The Poet

at first i thought that i was perfect

And i’d never need to change my uniqueness that basically makes me the person i thought i’d always be

and then i met her, cute funny popular

then i met him, athletic

and her, beautiful

then him, hilarious

and inspiring

and she is so brilliant

all these people, that are so much better than me

I cannot bear watching something i can’t compare

they tell me i’m pretty, i’m funny, and nice, great at poetry, and smart

but not good enough

staring at yearbook pictures

should be fun not shattering

like you’ll never be her

and we all know that beauty isn’t skin deep

but we are blinded by things we call pretty and perfect

things unbearibly defined by opinion

i wear blinds like scars

all i see when i look into a mirror

into her eyes

they way he looks at her

they way we look at each other shouldn’t be determined by what we see

it should revolve on what lays under

but maybe that just doesn’t matter

 

 

Their words
They feel like gunshots on my weak spots
Like chains
Locking me away
From that little part of me, that just wants to be free

Sometimes
I just want to scream their words are like bombs on our cities
Their tongues like knives, stabbing into our souls
Each And every word
Takes a little part of me away
Taking and taking
Leaving scars and bad memories
Cuffing me
I just want to scream
I don’t know who I am anymore
Their words have found me lost
Their words are trapping me
Alone
Lost
Afraid
I’m afraid that when it’s time to pick teams
I’ll be picked last
Trying and trying to fit in
Their words are like boulders during an avalanche
Tumbling and tumbling onto me

Sometimes
I just want to scream
I want them to hear
My pain
To understand
That their words
Are tearing me apart
They don’t know how many
Nights I’ve had to cry myself to sleep

Their words are keeping me in chains
I try
I just can’t let go
I don’t have enough strength, to let go
Falling
Sinking
Drowning
I scream, and I will cry.
I know that they like watching worlds crumble
I guess it satisfies
But really why?

The air is almost too thick to see through
I thought the world was transparent
Like if I didn’t understand
The answers would fall right in my lap
And finally every day was becoming heavier
I knew I wasn’t strong enough to bear a life like this

Have you ever felt not good enough?
People with perfect lives, and perfect stories strutting through life
Like it’s so light
And you know ok is not good enough

A society where words cut like knives
And heal faster than band aids
Everyone strutting through life
And you feel like the wind is too strong
Blowing through you
Trying to knock only you down
And you know others have got it worse,
You know
But you can’t understand what to do with a life like this

So you write poems
Words that block thoughts stretched and molded, and painted on a laptop screen like a canvas
And then people ask you how you do it
How your poems stick and burn
Dent and shatter
How they resonate with dozens
With athletes
And singers
And artists
How they make people cry
And all I say, is words are my paint, and my mind, my thoughts painted onto papers, and screens
Just sticking
This is my life
Not just words people think I scratch and splatter onto my empty canvas

They say all you have to do is only breathe
And once you’ve got that down,

only speak
only eat
only sleep
only lie
only fake it
till you make it
only keep calm
only be yourself
only be perfect
only shatter
only care
only be there
only live
only tell yourself it will be OK

only don’t eat
don’t speak
Don’t sleep
be honest
be real
you’ll never make it
only stress only die
don’t live

Which way?
Now why?

First he was a pebble
a rock
Then a boulder
Then something happened that perpetually blocked my view
Blinded
Broken
By a boulder
That i had to break through
Though i ended up breaking him too and harder than he broke me
I liked him
Almost too much for how much he hurt me
But sometimes you have to stand up for yourself and when I finally did
I ended up pushing him down a hill too high for us
And I just stood there
Watching him
Forget about me
I was blinded by something I named love
To painful for someone so broken like me

I was three
And
He was my daddy
And she was mommy
And i thought there hearts were forever stitched together
And just maybe,
The thread wouldn’t break

He said he was going somewhere else
An apartment
Just across the street
I’d see him less
Less, but enough
he said

And she,
She was hurting
They both were broken
I thought that I could fix the thread

Please don’t break
Please

Maybe i was too young?
Too dumb?
To stitch two hearts back together

Please Don’t break

I know
I was only three
Hadn’t seen this world enough

maybe broken souls are too often in this mankind
And thread just isn’t thick enough

Please don’t break

by Chaya and Hailey

Your final breath
Fills this empty room
Just me and you
Soon, just me
I know you’re going somewhere better
Where your head will brush the clouds
The pain will be over
But I want you to stay
And don’t think that I don’t know that you are suffocating in this air
And that I am selfish for thinking that you should stay here and suffer for me
And I know that when you get there,
You will be happy
You will be smiling
And when this room is empty
Without you
Without me
I’ll see you again
I’ll just have to wait

In the morning
When dawns peak whispers chilly fog onto our cheeks
The air is thick
Filled with loneliness
Empty
But full
Full of sadness
Full of lies
The trees sway and breath
But we,
We stay still as we suffocate
In the morning
When we put on our masks
Falseness drowns inside us
We know
But we can’t explain

In the morning
When the moon’s been left behind
And the sun crawls back up into the clouds
We know it’s time

It was big and yellow
The door was red and tall

It was a halfway empty home
It was too big for us
It was beautiful though
And the walls reflected and absorbed the hot sun
And cold snow

Like every single memory stuck to the walls
Half colored papers plastered on refrigerator doors,
And it wasn’t really just my home
It was my life
For 6 thick years

I don’t know
I guess you guys are my everything
You guys have
Shaped me
And tried to break me
You’ve bent me
And threw me down
And picked me up

I just wanted a chance to say thank you
For every single day you stood by my side like if they tried to shoot me you’d take the bullet
Every single one of you,
We’ve built bonds out of thread made of personality
We are all different
Unique in every single possible way
Artists that can paint the canvas like another world
Readers
Runners
Athletes
Writers
Actors
Dancers
Coders
Genius‘s
You’re all like dream catchers
You hold the pain and happiness of a thousand nights

Thank you
I can’t say those words enough times for you all to realize
How much you mean to me

I remember
A huge family
And a small room
good food
And big smiles
I remember
That there,
We wore slippers inside
And The air smelled like rice straws, and smoke, and incense, and flowers
I remember
There was a man
He Was someone I looked up to like the clouds
And he was so kind
He smelled of soy sauce, and delicious food

I remember
Standing under a cherry blossom tree
Looking up
Slurping noodles
And absorbing the air

I remember
That we went in the summer
The air was thick
And hot
Warmth wrapped around me like a blanket of the sky
And the time went too fast

I remember
That at dawn
When the sun scraped the black skies and stars away,
It was time to come home

I know that I always knew
That i was a Jew
But not what a jew really is
Now,
I know
I know that those few survivors wear tattoos like scars
Numbers
Embodied on our skin
Because they thought that we weren’t humans
Because our hearts followed thoughts they didn’t like
And
We are stronger than fakers, and we live past our own shadow
And
That’s what I am,
A Jew

My first breath
And Thought
Was in Missouri
A blink into dawn
And a moons quiet shadow
My firsts
All began there
My first ice cream cone
And daylight bike rides
in kansas
Though I was born a state Away from my childhood
There was a line
A road
A jump between us
Just a breath away