A Poet's Pen

Joy!

Joy climbs trees and paints everything she sees.

She looks at the sky and lets excitement

Fill in the spaces between the clouds.

She runs barefoot through the grass like a kid

Even though she hit her 20’s a few years ago.

She stops and thanks people for the little things,

And reminds us of what we felt like when we were young.

Joy is one of my best friends.

She spoke words that brought life instead of hatred and defeat.

She used her talents for a purpose,

And gave a reason to smile for the people she’d meet.

She never knew where she was going,

But she had a way with telling of where she had been.

Joy is someone you will never forget.

She will stay with you even when you forget she’s there,

And let Fear, Anger, and Sadness in.

She will always help you start over again.

Sadness.

Sadness eats her weight in ice cream

And binges for hours on Gilmore Girls

Because she has no one to talk to about her feelings

Besides Microsoft Word.

She lies in bed awake for hours

Trying to find the will to move and do something

Other than thinking about how everything feels empty.

She drives late at night and listens to Little Chief,

Because she can’t take the silence.

She waits for something to change,

But can’t bring herself to change it.

Sadness needs a friend to wake her up in the morning

And drag her out of bed.

She needs someone to remind her that everything happens for a reason,

And she won’t feel this loss for forever.

She needs someone to bring her back to the present,

So she doesn’t remain stuck in the past.

She needs Joy.

Anger.

Anger speeds on the highway

And finds a place to scream the words she’s kept in for days.

She slams doors and falls back against the walls of her bedroom.

Her hands cover her eyes and red fills her mind,

Because Anger remembers everything.

Every sound and feeling that happened that night,

And the lies—

All of the lies he spoke as the bottles piled up.

She remembers what he said when it was all over,

“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way.”

Like he cared for her feelings at all.

All lies.

She screams and throws objects across her room,

Knowing no one could hear her.

She remembers everything,

And Hate threw open the door to sit next to her

And listen to all of her frustrations pour out.

Anger can’t let go, and Hate didn’t want her to.

Fear.

Fear sits in the corner of an empty diner

At 2 in the morning

With her back towards the wall

Staring at the door.

She hasn’t slept well in weeks,

And she hasn’t eaten since the sun fell down a few days ago.

There is a cup of coffee sitting in front of her,

But she remembers burning flesh,

And a twinge of uncertainty keeps the mug at a distance.

Fear waits for Peace to walk through the door,

But she isn’t sure how long it may take her to get there.

She thinks she may never get there.

Fear should have never gotten out of her house in the first place,

Because her mind keeps racing past recognition

In a blur of yellow and blue and black.

When everything around her seemed to fight against her brain,

The door opened,

And Peace greeted her with a smile and said,

“Everything is going to be okay.”

My Found Poem.

I am scared of a lot of things.

I used to build my clubhouse out of books

Whenever I needed an escape,

But my eyes still held the darkness

Like an open tomb—

Like a wall without a light switch,

So I close my eyes and try to whisper,

“I am not alone in this darkness,”

But all I can manage is,

“Why?”

It’s like my world seemed to tip on its axis—

Like any second

I could fall beneath the surface.

I let the night hit against my vocal chords

And cried,

“Give it back!”

Give me something real.

When last night became tomorrow morning—

And don’t say good-bye.

Don’t give me another blank stare.

I want to shatter this image,

But instead

A broken mirror takes its place

And leaves glass in my hands.

A constant imprint

That I am not yet who I want to become.

A constant reminder that I have to hold my scars

And move forward.