Depths of Being

This is me, the honest most broken down parts of myself, channeled into an underrated medium. Poetry has always helped me understand myself more. Vomiting my feelings onto a page and trying to make sense of the food that led me there. Every poem found on this page is from my book Depths of Being. Preorder is now live on Amazon. I hope my words resonate with some part of you and maybe, just for today, you don’t feel so alone.

[veridanpoetry]

I love myself… but,

You look beautiful…but,

I want to… but,

You need to lose weight… but,

Wish I could… but,

I’m sorry… but,

I’m excited… but,

I hate myself… but,

I don’t want to die… but,

That word.

But.

So much work done in such a small sound.

One syllable.

Three letters holding back the weight of your choice.

One breath away from reality.

A single utterance of truth.

It’s a cruelty, really, to place such a burden on a word, as you hide behind civility and table manners.

As your black tie tightens, your humanity slowly oozes from your pores. A custom noose of your own design.

A calloused heart hardens to stone in front of me, all because one word.

[veridanpoetry]

You always smell like home to me.

Like I’m just a small child running in from the street.

Grass stains on my Levi’s paired with crooked little teeth

The open arms of a mother always waiting there for me.

You’d have picked out the leaves threatening to nest in my hair

Reminded me of simple things, like stop and breathe the air.

You would have taught me ethics and love, and all the above, but I met you late in life.

You raised the man that would take my hand, as his lawfully wedded wife.

You still teach me now, someway, somehow, about this tragedy we call life.

At twenty-eight, it was worth the wait to have you by my side.

I missed out on years, cried oceans of tears, adrift with no end in sight.

A lifeboat showed up, attached was your love, keeping me warm through the night.

A selfless grace, a tender face, portraits fail to capture your light.

The black and blue, just bleeds right through, such a beautiful, intricate design.

Trace the past, we each wear a mask, but yours never makes you blind.

Up the stakes, we make our own fate, leaving the past behind.

The last one to leave, a white flag in a tree, such dedication is rare to find.

As I write a few words, with my books and my birds, I contemplate your role in my life.

A cup of hot tea, on the porch you and me, happily ever after crosses my mind.

[veridanpoetry]

“I hope you have a daughter, exactly the same as you.”

My mother’s favorite line, a constant reminder since I was two.

A laundry list of faults, just as my age, they slowly grew.

The accumulation of my thoughts, I knew I’d ruin my child’s life too.

“Providing has a cost, I remember the physical pain, the nine months that I lost, with a scar to mark the day.”

As she rattles off her loss, my soul begins to ache, I never would have asked for a mother filled with hate.

Regret now taints the air, I taste the bitterness and smoke, misery loves company, familiar friends I know.

I’ve finally arrived, the last stop of my drive, a family of my own, tears now fill my eyes

With a cross to her lips, and rage fueled closed fists, she watches me as I go, with the petulance of a kid.

Her prediction came true, my child’s eyes are light and blue, she chases after waves and is as stubborn as a mule.

She offers kindness with no strings, she loves to dance, and run and sing. Her imagination is the only one that tries to clip her wings.

Such a curious little being, I guess she did turn out like me.

And I became the mother I didn’t know that I could be.

[veridanpoetry]

I am but a stranger to this garden.

Lines of lush trees perfectly symmetrical to the next stand at attention to welcome me in.

Statues and fountains hand crafted from river rocks and cement, all frozen in place, an endless observation of my journey.

Pristine. Clean. A sterile oasis.

An inkling of uncertainty slides down my back, as I approach the leader of such paradise.

She stands approximately five foot three, raven hair slashed at her ears, ire pooled in the depths of her eyes.

Her mouth clenched, the soft pliant muscles of her face now pulled egregiously at her worn skin.

Her finger lifts, immediately commanding the authority of the room.

“Trespasser” she spits out fueled by her own vitriol, “you are not welcome here”

A flicker of fear overshadows me then, she doesn’t remember who I even am.

