"romanticised" poems
“please be naked”
she stands in her doorway wearing just a gown,
I walk in the house, dumbstruck by beauty,
up in her room undoing the bow, the shield simply slides down
caressing her curves, stroking down to the floor,
intertwined bodies craving the touch of the other,
joined as one in the gentle acts of love and lust,
romanticised ideals of perfection and soft rhythm,
delicate groans as two become one,
the broken poet, for the moment, is gone,
my drug addiction of you, just wanting more,
As my heart bleeds, love begins to pour.
“please be naked”.
Mar 28, 2018
Mar 28, 2018 at 8:29 AM UTC
Auto-annihilation is stupid,
It breaks hearts.
And ruins lives,
I hate that I was ever self-destructive,
I rue the day I became entranced
By its shadowy charisma,
While alcohol spoiled my life:
Poor Jo-Jo was right
To warn her cherished daughter
Of its insidious malignancy.
I was one of the felicitous ones
In that it didn’t entirely destroy me,
But despite its lack of glamour,
In comparison to
other more romanticised intoxicants,
It’s among the most lethiferous of drugs
That stole from me
What remained of my gorgeous youth.
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 3:47 AM UTC
Stamped, I said; don't you dare let go of my hand.
Until the day my breath and your hair turn silver.
Holding my jugular, I let you watch me undress daily
My love for you was bulletproof, but you're the one who shot me
What you don't know, is you missed the cavity
I romanticised the cocking and pulling nightly, murdering beauty.
I ran away from home, to sleep in a manger
I ran from a man, a man I never knew
Same genes, same jeans. Denim was my choice, and yours.
Rotten, like and old pair. Chromosomes.
I lay on your thick neck
The weight of a field mouse, tiny bones, pulled, curled in the straw, invisible to everyone but you
Your shoes always faced upwards
Walking the line where the barbed wire tore your chest
Your heart was a runway, our family horse, chocks away
Twelve stitches, those same twelve stitches in my mother's neck, at twelve years old,
Twelve years on and it's taking thirteen to heal
I learnt how to pick locks at eight years old,
A lost boy in the body of a girl, skin of a thistle, no ****
Purple and armoured
A chameleon soul, belonging to no one
No compass due north, a ***** needle
She said; 'Baby, you're like cyanide, and I liked you for that.'
I believe in madness
Holding your breath for sixty seconds, because you can
Like a bird flying into a windscreen voluntarily
Throw me into it,
If i'm going, i'm going,
Pull me down harder, bind my ankles to make a tail
Hit me harder, hit me until I find it acceptable to hit back,
No halves, of the halves that halve us in half
I'm all
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 11:46 AM UTC
Decoupled from my conscience of subjective discernment
The necessity for personal authority over impulse
Vs an instantly gratifying road to distraction
Journey of wilful blindness
Consequential destination deferred
But upon arrival lies the choices
To decouple, To adjourn
Or to confront the demons towards which my back I have turned
Self-romanticised truths to whom before I have spoken
Yet despite a colourful history our personal promises lay broken
Under the rug
Etched into the bottom of a bottle
A chasing of tails
Ignorance long forgotten
A cycle indeed
But of downward trajectory
Gratefully, the bottom of which yet to be met by me
But somehow graced by others
With stronger character than I
A slippery slope
An exponential decent
Over which I now maintain a watchful eye
Jan 16, 2022
Jan 16, 2022 at 3:28 PM UTC
I washed my hair for the first time in three weeks and
learned to stop walking on tiptoes
I am the bitter taste at the back of your throat.
Some nights, I turn on every light in the house and sit awake picking skin
from my chapped lips
I am full-circle and puncture wounds.
I wanted to be the girl to wear her heart on her sleeve but
my armband was embroidered with a ********
I was misinformed. Romanticised.
There isn't romance in 4am shudders, in skin stuck to the teal sofa or the sweat between my
shoulder blades. In yellow stained fingers nicotine or black stained lungs tar.
