"apologizes" poems
OCD And I
We go to couples counseling every week
you know, the usual "Has there been any progress?"
You see, OCD ... he is a bit obsessive.. and doesn't understand why we need counseling
His nails grind into the office chair and slams the door on the way out
He loves and cradles me with commands like flowers that bouquet against my mind
And the next morning as if the bouquets were to fall over from their steady placed vase, he apologizes.
There are mornings where I cannot leave the sheets because his arms are wrapped around my waist and do not want to let go because if he did I might as well be **** independent
If he loves me so much, why is it that I must wash my hands after tracing over everything he has touched.
OCD says he wants to protect me from all the dangers of the world...
and he reminds me by constantly ticking in my head
asking me if I locked the door...Yes
did I turn off the lights... Yes
did you turn off the stove...Yes
We went to counseling again this week
She says I'm closer to being independent
That little by little
I will be able to strive without OCD
by my side
There are mornings now
where I can leave the bed without his arms
sinking into my waist
and his demanding words
whispering in my ear constantly
"Just stay a little longer... The world is dangerous"
Now... when OCD leaves...
I tell him to make sure he closes the door on the way out.
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 9:53 PM UTC
This is me apologizing. This is me finally coming up for air and coughing up apologizes instead of swallowing them down with gulps of water. This is me looking at your face and seeing the bags under your eyes because you stayed up all night trying to call me and apologizing. Looking at your nails and seeing the skin around them ****** and scabbed and the beds unevenly bitten down to nothing and apologizing. Looking at your eyes and seeing the way you bought colored contacts to cover the fact you spent days unmoving from a mirror trying to love yourself and apologizing. This is me seeing the needle points on your lips from where you injected your own blood to attempt to regain that color I claimed to be in love with and apologizing. As I'm looking at your arms and seeing where you scrubbed your skin with chemicals trying to erase the essence of me and when you smile I can see that you chugged a bottle of bleach to try and whiten your teeth bright enough so that you could be accepted by God himself into the pearly gates all I can do is apologize. I'm sorry that you spent hours carving my name into his back with your fingernails and biting your own tongue so hard it bled when he told you he loved you. When his flesh connected with yours causing the world to stop for a second and listen to your shrieking I know it was me you were screaming for and I'm sorry. As I'm standing here staring at you and watching them put brush stroke after brush stroke of blush onto your lovely pale cheeks trying to restore the life you lost so many years ago I'm finally realizing it's too late to apologize yet all I can think about is how this isn't even close to the eulogy you deserved. I should be talking about the way you danced and how your voice made my own falter momentarily and how you were more alive when you were dying than I ever will be when I'm living rather than apologizing but all I can seem to rationalize is how I spent years dry swallowing your love and spitting up knives to use to carve my initials into your thigh so you would always remember me and how I never even had the common decency to count to three before destroying you and I'm sorry. I'm afraid to look up now that I've finished apologizing because I know your empty eyes filled with nothingness will be staring back so horribly confused because I doubt you ever continued listening after I used the world eulogy and I'm sure you're going to wonder why I'm talking as if I'm sitting at your funeral rather than on the end of your bed but I don't know how else to make you grasp the concept of what you're doing to yourself by loving me in a better way than this and I'm sorry. C.a.l
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 7:21 PM UTC
I pick up my pen again
I want these words to be everything
love letters
apologizes
confessions, daydreams
plans? Or roadmaps, new
contracts, to-do lists, like
"stop falling down," or
"try harder this time". I turn
you over but you don't give me what I'm looking for, I'm looking
for a place to dissolve this poison
I'm searching in the dark for halos that don't exist
I'm counting up nights of lost sleep,
calculating the probability of
our intertwined fingers as
remedies melt
off your tongue and run over
cracks in the pavement, oozing
sticky shower thoughts into our heads, like how
did we end up here?,& how
does the world end every night but go
on spinning the next morning?
I want this to be everything, the cure
our futures, soft plans,
collections of stitched together questions like how long
does forever taste on your breath
in the aftermath of all the anxiety you tend
to consume?
