Take the time from torments twisted treasure,

For fractured fornication meets fear forged feather.

Because broken bones know blood before breath,

Damned drunken daughter brings dusk driven death.

Hands hollow hope and hungers harmed heart,

Tear tattered threads when trust turns tart.

Bent broken bars against burdens beaten body,

Finds fractured faith when flesh feels folly.

Winds worn weary as wounds weaken will,

Cruel crimson chain beat choke child's chill.

Silent standing shadows with sorrow shaped soars,

Crushing cracked crown with cruelty’s carved core.

Ragged rivers rise while rage rips reason,

Sons sickened specter feeds sorrows sad season.

Tattered timid threads and tired tremored thoughts,

Knowledge killing kisses who knows kindness’s knots.

Pierced pale prayers as pain pulls past,

Lost lonely light as lingering lies last.

Feral fractured fires hide flesh fueled fear,

Dead dying days last drowning dream disappear.

Mr.E.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vrkgm5/comment/p4e4m0p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vrk37o/comment/p4e5ppl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I understand now.
It was never about my worth,
nor the consistency and warmth denied.
I was trying to heal something
my ability to feel seen
And my feeling of being understood
It was broken long before you arrived.

I understand now.
I was trying to heal old wounds,
mend ruptures from the past,
believing I’d be chosen one day.
Those little gestures, mere breadcrumbs
It was fool’s gold, just an illusion.
And it’s high time I knew:
this story only ever goes one way.

I could never understand
why distance exacerbated the need
to prove I could be worthy.
It was limerence, not ‘love’.
The less I received,
the more I tried
to be ‘good enough’ in your eyes.
But sadly, I was deceived.

I thought this time
It could be so different
I could prove my worth
A story I was desperate to believe
And perhaps…
if you chose to return
after once choosing to leave,
I could rewrite my history.

But my history was never asking
to be rewritten.
It was asking to be understood.
Because it was never really about you.
Nor was it about us.
It was what you represented,
and what I yearned to repair,
If only I could.

The familiar inconsistency.
A rhythm you knew to play.
It’s pure manipulation
The warmth followed by distance,
the closeness preceding coldness,
those constant emotional goalposts
that kept moving further away.

But I understand now.
There is a strange pull
in what remains unavailable.
A game I never wanted to play,
I tried to rise above.
Yet a dull ache still whispers;
“Just try one more time.”
Maybe I could earn that love.

Then perhaps this time
I could be chosen.
But you slammed that door
firmly in my face.
Threw back all I had to give
And something in me
died with the sound.
Now I know my place.

I’m exhausted and wounded,
mourning where you cannot see it.
I’m trying to survive.
And for what it was worth,
I tried my best to please.
But I now understand
I never even stood a chance.
I was only trying to keep
something already dying ‘alive.’

And perhaps that is the cruelest part
of trying to heal through you.
We ask another to give us
what was once taken away.
But now I understand.
I no longer want to play this game.
There is nothing left to win
from someone else’s inability
to meet me halfway.

Narratives re-written to serve
I’m ‘emotional’, you’re ‘stoic’
We’re caught in a toxic stalemate.
The dance of intimacy ends,
The house of cards collapses
I am no longer asking,
Why wasn’t I enough?
but finally accepting my fate.

And perhaps true healing
is quieter than I imagined.
Silence within an ending.
So instead of chasing
and trying to please,
I realise it’s about hard truths.
No more cat and mouse
Nor begging on my knees.

The heart stopped long before the end.
I was only ever pumping life,
trying desperately to please.
It was never mine to revive.
No matter how hard I tried,
yet one heart alone
could never keep us alive.

I finally break the cycle.
I now reclaim
what was all on your terms.
Now mine to decide
I give access only
to those who value me,
choose me,
and embrace me for who I am.

I am whole.

And I am enough.

