S E Pope

S E Pope Apr 9

I only notice everything I am not
The lesser self
The body that rots

I've come to despise the person I am
The hollow existence
The mind that rants

I succumb to this shell that I have become
The tunneled vision
The nothing expands

S E Pope Apr 1

In The Shadow of The Arch

Little planetary girl
Made of metal from the air
She watches poison quietly float
To the ground where she walks barefoot

Loud steel factory town
It's home to the most beautiful sunsets around
Over a river and a chain of rocks
There's a city separated by polluted blocks

She's a bright green wide-eyed dreamer
She has a mind that only sees the future
Skyscrapers are kissing stars in the distance
While she has visions of a different life between cigarettes

We all know change is only a bridge away
It's twenty miles to a boarding airplane
But these hallucinations are soaked in a sulfuric stench
And screeching trains clog all the exits

Jaded little starlit girl
Behind the Arch awaits the whole world
Don't let this home become another bad habit
The city is calling from behind the granite

S E Pope Mar 24

Dead Flowers

I do not dream
About butterflies
Over the moors
In the spring

I have no despair
Over rotten
Flowers that died
Plucked to be free

I crave the sparks
That ignite
My mind which
Steeps in gasoline

S E Pope Mar 20

The Autopsy of My Lover

I imagine when
They opened your chest
To find the cause
Of your unexpected death
They found my heart in place of yours

The first incision
Was made in error
I’m the one that bled
All over the clean floor
A whisper blew past my lips that said "don't go"

The heart that I stole
Weighed heavy from desire
I'll cling to it for eternity
For the all the months we let slip by
They found the holes I screamed into your lungs

Time is not a thief
Only grief can steal
The stars from my eyes
I don't know how you were ever real
Diamonds fall for you all the time

I keep waiting
On a text or call
That you're heading home
Not in a dark steel box on the wall
This isn't the life I imagined for us

They cut into you
And took everything I loved
The tattoos on your cold skin
Were the only thing left to touch
I'm stained with longing for someone who was

You breathed life
Into my blood with ease
I died when you died
Fizzled away into the leaves
A gust of wind ****** out my oxygen

Pieces of flesh
Slowly removed from me
They learned what I already knew
Cause of death undetermined
They found your hands still reaching

They sewed you back together
Finality struck deep in my soul
I’ll be crying for ten years
Struggling to survive ten more
They have no idea what you deserved

Forced to accept
That you were picked from the tree
Who knows who cares
They stitched me into your body
*My life becomes a mask that time demands

S E Pope Mar 16

Morning Coffee

I brought a coffee
To my working husband
His friend said
"I need to get me one of those"
Meaning me
Not the coffee

I am a thing
Not to be spoken to, but
Spoken about
Some thing to achieve
A status symbol of happiness
That which we are not

I brought a coffee
To my husband because
He asked me to
Not out of my own free will
As he lead this friend to believe
Only because it was asked of me

Another request fulfilled to
The boss who pays my salary with a roof
And some walls
It seems to be what I'm owed
While I am the home
Making coffee for us both

Only a better woman than me
Some thing still to be achieved
A simple perpetuated lie
Making coffee every morning
Would live up to be "one of those"
And have brought it on her own

S E Pope Mar 15

The Life and Death of Mr. True

There's a man I used to know
His name was Mr. True
Down on his luck
He always had the blues

An innocent man
Living an honest life
He thought he was good
Believed he was right

According to Mr. True
He had nothing left to lose
So he drank from a cup
That promised the truth

Seeing things for what they are
His eyes shot open
Revealing a better life ahead
He didn't have to be broken

One little sip
Sent a shock to his crown
Dread fell from his mind
A new path was found

The cup sat empty
Mr. True opened his eye
Spirals of the oblivion
Taught him all about the lies

He stared at that cup
Feeling the beat of his heart
Mr. True, he flew
And knew just where to start

All eyes open
And a clean road ahead
He lived up to a name
That he used to dread

Mr. True, he knew
His journey had reset
A lesson only learned
From the truth of his death

S E Pope Mar 14

Lost To A Dream

There's something peaceful
And comforting
About going to sleep
When the birds
Are waking up
And starting to sing

I feel a sense
Of calm
Wash over me
As the sun rises
I am filled
With relief

There are so many
Poems that fade away
As I fall asleep
I wonder how much
Beauty has ended up
Just a dream