Long now forgotten, who planted the saps, watered, and weeded, who helped with that?

The days of no idols, I swam with the rocks, when I sank to the bottom and filled up our stock.

The streets were unlined, your pride was not filled, when the love of a mother always felt real.

I speak now with softness and pain in my voice, “mother, it’s me, do you remember your choice? “

You begged me to leave, to run from this place, I screamed and I cried, but you wouldn’t let me stay.

You hated the voice that you gave away. The power, the money, your infamous rage.

Passed down to a child, one third of your age. A carbon carbon version of generational hate.

I glance up at my mother, tears brimming my eyes, I can’t show her weakness, she hates when I cry.

Her face now drawn tighter, an impossible feat, she looks down her nose to the traitor at her feet.

“ I gave you the world, protected your neck, now the thanks I receive is doused in disrespect”

Her pain fuels the contempt shrouding her throne, this place isn’t real. This place isn’t home.

I leave as I came, as silent as a thief. I look out at the beautiful landscape and trees.

I see them now as they truly are, gnarled and dying with hundreds of scars.

Forgotten and weary, left to survive, the demolition of hope you needed to thrive.

[veridanpoetry]

Fickle little feelings that I never quite understand

Regardless of the pain you gave me, I still crave the touch of your hands.

I wake before the sun each day, sometimes I can still hear your voice. A melodic knife to set me right, the grand illusion of choice.

As the light first touches the sky, I always crave the smell of smoke. Dead and dried, the oak tree fires, left to linger in my soul.

At half past six, my alarm starts to tick, a reminder to cook and clean. The noise opens a box I've secured with a lock, bringing me back to age thirteen.

The clothes on the line hanging stiff in the heat with supper on the stove, did I earn what I eat?

Black and blue bruises crisscrossed down to my feet, no shoes could ever hold me, I had somewhere to be. Anywhere but here, was the anthem I screamed, a track star in training, running was my dream.

Away from the people, the memories, the past. Even leaving behind the good, now tainted with bad.

I left them all, my dreams now come true, so why does it hurt when I think of you?

If I dig through the pile, and remove all the hurt, if I could pretend abandonment was just another word.

What would be left? Would your love find me then?

At the bottom of the barrel, with no blame for our sins.

No bible, no preacher, no who we’ve always been.

Would my version of the past become an old childhood friend?

Would I visit there more often? I wonder who I could’ve been?

I could talk about my family, with no ache inside my heart.

The strong woman you see before you, could have been cast in other parts.

Perhaps bravery would be in movies, or written on a page, it would never have been an adjective to describe my early days.

The darkness wouldn’t know the name to call out in my sleep. The monsters clawing at my back would always be at peace.

[veridanpoetry]

I now have a daughter.

On just her second trip around the sun.

Pathways of interconnectability and wonder brimming out of every porous action and question.

The mundane existence of my own life lost to the tide of her.

I can feel it now, even this early on. The sinking vessel I call my ship. The body of a mere mortal giving way, slowly for now. As inconsequential as a grain of sand, washed upon the shore.

The years will ask more of me as we move forward, the unflinching hand of certainty that guides her, will be my own, until that too gives way.

But such is the cycle of this life.

Millions of years of adaptations and evolution forming backs and brains strong enough to carry the burdens of the young, while sheltering the knowledge of those before.

Ah, such a bittersweet moment, to stand in the glory of the sun, basking in knowledge that in the same sunset I stand in awe of, watching flashes of moments in time, frozen in my own perspective, the memories of a life finally realized.

In the stillness of that moment, I look to my child.

Her eyes are alight with the beginnings of a sunrise. Curiosity and wonder, for a world she has yet to know. Guided only by her drive to explore every crevice and cavern, leaving with their secrets and her storybooks complete. Such pure adoration for knowledge, seeing the world only for what it could be, a tunnel vision of hope. Every door creaks and groans holding back the endless possibilities of life in her eyes.

