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ash Aug 18
breaking:
a poet's try at uncovering the depths of conveying,
will they be able to—
or die and turn missing?



they've messed up what the actual book looked like,
now it's become 101 ways to show and disguise.
it's methodological,
not worth following,
yet they've become walking fools,
need people to guide them.

it starts like the flicker you feel
before a moment that begins,
opening up to a new feeling,
like before starting a book you don't know yet—
will it heal, hurt, or stay with you
as a memory or the haunting truth?

one whose ending isn't so clear.
i haven't read the summary,
or the genre,
or what people might think of it.
i still hold it dear.

the unpredictables are exciting.
i walk through chapters,
pausing on the torn pages,
moving on hoping it'd make sense,
stitching my own words during the lost stages.

what is this blurb of my story meant to look like?
i wouldn't write my own prologue,
if you handed me the choice.

keeping egos aside,
only if they'd talked to listen,
it wouldn't have seemed so childish,
couldn't have ended as a lost forbidden.

i'll start ignoring the truths
the moment it becomes one among psychology.
finding reasons, of all the felonies we commit,
it only spoils it—
whatever does seem to exist.

and not to mention,
reasoning tires me out.
i could save your name,
only you've promised to drain me out.


trend o' one:

the language over screen
is hard to be read unless you think like me.
so i say and regret,
knowing it isn't seen through.

the irony of being looked at the surface,
and never tried hard enough to find depth into.
it's comical, how we tend to give up—
half written, still typing, just deleted,
the unsent parts carrying all the weight
that eyes can't seem to convey or confess.

we'll just profess an undying nature of this bond
over stories and over chats.
it's messy, it's disguised.
turns out it's fake,
only for the time.

trend o' two:

"hold me close"
but i let go.
the grip slips,
my hands between yours.
our palms are sweaty,
i stare at you
as you look behind me,
and i know this is how it has turned out to be.

i'll look over your shoulder,
you'll give me a glance.
suddenly it's detachment fighting
the whatevers that kept us attached,
slowly you let go, and i can't seem to mend.

sweaty, slipping, holding, missing—
if there were only hands that existed,
would you convey through the grip,
or the phantom of drawing?
touch, absence, pull, drop—
is it a game,
a give and take,
or something worth yet despised?

trend o' three:

i sleep most nights alone,
often feeling you slip right behind me,
holding me close,
from isolating all i am,
all that i want,
and all i can be.
you leave behind breadcrumbs—
half spoken text,
misspelt jokes,
questions i ought to answer to.
words that are never meant to seek
so suddenly you fade,
then you return.
the messages are spammed,
the glances double up.

you look at me
and i know you're trouble.
from being sole to being bombed,
your love seems more like a time ticking machine,
and less of something i truly want.

i speak in fragments,
leaving behind unresolved tension.
and it doubles up,
accompanies you and i everywhere we go.

cut-off speakings,
you don't let me continue.
you need the attention,
i deny letting yours deter,
wanting it on me whole.

i hide the truth,
give away half-baked details,
keep what would help me feel understood.

for i know it doesn't stay.
heard from one ear,
you push it away,
keeping close whatever could help you.

might make you make me steer closer.
you ought to learn close,
if you wish to hear
what i don't speak of.

trend o' four:

halfway met conditions
and broken promises,
ones never spoken out loud,
but i'd kept them,
for they'd existed in the silence
and in the meanings.

turns out,
we're dolls hooked to puppet strings,
being controlled, our every whim.
the decision is theirs,
as the society directs and clears
whatever pathways you and i ought to take and wear.

it wasn't ever love,
a broken, chosen, inevitable belief
that simply had to come true.
this is a stage play.
we're dressed up,
the puppeteer is you, me, society, family—
or mere glitch of time
and faint suicidal memories?






every belief over up
hid a secret,
an unspoken acrostic,
reading it backwards,
ones that didn't match the tone.

it's rightly unsaid,
meant to say,
i said so.

i'll reframe it for the ones reading cosmic.
we orbit, they eclipse,
the satellites mispronounced,
the black hole is ridden in misspelled.

the coordinates almost always missed,
make it seem bigger than just reading—
a piece so intellectual, so pronounced,
it feels like leaving.

i'll anchor it down.
what's your love language?
is it pronounced?
convert them to the seven sins—
would you relate,
dare to point them out?

i've got the comfort book,
the dictionary of dreams,
a brief history of time,
and the tale of the grimms.

none of them hold anything close
to what i write.

there's five proven languages,
and i put forward them parallel to the seven sins—
warped, distorted, weaponized.
this isn't my doing,
but of the one who said
it ought to be humanized.

love o' sin
pride, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, and wrath
and so i take them on, put them to map.


i.
affirming what's meant
to make you feel better,
compliments dipped in honey,
serving echoes of how you didn't wish
to let it tether.

