delos ~ a poetry collection

1. watching to learn
2. Monsters or Mortals
3. missing
4. can't talk right now, the imposter syndrome's kicking in
5. the mask of comedy hides the truth of tragedy
6. covered in light to shroud the darkness
7. dreams fade like stars in a city
8. when smoke and wine becomes ash and empty bottles
9. my words are not weapons with you
10. in memoriam of all the people i used to believe in: "shel silverstein, where the sidewalk ends" (*)
11. at least i tried (*)
12. people of the soul
13. not participating
14. heimdall
15. spindle
16. congratulations
17. sky
18. climb
19. decompose
20. hubris
21. stand tall, primrose
22. a poet's screen
23. rusted in the gallows
24. a pull on the world in all the wrong ways
25. sirens live in cliff-side beaches
26. shattered, sweet, and isolated
27. blur
28. run, summer girl
29. revolution
30. the devil you know v.s. the devil you don't
31. dead in my head
32. of apples and dreams and swords on the stage
33. angel
34. friend groups
35. staccato
36: nightmare: drowning mother
37: bleeding heart
38. i carry the weight of my life
39. school before the last bell of the week rings
40. chasing sheep
41. mary shelley's creature
42. conflicted
43. "no offence, but it's not really the same."
44. mask
45. price of womanhood
46. not today: hope
47. you can't lose me
48. when i can't think
49. monochromatic
50. bled bare
51. chaste
52. she'll never know
53. in a moment
54. teeth like a jurassic beast fit into twenty-first century retainers
55. nightmare
56. school
57. a love that shouldn't be
58. "She's just embarrassed"
59. I refuse
60. lupine pain: what we'd do if we were werewolves
61. a threat
62. shame
63. picture
64. dancing in the sand
65. poetry, escape
66. silly little girl
67. special
68. odd little fool
69. paragon of life


more coming soon : )

current poetry dump:
a poetry scrapbook

my past poetry threads:
ogygia ~ a poetry collection
delphi ~ where godhood and mortality meet
what shadows life but death

written May 6
watching to learn
my sister watches me
carve wishes for a better me into my skin
and strangle myself on my own aspirations.
i can’t help but fear
that she is watching to learn.

Monsters or Mortals
There is pain in the golden blood the mortals call ichor.
Passed down through the
channels of veins and bones
from fathers to children who haven’t even opened their eyes.
Blood and marrow do not take kindly
to being manipulated.
One by one, the deities fall,
generation by generation,
father after father, son after son.
First Primordials, then Titans, soon Gods.
This is no secret.
This trait is not hidden.
(How could it be with the way it gleams and blinds and defines
the arrogance of immortals?)
When the Gods collapse, who will be the next to fall?
Monsters
or Mortals?

missing
i do not know how to respond
when someone says "i miss you".
it feels like a lie, and i do not wish to lie back.
(i have had
my fill of lying.)
you miss parts of me,
you miss the idea of me,
you miss because you reminisce.
when i find myself missing you, i close my eyes and think.
i am too far gone in myself to miss anybody's presence.
so i miss your smile, i miss the tilt of your voice
when you say something especially witty,
i miss being so innocent about love,
caught up in the freshness of it
and not pausing to think about how i could hurt you.
(that one is an aspect of me. i
apologize for letting it intrude).
love is not a missing game.
missing is the absence of love.
missing is hurting.
do not miss me, please, i beg of you.
if you love me like you say,
please find me in every small thing you see
and smile
because even though
i'm gone for a while,
that little thing you see
is me.

can't talk right now, the imposter syndrome's kicking in
i'm sorry, i
can't talk right now.
the imposter syndrome's
kicking in.
my blood is on fire
and my head feels like tin.
i can't imagine
how it could have been
running and waiting
until you give in.
oh wait-
never mind,
i can, just a bit.
lying is living,
and living is this.

the mask of comedy hides the truth of tragedy
i reach out and hide behind my grins,
my fingertips grasping
for everything i can't have.
my mask of comedy
hides the truth of my tragedy
and i cannot truly laugh
anymore.

covered in light to shroud the darkness
everything feels elusive.
anxiety tugs the blinds closed
and depression covers the skylights.
perhaps it is here
in the shadow of myself
that i can find who i truly am
underneath all the light i beam forth.
my teeth are bared in a painful smile
and i can't feel my face anymore.
covered in light to shroud the darkness,
i blink and pretend i'm alright.
do you think that underneath all of its light,
the sun is a shadow too?

