"hellos" poems
i want you if
even for the
shortest moment
of time
even if knowing
our hellos
will also be
goodbye.
i want
you
to hold me.
Jul 6, 2010
Jul 6, 2010 at 5:21 PM UTC
We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists
and begs that,
if only for a moment,
our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.
A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.
The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.
The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.
We cannot write silence,
but we can try.
to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.
I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.
I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.
I love to hate you
Heart.
I hate to love you too.
I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.
May 22, 2018
May 22, 2018 at 10:50 AM UTC
I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all you possess.
I wish you enough hellos
to get you through the final goodbye.
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 3:22 AM UTC
It’s been three and a half months since we last spoke,
really spoke, not just guilty hellos
and scattered half-hearted pleas
And it’s not you, it’s never you
it’s me it’s me it’s me,
but you love
me
you love
me
you love
me
And my head has forgotten what it feels like,
but I know my heart is safe with you
Because you’ve never stopped chasing after me
and I’m tired of looking at my feet, telling myself
I’ll be okay without you, trying to navigate
through a thick forest at night,
pretending I don’t have matches at
my fingertips
You are the only thing
that has ever made me feel truly whole
I’m sorry I’ve kept my eyes shut so tight,
but I’m here now and I love you and I miss you
And I don’t want to keep living
like fragments of a person anymore
I’m Yours.
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 11:43 AM UTC
To the teachers who never really cared and ignored my problems;
To my fellow ***** “misfits”, etc. Who will no doubt receive more abuse upon my passing, as my tormentors will no longer have me to push around;
To those who never cared, never spoke, probably never knew my name;
To the one true friend, whose caring was the only thing that prevented this event from happening sooner;
To the God, if he does exist, who chose to play a cruel, cruel joke on me when he placed me where he did and surrounded me with so many uncaring faces;
What about my teachers? Will they be sorry to see another student become a statistic? Certainly the administration and Principal will mourn, as my death will not reflect well on them as an institution. Well, I apologize for making the statistics for your administration worse. But I don’t expect an apology for the false sympathies of people.
As for my fellow students, those who made a more significant impact on my life, I know better than to expect my tormentors to mourn.
There’s another group I have not yet addressed: those not like me who left me alone. Or should I say ignored me. I appreciate you sparing me any further harassment, but your inaction, your withheld hellos and how are you’s did more hurt than any name calling. Your inaction effectively excluded me from student life, from the human race. You left me isolated and alone, and no words I could say can convey to you the suffering you caused. I could name names, but in doing so, I would do more now for you than you ever did for me in life.
I do not know what awaits me when I get down off this rope. Will there be a void? Or will I come face to face with God? I just don’t care anymore. If you’re anything like your people, I wouldn’t want to know you. You preached to love one another, yet I’ve felt everything except love from Christians. Even if I knew you were different, well, I'd still reject you. You have left your “followers” to treat people like me poorly. You have allowed so many of the people you “love”, including me, to suffer. So you want me to trust you with my life? I don’t want to spend eternity with a careless deity like you, or with the company you keep.
I’m trying to watch TV but I don’t know what I’m watching. It’s so lonely here. I want to sleep but it just won’t come. I’m so tired of hurting and being alone.
I hope that with my death, there'll be a wider awareness for child abuse and the effects it could have on a person. That's the only wish I have right now. A lot of people will be hurt with my passing, disappointed even, or maybe it won't matter. But I'd like to believe, no matter how much of a ****** up person I am, I died for a cause greater and bigger than myself. That's the only consolation that I have right now.
So that’s it. That’s me. Leaving the world to be a better place.
Goodbye - T
© Copyright Tyler Atherton
Sep 23, 2018
Sep 23, 2018 at 6:41 AM UTC
My periods turn to semicolons
My suicide notes to poetry
My goodbyes became hellos
The blades turn to sunflowers
And the bullets, a rose
My heart still is broken
But the pieces have been found
Death isn’t for me anymore
What is, in the here and now
I still don’t feel enough
But I am alive
And that’s enough to say
Today is not the day I die.
Nov 15, 2019
Nov 15, 2019 at 2:14 PM UTC
Yes! I'm insecure
Coz I know what it is
to have loved and lost
When you give your everything
and you are left with nothing
Yes! I'm insecure
Coz I know what it is
When you give your best
and it isn't yet enough
Yes! I'm insecure
Coz I know what it is
When your all day conversations
turn to formal hi's and hellos
Yes! I'm insecure
Coz I know what it is
To see it slipping away
When everything perfect
turns astray
Yes! I'm insecure
not coz of lack of trust
But coz I know
it doesn't take time
for love to turn dust
Yes! I'm insecure
But you should be glad
Coz when I stop
It'll make you mad
And when you begin to get insecure
You'll know what it is
To love, to hold
And to know when to let go....
