Tag: self reflection

No Pressure

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I must be missing the substance of all your allegories.

The sentences peel my skin with disgust when they say:

“You’re a lady, you should have some better worries.”

“Are you dating and are you planning a kid, tell me!”

They need to hear my convenient answers.

But everything I want is for my mind to be handled safely.

Crawled out of the hold of anxiety, beat the monster in the mirror,

For a year and a half I’ve been able to breathe without pain

But the pressure is quietly kicking in, it’s a silent killer.

Why can’t I simply be undecided and live one day at the time?

Why can’t I have the choice and the cash,

why can’t it all be mine?

Why is my every step analyzed as if it’s colored in lime?

-JW

Lost and found

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Why don’t you want to sit with me?

These smog-covered streets are fading

And I need someone to take a sip with me.

The grey of the sky melts into the smoke filled ground.

There’s still no one on my side.

Should I hand over my heart to the lost and found?

Ash is strangling me as time drips into the hourglass.

Not a person in sight, nobody’s showing up…

Is this a benchmark I need to pass?

Do I have to?

***

I was falling apart for the longest time back then, completely alone in the crisp air.

People came around but no matter how hard I pushed, they sat next to me and brushed my hair.

They never stood up or even moved

Through my absurd jokes and frightening moods.

I never took it as a promise. Nothing is granted.

But for that moment in time I didn’t feel stranded.

***

Now it’s back to the start. How can I be so sure?

What if I see them again

And the memories are just a blur?

The grayest of trees cover my cheeks discreetly.

Why don’t you want to sit with me?

Did you ever really meet me?

-JW

Not My Father’s Daughter

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The spoiled poor kid strikes again, self-sabotaging everything pure.

“The pit is filled with snakes, my dear, don’t you try to act mature.”

Slouching through the system without a clear purpose, not really searching –

Hanging by a threat on the moonlit streets, one leg down, helplessly lurching.

Seven hundred steps to safety. The battery died a few thousands ago, no buzzing.

He left all the debt to the children, all the riches to the second cousin.

No one left to care, no one left to drag his cold body out the ditch this time around.

Or is it a grave? Excuse my forgetfulness, the third time this happened I lost the count.

“Love,” he says, “these cities are filled with thieves and morons, be safe.”

When I almost killed myself chasing you, I realized there’s nothing left to save

In this burning building that you buried me under when leaving. I was sleeping.

Haven’t got a good night’s sleep since then, I always sense the gas seeping

Through the vents and floors, and everything you touched in my life passing by…

It’s been five years since we talked. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.

I’ve had five years to rebuild everything, but let me tell you this, and I won’t repeat:

I am so glad you were not by my side.

Had to teach myself how to breathe. How to eat.

And I had to learn how to grow up so quickly,

And I realized it takes so little to love people

When all you wanted to teach was how to kill everyone who cared, and do it slickly. Swiftly.

Oh, father, you poor spoiled kid.

Greed is what made you live off-the-grid,

Pride is what pushed you to make the bid.

Don’t blame the cities or systems for what you did.

If you want to sell souls, let the next be yours for a quarter of quid.

-JW

I hate this poem…

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I’m gonna love you from a distance. I’m gonna want you from a far.

I keep telling myself lies – that I’m good when we’re apart.

Sitting here, drinking, and hoping that a car ran me over today, twice.

For looking into those deadly nightshade eyes of yours I have to pay the price.

Have loved you for a week again, will hate you for the months to come –

But clearly that’s alright. I’d chug a pint of poison if it tastes like bubble gum.

Never been the quiet type, observer or admirer. I fucking hate this poem too.

When and why did I go blind? Why do I wonder tirelessly, without a clue?

I haven’t lost a part of me in you, yet what scares me the most here

Is that I’ve found something new, and that’s simply not fair.

None of my friends dare to ask what I’m truly feeling because they know

Once the truth’s out I’ll chase you like Wall Street guys from 80-s chased some blow.

I’m scared of ruining everything for you, but is there anything left to spoil?

