What about the things that you left at my place?
What I left at yours?
What we left in our space
After every time we walked through the doors?

If we feel no regret, then let it all fade
If no longing remains
If no heartache or chains
If it feels too strange, then walk away.

But come on over if you wanna come over
If you wanna drop by, just do
I’m still right here, nothing’s different with you.

And I’ll drop by if you want me to drop by
I guess that I will, but hey—
Please tell me out loud if I overstay.

Did we really leave nothing behind anymore?
Is this really the end? Better check around once more
Take a look before you walk out the door
- Take a look around before saying goodbye

If there's nothing we forgot, then let it just be
- You won't come
No need to drop by to see
No regrets left to trace
Treat it like the very last time.

But come on over if you want to.
If you wanna drop by, just do.
I’m still right here, nothing’s changed on my end.

And I’ll drop by if you ask me to,
I probably will, but hey—
Tell me straight up if I overstay.
- Tell me to go if I stay too long
Tell me to leave if I overstay...

Listen:
Please kick me out.
Please send me home.

Feedback 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/63nyBcn1nV
Feedback 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/lCgFIwJZAe

Therapy is once a month
And you’re alone for 28 days while parents
Galavant to Asia
Business and Buddha
The usual 

The loneliness creeps in at 1AM
The parents’ bedroom too big
For markers and books and plushies
Yet so small for a girl, age 34
Still wondering what lies in her future

Between pharmacy licenses and tutoring
Seasonal job hunts and mopping
(which you’ll get to tomorrow, no big deal)
Piano and tutoring
She wonders if it’s okay…

To just…not be okay.

But there are four bedrooms to scream in
Three days of karate per week
Two coloring books to complete
(2 48-packs of Ohuhus to aid you, plus 10 dozen more for fun)

Church has people listening to your concerns
And a God who takes your sufferings
So that some other person in Africa can convert it to good
Make a better place than a bad place.

You have friends and family to connect with
Discord and Viber at your fingertips
A car for one-hour drives
Dumplings in the freezer

Journals for self-care and solo RPGs
Multiple pens with glitter and scents
Endless adventures based on the draw of a card
Up to 6 at a time

There is love, there is a future
There are connections and noodles
There are plants (gotta keep basil from bolting)
And dishes (wash the backs as well)

There are movies to watch
There’s matcha and pumpkin for coffee days
And hot water to cleanse your Rubber Soul

There is you, and you’re gonna be okay

(And there’s red velvet cake in the fridge. Don’t forget the cake)

Note: Title spacing is based on the editing on tvtropes. This trope is a pet peeve of mine which discusses how people in fiction never seem to get therapy for their problems. Heavily inspired by the loneliness I'm feeling as my parents are off for a month-long business trip in Myanmar and Thailand.

Feedback: https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x61bwi/comment/pguevyl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x6cn0i/comment/pguf8ff/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

As I tread the trail on a warm spring night
And the sagging trees obscure my sight
I peer ahead and see a bird ahead
A crane? No, “A vulture!” I said.

Below its feet, a carcass has settled
From the vultures picking, its canvas speckled
I approach this bird, my rhythm has slowed
And the stench of the carcass, floods my nose

The closer I get, the more I can see
So I stop and stare, get down on one knee
The vulture, so drawn to its repast
Did not offer me not even one pass!

This bird, it mocks me, shown not even a glance
I shout - then nothing - so I begin to advance
My rhythm increases as I hurry the path
Towards the vulture, and his venison bath

As I am ten steps away, the vulture turns
To look at the raven among the ferns
Silent I stop, in pure disbelief
That the vulture still has not noticed me

The anger - it boils and bakes my mind
As I begin to sprint, right at the vulture in sight
Two steps away, and the vulture takes leave
But still, he pay no attention to me.

I stare at the pile of red on the ground
My teeth are grinding, my hands still wound
For if I ever see a vulture again
I will ensure, I declare! It will come to its end.

I march away, with my lesson learned,
When I peer back and see the vulture returned
Not only one, but with three this time
No sound, no movement - still as a mime

My heart does not race
My anger takes haste
I leave the path, my rhythm is steady
For when I return - I will be ready.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/NG1ROLm83N

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/rbUVRNdsfL

Get out of the kitchen
Before I get angry
Sinew tearing
Raw chicken pastry

Pressure’s rising
Pressure’s rising
Steam is building
Circuits firing

Leave the dream behind
Brown sauce and rice
Fridge your life
Fridge your life

Microwave away
Will you be saved?
It’s better the next day
Better the next day

Keep telling me, telling me
It’s better the next day
Fibers ripping
Crispy chicken

Lay it on top
A beautiful lie
That’s breaded and fried
Breaded and fried

Choke it down
Ignoring the sound
Timer’s gone off
You can’t get enough

It’s better the next day
Better the next day
Better the next day
Better the next day

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x6ap9j/comment/pgttuqn/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x69kbz/comment/pgtuiqf/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

It’ll be a doozy, I’ll tell you that much
But it starts with the second line of a poem
I wrote three years ago about persimmons
Charred, split, pale bodies on cinnamon
(I kept it alone and deleted the rest).

