you’re chrysanthemums
and carnations
in a sunless cemetery;
you’re the eruption of life
where there isn’t any.
love is a legacy,
an everlasting barrage
of memories
so brilliant and blinding,
i still catch your gaze
twinkle and blink
in photographs;
i grieve in lonely hallways
and still hear you laugh.
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chrysanthemums, carnations and cemeteries
death, grief, heartbreak, life, loss, love, love poem, love poems, love poetry, melancholygalaxies, poem, poems, poetry, quote, sad, sad poetry, writing
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the scavenger’s daughter
i poison roses into shriveled sentiments
i should appreciate while they thrive;
instead, i wonder how anyone could like
a dustheap, a magpie
hoarding detrimental matter
that makes it hard to sleep at night.
i can revamp a warm house into a hellfire
i’m too guilt-ridden to escape.
i can deform a golden heart
into a torture device
with my thumbscrewed-up brain.
i’m the scavenger’s daughter
wrenching herself out of shape,
warping a beautiful person,
or what could be,
into something to hate.
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i saw a guy
i saw a guy who looked like you today. he was missing strands of my hair wound around ten fingers, unyielding and ready to control my every movement, like strings fixed to a puppet. he was missing text messages in his phone, pleas and typos sent through panic attacks and tears, begging for love, forgetting love is not something begged for. i saw a guy who looked like you today and if i still had it, my heart would’ve ceased beating. it bleeds in the pocket of your jeans, a morbid memento that someone gave their life to know you, hold you and love your entire merciless being.
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house made of straw
sometimes i feel more like a house than a person with the way i decorate my body and my face to hide damaged walls and empty spaces; my heart is more like a door with changed locks because i’ve made multiple keys for people who walked all over me with filthy shoes, people who said they could live here, but they were just passing through. i hope my eyes are not windows, because i fear what the world might see—all of my flaws and insecurities on display like a coffee table or some shoddy love seat. sometimes i swear i left the oven on and forgot because my mind feels like a smoke detector with the way my apprehension never calms. i smell smoke, but i can’t see it; i’m told things are never as bad as i make them, but every wildfire starts with a spark and it’s easy to burn when you’re a house made of straw.
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in the timeline where you stay
in the timeline where you stay, i finally set Lego Spider-Man in your hand, and i ask how your day went right after a kiss. we drive back to your house and listen to all your favorite songs; one of your hands rests on the steering wheel, the other on my thigh. my eyes shift between the reassuring horizon and your relaxed expression, certain this is how it’s meant to be, confident this is destiny.
we watch that movie you like for the hundredth time, and i steal glances at your smile, a grin more gripping than any scene assembled in cinema’s history. halfway through, we forget to pay attention to the tv; in fact, the world dwindles, washed away like collateral damage from love’s wake. it’s just you and me crashing against the other like ocean ripples and waves, engulfed in your faint bedroom lighting.
reluctantly, we part ways, but my perfume clings to your sheets, furniture, and every inch of your skin, a frankincense-scented souvenir to remember me by until the next time, and there will be a next time.
this time, you promise.grief, heartbreak, life, longing, loss, love, love poem, love poetry, melancholygalaxies, poem, poems, poetry, quote, relationships, sad, sad poetry, writing
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imagined cobwebs
i swat away
the sad thoughts
like cobwebs,
but sometimes
i’m a fly caught.
across my body,
the spiders crawl,
but sometimes
it’s just split ends
curling down my back
and tickling my skin,
just another nightmare
born from my head,
just another fear
i let myself imagine.
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from the bathroom floor
i’m writing this from the bathroom floor,
but i think about you everywhere,
and i wish i didn’t.
once again, you’re different;
you’re “too busy” to be sad,
like i’m just holding my breath here,
fidgeting with my hands.
i think i might be the saddest
because this sobs inside me no matter the to-do list.
this weighs me down while i pack up my apartment
and dust the empty shelves.
it’s the stimulus to subpar poetry,
and it reminds me before i sleep
how you’re probably so busy
you forget to think about me.
we’ve always been so distinct,
so why would it end with our productivity?
you ignore your feelings with activities,
yet i still ache while i cook meals in the kitchen,
walk my dog through the neighborhood,
or sit through ongoing doctor appointments.
i still cry around my friends, in the car, while i work,
or in aisle four of the grocery store.
i still remember you on this goddamn bathroom floor
while you’re somewhere out there
burying us like a corpse,
only i loved enough to mourn.
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multiverse of a woman
i am a multiverse of a woman because once i was only a petrified little girl.
reality coiled its claws around my stifled throat; it kept me wide-eyed in the night—soundless yet ear-splitting. it snapped at my heels all day long, hunting me down like a predator delighted in breaking the bones of its prey.
i recoiled into my head because, at least there, i could imagine myself as the conqueror and not the victim. in my mind, i did not cower. i did not cry, i did not plead for mercy. i thrived.
reality softened like a scowl melts as it gazes upon someone it loves. i cast light upon shady corners and dreary days and felt joy surge through my insipid veins. my beaten-down stature stood taller, prouder, stronger.
in these otherworldly moments, everything was perfect, so bountiful they poured from me. i could not submerge such hopes and dreams in my burial ground of a brain.
so i became the writer weaving better outcomes and kinder hearts from my own hollow plot. from a vandalized tomb, i gave life to courageous heroes and sky-high success. in jet-black darkness, i resurrected the opposite.
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diamonds
i wanted to be the jewelry
embellishing someone’s neck.
i wanted to be beloved and exquisite;
i thought i had the chance
when i caught the twinkle of your eyes
reflecting off the murky caverns
i scrawled bad-tempered poems in.
i begged you not to forget,
but you only saw the difference;
you were my world, and i was an alien,
disturbing your logical regulations.
diamonds are formed under heat and pressure,
but “this is toxic.”
the passionate asteroid
encourages the immutable Earth,
“we’ll get through this; just be patient.”
“diamonds can birth from this collision.”
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house with a fireplace
i always wanted a house with a fireplace.
i live in southern California
where the weather is fine,
but i still wonder what it might be like
to have warm hands,
i keep asking others to hold them,
but i’m told that’s quite the demand.
