Poetry Pincushion

My name is Ellis. I'm 24 years old and I enjoy writing. This is simply a place for my thoughts -from whimsical fancies to contemplations and streams of conicousness. 

[poetrypincushion]

Why?

Why would you contact her? What did you gain? Other than knowing you'll be in my head once again. You wanted to leave. You chose to leave. You know how to contact me, so if you have something to say, just say it. You broke everything I had, and nothing you say will change that. For once, I'm fixed, finally, just. So if you need to say anything, get it over with. You've used up enough of my mind.

[poetrypincushion]

02/12/2016 - Untitled

I feel displaced within so much space I have the room the grow and now the knowledge I needed to know and I’ve now learned how inside a box, I’ve placed you deep down beneath the earth where your roots still try to grow but your locked inside the metal walls so no-one can know or hear or see that I still think of you now but I just breathe and remind myself it’s okay because you’re underground and I’ve mastered the teeth and the sparkle and the lines of laughter and cackles, even some close kisses of my design, so maybe, just maybe, now you’re buried in dirt with some grit and some dust of memories long ago I’ll be okay and you’ll never know that wherever your seeds disperse I’ll pretend and won’t show the sadness that lingers in your new budding life because I've got the teeth and the smiles to show I’m “alright.”

[teapotendencies]

In love with my nobbly knee right now

[poetrypincushion]

This is my leg.

[poetrypincushion]

29.06.2016

A poem I never finished, it needs a home, even if incomplete. 

The box is dusty and full to the brim,

She managed for so long until Annie screamed, 

“Let me out, we both know I am in here,”

it was a truth they both could not ignore. 

So at first, 

She and Annie would talk within riddles,

Chinese whispers and morse code.

Annie never wanted to get back inside her filthy box. 

“You made me, now embrace me,” she said as I slammed the lid down,

a crunching key turned in the lock. 

But Annie still whispered, 

She talked, yelled, sang and bellowed until the rusted lock and dusty box made no difference. 

Annie’s words could not be contained, 

She could not be herself anymore, not without her. 

It was just as Annie had said, whilst braiding my hair,

“It’s always me and you, and as long as we’re together, I’ll always be fair.”

After all, Annie was the only one she could trust, 

her riddles made perfect sense, 

“A secret language just for the two of us.”

And so she was no longer alone, she was always with Annie, 

Together, never apart, never lonely, 

Safe and...

[poetrypincushion]

23.09.2016

I sit behind the wheel and I see myself asleep against your chest wrapped tightly to forget how uncomfortable crappy sofa bed is and I knew on that day that it was the day that it all would change and I could see it on your pale face as you tried to hide your riddled pain. But don’t you worry now I am okay and I’ve learnt how to live with constant anguish in my veins - it reminds me it was real and so it means it’s okay to feel 

that haunting memory. 

I’ve realised i’ve started to forget the tone of your voice and the shape of your teeth that clashed with mine during those passionate kisses and rabid, frothing arguments. Your laugh is distant, it’s an echo in my head - a memory so hungry yet it cannot be fed anymore. 

I know if you read this you’ll think i’m crazy and I wonder if you’re reading this if your memory is also fading in a magical, whimsical haze. You made it clear you cannot keep me near and you’ve moved on and I’m still here and all I hope for is that you’re happy and smiling and safe. 

I am okay. I am strong. I’m not in love anymore, some days. But at least this anguish in my veins, that pulsing, plucking and wrenching stabbing pain was worth it. It shows me I am capable to feel, to be in love, even after what happened when he took from me what was not his. I never thought I’d feel love. At least I have this. This knowledge I can love, even if in memory. 

You’re finally who you were always meant to be and I’ve found myself, I’m finally free. 

[poetrypincushion]

Behind my eyes I try not to form your face anymore. When I close my eyes I try to picture anything but your teeth, your smile and the delicate freckles and moles on your back. I try to forget your laugh and your humour and everything that I would give anything and everything for. I was beginning to make more effort at trying. Before now I had no choice. My mind and my thoughts and behind my eyelids belonged to you. Did you ever realise how much of me you had in your possession? What scares me is that I think you did and you chose to use it to your best advantage. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the anger and the rage and the anxiety that gets the better of me in moments like this. And then I realise it is you that gets the better of me. It’s your scrawly handwriting on a letter and your smile and presence in nearly every memory and place. It is you. It is not me. And I have to keep reminding myself that this struggle for power behind my eyes is not my doing. It is yours. It is yours and you knew that all along. 

