"playlists" poems
The elegance of sitting in a coffee shop alone,
With a coffee to your right,
And a biscuit to your left,
Listing to the slow songs on your playlists,
No one to talk to,
Not the lonely kind of no one,
The comforting kind,
Everyone minding their own conversations,
Meanwhile you're all alone,
In the coffee shop,
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 10:08 AM UTC
I have, on my youtube, playlists of men.
kissing.
allow me to excuse myself, but it's not for fun and pleasure
it's quite the opposite, it's for my displeasure
but that's not entirely true.
I have them there
to remind me
that those men
will never be
me. I will never
Kiss someone
Hold someone
Love someone
like they do for eachother.
It's a feeling deep within my bones, a longing not to be ignored, a longing to hold and to be held. To kiss and be kissed.
to love
and be loved...
in a certain kinda way.
Mar 1, 2022
Mar 1, 2022 at 6:23 PM UTC
once I've been told,
'til these roses turn old
and my earrings tarnish their gold
my hands are what you will hold
since then, gazes went fiery
my palms weren't as sweaty
heart beating like crazy
my eyes were never teary
my poems have seen happiness
oh, dear God, I know I've been blessed
playlists were still sad, but less
calmed my waves with your caress
and in every relationship I've had
I've always anticipated for the bad
but you never made me go mad
and luckily, I was never sad
happiness with you in sight
you made me shine so bright
you embodied every winning fight
still smitten, never something so right
my words cherished you deeply
you might looked perfect, seemingly
my thoughts have suffered politely
made me look dumb intimately
have you realized
that I make zero sense?
because all of these
are written in past tense.
Nov 30, 2018
Nov 30, 2018 at 3:15 AM UTC
Tell me why it has to be this way. I don’t want to hold on to one side of this conversation and have the other person falling off a ladder. Yeah, down there on the ground. Get up and look at me!
I wasn’t sleeping, I swear—he said hastily.
Yeah, whatever, buddy. Tell me what you’re doing in my head?
Repainting. Repainting over the old spots, the worn out spots.
But those are the best spots, the only ones with character. Can you tell me who sent you?
No sir, I cannot.
Then it is ok. I suppose I’ll have to watch as you put varnish on top of every dream and aspiration I have ever had. Do you know who the girl was that I first loved in the springtime of youth’s blossom?
It was Ashley, sir.
I believe I did not love her, guest worker. What are you wearing there?
A pair of overalls, a cape. What’s the difference?
I’m the one who speaks to you first, and don’t be short with me. I don’t like you standing there in an open room with no windows. How is that possible?
I’m sorry, boss. It’s just, I finished painting over that memory but the paint’s still wet. You loved her very much, I’m afraid.
Ashley? I never gave her a second thought. Perhaps you are right. I only remember kissing her shyly and asking permission to see her ******* They were the biggest of all.
Yes sir, I thought so too. She was a sweet girl though.
Sweet? I’ll tell you Mr. Painter; Ashley was the first girl I kissed. I kissed her in my first love’s house, a different girl. I loved Ashley more than that first love and I’m serious. No one can ever make me forget the day we lay on her mother’s sofa in the basement.
--I’m sorry, sir.
No, say it is impossible. Say you have some form of soap that can make up for your treachery!
No, I’m only wearing orange overalls and marching on the word from above.
But who sent you!!!? I have to know. I’m crying.
Justin, it’s ok. It’s Ashley. She said you need to stop crying. She has a family now.
Well, alright. That house. That basement. That unconscious.
We are worms, sir. Worms, slithering and boundless. Please accept my apologies.
No, it’s quite alright. If you must take every memory of my second love, take my third. And take my fourth and every other woman who crosses my path. It’s not my choice to keep them captive in the imagination of what could have been. You know, it’s been years since I truly cared about someone—
Since Ashley?
Who’s that?
Ashley.
Goodbye forever, harlot.
Sir, you’re being brash.
No, I don’t remember that name and I hold you at an arm’s length in my mind. Please, finish what you’re doing and allow me to rest. What color are you painting the room?
Green, I’m afraid.
Then so it is. Goodbye, good friend. Goodbye sweet love. Forever, in the spring. Temporal boundaries and endless playlists. Be the verve, be the melody. I love you!
So it is. Sleep well, sir.
