apothepoet

[apothepoet]

Reflections

I don’t keep any mirrors in the house. Any that I can’t get rid of, they’re covered by both dust and blankets. My reflection is one that I avoid with all my power.

I’ve long since thrown out any reflective surfaces, keep the blinds shut, always. I give myself choppy haircuts late at night. The streaks I dye in come out uneven without a mirror.

I don’t usually let people take photos of me, a gentle “No thank you” on my lips, even as panic strikes through me. All of the ones of the walls of the house are old, only the dead version of me residing in them.

I haven’t seen myself in so long. I’ve forgotten what I look like. The only version of me that exists in my mind is now the one in the pictures. I’m not me, the real me, now that you’re gone.

Sometimes, the towel on the bathroom mirror slips, and I’m forced to see myself as I am now. My hollow sunken eyes, filled with fear that’s long since curdled into sorrow. I look nothing like what I should. Of course I don’t.

My eyes rise to meet yours; there you stand, right beside me in the mirror. “It’s been years,” I whisper. “I’ll never leave,” you tell me.

I put the covering back up.

#23/4/2024 #note sunflower #poetry #poets on tumblr #original poem

[apothepoet]

Wilted Yellow

You came home early today. The smile on your face is stretched thin, but you press a bouquet of yellow flowers into my hands. “What for?” I ask you. You don’t reply.

I put the flowers into a vase, place them on the dining table. ‘They’re beautiful,’ I think. I try to ignore the feeling that they wilt every single time I look at them.

You tell me, “Take them down, It's been weeks.” I feel bad for them. for their wilting and falling petals.

I take them and press them in between the pages of a book, leave it up on a shelf. The vase goes in the sink. You don’t notice its absence.

You find the petals inside the book by their yellow. “Why did you keep them?” I explain, “I felt bad for them, they didn’t deserve to be thrown out.” You laugh and toss them in the trash.

I rescue as many of the petals as I can, when you’re not looking. They’re dry and falling apart by now, but I hold them together as best I can. I put them in the back of my phone case.

You never really see me in the first place, so you never learn about my small act of defiance. They’re still pretty to me, even in their brokenness. My mind never lingers on why you brought them in the first place; an apology for something that I never knew about.

(I’m pouring them out into your (her) grave before long, wishing that it were enough to cover the crisp blue flowers.)

#23/4/2024 #note sunflower #poetry #poets on tumblr #original poem

[apothepoet]

Blank Eyes

That blank look in your eyes is somehow comforting by now. It’s better if you don’t remember. You forgot for a reason afterall. I’ll respect your wishes, even if it hurts.

The jokes I make, are ones the old you would’ve laughed at. I look to you for your reaction, Your blank eyes meet my sorrowful ones. Just as I thought.

It’s foolish of me, of course it is. I don’t try to get you back, but I don’t not. Maybe this slip of the tongue will bring the old you back.

(I try to tell myself that I don't want it to.) (I will respect your wishes.) (Even as you beg me to explain.) (it’s my burden to carry, not yours.) (Not anymore.)

Of course, it’s inevitable. It’s not even my fault this time. I was right: you’re upset. You didn’t want to know. I still selfishly hope, that you’ll still smile at me.

Your eyes aren’t blank anymore. All I see is hatred.

#9/4/2024 #poetry #original poem #poets on tumblr

[apothepoet]

Love (derogatory)

“As if you could ever love anyone.” And I couldn't. That's what I say. That's what I mean. Love is not something that comes to me. At least not the type you speak of.

When you speak of love, you speak of this fluttering in your stomach, this breathlessness at the sight of them, this desperation to talk to them, this feeling that everyone admits is incomprehensible, yet I'm the strange one when I don't understand it?

I tell you of my love, the one that I've got too much of. It's staying up late talking, it's thinking up story ideas together, it's lighthearted death threats, it's trying to come up with things to say, just because I want to keep talking.

“That's not real love,” is what you say. And it's not. Not by your terms. Not by your terms of doggedly chasing after your meant-to-be, or the moment any two people are close, saying how they'll inevitably end up together.

And I'm glad. I'd rather not live by your definition. It's awfully constrictive and boring. Repetitive too. Just how many more subplots of the exact same unnecessary thing are you going to shove down my throat?

Maybe one day this will change. That doesn't make it any less real. Afterall, don't your fleeting precious feelings of love never last too? And you look back upon them and reminisce with rose-coloured glasses. If that's real to you then this is real to me.

I too, can look back at both loud and quiet moments of laughter, a halloween filled with so many unpredictable things, always, always, realising that there are people who care about me, and whom I love.

