"learning" poems
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
146.4k
You are
delicious
And I am
greedy.
You are
generous
And I am
needy.
You are
experienced
And I am
learning.
You are
flammable
And I am
burning.
Sep 9, 2010
Sep 9, 2010 at 1:51 AM UTC
Damaged people are dangerous because they know how to survive,
And if you've never been damaged you don't know how it feels to be alive,
See struggle is the sauce that gives success its flavour,
when life kicked you down it was doing you a favour.
Cos it's in your darkest hour, not in prosperity
that you will realise your true ability.
Life dunks you in deep waters not to drown you but to cleanse you.
And that's just the beginning of what it will put you through.
But it's chiselling you down, you won't deflate.
It's not wearing you thin, it's getting you to your fighting weight.
Prosperity makes monsters, adversity makes men.
I believe when you reach the top life will yank you back down again.
You didn't break down, you just had a flat tyre
so get back up and relight that fire.
keep it burning and churning at the pit of your heart
and keep on learning and yearning and never fall apart.
Stare life in the eyes
and say "no matter how many times
my spirit won't break if my drive never dies"
So throw me a burden I won't lose my composure,
It's for this very reason that life gave me shoulders.
Get better not bitter
This weather will wither
I'll turn wounds into wisdom
sadness into spirit
tears to tenacity
I will never quit it
Take a deep breath and concentrate your stare
because a road with no obstacles never took you anywhere.
Oct 26, 2012
Oct 26, 2012 at 6:40 AM UTC
Everyone talks about depression as if they know it.
But what they don’t know is that depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway,
it’s feeling the blood dripping down your skin and having the sick thought of “Oh, look how beautiful the red is” (they always say red is my color).
Depression is lying on your bed for hours on end, salt tracks lining your face like the scars on your ankles, staring at your ceiling tracing patterns in the paint and accepting death in life with this hole in your chest because death is a reward, an escape from this pain you deserve to feel.
Depression is writing sick poetry on skin and publishing it with scars, cutting on ankles, not wrists because you’re scared you’ll get in trouble but you so desperately need to be seen, and never are.
Depression is writing the word “alone” and seeing the word “home”, accepting the pain like a gift because you deserve it.
Depression is admitting suicidal thoughts to paper and not to people, and loving the broken things, hoping to tie them together, thinking maybe things will get better, but knowing that’s just wishful thinking.
Depression is hearing your mother call you monster and disgusting through the too-thin walls of your door when she thinks you can’t hear, and then telling you to your face that you have no right to cry, as if sadness is a privilege and you’re so pathetic that you don’t deserve it.
Depression is shutting yourself up in your room and hearing your family laughing downstairs because you feel like you can’t be a part of them and learning at a young age to love family always but that family isn’t always love
Depression is wanting to take love and your heart and break them into tiny little pieces and throw them into waves, to throw them away
Depression is a foot when the shoe hasn’t been broken in yet, is you when you haven’t broken life in, is seeing happy people and thinking they all look the same, like the front covers of magazines with smiles reaching their eyes when yours can’t.
Depression is wishing you could package your smiles into tiny little piles and hand them to people more deserving of them because you know you’re wasting them with half-assed lines of “I’m fine”
Depression is having to view your past as if it wasn’t yours, because to accept it as reality is to accept finality of your life through suicide.
Depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway and when you close the door out of fear it keeps pounding, possessive, ****** and when you open the door out of anger you shout, “I’M SCARED” to thin air but your voice comes out as a whisper.
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 8:34 PM UTC
A lover asked his beloved,
Do you love yourself more
than you love me?
The beloved replied,
I have died to myself
and I live for you.
I’ve disappeared from myself
and my attributes.
I am present only for you.
I have forgotten all my learning,
but from knowing you
I have become a scholar.
I have lost all my strength,
but from your power
I am able.
If I love myself
I love you.
If I love you
I love myself.