Oct 18, 2010
Oct 18, 2010 at 10:24 PM UTC
Here it goes again,
Here it comes again,
The articles about
Psychopaths
And the accusatory tone
Twisting behaviors
Twisting actions
To sound toxic
To sound dangerous
To stamp a big red label on my skin,
Screaming
"AVOID THIS ONE AT ALL COSTS"
While I sit and weep.
But these articles
Blog posts
People fleeing from me
Left and right
Are lies, right?
Tell me, please,
Tell me,
Someone?
My anxiety and need to be reassured
Roots from my PTSD,
And my neediness and wants for attention
Is normal for my upbringing,
Right?
And writing poem after poem
About how much I care for you,
And making playlists
With songs in it
That make me think of you,
Is just a sign that I care,
Right?
I don't want to be
A psychopath.
I don't want to be
A toxic person,
I don't understand
How telling someone you love them,
Is bad?
But these articles say that showering someone
In constant attention and praise
Means you're a psychopath.
And these blog posts
Are telling me that poems and gifts and music,
All means you're selfish and unfeeling.
But I don't want to be,
I care so much, I love you so much.
I'm afraid
Of who I am.
Sep 27, 2016
Sep 27, 2016 at 8:34 PM UTC
I am using my red headphones
to block out the sounds coming from the bunk
above me
I can still hear the word
like
over
and over
again
I shared a bench with a stranger
waiting for a train
why did she get up before
the doors opened?
Was I moving
or were the windows passing by?
Whose life did rock n roll save again?
I was walking on the same street
as I walked on the day before
I have begun to recognize the cracks
and the blue house with the wicker chairs
and the corner where someone is always laughing
There are some words
in some lines
in some songs
that I want to drink
till I'm thirsty again
I met someone today
he was like the someone
I met the day before
How many times can you make the same conversation?
I don't want to lie
but the truth is strange and
unfashionable
I don't want to make
a lucid argument
words can drift and find each other
whenever they get lonely
I really just want
to taste silence for a while.
Sep 16, 2010
Sep 16, 2010 at 5:34 PM UTC
Do you also wake up in the middle of the night and almost reach for me
because you forgot that I'm not there anymore?
I slept next to someone else last night,
But I had a dream that I was next to you,
And I have never felt more disappointed in my life than in that moment when I woke up.
I can't tell which is worse, the disappointment or
Trying to sleep while holding myself together because it feels like everything is about to spill out of me.
According to everyone I should just go meet someone else,
but it's not that easy.
I have no interest in talking to anyone when I'm sober,
When I'm drunk I just end up telling everyone about you.
I can't tell if I'm waiting for someone to confirm that you're never coming back
Or for someone to lie to me so I can feel better for the night.
Can I ***** out all my feelings too, along with the *****
I almost thought I had, the night I was dry heaving into the morning.
That was the night I got so drunk I couldn't stop asking everyone I saw
Why
Didn't
You
Love
Me?
I'm sure all the strangers in the room thought I was crazy.
I have dreams about you all the time and even in my dreams,
You still don't love me.
If I stare at your Facebook chat bubble long enough,
Will I see the three dots of you beginning to type a message?
If I stare out my window long enough,
Will I see you walking towards my front door?
I still want to punch a hole through the wall whenever I hear a song that you used to sing to me.
That's become particularly annoying
since the Chainsmokers got popular.
Apparently I can't get over you
while still listening to your SoundCloud playlists
But I'm not sure what else is worth listening to.
The other day, my friend commented on how fast I walk.
I told him it was because I had gotten used to your speed
since you're much taller than me.
In reality, I think it's just to make up for the parts of my life
that haven't been moving at all.
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 8:15 PM UTC
Amidst shuffling playlists
I took out my earphones today
Decided to listen to the music of the breeze.
Feb 26, 2016
Feb 26, 2016 at 8:22 PM UTC
There were flashing lights,
lasers, where we met.
There was loud music
and cheap drinks.
I found myself with the three of you,
only one of whom I'd met before.
That was the year I only wore plaid, mostly.
I was protesting make up at the time,
a leftover idea from my two year flowerchild period.
You were arrogant as ever,
self involved ****
with great taste in music.
I remember in all the conversations that followed
you'd compliment my impeccably perfect playlists.
I digress.
You stayed away from me that night,
let me hit on your friends.
But you got me that shirt.
I still wear it.
I had forgotten that night for over a year.
Even when I saw you next,
I didn't remember you.
I didn't remember you
and that has always bothered me.
I don't forget people.
I just don't.
Especially since it was both our first night out with that crowd.
You remembered me though.