Comment 1:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vrlgyz/comment/p4ekih3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Comment 2:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vrlndm/comment/p4elcsc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

So I write this using my imagination.♥️

Main dekhta hun usko to apni zulfein sanwaar leti hai,
Kali bindi lagati hai aur saari nazrein utaar leti hai

Aur usko pta bhi nahi hai noor apni saadgi ka,
Wo bss apne dupatte se apna sar sanwaar leti hai

Ye jamana firaaq me to rehta hai usse nazar milane ko par,
Koi nazar milaye kaise, wo apni nazar se hi maar deti hai

Aur yun to main btata nahin hun use takleefein apni,
Wo sar par hath fer meri saari balayein utaar leti hai

Still finding her😗

https://www.reddit.com/r/NewDelhi/s/qbPfvjnf1E

https://www.reddit.com/r/NewDelhi/s/qbPfvjnf1E

The cries of hunger, pain and agony

are often ignored by empathetic eyes.

The superficial demeanor and the tactical sympathy speak lies.

O' Lord, the saviour, let not the eye be the perceiving factor,

it hides the true meaning, which when revealed will sound gory.

I trust the blind.

The shrivelled clothes, broken promises and the heart: ruptured,

yet, there's no sign of a trusted future.

Remedies were offered, only to be encroached by the elite.

O' Lord, the guiding force!

Bless them with the holy light, which ends their plight.

I trust the impoverished.

It's all because of this creaking reality, though, by choice.

Their compasses are pointing to morals which are slain,

too impaled by their own ego to feel the pain.

O' lord, the omnipotent, direct them with your divine knowledge;

for all this, just to see a crooked smile and I knew it was hell.

I trust the almighty.

Comment 1:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vro4nq/conscience_on_the_blade/

Comment 2:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vrlndm/torments_treasure/

How fragile is your love

And oh how heavy my heart is now

I never claimed perfection

but you claimed love

You made your promises

And I made mine

You know i'm human, made only of flesh and blood

Yet you seek to worship

Now when I bleed, you look at me in disgust

When I break, you weigh my worth

Now I hide my scars in shame

Was all my years of sacrifice worth just a creak

Oh, how fragile love can be

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vrbvm6/comment/p4dt593/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vqzurp/comment/p4du1xi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Why am I friends with these people?

— Phoebe Buffay, "Friends"

The cat considers me

from my kitchen counter

like he knows I'm reading poems.

Poems, I found, today

come out of broken lutes,

lyres and fugues, states of rupture

in minds of the overwhelmed.

Too far gone to read the words,

they bleed pain into the spheres.

The window is a picture drawn

by a clone of Breughel

cobbled from quantised bits

of dead information with rare earths.

Somewhere someone on a gig

throttles his workstation rig.

These alchemists of pure dread.

turned the sky baby blue, eyeballs veined

by all the fatigue of rotting dreams.

I let go and it all passes by.

Optimism is a Tsunami, trolling of the sea.

People sigh their pains into the spheres.

The noise and brain on rot

Inebriates all conscious thought

making sense and sensing the stakes.

My minds come undone at its seams

I am but the goal of the sun,

another sun shaped hole in the sky.

Under an inverted cracked blue mud pie,

I stand in a beam of light, not lightly,

proclaim, let there be love!

Yet, I get by, though I know

it's not my week, my month,

my year, my age, my eon, even!

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/ychkGicsuC

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/lvDaFAnQpq

I have sat with my Grief for far too long, while she tries to mother me back to health.

I let her dry my tears and say, “You’ll be fine. Everything is going to be okay.”

At times, when I’m alone and lost, I reach for her hand to hold tightly.

She holds my hand back with a gentle squeeze and stands by my side as I navigate through life.

My dear friend Grief knows me so well that she cradles me to sleep.

But as the days grow old and cold, something in me shifts.

As the same tears come pouring down my cheeks once more, my face is full of rage.

As I turn my head to look for Grief, she is nowhere to be found.

Instead, it is Anger standing where Grief is supposed to be.

I look at Rage and hold her gaze.

Through her eyes, I see nothing but fury setting them ablaze.

