thestarsgowaltzingout

thestarsgowaltzingout Nov 2022

Two days after my twenty-fifth birthday,
my mother called me saying
she had a dream that I was lonely
I brought her all the poems I wrote, and
told her that this is the memoir of the days
I spent digging my own grave
Outside the photo booth, she declared her
first successful attempt
in stomping my heart like I wasn’t
a daughter she gave birth to at twenty-two
I wore the not-good-enough-for-mommy
badge in my pity party every night,
pointing out all the flaws were
one of the fun parts we often did
We meant me and the loneliness,
we meant me and the memories
of her wanting to burn down my things
of her telling me her mother did worse
of her saying I belonged in hell,
but I mastered turning her words
into some work of art,
turning myself into a walking
parade balloon,
turning the wound into a life-sized
figurine
So, two days after my twenty-fifth birthday
I called my mother saying
I was lonely, but I didn’t want to **** myself

thestarsgowaltzingout Jul 2022

A Framed Heaven

I was floating, and peace came to visit me
I saw the waning crescent from the corner of my eye
Clouds were making their way to the West
It was enough, and a distant voice mumbling
“Do you want to immortalize this feeling, take a picture, and make it your happy place?”

#peace #calm

thestarsgowaltzingout Jul 2022

Hush Those Little Lies

Oh, little girl, wipe your tears!
The war has been over more than a decade ago. Is the wound still as hurt as the first time you got it? Is it not healed yet?
Wipe your tears, and keep walking!
Running if must so.
This is a never-ending tunnel, but the lights are breaking through those thick walls.
Little girl, your heart is safe with me that I will harm you no more, l
I know that you’ve been in the dark too long, that you think you’re forever doomed.

Hush those little lies, little girl... put them to sleep.

I will take care of the wounded heart of yours,
Do you remember that we used to pick the wildflowers? We would ride our bike, set a new adventure each day, stopped in the last spot to have a little picnic. We don’t have to forget; we can frame those memories in our new home. Let the wildflowers grow.

You are safe, this little world is ours.
All your life you’ve been the beggar of the love you were supposed to have, but it’s always been there, we just have to walk a little further.
I will hold your hand if the worries come, loneliness will definitely company us, but I promise this one is different.
I know you’d rather relive all the storms that stranded you than go being someone you’ve never met,
but little girl,
she has always been you, and you have always been me.
So, let’s try once again?

#pain #heal #childhood #trauma

thestarsgowaltzingout Jul 2021

What She Does Not Know

A very good friend of mine once told me that
I sought meaning in everything,
that I found melancholy intoxicating.
She said we are like complete opposites,
but what she does not know
I also share some of her traits.

I bled through the words I could not utter,
stranded on oh-so-many-nights
I wish I was dead.
I sculpted my pain among the stanzas
and strangers’ bed.
I craved their wandering hands on my naked skin,
mapped every inch of it,
and let them make a shelter out of the shattered pieces,
but what she does not know,
I still sit alone with loneliness sleeping softly on my lap,
he often brings a backpack full of doubts,
and stories about the almost lovers.
What she does not know,
as heavy as it seems, there is a haunting
peaceful feeling
every time he is around,
knowing he couldn’t hurt me more
than just being with him.

What she does not know,
I still seek meaning in everything,
asking big questions, that no one has the answer of,
and I still find melancholy very much intoxicating,
that I often wander to the what-ifs world,
discovering the what should have been and could have been.
What she does not know,
that I am too in a constant battle to tear down
the invisible walls I’m surrounded with.

#poetry #depression #poems #madness

thestarsgowaltzingout Feb 2018

Unguarded

My body is a map that I know too well
But once I found the dead-end road,
and I couldn’t come back
Some nights the image of your hands tracing
the walls
is way too vivid
for me to get it away
You stood too tall, crushed every living things
inside me
Who I was thinking that time?
You thought by knowing every path to the place
would make you have the right to knock down the fence,
left it broken
and open
I built my own home
but claimed it yours
I was lost inside of my body,
the body that I know too well

thestarsgowaltzingout May 2017

To the Girl Who Will Love Him Next

You will wonder why your chest feels so tight whenever her name rolls over his tongue. Not me, but the other one.
The one who will always have a place in his heart.
Don't give up yet,
but listen to every story of them.
It will break you for sure, but you will know how once he loved someone that much.
You will find yourself think about him continually.
When you walk alone on the street,
when you are with your friends talking about life,
or simply when you wash your dishes.
You will think about him
in any places
in any situations
The thoughts of him will make your stomach churns,
like you've been riding a roller coaster for so long
Sometimes the excitement will put you on the top of the world
but then reality will take you down,
twist you around,
and flip you over.
Again. Don't give up yet.
Bring him muffin or take him out to have fudge brownie ice cream on the weekend. Those are his favorites.
Remind him to not sleep late because he will get tired and grumpy in the morning,
tell him it is okay not to be perfect all the time,
and the most important thing
be there for him when he is unhappy with his life or when the memories of her keep crashing back to him.
You might prepare a band aid for gashes that will be left in your heart.
But please don't give up yet.

#words #notapoem

Apr 2017

Sylvia Plath

Last Words

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already -- the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.
I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!
My mirror is clouding over --
A few more breaths, and it will reflect nothing at all.
The flowers and the faces whiten to a sheet.

I do not trust the spirit. It escapes like steam
In dreams, through mouth-hole or eye-hole. I can't stop it.
One day it won't come back. Things aren't like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my tortoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the shine of these small things sweeter than the face of Ishtar.