Poetry & Lyrics

Hello everyone, I wanted to start this forum because of the one that was on absolutepunk, I really enjoy sharing my writing with others, getting feedback, reading others work, and giving them feedback. I know that my work means a lot to me and I hope you all find something in this group like I did many years ago!

 

This Is Where I Leave -

I'm staring down crossroads again
With my never ending awe to the wind
And my back against this wall
There's a subtle bend,
But everything mostly just breaks
As I awake, sick to my stomach one more time
Created by the void in my heart
Claiming, screaming out,
"I don't know how to live my life"

And if you had the nerve to watch me
As I break my own bones,
Making this effort to carry
The weight pressed upon my chest
Would you call that falling in love?
The sun just reminds me of everything
I've yet to become, and summer,
She traps me inside of a memory
That I still haven't learned how to let go of.

The glimmer, the glamour
It's blinding me, I never saw you leave
I don't know what was chosen to believe
When all I've ever done is my best
Graciously, I was given a path to forge
But there isn't an answer as to why
Straying is in my blood, I tried my best
And I don't want to try anymore

And if you had the nerve to watch me
As I break my own bones,
Making this effort to carry
The weight pressed upon my chest
Would you call that falling in love?
The sun just reminds me of everything
I've yet to become, and summer,
She traps me inside of a memory
That I still haven't learned how to let go of.

Everything will be left behind,
From a steady city to my empty bedroom
There's so much space,
And no room at all to breathe
If life is what we make of it
Then I want you to watch,
As I follow through with something, finally.
This is where I leave

 

The Year Everything Had to Stay the Same -

I don't feel like talking,
And I've already said too much
I hope you feel it when we touch
The lack of color connected to
Veins invisible through blurry eyes
I don't know if it ever did,
But this just doesn't feel right

As I feel my ocean escaping yours,
I see you've found the answers
That I can't seem to lead myself to
It's a crushing, lonely defeat
A shifting war that can't be won
Settled on beat up thoughts
Carrying me to an early grave,
Some days I'd rather not be saved from

My fight to give up and give way
Into a bigger picture where the details
Finally make sense, just keep me safe.
My words often provoke thought
Into hearts that can't handle it
Would I be happier if I said something else?
Would I be better if I were someone else?
Talking so much of my head and that shelf,
I wonder if it was made to be -
Me and only me
Inside a space that was meant to grow,
But the heart inside just can't find a way

As I depict such a grandeur onto your chest
There's gotta be a timetable for going on like this
Ticking clocks, syncing toward the sounds
Of how much time I have left
And I don't know how I got this far,
But I'm sinking and miserable again
Last year was a reflection of the past
And a moment to finally start,
Instead I took every inch and shredded it apart
Only to continue this wishful thinking that,
No matter what, I'll get through the hard parts

A gamble on love,
A shamble from above the clouds;
Rain sends a message, but we hide indoors
Standing next to an island with no chairs,
Always remember that I cared.

 

When the Sky Broke -

I'm always alone when I'm with you
Whether it's just the two of us
Or inside of a crowded room
Please, just tell me no
Leave and never return
We'll see the sky break
Into the atmosphere
As our history finally dies,
But only inside my head
The place where it still resides
A collection of unanswered questions
That'll carry me to an early grave,
But at least I know
That when you told me to leave,
I stayed.

That's what true love means to me
For you to understand this,
That is my one last wish

So when I asked you to stay,
All those years ago now
And you left me within paper walls
To sort my shit out
Carried away in the nothingness
That will eventually consume us all
As I leave you with these words under my breath,
"Maybe I just need to be alone
And I finally understand that,
For once"

 

Glow -

Were we always dependent on the sun?
And is it selfish to think,
"I have to accept that I have the ability
To figure out the choices I need to make,
Then I can begin to understand who I am?"

It all gets set aside again
As sight is lost to the taste
Of winter on my breath
Basking in the glow
Of a perfect afternoon
Blurred vision in the eyes
Of another stormy rain
I have no sense of direction
In my head or otherwise,
This ship cannot be steered
By a man who chooses not to live.
-
Those two months of Summer,
A light in my eye changed the way I felt
Just enough, to understand that when I blink
I'll already know that none of it was ever real
Oh god, I need something real

Because these fucking nights
Where I stay awake, counting ways
I could convince myself to give up on everything
They're all I've got left.
So I'll breathe again, it's been awhile
Maybe I'll shake this endless obsession,
To become a semblance of this ideal
Constructed of the most cryptic
unanswered questions
That I preach, but cannot capture
Tied to a lock of titanium -
My life has to be more than just an essence
Of looking for a weightless key.

