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Best Poems Written by Peter Rosen

Below are the all-time best Peter Rosen poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Peter Rosen Poem

Paper

Paper

When I sit down to write
I can’t help but feel as if
The words that clutter across my
Sad
Blank
Sheet of paper
Are not my own

I write my words
My thoughts
My suffering
But every time I reread my poetry
I can’t help but feel an overbearing sensation
Of plagiarism

My hamartia is is that when I write
I think about other people
And never about myself
I never actually allow myself to grow alone
But end up alone in the process of forcing people
Who avoid flourishment like an infection
To do exactly that 
Sometimes I wish I were more of a selfish person

What pity I have
For the friend that took the poison from my hands
Last time I chose to grow on my own

What people refuse to acknowledge 
Is that growth is not just living 
But dying as well
And realizing that death is not pretty
And therefore
Nor
Is growth

I have not met a single person
Who did not mistake growth and improvement
For synonyms

While improvement is the act of making a situation better
(Something I seem to be getting worse and worse at)
Growth is seeing things for the way they are
Such as seeing that true improvement is unobtainable
No matter how many people
You take down
Or lift up on the way to your unrealistic idea of happiness 

My next statement
Contradictory as it may seem
Is that there is a way to grow
And improve
At once
We come and go through it seemingly as we please 
And yet it is somehow still so out of our control
And to grow is to realize that
When we obtain this impossible harmony and balance 
It will be anything but poetic

Details | Peter Rosen Poem

I Miss You

I miss you
I missed you before you were gone
I missed you when we made eye contact for the fifth time as I glanced around the room, our eyes somehow always meeting
I missed you when we walked along the small brick plaza outside of my house, the embers of the bonfire brightly burning
I missed you when we shared our stories of loss, our stories of grief
And I missed you when we sang Dua Lipa songs in the small room in the library
I missed you unironically complimenting my voice even though we both knew I couldn’t sing for 
I missed you when we’d laugh in class
Or when you made me the green, purple and white picture frame that still hangs in my room
I missed you when you drove away for the last time 
Tears formed in your eyes but I had already cried enough over you
I missed you when we kissed
It was over a dare but it still meant something to me
It meant that for once in my life I was genuinely content
You were my everything
My weakness
My strength
My joy
My darkness
You were everything before I even knew what everything was
It was childish
It was childish because we were only children
But it being so didn’t mean that it was any less real
It was probably the closest to reality that I’ll ever get
And I still cry over you
I still count the years it’s been since I’ve seen you
I still count the people I’ve found that even come close to filling the hole that you left
And there have been a couple
And those who have done so will be cherished dearly
And I will be okay 
And so will you
And if there was anything that either of us could do I know that we would
But there is nothing
Life draws people apart
Even people that shouldn’t have ever left each others sides

Details | Peter Rosen Poem

Talk To Me

It’s days like these when it’s hard to cry 
That you can have healthy
Conversations
About death
Even when it hurts to talk
Or move
Or the reason you can’t cry is worst 
Than curling up into a ball
And reminding incapacitated 
For the rest of your day

If you’re like me and feel as if
The only meaningful conversations you have
Are when you’re in this dysfunctional state
Of hysteria

Than this simple concept of conversation
Is not just nice
But necessary

Though the tiest days 
Prove to be hopeless
There is always light
In the darkness so bright
That it’s more blinding than it is blind

To be able to have a functional conversation 
Can be the point between life and death —
Continuing a pointless legacy 
Or succumbing to your thoughts
That are impossibly
More
Useless
Than the ones that bring you
Fractured joy
Lost love
Empty promises
Friendships that prove to be
If little importance now that you have
What?
Common sense?
How about a shred of intelligence?
Self preserving knowledge 
Is not
Simple dished out
You must merit it
And I did something to deserve it
And I threw it away

My whole life I’ve seemed to hold
The false belief that it’s me
Against the world
But I’ve come to realize that
it’s not quite that

I’ve been holding onto a partial
Superficial belief about society 
Sure 
Society sucks
But so do I

I have no reason to believe that my person lump of cells is 
Any better than his hers or theirs

It
Just
Is 

So no
I’m not only at war with those around me
But with myself to an extent that I had 
Never
Fully come to process
And this all started
With a conversation

Details | Peter Rosen Poem

Blue Light

Every night I force myself to stay awake 
I stare at a screen until the effect of exhaustion temporarily wears off
I pry my eyelids open 
I yank at my hair
I press my back against the cool wall that lies adjacent to my bed
I do whatever I can to stay awake
Not for no purpose, of course
Pain is a small price to pay in consideration of what it is I’m paying for
What I’m receiving is far more valuable than what I’m giving
My temporary sacrifice of comfort could be held permanent for all I care 
But I need not give more than I must
What I’m receiving will bring me wealth but not in coin
What I’m receiving will not bring me joy but bring me something far more valuable
What I’m receiving will calm my racing mind
Will halt my thoughts if only so temporarily 
It will bring me to reason with the thoughts that have been ever so stowed away 
It will serve as a key to the many things that I have long locked up
It will bring me closer
Closer to a boy that I love in a way that will never be understood by his hurting mind or by his magical ability to yield a pen
It will make me a poet
A poet that longs to be heard by the suffering people of a suffering world
It will bring me language
Language so powerful that I can leave behind something that will be remembered if only by one person in a sea of children
Children who will never be able to understand true pain
Or children who could not utter the words of a life of agony that many will never know
The reason that I wake up every morning with sore red eyes or yawning wider than my endless but yet so limited sea of thoughts 
Is to write

Details | Peter Rosen Poem

Death Is Not a Friend

Death is not a Friend

Death is not a friend
I try to deny it 
But I know that in my moments of need he’s done nothing for me
Death has never kindly greeted me in the hallways
Death was not the one who silently sat with me at lunch for a month, keeping me company in a time where every face that I saw was unfamiliar
Death has never sent me a message late at night letting me know that I was on his mind
Death has never stayed up with me on the phone until the darkest hours of the morning came to light
Death has never found me crying on the staircase and brought me carrot sticks or taught me broken sign language
Death has never waited with me in a deserted parking lot talking about poetry until my ride came to pick me up, her headlights disrupting the peaceful atmosphere of the late fall evening
Death has not laughed with me 
Death has not brought me joy but only in the darkest of moments where each droplet of it that fell on my tongue was like ecstasy
Death has hugged me but only too tightly
Death and I have embraced but only too briefly
Death has caused tears but only those of agony
Death has followed me everywhere
Death has witnessed my best and worst
Death has always and will always be there
But death is not a friend