"outgrowing" poems
Clothes have outgrown me many times over,
but this sadness never does.
One size.
fits all.
There should have been an obituary for cancer, not you.
Wishing these slits within my skin could have been
replaced by a reality check from you, “You chose to exist.”
My name causes a sigh to escape from lips,
that do not feel like they belong to me,
the girl,
whose words always had to be special.
The schematics of hospitals like a birthmark in my brain,
born into sadness, a gut feeling as a child.
Never trusting time
due to what it delivers.
Death, being the only thing I desired.
But you,
who I love,
endlessly-
robbed by it.
Whose ebb for life glowed so feverishly.
Stopped comparing depression to lace,
restricted the belief that suicide is poetic,
seeing things as they were.
More often than not, applauded for feeling emotions deeply.
Every second that dies, the shift of my heart quakes.
This world is not tender.
II. Sad.
I have known the flowers I wanted at my own premature funeral,
knowing how many bouquets honored you that day.
split open my veins like a dimension
reminiscent of days where I anticipated deathbeds.
My family wondered,
can we make it through another day?
Death scares me for what it has taken,
yet, I’m not afraid to die-
it’s all I deserve.
So I await the day pain erupts
from my throat,
acknowledging the days a soul
lived inside of my body-
footprints that walked,
belonging to me.
But I learned so well.
How to suffer with a smile,
dreading the beating of my heart
how unfair—
I don’t want to take these deep breaths
You deserved,while I masquerade as a member of the undead
Never outgrowing the desire to rot with the phantoms residing under my bed.
III. Jokes played by the universe.
punchlines delivered,
how could anyone to stand to be in the same room as myself?
How could anyone look over skyscrapers and sunsets,
and not be infatuated with concrete consuming them?
How I shared a sigh of relief during the thought-
of knowing people would thrive without me,
or the power of a belly laugh,
resembling a laugh track audience
drowning out 3 AM suicidal thoughts.
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 11:23 PM UTC
If ever I thought I was
worthless
useless
an empty vessel to hold the blame of the world, I was ignorant.
In the shadow of others I did not realize I was outgrowing the limited social garden bed of my ‘friends’ and companions. Friends would be an overstatement and a title many of them have never and will never earn. As a Scorpio my trust is not easily gained, and one lost, it is gone forever. Something in me, though, always forgave, but kept the trespasses against my trust cataloged, loaded, waiting to fire across my synapses is self destruction.
If ever I took your interest as a sign of friendship, I was a fool.
If ever I opened my heart to you, if ever I extended an almost maternal hand to you I was an idiot.
My body has been run ragged with its attempts at pleasing all and apologizing for its darker nature. My narcissism has become a survival mechanism that I once thought needed you.
My soul is weary of your needy hands, your open-bird mouth that I keep feeding more and more of my soul. Compassion has an end with me. In this game of survival, I will always be the fittest and you’ve stopped entertaining the animal within me.
I am worth so much more than being drained of my entirety. I am manifest energy as you are, as the earth is. Like the Earth my resources have been tapped and I can give no longer. Like the Earth I shall strike with ground shattering vengeance.
If ever I thought friendship was giving you everything for nothing in return, I was blind, for I am a Goddess as you are. I am a Goddess as you are a God, and your meager offerings of passing interest and constant need are insufficient. My inner patriarch has fed of your male-centric patterns of thought, and the women of my past lives are too loud in protest for this to continue.
I deserve much more than “friends” like you.
& most of all
If ever I thought my thighs were a sufficient reason for me to hate myself, if ever I thought they were an excuse for you to disrespect me, then I was a *****
Because you are an *** hole.
And my body is rad
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 4:59 PM UTC
The cemetery was my circus I found
After outgrowing fantasy and the playground.
Golden afternoons in the country after school,
My blood having no resemblance, no ancestors,
To all the Sutton's and Smotherman's and Suddeth's
Who here resided with Tennessee pride. Inside and outside.
The still silence of my childhood cemetery carried an eerie air. I wanted to be here.