 

Hey just leaving you some love because this post was ignored. Good writings, good writings.

 

Thank you good sir, you just made my night. Seriously.

 

Poetry thread! I've always loved writing, but have recently become really invested in writing poems and pretty much fallen head over heels for it. I'd love to see this thread get some more attention!

Here is a short one I wrote about a year ago

Baby Marshmallows

My little teacup is full of the universe
and I will drink it up
Inhale stars and planets
like baby marshmallows

I like to pretend that I'm God
and my will
shall be done
as long as I don't
spill it out
or spit it up

 

Awesome, thank you for posting! Hopefully this will grow into something.

I love your piece, it has a very light feel to it especially with the use of marshmallow metaphor and then, it guts you in the last verse. Leaves a lasting effect on me. Your imagery is also fantastic throughout, very good work. Thanks again for posting. Makes me happy to share my work with others, but most people don't get it.

 

good idea reviving this thread; i remember wanting to save a few i saw on AP but never got around to it

i really like this, especially from "and i've" through "we touch." can't really describe why from a critical standpoint, but it resonates with me personally

agreed with cut!print; reminds me of a Bukowski poem

 

here's a song i wrote that i'm currently trying to write music to. the opening lines i've had for years and then one day a few weeks ago the rest just poured out. sometimes you've just gotta wait on it, i suppose. in my head i use matt skiba's voice haha

Some things shouldn't see the light of day
the truth is i’ve been just too afraid
we still stand accountable for the things that keep us awake
and all sit tight for better days
for lives filled to the brim with heartache
our vices are the vessels in which we send our souls away

i feel the arcades retreating deeper
i felt every centimeter
my blood grew so hard and heavy at the thought of your delay
we chose the method of our eviction
write me a song with more conviction
i can't afford to let you know
for now these vices will lay low

young heathens, still learning, aren't we?
my recollection’s been a bit hazy
it’s relief, it's relief, oh i miss that feeling,
the calm before the warmth
my muse is mine alone,
but the matches we burn now aren't my own
flood the room with red light and acetone
we held tight waiting for the smoke

but it was a slow burn, we waited
for the moon to peak out through the roof
this night never felt quite right
the sky was the wrong shade of blue
but our fate is quick and unjust, you are summer rain
we don't search for senseless meaning,
the bats will echo our names

and like clockwork, the moon was the last thing we saw
with a black fox as our only witness
laughter haunted the dark
and i remember
your starlit naked shoulder
giving way to the glow of the ember
and the heat, as it crept on closer
you sang

Some things shouldn't see the light of day
the truth is i’ve been just too afraid
we still stand accountable for the things that keep us awake
and all sit tight for better days
for lives filled to the brim with heartache
our vices are the vessels in which we send our souls away

 

Thank you both so much! I really appreciate it.

@js977, I enjoyed reading through that piece. Your opening and closing stanzas are quite effective in particular. It will definitely make for good lyrics.

 

thanks a lot! also much appreciated. i've got about an album's worth of material that i'm happy with but i'm new to recording so that's on the to do list.

 

Yeah, I myself was making a rhythm to it, it flows very stream of thought. Similar to how I write, I think. The chorus at the end was haunting and held more conviction than the first time it was read, I like that.

 

The Hard Parts -

But the moon, she hangs in the balance
From dusk till dawn, I'm alone in thought
Brushing dust off this old notebook,
Said I left that heart behind, but we can't escape
The things that make us who we are
As musical notes bounce off pages,
I'm home for more - sure I've aged a bit
But I'm better than I used to be,
Spent everyday dreaming of that moon
Hanging in the balance of all we could have
"I'll see you someday, maybe soon."

Mocking the very question
I'm afraid to ask allowed,
Unsure if I can take the quiet pain -
It's all the same.
Swallowed whole, down to the bottom
Of your disease, I sink. It's all I could do,
I did nothing else.
My hands were cut like yours, still,
You never had a thought of something more

So hang me up, next to the brightest star
In the blue of my chest,
All I ever gave was my best,
But the moon, she gave me away,
Into the night I will perch on my window sill
Just begging for the light to come back in

Sunshine, sunshine,
"The grass is greener than this emptiness"
But I let it go to my head
Because my heart can't handle it:
A balancing act between every fiber of my being
And an idea baselined through imaginary things
I'll wait right here, until a reason comes to exist
Just like that moon, but we can't see in the dark.
A life lived alone is not a life lived at all,
But they never gave us a way,
A way to get through the hard parts.

