Tag: new poets corner

19 hours inside these yellow walls
and i can feel everything i had left
leave me

mom’s cheeks are sunken and sickly
she asks me if i know how much
a baggie costs; did she give you
too much money for gas?  

and you,
you are angry
and you scare the shit out of me.
i’m scared
i’m going to hate you, too.

we are out shopping and
mom tells me she found
a needle in your desk drawer
as we pick out strawberries.

i don’t know how to reach you.
when you shut your bedroom door
you shut me out, too
sometimes i fear your limbs
will grow into your bedsheets. 

i love you, don’t you understand
i love you?

i flip through the channels at 2 am 
and can’t watch cartoons even 
though all i want is to laugh
because i know i will
cry instead 

and i’m sorry, i’m so
sorry i don’t understand

how we can be from the same womb,
the same hands holding ours
as we crossed the street,
the same health ed class, the
same high school, the
same town, two different
worlds.

it is the hardest thing to miss someone
who is still right in front of me.

2 worlds // a.s.m

there’s something to be said
for banging pots and pans
at two on a Tuesday
morning, the
dissonance of existence sounding
like gongs in the kitchen

and our roommates 
groan and beg
us to go
back to bed because 
they can’t hear 
our harmonies.

For Zach // a.s.m

Be like the Earth. She doesn’t care if you love Her or think She’s beautiful. She continues existing the way She has always existed; She continues doing exactly what She has done since She was born. Some people revel in Her beauty. Some destroy it: they tear Her down and tell Her how She should be and try to change Her to meet their needs. But She does not change; She does not bend. She continues to be how She always has been. The streams that have always flooded continue to flood. The forest fires continue to burn. Droughts continue to dry the land. We blame Her for being herself, for refusing to change for us, and yet She continues on. 

Be like the Earth. It is okay to catch fire– it clears crowded places and makes them clean. Let there be drought and flood to allow seeds to germinate and grow. The universe is inside you– do not fear these times. Do not dam the floods within you or try to put out your fires. Let them cleanse you, let them grow you, and no matter what, continue to persevere.

Be like the Earth: cause earthquakes in cities you never wanted built in the first place.

Be like the Earth // a.s.m 

tucking flowers behind your ears
watching the sun dance in the sky
waiting for the air to clear
i never want to leave your side.

from this hill we see the town
i twist my fingers between yours
to keep myself from falling down
because your love my soul secures.

and when the earth begins to shake
fear will not grip my stuttering heart
because with you i know i’m safe
though the world begins to fall apart.

horsebarn hill // a.s.m (via wingedpiglets)

You Had So Much Space, You Just Wouldn’t Give It Up For Me

wingedpiglets:

I’ve lived my entire life
squeezing myself into pockets
working so hard to shrink,
to be smaller, to take up less
space– to give others more room because
they’ve always seemed more important
to me than myself. 

But when I met you,
for the very first time
in my life, I wanted
to take up more space:
in your heart,
in your mind,
in your life. Uninhibited,
I opened my floodgates and let you into
all of me,

but you pushed me away
when you weren’t willing to share
yourself, and I could feel myself withering,
shrinking,
closing up like a clam shell. 

I’ve lived my life torturing myself by working so hard to shrink.
I am so sick of asking you for more space. 

է

wingedpiglets:

We’re masked in clever conversation. 
Witty remarks. 
Perfect metaphors. 

But poetry is not always
the set of fine china your mother
keeps locked in the cupboard. 
It is picking through skin
and meat and getting to 
the bones– sucking out the marrow. 

And sometimes it is the stench
of decaying bodies. 
Sometimes it is the taste of
someone else’s blood. 
Sometimes it is supposed to 
break you. 

And we are not flowers– we 
do not give off warm perfumes. 
Sometimes we are fingernails tearing
through the yellow wallpaper. 
Sometimes we are covered in
scars (inside and out). 
Sometimes we are our own tormentors. 
Sometimes we are the pain 
we write about. 

Don’t you see? 
I live with my hands permanently 
dirty, covered in everyone and
everything I have ever
touched. 

Armageddon

wingedpiglets:

I was born amid chaos.
The first words to leave her lips
when I entered this world
were electric bolts of lightning;
his were thunder.
The pounding of
his fists shook my tiny universe.

I was raised amid the crumbling
walls of a marriage gone sour,
where conversations consisted of heaving chairs,
house-wide rampages, and
chillingly silent dinners.

I learned amid the uproar that
we are not safe from the monsters in our minds:
they escape through the darkness in our eyes
and the fire in our mouths.
They fuel the momentum behind the punch
and fill the cracks in our hearts.

I discovered amid the rubble that
love means fuck you and fuck off and shut up and you bitch.
That anger is holes in the wall,
bruises and scratches, and the crack in your voice.

I watched in the corner amid
the chaos I was born into, and
the Universe watched me recoil from
the destructive violence of sentiment.

I lived my life amid the thwarted truth
that the doors to the storm cellar must always remain shut
to protect others from the tornadoes inside.
And if God forbid
at some point my body could no longer hold the weight of so many
unsaid words,
and I collapse in a heap by your side, bleeding love and anger,
I must apologize; I must mop up my mess
in order to keep you clean.

But I am so fucking sick of
keeping you clean by
mopping up my messes, when
I am covered in your blood.

So I will get up and walk away.
I will speak chaos and tornadoes and destruction.
And I will not ask for your permission,
and I will not apologize

They Will Rust, But I Will Be A Flower

wingedpiglets:

The rhythm of
life is dictated by
ticking clocks.
ticktockticktockticktock
But my life was not breathed
to be conducted in the duple meter
of this mechanical march.
I was made from the
undulating ebb and flow of tides, the swaying
of outstretched tree branches,
the rise and fall of the universe’s chest,
the very same cells that bend
to dance with the wind.

My heart cannot beat
in synchronization with wound-up gears.