The peaceful calm, it called me back,
The king cawing crow, attending in black.
As for any of the lost, perhaps content, Confederate souls,
Who have yet to cross over, lamenting or dozed.
I suspect now, that it was I who startled those ghosts.
My blood, my frequency, my scent of the coast,
Sent from a Union ancestry my vibration still boasts...
How unexpected was I to those Tennessee ghosts.
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 3:52 AM UTC
I don't know what I am anymore
I'm too self obsessed not to care
as if I don't pass by a mirror every hour and stroke my ****** hair
standards of cis normativity never make sense
they don't make sense more than ever
why be like everyone else
when I'm already the outcast
whats the point to stop expression
whats the point to stop..my expression?
of my experience
of my encounters
of my existence
my identity will be radical
with or without cis validation
my happiness is resistance
with or without standards
we were not meant to fit in
so outgrowing it is suitable
Dec 14, 2020
Dec 14, 2020 at 9:57 PM UTC
in that lane least trod
by light glaring broad
up the window evergreen
never outgrowing her teen
shaking waves of her curl
waves merrily the girl
a little bit surprised
i look deep in her eyes
and oh what a joy
find there a wonder boy!
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 10:43 AM UTC
Blurry city streets seem to call your name
I forgot how to exist when I no longer love you
strain
As years weigh tightly on my spine
I creep through the monotonous state
no longer hungry
slurring speech
Towards the impending luxury
Where he keeps my arms pinned down
On the dying grass
People watching
The adrenaline never seems to last
Their eyes gaze in our direction
As I bite into his shoulder
As I squirm
Friday night’s celebrations
wrap tightly
I can taste the whiskey
But it doesn’t bubble inside me
It lures him towards the smoky bars
Where I cower above him
I ache
My anger bubbles in moments where
I’m screaming as the
Car window opens
As I drive away from the emergency room
Soap still slipping through my wet hair
Could I find meaning in this existence
Where you don’t reside alongside me
Whispering in my ear
I used to count on my subconscious
your voice of reason
Outgrowing the state of being
My veins exacerbate the tight
Need to fight
To stand up straighter
Hold it all together
I let him wrap his fingers where
He wants
I let them gasp
wake the neighborhood up
To sounds of me howling
Begging for
An escape where
They no longer ask from me
Where the pain no longer pools
Like the storm clouds
Above the dry valley
One strike of lightning
Suddenly it’s a fight for our lives
Hit me so I can take my mental state
Throw it into a definition
Look through the stars
the colors blend together in gaseous realities
I can find the one strand where I used
moments of joy
the orange duvet, window open
Boiling tea kettles,
I used to just stand in the grass and not think about the
Ticks
The crawling underworld
Soil seeping through,
Induce me
I’ll sink past the dirt, the sand
And let go of your hand.
Aug 14, 2017
Aug 14, 2017 at 5:24 PM UTC
I will sit in my sadness
as I drape it on like a mask
I'd even wear it to bed and alone
but never while sunlight hours pass
My sadness is often rooted in my chest
it's built to last
creating a storm
of anguish and despair
and outgrowing other emotions
in its path
My sadness looks like envy
and is filled with wrath
too much pride to subdue it
but easily broken like glass
My sadness looks like you
when your leaving
You,
when we're not speaking
You,
when you don't need me
You,
when your not near me.
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 11:01 AM UTC
Love.
Love is
awful/wonderful/
terrifying/beautiful/
frustrating/amazing/
foreign.
It's amazing how something that you've never had
can leave such an empty feeling inside you.
I was made with an empty space in the middle of my heart.
Meant to be filled with someone's "I'll love you forever."
There must have been a mishap in the factory, though,
because there seems to be no complimentary piece.
I have a mantra I go through, a set of excuses I remind myself of
whenever a chance is lost, an opportunity runs sour. '
I call them "The Three Things I Know To Be True About Love."
Not interested? Someday he will be
Isn't into relationships? Someday he will be
Isn't attracted to you? Someday he will be
Well, I can't say I know the third part to be true.
