#poetry community

[poems-to-read]

That Crown of Horns had been worn by a queen.

That Crown of Horns had been worn by a warrior who fought for the weakest and just causes.

That Crown of Horns had been worn by her mother.

That Crown of Horns was now worn by a murderer, a usurper.

That Crown of Horns was used for the sole purpose of humiliating both mother and daughter.

Mocking the heroine and the criminal.

Artist's: Annie Stegg Gerard.

[robertjw4688]

This drip-feed

of distortion

and subtraction leaves

malnourishment

as salvation.

Tear the IV

from the vein

and worship

kindness

because these lives

are fragile

as standing water.

Robert J. W.

[hiraethharmony]

the most beautiful souls intertwine without the necessity of exchanging words

- 𝒉 𝒊 𝒓 𝒂 𝒆 𝒕 𝒉

[27paperlilies]

Dear September,

I hope you will be kind, would you please leave the bad behind. Each month I ask the same, to others of a different name. But I have a feeling that you, september, will grant my request, just let this month be one of peace, one of the best, I'll figure out the rest.

Kind Regards, someone living life with hope and a tired heart.

[cryptonature]

From my latest poetry collection, Leaf Litter.

CryptoNaturalist.com/books

[sweatermuppet]

what i got by silas denver melvin (written at the unrelatable writing retreat, sep 17 2022)

[Text ID: got bad. got worse. got suspended for blessing the face of a transphobe with the open palmed reckoning of my small hands. got praised. got punished. got home & ma, her crown bowed to the steering wheel, her tired, dish-water knuckles smoothing imagined creases from her Stevie Nicks skirt, told me she understood, but couldn't condone. got taken out of class. got put in therapy. got threatened, thanked, spit at, spit on. got everything but even. got medicated. got put in a small room with a suit-pressed man & a single particle wood table. got asked if i thought id ever see heaven. got a good look & measured my answer. got considered like livestock. got 5 days out of school like isolation was a fever-trick to sweat out the sick they assigned to my blood. got up on the last day, before the yolk-heavy sun even broke the fragile line of the horizon, before the cat birds could perch on the white birch branches & begin their endless crying, & thought to myself let heaven start where my boots are laced & allow no merciless crowd decide me otherwise, which is to say… i got out & from there, i have yet to stop. /End ID]

[the-knife-in-my-heart]

you were supposed to be the one. you were supposed to be different. you were supposed to be mine.

and all you ended up being was another lesson.

[lovebloodandmonsters]

— Carolina Outcrop

[alex-a-roman]

Before the lights go out

Let's be lovers for a day, In case we won't make it through the night! At least we'll have a story to hold onto  For when the world ends, We know we're not meant to grow old So maybe let's tell each other words We’ve never heard before, Confess our crimes and taste the sky Before it all comes down, Before the earth is fire and ash, Before the lights go out.

~ A. A. Roman

[soulinkpoetry]

Goosebumps arise from stimulating the mind first. Intriguing conversations that leave you wanting, craving, tingling.

.

.

[amoxicillin-tangent]

i am given birth to by my mother. i am brought home to a falling-apart trailer. i am fed and i am not fed enough. i am aged into a small being with opinions and some semblance of autonomy; my childhood is a video game and i am given three objectives: sit down, stay quiet, and cease to exist. i am made good at the last part; it is a god-like sort of art, and so i do. silence is suited for me as well as i am suited for silence. 

i am told, gently, by my third-grade teacher to stop writing in passive voice. the noun of the sentence should be the actor, the doer, the taker. i am not a taker. never the actor of my own consciousness, of my own unconsciousness, remember, now, i am ceasing to exist. 

i am uprooted like a wilting plant, no sunlight, chipped terracotta pot, placed, never planted. grow, says the sunlight seeping between the drawn shutters, and i deny its case. i am made a masochist at all of eight-years-old, i am made for withering away. i am made mother, made martyr, made clever, made more, made machine. 

i am placed in a foster home and told the new rules. i will sleep at 2130 and wake at 0600. i will eat blueberries and coconut yogurt and i will make good grades. i will behave. i will sit down, i will stay quiet, and i will cease to exist. 

i am told, gently, by my ninth-grade teacher to stop writing in passive voice. like this, you are the subject of the sentence. i am brought home; i am subjected to my sentence. i am taught, i am created, i am embittered, i am disillusioned, i am ceasing. it is all i know how to do.

blurring letters litter the pages before me. maya angelou, oh pray my wings are gonna fit me well. oh, tell the hell-child to return to her cell. mangled beast, worthless mongrel, ceasing. perfect child, perfect victim, passive. the sentences are diagrammed by my expert hand and i am diagrammed as well, pages in a folder, problem child, trouble-maker, mentally unstable. infinitive, preposition, page-break. 

my eleventh-grade teacher is asked why was it okay for maya angelou to write in passive voice? she responds, because to write in active voice would take the focus from the corpse to the crew. i like that. i understand it. the pages aren’t so blurry anymore. i trace them with my fingertips, letter-by-letter. her bones were found//round thirty years later//when they razed//her building to//put up a parking lot. 

i am no longer still, silent, ceasing. i am no longer wilting, and no longer made, i am maker. 

grow, says the sunlight seeping between the drawn shutters. i am neither the corpse nor the crew. i reach forward with trembling hands,

and i pull the cord, and the light floods through.

[1nn32dem0n5]

she baked me cookies

once a girl has cooked for you just for you she has given you her heart. at the very least say thank you.

[robertjw4688]

What will keep us alive

this time?

We share trauma

like a picnic

and the grass

is dead as a needle.

Looking back

at the epitaphs

of parents

and dreams, we

kiss under the rainbow.

Maybe we'll survive.

I hope you do.

Robert J. W.

[hiraethharmony]

oh, pretty you, can you show me how it feels to be human one more time?

- 𝒉 𝒊 𝒓 𝒂 𝒆 𝒕 𝒉

[meaningfall]

———

C. A. Singh • The world is still here (I know because I can see it)

3-6-24

[27paperlilies]

One day this will all feel like a dream,half forgotten and faded. There will be a few moments that shine bright and poke through the haze of the past, but mostly the memories don't last, and time moves oh so fast.