list
Lists of the best poems and poets from every genre; collections of poetry from the romantic to the reflective, dark, satirical, nostalgic and more.
a love story, post-mortem. Runner-Up in Instructions for Disappearing Challenge.
hold him as tightly as he holds you as if letting go would extinguish stars and rewrite constellations and make the world go dark wrap around him like vine and ivy, even as he rips out your petals—he loves me, he loves me not—and digs up your roots he'll become a stranger overnight, one that exists only to lie and cheat, to maim you and brutalize you and destroy you but keep holding on, a cruel game of tug of war, muscles screaming and rope ripping skin off calloused palms send texts, paragraph after paragraph, begging for explanation, for closure, for respect or kindness or humanity get cold, heartless, one-word replies from an interloper wearing the skin of the man who once told you that you were the sun unwrap the lies of unconditional forever that he spent endless nights braiding into your hair and painting on your skin stop eating when food tastes like the cremated remains of the person you were before when you were one heart in two bodies his family—your family for eight years—they'll leave too without a goodbye, proving you're just crumpled garbage, a soggy cigarette butt in a gutter pluck clumps of tangled hair out of shower drains as your chapped lips bleed and your brittle bones crumble to dust realize too late that you're becoming shadow and smoke and try to grasp those missing tendrils of your soul as fiercely as you once held him you almost make it, broken glass gathered in bloody palms, when you see that picture of him with the girl, the one who faked friendship to cover jealousy get swept away, spin-cycling in a violent wave of pain and betrayal, smashed against jagged cliffs, eroding and melting and drowning in polluted, oil slick waters let the seaweed tangle around your legs and pull you deep, like the vine you used to be when you grew only around him like a twisted baptism, the water will cleanse you, stitching split skin with barbed wire, erasing memories and identity and the stamp of him embossed on your soul, and finally—finally—you let go who are you? where are you? what are you? nothing.
By Mallory Rose6 months ago in Poets
he will claw after you
1. save every cent that comes into your hands 2. construct walls outside your ears 3. so his shouting doesn’t penetrate too deep 4. don’t believe him when he says you aren’t capable when he says you’ll surely fail when he says you owe him everything You don’t. 5. take a job. take another job. 6. buy a new phone on your own plan so he can’t track you 7. Leave him. 8. build a new foundation around your heart 9. and ignore his texts 10. when he begs you to come back 11. remember how you slaved away to make him happy and how he never, ever was. 12. Go to therapy. that wasn’t poetic but really, as soon as you can afford it, go to therapy a soul educated in the ways of the mind can help untangle your hurts far better than you can alone 13. don’t look back at him 14. beware of the lies told by photos, moments rent from memory 15. find a better job 16. don’t be just a number build your own home. your sanctuary. 17. And never, ever, go back.
By Leigh Victoria Phan, MS, MFA6 months ago in Poets
Location, Memory, and the Geography of the Soul
Location, Memory, and the Geography of the Soul Welcome to the last day of our guided poetry prompt challenge! Today’s prompt is zip codes. A boring little box on a form. ooooorrrrr a sacred set of digits that hold your origin story, your heartbreak, your grandma’s kitchen, the first street you learned to lie on. This is your map. And poetry is the vehicle.
By Ellie Hoovs6 months ago in Poets