I know what you're thinking.
Sad, whiny fat kid complaining about something he caused himself.
Look, I know what I look like. I know what it allows me in life.
To be fair, it is my own fault. I've let myself stretch,
outgrowing my skin and confidence till they're threatening to burst.
I know it would be hard to look at me and say "I love you."
I never have been able to do it.
I think if I heard it just once, though, I'd be satisfied.
Just to give me the sensation having the words
pass through me, enveloping my insides
with warmth, hope, promise.
I'm not asking you to mean it. I couldn't ask you for that.
Even though I'd know of their false implications.
I have always been a fan of playing pretend.
I know that I'm young,
and that I haven't been far outside of the
cornfield fence that has enclosed me for 19 years.
But patience has never been a virtue I've held.
I'm just someone who is desperately tired of "somedays."
All I'm asking for is a "today."
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 10:38 PM UTC
The dusk sets its hasty way
On the bricks and alleyways
where gypsies are endowed
smoking, trashing and fly tipping
Cursing, gossiping and fighting
and it all passes like an oasis
as a monster evades time
as the scorched leaves greet
after all those year and seasons
The tree by the window has grown
having seen misery and laughter
drunken nights and loving days
****** dates and eventual transitions
The burden of truth, it caught my eyes
Captured the barrenness of my soul
it thirsts for a far away distance
those reachable mountains of fortune
It hungers for an embrace full of life
outgrowing the space by the window
tearing the netted curtained screen
Every time I see the that tree
I giggle and then smile a little bit more
as if captured by an angelic love
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 12:10 PM UTC
Awake from a dream
dipped in sun fire,
is a caterpillar still
wrestling in my heart's
asylum—a chrysalis,
summoned by the
wilderness, is prying
itself open.
Where the field laid
bare in a pallor of cold,
is where spring begins
to overflow, like flowers
blooming from the deepest
nether—loving death is
outgrowing this world.
I wear a cloak of patience
over limitless energy,
shedding for dialogue
between potentialities,
inside me spins a thread
of great longing, but
around me, a great hope
is bursting at the seams.
A force spurs a descent
from the cave, from the
crumbling walls I am made.
What remains lifts the
curtains before a
show begins, where
in solitude I undress to
become a house of wings.
The orchard cradles
my smallness in a
concentrated blossom—
lighter than breath,
brighter than vision,
hidden among all there is,
a great wave inside a ripple.
To be delighted is to realise
the world you fell into is
a vast sky.
May 21, 2024
May 21, 2024 at 11:06 PM UTC
In the midst of encompassing darkness, there is a causeway through light
One that emotions feel in the ether and all too often hidden from sight
We drift through each illuminated cosmos as if it were our last
Live for tomorrow yet set thy Self within the past
In a jaded cognitive clarity, we see the blooming of a new dawn
One that holds our souls in the coldness night any of us have ever saw
We hone our inner light work to shift the coming supernova blast
Unite within the rising of an evolution we have yet to grasp
For only the Children of Love will feel the change deep in the soul
The ones who fall the hardest as they break out of forced molds
Law second to nothing but that of universal constants
Of that which guides our symmetry into a new consciousness
One that is long overdue for a race outgrowing its dimension
Do we have control of our Will to shift a worlds intentions
We rest on the cusp of a blade where a feather equals stone
Fight for that Love that each and every one of us infinitely own
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 3:08 AM UTC
I can't write anything
that doesn't sound slightly stupid
anymore
my words haven't kept up
with my maturing. Or so it seems.
maybe I'm just outgrowing
the stupid words I used to use to describe
things. but maybe is also another stupid word.
maybe maybe maybe
the word dances off my tongue. which is totally
(completely) repulsive.
why should a word
that sits on the top of everyone's
tongue
waiting to strike
dance. it's a drug they don't warn you about
****** if you use it ****** if you don't.
the next best excuse
to 'I don't know'-- couldn't tell you how many times
i've held back because i clutched that word
like it was a part of me.
maybe. here it is again. maybe, I thought that "maybe"
really was a part of me. it's hard to distance yourself
from something so excruciatingly
fitting.
there was something about "maybe" that just felt
necessary. as though certainty never stood a chance.
the worst of things being that we were all defined by our cowardice and that we couldn't stand
the thought of being wrong (not even once.)
nobody saying anything
with any certainty. they knew how fragile
the world was. none of us were
strong enough to deal with being any shade of WRONG.
we're all too insecure to be throwing around words like that anyways.
