"unsee" poems
Shooter
What makes you this way
Is it the game on your computer
Or is it in your DNA?
Is it alcohol?
Or drugs?
The urge to end it all?
Deathly Spirits, do they tug at you?
Or is it PTSD?
Images and feelings from long ago
That you can’t unsee?
What made us cross the line 19 years ago?————————————
Why?
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 7:46 AM UTC
Every place I turn
I can't unsee the horrors I've known
I can't say I have had it the worst
Not by a long shot
But it hasn't been butterflies
No three year old wants to see
Random men in their house with
Their mama when their daddy's not home
And no six year old should have to see
Parents so enraged
And divorcing
Nor should their best friend's parents
Feel a need to adopt them
Even temporarily
No seven year old should
Feel they need to be twenty-seven
And like they aren't allowed to cry
No ten year old should be forced
To choose which parent they like best
Under any circumstances
No twelve year old should feel
Any desire to harm themselves
And watch blood swell on their arms
No fourteen year old should think they're
Wrong because they believed in love
Nor should they feel jaded
No fifteen year old should contemplate suicide
At all
Especially not so thought out
With a grand scheme and everything
Just two months before their sweet sixteen
No sixteen year old should feel betrayed
And forgotten
Or unworthy of any kind of love
Every step I take I am reminded
That life is a widening gyre
Mr. Yeats, you were right
But I can't accept that to be
The only plausible possibility
Which leads me to believe
That with every step I take
Though my heart is torn to bits
By this minefield called life
I get a little bit
Stronger
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 1:48 AM UTC
How can I unlove you?
Shall I unsee the luminescent smile you make?
Shall I unfeel the heavy breaths I take?
Shall I undraw your image inside my head?
Shall I unhold our memories instead?
Shall I unwrite the song I made for you?
Shall I untell my heart to stop beating too?
Shall I uncling to my tiny sliver of forever?
Shall I undream of what we can become together?
Shall I unremember the light on your face?
Shall I unrecall my saving grace?
Shall I ungrasp this love I know true,
But the question is...
Is it possible to unlove you?
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 7:15 PM UTC
Ash to mouth
divide north and south
east and west,
shout with class of Scout
let it out with griffin clout
we here we out , hear me out
— rhymes in time without
silent shrines to mime
cleared the crowd
covered eyes and mouth
over body desert shroud
if vengeance is your business
then from swords to plow
en lakesh
an eye for an eye binds
the all to be blind
but you can’t unsee the signs
no thoughts unclouded by loss
out the window I toss
mosaic fragments that cost
health and awesome sauce
Nazareth gutted commandments
by anarchy spelled
disaster after culture
massive ego it swell
up the road ahead a pit depress the juncture
so we spit the dirt divide just to touch the other
from pup to wolf so many bites, a pitted puncture
so much disfunct the fight till all be winded lungs sir
you can run
but from
gamma ray
you no hide
passed a black hole
wand inside
a body died
but it’s alright
(it’s heaven sight
till Zombie night )
animate dead necromantic black ring
the rhythm of life and death a chronic swing
the pendulum blade cross over cosmic skin
consciousness draw out from within
traced the win which wound round tat to skeleton
a dusty tome bound and crafted man
medicine subtracted by the head that spin
in the sky and its happening, blessen-ings
the miracle is mystery u cant guess it
talking 3 eye see
talking vip
climb high as canopy
walking so
my shadow lands under me.
ten toes touch to the dusty roads
when toads appear throats close
mighta had the Midas touch
still the golden one
was too much to flush
you might live in Laos
you my livid crowd
you might live it now
neva hit my limit how
cause you live in now
when you wake up proud
timid mind plowed
divid-dine fill the cloud
insta crowd wowed
this I vowed
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 7:59 PM UTC
Emotions from beyond are slowly seeping in,
spilling over my conscious,
dripping on my skin.
I want to taste it on your lips,
I want to hear it when you breathe.
I have scaled every beat you missed,
I have heard your whispers and whims,
still familiar with what are your needs in play.
Your lips feel like ripples on my neck,
divine interventions I cannot say.
Unlike any twilight skies I have seen,
your beauty is the only hue
I cannot unsee.
