This is about when my parents told us they were getting divorced nearly two years ago. I have one very vivid memory of the morning afterwards, so I decided to write a poem about it.

A Poem for the One Who Could Not Bear to Write One

In the hazy moment between sleep and waking,

I wonder if it was all a dream. It feels like the stuff of stories,

not of my life. I slide my hand across the soft sheet 

and find the edge of a crumpled piece of paper. My heart sinks. 

Echoes of a conversation last night, echoes of emotions I hid from them, 

from me. My hand grasps the paper

and I read through it one last time before I slip it into an envelope

to deal with when I’m older. I let my eyes close

and pretend to be asleep, so I don’t have to 

stumble through motions, talking around what we all know

we should be talking about.

Now, sitting on the edge of the same bed,

shedding the tears I didn’t dare shed back then,

putting into words the thoughts I had shoved down.

I write a poem for the one who could not bear to write one

who could not bear to see the truth of what was happening.

I write a poem for the one who laughed it off,

thinking it made them feel better.

Thinking it made us special.

I write a poem for the one who did not know enough to handle it.

I write a poem for the one who handled it anyways.

"Isn't it

Funny when

People think that

They know you better

than yourself?"

Doncha know, statistics can lie?

It just ain't me,

Still you stick to your numbers

Why can't you see?

'Statistics say: "girls like pink"

Statistics say: "girls like boys"

Statistics say: "girls don't like to think"'

Statistics say: "girls like Barbie toys"

To to me it's all been a lie,

None of those are me,

Now I don't even consider myself

To be a girl at all 

But what do you say?

'Statistics say: "girls want love"

Statistics say: "girls are-"'

But I interrupt,

"Shut up." 

~~~~~~~~~~~

The quote in Italics is from Halfy and Winks' song, Nothing but Free. :) 

There is a monster

Who dwells in the dark.

This monster grows

In pools of coagulating scarlet--

It thrives on scars and memories

And the masks we wear;

It prowls the shadows just beyond the eye

Smirking as it slinks silently 

Waiting for the moment we are most vulnerable

To truly stab its twisted claws --its gnarled fangs--

Right into bared flesh.

We fall, crying, sobbing, barely breathing

While tornados rip from our body -- pain.

For as we curse, it comes to be:

'Betrayal' is this monster's name. 

I cry, but go unheard;

This is the way it is meant to be.

For when rains come

We are told to smile

And the sun'll show up eventually.

I try to plaster my mask back on

Dying, dying, all along.

Paper and wood, tape and paste

A mockery and foreshadowing

Since it is all are made of things no longer living.

Lost I am, Lost I shall be.

As I try to stick on

What was never meant to be.

Sooner than they think,

My time will come, then forever-nothing.

They fall, alone and in the dark--

They fall, raindrops gathering on their brow-

They fall, to weary and worn for this life;

And so they fall, until all is gone. 

There's something out there:

Dark and misty and unreachable--

And yet it beckons me.

It lies beyond a veil one can never pass through twice

And yet I long to be on the other side. 

I see something glimmering, twinkling through the black.

I want to touch it, embrace it;

Escape this world of sound and motion and bustle,

Off to that Void that consumes all,

The only thing left being dark and tranquility.

I cannot ever seem to escape this Land,

though all do eventually.

Can I ever reach my Áit Dhorcha of peace and quiet --

My paradise? 

~~~~~~~~~~

Áit Dhorcha roughly translates to "Darkened place," in case you're wondering.

Cheeks sting

With tears not my own,

Feet bitingly cold;

Trudging, a nexus

Between cracked pavement

And the icy dark torrents of night.

It hurts, but what does it matter? 

I wonder if this is a kind of equilibrium?

A kind of bitter wind-born storm rising

From the tears of the poor people fleeing Ukraine

Half a world away? 

there's a girl in my gym class

who sits on the floor, 

crying, 

while my gym teacher ignores her.

he's immersed in the world of his clipboard,  

deaf to everything else. 

in the back of biology, 

a boy has a panic attack. 

no one seems to notice how his breaths are coming in

quick, 

quick, 

quick, 

gasps,

or the way his hands grip the table, 

as if it's the only thing tethering him to the world.    

why are those who need the most help,

the ones that slip through the cracks?

Eyes down --

Ignore that world of chaos;

It's just you in here.

Why does what happens out there matter?

It doesn't matter,

Not at all.

Everyone is alone in their little bubble,

Everything outside that bubble of light is dark,

All that happens in the dark is unseen and unheard.

Those out there,

Whose bubbles have popped --

Whose lights have gone out -- 

Will never be seen or heard.

Never. 

~~~~~~~~~~

A little response-poem to peppermint's most recent post.

Disclaimer: These are NOT necessarily my own personal opinions, just a possible opinion one could  plausibly hold.

I totally agree with peppermint and her/their(?) stance here, but also believe sometimes trying to probe the possibile mindsets that bind people into passiveness is an interesting, helpful way to rationalise and/or address more effectively the problem of negligent behaviour.

I can feel myself slipping away,

Some essence essential to a human

Dying off, like lilies in a glass jug --

Wilting in a glass jug, sung over

By the caged bird who understands

Both its own future likeness to the flowers',

As well as their shared trappedness. 

Sometimes I can feel it being drawn out

As if I am the human spindle,

And some enormous, invisible night-spider creeps,

Stealing away that silver light from me,

And yet as I stare listlessly into the dark of the ceiling,

I wonder if it could be put to better use elsewhere?

Will the woven fabric this web forms be

More beautiful and inspiring than anything I could ever hope to create?

But then I must wonder why the spiders spins not from the sky,

And I realise the stars and moon are but the pitiful remains,

All their silver tears and laughter and joy and beauty stripped away in strings

From that coloured tapestry, until they are so barren and weak for others' profit

That when I reach out to grab them; to comfort, or perhaps get comfort from them,

They wane and whimper as they slip past, flickering between my grasping fingers.

It is then I find, that I too am but a ghost now, a pale husk of what I used to be,

Never enough to reach the heavens. 

Never enough -- no --

Never enough at all. 

The trees are glazed with sugar, powder 

Accumulating as it falls,

Down,

Down,

Down.

It's funny how we don't think

"Oh, how beautiful nature can be!"

And rather turn our minds to

"Wow, it looks just like a painting!"

As if life mimics art, and not the other way around.

But now the sun has risen--

The charm breaks, and so does the cold-spell;

Suddenly the snow flakes off like dried paint,

Peeling of in clumps that hurtle towards the ground.

Perhaps life does mimic art too, though. 

Computations

Procedures

Rules

If this, then that

Hundreds upon thousands upon millions upon billions

Of computations each day

Regulate the current

Store all the files

Don't. Forget. Anything.

Repeat loops: do this again and again and again and again

Everything is the same

Everything is different

Pretending to be something I'm not

Not this logical, not this orderly

Do it anyway

Calculate the answers, the results

Don't. Forget. Anything.

Remember: Every. Single. Rule.

And don't tell them I'm not a computer

That I’m a person

I don’t want this

But I’ll complete the task anyway

Finish all of the computations and calculations

Though I’m not meant for this and never was

Don’t. Forget. Anything.

So I did post this already on the Poetry Contest Thread, so you may have seen it already, but what do y'all think? What could be improved?