” A poem begins as a lump in the throat.”

Robert Frost

SONGS

 Never smother a voice;
 for it is the song that comes
 from another’s lips
 that gets stuck in our head.

 

GOSSIP

 “What’s the worst feeling?”
 ”When you feel like you’re running
 a marathon, but everyone else
 simply sees
 a 50 metre sprint.”

 

SHY

 It’s the quietest
 of voices that
 need the chance to
 speak into a microphone

 

STRESS

 “You brought it on yourself”
 they said, so I shut
 my mouth and swallowed
 my complaints to make room
 for theirs.

 

SICK

 Rocks in my throat
 tumbling around in a
 red tunnel –
 raw and red and
 syllables like feathers
 fine and faint and barely there –
 tickling the back of my throat,
 rubbing flesh raw.

 

SELF-ESTEEM

 She carries words like knives
 in the crevices of her spine
 and acid in the hollows
 of her stomach.

 

PERSPECTIVE
 I took a rock from a river –
 the prettiest rock I’ve ever seen –
and you told me to throw it back in
 the deep end.

 

WAX

 If Icarus’ wings were real,
 would he not fly as high as he could
 and be scorched anyway?

 

NEUTRALITY

 Me of yesterday is
 ashamed of the me of tomorrow
 because no one is as good as they were
 or as bad as they will be. 

CATASTROPHE

 With each tick of
 the doomsday clock
 the earth’s anger grows louder
 and it’s heart grows weaker.

 

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 ASPHYXIA

 I hate the lump that strangles
 my throat
 every time 
my heart tries to beat.

 

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 INCALESCENT

 She is stuck in ice
 while everyone else is lighting fires.
 You cannot see the flames beneath her skin,
 but they burn beneath the ice you fail
 to see through.

 

 LACUNA

 With every averted glance
 and outstretched hand there lies
 a black rose that ceases to grow.

 

 FROSTBITE

 It comes with the snow.
 The silent deadly perpetual cold that
 leaves my toes numb and my fingers stiff.
 I love the peace of winter months
 but the snow takes away
 pieces of the earth
 when it melts.

 

 RUST
 For every piece of gold
 I polish you
 tarnish five more. 

 FEAR

 My heart is scared of 
the things left unsaid;
 the fractured bones
 and the thoughts in my head.

 

 JOURNEY

 There’s too many paths 
to choose just one,
 and I have shoes too weak 
to walk them all.

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