Thunder

What is it I wonder
That makes me let them penetrate me
Like thunder
Thunder pushes into the core of you
Without you ever asking it to
But its there and gone
And you begin to crave it again
Fascinated with the feeling
of it rushing back out of your skin

When you crave thunder
You’re bored with a blue sky
Aching for rain
Irritated by the sunshine

Days & Nights

Some nights
I shackle my heart to the past
Let it all keep replaying

Some days
I move forward so fast
I can almost see the future
Reshaping

the leaf

I am a leaf
in a windstorm
flying up
falling down
thrown up against barriers
scraping along just above the ground

Would Have

If you had really known me
you’d know I would have willingly
played the martyr
Would have swallowed my own swords
given reason
I wouldn’t have made it harder

In fact, knowing me I would have tried
to ease any guilt you might have felt
I would have reminded you
that I always respected the way you seemed to know yourself
Had I known there was something and someone else that you wanted
I wouldn’t have made it about me, I would have convinced myself to be happy for you
For taking a chance on something that I knew I couldn’t give you

Someone to lay with at the end of a long day
Someone who already knows you well enough
to know all of the right things to say
Someone to just be with, do nothing really at all
Someone to make regular new memories with in the backseat of your car
Someone you can actually touch when you’re so hard that it hurts
Not having to settle for racing home to my pictures and your hand after work
Knowing smiles, hand holding
Sleepy snuggles every morning

If you would have just told me the truth
I would have wanted to make that choice easy on you
Would have always carried a torch for this sweet, honest guy that I knew
I would have liked for that to be my memory of you

Cobwebs, Leaves and TV Screens

I sweep warning signs idly away
Like cobwebs from a doorway
Forgetting about the spiders
Who put them there in the first place

I hold onto love too long
Like a tree in an autumn breeze
Stubbornly refusing to cast off deadening leaves
Afraid of what losing those colors might mean

But worst of all
I remember like a TV screen
Everywhere I go
I see ghosts acting out the memories

Fleeting Visits With Bitterness

I hope she breaks your heart again
The way that you did mine
I hope the shame she put in you
Comes back to eat at you over time
I hope your chest swells
With the terrifying kind of butterflies
The crushing kind of emptiness
That makes you feel like you could die

I hope she just up and leaves you
Without a goodbye, without an end
Like you never even mattered
Like you were never even sort-of friends

I hope she tells everyone you’re crazy
That you’re deranged, that you need help
I hope she hooks right up with a guy she told you over and over you would never have to worry about

I hope she breaks every promise
That she ever made to you
Turns around and does all the things
She specifically assured you she wouldn’t do

I hope the confusion makes you panicked
Makes you scared, makes you sick
I hope it takes you by such surprise
You don’t know how to handle it

I hope you drown yourself in tears
I hope it makes you feel pathetic
I hope it makes you afraid to sleep again
I hope you fucking regret it

After You

I miss the feeling of warm hands on my skin
The look of greedy eyes taking it all in
Comfortably vulnerable
Blissfully trusting
Not sure I’ll let myself feel that way again

Oh, there will be hands
And lips, I’m sure
Relief from aches when I’m lonely or bored, but
I want to tingle at the touch of a finger
Connect in a way that makes the euphoria linger
When it’s scary as fuck but you don’t care one bit
When you’re fantasizing all day long about it

I can’t imagine it for long
Without getting that feeling in my chest
A heavy suction like a vacuum tube
To an oxygen-less abyss
My stomach feels sick
My hands start to shake
Never knew panic attacks
Could be brought on by heartache
But suddenly I can’t breathe
I can’t think, I can’t speak
I get overwhelmed and dizzy
My legs go numb underneath me

Heart pounding, blood rushing
Radiating heat, on fire
I lay down against the cold floor
Start tracing each tile
Keep reassuring myself
This this will stop happening after a while

But I dont really know if that’s true
Not sure that I can ever fully trust myself
After you

Pretty Girl

Pretty Girl pretty face
Pretty Girl nice body
Pretty Girl so beautiful
Pretty Girl kind of a hottie
Pretty Girl appreciates the compliments
Pretty Girl hates them a little too
Pretty Girl doesn’t feel any prettier than you

Pretty Girl’s pretty smile is a mask
Pretty Girl engages you with her pretty blue eyes
Pretty Girl uses your reaction to fill up the emptiness she’s carrying inside