47.4k
Mountains on mountains erupt from the earth's chambers of burdened lava and collapse back into their hellish landscape just as quickly
Waves assault the beach in frenzied randomness, striking their mark upon the sand and washing it away in the same breath
Birds flail about, learning to sail the clouds while dolphins soar their vast expanse of golden sea
People in suits war with each other for ****** glory, sign a strip of paper agreeing to stop, then ignorantly carry on their violent pastiche
Far away, tucked behind his world of scattered phrases and pretentious works of art, the writer observes all this
P
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Apr 21, 2018
Apr 21, 2018 at 5:22 AM UTC
I am slowly learning to disregard the insatiable desire to be special. I think it began, the soft piano ballad of epiphanic freedom that danced in my head, when you mentioned that “Van Gogh was her thing” while I stood there in my overall dress, admiring his sunflowers at the art museum. And then again on South Street, while we thumbed through old records and I picked up Morrissey and you mentioned her name like it was stuck in your teeth. Each time, I felt a paintbrush on my cheeks, covering my skin in grey and fading me into a quiet, concealed background that hummed “everything you’ve ever loved has been loved before, and everything you are has already been,” on an endless loop. It echoed in your wrists that I stared at, walking (home) in the middle of the street, and I felt like a ghost moving forward in an eternal line, waiting to haunt anyone who thought I was worth it. But no one keeps my name folded in their wallet. Only girls who are able to carve their names into paintings and vinyl live in pockets and dust bunnies and bathroom mirrors. And so be it, that I am grey and humming in the background. I am forgotten Sundays and chipped fingernail polish and borrowed sheets. I’m the song you’ll get stuck in your head, but it will remind you of someone else. I am 2 in the afternoon, I am the last day of winter, I am a face on the sidewalk that won’t show up in your dreams. And I am everywhere, and I am nothing at all.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 12:34 PM UTC
Our parents are always telling us , you have to go to school, that you'll learn everything you need to know before you're ready for the big world, and that'll you need it to get into your dream job
But now a days our education isn't about learning, its about passing
Our education now isn't the same as it used to be
It teaches us that if you're not at a certain grade level, you will not succeed
That if you don't meet a certain criteria, maybe you're not for fit the course
This education system doesn't teach us whats really important for the big world
It doesn't teach us how to live, how to do taxes or how to survive
It never taught us the living expenses or how to buy a home
Never taught us what to expect once we leave for college or how to balance our schedules
No. It only taught us homework, about a plant cell, about tangents and circumferences
It taught us that homework is more important than family
That it's more important than being a kid and having a life
It taught us that if you spend time with loved once and didn't do your work, you're setting yourself up for failure
They pile us with work it feels like we cant breath
They never once thought of the other class assignments that must be due not even 24 hours later
They make us memorise things that will no longer be important when we apply for a job
We study for hours in hopes to pass that final test that we'll soon forget
But what are we suppose to say when someone asks us how we're feeling?
We were never taught that
We never memorised an equation to help us find the answer
We were only ever taught to keep our mouths shut and do our work
Its quite funny what we learn in school now
Things more than 80% of the students will never have to use let alone see again
School was suppose to prepare us for our future
For the job choice we pick
Instead we meet and learned quadratics and plant cells
We were taught homework is what your focus should always be on
We were never taught about the future and what to do
And most importantly
We were never taught how to love ourselves and the things we should be greatful for
They've turn us into sad, mindless robots that's are more concerned about grades and passing than whats going on with the family
We lock ourselves in our rooms doing homework for 6 hours than talking to our mothers or fathers who wonder about us
We were never taught the importance of family before it was too late
Every single highschool student wishes they can turn back the clocks, but it'll never work
We were taught the hard way that you don't really know what you have until its gone
Something we weren't prepared for
They never prepared us for the future
Instead, we prepare our self for the possible failing outcome
How are we suppose to make a living for ourselves when all we have learned was the stress over homework and family?
