Under My Sofa

Guest poetry!

This is an amazingly perceptive and hard-hitting poem by chayatallent my honorary little sister and combat-booted amigo. Seriously, she outshines everything I write in a few sentences, but that's why I had to share it:

They tell you to pick a color
A single word that defines you
Holds you back
Strangles you

Will you choose pink, or will you choose blue?
Quickly
Quickly

But wait
They take it back
No, they say
Let us choose
Let us seal your fate

If you speak up sparks will fly
They will push you away
Pretend they didn't hear you speak
Saying that you choose purple

Be silent, they say
Let your heart become pierced by words
Deflating faster and faster
Words fired at you like bullets out of a shotgun
Words sneaking up behind you like knives in the alleyway
Friends
Enemies
They all blend together in a perfect, terrible harmony

You hear stories of people who chose white
Black
Purple
People just like you
But you never, ever see them for yourself

You are alone
Alone with your pulsing Purple Heart
Your shattered pink body

You cry yourself to sleep every night
Wishing you could wear your heart on your sleeve
Wishing you could tell the world that your heart beats
To the sound of Purple

Across the pink and blue world another heart beats to the same soundtrack
Your cries echo in perfect harmony
A broken duet
You both believe you are alone

If only you knew
If only you could hear another heart
That beats to the sound of purple

***

This is just a quick poem I wrote her to thank her for letting me put her on here:

We met through a paradox
I feel like that happens a lot
After all, we aren't quite normal
Weirdly informal
I guess that's easy enough to find
But to repay it in kind
I often need people to remind me
That it's a required bind
Not to take lightly
But you're another sister
Not a tongue twister
And with little effort
We slipped into heart to hearts
Plot-lines were quickly shot
Which means a lot
I said "boo you"
But I hugged you too
And yeah, I was a jerk
But it still somehow worked
And I'm not complaining sis
Just kinda glad you missed
When you threw a combat boot at my head
And with all that's been said
At least we're not dead
That's good I guess?

Next up, by a new and very inspiring friend of mine Everlydream -- who was the one who persuaded me to start this book in the first place -- wrote this in the comment section of this book about her friend/s, and it was so awesome I wanted to make sure everyone reads it:

Never thought you'd mean so much
That day is still clear
The day I was mean
And you stayed clean
And when I was abandoned you saved me a seat
I thought you'd hate me
But the world isn't like me
And since then you've stuck
Even when I wanted to flee
You made me realise
That everything is not always for me
That was when I fell in love
With the unconditional bond
Since then we are a bunch of buffoons
With our crazy imaginative lagoons
Since then I decided not to be such a thick-head
And will always stick with you until the end

***

And for her:

I love writing on-the-spot poetry
I know it seems crazy
But somehow it's more me
You know what I mean
It's more pure and untainted
Less chance to restrain yourself
To pull emotion off the shelf
It's more sincere
More open and here
I think I'm okay with that
Rather than falling flat
Sharing isn't so bad
With a mask of anonymity
It's almost easy to be me
I feel like you feel the same
Like this is somehow a game
Because while people here know my name
It's not the same type of shame
And yeah, it took you to push
And I'm grateful it was enough
'Cause sharing these dreams
Is kind of healthy it seems
So thank you for being there
I like the things we share
I feel like you sort of care
And it doesn't matter where
You need me, I'm there

***

I'm not denying there's a lot here, but I hope you enjoyed it. These two people are really awesome, so check out their profiles.

Thank you for reading,

Alex xxx