And I'll never know why
I forgot and you remembered.
But now you forget me,
and I never shall forget you.
I promise you I'll never forget you.
And if you recall,
I don't break my promises to those I love.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
It is because of you that I am fully attentive
Soundwaves that wash over me from start to end
Music, my only friend
Now, we ride the waves of wifi to get what we need
But our gaze upon an artist is lost
Once our playlists consist of only a few of their songs
Handpicked amongst others, so our entertainment isn't lost
I understand the desire of variety
But I value the intimacy of a record I can hold
Knowing that for a while, it's just me and this music alone
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 5:58 PM UTC
1
I read in a poem that there is no sound more ****** than the clink of a belt being undone but you only wear worn out t-shirts and a frown on your face. I think of the sound of tires driving slowly over the asphalt and how I could get turned on easier by a look than a touch. Your bed and you both taste like sweat but I am not going to complain because I'd rather be overheating than alone. I consider switching on your swamp cooler but it's loud and I want to be able to hear your moans in order to remind myself that you want me too. Do you?
2
I was doing my poetry homework when I had to stop in order to write poetry.
3
I dont know if I can handle the fact that you have made playlists for other people and that is so 2018 of me. Did you make that playlist for her?
4
[redacted]
5
If panic attacks actually helped anything I wouldn't mind the hyperventilating but instead I still feel like a sink has sunk inside my chest even after I've calmed down. Wouldn't it be nice if you could cry it, release it, scream to the skies and then be okay afterwards? I'm not sure who made me believe the symptoms of my mental illness should be like a shower; I don't feel cleansed. I don't feel new. I only feel raw, exhausted. It feels more like that same dull knife is tearing me open each skin layer at a time until I figure out how to grab the hand that holds it or I'm left open on the table, whichever comes first.
6
I'm writing in order to breathe. If I can't get oxygen to my brain my fingers won't be able to move.
7
I'm so scared I'm going to lose you. I don't want you in any other way. I want to love you, hold you.
8
I hear a baby crying outside of your window and I realize I need to get up to go home and get my work clothes. I find these simple things excruciating. Writing to you is a diary but I never should have learned to open my mouth and speak.
9
I started this poem four months ago and titled it a seven day long poem but I guess now it’s more than that. You always made me feel the things I’m currently feeling, I've never given up control this much in my life. I like to be in control, the one ignoring, the one who needs the time. I wish I didn’t love you like I do (it's just, there you know. It won't go away. It's not too much or too little, it's just stubborn, just like you). I'm so scared I'm going to lose you. I don't want you in any other way. I want to love you, hold you. Did you make that playlist for her too?
Aug 15, 2018
Aug 15, 2018 at 8:16 PM UTC
Inside your little mouth, a crucifix and a hula hoop plant great capers on the short hash marks on your glossy pinkish lips. Like a boardgame I can't win all by myself or a song without a tune, like the melody that chases strangers, or any words that precede goodbye.
The future is coming quickly now, serfs lining up to set fire to their nostrils, take the cue ball and whet their mass wicks for the apostles. Anecdotal anomaly that J-walk over crosswalks whose life then becomes an apostrophe. Morbid fixture on the substrate, creatures limitlessly nodding. A grape-sized egg fills its own unit and erupts to shape the outlet. Your verb-legs may appear demonstratively while you crowd surf, we should play the music louder while we practice all our dance work.
Sunday morning we wake up stiffly, my jowl hurts from mouthing softwords, the nights' adventurous perversity of thwarting dinosaurs with Cobra Starship. Even the back room closet manager gave us enough bleach to see our eyelids, frothy nictitating flitters drop freshly severed lashes that inspire wishes and sultry playlists.
Consecrated mien market of company meals. Underneath the cable cars the dye blunders sores in my eyes. Said I had to go, said I had to die. Said I had an itch but I couldn't get in front of all of this and unwind. Between all of the bees and buttered flies he made it hard for us all to survive, or service this state of our lives. I recall schoolyards where children paid to their dimes for us to see the spaces in the middle of lines, the circles on the circles we liked, stuck in bubble baths with crayon all on their hands. For the price of staying alive I deliver a bribe to sway eyes from the crimes of street dwelling inner-city sinners with stomach contents' upsetted by the rough ********* of heavy petting. She eats red licorice rope with with my fingers rubbing on her tongue. A pedagogy I use to teach, but pretty much no longer have a use.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 12:28 AM UTC
Girls just want to have fun
And I'm the hopeless romantic
I wanna dance with somebody who loves me
Sure, she's a
Maneater
And she's still
Holding out for a hero
I don't care
Sweet dreams are made of this
I won't hold back now
I'm so excited
I release the epic
Eye of the tiger
I'll make you scream and
Jump for my love
This truly is
The final countdown
I'll make sure you
Give it up
Just promise me that you'll
Wake me up before you go-go.
