Trigger Warning

They ask you to testify, 

Tell them your side of the story,

As if talking about the evils you witnessed will cure you,

Or the world,

Or put your unease,

Or anyone's,

 at peace.

"Who killed them?" They casually ask,

"Did you see the devil?"

"What did you do while they crucified christ?"

"Did they really rape his mother mary on the road?

"Where were you?"

"What were you there for?"

"How many miles did you run for?"

"Who fired the bullets?"

"Who was hit by them?"

"What did you think about?"

"Who were you scared of losing? Who was scared of losing you?"

"Did you run towards death or did you run for your life?"

"Is your skin still scarred?"

"Do you wish you weren't there?"

"Did it change you?"

"Did you bleed?"

"Did you die though?"

"Are you grateful for making it out alive?"

I am not the enemy,

Survival guilt is.

It catches you in blissful moments,

Then curses them. 

Blames you for missing the bullets,

For not looking back, 

For not falling,

For not holding more hands along the way,

It does not care that you only have two.

Survival guilt irrationally blames you for people's death,

Calls you a Grim reaper,

Says death follows you everywhere because you once wished for it

Aren't you an old friend of azrael?

It enslaves you,

Condemns you to carry dead bodies on your shoulders,

From one dream to the other,

In your wake,

It whips your back,

Wraps a leash around your neck,

Drags you around on the bloodied pavement until your skin is scattered all over it,

And when you're finally deformed,

It tosses you back to the world.

So you apologize to the world,

Reintroduce yourself into it with trigger warnings.

I'm not the person I'd promised you I'd become, or nor the person I spent a lifetime wanting to be.

I'm sorry, I..

spent a sentence in hell,

And came back with burnt speech. 

They ask me to testify,

But what do I testify for when I am not the same man who went through what I'm testifying for,

 

No man can step into hell and walk out of it the same,

For, after that, hell lingers within him, 

His skin only an imitation of human,

His body a vessel for trauma,

And his brain hindered by the phantom of who he once was.

His presence an embodiment of sadness and grief.

I am not the enemy, 

The sadness within me is,

I say sadness because I know no better word,

to describe this

Contamination,

Like cancer, it grows over everything else,

Spreads across your limbs,

Tarnishes your emotions,

Breaks your heart into fragments,

Dips it into black ink,

Paints abominations on the walls,

Shouts profanities onto your ears, 

Then through your mouth. 

And when it's done making an abomination out of you,

It hurts those it finds by yourside...

Through you. 

I try to forbid it, 

But I'm merely its slave.

So,

They ask me to testify but I take a vow of silence first thing in the morning,

Then break it first things at night. 

I am not fit to testify, 

Or speak, or be spoken to. 

Not one to be accompanied or walked by,

Or dealt with. 

I am only a memory of what they ask me to testify about.

When terrible happenings take place, 

Terrible results occur. 

And I am but a terrible result of a terrible happening. 

Terrible, terrorized, terrifying, traumatized, terrified, and tired.

 

They ask me to testify,

Again,

And I ask them this time,

"Am I as hideous as the things I saw?

Do these bloodstains on my hands scare you?

Or do the stories about death on my face bore you to death?

Are you tired...

Of these repeated syllables

Of my repeated speeches,

And promises,

And broken vows of silence?

Terrible, terrorized, terrifying, traumatized, terrified, and tired.

I'm worn out, 

Tired of being wary,

Of tracing back my steps 

I'm scared of foolproofing my testimonies,

And of repeating them the same,

Until they have no meaning. 

I'm guilty of all the things they want me to testify against.

They ask me to testify and I ask you, 

Do not hate me,

Do not abandon me,

Do not leave me alone,

And,

Forgive me,

For not giving a testimony.

