collecting poems

hi i'm phia & these are my fragments from the fault line

[poetrybyphia]

[poetrybyphia]

Gen Z?!

"500 Days of Summer" turned into 500 unread messages. I just bought a new phone, though - I’m just overwhelmed with your “feeling unwell.”

I’m closest to myself when I throw stones on train tracks, until I become the wreck. I don’t let anyone in - and then I wonder why I’m sad.

Got a new prescription, now I haven’t slept since Saturday. I follow Adventists online and wish their certainty were mine.

Hookup culture’s not for me. We all have sex, then cry at the end. “Doomscrolling” is a word no one knew sixteen years ago now it kind of runs the show.

I started running - TikTok’s call. Bought new shoes. Bought them all. Wore them once, then quit again. I hate that sport. It’s just a trend.

And there’s this girl who always shines. Her style is sharp, her body fine. Her hair’s a golden waterfall. I want to be her - want it all. I watch her videos endlessly, until I collapse in jealousy. The clothes fit her, but not my pain. I shop, I sink - still feel the same.

I can’t stop buying. I can’t stop overthinking. I have the most beautiful flat, but it’s empty - silence sinking.

I have 18 different plants with 18 different names. I have 3 real friends, and 20 pounds of weight gain.

I have a laptop, an iPad, AirPods, new Nikes, enough money to buy my flat white. 20 pairs of shoes and a bank account that cries at night.

I have the life my grandma dreamed of. I have opportunities and hope. I could go anywhere, break through, do everything I want to do. But I bury dreams in a casket, cold. My flowers wither. Stories go untold.

Everything feels like stress. I want to rot inside my bed. I rot and rot - it fills me with dread.

Then reels appear - another face, a girl who’s drowning in the same place. Kids with plenty, yet still feel lack. They date, they ghost, they don’t text back.

Boys alone with glowing phones, scrolling through silence, endless tones. Girls who go on dates, but can’t find relationships.

COVID-19 turned into the male loneliness epidemic. Isn’t it pathetic?

Things go by, but wars remain. TikTok. Tinder. Endless pain.

They call us Gen Z - “Slay,” we do, but joy keeps slipping out of view. Sometimes I wonder if they’re wrong - maybe we were mislabeled all along.

Change the Z, replace with S, add A and D - you’ll guess the rest. Not Gen Z, but what we have: one quiet anthem: We’re Gen Sad.

[poetrybyphia]

autumn - finally

i’m in the same state as before summer only softer stranger as happy as in june but more aware of it

not an optimist never that a realist carrying a backpack stuffed with years of ignorance and repression and no you can’t just set that down after one summer of remembrance

the past waits once a friend now an enemy with familiar hands catching me catching me always catching me

still i’d rather be safe than sorry so i keep moving i deal with it

i want to be a mother someday with children who love me and i’ve learned how to love them back because i finally learned how to love myself

i want to be someone’s home one day but i’m not quite there yet

so here i am still by that river as happy as in june still trembling waking from a bad dream not quite awake pierced through head and hands and heart to my heels

yet alive & stubborn enough to remain here

[poetrybyphia]

[poetrybyphia]

the madhouse

a house in the countryside a book from 1963 two women one daughter, one mother one decent, one mad both trapped

boredom thick as the heat of summer nights rigid hours ticking time 693 black days in the haze of opportunities passing by

as the north yorkshire moors railway too fast to hold, too slow to forget ticktack-ticktack spent time on regret

an apple tree behind that house with apples as rotten as the maniac inside a soft thud every other second they fall - no one cares the fruit of lost attention ticktack-ticktack-ticktack detained intention

all that leading to the silent snap of the casket lock through idle minds forcibly broken open from afar, a watchman shouting: “pandora’s box has been stolen and we may fear, it has been opened!”

ticktack-ticktack-ticktack sickness. death. poverty. greed. violence. misery. deceit. hatred. cruelty. all’s fair now in the world of poetry.

two women one decent, one mad both broken sleepless nights on a Persian carpet still hoping… no wealth, only inheritance madness endures through perseverance an opal to guard them a stage outside, to let it rain once upon a time, people came now it’s a ghost’s play as they say: “two women, both gone insane.”

ornamental patterns on the outer wall inside shredded tapestry beauty without, pain within nobody dares to leave the train passing by that one house in the countryside two mad women one far cry ticktack-ticktack time, says their clock, is almost up

a house in the countryside a picture framing faces in fright two mad women in a madhouse orchids still blooming windowsills curtains of linen ticktack-ticktack two minds spinning…

“it’s a hell living there,” they say in agreement the two mad women are not talking about the house but the thoughts within them ticktack-ticktack their minds drawn onto paper in the kitchen a pencil. ink. and…

ticktack — sinking.

[poetrybyphia]

my loyal floodwaters

last august shimmered with sunshine. so did i.

this year, looking out the window, there’s nothing but heavy drops of rain clinging to the glass as if they were part of it.

i feel the same way except my tears stream endlessly, loyal as floodwaters.

if love earned coins, i’d still have empty palms.

the wise child in me, starving on dry words, still marvels that i manage the grocery run.

i’m an empty shell, frozen in shallow water. no matter how low you reach, you’ll never get to me and if you did, you’d be holding on to nothing.

i stand beneath an umbrella that makes it rain on me and no one else.

people say, “you could stop the rain, if you’d just let go.”

but the real rain cold, relentless, unfamiliar terrifies me more than the flood i know.

my tears are the weather i’ve grown used to.

people say not to fear the unknown, that i’m not in a great place anyway that i have nothing left to lose.

but still, i cannot lift my hands.

so i’ll stay here, under this umbrella forever and ever and ever.

[poetrybyphia]

first-class impostor

if no one loved me at my best how could they love me at my worst?

i starved myself for years did my hair every day now it’s falling out like the pieces i pretended to be.

i tried sports now i’ve gained 15 pounds “fake it till you make it” they said i did, and still, i failed. now i can’t hide that something’s wrong.

who could stay with the mess that’s me? who could love the girl who’s stayed in bed for weeks, failing all her courses? breakfast in bed sounds nice, but i’m only enjoyable in tiny doses.

i was the pretty overachiever straight a’s in high school, then med school - competitions, prizes leading to this.

now i feel useless and unseen- a first class impostor, finally revealed.

yet maybe i was never meant to be loved for how well i wore the mask and maybe if no one else does yet i will. but it’s only a minuscule maybe for a colossal bill.

[poetrybyphia]

[poetrybyphia]

[poetrybyphia]