"worksheet" poems - Hello Poetry

That's what he told me years ago, when the hills first started to sprout in my head, beneath the sandcastles, and under built fairy huts, when I knew the world was round, but thought it felt like a marble in my palm. He told me, while I wrote a poem about a plant, and then one about dirt, because I thought all the growing things were beautiful. He told me, after my multiplication worksheet came back, bearing 100% and I couldn't have been any more proud. He told me, after he showed me how to tie shoes without bunny ears. And I believed him. The hills grew into mountains I promised to move. But the fairies left the hut when I left that house. And the world was round, but it looked awful flat. The marble grew heavy, and got too **** big to hold. My poems changed, I'd **** the plant, and the dirt was only ***** I thought sad was starting to Look beautiful. Math got hard, and I always wanted new shoes. Nothing grandpa said made sense anymore and his dementia-soaked brain went too crazy for my company. Still the mountains in my head grew, but it was starting to be too late; they were growing around me, and I couldn't move myself, let alone the mountains.

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Apr 1, 2015

Apr 1, 2015 at 8:10 PM UTC

olivia-mccann

Kid You'll Move Mountains

That's what he told me years ago, when the hills first started to sprout in my head, beneath the sandcastles, and under built fairy huts, when I knew the world was round, but thought it felt like a marble in my palm. He told me, while I wrote a poem about a plant, and then one about dirt, because I thought all the growing things were beautiful. He told me, after my multiplication worksheet came back, bearing 100% and I couldn't have been any more proud. He told me, after he showed me how to tie shoes without bunny ears. And I believed him. The hills grew into mountains I promised to move. But the fairies left the hut when I left that house. And the world was round, but it looked awful flat. The marble grew heavy, and got too **** big to hold. My poems changed, I'd **** the plant, and the dirt was only ***** I thought sad was starting to Look beautiful. Math got hard, and I always wanted new shoes. Nothing grandpa said made sense anymore and his dementia-soaked brain went too crazy for my company. Still the mountains in my head grew, but it was starting to be too late; they were growing around me, and I couldn't move myself, let alone the mountains.

50

If I did go wrong more or less at once, I wonder where The chop block decisions of grade school, when you first realize you don’t care ‘I just don’t care’ in whiney and off-pitch voices and messy drawers Was it the first time you realized you couldn’t be perfect and so just stopped Being Was it sneaking on to computers and secretly learning more about life in books than your Parents wished you to ***** things) Or was it when you learned because you shouldn’t And didn’t learn and didn’t learn, and that persistent bubble as you grew up got bigger and bigger Some looming threat about your future dangled over your animal head like a carrot as you trotted through worksheet a, a-2, a-3 And exercises you could finish in two minutes or two hours and get the same grade Or copy and get the same grade And those grades mattered more and more, and vaguer and vaguer And they guided you less as they shoved more in front of you and grabbed your nose to say This is important, this is you And your friends started laughing like lunatics as well as ******** And the first kids ended up crying in stairwells And you slept in class? Was it all that, or was it outside. Was it your parents admitting they weren’t happy. Was it the first time you had to recognize dishonesty or cruelty in others (you had long since seen it in yourself) Was it the first time you wanted to die. Is it now?

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Sep 19, 2013

Sep 19, 2013 at 1:13 AM UTC

emily-nolan

Application Anxiety

If I did go wrong more or less at once, I wonder where The chop block decisions of grade school, when you first realize you don’t care ‘I just don’t care’ in whiney and off-pitch voices and messy drawers Was it the first time you realized you couldn’t be perfect and so just stopped Being Was it sneaking on to computers and secretly learning more about life in books than your Parents wished you to ***** things) Or was it when you learned because you shouldn’t And didn’t learn and didn’t learn, and that persistent bubble as you grew up got bigger and bigger Some looming threat about your future dangled over your animal head like a carrot as you trotted through worksheet a, a-2, a-3 And exercises you could finish in two minutes or two hours and get the same grade Or copy and get the same grade And those grades mattered more and more, and vaguer and vaguer And they guided you less as they shoved more in front of you and grabbed your nose to say This is important, this is you And your friends started laughing like lunatics as well as ******** And the first kids ended up crying in stairwells And you slept in class? Was it all that, or was it outside. Was it your parents admitting they weren’t happy. Was it the first time you had to recognize dishonesty or cruelty in others (you had long since seen it in yourself) Was it the first time you wanted to die. Is it now?