10 Steps Towards the poet's Awakening

Desclaimer: Everything the poet does is a poor attempt of composing a poem in which he finds peace. 1.The poet wakes up, before he opens his eyes he tries to Find out which world is it this time, The poet is experienced with worlds, he can tell by the feel of the pillow beneath his head, Is it mattress, pavement, grass or a hospital bed? the movement of air in the room, the sounds of chants, the purpose that chose to take his heart hostage this time. The poet collects these deductions and adds them to his courage, puts his pieces together, then opens his eyes. in just the right pace. Because in case makes the mistake of opening them too fast, his pieces fall apart. does he open them too slow, his pieces fall apart. and sometimes, even when he opens them perfectly, his pieces fall apart, still. the poet is rather fragile, vulnerable, He is easily breakable, decombosed, redefined, transferred, torn apart, And Easily flammable, sometimes, the world sets him on fire, most times, he burns himself. Yet, he is here, Still, falling apart, still Or standing still, Still, The poet does everything, Sometimes right, sometimes wrong, But he does it eitherway, one step at a time, one chaos at a time. one blow at a time... he survives. one crash at a time, he heals. one maze at a time, he finds a way out... And when he finds a way out: 2.The poet leaves the house, takes his steps slowly... His feet explore the grounds before they touch the ground, they inspect for mines, avoid to step on barricades, they're wary of corpses and remains, His feet forget that the pavement unlike him, does not hold on to memories. The poet sometimes gets the urge to use the wings on his shoulders to fly off the ground, but the phantom of chains around his feet keeps him down. Neither the wings, nor the chains are real. 3.The poet looks at his watch, and sometimes, his clock tells him the time wrong, the date is all messed up, the hours are rigged, so he blinks twice, takes a deep breath, and tries to change his watch's mind. sometimes, he succeeds, sometimes, He watches as the watch changes his mind. The poet grows thin, Feels like too little butter spread over too many bread crumbs. The poet grows tired Goes where his home is, Then the poet sleeps. http://6.In his journey from a world to another, The poet stumbles around looking for muses, He chases dragons and confusions, He inspects damages and bruises, He watches the healings and moniters the growth of roses. Listens to the whistles of the air and feels the vibrations of bird chirps, The poet... Looks for metaphors within heavens and warzones, Realizes that there are wars in heaven And fragmented heavens hidden in warzones Sometimes, bullets miss the poet, But the metaphors shoot through him. 7.When the poet wakes up He feels guilty, When the poet's mother looks at him, As if he was something precious, That she wouldn't bear losing him, The poet seeks a metaphor for what he feels. But his tongue breaks. 8. Cringe aside. The poet writes for himself, But he also writes to another, In poor attempts of expression he tells her: "When god first decided to make you, He also created love, Then he had to teach man language, So that when we collide this many millions years later, There'd be a way I could try to let you know how I feel. And in the most complex miracle You'll understand, And feel it too." ... The poet has a lover, he thinks she is the answer sheet to all the unansweable questions. Believes that all the reasonings to the question "why?" And Every methodolgy of "how?" reside within her, Metaphorically, His lover Is the one place that every question "where?" leads to Is the being that every "what?" tells him is, She's every "when?" or "who?" That which they're ever answered with. 9.The poet collects poetry in his throat until he is on stage, Refers to himself in third person, Tells himself it might help him put his emotions into words if he uses another person's tongue since his is broken. The poet wants to say everything at once, He wants to cough away the poem stuck in his throat, he wants to speak of the essence of life, He wants to mourn the painful irony of death And how futile it is for one to not fight for their breath, He wants to put the knowledge of the worlds into words, To speak life into man To manifest healing into poetry, To chant freedom into the space, Speak the truth through poetry, Dodge bullets through poetry, Build barricades using poetry, Cast broken bones... with poetry, Resurrect the dead, with poetry, 10.the poet wakes up, Sits down to write, Shoots his shot, And misses all the points.

Suddenly, (In Giyada)

within the right circumstances,
if ever you were born into the right timeline,
went through the perfect constellations,
lingered within the halls of eternity for enough.
You would have witnessed it:

a familiar song of strangers running into each other in an ever running ground.
a stranger tone in familiar grounds.
a song of strangers that left nothing but familiar strangers dancing around
to familiar melodies with nothing but familiar fantasies to fantasize about.

and I wonder if all the atoms were this ecstacic when they were one before the bigbang,
I wonder if this is how god felt when he first took a look at the finished product of earth.

I wonder, and I wander,
and I steal joyful moments from time,
and victorious laughter I plunder.

suddenly,
غني يا خرطوم غني...
you're a love song to Khartoum,
the lyrics khartoum would sing
if it were to sing.

You're a wave crashing into two lovers' legs,
suddenly,
you're a joint passed around groups of friends,
you're a guitar tone,
a whisper,
you tender touch,
you forbidden ritual,
You godwritten poetry,

is this the kingdom of heaven,
god has promised us?

Suddenly,
you're rebellion,
you're a million voices
making harmonious noises.

you're the turbulent nile,
the sensation of chills it sent on the winds,  across your spine
the first night you spent on its bank,
you're that edge of quaking earth on which the agigtated water crashed on.

