Poem Series I

Joy
who do you think you are
you run around
and leave me with scars
who do you want
in your arms
don’t tell me now
i know your charms
and you disarmed me
you took hold of me
with your joy
and your
your joy
but your joy is bringing me down
and your joy is hurting me now
and your joy has treated me like a toy
i won’t play coy
with your joy

Starting Over
How do I start over from a place I have never even begun?
How do I build from ruins where the dust never settled?

When you see me, do you see the ways I have broken myself down?
Do you not see the stones they have thrown my way?
Do you not see someone trying their hardest?

I so easily forget and make amends with others before I even apologize to myself.
I crave the touch of someone else before I even think of my own.

In this battle, I am the architect of my own demise.

Will you watch me start again?

The Last Day
I decree this to be the last day
The last day I let my thoughts distract me
I am certain I will find a way

Let me drift away alone
Better this way than that
There is something within me I must hone

I don’t care what I must pay
Finally the choice is me above all else
Fore I decree, this is the last day

World War Me

If you want to find peace, remember war. It is in the bulk of my experiences that I have weathered much worse than whatever knocks at my door today.

I know no battlefield better than my own, and there will be no greater war than the one within myself.

Soju and Maekju

Soju and maekju
Is this bar number two

Are these choices wise inside my head
You say this is all new

Soju and maekju
I’m lost hoping I’ll find you

Look into my eyes
and give me some kind of clue

Soju and maekju
I think I hate you

Just as this tear dries
You say stop feeling blue

Soju and maekju
I think I’ll have another too

My Side of the Bed
Rolling, rolling, rolling
Legs, arms
A thousand of them,
My side ends and yours begins,
My thoughts appearing and fading,
A kiss, shuttered eyes, morning breath
My side,
allotted in your bed,
Time rationed out in senseless increments,
My eyes close,
open,
a new light,
the Sun,
kissing me as well
But ah how I like your kisses more,
softer,
less forthright,

I have to answer to the Sun,
facing a new day
You would never ask that of me,
You say
“Stay”
And so I will,
On my side
of your bed.

Window to the Soul
I so detest the phrase “the eyes are the window to the soul.” Would you not want your guests to simply use the door? Maybe they could even knock first, so as to not startle you to the degree that someone peering through your unsuspecting windows would. Perhaps I’m overthinking, but it seems like it would be a much more enjoyable experience for all involved.

Not Goodbye
I left so long ago
My words lingering to remind you of our time
Time that seems frozen, waiting to thaw in the heat of what could have been
Perhaps this all never happened
I left so long ago
I left us, but gained a piece of myself
Do you remember our seconds, minutes, hours,
Are they hanging in the air above you, causing you to ascend
It was never goodbye, could never be.

Colors
We can talk about the colors
How green can carry me from grassy fields to frivolous tree tops
The blues of waters still left uncharted
How yellow can fill me up, radiating down from the sun
In oranges so sweet and dear
How purple, is an onion and jam
And red ladybugs come to rest for a spell
You and I
We can always talk about the colors

Thank You, Brick Wall
Perhaps those words were never meant for you
Wrought in confusion and stupor
Scribbled in journals and napkins
I carried them everywhere

Struggling in the hopes that one day you would read them
These words became more than letters strewn together
At once they were foreign and familiar
So much so, they didn’t even seem borne of me

Like offerings to an imaginary deity
I fought hard to reach us somewhere in between
Running so far away from myself
I crashed into a brick wall

Such a fool to rest my head at a hard place
Awakening to a headache and bruised lips
And all that remained were my words
All those words that were never even for you.

Bluebeard
She asked if he was the right one
Their time together boundless fun

She asked if he was the right one
Red flags waving under the unforgiving sun

She asked if he was the right one
Her mind and heart lifting more than a ton

She asked if he was the right one
She knew little about love but she was already done

She asked if he was the right one
His hand already wrapped around the gun.

Boom

A Light
I want to be a light
Shining even brighter because of the lights around me.

My Body
Where does one draw the line
In between body and mind

Your hands are on me
And though I open
Your words are the key

Will you ever truly enter?
Or is my body a doormat
Begging you to come hither

It’s true, I have been trying to keep time

Each second you seem farther away
And with each worry
My body further astray

Where does one draw the line
In between body and mind

One you will devour
The other
far too sour.

Highway 46
head in the clouds
but my feet remain on solid ground
time passing by
but somehow with me now
picking flowers and postcards
to decorate and document
to satiate and wholly upend
who we were
was left on Highway 46
where we’re going now
we hope there’s nothing left to fix.

I Miss You
I miss you
But not like I miss the sun when it sets over horizons that you will never know
Not like the corners of pages before they have been dogged-eared and left behind
Surely not like a friend who has turned from me making their way into airport security

I miss you
In a way that runs deep
Beyond the language that I have and each day now spent
Searching, wondering, erasing

I miss you
Because it is all I can do
To melt into a chair
With my thoughts reducing me to tears

I miss you
Even though I am part of why you are gone
The one that did the reducing
With the body now stuck in between

I miss you
Without ever truly knowing you
Because these aches and pains
Seem to be drawn from the etchings of your veins.

Time Goes
can I grow old
maybe then I’ll finally know
all the things inside my head
all the people who’ve been in my bed
and I know I need to go
but I never let it show
and I stay around because
I really wanna know

time
goes by
time
pass me by

wishing I could roll back these clocks
find a way before it knocks
me down
I know I have to get all I was
pick him off the ground
and tell him one more time
we’re not done

time goes by
time pass me by

and before I go
just let me show
all the things inside
that were on my mind
before I die
just one more time

time goes by
time it keeps passing me by

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