Perhaps the change begins with small grains of cynicism. I began to see the world for what it is. That childlike wonder left far too early for me. Maybe I have to see the world for what it is now, to protect that in her. All too soon, life will begin to criticize her sunrise. Telling her she’s wrong. She isn’t seeing it correctly. Move to the left, move to the right. Countless opinions that will strip thin, almost inconceivable layers of that hope away over the years.

But I will always go to the beach and stare out at the sun, my little girl beside me, speaking life to what she wants.

[veridanpoetry]

I wonder, how many people I might have passed by, consumed by my own reality, entrenched by mechanisms seemingly important, in my own benign existence, how many bruises have been hidden, lurking just below paper thin bandages, hiding the corrosive deterioration of a human soul?

How often have observations informed by the shifting of trends, the hidden allure, the secrecy, affected my own abilities to maintain some level of discernment in an unbiased capability of seeking truth?

Have I placed myself in a position where I ask others how can I help? With no bearing to my own comforts?

How can I cry for justice, if I myself bear no consequence for my own inaction?

I ask myself, can true selflessness be achieved in the same continuous breath, as I watch the humanity bleeding out in the streets.

My own vanity, or lack thereof, contributes to the invisible esoteric constructs I believe to live within. Bricks of tradition, slowly crumbling. Spaces filled with the mortar of a new generation. The slow building of a mind.

[veridanpoetry]

Eighteen missed calls. A persistent reminder.

The beep sounds again, a relentless survivor.

I silence the shakes with the help of a bible

A counterfeit weight to the sins of my survival.

Body and brain, born and raised to be rivals

A spiral of shame, the price of my own idols

The light blinks again, a flash of my own denial

An addict of pain, reverting back to primal.

If I can’t take the pain, does that make me suicidal?

What if I choose myself, will you then call me entitled?

Why do you call it love? You know, our vicious family cycle.

Voicemail box again, full up and sitting idle.

ALERT…BEEP… the blaring won’t stop, I haven’t the time to check the whole box.

I push it away, as I check the clock, the numbers start dancing as I fall with a plop.

I feel nothing now. No voices, no lights. No constant reminders that I'm never right.

My head is not pounding with due dates and bills, my back doesn’t break from the pressure I feel.

The muscles once knotted from my worries and woes, finally relaxed, down to my toes.

No one is calling to me anymore, my name long forgotten, a memory of the poor.

Or maybe I answer whenever you call. I check in with myself, preventing the fall.

Making decisions, accepting my faults, trusting myself, supporting my thoughts.

Leave the expectations thrown down at my feet, for the blind leading the blind, will never know how to see.

[veridanpoetry]

My mother called today. Without so much as a hello. She listed every way her disappointment grows. A monologue of pain I’ve burdened to her soul. The choices that I've made, a contradiction to her own. Beholden to her shame, the rabbit hole of home.  I listen as she prays for the devil to leave my soul. Righteous is her way, the only way she knows.  Her viewpoint is still the same, but her child is now fully grown. Unwilling to take the blame, for providing a house but never a home. Her age is the only change she allows in her bones. I keep myself quiet as I listen to her drone, tearing down bridges I left home to grow. Her words hit their target and I beg to atone, abandoning myself just to not get disowned.  A recycling of hate that she raised me to know, grass roots and faith, granite and stone. What would it take for a mothers love to grow?  The sick, twisted luck of fate, guess I’ll never know.

[veridanpoetry]

When We Once Cried

What is a good person?

Is it their values? Personality? Ideology?

At what point did we dilute the qualifications of morality and character?

The sliding scale of judgement now dictates, if you haven’t committed an egregious crime, you qualify as good.

Humans are flawed creatures, scraping by with the breadcrumbs of knowledge borrowed from others along the way.

The invisible hand of tradition quietly nudging you along, beholden only to history.

What makes a good person?

Compassion

Respect

Integrity

Empathy

Dignity

Am I a good person?

Do I genuinely care about the feelings of other humans?

Regardless of differences, do I treat people with dignity?

