Author: poetryfest

A drop of alcohol and everything comes rushing to my head, the feeling that maybe you’re not quite
it. You’re the experience I am living for once and not my whole world.
A little more alcohol and I hyperventilate at the idea of you being in my same space.
A little more and it sounds bearable.
A little more and the bartender’s looking really hot. I feel your body against my skin but I feel your
blood running at a different speed.
A little more and I’m asleep in your car as the songs I imagined breaking up with you are playing. A
little more and I start arguing with you.
A little more and I realise how suffocating you are, your embrace doesn’t feel loving and caring but
forced and still.
My heart is racing at the idea of young and free and yours is as still as the mountains.
I want to run up the hill and scream my lungs out and you want to walk while looking at the flowers
on the side.
A little more and I won’t feel a thing anymore, numb at the idea of love, passion and everything fun
I strangle my body in the white wedding dress and walk down the aisle thinking maybe a little more
alcohol and I’ve lived the dream.
The audience is staring at me with widened eyes as if they knew I didn’t belong to the altar but I
belonged to the audience.
They can see the fraudulent alcohol running through my veins, making me someone I am not.
I am not meant to be loved and appreciated forever I am meant to be a wonderful couple years.
And I am not meant to be yours.

The feeling wreathing you and me
Into the musical garland of our silence and sounds
Is the dew mirroring the morning sun
Of our relationship raining
Its golden green fragile kisses to the earth.

The feeling snarling our fingers and hands in its emotional tapestry
And dissolving our minds in its intricate delicacy
Is the fathomless ocean of our love
Silently swallowing the quickness into its quietitude
And throbbing the fragile throbs on the surface.

The feeling tying us together
In its delicate knots
Is the quest for the blissful beauty of union.

Dt: 18th October 2024

In the depth of my shattered soul I am lost, alone and cold The voices whispering in my head, saying things I cannot hold

They tell me I am unworthy, unwanted, and used They whisper of endings, of life no longer pursued

I try to silence them, but they only grow louder with each passing day I feel myself falling deeper into the dark abyss of my brain, my pain, my shame I am drowning in the sea of despair, and there’s no lifeboat in sight

I reach out for help, for someone to hold me tight But nobody’s there, no helping hand in sight Just whispers in the dark, saying it’s all in my mind They tell me to keep quiet, to put on a smile

I wear a mask of happiness, to hide the hurt within I laugh and joke, to pretend that I am fine But deep inside I am shattered, broken beyond belief The weight of the world on my shoulders, I can scarcely breathe

I yearn for comfort, for a kind, gentle touch To be held and told that I am enough But the whispers still whisper, growing stronger each day They remind me that I am alone, in this darkness to stay

I try to drown out the voices with music and sound To distract myself from the painful, aching pound But they continue to whisper, like a never ending song

They speak of solitude, of emptiness and wrong

I feel like I’m fading, disappearing from sight The world becomes blurry, the colors all turn white The voices sing to me, telling me it’s just my fate That I was destined to be alone, in this world of hate

I yearn for comfort, for a kind, gentle touch To be held and told that I am enough But the whispers still whisper, growing stronger each day They remind me that I am alone, in this darkness to stay

I try to drown out the voices with music and sound To distract myself from the painful, aching pound But they continue to whisper, like a never ending song

They speak of solitude, of emptiness and wrong

I feel like I’m fading, disappearing from sight The world becomes blurry, the colors all turn white The voices sing to me, telling me it’s just my fate That I was destined to be alone, in this world of hate

And so, in the face of this endless night,

I give up the fight.

The voices win, the depression takes flight,

And I surrender to the endless night.

“Goodbye to all, hope you had your fun,

Watching me squirm, cry and break undone.

The world can keep on turning, without me in sight,

As I drown in this void, this endless night.”

I dragged myself up this
mountain the day we got the
email. A 7th grader
dead. And I prayed it
wasn’t you.