I want to pull the drapes on this thing and leave it to breathe in the
dark, leave it under
covers so these ailments don't seep
around my doorframe and pull
what is half-born into the light, let it be
let it live
let it cave in on itself and slowly
rebuild.
Chances come in
handfuls,
let the sun forget to practice her
old game of never
letting anyone rest; my fingers are warm & numb now and they remind me a little of
how you look when you're half asleep
they remind me
why this is fragile, why this is broken
why this can never
last and I'm sitting
in the passenger seat wondering
how the soft things stretch out their wings in
my lungs without
killing me, but they're
leaving their marks now, clawing
up my throat;
I close my eyes and give
them to the open air.
You don't know all of this; your eyelids
are heavy and you're keeping track
of who I am in little
notepads & reminders,
keeping track
of the way we move and how likely
we are to remember this moment in 5 years,
because right now you want
to capture it and tame it like a living thing.
We are becoming dust
molecules, we are
burning, we are becoming
quiet we don't leave footprints
we don't leave traces
we are heading toward the end of the world with our hands
tucked into our pockets, we are headed
toward the end of the world dissolving each others names on our tongues like sugar, we are headed
toward the end of the world and when we get there,
it starts again.
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 11, 2018 at 5:34 PM UTC
Today heard I a train,
while I smoke my cigarette, I heard a train.
The rumbles came trundling over mossing steel street bars,
the hooves of an iron horse shattering glass floors-
pebbles bickering like stone woodpeckers on the grounds to come.
The wind shudders,
and apologizes for the frost on the leaves,
the cracks in the ground and the holes in the sky,
my cigarette part blur,
awkwardness so comfortable,
this plastic train i recreate,
moments in-between,
where we lay down to day-listen.
The kinsmen that forgot call blacksmith,
scared with his welded skin,
protection in battle,
drunken dichotomy,
a hero ***** dans l’amour.
As great the fall of king, the fall of next in line.
The only thing to have moved quicker with age, time.
Lest we forget, the blacksmith here reside;(unfinished)
While the angel hath walk,
with long grey and black web moth wings,
stalking its sleeping prey,
his eyes wide open back,
watching the angel pace,
infesting the air with despicable knots,
its dangerous to stare,
but a contest never started is a contest never won,
and into the eyes of hell the blacksmith hast stared-
to the foot of his bed.
Where a three headed dog flap its ice wings to keep hell cold.
These nights in particular had been an awful one, and again the tapping, again the train.
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 1:24 AM UTC
Please see me.
Not the person I appear to be.
Not the one you see walking isles,
The one who grins, who looks at you with those doggy eyes
Who apologizes, who cowers.
Please see me.
Not my skin. Not my hair.
Please don't call me something I'm not.
Please understand that I love your people
But I come from somewhere else.
Please understand me.
As I have come to understand you,
This place, these people,
These ways and the talk.
Please try, as I have tried countless times before.
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 11:12 AM UTC
I will never get apologizes for the words that have left your mouth.
I will never get to erase the trauma you inflicted.
I will never get the relationship I longed for.
The love I so desired.
Today I’m reclaiming my life and everything you stole from me.
Apr 29, 2021
Apr 29, 2021 at 2:05 AM UTC
So sometimes, I still double back,
To these little pretty things-
Where I entwine my written words
with depictive new meanings.
Happy birthday, I must first say
To my Albanian commerce kid.
When we met, then when I left, I
always appreciated all you did.
Next comes the apologizes, I'm sure you know what for
The fact that you showed up, for me?
Confirms it even more:
Julia Kruja, you're an incredible person- such a beautiful soul,
Its a blessing to call you 'friend', and remain someone you know.
With unconditional support- unwavering sincerity
whichever way things go.
Despite my lack of clarity, selfishness and pain- you're always there to meet with me, make plans again and again.
You instill this worth back in my soul, by treating me the same- removing judgement from your heart,
Regifting hope inside my brain.
