bad-poetry

[bad-poetry]

My chest is made of thick underbrush

Tell me what you think you’ll find

In the wilderness

I’ve never met a man

That I’ve wanted to love so much

But that isn’t enough

I have to love you back?

For years it didn’t matter how I felt

Now I have to know what makes me happy?

You make me feel

Strong, capable and so happy

But my guilt is getting too heavy to carry

My type is unavailable

Your sleeve is ruined from the heart it holds

You try so hard to be coarse and strong

But I am not soft or sweet

A woman is not an equal

But a better half I clearly need

I’m sorry I never loved you

But she has full lips

And a heart I cannot ignore

[bad-poetry]

The politician

Off to New York City.

You grew a few more inches to finally feel like a big man

Want to be a man in blue on a podium

Your hands still bleed my red blood

Oh no are those lifts in your shoes?

People don’t really change that much

On a different coast

I laugh about the time you sent flowers now

Personal terrorist

You cannot thrive as a virus if you kill your host

Everything used to be about us

It feels good being the person I think the most about

It’s all a downhill ride now

No need to pedal to get to where I want to be

I couldn’t tell you the last time i cried

Or took a shower for hours

Got off on the shoulder of the interstate and just screamed

I didn’t think i could be stable like this

Tell me from your stage

How many have you left in your wake

Did you laugh or pretend

Please keep your hands by your side

No need to show me empty palms

I know your mouth is loaded

[bad-poetry]

Wrote this for a friend quite a while ago.

Stop yelling. You don’t kiss me like before. Hands in my hair. Lips to my ear. Tell me it wasn’t just my fault. You lived by the Golden rule but sweet words taste sour in my mouth. How do I get golden? I want you to live by me. With me. Around me. In me. I made most of the mistakes. Running my fingers along your jawline. Tell me it wasn’t just my fault. Because I know we were good. No one person owes another person an explanation. But you do owe me the decency of not walking down my street. You love me? If that were true this would be the part in the story where you’d finally return my calls. With every ring I wince. Just say it to say it not to hear it back. Say it because you mean it not because you want me on the dining room table. How does this hurt more than bleeding out a lemon sized ghost? He hardly haunts my dreams. I stopped the development of fingers and toes and what an older couple might consider a miracle and yet here I stand. In a house that will soon no longer be my home. Maybe I am being haunted. I thought it was a by my feelings for you but maybe its by every mistake that lead to me loving you.

[bad-poetry]

There’s no place left to go but home. It used to be a space filled with you. But now that i never go to bed sober I think about how I haven’t felt this far from home before. My red eyes dry from staring at my ceiling imagining a life where I’m not the person i am. I want to be my own house. I want to stand tall and sturdy. Made of stone but I still can let others in. I’d paint my all walls yellow so I’d never have to eat the paint again. I wouldn’t be afraid to hang mirrors that i could watch others dance in. There would never not be screams of laughter and dog collar jingles bouncing down the hallways. I’d open my windows and shout for anyone who wanted to join. Jumping on beds. Scrubbing glitter out of the sink. Platonic kisses in the kitchen. Singing in the shower while you do your make up. I’d have smooth wooden floors my friends could slide across in their socks. And I’d know when they crashed laughing I’d be able to tell myself sometimes the good times can hurt. I’d know a little pain can’t stop those fleeting happy moments. I would without a doubt be happy then. Fear nothing. All of my doors would have locks I’d never use. Because it’s important to set your boundaries but maybe the light shed on my secrets will help lead someone else find their lost keys. But sadly. I cannot be a house, but I will build myself into a home. A home to who ever else needs shelter. Granted they respect my walls. Because my most important resident will be me.

[bad-poetry]

We were both so good at playing the victim. Concussion after concussion. Stolen car after burnt mattress. Every day I wake up on ashes and wonder why it hasn’t all fallen down. Today will I be naughty or nice? You say I kiss too hard. I say get your hands off my throat.

What’s love without apologies? Lie after lie I still lie on the ground and cry sometimes when I’m home alone. The stories I tell myself are much scarier than what you’ve heard around the campfire.

I’m not sorry anymore. We both made mistakes but now I know what a cornered rat feels like. I bit and I clawed and only cut you a little with the kitchen knife. You said you didn’t want to treat me that way. But you still did. Are you a house cat or a man? You spent months chasing me just play with your food.

I mistook passion for love. When I scream at my lovers now they never hit back. Can you even have the good parts without fighting for them? How am I supposed to realize how much I’ll miss them until they leave me. Night after night. Fight after fight. Scream back so I know you care.

Is love given or earned? I’ve jumped out second story windows. You’ve broken into my house. I still look back and wonder if there was ever any love in that house. Sometimes you would put your hand on my thigh and it’d make me hate you. Other days I’d happily walk into your bedroom ready for slaughter.

I treat everything like a game now, but how else am I suppose to win? You think I don’t get angry too? Do you think I don’t wish my hands were bigger so they would fit around your neck. Kiss me like you missed me and fuck me like you’re mad I left.

