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And so,
I looked back at the fire behind me
At all the orange and ash
I set down my pail
And my hardness sat with it
And I wept
And the scorched earth around me
Began to soften
And only then, did I know
Only in the eye of the storm,
Could I see
That I had not escaped

I had simply become one
With the flame
Shang 3d
we didn’t need music
just the hum of the fridge
and the dog barking two floors down.
the sheets were half off the bed,
her hair in knots,
my hands shaking
like I’d lived a hundred lives
and never touched something so real.

Serena—
she looked at me like she already knew
where the cracks were
and kissed me there first.
no ceremony,
just heat and breath
and two ******-up hearts
trying to beat in time.

she moaned like it mattered,
like the world might stop spinning
if we didn’t keep going.
I bit her lip, she scratched my back,
we left bruises that felt like
truth.

afterward,
she lit a cigarette
with a hand still trembling
and said,
"we’re not broken,
just bruised in the right places."
and I believed her.
Intimacy is such a delicate and necessary thread that weaves true connection, trust, and vulnerability between hearts.

oh, today is my birthday!
I smiled so wide my molars got jealous.
Everyone said I looked stunning.
I said thank you in the voice I reserve for customer service and playing dumb.
That’s the closest I’ve come to a scream
this week.

I wore the dress that says: I’m over it.
(It lies.)
I walked like a question mark
straightened out with rage.

There was a man in the corner
making balloon animals.
He asked what I wanted.
I said surprise me.
He handed me a noose
shaped like a swan.

No one noticed.
Or maybe that’s just what I tell myself
to feel interesting.

Later, someone told a joke
I didn’t get.
I laughed like I was being watched.

The punchline wasn’t funny.
It just echoed
like something I would’ve said
before I got careful.

I stood in the kitchen
with a paper plate of olives and nothing,
holding it like proof
I was doing fine.

Someone spilled wine on the couch.
I said I’ve ruined better things.
Everyone laughed
like I meant it to be charming.
(I didn’t.)

A girl in white heels asked me
how I knew the host.
I said same way I know most people—
by accident,
and with the kind of premonition that wears perfume.

The bathroom mirror was cracked.
I counted the breaks like confessions
and chose not to atone.
The soap smelled like fruit
that only exists in dreams
you wake up crying from.

I reapplied my lip stain
like armor,
like alibi,
like an exit strategy.

Then I left without saying goodbye
because I couldn’t figure out
how to do it quietly
and still be missed.
A poem about the quiet performance of "doing fine." It's about olives, nothing, and everything under the surface. How we decorate our sadness to make it digestible. How we want to disappear, but be remembered as something haunting. This one came out sharp and honest. I hope it finds the ones who feel it.
KK Apr 8
Are you scared? Do you share the same curiosities?  

I do wonder... and I wonder if you wonder.... 

Quite often, you flick through my mind like a lighter being lit. 

The flame serving it's purpose until it's put down. 

Sparking cigarettes, cones, spots, incense. 

We joke a lot and they're over the boundary jokes. But I do catch myself hoping that you don't joke quite the same way... with anyone else. I'd call it close friends... and it could ALMOST pass as flirting. But I'm scared to make assumptions... 

I sit here at home and you flick across my thoughts, not quite daily... but where it used to be the day I seen you and the day after... now it's at random intervals. I don't sit here assuming I cross yours. But I wonder if I do at all... well not wonder really... it's more a hope.
At times, when I find your flame lighting, I like to watch how long it burns before it goes out. So far it's lasted this time for 7 hours. That's a record. 
Last week and all the previous ones, the once a fortnight get together (visit) was only affecting me the day of and after. the longer the gap in seeing or hearing from you... the better for me to focus on other things. 
I don't  know how your life has worked for you. Regarding relationships.... or friendships of the opposite ***. Have you ever lost anyone that you kind of devoted your soul to?  
To understand the heaviness of loss for me, I'd have to take you wayyyyyy back. Back to a place of vulnerability. The problem with doing that, is: not that I don't trust you.... it's a little bit of pre-concieved notions that people just don't care enough to delve right back into how someone's life was shaped... and even if you were different (like one in a thousand) (like me) there's a problem where you could not remain impartial to the people involved... and there's the problem of shaking like a 5 year old...as I begin to unravel who I am, for the sake f you... only for you to give up on me like everyone does. 

I get it, people come and go... it's easier not to love, open up or fall... and each flick of the lighter will eventually burn me. Playing with fire hurts... even though flames warm a cold room... 

and then there's C-PTSD to boot.... which consists of intrusive emotions when recounting a life shifting trauma...there's too much buried inside of me, I dont think we should dig. 

I get my flashbacks... but instead of images (which I sometimes get) every time I recount an event or try to explain a behaviour that stems from that. Emotions attached to it,  swarm me... and I'm feeling the fear, pain and damages all over again, like I'm right back there... and all of a sudden if I'm trying to explain something like the weight of loss, abandonment, etc... I go back to the first time I  was lost and abandoned... then I'm feeling the emotions again like I'm a little kid (vulnerability, fear, loneliness, alienation)

it's like a vault full of suppressed emotions gets unlocked and they start running rampant in my mind and heart... and only if I feel 100% safe, secure, sure and absolutely completely trust the other person I'm about to invest any given event in... would I then subject myself to the torment and feelings of being 4 again...

