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Best Poems Written by Riley Asher Nortje

Below are the all-time best Riley Asher Nortje poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Riley Asher Nortje Poem

Survival Mode Isn'T the Best Coping Mechanism, It Turns Out

if you could last a day inside the body of 
the lovesick-shell of a human 
i turn into when i'm in love
i would applaud you

allow me to show you a preview first:

as one might think 
loving someone and being in love are 
two vastly different experiences 
whereas 
no matter how hard i try to avoid it
and no matter what outer influence tries to intervene 
once my heart decides it loves a person
much to my demise and almost involuntarily 
i will love you until my chest plate cracks
and shatters
and my heart is 
hopelessly, yet hopefully
crawling towards you 

if you were born into the hurricane
you learn to chase them 
you learn to put yourself inside the eye,
because you’re strong enough to withstand it and you know it
you’re confused between boredom and peace so you opt for danger instead
because you don’t know how to love outside of the whirlwind 
because what else do you know? 

stuck in a loop of coming up with scenarios of what the future might hold.
coming up with an imaginary child that you love with your beating heart 
thinking about how absolutely gut wrenching it would feel to watch her 
feel and think and hurt
the way you are right now 

baby doesn’t deserve that 
you don’t deserve that 
so why would you have baby in a situation with somebody that makes you feel like 
you're standing in the eye of a hurricane? 

because there was once sunlight 
and there was once peace 
and there will be again soon. 

right?

Details | Riley Asher Nortje Poem

A Bloody Mary For One, Please

Being anything but cold is rare for you.
Utterly and shamelessly aloof is but a default setting for you, although could it still be considered ‘aloof’ if it’s on purpose?
Too nonchalant to notice the people around to falling to pieces at your feet.
Too preoccupied with your selfish human desires to take into consideration the karmic tab you’re stacking up, and yet,
Even when you’re paying attention, you’re still somehow... not there. 
Ridiculously obsessed with your self-image, just enough to tip off the start to your downfall.
Firmly believing your own lies is the reason you’ve successfully convinced everyone around you of them too.
Living out your deceit, fooling everybody into believing you could be a genuine soul, that you could be authentic – as if you’re a lowlife method actor on the brink of withering away. 
You could not fool me, though. I saw right through you and your transparent wings, and you couldn’t handle being seen, oh, how very ‘dear in the headlights’ of you. 

I knew you were cold-blooded,
But I never expected you to be a fraud.

Details | Riley Asher Nortje Poem

It Saw Me, But I Didn'T See It Coming

wondering how you could sleep so peacefully in my bed
or arms
while knowing the damage it’s doing.
wondering if whatever game you’re playing is worth losing
one if not two people that care for you so deeply.
wondering what’s going on in your dreamscape
while i lie awake
watching missed call after missed call
pop up and disappear on your phone.
wondering when you’re going to learn that you
cannot always get what you want
and keep what you had because life
just doesn’t work that way
and then realizing that if you’re not going to learn now,
then when?
wondering why i needed to be the one to
teach you this lesson almost as if meeting me was your karma
and in a way you were mine too.
wondering if sticking around may have been the biggest mistake we’d made in our story, because the timing was too precise
for us to claim the word
goodbye.

too many synchronicities,
too many glimpses of us
in each other to have not met.
as if after blooming in chaos,
we found solace in each other
felt the warmth and light and breeze took a break from this reality
and went to our own
only to get lost in the disease that is unrequited hope
all because we didn’t know how to be broken on our own.
wondering if maybe we got attached to the knowledge that we were both drowning and we knew the other person was drowning
but neither of us could do anything.
and yes, perhaps finding peace
in the fact that we were drowning together
is what inevitably kicked the typewriter off the table
and slaughtered the writer.
wondering if believing
“i water you, you water me
we help each other grow”
turned into
“i’m dying, and you’re dying
but at least we know we’re together and
comfortable”.

wondering if we’ll ever figure it out.

~r.a

Details | Riley Asher Nortje Poem

Consequences of Infatuation

out of everything that i’ve ever been told in my life
out of all the things that have been said to me that render me 
obligated to shove a coy smile and an aloof 
“thank you” 
into the hands of whoever was speaking, 
the heartfelt anecdotes 
that have stuck with me the most
are the ones to have been branded and signed by you
the way you worded them
made me sound so much more valuable
than anything i’ve ever heard before

the focal point being 
“you’re the kind of person someone leaves their entire life behind for”

and what bloomed 
from the seeds 
you planted in my garden
is something i thought i’d never lose 
something i’d tried to protect so heavily
perhaps too heavily

but now i must ask, are you as comfortable with her in your arms are you claimed to be in mine? 
do you miss her warmth on nights you’re alone in your own bed? 
or is it mine that you sought after at 5am?

have you said things to her that even remotely resemble the things you’ve said to me? 
or did you just copy and paste? 
do you still expect me to believe that i meant anything different 
to anything you’ve felt with her,
when your claim to be too busy in your head 
actually meant too busy in her bed?

did you think i was being playful
when i told you that 
i’m always aware
of when i am being deceived.
had you taken me seriously the first time
perhaps i wouldn’t be straining myself
trying not to completely push you away. 

under any other circumstances
i would’ve had to remind you 
that no matter what you do 
and no matter what i say, 
you will always be weak for me 
but you already know that
and that is going to be the 
end of us both. 

~ r.a

Details | Riley Asher Nortje Poem

Subtitles Aren'T Always Necessary

this morning, 
as i lay in bed 
my eyes shut.  
listening to my own heartbeat, 
playing with the rhythm that is my very lifeline.
It was only a couple seconds, but
with all the sincerity i could conjure up
i thought that my heart had stopped. 
i could not hear it nor could I feel it 
beating in my chest. 

and as if i had been writing my will 
or on my deathbed, 
having already accepted my fate, 
it was the most peaceful couple of seconds i’ve felt in a while. 

what grim commentary from a 20-year-old.

~ r.a