Posts tagged “poetry”
Walking San Francisco at night, I spotted Orion overhead. A poem about dreams, concrete, grass in the cracks, old men begging, and a city of eternal children reshaping the world. I'm far from who I thought I'd be. Grateful for that. Here to make the next world.
My brothers and I surprised our dad at his 60th birthday party by performing an extempo calypso covering his life, carrying on a family tradition he started. Here are the lyrics, in case you asked for them. You'll need to be Trinidadian to get most of the jokes.
A song of gratitude to the people who challenged me, humbled me, and helped me find myself. I came in thinking I knew everything. I didn't. Thanks to them, I still don't know who I'll be, but at least I know who I am.
A modified version of Gabrielle's "Out of Reach" about heartbreak, confusion, and slowly moving on from a love that was never meant to be.
A poem about being stuck in an uncertain relationship, torn between staying and leaving, wanting more but unsure if I'm even wanted. Hot and cold signals, growing attachment despite the imperfect match. I can't explain it, but I can't quite let go either.
A guy greased his shoes with butter, and the BBC is running topical limericks. The internet remains a strange and wonderful place.
A poem of memories, tender and honest, the good and the hard, leading back to one truth: you have always loved me, and I am sorry I ever forgot.
Edward Gorey's alphabetical catalog of children meeting grim fates is simultaneously adorable and deeply wrong. God bless the Victorians and their cheerful morbidity.
A poem I wrote, parked here until the poetry section is fixed. About happiness, fear of losing it, mortality, and wanting to stay in this moment forever.
A poem about a fractured relationship with my father, a man I loved who became my enemy. I'm desperate to forgive him but the wounds won't heal. I hate what he's become while mourning who he was.
On the dancefloor I feel free, until I catch myself from above and see it for what it is: desperate plumage, bright feathers flashing. I want to be left alone. I want you to fight for me. I don't know why I make it so hard.
The real world is boring, painful, and indifferent to me. My mind is better. I fly, shatter into silver angels, swim as dolphins, blast back at bullies with beams of light. Why settle for here when I have all that in my head?
A poem wrestling with guilt, shame, and the crushing weight of others' judgment. I question why I internalize their bigotry, why I can't cast it aside, and reckon with a darker truth: I might be just like them if I weren't the one they condemn.
A tongue-in-cheek boast that starts as personal bragging and ends as group superiority — poking fun at how quickly "I'm better than you" becomes "we're better than them."
A fantasy vignette featuring Lord Seldolivaw, a gifted young lord who seeks Lady Deborah's aid against a growing threat in his realm, then departs at tremendous speed. Features a memorable telepathic link sequence. Left unfinished.
A poem about the quiet contradiction of shyness: wanting connection but fearing it, holding my tongue while hoping someone turns my way and sees me anyway.
A poem about the drama queen we all know: bouncing from crisis to crisis, spreading gossip, making mountains from molehills. She's exhausting, self-aware, and completely unrepentant. And honestly? Every friend group needs one.
A poem about a woman who never quite fits in, invisible at school, overlooked socially, finding hollow comfort in church work and family visits while longing for real intimacy. She goes on dates that lead nowhere. She dies alone. It's bleak, but honestly, it needed saying.
A poem about serial one-night-standers seeking connection through sex but finding only emptiness. Skilled at seduction, hopeless at intimacy, they keep returning to the meat market, alone despite never sleeping alone. You can't see another's heart by groping in the dark.
A portrait of toxic masculinity's vicious cycle: the lad who knows better but can't stop, drinking, fighting, hurting people he loves, becoming his dad, raising another just like him. Bleak, sardonic, and depressingly inevitable.
A poem about a beautiful boy who coasts through life on his looks, never developing personality or skills, only to find himself adrift at 35 when a younger face steals his crown. Beauty without substance leaves you with nothing when the beauty fades.
A poem about unrequited love and the friend zone. She shared one kiss with her best friend, and has spent years waiting for a second that will never come, wasting her youth while he dates others and she picks out his clothes.
A poem about a chaotic, brilliant, maddening woman who crashes cars, weds drifters, makes stunning art, and somehow survives it all. Neurotic, yes, but those rare flashes of genius and insight make enduring her worth it.
A poem about a girl broken down by school, parents, and society until she believed she was worthless. Conditioned to apologize for existing, she forgot her gifts. The ending is devastating and intentional.
A poem about a self-destructive friend who performs danger for spectators while real friends rush him to the ER at 2am. He's not truly crazy, just a careful liar craving attention from people who are fans, not friends.
A poem about the suffocating cost of "perfect" religious upbringing, where every thought, touch, and doubt is controlled. The model child, shaped entirely by his parents' will, has nowhere for his rage to go. Until they find the body.
A poem of encouragement built on the idea that problems are time-soluble, that invisible struggles are still real, and that sometimes the best advice is recognizing someone is already doing fine. I'll be here regardless.
A poem about chasing success only to find it hollow. When you bend your rules to win, does the victory even count? I've compromised my standards, and now I'm winning but it feels like nothing. Nobody cares how you got there. Maybe that's the saddest part.
A satirical song about third world struggles, hypocrisy, and American cultural dominance. Corrupt governments, borrowed dollars, cholera water, and yet we still wear Nike. We hate America but want to be America. Because yeah, the third world really sucks.
A poem about an ordinary, invisible boy nobody noticed. No tragic ending, no special qualities, just a reminder that everyone has depth if you bother to look, and that loneliness is more common than we admit.
