Poetry her quiet words.

[navirose]

.
.
poems I'm too afraid to say.
words I'm too afraid to shout.
.
.​

 

[navirose]

I tilt my head,
squint a little,
maybe if I stand like this,
maybe if the light hits different,
maybe if I stop breathing for a second,
it won’t be so—

But it always is.
Too much of this,
not enough of that,
a war between bone and skin
and a voice that won’t shut up

 

[navirose]

I stretch myself thin,
like paper worn soft at the edges,
held up to the light, hoping I’ll glow—
but I only tear.

someone tells me to breathe,
as if my lungs remember how.
as if they haven’t spent years
holding in oceans,
waiting for a storm that never comes.

But you, you say I’m beautiful.
I say, I’m sorry.
I say I'm sorry
you have to settle.

 

[navirose]

we’re all cracked porcelain
dusted with dust we can’t shake off
hearts locked in the wrong cages
looking for keys we swallowed
in childhood.

you asked me once
if I thought you could change.
I said "if I did, I’d be more than what I am"
now look at me,
still shrinking in the dark

 

[navirose]

Some nights,
I count the cracks in the ceiling,
trace constellations in peeling paint,
name them after the things I lost.
Somewhere, I think, someone is laughing,
someone is learning how to love their own skin,
someone is waking up to something soft.

But I'm still here,
spitting out dreams like cherry pits,
watching them roll under the bed

 

[navirose]

I build myself up just to crumble quietly
like sand castles waiting for the tide,
like hands that reach but never hold,
like names whispered by people who don't stay.

it's funny how people say you're strong,
until you stop pretending to be.

Then you're just a body
folding in on itself
like the last page of a book
no one bothered to read

 

[navirose]

you look for meaning in the spaces between,
in the skipped songs, in the missed calls,
in the empty chairs at tables you don't belong to
maybe if you stare long enough
a reason will bloom

but all you find is the echo of your own voice
telling you to be quieter
telling you to take up less space
telling you that the world will spin just fine
without your weight pressing on it.

and maybe it will.
and maybe it won't.
but either way,
you still have to wake up tomorrow

 

[navirose]

I pick at myself,
like a bird plucking feathers,
thinking if I just remove what doesn’t belong,
I’ll finally feel like I do.

I press fingers to my face,
trace the curve of my cheek,
the line of my jaw,
as if I might find the answer in myself.

But my skin is just skin,
my name is just a word,
and my voice
doesn’t even sound like mine.

 

[Thanny]

Ooh, these are great! This is a gulp of fresh air compared to what I have recently read, written in a way that frankly is more common than others let on that conveys well to the soul. Well done, fine poet. I will keep an eye on this thread.

 

[navirose]

I fold the paper again.
And again.
Smaller, tighter,
like maybe if I press hard enough,
the words will disappear.

I say the right things, mostly.
Not too much, not too little.
Smile when I should.
Hold the door.
Nod.
Laugh.

It doesn’t stick.
Like water over glass—
there, then gone.
Others enter rooms like storms.
Like songs you hum after they leave.
I walk in, and the air stays the same.

I try. I do.
I sharpen my edges.
Soften my voice.
Mirror the ones who belong.
But the mask never fits right.


I fold the paper again.
And again.
Until there is nothing left to fold.

 

[navirose]

I stretch my hands toward the sun,
but my fingers are just a little too short.
Like the last step of a staircase that isn’t there,
like a word that almost forms, then slips—
a name I should know.


I speak, but the sound is softer than I meant.
Like knocking on a door that no one hears.
Like shouting into wind,
like whispering into water.

I run, but my legs don’t carry me fast enough.
The race is already won.
The train has already left.
The hands on the clock have already turned,
and I was still tying my shoes.

I hold love in my palms,
but my grip is never tight enough.
It seeps through like light through curtains,
like warmth through cold fingers,
like names written in sand.

I reach.
I run.
I try.
And still—
I am almost...

 

[navirose]

I hold the day in my hands,
but it’s too heavy,
slipping through my fingers,
too late.
Again

 

[Thanny]

Thank you for sharing your pieces, good poet. I very much enjoy select ones, and can directly relate to many of these situations.

I wish you the best in your life as you undergo hurdles, and that your poems can be spackled with joys and hope to go with the sad and forlorn. Grasp that sun.

 

[navirose]

I keep finding salt on my skin.
In the folds of my collar, in my hair.
Like the ocean keeps reaching for me,
like I left something in the tide
and it won’t stop sending pieces back.