then why does it feel more like a chain
and less of a bind?
not so delicate either,
why do you force me out of this mind?

like there's pride in owning,
every you're mine,
isn't loving.



ii.
i'll do this for you
acts of service
seems to be fantasized.
but would you—
why it seems almost like masking, neglecting.

saying you care and you would,
i see you avoid and distance.
and when you can, so you do.
a way to not show up in emotions.

you seem vacated, distance,
almost like a sloth, speaking ******.



iii.
and perhaps giving and receiving—
thought of you, bought this.
is it the opposite?
bought you, thought of this.

equating all that i feel with possessions,
not having to describe,
oh i'm left with devotion.

the tokens feel like proofs,
but to whom?
the world doesn't care,
yet you demand i hold.

is it greed, pride combined even more?
where feelings could have spoken,
you exchanged presents as bespoken.



iv.
and then i skip to spending—
anchoring  time's quality, the clocks,
all of them stopping at the same pointed dots.

jealous of the hours
spent so further apart,
yet when it's together—
why does it feel forced,
suffocated, you and i?

we hold despite the minds,
as if it's envy,
from those who find it easy.

wanting every second of yours,
possession tying inescapable knots.



v.
and what of touch—
hold, grip, grasp, bite,
until it bleeds,
and suddenly it's a good night.

reducing it to hunger,
like gluttony
but i know yet another.

there's connection, there's the threads,
the white ones turning red.
it has become consumption.

i need to breathe you in,
lust devours affection.


vi.
shall i add another two?
silence, existing without having to show,
or to prove—
not performing but you stay.

except it's withdrawal,
and the need of wanting it sole,
like the perfect doll.

greed, pride,and unmistakable wrath,
detachment has become a weapon,
punishment you give through absence.



vii.
attending to me over the notch,
consuming it all, in excess,
and watching it get lost.

the meanings, everything fast forwarding,
love-bombing—too much, too fast, too hollow.

living in the extremes,
gluttony—does it ever feel too narrow
of a path to take?


it ends like a flicker you feel
after a moment that has reached its ending,
closing into the final moments of the beginner’s feeling,

like after ending a book,
one where you realised just where it stood
and it hurt, it healed, it definitely stayed—

both as a memory,
and a haunting truth.


zooming back out on you,
a little cynical,
little fragile,
little clinical.

i'm merely dissecting the trends online,
you term it the seven sins of love.

a matter of hours multiplied with days.
what's promised to hold shouldn't disappear,
yet it leaves like a ghost,
of all the phantoms that promised to reappear.

so i get night terrors
of finding it incomplete.
and it hasn't gone along as i hoped.

where did it go?
honest is the best policy.
have i poured it in,
a little lethal?

would you go as far
as to call me illegal?

you make it seem so seasonal,
as if it's meant to come and go.

but affection has always been
one that ought to be pursued—
only if you find it enough to build a home.

and it gives into a lot,
a lot more messy.
they term it love,
it's just situations encompassing.

a cherished another,
your seemingly only forever.
so why give in to the trends,
when you could hum it over the radios,
find it in the stars,
and preach it to the gods,
making sacrifices
to make it and them, solely yours.

breaking:
flash mob,
house with no mirrors
and a broken door.

it has been proven time and along,
trends of affection as they are,
for the time being, a rotten core.

so the poet sits and smiles
as they follow and play—
make believe.
hoping they'd stop the disguise,
marking, copying
and simply agree.

taking a respectful dig at the modernized beings preaching of love & devotion
y'll need to get an understanding of what truly is affection


cue genz.
What of a love unspoken?
A mutual feeling, both parties are too scared to name?
Can it live without a title?
Or will it cause pain if claimed?

What is a love unspoken?
Deep conversations in the dead of night,
The moonlight revealing the man under the bravado.

Something with slight glances,
And smiles,
His words are truth,
A reflection of him,

The best of him,
And his love,
Unspoken,

Where in this moment,
Love is enough for him to give,
And nothing even matters outside the world that we’ve created.

What of our love unspoken?
Are all your actions intentional to keep this sacred thing going?

Can it continue to bloom in secrecy when the world attempts to spoil it?

What of our love unspoken?

Will a title to this unknown love halt the growth of something beautiful?

Will it die as heartbreak, and named?

Left to the wind to rot in silence,
As we pretend that nothing happened with halfhearted, unimpressed glances?