Now I make the choice. Now I have just a hint of control. I’ve taken it back from you. There’s a small part of me that isn’t yours. And what is worst about this success is that I know you wouldn’t even care. You’d be relieved. You’d think I was crazy for even writing this. Your words cut me deep and you knew they would. I try and pretend that you didn’t say those things out of spite, you didn’t know me well enough to hurt me. But in reality, I know you knew me better than anyone ever has or ever could. You said those words because you knew it would hurt. 

And I pity you for that. 

[poetrypincushion]

Unforeseen Circumstances

It creeps over me,

The memory of a rain soaked coat,

Now squandered by our unprecedented fate, 

I felt the soft hairs upon your legs

As I unconsciously reached inside your trouser leg. 

Behind your ear is where I left my secrets, 

Glistening with saliva and intention.

And under my fingernails resided your sweat your skin,

From constant grazing and penetration. 

Once upon a time these fingertips penned unbreakable vows, love letters, promises, trust and devotion laced within my words, 

Now these fingertips pen only creeping memories. 

The results of our unprecedented fate. 

- poetrypincushion

[poetrypincushion]

11/06/2016

The memory of my mother’s smile, 

A trailer full of food and warm sun cream hands,

Grains of sand 

Embedded beneath her skin were shades of purple, pink and

Blue skies played above the rope swing of the old oak, 

My father pushed me and I

Swung a fist and hit the door,

We all crouched there huddled on the floor, 

“Let that be a lesson,” he said

Once more I tolerated another blow into my chest and down I

Go through the streets with bare feet and grazed knees,

Cold pain in my lungs, wandering

Free in the hills at sunset I remember seeing a bat, 

Ruined by a spider in a fishing net my father forced me to 

“Catch these thoughts and write them down,” my therapist said whist ticking off her checklist, 

Perspiration on my top 

Lip against lip and tongue against teeth is the only way I thought I could escape

Myself and I, we stay alone, 

Just me and you,

 Unknown. 

-poetrypincushion

[poetrypincushion]

I'm the sad girl with the quiet face sitting in the window seat of the train. Do you see the tears rolling down my cheeks, running a mix of mascara and disappointment. I'm was the happy girl on the platform, waiting for your train to arrive, running through the sea of faces, spotting yours a distance away. Did you feel the love of my run, jump and hug, the firm purse of love that landed on your lips? Did you feel my happiness radiate whilst looking in your eyes? I'm the girl - the one who tries too hard, who deserves the most but doesn't ask, the one who smiles for others when they can't smile for themselves, the one who picks up everyone else's broken pieces because she wants to, not because she has to. I'm the girl - the one who would do anything, listen or give advice, change the topic or heatedly defend you. I'm the girl - the one you told you'd been waiting for, the one who trusted and let you hold her fragile trust, the one you instilled hope, happiness and reassured self belief in. Now I'm not that girl. I'm the sad girl on the train, silently crying painful tears at every thought of you. You took me. You left me. You broke what fragility was left of me. And now I am alone.

[poetrypincushion]

My words sound manic and out of control. 

My thoughts are possessed by anxiety and shadows. 

No wonder you left. 

I am broken, more than you thought. 

Or maybe you realised and saw it in my nature, in my devotion to you.

Maybe it was too much. I am not who you thought I would be.

Another disappointment and another teapot full of train tickets. 

I can’t cope. I can’t breath. I feel like you’ve shut me off and it is just so easy for you. It breaks me. It breaks me that you can do this so easily and I am here in turmoil, pulling at my nails and my hair and my wrists. And you are moving on. And you are smiling and drinking and in a world where I never have been. But you are at every location, in my bed, in my kitchen, in my shower, in my car. I can’t escape the thought of you. It must be so easy for you and I am so envious. And I am so hurt. 

poetrypincushion

[poetrypincushion]

Are you as lost as I am? Are you in the darkened corner of the room where there isn’t any light any more? 

I hope you can be happy and I hope you can recover. 

I hope you don’t blame yourself for my actions. 

The faults are my own. 

They always have been and they always will be.

Whoever it is, leaves me. 

I will never be good enough. I will always have flaws, even to the person that I finally felt like there was nothing I needed to change for. 

[poetrypincushion]

I am lost to all the words that you have said; lost to the memories and the smiles and the embraces and looks and caresses and giggles and burps. I can’t let go of them and it pains me that I think you already have. 

