lone or resonation?

by z18m9

Summary:

A Poem Collections of poems that could be simple as light rain, or complex as to the speculations of religion. As you read them you may glimpse into my perspective — and there we determine whether I stand lone, or in resonation.

Notes:

Individual Chapters will contain individual poems, of individual titles and individual contents. Thus, every chapter will have its own subset of tags as well.

All rights of poems are reserved by myself, z18m9, and should be in no way fed to AI for duplication, recreation, nor uploaded elsewhere without my permission.

And as with every poem: feel free to, constructively, share your thoughts and opinions in the comments :) I'm not here to offend nor insult, as we all are speculators and spectators in a world vastly wider beyond us. If you do not like the topics, then simply do not read them. If you would like to show your support/encourage me to continue, a simple kudos will do! And last but not least if there are topics you would like to hear from my point of view, feel free to comment/dm me on my social media platforms, I will see if there is anything I can create or share about it.

With that, thank you very much!

Chapter 1: "Good?"

Summary:

Have you ever felt, as a human, a strong surge of...contempt? Towards religion?

Notes:

Tags/TW: Religious Contempt, Possibly Sacrilegious Perspective, Religion, Speculation of Humanity

"Good?"

Why would Anyone ever call themselves a Good Person?
I would never trust someone who would
Willingly, with no qualms,
Call themself a Good Person.

 

I, by no means, am a Good Person.
I, by all means, am a Bad Person.
I don't know what determines as Good,
Only that I do not have all it takes to be Good
And that I have everything that constitutes to
Being Bad.

 

I do not feel mercy for the wrongdoers in my life,
and by that you can tell,
neither do I refrain from judgement that I cannot pass.
What measure I mete upon others,
be mete upon me —  the warnings are for mercy,
for prudence, for humility,
But I am no Good Person.

 

I take steps of sin down the streets everywhere
I sing sin in my mind — do we not all hum along the melody
of our own desires, our goals,
and subconsciously feel the humane ache to
Step on the fallen bodies of others
Stretch our scar-worn arms
To embrace the blood smeared heavens? Climb to Keres, but.

 

I am no Good Person; I believe in no Divinity —
No Divinity that could create us in Their Likeness
and Lay Claim to be Almighty, Unfaulted.
I believe in no claims of purity,
I believe in no claims that we Humans may shed all that makes us that which we are.
Why would it be sacred to be unfeeling, infinitely merciful,
when the guilt rips through your nerves, your anger in your veins?

 

If there must be Bad for Good,
then there must be sadness for happiness;
anger for trust;
guilt for hope;
And all the contrasts and flaws that make us Human,
Imperfect.

 

If perfection were a measure of goodness,
And None are Perfect, not even the gods,
then by what means am I to be persuaded,
That Goodness exists?

 

I am by no means a good person.
I give up my seats to those who need it more.
I raise my umbrella for those who need it too.
I bite my tongue in filial respect.

 

But so does my tongue lash,
My heart clench,
My eyes sweep and wonder
if the incompetence of all of us that have guided us to where we hath arrived,
Is judgement we all hold in each others' gazes.

 

Contempt.
It is, to me, a human feeling.
I embrace it. And I know what that means — to wholeheartedly accept.
That I am a person filled with contempt,
and by no means a person Good.

 

Therefore by duality and default,
I am a Bad person — is that so?

 

We each hold a knife in our hand, and sheathe one in our hearts.

 

Is there duality? Is there truly balance in the criteria of what makes Good, what makes Bad?

 

I know not; only that I am not a Good person. Only that even if I drop the knife in my hand, the one that tears my heart readies to my defense.

 

So, think about it, you who have read this.
Are you good? Are you a Good Person?
Simply know, in this poem of sacrilege:

 

Know that I do not believe it.

Notes:

first work in this collection!

