#female poets

Well, telling the secret would ruin the sunrise 
Don’t want to ruin the fun!
What if we lose our magic? 
What if we lose our innocence?

Telling would mean that we would have to deal with the world
That would love to burn us at the stake!
Saying we’re martyrs for an agenda we chose
But I didn’t chose to love you…

They say I gotta stop living in fear
But damnit, I’m afraid

Expected to ride the choppy waves
As if I’m on a damn lazy river

My raft the bodies of those who don’t seem to matter
I don’t know if it would be worse to recognize a face
Or to become one of the unrecognized ones…

You don’t know how to have a good time
Without being out of your fucking mind?

But I’m the one that’s “crazy”?
I’m the one that’s lame?
Stop talking down to me,
Neither of us deserve to feel ashamed.

I hope that you can get the chemicals in your brain in order
I wish you were sober…

Hate me. 
Do you, do you
Hate me?
Or is that just the thoughts speaking nonsense again?

They’re pretty loud. 
Kinda difficult to think of anything else
When they give a bloodcurdling scream!

Ignore them?
Tell me,
If someone was wringing at your neck
Consuming your lungs
Driving out all the air from your body
Draining out all of the life from your soul…
Could you truly ignore that?

Why am I only worth something
If I become a shell of a human being?

Being crushed by the weight of the expectations myself and the world place on me
My body only being held up by the podium of my accomplishments…

What happens when there’s nothing left to hold me up?

Why is the only fucked up one me?
Why am I the only tragedy?
Always on the edge of catastrophe
Catastrophizing

Maybe I’m not always crazy.
Maybe I’m not always wrong.
But they all say I am.
Say I need help.

But who wouldn’t lose it
If they were being mistreated
And being told
They weren’t even being mistreated in the first place?

Maybe I need to stop being so sensitive.
Shut off my feelings like a light switch 
Dimming the light inside of me in return…

But that’s okay!
As long as everyone else is happy!
Their light will keep me…warm.

Despite the distance they keep me at
I can’t indulge too much in kindness!
Might make me too greedy!

Why do I always like the ones that don’t like me back?
Maybe I’m just in love with the unattainability
So in love with a concept
I can’t let that be ruined by the real…
Scary! 

It’s an inconvenience to prevent the spread of COVID
Concealing my face is like concealing myself from experiencing the world
Using hand sanitizer is like burning my hands off
Melting my flesh off

Can’t say no to a social event!
My life revolves around my social identity
More so than it revolves around being able to breathe out of my lungs!

Relationships are lessons learned. 
Stories learned
Tired of gathering novels,
Contributing to a constantly ongoing saga

Where’s my happily ever after?
Can it come faster?
Or can someone send me a little note saying “None are meant to stay”?

Is my life meant to be a sitcom? 
A long running joke?
I get it, it’s funny
I’d laugh too.

We were like gold
Until you were told
I needed basic respect
Then, you sold us down the river
Said our love was worth its weight in gold

So, you cashed it in for profit
But, there were no takers
And you’re still the victim, it seems!

December reminds me that I have loved
But that I’m not loved
At least, not loved enough for someone
To want me to be a part of their holiday celebration

Our love is not worth celebrating. 

Told me I was miserable when I was getting better
Because I wouldn’t let the gaslighting comments just
Roll.
Off.
My.
Back.

You didn’t understand why they were no longer keeping me warm
When they never kept me warm. At all.

I’d rather be comforted by hell’s embrace!
At least hell is honest with its intentions. 

I’ve had my fair share

of secret lovers and furtive trysts,

and I’ve seen the dream die.

I’ve seen it die more times than I can count.

The first is always the hardest,

but it gets easier.

And the thing about love affairs,

is they have a way of dying, but sometimes

they have a way of waking up one day

and coming back to life.

I’m starting to understand that the body is just a map that can’t be read

and that the heart,

like a compass,

points all over the place.

I guess that’s why I’m here now,

to try to figure out what we lost.

But it’s like looking at a road map in the dark.

And all these nights alone,

they’ve turned into another kind of map,

an ocean chart of words that take you nowhere.

Time,

is both everything,

and nothing

all at once.

and

you can love someone

with everything in you

and the universe will still whisper

“not quite yet, darling”

Lifetime after

misguided lifetime,

I find myself

rediscovering the same path

I first paved

at seventeen.

Comfortable,

forgiving and

exhilarating.

Forever,

my most intimate place.

Something about

this time

made my bones feel different

as if they sat inside me

a little lighter,

and held me together

a little tighter.

Sweet sister,

you’ve known me longer

than anyone.

Intertwined yet-

visibly divided,

we’d been on different planets

while under one roof.

A puddle of sweat

forms just above my lip

instead of salt, I taste dirt

and while my heart was beating fast,

I had to beg my mind to catch up

I take a breath,

run a bath.

As I undress,

I watch myself

examining all the new places

that have now been touched

and suddenly

someone new appeared before me

I am constantly in a state of metamorphosis-

Transforming between me with you,

and me without.

But like the joints that ache within my hands,

you flare up at the most arbitrary moments.

Negligent to the damage

then pretending to banish me to oblivion,

as if I was ever easy to forget.

I try to forget you too,

until that ache in my hands extends to the rest of me

and becomes too painful to ignore.