Because baby,
Our 80's playlists will have such beautiful children.
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 3:54 PM UTC
Single loads of laundry
sad freezer meals for one
no dishwasher for me
just ice cream by the ton
the never tested voicemail
on the outgoing only phone
one knife, one fork, one plate
signs that yes I live alone
take-out menu fridge door
a doorbell never rung
ipod playlists for the company
that never ever comes
early nights and books
an optimistic queen size bed
a collection of matching pillows
that only ever see my head
the one cup coffee maker
a single slice of toast
bills paid on time or early
nothing handwritten in the post
a will with nothing in it
and no one to leave it to
burial or cremation
I mean really, which would you?
no life insurance needed
retirement arranged
no girlfriend, lover, wife
ex, current or estranged.
Is this the way its headed
if it is I'll pack my trunk
shave my head and dress in orange
move to thailand, be a monk.
Jul 24, 2010
Jul 24, 2010 at 7:03 PM UTC
Come home.
I'm begging you to return to me.
Don't force me to yearn after someone
With no intention of ever seeing me again.
I want you to hold me
Just one more time
Or for the first time
I don't even care I just want it to happen
Because making playlists about you
Doesn't fill the void you left
No amount of poetic lines
Sung by people I never met
Will make me feel happy without you singing them
I'm dizzy
Spinning in circles
Trying to find north
But only ever finding you
Following you blinding
To a land that is uncommon
Unfimiliar
And I'm unwanted
Unloved
Because if you did love me
I wouldn't need to ask you to stay
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 11:42 PM UTC
I wake up in the darkness of the morning, panicked and alone
Your absence has left a suffocating emptiness in me, after all the warmth I was shown
I thought you would be here always, because you promised me you would be
But I’m just sitting here alone, next to the spot where you should be
You told me your love was unceasing, that it would last forever
Then why aren’t you here, we need to be together
I still add to our playlists, hoping you’ll see
That we are so connected, that we are meant to be
I wish you would come back, but you told me you won’t
So I’m left here alone, writing the universe a note
Nov 8, 2023
Nov 8, 2023 at 7:23 AM UTC
Here I am, the manic pixie dream girl of, you guessed it; your dreams. I am here to ask you questions about your boring, probably something generic, major like business or management or maybe even some type of art form that no one really knew existed until you decided to bring it to your high school and of course the liberal arts school of your dreams has that EXACT program and all the means to support it financially. Of course, I will always ask about you. How your day is, how your plain black coffee is, what you thought of that one song that played as we were walking into the train after a date that both of us probably went on looking to get laid. But in the end, it will always be you. I will continue to fluff your deflated ego that was caused as such by some hollywood trope from your hometown like a cheerleader or maybe even someone who was on AV Club with you, who really knows, because I sure as hell don’t care to do any research into it. Now, part of being your early to mid-twenties manic pixie dream girl, it is essential for us to bond over old broken up bands that neither one of us were actually alive to see perform yet that dream of ours is still so prevalent as we make conversations over whiskey you assume I like because of it’s pretentious name that you will describe as “harsh yet creamy, dry but sweet” and on bad nights I will tell you that it tastes like the back of my father’s hand and you will laugh at a joke I did not intend to tell but then again I will have to ask you what is so funny. I will always be the one asking you about a life I am so willing to leave without even meeting your family. Being a manic pixie dream girl is all fun and games until I am the one always doing the starting of conversations, until I am the one sending you Spotify playlists that I know you will never listen to, until I am the one showing up unannounced. My name will roll off your tongue like smoke from your American Spirits, but only in the beginning, because by the end; you will cough when I finally tell you to stop calling me.
Aug 23, 2017
Aug 23, 2017 at 5:14 PM UTC
For once I would like to be longed for. I have spent countless hours of my life yearning for love from people who did not know how to accept mine. I have been told time and time again that not everybody will understand the way I love. Not everyone holds their hearts in the same regard as I do so they do not know how to return my love back to me. Over time I started confessing my love in front of mirrors, my reflection both the sender and the recipient of my love letters.
