"compartmentalize" poems
Everybody has their story
I want to here them all at once
To feel them all at once
With a curious disconnect
A clinical warmth
To compartmentalize with a surgeon's precision
Then when my heart is full,
Burst open and bathe everyone in empathy
But not emotion
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 12:49 AM UTC
My Heart and Mind had a discussion one day,
About a man that they both knew quite well.
The heated discussion continued for hours,
Both with arguments meant to compel.
A debate ensued between the two,
With each taking a different perspective.
The Heart believed the man to be true,
And the Mind thought he was deceptive.
Heart started the discussion with an obvious point,
"He is sweet and gentle like no man before."
Mind responded smugly, "That's great in the moment
but how does he act after she's walked out the door?"
Heart countered, already knowing the point being made.
"Sure, he may not be able to write or call;
He is busy with constant demands of his time.
What he feels in his heart matters most of all."
"I disagree," and Mind continued to say,
"Actions mean far more than words alone.
It is when words and actions are considered together
that a man's true feelings are shown."
"He has to compartmentalize to get through the day."
Heart continued to defend his intentions,
When they are together his feelings are real,
but her insecurities span many dimensions."
"It's funny you would mention compartmentalizing.
Apparently your memory isn't as sharp as mine,
He was once quoted as saying this was not his strength,
proof that his statements don't always align."
"You are cynical, suspicious and guarded."
Heart was clearly tired of this dispute,
"Those traits are clouding your judgement.
He is genuine and telling the truth."
"I think you are overlooking the obvious but
I'll relax and stop doubting his intentions
if he makes an effort to send a simple sign."
Heart and Mind both wanting to prove their point
and have the bragging rights of superiority.
Mind sure that the man would disappoint her;
Heart confident in his genuine sincerity.
Both waited patiently for some type of gesture,
Something to demonstrate that he really does care.
Heart began to worry and whispered to herself,
"Stay calm and trust that it's not just another affair."
Patience prevailed and an email arrived,
just as Heart had hoped and prayed.
Mind, although disappointed by being proved wrong,
was relieved and no longer afraid.
Trust and calm filled her spirit when thinking of him,
but it was both that won in the end.
Maybe they were more than temporary lovers
and could also be permanent friends.
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 10:45 AM UTC
I am soft and mandible:
fresh clay, the inside of an oyster, the belly of an armadillo.
vulnerable. tender. the anti-sharp.
everything is blurred. dulled. hidden
behind a gossamer haze and ambient noise.
a photo out of focus. one eye closed and ten feet back.
dizzy. so dizzy. disoriented.
there is no logic here. no rules. no laws.
and that’s what makes it horrible and incomprehensible.
the transplant recipient still dies. the man in perfect health
suddenly has cancer.
the proned patient flipped back to supine for intubation
codes and dies immediately.
nonsense. it’s all nonsense.
it's easier to take a breath and
compartmentalize.
Aug 15, 2021
Aug 15, 2021 at 8:37 PM UTC
I hate myself
I've lead a life that a lot of people don't understand
feeling the need compartmentalize my life to the point I don't even know who I am
stopped wanting ***
even now find it crass and crude
just another way for people to use me
afterwards feel see thru and ugly and gross
wilted sunflower to be culled from yr bed
even if mutual with ample loquacious lovers
I curl up in ball
don't let them look at me
in ugly failure skin clown mask
the **** of all yr jokes
'he's great but he's quiet'
talk on
everyone just seems so cruel
I weak like veal
tender for the taking
fry me up
straight from womb to pan
cowards make the best cuts
of wet meat to ****
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
I wear my heart on my sleeve I guess
Easily dirtied sometimes
It’s not hard to see when something affects me
The steps drag a little more
My gaze turns slightly downward
I might lose my place
Or forget where I’m walking
I can try to hide, try to cover it
It’s never worked
To my knowledge
It’s good I guess
To retain such close ties to your emotions
But at the same time
I’m so easily hurt
I wish I could do otherwise
Compartmentalize
But I could never hide from who I am
Mar 7, 2010
Mar 7, 2010 at 6:52 PM UTC
My heart weighs heavy
Tipping this scale so far
Until I hit the ground
So unsure if it's the alcohol
Or these feelings
That keep me so far down
I just want to breathe
And I want to hold you
But I don't know what that means
I compartmentalize my feelings so much
All tucked sweetly away in the empty crawl spaces
Until I look in the mirror and don't know who I see
I want to feel something
Anything but this sadness leaking out
Of all the holes in all the closed doors
My mind is a maze without a map
Even though I've created it myself
I still don't know the ceilings from the floors
How can I look at your face and not hear her words?