For protection, I tried pouring a ring of salt - and found myself
sitting cross-legged on the floor
rubbing salt into my wounds
No ritual can protect me from myself.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 12:07 PM UTC
I can’t remember when
I last wrote a poem with a pen
Writing once romanticised
now has been exorcised
From touching tablets or touching keys
magically
words begin
appearing on a screen
Organised as I wish
edits in an instant
easily erased
replaced or placed elsewhere on the page
A literary light show
based on binary play
then sent off to cyberspace
until another day
Sep 14, 2017
Sep 14, 2017 at 6:24 PM UTC
To me she is a name and an image,
the moral to my good intentions,
A face to a feeling of my own invention.
She's a lingering lie in the back of my mind.
Fingers and lips stand highlighted
as ghost-like etchings in my abbreviated memory.
Romanticised moments of your hip-bones tremoring
on Winter nights, alone and together in the dark.
Our long lasting days in-doors
played out like "the way things ought to be",
with the most perfect view of the movie
through faded strands of hair
These days, your girls make you up unfamiliar,
Indian ink applied over the original sketch,
the shivering girl brought down to match,
a floating feather dipped in black and
made part of a Hot Topic handbag.
And even now I wonder if the dripping wet girl
with the stiff shutter smile
ever even existed, at least,
the drunken emo kid staggering on the cobbles whispers rumours
she was mown down by telltale scripted kisses and silent exchanges.
So she remains a name and an image,
a memorial for better or worse,
an epitaph that eases the hurt,
the difficult first album of my heart
Jun 12, 2010
Jun 12, 2010 at 2:00 PM UTC
i did always say that perms don’t make good poetry; especially yours because honestly most of the time it was vaguely flat and misshapen. then again that was one of the first things you said to me; ‘in defence of the perm’.
that and a self-inflicted proclamation regarding your narcissistic disposition, so really all the signs were there; it could be compared rather dramatically to a romanticised act of self-harm.
as in, you didn’t really want to be loved or fixed but that didn’t stop me from trying; as in, part of me thought that by stitching up your wounds and healing your scars i could also fix myself.
self-sabotage of the highest degree.
getting tangled up in someone else’s string is a dangerous affair, rarely do you ask permission; you throw yourself into their mess in the tangibly desperate hope that two negatives might make a positive.
that, in between all of the crying and pills and messy ******* filled nights; between the hazy afternoons wrapped up in borrowed sheets and sweat. that somewhere deep within it all there would be a flash of mutual comfort and understanding.
the kind of “let’s be a mess together and try and fix it all” thing that only actually exists in coming of age movies surrounded by cigarette smoke and electric house parties.
it’s a terrifying and debilitating thing to fall in love with the idea of what could have been; their potential. people don’t fall for the extremes and absolutes; they fall in love with the details,
we lose ourselves and find each other in the details.
you will fall for the way he always licks his bottom lip slightly before he kisses you or the way he is so painfully cynical and innocently hopeful all at once.
it’ll be the small circles he’ll trace along the back of your hand with his thumb and the way that you’ll know you’re getting in too deep but will feel powerless in the face of it all.
so, you lie back like the pavement is sand and he is the waves that crash mercilessly down on you again and again and again.
the tide will change but the bruising will never stop,
his touch,
his words will never be soft enough, at least not for you.
the next girl that tries; i wish you luck and i promise it’ll be worth it because maybe
perms do make alright poetry after all.
Apr 11, 2018
Apr 11, 2018 at 11:51 AM UTC
We watch consumed,
by how he swooned
and soothed, the world around them,
making everything happen.
A knight in shining armour,
the first one to see her.
Even in a slow burn
we know he will return.
So I sink into my seat,
waiting for it all to repeat.
But then it's over.
When they only just got together.
I wanted to see more.
The lifetime they swore,
with every mundane moment
and hint of enjoyment.
I don't want to realise
that it was all just romanticised,
and in actuality,
they were never meant to be.
The meet cute,
a perfectly scripted route.
The first date
that changed his heart rate,
in a destined fate,
that finally lifted the weight
off his shoulders,
now that he can hold hers.
All spontaneity,
a Hollywood reality.
Carefully constructed,
harmoniously corrupted.
In the business
of making a buck off the Mrs.
Forever exploiting,
the love that they're taunting.
The hopeless romantic
made cinematic,
Love turned perfect,
for the sake of a profit.
Breakups and heart ache,
every little mistake
changing their minds,
unsure if they'll find
the one.
