r/PoetryWritingClub

writing is like cutting
bleeding words and tying them up
in gauze of rhymes and stanzas
letters cascading like rivers

cutting would hurt
like frost nips your nose on a winter morning
like growing pains may strike you midday
like picking at a scab until it becomes a bullet hole

cutting ruins your skin
like plucking twigs from a tree
miles of unblemished birch fall
and make way for little streams of rainwater

those little streams
feed what comes next
as the roots grow together again
knitting their way through the dirt
sewing a quilt of loneliness

and then, a new spring
where seedlings sprout and flowers grow
blooming only for the fate to befall them
spring and spring again
the same as their ancestors before

saw it before I felt it
the quiet way you carried light,
like something sacred had chosen you
long before I ever could.
I can see that you’re a mother in the making,
not in years, but in the way you hold the world
soft, patient, like your hands already know
how to fix what hasn’t broken yet.
Your eyes…
they’re not just beautiful, no
they’re burning in passion and delightful like the moon,
steady, distant, pulling tides inside of me
I never learned how to control.
And God, I loved you loudly in silence.
I stood beside you like a friend,
laughed when I should’ve confessed,
spoke in half-truths and safe words
because loving you felt too real
to risk turning into something fragile.
You deserved something that stays.
Not a storm, not a spark that dies
but something rooted, something patient,
something that doesn’t forget how to breathe
when things get quiet.
So I loved you in restraint.
In glances that lasted a second too long,
in steps slowed just to walk beside you,
in the way my voice softened
without asking for permission.
Maybe you knew.
Maybe you didn’t.
But I swear
every version of love I could’ve given you
lived inside me all at once,
and still…
I chose to keep it whole
rather than risk breaking it in your hands.
Because some loves
aren’t meant to be proven
just carried.

You are safe here

Safe within me

No force can

Make me unlove thee

You can cry here

Be happy as can be

You can rest here

See all that you can see

You can be mad here

Or joyful and so free

There is forgive here

My heart no longer empty

Before you there was no here

Before you there was no me

So remember you are safe here

You're the one I can't unsee

She reaches for me
and my body physically cringes.
Before my feet even hit the floor
someone already needs my skin,
my arms,
my milk,
my patience.
And I don’t want to give it.
That’s the part nobody says out loud.
Sometimes I look at this tiny person I made
and all I can think is
please stop touching me.
Please stop crying.
Please let me exist for five damn minutes
without someone needing something from me.
I am so tired
it feels violent.
Like my bones are buzzing with it.
Like one more whine, one more pull on my shirt,
might crack something open inside me.
All I want is rest.
Real rest.
Not sleeping with one ear open
or sitting down long enough to scroll my phone
before somebody cries again.
I want to not be needed.
Just for a minute.
I want my body back.
I want my mind back.
I want to stop feeling guilty
for fantasizing about disappearing into silence.
But she reaches for me
like I am the whole world.
And somehow I still pick her up
even while my heart and body are screaming
that I have nothing left to give.

i talk more
with my
poetry
 
than i do with
anyone else. 
 
it doesn’t
respond either.  

If you were her,
I’d hear your words
like a lantern in mist,
small, warm, stubbornly bright.

I’d let them rest
in the hollow of my hands,
where missing becomes
something gentle,
not a wound
but a whisper
that remembers.

And I’d answer,
not with certainty,
but with presence,
I feel the distance too.

I want to know
what version of you appears
when the lights are low
and nobody else is watching.

The version that stops pretending
to be composed,
that lets desire speak first
instead of reason.

Come closer
close enough that I can feel
your hesitation dissolve
against my skin.

I want your hands on me
with that dangerous softness,
the kind that makes my body wonder
how something gentle
can still leave me breathless.

Touch me like you’ve imagined this before.
Like I’ve crossed your mind
in quiet moments,
in restless nights,
in fantasies you never dared confess out loud.

Pull me into you slowly,
until there’s no space left
for restraint to survive.

I want the tension,
the teasing,
the deliberate patience
of being wanted intensely
without rushing the ache of it.

Kiss me in ways
that ruin my concentration afterward.
The kind of kisses
that linger for hours,
replaying themselves
every time I try to think clearly.

Tell me what you crave.
Tell me where your mind goes
when you miss me too much.
I want every secret desire
spoken softly against my mouth
like something forbidden
we’re finally allowing ourselves to feel.

I want your attention possessive,
your gaze heavy,
your fingertips tracing slowly
like you’re memorizing reactions
you plan to cause again later.

Let me sit in your lap
while your hands distract me
from finishing a single thought.
Let your voice turn low and rough
right beside my ear
until my composure starts slipping
piece by piece.

I want that unbearable anticipation
the kind where every almost-touch
feels hotter
than certainty itself.

Make me wait for you.
Make me melt for you.
Make me feel chosen
in the most consuming way possible.

I want tangled sheets,
half-whispered confessions,
lazy smiles after midnight,
and the kind of chemistry
that makes sleep impossible.

Leave your affection on me
like a hidden mark:
not visible,
but unforgettable.

Something my body remembers later
when I’m alone,
replaying the way you looked at me
like desire and tenderness
had become the same thing.

And afterward,
when all the tension finally softens,
hold me close enough
to hear my heartbeat slowing beneath your chest.

Stay there.

Like neither of us
is ready to return
to a world
that doesn’t feel like this.

