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it took a few months to recognize my first car.
i’d wander through parking lots reading license plates
as if they were names i should know, but forgot.
i just looked for the college parking pass to show it was my own.
i graduated two years ago.
i still looked for the parking pass last month.

it took a few months to recognize my keys.
they didn’t feel like mine for months;
i was used to touching doors with the reticence of a guest.
i couldn’t tell which unlocked what,
i just looked for the college logo lanyard.
the red fabric may have unlocked as much as the keys did.

it’s taking more than a few months to move on.
i’m still in therapy for the therapy i didn’t ask for
when people couldn’t tell the difference
between the will to live and the will to die.
the keys on my lanyard led to doors that weren’t mine anymore.
none of the other cars there had to leave.
the parking pass laughed as i drove away.

it took a few weeks for the airbags to stop ringing in my ears.
i didn’t hear the sirens until i saw the lights,
kind of like the way i didn’t feel myself being pushed
until the door was shut. i didn’t know what to reach for—
i would have held the steering wheel tighter.
i would have looked a little longer.
i would have watched what they did and not what they said.

it takes longer when i’m in the driver’s seat now.
words need more salt. i take roads more slowly.
the car that was my home through shut and locked doors
was my safety one last time.
i have new keys. i have new doors.
a home where i’m not a guest.
i walked from both crashes, but only one still haunts.
the parking pass was towed away, and i wish i had laughed.
Kat M Apr 1
Not even here is Knowledge a thing of intuition
But the procedure followed key by key
Into the river and out of the drain
Like a lamprey seething on a deer

Should we wake her,
Or do the defiler's whispers eat at your ear
Do the wallops within you complete something
You didn't know needed to be found

A golfer eats a melon and yearns for forgiveness
As she knows, it’s not the smaller
Unforgiving swallowtail pictured
Am I what you imagined

When you wished upon a star
Never to be seen again but on the pages of
Typing writers blocking my every thought
As mysteries unravel me
Feedback Welcome!
Lillian Feb 27
I'm enveloped into my mind
This world was never meant for my kind,
So I fade way into pure imagination
Were I'm met by fascination
And I am greeted by my own Validation
My realm is realities Evacuation
Here everything is strange
But I wouldn't exchange
This dream-like place
For the face
Of desperate society
That causes my anxiety
In conclusion
Stay in delusion.
Strangerous Feb 8
We huddled at the edge and watched the wind
Blowing north the water flowing south
The willows swaying weeping for the dead
The sun forever going going down

This hideaway we haunted harbored hordes
Of ghosts of outcast lovers hanging on
To all the times they huddled there before
Their time was up and they were gone

The ghosts of outcast lovers would attend
Whenever outcast lovers came to burn
The fire of the force at their command
For they are cold cold and they yearn

It’s ages since we huddled in our lair
While other outcast lovers came and went
We’ll join the ghosts of outcast lovers there
When our time is up and we are spent
(c) 2025 by Jack Morris

Hear the song on SoundCloud:
soundcloud.com/therealjackstrange/love-haunt
hsn Jan 8
life is the steel prison that is a birdbox
solemnly, i am the bird that lives within it

and alfresco the cage, the covey glide

i watch everyone take flight and
be able to soar the azure skies
as i stay behind forever and feel
disturbed by stripped wings of calm
once a pariah
forever a pariah

-
I walk the streets
Looking for friends
I walk the streets in
The middle of the night
As I am in search of
Of friend life forms
But only to
Be met with hate
Only to be ridiculed
Only to be
Forced to fit in
Kaiden Nov 2024
Poetry,
The language that only we,
The freaks of the world
Understand.
Another one i wrote when i was 12-13 years old, i had an entire binder for my writing and it had a paper sticker on it that obviously said "writing", this short poem was hidden on the other side, only to be seen when the sticker is taken off.
Jeremy Betts Jul 2024
•••
Welcome home
•••
Heart of stone
House of glass
Fault is not mine alone
Karma credit blown
It happens fast
With no receipt shown
The last to know
A forced outcast
I didn't get here on my own
A house of glass
And a single stone
Another broken home
•••

©2024
Jeremy Betts Feb 2018
No place for me to fit in, sometimes not even my own skin
The 65th crayon on the floor next to the 64 count special edition tin
The two dollar DVD bin is even out of reach, at a loss as to where else to begin
I guess it's back to the drawing board to start over once again
Not a chance of bein' normal as an outcasted heathen
But that's never been a why for me, to fit in is not a win
I've been sittin' in this same place like a mannikin with a phoney grin
A clothespin holdin' together the fabric of my being with such discipline
But a strong gust of wind tears through like blowing your nose into a cheap napkin

Patched together like a quilt of sin read like a story board of which I'm a star in
Stitched together by not giving in, givin' it all I can, taking every shot to the chin
But life's not getting the win by KO or even by decision
I'm gonna need to be taken out the ring on a stretcher with blue skin
But the goal isn't really to win but to survive this doomed zeppelin
I start thinking maybe I can take this aggression and passion and turn it in...
...to a winnin' combination and spread it through the nation
Empower an entire generation, awaken an entire population

But all they'll see is Frankenstein's monster

©2018
Jeremy Betts Jan 2021
The only role I ever land is "outcast tortured by the cruelty and pain of his past" I sure didn't choose this path, feels more as though I've been typecast, or maybe I am a *******, holding out for every last ounce of pain before I blast this trader living in my head for the last 30 years off my shoulders, through a window pane, then, just as fast, turn to the vast hole in my chest that once held my heart and press the cold steel to it with the mass of my dread firmly in my grasp, gun fire drowned out by echoing laughs, fulfilling a prophecy of my future while neglecting lessons from my past, the game of life feels less like a game of chance and more like a test that's harder to advance than all the rest and wouldn't you know it, I fell asleep in class and didn't pass, apparently I even tuned out the emergency broadcast. Went and amassed a losing record that'd be impressive if not for the direct contrast the win column presents and the enormous shadow my downfall casts. Harassed by the devil on each shoulder, I thought that maybe once I got older, if I could just stay on task and remain steadfast, I would be able to open a can of whoop a$$ and trespass the evil within this house of glass but alas I must telegraph my every move or they've seen a future telecast because they lambast each strike and I'm not sure I'll outlast these issues, I'm gassed, plus, problems have started showing up in mass from a much higher weight class, they must have bypassed the weigh in process but I've always known who the deck was stacked against, hence why I never win, I only survive and my methods would flabbergast most, the truth finds it's way to the surface and I find myself aghast, crying like I've been teargassed with no gas mask but I've surpassed the point where waterworks will bring forth empathy, gotta own my involvement in the crash, volunteer to take out my own trash and this time I'll throw my pain out with the bath water and be free at last...free at last, free at last, no thanks to god almighty I'll be free at last

©2021
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