What of this love unspoken?
Untitled but noticed
Simple yet wonderful
And to my knowledge
Final

I know that love is complicated,
But my heart speaks with honesty on this bond formed in secrecy,
It's truth when I say our hearts were destined one day to be,

What of a love unspoken?
A reflection of Tupac's "What of a Love Unspoken?"
Kalliope Mar 13
You can't figure me out?
The picture on the box is clear
Piece me together, take your time
Frustrations rise
Pieces are bent
Impatience is high
And my pieces are lost
I thought I'd stay displayed on the coffee table forever,
I never imagined I'd be taken apart over and over again,
A temporary conquest to be shoved back in the box
Alice Tinari Sep 2024
Your father written all over you  And I don't even know you yet  Let's participate in a high-speed chase to the swimming pool  And pretend my chest stayed in my triangle bikini  Washed yesterday!   I’m wearing a bikini  In front of a boy I've only touched the finger tips of
On accident   I could pose and POSE and pose   With every lick of a mollar  Through all my years of fiction  I've never gnawed on the open house   As I tap dance across the breakfast table   And eat ice cream from your hand   Which is totally absurd and completely senseless  
And somehow quite redundant  
I've had a dream about this
I've had a
And you're in your boxers  And I’m not spiteful I don’t look like you
I’d do again
Would you- ?
I’ll leave in 15
Alice Tinari Sep 2024
what to do when you’re ugly but have good chemistry
1. think about all the good talks
2. find him in the crowd
3. watch him find you in a crowd and perhaps snicker
4. lick elbow to elbow (if he allows)
5. walk behind him hoping he’ll hear the carefully placed quiet footsteps you’ve laid out
6. smile dearly when you don’t completely hear him
7. love him even after a clear disappointment
8. stop searching for him
9. cry about it talk about it laugh about it
10. it’s you you are okay and you were okay even before
11. it’s okay for him to like you and not say and it’s okay for him to not like you and say
12. find out results (probs by day forty)
13. don’t **** yourself figuring it out
Odd Odyssey Poet Aug 2024
Imposed by a scent of the back chatter,
behind the air of the hair tucked by your ear
once a soul that was merely an imposter
The intense pleasure continues on- waking up
to the sound of dawn; under the thinnest of clouds
thin as butter- as the sunlight spreads across
The edge of their world; as like two legs spread apart
with a promise of a night filled with wet love
Two lips are meeting in the yellow shivers, beneath
the huge gems of eyes, that hold out a jewelled pleasure

The two resting upon a bed made out of barley;
filled in intoxicating lines of brand-new sheets-
The smell of regret only shows as the rise of after cigarettes
The towers of greying tired eyes; numb under the tomb’s
excrete- the cold breathes of kissing with a cold heart,
lifts the fur of a lion’s haunches

***** buckled by the belt wrapped around one’s desire
at another attempt- it’s no stranger, then the grave on
the tongue of a perfectly dead conversation
And about then, he wonders how could he go back to
the past, once where they were just casual friends…
Wayward Sep 2023
You're not mine and I don't want you to be.
But I want to claim your attention like a trophy.

It's not love, but it's something new.
Not many would understand what's between me and you.

Your kisses caress my skin softly,
And leave a trail of burning desire as I moan breathlessly.
I crave your touch and to feel you against me.
What is this forbidden dance of passion and fantasy?

Yet I do not dare to question this mystery.
I let myself enjoy our bodies moving in harmony.

No, you're not mine, and I don't want you to be.
Yet what is this gnawing feeling that grows inside me?

I tell myself not to think too much.
But you always know how to make me blush.

I let a tear drop fall at the thought of the fate of of us.
Not daring to question what we are or make a fuss.
Situationships in pretty words I guess.
C E Ford Dec 2022
your floor is ******* filthy.

i can hear you in the background behind me
saying my name the way you curse
hold it in your mouth, hot
spit it out
watch it burn,
embers flying through the smallest gap in your teeth.

you stare hard at me,
maybe to see where the sparks catch
hoping one lands on my face
or in my eye,
whichever will move my gaze from the floor
to you.
but i can't.

i'm still looking at your gross ******* carpet.
it's all i can focus on,
a stained oriental with crunchy grey tassels
that i can only assume used to be white.

i'd like to ask you about it,
but it's not my turn for questions.
i'm not sure if i'll even get one
before the curtains catch flame.

so i sit there,
silent, fireproof
waiting for you to finish using
each and every wrong
ever done against you
as kindling
for the anger you feel towards me.

i think it upsets you
that i can't get burned anymore,
but you still sit
white hot,
ashen gray rings around your eyes
asking why i just won't catch.

you're breathing smoke from your nostrils,
but you're no dragon.
you're a book,
451 pages of relation
and situationships
and drunk texts
and missed calls
from cleaning ladies
and therapists,
angered that you
ever caught spark
from my ashes
and burned.
Caution: Some are more flammable than others. Handle with care.

This is the first thing I've fully written in almost three years. Thanks for helping me shake the rust off.
Renae Aug 2021
"How can you love me?"

I said

"You hardly even notice
I exist"

"You're not perfect"

He said

"Stop trying so hard
to please me"
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