"Just stop hurting people" she says
Trust me baby all I do is try
I try so hard to not leave scars on these beautiful souls
My instinct is to help the broken
Though as soon as I'm ready to leave they're ready to die
Babe I promise that I see you
I haven't known you long but that's never been the issue
The problem is that I can't see myself
I'll feel this love for someone one minute
And the next I could ice them out for days at a time
Left to wonder if it's actually me or just the liquor off the shelf
I don't believe in God but I'm praying now
Begging someone to help salvage this broken soul
Yet I'm still surrounded by silence
In this life you have to save yourself
But we all need help sometimes
And too much pressure leads to self-directed violence
I'm trying so hard
I just want to be ok
I just want to be free
Then I get nights like these
Choking on this random sadness
Left to question if this life is really for me
But I'm trying
And I'm growing
And this will pass one day
I just hope until then
You love me enough
To want to stay
Mar 29, 2018
Mar 29, 2018 at 4:19 AM UTC
Labotomize these thumbs,
they scroll more than they strum.
I don't mean to be dumb,
but I can't respond back so I hum,
and you won't hear me.
No, you can't see the words that I write.
I'm sure you'd only
be tickled,
If you knew that I think of you all night.
Because I can't sleep, love.
And I can only touch me right,
Yeah, that's right.
Just me, love.
Hope I can keep up with this fight.
And I know you don't really care,
and you haven't got some spare
feelings left to share
and if there are, they're barely there.
So drop the pity,
I'm mad you got to hear me whine.
How unsexy.
I'm supposed to just be doing fine.
I'll compartmentalize,
put it in a box and tie it with twine.
while you're liking every post of mine.
I'll compartmentalize.
While I reread your every line.
Dec 8, 2017
Dec 8, 2017 at 8:08 PM UTC
My love of poetry is too great
for Philosophy, physics to glue the skin under my toes
to the floor.
A waif, only dandelion fluff,
I tease the turbid puddles
of wearying intellect.
Life is too beautiful
to compartmentalize,
to classify,
to set unsurmountable borders
on the pleasure that only poets and hopeless romantics comprehend.
Disoriented sight/smell/taste/touch/hearing-
backwards rainbows and the upside-down
scent of oatmeal cookies,
the melancholy of a forever-stilled honey bee,
are more golden than yellow metal,
and certain
more knowledge than a heaping pile
of doctors/lawyers/senators/scientists.
reality's only denizens
are Dreamers.
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:54 PM UTC
Dear dearly beloved,
It's me, again.
I'm sorry for the
Pain and sorrow.
I just want to let
You all know that
There's only
So much lower
I can go.
There's a bullet
With my name on it,
But I don't want
To pull the trigger.
I promise I'm not a quitter,
But I'm far from
Being a winner.
I'm always pulled in
Every direction,
And I feel I fail
Every time, stepping
In the wrong direction.
It's hard to compartmentalize
And section my emotions,
I'm always one step away
From jumping off a ledge,
And it's getting harder
Just to hold on.
Dear dearly beloved,
Pray that I make it through,
So my soul doesn't get
Crushed by the weight
Of the world,
And delivered to the underworld.
Jun 7, 2024
Jun 7, 2024 at 1:23 PM UTC
You cannot just give up religion for lent,
and expect no consequences.
I am in every moment you discard.
You run on insistent consistency,
analytical calculations,
scraps of math equations
pieced together to
form your
functioning
But, you cannot rationalize away my
emotions.
My heart and my affection.
You cannot compartmentalize me,
shave off my soft curved edges
with a butter knife to fit the
labeled angular box you have created for yourself.
I still count even if you’re
making things even.
But I understand,
sometimes my hugs last 3
seconds too long.
--
Luke,
There is no picture
on a box to tell you what you’re
supposed to look like
when all this is over.
You might have built yourself,
but I was born.
I am more than a body.
I am your past,
your perspective
your platelets
your pacemaker
I will never truly
leave.
