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1.5k · Sep 2020
When I Love
Ashlyn Yoshida Sep 2020
My love is wrong in the eyes of the sane
to them it seems my love is irrational
possessive, obsessive
chained to my wrists
I suppose it's my fault
I suppose it's all their's
I think I'm forgetting the normal thoughts
and feelings a person is to have
Clinging onto the familiar
and what was thrown at me when
I was younger.
It scares some away
and brings others closer
Insanity goes unnoticed by those inflicted. Don't go on thinking I'm a terrible person for not understanding social constructs the same way as you do.
1.4k · Nov 2020
Misdirection
Ashlyn Yoshida Nov 2020
Too much, too little
I'm intelligent and kind
Two lies, two truths
When you bore me
I will leave you
1.3k · Apr 2021
The Aching Creators
Ashlyn Yoshida Apr 2021
Please notice what I've done
My pride is hurting from the things that
I spent hours on
Instead the ones I barely think of
are liked more above the rest
In fact the ones I barely think on
to me are just grotesque
See what I can really do
'A river is a thought of defiance
A flower the hated love between the two'
See what I can say, draw, and write
What I hear and know
Please tell me that you love them and me
Please do not let me go
1.3k · Feb 2021
mouth
Ashlyn Yoshida Feb 2021
The open gaping mouth of glass, looking in and looking out
The light refracting across the silent room
Everything is closed off; the blinds; the doors; the boxes
The glass eyes of the house muffling the sounds of the outside world

The inhabitant grown a slave to watching
The gaping mouth of glass, looking in and looking out
Stretching lines, darkening eyes, smiles turned hollow
She'll trace the filtered light with frozen desperate fingers

Her sounds are empty and echo like a dripping water from a faucet
The tiled floor is as cold as the snow that falls. Unseen
The open gaping mouth of glass, looking in and looking out
The wind seems to be whispering words she no longer yearns for

The blood is dancing with the cold
Warming the static embrace of her head and fingers
The inhabitant closes the blinds again, hiding the quiet scene
The open gaping mouth of glass, looking in and looking out
Most people believe this is about suicide so I'm going to clear this up. The inhabitant and the girl are two different people. The poem focuses on a scene, but the whole purpose is to invoke the feelings that come with paranoia. It's about a man who killed a girl, but also talking about the guilt and fear of hiding a bad thing we've done. I hope it somehow showed what I was trying to convey.
1.1k · Apr 2021
Let the World Be
Ashlyn Yoshida Apr 2021
Let me sleep until reality turns grey
Let me breathe until my lungs tear to shreds
Let me live alone in a house with a cat
Let me not be touched or tainted

But the world wants you to be touched
The world wants you to see reality in all its horrifying colors
The world wants you to breathe softly
And to live with the noises and smiles
Of the house you always dreamed of.
1.1k · Sep 2020
Her Newest Days
Ashlyn Yoshida Sep 2020
Lying on the cold kitchen floor
Tears streaming down her face
Her cheeks are burning worse than they ever have before
A twinge of pain in a hip rendered weak
A wave of depressive agony wipes over her face again
Screaming above her head, words that make no sense
Quotations around the pain her mother uses
A cold dragging stagger walk to a hospital all by herself.
1.1k · Mar 2021
Family's Flowers
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2021
Buttercups
are thin and yellow
Roses
red and thick like blood
if families can be described as flowers
which one do you think
is us?
1.0k · Mar 2021
This Love is Weak
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2021
We've locked ourselves
in rooms of steel
created safe places
designed like prison cells
everyone says there is no way
to escape
without someone to call out our name
and no way to be free
without a light to guide us through the maze

But it will always have to be our feet
that takes us through this hell
And our own eyes
that will lead us well

Relying on others to help you is wrong
a delusion taught to you
through poems, stories, and songs
It will only be you and your willingness to heal
But that does not mean you have to walk alone
to break down all your seals

Stop this searching for that 'one true love'
the more you look
the further your real goals will become
to truly love another
is to forgive and mend yourself
because resenting your actions
only hurts everyone else
you do not love if you hurt and hate
it will only be your hands
that opens your heart's gate.

