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Matt 6h
She is the reason
I count the exits before I sit down.
3 windows, 2 doors, 4 friends to go talk to,
I fold myself small in crowded rooms.
I let my shadow walk ahead—
just in case she is waiting behind me.

She is the reason
my name sounds foreign in my own mouth.
It used to be mine,
warm, whole, sure.
Now it is just a noise I do not trust.
“Matthew” she’d call.

I hate hearing that sound

She—
(is the reason I mistake love for danger)
(is the reason I taste irony in "I miss you")
(is the reason I do not know how to love)

She is the reason
I flinch before I am touched.
I flinch before I am hurt.
I flinch before there is even a reason to.

A hug should be easy, not torture.

She is the reason I can’t say "no."
No is a match against gasoline breath.
No is a door ripped off its hinges.
No is a crime scene where I am the suspect.
(why did you make her so mad?)

She is the reason I smile when I am scared.
A trick I learned to survive.
A trick I cannot unlearn.
A trick that fools everyone,
even me.

—But she is not here.

Is she?
I tell myself she is gone,
but she is still the reason.

She is the reason I run.
She is the reason I stay.
She is the reason I am afraid to be loved,
and the reason I am terrified to be alone.

She is the reason.
And I hate that she still is.
This poem is written about my first ex, as many of them are. She ruined me. She was an evil, conniving, sadistic [insert a word that I will not put here]. Her abusive nature and the torment that she put me through forever left a scar in the way that I live my life.
We are drowning
not in water, but in silence,
each breath swallowed,
a hollow echo of what once was.

The sky forgets the blue it once wore,
now draped in smoke-thick sighs,
the wind hums of almosts and befores,
while hope slips away beneath the tides.

And the sun, now too tired to fight,
bleeds light into a sea that won’t remember,
its warmth wearing down
dying like a goodbye that came too soon.

Islands reach, grasping for air, for mercy,
fingers of earth, worn down by our neglect,
their shadows stretch, long and desperate,
suffocating beneath the weight of what we chose to ignore.

Plastic ghosts cling to the shorelines,
whispering lullabies in a language
we refuse to understand,
as they slowly choke on the promises we broke.

Every wave folds a secret into itself,
ice that cracks beneath the weight of silence,
echoes of futures we threw away,
suffocated by the choices we refuse to face.

Like writing a book where the plot is clear,  
yet still, you're caught by the ending,
the ending you could have rewritten
but chose instead to leave as it was.



We carve comfort into the sea’s bones,
etching “it’s fine” into rising tides,
yet every flood speaks what we won’t
this silence isn’t survival, it’s surrender.



(and here is a haiku based off of that <3)

I watch and I wait,
thinking it is not my fight
the tide swallows time.

we thought the sea's fate
was never ours to carry,
so we let it sink.

Footprints on wet sand,
washed away before I move
was I ever here?
This is a poem about the enviroment and global warming
Zack Feb 10
Once clean, white, and pure
Snow, shoveled into a heap.
Black, with the world's mud.
Nothing is pure forever.. even the most beautiful
You've ruined the color blue for me,
I'm surrounded by your lies.
You made me smile but honestly,
You ruined the color blue for me.

You took your dagger and stabbed it through,
jabbing it into my heart.
Tearing my
Itty
Bitty
Girl
Brain
Apart.

You infested my dreams,
ruled in my night terrors,
stole my peace of mind.

I can't believe there was a time I thought that you were kind.

YOU TOOK AWAY MY SANITY,
Ate away at my skin.
I itch and scratch and rip out chunks,
yet you keep filtering in.

You ruined the color blue for me,
I see it everywhere.
Your eyes,
Your fists,
Your bruised and strangled lips.

The blue is always there.
I am surrounded by pain and sorrow. I am drowning in colors people cant comprehend.
Jeremy Betts Jun 2024
An abusive psyche
No might be
Cradle to the grave most likely
The lengthy reminder's set for nightly
However not by me
I have no say apparently

©2024
Meandering Words Aug 2022
throwing stones
into the lake
i discovered
the dog
likes to chase
the staccato splashes
as the surface
of the water
is broken
with inexpressible joy
pebbles were tossed
individually
and by handfuls
as i watched
the playful bounding
for over
half an hour

unfortunately
i had not spotted
the fisherman
further along
the water's edge
rolling eyes
and shaking head
as wave
after wave
of rippled chaos
disturbed his lure
and line
scaring away
anything
he had hoped
to catch
louella Feb 2022
my innocence floated away in fourth grade
when all my classmates grew up and it petrified me.
the world has ruined my bones, has ruined the soil where i planted my first milkweed for the monarch butterflies
we have all been destroyed
we just don't realize
or maybe we do, we just shower and bask in it.  
every soul is so uncouth and the world now stings more than the crack of the whip.
termites are crawling inside our mouths
moths are being inhaled through our nostrils.
when i was nine, everything had a clear answer and i was always happy
but now that my innocence has been scraped from the bark of a crabapple tree
i am so bewildered and i can’t find any sanctuary and life is so unendurable.
restore my patient calm and timid mind
i loathe this planet and this wicked institutionalized harbor where i now have to spend my days
all because i lost my innocence in fourth grade
underrated
2/27/22
Ell R Jan 2022
Chipped
Cracked
Shattered
Is that how you feel?

That man walking by
The girl who says hi
Your best friend
You close relative
What do you know—
Maybe
Just maybe
They're like you:
A perfectly
ruined
thing

If you stare
Right into their ever beating hearts
Into their silent soul
Maybe you'll find
A chip
A crack
Or maybe all you find are pieces
Of shattered self
They are like you
perfectly ruined things

You aren't so different
You are surrounded by yourself, over and over
Tiny little perfectly ruined things ignoring the pain
Building walls
Until you have forgotten
How you were before you became
perfectly
ruined
things


@toopragmaticbookworm
Day 4 of @angelealowes poetry prompts: perfectly ruined thing
Isaac afunadhula Mar 2021
She said that she loved me
but didn't mean it
despite everything l did
From age to age hoped to marry you but the evil that breathed under your pretty face ruined and broke me
Only trusted you more than my own
like maybe you fell down from the stars to shine the light to the dark
You were the spirit of doom
For you were my first and will always hold a place deep in my heart because l still  love you.
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