Hello, reader! Welcome to Poems that I am Proud of, a collective anthology that features poets and the poems that they are proud of. This edition features art that was shared during the month of May! Without further ado, let us dive into the em dashes!
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Don’t say I’m pretty by @kbjwrites (IG)
Start slow.
show me a bird with beautiful plumage and say it reminds you of me.
tell me you want— you need to become an artist so you can paint a portrait of me.
and say my body was designed for oil paintings.
and lament the tragedy of it all that you lack the skill, in paint, marble, or clay,
to render me.
behold a work of art, a breathtaking masterpiece,
and breathe out, “god, she looks just like you.”
say she must be inspired by me.
“pretty” is nothing in the face of awe, of power, of worship. say nothing of “pretty.”
tell me i am art.
tell me i am inspiration and fire.
tell me i inspired the muses themselves,
and mother nature herself tries desperately with every sunrise to capture my beauty.
and then say, “amen.”
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Still Attached by @poemsbylura (IG)
You fell in love with a heart
still attached to flesh and bones.
Careful, don’t rip out this beating pump
from it’s web of aortas and veins.
I would give my blood for your love,
but not my life.
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Moments Seared Into My Skin by @oswaldperez85 (IG)
Looking down at the lower half of my body
I see the all of the scars.
From the back of the knee
My foot and on my feet
Moments seared into my skin
But in the scars, ten of them I see the sense of possibility
Free from barriers holding me back
With each step forward
My past slowly ebbs away
So do the memories of all of the orthopedics, surgeries and doctor’s appointments
Gone is the need to be timid and small
I’m reborn each and every day.
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Lying by @paragraphs_and_verses (IG)
Lying is a selfish decision that you might
enjoy for a couple of moments or days or months or years.
But at the cost of making your whole life miserable.
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Stopped by Death by @enis.st.sparrow (IG)
And for what seemed like it was its own season,
the vigil my family held for weeks,
ended,
and the veil of their bated breath,
the whispers, the prayers,
broke away like a spider web,
sticking to everyone as my soul came undone.
How unfair,
for a poet,
not to share such a thing as what Death feels like,
so I will tell you here,
it is like falling into a pool of dark water,
and drifting to the bottom.
As the stitches of my spirit mended,
my feet drew cold,
as if I was wading through water,
about to be baptized,
then my stomach drew closed,
acid washed away
to be filled with the quiet that gathered my body so carefully,
until I felt the water lap at my lungs,
and all the sudden,
the sediment of breath that had stacked
in my lungs, like the layer of decaying leaves on the forest floor,
began to rattle with the ideas of what to say to excuse myself to all that I have ever known;
“You will keep my heart, while my soul goes,”
No, my sister is here, and she has her own heart,
she cannot carry on with her sister’s heart cold in her hands,
so I utter, creeping under the dark pool of gone-ness,
“I must go, the fog is lifting.”
Down I went,
to the bottom,
watching the glow from the oil lamp ripple on the still water,
onto the hide of Light,
which carried me out of the room in a such a blaze,
I thought my body was the light,
suspended from seeing a world without me, until-
the Light finally broke, like the opening of eyes from sleep,
to show me an open door to a coach,
and the coachman holding it,
who was a trim man in all black with an exposed skull that burned like a pearl
in the midday blaze of the Sun that stared us down in the blue sky.
I was now in a canyon, in the epicenter of a dried out river,
surrounded by a crowd of vespers,
diluted people watching me on Last Breath
as they waited.
I turned to the coachman,
and greeted him,
“Death,”
as if I knew him, like an old friend.
“Call me Poetry,”
he replied,
as he strolled to his team of horses;
four stallions that flickered like flame from
flesh to bone, to flesh again.
He patted the nearest one's shoulder, and grinned.
His eyes looked me over, for his eyes, were embers that either grew or shrank in the orbital cavities of his skull to designate his emotion, they now squinted as they studied me,
and I did not feel the Sun’s heat, but his,
and he, as Death does, pulled me in with his dark gravity,
and he knowing, held his hand out to receive my hand.
He looked at our hands, set to each other, cold and colder, and kissed my skin,
setting a jolt like Life throughout my body,
his eyes crackled as he looked up to me.
“Valorous, Emily, I think for you,
I shall make a special bargain.”
I chuckled,
and watched as Death stood, towering before me.
“A bargain, my lord?”
He nodded,
“A custom, all humans ask for it,
but now, I offer it.
Emily Bronte,
may I have you as my own
poet, and have you whisper my name,
which is, as I previously stated, Poetry,
for all of Eternity?”
Another rush, this one keeping in my skin,
like butterflies in a cage, tickling my resurrected heart
with the daring excitement of conspiration, temptation.
I replied to Death, “For what am I to be for the rest of my life,
but yours?”
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Untitled - by @willowisobelwrites (IG)
“I don’t want to get old,” he said,
As we sat—the three of us —
By the fountain,
Watching life pass by,
Unaware that all we truly have,
All we’ll ever need,
Is each other.
Maybe in different cars,
Maybe mules apart,
Maybe scattered among the stars,
But still, together.
As feet tap against the concrete,
And sunlight crowns their heads,
I feel it,
The youth that lives in this moment.
The kind that won’t return,
Yet never really leaves.
I am full,
Of love,
Of gratitude,
Of the quiet joy of now.
And I want to tell him:
Don’t fear growing older.
Because in my eyes,
And his,
And in this fleeting instant
You are timeless.
Forever young at heart.
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That was Then, This is Now by @mymomspoetry (IG)
Open a door and close the window,
The window to my past.
Open the door and let in peace.
A peace I pray will last.
Pain was then, peace be now.
Unleash the bonds of anguish.
I command you to fall in place,
And estrange me from my languish.
It's time for love and time for life,
A time for smiles and joy.
Appreciation for basic needs met,
Gratitude I will start to employ.
Existence has been a gambit of
Emotions I didn't know I possessed.
Hostility and rage and anger and fear;
By these feelings I was obsessed.
But that was then, this is now;
My pain's no longer on the surface.
It's buried now with the help of time,
Though I still question the purpose.
Yet I find that I can resurrect
And make all the scars unleash,
And yield to tears and question anew;
The pain's within my reach.
But that was then, and this is now.
Why hurt myself with this dwelling?
Let all the horrors be done and dead
Let me greet the life that's swelling
Let me find the beauty all around
In those people that I cherish.
For pain was then, life is now,
Be dead my pain, and perish.
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Skies End by @brushstroke_earth (IG)
If I can't speak I can't see the silence of in-between
touch what you need what I've been
concede for regret what I see you see my sick
slowly rolling back upon me in dark waves
stages of pages stains of what you cleaned
when I say please what I had to choose me to
retreat where sky meets my back weak spine
link archived pieces of me blinking like a
satellite crashing to be seen to hear me outside
myself asking for mercy on my knees that
cannot be worship's end mad love trusted for
cannot speak cannot feel safe the gift of can't
give me peace it's not you it's me for me to see
thank you for the space I need to grieve you
selflessly to grieve me silence is not consent
something you can't touch everything you
teach illuminating the sky gift of what you keep
what I need what you give my torch light my
body's truth rise in this storm this ragged leash
how badly I need to cry see my own strength as
I fly with borrowed pride the broken boy you cannot reach.
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Thank you to everyone who sharing their artwork not only to the first edition of Poems that I am Proud of, but with us in general. Without your work, we wouldn’t know you and the stories you bring to the world. Thank you.