#justanotherdyingpoet

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Itmus Test

With complex pronouns

introductions start stiffly,

a choice in each word.

Confidence and trust?

I’m not an object, but “it”

brings me joy and pride.

They/them is pride too,

reserved for all those less queer,

less understanding.

Those who won’t chance it,

won’t understand it through me,

who’ve known, so long, “she.”

When “they” is a leap

in behavior and thinking

“it” is far away.

Dehumanizing?

It was, yes, but now it’s mine.

Mine, all mine: joy, pride.

#itmus test #justanotherdyingpoet #original poem #haikus #queer poetry #it/its #they/it

[crisislemon123]

Y’all

The moon is so fucking pretty tonight so I wrote her a love poem,

And I was reading it out loud while pulling my blinds back so I could see her,

And I broke my blinds

Not badly, but now there’s a hole on the side closest to my bed

On the bright side, now I can see her better!

(I’ll put the poem on my poetry blog in case anyone gives a fuck)

#the moon #love poem #i really am a crisis please help #crisislemon123 #pretty #tw swearing #justanotherdyingpoet

[justanotherdyingpoet]

A Memoir to Myself - Part 1

You will find no soft smiles here, love. No gentle swell to my chest, no flowing hair or smooth skin.

Instead my laughter is a snort, my chest is bound, and the only part of me I shave is my head.

I am kind in my mannerisms but violent in myself, violent in my wholeness. I am not a prize, not a bonus, not a trophy, not a thing to be treasured. I am bloody and angry and I will hold the door open for whoever I can.

The only things that burst under my nails are scabs and what cakes my hands is dirt. I am scared of spiders and the dark and never will I hesitate to follow my dog when she bolts away across the street.

There is something between my ribs and my lungs and my spine and I am not sure it is a heart. Maybe a fox has clawed its way in there, biting and spitting and bristling. Maybe a dog, nervous and angry and loving all at once.

It is not the dog in my chest that beats when I sit with a friend or run to a class, so maybe I do have a heart. If I focus hard enough I can see it there, nestled in my rib cage, pumping blood through my veins, a cycle that anything could break but only one thing will.

I don’t fear death. It’s not on my list and I don’t plan to ever let it be. I fear pain sure, and loss and even fear itself, but death? The act in it’s finality has never made my heart skip a beat.

Sometimes, when the fox and the dog and the heart have become too much, to bright and red and loud, I become something else. I am quiet then, a different sort to my usual brand. I am stiff in my movements, fogged in my head, and it takes a while to wake up again.

I always do. I am always afraid that I won’t. That feeling beats in my chest like bird wings, like whatever hope and grief both fly on.

#a memoir to myself - part 1 #justanotherdyingpoet #august 14 2021 #original poem #personal poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Somewhere

Somewhere, a star is exploding.

Somewhere, a child is crying. Somewhere else, a child is laughing. Somewhere else a child is dying. Somewhere a child is not feeling anything at all.

Somewhere, there is a calf being born. As the moon rises over the field that it lies in, it sees the stars through more eyes than its mother. It will never see the sun.

A body lies in the back of a hearse. A different body lies in the back of an ambulance. Both have blood on their hands, and both leave mourners. One leaves a job behind, and one leaves more mourners than the other.

Someone is celebrating a birthday, and someone is visiting a grave, and someone is having a breakdown, and someone is dancing in the rain, and someone is mowing the lawn, and someone is walking the road less traveled by, and someone, somewhere, is writing a poem about complexity and layered lives and the entangled beauty and futility of choice.

Somewhere, as the sun comes up, a worm encounters something it has never tasted before. There is citrus in the soil, an orange rind dropped into the compost bin, and it writhes in ecstasy at the sharpness of it. Soon, the moment will be over. The rind will be absorbed into the soil, and the worms will be at peace.

And through the garden, in the house, the orange scones are cooling.

#somewhere #justanotherdyingpoet #death tw #original poem #poetryoutloud

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Van Gogh

I want to see what Van Gogh could do with an animation program.

I want to take him to an art museum, show him his life’s work hung on the walls for all to see.

I want to buy him a hotdog, sit with him on a dock somewhere near the city, see what he makes of Chicago in the dark.

Maybe a drive down the highway will feel right. Maybe a solar eclipse, or a meteor shower. Maybe just a good strong telescope and a cool, clear night.

Could you imagine being so loved by the world as to be blessed with her light? With her sense of color, of shape? With her warmth and coolness and wildness? I wonder what it is like to be a story cut short.

