That last one rocked my socks off. Also, may I ask what's with the numbers in the corner? Is this who you're taking inspiration from or trying to write similar to? Just wanted to know that because I found it to be interesting and it seems like a sort of prompted part of your NaPo which is awesome.
@Nikayla the numbers in the corner are the number of the poem. The titles of each poem are lines taken from different pieces of poetry, so I write down what poet I got each line from underneath what number of poem it is.
you are a mountain of a man. you carry woods in your soul when people are brave enough to walk through them you send your wolves and goblins after them
i'd turn back if i were you.
you are a mountain of a man. you carry maps without a compass and walk with broken feet when people are brave enough to stop you and offer you shoes you open your mouth and all they hear is a wail, all they here is sadness all they feel is pity. you just want better directions. people hear what they wanna hear, these days.
i'd turn back if i were you.
you are a mountain of a man. you carry in your heart faded pictures pictures of people taking pictures of pictures you could go on. when people are brave enough to offer you a picture album something to protect things best left forgotten
Poetry is a naked woman, a naked man, and the distance between them
i used your body as an excuse to sleep with someone else. anyone who had eyes the color of whiskey, anyone who could stare at me so long i was drunk when they turned away-- deserved what they got. these are the reasons no one ever wants to sleep with you-- collected and listed neatly with bullet points. i used your body as an excuse to sleep with someone else. before i left, our porch swing broke. i guess it was a sign. rusted metal torn from rusted metal-- i deserved what i got.
I love how much of a narrative this last one was, poem 13. As a reader I really got into the story and I could tell a lot about the speaker and the person they were speaking to without too much struggle or stretching of the imagination. You have some odd lines in there, but they're pleasantly worked in rather than rudely interrupting the story.
these are the things i know to be true. no one ever really goes out with a bang, guns blazing, heart racing. no, everyone leaves with a whisper and a memory and a regret that says you will never make a difference and then you will die. they tell you, these things, in school, you see. they stuff you with calories and call it nutrition and stuff you with facts and call it knowledge. this is not knowledge, being dragged to slaughter day after day this is not knowledge, head stuffed full of riddles you'll spend your whole life trying to translate them into something that makes sense.
these are the things i know to be true. no one ever writes poetry about the poets. no one ever lets me bleed on them. you will read the messages written on my rib cage and never figure out that all i wanted was someone to bite harder than i could. these are the things they tell us, the most important thing you can do is die. die for a reason, die with a bang, die with your guns blazing die ready to face your fate.
these are the things i know to be true. a collection of hate and love, caught between parenthesis.
here is the most important thing i've learned everyone dies. you say this, your mouth hanging open and cigarette dangling. it doesn't make a pretty picture. everyone dies, you repeat,
i nod, like i agree.
(everyone dies and then all you're left with is soot on your soul, a half empty carton of cigarettes, and no toilet paper.)
i don't even remember who's turn it was to buy toilet paper, you say but i'm angry she didn't do it last. she left me with nothing but a chimney that needed swept and a heart covered in scotch tape.
i nod, like i agree.
(everyone dies and then all you're left with is an empty hearth, an empty bed, and a refrigerator full of bad lasagna)
i never told you that sometimes, your body won't fit in the smallest of my places. and that's okay, you see. i love you anyway. your sheets are soaked in the blood from you trying to fit in every mold i put you in-- a new girl for every occasion a new outfit for every occasion-- your washer isn't working so i try and get the stains out in your sink, even though muddy water makes my hands dry. you stuck your heart in a fist shaped dent in the bedroom floor, told me you had to go find my ghost. said, i'll be back. you didn't come back. i never told you that sometimes, your body won't fit into the smallest of my places. and that's okay, you see. i love you anyway.
darling, we can make it if we're lucky. with a whole lot of love, i can make you a prince, and i will be your queen and everything will stop putting us between a rock and a hard place. i don't know how i know this, but i do. we hold on to life with fists, because dammit, we deserve it the soles of our shoes are worn out but we walk down the street at night anyway.
there are holes in my pockets. your stones fall out sometimes, when i'm walking too fast. it's your way of reminding me to stop and smell the flowers. i stop, i look, i dream, i sleep. i take off all my clothes and lie naked in bed and wonder what you're doing. eating, probably. you're always eating, and it's always something exotic i'm afraid to try. i think about the time you told me learning how to skip rocks is even more important than learning how to drive a car. i argued, i remember. i sewed up the holes in my pockets, but when i'm sleeping you cut them open again. maybe you were right. practical skills were never your cup of tea but you always seemed to be laughing, and always at interesting things.
stop, smell the flowers.
i stop, i look, i dream, i sleep. you're nowhere to be found but i'm getting used to the cold breeze on my thighs.
it's hard to clean with no soap and only buckets of water. you scrub at your lungs anyway, determined to get my soot out determined to make that second hand smoke smell go away determined to make every particle of my existence leave your body.
your worn out souls tired and waiting for someone to sing them to sleep your worn out soles still walking down the streets at night.
i take your heart and i stitch it back together. i tell it everything is okay, just have another cigarette, have another drink, have another kiss, have another something to make you feel more alive than dead.
sewing a soul back together for the hundredth time isn't very good for its heartbeat.
birds will fly from your ribs once the light starts to get through
if you wear a jean jacket that means you're a greaser. i know who you are, you, the boy that smells like sunshine. i hear you tell girls that smoking is good for their lungs and whiskey is good for their liver. and they believe you, for whatever reason, that the biting feeling they get when they're with you means they're having a good time. when do you tell them they're dead? when do you grab their hands and pull them in? they only want you to kiss them, but you're too busy looking forward don't look away from the road or you might miss it-- don't look away from the road, you missed her. the only one you ever wanted, gone before you could say goodbye.
i hold two broken hearts in my hands at all times. i have to juggle them sometimes, throw them up in the air and catch them again, but i can never put them down. no, i can never stop holding them, because when i drop them (and i will drop them) they stop beating.
neither of them are mine.
in my left hand, i hold yours-- your broken soul covered in tape and staples and haphazard stitches-- anything to keep you together. it is an old soul, it's seen around the world twice and it still keeps beating. a soldier with no battalion to march with.
in my right hand, is yours as well-- only this time, it's not broken. you are new. you are clean. you are whole. you've never seen anything but your own back yard and you shouldn't want too, because everything is perfect here at home and dorothy said it best, there's no place like home there's no place like home. why would you want to leave? this is the heart that tries to jump out of my hand when i sleep. this is the heart that has claw marks on the inside, you begging to please, let me ruin me.
i can't. i know i have to let one of you go-- but i can't decide do you let the one that only wants to be chased go or do you let the one that is so tired and has fragile stamped on it in big gold letters crawl somewhere it will be treated better than being two fisted by someone who has forgotten how to love.
when i open up my hands, both of you leave. i guess that's what i get for not being ambidextrous.
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