23

Did you know over 100,000 people die every year by careless drivers, slippery stairs, not following printed directions, lapses in common sense, These are common errors we share. Some of us get lucky, we evade, we clutch the banister, we start at step one, We double check electrical wires, & carry scissors blade down, never running. People die at work all the time, on the Monday morning drive, rear ended in traffic on a rainy Thursday night. The 9 to 5 can take you, spirited away at the desk during a 45 page monthly report, you get to cell C83 on worksheet 8 and your heart explodes from stress, blood vessels burst in your brain like black cats on Halloween night from strain, All for a gold watch, a 401 k, so your wife can smile and your children can play in their backyard. We do it for 48 hours we can call our own. 5 days of Hell for two days in Heaven means the devils get their dues and the gods give yours to you. Oh, Weekend Mourn, How I love thee. I wake up when I wake up, no alarms needed. Sometimes I shower after coffee, sometimes after dinner. Death leaves me alone leaves me to my streaming movies, old books and my poetry. Oh, Weekend Mourn How I love thee No worksheets. No stress. No Death. Until Monday, everything is fine, until Death wakes me with a whisper "Get up, It's almost time." Oh, Weekend Mourn How I love thee.

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Apr 6, 2015

Apr 6, 2015 at 3:39 PM UTC

bryan-grissom

Weekend Mourn

Did you know over 100,000 people die every year by careless drivers, slippery stairs, not following printed directions, lapses in common sense, These are common errors we share. Some of us get lucky, we evade, we clutch the banister, we start at step one, We double check electrical wires, & carry scissors blade down, never running. People die at work all the time, on the Monday morning drive, rear ended in traffic on a rainy Thursday night. The 9 to 5 can take you, spirited away at the desk during a 45 page monthly report, you get to cell C83 on worksheet 8 and your heart explodes from stress, blood vessels burst in your brain like black cats on Halloween night from strain, All for a gold watch, a 401 k, so your wife can smile and your children can play in their backyard. We do it for 48 hours we can call our own. 5 days of Hell for two days in Heaven means the devils get their dues and the gods give yours to you. Oh, Weekend Mourn, How I love thee. I wake up when I wake up, no alarms needed. Sometimes I shower after coffee, sometimes after dinner. Death leaves me alone leaves me to my streaming movies, old books and my poetry. Oh, Weekend Mourn How I love thee No worksheets. No stress. No Death. Until Monday, everything is fine, until Death wakes me with a whisper "Get up, It's almost time." Oh, Weekend Mourn How I love thee.

70

and making me want to die was something you were always good at. not in a bad way because for someone who has been suicidal since age 11, that means you made me feel something. feeling something has been a problem of mine for a while now i either feel it all or nothing and my therapist tells me that's "black and white thinking" and i tell her "no, it's realistic" and she laughs and tells me i must be colourblind but the world has so many different tones of grey and i tell her i know i just can't see them yet and she sends me home with a worksheet to fill out she says bring it back tomorrow for our next session but the worksheet asks me questions i don't have the answer to "what's your favourite shade of grey" almost arbitrary could be written off but i feel the breath catching in my throat because i don't think about grey anymore grey reminds me of the colour in your eyes a colour chart that ranges from silver lining to solitaire you've ran off again and i have to be honest i'm glad that when you left you left me colourblind because i can't see grey without thinking of you and i can't see your note so it's another night of feeling nothing feeling something feeling it all

