Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Jellyfish Mar 23
Dear dad,

From you I learned that anger was scary.
You never expressed it in a way that wasn't frightening.
Anger was always directed at someone or something,
You often voiced threats and I could only nod along because I was so afraid.

Ever since the day you burned the bridge we made,
The string that kept me full of hope; burned and faded away,
I'd lie to myself for a long time,
I protected you my whole life.

Because of you, I don't know how to feel mad.
It rarely happens but when it does,
It's usually directed at myself.
Because I don't want to scare or hurt anyone else.

I can't use my voice when I'm angry
I cry and step away,
Or wait until I get to my car to scream
as I drive home and feel hateful.

I hate my anger...
I feel disappointed
I'll never tell you but
I wish you had done better.
Jellyfish Oct 2023
When I was young I wrote about
How therapy was always trying to trawl me treacherous
With only having gone a handful of times as a child.
Today therapy is a friend to me,
Only trying to tear my troubles from my treacherous hands
To help me understand where they come from
And where I stand.
Andy Chunn Jun 2023
The clearing in the woods is where
I find solace and solitude

I call it “the glade” as it caresses
The covert, ceaseless, controlled calmness
That captures my core and character

Like a meditative mantra,
It manumits the melancholy misery
Of mundane mortality

Quiet and still, the glade is an asylum
For amnesty, absolution and
Apology of the mind
M Sep 2022
It scorched the Earth beneath my feet,
Forever tainted and augmented how I experience my world,
the world around me.

Things look different. Taste odd. Sound funny.

You can never go back. Never undo.

What's done is done.

And now,
Well, now,
You must live in the aftermath.

There has only ever been the aftermath.
  
The before time was a story you'd tell yourself to sleep better
        at night.
Stories of being Loved, Seen, Cared for, Known.
All fairytales that you'd gorge yourself on,
Imagine living in.

Anything to take away the pain,
Anything to make the loneliness stop.

As you grew, you leaned on other things to take away the
        feelings: cutting, eating, distracting, dissociating.

Make it numb.
Make it tolerable.                    
Livable.
It hardened you.
Broke parts of you.
While the world around you continued to take.

You tried to stay afloat.

Sometimes, flirting with the idea of going under,
Wishing and praying to let the waves wash you away.
Never letting them.

Always trying.
                        
Trying to rebuild from the rubble at your feet.

Some time, along the way, forgetting,
                                                                ­   it wasn't your bomb.
                                                           ­                                       
                                     You didn't detonate.

It wasn't your dilapidated, abused house - you Just lived there.

It wasn't.
It isn't.
It wasn't your fault.
It never was.
Wrote this after therapy. It is Never your fault.
sofolo Aug 2022
To be knelt in a shower
Watching crimson mix with water
Some good ol’ fashioned
Pain drain

Bloodletting
How delicious

What is it about a cleansing ritual
That brings
Soot to surface

It’s scar tissue
Meets fresh wounds
Amidst the carnage
A kernel of truth

Cartography
How scrumptious

What is it about toweling off
That removes
Less than we thought

It’s whispered words
Meets silent screams
All this chaos
What does it mean

Decryption
How cathartic

What is it about slipping into jeans
That tucks away the secrets
Folds up the mental maps
Slurps the blood from the floor
And masks us up
For the world to adore

///

“How was your weekend?”

(wait, what’s my line?)

Plasma
A flushed cheek
“Oh…it was fine”
smiles

Merely existing
How divine

///
this may be interpreted by each reader according to their own experience. for me, personally, this is referring to an emotional form of bloodletting (read: not self-harm).
Muse Aug 2022
Aphrodite have I done you so wrong

That you enamore me in loves somber song

Yet leave his holy heart unignited

Cursing me with burning affection unrequited

Why allow me to be denied Anteros

And Eros strike me so cruelly with arrows

That I must make Philia to be enough

When what I desire fervently is his fleeting love

I see now goddess that I you must truly despise

For you sent forth Phobos and Deimos to terrorize

Until I found my heart to be ragged and maimed

Still for their sake I find myself acting as if it's the same
Adam Schmitt Aug 2022
She and I together were never
the source of fireworks,
but of Landmines
Buried shallow in the Earth,
Never knowing what it's worth,
only showing each our dirt,
and telling each our hurt,
Yelling needless vul-gar words.

She and I together
wore always our clouds
at night
A wry smile and a drunken slight,
and a sallow bit of cold street light,
never trying to start a fight,
and with nothing
left to ignite,
Wondering if we're going to be
alright.
I know she probably will;

With that tough mind
of hers and her
inner fire bright,
an inferno of delight,
and her supernatural
sight,
always finding keys to
the doors locked
up most tight.

She and I today had one hell
of a trying time,
in the park where she dragged me along
by the unravelling thread
inside my mind.

I had to snip the thread
there,
and then,
She said "it's too nice a day
for us to say
'The End.'"
I said "it's not nice enough
for us to play
pretend."

I was split into tarnished silver
slivers for far too long,
After.
Exponential excruciation
A mind processing pain
that needs only be felt once
to be believed,
and I bled all those
who came close enough
to try and pick up the pieces.
I am welded back together now,
but there are smoking craters
I need to fill,
I think...
(therefore I will)
Though conspicuously tarnished,
even better still?