These tangled gossamer threads

which you spun around me,

have covered my eyes, so that

every image I see resembles your apparition.

-

Your dark curly hair strangles

my heart like a trussed bird.

And each moment you withhold from eating it,

only tightens my fetters.

-

Your velvety wires have interwoven my body,

so that I can feel your touch,

pushing and pulling against me,

with even the most subtle movement.

-

If only I could hear your silken voice once more,

So that I might wrap it around my ears like a scarf.

Perhaps then, I would not listen to the

entangled suffering, stitched between my every thought.

-

How can it be that your delicate, spiraling

web, that once seemed so light—almost invisible,

has now ensnared me so firmly,

that I must remind my lungs to breathe?

-

Your presence is still stuck to me like

hard candy to a child's teeth,

as I naively chew on the words

I think you would most like to hear.

-

Dear God, what can I say?

To make you come back to me,

to have your seductive fangs pierce

through me once again.

-

Yet most sincerely, I only wish

that you had actually wronged me.

You could have strung me along like a spider,

and I would have been the gladdest prey to your refection.

-

Instead, you told me so transparently of your intentions,

that I perhaps barely saw them at all.

-

I knew how short our time together would be.

I knew each of your eight legs;

I loved how they crawled about me in bed.

I knew of your many anxious eyes, and

secretly wished that they would worry about me too.

-

You even warned me about the venom,

which I learned is kept

securely martyred within that

hypnotic hourglass figure.

-

You beautiful, spindly creature.

I know you wouldn't hurt a fly.

You never swatted away my incessant buzzing.

I only pray that you would allow yourself the same kindness.

-

Alas, even this presumed intimacy, fastened

so dearly to my chest, was all along just your web,

and I'm tangling what you left.

You danced with such quiet grace upon that diaphanous quilt,

that I could hardly tell when you were actually gone.

-

Now, alone with your silence,

I can only hear the swarming insecurities,

as they hum, and whirl around me.

Now without your touch, I can only feel their sting.

-

Without realizing, I began hemming

your web into my skin like a cocoon.

So that I could imagine comfort,

like you were still here with me.

-

Please, won't you just become my wretched spider.

Allow me to twist your words,

and to enmesh your image into a wan mosaic,

so that I can immure myself in them.

How could you leave me here,

suspended from my own pale heartstrings.

You knew that only I could knot them into this gnarled mess.

Please, just look at me one last time.

So that you may see my mummified self-loathing as a sacrifice.

-

Please, my dear, ethereal arachnid.

Just let me feign you as a monster.

I only want to pretend just a while longer,

That I have not caught myself in my own web.

I wanna be your anti-fascist skinhead, overcoming all these Oswald Mosley posers--

not with anything blunt and heavy or sharp and fast; slice and dice, slice and dice, or smash and flatten--pancake style!--

I'd use words, plain and simple.

Try bleeding it out, with logic and reason. When that reason's obtusely denied, I'd shout it out, with blood and lung. Make the words go right through them.

So-- you gonna be mine?

Curious child, born out of the norms,

Daughter of a courtesan, her father unknown.

Eyes of the villagers

A vision of disgrace for the mother,

And a sight of disappointment for the child's future.

She fled away to protect her only daughter,

Born brilliant, a mischievous one.

Topped her homeroom and hung out with boys,

Stealing the chickens and the ducks.

Welcomed furious stares and angry neighbors.

A careful mother, cornered by allegations

A witch and her little demon,

Casting misery on their daily life.

Mother’s angry persuasions and steady progressions

Turned her into a scholar the town envied.

Away from her own perfection, she met a man,

Fell in love for the first time, deeply, madly.

Left her whole world for him,

To create another with him.

But war broke out, and her world crumbled

Into pieces, dreams torn apart.

He marched away with a gun on his back,

Leaving promises that he would return, unharmed.

Days turned to months, letters grew scarce,

She wandered the streets, searching for news.

A scholar, a thinker, now just a ghost,

Drifting through sorrow, counting the cost.

Then came the whispers, sharp as the bullet he took,

Her world shattered, beyond all reclamation.

No home to return, no arms to embrace,

Only silence, a fate unsealed.

Yet fire still burned within her chest,

Not just a lover, nor just a child.

She rose again, a mind unchained,

Defying the fate once so reviled.

Through ink and parchment, she carved her name,

Made his sacrifice an eternal flame.

A woman of wisdom, a tale untold.

Not just a shadow of men before her,

But a force of her own, fearless and bold.

an innuendo
That’s all it took.
All I want is to miss you—
to miss this.
As beads of sweat
pour out of my pores,
as minutes turn into hours
in which every thought I have
formed, malformed, misinformed.
In which I thought.
For which I think.
Who am I
with or without you?
I am all yours,
regardless of taste,
regardless of how disingenuous
all of which we stand for
and with.
I am yours.
Forever grateful to myself
for being a part of the journey
which guided the way—
the light.
The streaming colors
of red, blue, green,
yellow, and purple.
I know now
that I am the part of you
that you will bleed for.
The part of you
that you will miss
in every misinformed step,
every mistake,
every properly planted foot
into the soil
of who and what
you will become.
I am you
as much as
I am yours.
Forever intertwined
in the universe built
within the consciousness
of everlasting silence,
of the stars
in which we grasp
our little moments
of tranquil stillness.
We are.
Ours.