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 12:14 PM UTC
Find me across the room,
I am the silent morning.
I've known your name for centuries,
but mines still just a foreign language to you.
My tongue is tied
and you're lost in translation,
But that's just how these things will remain.
My body sings every time
because your smile is like a melody.
You light me up
shining brighter than the moon and stars.
I'll follow your voice to the beginning of our first hellos.
You're a perfect afternoon.
We could sing away evenings with the radio.
Drive to places only we would know
where there would be nobody but you and me.
So please won't you come talk to me
because you see my words are lost
and my knees are shaking like trees in the wind.
I hope it doesn't come as a surprise that you light up the room.
Every time I see you I hold my breath
and my mind goes blank.
So I suppose I'll just always be on the other side of the room,
loving you from afar.
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 4:14 PM UTC
They will not be the same next time. The sayings
so cute, just slightly off, will be corrected.
Their eyes will be more skeptical, plugged in
the more securely to the worldly buzz
of television, alphabet, and street talk,
culture polluting their gazes' dawn blue.
It makes you see at last the value of
those boring aunts and neighbors (their smells
of summer sweat and cigarettes, their faces
like shapes of sky between shade-giving leaves)
who knew you from the start, when you were zero,
cooing their nothings before you could be bored
or knew a name, not even you own, or how
this world brave with hellos turns all goodbye.
10.1k
i’m too shy
to tell you
how i feel
so i’ll hide behind
timid smiles
and soft hellos
i’m afraid
if i ask you
“what do you think of me?”
your reply will be
“i don’t.”
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 6:40 PM UTC
Strangers known
by shared room
Honey voiced , high cheek *****
no less, no more
Licorice words pounding
on a chest
scrambling to wrap fingers
around a single perfumed breath
Two days dragging on
pulled through mud
stuck in fog
seconds are hours too long
Then ringing came
answered by drops of syrup
pouring out a reply, yes!
drinking it in with big gulps.
Mirror reflects practiced hellos
swishing hair put in place
teeth and lips splitting
breaking through stone face
Pacing back and forth
frantic footsteps pounding
crushing carpet in a line
south, north, south, north
No ring, no change
red blushes fad grey
phone silent, gaze up
stare blank
Is the swooshing hair the wrong way?
Is the grin too toothy?
Is the face not constructed right?
Stood up and let down
sailor on a ship
already sunk and drifting
off the starboard bow
Stood up and let drown
by the honey voice
the high cheek bones
Failure in hindsight sighing
“I should have known
I should have known…”
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 3:31 AM UTC
A beautiful mind
Hidden away
Behind walls
You built
And quiet hellos
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 3:34 AM UTC
So this is her life .... Has been and probably will be forever.. Because She will always be depressed Sheannice who can never see the fun in things.. The girl who kills to make others happy because she herself cannot .... Pushes everyone away because she's afraid of Someone who will stay... She hides the things that hurt her most because re living them brings only more pain than it should.. Getting close to people is never a plan because nothing lasts forever, trapped in a world of what if's, struggling each day to stop the things that put her at the edge of goodbyes rather than hellos, smiles hide the pain, something no one can explain
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 1:06 PM UTC
At birth, we boarded the train of life and met our parents, and we believed that they would always travel by our side. However, at some station, our parents would step down from the train, leaving us on life's journey alone.
As time goes by, some significant people will board the train: siblings, other children, friends, and even the love of our life.
Many will step down and leave a permanent vacuum. Others will go so unnoticed that we won't realize that they vacated their seats! This train ride has been a mixture of joy, sorrow, fantasy, expectations, hellos, goodbyes, and farewells.
A successful journey consists of having a good relationship with all passengers, requiring that we give the best of ourselves. The mystery that prevails is that we do not know at which station we ourselves will step down. Thus, we must try to travel along the track of life in the best possible way -- loving, forgiving, giving, and sharing.
When the time comes for us to step down and leave our seat empty -- we should leave behind beautiful memories for those who continue to travel on the train of life.
Let’s remember to thank our Creator for giving us life to participate in this journey.
I close by thanking you for being one of the passengers on my train!
Sep 18, 2017
Sep 18, 2017 at 9:33 PM UTC
Exaggeration is a writer’s best friend,
aside from a paper and pen.
If it’s a only a small river,
we see a massive sea
and when they turn around,
we watch them leave.
There is one cloud
but we see the whole sky,
they say hellos and
we only hear that one goodbye.
Exaggeration is a writer’s best friend,
we don't notice beginnings, we write of the end.
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 7:59 PM UTC
I'd like to catch a songbird when I visit.
One that only lives near your house,
One I've never heard.
I'd like to catch a songbird,
And have it sing for me
The songs you hear each morning.
I'd like to watch the moon when it rises.
Lifting itself over the earth, reflecting
As it passes my window.