The depression over a failed test or assignment?
The lost feeling of the lost time?
How are we suppose to love ourselves when all we do is put yourself down because of school?
This education system never prepared us for anything
Instead, this education system officially has broken all of us.
Jun 3, 2016
Jun 3, 2016 at 4:41 PM UTC
the miniscule, crystallized phenomena
floating down on their zephyr gondola
to the little children's enchantment.
the wintriness nipping at their stamina
produced petite gloved hands pulling tightly at their jacket.
to rollick the day away was their only commandment.
fast forward a few years, and they'll be learning algebra,
their minds drifting away during lectures on parabolas
to the forgotten days of freedom; they lament
the loss of their fragile frostwork taffeta.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 11:04 PM UTC
a companion piece to
miniskirts & high heels vs. poetry & yoga^
<•>
a couple of buds at a local dive bar, drinking Buds,
talking loud about technology
and other manly man stuff
attract attention for our conversation isn't bout sports,
get approached by long legs in high heels and a miniskirt,
with the best come on line ever
any woman invented,
"you guys know about computers, huh?"
later after reading twenty or so of her poems,
and learning the degree of difficulty of the
downward facing dog pose
(adho mukha svanasana)
she said:
tell me again how I
*clear my cache,
change my font,
add more memory for new memories,
stop auto correct from making wont into want,
so I can happy write*
"wont thy thoughts to my heart thereof"
so I obliged and then
the geek in meek wrote
his first poem
after first clearing the catch
in his throat
Jul 9, 2017
Jul 9, 2017 at 12:35 PM UTC
Middle School
Full of friends and love
Hate and lust
Being thrown under the bus
Doing the right thing
Is harder than it sounds
Harder than it looks, too
Always wanting to be found
Rescued from the abyss
That feeds off of your sadness
That doesn’t know when to stop
That will make you collapse
Needing support
Wherever you can find it
Taking it from others
If it means peace
Life upside-down
Never know how
To turn your life over
That frown upside-down
So when you find peace
Wherever you find it
You never want to leave it
But sometimes you must
Coming back to resurface
After all the sadness
You see the world differently
Then you saw it before.
People can help
But sometimes they don’t
Sometimes they think their helping
But really they’re not
Don’t fall for the lies
The deceptions they place
To try and make you come with them
And do the wrong things
Because in the end, you’ll find
You never wanted to be with them
You just want to be you
And not just some hologram
Embrace who you are
And what you’ve gone through
No matter what it is
Walk up with open arms
Take what you have
And don’t worry about what you don’t
Because in the end, you’ll find
There’s nothing wrong with you
You’ve been through high times
And low ones, too
But no matter what had happened
You found your way through
Through the darkness, you emerged
Opening your eyes
To a new world of color
Without wearing a disguise
Learning who you are
Can change how you act
Change how you feel
Even change how you react
Because now you know
How to see in color
No longer in the darkness
World seeming brighter
Every day can be a good one
If you know how to live it
All you have to do
Is change how you see it
Dec 5, 2017
Dec 5, 2017 at 3:30 PM UTC
When I was five,
my mother told me I was loved.
Years later, she asked me to leave because
I was the reminder of the gruesome past that haunted her.
When I was ten,
my father told me he believed in me.
Years later, he refused to accompany me because
I was an embarrassment to him in front of the society.
When I was fifteen,
my friends told me I was funny.
Years later, they all laughed at me because
I was the gullible teenager who fell for their flawless façade.
When I was twenty,
this guy said I was beautiful.
Years later, he trashed me, tormented me because
I was ignorant enough to overlook my inevitable flaws.
So, sorry for not believing in you,
for questioning your intentions, inclusively, in-depth
when you told me you loved me because
I didn’t want to wind up years later,
learning it the hard way that people often don’t mean what they say.