Is my word my bond? Do I make commitments to fulfill them or whisper sweet lies to assuage my own guilt for not having the courage to be honest?

Do I have the capability to retreat from my own narcissism long enough to understand my own perception of the world is inherently flawed and not the experience of everyone?

Will I freely treat human beings with dignity, with no regards to their own circumstance?

Is inconvenience the line I will stand firmly behind, when asked for courage?

A person will never be inherently good on the basis of simply being alive.

We learn to be the people we are.

A series of small, seemingly inconsequential decisions we make everyday paint us as we are, not the fallacy we like to believe.

Maybe the mirror didn’t always lie when faced with the reality of who I am.

Perhaps the truth just hurt my pride, becoming a martyr by my own hand.

[veridanpoetry]

I wonder, how many people I might have passed by, consumed by my own reality, entrenched by mechanisms seemingly important, in my own benign existence, how many bruises have been hidden, lurking just below paper thin bandages, hiding the corrosive deterioration of a human soul?

How often have observations informed by the shifting of trends, the hidden allure, the secrecy, affected my own abilities to maintain some level of discernment in an unbiased capability of seeking truth?

Have I placed myself in a position where I ask others how can I help? With no bearing to my own comforts?

How can I cry for justice, if I myself bear no consequence for my own inaction?

I ask myself, can true selflessness be achieved in the same continuous breath, as I watch the humanity bleeding out in the streets.

My own vanity, or lack thereof, contributes to the invisible esoteric constructs I believe to live within. Bricks of tradition, slowly crumbling. Spaces filled with the mortar of a new generation. The slow building of a mind.

[veridanpoetry]

Over, under, somewhere within

Painted on protection: we call it skin.

Left to right, where have you been?

The taste of desperation cloaking my sin.

Festering wounds hidden with prayer

Wrapped up in a bandage of “I don’t really care”

Borrowing love from whomever is there

Stripped myself down, my body is bare.

Falling asleep in pews made of blue

Ingrained in my mind to worship you too.

Jostled awake by the smell of the truth

Lingering hate, for the place that I grew.

Forcing a change, you made me brand new

Addicted to pain, a comfort withdrew.

How sweet do I taste? A poisonous fruit.

Holding complaints so tightly they root.

Let me be saved, an escape that I choose

Fool heartishly brave, another excuse.

Pictures with frames hung just out of view

X marks the spot I gave up my youth.

Scriptures imprinted just like a tattoo

Branding my skin with your own point of view.

I watch with my eyes, the life you pursue

Handing down lessons that don’t apply to you.

Twisting up facts and calling them truth

Careless regrets left as old residue.

Words made of hate, exclusively spewed

A layer of love to hide the long queues.

People lined up as you sold your home brew

A concoction of sorts, I clung to it too.

A congregation of people you finally accrued

Sampling opinions, tasting the food.

Changing opinions based on your view.

Correcting behaviors you deem as rude.

Losing myself in a race to pursue

The favor of gods and godly men too.

[veridanpoetry]

Sentimentality, confusing reality, the sins of a father, dripping wet, painting tragedies

A broad stroke of pure vanity, demanding a legacy, an artist of pain, staining canvas with verity.

Pastel shaded fallacy, a calculation of causality, demanding angelic grace in the ruins of reality.

Blending colors into thought, murals sculpted by tragedy, perception changed through modern art, an abstract, vivid work of savagery.

Abandoned stencils in the drawer , depicting the failure of past renditions, varnish layering the floor, a clear coat of protective decision.

Sketching shadows from the grave, smoke filled clouds, with hues of grey, no recognition of the name, a work that took death to find its place.

A portrait of pain in the medium of life, a melted wax memorial, applied by palette knives.

[veridanpoetry]

I once met a man with chubby fat cheeks, I’m reminded in the mirror when I wake from my sleep.

From his mouth flowed stories both bitter and sweet, interestingly enough, no regrets did he keep.

Proud of his failings, unable to understand, procreation is easy, but it didn’t make him a man.

