Matt Cooke

I notice everything

the subtle wind

which blows over my hair

the hidden flower

that no one notices

and it secretly bloomed

how the colors change up at the canopies

the crickets singing their hymn at night

and it's fills me with

nostalgia and longing

for something

seemingly unattainable

but also reminds me of passing

that absence can feel heavier than pain

still -

i listen for you in the lonely wind

for the sole reason

you might finally learned my name

and my words to you wasn't in vain

or am I just imperceptible to you

so call upon me

just whisper

and I will come to you -

like the wind

i have been waiting

for so long

for you

you-

who determined to rise to the heavens

that will diminish in your presence

so before that

will you ever come find me

You said, no one would notice

if you disappeared

like a single star burning out

but my love, you’re no lonely star

you’re a galaxy

You said, no one would notice

a single grain of sand

swept away by the wind

but you’re an entire desert

you’re stronger than the weather

My love, my Milky Way, my moon

you’re my world, my heart

everything you hide

is beautiful inside

as bright as fireworks

Those scars you wanted to cover

remind me of lightning bolts

raindrop streaks on window panes

the furrows of a tree’s bark

the slice of a smile in the rain

Those dimples you hated

are the valley between two hills

holding a river of sweet laughter

Every part of you that doesn’t feel like you

is your best feature in my mind

Your hair, the colour of warm earth

eyes like leaves and stones and the sky

Your smile is as lovely as the crescent moon

You glow like a firefly

Your voice like a bird’s sweet song

And trust me, the world would notice

if the galaxy, the deserts, the seas

all the lightning, all the trees

all the hills and vallies, the fireflies

were gone, if the moon fell from the sky

And that, the entire world, my love,

i wrote this while working in a program for new writers. on wednesdays, two of the teachers would be contractually obligated to read our writing aloud to the group of 300+ teens. i had never read my work in public before. i had something like 6k poems and was panicking about it. none of them are good enough. sometimes the train is howling. it is hard, actually, sometimes, even as an adult.

and then i thought - what is one thing i wish i could tell all of them. each of these 300 kids. what did i need to hear, at 16?

i wanted to tell them about the day you wake up, and the sun feels warm finally. i wanted to tell them about carving a life out of soapstone, your hands turning bloody. i wanted to tell them that sometimes yes - it actually does feel easy. i wanted to tell them about weddings and cookie dough and long road trips. about albums of new music and old friends laughing and the sound of snow falling.

you will learn the pattern of the train. you will learn to close your eyes when you hear the engine rumbling. you will learn to let yourself have the grey days in their lily-soft numbness. sometimes it will feel like life is wet paint, and god has smeared your canvas across a sewer grate. sometimes it will be so boring it isn’t even pronounceable - the tenacious, soundless blankness. survival isn’t just ugly nights and wild mornings. it is also the steady, unimportant moments. it is just driving with your seatbelt on. it is calling a friend on the way home. it is burying your face into the fur of your dog.

when i had finished reading this poem aloud, the auditorium was silent for a solid minute. someone stood up to take a picture of where it had been projected onto a screen, and then three more people followed the action, and then - like a bad internet story, people remembered they were supposed to be clapping. kids came up to me after it - thank you for writing that. i think i hear a train coming.

i would write this differently now, i think, but it has been 7 years. i still live by the tracks. i also haven’t picked up a blade in over 10 years. the scars are still there, but these days i only pick up scissors to cut my hair. i know why you can’t tell your mom about it. i know how the numbness slips over everything, a restless horrible cotton. i know how when you dropped the dish, you weren’t crying about the broken glass. i know about feeling like all the roads have closed their exits, that you aren’t supposed to still-be-here - and yet.

i am still here, and still yours, and i haven’t forgotten. what i’m saying is if any hope is calling to you - i know it’s hard, but you have to listen. i’m saying keep driving, but slow down the car. sit down in the shower, i’m not judging you. we can stay in the dark with the good hot water and do nothing but stare. notice the stab wound. make it through another tuesday.

i know what it is like to miss yourself. do what you need to. come home to me. i am writing to you, my past self, from the future. i’ll be waiting for you.

Oh God,

how I have been set to simmer.

Pushed to the back of the stove,

lid rattling softly

with everything I hold inside.

Where is the closeness

distance once promised me?

Where is the intimacy

that used to bloom?

I am always

almost.

A back-burner body.

A stock pot forgotten

until hunger returns.

Do you know

how much I can hold?

Bones and broth and bay leaves,

hours of heat,

flavor deepening in the dark.

I was built for nourishment.

For devotion.

For feeding something holy.

But I am left to thicken alone.

Is this how it will always be?

Wishing for more

than someone is willing to serve?

This yearning —

it climbs the walls of me.

Boils over.

Scalds.

I want to be chosen

before you are starving.

I want to be important

without having to empty myself first.

I want to be something

you look forward to tasting —

not something

kept warm

for your convenience.

Not a vessel.

Not a utility.

Not something

you remember

Love ain’t a flower.

One that blooms at night, shines so bright,

The dies.

Love.

Love ain’t a cloud.

One that flies so high, above you and I,

Then rains.

Love.

Love ain’t a kiss.

One that lingers on, when the music’s gone,

Then dries.

Love.

Love ain’t the whispers.

Ones that soften, in my ears often,

Then complain.

Love is a word, that’s said real often.

Love is a feeling, meant to soften.

Let your heart have love.

Let your heart have love.

Love.

Love is a reason.

One that shows, a heart how to grow,

And smile.

Love.

Love is a beam.

One that shines, lights up our minds.

And burns.

Love.

Love is a teardrop.

One that’s cried, from joy inside.

Not vile.

Love.

Love is the wind.

One that blew us here, keeps us near.

And churns.

Love is a word, that’s meant together.

Love is a feeling, meant forever.

Let your heart have love.

you guys have to be gaslighting-

wait

WAIT

THOSE ARE THE PEOPLE???

ok. yeah. this is a million times more badass

like

my genuine biggest wish is that people would be kinder, and more caring.

i tried to help someone who needed it on another platform today. they were grateful for help, but another user stepped in and started yelling at me for no reason. i didn't do anything wrong. the person i helped was grateful for it. yet they felt the need to butt in and be unkind.

i can't share my experiences with my disorders online. i want to, to help spread awareness, particularly for HSD since it's rare, but every time i try people tell me i'm doing things wrong, I messed something up somehow, etc. and whilst obviously that's not true because my experience with my professionally diagnosed disorder is just as valid as others (and i never once implied that it was more valid or even more common), it's still really upsetting, and depending on what's said or what i'm called, can be quite triggering.

and along that same line, there are so many people (on the internet in general, not here) don't use trigger warnings even for very graphic, upsetting, or violent things and say that it's because *they* don't get triggered by it, so why should they include trigger warnings?

there's just this lack of acknowledgement that other people have different needs and triggers, and no respect for those differences. no kindness directed toward others on a regular basis. some deep level of respect is just missing, and this especially shows up directed at people in minority groups.

I want to live in your breath

in the pauses between your thoughts

in the stillness after your laughter fades

maybe our atoms could be wrapped

in longing devotion

a sacred wound

offered in the hope

that something divine might bleed back

but you see

the gods

don't favor me

can we hide from them?

i don't believe in the divine

but i have to blame someone

for this misery

to long

and never be enough

for the cruelty of never seeing you

touching you

can't stick to you - like you want me to

or ease your mind

but i'm breathing you in

as the universe folds in

on itself

will we forever dance

in the shadows of their apathy?

but you see - im a bad dancer

i'm a rhythm that doesn’t fit

a step that never lands right

i’m lost in the movement

chasing you