Mar 3, 2018
Mar 3, 2018 at 2:00 AM UTC
Ilion gray
poet extraordinary
is away
learning the codes hidden in raindrops
no reason for surprise;
for the mountains of Brooklyn, the Manhattan caverns of Sunhenge^, corridors of narrow focus for trapping the declining sun rays,
neither high enough, narrow blinding,
to keep a good man from doing good things that life provides as opportunities
to do the right thing
he muses that it took five years for the other poets to understand our
poem-dreams;
avant-garde he says,
but I laugh,
never felt more misunderstood
and reply take care, be
en garde!
no matter for he is learning a new language,
the codes hidden in raindrops in a land of wheat
once called Indian Territory and eager
await his return so we may
walk along the Brooklyn shoreline,
beginning from under the Brooklyn Bridge
where Washington’s men escaped a British trap
and he can decode for me the whispery thunderous noises of
NY
showers that come up so sudden, so roughened, but right now,
the seductive sun blinks in Manhattan windowed towers reflecting back on to our East River as golden blinks of nature
We will walk lost in the absorption of our
different commonalities, holding the hands of
his young son, and my Wendy,
both of them equal in possession of round saucer eyes
that give us poems
He calls me me friend,
I call him brother, teacher, master, better than the best,
well recalling a late night message that bred
a five year conversation ongoing
not everything need be coded
what you read here
it is not coded,
for the raindrops come clear and clean
and the poems land on our tongues
bounce on the foreheads and eyes of the babes, all stored and saved for the future blessings spoken in a single tongue
7/18/18
^https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattanhenge
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 10:41 PM UTC
I’m learning the new language of love
It’s cloudy and I’ve only
broken sentences
already-fluent in the tongue of
drunk hook-ups and
meaningless touches and
compromised endeavors and
disguised intentions
I have never felt what I was promised
I want to bathe myself in it
showers
pools
seas
of infatuation
if it exists
desperate for affection
addicted to the idea
that a soul could long for me
craving something
anything
unreliable arousal
am I unfairly deprived?
Oct 11, 2017
Oct 11, 2017 at 7:30 PM UTC
I think it's crazy that they want me to type an essay over deforestation for a score or practice or to better my writing. That's 60 more minutes I'm wasting of my life. They say that sooner or later everything we do we will do with technology. So here I am now writing this essay that's supposed to be about deforestation and the effects and consequences. We are not discussing the issue. We are sitting in wooden chairs with our computers sitting on our wooden desks surrounded by wooden bookcases. So much irony right? I seem to be the only one to notice anyways.
We come here seven hours a day, do hours of homework, "study" the information, aka memorize regurgitate then forget all of it. This is not teaching us. We are not learning anything useful to help us live. It's all numbers and words that do not matter to me.
If anyone thinks that all us kids come to school to learn they're wrong and if they think that the teachers come to teach they're even more wrong. We come to pass class after class so we can leave and actually make something of ourselves. The teachers come because they have to for the money. They do not care about us or our feelings. They put all this pressure on us to be the best we can be which really means make a good grade.
I've been silent for so long now. Not expressing my feelings towards much of anything. Also toward the reason I have to wake up at five every morning to be around people I do not even like.
I feel as though the education system is unfair and cruel and does not take into consideration what the kids who go through this cycle everyday think.
So that's what I think about deforestation.
Feb 21, 2014
Feb 21, 2014 at 9:20 PM UTC
This is not a poem;
This is an artist screaming to be heard in the abyss of life's harshest realities.
This is not romantic;
This is an artist learning to to be in love with her very self.
All this years, I have been trying so hard to create a person I could love.
Little did I realize, what I was looking for has always and-
will always be within me.
I think I've learnt to love myself.
I think I'm finally free.
This is a poem;
This is an artist screaming to be heard in the abyss of life's harshest realities.
This is romantic;
This is an artist learning to to be in love with her very self.
All this years, I have been trying so hard to create a person I could love.