All I want is you right now,
this need is killing me now.
Waiting,
with my emotions in chains,
if I let them fly,
you might forget the lines
of lust and pain.
You are the only one,
to quench my thirst
so, make me wait no more
or else the demons might lose their cage,
the chains might fade with age,
you won’t be able to hold me back,
once the chains unclutter,
It’s either you till dawn or
or until I have you for supper.
Let me hold you close,
Let me hear you say,
“I will cleanse you of your sins,
the sins in love you are too afraid to say
the sins from our timeless yesterday.”
Mar 17, 2021
Mar 17, 2021 at 11:32 AM UTC
I hate the word "perfect".
Nobody can be perfect.
It's literally impossible.
They say, "Don't change, you're perfect as you are."
Humans can't be perfect.
It's not in our nature.
Our media portrays perfection as people's personalities painted in pretty pastel.
Don't be fooled.
Perfection is disgusting.
Perfection
is tearing your hair out over a simple dashed line
in front of the "A" on the report card.
Perfection
is raking chewed cuticles across your cheeks
for missing the kick in Phy. Ed class.
Perfection
is spilling your guts out after every meal and screaming into the mirror,
"Am I perfect yet?! Am I good enough for you?!"
Perfection
is ripping apart the artwork you poured your heart into
because someone pointed out a flaw, and now you can't unsee it.
Perfection
is gorging on painkillers
as if they would take away the emotional pain, too.
Don't you dare tell me that I'm perfect
because perfection is disgusting.
I hate the word "perfect".
Mar 5, 2019
Mar 5, 2019 at 10:08 PM UTC
Dust, dust, infernal dust:
Mocked! Mortality mocked!
Toil, toil, burdensome toil,
procrastinator born.
I don't see, it's still clean.
I don't see, I don't care.
I don't see, just the wind.
Oh no! Now I see,
I cannot unsee, woe is me!
Dust, dust, infernal dust,
with vacuum be gone!
Toil, toil, burdensome toil,
Adam's curse, is there no escape?
May 12, 2019
May 12, 2019 at 6:11 AM UTC
What must you think of me?
Dark
Hungry eyes
Full of hurt and hope,
And
All
That love,
So sudden.
I've never met someone like you.
I know you see it,
And yet somehow I think you believe it,
Receive it,
Understand.
And I don't know what to do,
Because
Nobody's ever known that
And not flinched from me
The way you recoil when your hand rests accidentally on a hot stove.
In your eyes I saw...
Joy.
I saw that you wanted
What was in
Mine.
And god,
I've been trying to recover from that ever since.
It makes no sense to me.
No sense.
You saw
You saw the secret.
It spilled out at your feet
And I wanted to fall to my knees there
And beg you to forgive it.
But your eyes never shamed me-
They glowed
(god I cannot unsee them)
With excitement,
As if maybe my touch shocked you
The way yours shocked me.
In that moment
You must understand,
And every other moment since
When your eyes have found mine
And burned my disguises to dust within seconds,
Every single thing I ever knew about myself
Was overturned.
That's why I can't get you out of my head.
Why I'm scared,
Why everything I do now is a little shaky and uncertain in my mind,
Because everything
Is new.
I based my life on the knowledge that I had to hide.
Everything I was sure of, everything that had been
Proven
Time and again to me
By never being disproved
Dissolved in that moment.
You razed it to ash.
When you touched me with tenderness,
I fell apart.
When you kissed me,
I lost everything
I've been wanting to shed
For my entire life.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 2:58 PM UTC
Louder than Monsters
By: Calla Fuqua
I can’t unhear your ignorance, I can’t unsee your belligerence,
The potential difference you swore you’d make, and the carnivorous path
You chose to take.
You are louder than monsters.
Heaven must scare you and your desire to dissipate,
Your chance to incriminate, the problems you exacerbate,
I can’t articulate your need to intoxicate.
Your laughter is louder than monsters.
You fabricat your pity you pretend to give, as you wait for me to forgive,
That night I have to relive when I dream, of our short lived view of how happiness seemed.
Back then how could I have known that you were louder than monsters.