But the film has begun,
and we can see, just how clearly
that they are meant to be.
From the first kiss
that was pure bliss.
And coffee shop barista,
who finally slipped a
note on his cup,
to use that stupid pick up
he's been rehearsing,
when he thinks nobody is watching.
The time he turned a blind
when she wrote a note for him to find,
left on the work-top,
and reading it made time stop.
When she searched through the crowd,
but it was all too loud,
and he was nowhere to be found,
until his arms wrapped around,
her waist from behind,
and all the stars aligned.
We watch consumed,
by how he swooned
and soothed, the world around them,
making everything happen.
A knight in shining armour,
the first one to see her.
So now, somehow without ever having it I miss,
everything the romcoms promise.
Mar 27, 2025
Mar 27, 2025 at 8:54 AM UTC
You could say i was weak for telling the truth,
Or naive for letting myself love you.
You could say i was silly to not play it cool,
Or completely pathetic for admitting my weakness was you.
But in the age where being heartless is romanticised,
I wont let my vulnerable honesty be capsized.
For it is exactly what this world needs,
Understanding that unrequited love doesnt have to bring you to your knees.
Don't become calculated like the ones who hurt you before,
For in love it will never last if you have to keep score.
Dont let heartbreak rob you of your openness,
Here lies youre upmost innocence.
Oct 18, 2015
Oct 18, 2015 at 1:37 PM UTC
A single sober thought against a scape of memories
To simply wish for stillness upon an ever-moving sea
Silenced for the centuries as for me now to behold
Tempting not to walk away, to bide its time to come
Season only changes face twice for the human mind
Now to guess the use of being born then just to die
Elderly the woodworks, fragile beauty bitter-grown
Such it is the way of man, the seed among the sown
**Savour this scarce, small moment
Deep in the wake of a weary-worn world
Silent and long forgotten
My bed underneath a shroud of snow**
Cinnamon and broken toys, a songbird out of tune
Easy pride in scarlet dress romanticised to blue
Earnest words, a rarest toil to feed such cynic sight
Raising hope to see despair rewrite the dearest lines
Serenity now roams the sphere as if to call me home
Such yet little precious light, a beacon sight of old
Where the age once had a fright so readily to share
Now every night seems easier with every step to take
**Savour this scarce, small moment
Deep in the wake of a weary-worn world
Silent and long forgotten
My bed underneath a shroud of snow**
Come now
Enter my room
Take me back into the deep dark
The night unknown
A slave to the sunlight, kin to the moon
Within the cobweb of life all noughts become one
**Savour this scarce, small moment
Deep in the wake of a weary-worn world
Silent and long forgotten
My bed underneath a shroud of snow**
©2018, Adrian Betz
Dec 25, 2018
Dec 25, 2018 at 4:30 PM UTC
A deep sea stretch
of all the unknowns,
Undiscovered and untouched.
A ***** cream beach litters us with sand
These speckles affect our ivory skin,
They make us look more romanticised than we are.
A salty silent cocoon of living organisms,
Encasing us inside its burnt heath of razor sharp grass.
The stretch of land before us curving and tangling,
Becoming an alcove of such beauty only a lover’s body can recreate,
Often described as “beast with two backs”, it is just that.
A simple engagement can become as vast as those open waters,
It can take forever to form from steaming molten lava,
Then,
Be swept away,
As easily as dead wood.
You blow bubbles from a mouth which opens at the surface,
Diving, parting the cool lips with a clasp of the hands,
You slip gracefully in, making ripples,
Leading to a land.
Oct 11, 2011
Oct 11, 2011 at 6:11 PM UTC
Will he
awaken
from a
wide-eyed
slumber?
Will he
be the
bearer
of bated
breaths?
Will he
succumb
to the calls of the
nether after?
When he
indulges in
romanticised notions
of untimely
deaths.
Apr 22, 2021
Apr 22, 2021 at 8:12 AM UTC
I look into my life.
It’s distorted,
Curved at the peripheries
‘Till I’m required to squint,
Just to make out the features
Beneath the glass.
In the snow lies dead thought.
Water stagnant,
Green-blue and faded paintwork.
How I ache for that great hand
To lift, shake and cascade me
With memories.
Rain on me my life’s memoirs.
Drown me in snow.