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 11:36 AM UTC
how many ways must i give you up?
grief is just a sport for lucid and the lame.
how many boughs till i break this falling-
to the mossy hill below?
where grief is just a shallow pool
with reflections of me beautifully crying
We ugly mourners live to talk.
selfish shallow pool of grief-
my yellow rainboots fall madly
upon my mirrored head.
i am just a puddle
and i wear it like a man because
sometimes...
grief is just a tailored suit
all dressed up in pawpaws best
neatly pressed.
the seams of your life sewn in a straight line.
it's easy to compartmentalize the times you weren't your greatest you.
in death you leave the lovely
behind
and take away the rest.
in life you leave the death
behind and take away the lovely such a wasted irony.
grief is valentine.
wont you be mine pinks and whites? sugared promises of time.
grief is a lovers candy heart. sentiments on marble etch the total of our time.
grief of mine, such weather beaten blanket. when did she become my lover?
cast aside your sadness.
grief is a friend of mine, grief is a friend of mine.
Sahn 4/22/2014
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 10:19 PM UTC
I get easily annoyed,
Being the only sober person along
On this tirade
Of ******* kisses
And malformed care.
I spend my time easily convincing myself
That the only way I will believe he loves me
Is if he splits his bleeding heart
Over my chalice
When they display my body to him
At the morgue,
Toe tag so lifeless against my sole.
I think of my body not as a temple
But a bear trap,
Sprung or in the process of springing,
His ankle twisted in it's teeth.
We walked into this together
Knowing each others baggage
But suspecting there to be hidden compartments.
With ease
I compartmentalize my anguish
And move one,
My emotions just a simplicity
Too enticing in their entirety
To be dealt with accordingly.
I have brought myself to believe that he loves me
But only in his frontal lobe,
My life and personality
Being at the root of who he is today.
I say ******* kisses because he is addicting
But I say ******* kisses because
He is deadly.
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 11:43 PM UTC
my thoughts are on fire
my stomach is burning
i’m roasting my matches
to swallow my options
internalize bad dreams
consider the source
forgiving old flames
compartmentalize
planning on empty
execute with intent
Oct 17, 2015
Oct 17, 2015 at 10:56 PM UTC
I am a global citizen, a temporary resident of this earth,
I barely exist but I refuse to be anything less.
I refuse to bury my head in the sand behind borders.
Borders are just ideas, right?
Ideas that compartmentalize people and places,
It's easier to be apathetic to foreign faces.
It's easier to be controlled and lulled into the hamster wheel that keeps the world going round in the right direction for those with the money.
As long as we run and don't ask questions the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.
But the worlds' pain is my pain, and their pain is your pain-- wake up.
Children are dying in horrific ways, people are suffering, and the real irony of it all is that it doesn't have to be this way.
While I'm writing this, the old boys politician clubs of our "democratic" countries are smoking cigars, driving foreign cars and talking about the weather.
Oct 14, 2015
Oct 14, 2015 at 9:32 PM UTC
Time is a number,
A value we have denoted to a moment perceived as the now,
Its presence doctrines society and its functionality,
A fickle means of conceptualizing the abyss.
Time is but a construct,
A bid to control what is everlasting,
A scattered ploy to compartmentalize actions and obligations,
A means of justification.
Time is arbitrary,
For the essence is eternal,
Our soul is formless,
As the creation is infinite,
Relinquish your mind to this celestial current,
And harmonize to its flow surging within.
Mar 5, 2021
Mar 5, 2021 at 11:28 AM UTC
Do you put me away in a box
Just the way you used to tidy away your toys as a child
Did your Mother say ...
*One thing at a time
Put away what isn't needed right now*
So here I am
Sitting in my box
Waiting
Yep I understand
It would be easier by far if I didn't maybe
You are busy
With responsibilities
Your world becomes smaller
I think when I saw you last just for a moment
I realised how hard you find it all
It is an art
Sharing yourself with more than one person at a time
Sharing your time
I did give a sideways comment on the fact that
if this was a permanent thing
I would never see you
You assured me you would be better at organising things if that was the case
It makes me wonder if that is true
Are you really able to tip all your toys in the middle of the carpet
Are you able to de-compartmentalize your relationships
Or will you pack your toys away tidy at the end of the day
Would mother still agree that this is such a good way to be?
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 10:12 AM UTC
I couldn’t define it.
Words tricked from my lips
A babbling brook of incoherence
Grasping for phrases, attempting to capture
Something so perfectly intangible.
I couldn’t build walls around it
Hold onto and confine it
With explanations and reasoning
Boundaries of sanity, a cushion of protection
I just couldn't find a way
To nestle it away safely
Within the recesses of my soul
Amongst the other “boxes” I’ve created
To compartmentalize life.
May 11, 2013
May 11, 2013 at 12:11 PM UTC
Every story is a sad story.
Everything is sad.
Too many tragedies, not enough time.
They pile up on top of one another,
Clamoring for attention.
