#napowrimo poems on Hello Poetry

Emma Elisabeth Wood Apr 2020

Bird

I have watched a trembling bird
fight for life

it’s nest destroyed
in a man made storm

and as I watched it cling
to each last breath

my heart started to beat faster

as the life drained from it
into me

Day Fourteen

#napowrimo

voodoo Apr 2020

quietus

even when I was little I had a hard time leaving wounds alone —

the absent-minded uprooting of scabs and the slow flame of revived pain.

to bleed in so many small ways, to be so oblivious to being real.

if only they were tiny sacrifices, tiny offerings to whoever dealt out hurt and sadness, if only they were enough to keep my nose above water.

I find myself lost within four walls in more ways than one.

they say you should smoke sage in all your corners,

smudge its grey into the darkness. they say it puts the past to rest.

I burn leaves and I burn grass and I burn letters and thoughts and touches and it makes me blacker, blacker, blacker.

the remains of grief wait, latched shut in its music box. I can’t bear its singing. I can’t tear this flesh off my bones. I can’t make myself fiction.

but you did. you did and now I fade into a ballad not even worth its weight in the heartbreak it rhymes.

to have sought poetry only to plummet into misery. to have the currency of my decomposing tongue and no concoction of words to soothe the damage.

the rot runs deep. the rot is real. the rot is all I feel.

you’re all the lives kept out of my reach

#love #loss #poetry #napowrimo #depression #grief #witchcraft #childhood #sadness

Emma Elisabeth Wood Apr 2020

Unstitch

I don’t care if the sky falls

I don’t care if the oceans rise

I don’t care if the fires blaze

I have woven you into
the tapestry of my heart

and nothing can unstitch that

Day Thirteen

#napowrimo

Agatha Prideaux Apr 2020

This Frail Lover's Lullaby

I remember the creases of your lips and tongue back then
So I write this love song with my paper and pen
(And now I'm back at it again)

During one hazy road trip, that one night way past ten
Even though I don't remember where or when
I remember the creases of your lips and tongue back then

When I close my eyes, I see you walking ahead
With your open hands inviting mine as you led
So I write this love song with my paper and pen

Your presence felt like that of a thousand men
When I feel safe in your arms when my tears have been shed
(And now I’m back at it again)

Even when you leave the words "I love you" unsaid
I feel it when you **** me thoroughly in bed
I remember the creases of your lips and tongue back then

You kiss your fist before it meets my cheek in counts of ten
Where flowers would bloom in violet blue and red
So I write this love song with my paper and pen

There were nights I'd pray to god as I said
"Please, let him be the last one, amen"
(And now I’m back at it again)

I close my eyes; I see you walking away as you fled
Mouthing me words that made my world drop dead
I remember the creases of your lips and tongue back then

I open my eyes; I cried and teared and pled
But you didn't look back even with my legs spread
So I write this love song with my paper and pen

Tried forgetting you but I loved you more instead
I thought I'm already done making you stay inside my head
—(And now I’m back at it again)

Day 12 of #NaPoWriMo 2020. It's been two days since I wrote something. I've been having relapses, but I finally wrote something. It's crazy how you can feel like you're being so accomplished and productive in your manic episodes and then feel like drowning and dying, not skipping a beat when you're having a depressive one. And this piece is a reflection of my past---as one of my friends said. It's me, pouring it off my chest.

#napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #adult #sad #pain #rhyme #personal #abuse #domestic #*******

Emma Elisabeth Wood Apr 2020

Universe

I remember the first time
that you told me
that the universe
was infinite

I didn’t sleep,
thinking of all the
millions of galaxies,
bursting with life

stars and suns burning
thousands and thousands
of light years away

and the sudden realisation
of the insignificance of us

Day Twelve

#napowrimo

Emma Elisabeth Wood Apr 2020

Spring

You gave me a daffodil
now a single, shrivelled petal
resting in the palm of my hand
the forgotten promise of spring
weeping between my fingers

I remember its fragrance
something lost in the passage of time
like our love, my darling,
like our love

Day Eleven

#napowrimo

Agatha Prideaux Apr 2020

Miss Psychotic's Broken Records

Secrets of Wysteria flow in the vessels of my brain
And so I do not hear, nor comprehend the calling of my thought’s train
Vowing to never be held again in constrain
Eradicating the rotten fingers pointing to my disdain

Muses of bruises, callouses, and roses
Excuses the clueless, hung in ruin’s nooses

Flagitious tongue sharpens itself with sprawling centipedes
Rusted teeth from perilous mandibles bleed as it feeds
On the oozing, ****** veins of the wicked ****** as it pleads
Maybe these are too much for one’s avaricious needs?

Mindful, careful, piercing the syringe of refrain on plump flesh
Yeuking as the substance flows on blood so raw and fresh

Amid all, the past and future gather in Sheol’s pavilion
But missing is the presence of present in emblazing vermillion
Yet fleetly missed as the siren descanted her composition
Somber statues of ivory pretense witness with volition
Saints and snakes tear each other’s throats in a languish cotillion.

Day 9 of #NaPoWriMo 2020. No prompt for today, but I tried making a certain type of poem---acrostic poems. These spell out phrases or words with the first letter of each line of the piece. Enjoy reading!

#napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #acrostic #dark #grotesque #suffering #pain #day9 #psychotic #adult

Emma Elisabeth Wood Apr 2020

we climb

As roots we grow

unsure of what is waiting for us

above the soil

we stretch out, trembling

trepidation clinging to us

like moss

yet still, we reach out

and when we sprout branches

we climb

(we climb)

Day Nine

#napowrimo

Agatha Prideaux Apr 2020

Lilith's Lament

Within the promise land of calm and sound
Pearls found harbor on coarse, finite-like sand
Now whitened by the faces of the drowned
****** by the berserk billows as they stand

Willows frown upon the unjust waters
Whose surface's frozen in a dreamlike blur
Cradling ghostly hollows like coy daughters
In tender whispers as always, they were

And the world bowed down its head in silence
As Lilith raised the rose of thorns in hand
"My children hearsed in tombs of violence;
my children to be salvaged!" she demand

But nevermind the promised neverland
—No one ripens from their so-called homeland

Day 8 of #NaPoWriMo 2020. Followed the site's prompt this time—borrowing a line from the Twitter bots. "Whitened by the faces of the drowned" is from @sylviaplathbot on Twitter, a line from her poem "Finisterre".

#napowrimo #napowrimo2020 #day8 #lilith #lament #finisterre #sylviaplath #neverland #tragic #drama

Emma Elisabeth Wood Apr 2020

Freeze

My thoughts freeze my senses

every emotion has become
a knife piercing my spine

I share more in common with the night
and yet I am dragged, unwillingly
into the day

There was a moment when I could have stood up to the all-encompassing storm

thrown my fists to the heavens
and not cared about the consequences

I was idealistic and naive,
assuming it would pass over by itself

I should have stood up for myself
and fought for my freedom

told the darkness it was not welcome here

not welcome inside me

Day Eight

#napowrimo