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2.6k · Nov 2021
You died
Tiger Striped Nov 2021
in the
dry air between
the beauty of poetry
and one too many
poetic licenses.
1.2k · Jan 2019
lavender
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
I was never much one for lavender
until you told me
it was your favorite
and suddenly
its sweet, sweet scent swept through
my room
my clothes
my hair
I held my breath
waiting for you to notice
(you never did say anything)
I kept it close to me
never asking myself
if I liked the way it smelled
it was your favorite.
1.1k · May 2021
“This is my heartache,”
Tiger Striped May 2021
I say,
hoping it’s too quiet for you to hear,
but you do
and with one hand,
you press your finger to my lips,
and with the other, you
give me everything I
do not have the words to
ask for.
934 · Sep 2019
Butterfly and Peony
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
there was a Butterfly on a velvet lavender Peony —
its petals prickled in the crisp breath of spring, sighing
just softly enough to lift Butterfly's wings,
with the ambitious hope that she would see many other gardens
and love Peony's velvet lavender petals just the same.
Peony's hope spun silky and shimmering like a spider's web;
a picture realized somewhere between imagination and wishful thinking.
how brazenly did Peony venture to forget the stickiness of those alluring threads;
a spark of amnesia that flickered too close to the cords of fate.
Peony bloomed and wilted on that hallowed ground,
while passing time pierced Peony's burgeoning faith
no summer nor winter
nor spring nor fall
would ever find Butterfly there again.
903 · Jan 2019
all the art you are
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
he was the art
of deception
of deftly crafted artifice
of reading between the lines
he was the art
of speeding cars
of lightning
of roaring flames

but you
honey, you are art
of a different kind

you are the art
of the first light of dawn
of the stars winking in the inky night
of the sun showers on saturday afternoon
you are the art
of drizzling rain
of cold coffee and creamer
of simplistic precision
i could marvel at you for days
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
sand drifts down deserted beach
leaves float off once vibrant trees
lashes left untouched on cheek
curtains shut the bright sun bleak
endless hours of midnight sound
bruised knuckles on dark wood pound
sound of sheets sigh on mattress
second-hands strike drum and miss
misspelled words, soft spoken steps
lonely rose, the last one left
no air in two burning lungs
dead garland on mantle hung
dust dances for aimless wind
sunflowers to ashes bend
salt vacates a brackish sea
empty woods hold silent plea
never-ending days to come
deeper nights, but brighter sun
800 · Jan 2019
the brightest star
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
you were the rising sun
creeping over my horizon,
filling my skies with dazzling bursts
of deep ambers and lavenders and crimsons
sending heat waves coursing through me
brushing the edges of my clouds
your silhouette imprinted on my eyelids
your shadow stuck to my feet
your taste scorched the roof of my mouth
i felt you in every inch of my skin
and i didn't mind at all
690 · Sep 2019
untouchable
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
in the youth of the morning
a glass figurine grasps rays of light
the sun graces his soft contour
radiant colors bouncing off the
***** surface of the table
the dust does not near his skin
his lineament is something i saw once
in a dream, across the ocean.
do i brave those tumultuous waters?
to what end?
so that my fingertips may keep their distance?
so that we may breathe the same air?
so that our eyes may burn under the same sun?
my wistful dreaming knows
not reason but the desire
to witness the distant diamond
glinting like the stars
that beg me to drown in hopeless ventures
yet my lungs would happily fill with saltwater
if only my skin could know
the touch of an untouchable
596 · Sep 2019
one of a kind
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
you should see the way the
sunflowers swivel to stare at you;
your shadow outshines the sun.
you walk through beehives and
emerge dripping in honey.
haven't you noticed the
sparrow on your windowsill; she
sings her sweet song
solely for your sake!
and the wildflowers that
blossom in your footprints
and the wavelets that ripple
from your words —
don't you hear your name beneath the
rustling of the leaves and the
crackling of the fire and the
whistling of the wind?
if nature marvels at the
magnificent masterpiece you are, then
so should you
550 · Mar 2022
ashtray
Tiger Striped Mar 2022
I'm waiting, chasing pavements
the ones that kissed your tires
impatience found my failures
and lit my head on fire.
My mind is racing to you
my eyes are burning still
these smolders send me skyward
and flatten me until
I'm falling on my doorstep
gray and less than real
you crush me as you're leaving;
my sweet achilles heel.
You left me calm resilience
a scent I can't erase,
rose petals drooping gladly
I sink down in the vase
and ponder you, like fresh air
willing me to breathe
and be with you again
as if you'd never leave.
537 · Sep 2019
dreaming outside
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
in another lifetime
we stand grounded in perfect heat
your gaze keeps me from drifting
and you hear my whisper above the
roar of the swelling throngs
we feel no pain now,
though our cheeks once knew
the salt of tears and blood
yet you were there,
you washed my face
and i yours
because you never once doubted
what i looked like beneath
and once our feet hit the ground,
we are here to stay,
fixated on an astronomical alignment
two stars, illuminated:
you and i