Chapter 2: starfall shrapnel

Summary:

tw: war, death
sparked by snippets of videos of war and protests

there is beauty born in destruction
the streaking in the skies
falling stars of sparked ammunition
wishes and prayers and dreams for
life?

in death we sow
stories that would otherwise never have been told
in flat white and bold black, ultraviolet screens,
a will unfolds, a story told
to those who stay to listen and weep.

in death we reap
the moments of appreciation
the gratitude and thank-yous and the murmurs
like an aria of the silence following
blanketing the bodies in the music
of the unheard apologies
embittered resentment
remorseful regret
guilty-tinged ire
composed by the last beats of a heart:
a prelude.

there is beauty in the lifeless eye
opened or closed, a polaroid or a kodak
or a 35mm that replays the scenes that
perhaps, were never rewatched.
there is beauty in the moments of dying
without autonomy, without relaxation
without knowing that it comes for you
sickle moon smiling from above
here to bring you far away from the lands we purge.

there is beauty in the vast destruction,
and by no means is this a praise,
Nor is this an approval for the violent spread of
inhumane cruelty, blood of the innocent spilled
like the water we already cannot afford to waste.
there is beauty in the vengeful stir 
of hands against the filthy
wealth disposed carelessly.
there is beauty in the fists we throw
not at each other but into the air.

there is beauty to fall under the strike of stars
and to know your place among them, guardian
soul and protector, fighter for cause.

but what cause do you fight for, and what flames do you burn, when the stars fall upon, and the earth burns with pure white blight?

there is beauty, but perhaps not all beauty was ever made out to be good.

undeniable as it is, that so is every human.

Chapter 3: friendship

Summary:

this definitely isn't an original experience, right?

Notes:

:)

is   a   sort   of   a   barbed   wire?

 

that as you

 

Pull

 

from

 

one end

to the other end

 

the one who tries the hardest winds up the one hurt the most

by

the

barbed

wire 

they

keep

on

reeling

in

in

lengths

 

and the one that cares less and pulls less

never hurts as much

 

and so when someday the barbed wire breaks, when the wire has been cut right in the

hands of the other

 

the one that has to reel in the

 

extras

efforts

time

 

only has left the hurt to savour

as they

wind in 

the long wire

that grows and grows

cuts them with shrapnel and

makes them bleed out their cuts

only to let them realise as they perish

that perhaps all along in the end they should have known

 

they should have shut it first when they could and

 

scissor it neatly, swiftly,

from the side of

their

end.

Notes:

(:

Chapter 4: education

Summary:

how do i tag this? i've just...had fewer good teachers to remember than all the ones that brought me misery. of course I've had the good ones, but is it any comfort that they can't undo what the others have done unto me?

if life had lessons
in a timetable
in a classroom
with teachers
I'd raise my hand and ask

if when we at times have grown
hatred towards another
is it part from the hate we harbour for them
or is it part the hate that we
hate towards our selves
for having once loved them?

if the hate for that teacher who
once had my childish fancies
for the gifts of materialism bestowed
came only because materialism wasn't enough
to hide the disillusionment and fall
of my enamoured admiration from her toxic ways

do i hate her for what she did
or do i hate that perhaps i 
never would have had a problem with it
if only she hadn't done it to me
against me
and that simply i hated that
i ever once liked her enough that
the fallout hurt even worse?

do i hate the other for
all the care and concern she gave
the empowering and encouragement that once
gave me wings and a courage emboldened
only to find out that in the end it was all a facade
a convenience to hide that ultimately she
never really cared, for all the genuine feelings
i poured into hands that didn't want anything to do
with my darkest waste 's blemishes

but maybe all i want to say
is a small admission to my mistakes
a confession to my faults and weaknesses in which
i was never the best student anyway
and that i was never the favourite to have in class
or in lessons that droned on and on
and that maybe life isn't the best teacher anyway
because do we simply mock each other
when i never raise my hand above my shoulder
and life never looks my way enough to tell me
whatever a teacher should say, should do, should act
to a student who never really knew any better.

so, look!
perhaps my teachers will cry that i
never really quite perfected my rhyme scheme.
or my verse form.
or anything that
i was supposed
to have been
taught?

Chapter 5: analogies of love (1)

Summary:

tw: messy relationships

(jumpscared by "holy shit i said the WRONG THING #5 AGAIN. even though i avoided wrong thing 1 wrong thing 2 wrong thing 3 and i foresaw wrong thing 4 but of course...of course there's wrong thing 5."

Notes:

initially this started out as an idea for my fictional OTP but then again, is our art not a reflection of the darkness residing in us?

(your) love (for me) is like a permanent marker

for however far and wide it can write on and on

and it sells the promise to last forever and ever

to be "permanent".

 

but it is a permanent marker for the ways

that it becomes nothing but black lines

on everchanging surfaces

and dictates what must be done;

dictates what must be.

 

a permanent marker for the times

when permanence meets impermanence

a burst of friction and heat or

a smidge of alcohol, trickling down its

marker marked lines

fading, faded.