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Dec 20, 2017

Dec 20, 2017 at 1:09 AM UTC

alleigh-peterson

i found a note from you // colourblind

and making me want to die was something you were always good at. not in a bad way because for someone who has been suicidal since age 11, that means you made me feel something. feeling something has been a problem of mine for a while now i either feel it all or nothing and my therapist tells me that's "black and white thinking" and i tell her "no, it's realistic" and she laughs and tells me i must be colourblind but the world has so many different tones of grey and i tell her i know i just can't see them yet and she sends me home with a worksheet to fill out she says bring it back tomorrow for our next session but the worksheet asks me questions i don't have the answer to "what's your favourite shade of grey" almost arbitrary could be written off but i feel the breath catching in my throat because i don't think about grey anymore grey reminds me of the colour in your eyes a colour chart that ranges from silver lining to solitaire you've ran off again and i have to be honest i'm glad that when you left you left me colourblind because i can't see grey without thinking of you and i can't see your note so it's another night of feeling nothing feeling something feeling it all

35

A young boy once asked me, "Does it hurt to fall in love, because whenever I fall I get hurt?" Now I didn't know how to reply to the young boy whose heart was one beat away from despair so I told him this: Be prepared for the outcome no matter what it may be. Be prepared for the consequences. Be prepared for the late nights. Be prepared to hate someone that you can't help but fall in love with every time they walk into the room. Don't be afraid to give them you're ribs; They just want to make a clearer path to your heart. Don't be afraid of losing yourself, for they know exactly where you came from and they know exactly where you are going. You see, when I was a kid, I was not prepared for heart break. There was no worksheet on how to get over an ex girlfriend. There was no puzzle teaching us how to put together the pieces of our shattered pasts. I told him that love is like a drug. Some of us are strong enough to quit while others hope for one last hit even if every spike is killing them. So I told him this: Love is reckless. So be careful with the crack of a pretty smile while walking down the sidewalk we call every day life... you wouldn't want to trip. -a.m.

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Nov 11, 2014

Nov 11, 2014 at 10:03 PM UTC

franticlover

Be Careful

A young boy once asked me, "Does it hurt to fall in love, because whenever I fall I get hurt?" Now I didn't know how to reply to the young boy whose heart was one beat away from despair so I told him this: Be prepared for the outcome no matter what it may be. Be prepared for the consequences. Be prepared for the late nights. Be prepared to hate someone that you can't help but fall in love with every time they walk into the room. Don't be afraid to give them you're ribs; They just want to make a clearer path to your heart. Don't be afraid of losing yourself, for they know exactly where you came from and they know exactly where you are going. You see, when I was a kid, I was not prepared for heart break. There was no worksheet on how to get over an ex girlfriend. There was no puzzle teaching us how to put together the pieces of our shattered pasts. I told him that love is like a drug. Some of us are strong enough to quit while others hope for one last hit even if every spike is killing them. So I told him this: Love is reckless. So be careful with the crack of a pretty smile while walking down the sidewalk we call every day life... you wouldn't want to trip. -a.m.

2

On the back of a math worksheet You wrote down reasons. Then on the back of a history worksheet You wrote down ways. The back of your physics homework Had “im sorry’s” And they all had tear stains. On the back of my hand I wrote down reminders to call you. In the note pad on my phone I wrote down plans to come talk And in the back of my mind I wrote down ways to make you happier. At 2:30, right after school You were in your basement with pills. You had your math,history, and physics worksheets All laid out on the floor around you. At 2:45 you dialed my phone, pills in hand. At 2:30, right after school I was on my bed looking up spanish vocabulary I had my homework all laid out around me At 2:45 I received your call slightly worried because You never call, only text. What are you supposed to say When your best friend is on the other line Dying before they’ve even taken the pills. How are you supposed to make them feel better Because at this point you both are at a loss. Dialing 911 on the home phone Doesn’t seem to difficult But it really is when you can practically Hear the minutes going by Minutes that could determine a life from that point on Minutes that did. I heard that you tried again a couple months later. I guess you smartened up and didn’t tell me this time. You seem to have awful luck When it comes to following through with your intentions But while it may be unfortunate for you Its so lucky for me because even though we don’t speak Id like to think that one day you see that I only wanted to stop you From hurting yourself.