but in this lifetime,
you burn too bright
an imperfect heat that scathes the skin
gravity pulls me from my dreams
and keeps me orbiting around reality
we drift slowly past,
brushing briefly, only
long enough to believe i know you
but in a moment, when
time and space disagreed
our propinquity lasts a lifetime
532 · Sep 2019
clean break
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
the first time
i left because
i needed you and
you didn't need me
the last time
i left because
i didn't need you
i needed me
515 · Jan 2019
the letters of your name
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
i know that soon
you'll be gone
out of sight
but i will still see you
between the lines of my favorite book
hear you
in the songs of my favorite cd
taste you
in the sugar in my coffee every morning

darling, you'll be
the space between the stars
and the dips of the moon
you'll be the crashing wave
that keeps knocking me off my feet
and the salt in the tears on my cheek
so forgive me if i do not say goodbye --
i'll be seeing you again
503 · Sep 2019
vestiges
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
at the tips of my fingers
and in the palms of my hands
on the backs of my eyelids, where sleep should be
between fanciful flower petals, dead since long ago
upon the fabric of my dress, where your hand met my waist
within books and doors slammed shut, a restless cacophony
from falling rain, polluted by quixotic aspiration
under the breath swept from my mouth,
in a prayer that i am not in love with you
503 · Jan 2019
originality
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
since we learned to speak, we have only
spat out the words before us
repeating remarks we hear and see
with impotent intonation;
the pretense to make it our own
we are watery reflections
longing to move freely, by ourselves;
to feel the wind whip wildly 'round
to scrape our knees on uneven ground
but we lie on the surface,
repetition rippling through our shallow skin
perhaps, one day, we shall learn
to stand
and to create
493 · Jan 2019
you were glass all along
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
You always had to be strong but I
wanted to believe I could see through you
I traced your outline and
tried not to flinch when you
sliced my fingertips

I quickly learned that love is not fear
fear is when you called me
and told me you didn't love your father
your words wrapped around my throat and
pressed heavy on my chest and I
finally felt you
not in my heart but in
the marrow of my bones

You had seen things that I
could not bear to hear but I
had to bear them for you
I heard your mother's leg snap
and you shatter on the ground and I
stood over the fractures of you with
my needle and thread and
cried for the parts of you that would
never be the same

then I picked up a shard
and carved your name in my skin so I
could see you in rich, romantic crimson
but as the tides rose, I
inhaled the ocean water, I
let go of your hand, I
let my tears join the salty expanse
and swore on that night I
would never cry again

