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Simply Lived: Selected Poems (5)

Hypochondriac

The streets are empty with fear

And breathe, it will be alright my dear

Put your hand in mine ‘cause I can

See they’re raw from bleach –

Stop scrubbing so hard;

That’s not what you need,

Stop picking away – you’re making yourself bleed -

Look into my eyes and trust me when I say

This won’t last forever,

We’ll take it day-by-day

When you get in your head

And all that dread comes out to play,

I can assure you the cracked-open

Window is far more safe

And when you want to be alone,

I’ll tell you I know that loneliness can kill

And I’ll sit by your side and take

Away the pills,

I’ll be by your side and we will climb each and every hill -

The streets are empty with fear

And you are full of it -

I assure you, my dear

Though we sit in darkness,

A candle can still be lit

The girl on the train

Blurry fields

And a dazed expression.

Her eyes began to focus on the reflection.

She stared blankly as if her thoughts had slipped away,

But frankly her mind was moving in every way,

Her face not able to keep up.

But nothing ever did.

The horn of the train blew,

People shuffled and moved,

But nothing but a meer blink did she give up –

She only feared the noise in her head.

Feared the noises, fear but not dread.

They simply swirled around until they

Were dead.

She sat cross legged. Her messy hair draped over

Her shoulders and flowed down her back.

The blue of her eyes deeper than

The blue sky she was looking at.

Her lips were chapped –

She bit them when she was thinking,

Fidgeting as she sat,

Watching life pass her by.

Sadness seemed to consume her, but you

Would never hear her sigh

Because to call her sad would be a lie.

Melancholy was her high.

Existentialism was why she was alive.

As the trees turned to streets

And stone turned to barred fences,

She slowly became less pensive,

The concrete solidifying her thoughts,

Rearranging the mess.

The train went over a bump.

She moved in her seat,

Her mind now only wracked in defeat.

1-2-3s

I hear the snap and the crack

Of my back as I stretch.

The click in my hips is next.

I feel the wobble in my knees

And the ache in my feet.

I feel the sting when I close my

Eyes to breathe.

When I collapse in my bed,

Every movement is bled

Into 1-2-3s,

Into “only if I really need.” I’m exhausted, I plead,

With no one to plead to but me.

Exhausted, not just physically.

I feel the exhaustion within me.

I feel the exhaustion starting to win.

I feel the exhaustion in my heart and soul

As I roll out of bed,

I feel the exhaustion consume my goals

“Quiet down I say”

As I’m holding my pounding head.

I’m talking to you behind

Closed doors

With my face pressed up against peeled wood.

~ Anything to be a little closer to you.

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