Bad Poetry

I have a horrible habit

Of only learning things the hard way.

.

I claw at my eyes

Pull out my hair

And repeat breathing exercises

Why?

Why can’t I ever walk on the beaten path?

Every time.

Every single time.

I find myself here.

In front of a labyrinth

That I shouldn’t have asked for.

Do you ever think about how

Love becomes problematic?

.

How saying,

“With my back against a wall

I would break any promise,

Go against your wishes,

Take your choice away.”

Sounds a lot less romantic than,

“I would die for you.

I would do anything for you.”

.

But it’s how I feel.

And I feel these awful things

Are much the same.

I don’t think they’d believe me

If I told them she fell from the sky.

She split the clouds

With wings ablaze from the sun.

She fell like the bombs in war.

With a terrible, horrendous thud.

.

Nobody would believe me

If I told them she survived the fall from heaven.

I arrived at the crater.

With no thoughts of ‘How?’

Instead, my eyes were stuck

On her black, charred wings.

Bones splintered through ashes,

I was reminded of a decaying bird.

I cringed when she moved.

Her trembling, unbroken arms

Pushed away from the Earth.

When her wings crumbled away from her body

She screamed in agony.

.

She began to beat at the ground so hard,

I feared she would split the crust

With her pain.

I tried to soothe the rage.

I held her as she fought.

.

The inconsolable want comfort too.

Deemed unforgivable,

She believed this was the end.

She didn’t believe me, then,

When I said,

“Life is good.

I often tell people

My biggest problem is that

I don’t know what I want

Here is the truth

That I’ve blindly stumbled upon:

.

I want to be the writer, director, and actor

I want to be rich and scrappy

I want romance and independence

I want my day to be easy,

But my life a story

I want, I want, and want

.

And since I refuse to settle

I am stuck in the middle with nothing

Wanting everything

For one glorious week,

Can I be the problem?

I am tired,

And worn,

And trembling

Waiting, with skin torn.

I’ve been planning.

I want to be the one who cries

And is then held.

I want to be the one

Who vomits all the wine in the house

And is taken to bed

Cleaned and hydrated.

Let me play the role of broken.

I’ll be back to myself next week.

She was soft

Like the leaves that frost

She was happy

Like storms are windy

She is not like the sun

Does not shine for just anyone

She was the nightlight

Knew comfort and safety just right

I grow more leaves than I need.

These colors are pretty,

Don’t you think?

“Do you love me?”

I lure so many in.

I should’ve told you it’s dangerous.

Don’t stay for too long,

Or I’ll snap shut around you.

And I promise

I won’t let go until you’re a part of me.

Even though the promise is redundant.

This will happen anyway.

Whether I want to or not.

“no.” do I?

I could probably say,

“I love you.”

To you everyday

For a thousand days

And still wonder if I’m lying to you.

.

I could probably spend

years learning a language,

And completely blank

When asked to say

Something simple

.

I so easily forgive the me of yesterday.

I coddle the me of today.

But I am afraid of the me of tomorrow,

Because I don’t know who they are yet.

And I don’t know if they’re going to fail me.

.

So many poems,

So many mentors,

So many morals,

When will I stop seeing failure as a death?

I arrived first.

I’m early, way early.

Why did I start the drive so early?

I don’t really know.

The guy that arrives second looks at me,

“What are you doing here?

I don’t think class starts for another

40 minutes.”

.

He said he was coming to drop off his homework

But then leave.

He stayed anyway. Don’t know why.

.

Why did I leave so early?

Was I bored? Was I lonely?

That could be it.

But I don’t really know.

Maybe I came cause I knew

This is where other people would be.

My friend, the only person

I’ve been talking to in this class,

Arrives third

Thank god.

I did lots of things today

With my day off.

But it wasn’t enough.

It’s never enough to catch up.

.

Somebody help me.

There are too many things

That can only be accomplished

By me.

I wanted this to be easy

There.

I said it.

I wanted something easy

Does that make me shallow?

For not wanting to see and heal

All of your sob stories,

All of your scars,

And all of your lingering shadows,

Before I even love you

Before I’ve even met you

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’msorry I’msorry I’msorryI’msorryi’msorryimsorryim

I told too many lies

And now when I say I’m okay,

You search my eyes for tears that aren’t there

I told too many lies

And now when I say I love you,

You laugh and say ‘Yeah, me too’

I told a lie

And now you won’t believe me

When I say I’ve grown

I don’t know what it is

But I know what it isn’t,

And I know that it is not what is between us.