I sit and I wait for when
These monotone streets will
Fan and flame, burst to colour,
Burst to flavour.
My romanticised past,
I marvel at.
Recall each day as a dream,
And each night an excursion
Of wanderlust, innocence
And fair fortune.
For now, I’ll remain here.
These arching walls,
My old translucent prison.
Life in stasis, I’m stubborn
As I avoid career-paths
In my dome,
And wonder when this world
Will begin to feel like home.
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 3:02 PM UTC
I first asked why there is so much pain in being in love? but after a while my soul started to crave them. And then I romanticised my pain; to the point where I deemed it a necessary ingredient to any great love. There is an art in bleeding, wound to wound, death to death, and from you to him.
Aug 1, 2015
Aug 1, 2015 at 7:17 AM UTC
today we talk of
romanticised cities of drug addicts
wistful car rides to the airport's departure hall
and letting go of concepts,
constructs that can't last forever.
san francisco & the boy,
i'm thinking perhaps they could be similar
live it all out through pictures
but how much do you truly know?
read into the rows of tiny houses
lining the roads sheltered by round trees
the lopsided american flag
hanging from the banister
the misty day still has golden sunshine
upon beige bricks and tinted windows,
the boy is off in early morning
to great adventure beyond this city
a city that can't hold him or his dreams
set foot into treacherous unknown
but perhaps he isn't as alone as he seems,
the golden sunshine follows him around
and he'll learn to dance
in its golden pool on paved tarmac.
i'm thinking san francisco & the boy,
daydreaming a story while in a faraway city
that's a far cry from san francisco & the boy
and from that i learn how
to tap my feet to the beat of the raindrops
and to twirl on my toes in radiant sunshine.
i'm thinking me, then san francisco & the boy.
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 8:19 AM UTC
You gave your love to the government.
Your liver to the greyhounds
and the squalor you live in.
The Asian district disappoints you
with its inaccessible women
to whom you are flaccid and unlovable.
The pub is full of students,
air humid with *** and youth-
all those impossible frames of reference.
You, proud emblem, are confused by it all.
The drawl of the six o'clock news:
“there is a war at your own front door.”
The Golden Age was taken for granted,
a party spoiled by strangers,
strange music, strange clothes;
the symbols you cannot understand.
Tradition fades to dementia, greyscale,
redundant colour, and jaded patriotism;
you raise the mourning flag alone.
A country died in your lifetime,
your romanticised vision of home.
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 11:20 AM UTC
Who Am I?
A question too romanticised
To have one answer;
Maybe I'm a butterfly,
Spreading my wings
And becoming a metaphor for creativity
Maybe I'm a spirit, a ghost,
Wandering and gliding around
This plane of existence for answers.
Maybe I'm a leaf,
Fallen from a tree.
I glide and glide and I am free!
Or maybe I'm just me.
I'm myself.
And sometimes I write words
And people like them.
I exist,
And sometimes I do things,
And other things happen after that.
Maybe I'm self doubtful,
Maybe I lack a certain narccism,
Maybe I'm missing my confidence.
But to be honest,
When you ask who I am,
I answer:
I am me.
Oct 2, 2021
Oct 2, 2021 at 10:19 AM UTC
It has been a while indeed.
But not much has changed
Your hair
Your style
Your walk
My feelings.
You were the same.
We walked through the streets of Amsterdam
Inhaled some culture
Exhaled stupid jokes
Reached the heavens and our lowest points.
There was silence in between.
I liked you more when we were quiet.
The amount of things that silence makes you realize
Silence can change your mind.
I thought... I do still like you.
But more in my head than in the flesh.
A week ago, I wanted us to be us;
I wanted one of our 15 hour moments again.
But it's all just a mix of unreal expectations
and highly romanticised thoughts
Snapped myself back to reality
I looked for you.
In my heart
And
you
just
weren't
there.
Emptied by silence.
In a snap of a finger.
You were the same. Everything was.
But suddenly I wasn't.
I realised we've reached the end.
Smiles and awkwardness in between
We bid our last goodbye.
I left you in Amsterdam
I left you in my memory.
On the train to France,
I cried for you one last time.
