Free Verse - Blog Posts

Utter words he should know

Scriptures that carve no lines in the snow

I've paid for his words, to hear him

Here he sits in silence

I will queeze what I can, from this fragile old man

A visionary, a sage,

Reader of books, empty on each page

Gone are the lines of which to read between

No shape nor name to bear on us certainty

Far too close but just away enough

To breathe a little deeper

To hope a little louder

Pissed on the bricks that shaped our shelter

I see the clay in them

And I have seen the clay in them

Breathing like an auger,

I spoke to the dreams

Brought back with them, an array of little oddlers

Seemingly, a voice and grain of sand to each

Seemingly, I ignored the breach

Spiteful insights tricklin' in

Set my blood alight

Seamlessly, neighbors made to parasites

Seamlessly, cold was made from warm nights

Grain by grain, the tide is pushed away

I will crawl deep down, outside the light of day

Pull myself away

The shore is lost as deserts are made

Each grain for I have paid

Not loneliness but a peaceful abode

It's so lovely to walk on an empty road

It's not loneliness but a peaceful abode

The winds going slowly

Making your hairs a messy fun

You make the map to walk on

Nothing specific for your attention to lock on

You take your favourite turns

You can open yourself and run

The grass even on your side seems greener

You are not you but someone with a different demeanor

You might go back to the memory lane

But it's so nice that it doesn't give you pain

You can remember your favourite song

You might realise you haven't listened it for so long

You might sigh but it's a sigh of relief

There is no one to give you social anxiety

You can think the things you never think about

You can feel the emotions you were unaware about

It's not tragic

But just magic

I don't want to be perfect

You want to be perfect my psychologist said

It was the problem usually left unsaid

It's been years

But I still remember her saying it again and again

I dismissed all thoughts

Because she was actually my teacher and teachers never know it all

But today I sit and am ready to contemplate

I don't think it's late

The problem is still that I don't believe her

Although from I don't want to be perfect

To do I really want to be perfect I have grown some thoughts

But still I am clear as a crystal ball

And I internally never wanted to be perfect is the feeling that stands tall

I realised by now

That I was just wired like that somehow

No one ever told me that being imperfect is good

I was just growing up under their hood

I always thought that's how you get love

I never wanted to join the unwanted club

There were only two statements I usually heard

I am proud of you always sounded warmer than that person is better than you, bud

Each mark lost in exam made me shattered

Because I knew it was deciding how much I mattered

Maybe that is how everyone is wired

And it's funny that nobody is getting tired

I guess the tireds join the unwanted club

And we are not taught to talk about them in this hub

I don't blame anyone

Because choosing this life was already done

But I might not have the pace

That is required to win this rat race

Although standing behind and alone

Means your chances of affection are blown

The problem is that we are not pushed towards self love

We are just pulling ourselves with self bluff

I was never behind perfection

I can say it loud and clear

I was always running behind affection

I mumbled with a tear

One sided friendship

I have heard a lot of people explain one sided love

But never heard anyone even talk about one sided friendship

Did you?

Honestly speaking I have been on both ends

I remember ignoring people even when they were ready to loose all for me

I remember being ignored even when I was ready to loose all of me

Did you?

Still think about going back and joining those chords

But what are the odds

Those I ignored have moved on tired of wasting their time

And those on whom I wasted my time never seemed mine

But still I wish for their call

Do you?

I find it weird how we just connect to some

I find it sad when those connections don't care and for them you are not the one

I thought love asked for a lot

but now I think even friendship's demands are not a dot

Do you?

Maybe they asked for so much that I just stayed aloof

Maybe my demands were so much that they considered me fool

Being nice and being friends are different I realised late

Not everyone you like is ready to be a part of your fate

Were you also a one sided friend at one time?

Do you also think that it was worth the time?

What if the efforts were not equal,

It was a friendship you initiated and it will never have a sequel...

