Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Laokos May 18
In the shadow of water
I know your true face.
not in the shadow
but in the feeling of
being in it.

…do you understand?

there’s a coolness
that wraps around me
just right,
like when evening comes
and the southern sun
finally relents its strength of illumination
to the unknowing of night.

through the shade of a wave
opaque enough to dilute
the intensity of the light
but not enough
to stop it from reaching me,
I recognize you.  

who are you
that you should linger
in my inner sight
like a sunspot
staining my vision wherever I look,
changing colors
behind my closed eyes?

a stranger?

perhaps I’ve known you
in other lives.
maybe we were lovers.
maybe we were almost lovers.
maybe this is our dance.
we circle each other
like leaves in an eddy,
a brief swirl of proximity
before we’re shot back out
to the flow of the river
like children on a slide,
laughing in our innocence—
in our ignorance.

then comes the
inevitable separation,
the distance,
the peculiar ambiguity
we wear like a skin—
like a camouflage.

but I still see you,
from time to time,
behind the eyes of a stranger

and

I still feel you
whenever I am in
the shadow of water.
Jeremy Betts May 10
Emotions are deceiving
Leaving
Pain to continue taking
Feeding
It's not something I'm giving
Eliminating
Without the thought of asking
Steeling
Ultimately left unknowing
The plot's ongoing
But the abuse is showing
As I'm imploding
Slow enough to recognize
That maybe the whole thing
Is by definition
A mission being...
...pointless

©2025
Nat Feb 2021
I have to say - well
I
Would like to say
Something about it

Cause I keep thinking
I mean, it's sorta like if maybe
If maybe I slipped and never landed

Sort of like a back lot
Like out behind the city
Away from any eyes

Sort of like a crack
Like the tiniest dark gap
An eye that isn't

Sort of like I just can't
A million miles underneath the deepest charted cave
Just behind the clouds
Details I've already forgotten
Pictures I'll never finish remembering
An expanse; a smear; a nebula

A disconnect. Eyes to mind to
I need to talk to you
Sudzedrebel Jan 2021
i met you young
dumb and full of angst
you reached out to hold my hand,
i recoiled back

but it wasn't you

you told me you loved me
i was shocked into disbelief
no, that couldn't be true
i bore the flak

for telling you what i thought i knew

twenty now, a fresh man
i could see how you did
i can see how you can

too bad I didn't know it then
Every time I fall in love I hope I never will again.
Ash C Mar 2020
As I sit here and look at you
I can't say whether I'm close to you or not
We grew up together
So how could you feel so close but not?
You're right there
In front of me
With me
Here with me
My deepest thoughts are yours as much as yours mine!
Yet
Behind closed doors
To the people who talk to me in my vulnerability
I say what I couldn't to you
This is quite personal. Based off what I feel with this person. We know each other inside and out, but I feel like somethings in the way.
Kenshō Nov 2019
I'm going under cover
where all vibration is a hum.
And where I tend to hover,
I lose track of where I'm from;
Or what direction I'm going,
But, I am indeed in contact~
With something in the sky, glowing.
Accept that as a fact.
They are speaking to me,
teaching me to attract.
It only takes a whisper
for my tongues to get flowing;
And, I start to look crisper~
Upon the world as an artifact
Of art and unknowing.
Part 4 of 4 of #4Post-Cards
Michaela Ferris Nov 2019
Lost...

All I ever seem to be is lost,
lost inside my own head.
Overcrowded bundle's of yes and no's
what's and whys,
To and Throws

Lost inside myself.
trapped in a labyrinth that is my own thoughts
unable to escape
the more I turn
the further there is to go.

Will I ever find my way out of this black hole?
Swallowing me, holding me hostage in the night
chained to the very thought that I am abandoned,
lost to the darkness, forever unknowing.
Tormented and bruised from the pain of the past.
Devin Ortiz Jun 2019
Reality begins to break, I shatter
Reality begins to break, I remain

Reality remains, I shatter
Reality remains, I remain

All of this, all at once.
Every moment, every time.

There is no constant other than the unknowing.
Next page