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Oct 16, 2013

Oct 16, 2013 at 4:01 PM UTC

emma-amme

School Worksheets

On the back of a math worksheet You wrote down reasons. Then on the back of a history worksheet You wrote down ways. The back of your physics homework Had “im sorry’s” And they all had tear stains. On the back of my hand I wrote down reminders to call you. In the note pad on my phone I wrote down plans to come talk And in the back of my mind I wrote down ways to make you happier. At 2:30, right after school You were in your basement with pills. You had your math,history, and physics worksheets All laid out on the floor around you. At 2:45 you dialed my phone, pills in hand. At 2:30, right after school I was on my bed looking up spanish vocabulary I had my homework all laid out around me At 2:45 I received your call slightly worried because You never call, only text. What are you supposed to say When your best friend is on the other line Dying before they’ve even taken the pills. How are you supposed to make them feel better Because at this point you both are at a loss. Dialing 911 on the home phone Doesn’t seem to difficult But it really is when you can practically Hear the minutes going by Minutes that could determine a life from that point on Minutes that did. I heard that you tried again a couple months later. I guess you smartened up and didn’t tell me this time. You seem to have awful luck When it comes to following through with your intentions But while it may be unfortunate for you Its so lucky for me because even though we don’t speak Id like to think that one day you see that I only wanted to stop you From hurting yourself.

43

I want to go back to when I was little. All I had to do was sit back and enjoy it while it lasted, but all I wanted to do was grow up. I tried so hard to grow up and now that I have I want to go back. I want to go back to when "Stupid" was a bad word and the only time I cried was when I hit my head. I grew up and "Stupid" gets thrown around like its nothing and sometimes I just break down and cry because nothing is going my way. I want to go back. I want to go back to when the only work was a worksheet on addition and boys still had "cooties" Now, I have to work nights packing boxes for UPS and boys can take over my life with one look. I want to go back. I want to go back to when life was simple. Nothing ever went wrong but I wanted to grow up and now I want to go back.

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Nov 29, 2013

Nov 29, 2013 at 5:51 PM UTC

ms-1

I want to go back... ©

I want to go back to when I was little. All I had to do was sit back and enjoy it while it lasted, but all I wanted to do was grow up. I tried so hard to grow up and now that I have I want to go back. I want to go back to when "Stupid" was a bad word and the only time I cried was when I hit my head. I grew up and "Stupid" gets thrown around like its nothing and sometimes I just break down and cry because nothing is going my way. I want to go back. I want to go back to when the only work was a worksheet on addition and boys still had "cooties" Now, I have to work nights packing boxes for UPS and boys can take over my life with one look. I want to go back. I want to go back to when life was simple. Nothing ever went wrong but I wanted to grow up and now I want to go back.

43

poetry is hard everybody wants to read your most personal thoughts the only success you'll see is when you paint your heart across the page and pour your soul into pressing that simple "save" my voice seems worthless until I spill my secrets for the world to see but what if I want to keep secrets to myself and let the world see what it thinks it wants let me write soppy stories of summer days or mornings filled with cliched coffee cups loaded with the "real" problems every poet apparently has the real Problem is that everybody has a problem with not having problems why can't we be happy having perfect lives instead, I have to pretend I have problems when all I really have is the standard stress that comes with being young The closest thing I have to a real problem is the parabola on my worksheet and the other math problems beyond it I'm no different from any other aspiring author wanting recognition for lying and exaggerating and imagining problems into existence because no story exists without conflict and no peace exists with problems so we have a bit of a perfect problem paradox

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Sep 16, 2017

Sep 16, 2017 at 2:37 PM UTC

EmR

the perfect problem

poetry is hard everybody wants to read your most personal thoughts the only success you'll see is when you paint your heart across the page and pour your soul into pressing that simple "save" my voice seems worthless until I spill my secrets for the world to see but what if I want to keep secrets to myself and let the world see what it thinks it wants let me write soppy stories of summer days or mornings filled with cliched coffee cups loaded with the "real" problems every poet apparently has the real Problem is that everybody has a problem with not having problems why can't we be happy having perfect lives instead, I have to pretend I have problems when all I really have is the standard stress that comes with being young The closest thing I have to a real problem is the parabola on my worksheet and the other math problems beyond it I'm no different from any other aspiring author wanting recognition for lying and exaggerating and imagining problems into existence because no story exists without conflict and no peace exists with problems so we have a bit of a perfect problem paradox

