Self Portrait

I am a stair case out of a burning building

My heart, the cherry bomb that

Couldn’t consume the flames

My body is wildfire started from
One match

I am a rickety fire escape

 

My bones have been turned to wood

With matches scattered underfoot

And I wonder how long it takes

To burn

 

I am a wrecked car

Covered in blankets to hide the

Carnage

I am broken rib cage promises

I am heartache

And mistakes

I have never been perfect

Covered in paper cuts and

Paper clips

I am bookmarks never returned to

 

My body was turned to smoldered pages

Caught in the breeze

A trapdoor of faith beneath my feet

I am lost

 

My edges are ripping

I have never been glued together

Perfectly

Always out of line with the

The world around me

Sometimes I think I should

Just stay home

Like I belong to the fire escapes

And their rickety railings

Fall into reminders

That I escaped the fire

But my edges curled in from the flames

Like pictures I wish would

Burn away

I have a hard time holding on

To things now

 

I like to watch how the stars fade

Or how lightning flashes between

My fingers

I am a raging storm in a night

Of clear skies

I am the echoes of forgotten thunder

I am sky shattered

 

I have looked at my hands

Like they hold the marks

To every unanswered question

But my arms are rickety railings

I’m sorry if my edges burned you

It wasn’t intentional.

 

My heart is an open train car

All of my summer days and fall nights

Having leapt out years ago

They belong to the wind in my

Bare tree branch soul

But there is a beauty in starting over

 

I am a tire swing without the young lovers

The summer after they have left each other

I am abandoned

With hands made of second chances
I am lost love without warning.

Shots fired with no accuracy

I have watched men trip on my brokenness

Stand up bloody and think me dangerous

I think I belong in the

Guns set out to rust

 

You should know I am a gravestone

I belong to sad mornings and

Goodbyes with no closure

I bury my confidence in the stones that

Weigh me down

 

I am no Sunday morning sunrise or

Summer night silence

I am awkward apologies with too many words

I am curled photograph corners

And memories like cigarette burns

On concrete

Sometimes I think I am concrete

Your eyes feel like cigarettes

Pressed into my collar bone

My imperfections like a stone in your throat

You do not think I am beautiful

 

You do not see that I am

Tuesday night inspiration

And the bridges to my favorite songs

A wooden skeleton

With bones that creak in the heat of

Burning trees

Of when thunder and lightning meet

I am the edges of a fire escape

Paved in chinks and beautiful

Humanity

 

Do not tell me I am not perfect

Because I already know.

 

I am so much more.

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