Feb 8, 2015
Feb 8, 2015 at 3:57 PM UTC
Old ballet shoes,
Yearbooks with letters wedged into the cracks promising friendship until the end of time.
The yearbook signatures that promised to call or catch up,
and the signatures that actually should have ended with "good bye".
Children's books and children's clothing,
Tiny t-shirts and itty bitty shorts.
Ticket stubs and concert tickets,
ID cards and senior portraits.
Long lost poetry and crinkled letters
To boys I thought I'd love beyond the time I did.
Photographs of us in our youth
And some of us apart, outgrowing each other.
Homework from freshman year,
Art projects I thought deserved life beyond the magnets on the kitchen fridge.
Baby blankets and old rosaries
for when I thought Jesus could keep my faith in all that's good.
Books I haven't read in years
that still make me smile when I roll my fingers down the spine.
My grandpa's memorial announcement
and his old fishing hat.
The CD's we used to make dances to,
and perform for ourselves in my old costumes.
Friendship bracelets from girl's names I can't remember,
and friendships I lost
Numerous diaries with long entries about being older,
and how someday older will be better,
How age will bring me adventure, maturity, love, resolution, clarity, a sense of myself, happiness.
Here I am with more age, and these endless memories make me wish for the time when I could still fit into the little shorts and stick my tongue out in pictures.
The someday I wrote of is today
and I'm teary-eyed over what used to be.
I'm missing the old you and the old memories,
the old friends and the old ways of happiness.
I'm here, older now,
and I wish I knew if older was better.
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 4:34 AM UTC
We grew the earth, grew it around us and grew into it.
We grew into pairs of shoes after pairs of shoes
and we grew into our names.
We learnt to tie the laces of our shoes
and to tie our tongues around our names,
and the names of other things, other people,
and around other people's tongues.
We planted our cultures, cultivated them,
and they blossomed into traditions
and stereotypes and generalisations and rituals.
We broke in our shoes, broke the ice,
broke our voices, broke promises.
We broke glasses, hearts and bones.
We built hierarchies, looked up, looked down, bowed down.
We broke down into dictatorships and demonstration.
We found solutions like democracy
and diplomas and delegated.
We fixed fountains and freight trains
and falling trees in the forest and faucets that leaked.
We formed partnerships, made promises,
pledged to parties for both politics and both parents.
We made marriage and then we annulled, we divorced.
We fabricated the faiths that we fed on.
We invented stopwatches, reality television,
pedicures, lampshades, philosophy,
greenhouses, dictionaries, exclusivity,
feng shui, hand-holding, ****** medication,
street art, lawsuits, lingerie, car boot sales,
snow days, karaoke, comics, psychics,
boarding schools, toast, baseball, psychiatry,
bird-watching, plaid, research, stag nights,
slasher movies, salads, and interventions.
We wanted and we wished and we waited
and we wanted for more.
We were growing faster than we invented.
We were outgrowing ourselves
and our earth
and our shoes
and our names.
We forgot what we had found and fixed and formed.
We broke down and went broke.
We are waiting to invent a new way we can fix ourselves.
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 8:43 AM UTC
Never a stumbling block
But, a rising stepping stone
To leap, to outlive, to surpass on
A constant change, where I belong?
A constant move, to thrive along
Hence never will I stop, never will I fret
Leaping higher, jumping over
Me, myself
Nov 8, 2021
Nov 8, 2021 at 2:25 AM UTC
To the inner wisdom
To that outgrowing system
To the pillars of belief
And to the childish relief.
