may the ones i leave behind
never lie in their journals,
in their conversations, or to themselves
and call me “too good for this world,”
when the world and i have always been two of a kind.
let it be known that not all unsuitable things
are too perfect or too light to be ill-matched
for the place you were born into;
some of us are heavy,
some of us are undoubtedly flawed.
no, we were never ethereal,
we were mere mortals straining to be.
Tag: trauma
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ethereal
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a bearable future
my past feels more like wreckage
and despite how they commend the survivor,
i feel more like remnants to scour.
my past feels like a crash site
and although it’s been years
since the most recent collision,
i’m still writhing in the street
waiting for paramedics to save me,
but perhaps they couldn’t
and i am the ghost
and the past is my grave,
or perhaps it’s the ghoul
feasting upon where i lay.
but surely death isn’t like dying,
again and again, day after day;
if i’m merely a corpse,
where is the peace i am promised
once i rest in a cemetery?
and if i’m still above ground
and the past is just that,
then, i hope i may rest
in a bearable future, in a pleasant home,
before my bed becomes a casket
and my headboard becomes a headstone.
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am i something
am i something that can be loved far away
or something loved a little less,
the farther the distance?
am i something that can be savored
without being embraced
or will lonely nights feel like
grasping for ghosts that look like
the last time you saw me?
am i something that can exist
in your thoughts
while you live in a place
that i hope makes you happy,
but not so happy that you
start to forget to wish i was there?
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sunken pangs
sadness slams against my organs
like ocean waves smashing against sea cliffs.
saltwater teardrops gush past my waterline,
landing on my lips;
it’s a killer whale encircling me
as i exhale deep breaths between them.
it sounds like sirens singing,
surrounding a sobbing vessel,
beckoning me to succumb
to death’s beautiful promise
of “no more sunken pangs,”
so convincing in its refrain.
“abandon ship” like sadness knows best,
but it’s a rusted anchor
chained around my neck,
and i’m an anguished castaway.anxiety, depression, grief, life, melancholygalaxies, mental illness, poem, poems, poetry, quote, sad, sad poetry, trauma, writing
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one more dead girl
unfurl my past devotions
like clues on a table,
scrutinize the corpse’s life,
ask about her type
and hear the larvae gossip
“light-eyed arsonists”
interrogate the dry-eyed suspects
and ask them why they spoke in bullets,
why they cannonballed into her chest,
and how they raised a warzone
from a blooming garden.
detective, if i had known it’d end like this,
with me facedown in a shabby bed
and my ghost wailing from the roof
for justice (or revenge),
while watching the world continue to spin
despite how violently i departed from it,
i’d like to think
i would’ve ignored the text messages,
i would’ve kept walking past
—the wraith of my heartbreak
haunting me each time
i dare considered a third
or fourth chance.
detective, can’t you understand?
they strike me like matches
against sandpaper
and wonder why the city burns
and my inner child seethes.
i was just a spark they toyed with,
but i love men who point
their guilty fingers,
and it’s always at me.
they could never be blamed
for the forest fire,
for the body in a coffin
or the ashes in an urn,
an overdose in a junkyard
or one more dead girl.abuse, anxiety, death, depression, grief, heartbreak, life, love, love poem, love poems, love poetry, melancholygalaxies, poem, poems, poetry, quote, relationships, sad, sad poetry, trauma, writing
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at world’s end
16 was the end of the world, a razor-sharp cliff with a bottomless drop. college applications and career goals scorching before your torched mind and blank gaze like a feast fit for fire. your mind sought accolades and gold medals, and your heart became the punching bag, but you were not a prizefighter—you were a poet with paper bones and a soul that bleeds in rhyming ink. 18 was the unimaginable, the flailing descent to a place you couldn’t fathom, because you never thought you’d live past 16. purpose glides by you, smiling like an old friend, but she’s a stranger now with a name that nips the tip of your gnawed tongue. you want to ask her what she is, but like bliss, like hope, like the words, like everything else, she vanishes. 27 is returning to the earth. you swear you should be a corpse, but your pulse protests in rhythmic reprimand for suggesting such a concept. she booms behind your chest, “we’re still alive, you idiot! all this time, you’ve been running from what you didn’t expect instead of seizing control of it!” my legs and arms are busted and my spine is bent in half. my brain has become mulch and my body sobs red; how on earth do you think we can survive this? my heart answers back, “how dare you think we can’t!”
