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18.2k · Jan 2019
Understanding
Phillip Walter Jan 2019
people in their wholeness
can only be understood.

not explained.
9.1k · Jul 2018
Beauty
Phillip Walter Jul 2018
She said
you are enough. you are loved.
You are
So much of what you fear can
Never be.

She said
There are no mirrors I can
Hold up
For perception once skewed see all
mirrors spotted

Your eyes.
So fickle and short sighted
That you
Can’t see what lays before you
Or just beyond.

A blindness
To all that is beautiful.
You **** hope
Before it may give you
Another chance.
7.9k · Apr 2018
addiction
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
It seems to me
the more things change
the more they stay the same.
I wonder how the rules evolve
but we keep at the same game
and though tired at competing
we're addicted to the bother
for when we lose we need to prove
and when we win we need another
and though we're all exhausted
we are spurred on by the lies
and i feel i've lived a million lives
and tried a million tries.
1.6k · Jun 2018
Untitled
Phillip Walter Jun 2018
We, unaccustomed to courage
says Maya.
We, who have chosen
with choices we were not aware
of making
as we made them.

we need a revolution.
some courageous warriors
that will lead us into
liberation.

but the frontline soldiers
never come home.
Maya Angelou, Touched by an Angel.
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
1.3k · Sep 2018
Lithium
Phillip Walter Sep 2018
That the third element of the periodic table is what can untangle an angled mind.
is that the force in the world is the force in you.
and that it all comes down
to the basics.
1.0k · Oct 2018
action verbs
Phillip Walter Oct 2018
are we
what we do
or
what we don't do
or is not doing
enough of an action
that
all you do
can be counted toward
all you have
made sure
not to.
1.0k · Jun 2018
gifts
Phillip Walter Jun 2018
the most beautiful thing
that god does
to people

is that he gifts them

to each other.
dedicated to all the people god has gifted me with.
especially those reading this, that know this.
959 · Jul 2018
Go easy on her heart
Phillip Walter Jul 2018
Go easy
On her Heart

I know it ain’t
That easy for you

She lays bleeding out
In your empty excuses

You could’ve known
And should've done

Different
If not
Better
There’s nothing more painful then watching children suffer by the ones meant to love them most.
833 · Jul 2018
Heart on my sleeve
Phillip Walter Jul 2018
You comment in that kind of
Amusement
About the heart I wear on my
Sleeve
Except that what’s on my sleeve
Is not my heart
It’s merely it’s
Shadow
701 · Jul 2018
A Kind of Heaven
Phillip Walter Jul 2018
What I like most about the sky
Is what I like most about you.

How you hold the stars.
But share it with the rest of us.

You’re the kind of heaven.
That allows visitors.
661 · Nov 2018
little romance
Phillip Walter Nov 2018
Shimmer
of eyeshadow
Pink
Lipstick on
white
cotton Tzitzit.
our own little

Jewish Romance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzitzit
651 · Nov 2018
Profanity
Phillip Walter Nov 2018
"sometimes profanity offers relief denied even to prayer"
-Mark Twain

god.
I need a Bible.


written in four letter words.

relief.
643 · Dec 2018
Need to Explain 1
Phillip Walter Dec 2018
I say
i am anxious.
Worried.
Sad.
He tells me, many feel that way. Many
go through this. Many
find there's a way out.
Riding through.
And i know he means the anxiety and worry and sadness
that is handled.
I wonder if
my eyes still hold traces of year long stretches of depression. If
my face is lined in all the places anxiety set itself in. If
my jaws and temples and cheek bones speak. If
the tenderness of my belly still serves to remind of three overdoses. if
my heartbeat tells its story in its endless ceaseless rhythm.
I want to just press him close so he can hear for himself
what i cannot
yet
say.
How Hassidic girls get married.
Phillip Walter Jan 2019
Mary Oliver.
Got saved by the beauty.

as do I.


it's the only hope and prayer I can believe in.
577 · Aug 2018
this. body.
Phillip Walter Aug 2018
This
Body.

This humanly.
Thing.
It keeps me settled.
In a skin
too tight.
Or is it  simply
Too big?

This thing that takes me through the world.
When i rather
hover over it.
or fly.  

This thing that
Relays information.
I can never
understand.  

I try to make it
understand too.
In miscommunications
It never understands.

This body is a home
i haven't
moved into.
Where i know this is my place.  
But cant unpack my bags.