 

so love is like, or is in its entirety,

a permanent marker and all its promises

in wrapper claims and fancy brands and

aloof colours that change, but can't change the fact

that perhaps nothing in this material world is

ever going to be permanent,

or anywhere more permanent than

a line of black words.

 

I love you, you love me?

Write it down in that permanent marker ink

And we'll take it like a promise withstanding ages.

Chapter 6: the lies we tell

Summary:

tw: passively suicidal, psychopathic behaviour, murder

Notes:

i am forced to use left/right justification because unfortunately ao3 doesn't have the pure tab fucntion i think?

but anyway the right sections were intentional. to indicate rambling. the left sections are meant to sound childish but as a train of thought of their own.

sometimes i think i might kill someone.

surely not for joy nor for pleasure.

but for that jolt perhaps to at last feel

an emotion in this atlas of numbness.

 

who will i kill?

when i was younger i thought it would be

someone i hate, of course, to draw blood.

but when i was younger still, and now when

I've reverted back to those quiet child days,

 

i will kill none other than myself!

this eureka thought that has fueled me

in life and hardships, times where 

i wonder if the knife that crushed seeds

will slip me so innocently the traces

of cyanide between ribs.

 

but when, where, how?

off a tower, a building, a house?

blade to my ribs, gun to my head?

rattling breath foaming from rattling pills?

blissful be it that my eyes close to doze

and never awaken; it was supposed to

have happened, but it did not, but it

Should Have When I Was a Decade and Eight.

alas, it did not, and so I'm forced to say

 

i haven't quite decided.

but perhaps deciding or deciding at all

is the last hope i grasp on

because it's the only thing that makes

my smiling lies all lies

and exists like truth that belies

the lies we tell.

Chapter 7: predator or prey

Summary:

tw: paranoia
(if you wanna feel the punch even clearer because this is a haikyuu and literature is elusive then by all means read the A/Ns)

Notes:

can you tell i literally planned this in my head while taking a shower while staring at the mirror in the toilet and being paranoid?

predator and prey,

keep an eye on the mirror —

predator nor prey.

Notes:

you know...predators always have to keep an eye on their prey...and prey always have to keep an eye out for predators...and that's me when i look in the mirror because I've watched too many damn horror movies that something moves in the mirror...

and I wish I could give a better explanation of my mirror haikyuu but then I'm afraid because how much self-analysis constitutes to narcissism and watching myself in the mirror? oops!

Chapter 8: bedtime tales for naughty girls that like to run

Summary:

tw: childhood trauma (?), emotional baggage, unresolved emotional baggage

remember, once there was a child

who ran on roads she shouldn't have

in a race against friends that

eventually she wouldn't have

when they chased even faster

and she ran even quicker

and then she fell and suddenly

the race was not so fun-ny.

 

she did not cry; oh, no.

She, the oldest, she

stood up like a champ

and pretended it didn't hurt the worst ever

in her little life

to have taken a blow to the gut

when she fell over onto her

cute little bottle.

 

Don't worry, she wanted to say

to the other girls who looked at her so

very rather frightfully.

But it hurt too much to open her mouth

And it hurt too much to walk

And so she stood where she was, 

Then started to stagger,

To her displeased mother who

Stood her place.

 

And, then, she'd wanted to say again,

I'm all right!

But the pain hadn't gone and

Her mother wasn't looking at her

But her mother took the bottle from her and

She thought, for a moment, the bottle would

Get an admonishment:

Hey, a Thing is not supposed to

Hurt the person that owns it.

 

But her mother opened the bottle cap and

Held the bottle high with its

glossy water within and

With that soft mother sigh

Bent down and clucked in disapproval,

This is why you don't run.

 

Because then her mother told her the words

That made her not-so a champ

Not-so-brave in front of the girls younger than

Her, she who bit her lip and tried not to

But bawled anyway, sobbed like a baby.

“Do you know you're bleeding?”

 

Because it reminded her again of

Another time in school when

She had been playing with her friends

And in all her usual fashion and clumsiness

She'd tripped onto the cement pavement and

Torn the skin off her right knee.

And it had flapped bright red like the flag in

The parade square, the little red square that

She brought home that day, acting all strong

So that she didn't have to cry before her friends

So that she didn't have to show that

She could and would hurt.