Your grip on me becomes tighter, the more your desire for me expires,
The more you secretly become a liar, and the more I ask myself why her?
Her voicemails are louder than monsters.
I end up on the floor, after you hit me and you swore,
You don’t say I love you anymore, the way you used to before,
And now I’m just your little ***** you pretend to love as if it’s a chore.
Your silence is louder than monsters.
I pray for you and the guilt you must feel, screaming out our window,
frantic to appeal, for the pain you caused solely so you could heal.
Your lies are louder than monsters.
You laugh when I say no, giving me a messed up world you pretend to know,
Now it’s my turn to outgrow you and your plateau, the one you promised
To let go. While I undergo the pain you overflow.
My screams are louder than monsters.
I still tell myself you love me after you throw your fists, holding tight to my wrists,
As I keep allowing the crimes you commit, to become imprints from the pain you inflict.
This pain is louder than monsters.
Now, nobody seems sincere, every scar is like a souvenir, You leave me speechless, when you sip your beer, like you didn’t just make my whole world disappear,
You say you are not louder than monsters.
All I can do now is reminisce, look back on moments like our first kiss,
Before you led me into this abyss, before I was unable to dismiss the thought,
“What kind of monster does this?”
Someone who doesn’t know he is louder than monsters.
I dream about the day I can throw out your ashtray, The day
I can cast away you whole, no more arms to control my body’s soul,
A day where I no longer have to be your wife,
A day where I can play a character in my own life.
A day where love is louder than monsters
Apr 15, 2019
Apr 15, 2019 at 2:01 PM UTC
I still remember that day. The unsettling unease.
The drive, I still remember the feeling of the cool air against my skin.
The silence of my phone. The increased rate of my heartbeats.
Something was wrong, I felt it as if the sky itself was telling me.
The memories that follow I can never unsee, as if it was stained perfectly in my mind.
That day my heart sank into the abyss.
If only I was sooner.
Can’t help but find it comedically painful.
Aug 1, 2022
Aug 1, 2022 at 4:24 PM UTC
I’m meeting a friend tomorrow, one I haven’t seen in some years save for the incidental meeting a week ago that sparked this reunion
My thoughts, Reminiscent, tinged with melancholy for that time dotted with puffs of whip cream, sugar, sparkles, and joy spilling from the sky
We were mages one moment,
The elements at
Our beck and call
With a flick of our hands
Warrior cats the next
Loyally guarding
Bravely scarring
We lives in our world of monsters, and magic, and peach fuzz
None of the extra complications, the insecurities, the splotches marring our once vibrant and lovely canvas, turning it from a rainbow sparkle unicorn pony...to a mare
More time for text books
Less time for novels
More time for homework
Less time for TV
More time for crushes and heartbreak and insecurities and tears
Less time to run straight ahead without a care in the world
Reality, setting in like large boulders, so heavy and present, jutting into your life, impossible to unsee
But,
It’s not all planes crashing and burning, because now that she’s no longer made up into a sparkle pony, you can see the mare for the
beauty she is
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 11:36 PM UTC
Nothing exists except atoms and space,
And everything else is opinion,
Yet we can't determine the time of their place,
And relative distance between 'em.
If I could understand,
With a wave of my hand,
All that is, and what lies in between,
I probably wouldn't,
For fear that I couldn't
Unsee what what I might think obscene.
What if, for example,
I could indeed sample
All knowledge there is to be known?
Would I be enlightened,
Or possibly frightened?
Depressed once all mystery's gone?
If nothing exists except atoms and space,
And if everything else is opinion,
Then surely opinion's mankind's saving grace;
The source of the beauty within 'em
Dec 8, 2016
Dec 8, 2016 at 9:45 PM UTC
i have been writing a lot recently,
all about the same thing.
i can't unsee your bright blue eyes
or the small gap between your two front teeth,
that you hate so much but i love so dear.
i can't forget the words you said,
and the song you named after me.
those words which are now out under a different name
for the rest of the world to hear.
the words that used to be my favorite song became the melody
i hated the most.
but,
at the same time, i'll do anything to hear your voice.
and no matter how mad i am, i can't stay that way forever.
i see you smile once and i fall all over again.
i don't think it's fair that i think about you,
when i know **** well you aren't thinking of me.
i spoke to your mom recently.
she said you've been doing just fine.
how nice.
she also mentioned how you talk about me.
why talk about me instead of talking to me?
i know you write about me too.
she told me one of your band's new songs is about me,
and i have a feeling i know which one it is.
it made me cry the first time i had heard it.
i've tried moving on.
i've tried singing it away.
i've tried writing it away.
i even tried seeing other people.
but somehow,
my mind always comes back to you.
it's always going to be you.
