before i sleep.
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Unforgivable
Turn the loans back on
With the flip of a switch
But don't tax the rich
Don't tax the religious
Instead, just dangle the prize
Student loan forgiveness
To keep them in line
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Triolet Poem #58
I said, you can say that again.
But this time not under your breath.
You spoke about what happens when -
I said, you can say that again.
Don't think about dying, cause then
you might manifest your own death.
I said, you can say that again.
But this time not under your breath.
"Say That Again", JEP
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it can't quite explain this feeling
I've heard so much about mending broken hearts, with time, with love, with the right person
but I never hear about the hearts that are so shattered they can never fit back together
I never hear about the hearts that have been betrayed and tormented countless times
I never hear about how guarded and closed off our hearts become, and how truly nothing feels as though it can break through
I never hear about how deep, whirl wind, soul tied love feels impossible - is my heart even capable anymore ?
I never hear, about hearts like mine
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Into the Dark and Away
When you've learnt by heart the patterns on the carpet
The grain of the floorboards pressed flush against your cheek
When you've grown sick of counting the dust motes
Staring dazedly as they dance in the draft
And collect under the dresser
As so many discarded dreams
When you’ve bored yourself numb and blind
Stand up or perhaps crawl downstairs
Sneak through the window, into the unlit dawn
Light as a sigh, since no one is here to stop you
Heavy as a sob, for no one is here to stop you.
Through the garden, barefoot across the flower beds
Bending the pliant necks of your mother's tulips
Her ancient tabby cat, keeping watch from the parapet
Wailing and whining, rasping its bitter refrain
Won’t you wait, won’t you listen,
Won’t you please try and understand
You headstrong girl,
You silly girl,
You golden child
But it’s too late for pleading, you’ve been halfway gone a long time
So go for good,
Go over the fence and into the fields
Over the fence and away
Go and sleep under the willow tree
Where its long fingers will trace its sorrow upon you
There you might find rest and forget
Forget the lonely sound of the leaking faucet
Forget the unlived life
And even your own name
When the alarm clock rings with echoes of school bells
Tolling mercilessly, striking the hour
When the chirping of birds turns to nasty singsong
Twittering their teetering chant
When you haven’t closed your eyes in weeks
And yet morning still comes
And yet duty calls, clamoring for another ounce of courage
Another shred of surrender, another pound of your bloodless flesh
Open the backdoor, let the radio fry itself hoarse
Let the phone hang and cry its phony tune
Let the gate slam behind you, swaying on screeching hinges
The old house, full of ghosts, nagging and begging
Look back, turn back, come back
You stupid girl,
You lovely girl,
You small, small thing
But there is nothing anymore you wouldn't dare
Nothing now they can forbid
You’ve been halfway gone a long time
So go for good
Go, into the dark and towards the forest
Into the dark and away
Go and sleep under the walnut tree
Where breath is rare but the slumber is deep
There you might find rest and forget
Forget the taste of bile of every family meal
Forget the endless list of tasks
And even the grudges you keep
When you are all out of time, of hope, of composure
When you've crossed all the days, all the Ts
Dotted the Is and scratched them out in every Christmas picture
Spent the last of your restraint
And turned all the dials on the stove
Walk to the end of the driveway, to the end of the road
The tar still sticky with the day’s heat
The faces of the whole neighborhood,
Peering through curtains and keyholes
And that voice, sickly sweet, tugging at your sleeve
Pinching your upper arm
Telling you not to make a scene in public
The crunching gravel, coaxing and cajoling
Stay here, within reach
Stay near, within sight
Sit, stand, beg, play dead
Stay, stay, stay
You stubborn girl,
You dear girl
You odd duckling
For once, let it fall onto deaf ears
Go, through the thistle, through the thorns
Following the cool rustle of rushing water
You’ve been halfway gone a long time
So go for good
Go, beyond the bend and along the river
Beyond the bend and away
Go and sleep under the manchineel tree
Where every touch is seared and etched into your skin
There too you must sit still as the world eats at you
Each brush like the lash of a whip
But, at least, here you can ponder in peace
As patient as a boiling frog
Your head busy and buzzing
With thoughts sharper than a hornet's sting
You may think and think and forget
Forget the whistled scream of the hissing kettle
Forget the many reasons for your rage
And even the way home.