When you speak of anyone else, the temperature raises as my blood begins to boil.

I’ve gone too low, I’ll admit it. My skull seems to be damaged with a crowbar.

Yet… I’m gonna love you from a distance. I’m gonna want you from a far.

-JW

Not to Sound Banal

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Photo by Prateek Katyal

I always fall for people that I let too close to my chest,

As if vulnerability is some kind of drug I need to test.

My empathy is the worst of my foes, a real placebo effect –

It has misplaced my senses with fragile defenses,

Impossible to detect.

Have been feeling defective, yet finding new ways to cope,

Subsisting by flirting with people whose morals are broke.

Now I’m sure that whoever likes me can never be whole.

People with ideals are as far from me and as frigid

As the goddamn South Pole.

It’s been strange how I’m feeding my egos with lovers I tease –

With some I’m just playing, but some I put right on their knees.

We all know that worst things in life come strictly in threes:

One lost soul, one misguided bishop , one sin

Well hidden in the diocese.

Let’s take a ride, baby, let’s rocket right through my bitterness

Masked as temptation, poorly hidden in wraps of my selfishness.

I would still take home every soul who has lowered my walls

As I’m not capable of walking away from tragedy,

Not to sound banal.

-JW

Every 5 minutes

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Photo by Blaque X

Every 5 minutes I save your inanity with my insanity in the making,

Every other morning I hate your profanities – as they are backbreaking.

Your dull words with their made up sanctity force my lips to become abrasive.

Should I let you go or keep fissioning while I pretend to embrace it?

What comes next is never a given with you, and it frightens me fiercely.

The next time your bright eyes darken, should I count your shots and wait out the first three?

Should I lay low or shoot back, or fall deeper?

I am not the one to admit the victory of the reaper.

But my personal little deaths always looked like your face.

It’s at the finish line of every track, of every race.

Could have sworn – no one ever told me about the truths you face

Looking for someone to chase at your own pace.

Even 5 years ago I was ready to conquer my two star town for the title,

Even people I barely knew viewed my mind as a funny farm or a spital.

My insides were filled with flammable liquids but I got used to drowning.

Should I spit out the flames now or should I try putting them out

with all the drinks that I’m downing?

You would know the answer to that, love, wouldn’t you?

How come the worst of my demons is the one that is true?

I am not the one to deny that my pride is a fallen virtue.

So why does every time you step on it feel less like a torture

And more like a comically tragic ending to the heroine

Whose emancipation narrators rooted for but they could not fit it in?

***

Every 5 minutes I save my insanity with you mortality in the making,

Every other morning I still love your lethalities – as they are breathtaking.

-JW

Red house by the Silk Road

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Some choose to follow the same predicament, the dusty pavement.

The particles are getting their brain rusty, but it’s a statement –

To be hollow, or not to follow? What’s the difference if time is borrowed?

I have such hunger to fearmonger. Don’t need to write down your area code,

If needed, I’ll remember the red house by the Silk Road. If needed, I’ll reload.

Some choose their steps like they’re graven, not to wake the death raven,

But feathers fill their lungs gravely. How bravely they cave in

At the slightest of touch… I clutch my madness and run away, blindly,

I’m alone together with my thoughts, oh, please don’t mind me.

Treat me unkindly. I need my feathers ruffled, nightly.

Some choose to stay put in four walls until something better calls –

The drying paint is shriveling the souls like bright leaves during falls.

It might be a stunning scenery but I prefer one wall broken. Helps the greenery.

What a pity I am, so well made and shiny, but unbound by machinery.

I bet they would cut out my heart – if it wasn’t a thievery.

Some choose to never leave me be.

-JW

Love Witch: Vol 2

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Photo by Charry Jin

A distant dawn is spilling light over horizons,

But I’m only waking up when I hear the sound of sirens.

There’s cheap vanilla perfume lingering between our bodies,

Pretending it is sane to look for love in hotel lobbies.

The curtains on our stage remain closed. We’re not ready to ask questions

As you feel deep regret and I’m still fighting my aggressions.