No one can hear
me on this hill. Could
anyone hear you when
you killed yourself? Can
you hear your teacher’s
sobs? Can you feel your
friends’ shock? Can you see
their hollow faces? Their
deadened eyes.

Would you have done it all the same?

The world is filled with
horrible things. Your
pain was such a horrible
thing. The bruises on your
arms bled into your
heart. You were a
good kid. You didn’t
deserve the agony, the
horrors you held in your
mind. The weight
of your thoughts. What
pushed you to
end it all?

At school,
they all dressed
in black for
you. Tomorrow they’ll
wear yellow. There was
a room of counselors. They
told us to talk about
memories of you.

You were so
excited to have a
little brother. You said
hi to me even
if I wasn’t with
my sister. You
shouted your friend’s
name from all the way
across the campus.

They all
miss you. The girls
cried all day. The boys
grieved as one. The internet
is flooded with
messages for you.

They posted a
picture drawn of you. Your
smile forever preserved in
pencil. Your arms
forever open to a
hug. They drew
angel wings on your
back. A halo
over your head.

The students brought
flowers for you. They made a
memorial in your honor. A
tribute was signed. Today’s
attendance was missing a
name. Their drawings
haunt the whiteboards. They
write ∞13 on their
stories. They draw
LLKS on their wrists. A
GoFundMe was
started. Someone donated
a thousand bucks. You were
worth infinitely more.

I prayed for
you that night. I
told god you deserve
whatever salvation he has
for you. That you deserve
the chance to be saved.

It’s not
pretty. The world didn’t care
how pretty you would look
in your grave.

One week and five
days later. You used to
love watching the
sunsets. They’ve never
glowed brighter.

I’m surrounded by desiccation, by hundreds
of dried-up, deceased worms.

My gait is made uneven, compensating for
the avoidance of treading upon the remnants
of these small creatures.

Who dictates this desolation?

Why are these worms drawn up by the false
promises of rain and condemned to dry under
the unforgiving sun, as assuredly as a lover’s
deceit?

The palpable presence of human encroachment
is a boon for such manipulation, sidewalks
providing the platter upon which the tiny
things are baked.

Unevolved and forever fated to flail into
their demise, only an absent-minded hand
descending from above can serve them mercy.

Kathy cuts into her slice of Devil’s Food Cake
sticky on the hospital tray
as she tells the table why she wants to die,

“There’s no point anymore,”
she says.

Her back stabs and
her feet ache
and she can’t even walk,
stuck in this damn chair.

When she was a little girl,
she was grandaddy’s favorite.

On Christmas morning, her stocking would grow so heavy
its stitches would bend
like a fishing net full of tuna.

And on her fifth birthday,
Grandaddy gave her a pretty wooden box

with ballerinas painted on its sides and
sweets and chocolates filling it.

Straight out of high school, she married Dan,

her sweetheart and prom date,
who cooked three meals a day for her,
even on his lunch break.

Neither of them had God,
but their matrimony was made
under Latter-Day Saints,
so their children would have a friend.

And so the years went by,
Kathy and Dan had their little house
outside of Bellevue,
to avoid the city rush

and their children grew up with a surrogate God
and Dan kept on cooking his meals
and Kathy let the days pass her by
and now she was here with us

in a hospital wing that served three meals a day
at the price of freedom.

Kathy told me she was a coke fiend
so I tried to swap stories
and she smiled and told me
she meant “the kind that comes in cans”

her life had been spent on something sweet
but blandness seeped into it

and I guess she wanted something new
that she found in those pills

I’d never faltered,
I knew what I wanted,
and even if it killed me,
I’d die happy

but Kathy’s hopes were empty,
she chased sugar,
never knowing what she really craved,
and someday soon, it’d lead her to the grave.