She and I together are now only
casual, cordial, and cool.
She and I together finally,
possibly,
learned the Golden Rule:

"Do unto others, as you would have done unto you"

It seemed cliche
until that day
When she and I together
Realized
we had nothing left
to say,
and with nothing left to do for
Her
But to give her heart away,
to the wild chaos freedom
she's always craved.
The chaotic wild freedom
of a world
that needs to be saved.
I craved it too,
back then,
the chaos, and the license to rave,
and I used to think it made
us strong, wise, and brave,
when all we really were,
were just
enthralled by shadows
On the walls of a cave.


It will help hearts
                                                 heal,
hers and mine together,
when we finally
    
                                                 walk away.

She and I still talk from time to time
When the wind is static
And the weather's fine,
When the moon is blue,
And the stars align.
When theres nothing to do
But to look back
and find,
She and I together, were never
very compatible,
in love,
yet far too compatible
in war.

Peace.
Processing a breakup in poem form. Troubled lovers who were better off as friends, but with a lot of unfriendly baggage that could never be forgotten. Though nothing unforgivable occured between us, it was too much that needed forgiving for one relationship to bare.
sofolo Feb 2022
You were a cerulean boy with ocean eyes
A heart as complicated as the tides are high
I brought you home to watch an angel on tv
The sun was rising…you didn’t leave

I was an emerald man
With a broken plan
Oz in my heart, silly I know

A little sad and not of the clearest mind
Enraptured by you
My hopes were misaligned

///

A few days went by…

Things seemed good
A record played
Blue Film
Pasta
Wine
Fingers through hair

An invite to Christmas
Your mom wanted to meet me
Imagine that
Seems a little funny now

I picked you up from the airport
We tried on a hundred pairs of glasses
Took a cute photo by the bathrooms
How foreign now

Sick days in bed
I held a cool cloth to your brow
Ran my hands down your wet back
The fever broke while you slept

You sang countless melodies
Fingers on the keys
While I lay on the carpet
Quietly recording

Then there was the nightly routine
Superstore and cuddles
Laughter and jalapeño hands
****

You kissed my neck
Asked if it was good
It was good
So you turned away

You kept pressing your body against mine
Only to turn away
Over
And over
Again

I would wait until you were asleep to cry
In the bathroom
In the closet
In the dark

My heart was breaking
My mind confused
You looked lost
I felt used

An arbitrary argument over brunch
You put the car in park
We sat in silence
It was a little dark

Suddenly we are ending things
My tears start flooding
You were far away
Emotionless
That still stings

///

Lies like waves crashing on the shore
You’re so comfortable spewing them
Mold on blueberry cheese
A spore

A Scruffy “random play”
A Grinding “top”
A fake *** alt-identity
Hiding behind a screen
Stop

You didn’t see my gold
You couldn’t
I wanted you to try
You wouldn’t

I wonder if you’ll ever
Pull back the curtain and find
Your
True
Self
I hope you do
You deserve that
To be magic (again)

In December, I’ll remember
You
Your cerulean eyes
And our demise
Elizabeth Kelly Jan 2022
From the beginning:

It’s a new year and I quit my job
**** it, I’ll never be good at serving
Directionless in 2013
January.
It’s unusually warm.

Your presence in the room is a rock in my shoe
You’re so cool
And I’m a mess.
Remember, you called me Heather in bed?
And I made you go home?
Well.
I forget.

Now we’re crossing the street
For your birthday, it’s your birthday,
Makers Mark, count ‘em, 2 ounces at a time.
Stacked up like unread texts and why don’t you like me’s
I don’t remember
But I’m probably crying

Flash in to outside
God it’s like 60
Deciding to go with you
Asking you to kiss me

(I had a long term boyfriend in my 20s
And his mother would buy me toilet paper for Christmas
The gift of hindsight is kind of like that:
Practical and helpful and a ****** of a gift)

Today is 9 years to the day
My parents know and they’re on their way
The nurse thinks I might be paralyzed
11 broken bones and two black eyes

This is the end of the beginning
Which is the easy part
I’ve never been able to write it all down
Spin it into art

Be warned, I can’t guarantee poetry
From a patched-but-still-leaking heart.
Part one of a multi (tbd) part series detailing the drunk driving accident that derailed my life in 2013 and the convoluted and ongoing recovery process.

I have attempted to process this event through a whole swath of creative means, never very successfully. It eludes me. I humbly request patience, as this is a healing exercise. Thank you so much, and may you find peace where it grows.
Brother Jimmy Aug 2021
When you look
Back for clues
They’re all there

Like the smell
Of ozone
In the air

Correspondence
Sounded lame
Did you know?

But I saved
All those ones
Where you show

Me some skin
Close ups of
Sweet jade gate

Shall I send
Them to him?
He’s up late…

With your shirt
Lifted up
Showing skin

Teasing shots
Just to draw
Me on in

But each one
Silly face
Open mouth

Stupid look
(I see you’re
From the South)

Two where you
Call me up
From downstairs

I still recall
Such nice shots
Such blank stares

‘Cause you’d only
Want me when
You were gone

Drunk or high
On the pills
It felt wrong

To make love
With a girl, with
Special needs

Made me shrink
Made me turn
From the deeds

But next morning
Sobered-up
You’d be cold

Like that fake
Bill of goods
I was sold

Lies stretch back
Through the years
Now I see

There’s no love
From you dear
Only me

You’ve got the goods
The stuff I want
(Your *** was boss)

And the nicest
Set of teeth
I’ve *** across
Next page