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Talon Drake Poem
To the fourth grade quiet kid crying on the playground:
keep crying.
Let the burning blur in your pupils reverberate your vision
envision maculas becoming galaxies of simultaneous starbursts
normalizing irises marbleized in emotional flow
Drift
in whatever you are feeling at this very moment
Drown
out cacophonies of every synonym for “crybaby”
your classmates can regurgitate
Hold on to your emotion regardless of how hard it’s pulled from your grip
The greatest thing you can be is emotional
because breakdown doesn’t equate broken down
doesn’t equal malfunction error glitch in your system
The greatest thing you can be is broken
metal bends beyond repair; skin is resilient
cut wrists will heal; cut wires won’t regenerate
biology is not biomechanical.
It took until nearly twenty-three for me
to learn having heavy emotions
is just in my biology
and I will never let shame be programmed into me
for being that fourth grade quiet kid
crying on the playground
that crybaby
tracking muds from trailing tears in the dirt
I learned
the greatest thing you can be is yourself
when nobody is watching: yourself
as staring gazes and whispers fill space
asking why you’re sobbing so much
It’s because you’re human.
The greatest thing you can be
is human.
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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Talon Drake Poem
Poet don’t feel right
Poet struggles sleeping at night
POETS NEVER SLEEP
At least…that’s what other poets keep telling me
But this lackluster slumbering just might be
From the unwavering weight of all responsibility
Poet only seems awake while walking through daydreams
Only wants to live life lavished in imagination
Painting alternate universes in which the stars guide me
An alternate universe in which i am happy
The moon and its tides constantly aligned
An alternate universe in which my artistry arrives unagonized
An alternate universe already constructed by someone else
An alternate universe in which contains an atmosphere in which I can breathe in which should be the one I’m in now
But my nervous system glitches,
Spine tinges spitting gibberish
Jittering shaky legs racing while staying stationary
Amazed at the way
A stage shakes me
In vibrations
At least its safe to say I said something today
Shared a story shoved, cornered in a junk drawer
At least I keep poetry in motion
only productive when my mind’s flowing
But I know my audience
I know they’re only hearing my poet voice
They only see my tragedies rehashed in romantics
There's only so many ways to manipulate the pain staked
in my chest in my throat in my head
So I choke on my raw truth
so it’s more digestible
for everybody else in the room
If not on the page,
Where is a tortured artists’ pain safe?
Paper scrapes
Psalms
Poems
Cutting deep enough
For me to bleed enough
For you to envision the misery
I’m in
Some alternate universe in which I am not a poet
Instead,
I am illiterate at the expense of my own pen and tongue
Instead, I await the unarriving;
Bleeding out without any sign of rescue
Instead, I plagiarize my inhabitance to a world
constructed by everyone except myself
Instead,
I am here
Earth rotates
Everything else still
I am still
Here.
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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Talon Drake Poem
We’re at a standstill—
a standoff of semi-automatic emotion, knowing
in our instability, we pull each other’s triggers
and cannot truly be capable of loving one another.
But I’m still begging him not to give up
like I'm begging him not to shoot.
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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Talon Drake Poem
Attention:
This one is the problem child.
Mom and dad deny autonomy
take authority over a diary
supervised at all times; no privacy
door hinge wide open
so why are the walls closing in?
This home is an emotion free zone
Mom says save it for therapy
but stops taking me
says my borderline personality is burdening this family’s budget
believes I’ll be cured if she just burns enough cliches into my brain
“Just be happy with what you have,
what have you crafted in your head that is such a tragedy?"
I got pills to pop and prices to pay
I got emotions but I keep 'em oceans away
beyond the combination lock on a black box
Warning:
This medication may make it worse.
Unbearable.
And ain’t that just ironic?
peace of mind partners with possibilities
of seeming more psychotic
but it’s better this way.
Right?
Anticipate a thirty day delay
and lag like yesterday on your last leg
It’s better this way.
burrow into bed and brand yourself braindead
Just pretend, society says, suffer silently!
act as if any abnormality is absent
accept that it’s actually an act
learn to lock down your breakdowns
let them drown to the box’s rock bottom
Growing sick of cloaking conflicts
in courtesy of concealing others' comfort
so sorry if you choke
I will not spoon feed what you can’t swallow
I will scream my anxieties
annunciate every aspect of agony
trapping me where serotonin's lacking
Lab rat crawling its way back
taste-testing chill pills
forgetting how to feel real
sleepwalking through a social setting
so sick, yeah, I’m real ill
Everyone tends to forget,
the tension doesn’t rest when the poem ends.