I made it out in twelve days,
with a sign off from the DA,
and Kathy stayed inside.

in her broken chair and her ratty clothes
still I picture her

with three meals prepared,
and Devil’s Food Cake after supper.

my sister my brother
i wish you knew
how much our parents hate us
but i’ll protect you
i’ll listen
i’ll fight
i’ll provide
i’ll do what they couldn’t
whatever you need
you desire, you want
you’ll never have to know
that they don’t care

so i’ll try
even as you grow
and learn
the truth
i’ll do whatever you need
forever in servitude to you
and you’ll never know
as you ask, you beg
for more
and more and
more
this is how it has always been
i’ll give till you’re happy
if you ever can be
i’ll try and try
to replace what they were supposed to give
and we’ll all end up miserable
but at least you’ll never know
how hard this has been

we build a home in the comfort of
bygone days, fueled by aspirations
of tomorrow, neglecting the reality
of the present. There, our existence
seemed to dissipate. Memories,
whimsical phantoms, the more we
reached for them, the further they run
down a road of elusive imagination.
Did I construct a prison for you,
confined to my mind, frozen in time,
unyielding and unaltered, woven into
the fabric of unrealizable potential. It
held the power to heal what had been
broken, blurring the boundaries of
where you began and where I ended.

my heart has mourned your absence
countless times, it has shattered and
mended. There are scars on my soul
that still whisper your name, only to
realize your scarcity was but a fleeting
illusion. I clung so desperately to your
body for within its embrace resided
what I thought to be my heart. It was
bound in an eternal cycle to breathe
or to suffocate, dancing to a rhythm
only we could sustain. Time was our
enemy, we fought it in battle. Swords
made of the very bones that held us
together, our armor like parchment
in a storm that continued to consume
us. Distance left marks on our hearts,
a self-inflicted wound. I guided your
hand to stab me over and over again.

Until we couldn’t remember who we were fighting.
Until we couldn’t remember what we were fighting for.
How often can a heart break until it can never be whole again?

At the beginning of the end, the sky was filled with clouds
Fluffy, floaty wisps of uncertainty

Blocking the rejuvenating sun

Withholding the mysterious moon

Each night he turned his eyes to the window
The dark sky framed like a painting you can see but not touch

Searching for his destination

After I’m gone, he’d say, look for me when the moon is bright
I’ll be there, looking back at you

Sending a kiss on the breeze

A hug in the wind

All that remained was to find his way

He dreamed of an opening in the sky
A navigational epiphany

The road revealed

But the furthest he could travel
Was from this room to that room
Stopping to lean against the doorframe

Longing for a door that said
EXIT

A dead man sings of alcohol and bridges.

College Greek letters blur
into a hoodie, then
into a boy. He asks, “Are you
okay?” as I stand on a bridge,
over a makeshift creek
of snowmelt. I
was not drunk enough–
the water deep enough–
the jump drastic enough
to make a difference.

I did not have the heart
to tell him I was only trying to
talk with the current, not
get dragged by it. At least,
not this time. It is merely proof
of how difficult it is to hold
a conversation with water
trickling through your fingers.
Sobs and eddies alike.

A dead man sings of bridges and sobriety.

I think of every drink as a battle.
I do not let my new friends know this.
They have never met a Briana
who could not walk home
despite the fact she
was already in it.

I won this time. Home
safe, and sound, and then drowned
out the world, immersed in
victory song. The frontman sings
of smolder and I have never
known a 750ml to be incendiary–
quite the contrary, an empty bottle
can be a home; my glass house
interprets “slosh”
as ebb and flow: natural.
Ocean. River.
A makeshift creek.

If only I could sink
into the depths of me, wash
myself clean. It feels like
the only way to win the war.

A dead man sings of alcohol and sobriety.

I think of how Scott crooned for us
his preferred death; none of us
knowing the wiser, and yet,
knowing better. All of us,
knowing how we thirst
for a drawbridge. His loss
hits us without warning,
despite the alarms
gushing from his mouth,
blushing his cheeks.

Every song was a battlecry,
his own secret war hidden
in the tracks. His lyrics
once anointed me with
enough hope to swim on,
but now… Hope is
a dangerous thing. Feathers
float down the river,
the water itself
aching at the thought
of having to drown
such a delicate noun, knowing
it will have to do so anyways.