Happy Belated Birthday my friend
Sep 18, 2023
Sep 18, 2023 at 6:23 AM UTC
~~Overwhelmed by the raw talent and emotion with which my students think and feel and write. Thank you, A.N.--Chuukese woman~~
Early in the morning
When the dark cloud covers the light
And hides my brother from seeing the light
I woke up along shocking news
That glazed my face with sadness
Brought tears to my eyes
I heard an awful voice
Coming from the mangroves
Just right after my brother
Hung himself with a thin rope
The voice said that
He had to find a hat
Before Uncle Priston
Forced him to drink the poison
I smell his perfume
When I start to feel the pain
In my heart
I feel the cold air
When he appears in my dreams
And he touches me with his cold hands
Apologizes to me
We cry to each other
Among the mangrove trees
Hugging each other
Talking about the truth
I lost his warm hands
And his warm heart
That blocked the cold air
From entering our house
His love and his memory will not be forgotten
But I hide it in a secret place
Because his love was exactly like a fire
That makes the people feel warm
As they come closer
by A.N.
representing Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 4:56 PM UTC
Please don’t say not all men, when me too
becomes me three, me four, then twenty,
two thousand, too many for boy to be boys
or locker room talk.
We can’t talk away when men power grab
for things they have no right to touch,
with 140 characters insincere apologizes.
It’s time to man up and speak out and say
that being a gentleman is more than chairs and doors.
It’s less bro fists, shrugs and awkward laughs.
Instead, it is not cool bro, and really man you know better.
Because we know better, we know what goes on behind
closed doors, and only dealing with it when the doors are open
is not a solution but a symptom of the problem.
Being a nice guy does not give you access to her thighs.
Compliments don’t allow you to pass judgements
and what she wears, where she goes and what she does
does not mean a free pass.
If this culture thinks silence is permission
than I will be loud until no one has to say me too.
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 11:35 PM UTC
I met a girl who couldn’t keep eye contact for more than three seconds;
She puts her palms in front of her face
A bit higher than her nose
So she could see you through her fingers,
So that
Her voice
A bit dim,
Can bounce on the walls she now builds
And reflects back to her,
Giving her time to rethink her words
Over and over and over and over
Until she makes sure that
Every type of person surrounding her
Would not blow bombs under her white sheets
Destroy her heart,
And shatter her soul,
Till she has no strength to carry her hands
And hold her palms as barriers for her protection.
I met a girl with red brown hair,
She had two thin lines of blue under her eyes
Because oceans could draw attention
To their beauty,
And under beauty
Lies her mess,
The doors could open a gate way to the fire that’s inside
While she only reveals sparkles
In the split seconds between every word
That she rambles on,
Because if she stopped talking
It would be silent enough
For her to listen to her inner voice,
And her inner voice is never pleased.
I met a girl with a wide smile and a sense of humor,
But she apologizes after every joke
And freezes after every laughter,
Thinking of how many mistakes she might have made
Thinking of how to fix them
Thinking if anybody noticed
No one ever did.
I met a girl with a silent giggle,
Her bangs strategically lie over her eyes
To cover the curvature of her emotions,
The lines she creates on her forehead
And inside her mind,
The shy lyrics that she sings alone
Swaying her body to a jimmy Hendrix
That broke her security systems
And unchained her
Till it was possible to move.
I met a girl,
Who knows a lot more than she needs to
Who works a lot more than she has to
Who loves a lot more than possible;
She lifts up the world around her
So she can forget how far down she lies,
She runs away from herself
To hide under buses and trains
Making sure everything was okay;
Everything is not okay.
I met a girl,
And she was called confidence
I met a girl,
And she was called insecurity
I met a girl,
Who was called social consciousness;
I met a girl
Who was called society
And that girl was a killer.
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 9:26 PM UTC
Every step I take
Brings you closer to the cliffside.
At home, their pictures crowd my pillow,
Whisper like nymphs.
A corroded coin
Apologizes, abandoned in our arid cup.
I turn to face the towering metropolis
And let my ninth staff illuminate the smog.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 9:16 PM UTC
*mom is hooked on medication
unknowingly an addict
dad is a piece of ****
worthless apologizes one after the other
and she
she is a disaster
a product of their creation*
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 7:01 PM UTC
I am the greatest poet alive.
