Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
A splintered moon shatters in my eye,
its fragments sinking into the marrow.
Beneath, the earth cracks open,
teeth gnawing at roots that had no names.

My breath is smoke,
dissolving in a throat too old to speak.
Flesh crumbles like ash,
a flame that failed to burn.

A voice calls from the dark,
but it is dust before it reaches me.
I am left—a map of wounds no one can read.
Mark Wanless Mar 16
forbidden conscious
who said that you were naked
we did
iannogueira Mar 16
I hit my leg against the bed,
A sudden pain began to spread.
Perhaps it rose up from my soul,
A jolt, a snap, the greatest show—
My femur’s way to pull me back
And show me I’m not whole.

Then later on, you called my name,
And I agreed to play your game.
We talked, we laughed, we shared a kiss,
But I still felt no trace of bliss.

We made love, you held me tight,
Then fell asleep while I stayed wide.
I watched you breathe with quiet eyes,
While yours were closed to all the night.

There’s so much salt within my tide,
Yet I can’t sink, though I have tried.
Perhaps I think that love and pain
Must wear the same poetic chain,
Or beauty needs a tragedy
To make it feel complete to me.

It’s all I know, it’s all I’m worth,
You said I’m perfect, but since birth,
I’ve only ever been designed
To be a thing you leave behind.

Sincerely, I am just a verse,
A secret poem, soft, immersed,
Beneath your sheets so clean and white.
And though one line may break its rhyme,
It tells me joy is bound to find
Us both, in time, despite kismet signs.
Monika Mar 8
Change has been my lifelong foe —
We've been at war since forever ago.
Been in battle ever since I gave life a chance,
It was the only way for me to take a stance.

Losing control — my worst nightmare
That's a recipe for disaster, right there.
Getting consumed by the fear of the unknown,
Back at square one, no matter how much I've grown.

So every step, I measure twice,
Safe for now, but skating on thin ice.
Always making sure things fall perfectly in line,
Mapping my path, watching out for a sign.

Yet roads will twist — they always do 
No matter how well I plan them through.  
Now a higher power has taken the wheel,
Swerving, getting tortured by the despair I feel.

Unfair how time wields a ruthless hand,
Undoing all the things I have planned.
A single crack and the flood pours in —
Chaos ensues, and mayhem within.

One wrong move, one shift too steep,
And I’ll be falling, falling deep.  
They say that change can set you free —
But freedom feels like losing me.  

I'd rather chain myself in place,
Than gamble all I can’t replace.  
No script survives, no maps stay true,
Control dissolves — as I do too.

Too late for salvation — there's only grief
But perhaps it brings a strange relief. 
For change may call, but I won’t flinch —
You'll have to escape my grip, inch by inch.

And perhaps one day, I'll make my peace
No longer holding on, ready to release.
And maybe I'll even learn something from it,
Like that by losing the game, I've also won it.
They see me with hands on the wheel,
feet steady on the gas,
a woman who conquers,
who builds,
who signs papers with a name they say will mean something.
They speak of my future like prophecy,
a business to run, a world to own.
They dress me in ambition,
in power,
in a suit that doesn’t fit my skin.
The woman I was meant to be.
She stirs sugar into coffee,
presses her lips to a child’s warm forehead,
sits by a window and watches rain make poetry of the streets
Yet their voices are so loud,
so certain,
that I cannot even whisper what I want.
So I nod, I smile,
I let them build this version of me,
one brick at a time,
until I am buried beneath it.
And maybe one day,
I will forget the woman I could have been,
the mother, the homemaker,
the quiet kind of happy
and only remember the one
they never let me become.
I wanted to be a river,
carving my own way through stone,
but the world built dams,
redirected my course,
taught me that freedom has rules.
I wanted to be the artist,
to paint in colors only I could see,
but they handed me a template,
said, "Fill inside the lines."
Every day, I push against the shape
they force me into
and every day, I bend,
just a little
more,
until I wonder if I am still me
Most of knowing each other these days is acknowledgement
Smiling, waving, a head nod
We don’t talk as much as I’d like, but
I don’t have it in me to reach out in earnest
You’ve probably noticed the distance
Occasional texts and shared media make up
The meaningful moments we’ve shared
For a while - it’s been a bit more than a while now
But I still like you
I probably love you, I do, but y’know
We both work so much
And we don’t work together
We haven’t for years now
It’s crazy it’s years now
When you and I live
Not an hour apart
If it’s more - maybe walk faster
I don’t know - anyway

You should know what’s on my walls
I should know your new address
The way your monitor is angled
All the games that you’ve been playing
Your whole setup must be like
Y’know, the feng shui has to be just - yeah

I don’t invite you to much anything
These days you wouldn’t like it here
I do, of course, but it’s not us
And I love us y’know
You and I immersed in games or
Movies, shows, or something
Some expression of ourselves
Expressed by someone else
You point out which one’s me and
There you are engaging with me
We don’t even have to do whatever
We did on the screen
They did us for us
Next page