 

thank you! i'm glad it comes off like that. i can't wait to have it down musically.

i think The Hard Parts is my favorite of the ones you've posted. progresses very cleanly, and there's a handful of lines that just stand out to me for their elegance, between the word choice, flow, and rhythm in my head, i.e. lines 3-8 first stanza, 5-7 in 2, 5-6 and 9-11 in 4

 

Thank you! Much appreciated, I did feel that this one took on a different nature than some of my other work. I guess that's what happens when you don't right for months and the write again haha, my writing has changed because I have. Everything else I posted was just stuff I had. This one is fresh off the press! I appreciate your compliments sir!

 

the earthquake was pretty no-nonsense
it came and took apart the aged and patched-up fastenings we would lay on top of
on midsummer nights
overly still from tension
the heat dancing around our forms then merging in ways of memory
until we'd fall into a guarded sleep
the fear finally separated into dream tones

and in color I saw the space where sight and love and abstraction coalesce before they grow up and leave your mouth dull and bitter
the stark of your eyes enters mine and pulls away again
turning every pixel of presence through for the images you once formed back when we were so different

fragments of former friends' lives
local news headline in North Carolina
the bliss in his trash he steps on and then off just to take with his eyes what he can't or he's fucked
in a month you'll be twenty-two and further decomposed
in a month I surpass your fixed head start
as some no one weeps for absence in altered time

at four in the morning
the glow of worlds through holes in foliage
confessing lifetimes of sin to all those who never existed
wonder what it feels to have life taken
wonder what it feels to have taken life
wonder if you're still around

 

turned that thing into a song:
[redacted]

suuuuper rough but w/e

 

i dig it; really like your voice too

 

well don’t we look good, we’ll never change
and if love could age like wine, we wouldn’t forget

I’ve found breaking relieves the stress,
like the wind in the park masks the chill in your breath
We condensate, we are clouds, we slip out of the air
Like ice on the windshield when the heat's phasing out,
or dew on the grass when the sun goes down

Every single day has been a drop
Every single day has lifted us higher up
But rather than sit along the edge and enjoy the view
We have to drag it out, i have to watch you move

and oh how you move
and how quickly you forget
has it been that long? does today hurt less?
but it's still a work in progress, much like
a child's eyes on christmas, looking out
at green streaks across the snow
how you used to look at me
i'd still sweat under the sheets, so i choose to freeze

Here's to us
Drink up
What happens next depends more on our fate than luck
Fill her up
With dust
Because we've drained the well and rusted out our love

maybe one day we'll be able to look back at ourselves and say "you know, I think we did ok”

 

Spectacular piece! It flows very stream of thought and does not skip a step, the second verse especially carried me away into a different universe as I was reading it. Great metaphors and linking everything back to the story at the end. I'm very impressed.

 

Just wanted to say thank you for everyone for posting in here and finally getting this going a bit, please feel free to ask questions, request feedback, talk about inspirations, favorite artists, etc.

Writing poetry, Including the ones who turn it into music, because lyrics are poetry. These are lost arts and very under appreciated in this world. In the old thread on AP, I actually became a better writer from sharing and talking to others in their. Sure, harsh criticism can suck sometimes... but it ultimately gave me the tools I have to write the way that I do. I'd like to see if things could maybe be like that again in here.

 

i posted a lot in the old forum when i was 15 and 16 (i was saddr weirdr), and i honestly do not think i would have started making music if not for that forum. it shaped the way i write and relate to/interact with lyrics, helped me think analytically about attributes like flow/imagery/meter/phrasing and learn to critique myself effectively, and later made me want to explore delivering stories through music. now i write songs and play shows and it's sick and none of this would have ever happened if not for everyone who posted there and gave me their time and energy and kindness. very grateful to those people and am glad to see familiar faces again. i always feel a little bit presumptuous giving unprompted feedback but if anyone wants their stuff critiqued, i would be happy to.

 

thanks a lot dude, makes my month to hear that. really really appreciate it.