Poet
i keep a backlog of poetry in my pocket, ready for someone to ask “what do you do?”,
“i’m a poet” i tell them,
“would you like to read my work?” i’m begging for a yes,
just a moment of your attention,
for my blood and tear-stained pages,
my well-polished craft fashioned from the chipping of my heart and soul,
just a moment to read my thoughts and decide for yourself whether that time was wasted,
please read it,
i don’t care if you like it,
but really i do,
tell me that i’m good.
scar
i popped a spot next to my mouth once,
then i picked at the scab every time that it grew,
now i have a tiny scar on my face,
from something that i just could not leave alone,
when we were friends you would often leave me,
then i would often come back,
i would crave the attention you gave me and how special you made me feel,
before you would leave again,
and i would go back to you again,
now i can’t go a day without thinking of you,
not about how i miss you or how i hate you,
just you and the little things you would do,
now i have a tiny scar in my memories,
from something that i just could not leave alone.
moth
moth in the wind,
drawn to the light, the secrets,
the knowledge that could kill her,
her deepest desire, her downfall,
don’t let her fly too close,
to that warmth,
but oh what that warmth could feel like,
the best thing becoming the last thing,
wings burnt and lessons learnt,
all comes crashing down,
the only sound being the whispers of what once was known.
notes app poet
writing poetry on my phone feels dirty,
cramming my notes app with verses and deleting lines with one click,
I want to write with a quill and ink,
on parchment that stains with my blood, sweat and tears to prove they were shed,
no one likes a notes app poet,
“you’re not professional enough,”
“you’re not artistic enough,”
but my words carry the same weight,
whether in quill and ink, biro pen, or typed.
the speaker and the listener
i don’t think that i deserve to have found you,
what great thing did i do to have you in my life?
to have you like me for me and put up with my stupid quirks and endless rants when no one else would,
you are the one person who could listen to me for hours and never get bored,
and i don’t understand that because i could never do it,
so many people have told me that i am too much,
the words pool in my brain and drag me below the surface,
you’re the one who pulls me back up again,
you encourage me to be too much,
i hope that i can be too much around you forever,
and even in death you’ll sit with your hand resting on your chin, staring at me with a life time worth of love,
and i can cross my legs and flap my hands and tell you about my newest obsession,
and our bodies will rot this way, showing the world the speaker and the listener
dirt lane
she runs barefoot down a dirt lane,
wind whipping through her hair,
sunlight glistening in her eyes,
dress stained by all that is un-lady-like but beautiful nonetheless,
she stops by a pond,
observes the ducks and the frogs and the fish,
and their colours and feathers and fins,
she draws in a breath before letting her words loose:
“I am all that time can hold,
I am the warmth inside the cold,
I am the words printed in bold,
I am the girlish and the old.”
death's dance
melded limbs like tied bits of string,
the moon shines down over them,
final breaths full of love,
holding a legacy riddled with all those summers,
bones cracking with pressure against one another,
embrace to last centuries and imprint in the ground below,
down to the earth’s core and up to the galaxies,
visible from all points and a landmark,
an example saying “this is what you could have.”
ugly
i wish to be oh so disgusting and ugly,
oh so ugly in the way my skin falls on my bones,
in the way my hair would matte to my head,
i wish to be utterly undesirable,
so that when their eyes meet my body they won’t leer and long,
their eyes will widen with shock and avert swiftly,
feeling offended to have been exposed to such a thing,
irony dripping from tongues in sweet honey-like poison.
and eat you raw
love is hunger,
but hunger is wrong,
hunger is ugly and no one wants to know about that hunger,
pure, undying hunger,
romance is consumption,
of those fruits of my labour,
of pomegranates and pies,
of our very lives and blood and bones and bodies,
i’ll set the food on the table, ignore it and eat you raw
memory
i forget the good things in my life like childhood and riding my scooter through bubbles blown by my mum,
but what my brain keeps is the resentment and how much i hate you and every time you unconsciously ruined my day,
and how dare you do that to me? to stain my brain with the blood you spilled,
to push out the light and shut the lid of the casket,
and the worst part is that i can’t pinpoint who you are,
so many people have done the same,
your face lingers just out of my periphery, stained with the consumption of my lifeblood.
false advertisement
no body told me that life would be this hard,
no body said that the sky would be pressing in on me,
that one day i wouldn’t playing with barbies and dressing,
i would be struggling through years of education that i supposedly enjoy,
and i would be dreading waking up every morning but simultaneously hoping that this day would be better than the last,
i don’t deserve the life i have, i know this,
i don’t deserve to struggle like this,
do you see the way out? because i sure don’t,
i’ll just keep spiralling until one day it all stops and i’m normal again,
however long that takes
unfair/rome
I was willing to give it all up for you,
Because that’s what happens when you love someone,
hen you love them so much that if the sky was falling,
You would catch the pieces and form them back together again all for them,
That’s what I had to do with my heart,
Collect the pieces and reform what I lost to your nonchalance,
Your face is still the first that I find in every crowd,
That’s the way that I programmed it,
You’ve always made things so unfair,
Claiming that you’re broken without me after realizing your love,
I was broken that same way for almost five years,
If it were a contest of who was hurt more by the other,
I would win,
But I’ve moved on now,
I don’t want any of what you have to offer anymore,
Yet I’ll still cry myself to sleep,
Just the same as I did all those months ago,
Knowing that you’re probably crying too,
Somehow weaving your way back into my dreams,
Dreams of how we were,
Not how we are now,
Because there is nothing in the world that could make me love you again,
And that’s all of the unfairness that you gave me.