To the chastity, modesty & respectability,
To not loose virginity over someone’s purity
To **** the innocence of mine,
And to retain from thine.
Lately I’m seeing a glass of wine,
Pouring emptiness in the mid sunshine.
To forgive you from the first meeting,
To forgave me from reciting pure words melting.
To known from strangers again
If this is that, then I don’t want to wait in vain.
To the dimensions I think insane,
To the remembrance of high schools mane.
Through highs & lows
I’ll be at bow !
My submission to the
Actual vow.
Dec 30, 2018
Dec 30, 2018 at 2:34 PM UTC
i sit on the edge
of your bed.
stroking your fine golden
hair,
as you murmur and mumble
in your sleep.
you had once again,
thrown off your covers
and lay with arms and
legs oustretched.
you are outgrowing
these pyjamas,
with the curious george
print.
you are out growing
this narrow bed,
made...
as your first,
big boy bunk
and sadly you are
outgrowing the toddler's
need,
to be within sight of
the mother.
i am glad you are defining
youself,
as independant.
i am glad you are going
through,
this season
of seperateness.
as it gives us,
comfort to know,
the examples we have set,
allow you to be,
a happy, carefree child
who can,
enjoy his own company
or,
can play within a group
quite happily.
but i do miss,
your squishy little hand
in mine...
i do miss,
those clinging cuddles
and the nestling
of your little body,
fitting, squirmily,
into the side of mine....
i must ask Da to design
a bigger bed for you....
perhaps now,
you can help him build it.
you have now settled
back into deep sleep,
my golden boy
and yet,
i cannot take
my leave of you....
i linger,stroking,
your sleeping head,
drinking in,
the last vestiges of my baby, my toddler...
my growing up, ever up,
faster than i thought...
little man..
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 8:48 AM UTC
Sadly, Kiddo, that's what's called life.
There really aren't fresh starts for day-to-day strife
just different street names to remember
(or not, as as the old ones, I find, are usually much better)
Bills, work or chores are always the same
Laundry, dishes, mopping the floors,
the phone, electric or price for gas -
don't care where you live
or that you're dragging your ***
The rent or a mortgage, unpaid, are no different;
tires, brand new or
used from the dump "down'a way,"
all intend to go flat in a week, regardless
(it's in the fine print if you read it ... I did once)
groceries cost more than you'd planned at the start,
but kids will eat food and have those "growth spurts,"
too soon outgrowing
new shoes that you'd bought them
When you boil it all down, we must do what is needed -
mostly for them, the brats we are raising;
it's the love of a parent: unbidden, unasked
I just close my two eyes before coffee on waking
(or sometimes just the one that sees that I'm walking)
and hope I'll make it to work in the morning
expect to come home in time to cook dinner,
collapse on the couch for a much-needed breather
remembering my bed is a-waayy up the stairs
where, sometimes, I make it before
the snores take me
Repeat.
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
moss outgrowing angels
in the baby fog
of dawn.
the place
peeling stories
out of you,
the pretty face
invading you,
making you want
to talk to someone,
anyone.
he calls it eden.
here, the fingernail moon
is playing modest.
here, the stars
have room to think,
and because they think
they also want to know
about why words tremble
under the tongue, how
body beats brain,
and they beg, but
how do i tell them
about the man
with the laugh like confetti
breaking the sun into fire,
that sweet, sweet fire
of constellations that bite
my nerves, about the man
forging the sky on his chest,
the lightning in my legs?
he was there, you see,
from the first handshake
to the fatal heartbeat
at the other end
of the vein.
blood thinning under
quick kisses of glass,
the words fidgeting
out of our wounds
mean nothing,
the mouth spreads
like butter.
ankles protest
and i float to you,
but it looks like
you're leaving
for that world,
back to that world,
where we smile at screens
instead of at each other.
Jan 11, 2013
Jan 11, 2013 at 9:52 PM UTC
Her, a silent twilight, alura of lights, glitter outside
from the in. A sublime way, letting go of her own
queenness, surpassing poetry and any narrative
of symphony. Thought ballet tried to replicate.