True love takes work
true love takes time
it only comes across your heart
when you work hard to be of sound mind
But what would I know?
I'm only sixteen

what experience would I have gone through
to really know what that love means?
Be kind, be gentle, be the silent strength inside.
Be a stream that leads to a river.
941 · Mar 2021
Verbal
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2021
They're voices hit me
like hardened citrus
Thrown at my curled body on the floor

their laughter is hurting me
their smiles are my scars

Band-aids and mocking
inside I'm breaking
everyone else loves me the way I am
so why can't they?
when school is bad you go home when home is bad where do you go?
890 · Dec 2020
Screaming in a Desert
Ashlyn Yoshida Dec 2020
Whistling wind howls in your ear
Your breath comes out in fogs and huffs
Standing atop a flat hill of red sand
the sound of thin, dry branches scratching rocks
a flash of grey fur and a squeal breach the silence
once so heavy you could hear your own heartbeat
The Sun has begun to set
The rays seeming to match that of water
Staining the blue sky with oranges and pinks
****** fingers tearing at the mountains
As the Sun fights to see your face longer.
You breathe in the dry dusty air


And scream until there is none left in you
To be where I am now would only hurt us all
879 · Sep 2020
'How the World Works'
Ashlyn Yoshida Sep 2020
A world where nothing is everything
and the children are seen as ignorant fools
Shielded hopelessly with a see-through blindfold
A family fights over nothing important
Except to them it's the balance of their future
Petty little snipers, killing off the hated
bullied for a simple little mole
lost in a sea of individuals wearing the same masks
People saying that they're the ones who know best
A phrase repeated flying over her head
'This is how the world works
it takes no breaks for you
it doesn't stop to heal your pain
so keep on going anyways'

And I am tired of hearing something I already knew.
874 · Apr 2020
Chickens and Goats
Ashlyn Yoshida Apr 2020
Cherry plums for the small goat
Pits for the large chicken
Milk and water
Bury; slaughter

Remember to call me when it's done.
******???
872 · Nov 2020
I am the Lie
Ashlyn Yoshida Nov 2020
Swirling banters
red water catches my skin
my wrists are bound to the laughing of the crows
As the minor tantrum of a rebel
I live for the stories that include me the least
symbolism, symbolism everywhere
821 · Feb 2019
A Rose Scented Bath
Ashlyn Yoshida Feb 2019
I'm waiting in stars of light
bathing in darkest night
a hope of rose petals sprinkling down
onto water that's all around
steam is raised above water high
lifting; sifting to the sky
breaking not for it can't shatter
unlike the roses, seeming tattered
the scent of soap
of roses' hopes
I lift my hand
to understand
the dark that surrounds me
but with my touch, the dark shifts enough to see
in bleeding grey
a new day
to wake up to
alone...
767 · Mar 2020
The Hostage Flower
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2020
Twisting and turning
the stems are snapping
My mind can't take this wait
---
Burning and simmering
the petals make a tea
I don't want to drink your poison anymore
---
Listening
---
Waiting
---
Why won't someone save me?
I'm alone in this world
tied to a chair
---
no one is ever here.
757 · Nov 2020
Two People
Ashlyn Yoshida Nov 2020
Burned wood can become charcoal
Compressed charcoal can become a diamond

I will become a charred and squashed corpse
742 · Jun 2020
Blood Violet
Ashlyn Yoshida Jun 2020
My hair is longer
than before
But lately
I want a little more

so bring the dye
and bring the paste
I'm feeling purple
so hurry before it's too late

'that looks kinda red, Ash'
695 · Mar 2021
Yellow
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2021
In the splashes of color the most purest form of emotion
seems to be happiness, as if this is the natural order of things
So in this sense

Humanity is yellow

And I am blue.
hmm
671 · Nov 2020
Coded Memory
Ashlyn Yoshida Nov 2020
. . . l o a d i n g . . .

