The fusillade of promises
Poured from your mouth
And pooled at my feet
Cold against skin
The sentences broke apart
And they nibbled at my toes
Leaving lies knotted around my ankles
And I watched you
Shifting and squirming under my gaze
You hoped my emotions
Flooded my eyes
So I wouldn’t see the growing ripples around my feet
Vibrations of disappointment rumbled
Until they erupted into the last time
And I walked away
Leaving you with incomplete sentences

you’re not used to this is how you testify?
woe to thee who asked for ease to be denied!
since you’re better than others and cannot believe otherwise
i have no sympathy if that’s your reply
i don’t care if you’re levitating insufferably high
everyone deserves respect regardless of how stratified
kindness isn’t stupid, it’s beautifully dignified
if you can’t see that then you’re unqualified
to be of those I declare compassionately legitimized
if you were truly great you wouldn’t resort to abuses
you’d be who you are no matter how many uses
and while i believe in doing what one so reasonably chooses
my sympathies are immune to your pompous excuses

I don’t want to go to the lake

It’s too cold
I don’t have a swimsuit
I haven’t been eating well
I don’t like swimming
I don’t like being outside
I just don’t want to

These are all my excuses
But in reality...

I don’t want to have to tell you
There are dark, fresh scars on my thigh
On my wrist as well
I don’t want you to worry
I don’t want to have to explain

So you sate your inadequacies
With excuses and those poems
And you pretend that tomorrow you will be better
But you are unstirring from your heart
And the stagnant puddle you call your life
It is your air, what once was bitter

Complacence takes hold and you watch
That view from the window forever the same
Sunsets and seasons blurring in the horizon
One more hour, another sleepless night
An unfinished day and muted uneasiness
Is this apathy the only thing you rely on?

“Life drains my enthusiasm away bit by bit”
You complain, and to refuse reality
You firmly repeat it like a charm
But you know, one heartbeat away
One step further from where you fell last
Will crash into your illusion of calm

Numb your conscience with art
Devour everyone else’s talent
And take nothing but tears from their story
Leave truths to dent your steel façade
Yet bury yourself in denial
Safe, shielded, in your delusional glory

Bleeding heart, battering in its cage
Its screams drowned under ****** veins
It’s scary silent, your shell
You’ve locked down hard
Your defences caked with dreamland dirt
Too sturdy for reality to fell

Search like a madman for something
To ease the voice of discomfort
Try to bind it to a letter
And so you sate your inadequacies
With excuses and this poem
And swear that tomorrow you will be better.

the crooked and
mishandled alleyways
of words to whisper
have always riddled
the backstreets of my mind...

i mapped them,
longer than enough
to see the ins and outs
i've known them,
more than enough...
like the palm of my hand
or the skin on my face.

it has always been
a palimpsest
of the maze i used to
be sealing myself in—
   or perhaps seeping myself out.

there were promises,
there were poems,
and of course,
there was you.

and every single word,
or every single way,
i have always been
tongue tied and
waiting and just so
so long overdue—

stuck in the prison
of a misfortunate fate...
knowing the means
and never escaping
somehow still lost

   afraid of ever stretching ways.

'hey, long time no see—'

'happy birthday! want to talk—'

'happy new year hope we still get together!'

    everything just comes out in clicks...

    'backspace'.

I'm scared
I'm lonely
I'm empty
but I'm not .

I'm tired
I'm burned out
I'm passionless
but I'm not .

I'm rude
I'm selfish
I'm careless
but I'm not .

I'm lost
I'm crying
I'm quiet
but I'm not .

I'm full of excuses.