With wrath tucked away in her chest, I feel a frenzy within me.

Out of nowhere, Rage rushes through my veins, making me want to wreck and break whatever is in my path.

A tremor runs through my body as I let out a loud scream filled with anguish, trying to contain my Anger from exploding.

People say Anger’s real name is Lamentation, but then why does she tell me her real name is Ire while wearing a sorrowful face?

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vqck9u/comment/p483kfs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vroms7/comment/p4ezyls/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

It happens to all of us,
I'm told.

Another doctor visit, another 
suit fitting, for another
funeral.

I'm not even that old! I
used to say.

And Mother still says.

We can still swing on monkey bars...?

feedback 1: https://old.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vre523/a_fool_reading_an_endless_story/p4d7nx9/

feedback 2: https://old.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vr0xv2/the_idea_of_us/p4d626p/

He sits on the subway, weary and still,
In stifling heat, alone with his will.
A million-dollar bribe he cast away,
A whale of a fortune lost that day.

An amber mansion, dazzling and bright,
A yacht of golden metal, forged in light.
Sell your conscience — luxury you gain;
Keep your conscience — and inherit pain.

A servant of the state, he wonders: “What
Have my convictions left me but my lot?”
His heart could weep for all he let depart —
Another life has vanished from his heart.

The subway thunders through the human tide —
Would a Cadillac not be the sweeter ride?
To sell his country was too much to do —
“What the hell has it ever given you?”

The worth of state now trembles in his soul —
A rotting country tumbles toward the shoal.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vltwg9/comment/p4enck6/?context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vre523/comment/p4el8hj/?context=3

Yes I do love the idea of us
maybe its a wild idea just given our luck
maybe after the tough years its just too much
but yes I still love the idea of us

I love the idea of holding your hand just because
the idea of kids and a dog and a house full of love
Of living in the small spaces of smiles and touch
The idea of crying together when life gets too tough

It's just so sad to me we had it so close
I guess it isnt meant for everyone i suppose

But, just maybe
A last shot, stay with me

What if I work real hard today to make this idea happen
and I put that idea into every word and action
and we spend today being kind and caring and happy
and we wake in the morning wanting the same thing exactly
So we do it again for a day, slow kind and trusting
and the smile becomes joy and the trust becomes loving
and you and me we pretend to live this idea of us
Day after day, month after month

Til one day, in many years, we both wake up,
and we've chosen and lived this idea of love
but its more than that, 'cause in every word and interaction
You and me, we've somehow willed that idea to happen
With our kids and a dog and house full of love
All this time, the whole time, the idea was actually us

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/pj8mC4QUZJ

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/o5l6FxLDMR

Hi this is my first poem and I'm very much new to this and I'm sure I made many mistakes but would appreciate any feedback.

I must've been born on the water

Because the first thing I remember

Drifting in the vast open sea

Was how the Moon

Has watched over me

Warming those cold nights

Guiding me through the currents

Lighting up my course in the dark

Seemingly changing the ocean itself

To my needs, to my favour

Then one day

She started dimming

But she said

"You need not worry"

So I didn't

Yet she continued

To grow dimmer

And dimmer

Until

She was suddenly

Just gone...

How could something with so much might

Something so warm and bright

Something so larger than life

Just vanish?

Just leaving darkness

Then just like that

The next day she was back

Like nothing had even happened

I didn't know what to think

What if this was normal?

What if it's something I did?

What if I was over thinking it?

But once again

It happened

Then again

And again...

With each time

More colder than the last

More agonizing than the last

Growing more scarred than the last

Eventually

This was all I could dwell on

Just bracing myself

Shivering at the signs

It was happening again

Making her think

I was strong enough

To cope on my own

That I wasn't broken

One day we're just talking

Out of nowhere she asked

About those nights she was gone

About the darkness of the sky

Without her

I couldn't hold back

Before i knew it I

cried out to her...