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I hold your picture in the moonlight
Your smile peeking through the glass
Your eyes begging to be seen
In a way only your first daughter could know
I can’t save you
Just as you couldn’t save me
I’m making my peace with that
Day by day
I walk alone amongst the people I love
Patiently putting out fires in my mind
And one day
Someone will smile at my photo in the moonlight
And my eyes will smile back
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Salt Disney Whirl
Reckless repeats
of rocks on your window.
Retrace the cracks
of before you were known to me.
With water rising,
the leaks refuse to relent,
so we bail out.
The carpet sulks,
still soaked with salted moments and broken cassettes.
It’s better to swim forward
than continue treading water.
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it's feb. 15 and i still love you
that flock of hearts down broadway— i see them go by through the windows on the downtown bus today. they're spinning on string from trees just low enough to catch and read, and i wait for the readers
when i can. at the stoplight i see a young woman pause her stockings ripped at the thigh and hair fallen from a bun so she is human. but through that window she has no flaws when she reads the fluttering heart and smiles just long enough for me to catch her smile.
then in traffic slow at five minutes a mile the little boy is hoisted on his father's shoulders and his mouth is stained blue so he is human. he reads like each word is new even as his father's back must be aching. but time
is here for all of us today and i catch his smile, too, blue and uneven in unpractised happiness
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Only a dream
I wish I know what it’s like to be loved by someone like you, but all I will ever know is how to love you in silence.
To be loved is a blessing, but to be loved by you would be a different type of blessing.
You are what I’ve always dreamed of, but will always remain to be a dream.
You are my love that I won’t have, so deep down I know I have to let go of the false reality of you.
But having to let go of you feels like having to let go a piece of myself.
My love and desire for you comes with the pain of knowing I can’t have you.
But if getting rid of that pain means having to let go of our memories,
I don’t mind aching…
-Roxanne
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I am always searching for myself
and then you found me
but I can’t see you
I can’t touch you
I can’t have you
how are you a void so solid?
.
in this darkness, you are me
more me than I am myself
have I found myself, at last?
.
you ask for words
and I have none for you
you ask for love
and I cannot deliver
you look for my heart
and I hide it in the shadows
-Nidhi Bhasin
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for @nosebleedclub jan 3rd 2024 prompt.
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I wish my heart wasn't so full of hurt;
that I take it out on people
or situations in my life.
PTS from abuse of every kind
stays in my mind everyday.
Like it lives within me.
I question why people are abusive.
I despise the fact that the abused
have live with memories planted
in their brain.
That never wither
nor let you forget.
R.A.
401
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Growing up is so incredibly strange
How can every thing change but really it all feels the same
I see other people changing - do they feel static inside like I do? do their same anxieties continue to swirl from what seems like decades ago? do they get told they've grown up only to see their inner child in the mirror
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I am building myself a more confident shape.
Do you remember when you were small, and the world was big and mad and full of possibility? When you didn't think of who was watching and it didn't matter what anyone thought, because you had already
Moved on to the next game?
One day I will sing in the rain, and I will not care who hears me.
You can't live your life
In somebody else's box; I will not
Be small anymore. I want to be that child again, but wiser; I know what you're thinking, now, and I don't care. You do you.
And I'll do me.