Mar 23, 2018
Mar 23, 2018 at 8:03 PM UTC
Seventh Grade.
I wrote a poem about a solider
who couldn't unsee all the damage
wrought on his friends and brothers.
My mother cried.
Asked, “what have I done?
For you to write such
despairing things?”
Eighth Grade.
My English teacher tried to
“Harness” my talent,
in the raw.
Pushed me into competitions
Of which I had no interest.
Freshman Year.
I got accused of plagiarism.
After all,
What could I possibly know
of the world's tragedies,
after a mere 14 years spent here?
I was told to “stick to something
a 14-year-old girl would right. So
it isn't obvious.”
Sophomore Year.
I wrote about
the boy who held my heart.
Because that's what
15-year-old girls write about.
Or so I've been told.
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 4:59 AM UTC
In this place
The air is so dry that water sulks.
The sky is a viscous brown mosaic.
The sulfurous fumes of old suffering linger.
A woman stares as if trying to unsee creation.
Words on a man’s tongue sound
like rhythmic coughing.
At the only stoplight
the crosswalk sign flashes “Don’t waltz.”
Strangers recoil from me
as if from an embarrassing stain.
People stream to the town square
for some indecipherable ritual.
Probably a funeral for the sun
or a snake oil sale.
Welcome to humankind’s true garden.
Not paradise but a place of desolation,
and what comes after is not exile but striving
and getting the hell out.
So long, mom and dad.
Jan 7, 2019
Jan 7, 2019 at 10:37 PM UTC
There are too many things to unsee in this city,
the night street holds dark memories;
traffic jams, phones blaring
the static complacency of the bourgeoisie,
faint screeches of beat up vans
and tire explosions, schizophrenic
sloth of industrial machinery
drilling roads, houses, three metres apart;
the fragmentation of the nuclear family -
if only life were a gothic fable;
we would all be mythical
deities to the dark regions of earth -
for the night is oceanic,
Atlantic, revolution
turns upon a fixed axis;
tonight’s ocean
opening, first ionization,
breath as oxidation -
the middle
the midnight
in the air where the air is alight
and the light contains substance,
the fine saturation of salience,
lust for dopamine, we light
the silk in the fire, remember the earth
spirals around a sailing sun
like a strand of DNA,
everything circumferencing
in swirls of cataleptic cinnamon,
and we are space dancers,
free in the infinite,
the embroidery of all edges,
small, but
insoluble
and dissolving.
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 2:58 PM UTC
"call me spoons"
said "be giving you what you need,"
pause.
like a toddler, sat in high chair
mess face consisting mostly of chocolate pudding, eviscerated green beans, promises
promises
promises
promises "you are one of a kind."
a hand that can't win.
"you're special,"
the kitten no one adopts
"unique"
alone
"perfect"
can't be fixed
can't be fixed
can't be fixed
can't
be
fixed
broken boy sitting at dinner next to cracked mirror metaphor
mess face consisting mostly of bruises and that's it.
bag of frozen peas on the eye
green beans became useless after dad ran out
spoons across the dining room
no words; body language says enough
"i failed you."
said
"couldn't give you what you need."