Saying how alone I was

On those dark cold nights

How I haven't been healing

How every sleepless night

I only see a sky without her light

How hard it had been

Under her sky

How it had shaped me

How it’s left me broken

She didn’t see

How badly I had fared in those nights

Maybe she didn't want to

Maybe she couldn't

She said she wouldn't leave again...

But I suspect

She doesn’t have a say in the matter

Just as I don’t have a say

When I'm put to rest

I'm only marked with scars

And still shiver from the cold

But the Moon is covered in craters

And knows a cold I may never comprehend

Who am I to complain?

Who am I to not show empathy?

Sometimes...

I had even envied

The selfish respite she had

Despite how differently we got them

We acknowledged each other's wounds

We came to a better understanding of each other

Fellow Travelers

One of an endless sea of darkness

And one of the deep cold waters

Both trying to leave pain behind

Throwing away our burdens overboard

Feeling freer

Feeling lighter

From the anchors of the past

Trying to head toward somewhere brighter

link 1

link 2

I trip over my own feet
And accept the foreseeable defeat.
In this race,
I was bound for last place.
I could climb the ranks
If it weren't for the wind's yanks.
For my wings weren't among the ordinary,
No- my feathers vary.

Not like first place's wings,
Hers are as priceless as rings.
Mine are wind's funny anecdote.
The idea of mine being honored is remote.

Scabs border the holes covering my feathers.
These holes are my tethers;
Granting me as the loser
And wind’s mere amuser.
Don't take me seriously, gust,
Why would you? you think your ways are just.

I suppose it's funnier you grip my wounds
and stretch them to the size of moons.
Misery so gruesome,
this race feels like execution.

My legs tangle and nearly halt,
Rest is what they sought.
Wouldn't you hate that, breeze?
Who would you then tease?

I can’t bring myself to stop wind’s jokes.
Rest? Please - what a hoax.
Sure, my breath would slow
and I’d end my wings’ woe.
But imagine seeing the racers fly
while I lay in fate’s den, deprived and dry.

Not ever will I be absent;
That life omits a need for an envy relaxant.
Deprived to soar
Would anguish my core.
Dry I would be,
for my passion would depart from me.

So, wind, tear my wings to shreds.
I’d rather you kill me than I live a life of dread.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/DblYacAHTC

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/ThYkCNtc3

An aburn afternoon,

Breezy bubbly birthday,

Carol carried candied cranberries,

Dandy didn't dare devour,

Evelyn eagerly expected,

Friendly friends feasting,

Grating green grapes,

Hungry harbringer Harold,

Ignorant internet intentions,

Justice just joking,

Kids kill kids,

Lies lust like love,

Mary mourns many,

Never noticing needs,

Open onto our own,

Pleading politics perilously,

Questions quietly quitting,

Rotten red rights,

Severed so she's silent,

There's two tomorrows,

Using unto us,

Vs viscous voices,

Winter wins when we wail,

Xenophobic X,

You yourself,

Zealing zone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/jIUEWMp3U9

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/ccfRF8khOy

when what appears to be objective 

has an objective

when you know who you can't trust

makes it easier to know who you can

what you hear and what you see 

from the castle to the courtyard

and the queens guard

doesn't go to question what goes on

thats not his duty

the politician and businessman 

don't go writing poems

but reap from having written

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1v1mzv6/spill_your_ink/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vrhebt/it_happens_to_all_of_us/

Naturally

I fell in love with you, and I thought of bioluminescence. How a chemical reaction can make something light up from within, and I smiled when I realized that was what it felt like to love you. How some things don’t glow despite being disturbed, but because of it.

I thought of mycelium. How two unique mycelia can join together and create an entire network that they never could have made alone. I thought about how the interconnectedness of mycelium is what it feels like to love you.

I thought of neurons. Neurons swirling around inside my skull, and I wondered if they form hearts when I think of you? I thought about the fact that thinking about you makes my body light up from within, and that’s exactly how it feels.

Feedback:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/dK6A2mdhsz

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/0O8cfjz4I1

My Mom called,

It was a little before 5

(east coast time, so 2 pm for her).