I'd like to watch the moon,
The same white moon
That you might be watching tonight.
I'd like to hold the wind in a mason jar.
The warm little south wind
That chuckles and breezes northward.
I'd like to hold it down,
Whisper my hellos into its gales,
And let it go darting off northwards -
Whistling and running like a fugitive
To you.
Jun 16, 2011
Jun 16, 2011 at 3:11 AM UTC
Yesterday it rained.
‘ , ‘,/ ‘ , ‘ ,\’ ,‘ , ‘ , ’
, ‘ ,\ , ‘ ,‘ , ‘/‘, ‘, , ‘
‘ ‘ ‘ /‘ , ‘ , ‘ \’ ‘, ‘ ,
‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘
Forcing my lights to power off.
Last month we planted a seed.
We fantasized about our future SUN(or)FLOWER.
But lightening struck late last night.
Destroying my garden,
Snatching away my sunshine,
Leaving me trapped under heavy rain clouds.
Pouring teardrops of pain on my window.
Filling the skies with thundering disappointments,
As our paper plane came crashing down.
Dissolving in sorrow-filled puddles before our eyes.
All too soon, there was no time left between our “Hellos” & our “Goodbyes.”
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 9:37 PM UTC
I deserve a good morning text every morning you wake up with me on your mind, not by your side.
And if I’m neither on your mind nor by your side,
I deserve a sweet goodnight.
I deserve someone who isn’t constantly reminding me of the imperfections and insecurities I have no problem struggling with when I’m alone, even if it is “just a joke.”
I deserve someone who wants to study every photograph I’ve ever taken until their eyes grow weary.
I deserve someone who asks what I’m writing, even if it is just a one word scribble on a sticky note.
I deserve answered calls.
I deserve beautiful nicknames and extravagant hellos.
I deserve flowers on my doorstep when I’ve had an awful day.
I deserve words when they’re needed and beautiful silence when they’re not.
I deserve kisses on my dry and cracked knuckles in the winter and kisses where the sweet sunshine hits the tip of my nose in the summer.
I deserve to be checked up on when I don’t reply all day long.
I deserve to be carried when I can’t bear to move.
I deserve to be looked at the way your father did when he first fell in love with your mother.
I deserve the truth no matter how hard it may be for you to tell it.
I deserve laughter even when I’ve just told the worst joke in the world.
I deserve understanding for my former ways and promises to better my future.
I deserve to be cuddled every day you have the chance.
I deserve to be the one you cry on when sadness fills your soul and I deserve to be the one you laugh with when warmth fills your heart.
I deserve for you to try to see beyond what I give.
I deserve to be seen for who I am inside, not for what’s on the out.
I deserve to be loved in a way in which could erase all the former ones who failed to love me the way you should.
I deserve to be loved, not lusted after and if one day you realize that I don’t deserve all that I do..
I deserve a cruel goodbye.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 1:48 AM UTC
I wish I knew how I felt,
but I don't.
I'm getting more and more numb,
that's not good,
that's never good.
I don't want to get erratic
and paranoid.
I don't need to feel this broken.
It's not broken.
I'm not broken.
Why?
I can't understand.
Inside myself I'm at war,
a war I don't control.
I don't know what I'm fighting for,
I only know I'm battling against myself.
But why?
I can only ask that.
Maybe if I knew where to go and find myself,
all the pieces that I've never meet.
But I don't know where to start and I'm still.
And I don't care,
I really don't because if I did I would do something,
but I don't.
I sit here and I wait,
I wait for it to go away.
And another day is born, so I can pretend everything's alright,
night arrives and all demons come out to play.
It’s all my fault.
Why do I do this?
I do it to myself and it's real.
It's not in my head anymore,
it's everywhere.
Encrypted in disastrous hellos
and peaceful goodbyes.
They are everywhere.
One day I'll have to face it all,
I won't have anywhere to run, it will either
**** me* or make me.
Aug 24, 2015
Aug 24, 2015 at 4:06 PM UTC
They walk by brisk
Covered in umbrellas
On high heels with ankles
Of no appeal
They grab the shaft
With both hands
As the wind tries to steal
Their umbrage
With agility
They skip over puddles
As I marvel
At the procession
With destined determination
They ****** on
As spiked high heels
Grapple on cobblestone
Rainy day women
In gray coats and wet umbrellas
Under overcast skies
With no hellos or goodbyes
Apr 23, 2016
Apr 23, 2016 at 1:28 AM UTC
I used to hold onto your words
that love wasn’t always on time
That maybe love
was more like a stubborn flower,
that needed many seasons to bloom
But somewhere along the lines
I realized that our hourglass was titled
That our relationship was built
on a temporary foundation;
lined with excuses
and oh so many
betrals.
And for the longest time
I began to put question marks behind
all your hellos and goodbyes?
