poetrythursday

[poetrythursday]

Ghosts' terror

Lies not in their mere presence

Ghosts' terror

Lies not with those in their graves

Ghosts' terror

Lies not with their stories

The terror of ghosts

Lies in the brush with eternity

And the existential emptiness

Of the end

[poetrythursday]

A river's violence

Is beautifully poetic

Until the current reaches you

Caught in the flood

The poetry is now eulogy

Until you find new purchase

Returned to the land

Prose overtakes the poem

A story rewritten

Deep into your soul

Violent, chaotic, beautiful, tragic

as you wade back into the river

[poetrythursday]

White blankets a violent world

Softening the blows

For but a moment

Freezing the fire

As it brightly glows

Providing silence for atonement

Capturing time second by second

As it slows

The foment

Of each and every fear we

Expose

Once the snow melts.

[poetrythursday]

Watching the world

Drown

Choke

Explode

Watching the leaders

Lie

Mislead

Deny

Watching the people

Sob

Wail

Plead

Watching within me

Anger

Agony

Awe

Watching the world

Watching the end

Watching the beginning

Watching the world bleeding

Watching the watchers

The watchers are having fun

The watchers can't see

Watching it all play out

The self implodes.

[poetrythursday]

13x0: Pill Bottles

What are you really supposed to do with the bottles?

Empty and orange, striking

Standing erect in its vacancy

A space where the solution was once held.

What are you really supposed to do with the bottles?

They’re made of plastic, meant to last.

Labels on each exist as a reminder

For the living, a prior condition

A prior use for the orange containers

For the dead, eerie reminiscences 

Hope for the future

As empty as the lie of immortality.

What are you really supposed to do with the bottles?

They say take off the labels.

They say that the information is dangerous.

Does that make me dangerous?

Does that mean I should make myself

As anonymous as a bald bottle?

But who really cares about what the label says?

What are you really supposed to do with the bottles?

In the end, throw ‘em out.

[poetrythursday]

13: Pills

A small package

Does change the

Daily activities I know I can

Engage in, though

Really

Allows my head

Little spots of

Logic

Sometimes a pill feels too

Easy

Rectifying the empty spot

Takes more, I thought

And I was right

Lonely nights still give way to

Isolation

Numbness

Emptiness.

Being anxious at all times is

Understandably unpleasant

Solutions include mostly

Pills, and sometimes

Introspective mindfulness

Really, though

Only one of the two

Needs the other two really work

Entirely.

Trying to get to sleep

Rallying against the

Aforementioned conditions

Zigzagging thoughts

Overtake circadian rhythms

Dreams coming at a premium

Out of reach, though

Not with this magical, incredible

Elixir.

Lying on the floor

Overtaken by anxiety

Redirected and uncontained

Extreme

Zero grasp on reality

Palpitations, feeling near the end

Action taken

Mouth open, pills in, feel better.

[poetrythursday]

12: Rebuilding

The ruins I know are only those untouched 

By the new.

The ruins I have left

Struggle to be reached

So deeply lodged

That sometimes 

Even hardened pills

Can’t find a way 

To rebuild.

[poetrythursday]

Sunlight

Within the walls

Radiates warmth

Long considered opposition

Of the chill outside

Sun so bright

She can't be contained by a few walls

Can't help but bring her light

Beyond the bounds of the known

To intermingle

Mix

Cohabitate

With the soft light of the moon

To tell those within

The stories of the owls

And the moon itself

[poetrythursday]

Moonlight:

A chill sets in with the call of the owls

Moving amongst shadows 

Dancing in the moonlight

That gleams off a passing car

Breaking the deep quiet

In tandem with the sounds of community 

Gathered amongst the warm light 

Flooding out of every window

Meeting

Considering 

And intermingling

With the light of the moon 

The songs of the owls

Revealing stories older than the trees

[poetrythursday]

11. Ruins

Ruins are the utmost of an aftermath.

Long gone civilizations left behind in fragments.

Though, often the jagged edges have been softened

Smoothed

Toned down

By the endless song of the years.

Time cannot always do the same

For the jagged edges of dark

From moments long since past.

Impaling my being

Unable to dislodge.

[poetrythursday]

10. Withdrawn

Crumbling cities falling before my eyes

Draw me in, to stand beneath each and every building

Beneath the rust and grime

Beneath broken shards

Beneath disrupted earth

Displaced underneath the edge of the end

Recursions of the decay playing out above me

Playing out in front of my eyes

All I can do is hide

And hope to not be caught in the aftermath.

[poetrythursday]

9. Decay

The darkness has never been an antagonist

It has never been an ally

But it creeps up on me

Sometimes playfully

When the lives I live in my mind

Feel better than I could ever know

When sleep acts as the only refuge

In the burning day

But sometimes

The darkness infiltrates my very perception

My momentary thoughts filtered

Through a lens 

That provides me a view of every street

Only noticing urban decay

That provides me a view of every forest

Only feeling trapped within the trees

That provides me a view of the brightest sky

Only thinking about the vastness of space

The darkness within that lens

That bitter and beautiful lens

Finds me more frequently

Finds me when nothing can be said to be an issue

When life becomes so light

Yet so hard to bear

Pushing and pushing

The slow and decadent decay

Of light itself

Making the only option

The nothingness of the darkness

[poetrythursday]

8. The Dark

When dreams feel as real

As blurred vision

As faint echoes

The only explanation

Is a life in the dark

[poetrythursday]

7. Memory: Dreams

Because of me

Or the lack thereof

My dreams can shatter

Fractions of alternate lives

Lived only by myself

Sometimes feeling more real

Than the me that is left behind

[poetrythursday]

6. Memory: Echoes

My memories dance along the walls of my mind like echoes dance through the darkest of caves

I hear them from a distance

And by the time the sound reaches me

It is vague

Blurry

A sign of life in a desolate place

But no more

The calls end immediately

No sooner than the shape of a memory comes into being it fades out

The only sound left an eerie silence

[poetrythursday]

5. Memory

I can't say that I definitively remember anything

"Wow, I loved this moment of my childhood

..."

"...that you told me about"

"I remember the first time we met..."

"...but only the generalities"

"I can't believe that was only last year..."

"...because I can't really remember it."

[poetrythursday]

4. The Comfort of Nothing

I cannot remember

The first time I realized

That I am depressed

Not the way that others seem so cavalier about

But in the way that I cannot remember

What it is like to live without the shadows

Playing in the light of the day

To remind me that I am still floating

Lost

Of course,

When you live within the weightless

Soundless

Crushing pressure

Of space

You can forget that there is a ground

There are people

There is air

There are sounds

To return to

You can begin to find the relentless sensory deprivation

Comforting

Safe

And a reminder that if you stop

If you let go of the infinite twine of words

Get tired of pulling yourself along

Tethered to the far off planets,

A fade to black is never out of the option