Submissions by MgAl
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
Am I poet? I don't know. I am an extremely loose definition of the word, at best. I just write when my heart tells me to. Or when the liquor runs out.
Fire breather
How did I let it consume me so easily,
draped in the comfort of these
hallowed and safe spaces
“Get too comfortable, and you might get burned”
Is not the way I want to be
when the only thing we get at the end
is missing each other’s faces
I don’t want to set fire to our bed
when the dragon’s feeling restless,
I’m just asking for a sword to get
plunged through my chest
Ringing alarms and causing
all the lights to switch to red
And I was blinded by rage,
while you were just trying to rest your head
I...
draped in the comfort of these
hallowed and safe spaces
“Get too comfortable, and you might get burned”
Is not the way I want to be
when the only thing we get at the end
is missing each other’s faces
I don’t want to set fire to our bed
when the dragon’s feeling restless,
I’m just asking for a sword to get
plunged through my chest
Ringing alarms and causing
all the lights to switch to red
And I was blinded by rage,
while you were just trying to rest your head
I...
#anger
#love
#regret
#boyfriend
#relationships
245 reads
1 Comment
Sorry/Thank you
Every time I have to tell someone new that my mom is dead
or I meet up with someone who I haven’t seen since before she passed
and I have to to bring it up as if it happened just yesterday
The response I always hear is “I’m so sorry”
and I’m halted mid-sentence at the brief, jarring processing of it
In the middle of spilling the hurt, albeit only surface-level to prevent
a complete collapse of the emotional levees,
I hear “I’m so sorry”
And I am paralyzed because it’s such an understandable, yet strange reaction
But what I usually have to say after...
or I meet up with someone who I haven’t seen since before she passed
and I have to to bring it up as if it happened just yesterday
The response I always hear is “I’m so sorry”
and I’m halted mid-sentence at the brief, jarring processing of it
In the middle of spilling the hurt, albeit only surface-level to prevent
a complete collapse of the emotional levees,
I hear “I’m so sorry”
And I am paralyzed because it’s such an understandable, yet strange reaction
But what I usually have to say after...
#grief
#mother
#death #IMissYou
#death #IMissYou
214 reads
2 Comments
The joke
The joke of the living
the irony of life
the folly of our humanity
is that we are killing ourselves
in order to stay alive
the irony of life
the folly of our humanity
is that we are killing ourselves
in order to stay alive
#LifeStruggles
179 reads
2 Comments
River
I have felt the ebb and flow of this life,
caresses and tides,
spiraling through my body,
twisting and turning me
into unraveling flows of energy
Languid,
formless,
meandering,
I circle and whirl and whisk,
rushing, slowing, losing my breath,
yet never dying away
I flow to no cardinal in particular,
but every pebble,
every current,
every shore I kiss,
is where I was meant to be all along,
sweeping waves of my own quiet resolve,
bringing with me granules of earth
and washing away again...
caresses and tides,
spiraling through my body,
twisting and turning me
into unraveling flows of energy
Languid,
formless,
meandering,
I circle and whirl and whisk,
rushing, slowing, losing my breath,
yet never dying away
I flow to no cardinal in particular,
but every pebble,
every current,
every shore I kiss,
is where I was meant to be all along,
sweeping waves of my own quiet resolve,
bringing with me granules of earth
and washing away again...
#river
#water
#nature
#LifeCycle
#metaphor
174 reads
1 Comment
Call
In tranquility, speckled with sunshine and flora,
alive with the breath of all creation great and small,
there is a call to destruction unanswered
inside the mind of the idle,
well and unwell,
thriving through sweat-stained joy,
yet still licking dried chaotic bloodstains
long since cleansed by the quiet of contentment,
yet still hearing cacophonous whispers of tedious conflict
Fires ravaging behind distant eyes
without rhyme or reason,
fanned by the winds of melancholia
without so much as a flinch
the...
alive with the breath of all creation great and small,
there is a call to destruction unanswered
inside the mind of the idle,
well and unwell,
thriving through sweat-stained joy,
yet still licking dried chaotic bloodstains
long since cleansed by the quiet of contentment,
yet still hearing cacophonous whispers of tedious conflict
Fires ravaging behind distant eyes
without rhyme or reason,
fanned by the winds of melancholia
without so much as a flinch
the...
#confessional
#myself
#SelfReflection #SelfDiscovery
#SelfReflection #SelfDiscovery
237 reads
0 Comments
26
I traveled through the spaces of my previous corridors,
touching memories as they glisten past,
little glass ornaments reflecting the many faces
of when I thought days would have no expiration
and the sensations were too eternal to be a memory
The fragment I choose, a decade earlier:
I enter the room of a distant yet present Self,
watching your slender fingers skating elegantly
across a frozen pond of letters, as if locking in
your emotions with a spell of frigid literature
Yearning yet calculated, crafted to be...
touching memories as they glisten past,
little glass ornaments reflecting the many faces
of when I thought days would have no expiration
and the sensations were too eternal to be a memory
The fragment I choose, a decade earlier:
I enter the room of a distant yet present Self,
watching your slender fingers skating elegantly
across a frozen pond of letters, as if locking in
your emotions with a spell of frigid literature
Yearning yet calculated, crafted to be...
