r/Original_Poetry

Things you know nothing about.
The one that keeps the family together.
The rescuer.
The cook.
The caretaker.
The mother.
Ms independent.
She’ll wipe your tears, kiss your wounds, talk you through a rough day.
She is under constant stress and yet always finds a smile for a stranger.
Her responsibilities are heavy to the point she almost collapses underneath it all.
Still she smiles.
Still she acts as if nothing is wrong.
Still she carry’s that weight because she’s never not carried it.
“I wonder how she’s never broken” but one time she did and quickly learned nobody was coming to save her or even help.
Instead they would tell her what she’s doing wrong, never noticing the things she did right.
Neglecting her efforts.
Putting her down.
Never mind that she’s never asked for help before.
Forgetting the little things she did for them.
Hard on her because it’s not bad enough that she’s even harder on herself.
Sometimes she cries, sometimes is now.
Sometimes she doesn’t know how she’ll pull it off.
Somehow she will because she always does.
She’ll do it alone.
She’ll do it with everyone else watching.
In all reality, she wants someone to help but she can’t “share” the burden because it’s “too much”.
Too heavy.
Too costly.
Too big to fail.
Too much to lose.
Too much to carry.
Like I said… she carries it well.

Damn…
So, I made it?
Last I remember,
I was
over my head,
Spinning my flavored
Chaos
Like it was bound to rope
the end of the line,
This time
And my very last thought:
“Will I make it?
Fuck it,
Bottoms up—
time will tell.”

Dear God,
I’m savant-level stupid
at surviving my idiocies,
Honestly.
I think you should
dumb it down a couple notches
If my footprint is to hold
any
measure—again.
Just level
with me here
For one moment—
I shouldn’t be this
—Good at Anything.
—Good for Nothing
Hell, I made
a life out
of whatever didn’t kill me
and called the pattern safe.

I sleep beside slammed doors,
memorize unspoken language
In rooms.
I hear danger lurking:
Shaded below my cranial defenses
through the walls—
And shake
hand-to-hand,
as if we were already
sufficiently introduced.
Then wake up grateful
nothing happened yet.
I mistook that gratitude
for peace.

I learned the floorboards,
the draft,
the window’s rattle—
and called that
home.
And what a fucking pain in the ass
it is
to work on that place.

Existential Irony—
prisoners will scratch days
into walls,
weeks into holidays,
Years into the cold, hard floor—
then trace the grooves
after the door opens.
I still haven’t hit the ground
And I still can’t make bail.
I ought to try
To deserve this place
More than I despise
the warden.

And another thing, God—
Am I supposed
to feel more than…
this?
And don’t start
with that same rhetorical dogma—
I’ve had enough
to know the difference
Between answers
And the runaround.

We both know
the one who carries
The wait
of my steps,
The weight
of my stops.

Sorry,
it’s just that
I mean—
How much deeper must I feel
Everything?
Can we please,
Just try—
The ordinary kind?
The kind people seem
to recognize
without checking themselves
for a pulse afterward.

Sometimes
something terrible happens
and I understand
that it is terrible.
Perfectly.
I know which face to make.
Which words belong there.
Where my hands should go.
And that scares
the absolute shit out of me.
Because knowing
what a heart would do
is not necessarily
proof
I used mine.

My whole life
has been spent
Here.
And I think
I’ve confused understanding
people,
prisoners,
patients,
with feeling them.

I learned
Empathy—
And exactly
like the floorboards—
I have been made
To Creak underneath another’s burdens.
Such is the cost—
The effect of such a causal
Choice—to be of service.
Enough repetition
and even a prisoner
knows exactly
where everyone steps.

So tell me—
if I know someone is hurting
before they tell me,
but their pain
doesn’t always hurt me—
what does that make me?

The one with the knife—
with a stabbing pen—
recording their cry,
gashing with
their bloody soul?
Or am I just
the one who noticed first—
The one who watches,
Taking notes—
Analyzes their condition,
And prepares for surgery,
without any
Surgical Procedure
to follow?

Fuck,
what if
I was always
Both?
Aware? Absent?
Cold? Hot?
Kind? Arrogant?
Wise? Foolish?

Listen—
I’ve been called
all that shit, before.
And the stupid fucks
don’t even know
their write
from they’re left—
and I’m fucking
stuck
with their latest recitation—
The past times
of a failed derogation.

Helpful…
HA!
How in the actual fuck
is that Helpful?
Same sheep,
Every election.

And there’s the problem.
I know
—what I’ve fucking done,
And what to do
Forward.
—I know how I’ve thought
And discerned who to permit
each Shaping.
—what I’ve survived,
what killed me—
And the justice
of each.
—what I give.
And for whom it is given.
Forgiveness.
—what I refuse,
what I neglect—
And I own
each of their scars.
And with gratitude—
I know what I regret,
Incomprehensibly.
But I learned
how to respect those
Substantially.

