Get Your Premium Membership

Best Poems Written by Katie Telling

Below are the all-time best Katie Telling poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

View ALL Katie Telling Poems

123
Details | Katie Telling Poem

Silly Putty

I'm asking you to run. 
Run as fast as you can
in another direction.

Don't remain in your fear of life
outside of comfort or rob yourself
of identity as you go through the motions
on the path already laid out
for you.
It may seem easier to take what's given,
but you will become your father,
and your father's father.
Just another man,
capable of anything
and everything, 
making choices founded
on naivete and fear.

Your hesitance in forming
new traditions
holds you back,
as the Alpha 
keeps you on a tight leash
through his ability
to maneuver his way
right into your guilty conscience.
You are an ally
to his tradition,
but only because you allow him
to manipulate you into thinking
that you are being judged by your friends, 
your family,
and by God,
the three things
that you believe
built the foundation
of your existence.
But the only one who is judging you
is the one who is manipulating you.
And why, you might ask?
For stepping outside
of HIS tradition,
for looking outside of
who he created you to be,
molding you 
like silly putty since the day
you learned to walk.

I was silly putty once too.
I've been there.
But I opened up my mind
to the things that scared me,
the things I wanted most,
This is what gave me an identity,
freeing me of being bound
in the captivity of taking
on the beliefs of "tradition"
without ever thinking about it,
the captivity of staying true
to its values
without even knowing what they are.

So when people ask 
why you believe what you do,
you have no explanation,
for you've never had the chance
to think for yourself,
not until now.
I was there.

Now its your turn.
Convince me that you
are not just a generational
work horse like those
before you.
For in the end
if that is the path you choose,
I will not be resentful
and I will not be hateful.
I will only be disappointed
and broken-hearted
that you fell into
the boring predictable life
that I knew you never wanted.
Convince me that when I look at you,
I see only YOU,
the brilliantly gifted person
who has the ability
to make a difference 
and change the world...

But only if you run.

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2010



Details | Katie Telling Poem

Sexual Tension

I shift my eyes slowly from the ground,
up the wall and over to another pair of eyes
that in a moment lock onto mine.
His penetrating stare 
makes my heart thump with force,
the heat from his gaze
brings beads of sweat to my skin.
Lingering in his hypnosis
I have the urge to know him,
to look deeper into the mystery
of those seductive eyes and 
bask in the warmth behind them.

As suddenly as it begins, it ends--
he snaps me back to reality 
by quickly averting his eyes from mine,
but only after flashing a flirtatious grin
and inviting my mind to wander
down dangerous roads....

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2011

Details | Katie Telling Poem

The Willow

Wading in water 
Up to my waist,
I watch the willow tree
Wistfully embrace 
The western wind 
as it combs through 
wavering limbs. 

I leave no wake
As I wander into wet depths,
Whispering regrets
With the willow tree as
My witness.






Influence: Depression

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2012

Details | Katie Telling Poem

Sinking

Subdued sorrow
seeps from swollen eyes,
and severed sobs 
stab into the surrounding
silence.
I'm suffocating in a sea
of separation,
struggling to stay
afloat but I'm 
sinking fast.
Somebody save me
before it swallows
me whole.

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2012

Details | Katie Telling Poem

Mourning

Empty lockets
dangle softly
from crooked necks--

dappled granite
faces west
where the sun sleeps--

whispered prayers
linger quietly
as a child weeps.

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2011



Details | Katie Telling Poem

Pointless Argument

A common mistake,
a misunderstanding,
too much to take,
there's no clear landing.

Guards go up,
but walls come down
in a mess of words
thrown all around.

A sticky situation
is all that they have,
no reconciliation
can fix the bad.

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2010

Details | Katie Telling Poem

House Fire

Ashes drift
to the ground
like black snow,
and smoke curls
upward from
the rubble like
ghostly figures
emerging from the
grave.
A skeleton now looms
in the clearing,
surrounded by heaps
of its charred flesh.

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2014

Details | Katie Telling Poem

Insecurity

It is a chronic disease
that eats away at my soul
as my weakened mind 
allows it to creep into the
crevices of my brain.
It destroys the skin 
on my hands and face,
picking at it until it bleeds,
leaving open sores
and patches of raw flesh 
that scab over
only to be torn open again.
It infiltrates my 
defense mechanisms,
distorting perception
until my sense of rationality
dangerously melts into
irrational territory.
I unknowingly cross over
into a place where my thoughts 
become mutated in the thick saturation
of insecurity,
and the contents of my brain
slowly begin to liquify.

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2010

Details | Katie Telling Poem

Intervention

It has come to me with no surprise,
that I must intervene in own my demise,
but a difficult struggle will ensue
for I know I will be left in the blue.

It anchored my emotions for a time,
making me feel somewhat sublime,
yet the reality of the matter lingered there,
and I hid it well behind my spacey stare.

And while everyone saw me falling away,
my life crumbling a little each day,
I placed the blame on structure and sleep,
in an attempt to hide that I was in too deep.

I could not tell a single soul
the sadness behind my secretive toll,
and so I cried until I couldn't stop
to release myself from my emotional flop.

But now the crying has become too much,
as every night my pillow I clutch,
I have no choice than to let it go,
or the emptiness that plagues me will overthrow.

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2010

Details | Katie Telling Poem

Fingerprint

An onyx ink impression
spirals in unique form,
from the dizzying loops
etched in soft flesh--

where furrows weave
like trenches in the earth,
dotting the surface 
with ridges and islands
that protrude in 
evidential patterns.

Copyright © Katie Telling | Year Posted 2012

123

Book: Shattered Sighs