That's where the feelings begin though and not where they end. History does have a way of haunting us, following us... like a predisposed possession. Like our own personal ghost, trying to live the life it never got. Trying to experience love, but not knowing what it is. Destined to repeat the pattern in some desperate attempt at acceptance, but asking for it in all the wrong places. 

 Then there's all the other life lessons and losses I've experienced along the way that (for a normal person, are part of day to day life) attach themselves like a leech to some particular emotion... reminding you how it feels to love someone that doesn't love you... or punching you in the chest with a fist full of memories, attached to how it feels to be abandoned by someone you put your faith in... Thinking you were finally important to someone... something you've needed since you were born. 

C-PTSD as you know... stems from a situation where you were traumatised repeatedly, over an extended period of time... to which there was no hope of escape for the victim. 

My earliest remembered trauma starts at the age of 5. My latest trauma was 5 feb 2017



Emotions are my enemy. You can love me, but don't let me LOVE YOU.
©️ K.K
Joss Lennox Apr 4
connection begins,
where fear ends.
don't be afraid to put your creativity out there!
Trevor Dowe Apr 4
Trust is fickle
I can bare my darkest secrets and my deepest emotions to strangers
Yet, letting the both coexist in the minds of the same people feels too risky
Why is it so hard to be completely vulnerable with any single person
I piece my hopes and fears, desires and needs out, sometimes recklessly, in hopes of finding something meaningful
Though rarely to the same people
I'd find it laughable, if I wasn't so afraid of being punished, in one way or another, for being fully authentic
I share one thing with a satirical depiction of masculinity, the mask of normalcy.
Yet its veneer is wearing thin and its facade is cracking and repairing it takes more and more effort only to see new fractures and new peeling paint
Do I wear the mask because I despise who lies beneath?
Rambling semi-poetic word soup
Ana21 Apr 4
I wear the mask of too many roles,
Caretaker, rebel—lost in their tolls.
I give, I bend, but never break,
Hiding parts of me for others' sake.

I ask myself, "Is this enough?"
Is my best a gift, or a never-ending bluff?
I wonder if they see the cracks inside,
The parts of me I’ve tried to hide.

When things go wrong, I pull away,
Lost in regret, in a sea of dismay.
I cry, I doubt, I ask, “Why me?”
Stuck in the same cycle, never free.

I fear they’ll see me as a lie,
Fake, rude, disloyal—just a disguise.
But deep within, I know the truth,
I hide, I shrink, to avoid the proof.

I suppress the honesty, the raw, the real,
For fear they’ll judge what they can’t feel.
I keep my truth locked far away,
A prisoner of my own dismay.

Isolation brings a fleeting peace,
But it’s the silence that won’t cease.
With the few who truly see,
I try to feel what it means to be me.

But even in those moments, I fear,
That I’ll be left, unseen, unclear.
So I wonder, in the quiet of night,
Am I enough, or just a fight?

I don’t know what my purpose is yet,
But in this struggle, I’ve learned to forget.
I’m supposed to lead, but all I see,
Are the shattered pieces of who I could be.

I carry self-doubt and endless strain,
Validation from others, my constant chain.
But in the dark, I’m left to roam,
Wishing for a place to call home.
This reflects the internal struggle of feeling torn between roles, doubting one's worth, and fearing judgment. It explores the weight of emotional isolation, the constant search for validation, and the silent yearning to break free from self-imposed chains. The rawness of vulnerability and the quiet longing for peace echo throughout. It’s a reflection on the pain of self-doubt and the struggle to find one’s authentic voice.
ViP Mar 21
There once was a girl
Whose face said it all
Tears streaming down her face
She no longer carries herself with grace
Could it be heartbreak?
A bad day at work?
Perhaps that’s all that there is
A mix of pain with deep longing
For someone or something
But who and what?
Curiosity spurred on inside of me
And I decided to act
Either now or never

Sitting next to this girl now
My eyes instantly lock with hers
I silently mutter to her,
“What happened?”
But all I hear is silence
The kind of silence
That sends shivers down your spine
And I can’t help but feel it
In the deepest parts of my soul
So much so,
That I see my reflection in her eyes
When I felt scared and lonely
Waiting for someone to save me
But not this time, no

At last, I put my hand on hers
Speaking out from under my breath
With the words
“Everything will be okay”
And that’s all she needed to hear
To become like herself again
Noonie Mar 18
Te veel, te weinig,
Alles of niets.
Waar uitersten elkaar ontmoeten,
Het midden bestaat voor mij niet.

Dieper dan diep,
Starend over de rand,
De donkerte in,
Voorbij mijn grootste angsten,
Waar alle muren zijn gevallen.

Vind me daar,
Waar ik helemaal naakt ben,
Kwetsbaar.

Te veel, te weinig,
Alles of niets.
Ik ga helemaal—
En anders niet.
Every night, after everything that happens during the day,
I want to fall asleep holding your hand on my chest—
sometimes smelling it, sometimes kissing it.

And eventually, at the end of my life,
I want to die this way:
holding your hand on my chest
as you feel my last heartbeat.
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