And its taking
twenty years.
To only
settle in.
576 · Jan 2019
Need to Explain IV
Phillip Walter Jan 2019
they think im the problem.
I always knew I was.
I just hurt
more than others

and I hurt that
the execution was set
before I even got to the courtroom.

so the witness stand felt like the gallows.

and I held on to my pride.
and swallowed it whole.
how Hassidic girls get married.
471 · Jan 2019
Need to Explain III
Phillip Walter Jan 2019
they sent us to a therapist.
said the answers
are bigger
than the questions we cant word.

but the questions aren't
big
nor are it's answers.

it's the size of my heart.
my wants.
my needs.
464 · May 2018
the wild blue yonder
Phillip Walter May 2018
beyond the wild blue yonder
within the forests deep
I search with wild abandon
for what I cannot keep

for to even scrape
the edges of the sun
puts worth to the chasing
that's a cyclical run

for beyond the wild blue yonder
churning oceans weep
a world that is at once
wide awake and fast asleep.
449 · Jun 2018
Reflected
Phillip Walter Jun 2018
I wonder how the dark makes mirrors of windows.
It's sad.
That when i look out, past my existence, into the darkness, all i see is a reflection of myself.
Why do the nights not allow us to see others?
Where does the dark hide goodwill and love, that it so fiercely doesn't let us find them?
And i wonder about windows and mirrors.
for is glass ever so transparent that all you will ever see is through?
Or can transparency be tainted by transient plays of light and dark and sun and moon and stars. By ourselves and our perceptions that we limit with the games of lights and shadows that our minds play.
and i think that if darkness makes mirrors of windows, empathy makes way for clarity and understanding.
For i was staring at my reflection in the night dressed window when my light went out.
within was now as dark as it was out.
And in the darkness i was able to see what i couldn't in the light.
the fickleness of glass, and the lies that mirrors tell us.
To make us think that we are alone in a darkness when we venture to look out.
To blind us of everything by reflecting only our selves.
inevitably its the imbalances; of light and dark, of inside and outside, of myself and others, that blind us.
this one's long, my apologies. but the long way was the best way to explain it.
448 · Nov 2018
Tamar
Phillip Walter Nov 2018
They wonder about whether
and how it can happen
to the sweetest
and gentlest.

but King David
had a daughter.

and ****** in his family.

Just keep loving through the healing.

and know even a princess
hurts.
408 · Feb 2019
Too Sensitive
Phillip Walter Feb 2019
Sensitive.
whether

Too
or
Always

Is a victory of an accusation.
404 · Apr 2018
Untitled
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
They said you cant put a period in the middle of a sentence.
Can't start a thought with an and or a but.
But I did.
And I think the best place to put a period is wherever it belongs.
Because life has taught me that not all thoughts have a subject and a predicate.
Sometimes  an incomplete sentence ends in a period.
Or an exclamation mark!
And I've known too many people who's voices have been quieted midsentence.
Punctured by others who have punctuated their thoughts with a small and deliberate mark of ink.
Black ink.
Charcoal, the ashes of fire.
And I've known people who have ended their story with a period before having completed their thoughts.
For their energy ran out  before their thoughts had run through.
and a period seemed to them like the only way out.
For they imagined they had run out of paper.
But I put a period in the middle of a sentence because sometimes a sentence is complete when it's imperfect.
Like I am.
and sometimes I put a period in the middle of a sentence because sometimes a sentence is complete even if others can't understand it.
Like God is.
402 · Dec 2018
Being
Phillip Walter Dec 2018
you can't be what you're not.
even more.
you can't not be what you are.
371 · Feb 2019
My truths
Phillip Walter Feb 2019
I keep my truths like swords
safely in a scabbard
and pull them out in dangerous times
when my honor's nearly shattered
366 · Jul 2018
David Ausberger Says
Phillip Walter Jul 2018
"Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person it is nearly indistinguishable"
(David Ausberger)
maybe love is what melts us into one.
and im so frozen into myself that this melting seems impossible.

they say love heals.
if so I keep running
in fear of this healing.
345 · Aug 2018
Up/Down
Phillip Walter Aug 2018
Tell someone often enough to shut UP
they will

shut
        d
           o
             w
                n.
343 · Apr 2018
Untitled
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
An ear can break a human heart
as can a word, an eye.
A ****** is inevitable
when perpetuating lies.
"An ear can break a human heart
  As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
  So dangerously near."
-Emily Dickinson
336 · Nov 2018
Little Romance 3
Phillip Walter Nov 2018
We don't do much of husbandry and wifely things.  
flashcard conversations.
Scheduled nights.
Quiet dinners.
But the quiet holds a calm energy.
a  gentle love
that my fearful heart drowns in.
323 · Apr 2018
trauma
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
John Green says 'a lot of things will hurt you, but only the last thing will **** you'.
Perhaps life's purpose is to maintain our curousity about that final, capitalized T, Thing.
Not in a 'predict your future' horoscopic sense, but rather as a barometer of 'is this the most awful event that is destined to be my last' scale.
Is this a merely a lost battle or is it a lost war?
Will this be just another difficult time whose intensity will ultimately fade in the dust that settles with enough sunlight and time.
I wonder often about the stories we tell about those times that hurt so bad, they nearly killed us.
Not the stories we tell others,
though those do matter. Just as well.
Rather the stories we tell ourselves.
and how they are remembered can matter more than how they really were.
For they may have only hurt when it happened.
But they may be the last thing that will **** you.
Don't let others play the tune for your finale
as your curtain comes down.
311 · Oct 2018
mhm
Phillip Walter Oct 2018
mhm
they tell me to
relaaaaaaaa-
-x.
to allow things
to juuuuust
be
and I wonder
how iiiiiiii
can
because i'm not ready
to face the consequences
that might come
after.
and I want it.
but not yet.
and I wonder why only I had to give
patience.
311 · Apr 2018
Broken Grace
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
A broken heart bears witness to grace.
because the person you've shared it with now holds a part of it.
And though the person you've split your heart open for
might never even know
you know.
but this is the kind of broken heart that needs no healing,
because it is how we heal the world.
304 · Oct 2019
At home in the wilderness
Phillip Walter Oct 2019
We walked each other home
And then found
A home
Outside of each others hearts.

