Unrefined Poetry

My heart is pumping through

Get up, get dressed, walk to class

Food and chores and food.

Loss and loss and pain forever.

Guess I better wash my sweater.

This is how my days all start-

Is a funny thing,

A little bit is great.

Seeing my favorite childhood toons

On old ceramic plates.

But when the walls look too familiar

And the couch looks just like mine,

My throat tightens, heart drops,

And my child heart beats double time.

I’m so afraid of something there,

It’s like walking into a cave

Where all is quiet, but what lives there?

There was a time when I could believe

That ghosts and devils weren’t real.

That every strange thing

Could be explained

With detective work, science, and skill.

The longing still burns, to hold fast

To believing that things are so simple.

But when the baby was screaming

And I started singing, Jesus Loves Me

And the figure was cast

From a shelf and smashed.

I had no cats or pets to blame,

And the thing didn’t fall,

It was hurled.

The room then filled with a stench like death

My baby was writhing in fear.

“Bad bugs.” He repeated, “Bad bugs”

And clung to my shirt with all he had.

That was the thing that settled my heart,

I had not imagined the times-

When shadows of dogs tripped friends down the stairs

Rejection dysphoria knocks me roughly

When hearing the words harshly meant

“You’re never doing enough.”

Well damn. Now lying on the ground

Head spinning, spinning, wondering how

Can I get more done

When I cannot stand now.

To be gentle to me and not focus

On my faults is to further

Nail the coffin of my failures- but

To focus on the faults, a hard stop.

Can Adderall even be

I’ve worn this grief smooth

Like a pebble in a river,

But still it’s a cold hard rock.

You were too precious for me to let go,

And I cannot send you skipping

to the middle of a lake.

I’ve wound wires around the memory

And wear it like a pendent-

Heavy around my neck, resting on my chest.

die at twenty.

Not you. Why

am I still here? Why

are you gone?

My sentencing is just:

A thousand years of

The Hell you have created for yourself.

Look in the mirror

O, hypocrite!

You mock me for once having to bear

The burden I have carried alone

For twelve whole years!

So for a thousand years

You are sentenced

To spend every day confounded

That your socks don’t turn

Themselves right side out

Magically in the wash.

I turned those sandy boot socks

every day without a thanks

But to mock me for mine

To be inside out when you

Help but once

Doing everything right

And never asking for help.

It is

Contributing more every day

Than the inconvenience I cost.

Love looks like

Leaving you alone while you do stuff

And trying to be quiet.

To love is to not disturb.

And I think

I would love you better

Tough Love For the Broken

She was getting better

Again.

Her rehab was going well

She wanted her kids back.

Her family showed her tough love

(Whatever that is)

By cutting her off and out of their lives

Until she could be better

Again.

So it was several days before

A rehab wellness check discovered

Her body.

Untouched by drugs

She slipped in the tub.

And no one was there to help her.

Her kids will never have her back,

And some would say

It’s a good thing.

But her kids, and I know,

Nothing about this was good.

There won’t be any chances

To be better again.

And maybe

We should have loved her gently

Did you know

That the world is mostly safe

And people mostly good hearted?

Did you know that a person is supposed

to learn this as a child?

I didn’t either.

I hope that most of you did.

Maybe we can learn it as adults

When you are learning English,

And you don’t know the right word.

When you describe a thing with roundabout thoughts,

And translate your sayings into my language.

When you talk about something mundane

With words I wouldn’t have chosen-

You speak the most beautiful poems,

And you blush because it is difficult.

A man asked if I liked Lord of the Rings

Because my phone case was fashioned

Like the mines of Moria.

More specifically, the gates of Barad dur.

I admitted I did.

He asked what I like about the books,

And I told him:

About the writing, the themes, the characters,

The visuality of the language that could take you

Into the barrow downs,

And over farmland

And the trees.

I stopped short

Realizing my mistake.

I had shared too much,

Said too much,

Opened up a crack.

Let my interests and love and passions show.

I looked at him,

He was smiling. And nodding. Inviting conversation.

This was a positive connection.

I don’t like how it feels,

For someone else to have

A real sense of who I am.

It feels like knowing there’s

A nude photo of me on the internet

And having no power to remove it.

So I make a point

Not to ever talk to him again

Beyond a nod or a hello.

And always

Wished to be-