I truly believed we were the real thing - and for you to say those words, “I thought it was what I wanted I’m sorry,” will never, ever leave my mind. I hope that as you battle and recover, you’ll realise that our wounds can be healed and that I’m not something to fight against, but I am support and I am friendship and I am love - your love. 

But now at this moment, I want nothing more than to run. To run and run and run and to leave and move on to where the giants are sleeping and I can live the life I wanted to live, with no painful memories and no limitations. I want to go there now. 

I’m sorry.

poetrypincushion

[poetrypincushion]

All that’s left is the empty space where you resided,

You took with you my joy, my smile, my sparkled eyes and my soul.

The only thing that allows me to feel relief is the crimson that splashes the pages of the love letters I wrote for you. 

They glisten beautifully in as the red deepens, thickening, setting - tainting the memories I had with the reality that they are now past tense, they were once a feeling, they are now a memory, set to reside in everything that you took when you left me. 

Your words resonate in every thought that hurries through my mind, your handwriting imprinted onto the inside of my eyelids, “I am yours. I am yours. I am yours. You are my safety and I will keep you safe.” 

Why did you say those words? Why did you give me that hope, that opportunity to trust myself to you? Why did you leave? Oh why did you leave? 

Part of me wants to believe that those words are still true, and one day you might return to me all that which you have taken, but I cannot believe it. 

I battle against the sea of anxious images and words and experiences and you calmed the waves, you pulled the tide out. Now the waves are crashing down and you’re shipwrecked, never to return to the tide. 

Why did you leave me, how could you leave me if you loved me? 

I’ll swim in a bathtub of reddened stains and let the current take me under. I have no desire for anything else. Not any more. 

poetrypincushion

[poetrypincushion]

The thought of embodying someone within your own flesh, within your own bloodstream, each movement and sense, each breath and thought, every look and daydream, has always terrified me. “Is it even possible?” I have always wondered... But now I have no choice. You are a part of me I did not create, I did not add or deduct or shape or form, but you became a part of me of your own accord. Of my own body’s decision and my desires I cannot control. I cannot explain and I doubt anyone could possibly understand besides me and you. Maybe others feel it too, what we share, but I cannot imagine it to be quite so. I embody you in everything that I do, in every part of my day to day routines and of my deepest thoughts, of my daydreams driving or walking or swaying, in my dreams together or apart, you are there. You are a part of me. 

poetrypincushion

[poetrypincushion]

I can feel myself slipping and falling into a darkened corner i’ve fought so desperately to leave.

The other side of the room sparkles with sunlight and hope and optimism,

I don’t want to reside in this corner once more.

I see you over there, smiling, waving.

I hear your voice echoing encouraging words,

Beckoning me to step across the line that to others is so invisible.

This corner is not pleasant,

It is so deep and misleading, it appears so much bigger than what one might expect,

It is so easy to get lost in.

I’m scared that soon I might have to feel around blindly,

With my eyes wide open all i’ll be able to see is shades of shadows

And hear the disheartening words of others that will not leave,

Whispering into my ears,

Using me as their ventriloquist doll, I have begun to repeat those words with an emotionless expression and a tight mouth.

Please do not stop trying,

Please do not give up,

Keep sparkling and smiling and warming this room,

And maybe your sunlight will move the shadows,

And my dark corner will no longer be dark,

But engulfed by your beauty and belief in me.

Please do not stop trying,

Please do not give up on me.

poetrypincushion

[poetrypincushion]

My fingers traced across your skin,

Grazing your delicate collar bone and your hip bones, 

Trembling at the touch.

My tongue caressed behind your ear,

Down your neck and across to your lips. 

My eyes met yours in a moment that never ended,

As we breathed in and out together, as one.

poetrypincushion

[poetrypincushion]

I’m so sorry I’m not there to heal your pain,

I hate the thought of you washing it, with cider, down the drain.

I wish I could sooth you and stroke your hair,

I just wish so much I just be there. 

We all cope in our own ways and I hope yours is productive, 

I can’t bear the thought of you feeling self-destructive. 

However you need me, I’ll try my best to be there,

And one day soon, I’ll be able to show you how much I care. 

Imagine my little kisses upon your gentle face, 

Imagine together our warm embrace. 

I’m so sorry I’m not there to heal your pain,

But I hope soon, I will be the reason that pain shall not overcome you again. 

poetrypincushion