"what you need."
what you need
what you need
what you need? you.
you need you.
you need you.
spoons at the end of a rope
black eyes toddler can't see
blind reach
spoons isn't there
spoons isn't there
no object permanence means that while spoons aren't around, baby can't get what it needs.
object permanence means in 1997 when you cheated again and she found out
that there was no running away this time that you in this state will exist in abject permanence.
she can never unsee
bent spoons stained with street glue
black tar lungs and inability to breathe
mess face consisting mostly of
i'm sorry
i'm sorry
i'm sorry
Jul 18, 2015
Jul 18, 2015 at 1:16 AM UTC
The way you lived
Everyday
Living in fear
Of somebody seeing you loving me
Cause that alley had eyes hidden in the bricks
That parking lot had lights hitting our lips
And you were hushing me
We were always walking on a tightrope that was too many years old
I wonder where you went too when you wouldn’t show up for the 5 minutes you were supposed to
The way you lived
Everyday
Living in fear
Of somebody seeing you loving me
Cause people were noticing me love you
That school had monstrous eyes
That window of your truck had my breath melting the ice
It had the smell of me, my missing earring
The way I lived
Everyday
Living In fear that no one would see me love you
Cause I was the most prized secret
Perfectly kept on tight sealed lips
Losing myself in you
I still remember the weight of you
I still remember the first taste of you
And I remember your stories of the boy you once were and I remember wishing I was born in the 70’s just so I had a chance to be chosen by you
The way I lived
Everyday
Living In fear that no one would see me love you
Everyday for me was like a 10 mile race
I tried with everything I had to be the woman in your frame
But I sunk down deep and lost the game
There I was chasing you like you owed me
Cause I never accepted the fact that you were bad for me
The way you lived
Everyday
Living in fear that somebody would see you loving me
Cause I thought you wanted longevity and I was overtaken by our chemistry
I had dreams about the silly things like your jeans and the way you would smirk at me
I bet you dreamt about mornings with me
But all we ever had was foggy evenings
I had a feeling you were going to make me blue
With your name on me, a blue tattoo
Instead the colors of me are a pinwheel of hues
The way I lived
Everyday
Living In fear that no one would know I love you
But I tell myself that art is meant for periods of time
You made me into a heaven and you made me into a hell
Tell me how do you get the sun to set on you
All I ever have is the moon
And I know that time will pass over and over but I am stained with you
all over my body you lay
After the 8 hour school days of staring at you I can’t unsee you
And I know I was never good at accepting
But you accepted that I was a broken young
And you chose to make me anew
Did it **** you too?
Tell me did it enlighten you?
Did the first time for me overtake you?
Every day
I was there
You were there
Every day
I was there..
The way you lived
Everyday
Living In fear
Of someone finding out you love me..
I’ll never relate too..
Nov 14, 2021
Nov 14, 2021 at 1:03 PM UTC
i.
a child’s edition of your father. in which
the unused
scarecrow
is found
hiding
the *****
mags, the cigarettes
of a sister’s worry, and other
inanimate
markers
of accounting, meant to be
traded
for fireworks, for fat frogs
not given
to snake…
that is, had the boy
lived
to unsee
the water
he didn’t
make…
ii.
(my handle on death)
is holding
a book.
an overfilled
pauper’s
grave / transcends
its archaic
reference
to belly. all mothers
are single.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 2:28 PM UTC
The stars do not just whisper,
they cry and yell and beg.
"Someone,
someone,
we are ill,
from this horror show we cannot unsee."
The land was filled with gas,
the stars,
too high to cleanse.
The stars are begging,
"Someone,
someone,
put this horror to an end."
Though on the other side.
The one that plugs their ears,
clipped noses,
zipped mouths,
and the society alive,
we say nothing to the stars,
instead we simply watch them cry.
I know we let you drop the shine,
and dazzles of tears
to our revolt and vandalized land.
I'm sorry we cannot let go,
and give you all demand,
but society has this image,
and it may not go away.
I'm sorry crying, yelling stars,
but no.
Not today.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 5:12 PM UTC
my eyes are exhausted from seeing things
i need not want to have a glimpse
from looking at people
i need never want to love at all
from catching melancholic eyes
i need in no way want to sympathize
my eyes are exhausted
from observing faces of reality
the crooked
unsubtle kind of hypocrisy
―a.t.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 8:54 PM UTC
He looked like heaven
And smelled like spring turning into summer
And maybe you left because you knew you didn't belong there
Maybe you know your place in the realm of the dead,
You certainly have the ambition to get there
And it feels too much like home, so much so that
You know that you could explore every corner of the universe with him
And never find anywhere like here.