.-. .- .. -. / -.. .-. --- .--. ... /
-.. .- -. -.. . .-.. .. --- -. / .--. . - .- .-.. ... /
.- .--. .--. .-.. . / .--. .. . / --- -. / - .... . / .-- .. -. -.. --- .-- ... .. .-.. .-.. /
.-- --- .-.. ..-. / .- - . / - .... . / ..-. --- -..- / .- - . / - .... . / -.-. .... .. -.-. -.- . -. / .- - . / - .... . / .--. .. . /
-... --- -..- . ... / ... - .- -.-. -.- . -.. / --- -. / - .... . .. .-. / ... .. -.. . ... /
..-. .- -.- . / ..-. .-.. --- .-- . .-. ... / .. -. / .- / .-- .- - . .-. / ...- .- ... . /
- .... . / .-.. --- ... ... / --- ..-. / ... --- -- . --- -. . / .-- .... --- / -.-. .- -. -. --- - / -... . / .-. . .--. .-.. .- -.-. . -.. /

[ r e s e t ? ]
/ y e s <
/ n o
.-.. --- ...- . / -- . / -... .- -.-. -.-
be curious
668 · Dec 2020
Pretty
Ashlyn Yoshida Dec 2020
Blocked my tears with ivy walls
Hearts are painted on my window
Lights are strung up in my room

It's all pretty now

Pretty lonely.
650 · Mar 2020
Nobody
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2020
By playing hatred for attention
       the ones who need it are ignored.
Drip
           Drip
                        Drip
                         Shaking, fidgeting
                                          tape around cotton *****
                red seeping through my shirt sleeve
                    They're going to see what I did
What I've become
What I always was inside.
It's no one's fault but my own
.     .     .
But they don't give a ****.
639 · Nov 2020
Self Care
Ashlyn Yoshida Nov 2020
Coffee and muffin on a Saturday outing by yourself
Cuddles on a winter day with no one but a blanket
Bubble bath and candles, in a dimly lit room
Reading on a rainy day

You don't always need others
To be happy
someone told me to write a happy poem so here
612 · May 2020
Map
Ashlyn Yoshida May 2020
Map
Do not fear tomorrow
for tomorrow will never come
do not fear the past
for the past is already done

do not cry for approval
for approval gives no bread
do not weep for the dying
instead laugh with the dead

follow the path of gravestones
decorated with gold
follow the dark and the light
to see which one takes hold

listen to the bird call
follow the raven's trail
listen to the wolf howl
watch him shake his tail

run as fast as we can

back to where it began
592 · Mar 2021
A Child Never Wins
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2021
Tears can splash to the ground
You could shake in fear and rage all you want
But as soon as they smile
And push aside your claims with a laugh

You're absolutely ******
586 · Dec 2020
Desert Night
Ashlyn Yoshida Dec 2020
Quiet.
Silence settles across the empty desert once more
A calming wind brushing through the desolate feeling
A shadow flickers across the face of the moon.

Is something coming?

Why does it feel like the sandy dunes and snoozing creatures
are all holding their breath?
Waiting?

What for?
571 · Dec 2020
Paranoid Without Risk
Ashlyn Yoshida Dec 2020
Footsteps
Once more I hear the sound of footsteps following me
Once more the fear and warm breath tickling my neck
It has always followed me, this sudden panic
This feeling to pack everything up and run
Run as far as I can see and further
Past the mountains and seas and worlds
Until the footsteps make no sounds
And the breath rustles not a single blade of grass
at my feet

Is it my own footsteps?
Is it merely the wind?
I don't know anymore.
Fleeing now would be futile
566 · Nov 2020
Letting My Dream Leave
Ashlyn Yoshida Nov 2020
It was stuck in my hand, alike to a tiny galaxy
Stars slipping through my fingers as I let go
Realizing my hands were too small
I gave it up to the future of an abysmal heart
Where all the dead dreams go
I want this to end.
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2021
Nostalgia for something that never was
And things that never will be again
Watermelons while sitting in cold tubs outside
Happy golden days beneath a window's warmth

