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Andrew Crawford Apr 2023
From atop lofty thoughts,
dropped off softly;
so often, I lay awake
turning and tossing,
internal monologue talking,
masochistic sophistry blossoming
as it ought not to be.

A colossal cloth,
silken plume,
ink blot shades of grey
spread, peacocking;
this offering of pebbles brought
a monument
to all of the impossible
rocking before toppling-
comatose and claustrophobic,
I can exert no reverse inertia
to stop this cacophony.

Anxious, fraught,
my worries stalking me;
distraught
and tense posturing;
I fought to hold,
my fingers taut;
knuckles knotting,
vices tightly throttling.

Locked between
clock's tick and tock,
every second,
hands painstakingly wrought-
caught up,
sudden and shockingly.

Crawling awkwardly,
clawing at the walls,
coughing from the noxious oxygen
of my own rotting sarcophagus.

Insomnia fostering this paradox,
mocking me;
sleep deprivation walking,
no elysian veil to cross for me;
my own exhaustion
the coffin accosting me;
awful volume of this noise
ultimately just grains of static
all for naught,
frothing
and washed to sea.
This one is a repost from a few years ago... I recently read it at an open mic though, which is something I've always struggled with (both reading my stuff aloud and especially with social anxiety in front of other people lol)... but I was really happy with how this recording turned out. Still went a little too fast and didn't enunciate as clearly as I would've liked in a few spots but for the most part it was still a lot better than other attempts lol. And the video can be found here: https://youtu.be/TJr5-n6G0Eg
Winter Apr 2023
The day is as majestic as the dawn
In sleep, I lay wide awake
To exist without the weight of the world
In a dream within a dream
The past drifts by like clouds
No longer in childhood
But in love - for a season.
each line a new title
Unpolished Ink Apr 2023
Come sleep
kiss me gentle
lay yourself upon me as a lover
thou art more lovely than a summers day
or indeed those darling buds of may
and thee would be more welcome
Cana Feb 2023
Those moments in life
That staccato heart beat
An anxious mind and the release of sleep
The tightness of a chest bound by woe
Picks up the phone one last time
Jia Ming Jan 2023
because
    forgetting
          family
              rites
becom­e
  fruitful
      from
      retrospect,

I am an owl
                      enduring nights
to linger
               and to introspect.
Alex McQuate Jan 2023
Sitting in my bedroom,
That's become more of a waystation than a home,
For home to me is wherever you will be,
Zach Bryan crackles out the words I know I will think of,
When I am 20 years older,
And our son has left behind our home.

A traveler on his own journey,
Embarking to his own destination,
In time making his own mistakes,
But in them learning his own lessons,
And from that his own wisdom will be gained.

He will visit,
I know,
Although his first couple of visits will be too few and far between,
It will make you teary,
But knowing that it needs to happen all the same.

Those days to come seem so far away now,
Yet so close all the same,
But I know that we will eventually come to love every minute of it,
And wish we could live through it all again.
Zach Bryan- Old Man
N Dec 2022
1.
The seasons changed,
but he still kept wearing
his yellow sweater during
the hottest weather

He spoke in three languages,
but has only felt the word:
Melancholy,
and the joyous absence of it

He wondered who he would be
without his suffocating sweater,
and the word: Melancholy

2.
He never uttered the word father
for it was too heavy on his tongue,
as the heavy rain on a bleak morning  

His mother loved him dearly,
or ruined him and called it love

A man has fallen in love with him,
and he felt for the first time; the
warmth of equally returned love

His lover swallowed his heart, and
told him it was the final act of love

3.
After ten years of insomnia,
he stopped measuring happiness
based on how many nights he slept,
a funeral rose in his heart as he wept

He muttered the word:
Suffering,
as if it were
a prayer,
or a lullaby

4.
Drawing road maps on his flesh
was his only consolation,
he chose the color red
to find his missing path

Scars between his thighs
as hidden treasures—
Centuries deep away from
people’s piercing gaze

5.
His new beloved was
shaped as a knife
They embraced
for the last time,
and the gushing blood
was his final act of love
Rewrite.
ChinHooi Ng Nov 2022
I don't actually know
why do i often have trouble
sleeping
maybe it's because i love the night
more than I've ever loved the daytime
in my heart i always feel
the darkness seems to be directed
at my loneliness
you can see it standing by
my loneliness
without saying any word
it's not leaving
no need to light a lamp
it's often a wisp of moonlight
that shines through the window
far and near, the harmonious
sound of robins
at this time i want to see more
of the moon
at this time i seem to understand
it's insomnia that's completed
my loneliness
and made the darkness and me
the ones who keep watch
over each other.
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