I think that maybe, with how much you talk about your stupid repetitively incessant romance, maybe I can hammer in that I don't think that it's all that it's jazzed up to be. I don't think I ever will. And for that I'm glad. I'd be different otherwise, and I'm rather happy as I am now.

Just please, listen to me when I say that not everybody is in love.

#22/3/2024 #note chrysanthemum #aromantic #poetry #original poem #poets on tumblr

[apothepoet]

Final Words

Before you go, let me talk to you. One last time.

Let me pour you a cup of tea, stare down into the rippling water as my hands shake. Sip at it quietly, as you say nothing. You don’t even drink yours.

Let me finally whisper my thoughts, voice cracking in spite of the honey, not noticing the tea turning salty. My words, my life, my thoughts, you took from me. Yourself, you took from me. I tell you, release it all unto the open. It took this long.

Let me listen to you ranting at me, as you always, always do. My words have go in one ear and out the other as you twist them back on me; there lies all the confirmation I ever needed.

Let me speak one last phrase, a question engraved on each and every single one of my wilted petals, “Do you love me, though?” Your silence takes its spot right beside my hope for us.

I watch you leave. Your tea goes cold. I unbury my love and hope. Your tea goes down the drain. My water too, tastes like salt.

I wait for you to come back. I think over what I’ll say. For once, I don’t want to take my words back; step aside for you, for what you want. I don’t know how I feel about it. I still wait. I doubt I could ever not.

You never come back.

(I come to you, find you in a blaze of blue flowers, in her embrace, deathly still. And for a single moment, I let myself think: ‘It’s over.’

And then it all crashes down.

I feel worse for her than I do for you. I wish I’d been the one to die in your arms. I know that I already have.)

#16/4/2024 #star poems #note sunflower #poetry #original poem #poets on tumblr

[apothepoet]

The Carpet

Do you like the red carpet in your home? It used to be white, it used to be pure.

It was once soft, impossibly so. Now it's rough, worn from the red dye.

No one ever walks over it anymore. You remember once sitting around with friends, laughing on the carpet.

Who would want to walk through those dreadfully worn and tough red fibres?

You don't like the carpet. You can't get rid of it. So you avoid it, of course you do.

#12/4/2024 #poetry #original poem #poets on tumblr

[apothepoet]

Soon, It Will

It’ll all be over soon. Soon the moon will rise, and soon it will all be easier, and soon I will be free. My wings will grow in, and time will break open the lock of the cage, and I will fly.

Fly I will, but I will fall, and the chain tying me back to my perch will pull taut. I will fall to the ground, and my new wings will break.

I will wake up and wonder if it all was a dream. My broken wings will be clipped, the door locked once more, but I will try again. Ever on again.

My plucked feathers will grow back in, my beak will be sharp enough to fight. The rust will wear down the metal that clamps around my feet. And if I pull and I pull, it will snap.

I will fly again, broken chains grasping after me as I slip out the cage’s cracked door. My wings won’t be as new, but neither will my naïveté. An empty cage is all I will leave behind, finally.

But for now, my wings are mere buds, waiting for the moment to bloom. The metal of the cage and the chain is all I know, but through the bars I see a glimpse of the other side.

#16/4/2024 #note chrysanthemum #poetry #original poem #poets on tumblr

[apothepoet]

Les Étoiles

Tu aimes observer les étoiles qui brillent dans le ciel, des tâches dans l'espace infini. Il y a longtemps, tu m'as dit, que tu voudrais y aller. J'ai souri, rit, « Un jour, peut-être. »

Tu ne m'as pas vu, quand je t'ai dit « Salut ! » l'autre jour. Tes yeux regardaient fixement à travers moi. J'ai souri encore, répétais le mot. Rien. Je me demandais si tous mes nouveaux yeux ressemblaient aux étoiles que tu adores.

Tu regardes les photos que tu trouves partout chez ta maison, où je n'ai jamais été, sauf dans les photographies. L'aire triste autour de toi est brisé seulement par le sourire sur tes lèvres, quand tu chuchotes, « J'espère que tu aimes les étoiles, et que tu es là quand je te rejoins un jour. »

Tu n'entends pas ma réponse, « Je suis les étoiles maintenant. » Tous mes yeux clignent. « On se verra. »

#9/4/2024 #poésie #poème original #poètes sur tumblr #français n'est pas ma langue maternelle ; je m'excuse

[apothepoet]

Stained Glass

Your first thought when you first saw her was that she looked fragile. Beautiful, oh certainly, but so brittle. Like stained glass. She could break if you smiled too hard at her, you thought. It was an idea you relished in. This pretty fragile thing.