[bad-poetry]

Did it hurt? When you fell from the pedestal I put you on. Someone asked me if I thought the person I think about the most thinks about me the same. I didn’t have the heart to admit I only think of myself. I wrote so many cheesy poems about you. About the night on the bridge. When we hit golf balls into the river. When we ate lunch together every day for a year. How you slept in my bed and I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep. Can you hold my hand just one more time? I loved you so much but now that you finally say my name the way I wanted it just doesn’t feel like it’s right to put my lips on yours. Do I finally trust you or is the distance between us just making me feel safe. I can only love anyone if they’re too high for me to reach. Don’t tell me how you feel. Don’t you dare reach for my hand. You’ll ruin how happy you make me.

[bad-poetry]

To the girl who drowned in the river. No one felt bad for your mother because you knew how to swim. But I know what it’s like to be the first to wilt in a bouquet of flowers. She wished to be a martyr before she knew what it was. Every dawn I’d wish back my childhood of making duck calls with blades of grass instead sharpening our wrists with old shards of glass. 15 was a tough age for girls who’s parents believed in a god but not demons. Bones outside the skin. Blood on concrete. Inhaling river water. Who has to scream through swallowed blood from ripped open throats “it doesn’t get better.” Tell me how to fashion gills out of sliced hips. Or thighs? Maybe parallel cuts down my throat. I’d do anything to breathe. My dripping wounds will run under the dirty water of the river I die in. The one where no one felt bad for my mother because I knew how to swim. And somehow I will be clean.

[bad-poetry]

As I carve my name into your lips with my teeth you move to trace my jaw with your tongue. It’s cold silver touch makes me sweat. Finger nails digging into my thighs. Fists full of hair holding on to the shreds of intimacy I have to plead out of you. You are not my moon, sun, or Earth. But a god whose body I worship. Give me one more chance to touch you. One more chance to make you look at me like I’m more than I really am. I was raised in the church and when you moan my name it sounds like gospel. Even the devil quoted scripture. You do not have horns or a pitchfork. You have curly hair and hands that always find their way to my neck. They painted you a snake. Then what am I, a hungry idiot? I got softer sheets in hopes you would stay the night. But you preferred it rough. Your skin made of hard earned calluses. No matter how many times I drug my nails down your back I could never make you bleed. How hard do I have to bite down to make you scream. I don’t want to hurt you. But your indifference likes to whisper anything but sweet nothings in my ear. Something like you cannot sin. Would you blame a god for human error? My creator. My gardener. You used to dig holes in my skin with your teeth and plant my favorite flowers with a soft kiss on every darkened mark you left me with. You made me a garden. But nature never took my body back when you left. I am a wasteland. Inhospitable. Cold. And nostalgic of the life you breathed into me. My God isn’t dead. He is just a tree that has finally shed the initials I etched into a neat little heart in a desperate attempt to make him remember me.

[bad-poetry]

You cut it to the bone. Your chest a wave pool I held my breath under for too long. Now I don’t know if I can make it back in time. I’m blowing bubbles to figure out which way is up. Gasping. I’m out of the water but I’m drowning. Your arms are no longer a security blanket but a current pulling me under. Dripping. I shook off the water but I’m still shaking. Wait, babe are you okay? Your hand is still bleeding. The blood ran down the sink along with the jack we poured over it. Alcohol and blood. It made me think of the night he put my forehead to the pavement. The first time he didn’t apologize. Everything went black. So I had thought that crunch was leaves under his boots. It wasn’t. Loving you was me thinking I was old enough to swim in the deep end of the wave pool. But knowing you was drowning in an inch of water.

[bad-poetry]

I never told anyone about the time you tried to teach me how to dance in the living room. I’m not good at admitting I don’t know things. I’m incapable of realizing when I need help. I miss the way you used to look at me. We never could talk about the things that killed us. I’m so sorry I made you want to die. But you ripped my favorite lace panties. They were bright red. Like the blood dripping from your bottom lip because I forget my mouth is full of things that can hurt you. Come on. Just forgive me already. We both know you can’t get more than a couple of feet without looking back. I hate that I can never light my cigarette when I’m driving. I hate that my brother jumps off bridges. I hate that the stray dog I nursed back to health bit me and ran away. I’ve tripped acid in a goddamn IHOP. And I only made it through because I had to take care of her. So take a deep breath and take care of me. I can’t stand the touch of my own clothes hanging off the collarbones I wish showed more. So help me. Burn the things I can’t live with. Burn the bridges connected to those who are whispering to you that I am toxic. Please. Just hold your breath. We are going underwater. Remember the public pool that got infested with snakes? Kiss me in it. I need to know how far you’ll go. And when you tell me the right answer I’ll walk the distance plus one step with you. I know I should be sorry for dragging you from one grave to another. But your hands are warm and I’m cold in more ways than one. Do you remember that looney tunes bandaid you had to peel off my cheek? You kissed it and said I wouldn’t feel a thing. It took me a long time. But you’re right. I don’t.