Belonging only to herself, for herself and none other,
than the chess game of mind, body and soul.
Musical actions, outgrowing sentimentality. Modern art,
portrait paintings, clanker's orchestra. Mystical
in fluid literature, writing such as these, potent poetic
prose. To where she won’t notice, nor even care.
Mother to art. Sister to romance. Regal without effort.
Harmony in thy soul. Because her breathe is harmony
in this world. Where this earth or matrix, perhaps
isn’t as sinful as I thought. (I repose from spells,
there is a belief in love and romance that sparkles
in this world as poetry.)
Jun 18, 2018
Jun 18, 2018 at 9:19 PM UTC
Am silk
I flow within and without
Your control
With each grain
The blow is growing
Outgrowing
Your will
To command
The fourth dimension of space
To fight your sorrows
To bring peace
To the pulses in your heart and head
Am growing away from
Your grasp
On the moist mist and matter
Fragile
You are, am not
Yet you believe otherwise
Every second another inch
Tick followed tack followed tick followed tack!
Am venting
Am all over your dreams
Your breath! your pulses!
My prowess battle
Your gains! Your losses!
Here’s to your myths
Here’s to your wait
For the ‘perfect’ ode
Jun 4, 2014
Jun 4, 2014 at 2:28 AM UTC
I have a garden
No one ever sees
From all others set apart
In it grows black flowers
The color of your treacherous heart
They have the smell of rotting ground
Outgrowing every flower around
Ugly to the eyes
Always need weeding
Much to my distaste
Always seeding
Black flowers for my love betrayed
Black flowers for words spoken
Black flowers for a love lost
Black flowers for a heart broken
Though I rip them out
By ones and twos
Leaving an empty space
In the morning
Much to my disbelief
Others have taken their place
Legends say black flowers
Should be given
To heart untrue
There is no one I know
Who deserves them more
So black flowers I give to you
This poem is copyrighted and stored in author base. All material subject to Copyright Infringement laws
Section 512(c)(3) of the U.S. Copyright
Act, 17 U.S.C. S512(c)(3), Tammy M. Darby
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 8:49 PM UTC
curling confetti
litters like cleavers
‘neath pot-bound lungs
outgrowing his ribcage
she shoots
unrestrained
rambling t’ward
a celandine sun
Oct 15, 2018
Oct 15, 2018 at 9:08 AM UTC
Home is not where I want to be.
I want to adventure,
wild and free.
Away from the chains
of my adolescent self,
to grow up to be hung
on a greater shelf.
For outgrowing this nest,
wanting to fly away.
You'll be proud of me someday,
just maybe not today.
Take me away,
away from it all.
Away from these chains,
who are there when I fall.
I want to fly,
with my own compass,
I want to fly away.
Away.
Just maybe not today.
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 11:19 PM UTC
The blues, the blues, these Blues, the Blues,
The Blues. The Blues won't stop moving,
but haven't gotten to going. They're a-move,
they're soluble insomnolence, they're
indefferant irreverence
in reference to reverence.
The Blues won't stop going,
but haven't yet left.
All day, I've sat on this Furthest Shore,
unsure if they'd ever get to outgoing,
if they'd ever get to outflowing.
All day, I've sat and worse yet,
all night (we know the nights are the
very darkest sorta pretend-to-be-blackened blues),
sat on this dew-damp Distant Shore,
unsure if I'd ever get to outgrowing,
if I'd ever get to outgoing.
The blues, the blues, these blues, the Blues,
The Blues. The blues won't stop wounding.
I won't stop choosing. I won't stop two-ing.
Tilting at horizons, I hold anchor to
Torii. Summum Bonum, I insist it be.
(Can't let it be. {whatever it is.})
(Can't let it be. {whatever it isn't.})
Gateway from humdrum to hallowed.
A red atop blues, also unmoving.
But still in its unmoving, still unmoving.
How unlike the blues. This red, how unlike the blues.
Mar 1, 2019
Mar 1, 2019 at 2:22 PM UTC