Little did I realize, what I was looking for has always and-
will always be within me.
I think I've learnt to love myself.
I think I'm finally free.
I think-
— c.s wondering
Jun 3, 2019
Jun 3, 2019 at 11:34 AM UTC
•helping the kids with homework•
no one told you,
was part of the job description
paycheck earner a-ok,
gruff but tender lover,
knowing her special places,
building a tree swing,
a tree house safe and satisfactory,
one the neighbors envy
taking them to the hospital for
broken arms and chemotherapy,
part two of the non-routine but a very possible foreseeable,
going to school to give that principal a look
that will make him think twice before suspending
one of his for defending himself
you remember your daddy doing the same for you,
forgetting to repeat the tar and hiding that came later
the tucking in, the pretense ouch
when your end of day
scratchy beard ruffling the skin of babies,
carrying tissues in a toolbox,
never heard of, nevertheless done,
tho not a memory defining the future inclusive,
definitely a learning ability, a likeability
doing homework, nuh uh,
no way jose, don’t dare let them
know how you never got a gold star,
always sat in the back row, outta sight,
all day dreaming, chemistry rhymes with mystery,
and poetry is rhymes needing a big vocabulary
which means lots of words for a man who don’t talk much
ain’t exactly his strong suit
sure, heard of Shakespeare but never met him,
know where the on/off computer button hides,
the rest is up to them;
got no email address, but taught them sir and ma’am,
how to address humans with respect,
i’ll promise them anything
but not doing any homework,
unless it the kind that that makes
“a home work”
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 9:20 AM UTC
I.
Time passes, another
batch of refugees and migrants. Cities turn into
new houses of gambling and vicious cycles.
Some say only machines can speak clearly
and most humans have lost what they have earned
throughout all this time, just right on schedule.
To own our language,
and the relationships it sets into motion,
we learn painfully, repeatedly like sunrise
and sunsets.
Claiming our own spaces and demons
hidden in our conveniences and reflex routines,
and learning the tricks that has kept peoples
from fully healing from broken promises
and betrayals throughout time.
We own up to our language and its demons
every day and night that we toss and turn
into something feasible, edible, livable.
II.
Iba ibang uri ng digma.
duguang kasaysayang binabaong buhay
binubura ang lakas at memorya tulad ng siyudad
ng Songdo sa South Korea na ang ibig sabihin
ay "city with no memory".
Ito din ang isa sa mga modelo para sa New Clark City
na tinatayo sa Luzon. Sa dalawahang mga pamamaraan
ng mga naghahari-harian, nakikibaka ang anakpawis,
nakikibaka ang kamalayan ng pagpapasya at pagwasto
sa mga pagkakamali, na paulit-ulit na sinusubukang
patayin sa iba ibang mukha.
Mula pa sa panahon ng mga lolo at lola noong 1940s
hanggang ngayon, patuloy ang mga pag-eexperimento nila at paggamit ng panlilinlang at dahas, sa ngalan ng kalusugan, edukasyon at batas, upang ipain ang buhay sarili, lasunin ang lupang kinakain ang sarili. Kung hindi tayo mag-aaral at mag-iingat din, tayo mismo ang papatay sa mga sinisimulan. #
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 2:58 AM UTC
There is beauty within failure
Is my life then a tale of a fair maiden
surrounded by a macabre beauty?
Then it is not the tragedy
written in my sins
on bloodstained paper
that I've been practicing
Or is the beauty in
learning from you failures?
'Cause then all these lessons have been lost on me
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 12:34 PM UTC
C-Currently the subject of much conversation
L-Learning of its effects through information
I-Internationally scientists are using education
M-Mankind's pollution is causes this situation
A-Altering our ways may stop the devastation
T-Time isn't on the side of the world's population
E-Ever we should be aware of its manifestation
C-Cycles of weather becoming stranger by the day
H-Heat is building up in the earth's rocks and clay
A-Averting further damage cannot be put on delay
N-Neglecting our response to the planet wont pay
G-Globally hotter and wetter conditions will parlay
E-Everyone needs to heed the message of this day
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC
She thinks you light up the sun.