Aug 30, 2015
Aug 30, 2015 at 7:22 AM UTC
Romanticised, phantasised, moments and actions
which reality could not hold,
yet, force of desire makes manifest.
Sleepwaking in a walking dream,
as a thousand echoed universes flow by,
each alone, yet glowing in the brilliance
of a million thoughts and feints and
flowing emotions, occupying the fragile mind
from the nothingness held within.
Sep 21, 2017
Sep 21, 2017 at 5:38 AM UTC
i want a love that consumes me
fills me up until i'm a punching bag of scattered thoughts
and i keep spluttering and spilling my love in wine glasses
and they're overflowing and i can't stop vomiting your name
i want love to devour me
like the leftover pizza you bought at 4am last night, drunk and lonely and alone
how sad it has become to be drunk and lonely and alone with you
i will become pieces within you because i cannot stop shedding my layers
i want a love that engulfs me
that chews me up like that second stick of bubblegum
and spits me out like mouthwash on an alcoholics tongue, acidic and burning and foreign
your mouth is a gun and my eyes are bloodshot from its metaphors
i have run out of armour
i have run out of armour
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and it is romanticised
but all i know is i want to romanticise all night long with you under my bed covers because you are beautiful
i would say i love you but how mundane
how throw-away those words have became
i am told love isn't meant to be beautiful and i have run out of armour
how can something that isn't meant to be beautiful look so good?
like a train wreck decorated in fresh flowers; roses and chrysanthemums
a car crash on the side of the road, nobody wants to see but everybody looks
i said i want a love that consumes me
i said i want it to devour me, engulf me whole and then spit me out
i said i'm running out of armour
and maybe if i convince myself it's what i asked for maybe then maybe it starts to look beautiful
drunk and lonely and alone
and i was atop the hill we sat at the first night you ever told me you love me (how throw-away those words have became)
you were brighter than every night light combined, i thought
"love isn't meant to be beautiful," everyone said
"but how? how is sitting here with you and seeing the silhouette of trees across a skyline, a concrete ocean dotted with street lamp stars and the last hours of a wakened society not ******* beautiful?"
drunk and lonely and alone i got it
i am pouring my thoughts into wine glasses and they're overflowing and i keep vomiting
i keep vomiting
i'm not sure if it was the pizza at 4am or you who made me sick
i am waiting for you to spit me out
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 9:29 AM UTC
Black, space, satiated void,
a meaty elixir, romanticised steroid,
a lens through which we see the heart,
a core, a seed where life shall start.
I hope in deepest darkest dreams,
that life shall come as godly fiends,
to shame us all and show us splendour,
our childhood may we then remember.
When stars were bright and mighty things,
more than flame in frost,
they inspired our hearts and dreams,
the gifts that we have lost.
I look up and I see them each,
looking down on me.
worlds and stories I'd like to see,
but sadly cannot reach.
Mar 17, 2025
Mar 17, 2025 at 7:10 AM UTC
**Like the songs on the radio
I began to love you
Like Sweaters I wear
I wished I could hold you
This winter
I want to kiss you endlessly forever
In my deepest dreams
I want to love you forever baby
But on your Sweaters
Blend with me tonight baby
Let’s entertain each other
Let’s have a good time
Collecting memories
Side by side
I can’t do it by myself
It has to be
You & I
In those photo’s
Will be art
We could create together
Morning
Or
Night
It doesn’t matter
Because We are at the beginning of happier days together
unlike any we’ve ever felt before
Brighter glow
Brighter future
Places we’ve never touched
Sounds we’ve never heard
Begins to flow again
On our chilled bones
Makes it all okay
To kiss on this beautiful night
favour it, romanticised it
With your dearest dreams
Remember sweaters are there remembrance
Like flower to flower
I all makes sense to me
Every time I write this poetry
I forget your name
In my thoughts
winter love be sweet
Long and unending
Cuddling in sweaters
In the most beautiful ways**
Dec 13, 2015
Dec 13, 2015 at 1:05 AM UTC
here was something addictive about still pretending to be in love with you. It’s like the quotes and sad music started to become a part of me. But, after months of you leaving, I realise I’m not in love with you, I was just in love with the thought of still holding onto you.”
-I don’t know why I romanticised about you leaving me behind.
(you-were-my-forever)
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 8:23 PM UTC