It makes me, me

I was waiting for my feelings to go numb

I was waiting for that day but I was dumb

I thought that with each day the wound would grow old

I expected that each day would make me cold

But little I realised

And very little I was surprised

With each passing day

My feelings started spreading like a ray

It reached ever nook and corner of my existence

But I was still hoping with persistence

It was so difficult to feel

The reason I thought time would heal

Soon I had a lot of opinions

Surprisingly they made me cry more than onions

Soon the tree of feeling got a strong hold

Now I knew nothing was going to get old

All experiences and incidents

Were giving my wounds new dents

Crying became a constant part of my lifestyle

Funny enough that it was just a more defined form of my old style

I didn't know what to do with so much going on inside

Never realised it would be so much more than what was going outside

Checking and rechecking all emotions

Hide and seek with everything was in motion

Defining the ideas I had was important

Knowing I was right was like a reinforcement

I knew the wounds are not going now

But still adapting raised the question how

Connecting dots was a daily routine

Adulting is much more difficult than being a teen

Sensations, feelings and emotions are always going to be difficult for me

But when I introspect I realise it makes me, me.

Melt in my mouth like poetry

kiss my tears ever so delicately

hold me close to your heart

caress me on those dark nights

cage me in your love like never before

oh darling I still need your love

I still need your love.

“A Simple Thesis Poem”

Why did the chicken cross the road?

The age old question

To make a better life for zirself?

Did zir walk or perhaps run away from the flames that were on the other side?

We never talk about what zir found on the other side, thoroughly

Did this chicken find a message in a bottle telling them it will all be okay?

Or a worn down album from Sting and The Police?

Zir may stop to pick up the classic vinyl if zir found it laying on the busted sidewalk to listen to the poetry in their lyrics

The chicken makes it across the road

To pick up the record

To realize there is no record player to properly enjoy their poetry

Finding an old Gatorade bottle

The flavor Fierce Grape

Maybe purchased at Trader Joes

The Mecca of grocery stores

Thoughts of childhood soccer games

Slightly dramatic

And traumatic running through their brain waves

Zirs thirst no longer quenched

Remembering to be kind to the earth that continues to hold zirself up day and night

Throwing it away in the waste basket adjacent to where they found that fiercely delicious poetry created by the Police

That does not sting

Zir notices a couple holding hands

Within one block their hand lock changes several times

Are they trying to find comfort in how they show affection?

Can they not comfortably hold hands because their love has become less delicious?

Did their love get too close to the sun like Icarus’s wings?

Will their love melt back into each other or into other’s hearts?

We will never know the answers to all these questions

We will never know why the chicken truly crossed the road

What we do know is this

Zir chicken struts across the road to pen poetry for zirself

Zir chooses to share their poetry with everyone else

In time

On zir terms

Not to impress

Or be cohesive

Simply to get through another day

Deciphering messages found in other’s poetry and empty Gatorade bottles…(Panku)

© Elizabeth Sophia Strauss

Point of view

So many men treating wo/men like shit

it feels like it doesn’t matter even a bit

But that isnt the bad thing about it

Its the matter of course thats the shit

Getting dickpicks without asking

Is the thing thats so blasting

Or be treated like a peace of meat

Doesn’t matter if you take a seat,

jump on the beat

or just stand on your feet.

They always find an opportunity

to catch a sight of your body heat.

Men thinking we cant see them gazing

They really think they are hazing

Their disrespect is just amazing.

Thinking we are dumb enough

To not recognise all the disgusting stuff.

Thats so unfair please remember that shit

Cause u wont be laughing about it

If that once happens to your kid

Never mind if daughter or son

They will be the burned one

It will stick to their memorys like a gum

I wonder what place you are from

there is nothing good you’ve ever done

And the world would be better when you’re gone

So go ask your mom

Where did this asshole behaviour come frome ?

What was the reason ?

Who’s fault

And what is this all about?

-B.I

Kaltes Licht

Stimmen, die zu dir sprechen

Stimmen, die über dich sprechen

Doch wer spricht mit dir

und wer hört dein Schweigen?

Wer liest deine Sätze,

und wer zwischen den Zeilen?

