Tag: free verse

Poem: Skin-tight clothes (brainwashed)

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Poem: Skin-tight clothes (brainwashed)

I saw, I saw that you were beckoning for the sea
(Told me you couldn’t swim, told me you couldn’t swim)
I stood there, pink ribbons in my hair, on an off-white, paint-faded ship
Thinking oh man, oh man
He thinks I’m going to dive in and save him

When I unravel, I am
Terrified
Of turning into you
I spit and scratch the walls so loud
I’m scared the world
Is made of you
I stick my tongue out
At the wrong crowd
Oh my god, I’m so alone
I come bleeding
To the ER
They say, I should just go home

Poem: Skin-tight clothes – brainwashed (continued)

I don’t want this to stop
Me from meeting someone
That would love bringing me flowers
By my bedside when I deeply sleep
I’ll never wake up
To daffodils
If you’re staying up late
Working on your manuscript

I hate your brown eyes
Because that’s my type
I don’t want this to stop
Me from meeting someone
I stick my tongue out
At the wrong crowd
Oh my god, I felt so completely alone
I stared at
My stupid phone
Like a teen
Like a naive little
Teen

Poem: Skin-tight clothes – brainwashed (continued)

I secretly, I secretly think you liked it all along
Pulling me left just to wreck the boat
Spilling my champagne and me nervously blaming it
On the musculature of my skeletal framework
What a girl, what awful weather
To spend with someone who’s complaining, had me thinking, “this is actually my favourite kind”
Lightning bolts
When the sky collapses like it’s angry
And bitter
Writing poetry
Months after
I secretly, I secretly think you adore all of this
You’d throw me to the eels if I didn’t know how to swim

But it was you deep down under the pouring, crashing waves
Tormenting your most refined, well-calculated grace
And I am one of the best swimmers this Earth has ever seen
But there came a moment where I could no longer see
Then, I could breathe, and you couldn’t hate me for it
So in love with the delusional chaos of the ocean
Oh, you hate it, oh, you must hate it
That I have a God that knows my full name

Poem: Skin-tight clothes – brainwashed (continued)

You think religion is a brainwashing force
Well, I think you over-dry your skin-tight clothes
I ran so hard I almost collapsed, and I started to laugh
So free, so free, should have seen me finally feel so free
Not attached to memories
Oh, you must hate it
That I can be my own blanket
That I can be a saviour
That I don’t need a faux promise or a parched favour

I saw you, perched over, frightened of the waves
You said let’s just leave, save this for another day
I pushed you in because I trusted the Earth
To swallow you whole and make you
Comfortable

That was a battle I truly lost
But God loves me, oh, you must have forgot

You must have forgot,
What a terrible thought
That I can be taken care of by something that’ll cleanse my brain

So brainwashed

Love poem: Fell back in love with me

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Love poem: Fell back in love with myself

I am, a dandelion that’s losing its ligules
A dandelion on the street
Stepped on, on repeat – bracing the wind, but falling apart
Missing my roots
Crying because I won’t be in a vehicle with my father ever again
But the koala-grey sidewalk embraces me like its only friend

Gasping, breaking, compact but fragile – for eternity
Not asking anyone to save me
Because rap songs taught me that’s commonly dismissed
Neglected and disposed of
(Why am I so delicate?)
I breathe it and I love it, but God please help me, I’m exasperated
I wear my orthodox cross like it’s the most expensive diamond given to a queen
Nobody ever suspects a thing

Love poem: Fell back in love with myself (continued)

A guy once bought me, the most beautiful fiddle leaf fig tree
That I picked out, of course
Girl knows her houseplants
My bedroom lacked the sunshine to keep my baby alive
I wept on the floor staring at its fallen brown pieces
Feeling like I was one of them
Breaking for eternity
Shrivelling up and no longer green, but serene
I swallow the ground whole with my desire to love more than I ever have before
Time, and time, again.

You know, a girl, who truly loves flowers
Never “gets used” to receiving them
Each time is special, savoured, like those commercials with women and chocolate
I stop walking every few feet to capture a flower
One day, a boy said to me, “do you have to stop every time”
That was the end of him and I
Of course, I do
That’s what happens when you’re in love with white, pink, red, yellow, and blue
The colours dash through your mind when you’re not scrolling on your phone
Remembering the hydrangeas from Venice Beach
The sunset blooms at the rose garden at the museum where you spent your birthday in your own solid company
Breaking in composite structures
Swallowing the rose petals on the ground

Love poem: Fell back in love with myself (continued)

The dandelions on the street
Say something on repeat

They love me, they live through me
They engulf quite the vast part of me
And every piece of their frail self that flies away with the breeze
Becomes deeply embedded within me
And I love it, like cotton
I roll it, like marbles
If I’m ever, forgotten

I hope botany never is

Love poem: Fell back in love with myself (continued)

I know a girl
That will never “get used” to flowers
So endlessly abundant but single-handedly make this life worth it

They love me, they love me
They live right through me
I walk on the concrete
Looking for myself

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Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick)

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Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick)

I think we’re
Not getting too wrapped up
I’ll get up soon
To turn the microwave off

I think we’re
Naturally not too wrapped up
I’ll get up later
To turn the microwave off

