Pragya Ranjan

Jul 2020

Harsh

I had this notion of wanting
to be more like oldself–
not more like myself, because myself
has become too sad and too hurt;
I remember oldself being so much more.
But where does one look for one's oldself?
It's not like I just hanged it out to dry
or hung it up on the wall next to a poster.
No, oldself has been scattered and beaten,
tossed along the path of nostalgia.
Bits of oldself linger among
sketchpads and sneakers, SEGA
and Lego sets and Star Wars.
It's back there with s'mores and scouts
and bonfires and books and
the belief that the big, blue world
was a place where dreams came true.
Oldself thinks that optimism
is the only option, myself makes a
note to self: that matter mostly
isn't true, as a matter of fact.
I can't always see oldself, it's buried
beneath six feet of dirt, gossip and rumors;
there's tons of stress and anxiety weighing
on its chest, dressed in a halcyon suit.
Oldself never used to worry
like myself does so often nowadays
but he also couldn't sing like myself can.
He had a wilder imagination than
myself could ever conceptualize,
yet I've exceeded so many of the dreams
that oldself had for my future self.
I often think to myself: what would
Oldself think if Oldself met myself?
And although I may not have turned out
exactly how Oldself envisioned myself,

I've grown and learned from Oldself
and now I'm proud of myself– a place
that my old self never thought I would be.

#love #heartbreak #life #memory #depression #nostalgia #progress #pain #childhood #growth

Jul 2020

Malak S

Black & Blue

I painted my wrists black and blue hoping the colors indicated the underlying emotions locked up in 4 chambers spewing blood and oxygen throughout my body
The dotted lines told a story of so much loss, you wouldn’t believe it unless you were there.
Sometimes the blade found its way, creating an opening with rich, wine-like blood oozing from a scratch and sometimes I had a hard time holding back but I always did because I never want to exist in a world that does not contain you.
Sometimes my insides burn up and I don’t know how to extinguish the flames that eat me alive, leaving nothing but char.
Sometimes the flowers growing around my lungs threaten to suffocate me and I can’t help but continue to water them because I don’t want anything else to wither and decay.
Sometimes your words drip like honey and I allow my tongue to lick every letter because I am head over heels for the sweetness that is you.
Sometimes my legs walk me to the finish line but my thoughts take me back to the starting point because nothing ever makes sense and there are multiple of options for why something might be the way it is, and all I want is for you to hold me.
Sometimes I’m feeling blue and black, while other times I’m the rest of the colors imbedded in a rainbow. I blow in full force blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, making you wish that I remain a sustainable part of your life.
I painted my wrists black and blue and reminded myself that my worst nightmares are nothing but that; nightmares.
I am the stars and I’m a field of roses swaying with the wind and I might flow against your sea but I’m asking you to caress my petals and be cautious of my thorns; as sharp and pure as I look, poison still seeps beneath my smooth, marked skin, and I am not aware of the damages my broken heart might ever create.

#emotions #love #heartbreak #ache #selfworth

Jun 2020

Kelly Rose

Another Sleepless Night

Another sleepless night
3am, a bit beyond
the witching hour

A time of quiet reflection
Remembering dreams lost
& Creating dreams to be

Thinking of past sorrows
Anticipating tomorrow's
Joys

Another sleepless night

Contemplating Life's mystery
And
Marveling at the
Wonder of it all...

2/8/2015
KetomaRose

Jun 2020

Joyce

I Am Not A Stranger To Sleepless Nights

When, instead of cozying in bed
I wander out there with Kerouac,
Imagining that I am Kerouac
Or some slave who walks upright;
Or a priest without a crowd
With hands and feet tied.
When, instead of snoring like hell,
I am left unimaginative by some;
I am making disgusting Love with shadows unknown
And remain pinned against the wall.
I am some nine year old senile who wets her bed
in fear and disbelief.
Lights flicker and then fade
And the switch becomes a button pressed to send
Someone in raving comfort.
I am not a stranger to sleepless nights
Even when night becomes noon.
Nightmares haunt me no more but I
Am left haunted by my bed.
Sheets crumpled by tossing and turning.
My bed does not recognize my warmth.
Voice recordings and constant tweetings
Pump blood to my Über active head.
Sleepless nights are well received as my body
Succumbs to sleep.
I live in a different world with five hundred other names
And the ten thousand other Me’s are all in disarray.

(And when the clock chimes at one, two, three ‘til way down six,
There’s a carnival of sorts with hair strands flailing like
Seven sets of arms.)