You soon learned, though. She may be fragile, but like any piece of decorative glass, she’s been tempered, through fires of trials and difficulties. You learn, but you don’t change your mind. Perhaps you’ll just have to smile a little harder. Make her learn the truth.

You’ve never gone too far in your life. Limits are something you know, of course you do. You’ve never reached yours. You can make her reach hers. Tempered glass may have a high melting point, but you’ve always liked a nice little experiment, haven’t you? She’s just so much more than anything else you’ve ever seen.

You would never admit it if she’d won. You wouldn’t let her. She can burn in a fire hotter than any other that she and her damned church have been through. It will be such a pleasure to watch her finally melt.

You’re not even surprised anymore when she returns. You’re glad, even. At this point you don’t really know what you’d do without her. And though a part of you hates her at this point, you still smile when you see her again. She’s more fragile now. Even the most tempered glass can’t withstand heat too strong, even once reformed. No matter how pretty it is.

You wonder how easy it will be to break her this time.

#13/4/2024 #note sunflower #poetry #original poem #poets on tumblr

[apothepoet]

Tick By

A second ticks by. You stare at your hands, failing to process what you’ve done. The consequences of it all.

A second ticks by. You don’t move, eyes unblinking and breathing uneven.

A minute ticks by. Nothing changes. It just doesn’t click in your mind; the image before you.

A minute ticks by. You finally take a single short gasping breath. It unblocks the barrier, sends you into a fit of gasping tears.

An hour ticks by. You’re still on the ground, catatonic, unmoving, frozen, even as tears stream and you struggle to breathe.

An hour ticks by. You’ve quieted now, even as your hands still shake. With a deep breath, you look back up. There lies my body.

A day ticks by. Your guilt is something that will never leave you. Even as you smile and act, it’ll sing.

A year ticks by. You miss me. You regret. You cry.

Blood stains your waking dreams.

#10/4/2024 #poetry #original poem #poets on tumblr

[apothepoet]

The Parasite

I hate it when the doubt sneaks into the edges of my mind. It's right there, just out of my reach, twisting and insidious, a ravenous parasite.

It whispers to me: “Does she really care?” “Does she see me for who I am?” “Would it matter to her if I were anyone, anyone else?”

It's harder than it should be, to not let its words convince me. Why else would you stick with someone like me? After all these years, and all you've done, you're still here with me.

Its words are like a rot though. A decay that snakes its way through my mind, through every shaky smile, hesitant nod, every time I never say what I think. They corrupt me leave me doubting what you say.

I wish it were that sort of parasite, one that's easy to get rid of. A simple pill or medication, a well-placed word, and it's gone; I'm whole again when I look at you.

And then you smile at me. Slip a pair of earring in my hands, the moonlight glinting off yours. “They match,” you whisper. Match with the necklaces that bind us together, with the pair that you too wear.

I take out my own earrings. I put the new ones in. Another part of me that belongs to you, is now a thought that I think with love instead of dread.

It appears that I've forgotten, as the parasite leaves and takes its rot with it, that maybe it is that simple. My hands don't shake as much when I talk to you now. Just how it used to be.

And soon, when you take your earrings off, and the conversations go cold again, it will return. The ground of my mind is ripe yet again for its infestation.

I don't think about it, as I fiddle with the metal in my ears. I know that in the end, you love me.

#14/4/2024 #note sunflower #poetry #original poem #poets on tumblr

[apothepoet]

Conflicting

I don't think you realise how sick it makes me feel. Watching you parade around, shoving my attempts to smooth things over in my face.

With every word you mock me, disgrace upon my name. All my help is thrown away and I am nothing.

At some point, inevitably, I will stop. Give up trying, it's all pointless anyway.

You just laugh at me, twist my identity and very existence into something that I'm not. A caricature of the person that I truly am.

Aren't you meant to be the very person who cares about me unconditionally? Knowledge of how to mock me shouldn't be something that you hold.

I trust you, sometimes. The thing is that I don't know what to expect. And that terrifies me.

Change is not something that I like. You're far too different from how I remember you. I can't wait until the day when I don't miss you.

#2/4/2024 #note chrysanthemum #poetry #poets on tumblr #original poem

[apothepoet]

Enough

I hope that I'm enough. Am I ever, never enough? What do you need, to satisfy your hunger? How much more can you take?

Of course, I know the answer to that. More, more, you can always take more. I'd let you, and I do.

Every bite does little to stop your craving for me. With every tear, I become less and you stay the same.

Yet I smile as you do, for I do not mind giving myself to you. Even if you're never satisfied, forever ravenous. Maybe I do just a little bit to help.