You think she turned on the stars.
She adds beauty to life already grand.
You make her happy in a way she hasn’t been.
She’ll be loyal.
She’ll be loving.
She is broken.
She is learning.
You’ll be funny.
You’ll be musical.
You are different.
You are needed.
She is…
You are…
In love.
May 29, 2010
May 29, 2010 at 10:56 PM UTC
I'm struggling with what it means to be a woman.
Does it mean that I am always in competition to be the top of my species?
Does it mean that I need to be perfect without a single curve out of line in order to find love?
Does it mean that I am only defined when owned by a man?
Does it mean that I can only find purpose in childbirth?
Does it mean that I will forever live in the shadow of men?
Does it mean that I am an object invented solely for a man's pleasure?
Does it mean that I'm forced to confine to gender roles and live in someone else's story?
Does it mean that I'm supposed to accept it when I'm harassed from across the street?
Does it mean that I'm supposed to lie there silent when he puts his hands up my skirt?
Does it mean that I am only worth 77 cents to a man’s dollar?
Does it mean that I am defined by my looks rather than my intelligence?
Does it mean that I will never be capable of holding a major position of power due to my mood swings?
Does it mean that I am defined by how many men I have had *** with?
Or does it mean something else entirely.
It's difficult learning to love being a woman.
Obvious and damaging disadvantages are visible to observers.
We are regarded as second best, property of our man.
We are erased from history, our pain is minimized and forgotten.
We are oppressed and have to fight for our rights.
We are afraid to walk the streets at night, afraid for our lives.
We are harassed without care and without penalty.
We are ***** and murdered for refusing proposals.
We are expected to live on the sidelines as a housewife whose only priority should be her children.
We are expected to keep quiet in situations of domestic abuse.
We are expected to be perfect, and pretty, fresh for a man’s picking.
We can’t even advocate for our own equality without being demonized.
There are times where I wish I wasn’t a woman.
Being a woman comes with innumerable expectations, pressures, and responsibilities.
My existence is not defined by a man, or by the patriarchal expectations that have been placed on me.
I am breaking free of my confinements and I’m not afraid to admit that,
I'm struggling with what it means to be a woman. And that's okay.
//sarahmann
Mar 25, 2018
Mar 25, 2018 at 3:10 AM UTC
When did things change so much?
When did I get so encapsulated
Into the world of technology?
When did I stop listening
To myself and my own thoughts
And instead add another view
To some article or YouTube video
Just to reach some spoon-fed "opinion"?
When did we stop engaging
In life and with ourselves?
When did playing video games turn to
Watching other people play them online
Numbing our brains to the world
And "filling" our social needs digitally?
When did watching television turn into
Binge-watching an entire series in one sitting?
With this much constant stimulation
It's no wonder we're bored so easily
And that no one goes outside anymore
And that I don't feel alive anymore
Because one of the first things I do
When I get home from work or the gym
Is turn on the smart tv so it can warm up
Because the apps on it take time to load
And I already know that my free time
Will be spent in front of that screen
Lately I've been nervous about
Eventually moving in with new people
Primarily because I spend a lot of my time
Passively using the television
I was concerned with how we'd balance our usage
Instead of considering changing the way I spend my time
When did I start placing my use of technology
Above my own self-care?
When I spend hours watching YouTube
But still forget to take a shower sometimes
And I truly wonder if my recent urges
To leave the state to work on a farm for a month
Are more indicative of some deep desire
To unplug and reset my energy and priorities
Than my interest in agriculture or
Learning to live off of the land
When did I start to feel the need
To take such drastic measures
To change something so simple
Something I could choose to disengage with
At the simple touch of a button?
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 10:51 PM UTC