You're all the songs your parents made you listen to
on that pentatonic scale,
Your ears haven't yet gotten familiar to.

you're all the Curses your mothers muttered as they pushed you out of their bodie,
into this body
of 6een ba7ar soil.
youre siblings of sidir,
climbers of neem,
bubbles of dioxide climbing up a bottle of steem.

you're the جنى habboba meant to summon when she lullabied you as a child,

often times unapologetic, seldom afraid,
Sometimes shaky, yet usually loud,
could get a little bit tired, but always proud.

Suddenly, we're individually lost in conformity,
Suddenly the letter I falls from its space,
as you fall into spaces of the collective mind's embraces,
anything beneath is to be bequeathed,
this bee hive is only made for the worker bee queens.
Suddenly,
we're in a state of euphoria.
dreaming dreams the universe tailored specially for you,
we're the colors spread across walls we weren't supposed to paint on,
we're the footprints left on grass we weren't supposed to lay on,
we're...

soldiers,
on battle zones we weren't supposed to be on.
fighting for our own utopia,
and before that.

I didn't know that there were battles to fight even in heaven,
there were barricades to defend,
and die on.

even in paradise,
satan's off spring lingered on trees at nights,
spat venom on our knights,
and asked for sacrifice

even in peaceful evenings,
they sent their hails from hell,
and fired reversed shooting stars into our skies,
that fell upwards,
just to take our wishes away.

And suddenly,
Hell is empty and all the devils jinjaweed,
Who shot fire when they were joyous
Shot fire when they were scared,
Shot fire when someone held on to the weed

And suddenly,
we're flammable tires, 
and brick walls,
and burnt roads.
we're war chants,
and defensive formations.

armed with friends on our arms,
with pieces of peace signs,
covered in fireflies,
fire in our eyes,
bandages on scars,
wishes hung on stars.

Suddenly,
you're death,
you're a human shield for your lover,
and loved ones,
suddenly,

You're a pagan monk,
praying in long nights,
To all the gods and goddesses,
perhaps one of them would listen.


Suddenly,
You're joy,
suddenly,
you're despair,
Suddenly,
You're laughter,
you're high,
you're here,
you're there,
You've been one too many things,
and this is the most complicated game of make belief you've ever played,
You're a hero,
or so goes the pretence
You're a menance,
sinning in innocence.
you're frequency
consistently seeking a resonance.

Eventually,
You're tired, but can't lay down,
You're fired at, but can't walk anywhere but towards the bullet.
can't be scared of bullets when you're a scarier bullet.

once a poet,
resurrected a sphinx,
a night guard,
stronger than almighty thor of asgard.

once a monk,
resurrected a dancer,
a painter,
a builder,
a soldier.

Once a raindrop,
Resurrected a rainstorm,
a martyr,
a color.

once a lost boy,
resurrected,
a lost boy, with a compass,
with purpose,
with comrades.

False (with Hardallo)

(Gaki)
God (n.):
Myself.

I try to believe in myself,
Thus, I imitate god sometimes,
"يا عبدي كن ربانيا"
He told me when I was a child,
So i grew to become a terrible replica of the image i have of him:
Hard to believe in.
Unreliable,
Burdened with the hopes of people i can barely live up to.
"I'll be there, my friends, I'm closer to you than your own veins. I'm only a phonecall's distance away, i promise." I say,
Then i ghost.
Realizing that I'm lost and my compass is rigged and I cannot lead anyone down the right path without misguiding them,
Cannot linger within a group of people without dividing them,
Cannot stand in a field of sunflowers without making the sunlight in these flowers fade.

But

I dare not give up on the broken bits and pieces of the remaining faith I have in god,
Just because i dare not give up on the broken bits and pieces of the remaining faith I have in myself.
I think therefore I am,
I perform miracles therefore i exist.
But at nights this existence becomes too quiet,
These miracles deafen me,
Pain me,
deprieve me of sleep,
So I pray,
"God, do not let my lack of faith in you be the death of me."
Hoping that these prayers aren't just drunkenly staggering onto walls
Screaming onto pillows,
Clenching on bedsheets and begging them for comfort

God,
Perhaps the one difference between you and I is that you do not fear oblivion,
Your throne doesn't tremble at the thought of forgetfullness,
Your memory is safe within the hearts, books, eyes and prayers of your believers.

I would rather be a believer than a god,
But I am afraid I ran out of gods to give sacrifices to,
Perhaps that is why the pagan I am started referring to my lovers as goddesses,
That is why I build shrines too heavy for the grounds of my lovers to hold,
Perhaps that is why my temples insist on collapsing down on my head,
And I always end up suffocating on ruins and sins.