The dawn broke and the sun saw
a different world, with
your broken pieces at the bottom
of the sea, and
the soles of my feet have healed, but
you still sleep in the sand, scraping
the skin of those who have strayed
too far from the surface.
492 · Jun 2021
bad manners
Tiger Striped Jun 2021
i-squished-words-like-chewing-gum-between-my-teeth-hoping-that-i could-blow-a-bubble-bigger-than-my-head-and-more-impressive-than-­my-face-and-then-you-looked-in-my-direction-just-as-my-breath-his­sed-between-my-lips-and-you-couldn't-see-me-just-my-swelling-beac­h-ball-of-jumbled-words-for-one-quarter-second-before-they-burst-­and-stuck-all-over-my-skin-and-i-flushed-pinker-than-bubble-gum-a­nd-i'll-choke-on-every-word-before-i-ever-have-to-see-you-again
491 · Sep 2019
Midas
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
You emerged from the breaking dawn
glittering to rival the rising sun.
Molten gold dripped
from the tips of your fingers;
shimmering dust encrusted your footprints.
Had our paths not crossed,
I'd not be frozen here;
a statue of fool's gold,
the work of your touch.
But I'm stuck in your kingdom,
watching the golden age
waiting until you wash your hands in the river
and come back to me —
you are cursed with the Midas touch,
and I am cursed for making you king.
Tiger Striped Aug 2022
I glimpsed you
for a moment
miles away,
across a tangled knot of time.
In front of you,
shadows melted into obsoletion
obscured by sweet rays
radiating from every surface
of your skin.
I didn't realize
I was grinding my teeth
until I felt you
in the enamel, at my gums
so I dropped my jaw
to let you in.
And you entered,
stage left,
the impassioned playwright
determined to turn my past
from a ledger of mistakes
into the prologue
of a beautiful, convoluted fairy tale.
464 · Jan 2019
the earth keeps spinning
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
we do not watch
the sunrise because
we wonder if that beautiful, burning star
will ever reach its pinnacle
we watch the sunrise
for the ever-shifting hues
we dare not watch the sun itself
a futile pursuit, as our eyes
could not follow it
and our minds are familiar
with its well-traveled path
and fate has lifted the sun
up to its peak
every day, since the dawn of time
and destiny will bring it back down
below the horizon
every day
until the dusk of eternity
445 · Sep 2019
the cure
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
The doctor called today
to inform me that I have a
critical case of you:
tears hang heavy in my heart always.
but I never cry,
I never sleep
but dreams dance in my consciousness always.
In the night
I shiver as the dark settles in my lungs
in the morning
I am blinded by the light.
I shattered all the mirrors in the house
in a rage, because
I cannot agree with them.
I have taken to self-medicating,
reading tales of me, in an alternate reality
where I have love and tranquility and a little sanity,
and no you.
But my symptoms are worsening
every day with you,
and twice as much
every day without.
The diagnosis knows one antidote,
a terribly plaintive remedy.
All this is to say,
I think I need your help.
441 · Jan 2019
my only sunshine
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
It rained
and rained
for months on end
I was fine with the rain
until I was standing
alone
and it began to storm.
I was shaking
beneath the weight
of my umbrella
that I stubbornly clung to
until one day
rain, rain
finally
it went away
never
to come another day
everyone told me
the skies could only get bluer
and the sun
proved them right
as it broke
through the clouds
and I saw
a rainbow:
you.
432 · Jan 2019
11:11
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
in months past
at this time, i'd be
laying on my roof
watching the stars
listening to you
talking with you.

a younger me
wished for such nights
the older me
wishes she could have back
the hours of sleep she lost

"make a wish"
me to you,
you to me

i thought you were my dream come true
but i could have wished for anything in the world
and i still would have gotten
you
413 · Jan 2019
flower flour flower flour
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
the next girl
should get bouquets of flowers
not fistfuls of flour
flung in her face
choking her,
blinding her,
burning her lungs