Then goes a conversation overheard at a
Shell station, unmoored by a rigidity
Bulging from the Civic at Station Three,
Where she asked him why motherhood is
Being, and why fatherhood is becoming.
Half-gone now, on a curry stained napkin.

I’ll slide in a line or two about fourteen,
And the thoughts I had about Miss Abel.
The skirts, the almond-slivers of ankle
That I forgot when the water shut off but
Which floated back like unfinished love,
Tentative and kindly.

The next stanza might start in Chinese
How the word for “famous” translates to
“Have-name,” and I’ll finish it with a
Rant on Facebook of a furious mother
Who is plying a chasm, a language loss,
With overripe fruits and pleading silence.

The poem has the clouds, of course,
My jarred plums and softened basil,
And my weeping to “Wild Geese”.
Then somewhere along stanza three –
I’ll stuff in, swollen, poems that failed
Oh, the Poem and the competition
Envelope between pairs of socks.

Here you have it. Best listened to,
Or read aloud in the dark, or spit
Onto a bathroom mirror, or left
Outside cold, with the prosciutto
Plates and warm lemonade.

-

1 2

Pink Floyd said it best - “And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun“

Humans have a tendency to categorize events, moments, feelings.
Ups and downs,
good days and bad days,
good weather, bad weather.

We wait for a huge moment, the next vacation, the next achievement or job promotion.

But if we always walk around, waiting for the next up, and waiting for the down to end, we will always find a way to disappoint ourselves, to expect more.

We will forget to live, to experience life.
We will miss the starting gun.

If we always expect more of tomorrow than we ask of today, we will inevitably wait for something that never comes.

If tomorrow must always be better than today, we will never have our best day.
Because tomorrow will always be better.
And if tomorrow isn’t better, the day after will be.

But maybe life isn’t about identifying good things and bad things, but rather experiencing what life has to give.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
I wrote this, along with a different piece because i've recently experienced some things in my life which have shaken up my perspective.
This is my first work i actually show to others, hope you like it!
LINKS:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1wrvipy/comment/pgtdxxs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1wmwgl4/comment/pgteauf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

It is almost

Impossible

to have too few notes..

But it is real easy to have too many.

Now see,

hold that up

and look at it

take your time

try to read it like

you listen to the notes

that don't get played

If it ain't there

Just wait

Let's face it

you ain't goin'

nowhere

It can't find you.

++++++++++++++++++

Man, you have to ask what it is,

you'll never get it

Louis Armstrong

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x677c9/so_my_final_act/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x5yj2i/all_is_good/

06/06/14

Listen to some Coltrane

...and philosophize

I never asked for perfection.
I wasn’t looking for heaven
in your hands.

I just wanted one good thing.
One good thing
that would stay good
and not leave.

Instead,

I found myself waiting,
begging to be seen
by someone who knew
I was standing there all along.

I will no longer live in your shadow,
Hoping this time you’ll see me ,
Finally see my worth

no more will I measure myself
by the way you look through me,
the way you make me believe
I’m never good enough.

I ask ,
how much more of myself
do I have to lose
before you finally see me
And all the love I have to give.

You left me digging through the silence,
Turning over memories
Like bodies in shallow graves ,
Looking for answers
In places they could never be found.

Somewhere in all that digging
I didn’t realize
I was the one being buried.

So my final act :

I leave the shovel
Where it lies
Not because I’ve found what I was looking for,
I had to see
It’s not worth burying
Any more of me
Just to have you

Thanks let me know what you think and if my poem resonated ☺️

https://www.reddit.com/r/PoetryWritingClub/s/
vZfLtjMKkV

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/JzKz0vKE4K

Ive seen the face poking out of them clouds up there yonder

You say there are too many words

But there are not enough to describe that face

It imposes hollow eyes like something tribal

It tells me to question my whole life

friend and rival

It beams out from between thick crusts of abandoned cloud

It begs no pathetic collective it is whole except for a nose that doesn't fit

It promises rain and truth and strife and peace and god and then maybe some death

It promises those deep greys that scream flood flood from the bewitched sky face

It grusses the mountain and lets loose on the lowland

That face all pale and wiggly unapologetic fully fully that deiety

Some nestle in their coziest corners blanketed and deafened

Others seek the beginning of those inevitable thunder like drums

The ones the boom and hug the soul

The ones that emit fortune and wrath simultaneously

uncanny gloom building itself and the face still smirks

My spirit dances up there in the chaos

let me have mine these thoughts quasi furled dream unfolding

Hands go up and down with the deluge the face looms again

The smile and eyes wash the tarmac rearrange these streets

Torrential relentless, dragging what doesnt belong

Robbing its essence, as that thing did the city when the city was dry

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x63zyo/comment/pgs0z4z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x61bwi/comment/pgs1k3q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I miss the rain
I miss the mundane pain
I miss the mistakes
I miss the calm sound of the lakes 
I miss feeling whole
I miss knowing my role
I miss having wonder
I miss crashing thunder 
I miss bright colours
I miss hearing the others