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Look at yourself
Alone in your room
Worrying if you did heartbreak the right way
If you’ve suffered enough
When you should really be focused on
How it feels
To be in your skin
How they make you feel
When they brew a fresh cup of coffee
At 2 in the afternoon
How the sun feels
Peeking through the window shades
Like wind chimes made of light
How the cows eat grass
Without worrying about the process
How the feral cats live selfishly
Amongst the trash and
Take a breath
And listen to yourself
For what seems like the first time
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Where I Went
Just yesterday, I stepped out of the train and onto the platform
Immediately engulfed in holiday chatter
But I don't have answers for the questions I'm asked
I can say where I went, not where it took me
How I was touched and, in fact, altered
By things so small and momentous
As uncommunicable as the emotion within a dream
Or the exact quality of the light
On a worry-worn day when you look up to the sky
And feel peace wash over you like a sigh
Today, I'll have to unpack my suitcase and stock my kitchen shelves again
Foreign to the person who did all those tasks in reverse
Only a week ago
I'll wander, lost in thought halfway down the supermarket aisles
Clutching to me the unexplainable
The yellow of your dress that morning in the lobby
How we smiled at each other across the dining hall
You backlit and me dazzled
In the bright orange glow of those July evenings
The absolute kindness of that sharp, expressive face
The warmth of that 'we' you used so readily
Giving from yourself like someone who has never been torn
The arms you opened and laced around me
How baffled, how enchanted, how shiny new you made me feel
Scoured clean from the grime of the past twenty years
Filth I had come to confuse with my own skin
With something akin to fate
I am spending the rest of the summer back at my parents’ place
Back in my hometown
Where everyone is nice and certain they know me
As though I could still fit in the backyard snow angels,
The chalk outlines of my childhood
Or the version of it they prefer to remember
I’ll sit at the dinner table, I’ll grab coffee
I’ll drift through the unavoidable rounds of friendly catch up
Eyes fixed on a punch-drunk fly knocking against the window pane
I’ll drone on, saying the expected strings of words,
Same old, same old
The recycled stories we always tell
Stale and small
The inch of common ground we can still claim
As we sit in the car and I stop listening
Suddenly sickened by that nickname they call me
By that blinking neon sign over the corner shop
That no one fixed since I was seventeen
The syrupy languor of this place
That settles around you like quick setting cement
I’ll shift uncomfortably, my thighs sticking to the seat
My mind miles away, tuning out all but the distant radio
And the flickering of other images
How you danced with pure, untethered joy
Your lithe, lean body
Like the still thrumming string of a bow
After the arrow is released
A one-chord instrument that always strikes true
Thumping with the elastic tug and snap of a rubber band
Beating in rhythm with the thunderous boom of the bass
That moved the walls around us
How we mouthed shards of songs, circling each other
And spoke, loud and close
Other the stampede of sound
Your hand pressed to the damp curve of my back
The sweet boozy smell of your breath
As I rested my chin on your shoulder
How you stood on tip toes to reach the tap behind the bar
And poured me water into your own glass
Still tasting of the zesty alcohol you'd ordered
And of your lips against the rim
That cool rush on my parched tongue
As intimate as if lapped from the palm of your hand
I could say I’m confused
If there were not such clarity, such crisp edges to those moments
When, drunk off your infectious ease,
I brushed against what it is like to inhabit the world
To feel trust and kinship, both unspoken and undoubted
A few hours on, morning brought departure
Yet the sliding doors that closed behind you did not sever the luminous tie
It didn’t feel like a tearing, like the terror of loss
I knew I would see you again
I knew that, even if I did not,
Nothing could tarnish or undo this heliotropic change
And so, even after the goodbyes, even through the frenzy at the station
This quiet, serene stillness lingered
This sense of unfolding
I sat on the sticky floor, in the miserable, crowded heat
Far removed from the other travelers’ frustration, from my own bruised-eye fatigue
Aloof and mellow, I looked at the sky through the glass ceiling
Its sun falling slanted, pouring hope into me like a new breath
I could feel where my tailbone connected with the concrete
I could feel myself rooted there, embodied
One amongst many, emmeshed but unmoored
Somehow, after all these years more than the sum of the parts I’m missing
I thought: I am here, I do not need to be told where to go
Or who I am
I do not need to fear or fret
The train will come, sooner or later
I will get home
And home is not what I once believed it was
Life may, after all, have more to offer than a long aftermath.
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