15
Loving you is like
A man thirsting for wine straight
From the vine, hopeless.
Jeremy Betts Feb 8
No
That's fine
Just continue to lie to yourself
I
Don't mind
I've already removed myself
Proof there's still a wealth of self worth hidden in mental health
I take my love from it's urn then place that, empty, back on the shelf

©2024
Amy Childers Feb 7
You cover my skin in red paint
Each time you scream my name.
They paint my skin green
whilst they mock me.
He throws handfuls of black
On my back for each blow, he ever gave me.
My body is no longer my own canvas,
Society chose to paint over my masterpiece.
At the end of the day, looking in the mirror
I pity the stranger who stares back at me.
The paint won't come off no matter how hard I scrub.
Digging under the paint and tearing skin with it to make my body my own again.
The blood.
It creeps down my skin and drips onto the floor.
What a beautiful shade of red.
It's not like the fiery red of anger but like a freshly cut rose or an unearthed ruby.
This is the color that has been hiding beneath me.
Beneath the facades and the frills of society.
My body is burning from the revisions and my mind is racing with my own potential. This will be a lovely new addition to this canvas.
The pain is worth it.
Society must see the beauty hidden beneath.
Jeremy Betts Jan 30
My thoughts
They can get scary
It's threats, more often than not, not empty
It's hard to convey what they say
They whisper a fray of cliche self hate with 41 years to work it's way to this level of decay
It's all consuming, engulfing then removing positivity 'til it's so scarce I'm left to pretend mostly
A sparse landscape of depravity naturally
Clear cut to make way for the fear factory
The soul fractures, now solely fear so to ward off lonely I let it stay
Not knowing how to play
Leaves me in the dark on what's at play

My thoughts
They aren't worth a penny
My two cents is free
I'd pay you to take them all completely
Is there a chance it gets messy?
Abso-freakin-lutely
But oh what a hero you could be
Imagine it up on a marquee, shining brightly
"Some dumb fuuck, a heros story"
(A family movie)
I'll be the monkey in the middle, come meet me
Come greet me and see purgatory, my state of temporary suffering and predetermined misery
What I'm forced to portray is only done cause I must obey or pay some ******* up penalty
Knowing I am the game and the prey, feeding a self-righteous gluttony
How much more do you want from me?
How much more must I contort for thee?

©2024
Jeremy Betts Jan 26
Don't tell me you love me if you can't say it publicly
Why put THOSE words in THAT order only for them to ring empty?
Ahh, sneaky, sneaky
You didn't think I noticed but I did, walked through the door with it on your right pinky
How'd you let the value you placed on the ring I placed on your finger drop below a hay penny?
Ignored on the ground with hardly a glance cause you "have plenty"
Was that the plan from the start, to pull the shoot early?
We were side by side, we said for all eternity, and you didn't think I'd see?
I know the words needed for that phrase are still in your vocabulary
But they're now spoken differently
Just another thoughtless thought runnin' through a smooth brain, produced automatically
Not calling you dumb, 'cause you've played me for a fool expertly
To speak it comes easy, literally learned at the tail end of infancy
Follow through is a entirely different story
It slips through those lose lips sporadically but it doesn't feel like they're actually for me
Just kinda, sorta vaguely directed in my general vicinity
Even still, to get even that takes a little prompting...unfortunately
They no longer spring forth and sooth this broken heart organically
I can no longer consider it a deep rooted feeling, it's just reactionary
Forget accuracy, this isn't satisfactory
Meanings mean nothing to you and, honestly, I find no truth in your "honesty"
I really wanted my theory on your true feelings for me to be phony
I've never wanted to be wrong so badly
But you prove me right daily and twice nightly
I no longer trigger any desire for intimacy
Fine, I guess, can't force that, it's gotta come around naturally or it doesn't do it for me
But your rejection of literally every attempt and advance from me I'm finding to be too costly
Bye bye confidence, so long ****** identity
Couple years before 40 and I already have to accept there'll be no ****** activity
Haven't been rejected this much through the entirety of my journey to ****** maturity
Feels like a search and destroy mission focused on my psyche
Absolutely crushed mentally and emotionally
And here I was thinking it was I that had an unlovable personality
You forced me to think that about me
Like I'm not even good company
I wish this would have worked out differently
And yet still, what I want even more is for you to agree
How pathetic of me

©2024
I want to experience the world
But I don't want the world to see me,
I don't want to touch it,

I want to know the whole of the world
and the whole world to know of me,
Without it really knowing me at all,

I want to have it
without it being had,
And love it,
Though I'm in denial that it could feel so
Or I could be
Moonbeam Jan 8
My body betrayed me in ways I never thought possible
I can’t eat, I can’t emote, I can’t exist
Not without itching, tingling, wheezing, gasping for air
I’m rapidly losing control over my life
My world was already so small—and now it’s getting smaller
The list of foods I can’t eat is growing as my will to keep going…shrinks
Why must struggles beget even more struggles?
Why can’t I be allowed to be happy?
Exist in a beautifully carefree manner?
My spirit screams to express but my body says no
You’re not allowed
All I can do is tearfully write my feelings on a page while I agonize at all I have lost and will lose
I am missing out on the human experience I crave
I just want to be well
I want to breathe easy
I want to be healed
Yet I am here, in my bubble, alone
Forever
This is a poem about MCAS. I’m becoming allergic to life more each day. I have to leave behind so much. I have to miss out on so much. It’s so painful to live this existence.
Jeremy Betts Jan 3
Like a drug taken for a quarter century, this writing doesn't help like it use to...
See,
I'm starting to feel like it's working against me
Holding me here in pain and misery
Cleverly disguised as creativity
I use to lie and say it was a way to get rid of all this negativity
But I've spilled so much blood and tears onto stationary
...and not even purely metaphorically...
I should be completely empty
Hell, I think I might be
I think it's moved onto draining my energy
Can I still call this writing therapy?
Is it healthy or does it keep me from a new me?
Holding tightly but in spite of me
Hiding a different side of a complex personality
A new level of maturity
Is it actually helping any?
Today it's hard to say, but maybe
Unfortunately, it's something I'm good at, a skill I enjoy and I don't have many
So I've begun to notice I look at it differently
It was suppose to help me let go of the painful unpleasantry held in many a memory
But it woke a part of my ego that I didn't know would grip so tightly
It might have been a mistake to rely on it so heavily
It's no longer moving along the story
No cautionary tales to learn from because they never become history
It becomes a bookmark that I don't use properly
I never move it to the page I left off on and now, I must admit openly, I'm doing it purposely
I keep the worst of me right next to me, close as a frienemy
All because I notice I DON'T write when I'm happy
And I like to write so I dance around emotions strategically
I don't know if it's anything worth saying but writing is calling and drawing me in closely
A ghostly presence that when I look closely I see my identity
It hasn't always been but is now a big part of me
But does it want all of me?
Can't say either way with any certainty
No AH-HA moment, no clarity, only a death grip on disparity
So I recklessly walk the line of happy and tragedy
Like a DUI test on the side of the freeway, drunken pageantry
Eyes closed mainly
No thought of mine or anyone else's safety
Dangerously close to calamity
And I just worry

©2024
Mark Wanless Dec 2023
i am absent just
not empty not gone
when empty not gone
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