Pretty Girl’s always surrounded with people
Pretty Girl must feel so adored
Pretty Girl wants to believe what they tell her, but
Pretty Girl has heard it before

Pretty Girl must have it “so easy”
Pretty Girl dying inside
Pretty Girl falls in love too easily
Pretty Girl always surprised

Pretty Girl tells the man No
Pretty Girl knows he will try again anyway

Pretty Girl walks to her car with her keys between the fingers of her fist
Pretty Girl relieved she’s wearing her work shirt so no one can claim she was asking for it

Pretty Girl always polite
Pretty Girl wishes you knew politeness isn’t permission
Isn’t to be seen as an open ivitiation

Pretty Girl has trouble saying No
Pretty Girl wants you to like her
Pretty Girl can never fully let go
Pretty Girl’s memory is an anchor

Lost

I let myself get lost in you
In the distraction
Of something so refreshing, so new
And so very quickly
Without even meaning to
I became emotionally dependent on you

So without you
I feel so utterly alone
Like I could collapse on myself
Like I’m all skin and no bone

Chasing Fantasies

I’m always chasing down the fantasy
Instead of letting it breathe
Smothering it with this insatiable need
As if I can’t wait to prove
It’s never as good in reality

I can never hold out
I can’t seem to say no
Too curious to see
Where the story will go

Can’t not send the text
Can’t not return the kiss
Can’t not do
What I think he expects

It always ends with disappointment
That carves a hollow ache
The plight of a heart that always gives
When there’s nothing to take

Who just wants to feel heard
Who just wants to feel seen
Who wants you to do what you say you’ll do
Who wants you to say what you mean

Mission to Mars

This was something I wrote for a writing project, as part of an online community I’m a part of. I (of course) chose to write a poem, but the topic was a future setting where mankind was going to Mars. I missed the deadline to submit for the project, so this has been hanging out in my notebook and needs a home.
If you’re a creative type, and you’ve never heard of hitRECord I suggest checking it out. It works as a production company, they make all kinds of art and media and collaborate on it. If you’re at all curious, there is probably something for you there.

 

We have wasted and turned to dust
What once was beautiful green and lush
Now we can travel to the red world above
But what can she really offer us?

Us, who destroy and degrade and consume
Us, who blindly orchestrate our own doom

I stand on charred earth
And look up at the stars
But it feels wrong to join them
To claim planets as ours

Maybe, as they say, it was
An inevitable evolution
Or maybe it’s a hail mary
A kind of desperate delusion

Either way it feels wrong
To leave the earth we destroyed
Disrespected, neglected
Treated like a toy

Even if mankind makes it to Mars
We will inevitably bring
Everything that will eventually
Destroy us from within

Bruises

Waking up after drinking
and then arguing the night before
When he told you he hated you
He didn’t love you anymore
You were sobbing, following him around
Begging him to listen
Begging him to calm down

So you drag yourself to the shower
Step out to dry off
Catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror
Eyes widen, you gawk

Criss cross cobwebs
of blue and purple fingerprints
Red marks, bruises
Flashes of memories coming in bits

Flung around like a rag doll
onto the floor, against the wall
Being grabbed and pushed
falling backward down the hall
Fighting him off as he tried to physically
throw you out the door
Onto the lawn, in the rain
Where he’d thrown your purse and keys just before

The coldness in his eyes
The hardness of his grip
Cruel words flashing by
like an old blurry comic strip

All at once feeling
so hollow and so small
Like that isn’t even you
staring back from the wall

Being Polite

I told him no thanks
I don’t drink vodka anymore
And I don’t like gin
Apparently that didn’t matter to him
He brought over a martini
Kept saying I would just love it
So finally, I smiled thinly
While he watched me swallow it

Because God forbid
He call me the crazy girl
Who thinks everyone wants to rape her
The ungrateful bitch
Who refused the drink that he paid for

Because girls should be careful
But they should never be rude
Weren’t you taught that too
And, you’re a good guy right?
So she shouldn’t be scared of you

As if predators have
flashing lights on their heads
As if we don’t already
have to worry
You’ll mistake politeness
for interested

Lies

I feel like a dream just died
Someone pulled back the curtain
and it vanished in the daylight
I won’t keep trying
to build my home on your lies
Like sand, it only appears to hold
until pressure is applied