#poetrylovers

[paulrkohn]

NEW POEM...

Dark Run

Looking over my shoulder, I see

the shadows getting ever closer

as I seek to outrun the darkness.

.

.

Thank you for reading my words. I hope they help and heal you as much as they do, me

.

Image: Canva

[winetasteslikeyou]

i hid our pictures

like winter buries flowers—

not because they weren’t beautiful,

but because every time i saw them,

i pressed a finger

against an old bruise

just to feel it hurt again.

you’ve moved on,

and i’m still burying

the little piece of me

that kept hoping

you hadn’t.

@winetasteslikeyou

[taintedcanva]

To be seen🌸

every year,

my birthday arrives

like an unpaid debt.

something to survive.

something to get through.

a date circled on the calendar

that somehow always finds a way

to leave me lonelier than it found me.

so this year,

I made plans with sadness in advance.

I loosened my hair.

I told myself I didn’t need much.

I would stay home,

put on a movie,

eat something nice,

and let Monday pass quietly.

I had already lowered my expectations

until they could no longer disappoint me.

I thought perhaps

the safest way to spend my birthday

was to ask nothing of it.

and then

someone remembered me.

Not just my name.

Not just the date.

me.

The little things.

The ridiculous things.

The things I didn’t know anyone noticed.

Pieces of me

I had forgotten I had left behind

in other people’s memories.

And suddenly,

I was sitting there

with swollen eyes

and tears running down my face,

wondering how something so simple

could feel so enormous.

I kept thinking,

someone saw me.

Not the version of me

that had to be strong.

Not the version that had already decided

she would be fine alone.

Just me.

And for once,

my birthday didn’t feel like a reminder

of everything I didn’t have.

It felt like proof

that I had been here.

That I had been loved.

That I had been remembered.

That all these years of becoming

had not gone unnoticed.

So I want to remember myself

exactly as I am tonight

messy hair,

swollen eyes,

tear-stained cheeks,

a heart too full for my chest.

Because for the first time

in what feels like twenty birthdays,

I wasn’t waiting for the day to end.

I was wishing

it would stay.

Maybe birthdays were never meant

to prove how many people love you.

Maybe sometimes

they’re just little reminders

that you made it another year.

And maybe,

just maybe,

this year,

I was wrong about my birthday.

[paulrkohn]

NEW POEM...

Broken Empathy

Empathy perceived as sympathy

creates apathy in the receiver

and suffering in the giver;

the emotion and compassion

of both left rendered fractured.

.

.

Thank you for reading my words. I hope they help and heal you as much as they do, me

.

Image: Canva

[vasopv-blog]

Drunken Hopes on Fire!

Paper Wings

A poem about soaring ambition, fueled by desire, that rises into the sunlit heavens only to crash into illusions, futile hopes, and final as

[paulrkohn]

NEW POEM...

Care portrayed as hurt

leaves love languishing.

.

Thank you for reading my words. I hope they help and heal you as much as they do, me

.

Image: Canva

[taintedcanva]

A reason that isn’t mine

I am still here

not because I am in love with living,

but because I know

my absence would leave fingerprints

on people I love.

I imagine the silence after me

the unanswered calls,

the room that suddenly feels too large,

my name becoming something

people say carefully.

And somehow,

that is what keeps me breathing.

Not hope.

Not some beautiful belief

that tomorrow will be better.

Just the knowledge

that my pain would become

someone else’s.

So I stay.

And nobody tells you

how exhausting it is

to survive for other people

when you don’t know

how to survive for yourself.

I laugh sometimes.

I eat.

I answer messages.

I make plans.

I look alive.

But somewhere inside me

there is a girl sitting very quietly,

asking why living

has started to feel like a debt

she keeps having to repay.

Maybe I don’t want to die.

Maybe I just want

this version of living

to stop hurting.

Maybe that’s the part

I haven’t learned how to say.

So tonight,

I will borrow tomorrow

until I can find a reason

that belongs to me.

[clock-orange]

brooklyns got these, bullet bound ballet girls

ones who eat cotton - ones who rest

Rockefeller St is best in the winter time

loose yourself in crystals -

the art of taking your last breath

colored capsule delicacy, make my mind calm

play the piano quietly - tell me i’m all wrong

bullet bound ballet girls who live off columns

weary song, sway dead in the silence -

dull bladed daydreams hold your hand at night,

you can hear screaming from the angels

they’ll beg and plead - let’s be alright

you’ll drown quicker in the quicksand

if you don’t breathe - imagine a butterfly, swaying,

then hanging from a willow tree

untitled, kin