In my body, I am the greatest poet alive,
In my continent, I am the greatest poet alive-
Yesterday, I was…
Today, I am the worst poet alive,
Because I know that yesterday
I was at the peak of my poetic diffusion,
Inspiration stayed the night,
and greatness happened to have occurred,
So yesterday, I was the greatest poet alive,
in my population-of-one continent.
Today I'm just a jealous bitter soul,
Cause I know I wasn't good enough
for inspiration to stay,
Today I know that inspiration fears commitment,
I resembled everything appalling,
I was desperate and needy,
So inspiration left me for another poet
without a second glance.
Because inspiration doesn't want to be
chained down to the grounds of monotony,
A room with four walls is all I could offer,
And it needs a castle where it can trespass
to the wilderness of the sky any time,
It needs the freedom where it can soar
above and look down
in fascination at the array of poets
that it has touched their minds and hearts,
Because that's when inspiration feels alive,
When it can see the power that it has diffused
into their -now- luminescent hearts,
A picture depicting a sky adorned with stars,
An earth adorned by poets that never sleep.
Today, I'm heartbroken because I know inspiration will never be 'mine'.
It will continue to break hearts, then come back,
And I know that I will continue to accept its apologizes,
Even if they weren't uttered,
I will make one up inspired on spur of the moment,
Because without it I'm nothing but the worst poet alive,
In my body, in my population-of-one continent.
And when the days click and the words rhyme,
The world isn't always forgiving of the greatest poet alive in my population-of-one continent,
Because my poems are me,
And I know that I'm flawed,
I have bad hair days, my nose isn't pretty,
sometimes there are bags under my eyes, and I'm not always the nicest person,
Sometimes my appearance is disheveled,
Just like my poetry,
Then some days I spend the extra ten minutes in front of the mirror,
I care for the details,
And some days people actually like my words,
those are the good days.
And today, I am the worst poet alive,
Because I don't have hope,
Inspiration didn't leave me a note before it left,
It didn't give call me and said I'll be back in a few days,
So today I'm the worst poet alive in my book.
I've cleaned my mind though,
And threw away all the disposal pins
where I burst the bubbles of words that sound ridiculous,
I also folded away all the negative feedback
that my cerebral cinques have given me,
Hopefully inspiration might want to visit the greatest poet alive … tomorrow?
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 12:49 AM UTC
She looks on into the clock, wondering when the bell would signal her release from boredom. She finds herself playing with the hoodie of a classmate, hoping he'd focus on her to have someone keep her mind from the mundane atmosphere of the classroom. She always loved messing with his hoodie during class because his reactions were always funny. She tosses the piece of clothing from one hand to the other when She comes to realize the patient nature of the classmate and thanks him for not leaving her in a world of loneliness and apologizes for having to put up with her.
Feb 1, 2020
Feb 1, 2020 at 3:21 PM UTC
it's visual anthropology, I swear.
it's everything can't you see!?
I'm on my bed.
I had a great dream about you,
I'll even say it, you said you'd make love to me,
so I anxiously listened to Pull My Daisy by Allen Ginsberg afterwards, he certainly was mad but was genius but I do care about my health, though.
So, I ordered the speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. Lincoln said a lot, he advanced a conversation but appeared to lord over the common man, the man who works in the field, the man who goes to war to fight. Martin Luther King didn't say much, although Common says freedom is free.
I smoked a cigar and poured some orange juice, too. I can now smell the cigar and enjoy orange juice. I saw a white bug outside and felt deep. The specific kind, unknowable. I'm nervous tho' about today. I have to be up at five AM. I could sleep more but I won't, instead I'll write a clear and coherent prose-poem about the circus because I do care about my health. I will love myself and maybe take a shower because I do care about my health. Molly Casey, who knows, I forgive you if you forgive me, and if whoever said "ugh" apologizes, I'll be happy. But first, or later, we'll have to accept that life is unfair, and that you have to be professional to make it through.
Here, look it, I'll tell you everything and more, and all the time, if you tell me I'm sane and beautiful.