For once I would like to be the girl you dream about. I want to be on the receiving end of smiles from bubbly girls. I long to be the one to make brooding boys laugh. I am the only one writing poems about strangers I see in the streets. I make playlists for my best friend to tell her I love her but never send them. My love has been rejected too many times to take chances. I have accepted that maybe I’m only meant to dish out love like donations. My heart is spare change in empty coffee cups on busy city sidewalks.
For once I would like to be loved. Not just liked. Not just a fling or a fleeting thought or another notch on another persons bedpost. I want someone to think of me in the same way I think of them. I want someone to look at me and see a spark. A possibility. A future that’s worth working for. I would like to be on the receiving end of goodnight texts sent long after I’ve already fallen asleep, so when morning comes I can know I’m on someone’s mind even when I’m not present. Maybe someday I’ll be the girl you hear about in love songs but for now I’ll keep writing love letters I never send. Spilled ink will never hurt as deeply as watching someone you love not love you back.
Mar 7, 2021
Mar 7, 2021 at 10:03 AM UTC
She asks me “what do you think of me?”
I stop;
Reflect upon what just happened,
When a complexity of a girl
Asks a simple guy
What he thinks about her.
She asks me “what do you like about me?”
I’ll tell you what I hate;
I don’t hate your eyes,
Like round circles we used to make
With our dancing bodies
In preschool playgrounds.
I don’t,
Hate your lips;
They could be traced
From a million miles
And they curve so beautifully.
I don’t hate your smile,
The semi grins you keep
Before the flashes,
Before the posts;
I don’t hate your eyes,
Like bullets entering the soul
With an insertion of dopamine.
She asks me “do you really think I am worth your troubles?”
You are not.
You deserve my delight;
You deserve my green days and blooming flowers,
You deserve my watering mouth
Nourishing the vines underneath your tongue,
You deserve the sunrises in my playlists
And sunsets in the warmth of my jackets;
You are not worthy of my troubles
I am not worthy of my troubles.
She pushes me away,
The walls are too tight
And the stares,
They scrape on our throats.
The girl is lonely,
Her social circle spreads wide enough
To leave a gap;
Her friends walk next to her
And not on her side;
Her smiles-
Electronic cigarettes that look genuine,
But the smoke never rests
On the teeth,
Just a vapor that fades away.
She’s anchored to her reality
Her ships are not meant to sail
Just yet.
She asks me “what do you think of me?”
You’re a concept;
You’re a fusion of vivid elements
Wired with secret buttons
Hidden in your desires.
You’re an emotional rollercoaster
That we ride
You and I,
When I think of you
You’re just a white canvas
That whispers into my soul
The true meaning of art.
She asks me “is this your real answer?”
She ask me “is this your real answer?”
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 6:44 PM UTC
Single loads of laundry
sad freezer meals for one
no dishwasher for me
chocolate ice cream, just for fun
the never tested voicemail
on the outgoing only phone
one knife, one fork, one plate
signs that yes I live alone
take-out menu fridge door
a doorbell never rung
ipod playlists for the company
that never ever comes
early nights and books
an optimistic queen size bed
a collection of matching pillows
that only ever see my head
the one cup coffee maker
a single slice of toast
bills paid on time or early
nothing handwritten in the post
a will with nothing in it
and no one to leave it to
burial or cremation
I think I'll leave that one to you
no life insurance needed
retirement arranged
no girlfriend, lover, wife
ex, current or estranged.
this is the life I've chosen
free of contact free of pain
free of almost all emotion
this is my refrain
Because I've seen what people do
in the name of what is love
so to save myself the heartbreak
my life is as above
Aug 25, 2010
Aug 25, 2010 at 5:31 AM UTC
I can think of so many ways to ask you to stay. I feel like I’ve already emptied out my mason jar of them to the half-way mark. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what anything means. I just know that you’ll never feel for me the way I feel for you. I know that you will find someone that will love you in every way you need, and I know that person may not be me. If I said the idea of that made me happy, I’d be lying. I can’t be the ever-positive ex, I can’t promise you that someone else can know the right moments to touch your back. I can’t promise you that someone else will force you to open up to them when you’re upset. I can’t promise you that they’ll be able to hold your weeping head to their chest and they’ll feel the heartbreak I did every time you cried. I can’t even promise you that you’ll wake up holding another girls hand and it feel the way it felt for me. I can only promise you things I know. I promise you that every time you hear a song off of take this to your grave you’ll remember the night we all sang those songs drunk and in love with the worst and best of each other. I promise you that when you read these things you won’t look back at them and they probably won’t really even phase you. I promise you that you’ll always do your best to get to Moe’s on Mondays for your burrito that you won’t most always don't finish. I promise you that you’ll always have the best taste in whiskey, and you will always love the playlists I make. I promise you that the sun will rise every morning just for you, and you will smoke a cigarette to welcome it. I promise you that you will wear a striped shirt at least six out of seven days of the week, and blue jeans five out of seven. I promise you that you will have a soft hum of my voice in the back of your head every time you buy a new pack of marlboro smooths, better yet I promise that you’ll never buy the 100’s because of that. I can promise you all of those things, I can promise you myself.
