all titles in [brackets] are titles ive given to untitled works or works i don't know the title of. i try to keep the original formatting when i can. not in any particular order

I hate it when I can't even write
a poem about something
because it's too obvious.

like in the airbnb I was at
I guess it used to be a kid's room
cause you could see the imprint
of one little glow in the dark star
that had been missed and painted
over in landlord white. like
that's the poem already
what's the point

you get it. you get the themes.
I don't have time to do it justice.

just look at it
it's on the ceiling

---

by @canthaveshitingotham-crucified + formatting by @brenna

I miss you so much it feels gross.
It feels wet. It feels nauseating.

I want to rip out my heart
and shake it like a Magic 8 Ball.
Is this okay, is this okay, is this okay,
or does it make me weak?

---

by Trista Mateer

god: Yes, you have been given a life in which none of your suffering will ever be meaningful or justified. I am asking you to endure it anyway.

me:

god: We both know that you know that I only speak in silences.

me:

god: A thousand faces, all of them Mine.

me: [A thousand faces, [none] of them Mine.]

god: Beloved.

me:

god: I am asking you to endure it.

me:

god: You did not always live inside this mirror. You will not always be here, suffering.

me:

god: You understand what will happen to you if I look away, don't you? If I blink? I have had to watch every mean and sordid instant of your life, bound within these chains of ardent love. Although you beg me, curse me, and hate me, I will not look away from you. This was the choice I made on your behalf, not My own.

me:

god: No. But I'm close enough to your idea of the real thing that that shouldn't matter.

me:

god: Time flies straight like an arrow, which is to say it doesn't.

me: [N][arrow][is][the][strai][T][.]

god: I gave you language. You ate the fruit. You will not persuade me not to stay my hand.

me: [I am asking [You] [h][ow] to endure it.]

god: On the strength of My having asked it of you.

me: [I am asking [not] to endure it.]

god: Scio, sweetheart.

---

by @intactics on Tumblr (deactivated)

"There will come a ruler
Whose brow is laid in thorn
Smeared with oil like David's boy"
Duty. Strength. Resignation.
You were told to do things and you did them.
The world is something that was put into your hands
and that you must deal with - so you will.
You have a rigid back and steady hands,
either metaphorically or physically.

Is it nature or nurture ?
You don't know.
You are tired of being steady.
You dream of feeling alive.
Not that you aren't, but,
sometimes, it's hard to remember
that there is a heart between your ribs.

Your love is where you breathe.
Come on, breathe. In. Out.
It starts now.

---

by @atlanticsea from a uQuiz result + formatting by me

I don't fantasize about having the
perfect life. I just think about waking up
somewhere safe. I think about having a
pretty kitchen and a nice green armchair.
Books on shelves. Coffee always
brewing. I could be happy with
something simple and quiet.

---

by June Bates

1. Man is a MORAL animal.

2. You can get human beings to do anything, - IF you can convince them it is moral.

3. You can convince human beings anything is moral.

---

by Frank Bidart

I love you.

I say your name all the time when you're not around
just to put more of you in the world

---

by C.T. Salazar

---

by Unknown

I pretended everything would be okay because it seemed impossible to always be saying goodbye. To blueberries. To the ocean. To ravens. To pelicans and plovers. To the cormorants. To the sun-light on the living room wall at four o'clock. To the sound of you in the next room.

---

by Anne de Marcken

I wake up & it breaks my heart. I draw the blinds & the thrill of rain breaks my heart. I go outside. I ride the train, walk among the buildings, men in Monday suits. The flight of doves, the city of tents beneath the underpass, the huddled mass, old women hawking roses, & children all of them, break my heart. There's a dream I have in which I love the world. I run from end to end like fingers through her hair. There are no borders, only wind. Like you, I was born. Like you, I was raised in the institution of dreaming. Hand on my heart. Hand on my stupid heart.

---

by Cameron Awkward-Rich

Understand that there is a beast within you
that can drink till it is
sick, but cannot drink til it is satisfied.

---

by Frank Bidart

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.

We're not going to be able
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

---

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Everything is on fire, but everyone I love is doing beautiful things
and trying to make life worth living,
and I know I don't have to believe in everything,
but I believe in that.

---

by Nikita Gill

In other words: indecision.
In other words: what's the
fucking point. This is another
straightjacket routine, staring
blank through bare shelves
like I can somehow
create hunger in the place
it isn't. We were wrong
about black holes. You imagine
light filling up the pit, but
gravity is a law, not a mouth
to be fed. Emptiness doesn't
want anything, no matter
how hard it pulls. I feel
the same about living
as I do olives: according
to experts, the flavor must
be beautiful.

.All I ever taste is dirt

---

by @brightdeadthing

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass.
And as he stares into the sky, there
are twice as many stars as usual.

---

by Laura Gilpin

Start by pulling him out of the fire and
hoping that he will forget the smell.

He was supposed to be an angel but they took him
from that light and turned him into something hungry,
something that forgets what his hands are for when they
aren’t shaking.

He will lose so much, and you will watch it all happen
because you had him first, and you would let the world
break its own neck if it means keeping him.

Start by wiping the blood off of his chin and
pretending to understand.

Repeat to yourself
"I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you"
until you fall asleep and dream of the place
where nothing is red.

When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you love it.
Oh, when you used to sing it to sleep.

Here are your upturned hands.
Give them to him and watch how he prays
like he is learning his first words.

Start by pulling him out of another fire,
and putting him back together with the pieces
you find on the floor.

There is so much to forgive, but you do not
know how to forget.

When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you are the reason it has become so mangled.

Here is your humble offering,
obliterated and broken in the mouth
of this abandoned church.

He has come back to stop the world
from turning itself inside out, and you love him, you do,
so you won’t let him.

Tell him that you will never know any better.

Pretend to understand why that isn’t good enough.

---

by Caitlyn Siehl + additional formatting by me

you stab an angel, and he doesn't bleed,
not until you make the transfusion
of knowledge of the fruit
from one vessel to another
making of him an earthly body,
dragging him
down
down
down
into the filth of your freedom
and pollute him with the absurd idea
that his hands are his own

until you make the divine unfeeling
into a bruised, beaten, bleeding heart
that trembles through its pulpy rhythm
tied to yours through the bars of your cages
sinew tangled and trapped
like silenced tongues behind teeth
it bleeds, so that yours may beat

until his memory is cast, is created
in the shape of his own palm
and all that remains of him
is what you gave to him

you stab an angel and he doesn't bleed
not until you teach him how,
not until he loves you

---

by @faithdeans

have doctorates
have children
have spouses
have divorces

have careers
have died
have lived

and me? I have done
some of the dishes

---

by David M. Briggs