Posts tagged poems

in Poems

keep choosing

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When you were younger you read that Robert Frost poem like everyone else in school and spent years dreaming of that point in your life where two paths finally diverge. All those years you spent trudging down that pin-straight road, fretful for the future, trying not to detour into the thick woods like the thickheaded people who think they know better.

You keep your eyes forward and back straight, plodding along as more and more people fall by the wayside or disappear into the forest, and you can feel it when you’re finally alone, when there’s nothing but you and … Read the rest

in Poems

What a Life

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It’s been twenty-five years since you’ve stood with your friends singing Hallelujah on a stage, feeling the vibration of a hundred voices lifting from the platform to the sky. It’s been twenty years since you listened to that same song on the way to your friend’s funeral. He’d shot himself to death at work. What a life. Now you can’t listen to that song without crying and you will always wonder how you couldn’t have seen it coming, and why no one ever usually sees it coming. There should be a prescription everyone gets at birth, an RX for love … Read the rest

in Poems Written Promptly

don’t test me

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it wasn’t the argument that ended things for you,
the one you held on to and wrote about, the one
you felt was so demeaning and mean — 
it was a simple question — and you wanted to give a 
simple, honest answer

that’s it
that’s all

you didn’t know what would happen
you didn’t even know what you wanted
to happen, but you lit the fuse that 
would eventually blast you
to smithereens

boom
poof

and all these years later we are both
asking what the hell were you thinking
to do things like that, to do everything
the … Read the rest

in Poems Written Promptly

this small life

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this is a small life, very small,
miniature if you want more, which
is also less, and the thing is
you can’t complain

the thing is
all of this was a gift
that you didn’t ask for but
have to appreciate, or so
“they” say; you have to make 
the most out of every precious moment

but i feel like a wallflower 
in my own fucking life, like
i’m watching from the sidelines
as i make mistake after mistake
as i make my life harder and worse
i want to jump in and grab myself
around the neck and squeeze … Read the rest

in Poems Written Promptly

saltwater

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you had me cornered, too shocked to 
react to the words you were saying, 
too scared to make them real

the same old story told so many times
it doesn’t even hurt much anymore, 
it’s just jarring, it’s just one more piece
in the fresh hell of my life that I don’t
need to deal with right now

when you’re told you’re not breaking
but broken, when you’re asked with
genuine concern “Are you okay?”
this is the time to say it:

of course i’m not fucking okay,
no one is okay,
nothing is okay

I don’t want … Read the rest

in Poems Written Promptly

the only thing I want

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In this relationship I have to be flexible,
I need to always be ready to bend if necessary,
and to make myself small and quiet 
whenever I am asked. 

One of the prices I pay for this relationship 
is silence, my silence, my starvation for
affection and validation, and any 
conceivable hope for the future. 

Those I must pay for
one way or another. 
One day, or not.

In this relationship I have to be ready for 
cliff diving, train jumping, backflips, I
need to be prepared for the quick exits,
I always need to be ready to run. 

I … Read the rest

in Poems Written Promptly

forget about it

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Sunday morning. This was once my favorite time of week, the lazy Sunday morning that would unfold into whatever we desired. It was the magic morning, it was the morning I could almost count on rolling into your arms and then you rolling on top of me. But now? Forget about it. 

I thought you were my kindred spirit. I thought you were my moon and stars. I 
thought you meant it when you said you’d always love me and never leave me,
but that was so stupid of me to believe. I thought you were my skin twin, I … Read the rest

in Poems Written Promptly

no one’s second best

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I thought we were okay.

I was running on autopilot,
that I can admit,
but I know I was here,
present, conscious, 
I know I felt loved even if
I felt it a little bit less. 

I told myself “Sometimes,
it can’t always be 50/50,
sometimes one person needs
to offer the other more when 
their well is running dry.”

So I offered you more. 
I offered to give up my peace 
so that you could have yours
for a while, and apparently,
that wasn’t enough. 

You caught me last night,
deer-in-headlights I sat and
listened to all the things… Read the rest

in Poems Written Promptly

It’s nothing, I’m fine

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If I asked you what you see in your future I’m sure
I’d only be met with silence. 
Not because you don’t know where we’re going, 
but because you know we won’t like it.

We’re not walking into any future we imagined,
together nor apart, in every way that’s meant. 
Now it seems more like a slide into complicity,
acceptance, and “you get what you get,
and you don’t get upset” like we’re children
who never learned to play by the rules. 

I suffer through sighs and the sad empty gazes.
You suffer metaphorical but actual pain in your heart,… Read the rest