I am not a stranger to sleepless nights
And wetting my bed is not a Sin.
I am sinful beyond recognition, as my bed is my witness.
I have had different beds
But to me, they’re all the same.
Some, soft; others, too hard
Or covered in satin, exaggerated by the moonlight. Some, made of wood
While others, with tight springs.
Water’s absurd but so is steel.
Double padding, triple linings, four feet, at times, none;
There’s the car, the guest room, the floor, hospital bed,
A seat next to a complete stranger ---
I make my bed before sleeping
And leave it when I’m done.
I am not a stranger to sleepless nights
And I jump on the bed at midnight.
I am not a stranger to morning tides and the morning shows on TV.
I’m not a stranger at all, no,
And when I sleep, I sleep in peace.
Stranger things have happened
Noons and sudden weekends are no way sleep - inducing; I am left believing
That nights and days dance in my
Sleeplessness.

Jun 2020

Sachin Jain

Sleepless Nights

2 AM and I lie awake,
thinking as the time goes by,
yet another wakeful sleepless night.
I dream of ghosts and wake-up screaming,
tears in my eyes
yet another wakeful sleepless night.
I want to go in dreamless slumber,
when will I get that I wonder
yet another wakeful sleepless night.
I have my troubles and my mind a rubble,
and at 2 AM I lie awake,
thinking as the time goes by,
yet another wakeful sleepless night.

Jun 2020

Jordan Frances

On Falling in Love With An Assault Survivor

Advice on falling in love with an assault survivor
The first time you look at them
They will do one of two things.
They will either not look you in the eye
Out of fear that your passion will burn them
After all,
The last time another's eye stared through their paper skin
They caught on fire.
Or this person may stare straight back into your pupil
As though they are staring death straight in the face
There is no in between with a survivor
They will either move too fast or not at all
But their trust is the petal of a daisy in the desert
Withered and delicate as you touch them for the first time
You cannot expect warmth from something so broken
For survivors train themselves to ignore the ghost in their heads
But that demon will always show up
And when they finally let you undress them
You undress their monster as well
As you remove articles of clothing
Their body begins to freeze over
And the spirit they could once hide and stow away
Is now at the forefront of everything.
They train themselves to have *** with the lights off
Because should a fleck of brightness reveal an eye
A nose
A mouth
The face of their abuser will fill in the rest
They do not want you to see their body
For the scars leave train tracks of the places they've been
Crawling in fields of thorns
Wrapping themselves in knives
Swallowing perceived sanity in the form of a pill
They will not always be okay
Because in their mind they are constantly at war
With an enemy ship that retreated long ago.
To everyone around them, they are a martyr
They have won the battle
But in their mind
They are a fallen soldier
Who can't stop hearing their own gunshots fire
Into the chest of their opponent.
Falling in love with an assault survivor
Is agreeing to watch parts of them
Go up in flames
Over and over again
And picking up the ashes they leave behind.

Jun 2020

Johnnie Rae

Philosophy

I spend so much time staring at blank canvases
hoping beauty will appear before me instantly
that I forget how the right brain works.
I forget how art doesn't come, it simply is;
you either have it or you don't.
These are talents you don't learn, can't learn.
You're born with the instinct to string words into sonnets
and mix paints into masterpieces, and most of the time,
no one else is capable of understanding just how you got them
to be what they are; it's your own personal daydream
that you can choose to get lost in, or lose in the crevices
in the back of your mind. That's why I write until
my hands go numb and my mind is in shambles.
I figure the more I do it, the better it will become.
The brain is more than an *****. It's a muscle that requires
constant manipulation to keep it in tip-top shape
and I don't ever want to fall into the background.
I want to spend my life tip tapping on keyboards and
scratching at paper with fine tipped pens as if my life
depended on it. To write of things unknown to the
not-so-artsy types. Because I've come to find that
a math or science major isn't usually capable of creating
crescendos with wordplay, or letting syllables shimmy
and shake off the tongue like they're doing the merengue.
It's a song and dance that takes more than simple muscle-memory:
it takes heart and soul and usually a little bit of pain along the way.
Starving artists aren't sad because they're hungry,
no, it's usually because they've experienced life in a way
that no one really wishes to. They've felt emotions rip through them
like tidal waves and that's how they came to write so **** beautifully,
or paint with such depth. Now a day's with depression levels
shooting up like rockets, outlets are hard to come by
but if you can source that pain into something beautiful,
you must be doing something right.
It's come to a point in my life where I believe half of my blood
is infused with the ink I've used to label my hurt
and ease my pain.
It's all about what gets you by; it's become a lifeline.
If it keeps me breathing for another
second, another minute, another hour, another day,
then I might as well let it grow like wild fire. Let it blossom into something beautiful.