Although the city keeps you up at night,
The sound of people weeping and gnashing their teeth in the streets
You throw yourself into the fire
"Burn me!" You cry, and you are burned.
"Cleanse me!" You wail, and you are made blind
Because there is not way for you to unsee what you have seen,
Except maybe forgetting what the world looks like
Plunged into eternal darkness
With only the scorching, dry heat of the flame
The sound of pain outside your window
And the ghost of the smell of spring turning into summer.
Tell me that you detest the memory of his eyes,
Tell me you do not cling to them like a lifeline.
He is roses and quick fingers.
He is bright eyes and a sharp smile.
He is the scent of spring turning into summer
He is heaven but this is home.
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 11, 2018 at 9:32 PM UTC
the thing about love that seldom finds its way into conversation is the peril it carries. you surrender fragments of yourself..no, the entirety of yourself into another’s hands, praying they cradle it with reverence. yet what transpires when your devotion becomes suffocating, when the sheer intensity of your affection drowns them until escape feels like survival? they run. and you remain amidst the wreckage, gathering fractured remnants, attempting to reconstruct a semblance of wholeness.
you spiral into relentless rumination.. dissecting every misstep, questioning whether it was you, whether they’ll ever return.
and the cruelty of it all lies in the conviction since i believed with marrow-deep certainty that the two of us got it right this time around.
they said the first fracture cleaves the hardest, and they were not wrong. i wrestle with the storm until my hands are empty; in an instant a cosmos i trusted unspooled into silence. my emotions orbit without chart or tether, a scatter of constellations asking the same questions: do you still trace my name in the dark? do you love me in the quiet spaces between breaths? would you return to salvage what we built? i yearn to know.
my loving was always meant to be a refuge. a delicate harbor where you could unfurl into your truest form, not a rope to bind or a tide to drown you. it was offered to you for shelter from the world’s cruelties as a small, pure architecture of safety but never as something to drive you away. i hope in time you will see it as such. even if you never do, i can’t fault you for that.
just carry this with you like a quiet ember: my love remains and i ache for the day you remember what we once built together.
Sep 25, 2025
Sep 25, 2025 at 1:31 AM UTC
I lap a bit of the water out of my cupped hands,
then splash the rest on my battered face.
Evan looked at me like I was obscene,
left the room, slammed the door, burning,
Tyler was still nauseous, buried in the couch,
talked light about being surprised at his survival.
I made him some toast,
we tried to piece together the night,
but we only remembered that
he concocted some White Russian rip-off and called
it a Grey Romanian,
I talked to Rachel about *** and respect,
Evan wasn't very appreciative of the cake I baked,
nor was he kind to Shawna or Kara when
they gave him kickass gifts,
Bobby kept Tyler from drowning in his *****
Lauren brought me a blanket when I was freezing,
I passed out in the bathroom,
and the general consensus was we need to slow down.
Tyler told me he felt like he needed to go to church.
I felt ***** too,
but it was more from the things I have seen,
I have touched, and God never could make me unsee, unfeel.
Tyler and I sat and talked like ancient men,
men who had far outlived their time,
and were just waiting for death's hour
to claim its ****
Pure things come and find us,
we won't find you,
not down the road we've been taking.
Pure things,
the world should hang its head in shame
at all its ***** things.
Give us a revival.
The Grey Romanians, the depths,
and the *** aren't giving the answers
we expect.
I told Tyler I loved him,
walked out the door,
the sun was too bright,
I walked past an Asian lady,
her smile was insane,
I climbed in my car,
put on some Thelonious
and mended myself with each erased mile.
Oct 2, 2010
Oct 2, 2010 at 8:43 PM UTC
A final letter I'll write,
For everyone to read,
For when I'm gone,
I will no longer impede.
A gun to the head would work,
But then so would a noose -
Tie it, hang it, and leave it for later.
Oh no, this is too loose.
I wish I could unsee it,
I wish I could unhear it,
I wish it never happened -
And I don't want to believe it.
Talking to her,
It's all a blur ,
For during every session,
I weep through her slurs.
I have been debased,
I have been misplaced,
And every time I see her face -
I feel like an absolute.
Disgrace.
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 7:36 PM UTC