Category: poetry

-don’t have time for this

i bluff my way through every single conversation
i have with you
trying to pretend that i’m not looking
like i don’t care if you care
like my every breath
doesn’t rest
on the way you respond

i tell myself
that i’m being melodramatic
that i don’t depend on you
-then i spend a weekend alone
and i remember

i fight wars
every day
simply to prove that i am alive
and you stand on the sidelines,
pretending you don’t know
what’s going on
trying to pretend that you don’t see

and we skirt each other’s hints-
so subtle that we truly can’t decipher
the meaning behind them-
and instead making up our own,
believing what we want
rather than taking a risk,
rather than telling the truth

–

written w11jan2012.

eh, this one’s okay. i put it up mainly for the third verse.

–

said the knuckle to the concrete.

i’m a pitiful creature
fueled by the hope of a new day
    and every night i fall asleep disappointed
    and you’re sick of empty promises

and every morning i drag myself up
to some semblance of self-sufficience
beat myself against the same wall
and wonder why i won’t change
    and every night i fall asleep disappointed
    and you’re sick of empty promises

my mouth is moving
and you’ve heard this all before
but we’ll both pretend my number’s not up

rhetoric won’t get me out of this
and you’re sick of empty promises,
but i’m not sick of trying just yet

–

written s8jan2012.

title’s taken from a motion city soundtrack song.

–

the bomb drops: rewind

and i don’t want this wasteland
but i’d rather here than home alone

 
this isn’t who i want to be
but i’ll take what i can get
if it means i’m with you

 
i knew my moods were caustic
but i never thought it would come to this
everyone else dissolved to bits
and you in your bulletproof humor
curled up with me like nothing’s changed

 
we slept for days
and when we woke up everyone else had passed on

 
we nestled under the maple in my front yard
i played our song and
 

–

written s8jan2012.

small me had this to say about this poem:

“chronologically backwards. read it from the last stanza to the first now.

i like how it ended on and. it felt like it ended in the silent moment right before everything blows up.

which, for me, should be soon. i feel a bit like a rubber band right now. exciting!”

inspired by a line from alkaline trio’s “i remember a rooftop” https://youtu.be/BHSxM9QbQIs

i was imagining a cute little hazy post-apocalyptic romance.

i suggest pairing this with dillinger four’s civil war https://youtu.be/b7cWq0G-ADQ

–

asphyxiate

there should be a word for that feeling you get
when you realize your best friend’s world is slowly cracking
because i have it

that feeling when you realize your best friend’s world is
cracking open like a snow globe, dropped and
shaken up and now the sky is slowly leaking water and it’s puddling at her toes
and the sad part is that she wouldn’t mind the drowning much,
it’s just the panic before the drowning that scares her
because even though she doesn’t realize it anymore,
her body still wants to keep living
and it tells her that in terms not quite defined enough to understand

and then you peer in at her and notice her just standing there,
given up while the pain of just continuing washes up around her shins and
it grabs on like glue and makes it harder to walk
and the more she tries the more it thickens up
and crystallizes, bittersweet like burnt sugar

and her eyeliner’s streaked all down her face
and she looks like either she hasn’t been sleeping or she’s been sleeping too much
and all of it just looks so bloodily romantic to her, what a wonderfully poetic way
to fall, she thinks

and she doesn’t really feel much of anything anymore, doesn’t want to in fact
because she knows where she’s going

and so do you so you’re scared at hell
and wondering where you were when this started
why couldn’t you be there for her

and there’s a giant fist clenched around your guts
and it’s making it harder to breathe
and now she’s broken, and you can hold her while she cries
but she will never be the same
and it’s all your fault
because you
weren’t there

there should be a world for that feeling
because i have it and it’s got me good

–

written t13dec2011.

wasn’t sure whether it was poetry or prose so i put it in both categories. technically, everything but the first three and last two lines is one big run-on sentence- but that’s how it felt at the time. like one big, terrified, run-on sentence.

this is something which happens when you befriend other messed-up people. all you can do is try to stay calm yourself- try to “be there” for them- try to tell yourself it’s not your fault when they die.