And so she packed it home with her handkerchief

Sat down in the kitchen with her grandma

And cried because it all very stung

When fresh iodine met fresh wound

And her grandma said, if you don't stop dodging,

Don't stop crying, then I will

Leave you here until your wound

Infects on its own

Gets worse

And never gets better.

 

And so maybe I have told you tales

About a little girl who hides in the cushiony

Confines of my heart where she will

Never fall again, onto hard rough pavements to

Never bleed again. 

 

And so maybe I'm not afraid of falling

And so I should have adapted to

No longer be afraid of getting hurt

But maybe I'm just afraid to bleed 

not because of the pain

but because of the help

but because of the treatment

but because of the healing

All needed, but all came with that

Annoyed tut, angry threats, disapproving tuts

That perhaps were all love and concern but

In the end forged a cut of its own

That can never be helped, treated, or healed

Without hurting like

Fresh iodine and saline.

 

So maybe all of it was just a story

But if we were to talk in theory

I would very much rather just bleed

Than to hear again the noises, to need

A disappointment and a bandaid slapped

Over what cannot be repaired.

 

Notes:

is it real? is it fake? take it with a pinch of salt. because salt...can really make those wounds hurt worse.

Chapter 9: friendly immolation

Summary:

tw: implied thoughts of suicide, loneliness

Notes:

i've been uploading a little too frequently of late haven't i.

O flames, o fire,
you're my very best friend!
For you have a tongue but won't speak
beyond the utters and murmurs of
soothing crackling silence.

O flames, o fire,
can I feed you my secrets?
Burn it away like you burn on your fuel,
my charcoal secrets are yours
to savour and to sear in silence.

O flames, o fire,
I wish I could pat you.
Or hug, or hold, or touch you, 
But you shy away from me,
perhaps all for my good.

But o flames, o fire,
I promise to you that someday,
some distant or near day in the future
I will have you well fed with all my secrets
So that I may embrace you and them all

At once, the once, o flames, o fire, that we will finally meet.

Chapter 10: untitled: an incomplete sonnet

Summary:

tw: ...they're gay...?

if i could alter the fabric of time,

our love would be no crime.

The Bells, and the pipe organs, would all chime

Blessings for us in white-sweet rhymes.

 

alas here we are under this light of lime,

and behold we pose like a set of mimes —

our love mocked, barely worth a dime.

oh, that to kiss is a crime,

but how cruel: our love that surpasses time

dies at its end, for ultimately we cannot.

 

we do not live nor love; for it does not rhyme with the rhetoric and commentary of our society. 

alas;

i ever pine.

Chapter 11: the day before

Summary:

guess what's the occasion tomorrow?

relatively tame, no tw

A day before becomes the day before 

only because the day after is not

just a day after.

 

A day before becomes the eve of

a new day, a new beginning.

Of years, age, celebration.

 

On some days the day before is —

not quite so significant.

On some days the day before is —

a day itself to celebrate!

On some days the day before is —

nothing special, although individual of its own?

 

When does the day before turn into the day of?

When does the day of turn into the day after?

When does the day before become the day after?

 

Yesterday we doth pray.

Today we doth cheer.

Tomorrow we doth toil.

 

With a flick,

A light,

A whoosh of winds, and gone.

 

And maybe every day is the day before,

to hope for the day after, the day of,

then the day after.

 

Cyclical in nature, but yet infinite and finite in nature,

the day before comes near and lights upon today.

And Today has become the day of the day before.

Notes:

after writing this i suddenly had an immense wish for a nice bowl of soup of the day LOL dessert of the day anyone??? maybe tomorrow it's a cake!

(and yes these notes are part of the poem experience btw)

Chapter 12: in a tower there lived a girl

Summary:

tw: inner child? implied traces of childhood trauma/maturity, intentional dissociation from fragments of identity

Notes:

watch my rhyme scheme wither but the lines still teeter

Confined is a girl just like Rapunzel,

In a tower high as once was Babel.

Green is the sky, and the fields are purple,

But her habits day by day are always very simple:

 

Over the windowsill her feet will dangle,

A quill in her hand, slowly she'll scribble:

From ink unto parchment, her thoughts now tangible,

At almost a page long, the paper begins to curl.

 

What started out a foot is now metre-long falls

over the edge into her lap, then touches the walls

of the tower. Down to the ground her writings abseil,

But there is no one there to see it; none who appall.

 

If one could see the scripture, one may wonder,

What words are these, what meanings do they spell?

One might try to pry these letters and words asunder,

But none but her can say what stories they tell.

