addiedelilah

hello! swiftie and (tortured) poet here for the competition hehe

[butdxddyilovehim]

Hi I’m Addie <3 this blog is for the poetry competition and I cannot wait, trying to separate it from my main

Thanks to @andrea-taylorsversion for the banner <333 (and taylor alison swift for the pfp)

[butdxddyilovehim]

The Albatross

Deep under moss, I hid an egg I laid, in wait of hatching

Thought you’d get on board, but three years later, I still hear it scratching

The chick can’t breathe, needs a father who can love it, feed it

I dig it up, put it somewhere you can’t help but see it

An albatross, its too-big wings all stunted by its prison

I wonder if it might have flown if you had only listened

You risked its health, basket balanced on my peak at seven

Crushed it myself, I spared its pain, no misery in heaven.

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

Guilty as Sin?

am i guilty as sin, guilty as charged if i learn to shut down, to know who you are with no way to escape am i your willing friend?

we are first-second-third, what i deserve cut the middle-man out, now i'm built to serve if i do what you want can you give me my end

spirit away, another's mistake it was never my choice, take me again if i swear loyalty, please promise me back my place

learning to play the cowardly way despise courteous feet, twisting away there's the sting of your hand, still have your brand on my face

smile too fond, beach and bleach-blond if i give in to this, hard to resist he might make me complete, brushing the teeth from my throat

another home, dust, open roads if i'm learning to love, learning to cope will you forgive me when i now and then let you go?

[butdxddyilovehim]

The Black Dog

i used to wonder about how they trained huskies kin to wolves, somehow domesticised i used to think about how cold the winters must be until we humans let the wolves inside you, with your sun-tanned hands, led me in the doorway you showed me how to keep warm by the fire you, with your shaking hands, careful as you foray into my chest, install a cage of wire you said it would keep me safe, safe from all the dangers the silver chain kept my goodness in i snuggled deeper into warmth, safe from all the strangers you told me would rip my heart from my skin a nightmare one stormy night, i thrashed and my fangs scratched you you tutted and began to file them down you couldn't risk it, what if i were to attack you and, anyway, you can protect me now i think i understand now, you against me in the trenches a liar, stabbing man's own best friend sad, uncomprehending eyes stare up at you, defenceless the black dog loyal to its master til the end.

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

loml

i looked into your eyes and white lied, 'light of my life, i'll never leave you' held your hand as the other packed a suitcase a precaution, i said 'let's open my largest whiskey' we drank in hands like kids down by the lake but you drained me of life 'til i was swaying now you're a lonesome old martyred leech not my fault you couldn't hear what i was saying signs telling you i wanted you to leave

leave, or my life would be lost on misty lands, trapped by my own roots, stuck begging for borrowed sand latch onto memory like i want to love or maybe lose at this precipice, we falter love or my life, don't make me choose

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

do you remember, once you once pledged me all the love you had to give it filled the caverns of your heart, the rooms, it barely fit i took it off your hands and let it settle on me, light you taught me how to love myself and taught me how to live but, bemused, i watched days pass as you began to lose weight and height and daylight, shrinking out of your shoes after years of being bare, allergic to my love your heart was recoiling, reclaiming back its rooms the rest of you will follow suit, end what your heart's begun the smallest man who ever lived, no bigger than my thumb and i still have that handful, all the love you had to give but it's now so small it might as well be none.

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

Fresh Out The Slammer

(Please ignore this self-indulgent pure waffle it’s for my beloved Fabiyan)

I knew you’d be here

Gone all

Fuzzy with love as you see me for the

First time in four months

You had nothing but that love to bail me

Out with

Nothing but drugs

So loyal to me, even through

My means

Of escape, the keys

Clinked when she walked, what

Can I say

I see you kept the goods safe for me

Kept blue eyes at bay, the red hair, pretty

Resisted the danger to visit the city

A heist abroad will bring us supplies

My sister will dupe some fool

Send him spiralling into a foyer in

A leather harness

Now I’m here to see the

Prospective recruits

And their high statuses

Interesting

Way to begin

The pursuit

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

The Bolter

The ideal of what I could have been

If I had fitter legs or

Louder screams

Denied privilege to run, be free

I extend to you that courtesy.

what hurts the most is how you could have been a gentleman,

a dashing lord from my favourite book

what hurts the most is that I would have freely given the things you took

if you had asked politely, maybe it would hurt nicely, the burn that I craved versus the one that you died in

traitor masquerading as the one to confide in

i told you my secrets and out of the plenty you took my weakness and used it against me

the frenzy that followed was solely your fault, too broken, my legs hurting too much to bolt

the woman inside me used alternate ways, your love was on fire, so you deserved the blaze.