Thinking back, I wish I listened
to all the good advice and intuition
I stuffed at the back of my closest
waiting for a later date…..
When I would realize
that you would only ever
see me as a visitor
And since you left,
I was forced to build in your absence-
a place where I learned to properly
treat the new resident
I now call my home.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 6:34 PM UTC
Wistful, cheerless,
used to be brave,
and fearless.
Liars, haters
have been walking,
around me these days.
Charming, well educated,
that's who you showed to me
before you shot me
I thought you
were charming.
I thought you
were well educated.
I thought you
needed me.
It's all gone
when you left me.
I was just looking
for some friends,
Now; I'm only looking
for the real ones.
Couldn't realize which
ones were fake before,
When did hellos start
to be called as goodbyes,
After some while, I
know which ones are.
Couldn't stand to this
anymore, faded,
Feeling so alone in
this crowded room,
Can't love like this,
it has exceeded,
Feeling like I've
overdosed. Wasted.
Every colour was taking
me back to you,
Every mark was pushing
me away from you.
Spring hasn't begun yet.
It was not warm at all.
Just cold with sadness,
darkness with secrets,
strangers with lies.
Charming strangers
are everywhere.
They've been around
for centuries.
They look like
Venus or Mars,
inside they're
like black holes.
Pluto who I've
always been.
An outsider?
no, no, no
A fighter.
☾ M. E. Kuşaslan ✩
@lightinthedarknesspoetry
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019 at 5:39 PM UTC
I don’t believe in goodbyes
I believe in hellos, smiles, and questioning whys
Goodbyes are an end, a final, a limit
Goodbyes are terminus
An eradication
I believe there is no proper end
We are cemented within a cycle
A continuum
A never-ending relationship with the world
A flowing river out of your control
Goodbyes imply permanence
A life that never changes
A dormancy
But Reality has it
You cannot fully control your goodbyes
A person can reenter your life and leave
Over and over and over
Then maybe goodbyes don’t even exist
People can exist in our memories
A perpetual reminder
A video stuck on replay
A beautiful hazy dream
I don’t believe in goodbyes
I believe in hellos, smiles, and questioning whys
If people continue to touch our lives
Leaving a lasting impact
A reason why
Then maybe goodbyes don’t even really exist
Because there is no such thing as a goodbye
Because there is no end to relationships
Because there is no end to memories
Because there is no end to love
Because there is no end to the feeling you have
We are cemented within a cycle
A continuum
And this is why I don’t believe in goodbyes
I believe in hellos, smiles, and questioning whys
Let’s embrace the idea
Yet see its amusing foolishness
Because maybe goodbyes don’t even exist
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 4:12 PM UTC
I once knew a watch-thief
Who stole for his own
He wasted the time that he
Stole on the road
But this gypsy boy finds
A young girl one day
With a garland of flowers
And a red satin waist
She came from the highway
That led to the city
Her garments conveyed
She was wealthy and pretty
The gypsy boy wore
Some old slacks and no shirt
And he would not have seen her,
But she introduced herself first
Before hellos were said
Or greetings exchanged
Years later he said
He could feel something change
As she told him of ease
That she left behind
He fell to his knees
And praised God’s good design
If love is a lifetime,
Then lend me your hand.
The sparrows are witness
That my promise stands
And now our gypsy wagon
Is off down the road
And we’ll never stop moving
Cause this is our home.
This small band of gypsies,
Now larger by one
Trundle the pathways
and roads they call home
The watch-thief reclines
with his girl in his arms
they fall quickly in love
‘Neath the light of the stars.
But if hindsight goes further
And time teaches true
There was blood in the water,
If only he knew.
She came down to his level
But took it too far
She went too far in revel
And slowly, she broke the boy’s heart.
The gypsy boy stood,
Still stock still in his shock
He ducked under the hood
Of his caravan-rock
He walked back to the city
She’d said she was from
He put it in a bag
And he drank in the slums.
If love is a lifetime,
Then when will you come?
The sparrows, our witness,
flew too close to the sun
And now my gypsy wagon
Is off down the road
And now I’ve nowhere to go
because you were my home.
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 2:41 AM UTC
I am the queen of ill fitting jeans
of infected piercings,
of thinking that blue is green,
of uneven eyeliner wings.
I am the princess of pleases
of hellos slipped through voice cracks
of drunken apologies
of forgetting to text back.
I am the countess of chaos
of a thunderdome of possible tragedy
of making too many plans
of avoiding gravity.
I am the duke of drunk texts
of fizzy lemonade drinks,
of lingering regret,
of caring too much about what you think.
I am the queen of ill fitting jeans,
of ruling my life with a clumsy grace,
of being a storm without tea,
and I'll reign with a smile on my ******* face.
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 9:08 PM UTC