Sin (v.)
I do not desire death anymore,
It'll come to me anyways,
Death is inevitable, survival isn't,
So I seek the latter now.
I keep on rolling the dice,
For I care not about the outcome,
Because when death comes to me,
It'll only come after I've had too many dices to roll,
Too many duos and sixes,
Wins,
And losses,
And unlimited coin tosses.
I always sought survival,
I could've been, or could've not,
But I made it this far and my knees are too deep in the mud to try to take any steps back,
So I'll seek survival
In small bottles that my mother can't help but catch the scent of the moment I step into my house
Seek it Between the lips of a lover who wraps her survival stained tongue around mine in prolonged kisses of despair.
I survive therefore I sin, pray, doubt, believe, walk, jog, run, climb, fall, shout, rebel, call, stare, glare, love, drink, blink, feel, peel, breathe, heave, leave, cry, weep, laugh, forget, forgive, forsake, stand, crawl, trip, fall, stall,
I survive therefore I live
And within this life I'll seek survival in get togethers were I end up cracking jokes with cracked words and terrible punchlines.
And I'll find survival within the appalled looks of everyone in the room telling me how bad my joke was.
Fuck yes,
My jokes are terrible but at least they've made it this far!
They're here. They're now.

(Hardallo)
Gaki,
There is no joy in outcomes, only in the making of them
 I fear,
The kingdom of heaven is not a place but a time,
I am afraid of the kingdom of heaven because I cannot imagine it, because I could not imagine it, I am In love with words, how can I not love their maker, we are in an age where God is in our words the age of miracles has passed,
For both me and humanity, I live in memories of them preaching them in my words, my words are your only link to me and I am the رب of these words,
But I can not breathe life into them,
I can not even make them rules, I do not know all the rules,
I do not know how to bequeath peace unto them
I am in need of a benefactor myself maybe
Maybe survival is more important than happiness, you can only get survival wrong once unlike happiness,
You have many chances  to find it and lose it, and find it again, sometimes
Sometimes realizing it is happiness after it was I gone I am tired
I am tired of chasing those dreams that are not mine,
the rules are vague,
So is vague universal and I don't know when this plague of circumferential thought pillaged my soul it puffs it on fire and pass

(Gaki)
Puff, puff, pass, a friend reminds me as he passes me the survival,
But I steal two more puffs than I should just to make sure that I survive for a few more seconds within this moment,
I pour myself another shot of survival even though my friends tell me that I've survived for a bit too long this night.

(Both)
Note that
Survival and existence are not the same.
I cannot be within all of this dread without having to tame these wild moments of existence with a treat of survival.
It's the only choice i get to make,
So when life teaches me its ways of survival,
I'll ask for more,

(Hardallo)
I trick or treat survival, I break down in little pieces and I grind those little pieces, take out the thorns of despair, pick out the seeds of resentment sewed in haste, and I roll my remains up and light a fire and smoke them,
My lungs burn with the sickly sweet taste of fear of committment,
I have a fear of the fear of commitment, but i will commit to this,
Taking shots of my pain every night till I can drink them like a sailor,
Drinking my insecurities under the table
And I hang them over the fire at the end of the night. I don't wait til morning
The light of the morning does not come soon enough
You think I smile because I am less things than desperate
But desperate is a state of mind and I don't make statements
I confess by omission
I digress, accidentally on purpose and I hope to confuse myself first,
Confused people are not liable to any damages psychological, emotional and  or existential
I introduce myself with disclaimers
In the dance I linger, longingly leering at what came after,
Objectifying my pain,
Making love to it and leaving in the middle of the night,.

I cannot bear to look at myself in the morning,
Why would anyone else I
Shamefully walk home,
To nothing
To nothing
And although I fill my nothing with meaningful, it's a practice I inherited like my religion
And I must explore my faith in me

(Gaki)
For i am lucky.
For if it wasn't for luck then my feet wouldnt have led me to the melancholic voice of abu alseed,
I wouldn't have fallen in an abyss in which I had to dance my way out of it to the cacophonic guitar strums of arctic monkeys.
I am a survivor,
And I'll drink to that,
For the sweet burn of dirty liquor brings only joy as it drags its flames across my chest,
So god,
They told me I could be anything so I chose to be a flawed version of you,
So hear my survival, within you, for it is as eternal as you are,
Beethoven placed it in his sonatas,
Mercury in his rhapsody,
David in his chords,
My survival is what pushes winds ahead,
So god,
perhaps if you'd listen hard enough,
You'll find them within the goofy laughter that fills the open air of a starry night miles away from home with strangers that make survival a ton times easier because
(Both)
 together we do not await on the sun to rise,
Because even if it didn't,
We'll all rise on our own ,
Amen.