Künstliche Lichtstrahlen

- Zittern in beleuchteter Dunkelheit

Death does not invalidate Life. Death does not seek to destroy you. It is not partial or bias to you.

Our Atoms are not our own. They did not belong to us before our birth. They do not belong to us after our death. They return to the Earth and become apart of everything.

Our Mannerisms are carried on by the people who loved us in life. And our spirits I believe live on forever in love.

Death is no more the enemy of Life. Than a period is the end of a sentence. And that's the nice thing about it. Is even after a sentence ends. Another one can keep going. We keep going.

People will envy your strength and success but not the struggle that brought you to it.

I have actually yet to find rest. My Anxiety causes me much pain and distress like a storm that rages with usurping gales. Swirling, Turning, Tossing, displacing what cannot be lost. Costing me negative gain. It makes me fearful and afraid, like trying to clutch sand, only to have the grains slip out of your hands. I cannot find sleep, because all I feel is deracine. Safety is hard to find out there on the rollings seas. My peace is in some far off Rosy fingered dawn. And security and ease of mind are much more memories. It makes me breathe like no matter how much I intake it will not inflate in my lungs. Like my body would much rather pause on this breath, like it means less than to see the rest of the road. All these worries they share the same name. They are called the same as you.

I often have my own moments where I feel like I'm both the storm and the sea that rage all at once. Then a kind soul or comment will come and humble me into nothing more than a paused breath. Reminding me of my place in the shoal of souls that we are. We ebb and flow in and against the direction of all other people. If we all opened our hearts a little more than our egos. I think we could find ourselves in much better places.

I dreamt of a dark and failing world. Where I met an Artist who wept for his wife. "Oft people believe that better is a lingered life. I tell you different now, which of these would you prefer Rotting or Dying. Dead is better."

And later in this dream a giant disembodied hand that blazed and burned, took the man's aisle and turned it upside down. There he was burned and crucified. Leaving only ashes of an artist and a painting of his wife.

“I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me.

I don’t need you to love me, I love me.

But I want you to know that you could know me,

If you change your mind.” – Rebecca Sugar’s “Steven Universe” (2019)

This is a simple message. But one of the most powerful ones you could and can ever learn. There are many of us who desperately need(ed) this. The message is this. There is nothing wrong with you and who you are. The person you are is worthy of love, respect, and kindness. Not only externally, like from friends, family, and other peers. But also, Internally, from one’s own heart and from the self. I know there are many people who have internalized dysphoria. And they’re restless, tossing, turning and struggling.

The problem is not inborn. It’s developed over a life time. A life time of expectations, and experiences that have lead them to believe that the person they are is not normal, or natural. (For whatever reason, be it the body, blood, mind or spirit or anything else for that matter) And therefore unworthy of grace, love and kindness. However, this is the thing that is not normal. Despite this it has become the standard. A lie, A fatal flaw that now reigns over lives. A single idea of confirming normality. Do not dehumanize your spirit. You do not have to justify your existence. We are not extensions of a society. Strike that reverse it. Society is an extension of us. And if you have felt in any way; ignored, harmed, slandered, disenfranchised or have been left with any other negative emotion, you are not at fault, you are not to blame. You have not committed a failure. It is the collective idea of “Us” that has failed you.

A Simple Message, A Thesis, A Conversation.

You are worthy of love.

We try and clean ourselves from the messes we made yesterday only to make ourselves dirty today.

Who knew feelings were this hard to understand, sort and satisfy.

If a single grain of rice can tip the scale then a single act of kindness can change the spirit.

If you have a limited world you become content with mediocre often times worthless things.

You are not a finished product. And no you will never be. You have to remember you often sow seeds you'll never see.

It's midnight. And you have fallen asleep on the couch. I got the chance of feeling the warmth of your hair again. My love, I am sorry. I will love you for all the days I am blessed with. It is your absence I will ache with. It is with great pride I can say I have loved, and loved honestly.

