lifethrupoems

I had a breakdown

At the bus stop

I can laugh and

Shrug it off

Reason it away

PMS, it was cold

I can pretend

It wasn’t the feeling

Of being left behind

Ignored and scared

Bus drivers fly by

Couples meander away

Intertwined, leaving

Me with silence alone

Its ok, I’m good

At hiding weakness

Tears fall quiet

Locked behind glass

I hide shuddering

With facade of laughter

Joking into a phone

With no one on the other side

Masks have many uses

They protect me from world

And protect world from the

Force of my sadness

I stand still, a pillar

Call out to no one

Because I cannot

Will not be weak

I tell my mother

The story with laughter

Breathless, but my 

Vision blurs secretly

Secrets, I have 

Plenty of those

Known as a bad keeper

But I keep my own

So I tell no one

Of my breakdown

At the bus stop

I cry in the office room with my father

Sobs drowned by voices from talking box

Mascara-black tear tracks run down my face

Like neon arrows pointing out my emotions

I don’t wear mascara, but sadness stains my tears like dye

And it’s so obvious, so goddamn obvious

But when talking boxes cease and

My father extends a hand, sideways smile

He doesn’t see

How does he not see

I walk to the room of masters

She’s smothered by blankets

Punching her phone in anger

I say nothing as I grab mine

Because no words can cut tensions like this

They’ll just bounce back and cut me

And i’m already bled dry, the drying tears

And bloodstains are evidence enough 

But she doesn’t see, obviously 

She ignores the wounds of her own creation

I walk hallways alone, head down

Shoulders weighed down with burdens so clear

But see me with friends, you see a bright smile

Shoulders drooping with just the weight of my backpack

Yet in moments of weakness, eyes glass over

I hold them back, but sometimes they fall

And it seems so obvious, so clear

But they never see

I am a poet, I make paintings of letters

My syllables are flags fluttering in winds of glory

I write of things you cannot see and give them names

Call forth beasts others keep hidden

I write of pain and sorrow and hurt

I draw weeping women in the stars 

With tears so large you drown in them

They all surround me and ask

If I was hurting, how I hid it, why I did

I can only smile sadly, shrug, walk away

Because I didn’t hide, you just never saw

And believe me when I say, it was obvious 

But I supposed nothing is to the blind

I write stories in my head

Plays, musicals, chapter books

Plots winding with bubbling

Rivers between hilltops

Of the struggles

I project onto them

The characters

No job but to sit,

Speak, react as I dictate

Rewind when it doesn’t 

Go the way I plan

Start over 

Multiverse after multiverse

But they aren’t blind

Watch world’s destroyed

And rebuilt, families

Grow and die quicker

Than the leaves fall

Leaves reverse

Leaves die

And regrow

Like the hair

And wrinkles that mark

Their faces

As time moves along

A undefined road

Jumping between

Lines like magic

Just here one second

And there the next 

I dream of my stories

Ones where I write lyrics

And I am loved

Where I write real stories

And I am loved

Where I save the world

And I am loved

Where I do nothing at all

But I am still loved

Cycling through characters

Like Poké cards

Pick and choose

And change

Every aspect

Every time

But in the end

Its all the same

They turn to me

At the brink of

Wakefullness

Turn to me

And say

Well look where

You are and 

I am in the river

Floating in the 

Speeding currents

Hills made of

The struggles I fear

Lining the banks

I see water fall in

The distance

Hear the tumbling

Turning, thrashing

Sun hits the stream

Lighting it up with

The oranges and yellows

But no red

Its waiting for mine

My red will complete

The painting 

Spilling out my body 

Like tears I hide 

Behind stories

But I do nothing 

Sit in a rotting boat

Enjoy the river rocking

And watch 

I can only play my part

Because the lines

Are already written

Every story is the same

It starts and ends with one

A birth, a cry

A death, just silence

Nothing changes a story

The people they meet

Friends they make

Brothers, sisters, siblings

Blood or shared tears

Ink of the plot

Never bleeds

Never smudges

Everyone fights to

Change the story

Running away from

A ticking, never disappears

Tocking stalker 

Spinning hands

That can’t be dodged

Slice, slice!

A thread, a head

Cut down on the dot

Never miss the best

Nothing changes a story

But we keep reading

Turn the page 

Desperate pleads

Clawing their way

Out of chambers

Locked in hearts

Long turned to stone

Why do we keep

Reading, hoping, begging

The lines are written

The arc’s fixed

In place, but still

Our eyes fly through 

Pages written

With blood of authors 

Fallen on dusty typewriters 

Ignored in favor of

Deadlines looming

Deadlines…

Not unlike our own

All life’s a deadline

Expiration dates

Tattooed on eyelids

The second they open

So we hope that

The story never ends

Because if this one goes on

Maybe ours will too

I never hurt myself

But there were days when razor blades dripped with blood

Invisible to the world, but obvious from behind my glasses

Hiding eyes sunken in, buried under bags dark without the sleep

I promised my mother I was getting

I didn’t like lying

I never hurt myself

But one day I found myself in a locked bathroom

Mirror too bright, too much the image of myself I’m sure was fake

There were screws on the wall that held pictures long gone, shattered

And I pulled it out, fingernails scraping against popcorn walls

I stare at brown-fair skin, tan lines of the watch plotting my living, 65 bpm baby

Tan lines replaced by red, angry, bright, dripping down

There’s a pool of maroon on the floor, below the diving board

I wonder what it would be like to fall

Fingers tight around the screw, I draw the outlines of my perfect lines

Dig in deeper, beautifully parallel quintuplet marks, white on brown 

But I can’t break the skin, all my mind screams is “tetanus” 

…..why didn’t it scream “don’t hurt me”

I never hurt myself

I never broke the skin

Because my brain can do so much worse

“shut up”, “they don’t care”, “don’t bother them with your stupidity”

“it’s all in your head”

Oh well, you’re right, in my head it is, but I wish it were that simple

See, my head is a battleground, littered with bodies of soldiers long dead

A compliment with a spear in his back, a hug brutally decapitated

Monster rages in the distance, it wavers and stumbles, but never falls

Spews the culmination of every humiliation and abandonment

Its weapons are the mistakes I haven’t made yet and may never do

It’s the possibility that stings more

I have never hurt myself

I bear no parallel scars

I left the razor blades in the drawer in my parents bedroom

But that doesn’t mean I’m not bleeding

My body is one wound, grotesque, don’t look at me

My tears are the only clear lines in a painting of rotten ichor

I am a tower of Legos crumbling to pieces, I try to rebuild

But you can’t build a masterpiece without a foundation

So I fall, fall, fall again, silent in the night 

I scream, no pillow to muffle the sound because no one will hear anyway

Maybe that’s why I’m screaming, why aren’t they listening 

I forgot that I gifted them headphones, noise canceling

So I scream away and beg that someone comes running

But they don’t, they never do, is it my fault or theirs

I say nothing and they do nothing

But it’s all OK, because I never hurt myself