Powder blown–

Whisked through empty streets–

Grey drab indolence 

Settling its cold marble fingers

Into the city's core.

Shall she escape, to see a brighter day?

Or sink into a sea of ink

As per the wishes of this monstrous bay? 

Dimly phosphorescent—

Ever-present—

Creeping in the dark,

Beyond

The light of your eyes,

Of sludge, spawned

To be a creature of the Night

Far from the sharp sword of human sight;

Caged bars cannot be more trapped

Than their hapless pray

Nor allowed more than their bound innards

Mercilessly slay.

How can bars ever truly contain

What lies within?

When they take up such little

Space on the plane they tie in,

Into the cords that bind our brains --

Paint us inflexible, and stiffen our frames.

Why so limited

When that is but little of what there is to see?

What little flickering light

Iron cages hold to the blaring of the free.

Memories

And thoughts

Are like scars, he says;

They'll fade unless

You carve

Them deeper, before

They disappear

Forever.

Only then

Will they grow

Stronger.

Deeper. 

Thicker.

Better.

Only then

Will you remember. 

Please remember. 

Broken people

In a broken town,

Struggling to stay afloat

But sinking, so close, about drown

How can shattered wings

Ever truly stay aloft?

When will life finally rest give,

In the quiet, calm and soft? 

Treetops blur

Under the lights of the city--

The constant bussle,

A calm but chaotic sea.

The night is bright

With artificial light,

Throught the darkness piercing

The stars' fragile sight.

Broken windows, red and yellows

Hollow flock together,

Shine and shimmering, against stark

Surgical white.

Bricks and concrete and cement

Belie

The coldness of sun gone 

And soon 

The sounds are lost to far-off winds,

But the bright are not,

And shall stand in time to win. 

you ask me to describe myself, 

and so I do. 

"smart, creative, obedient, enthusiastic," 

I say, 

listing off those same words scrawled across progress reports, 

threaded through parent teacher conferences, 

stamped on my resume.

they are adjectives that have been pounded into me,

written across my skin with a thin red marker,

words embedded in the award certificates hanging on my door, 

but you shake your head at my answer.  

"don't tell me how they have described you," 

you say. 

"I want you to describe youself."

and it's funny how fast my words slip away, 

as soon as you ask me to use my own, 

because I have always been told exactly who I am, 

and what I am good at, 

and where I will go,

that nothing about me anymore really seems my own.  

I'm in an emotional fog this weekend, which is where this came from. There may be more. '~'

~~~

So many thing that I used to be

And I wake up late with familiar dreams

Projections of places I once called home

Shadows of people I’ve seen before

All these things were once my life

Now they’re only pictures behind stormy eyes

Tossed by waves and wondering

If I shouldn’t turn back and walk through

Those islands I’d long left behind

Before they are beyond reach

In deep recesses of memory

And if we should go back

After coming so far apart

If the distance we reach tears us the same

Or set our sights ahead and remain whole

Knowing we can’t turn back

And we’ll never truly be mended

If we don’t remember

If we’re never torn apart

We had to do acrostics in my ELA class so this was mine. As always feedback is not just welcomed but encouraged.

Shards of glass like

Heartbreak

And crystalline

Truth

Torm to pieces 

Ever broken

Rending

Existences
in

Desperation

looking at yourself from third person pov

sometimes i forget how it feels to be alive

with goosebumps on my legs and a biting bug of ambition in my gut

where i can let go of the quietness and become calm

and i can look up at a popcorn ceiling and imagine stars

because once i was often in wonder of them 

and a glimpse of that curiosity has peeked through

for a moment i will step away from the sameness of my everyday

and become the person i promise myself i still am

with a song on my lips and hopes in my hands

and true life in my veins that will fuel something worthwhile