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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Talon Drake Poem
At dawn,
you graze my face
tracing my jawline with your thumb to say:
“It’s nice to have someone here for once.”
I should know better than obsessing over men
whose attention doesn’t need begging
stitching myself into bedsheets
meant to be left half empty
but I guess you just get me.
If home is a body,
I already sense aftershocks
self-inflicted eviction setting in
slipping away half asleep
dreading the inevitability of leaving.
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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Talon Drake Poem
How pretty
is the motor city
under neon diodes?
I sent my heart
into its stars
exhaled my soul
into rustbelt smoke
maybe I’ve lost my mind
or rather it’s left behind
my sanity abandoned
and blighted
my memories subjected
to successive evictions
—just up and forget ‘em—
I guess the city could
enlighten me a bit
on resilience
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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Talon Drake Poem
On the last day of the week
you were the first person to ask me
on a movie date
and this was the first time I refrained from hesitation
the first time in a long time I've loaned my bones expose
and as it plays on my unforgivable fidgeting
begins twisting in positions in my seat
trying to lay my head on your chest
without breaking my neck
and I’m sorry I couldn’t just
become comfortable
and I’m sorry it’s about more than
just the movie
and I’m sorry I was more focused
on what I wanted taken
than was capable of giving
and I’m sorry all I can do is sputter off
apologies after you've
long since stopped listening
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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Talon Drake Poem
Since the day
you became a news story,
I've been wondering
how long you spent
pondering the pavement.
Wondering
what thoughts oscillated
through your racing brain
in competition with your heartbeat.
Wondering
if you envisioned
flickering projections of memories
you can't rest with.
Wondering
just how it feels to be
a magnitude against the interstate
as gravity chalks a body's outline into the earth
Wondering
who could be the culprit in this case?
You were just a victim of blunt-force;
caution taped into an unclaimed crime scene.
Wondering
if you jumped in spite of joy
if being alive is to expand your lungs in full exhale
if being dead is to put an end to restlessness
Wondering
what emotion is present as you
leap.
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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Talon Drake Poem
I hope he makes you feel at home
hope it’s sweet when he’s singing you songs
I’m sorry I choked chewing on
my own tongue for too long
You’ve moved out
and moved on
Making vacancy space inside my arms
but there’s something I’m still clung on
Vagabond who can’t wander on
or let go of that glimmer of home
I wasn’t living in love
but I was somewhere so close
Does he listen when you’re silent?
Does he watch you as you sleep?
Is it everything we were supposed to have?
I can’t help but feel like the trick’s on me
You said
he makes you feel
like magic.
and I transcended, disappearing from the picture
as I imagined your passion
watched
my love story
col lapse
in
to
trag
edy
in a second
and a half.
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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Talon Drake Poem
If life is a party--
I stay halfway in the doorway
half-hoping nobody notices me
half-wishing somebody does
The question, is it really having fun
when one has to force it so much?
If I would’ve just stayed home
the comfort of my own bubble
I wouldn’t have to sweat beneath
this mask of confidence
I just want to camouflage myself under neon
I just want the music to mute the loudness my mind sounds
I just want to live amongst the chatter and laughter
without worrying if it’s at my expense
If life is a party
why am I the only one alone here?
The room is loud
but I’m swallowed by silence
surrounded yet untouched
I shove myself so far into my solitude
I’ve made my safe space
no longer retreatable
unbreathable,
suffocation
isolation
My therapist says I can’t have my cake and eat it too.
Says, “It’s not that nobody likes you, you just don’t let people know you”
Loneliness eats at me
like the greedy eat cake and have it too
chews me up,
spits me out,
swallows me whole,
scarfs me down
I am park abandoned
amusement removed
Once epicenter of joy
Now decayed, movement drained
Welcoming no one--no refunds
If life is a party
I’m pinata perked with push pins
Loneliness sticks, sinks into me
Driving deeper with each impact
beaten
battered
shaken
shattered
I long to poke through the loneliness
ballooning inside and bid it soar
but there’s only so much reality
you can bend for a metaphor
It’s my party and I’ll holler all I want to
I think it’s time I reclaimed the stage
instead of shrinking myself so small
under my own spotlight
I am sick of being a background character
in my own stories I share
I am jealous of feeling empty
when everyone else belongs
So here I am
rainbow, glitter, and all that glam
Ain’t I fantastic?
Ain’t I the last
performance you were expecting tonight?
I am the hard liquor that can’t be held down
I am the tempo that can’t be kept up with
I am human being deserving of celebration
I am the last performance
you were expecting tonight
but I didn’t come just
to leave quietly
I came to be the life of the party.
Copyright © Talon Drake | Year Posted 2025
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