The walls are staring at me with anger, My sheets are all astray, My head is on the table and my body will not play

My brains all feel like Jello, My arms are stuck like clay, My doll is made of paper and i like her that way

Some people call me crazy, Some people just call me weird, Only how am i the crazy one it’s you who wears a sneer

Now the girls are all out dancing, While the men all sit in chairs, Their eying up the ladies, watching them with glares

Girls can grind on girls, But that don’t mean they’re gay, Even if they kiss, They don’t swing that way

But if men act like girls, Then their sissy queers, If women act like men, Then it’s cool nothings wrong here

How is it were crazy when sexism is all we see, Looking at us with anger, Never letting us free

So stop beating on each other for we are all the same, We all have both male and female running through our vains

The flow i gave shall never wilt, But our love shall never bloom

Picking up broken glass while wearing your heart on your sleeve just makes a bigger mess

But your just a messy kinda girl, The kind that complains when she gets cut, but never puts on gloves

The kind who doesn’t mind cheating, Unless it’s on her

Your my shy and simple crush, his crazy and out going party girl, And her on the side love affair, all in one person

Your the universal blood type, The cup in the Catholic church, The kiss and don’t tell

Yet your weak and broken, Yearning to be fixed, Breaking all who try in return

You can’t mend a broken bone that’s already set, Unless you break it again, But your not as hard as a bone, Your soft, and warm

Your the kinda girl we all wanna help, But your also the kinda girl who no one can

Shaking in the cold, Hiding behind anything that will cover my body

Press It to my lips and breath, It’s the only thing that relaxes me

Breath It in slow, Make It last, Oh sweet rush, You redeem me

My nicotine stained finger tips hold you just right, My one true love

You stay with me always even when your gone, Deep in the crevasses of my lungs

Each breath draws me In just a little more, As the number in the box sinks down lower

For something so small, You have a large hold on my life

Yet you always keep me wanting more, And scrambling for the money to do so

You’re my legal addiction, One of the few things our government doesn’t mind us having even as children

Through you I have lost the trust of my mother, My little sisters respect, And friends friendship, I never learn do I?

I would leave you behind, Only you’re smell always seems to linger in the air, My slow and non moving killer

Slivers of a man all cut apart in your hand, And yet you continue to smile

The children are weeping, laughing, and thinking, pondering this for a wile

The face that you wear never falls with despair, Instead you meet life with a grin

The people you change, The towns you rearrange, Will never be the same again

You walk on a cloud, Oh god your so loud, And yet people stop and adore

Cute as a button, But selfish like a glutton, Taking in everything she desires and more

Crossing over lines, Changing people’s minds, Ripping and tearing couples apart

Can anybody hear me? Were all stuck in our heads, There no way out now, Were all damned

Can anybody see me? Crawling to the top, Never gonna stop, In tell I’m dead

Walking on the ocean, eaten all the sand, Sinking to the bottom, please take my hand

Counting all the ripples, Of my big slash, Smiling faces, they won’t last

Look at all the children safe on the land, Little do they know death’s big plan

Won’t you kill me slowly and watch me drown, See how they frown, When the music stops

I don’t need you near me, Nothings wrong, Locking out my sorrows, In tell they drop

Kissing all the ladies, hugging all the men, My heart’s a closed casket, No light shall peek in

You can’t say you love me, But we both know you do, Nothing really matters to me or too you

Staying up tell sunrise, Just to watch the clouds, The birds and there formations, the silence to loud

Always feeling the coldness of the water at my feet, Never letting go of the people we meet

Kissing in the rain, Hugging in the sun, Don’t let go now our life’s just begun

Never saying sorry for the life that you’ve left, there is no going home now until you put your feelings to rest

I’m here

I know myself

But does anybody else know me?

How can anybody else know me, when

I hide myself from the world.

I know the truth, and choose not to tell.

I lie about my own identity.

I feel the lies shredding through my soul,

their razor-sharp blades cutting me like the scalpel…

I hide my identity from myself.

I drown it in a sea of blood.

I will tell them; I can lie no longer.

I am going to stand and face myself, and be who I truly am.

And I will still be here.

Hey!

Candy, it occurred to me that if I’m always recommending that you increase your use of metaphor and imagery in your poems — if I’m always saying SHOW and don’t TELL — then I should SHOW you what I mean. HAHAHAHA.

So, below is a short poem by Jane Kenyon about death written soon after she was diagnosed with leukemia.   I don’t know the process she went through to come up with her metaphor (evening = death) but it had to have been something like, she allowed herself to FEEL the feelings associated with her possible death, then allowed her mind to stretch, to wander, to seek and find something OTHER than her possible death that could convey the same general feelings and ideas about it.

Here is the poem:

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down. Let the shed

go black inside. Let evening come.

See how she compares the end of a day in the country, where there is a barn, the sun going down, to the ending of her life? She is saying OK, let it come, I’m OK with this — but she is not SAYING this to us, she is showing us the pathos, the sadness, the acceptance, all of these things, by painting a picture of this country evening — she’s using this as a metaphor for her possible death.

So, in your case, you are writing about healing from the loss of your love relationship. How does that make you FEEL? Relieved? Proud because you were able to get through the pain? Tender toward the love you once shared with this person? Probably some of those things and more. Allow yourself to FEEL those feelings and then let your mind wander. What ELSE is this like? A group of elephants coming back to a place where poachers had killed some of their family members, but now the poachers are gone, so they can begin to heal? A field that had been clear-cut but now, years later, small saplings are beginning to grow again? It’s about new beginnings coming on the heels of BIG PAIN.

Just some ideas to get started. :-)

Miriam

We hold hands in the shadows, We kiss behind four closed walls

We live together as friends, We dine together as old acquaintance

We are lovers at night, But never in the light of day

Are we like beasts? Never to tell any one the secret that dwells with in our very being?

We are the monsters you as children were taught to fear, We are the 10% of the world that still lives in mostly in darkness.

We long for the light, We are not the monsters you fear, We long most to be together, A married couple sharing a bed, A family and a life.

Candy

You can’t hear me scream inside, Because i can’t voice it to the world.

You’ve stabbed my ego, and not i know i shall never be the same.

How can you think we will be close again? You melted my trust in you.

You have demolished the wall i built around my heart, And the workers are all on strike.

Leave me for her did you? I hope your happy. That’s all i can be for you.

I’m not jealous over her, I am mad that you don’t miss me now that i am gone.

I am okay with walking away, But you of all people should know i am not one to look back.

So i won’t look back, I’ll keep walking eye’s forward, Head straight.

And that’s the straightest i will ever be.