I thought I already had someone who admired me - who valued me exactly as I am. But it was all just a blurry cloud.
Being empathetic is a vulnerable choice. You don't have to make yourself into armor, or into light, for someone else. In the end, you'll be drained, destroyed, devastated - only to learn you were never more than a backup plan, a pit stop along the way.
You'll drain your own light just to guide them, even while you're the one who's lost. Funny - you knew it from the very start, that they would never even look back to see if you were doing fine.
Do we have to earn being loved?
Do we have to constantly prove our worth? Isn't it exhausting?
Isn't it tiresome, carrying this many unanswered questions - the fundamental questions about you?
Have you ever heard of a constant craving for dessert?
Well, I'm glad you're one of those. Because otherwise, people crave constant approval and validation just to feel loved.
It's a privilege to be loved, says a heart that's always gone unloved.
My heart wants to light up like a garden-
no walls, no burden, no warden.
What's the most fake thing you've ever encountered?
It's not the lie,
nor the mask,
but the appearance.
In the end, we all just wish for ourselves the premium membership of love-
always on the seventh sky,
always the dove.
Part Four
One day, I want to be someone's moon - just not one of the stars. No matter how much a star shines, it's never enough. There is only ever a moon, stealing the stars' beloved gaze. Stars are compared and counted. The moon is simply worshipped. Stars ache to outshine, to overcompensate.
But for what? Being a star was always enough. It just needed to be reminded. It just needed to be loved.
Even something remarkable starts to feel invisible next to something that doesn't compete - that simply exists differently. It sits like discomfort, like a jigsaw piece forced into the wrong spot.
Part Three
Some people love you so much that you feel you don't deserve them - that they deserve better. Will I ever be the person someone thinks of that way? Thought of as a blooming flower of happiness in a desert of melancholy?
Do the things that make you happy, they say, so you can sleep tight. But you mean keeping up with others' expectations, making them happy, so you can sleep tight. Yeah. That's why I sleep tight.
No matter how much one cries for love, it's never enough. Your eyes may grow tired and stop crying, but the heart never will. It will beg for water, like flowers do in a hopeless desert.
Some things are perfect even in their imperfection. I'm sure I'm jealous of that kind of luck.
Have you ever worn your silence like an after-effect - the bruise left by someone's hurtful words?
If yes, then
Congratulations. You are a brave soul. There are people who never do that, because they don't want to lose even the hurtful words. It's the only undivided attention they've ever gotten. They're not afraid of the words. They're afraid of the silence that follows - the silence where no one is comparing them to anyone at all.
PART TWO
The moon is always perfect, no matter what shape it wears. You can't blame the moon for never letting the star shine. Even the star was busy gazing at that beauty, burning itself just to glow. Maybe it's because you are the side dish, and not the main.
Nothing compares to the evolution of trying - every person hoping to shine like the moon - and still, in the end, losing even the chance to be a star.
Even time doesn't change you. You just learn to live with it.
Part One
They say some people have more patience than others. I'm not sure that's true. People are only patient at pretending. The right word isn't patient - it's people-pleaser. That goes for you, and it goes for me.
Someone once said that to understand yourself, you must first understand others. I am aching for this season to end. I just want to understand myself - to help this poor, tired soul.
I can't compete with your definition of a "perfect moon" - because I was never even a moon. I never the chance, nor even a glance.
I doubt I ever felt at home - at home, or anywhere else. And if I did, was I playing music out loud? Was I bay holding up a smile? Or was I, just for once, unaware of my own appearance - finally, quietly, at ease?
Sometimes you think if we remove this actor from the stage, all eyes will finally be on you. But those eyes were only ever on you because of that actor.
Who are we as animals
Herd or family mammals?
Maybe Clockwork Oranges
In the Apple storages?
The Lefts put it clearer
Herd is far superior
The Rights strongly disagree
They stand for a family
For the Middle of the Roaders
We are renters or the owners
Most of the non-party folk
Deem that issue as a joke
As for me, we’re all the same
Under any term or name
Be it herd or family
What we are preferably
Either side can’t cut my tax
So the real sense it lacks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
a herd of silent minds
grazing shelves—each spine a fence
holds worlds enclosed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
frost-etched grass whispers low,
bison flank touches flank—breath clouds
merge. No lone head lifts.
an ancient pulse beneath snow~
Where the mass goes, I must go.
What secrets of the Muse's rhyme,
skirt on the edge of our perception?
What fate can be known by metric time,
or prophecy by taut inspection?
The path she offers invites echoes,
of lives half-lived and dreams half-dreamt,
of pasts that form our tomorrows,
that few aspire beyond attempt.
Parnassus chooses whom so it will.
To the fated, it shares its mysteries,
but one must choose its bitter pill,
to resolve the trajectories.
The obscure rhythms of the poet's soul,
splashed against a domed, cryptic sky,
fulfill a cosmic, unique role,
that only seers behold with an inward eye.
There's no gnus
like no gnus
if you're a gnu
who likes no gnus
but if you're lonely
and agnother gnu
you'd like to see
as two gnu's company
yes indeed
believe you me
altho' it may
seem absurd
no less than
three's a herd
Oh my, she's cooking one of her own kind!
Has she gone completely out of her mind?
Sauteing that cut of beef is all too altruistic
even worse, her behavior is cannibalistic!
I don't know who she's trying to impress
but her folly will put her diner under duress.
After one look at Molly May cooking a steak,
whoever it is will want to make a fast break.
No amount of garlic will hide the beefy taste
Not even if with wine she should decide to baste.
It's disgraceful for a bovine to do such things
Couldn't she have fried up some chicken wings?
Maybe she has that disease that mad cows get
But her smile says Molly does not have one regret
I wonder who's gone missing from the cattle herd
I should tell the rancher. What she's doing is absurd!
Along the roads of grassy fields
where thousands of sheep flit from
Astray from the flock, flouting,
fleeing with fear
blindly following.
Driven through the streets of London
at the Barnet fair to the farmers there.
But the way, takes an insalubrious plot.
Sheer confusion along the countryside
sets in on the herd, then stray
when eddying rapids currented by the tide
and force of the streams give, taken
to an endless frequent float
for great distances steered, stirred
while the timorous turn 'round.
An endeavor to gain the place they set off
As along ancient grassy drove road lies,
weary shepherd and his sheepdog.
Drovers, some on the hoof
The sheep shall stray
back to stay presently in Eden's garden
Jade-green grassy hills of harvest gold,
and cerulean skies.
The herd will outnumber you
with an opinion you’re equal too
the echo chamber is hollow
so those ego chasers follow
as they parrot the sheep
opinions they can keep
because safety means acceptance
and popularity has importance
so they’re finally fitting in
and it soothes the soul within
that’s when you can walk alone
stronger than the herd have known
thinking for yourself
as they copy someone else
So quick to judge any breach of etiquette
Such breaches at the whim of the fickled herd
What is there to do but watch your back
Or compulsively stay in line
Or just say f*ck it!
And be on your way
Because no matter how hard you try
The cancerous cancelling crowd will lie in wait
To pounce on what was once their own
Just look at what’s happened to Trump and Musk
Each darlings of their leftist peers
Until they weren’t
Not for changing in any fundamental way
But just in their need to keep being themselves
Without allegiance to the fickled pickled herd
If anything the life of a human
Arcs from bound and dependent
To independent and free
Free to chose and free to lose
And so we grow
And can come to know
What it is to be mature
If it’s the last thing we do
(11/13/24)
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.