Which one could have ever been real?
Were all those memories I created fake?
Am I the real version of myself?
Or just another way to cope with what I've done?
537 · Mar 2021
D a t a
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2021
Collecting information and writing it down in a journal
People cross by in fear or interest
a human as analytical as a robot and emotional as a puppy
Strange one
Freak
Perfect
Writing it down, each move
Every behavior
Then I get up
ignoring complaints and compliments
And I help them all
hmm not my usual category of poems...
517 · Mar 2020
People are Plants
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2020
forget me nots
purple and sweet
taste of perfection
**** and neat

Daffodils
as sugary as frosting
Growing with weeds
evil, secret, and mystery

Roses
they are the ones
they are the people
petals of blood

If they are flowers
I am a Dandelion
I take everything from everyone
and I am always lying
What do you think you are in terms of a plant?
504 · Jul 2020
No
Ashlyn Yoshida Jul 2020
No
Surrounded
Unheld
my hand please
I can't let it be taken
Black around white
a single speck
static in my ears
can't take it. not my hand
found
around
backwards
static in my ear and lots of it
I see spoken words in writing
people turn away when hurt
I'm stuck staring
not my hand.
no noise to block out my thoughts
speck
black
white
repeat each step without hesitation
listen, follow, no thinking allowed
I break it as soon as it's said
488 · Apr 2020
Pixie Cut
Ashlyn Yoshida Apr 2020
Snip Snip
She's staring at me in horror
Snip Snip
My hair is growing shorter
Snip Snip

'You look like a boy, Ash'
Got a haircut that took me forever to get.
483 · Jul 2020
Beautiful
Ashlyn Yoshida Jul 2020
I'm a stain.
My life and personality is just a stain
I'm ink across the paper
of society.

I'm red.
I'm always angry at something or someone
And yet I'm always smiling and laughing
along with their insults.

I'm not broken, people just want to erase me.
I'm not supposed to be here, they say.
My type of weird
Is unacceptable to society, they say.

But each one of us is a different color
spread across this paper, no canvas
that is society
each of us a stain, no a streak

A brush of personality no one else can have
Together we are beautiful
and no one is going to tell me
that I'm not beautiful without lying to themselves

and being the same only makes the painting boring
this is all about personality not looks
476 · Nov 2020
Re-designing Process
Ashlyn Yoshida Nov 2020
Replace the memories with post-it notes.
Re-write the history that created who I am
those paragraphs of information erased from my thoughts.
I will save myself
sew and stitch my own flesh
and paint my bones
Creating new memories and paragraphs and post-it notes
Until I get it perfectly wrong
And my corkboard brain is covered in neon paper
and my hands are covered in paper cuts and glitter glue
and my heart becomes as covered
in as much barbed wire as there is stickers.
459 · Feb 2021
Television
Ashlyn Yoshida Feb 2021
The consumption of our heads and minds
devouring them until it is us
Eyes search and wander for the channel that speaks clear
449 · Dec 2020
Permenant Smile
Ashlyn Yoshida Dec 2020
The lights switch off
But the smile stays
Plastered on and
Completely fake
It won't come off
It never will
Tears begin to fall
Smiling still
The screams are heard
across the house
no one cares
it's normal now
Breaking into pieces
thoughts locked in cages
break down the walls
and rewrite your pages
a breakdown while laughing is worse than if you were screaming
440 · May 2020
Ready?
Ashlyn Yoshida May 2020
There's a world of pain waiting for us outside of that door.