22:22/10:22PM

22:22
"Glory to Satan, lord of the winds
Who said no to the face of those who said "yes"
who taught Man to tear apart nothingness
He who said no, thus did not die
And remained a soul eternally in pain."

no, my confinement was not solitary,
there were always songs of the devil playing at the back of my head.
I smile at his consistent presence,
Making sure I was okay,
Like the caring brother he's always been,
He who was abandoned before I was,
Who very well understood my pain,
Explained to me how it was eternal.
That our father who art in heavens made it so.
He taught me tricks to numb it down

With razor blades to inspect that the blood in my veins was still red,
With burning cigarette buds that gotten familiar with my skin.
My body often felt ablaze,
My existence persistently burning in flames,
So Lucifer
taught me how to fight fire with fire.

22:22
Patience is your last virtue as you await your turn to hang.
So I patiently wait on my executioner,
His familiar face draws a faint smile of grace as he prepares the noose that'll bruise my neck and hold my isolated body as it dangles,
The wind will tackle my chest as my body swings,
I am ready,
Death is my long awaited lover,
This overdose
will take me home.




Azrael greets me like an old friend,
"Son of Adam, lover of demise" he says,
"I apologize, but it is not yet your turn."
And then he disappears,
leaving me hanging,
As I dangle in disappointment.

22:22
For two thousand, one hundred forty eight hours my existence was only within the limits of this black mirror.
My physical being invisible,
Limited between the borders of my bed,
And the hideous thoughts that made a colony of my head:
Self-doubt, self-distrust, self-destruction.
self loathe, self harm, self abuse.
Self denial, self delusion, self depreciation.
Self occupation,
Talking to my self conversations, self immolation, and self condensation.
For ninety one days I had to stay in isolation,
Watching through the window of this lighthouse prison as the tides and waves of the sea outside drove my ex-lover away from the shore and I had nothing at hand to do but wait on matching numbers on the clock to wish for my memory to stay in their minds.
10:22 PM, 11:23 PM, 00:00 AM.

22:22
The messages I didn't reply to until Azrael got ahold of the souls of those who sent them will always haunt me.
My friends,
Come back,
You were not to die before I do.
Cling on to life like the naïve people you've always been.
I'm yet to tell you about the lovers I let down,
These damsels whose hearts I didn't mean to break,
And those who broke mine.
My friends, stay for one more year,
Just one more year.
Steer away from death the way death avoids me.
Come back.
You're yet to kiss your lovers,
Finish these conversations we never had,
And Walk down roads you've always dreamed of reaching.
My friends, I am broken, I am fed with futile sorrows.
I am full of grief and I cannot bear drinking one more cup of tea that tastes of blood.

22:22

I see divinity in the eyes of one I can sense but barely perceive,
a Fellow prisoner in a cell that looks different than mine but probably feels the same.
And I pray to her
Through the walls of this jail cell.
Hoping this forgotten goddess can hear prayers coming through seven layers of hell,
Seven levels of earth,
And all the way to a forgotten Babylon
Where her divine soul dances in prison.

Glory to her eyes,
Ishtar who holds heavens in her hands,
Who the stars align to flirt with her light,
Whose lips spoke spirit into man.

O'Nocturnal goddess of the broken and the barely living,
Those breathing on the edges of their lungs,
Goddess of taking one's breath away.
Whose glory would make mountains kneel,
And oceans stay silent,
Save me.
Say the words to remove the nails that pin my limbs to this cross.
Ease my pain with your presence,
Place your lips upon my wounds,
Brush your fingers upon my skin,
Help me regain my wasted yesterdays.
Lie to me so that I'd stay for one more painful tomorrow.
"You'll be okay." Tell me,
And I'll believe you,
The way a man believes in the holy words of god.

Flawed goddess who barely believes in herself,
You and I are not the same species,
But your pain and mine look to me more alike than any other.
And my pain is in love with yours,
My scarred arms need nothing more than to hold yours.
Save me.
I believe in you,
I believe in your flaws and shortcomings.
Every hint of fault you think makes you less of a goddess,
Every wrong you think tarnishes your holiness,
Is divine.

