eyes fill with mud creeping inward like molasses a putrid slug, a landslide, a sick. suddenly-
there is no sun, there is no moon, suddenly the stars do not have names,
"Why?" they, we, curse.
teeth bared, open mouthed, throat hoarsed, to the great big sky the great big plains, an unfeeling, lovely earth- and muddied- filthy- they hear nothing back.
It describes just how grand everything was; how gold coated every corner, how everything was perfectly planned. I did not understand why I needed to know the length and width of Your temple, oh God, until now. It was so you could remind me how perfectly crafted I must be, how meticulously drawn out and shaped, how carved and created and loved by an artist’s touch, for You to sit in the temple of my chest- for You to take up residence in sinners like me.
It’s a birdhouse waiting for a bird to come and nest, a rollerskating rink waiting for it’s disco lights to snap on like a Curtain opening and suddenly there’s people on the rink and they’re laughing and falling in the dark like little snot nosed kids and they can’t even stand, it’s like that, I think. My words come out buffeted because I’m scared they might be stones if I don’t wrap them first in feathers. both fall just as quickly, don’t know why I bother. It’s like waiting for the door to open to a father. It’s like a song without a bass line, it’s alright but it’s just not right. It’s waiting for the tide to the ocean, it’s waiting for all the little rocks to fill the sky, I’m waiting for a shoelace to lace me up, hold my canvas body tightly, and yeah, it’s the peanut butter and jelly thing I guess.
I would burn down a whole forest just so the earth knows for sure I was here. I am here. the spotlight is so bright and yellow but it doesn't make me feel any warmer.
every time I stretch my arms above me I think the ice in my chest will crack. The cold does bother me, and it bothers me that I want somebody to like my stupid blonde hair.
I want somebody to like the way that my chin sticks out like a door handle and say that my nose suits my face perfectly even though I know it doesn't, not even close. I tell myself the lights will keep me warm, and I tell myself it's better this way, cus when everyone loves you from afar no one has to know that you think spiders crawl into your bed at night and that one of your eyes is smaller than the other and that sometimes you think you're choking on air when really you're nothing. nothing at all.
everyday sheets are soaked with sweat and my fingers dig into my hair and I smash my face into the pillows like maybe if I knock it hard enough I can go to sleep. wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong there is something wrong with me and it is something I ate or something I said and now I can’t feel my limbs. and it’s a poisoned apple who told me I could know everything for the low low price of exhaustion. and it’s my fault. I took a sword to my own brain and I cut it up and took it hostage and now we are all stuck here together with nothing but hours and hours ahead of us of nothing. I wish i were dust sometimes but most of the time I beg to be physical and real and here tomorrow morning. I wish i were somebody someone could fall in love with but I dream of my throat sealing closed. one day I dream I will sleep and I will sleep so trustingly and lovingly and soundly. and it will be peace. and it will be peace.
#4 and #5 are my favorite poems you've written so far, I can heavily relate to those feelings of wanting someone to love you but to not see any imperfections that would drive them away, feelings of wanting to love others but simultaneously wanting to dive into nothingness sometimes. Your writing is lovely, keep up the great work! (I saw that your thread has the "comments welcome" sticker so I'm hoping it's still okay to post this comment here)
-- "And I love the thought of being with you, or maybe it's the thought of not being so alone." ♡
All your poems in this thread are so strongly emotive, and I've found them really impactful to read—especially because many of the lines feel very genuine and vivid to me. <3 Heavy poems can sometimes lose their strength by becoming too angsty, from my reading experience, but I feel you've managed to avoid this with a strong poetic voice and unpredictability, which is very cool! I especially love the last three poems you've written in this thread, and overall I feel you're doing a really great job with these poems this napo!!
I'm look forward to reading more of what you share this month c:
And when it seems like the earth has forgotten that your feet make marks on this soil I will cry out to the one who holds dominion over it.
And when you find yourself drifting in between fluorescent aisles and hospital beds I will hold you in my heart and cradle your broken bones till they seem to be alright again.
And I will have faith that you will see the sun again.
That you will climb out of those white bedsheets and you will throw off the scent of alcohol and death and replace it with sea salt and sand. Summer will belong to you again. Laughter will belong to you again.
I will cast these words over you like a net of protection, so that when you feel like you are drowning in bricks, and concrete, and all the heavy, heavy, broken, things of this world I will pull you into my embrace-- into the protection of my Lord-- and we will sail together and we will know how deep how wide the ocean is.
I will tear the metal through my skin until I am thoroughly, thoroughly, stuck, and I will
carve my name into every building I find and write it down on every piece of paper I see. And people will ask me why my receipts and movie tickets are riddled with Me, and I will say nothing and I will just smile and I won’t tell them I just want to be remembered, once.
Sometimes I pickup leaves because I feel bad for them, and my stuffed animals sit on my bed, like they have for (almost) seventeen years, and their glass eyes look at me and say nothing but I hear everything. And so they sit.
And sometimes I think maybe my friends won’t forget my birthday this year and then I think maybe I’m selfish for wanting them to know and then I think I just want somebody anybody to know I too pass time. That I too take up space. That sometimes when I breathe at night I am so acutely painfully aware of my presence against my sheets.
And so I will drag my stubborn nails through the concrete and I will kiss and scratch every wet painting and I will draw all over the walls and I will shout my name from the rooftops and I will dogear my books and rip their pages out like a tyrannical madman and I will write my name down on every piece of paper.
Wow, I love all of your poems so far but #7 really hit me hard. The descriptions you used were so terrible in the best way - it was almost hard to read them ("I will staple my skin to the walls", "nails through the/concrete"). I just think the pain and loneliness and frustration in this poem was really well conveyed.
“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.”
They ask me why are you happy. I tell them I’m not a lot of the time, that a lot of times I am very, very scared. in the middle of the night when the skin around my eyes feels like needles and i feel like there are arms around my chest trying to keep me pinned down, I am so frightened. And I wonder if I will ever have the absence of that, the absence of fear, something that has so defined me and my walk that I wonder if I would be less of myself without it.
But, I say. Because there is always a but. But, I say, I have found the answer.
Even though at night my ceiling is a valley, there to swallow me whole and pick at every flaw of my face and my body and my life, and consume me in its shadowy corners, I have found life. Life abundantly.
And I can give that life to you, I say. Because once you are given Life, you will have the light of the world inside your chest, inside your veins, inside the cavity of your soul. and when you smile it will leak out into the streets and into other people’s faces, and when you are alone at night and the ceiling tries to swallow you, the light will fill the shadows. And the light will be inside of you, and no matter how hard the darkness tries to fill you up, to tell you-- you don’t deserve to be here you don’t matter you could disappear and no one would care-- the light kills every lie and you are not alone.
And I sleep now, I say. I hope they can feel the glow from my grin.
#9 that I wrote before number eight so they kind of go the other way but it's fine I guess
I told my friends that sometimes lying in bed i Think of spiders lying with me And creeping over me and Smothering me and Touching me until i Awake breathless and turn on the light.
And i stare at the wall until the clock strikes three And my eyes cannot, will not stay open, No matter how much my brain tells them that Death is in the darkness of my lids And I slip into a relieved sleep.
And I told them that sometimes when I am breathing I can picture the absence of it so perfectly That I am suddenly running out of air and, Like a drowning man, Claw at my throat until I am once more convinced I am within the safety and Security Of land.
And I thought that this was ok. And I did not want to be Pitied. I just wanted someone to say Me too. Everything is scary. Everything is dark. But like the birds after the flood, We find a branch and we live on, Simple.
Gender:
Points: 67
Reviews: 51