We’re done. After tonight we’re done. The moment sun rises

We’re as good as two strangers who have been through a crisis.

The morning sun hits my face, and I’m ready to flee this absurd scene.

Your eyes meet mine. You also know this has turned obscene.

***

I wonder – if you feel nothing for long enough do you

just hate everybody? Or are you just too tired?

Looking for love seems like too much effort

to put in someone who will never be desired.

But then I meet these people who I shouldn’t touch

as it’s wrong to steal something that’s not yours,

and I sink my teeth in them and I make them blush

so red… But is it my fault they put themselves on all fours?

It is he who adores, it is he who ignores

The warning signs, redder than his cheeks.

But who cares about my heartless Siren’s screak?

I’m the one who made him weak, for weeks,

just like a modern day love witch, so to speak.

Hope they burn me during dawn, as they should.

Hope I reborn as someone from Hollywood

that makes their livelihood by being no good.

-JW

Every Beginning and Bitter End

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Photo by Justin Hamilton

She’s a great listener and a steady support,

Even my granddad calls her “old sport”,

Because she’s a delight and the heart of every crowd –

But I’ll admit, some days she gets a bit loud.

She’s never reckless or selfish, but when she is,

I observe her closely and perform a little analysis,

You know, to see if she’s just lightheaded or hurt

By the many worlds in her head, like a true introvert,

As it’s not usual for her to act out of fear or be ruthless,

And I don’t want her mind to grow painfully fruitless.

She cares a lot, sometimes too much, to be honest,

It’s her kryptonite, forgiving more than is promised,

More than is reasonable. But I secretly love it –

Her passion takes my lowest days to the summit.

It’s tough to make her unreasonable or vague,

Although I sometime do, and she’s embarrassed to break

In front of herself, mostly, not an observer in the street.

That’s just proof of how her mind is unique, yet obsolete.

She never sees the best version of herself in the mirror,

No matter the non-value added wits and the shimmer

She ever so lightly paints her smile with, every other day.

It fascinates me, and some people can’t look away.

I fell for her as soon as she laid her eyes on me,

It seemed like there’s no one else she’d rather see

In that distant night, many Fridays ago, all alone…

It has always made sense — it’s her duty to be,

And mine, ever so blindly,

To atone.

-JW

Three Moments in Time

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The angriest words I’ve ever spoken are “I hope you die” –

I muttered them to myself like it mattered, in a poorly lit bathroom,

and it all went cold but I couldn’t cry.

Four months prior life stabbed me in the back, and so did stability.

I thought it might get better, but hope is a special kind of facility

which I escaped when my family lost its civility.

Now seven years have gone by, I’m still searching for a peace of mind –

peace that feels so real and unfiltered, like love at first sight,

you know, when your pieces are aligned, everything is so well-timed.

Exactly that kind.

***

Back when I had daydreams so dark they turned into insomnia,

I stayed up reading old books between cigarette ash caused euphoria.

The days felt cloudy. But, I swear, no one noticed a thing.

Coffee and mascara hid the fact that death wish and I had a fling.

Whatever chilled me to the bone was what I loved the most

Because at eighteen I learned that you can’t fix your life in post.

To be honest, this still scares me – yet the time is running out

But it’s not kind to those who mess around with so much doubt.

Time judges – especially what you make it about.

“You tout, tout, tout…”

***

It was two autumns ago I last stepped on the scale.

After 6 years of fighting the numbers got stale,

They didn’t entice me with illusion of worthlessness,

But, damn, they managed to sting, nonetheless.

I can’t recall the last time I called myself unlovable.

Maybe I’ve just become difficult or impossible?

But still intense, caring, true and deserving –

For whatever comes next, I’m still preparing,

I’m learning.

It’s rationality I lack when it comes to forgiving my brokenness.

My worst fear is waking up at square zero, this I confess.

The most loving words I say are “I hope you push through” –

I mutter them to myself like they matter because now I know

They do.

-JW