[bad-poetry]

Seeing him in broad day light gives me the coffee shakes without the coffee. I’m starting to think every room is dark when I’m in it. I wake up with my feet dangling over the edge. But I’m not in my bed. Just another dream where I’m back on that damn bridge. Too sore to throw, I drop a rock into the river below. I counted eleven seconds for the splash. How long would I take. Enough about the river let’s talk about you not loving me like I love you. I carefully graze your finger tips and you thoughtlessly throw me over your shoulder. You don’t love me like I love you because you don’t love me. You love chemistry. So disassociation means something different to you than it does to me. My least favorite scene in the movie was when the scientists gathered around the computer screen only displaying static because everything that they warned the world would happen happened. It hits too close to home when everyone told me about you. Hallways where the last time I was in them you were guiding my stumbling self to a bed we called ours. I saw your old mattress at the bottom of big hill by the high school. I know it was yours. Can’t really cover up the fact we played with matches on it. How many times can I say it wasn’t my fault with conviction. How are you with her but you’re still haunting me. The feeling of your absence is so present. It’s always there. It stands in line with me when I buy groceries. I’ve stopped going to the store. Panic attack in isle 3. I never cleaned myself up after. A scene from the screenplay of our time together except you don’t forget my name in bed. Tick tock. Tick tock. I can’t remember a time I didn’t need affection. Time to put on a show. Where I play the girl who hasn’t almost died. Sorry. I’m so sorry. When I was 17 you told me you only ever wanted me to be happy. I never even gave it a shot.

[bad-poetry]

Reflecting

A boy I loved once wrote "like a bird with hollow bones, she is so light on her toes because she has a hollow heart" and then he went on about me keeping stones in my pocket so I wouldn't blow away with a gust of wind or something like that and then he changed his mind later and said it was because I was always ready to jump into a river and make a home under dirty water. No one had ever written about me like that before. I'm sure my sister has mentioned her little sister in an "about me" intro paper and Justin at the time probably had thrown into a paper I was his best friend. But I was in love with a boy who I showed all of myself to and he called me empty and suicidal.

[bad-poetry]

Please come back to bed I don't like that I smoke either I'm sorry for biting too hard But I like the taste of sweat

Don't look at me like that I never lied in anyone else's bed The bruises on my neck Weren't from loving lips

You're not the only one Who doesn't like me any more I knew I was needy But they all call me toxic

Lets take a bath in my tiny tub Where I can drown myself In all your excuses For not staying the night

[bad-poetry]

Their things are collecting dust

I have a drawer in my home For what lovers have left me

I can count the times I have fallen in love On three fingers

Each time they've tried To explain their leaving So far I have had a Quick tongue, hollow heart, and cold hands

Though they found me that way Just like a man To think his love Was great enough to Fix what was never broken

To slow my tongue He tried to keep His mouth on mine Then complain when I'd bite

The remedy for emptiness Was to fill me with shallow things Like his affection

Instead of holding my cold hands He'd just squeeze my neck

Please don't tell me this is it

[bad-poetry]

Morbid Short Poems for the Signs

Pisces When you were six you found a box of baby teeth in your mothers closet and that was the last day you can remember believing in anything.

Aquarius If you had a penny for every time you believed your father when he said I love you you’d be in debt.

Capricorn You eagerly crane your neck a little more each time you check the doorway for the boy you told to leave.

Sagittarius For senior prank your classmates hung up posters about teachers, but you hung up yourself

Scorpio You used to always accidentally rip your favorite pages in books when you were little and now you do the same to the people in your life.

Libra Putting your liver to the test on a school night won’t change the fact that you’re incapable of asking for help

Virgo You learned to apply pressure to wounds when you threw your lover angrily against a wall, but you don’t know where to push down now that your entire body feels numb

Leo  Wearing green at funerals is your forte because of your envy of the idea that someone finally gets to rest

Cancer You wish you could slice your wrists and plant flowers in your veins so the beauty could justify your pain

Gemini If it was possible to rip out your vocal chords and turn them into an instrument, it would make the loveliest sound anyone had ever heard

Taurus When you killed that man in 07 and they asked you why you did it you said your mother once told you to treat others how you wish to be treated.

Aries You burn your feet when you dance in the cinders of the bridges you burned trying to prove that you are okay with being alone.

[bad-poetry]

I wish I hadn’t been smoking

Since I was sixteen

Yet here I am at 2am again

Drunk in a gas station

I remember my brother being told

To have fun by my father

While my mother would beg

For me to be careful

Have you ever woken up

On a dirty mattress

Not quite sure

How you got there?

Exhale the cigarette smoke

And memories of cold concrete

Under your feet

Because you lost your shoes

Someone asked me why I didn’t run away

And I couldn’t put into words

That was like asking the Twin Towers

To leave New York in September

[bad-poetry]

How was I ever suppose

To be the girl 

Who could remember

Your mother’s birthday

When two years ago 

I was the girl who struggled to

Remember the boys she had 

Kissed the night before

Lifting the door up to open it

So the hinges wouldn’t creak

When I left strangers 

To wake up alone 

Am I wrong to be nostalgic 

Of the look in the eyes of 

Someone I had never touched

Right before they pinned me to a wall

I am tired of slow kisses

And the security net of your arms

I need bite marks on my neck

And another drink