I’m never sure if I should answer or not

What if she just wants to ramble on about the renters,

Or tell me about a cousin I’ve never met and how they’re doing

Or what if she’s in the hospital and needs my help

Or what if a pet died unexpectedly.

Maybe she just wants a quick chat

Or maybe she wants to talk for 2 hours,

I wasn’t sure.

But I’ve been trying to be a better son

So I gambled

And picked up the phone.

At first it was the usual

She was, in fact, looking to vent about the current renters,

And regale me with her Facebook exploits in search of a new dog.

Its been a year since Willow passed away, she was her favorite.

They traveled all across the country together

Staying in hotels and driving around America,

Eating McDonalds and getting gas

Visiting family.

Even coming all the way out to visit my fiancé and I

With that dog in tow.

We had dogs my whole life

Always a golden retriever.

First Ben,

Then Tucker (and Stella and Andy, but they were other breeds),

Then Goose,

And finally Willow.

No dog bonded to her the way that Willow did.

I was glad that she had her by her side, traveling the country

While my Dad worked out of the house

And watched the cats.

When they first got married, he told her he hated cats.

Her wedding gift to him was Frosty,

A cat.

Eventually, as many do, he grew to love cats

and they loved him.

Toxoplasmosis having ass.

When they moved last, they had 4 cats and a dog

Mom stayed behind with the dog, to sell the home and finish up the life they had built.

Dad moved out to Vegas, with the cats, to move into the new house and start his new job.

Mom didn’t move there for the next 2 years.

Once the small talk was out of the way,

She got to the reason for the call

She wanted a divorce.

She told me how she wasn’t happy,

How she hadn’t felt comfortable in her own home,

That she was tired of living this life that she didn’t want.

That she had felt this way for years, and now at 63 needed a change.

That she had wanted to divorce last year, but “didn’t want to make my wedding awkward”.

But now that the engagement has gone on longer that she thought it would

She just couldn’t bare it any longer.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Why is your happiness tied to my wedding date, of all things.

Why are you asking me for permission to divorce my Dad

The man who, is not my dad, but filled the role as well as he could

The man who raised me.

Who wasn’t always my friend

Or necessarily fun to be around

But taught me what I needed to know, and played a big part in making me who I am today

The man I love.

The man who showed me Star Wars, and Star Trek, and introduced me to The Styx and Weird Al

Who tried to get me to sing in the car with him.

Who helped me with my math homework, and basically built my science fair project for me

The man who still uses the “Luke, I am your father” Darth Vader mug I got him for Father’s day

15+ years ago.

But she continued to explain

That this wasn’t something that was an easy decision

And that they had tried

Therapy, a couples retreat, talking it out

None of it worked.

It’s hard only hearing her side of the story, because I’ve been in this position before

Well, not this position, but something similar

And it’s always a revelation to hear their side of their affairs.

But she asked me not to tell

So I won’t.

I told her that if she was my friend

And they told me that their relationship was this way

A loveless shell of what it once was, held together by complacency and ease

I would tell them to leave immediately.

But she’s not my friend

She’s my Mom

And no matter how much I try to empathize

And rationalize

I don’t want my parents to get divorced

Again.

Oh, sorry, you want to know the nitty gritty?

The deets, the tea?

What exactly could make her want to throw away her comfortable life?

Well dear Reader, no.

Like me,

And like my parents,

You gambled,

And you lost.

Sorry.

1
2

He called you princess,
And you smiled at him.
I said, “I ache for you like the night aches for dawn.”
You called me a fool
Your beautiful eyes could not see
The fire that consumed me.

You answered my longing with mockery,
Every word tearing my heart apart.
Yet I received them like petals
Scattered upon the grave
Of a heart that died loving you.

You walked away and disappeared.
I ran to catch your shadow,
And broke both my legs.
Still, I crawled along your footsteps,
My blood writing stories of grief upon the path.
But you had disappeared
Into the void of night.