please
give her flowers
do not deceive her
as you did
me
402 · Jan 2019
she
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
she
she is soft.
so some will see her
and long to hold her in their hands
to skim her surface
others know
she is breakable
bendable
movable
malleable
some will see that she is soft and stretch her
until she silently screams
for sweet solitude again
so see her softness and
show her some sympathy
396 · Sep 2022
They left me
Tiger Striped Sep 2022
drooping
over the balcony,
just me and a snide breeze
mocking any pretense I
once held that
life was anything
but a self-checkout line.
So get on with it,
keep stealing
from the big men and
higher ups
now that I know
I'll always only end up
on top
like a wet towel over the railing
stiffening slowly,
indifferently,
uncontrollably.
Here on the thirteenth floor
my fate is
an ironic harbinger
of an ending we'll all share -
of an eternal love -
or an infinite numbness -
or ubiquitous unimportance
whatever it is we share
that they tried to leave
up here with me.
No,
the irony is -
they left me,
but they carry my fate.
It doesn't matter where they are
or I -
we are all the same.
395 · Jan 2019
wasted words, ii
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
as i left
i set fire
to every word i ever wrote for you
so that it meant
as much to me
as it did to you
nothing at all
369 · Jan 2019
side by side
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
I dreamt of two trains running parallel.
They could see each other, hear each other, feel each other, but they could never get any closer or farther apart.
The tracks stretched on for miles and miles and miles with no change in direction in sight.
The trains run together side by side - together, yet lonely.
The trains can only hope that someday, the tracks might bring them closer together.
367 · Nov 2019
rapture
Tiger Striped Nov 2019
Euphoria sewed her golden ecstasy
in the scathing arms of the sun
we knew our world was hers when
the last of the ocean had evaporated
and we had drunk our tears away
with nowhere and nothing to hide
we joyfully traipse through desert heat
like newlyweds, heading towards the Honey Moon
singing dead romantic words
of antiquated crystalline towers
where young maidens once were trapped
'til summer sounded her blissful clarion
and her castle melted into the fallow earth:
this is the beginning of a new era
of heavenly heat
we will all burn together.
357 · Sep 2019
the scariest part
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
you put something ungodly
deep in my chest and
i loved it far more
than i ever loved you
355 · Jan 2019
willpower
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
Willpower is strong
especially in us
but we cannot will
the world to stop spinning
the sun to stop shining
the tides to stop rising
the wind to stop blowing
the clock to stop ticking.