I sometimes stand near her side window.

Smell her cooking's.
Hear her lover's loving.

I leave quietly.

No longer at
Home. There

But still at home in my wilderness
290 · Dec 2018
Untitled
Phillip Walter Dec 2018
Spent formative time,
riding,
my wild horse
my wild mind
to the place
right before the world ends,
then Dedicated the rest of a lifetime,
to the effort,
of saddling her,
all the whilst wishing
shed just take off
one last time
and fly.
271 · Apr 2018
Poisoned
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
Her grasses may be greener
but what you may not know
is she bleeds each night
upon her field
in hope for it to grow.
Her grasses are all poisoned
but look right to the eyes
that sees only
the product
of a thousand desperate tries.
268 · Feb 2019
Denial
Phillip Walter Feb 2019
First the awareness.
hits you.

most likely.

in the place.
that hurts most.

The awareness.

then settles.
in that soft spot.
between heart and mind.

At times at peace.
often pulling them apart.
265 · Jul 2019
Dreams within dreams.
Phillip Walter Jul 2019
Dreams are
hopes
            others have deemed unrealistic.
And
have then warned
you
not to give voice to.

For the devil
will lay his
clawed fingers and
black eyes. On
the delicate fabric of.
hope.
So dont ****
your dreams,
they say. But
keep it Silent.
Secret.
Shamed.
They so fear the
devil that
they **** their own
dreams. Sacrifice
their motivations and the most beautiful Privilege
of being
human
on an altar of
idols. The human
ideals.
261 · Oct 2019
Hope
Phillip Walter Oct 2019
Is a
try
try
try
try
try
try
try

and
try
259 · Oct 2018
Good to Know
Phillip Walter Oct 2018
it's good to know
they say
the world within
and the world around
because otherwise
your world
is without

and regardless it'll be
whether you are
knowing
or unknowing.
251 · Jul 2018
Shame 2
Phillip Walter Jul 2018
Shame tells it’s stories
In third person.
249 · Jul 2018
Hello
Phillip Walter Jul 2018
We move in and out of our
Best and worst places

Hopefully, more graciously

So though it’s not different
It is.
245 · Jul 2018
Stolen Experience
Phillip Walter Jul 2018
She said
I’m married for two years.
I have anxiety.
I like watching figure skating
Competitions.

We narrow our life down to sentences.
And we wonder where the past has gone.
235 · Oct 2019
This Life
Phillip Walter Oct 2019
I went home yesterday.
And I learned there's no
Home
Left to come home to.

There is no space for who I was.

Sometimes a person's leaving allows for new life to grow.

I don't trust this new home either. I can feel the mold under a new coat of paint.

But perhaps I am jealous.

Because my parents have each other.
My siblings have parents.

And I don't have Any Body.

As a child I was better at spousing, mothering and daughtering.

Today I am lost.
Journeying perhaps.

Becoming.
234 · Jun 2018
Untitled
Phillip Walter Jun 2018
desperate times call for desperate measures.
they say.
it's a life lived in desperation then.
a desperate hope.
so near to despair.
227 · Apr 2018
Belonging
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
I'm the zebra in a stable,
the salmon in a pond,
the only blue eyed brunette
in a group of all the blonde.
I'm the coke in an ice cream shop
the green leaf in the fall.
It seems as though I may Belong
but really don't at all.
226 · Jun 2018
out
Phillip Walter Jun 2018
out
sometimes the only way out is through.
they say.
I wonder though.
because I don't know what is at the other end of
through.
218 · Apr 2018
Robin in the Graveyard
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
Met a robin
in the graveyard.
She was singing.
to the ghosts
Unknown witness
to
The love and honor
We grace to our
Dead.
208 · Apr 2018
wishes
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
i dare to wish
and tend to dream
for the alternative would be
a life of limited to worries
and what i know and see.
And some say that hope is futile
a live yet barren tree
but i believe in the thousand stars
that light the dark for me.
And hope may be the thing with feathers
but whats not said, yet's true.
Is that the thing with feathers
can fly right up to you
it can build a nest upon your window
and lay a golden egg
and i grant myself these empty dreams
so that i at least have that.
208 · Jun 2018
and I forget how it is
Phillip Walter Jun 2018
C. Cimic says 'every morning i forget how it is'

thats the most difficult part
of
the experience.

People think that living with
chronic illness
at some point one would fall into a routine about it.

but it's all the same.

and each morning I forget how it is
until I am reminded.
mood disorder.
199 · Apr 2018
In the Graveyard
Phillip Walter Apr 2018
I went for a walk
in the
graveyard
It was quiet
but it was
home.
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