Tag: poems on tumblr

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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. 

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

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. 

Why do I miss someone who doesn’t exist? Why do I miss something that wasn’t even real?

it’s always going to seem better in your memories than it really was, but remember why you did it. remember that you are worth it. 

But I’m Doing Okay

When I walked away from you, I didn’t realize I was going to feel so alone for so long. I didn’t know that people would reach out to me, and I’d still feel like I was drowning. I did not know that my insides would not grow back around the hole you left; that I would never fully heal.
That there would always be this scar. 

When I walked away from you, I didn’t expect to ever again laugh so hard my eyes teared up. I didn’t think I’d ever have the courage to bare my naked soul to anyone again– to tear open a still healing wound.
But I have
surrounded myself with light, and in some ways I feel more free than I ever have. 

When I walked away from you, you insisted it wasn’t mutual.
But I know I did what was best for both of us.
You couldn’t fully invest in your relationship if I was around, and I would never be able to have a relationship with anyone if I kept you in my life. 

When I walked away from you, I did not think I would love again.
I have.
And I will love again after him.
You are no longer my most recent heart break. You are no longer my muse. And in some ways I am so thankful for this, because you are fading farther and farther into the distance, like you are on shore, and I am sailing away. Soon I won’t be able to see you at all.