I scratched my leg violently on rose thorns
As if I would ever mind
It’s been a long time since
Brown eyes, green eyes
I hate when they turn hazel
Like an olive tree
Park my car on Chestnut avenue
It’s a longer walk but
I like the name
Burn it to see embers
Collect street signs
All the rose thorns in the world are allowed to scratch me
In fact, I’ll invite them with bliss
Using long, Bambi eyelashes

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick) [continued]

I think you would be
Friends with the quarterback
I never cared about football
We could make fun of
The way they drop the ball
(Again!)
Wearing their jerseys’ cos we like the material
So supportive
What a team effort
I clench my hands together because otherwise I think I’m going to lose my mind

I never really understood the concept of romance
Is it you buying me a vegan strawberry milkshake?
Dirt on my face at the park and you think I look pretty?
I have thousands of songs I’ve been dying to share
With somebody
They mean
Too much to me
To share, though
So I’ll
Keep them to myself
Out of bad habit
I’m the bad habit

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick)[continued]

Show up late and get there just on time
I wouldn’t get through security clearance with that
Type of ambivalence I could
Make a rosebud dream
Of grabbing me from the interior and
Turning me inside out
So the world could know
I wouldn’t get through security clearance like this

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick) [continued]

What’s that?
Is that romance
You getting me a vegan strawberry milkshake?
That I put in the fridge
To enjoy my second half the very next day
Laughing to myself
Sharp edges soften
My shampoo smells lovely
I can’t get through security clearance like this

An olive tree
Okay, I’ll be an olive tree
If you pick me
Okay,
I’ll be an olive tree
If you choose me

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Not a love poem: Swan lake memories

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Not a love poem: Swan lake memories

Butterflies flying into me, crashing lightly
You told me my skin was soft, and though I knew it to be true,
I felt in part indebted to you.
Like I couldn’t carve out a space
Large enough to climb into
Show you why your dreams are just make-believe

Not my responsibility to teach anybody anything
Because who do I think I am
Easily tan, have Swan Lake memorized & I do pirouettes in my dining room
I still remember the dress I planned to wear
Continues to hang on the shelf
I don’t look in that specific direction

A poem that is not a love poem because it doesn't have a happy ending, or an ending at all.

Not a love poem: Swan lake memories (continued)

Exhausted from doing nothing at all
About how your bad habits look even worse when I look into a microscope
Focusing on school
Highlighting my study materials
No, not you – there, waiting for me,
Opening the door
Letting me cry
Telling me you liked how I felt safe.

I want to hate the trees you like, but there are so many in every place I’ve visited in the last year, and I feel weak when I want to photograph them because they’re so beautiful, and memory plays in time-lapse frames to make me feel sick and dismal with its reminders.

I feel weak anyway
I know the neuroscience of loss, but who I wanted to be I forgot
You make me weak, you made me vulnerable
I loved it and I hated it
I retained it
Delicate like a fine-point pen drawing insects on your arm that isn’t covered in tattoos
I wish I could hate you

Not a love poem: Swan lake memories (continued)

I’ll move like a moth, I think you forgot
The area code that leads to a postcode
That leads to a telephone wire on an absolutely fragrant fire
In the middle of the city, and the chaos causes lawsuits
We like it because we’re in trouble
Playing tag in the backyard of your grandparents’ house
I miss the smell of hydrangeas
That changed colours
When they felt like it, like I do

I feel weak in places I didn’t know were part of me
When I see a tree
That makes me think, he must be there
Sitting pleasantly
Wasting his life without me

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Love poem: This is why

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Love poem: This is why

You are, shorter than my father
So maybe our babies
Could be small enough to fit in our pockets
Even when they want to leave the nest
(We won’t let them)

I am, not frail – but delicate
Have cuts all over my legs from traversing the wild hills that scrape the fields you envy when you drive past the street I’m claiming as my own for the evening
I’m alone in my own portal, and I’m trying to show this dog an earthly Heaven
Things don’t go as planned
Born in September, so plans for me are fun to make
And I wildly bake
In the crisp and fallen ashes of a crocodile fire
Lit by a herd of wild animals
That nobody else says were there

Love poem: This is why (continued)

I don’t, behave
On Wednesdays
A childlike ambience to my default state of
Cradling myself in bed and only coming out to feed
I am, unsure of who in my surroundings is fond of me
It’s something I push to the back of my tired brain
Don’t think about it, don’t analyze
This concept has yet to make sense
I do like when I wear a lilac top and these black shorts
To swim through fields of wheat mixed in with golden, sombre flowers
Holding my baby darling like a waterfall
She doesn’t, behave
On Mondays nor Tuesdays

And I
Love
Spilled oat milk
As it reaches my carpet & seeps in between the fabric
I lay on the ground
Thinking of how
He lied to me when he said he thought of me while writing those songs
It was just for the sake of conversation
When you find out someone’s romantic, so you play the role
That’s not how I want life to go

Love poem: This is why (continued)

I want nonchalance with a secret tendency to dramatize
That complements my inherent practicality and
Choice to turn this car around on the freeway by moving over the cement blocks that divide the different directional paths
Will I scare you like that?
Do I have to?

I have, two weeks to myself
Though filled with doctor appointments & studying for an exam that will
Determine where I go in life from here
To me, that’s thrilling
And you, are spilling

Oat milk in my kitchen, and it’s dripping
Making its way to the carpet
So I’m laughing
Because you’re obnoxious
But deeply honest

And this is why you and I are where ends meet

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