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

so long, london

christmas, they cut

the trees down

new year finds them

in pieces in pots

their leaves brown

they are babies

taken from the arms

of mothers

pigs separated by fences

in a cuboid farm

led away on a leash

to breed, configure more

they lost their roots

like the christmas pines,

sycamore

i used to see

in the mirror, green leaves

on my skin, pine needles

soft hair, city air

that i breathe

i used to think

if i left, i’d be undone

so far from those roots

but I thrive

so long, london

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

But, Daddy, I love him

it would have been romantic

shake my father’s hand with

the palm of yours you used

to pull me down, into

your depths

fathoms below

you were a scarecrow

i watched you in your

wheatfield, tattered

clothes, out scything down playthings

i was more, i was

sure

new suit, you knock

on my door

he opens it, broad

chest,

wheat hair, grey mirror

you will ask, courteous

for my hand that has

already touched you

you ask permission for something you already took

he will say

No

you will draw back your fist

matching rage like a fever

i say ‘But, Daddy, I love him’

i could be talking to

either

@ttpdpoetryweek (I think I submitted some past the deadline last week that you missed my bad)

[deanmekel]

To make a house a home

I hope the big changes come less often now

Inside these four new walls to make your own

I hope you can fall asleep without a lump in your throat

For far too long I have missed you when I am alone

It is you that I first think of in the dark

When I am searching for the words to write down the feelings in my heart

 

On foreign shores, in the comfort of a house

You are there to tell me how

The aching in my bones can feel a little softer

 

I wish to do the same for you

On your loneliest days, when the world is trying to beat you down again

I hope you can read my words, so they might ease your pain too

[butdxddyilovehim]

(Sorry if this isn’t ok you can tell me to delete but I love this and wanted to add)

I’ve lived with monsters and men

And prayed until I lost faith

Lain shaking under my bed, pretending I was somewhere safe

I used to think it was fixed

That my life would play out like this

Never thought I’d be cut free, so I could finally sleep

Fine with lights out

Untied now

Once in a cage, got a place that’s mine now

[butdxddyilovehim]

The Manuscript

it isn't your fault that you're a narcissist i fell in love after learning of it this self-diagnosis, soaked in sorrow resignation, your voices hollow both, the too-loud and the silent amplify one, keep the other quiet you try to throw sand on the fire of not enough, sabotage's choir give me retorts, give me lines to spit a way to counteract your wit can you script it out for me manuscript, and out to sea in a bottle, i will read the words i will study you and learn, rehearse if you think i am not enough to be worthy of superior love i will practice, i will concentrate for years until i elevate myself to your standards your shelf and your banners will become my home, too if it means you love me, i will be you

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

My Boy Only Breaks His Favourite Toys

as children, passing uncles would buy us both the same gift an expensive car to construct out of bricks birthdays four days apart, an identical message in our cards a week later, observe the wreckage, sparse bricks strewn across his floor he made the car carefully and then ruined it, bored my car would be somewhere upside-down in a creek lost by the first day, then i'd forget to seek

we weren't brothers seemed like it until ten until the realisations, conversations, and then the development of something more real out of control like a petered-off spinning car wheel

i should have seen it coming the bag in his hand he used to carry it down to the river, the sand soft, the mud made it black he'd fill it with rocks; on the way home they'd crack into crystals, jagged, beautiful still i'd reach to take them out and then watch the blood spill i had thought that maybe i could bring him joy, be his favourite person, his favourite toy i would be that first car, expensive, red deeper, more scarlet the more that i begged him to stay, though he was never the type to he breaks all he owns and i lose all that i do

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

The Tortured Poets Department

look at you, ecstatic to be on death row do you want a medal? something you can show off to the masses, i earned this with my depression i took others down with my lack of attention your burden was the ones that you loved we can all see your scars when you roll up the cuffs on purpose you earned this look, look at my pain look at the burns i got from my own flame i held it there, thinking of the eyes the way the skin will look with the wound cauterised they will see the pain i went through (for you) i saw you snip at your skin and tell them i tortured you i saw them cluck, sympathetic, and applaud your fortitude me? was i your trial? the fire, the combat? was i worthwhile? line up, then, i guess you win take your badge, make sure you stab it through your skin a life coddled and paid for so you make it seem harder tell me i ruin your life and i make you a martyr blackened reputation, tainted with tar tint the patron of the tortured poets department

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

Fortnight

two weeks ago, that haunted night my fists that set the ghosts alight ink hair on pale crumpled parchment strawberry-picking, red-soaked carton incriminating on clean white floor i've never made her cry before

hold onto power, but do i have it? she's human and i'm savage, manic my only reference moved an inch nothing to keep me from the brink the river froths with tchotchkes, shoes odd to think i pay to lose

my memories, my merchant's wagon i'll sacrifice a father, dragon i'll find something stronger to become a way to keep emotions numb so much changes over a fortnight power is power, she was mine

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

Anti-hero

I claimed this one for me

I said

This sounds like self-loathing and regret

Like bitter coffee and too-tart wine

That I drink to tire out

To force my tongue to quiet down

Lucky you do that for me now

Quiet down

Like my mother said

Like the girl who left, the girl I begged

Listen

Never again.

I will not speak

A word of love

I will cut

Vowels and filler words

The book will be

Four times shorter than I wanted

The album more of an EP

Four songs

Instrumental

So I don’t have to open up

I will cut

Characters, who needs

An anti-hero when the main antagonist is me

A character I can kill off from my autobiography

The world’s attention span needs shorter

It will like it

The world needs me

To be quiet.

@ttpdpoetryweek

[butdxddyilovehim]

Sparks Fly

it makes sense now.

you always loved

science

a physical person, the injuries show

chemical reaction, fire on snow

the biological father that nobody knows

so.

this was an experiment

you did warn me about

pretty faces and scorch marks

you lost your eyebrows briefly at ten

from a bad burn

this time, i guess, it was my turn

to lose something dear

pretty clear

that pretty face never mourned those brows

you raise at me now like i should have seen the sheen

of arrogance, the gloss of it

uncaring in the loss of it

i smelt the roasting smoke

pig on the spit

flames flit, sparks fly, fire

heart staked, the flake of charcoal pyres

@ttpdpoetryweek