Van Gogh’s story is a tragedy. I wonder what it would take to help him finish his symphony.

#van gogh #justanotherdyingpoet #yes this is inspired by that episode of dr who what about it #this needs a bit of work but it’s pretty ok for 2am #original poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Unfired Clay

When I wash my hands, wet clay seeps out from beneath my nails.

My fingers are fragile things, my knees breaking at the bend, my face stiff and unmoving. My chest is a different story, solid ribs made soft by a beating heart. No one seems to notice what a wonder it is that I am alive, let alone breathing. No one notices that I am drowning with lungs full of slip.

I’m sorry for cracking, but this heat is drying me out, and I can’t quite keep it together.

I’m sorry. I’m crumbling, eroding like a statue with every movement. There are pieces of me all over the floor, pressed far into corners, deep into the carpet. It will take a long time for those pieces of me to be swept away.

I wish I could start over. Take this fresh clay heart out from behind my ribcage and mold it into something new. Something permanent, hardened by fire like all proper sculptures.

Something that knows how to be alive. I think I have forgotten.

#unfired clay #justanotherdyingpoet #original poem #personal poem #wrote this one in precalc! i think it’s pretty good for 9 in the morning #there are a couple meaning in this one

[justanotherdyingpoet]

I Wish I was Afraid of Whales

I wish I was afraid of whales instead of spiders.

I think it would be so much easier, if a bit of a shame to have my reverence for them replaced by a scuttling fear.

But when you’re scared of spiders, there are only so many places you can go to avoid them, only so many things you can do to protect yourself from that fear. If you were scared of whales, instead, then anywhere there were spiders, you would be safe.

It would be worth it, I think. Almost no matter the cost. It would be worth quite a lot, to be able to choose your fears before they started. To be able to sculpt what terrifies you.

If only I was afraid of whales.

#i wish i was afraid of whales #justanotherdyingpoet #spiders #fear #honestly this is barely even poetry #original poem #personal poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

It’s Raining

The streets are filling up with water.

It pounds steadily against the asphalt, fans out from under the wheels of cars, hits against rooftops and leaves. (Drums against my ears, my brain.)

It seeps through drains slower than it falls against the earth, so all the dips and crevices of the road becomes vessels instead of land. (Bowls instead of strainers, cupped hands instead of spread fingers.)

This is the kind of rain where you expect thunder, expect lightning, but the skies are quiet. There is no howling wind, no wild flashes or rolling booms, simply infinite curtains of raindrops illuminated by headlights and lampposts. (The shower of rain and wheels against wet ground are the only sounds.)

Oh I wish I was outside. Or better yet, I wish I was in the road, lying on my back, feeling the water slowly rise around me. I wish I was in the rain, feeling it soak into my skin and my hair and my clothes. I wish so deeply that I was in the rain. (I wish I was the rain.)

I wish I was the rain! I wish I was part of the storm, wish I was sent hurtling towards the earth on a cloudy night, splashing against the ground in a million pieces, mingling with the streams and the puddles on the sidewalk. Wish I was part of the cycle, cloud to rain to puddle to vapor to cloud, and all over again and again and again. Do you think it ever gets old, being a raindrop? (I can’t imagine it ever could.)

Wouldn’t it be nice, to be outside in this. I can’t, it’s nearly midnight and I’ve always been too much of a coward to sneak out, not to mention I’m in my pajamas, and while my parents might not notice me leaving they’ll certainly notice me coming back in and drying off. (Or they wouldn’t. Or someone else would. It’s worth it, I’m just not brave enough.)

I miss, something. I’m not sure what. Maybe freedom? But I’ve never really been free, or had the type of agency to declare myself as such. Maybe the rain is what I miss, even through it’s been averaging once a week for the past month. I don’t know what it is that I’m missing, but I’m pretty sure it’s out there in the rain. I wish I was out there in the rain. (Maybe what I’m missing is myself.)

It’s not slowing down, which I’m glad for. I’d much rather it stop while I’m asleep, waking up to a damp, misty world. Better yet, it keeps raining, keeps pouring like this through the night and well into the morning. That way I get to be outside in it, feeling it at least partially the way I would like. I hope it doesn’t stop while I’m awake. It always feels like a tragedy when it does, like Orpheus and Eurydice. I turn to check that it’s still raining a good strong rain, and it dissipates. One look and that which I love, is gone. Not forever, at least, but generally for a while. I always miss the rain more potently when it leaves like that. (I always feel it more, feel it harder when it leaves like that.)