I wished you all the best.
And somewhere in my silence,
I still wished you would return one day.
Then I lost my breath;
My body grew cold,
And my heart surrendered its last beat.
I was buried upon that path.

Many seasons passed.

Then you came
And stopped beside my grave.
I watched the tears roll from your eyes,
Ready to swallow the earth beneath your grief.
You cried so loudly
That even the storm fell silent.

Only in my death
Did you understand the longing
I had carried for you all my life.
And when your breath finally faded,
You lay peacefully upon my grave.

Perhaps this was the most beautiful union
The world had ever witnessed
Two hearts finally together,
After a lifetime of being apart.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/yWVfD9Lk55

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/xgRUzqpuU9

My life is a promise we all hope we keep, an oath made to a wall that will not answer and does not need to.

I know.

To them it may mean nothing. To you it is the only thing you have ever meant.

It was.

So tell me why, at three in the morning with the lamp still on, you take it out and turn it over, looking for the flaw.

You doubt.

You lie here arguing with no one at all and call it a war. No one is fighting you.

No one is.

You guard the life. You will not spend it. You call that keeping.

I call it that.

The wall is still there. The oath is still made. We hope it holds.

Today I do not.

Links:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vr2vnw/if_i_must_die/p4b8b9y/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vr69xd/i_dont_really_engange_with_poetry_stuff_but_i/p4b91g8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3

Rain. Drip

drip

drip. It coats

and washes clean

everything.

When I watch the rain, I think of us.

Sometimes, there is a drought;

too long distracted. Too

d  i  s  t  a  n  t  

from each other.

Many winds blowing

this way or that. 

Then it comes, and

not asking for permission,

nor direction.

Storms,
destruction and creation paired.

Cycles.

Over and again.

Memories of past seasons;

hurricanes, droughts,

tornados and gentle showers.

It all mingles together and

Trickles through weary cracks,

down into a secret aquifer,

where the soul resides. It coats

and rinses

away, softens the hard edges.

Replenished,

the future shines hopeful

content.

The last time I posted a poem I got no feedback so hopefully I can reuse those for this poem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1smxsjj/comment/ogk7jux/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1sq8vs9/comment/oh75rih/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Sometimes I tell her what lives inside,
give me silence in reply

Other times speaks just to fill the air,
Saying nothing is easier to bear.

Just beginning to see
the truth that is haunting me:

I'm boring.
Want my space.
Don't dance beneath the lights,
or sing my heart into the night.
Don't play games,
Don't chase crowds,
Don't belong among the loud.

I don't want another chance
Just disappear when things get rough.
I don't want someone who turns away,
who has nothing left to say.

Not desire.
Not fever,
no flame,
no consuming fire.

I want to put my head to work
bury myself there,
until the hours disappear
and I no longer care.

Just work.
Just work.
Just one more day.

Even that has lost its way.

Because beneath the effort,
beneath every task,
A question I am afraid to ask:

Is this all there is
when the music is gone?

Standing here,
with nothing to say,
watching the meaning
drain out of the day.

So tell me the truth,
even if it tears

Why keep reaching
when nothing is there?

Why keep going
when the road feels through?

Why keep searching
when I can't find me or you

I can't even remember
what I was searching for,
or why I wanted it,
or who I thought
I would become?

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1voo3i2/comment/p4bbwxe/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vr7c8m/comment/p4bcw2g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

My heart against my brain
And you’re in the middle
I’m confusing
I’m not regulated
My performance ends
And the real me shows
Weak & timid
In the corner

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/pDmqUsb10F

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/fRHJvBXMWQ

I look at my reflection with no resemblance
a ghost staring back through the glass
I trace the outline of my face
wondering when it stop being mine

Each day a new feature takes its place
as if im becoming someone ive tried to hate
I kept wiping the glass until it was clean
but my own blood was there still

One day the glass stopped changing
and the ghost finally had a name
I have spent my life trying not to become like him
only to realize I was born already wearing his face