How badly do you want bad? I want bad, sometimes. I want good more often that's why I do this dear Molly Casey. And when you said you'd sleep with me, did you think? No, I don't think you thought and I don't think you mean it. No, when you said you'd make love to me, in my dream, did you think? No, I don't think you did. But know, you inspired me. As a conciliation for my inability to be profound, or for being too profound, or too much of a thinker, or for being overly cautious, I want you to know that biology is interesting and that when I write several words down in my poem book and in my phone to use later, I think I'm working.
Here are those words:
1. faced
2. changed
3. is
4. cognitive
5. multiple
6. vision
6. droplet
7. positive everyday experience
8. I lie
9. ought to listen to that song
9. cause
10. zeal
11. prudence
12. in the dust
13. self-criticism
14. work
15. chill Castro
16. not SA - SF although SA isn't bad
17. me
18. my friends
19. All encompass dropper
20. Only human
21. All too human
2:38 AM December 12th 2018
Dec 12, 2018
Dec 12, 2018 at 6:54 AM UTC
I sit and swing
Back and forth, Back and forth
as I hear the screaming of my sister
playing in my head all over again.
I hear the sound of
her bones breaking as his
foot connects with her leg.
Back and forth, Back and forth.
I hear his tone change
from violent to pained
as he apologizes and tells her
he loves her.
Back and forth, Back and forth.
I hear her beg for forgiveness
and promise him that she
will never try and leave him again.
Back and forth, Back and forth.
I push with more force
as I see the images in my mind.
Back and forth, Back and forth.
I see her and my niece
coming to dinner with bruises
they had tried to hide.
Back and forth, back and forth.
I see him glare at her
and put his hand on her shoulder
to pull her back
whenever she tries to speak
to another man.
Back and forth, Back and forth.
I see her in the hospital bed,
countless tubes and wires coming out of her
trying to keep her alive.
Back and forth, Back and forth.
I sit and swing
Back and forth, Back and forth
and stare at the sea of black down the hill.
the only color comes from a bouquet of wet
flowers on the fresh grave.
Back and forth, back and forth.
Dec 9, 2015
Dec 9, 2015 at 1:58 PM UTC
Robert comes in and tells me about how a bunch of his classmates killed his teacher
It was a freak accident
He says her baby died too
His eyes are deep brown wells
That drain when he is confused
I don’t understand
So I call his school
It was raining
A truck carrying steel poles for construction
Lost one on the road
At the same time that she never saw it coming
She saw it coming
I ask him why he thought that
And he tells me that he goes to the Freak School
And freaks have accidents all the time
When steel meets steel
There is always a fire
Always a spark
Always pressure
Snapping
Grinding
Melting to make harder
The process of building is violent
When he is upset he smashes things
Maybe in the same way people who want to learn
Take things apart
It is in the putting back together
The we understand what it is to be whole
He smashes his own head through a wall
So I hold him violently
His head hits mine and my nose bleeds
Every fight I have ever been in
My nose has bled
With my arms around him
I slide his boots off with my feet
His feet are large
He lumbers with them
I hold him as still
As I can
He hits his head again
Maybe so someone will
Put it back together
He says
Why is Emily so mean to me?
Sisters are just supposed to love their brothers
Sisters are just supposed to love their brothers
I call him Bootsie
Tell him I love him
Though I am squeezing him so hard
He passes out
He apologizes two days later
I tell him
Brothers are always supposed to forgive their brothers
I toast to him in my head
Here’s to becoming whole
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 4:10 PM UTC
I am from a Saturday afternoon living room overflowing with the sounds of Fleetwood Mac, John Lennon and Bob Dylan.
I am from home cooked meals, roaring laughter at the dinner table and short tempered Italians.
I am from Frank Sinatra singalongs, Lifetime movies and swimming lessons from my Mimi.
I am from my Pop’s war stories, tomato picking and ***** jokes.
I am from the grandparents that didn’t want my dad and the grandparents that did.
I am from the stoic grandmother that wasn’t involved in my mom’s life and the deadbeat grandad that didn’t seem to exist.
I am from the ten years of Catholic school, plaid skirts and polo shirts.
I am from spoon-fed customs of Catholicism every day except (coincidentally) Sunday mornings.
I am from rose scented mornings because of regretted whiskey words from the night before.
I am from words muttered impulsively, apologizes not offered graciously and too many family nights turned into family fights.