22:22

Freedom is a state of mind,
And I wore shackles around my wrists for too long that I still feel their phantom bruising my skin even when they're gone,
My legs will never run around like they could.
They will always drag the memory of chains behind them.
I cannot unthink what I already thought,
Cannot unfind what I sought,
These colonies in my mind won't go away,
The blood stains on my fragmented body cannot be washed away.

No man ever steps in the same river twice; for he is not the same man, and it is not the same river.
I am neither the man that was free before imprisonment, nor the one that slept on a bed inside a cage,
I am both of them.
I am more.

22:22
I will be okay, and so will you.

The Last Speech

Tearing my index and middle fingers off cause fuck peace signs.

This pen in my palm no longer lingers for a peace of mind;

But with lyrical napalm,

I'm tryna blow this piece of my mind, 

into fractions of lines and phrases of syllables aligned

For one last speech in hopes my words are armored and well-stranded this time

since empty handed ones let me down before on the grounds of this mental civil war.

One last speech, 

Then I leave, 

My chest heaving with sighs, 

Hoping my eyes carry enough goodbyes. 

I leave, 

With a tongue twisted with poetry 

and a mind void of prayers 

I leave, 

not knowing where I'm headed, 

what I'm leaving for, 

or why im going there. 

All I know is, 

I'll leave, 

cause this house aint a home anymore. 

So I'll stand back to stand by in shadow, 

And I'll take my coffin and grasp my gallow,
And leave. 

I once Said: 

“Sometimes I forget to put my armor on, 

and I know that’s obscene in your culture, But I feel a lot lighter when my armor’s at home.” 

Well I was wrong. 

Should've barricaded some dreams round that illusion of a bed, 

Took my precautions, 

cause with such a disturbed head, 

Can't get too comfortable in the illusion of a rest.
I'll leave away, hoping to lead those monsters astray,
I'm tired of how they strangle me with my own hesitant vocal chords, 

tie them into skeptical nooses that leave reluctant bruises, 

Ones I cannot see in my reflection in the morning, 

but cling on to my muffled words, 

so I can later on notice. 

There's nothing I seek so I hear, 

but I do not speak. 

The world is pretty grotesque and I'm terrified, 

but can you shame me for fear? 

When hell's kinda empty and all the devils are here, 

Backwards Men in uniforms with futuristic weapons, 

Ready to fire if you ever protest. 

So I'll leave. 

And you can keep the trains of thoughts i missed when I was contemplating, 

retracing my footsteps, 

hesitating, 

awaiting on miracles, 

Reciprocating between self loathe and self medicating. 

Eyes bloodshot, 

pupils dilating, 

Tryna find sense in the world but numbed senselessly, 

Gasping for words I once spoke effortlessly, Seeking a truth that could perhaps echo endlessly. 

But... everything I am became everything I wasn't And everything there is became everything there isn't. 

the truth wore a gown of lies and was put to sleep, 

Joy brought a pack of sighs carrying memories. 

Ones to exhale away, and inhales to keep.

He who stands out becomes stood on, 

instead of understood, 

So I stand back to stand by in shadows,

Wear my coffin and wrap the noose of my gallow.

One last wish? 

There's nothing I seek, 

So I see, I hear, but I do not speak, 

one silence at a time, 

I'll pass my turns, 

And as I am hanged in shadow, 

I'll watch my world burn.

Somebody Else's Poem

This is not my poem to write. 

Those are not my words to recite. 

for I lost ownership to those thoughts long ago when I tossed
them at the back of my head

and the guy who had them faded into a person that doesn't think like me,
 doesn't look like me anymore.

those are shivers that ran across my spine during passing conversations that sneaked themselves onto my ears on random afternoon walks

Shivers I never bothered to give second thoughts.
these are the poorest of metaphors,

the helpless mothers of words that had to abandon their children of definitions to die on cold pavements for the lack of capacity and empty slots.
these are the lonely lines that found no company to finish themselves into poems.
The psuedopoems that I had to tame down because I once felt were too insignificant to be written,

Too personal,

Too terrifying,

Too ugly,

Too stupid.

These are the neverminds and the 'nothing much's

those are shy ryhmes, ones convinced that they're too insignificant to be written yet my fingers itched too significantally to let them remain unwritten so they were only ununwritten in a way that never gave them their fair share of poetic messes.

This isn't my poem.

not my child.

I'm but a mere stranger burdened with it.

It's full punchlineless jokes,

halfassed metaphors,

And lists that never made it past the number 1- 

And they're not mine to recite, but I'll say them anyways so...
1-..