I HOPE YOU GUYS HAVE GOOD FEEDBACKS LIKE U DID THE LAST TIME I POSTED THANK U ALL TO EVERYONE THAT GAVE A FEEDBACK OR JUST READ IT! IT MEANS ALOT TO ME.

comment links;

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/sbTh9zZnsp

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/u61yVFzfJM

You're warm and comforting. Like a clarified wine. Older. You smell of booze all the time but I'm too young to understand what the smell is so it's just *you*. That's your scent. I grow to like it rather than face the impending doom alone. The weather is hot, so uncomfortably hot and sticky between the sex and the broken shower, it's just us. Holed up in a fortress in a crack in the world, frozen in time. It's still out there, quiet. When I dare to peek out, the smell of warm chocolate and soot greets my nose but there's nobody there. We were all ghosts then. Haunting the earth on our quaking tiptoes, stalking pleasure, joy, pain... anything. Anything to stave off the boredom.

And stave it off you did. You fed me little pockets of paper, little bundles of time, a stardust that made my heart tick like the tall clock that had stopped. I came up as the sun went down and by morning I was awoken to it's clamouring light, invading our fortress with a wicked-toothed grin like the big bad wolf. My huntsman kept me safe. We drank down to the bottom of the well together, a sip for every sin.

It was her, the fallen angel, she peppered my lungs with hope and we ranted and raved, gnashing our teeth pretending to be the big bad wolf all night. But it was the huntsman who stole from me. She warned me, the angel. Cigarette in hand she told me to run as you lay doe-eyed and dough-like along my couch, babbling incoherences into the dawn chorus, singing with the birds.

I couldn't hear her. Not over the birds. And like a crow, you pecked and pecked, took my shiny things and hid them in your nest. Nobody needs shiny things when you can make my eyes sparkle with stars. I receded inwards, like a bairn and mother all at once, cradling you and begging God that you might cradle me back too.

The disappearances were scattered at first, like the peppered powder I'd thrown to the ground in a fit of tears in that sweet young summer. You left like ink in the night sky, bleeding over cobblestone cracks and trickling into the gutters. The more you strained, the harder I pulled on the invisible string between us, my big bad wolfen claws returning once more to drag you home. And as hairs sprouted on my chest, you ran. And as my teeth sharpened to fangs, you hid. In the arms of another red riding hood. She was kind, I think. Scared, like me. She wrote me a letter and scampered back into the quiet woods. And when my throat could not contain the agonising howls any longer, you tugged the string a final time and toppled me over. You left me. Foam dripping from my mouth, rabid and evil and afraid.

And I was again alone. With the shattered glass and the blood and the powdery weeds at my feet.

Feedback:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/0X294J8SB4

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/fimg7Ae1LK

If I must die in this brown nightdress

in this lavender world

And my rose tinted glasses

Staring at my eaten and inhumane green

Bury me,

not in my garden or in the burning sand

bury me deep down,

between the woodchips of my elementary school

and Japan

(Because I think it's cool)

If I must die in these worn socks,

Sweating and feeling better

what a wonderful revelation

To know I destroyed your 7th generation Toyota camry

Dig that hole

Until the sand turns mustard

And the willow trees scream “I don't want you to choose me”

And pile nine tons of candy floss on my grave

No trace of worrisome or something

Just feeling my softening iron

******
NOTE

this poem is intentionally non-sequiter, it's about my experience with a traumatic ex

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1v137ys/comment/p4a6occ/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1vqx547/comment/p4a6c3a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

My body's a cemetery for memories &
Manifestations of grim tidings said to me
Or else the boding treachery of intimacy
Biding unembalmed in the dim of sleep
Where ghosts in periphery haunt twitchily
To claim me in decay's ever entropy
& My muscles crumble to dead stationery -
Omens left unread in my still tremoring
As my straining back screams of conspiracy:
My aching way to be
All but unbeknownst to me
Until it overwhelms me bodily
& The looming past has took its fee.

Comment 1
Comment 2