Anyway. It’s raining. It’s raining it’s raining it’s raining. The sun is long since set and the trees are black against the cloud-soaked sky and it’s raining like it hasn’t in a long time. (It’s raining like life depends on it.)

It’s raining.

The streets are filling up with water.

#it’s raining #justanotherdyingpoet #rain #personal poem #original poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

White Passing

“White Passing”

What does that mean?

I’m Colombian and Irish. I’m white passing. I’m white?

I’m asking questions and trying to learn and dying to fit in and grow and thrive but I’m bogged down by this questioning of identity that I can’t find an answer to.

My brother and I are the only white/Latino mixed people I know. My cousins are mixed, Colombian and Puerto Rican, do they struggle in the same way? Do they look at their skin and think it’s too light to be Latino? Do they only see one side of their heritage in their eyes?

The darkest I could call myself is tan, does that make me white? I’ve got the privilege, I know that. I’ve never had to sit through racist shouts, never had to brush off insults or yell back, even if my white family had to unlearn things once I was born.

My hair won’t hold a curl, my skin is tan and pink in the summer, my voice refuses to roll an r or smooth words with an accent. My eyes are from no one, a middle brown, not black or hazel like my parents. I know nothing of my cultures, my parents didn’t teach me and my family is too busy passing it on to their own children.

I can’t find anyone like me in media, no queer Colombian/Irish kids, and that might be too specific and maybe I shouldn’t even ask because everyone on tv looks like me, even though they don’t think like me or live like me.

I’m white passing, I think. I don’t know if I can call myself a person of color, and I hate calling myself white because I’m not, but am I? It’s so much easier to not explain, to not worry about judgment, to slip into white culture and not have to balance myself between two different worlds. I hate that I have the option, and I know that others consider me lucky for it.

I don’t know who to ask or where to learn or how to be an advocate when I don’t even know where I can advocate from.

I’m Colombian and Irish. I’m white passing. I’m confused.

#white passing #justanotherdyingpoet #mixed race #stream of consciousness #honestly this is barely even poetry #original poem #personal poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Unkissed

I am 16 and unkissed.

I am 16 and lying on the floor with my knees hooked over the edge of my bed, staring up at my fan.

I am 16 and breathless, watching meteors streak across the sky and leave trails of light behind them.

I am 16 and walking with my friends, trying to keep pace but always going too fast or being left behind.

I am 16 and missing my dog, missing my grandad, missing my best friend, missing myself.

I am 16 and loved, supported, valued. I know this. I am 16 and I know this.

I am 16 and unheld. I am 16 and un-beheld.

I am 16 and unkissed.

#unkissed #justanotherdyingpoet #honestly this is barely even poetry #exscuse any incoherancy please #personal poem #original poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Microscopic

Atoms are microscopic.

They’re so small, that they never truly touch one another.

They shake frantically in the heat, and settle stiffly in the cold, but they don’t touch.

I wish I was microscopic.

I have this need, this aching deep in my bones, for touch.

Perhaps, if I was an atom, if I was too small and too fast to have ever truly touched anyone, I wouldn’t need it. Wouldn’t hunger for it.

If I had never known touch, would I miss it?

Would I be able to exist without ever having touched someone? Or would I spend my days wasting away, wishing for something I could never be granted.

#microscopic #justanotherdyingpoet #this one got away from me a bit #honestly this is barely even poetry #ignore any incoherency please #touch starved #atoms #original poem #personal poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Love Me Back

Why do I love so easily?

I get it, I want to love, to see love and to live life with love in my heart, but what’s the point?

I love so much, so deeply, and so, so easily.

I think I set myself up for disappointment, for loneliness, but it’s not on purpose.

I just want someone to look at me, to see my heart, restrained, but full to bursting with love, and accept it from me.

Someone to help lessen my burden.

Someone to hold my shaking hands, to tuck my hair behind my ear and let me rest my chin in the crook of their neck.

Someone who will smile and say, it’s ok, it’s ok, I’m here. You can relax, I’ve got you.

I just want someone to love me back.

#love me back #justanotherdyingpoet #love poem #ignore any incoherency please #honestly this is barely even poetry #personal poem #original poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Falling in Love

Falling in love happens two ways.

The first happens slowly.

