Tortured Poets Department

These were the poems I submitted to my local poetry magazine 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Expectations

You clipped my wings and then asked me to fly

You pushed me out and then asked why I didn't say goodbye

You wanted a song

But didn’t hear me all along

You wanted true, you wanted real

But I just wanted the chance to feel

I dreamed of everything

Until the world unraveled to nothing

You wanted more

I should've gone out the door

But I couldn't go

I should have just said no

Couldn't see it until it was too late

As I was crushed by the weight

Of your expectations.

Rot

I would rather I rot

I'd rather walk over a thousand miles of broken whiskey bottles

Than to burn in this hell you call a life

I'd rather carve my flesh from the bone with a butter knife

Than to decay in this prison you say is a refuge

I would rather die than exist in this house you call our home

I would rather rot than live this way another day

Straitjacket

Play it cool

Watch your words

Be honest but not too honest

Tell them what's wrong but still be vague

Give them just enough information to get the drugs they say will help

All that matters is that you have health insurance

If not, the ER is thirty minutes thata way

Are you a danger to yourself or others?

No?

That'll be $700 then please.

Can't pay?

Who cares if you're suicidal, we deserve to get paid.

We'll just fuck up your credit score and bleed you dry if not.

You want to kill yourself?

Oh shit, I'm sorry but this facility doesn't take Blue Cross Blue Shield.

You'll have to pay out of pocket.

Can't pay?

We might as well just let you die.

Who cares if you are hurting so long as you pay.

Sitting in a therapist's office trying and keep out of a straitjacket because I can't afford it.

[town name so I don’t dox myself]

I am from streets you don’t go down at night

I am from hookers on street corners

I am from churches on every block and dealers in the parking lot

Historic avenues and rusty railroad tracks

River walks and pine trees

[Random state] crescent moons and gunshots on the breeze

Home is a willow-tree whisper and lemonade with lime slices

I am from Main Street and Singleton Ridge

I am the bloody knuckles my Daddy comes home with after work

The Spanish moss that ghosts over the roofs of our cars and the coquina dust on our rims

I am a pan of grits and a pot of chicken bog

I am the lines on my Grandmother’s skin from years in the fields

I am a snowball at The Freeze

I am a prayer in the old atrium

A book under an oak in the yard of the library

I am a topped tobacco patch and collard greens sold on the honor system

My roots run deep here

Family ties and cotton fields

Old as the oak at city hall

And true as the river meets the ocean

Yes he was able to escape his abusive mother, but he had no support whatsoever after having gone through the most traumatic moments of his life. He even had to readjust to having lost a leg all by himself.

Been rewatching THG movies with my mum🌼

1/3 - The dandelion