I know that you care

So very much about me,

But I need you to let this go

And move on for everyone’s sake.

.

I’m looking you in the eyes

Saying, “I don’t think I could ever love you.”

But it’s falling on deaf ears,

Because I know you want to convince me

That one day,

I could.

I’m okay with being by myself

At the moment,

I feel no need to share my life with someone else

My current habits and lifestyle

Don’t accommodate a significant other anyway

So I’m fine

.

But sometimes

I have moments where an overwhelming feeling,

A metric ton of loneliness

Finds its way to my heart

And it physically pains me

It leaves me without the will to take another breath

.

It’s always the little things that get to me most

Like when a nightmare leaves me afraid to go back to sleep

And there is no one there to hold me

Or when I realize I haven’t spoken to anyone all day

And then I think, “I wouldn’t have had anything interesting to say to them anyway.”

Or when I know that I have so much love to give

But have no one around to gift it to

.

And it’s these moments

Where I long for the sheer familiarity that lovers can have

I want someone to kiss me

Soft

I want someone’s lap to climb into

Hold me

I want someone’s neck to hide in

Shield me

.

But I am left with myself

And for the longest time

I wanted this isolation

It was my choice

But now that there is no choice but to be alone

When the whole world is sick

And an innocent, friendly stranger may kill you

I’ve realized that I’m finally tired of being alone

I’m not okay with just myself

I want more

And what a tragedy

That searching for love right now is dangerous

Long story short

I have held Death in my hands

And felt it in my heart

And washed it off my shoes

All on separate occasions

And when I finally meet Death

After all the hell that it put me through in life

I’ll ask to be at peace

Because that’s something that life could never give me

No matter how joyous it was

I’ve always been a light sleeper

At the drop of a hat

I’m ready for anything

Mom always said it means I have a good mother’s instinct

I just wish

That included keeping the nightmares

Away from you

I can’t stop them from coming

No matter how close I hold you

I cannot guard you from this specific evil

However

At the drop of a hat

I’m ready to gently pull you back to me

I learned the hard way that jolting you awake

Can cause you to shatter

So I rub the warmth back into your arms

And hum something your consciousness

Can latch onto

I’ll never forget the victory I felt when you once told me

That you didn’t know how much music

Could help sooth you

So I weave the music

Into the dark room

And the warm bed

And eventually you open your eyes

And every time

Starring through me

Looking at nothing

Unblinking

The whites of your eyes almost glowing

Short stuttering breaths

Body stiff

Either from horror or temporarily forgetting how to relax

A shiver runs through me

Because every time

I look at you like this and briefly think

“I’m holding a ghost in my arms”

And when I look into those eyes

“Those eyes... have seen gruesome,

Morbid things”

Beasts of Hell types of things

You don’t say anything

It’s okay

I can see how tightly your jaws are clenched together

It’s a slow process

One we’ve, unfortunately, done before

A lot

So... so many

Times

But it’s okay

I place a warm hand on your chest

And reteach you how to take longer breaths

Your constricted body fights my rhythm

But then

All at once

Your body remembers how to breathe

And the sound cuts through the air

As if you’d just broke through the surface of water

Sometimes it takes hours more of this

Hours that could include

Getting your fingers to stop digging into your skin

Smoothing the cramps out of your legs

From being so tensed for so long

But it’s not like that tonight

You seem to come around a lot easier tonight

I can tell when you become aware

I can always tell

You don’t say anything

Your eyes are still fixed on nothing

Wide, stuck, unseeing

But then tears begin to spill out

As if the shell is cracking

And the demons can’t hold you prisoner much longer

I sing another lullaby

It’s 3 AM

And I know you’re tired

As I sing softly

I see your eyes begin to look around

Relaxing

I drag my nails through your scalp

To give you a more grounding feeling

Something more real

I know it’s over when you speak

Words are another thing that seem to leave you

When you get like this

When you have these nightmares

“Thank you... sorry”

Broken

Choked

Cracking words

“It’s okay. Do you wanna be up for the day?”

At the drop of a hat

“I don’t wanna go back to sleep”

I’m here

“Okay, let’s get up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, I’ll make some breakfast.”