He abandoned the herd, maybe it was for the best, he adopted some birds and he built them a nest.

Always putting them first, the wicked don’t rest, the sins of a father left there for dead.

I once knew a child, determined to feel seen, scared of the wrong attention, the only kind she seemed to bring.

She tripped over words, scared to say something wrong, trying to understand the world with no help from her mom.

Afraid of the silence, the darkness, her shadow, she was different from the others, another flaw that she battled.

Her hair the color of ravens, her eyes a light shade of blue, her beauty didn’t matter, it served to cover up a bruise.

The features people loved, they used until their fill, the shell she would become when the pain became too real.

She never was enough, but she bled until they killed her, sacrifice is love, now she’s become a villain.

I once spent some time with a woman in red. She hated the color and resented her dad.

Her mind lived in the past, the one she left behind, she ran away so fast she changed over time.

A house made of glass is the home she would find, throwing stones to hit the cracks, any distraction to ease her mind.

A reconstruction of what she knew became the prison in her mind, stuck in the ruts that she carved out of spite.

Love was a weapon, carving hearts with a knife, she never wielded her power until she was ready to fight.

Luring you in with kindness and light, her words felt like a sickness that left you shaking through the night.

She spoke through her experiences, a dictation what not to do, her shame became a righteous game , every Sunday in a pew.

[veridanpoetry]

Lay a lily on my grave.

Tell me a story about the day I was brave.

Whisper your secrets into six feet of dirt

Bury my body but leave when it hurts.

The flowers you leave wither and die

Ending a life to commiserate my time.

Statues of angels dancing with pride

A casket of wood is the place I reside.

Puddles of your tears will fall from the sky

Collecting regrets, memories, and whys.

Mismanaged worries leak from your eyes

Your recognition of death, an unfortunate demise.

The words of prayer you whisper, begging for forgiveness

Lingering like a ghost haunting all your business.

Wasting words on corpses, clearing out regrets

Leave me as you found me, no need for you to confess.

As wilted as the flowers, my body starts to decay

You stand off to the side but you just can’t look away.

Reels of every memory splash across your face

Let me rest in peace, a lily is all I crave.

[veridanpoetry]

Stand alone in the darkness and tell me what you feel.

When every mask is stripped away, no longer able to be concealed.

Does your soul begin to ache? Is that normal to feel?

Alone isn’t just a place, it’s become almost surreal.

Tell me what you see, with no light for your eyes

Is the abyss made of despair? Do you feel like you could cry?

Do your tears taste of salt as they mourn the past goodbyes?

Or maybe you finally see yourself for the first time.

Listen very closely, and tell me what you hear.

Do you hear echoes of regret? Does it make the pain more real?

Do you listen to yourself? Do you really take it in?

Or do you search for others opinions, to wear as a second skin?

Can you taste the darkness that has now become a home?

A hidden slice of chocolate cake, sheltered and alone.

Does the flavor of defeat war for rights in your soul?

If you bite into me, those feelings you’ll hold.

Last, but not least, what do you smell?

Take a deep breath, count to eight, then exhale.

The fragrance of lies mixes with truth so well.

The last of our senses, so I bid you farewell.

[veridanpoetry]

There was a time I carried you, me and the conversation.

Addicted to the attention, with a small hint of degradation.

The price to pay was steep, but I learned to barter in my lessons.

Stealing your time like a thief, hidden motives in my questions.

Offering you some sweet, so you don’t leave when I’m finished.

I didn’t mean to be so weak, my standards are diminished.

Falling for a dream, with no consequences for my decisions.

Hating who I have to be, to bring your tolerance up to derision.

Pretty broken beings, glue holding together our incision

Bottle up the pride, this isn’t a competition.

How I felt inside, was too similar to a prison

Eating me alive, with all my indecision.

Collecting empty lies, in a storage shed with linen

A log of all the days, I traded love for venom.

Completely out of place, covered in my denim

Cursed to wear a face, not even loved by women.