But somewhere
in all that evidence,
I keep looking
for the witness.

Me,
Still?

Not the version
who reads the room.
Not the one
who makes the joke
five seconds after
something should have
broken him.
Just—
me.

And, sure—
that’s a stupid question.
The silences teach me
there isn’t
some untouched man
underneath all this.
My true identity
isn’t hiding
underneath the fire.
Some of me
walked in.
Some of me
walked out
because of it.

That bothers me.
Because some of my
best qualities
have terrible
origin stories.
And some of my worst
kept me alive.
So which ones
am I supposed
to apologize for?
Which ones
do I heal?
Which ones
do I keep?

And if I tear out
everything
that pain installed—
Dear God,
what if I renovate
this whole fucking place
and finally discover
the warden
wasn’t keeping me in.
He was keeping me
from getting out—
So those left
could stay warm.

Because, God,
I know I’m fire.
I know my destruction.
I know my love.
I’m the heat wave
no one needed.
But everyone
wished to feel.

So, are you hearing me,
God?
Are you here in me,
Spirit?
Are you even looking at me,
Jesus?

Time will tell.
Amen.

Lately I’ve been really drawn to confessional poetry because it feels so honest, even when the subject matter is uncomfortable. I like poems that feel like someone is letting you see a part of themselves they normally keep hidden. I’m still figuring out whether that’s the kind of poetry I want to write myself, but I definitely keep coming back to it. What makes a confessional poem feel genuine to you?

There’s a cello in my heart, writhing where the bow draws narrow and taut. Your eyes become arrows at a glancing, and somehow I am centered in their crosshairs.

Margins intersect into marksmen. Tethers pluck me into harp-like action. Every string in me begins to tremble—until even I, bow at the knees.

I assume I must be dreaming, because proximity to you still feels unfathomable. Faintly palpable.

Your laughter. Your coo. Your every point of view— each reverberation sending ripples of joy Ringing through me.

Your haunting is a blessing. There is tension in the silence. But what am I confessing?

A desire that ricochets violently? through every chamber I have tried to keep still.

In the depths of my dreams, in the marrow in-between, where even my bones have learned to feel too deeply, I shiver in the silence.

You would find me unbothered. Oceans do not move me. But your presence is tidal, and every arrow finds something vital.

You are a moon tugging at my waters. I can feel you in my sweat, in my tears, in every quiet current beneath my skin.

How I would lasso you closer, If only to tie myself to your fingers. I ache for that strum—for the thrum that shakes loose the numb.

So I wait at thresholds, half-still, half-falling, just to be swept up in your gravity.

Immeasurable pleasure. Pressure. Leisure.

in your proximity.

Their woes tell a story in the abyss,
Hollows reaching out in silence,
And crows screeching in the distance.

This place was filled with their sadness,
Anguishing inside of endless flat lands,
For their dying embrace was a bad remembrance.

It was here that ashes spread across,
Sticking to the ground like wet moss,
And their throats were parched from what they'd lost.

Their dying embers filled the land,
Trickling flames of lifeless hands,
And it was not a scorch within the sands.

Their cries would not move a hill,
Let alone a mountain,
For their quiet was deafening in this deadly fountain.

'Twas the result of their own killing,
Hands red from the blood of their spilling,
And that is why they'd received this fate most chilling.

Haunted are they now as each remembers a deed,
A vase from within themselves where they planted the seed,
But they couldn't outrun the reaper's greed.

"Lay here and receive the fate in death's grove,
Repent and pay with your suffering treasure trove,
For your sins are plenty and come in a drove."

panic rises in my chest when i look desperate
desperate for four more minutes to be affectionate

drowning my clinginess in distractions
so no one suffocates
until the muffled desperation resuscitates

every delay
makes me feel like i've lost my way

every minute we spend apart
leaves me with an extremely yearning heart

maybe i'm too emotional
always one thought away from breaking down
is this feeling even rational?
honestly, i'm terrified of looking like a clown

don't get me wrong

it's not misery

the longing is just too strong

it exposes my dependency

you live in my heart rent free
just wait until we get married and then you'll see

i love you more i've won the argument
caught off guard no comeback?

sportsmanship please lose the resentment
i'm still reliving that one flashback

just take me back
to your head on my lap

take me back
to that possessive wrap
to that aggressive grasp

it's all too vivid in my head
husband, love of my life, best friend

they're all just titles
yet you found a way to become all at once
you're woven into all my vitals
in a lifetime this only happens once

i'm curtain it's you
i really hope it's me for you too

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/btpTFIBppJ
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/ND48JzyZ1S