You ready?
440 · Dec 2020
Murky Ocean
Ashlyn Yoshida Dec 2020
Swirling in an ocean
of brokenness and passion
hands reaching out for another
but in the end only dragging others further down

Everyone is screaming for help
so loudly they can't hear the people around them
Squirming and slithering
Death slides between us all
Eating away the ones who have taken life for too long
A dose of medicine bringing us the cure to misery
by silencing our own thoughts

Choking on charcoal water
The wet dampens my eyes and my hair
clawing and fighting up to the surface
Where many I know tread on the water with ease
Below me are the people who fell into the tempting calm
above me are the ones who made it

weeds tangle about my legs
threatening to drag my body further down
hands clutch at my wrist in hopes for company
slowing me, hurting me, bruising me
It is my own choice whether I cut their fingers or let them stay
Swimming in the murky waters everyone saying they are alone
each with their own setbacks
ignoring the people furthest from them
and pretending that the water is darker and colder
than it has really been
428 · Mar 2021
Who They were originally
Ashlyn Yoshida Mar 2021
There's a phone in the corner of my bag
Where I tell the people I love I need out
I called the other Them to help me
The people my mother was always running from

The people who would finally take me away
420 · Feb 2020
The Little Grey Dove
Ashlyn Yoshida Feb 2020
Broken wings and ****** feathers
the grey dove tries to fly once more
It feels as if it's being pulled in one direction
And being unable to follow the leash
It watches forlornly as the others around it
the ones who had been broken by the same thing
take flight
renewed
refreshed
ready
but the little grey dove
isn't so sure if she's ready to take flight anymore
She's not sure who's fault it was.
The cat who broke her wings and threw her?
Or was it herself, for letting him do it?
The little grey dove
is waiting instead of doing
She knows that time can heal her wounds.
But perhaps the bone is broken
too far up.
Perhaps she'll never fly again.
No one comes to keep her company through out the months
she's made a small refuge, a place to sleep
a place to heal
But every once in a while
A newly white dove comes by
with a bent feather of her friends
evidence that the cat is still out there
While she sits
and heals
and does nothing.
415 · Apr 2020
Bed Time Story
Ashlyn Yoshida Apr 2020
Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a house full of shadows and mirrors with no one to help her out but herself. Cobwebs covered the corners and her feet and her eyes. At some point she had given up from leaving and stayed still for years. One day, there was a knock on the door and the girl shivered off her webs and slowly walked over to the locked door to set her ear against the cold wood. She didn't hear anything else other than a shuffle and the sound of footsteps walking away. The girl went back to her place where she had stood and found a crack of light across the mirror. Desperate to see and to escape the shadows she tried moving the mirror to reflect the light tenfold. But she pushed too hard and the mirror feel and shattered. She sat there in the broken glass, blood dripping from her legs. She sat there and cried, angry for the hope she had gotten. And she stayed still for another year until a knock at the door was heard again. This time she ignored it. She ignored it so well, she thought, that even when it got louder she turned her head, piercing her feet on the glass that still lay around her. She muffled a scream and listened to the knocking. It had stopped, why had it stopped? She got up to check the door, wincing in pain at each step. But when she pressed her ear against the door once more, the sound was gone and replaced with the echoing footsteps of someone leaving. The girl, angered, stomped back to her place only to see the light again. She felt excited and tried to at least touch the light, hold it in her hands to feel warm. She took a step forward, crashing into the mirror that had been reflecting it, once more breaking the reflective glass. More blood and pain and tears. The next time she saw the light or heard the knocking she ignored it.
It took years, each one annually the knocking came and went and the light feel across the girl in her cobwebs, shadows, and mirrors in a locked up house that no one noticed, wanted, or saw. She felt more and more alone with each coming day, the knocking the only thing that made her happy because it meant that something living was there at the other side of the door. If only she could open it.
One the day she decided to give up all thoughts of meeting the one who knocked at her door, she stood up and walked across the glass, tearing her feet. She crashed into mirrors, ****** and bruised she reached the door and leaned against it, crying.
When she heard the knocking she cried harder. The knocking continued, three even knocks. A pause. And then three even knocks. It would do this one last time. The girl was fed up with the knocking by now, so she decided to do it to them, too. She knocked back three times after the second knock of theirs. She waited. The knock came from them. She knocked back. It continued until the light in the house moved to the mirror in front of her fully and she saw herself, blood and tear stained in the reflection. She smiled at herself. She heard something move, something metal slide from underneath her door. Something cold touched her fingertips as she wrapped her hand around it. A rusty old key. She used it to unlock the door to see who had been knocking for her all those years. She opened the door.
And there the girl was, smiling back at herself. "You made it."
The End
ignore the formatting
412 · Feb 2020
Staring Stranger
Ashlyn Yoshida Feb 2020
The smell of a cigarette
The glow of the ashes
The flick of such dust
Fluttering down
You saw me standing
still as a tree
standing beneath the
parking lot's lamp.
Panting.
Sobbing.
Illuminated by gold.
You saw the scar.
My scar.
How did it get there?
I see you thinking.
But I hate that.
"You know it's impolite to stare."
408 · May 2020
Are You Happy Now?
Ashlyn Yoshida May 2020
Look at the people around us
Dying, sick, alone
cold
Look at the wondrous things
Some have
money, smiles, ******, and
gold
Surplus of food
thrown all away
So many others still starving
these days
Illness stretches through the earth
And yet for others happiness
They still wander and play
in mirth
Making more sickness
making more death
are you happy now?
That some people no longer have breath?
402 · Jul 2020
Tainted Homesickness
Ashlyn Yoshida Jul 2020
I want to go back
And then I don't
Reminded of back then when it was all a lie