I am from cigarette infused hugs, plastered smiles and “I’ll quit tomorrow”.
I am from twenty-six years of handholding, couch cuddling and kitchen dancing.
I am from goodnight kisses, chocolate chip cookies in my lunch and red heart emoji’s in a text.
I am from love and anger and happiness and remorse.
I am from memories in the making and a future unknown.
Nov 11, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 at 2:09 PM UTC
Prompt: Persona superficially apologizes to his or her in-laws.
I’m sorry I’m not the same as you,
dressed to my best in Coco Channel, Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani.
I didn’t come from money, my baths were never in a porcelain tub,
my toilet was not made of gold.
I thought that my love for your son would be enough
to put my economic status in the past.
Yet, there is no disguising the thick line that is drawn between us,
the way the air congeals when we’re all in the same room.
I’m sorry that your eyes have been programmed to see me
for where I come from,
instead of who I have become.
It doesn’t matter to you that I have found a job worthwhile,
or that your son is not the sole provider.
You hate me anyway.
So this is my apology,
from the bottom of my heart.
Maybe someday those clouds will clear from your eyes
and you will notice that I am better for your son
than any of those stuck up *******
you call equals.
May 15, 2011
May 15, 2011 at 8:03 PM UTC
Talking about your assault
As if you are removed from it.
When someone apologizes for his unforgivable actions
Even though he was always unapologetic
I calmly reply
"It's okay"
And sometimes even with a smile on my face.
But it's not okay
Or rather
What he did to me will never be okay
And I always feel foolish after that response leaves my lips
You lie to people a say you hate him
But really
If I'm being honest
I never did
Although, my situation is different than most
Because this wasn't some vicious act of ******
But rather, a game my teenage cousin with Aspbergers
Told me to play.
Looking back,
I was fourteen once too
And I wasn't even close to perfect
I can't incriminate him based on one dire mistake.
I never wish to minimize anyone's experience with abuse
Except, of course, my own
Because making it smaller
Makes me feel more in control
Just as blaming myself used to do.
Granted, I have dealt with it
But now I remove myself from the situation when I discuss it
As if I am talking about someone else.
That way, I do not have to vividly see it in my mind.
That way, I don't have to explain
How I have to fall asleep to music
That way, I don't have to explain
How I can't have *** with the lights on
Or else I see his face.
When I say I am perfectly comfortable talking about it
I don't know if 'perfectly comfortable' reflects it as well as
I am just used to it
And I feel as though it is necessary to discuss.
I am not one to shy away from challenging topics.
While he made me stronger
Some days being strong is just too hard
And I give in to old habits
Or at least to the temptation of them.
I haven't bled from the result
Of a self-inflicted razor blade or kitchen knife
In nearly two years.
And my bulimia is better
Though I have only rid myself of that vice
Three months ago.
And yet,
Talking about my molestation seems
So routine, so standard
Which is scary
Because something that heinous should shock me more
But it doesn't.
Maybe it's because
He started an avalanche
When it came to boys using me for ***
Maybe it's because
I share the same blood
As a child-molester.
It seems as though **** culture has permeated me for so long
That it's in my DNA
Woven strand by strand
So it doesn't scare me anymore.
It all comes down to perspective
And talking about my assault from a third person perspective
Keeps my battle scars under wraps
And my mind well guarded.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 11:32 PM UTC
Snakes in the grass.
I inhale my cigarette,
knowing now what signals I missed.
I had hoped for a minute alone,
but he insisted on following me outside.
I glance up and he's watching me,
I wish he'd stop.
My checks flushed from wine,
but I am fully aware.
He is handsome.
He apologizes for kissing me,
causing my head to swim and me to fidget awkwardly.
I thought of someone else at that moment,
setting off a flutter of silent wishes.
I check my phone,
no messages and it's such a reach.
Give a man what he's after,
and he loses interest..
I sigh,
being oblivious must be a side effect of being me.
This mans muttered sentiments go unheard,
I'm only half listening to him now.
Knowing the idea of me,
is much different then having me.
I have no interest,
He's just another snake in the grass.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 2:56 AM UTC