Soon I'll be gone, I know. And you'll lick my blood from your lips, considering the lingering taste of my flesh stuck between your teeth. You yearn for more.

Do you miss me, once I'm no longer there? Is my absence even noticeable to you, given how little I've done to fill that gaping maw of starvation?

I won't regret it, I know. You deserve it, is the conclusion that I've come to. What I am is worth nothing, when it comes to you and the ease with which you tear me apart.

It's still a while though, before there's no more of me. I'll relish this until then. Hope that somehow, against the odds, I'll make a dent in your hunger and be enough.

#28/3/2024 #star poems #poetry #original poem #poets on tumblr

[apothepoet]

Distance-Time

Do I have the right?

To be so angry, have this fury flowing through my bloodstream, leaking into the marrow of my bones, firing its way throughout my nervous system?

To be so unsure, about what I'm thinking about your words, what I'm going to tell you next time, who you've become in your desperation?

To be so hesitant, when it comes to seeing you again, unlike how I imagined it, looking you in the eye with confidence I hold not, pretending that everything is the same?

To be so jealous, of what you have now, without me, what has been built in my absence, who I've been replaced with, intentionally?

Do you deserve this? It's been so long. Do I deserve this? It's been so long.

I hold on.

You need to know.

#19/3/2024 #poetry #poets on tumblr #original poem

[apothepoet]

Think; Forget

Every now and then, I'm forced to think it through; all of the things you do.

What your words really mean, what your actions really indicate. Do you hate me like I think you do?

I wonder if every ‘I love you’ that spills out your lips is as real as the mirrored one I return to you.

Always, always, I try to push it away. It can't be, it just can't be. We can't have gotten this far otherwise.

I know that's not true, though. Of course it's not. You only stay with me because you've no other choice.

So I have to swallow back the tears, even as I wallow in the knowledge that it's not real.

Maybe tomorrow, when I wake up, it'll all be gone from my mind, for another short bit.

#17/3/2024 #note chrysanthemum #poetry #poets on tumblr #original poem

[apothepoet]

Ɛ>

Forgive me if I'm being sappy.

But sometimes I wonder: what would it be like if you were here? Here beside me, maybe we could watch the stars. I've never watched the stars before. It's always been something that I've wanted to do. We could watch a movie, and I would tell you all my thoughts, and maybe I wouldn't be scared that you'd be annoyed.

(No one's ever annoyed. I just have too many thoughts.)

And I realise, how little I know about you. What colour are your eyes? What's your favourite food? I could ask, but that's different. I find that I don't mind not knowing, as much as I wish I did. Gives a sense of intrigue, I suppose.

I want you to be happy. I love other people more than I do myself, but that's alright.

Happiness is an unachievable dream, but its illusion, is a nice comfort in some ways. Words are even more fickle. Mere i love you Ɛ>s don’t do it justice, or perhaps they do, an allusion to so much more.

Sometimes it's a stunning moment, when you realise how much you feel for someone. Emotions are incomprehensible. But I don't mind.

I'm happy with this, to mail you bits and bobs, to try to think of something to dm you even when I'm not good at that just so I can make sure that you're okay. If you reply, you're okay. That's what matters.

Even if I can't actually hug you, I scribble down a yet in my mind. Even if that yet never comes. Even if that yet is a flimsy dream. It's a nice one at least.

#23/11/2023 #note allium #poetry #poets on tumblr #original poem

[apothepoet]

Hope

I hope that you don't recognise me when I inevitably return.

I hope that my words aren't familiar, and neither is the way that I walk. My attitude incomparable to who I was before and how you saw me.

I hope that you look at me with disdain, one that you save for those you hate. Those that are decidedly not me and deserve it.

I hope that every word you speak to me is taut and filled with barely-concealed contempt. Vile sounds you'd never normally release unto the world.

I hope that you tell everyone you know of how they should avoid me. For all my animosity towards all is enough reason.

I hope that you never even think a passing thought about my familiarity. How the way I smile ever so slightly twangs the cord of nostalgia.

I hope that the old me remains dead in your memories and thoughts. Never to be replaced by me now, different and separate as I am.

I hope that you don't know how proud I am of myself. How far I've come, apart from you.

I hope that when I someday ruin your life again, you do not blame the old me. I am different now and want nothing to do with it, but the memory is precious to you.

I hope that as I leave, you hold no regrets. Only glad that you didn't truly know me, is what you should be.

I hope that I never have to see you again and face the echoes of my past.

#18/3/2024 #poetry #poets on tumblr #original poem