Each reminder
that flower
that song
I loved you all so dearly
How could you have seen
nothing but a rag doll
Someone annoying and unpredictable
Having nothing of any good inside
you turned your heads
and left me to leave
without a single goodbye
I have a lot of poems to write when it comes to this...I'm going to try something happier later
Ashlyn Yoshida Dec 2020
Silvery traces etched across the canvas
the red seeping back
that once decorated the space before

tears no longer blue but grey
ripping apart the canvas that wraps you in tendrils
No longer is anything left to take

You've already destroyed that.
373 · May 2020
Twisted Lullaby
Ashlyn Yoshida May 2020
Sleep tight my love
for tomorrow is a new day
Sleep tight my love
wrapped in this willow's grave

Cry not my darling
we are finally safe
Cry not my darling
tomorrow today will be erased

Look and see
Look and see
Gold as tangible
as the breeze

Look and see
Look and see
sleeping, dreaming
by the sea

Danger lurks in every corner
safe and sound you are in bed
snoozing 'neath the Willow Tree
rest your tiny head
good night, good morning, good afternoon
370 · Jul 2020
Down the Road
Ashlyn Yoshida Jul 2020
Traveling down this
long old road
in a place I haven't been to in years
Traveling far away from my recent past
And although it was loved
I shed not a tear
Just a small essay of 14 paragraphs long
Was enough to confirm what I had thought
I was worthless in their eyes
each and every one
and if I had stayed
I would have just been

a l o n e
366 · Feb 2020
The Weeping Woman
Ashlyn Yoshida Feb 2020
"Where is my child?
Where have you taken her?"
She lays her head across the floor
the carpet oddly cold.
She calls out for help
from the only person
who sees and
understands her completely.
But she herself, the seer,
is crying in a pain of her own

And the woman realized that
the Seer
Was  her reflection
The child's a metaphor. It stands for innocence and well, the woman's own childhood. Thought that it would be hard to guess, I mean the kid's only mentioned once.
333 · Jun 2020
Dark Circles Beneath Eyes
Ashlyn Yoshida Jun 2020
I can barely lift my head
I haven't eaten a thing today
I was waiting for you to message me
It never happened.
I have permanent consequences from being friends with those people. I had no where else to go...
325 · May 2020
The World I Live In
Ashlyn Yoshida May 2020
You know the world is crazy
Is painful
Is cruel
When you hear
that a five year old's prayer to God
was to die.
she deserved better
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