Bombing tops earthquake tops ****** tops ****
Burying us under the weight of too many
Bodies, their cold eyes pleading
See me, hear me, remember me but
Every story is a sad story
So no one stays sad very long.
When sadness is ever-present it becomes normal.
So now we don’t even blink, just
Scroll through our newsfeeds thinking:
The world is horrible and what’s for dinner
Simultaneously. When reality is too sad
Sadness becomes a simulation, acted out
On the stage of nightly news broadcasts and
Candelight vigils, as if:
If we all just felt sad enough for long enough
That would solve anything. As if:
If we could compartmentalize our sadness into
New national holidays and moments of silence
We could stop feeling everything so sharply.
But I am running out of room in my closet for charity t-shirts.
Every story is a sad story.
I am starting to become cynical.
One child dead from a drive-by shooting is no longer newsworthy.
Give me more bodies, more pictures
of distraught mothers crying,
More suffering.
We have fought too many wars in too many places to remember
that the bombs in Boston that shut down the entire city
Are an everyday occurrence everywhere else.
Except sometimes they are our bombs.
But rarely are they our children.
Every story is a sad story.
Everything is sad.
I am not sure which is worse: constant sadness
Or no sadness;
Constant tragedy or constant denial.
I am becoming too sad to write anymore.
The world is too horrible.
What’s for dinner?
Apr 21, 2013
Apr 21, 2013 at 11:36 PM UTC
Sitting on the floor of my apartment
Eating peanut butter from the jar with
My fingers, I don’t want to ***** a spoon.
Surrounded by boxes filled with
Belongings that don’t feel like mine.
On my way home, boxes packed into
My mother’s car. I would have driven
Myself but two months prior fate
Pushed my pretty red car off the
Road with a U.S. mail truck. *****
Unload the boxes in a room that
Looks like a memorial to childhood.
The memory of summers past are
What I cling to now, for the next three
Months feel like someone else’s time.
Look for a job. Look for a car.
Look for signs that he moved on.
Look for an excuse not to and
Go to the beach by myself instead.
Look for a place for storing boxes.
I should unpack. Boxes arrogant
And weighted to compartmentalize
All the expectations I would rather not
Remember and disappointment
I am tired of looking at.
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 9:03 PM UTC
My Broken Life
I am a mask, trying to conceal all the pain I'm in.
On the surface I may seem perfectly happy, with a job, home, and family.
However, I can say with certainty that my life is far from perfect.
I compartmentalize my actions based on the needs of the moment. I am removed from it all, coping.
What I carry around inside me, not being okay, is almost too much to bear...but I do it.
The problem is me. It's always been me.
Memories alone can break a person's spirit.
I think if I committed suicide that I wouldn't go to heaven. The one place I believe I would be happy.
If there is a purgatory, I am in it. It's called life.
My broken life.
Randy Mcpeek
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 3:06 PM UTC
Imagine burning by fire,
hustled bones piling up, a sanctum
seeped in dust.
It his here where I compartmentalize
the fire, its embers and heat
stacked neatly on hotbed coals, a flame with
labels, numbers, a name.
I keep the space neat and airy,
I have room for all of the fires
as well as some extra storage
yet to have a specific set purpose.
In this room of fire I read
constantly. I am currently on Marx, and
my next read is Durkheim's
Suicide, which is much less strenuous
than one would believe, having been
familiar with Durkheim but
not his work. All of this clatter and
sociology.
The fires remain lit, I have no need
to run the heater this winter.
Fire, in all its compartments,
organized and labeled as it is,
and still, with my world in such a state,
I cannot hold fire in boxes.
I am blindly adding fuel.
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 4:48 PM UTC
******
Why couldn't this come earlier this
Hustle and bustle
The need to compartmentalize my existence
Only to find new ground and plant roots
It's not that I didn't want to move
It's the packing
The lacking
And the living out of boxes
That **** me off
If I could find ground worth staying rooted in that would be nice
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 1:14 PM UTC
I'd be such a good girl for you,
making sure to cram and compartmentalize every piece of me
into whatever shape you'd prefer;
I've never known any better.
It's what I've always been told.
If I'm not here to make you happy,
then what is my purpose?
I've never known to take care of myself,
but I would take care of you in a heartbeat.
I don't know how to stop,
I don't know how to love correctly,
and I definitely don't know how to be loved.
If I keep giving,
what does it mean if you give back?
I think I'd feel nauseated knowing
you spent so much energy into me.
I'm not your sink, I'm the output source
and I'd never let it be the other way around.
Jan 4, 2022
Jan 4, 2022 at 12:04 AM UTC