dreams fade like stars in a city
dreams fade like stars in a city.
pollution covers up
not only stars, but dreams.
it's all buried under darkness and money and unbreathable air.

when smoke and wine becomes ash and empty bottles
my aunt slipped through her hospital bed
and emerged on the other side
with smoke in her lungs and wine in her liver
and many mourning people by her bedside.
she left behind not only people,
but ash and empty bottles.
fate felt her up before breaking her bones.
because of her, i know not to trust something
that holds so much power in a single breath.

my words are not weapons with you
i think of every word i could say to you,
workshopping every sentence in my head
like it's a metal i'm forging and welding and
melting down to reforge again.
anything that i say will hurt you.
i know this to be true.
i don't want these words to burn you.
so i'll wait for them to cool.
your wounds are too fresh, they are scars not quite yet,
so i'll wait for you to get a glimpse
of what it's like inside my soul, my heart, and my head;
a battleground littered
with letters and tears and
wishes discarded to the dry, dead wind.
i will wait to talk to you
until you see that my words
are not weapons
with you.

at least i tried

what do you do
when people are determined
to prove you wrong
at every turn?

you remember
every reason
you believed
you were right.

what do you do
when people you thought you could help
had to go and make themselves
all messy again?

you close your eyes and sigh,
then smile through the pain.
you laugh a little and toss your friends a grin.
"i don't know why i ever thought i could help them."

what do you do
when people look to you
and you know what they need
is reassurance?

you say things along the lines of,
"oh, yeah, i had a feeling.
i thought i could help but i couldn't.
don't worry, i've given up on them.
i won't allow them near us anymore."

what do you do
when people know you can't possibly
be so okay after trusting someone
and having that trust broken?

you allow a bit of your melancholy to peak through
and give them a sad smile.
"i'm just disappointed.
that's all."
you never tell them
if you're disappointed in the one who made it all messy
or yourself.
to be quite honest, you think it might be both.

what do you do
when the weight of it all
really starts
to come crashing down?

you push it back,
reversing all the shit because you're
so damn tired of it all.
"you know what?"
you ask the world seethingly
with your sweet eyes angry
and your soul in pain.
"at least i tried."
at least you tried
when everybody else did nothing.

people of the soul
there are some people
who will always see
your soul for what it is.
with these people, it matters not
if they are friends, family, lovers,
or anything away or in between.
all that matters with these people
is that they are in your life in a good way,
and you, as such, in theirs.
when you see, it is hard to unsee.
as for me, i am proud
to have seen what i have.
because i, too, have seen slips of their souls.
and the most beautiful things about them all
is the passion and kindness and raw roaring to be let free
and the small bits in them
that i see of me.
for if i can find this in them to be lovely,
maybe (just maybe)
i can find it lovely in me, too.

not participating
just watching the world
fly on by, knee deep into
goosegrass and odd thoughts.

distant-eyed, i dream.
i dream that math equations
don't find me. i dream

that the colors of
ev'ry flag combine to make
one. i dream that the

highway doesn't pass
just as quickly as it does.
i fill in ev'ry blank,

i try to take up space.

in this world, we know the dangers.
we feel the sudden shifts.
we feel the tides surging and falling,
the winds changing course,
the currents deciding they are no longer bound
by whatever meager farce we've forced upon them
while we laughed anxiously.

in this world, we know the power
of a distant, far-flung word.
eyes will follow it, as will ears.

when one wants to understand
what they hear,
one becomes all the wiser.

so i stand among
goosegrass, dreaming anarchy
and filling boxes.

heimdall
there is a man inside the sky.
with his hands clasped, he trains his eye
upon many a watch'ed thing.
he watches even silent's ring.
even at calamity, he says not a word.
by this man, ev'rything is heard.

there is a man inside the clouds.
of his work, he's quietly proud.
yet he does not puff his chest.
he watches, learns, and does not jest.
eyes like an eagle, a bird with no crest,
he holds steady his perch, alone in his nest.

there is a man on a rainbow bridge.
never, ever moving a smidge.
his silent vigil is his vow,
he keeps it always, even now.
he watches humans mow their lawns,
he watches birds sing their songs,
he watches chess players with pawns,
and watches as all right their wrongs.
he watches us through our highs and lows
and gives us smiles when it snows.
he watches us learn how to grow/glow
and relearns all he thinks he knows.