A poem about the overwhelming paralysis of wanting to fix everything and fixing nothing, as problems pile into a crushing wall of inaction. But a billion of us feel this way, and together we might hold it back.
A poem about beautiful people who move through the world effortlessly, inspiring helpless devotion while remaining oblivious to their effect on others. Also a note to myself: stop forcing writing into preset beats. Let the rhythm emerge from the words instead.
A poem and prose piece urging you to stop living in fear of judgment. Nobody is watching as closely as you think, the walls are imaginary, and the only thing stopping you from being yourself is you. Let it go. You have nothing to hide.
I write because the thoughts arrive already rhymed, already shaped, and I have no choice but to string them out. I wish I had more imagination. But the shadow songs keep echoing until another rhyme is said. I weep for the brilliant insights that fade in waking's light.
A poem about the tension between inner growth and the pressure to stay small, stay safe, stay the same. The world wants you on automatic. I'm overflowing.
I keep searching for perfection while falling for the wrong guys. Am I asking too much of the world and myself? Should I settle and call my search a halt? I can't be honest with someone else when I can't even tell myself when enough is enough.
A song skewering pop music clichés, structured as a duet between a "serious artist" narrator and exaggerated prefab popsters. I collected actual radio lyrics over 24 hours to prove the point. Spoiler: I caught myself using a cliché at the end.
A poem about coming out to my parents, fearing I'll become a stranger to them, but pleading that this stranger still needs their love to survive.
A poem about a controlling mother who sees her son as an extension of herself, unable to accept who he really is. When he finally asserts his own identity, both find imperfect freedom.
A stream-of-consciousness poem urging movement, change, and urgency before time passes you by. Life's too short for repetition and slow burns. Cut the crap, speed up, and act now while you still can.
A poem about a bright kid lost in isolation, depression, and silent suffering. Old scars, shattered dreams, and the weight of an unwitnessed fall into darkness.
A poem about people who treat me as a novelty rather than a person, collecting "weirdo friends" to impress others while reducing me to comfortable clichés. I refuse to be squeezed into their jigsaw. Know me as I am, or don't bother.
A playful, bouncing poem about life's chaos and randomness, finding humor in the absurd, the hilly Earth, upended status quos, and the slippery search for meaning. Take it as a joke, find what's in there, make something tasty.
Feeling numb, pointless, and stuck in a fog. First love that wasn't, wanting what I can't have, too tired to cry. But I'm not giving up. I'll fight my way back to happy.
A poem reminding us that we live on a lucky rock, shielded from a nuclear sun, wrapped in living green, replenished by purifying rain. A million die each day, yet more are born. How dare we complain?
I'm in love with someone I can never approach or even look at directly. Every stolen glance brings equal pleasure and pain. I don't know if they feel the same. I can't ask. I can't even say their name. My secret stays buried in guilt and silence.
A poem about soul music's raw power to take over completely, leaving no room for thought or resistance. It's primal, untamed, and all-consuming. Music isn't something I simply hear; it's everything, and there was nothing before it.
A poem about feeling peripheral, disconnected from the main event of life. I'm the sideshow nobody notices, clowning through existence, wondering if anything I do matters. The circus rolls on with or without me.
A poem about unrequited love and longing for someone beautiful but indifferent, whose very existence feels like torture. The world shaped them perfectly, but left no room for me.
A poem about a man paralyzed by self-doubt, unable to see his own impact on the world because he's too close to his own life to gain perspective.
A poem about the unknowable self that lurks within, driving my actions without my consent. I've traveled far but never found myself, and this hidden inner force clouds my judgment, harms those I love, and leaves me pleading for forgiveness from those I've hurt.
A poem about humanity's journey through time, urging us to look beyond ourselves and steer toward something better. We owe our children stronger rafts and clearer paths so they can shape the river's course long after ours has ended.
A poem about life's journey, using the metaphor of a leaf carried by a river. We can't control where life takes us, but we can control how we travel. So move fast, go far, and make your mark.
A poem and note to someone I love who loves another. I love them more than my own existence, so I'll love whoever makes them happy. But if they're ever unsure about their relationship, I hope they remember what real love feels like.
A poem about feeling unique and misunderstood, longing for connection while holding myself apart. I wonder if being special means being alone, and whether it's time to stop standing apart and just fall back into the arms of humanity.
I'm in love, terrified, and moving fast. I've found someone who feels like a missing piece of myself, and their absence physically aches. I don't want friendship or labels. I just want them to hold me and say they miss me too.
A poem and prose piece about a friendship, or father-son relationship, that curdled into something unforgivable. I wanted to forgive, to rebuild those sandcastles, but the wounds won't close. Every time I see your face, I hear the echoes.
A poem about coming out to someone close, and the painful year since. I miss what we had before my truth changed everything between us. I don't know when we'll find our way back to each other.
Secrets fester when you hide them. You think no one notices, but really no one knows, and the paranoia is worse than the secret itself. Pain doesn't have to be dramatic to be real. Let it out. In the open, problems shrink. Secrets only look dirty in the dark.
A high-energy poem about living for the weekend. Drop the stress, hit the floor, and dance until dawn because Friday night freedom is fleeting and the beat is cheap. No excuses, no wimping out. Get up and move.
A poem about breaking out of isolation and connecting with others. Stop hiding in your shell, get out there, share a glance, feel the crowd, make human contact. Life hurts when you live it alone.
A frustrated challenge to those who understand science yet still cling to religious belief. How can you know the chemistry of life, the neuroscience of thought, the physics of the universe, and still need God to explain the stars?