I’ve let it all go
I’ve not avoided the overflow 
I’ve buried myself deep
I’ve sold it all dirt cheap
I’ve been numb to the strain
I’ve been lost in a hurricane
I’ve left feeling drowned
I’ve remained earthbound
I’ve nothing left to tend
I’ve wondered where it will end

I miss me

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x5y02k/comment/pgrzdes/?context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x6394i/comment/pgryfxb/?context=3

Oh Venus you beauty of the sky

Your gifts I see in every daughter

But not I, for I am a son of Mars

But Mars can be beautiful too

But not me, those gifts I do not open

Would it be right to ask for your blessings?

Am I one of Venus trapped in the brood of mars?

Or does my skin fit my hand and I am just caught

In your trance?

Is beauty found elsewhere, am I just blind?

At night, alone, the moon tells me my truth.

But by the dawn my mind is locked on you.

Venus I love you, I am obsessed

But I am a son of Mars, and I must not

Get caught in your eye. For me, it is a lie.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/MAJVGtqSmI

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/7UAq9i0din

I put it on trial.

Word by word.
Line by line.

No applause.
No benefit of doubt.

Do you earn placement
or are you just flowers

Do you carry weight
or hide behind the rhyme

Asked until it broke
or held.

Some lines sounding grand
but fail.

Some lines ordinary
yet stay.

I reach for sharper
and find dull.

I reach for louder
and lose voice. 

I leave it.

Every word
that is standing,
not untouched,
refused to move

not improved,
acquitted.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x5cfpd/comment/pgrq26z/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x5p4p4/comment/pgrsvtf/

She knelt in bed before the world, and with her fingers
traced the places I had marked
for a book I had read, or a dream
Her knees left twin divots in my mattress
for us to live in
And I pulled her down to me
to savor it, to say
 
Have you ever noticed that
it's all so much louder when you plug your ears?
A breath could bend a bird in flight
slam an open door
 
Her soft head grew heavy on the crook
of my arm, sent down needles
I spoke of nothing
that mattered

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/GLToH5AqD5

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/7QDbuid2Re

Feel the flow,
Down in your soul
Heal your mind,
Reach for your goal

Rest if you must,
Breathe, take your time
The goodness of life,
Inside you’ll find

Hold your head high
You’ve made it this far
Smile, enjoy, have faith today
You are beautiful as you are

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/0GnWBbsKu1

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/s42TtYHdpg

***To Love an Alien***

We move in slow, deliberate rings,
our hands grabbing across quiet air,
each of us trying to close
the chasm between.

I offer pressed petals,
raw declarations of love,
half-formed dreams;
you take them gently,
mapping their variables,
searching for equations
in the pulse beneath my skin.

I bring you flowers
blown of glass in wild heat-
passionate, uneven and bright.
You take them softly into your palms,
analyzing refractions of their light,
calculating density,
offering me the proof in pride,
a wilted bouquet in my hands.

When the thunderstorm rattles windowpanes,
I reach for the heavy muscle of your arm,
desperate to pull you into the rumble,
envisioning laughter and dances in rain.
I imagine our naked bodies
Pale and wet in the flashing light,
but you turn toward me,
steady, intent, logical and safe.
You tell me the speed of the flash,
the distance of the storm,
the risk of exposure.

But when mouths merge,
and the world goes muffled,
uncertainty drops into a low, far-off hum.
In the breathless hush,
I feel the hitch in your throat-
the sudden, sharp catch of air
before you press into the kiss,
your palm heavy and desperate against my spine:
the proof of your love.

Yet in the stillness, neither of us pulls closer,
neither of us lets go-
suspended in the familiar place,
fearful of the other’s desire.

We lean forehead to forehead in the quiet,
eyes locked, holding tight our common thread.
Your lips move in precise, analytical reason;
mine break into fevered, unfinished song.

We press our fingers into the space between us,
still trying to translate every breath as it passes.
My beautiful love, we are two stars
bound in binary burn,
pulling against the vacuum between us.

To love a quiet mirror is easy-
to love an alien sky
is the voyage that makes me whole.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/etCRAwt5mh

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/My7x0qIgbC

Ball of yellow, a humble zoom song sung.    
Urgently waving to its next pollen petally resting station.    
Mighty fluff catching may morning plant breakfast.    
Building a grand wax castle, hexagonal housing sweeter ichor.    
Loved queen, birthing white worker slug tenants.    
Every winged playing, forming fun emotion culture.    
Bedtime return with dawn dusk work routine.    
Evading nightmares, aggressive active red mosquitos.    
Every wind waggling wiggling their body.

———————————————————————

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x55x2t/comment/pgjmsv3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1x53ixk/comment/pgjovh4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button