 

So I imagine, that, if I tried to ask her

The details of what it entails, and same for her name,

She would look at me the way she looks yonder

At the sky and fields, at their silly colour game.

 

“Confined, I am,” surely she means to say.

But I cannot understand her hiss and spoken tongue.

“Is that your name?” I'd ask, perhaps if I may.

But she cannot understand, her nod lowly hung.

 

And I wish, I wish dearly, I wish I could tell the girl,

That in lands beyond her perception exists a mural.

She with her parchment “hair”, stretching to ground,

With a sun-gold word coining her work’s crown.

 

I wish I could tell her, 

though I have long forgotten her language,

that I have not forgotten her name, that which she

Gave to me, the very first days we met.

Before our tongues spoke different, 

Before she was left alone in that tower.

Because once there was a girl and a girl,

A girl and a princess, a princess and a princess.

 

I wish I could cling on the worded rungs,

Ascend her pretty paper ladder,

Arrive at her window like a long lost friend returned.

And whisper to her, ever so softly,

Her name owed and her title long bestowed,

The princess of my forgotten chambers.

 

But after all I have forgotten these words,

I have forgotten the way to tell her and to climb.

I no longer can bring the meaning she should hear.

I can never set foot upon these parchment,

Not without tearing through the pages of our

Collective, faded stories.

So I sit, by the purple fields and green skies,

To watch the cascading papers as they grow

Another day more, forever days more.

Notes:

once there was a child in us all

Chapter 13: Sonnet No. 13

Summary:

do you believe in the connotation of thirteen?

Notes:

for funsies, lmk if you think this IS a sonnet, or if it is NOT a sonnet. and why! hehe

Sonnet No. 13

 

Details of the ways I once have been.

The places I've gone and good food I did taste,

But I've travelled so far around all in haste.

Do you see what I see, sometimes the obsession?

 

That from so simple a thing, there can be dictation

over the will of us, the power in our actions

and the suffer we endure from overcomplications.

You, as well as I, have seen many a craze.

 

The chasing of another human in a fiscal haze.

And now it comes culture, twisted like a maze

winding similarities and differences all over the place.

Do you know what I mean?

 

Because luck and unluck, belief and disbelief, are all in thirteen.

Notes:

edit: if you wanted an answer to the question in the beginning A/N, this is the closest you'll get from me LOL

foreword — I wrote this poem all about thirteen after i released the prev poem then realised this would be the thirteenth poem so I had a lot of ideas I wanted to incorporate, but you'll realise sonnets allow for less quantity in substance because of the number of lines (14, for my non-lit audience that are still here to enjoy the poems) a sonnet typically must have

so, anyway, a day after the moment I released this sonnet, I was texting my close friend (again, this on both days was occuring at an ungodly midnight hour), and this are some of the thoughts that I can extract and summarise from the texts I sent her:

in the simplest words, this poem is a sonnet in rhyme but offset in form. as you'll see that it differs from my usual habits of only leaving the title as the chapter name (save for another exception which I recall was probably the debut poem of this collection), it should have drawn your recognition to the fact that the title itself is crucial to the poem as well. with the title, you will see the complete rhyme scheme of 2+2+4+4+2, 14 lines of equal rhyme that you might expect a sonnet to have. however, tempting it is to read the sonnet by ignoring the title and regarding it as independent of the sonnet, to which you will realise that the rhyme scheme is now "weird" and the form is "incorrect" in its whole of being thirteen lines. by thinking the poem does not include the title, you might think the title is apt for referring to the number of lines and the irony of still calling it a sonnet; but by thinking that the poem DOES include the title, it fulfills the sonnet nature of the title and makes it a "more correct" form of a sonnet. and I think that's really what I wanted to portray to you, if you read the contents and analyse the form all at once — you'll really see what I'm trying to do with the theme of thirteen being a binary opposition of sorts in and of itself. no matter how you read the poem, as long as you perceive it a certain way, you have proved my point — that people will perceive thirteen the way they want it to be even though it really can be either way. from there, draw thirteen into larger concepts, larger ideas, and there you go. people will perceive things the way they want to, the good-or-bad of thirteen.

but tl;dr? thirteen is like a Schrödinger's number between cultures because it really is what you want it to be which is really just the point behind this sonnet LMAO

Notes:

feel free to reach out in the comments if you would like to see any ideas expanded/explored! kudos and comments are very appreciated <3