Willpower is strong
but darling,
we will never
rewrite
fate.
352 · Sep 2019
same new dreams
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
pictures of you that i
stapled to my
pillow, so that
you're there when
i'm lonely or
tired,
so that you
sop up my sobs and
soak in my screams, you
are beneath my deepest dreams and my
nightmares, too
348 · Sep 2019
angel
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
if you had never fallen from heaven, i would not have loved those broken wings. if your blood did not trail into my house, you would not lay on my couch as i wrapped you up. i've heard heaven is lovely, free of pain and brokenness — but when you are whole, you do not need someone to complete you. no one looks after you, or asks you how you are. but there is only so long i can tend to your wounds. so why, after all these years, do you not spread your wings to fly? did you really fall from heaven, or did you jump?
340 · May 2021
hard to read
Tiger Striped May 2021
I miss the way you
punctuate my sentences
put purpose in my windswept
words
complete me
make sense of my
heaps of jumbled gibberish
you
hold me when Im
running on
when youre
gone Im
stuck split in splices
and tacky fragments
335 · Jan 2019
stolen breath
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
i had forgotten how to breathe, darling,
since i first laid eyes on you
until now
when finally
you look back at me
and you fill my lungs
and you circulate throughout my body
i couldn't rid myself of you if i tried
i gasp for you with every breath
all i can do is pray
that you will not be poisonous
311 · Mar 2021
new life
Tiger Striped Mar 2021
His voice rolls steady across my
skin, mimicking
the hair that curls so shyly
at the base of his neck.
It flips my stomach
and screams sight into my eyes,
and it takes everything in me
not to cry like I've never seen in color
before.
He tells me he doesn't dance, except
I can see it in the way he moves, when he
laughs or smiles or says my name; I know he
does
so I promise myself I'll
dance with him someday.
And with his hands pressed to my heart,
he gently erases the
grey skies from my old
paintings, rewriting
the ends of all my poems
and brushes his signature
on every one I’ve yet to write.
He
softly shines on my tired garden,
turning it greener than his
eyes as he
breathes my next breath
into my lungs. And I slowly realize
for all the years I knew him and did not love him,
I was seeds, in soil, shadowed, and
to love him is to see the sun.
308 · Jun 2021
My feet are tired today
Tiger Striped Jun 2021
and I don’t know why.
I woke up with pins and
needles, and they’ve been aching since.
I’ve barely walked, at least
not more than normal
but they feel as if they might
crack and bleed.
They hurt more knowing
all the things you had planned for us -
skipping and jumping and dancing
and laughing
and though I’ve cried to them
they just won’t let me go.
All I can do is
apologize to you and your
runner friends
for everything I can’t
bring myself to do.
304 · Sep 2019
chocolatier
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
when he grows up
he'll be a chocolatier, he supposes.
yes, a chocolatier.
what dim light holds money
compared with the brilliance of cocoa's richness?
many times he traded a crisp dollar bill
to the cashier, for a Hershey's bar —
the cashier, he knew, had drawn the shorter straw.
he could not understand big people
in their big buildings
with their big cups of coffee,
aching with bitterness all day long.
what they needed, after all, was a bar of chocolate.
what do you like to do? they'd ask him, those big bitter people.
sometimes he wondered the same thing —
what did they like to do?
did they like to sit at their big desks
and hope for bigger checks, someday?
he knew what he liked to do.
“i like to make people happy,” he told them,
“and i like to eat chocolate.”
they laughed at him, sometimes.
he didn't think it was funny,
but he liked to see them smile.
"would you like some chocolate?" he'd ask.
they would look confused, almost
like they weren't sure he was talking to them.
they said sure, they wouldn't mind some
chocolate, and he
would give those big people
a little piece of chocolate.
but their eyes would ask him what their
mouths would not:
why?
he was practicing, he said,
to be a chocolatier.
304 · Jan 2019
My Plans for the Evening
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
Tonight I'll wear
the black dress that never left my closet
hear it rip when the
backs of my thighs meet the cold piano bench
my stiff fingers will scratch the keys,
eliciting aching ivory groans
I'll wear it in the shower and shiver
as icy water skims my skin
I'll press our polaroids to my tongue
and chew you up
you'll stick to the roof
of my mouth when I swallow
and my skin will turn angry red
because my body always knew
what a bad idea you were.
I'll wear my youth like a medallion
hanging where my heart should be
and soon my red eyes will
forget what it feels like to blink.
The hairs on my arms will
stand on end as my
fingernails scrape the tile on my bathroom floor
tracing the lines of old poems I burned
in your fire.
I'll bite my cracked lips, just to
remember what regret tastes like
and with hot blood fresh on my tongue,
I'll stumble to your empty house
drag my bare feet in your driveway and
silently beg you to ask me how I am.
I'll shatter your bedroom window and
almost glimpse you through the haze and
when my knees buckle I'll
collapse where your bed used to be
and for a split second
I'll think it was you beneath the sheets.
Aren't I beautiful, darling?
I wore this dress for you
274 · Jan 2019
a dream & ice cream
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
i twisted together the little white flowers
into a crown
for you
watched your face light up
started to blush
after all, they're only weeds
but you
wore them like a prince
opened my door like a gentleman
rolled our windows down
turned up my favorite song
it doesn't matter if we know
all the words
summer is short
and those little white flowers
won't be around for long
271 · Sep 2019
yet to be
Tiger Striped Sep 2019
from the sky, looking down
i could almost see
every drop of our lives
in the vast expanse of the sea
267 · Jan 2022
I broke my own heart
Tiger Striped Jan 2022
when I gave all my love to you
and had none of it left for
myself.
262 · Feb 2021
If you drank burgundy
Tiger Striped Feb 2021
If you drank burgundy we’d get along better
I think;
I’d like the way it would
stain your white collar
and laugh when you couldn’t get it out.
It would sit angry against your neck and
stare at me, and
I would smile because I'd
know how it feels.
You’d think it was you who
had painted me happy, so you’d
forget it was there and I’d
know how it feels.
I would take a napkin
and wipe the crimson tracks from the
corners of your mouth,
just so I could have some
burgundy of my own.
It would sit folded
neatly in my lap and
long for your spotted collar and
I’d almost cry because I
know how it feels.
It’s too bad, really,
you and your glass of clear.
No stains and no taste
and no idea how I feel.
261 · Mar 2021
Funeral Vows
Tiger Striped Mar 2021
If life is
nothing, and love
is all, then
die with me:
I promise to
love you better
in death, with
an eternal soul,
than my mortal
heart ever could.
So do not
be afraid of
forever, my dear;
if love is
true (and you
have shown me
it is), then
you must realize
we were always
meant to die
the lovers' death.
252 · Jan 2019
who are you?
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
i want to read you
cover to cover
but for the first time
i find it so difficult
to read
so often i have tried
to copy you down
but my pen and paper
do not know the words
that fit you
the way you deserve