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 1:11 AM UTC
at two a.m., i like to listen to one of my playlists and dance & spin to it
resulting into yet another sleepless night with drunken thoughts
it's inevitable, anyway; this is the best hour to be true with the moon
so i scribble down these wasted words and happen to find myself with the idea of you (again)
and it's terribly upsetting to know that the only thing my lips are capable of caressing is nothing but this glass of red wine
the last thing i knew, it wasn't the playlist that was making me dance like john travolta, or spin like barbie from the nutcracker— it was you
Jan 1, 2016
Jan 1, 2016 at 1:57 PM UTC
i hope one day you learn to look into the corners and see that the webs were not cobwebs brought about by the lengthy days we had. they are strings painstakingly spun through the tough yet beautiful years that we have, all of those keeping me tethered to you. i hope you learn to read between the letters and the lines, that each one was made as a puzzle for you. i hope that one day you will learn that i cared about you as much as you cared about me. now that it's all over, i hope that you learn that my love does not lie in the open. you know how secretive i am. i would not leave the thing i value the most out in the open, just for people to try and take it from me. no, this is why you thought i never cared. i hope you bothered looking under your pillow or in the books i lent to you. it is in the ruffled sheets of our nights and mornings together. i slipped my smile for you in every single one of the pages i dog-eared for you. i hope you found it at 2 am, in the mornings with me. it was in my sleepy kisses and the way i huddled close against you. i hope you felt it in the way i ran back to you, every single time, when my rain poured only for you. i hope you hear it in all of my playlists about you that i never told you about. i hope you heard it in my giggling to the silliest things you said, and i hope you unraveled it in the way every single night i hugged you good-bye. i hope you felt it in our goofy dancing under the stars, eighteen kilometers apart. not far, but not close enough. i hope you realized it was in my tears, till the very last time i tried to fight for us. i hope you felt it in the way i gripped your hand as we walked a moon-lit street, and i hope you remember it in the way i asked for your embrace for the last time. to be perfectly candid, i was so nervous that night, but the way you held me, as it always did, calmed me down. i will always remember how you smelled that night, like sunshine, and you walked like it too. you brought me home that day, and i asked you one last time if you still loved me. i hope you heard it in my silence, anxious yet relieved, when only nothingness filled the car on the way to my front porch. i wondered why the silence was deafening even when there were no words uttered, even though my world was crumbling down under the tires of your car.
Sep 13, 2018
Sep 13, 2018 at 7:31 AM UTC
there's this theory, my mom once told me,
that liars are always reincarnated as dogs
i've been thinking a lot about people dying lately
and i've also started counting time in dog years
according to such, it's been about two long dog decades
i don't miss you anymore, and i'm about done grieving you
(you would've just called me out- i'm a liar through and through)
and i found that if i drink enough, you're still here, well and alive
your mom never cries or loops your old playlists when she drives
your dad never comes over to gift me souvenirs from your life
your sister never learns to shape grief into an essay in one night
no, you're still helping her brainstorm what exactly to write
we stay up together, on facetime, stressing the the entire night
and she chooses premed because of a torn ACL, not a torn family
and we spend hours debating if she should submit her SATs
and grief is only ever-so-distant, yet only oh-so-familiar
we have it our way: it is never more than a recognizable stranger
i write you in present tense, you agree: dogs in our next life
i gaslight, i lose my mind, i'm convinced anything's worth a try-
so, how many poems do you think i have to write
for it to be enough to bring a friend back to life?
Feb 28, 2024
Feb 28, 2024 at 1:03 AM UTC
It's slowly driving me mad
Listening to the playlists you made
Of other people singing
What you never had the courage to say
Feb 14, 2021
Feb 14, 2021 at 9:53 PM UTC