24

If you're reading this for the thousandth time, the clock ticking ever on, the time marked out in white numerals at the bottom of the screen, ignore me. Go back to work. But if you're reading this and the movie's over, the clock having skipped a beat, the morning peaking through the window, WAKE UP ***** Ask someone what the color is today, wear your special satchel bag and new skirt like a uniform with tinsel woven in. One of the speeches is labeled - "Piece of **** that Better Work." The other one is yours, "New Speech," it says, even though it's two months old. Look in your backpack for the incomplete worksheet, hopefully it's in the pink binder where you left it. Don't forget your sister after school and feed the cats before you leave. Sincerely, Yourself

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Mar 6, 2014

Mar 6, 2014 at 2:54 AM UTC

abby-4

In Case of Sleep

If you're reading this for the thousandth time, the clock ticking ever on, the time marked out in white numerals at the bottom of the screen, ignore me. Go back to work. But if you're reading this and the movie's over, the clock having skipped a beat, the morning peaking through the window, WAKE UP ***** Ask someone what the color is today, wear your special satchel bag and new skirt like a uniform with tinsel woven in. One of the speeches is labeled - "Piece of **** that Better Work." The other one is yours, "New Speech," it says, even though it's two months old. Look in your backpack for the incomplete worksheet, hopefully it's in the pink binder where you left it. Don't forget your sister after school and feed the cats before you leave. Sincerely, Yourself

23

The moment we forgot we were just good friends You moved your arm, my face went red again One more bus home, another silent weekend You said love silently unfolds And the owner mustn't know For time will surely show We'll return to the place we go A comfort kneading against your sweater "Keep your head up, we'll get better" I do as I'm told, not as I tell Regardless, though, my heart still swells What - or who, am I to wince at your words? To feel resent, betrayal, jealousy About things you haven't said to me Who am I? (To you?) I wonder what you're doing right now It's too cold in here. Are you pondering something, perhaps? I didn't eat yet today. Is someone bothering you; would I be able to help? I'll have to boil water for my bath later. How many times do you think softly of me? Or at all? I haven't brushed my hair, I wonder how messy I look. I wonder if there's a part of a song or book you've fallen enticed by.. What are those sirens going off for? I hope you're safe right now, and no one hurts you. I have school tomorrow, I have to do that worksheet. Would you still be uncomfortable if I were to hold you for a few seconds too long? Would you still pull away if I said I want to kiss you? Oh no, I'm crying again Would you still sing to me Not because something's happened, as it did then But because I'm crying, as I was then? Would you still sing to me? Would you still sing? Matter not how self destructive I was For I've changed and I can say that firmly I can say it proudly I can say it loudly Matter not how I blamed the world for my mistakes, my bad decisions For I have changed, and I know it so I acknowledge my own flaws, My own bad judgement. And I let it go. I have learned to not let it eat at me Because it's okay I am fine I do not need you anymore. Or so I tell myself Because how could I let myself Believe otherwise? Or is that self-destructive too? Have I gone wrong again? Oh but this is all for not What good am I doing now All of this, all of it is pointless. You are of the past, You will never ever meet with me again In our secret place You will never ever brush the hair out of my face While I look up at the sun And then I look into your eyes You will never ever be there again. So then I will not be there either. You will never ever see me floating there again. You will never ever see me smile at your arrival again. You will never ever feel my hands on your back as I push you to swing a bit higher again. You will never ever feel my nose nuzzle your arm, playfully begging for your attention again. You will never ever see me in that floral dress again. And I, will never ever forgive myself for loving you still.

0

Nov 3, 2014

Nov 3, 2014 at 6:37 PM UTC