A car just came by and illuminated her face for nothing more than a breathe but in that moment I saw her. In her a beauty that has never before been rivaled or matched. My heart paced faster and my eyes watered and all I wanted was to have my hand on her face.

I would take clouds of grey, and rainy days if it meant she was my sunshine’s ray. I would take all the thorns of those briar rose if it meant she was the one I could love and hold.

 She is my delight, my joy, she is my comfort, my piece of mind. She is all the things that are good and Devine.

I love her.

Not even Poetry within all it's meter and form, within all it's unstructured beauty, can adequately capture you.

Night after Night I lie awake. Eyes closed; Mind spinning with Fractured Verses.

You are like the flowers that bloom and blossom. Even their leaves scatter to the wind.

A gentle breeze rustles the trees. A Streetlight’s light casts yellow over green leaves. Your head on my Shoulder. Mine in your hair. In a backyard. On a trampoline.

Chasing the Sun

Chasing the Sun

Following its tail

Moving towards the firey sky

It’s all I can every do

•

Dark and red

Loud and soft colours

Float above the ombred horizon

It’s so far away

•

I’m so high

Up in the clouds where borders don’t exist in dotted lines

No man can say this is my land and this where I stay

Put down the weapons

•

Trees and roads and city

They don’t have names up here

The cloud casting shadows don’t discriminate

When everyone thinks they have control

They have none

•

Pin pricks like on a dream board is my home

They stand out in lines and strips and blocks

Underneath the airplane wing

My family and my cat and my friends

Sleep

Underneath the airplane wing

•

Grids and lines are houses

Lit up with the bright joy of a welcome home

I’ve forgotten about the sinking feeling in my stomach

I can’t remember when my ears weren’t popped

•

Stars anchored to the ground

Thin out into the blackness of land

Leaving the dense city behind

Underneath the plane wing

•

Turning and tilting

Sinking and swooping

It was the wrong place

Too small to make a safe landing

To far to house my bed

To high to reach down and touch the glimmering city lights

•

I don’t live in the city

I breathe the city

I take it in when the sky glows orange

When the free stars

Dance

Far and away

Stealing the warmth from each other

To stay alive another day

•

Into the clouds

I’m enveloped

Inside the whipped cream sky

Nothing but a hazy grey ocean

The blinking plane light

Reflects off the fluff surrounding it

•

There’s my city

I can see the invisible dots of my parents

Waiting for me inside the airport

My little sister

Bouncing on the balls of her feet

Jittering and shaking with excitement

•

I can barely see the fading green property lines

Small winding roads

A house with sleeping and unsleeping people

But I am still awake

Jazz is Like Glass and Yarn

Cutting quick and deep

Sharp melodies

Sassy tones

At times smoother than cream

In a rich cup of coffee

•

Notes, unseen

Cascade down the blank page

Of a musicians mind

Spilling out clear and sweet

Softer than snow blanketing a bungalow

•

Chords, a medium to be measured with infinity

Spinning eigth notes like cotton on a spindle

Pricking your eardrums with phat, coordinated rhythms

Low and as thick as molasses

Higher than the moon

•

Fuzzy, soft and neat brushes lightly caresss the snare

Chunk, Chunk, Chunk the constant thrum of the guitar

Propelling the group as the bulky anchor, the bass

Crystal tones, loud and bossy, the trumpet commands

The saxophone pleads mournfully to be heard, like a lost colour in an intarsia pattern

Mother (warning: trauma)

I killed another houseplant this week,

Adding to the toll of a plant mom with mommy and daddy issues.

A lotus drowning in their own mud,

A failed parenthood out of parental trauma.

Moths of a heart full of holes

With the aphids of the dirt,

Eating away at me and the beings I tried to patch myself with.

Dappled sunlight streams through the trees. The filtered light warms the skin I bare to nature, clothes haphazardly shed and forgotten, a bread crumb trail leading to the blue lake. Wading into the water, I wash away the dirt and sweat dried to my skin- cleansing away my sins better than any baptism could ever hope to achieve.

- salvation.