–

are too

and i’m not afraid to fight
and i’m not afraid to die
and i
am
not
afraid.

[actually, i am not
much of anything right now]

 
and i.
 

there are days when i find it
immeasurably
desirable
to just rip my organs out-

-just rip them
right fucking out,
i never knew nails could dig through flesh like
that until she did it-

-blood spattering all over that painting i
just finished, dear what a waste i was
going to get an A on that.

maybe i still could.
 

there’s a hollow right behind my heart
that i can’t feel until you leave
i feel
incomplete without you,
i think
that’s what love is
but i don’t
can’t
love you
because if i did
i’d feel too guilty when i hurt you
and believe me darling i can hurt you.

 
[ icanhurtyou ]

 
there’s the kind of girl you don’t want to love
because she doesn’t care
[about you]
at all and that is me.

there’s that girl.
sitting on the rooftops
like she
gives a
damn
about her image
she’s not vain she’s just conflicted
and she’s sitting there
like she
gives a damn.

there’s a war going on
in my head and it’s
bloody gruesome.
the doctor diagnosed me
with self-induced apathy
and he was
so right
i
ripped my
heart
out-

i hate my emotions
so much i
tear them apart
and keep them
like secrets
in the pit of my stomach.
they’re better food than the lies she told me

and so much sweeter

and i [.]

lied too; forgive me,
dear.
forgive me for not wanting to feel.

i
am
too
afraid.

–

written f9dec2011.

late at night. manic and anxious.

–

stardust

stars and stardust fall to freedom
from the press corpse,
from the incessant demand of chemical crises.
crowds ache for love or a substitute
and false amoré is what they have.
love is folié a deux-
[the shared madness of two.]
attachment is an affliction,
infatuation is disease leaping from remission,
with deadly symptoms.
red roses lead to black coffin doors,
roses dropped on floors
from vases shattered,
and life is the water spilling from the stems.

golden hair won’t keep me docile-
blue eyes and a smile
are weapons of mass destruction-
cities sunk and flags risen
from the depths of inhumanity.
it’s all for you, Helen, and humankind will never
perceive its aftereffects,
its hangover headache
sprawled over the world on a bad day.
little city partylights and shiny beer bottles
broken upon the concrete
covering the grass.
reflections of insanity upon the glass.

devilish, the temptress,
the succubus, a mistress
sent by Him, to spin doubt into
the spiderwebbed life of family trees
split in two by axes, divorces
to fifty percent, no-
no wedding band-aid will stop this flood.

abandonment.
neglect gets to a child’s head-
can’t help but wonder if
they were the cause of this.
little anchors,
keeping the heart in one place-
an anchored rubber band that demoness
stretched and snapped.
the relapse gave her whiplash, and
the stepdad whipped the boy’s back, and
the boy grew up and
found a girl to take his pain to.
she gave him five stunted children,
with eyes hollow and glazed,
a mechanical response to a command.

lack of emotion only seems cruel
to those on the other side.
lack of flourish means nothing
to those who grew up to grey skies.

chains and handcuffs keep stardust grounded,
remains from a nebula which
birthed a black hole.
straight razors and pinky nails
teach fledglings to reach for the sky
and never fall back down.
glass ceilings never seemed so
breakable- tiptoe upsidedown
and reach the other side
before you fall back down to the real world.

angels have no eyes.
angels have no souls.
angels judge and leave the helpless for below.
cliffsides crumble and clouds dissipate,
and the devil lends a hand-
he is helping sinners make it up to him.
in his face sit eyes gleaming brightly;
there are teeth grinning, off-white-
he is human, though sadistic
and he understands your plight.
the devil is forgiving,
and you understand nothing, because you
are nothing.
you are nothing.

stars and stardust fall to freedom, and the devil takes in all.