anxiety, depression, grief, hope, life, loss, melancholygalaxies, mental illness, poem, poems, poetry, quote, sad, sad poetry, trauma, writing
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b̶l̶o̶o̶d̶ wine stains
you look at blood stains and convince yourself it’s wine,
you looked at me and thought it’ll be better this time.
i’m a violent crime; you told me i have pretty eyes.
i’m an accidental house fire; you compare me to the sun.
i’m a sweaty nightmare; you pray you never wake up.
i’m a morgue with a palpitating heart,
but you herald my existence like it’s art
i’m an unnatural disaster with cherry lips,
and you kiss me because you’re into it.
i was garbage headed for the junkyard,
but you uncovered me and glimpsed a monarch.
i’m a disaster born in winter,
but you cheer like i’m a prize and you’re the victor.
you find weeds and pluck them like flowers,
i whisper i love you and you say it back louder.
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exposing body parts
exposing body parts like journal entries i wrote when i was fourteen and lonely in a house full of people i loved but couldn’t talk to. straps sliding past my shoulders like teardrops slipping down your cheeks on one of the rare occasions you sobbed “i’m sorry.”
with only the thinnest fabric concealing my pounding, perforated heart from your bare naked eyes, i shed my clothes like snakeskin, peeling away my jeans, my black skirt, my denim shorts, my tank top and t-shirt like an epidermis. the layers are strewn about, sometimes on linoleum, sometimes carpet. i pose myself like a doll just to please him, just to feel him pretend to worship what i used jackets and hoodies to hide, long before we first kissed.
he unearths my chest, unclipping my bra with his insatiable hands, pupils wide like a pilfering pirate beholding gold, but i just want to hear him say “i love you,” as we grow old, so i give him what he thinks he wants and i let him scour my curves and folds like a curious dog examining a new yard; with adoration, i watch as he salivates and whines like one.
but once the drool dries up and i become a home he knows too well, another dilapidated chew toy that’s lost its charm, he’ll dig through the fence, tail-wagging for something exotic to undress, another place with greener grass. and when he thinks of me from time to time, he’ll envision my undergarments by his bed and me tucked in it, before he ever recollects the way i crumbled like a stone erected just to praise him.
sometimes he’ll think of me with his tail between his cowardly legs, uncomfortably aroused with a pang of regret. and sometimes i’ll forgive him, and then i’ll recall all the skin i revealed like soiled secrets i should’ve kept, and all the bouquets i deserved, but didn’t get.
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semicolon
repenting in question marks, pondering in paragraphs, poems, and conversations with people as clueless as you. dismembering and considering explanations that others suggest, but aging is realizing, with the cold hard truth lodged in your throat, that some things just don’t make sense.
some things aren’t fair, and some last for only a sentence, whizzing past you like blood-thirsty bullets and fleeting seconds. some things halt so abruptly, you’re compelled to write the ending yourself. you confuse the life gushing through your veins with incessant pain so you start thinking in periods, anything to bypass the ache.
but then you laugh with your friends as you deflate into a cacophony of exclamation points. you sing out lyrics to your favorite songs and when they end, you play them again and again and again.
you catch yourself grinning in the silence after someone says they love you because you love them too. and when they say goodbye, you hope to see them again and again and again.
you think, thank god you took a moment to step back from the edge. thank god you let your blurry eyes dry so you could see the difference between a period and arepenting in question marks, pondering in paragraphs,
poems, and conversations with people as clueless as you. dismembering and considering explanations that others suggest, but aging is realizing, with the cold hard truth lodged in your throat, that some things just don’t make sense.some things aren’t fair, and some last for only a sentence, whizzing past you like blood-thirsty bullets and fleeting seconds. some things halt so abruptly, you’re compelled to write the ending yourself. you confuse the life gushing through your veins with incessant pain so you start thinking in periods, anything to bypass the ache.
but then you laugh with your friends as you deflate into a cacophony of exclamation points. you sing out lyrics to your favorite songs and when they end, you play them again and again and again.
you catch yourself grinning in the silence after someone says they love you because you love them too. and when they say goodbye, you hope to see them again and again and again.
you think, thank god you took a moment to step back from the edge. thank god you let your blurry eyes dry so you could see the difference between a period and a semicolon.
