love / loss / loathing

a small collection of subpar poems

by alaina walsh

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for oslo, for being a light in all of the dark places

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intro

i built a home in the things you said

i raised my heart in your sentiments

i cried tears in all of your denial

in my mind, i change the way things went

i

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is it okay to dream of you?

i want the sun to swallow me whole

and for the moon to lay me to rest

beneath the milky tide

i want the sand to tickle my skin with warmth

and smooth out my roughest edges

and for the seashells to cup my ears

and sing me the ocean's melodies

i want the breeze to part my hair like a gesture of affection

and for the birds to call out like they know my name

i want you to kiss me, and i want you to mean it

ii

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self-portrait

gotta say, i'm fucking sick of staring at white walls

and waiting for the fall

i think every mirror is broken

because the girl inside it has never spoken

up, or for herself

she swallows everything she's ever felt

most days my name has no meaning

my self portraits are fleeting

i talk sweet of everyone but myself

i'm last on my list

and yours, too, at best

my fifteenth year and each before never happened

erase a dime and a half for lifetime madness

i've cradled sanity beneath my fingernails

i couldn't ever burden you with a heart so frail

and all of my endless wrong turns

i'm not sure i'll ever learn

no room for doing better in my isolation

at least there, i can hide from condemnation

i've got this grudge with myself for not being more

instead of a caricature of my faults; a display of emotional gore

i'm raising myself to be someone i don't know

i've got this sinking feeling that the truth will never show

i've learned to loathe whoever i may be

because of what others told me

and i've never seen myself the same

i can't get past the weight

i've dissected my face

into a thousand mistakes

i'll die trying to hide

my imperfection in plain sight

iii

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foolish

collapsed ribs, sand filled lungs

i remember what your eyes look like in the sunlight.

i've never believed that anyone could hold me dear

you were convincing, you got it right

i'm messy and submissive

and my sadness doesn't listen

and i miss you too often and too easily

honestly, you deserve better than me

but you did everything to earn me

and my trust

i guess it was just false luck

because your goodbye left scars

though you're gone, you're never far

iv

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i can’t make it stop. i’m sorry.

cherry jam lips, forest eyes

i can't get you off my mind

you invited me inside your home

and i can't make it back out the door

your gestures feel like the sun

on my knees, i come undone

you're something of a holy place

michaelangelo's behind your face

happiness is still foreign to me but native to my time with you

i'd give it all up, too

i know we're at different ends of this book

but one day was all it took

i've shed tears for you

i fear how i feel for you

and i know in your world i'm only a soulmate of another kind

that's not how i wish to be on your mind

'cause i love when your hair is brown

and i hate to see you frown

i picture you and i & late nights

naively, i don't think we'd ever fight

i'd count your freckles if i could

we'd be in love if you just would

but you won't,

the same as most

i know that we are what we are and that's all

and i had no right to fall

but i can't make it stop. i'm sorry.

v

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hopeful . . .

is it strange that sometimes i wish i didn't know you?

just so i wouldn't have to know how much i feel for you

i think you're kinda sweet

alarmingly, i'm head over feet,

or however that saying goes...

i never thought my sunrises would belong to someone else

but i wouldn't want to give them to anyone else

upside down;

i can feel the blood rush from my heart to my head

it still makes me giggle like when you're a kid

inside out;

no one understands me like you do

i'm glad that you lean on me, too

wouldn't it be something

if we could be something?

couldn't we be something?

maybe this is all just make-believe

i want you to make me believe

give some truth to my fantasy

i don't mind if you make me bleed

just as long as you never leave

vi

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hopeless.

can i exist outside of your closet?

can i step into the light with you?

can i be more than a held breath

trapped in your lungs like a secret?

is it fear?

are your feelings not real?

do i disrupt the image you've curated for yourself?

or did i do something wrong? how can i help?

or does this have nothing to do with me?

perhaps you just find me boring, why you want no one to see

so you keep me as a footnote in your story

an afterword that will be skipped

unfinished pages that have been ripped

that you save for yourself

hidden from eyes on your top shelf

maybe you prefer a private approach

except you scream everyone else's name from the rooftops without reproach

my name feels like your only taboo

i'll tell myself it's because i mean more to you

except i, too, appreciate privacy

and you mean the world to me

yet i don't sweep you under the rug

with pride, i let the world in our love

because human connection is a beautiful thing

if it's genuine, why pretend it's nothing?

for there are only two reasons we make anything secret

it's what we value

or we're ashamed of it

which side of your secrets do i lay on?

vii

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repel

maybe my belief in a love for me is naive at best

but as long as you fit the bill, i'm content with disillusionment

you told me i was your world as quickly as i became a stranger

i was wrong to think you could ever fill my empty spaces

but what you gave me, i can only hope that i can replace it

i'm hung up on the smiles that were just for me

it became meaningless so easily

dusk and dawn were yours along with the pieces of myself i gave to you

i changed myself over and over for you

guess i'm to blame, i thought too much of nothing

except nothing was once everything

i hate that i still cry, i hate that your name still makes my head spin

i'm sure you stopped caring a long time ago

in forgetting you, i don't know where to begin

a superhero of my own to save me from loneliness

entranced by the pretty lips of a liar

there's no one i know better than one-sided desire

i thought you were an angel in disguise

but you only had wings to leave my life

you broke the dam, took a dive in the reservoir

i wish i knew of the heartbreak you had in store

i just wanted you to want me

(at least a little)

viii

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haunted

i'd like to watch a sunset

without wondering if my choices will end in regret

i'd like to dip my toes in the nearest lake

without fearing what's at stake

and i haven't felt the sun on my skin the same

'cause i know when it leaves, returns the rain

i've tasted salt delivered down my cheeks too many times

i wish you didn't live in my mind

out of breath, there's a hole burning through my chest

i know my name, but it's not the same

the one thing i can't see is me

a blind ideology, idolizing your apologies

holding my breath underwater,

each time you drown me further

i feel it everywhere, you knew no limit

i'd know it anywhere, but could never admit it

turned me into a ghost haunting my own life

watching from the sidelines

fall in love every month to fill the empty spaces

wishing for the impossible left a chill in my warm places

you took my voice, a rage of silence ensued

actually, i never allowed myself to get mad because you said i didn't have the right to

so everything i touch turns away

i couldn't even get her to stay

ix

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illusions

in the courtyard of discomfort, i pace out the decision to let you see what's inside

unexpected, you enter bringing false hope and perfect lies

you gave me a smile and promises that asked nothing in return

and i was ready to pluck the stars from the sky and make them yours, instead i had to learn

your quiet grew violent, you tore a hole in my mind and a gash in my heart

which should've never been yours from the start

maybe nothing much to you was the world to me

maybe walking away to you was devastation for me

maybe being yours was never meant to be

i still dream of mum nights spent tracing your skin, seeing that glimmer in your eye in real time

meeting your lips and feeling the colors you paint

never getting the chance to hold you feels akin to a crime

you built me a beautiful dream of something surreal

x

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blue

you so graciously lent me a ladder to join you on cloud nine

i felt a warmth unknown to my mind

it's a beautiful place until the cloud caves in

a one-sided love story begins

your sweet nothings sold a convincing masquerade

i thought the moon and stars were your lesser while your feelings for me started to fade

you make me feel blue

for reasons of two

the color of your eyes;

the mood of my heart

it colors the bruising you left on my brain

first came love, then dismay

you painted me blue

shouldn't have given it t