–

written w12sep2011.

this is one of my most favorite works. i vividly remember frantically scribbling it in red pen in my notebook during free time in spanish class- the words appeared in my mind in one long, fevered stream, and when i was done i felt a genius. or perhaps a maniac. probably a good dose of each.

i’m not sure exactly what caused me to write this, but i believe the main influences were mania; neil gaiman’s sandman, volumes one and two; chiodos’ all’s well that ends well; and the blood brothers’ …burn, piano island, burn.

–

soliloquy- i.

and there are moments
when the tide rushes out of the world
and i am alone
behind waterstained walls

and there are moments
when i am frantic,
my heart hammering out a beat
that sings, -abandon me-

and there are moments
when i mutilate the bars
of my cage,
begging for an answer
and no one hears me

s c r e a m i n g
-stop

i thought you knew who i was-

–

written s2oct2011.

about a character of mine who has borderline personality disorder.

–

convoluted

i am no control freak.
i am a compulsive liar,
weaving stories just to see
where they will unravel-
sticks and stones in ponds
rippling effect upon
the ones who know me best-

who haven’t shrank
from my intricacies,
my nervous tics-
i’m so spastic
and no one knows if it’s an act.

hear me out-
i am lying.
i am a fake,
and you should never believe me.

i have descended,
i have unraveled my good-girl yarn
giving up,
no longer wasting energy
on the effort to seem
to be what others want,
be what they need-

an antihero worse than themselves,
a horror flick of a failure.
i buried myself alive-
and a scream of mine
will wake the dead.

hear me out.
i’m a liar,
i’m a fake.
i won’t accept this.

but my fairy tale nightmares
are myths,
and i am a liar.

hear me out.

–

written f16sep2011.

i’ve always had a bit of an issue with lying. forever been destined to be a fiction writer.

bonus points if you can guess what band i was listening to when i wrote this. there are three references, so it shouldn’t be too difficult if you’ve got the same taste in music as i.

–

who do you think you are

: mason jars like canopic jars
sitting dusty on the counter –
captured memories and regrets
tapping at the lid .
nervous tics , stuttered remarks –
but not the brain
and never the heart .

the artist is the child
who hasn’t taken off for college yet
late bloomers
still don’t know who they are
so write it out ,
write it out –
and how are you now ?

kaleidoscope kids
rattle their own brains ,
searching for value
in fluid characters ,
constantly one step
behind the cataract

[ he’s still suckling from mommy
she hands him a fifty
and wishes him
i n d e p e n d e n c e ]

–

written w22sep2011.

–

déjà vu

i am choking for words.
i hacked off the tip of my tongue
to spite my quick wit-
stumble over it.

lusting for beauty through text/
creation is hollow at best-

a dollhouse
a fantasy, dystopian as per usual
for an idle mind
losing hours and
pickled in hate’s brine.
    salt in the wound
    salt in the wound

angst, angst, teenage angst.
a kiddie anarchist.
stop fighting it.

turn up the stereotypical.
depression playing on the radio.
don’t try to be more original.
what haven’t we seen?

choking for words and
stuck on painted portraits
all is well, but never exciting
i’m exiting this uneventful existence
all for once and once for all.

-and you thought there was a winner
buried in this chrysalis-
well, the rhythm has returned,
but i’m sick

of painted portraits and lost hours
and sugar-coated expectations of the truth
how uneventful, how unexciting
and i’m tired of razorblades,
but at least they’re honest

speaking down, insults and
lies and i know i need to sleep
but i’m fighting it.

i’m ready to move on, but not for long
not for long and
you’ll see me as a butterfly someday.

–

written r8sep2011.

had just entered my senior year of high school, and was predicting it to be just another mundane revolution of the cycle.

i’m quite fond of this one. i wrote a lot of good poetry- and made a lot of good art- in my senior year. i thank advanced placement studio art, emery’s in shallow seas we sail, mania, and deviantart.

–