i want to hear you
beginning to end
so often i have tried
to find the song
that sounds as sweet as you
but the notes and rhythms
cannot compose a melody
that fits you
the way you deserve

i want to see you
frame to frame
every brushstroke and hue
that are ingrained
in your composition
so often i have tried
to paint your lovely temperament
but this paintbrush and canvas
cannot quite capture a picture
that fits you
the way you deserve

my fruitless attempts at replicating
the art that is you
have only taught me
that in the end
it is solely
reality
that fits you
242 · Feb 2020
changing of the seasons
Tiger Striped Feb 2020
a summer scent seeps into spring,
the bitter hint of our endings
the years, begun in swelling tides,
now ebbing toward the shores of time.
this summer heat is scathing now;
the sky found wanting of her clouds
and sun the sole tenant therein,
burns with echoes of what has been.

so long ago, she deigned to rise
from darkness to uncharted highs
and now, our greenest life is graced
by torrid waves shone from her face
once lush and verdant, now descend
the lifeless leaves to life's grand end
our feet will find, in passing by
remains of those who knew the sky

so autumn falls, apprising death
and beauty takes a ragged breath,
exhales a gust of frigid truth,
reminds us of expired youth,
then lies down in her crystal bed
as isolation takes her stead
our memories and warmth are lost
'neath blankets of life's lonely frost

we seldom see the craven sun
we crave that fire that kept us young
and full of life's bright, loving rage
but fateful wind has turned the page
it leaves a blank chapter for us,
to our ink-stained fingers entrusts
invention and a flash of time,
future ahead and past behind

where life began, we pick up now
and to the blessed spring endow
an offset to the bitterness
that once beset our eagerness
we suffered, learned, and now we fight
not nature; not the flow of time
but to preserve humanity
to safeguard that insanity
we named love, for we have found
it is all but by time bound.
237 · Nov 2019
the jungle
Tiger Striped Nov 2019
deep midnights in the jungle
the air thick with our thoughts
we twist and tangle vines
between us, binding
bone to bone
we drink the dew drops
from the leaves and
weave their stems around our fingers
our swarthy skin, stained with soil
the kiss of nature on your thumb when it
brushes my cheek
we press our bodies
into the trunks of the towering trees
and taste the bark between our teeth
this is our labyrinth, and i
long to get lost with you
236 · Nov 2019
vapor
Tiger Striped Nov 2019
This existence is but a breath
vapor drifting past the lips of
life:
a Secret kept obstructed,
eclipsed by perennial paradigms
mutinous Mobs snuffed
out by the wind
a broken Hourglass, the
Sand seeping through the
cracks in the door
the Dust on the floor,
flattened by footprints beyond
differentiation
a Conflagration quenched as
soon as it catches
by the swelling tides of time.
Whether we're cursed or
self-destructive, our
affinity for chaos will
unravel our transcendent, twisted cataclysm before
we ever know our
beginnings and endings.
233 · Apr 2021
angel
Tiger Striped Apr 2021
Come down from the heavens, honey;
Earth feels like hell when you're not here.
229 · Jan 2019
hopes & mistakes
Tiger Striped Jan 2019
we hope and we dream,
not for reality,
but for moments and scenes
that are not what they seem
shimmering behind sheens,
sparkling on silver screens
we do not see the deep
cuts, the endless lost sleep
promises they won't keep;
no, we thought love was cheap
so what now of our dream?
still, who are we to deem
that it can't be redeemed
and to now call unclean
these faults that we have seen?
is it beyond our reach
to both learn and to teach
our tongues new ways of speech
to taste something so sweet
we may forgive that heat
and venture to entreat
that we somehow may meet
in the vastness between
our mistakes and our dreams?
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