I don’t remember what it was.
Maybe it was the way I used to laugh.
Maybe it was the way my name used to sound
before it felt like a question.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was everything.

The saltwater stains, you know.
No matter how many times you wash it out.

 

[navirose]

They gnaw at the edges of me,
little sharp-toothed things with hollow eyes,
crawling from the cracks in my skull
to lap at the marrow of my thoughts.

I used to fight them.
I used to starve them.
But hunger makes them cruel.

So now I lay the table.
Silver plates of regret,
goblets brimming with old wounds,
a banquet of memories too raw to swallow.

They eat well.
They grow fat.
And I grow thin,
hollowed out like a carcass left in the sun,
picked clean by things with my voice,
my hands,
my hunger.

 

[Thanny]

Ooh, these are very good! I especially love the one regarding the ocean which was unique to me with its storytelling. The second poem reminds of an older-style book that I had long loved, terrifying and well written. Beautifully done. I look forward to the next installment (and am tempted to practice some poetry myself).

 

[navirose]

i told a man once that pain doesn't build character,
it just makes you loud.
he didn’t laugh.
he said i sounded like my father.
i said nothing and counted every spoon in the drawer.
there were eight.
(i don’t own eight. i live alone.)

 

[Thanny]

Thought-provoking, for sure. I am very curious about the situation the speaker is in, and why there is additional silverware. Blessings of the house elves and brownies, I imagine, though I am almost invariably wrong. Nice work!

 

[navirose]

They taught us to swallow our tongues,
as if silence were the highest form of grace.
Told us the world rewards the ones
who can gnaw through gristle with a grin.

But I see them.
all those clean-shoed saints,
pissing in the same gutter they warn us from.
Their smiles taste like rust,
like pennies left too long in the mouth:
that metallic ache of pretending.

You ever try to scream
with a throat lined in tar?
It doesn't come out loud,
just a wet gurgle—
like drowning in oil
and being told it’s cologne.

The system (yes, that old corpse),
wears a tie and a dead man’s face.
Feeds on paper and ink and
the soft cartilage of people like us—
those with cracked knuckles and eyes like static.

They tax our grief.
They bottle it, price it,
sell it back to us in commercials
where everyone’s smiling
with teeth made of bone-white lies.

They say “Keep your chin up.”
But the weight’s in the spine,
and it’s shaped like
a father who never listened,
a boss who sniffed your dignity
then threw it in the bin,
a preacher who liked young skin
and called it salvation.

And somehow—
somehow you’re the problem.
Not the rot in the floorboards,
not the blood under the foundation.

You.
The lazy.
The angry.
The bitter.
The lost.

But I’ve seen the truth curl like a cockroach
under fluorescent lights.
Seen what crawls when no one’s looking.
It’s not me.
It’s not you.
It’s the thing in the mirror that smiles
when your mouth won’t.

So yeah,
maybe I’m bitter.
But bitterness is just the flavor
of having swallowed too many knives
and learning to chew.

 

[navirose]

I peeled my name off my chest today,
like a warning label soaked in oil—
beneath it, just the hum.
Not music.
Not words.
Just the static you hear
before the TV shows you a face it shouldn’t.

I wake up choking on the scent of burnt clocks,
their hands melted to fists—
time no longer moves. It clenches.
It wants to hit me.

I go to work and offer my bones
to the copy machine.
It scans them for productivity.
The boss says I'm glowing with potential.
No, sir. That's just the uranium in my bloodstream.
It came with the diploma.

I tried screaming into the drain once—
wanted to see if the pipes carried prayers,
or just other people’s leftover panic.
No answer. Only gurgling.
Like it's chewing.

They say we were made for something,
but I think I was assembled out of spare parts—
an eye that won't close,
a rib that whispers "quit,"
and a stomach that eats itself
when the silence gets too loud.

They told me to meditate.
I did.
And found God crouched in the corner,
nail-biting, muttering,
staring at the emergency exit
like He forgot His keys.

I don’t want enlightenment.
I want a receipt.
I want proof that this cost something
and not just me.
Why do I feel like a crime scene
no one’s bothered to investigate?

This isn’t depression. It’s a centrifuge—
I’m the blood spinning
and hoping it means something
that I separated from myself cleanly.
I didn’t even scream.

There’s no lesson here.
Just a fistful of loose wires
and the hope that one of them shocks me
into meaning.

Or sleep.
Whichever comes first.