#WritingPoetry
#SelfReflection
#SelfDiscovery
253 reads
6 Comments
Broken American Dream
I’m in the promised land, or so they say
Quality and money galore, or so they say
You’re living the better life, or so they say
So much better than what they know
But they don’t know what I know
I can be myself, but not too much
Say something, but not too loudly
Live your life, but don’t be proud
Pushing and pulling for my own protection
Now I haven’t got a sense of direction
Expensive equals happiness
Extortion is success
Explaining is talking too much
Just be grateful,
Till you completely...
Quality and money galore, or so they say
You’re living the better life, or so they say
So much better than what they know
But they don’t know what I know
I can be myself, but not too much
Say something, but not too loudly
Live your life, but don’t be proud
Pushing and pulling for my own protection
Now I haven’t got a sense of direction
Expensive equals happiness
Extortion is success
Explaining is talking too much
Just be grateful,
Till you completely...
#identity
178 reads
3 Comments
Breaking your own heart
Sit down and listen to the volumes in your head
Telling you to bleed it all out before you’re dead
And there’s such a rush, a fleeting thrill
Of every ounce of blood you spill
In your veins, a pulse of inspiration
Trapped in momentary motivation
The spirit moves you into a dance
Speaking tongues of your own mind’s God
Shaking into an unholy trance
Of creation in a listless fog
(Empty glass,
Endless nights,
Crying till the...
Telling you to bleed it all out before you’re dead
And there’s such a rush, a fleeting thrill
Of every ounce of blood you spill
In your veins, a pulse of inspiration
Trapped in momentary motivation
The spirit moves you into a dance
Speaking tongues of your own mind’s God
Shaking into an unholy trance
Of creation in a listless fog
(Empty glass,
Endless nights,
Crying till the...
#music
#lyrics
#confessional
#WritersBlock
#WritingPoetry
295 reads
2 Comments
Write away
Writing always peaks at your lows
After all,
Who’s got time to be a writer
When you’re soaring through a sky of abandon
And all the words you ever want to say
Are impulsive, joyous, passionate, fleeting,
Falling from your lips faster than you can taste them
Like electric particles on the wind
Moments whispering into thin air
Without the permanence of paper
They needn’t stay in a place to be read back
Because you’re living the story of your dreams
Right here, right now
And you haven’t got the sick kick
Of breaking...
After all,
Who’s got time to be a writer
When you’re soaring through a sky of abandon
And all the words you ever want to say
Are impulsive, joyous, passionate, fleeting,
Falling from your lips faster than you can taste them
Like electric particles on the wind
Moments whispering into thin air
Without the permanence of paper
They needn’t stay in a place to be read back
Because you’re living the story of your dreams
Right here, right now
And you haven’t got the sick kick
Of breaking...
#depression
#confessional
#WritingPoetry #SelfReflection
#WritingPoetry #SelfReflection
253 reads
3 Comments
RGSA
I think of you, a lot
It’s difficult to separate
when you’re in everything I do,
everything I speak,
everything I hear,
everything I feel,
everything I believe.
I don’t want to separate
I don’t want to forget
the feelings of you,
of joy,
of pain,
of the earliest memories,
of the very last memory,
of all that we shared
and all that we could have shared.
I reach out,
wishing I could reach you
I pick your favorite things,
hoping to share with you.
I take pause unexpectedly ...
It’s difficult to separate
when you’re in everything I do,
everything I speak,
everything I hear,
everything I feel,
everything I believe.
I don’t want to separate
I don’t want to forget
the feelings of you,
of joy,
of pain,
of the earliest memories,
of the very last memory,
of all that we shared
and all that we could have shared.
I reach out,
wishing I could reach you
I pick your favorite things,
hoping to share with you.
I take pause unexpectedly ...
#grief
#mother
#death #memories
#death #memories
251 reads
0 Comments
Voicebreak
Sorry, my voice broke again
I didn't mean to trip over my own words
I guess I let it get out of hand
it happens when I get a little excited
I know when left to its own devices
my voice goes a little wild,
punches a wall and causes shockwaves
because of the passionate verbal tempest
thrashing inside,
with the urge to electrify
But they say the mind can be a prison
and mine is padded with reinforced rubber
built by anxiety patrol and the tone police,
thus when I try to speak,
my thoughts are cut in half,...
I didn't mean to trip over my own words
I guess I let it get out of hand
it happens when I get a little excited
I know when left to its own devices
my voice goes a little wild,
punches a wall and causes shockwaves
because of the passionate verbal tempest
thrashing inside,
with the urge to electrify
But they say the mind can be a prison
and mine is padded with reinforced rubber
built by anxiety patrol and the tone police,
thus when I try to speak,
my thoughts are cut in half,...
#anger
#anxiety
#FreeVerse #frustration
#FreeVerse #frustration
504 reads
1 Comment
snap
Hello, Self
socially distanced,
long before it was a sticker
on the supermarket floor.
Your eyes do not find me,
yet they burn holes into
a non-existent atmosphere,
devoid of
sensation,
breath,
and emotion.
In a snap, we disconnect.
Fingers are white-knuckled and numb,
clinging to a sense of self
you've fashioned du jour,
clenching and wrenching,
as if suffocating this counterfeit You in your palms
will absorb,
and become a You...
socially distanced,
long before it was a sticker
on the supermarket floor.
Your eyes do not find me,
yet they burn holes into
a non-existent atmosphere,
devoid of
sensation,
breath,
and emotion.
In a snap, we disconnect.
Fingers are white-knuckled and numb,
clinging to a sense of self
you've fashioned du jour,
clenching and wrenching,
as if suffocating this counterfeit You in your palms
will absorb,
and become a You...
#depression
#MentalHealth
367 reads
0 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by MgAl