You find someone you trust, you open up, you smile, you laugh, and then you can’t live without them. Their very breath is a miracle, every time they wave over to you, you smile, and your heart skips a beat.

The sun glinting off their profile is the only thing that gives you life, and you find yourself needing them, though not in a bad way.

The second happens quickly. It’s like falling down the stairs.

You’ve probably walked up those stairs so many times that you know them like the back of your own hand.

You say to yourself that you could walk up them backwards in the dark and you wouldn’t fall, that’s how much you trust them.

Then one day you’re walking up the stairs, plain as can be, nothing new, nothing exciting.

You’re in the dark because it’s late, and you’re tired, and you go to step on the next step, and you miss it.

Your heart starts beating like a caged bird about to be dropped off a waterfall, your breath shortens, your pupils dilate, and everything in your brain screams, “we’re going to die.”

Then your foot lands on the top step, and nothing’s alright, but you’re not dead, and something inside you has changed.

You can’t tell if it’s for better or worse, but you’re different now, than before, and everything feels new.

#falling in love #justanotherdyingpoet #fear tw #love poem #original poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Busy Turning Blue

Was that my last allotted thunder for the night? That quiet pulse so faint it could have been a purr?

Or is this my final one- that clashing roll of thunder against the white noise of the rain.

The sky is green and grey and the road is black and wet and I am busy thinking, busy turning blue.

The air is sharp and frigid, the raindrops clear and cold, and the ground is sapping away my warmth the same way the thunder takes my soul.

Thunderclaps sound different because they come from different places in the clouds, bounce off different things before reaching our ears, and that means there’s three types of thunder.

The first is the quiet one, the one that tells you there’s a storm coming, the one that says the rain is falling and the sky is weeping and soon you will be too.

The second is like cymbals, slashing and metallic and angry and loud, like the sky is full of wrath and noise rather than clouds.

The third is my favorite type- the rolling waves of thunder that make you feel alive, that make you feel too much and not enough all at once but in a good way, the type that makes you want to tear your soul out with your fingernails and present it to the rain.

Oh the rain, not bright on this dark night but close enough, this coldbright rain, not the heavy drops it was before but rather just left of a mist, hanging in the air like icicles, gathering words and wishes.

The moon and stars are hidden and on any other night I would mourn, but no night like this could bring me anything but wild breaths and frozen skin.

My teeth clatter like they never have before, like they’ve long since become an instrument of the lightning, and my thoughts turn my eyes and heart towards the sky while my hands are busy turning blue.

#busy turning blue #justanotherdyingpoet #rain #thunder #sorry for the stream of consciousness #honestly this is barely even poetry #original poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

I Met A Dog Today

I met a dog today.

We called him Wiggles.

He was blind in one eye,

And smelled like a stray.

A black heart on his back,

And a white scruffy beard.

Docile and sweet,

No reason to fear.

Horrible breath from his terrible teeth.

No collar, no tags, no family in sight.

We called the shelter, they called the cops,

Turns out he slipped out on a walk.

His family away on vacation, had prayed.

Their mother, the one who had walked him, had stayed.

We found him, a block from his home,

And loved him, for an hour at most.

We called him Wiggles, they’d named him Jake,

And with him, a piece of my heart they will take.

#i met a dog today #justanotherdyingpoet #dogs #original poem #personal poem

[justanotherdyingpoet]

Are You Vaguely Attracted To Rooftops?

Are you vaguely attracted to rooftops?

Are you partial to the night sky?

Are you caught up in this world of ours,

Constantly wondering why?

Why your bones ache,

Why the stars weep,

Why the birds refuse to sing,

Why you feel empty,

but only in the dark,

when the moon is off her highest perch

and the shadows run long across your skin,

and the whisper of wind on your face feels more akin to a sigh than it does anything else.

Are you vaguely attracted to rooftops?

Are you partial to the night sky?

Are you tired, oh so tired,

when the water at the edge of the shore dances around your feet,

cool and lapping at your ankles,

the sand beneath you a constant reminder that there is so much else in this world that you will never see, never experience, and can only imagine.

So let me ask again,

Are you vaguely attracted to rooftops?

Are you partial to the night sky?

Curiosity is a gem tucked between the shingles of rooftop on a particularly clear night,

awaiting your gentle hands to pluck it from its resting place

and live.

————————————

Inspired by @greylunar’s wonderful quiz and the song “Hannah” by Freelance Whales

#are you vaguely attracted to rooftops? #justanotherdyingpoet #inspired poem #original poem