The Girl Who Only Tried
I often wonder why you hate me
There has to be a reason for all the regret
A reason why I'm so good at telling a lie
Because I'm scared of you being upset
You treat me like I'm paper
I used and abused
Written on til I'm all black
And blue, torn and bruised
Lying comes easy
They just slip right off my tongue
Tell my friends I'm fine
I've been doing it since I was young
I live in a house, not a home
You make sure I'm terrified
Of ever being alone
Of being the girl who only tried
Mr. Wedding Cake
Very first job
At the age of fourteen
Postpubescent dreams
Of what twelve dollars a week can buy
From under the table
To the cash in my pocket
Burning a hole
Just on Sundays
4 AM till noon
But the bakers were there by midnight before
The trays of donuts won't move themselves
No dough is wasted
Even the holes get glazed
Like the one burning my pocket
No donut is wasted
Even the ones that fall from my tray
En route to the front
Bounce on the type of floor
That only a bakery could have
"Good thing it fell on the paper"
But there is no paper! Ha!
Nothing is wasted
Raspberry injections and powdered patina
Doberge masterpieces and red velvet cake
And petits fours and pies for the pie hole
And confections doled out
To the masses attending
Their hourly Masses
Them coming and leaving
Then leaving and coming
In hourly waves
For the ourly faves
26 minutes past each Communion
The body of Christ
And the sugar of Mr. Wedding Cake
Are digested together
Going home with the sweets
And clean souls
For only a week
Till next week
The next Friday and Saturday nights
Push them again
To their Masses on Sundays
And me, the middle man
From the back to the front
From the baking to the selling
From the selling to the banking
Today I remembered my spoon
BIG
As I pass by that vat
FAT
I ready it
A vat where the icing on the cakes
Was planed so evenly
FLAT
Dropping the sugar fallout and trim
The faulty flowers
That don't deserve to be on a
Mr. Wedding cake
Scraped into that vat – my vat
Of multicolored cortices
Of Michelangelo sculptures
Before chipping out saccharine Pietàs
Where my spoon lands squarely
And dives deeply
To render a spoonful of diabetes
Into a postpubescent waiting mouth
Each pass in moving
The trays that won't move themselves
From the back to the front
All the mouthfuls possible but once a week
From 4 AM till noon
My dentist awaits
But banish the thought
And don't bring me down
For a life hyperglycemic
While postpubescent
Is the sweet life worth living
Little things
I notice the little things
like how you don't ask me to text you when I get home anymore
like how you keep asking me questions about dating
like how you keep mentioning this girl
like how I can slowly see you drifting away
like how bad that hurts me when I don't have the right to feel that way
like how you were never mine
like how you never will be
My head was on your chest
Your arms were on my waist
I finally felt at rest
But I guess I wasn't your taste
Were you thinking of her
When we hugged
My mind felt like a blur
When you just shrugged
Why did you drag me along
If you knew who you'd choose
I actually thought we belonged
And then you called truce
Now I'm left in the debris
While you're all smiles
I feel like you can't see me
As our distance increases in miles
To break a habit
It takes about a month to break a habit
But its been 7
And I'm still around
It takes about 4 weeks to break a habit
But its been 28
And you're still on my mind
It takes about 30 days to break a habit
But it has been 196
And I still look for you in every room
It takes about 720 hours to break a habit
But its been 5040
And you still have all my trust
It takes about 2592000 seconds to break a habit
But its been 18144000
And I still love you
To My Prose Friends Here And The Prose Team
Hi all!
I don’t know how to tag names.
I just wanted to send a very sincere thanks, with hulking heaps of gratitude to all who have taken the time to read my poems, whether you commented, liked them or didn’t.
Just knowing some fellow poets read them really blessed me.
I want to thank Prose and their incredible team for their literary platform, as it has opened me up to some truly daring, cutting edge and inspiring poets. I was also speechless that “Beguiling Eye” was chosen and read on your channel! I shared that with my family and friends like a kid at Christmas.
I’ve completed my first book, 50 poems chosen out of 80, and it’s being professionally formatted by an author friend.
I have zero idea on the next step thereafter:
Self publish or shop it to UK Publishers? (Comments are welcomed on this one ☺️)
Either way, I believe in it, am blessed and grateful that the good Lord gave me the desire and ability to express my heart through words.
If you happen to read this, I encourage you to realize that Prose has offered a home to us; a literary dorm, think tank, social club or the equivalent of hanging with good people, enjoying what’s on our minds and hearts, where no one is too weird or too normal, but everyone can come as they are.
No stuffy pretension, just a wonderfully raw place that has afforded me the kind luxury of excitedly sharing my poems, and the thrill of discovering brilliant poets that inspire me (and I can’t tag, as I don’t know how, but you all are terrific.)
Prose and the community has been a profoundly wonderful find for me, and has encouraged me to move forward in my book, and believing more in myself.
OK, my morning cup of coffee is wanting to prattle me on, but anyhow, a huge thanks.
Be well, be blessed, be happy and never give up.
LDW
xx
“Love is not a finite resource.”
When I meet someone new
I add them to their respective list.
An ongoing wall full of names,
and they are just tiny blots of ink.
Organized alphabetically,
columns and rows of letters.
Some of which I know,
and some I only saw once.
The new come in,
the old go out.
There are only so many spots,
many are easily replaced.
But when I met you,
the pages were filled,
my ink pot empty,
no open space.
You seemed to take this as a challenge
and carved your name on the wall.
I thought it was a glitch,
that soon the mark you left would disappear.
But it stayed,
and that day I learned a lot.
Like just how much I love you,
and how love is not a finite resource.
Procrastination
Your almost-haiku, Procrastination, at https://www.theprose.com/Plexiglassfruit has me a little concerned.
First, the middle line has only six syllables. Perhaps you meant to get back to this and wedged in another morpheme into that line. That's dangerous, because the clock is ticking. Remember, you put a pin in it. But like all pins meant to be removed, you can be assured the shrapnel is coming next.
Things procrastinated, thus, tend to blow up on us like hand grenades. Is this pin strong enough? Long enough? How do you know it won't just fall out, like that syllable must have when you were constructing your anemic haiku. Anemic? Give it a transfusion of another syllable. Bring back its color. Otherwise, something sinister might grow there, as a fungus tends to do in dark, moist places that are ignored.
What could grow?
Angst could. Even chagrin. And angst isn't what put the grin in chagrin. I am NOT chagrinning right now! Remember, a poem that isn't whole is just a bunch of words.
Sincerely,
Dr ;
In a way
You scare me,
but you scare me in a way that's like I can't look away.
You hurt me,
but you hurt me in a way that makes pain addicting.
You like me,
but you liked me in a way that made me think it was love.
You called me,
but you called me in a way that makes someone think the call will never end.
You hugged me,
but you hugged me in a way that made me think your arms would never leave.
You thought about me,
but you thought about me in a way only friends do.
I’d let you read the things I wrote about you
I’d let you read the things I wrote about you,
but I’m afraid your view will change.
I'm afraid you might see a side you never noticed,
maybe start to think I’m strange.
I’d let you read my poems,
but I’m scared you might see a resemblance
in the way I talk about deep dark brown that feels like home
and your eyes that I used as templates.
I’d let you have my letters,
But I'm worried you’ll notice how much you hurt me.
When you read all the words I was too scared to say,
maybe you’ll realize why you're called “he”.
I’d let you have a piece of me,
but you’ve already taken twenty,
and maybe one day you’ll notice
how I’m falling apart from just that many.