Unforgettable Despair

The horror of your desperate final act stains my mind red like your blood
I can never think of you without the image of your violent despair creeping up on me
Any inward glimpse of you forever tainted
By having viewed the sanguine results of your remorseless self-hatred
A broken soul's inner anguish exploding to the surface
Burning into the minds of all who were forced to view the aftermath
Your unforgettable despair
Cie
January 12 2007

Surrender

I give myself over
To the cutting hate
Of the knowledge
That I am filth
That I am nothing
That I am unloved
Unwanted
Unmourned
I surrender to the knowledge
That my life is a waste.

Steel on Flesh

Fragile peace with self
Shattered by the desire
To feel the sharp scream of pain as silver slashes skin
And blood erupts from the vein beneath
Not because cutting turns me on
And damn any idiot that believes anything so stupid
But because the pain that eats into my brain
Sometimes becomes more than I can take
Because madness isn't fun
Or sexy
I don't need your patronizing
Or your mocking
I know right from wrong
Visible from invisible
I don't see things that aren't there
Or hear voices
Although I do talk to spirits.
I haven't cut in years
But I want to now
Because sometimes I want to stop the voice
Of my own self-hate
If I could drag it out of me
I'd cut its damn throat
If I could, I would be happy
And sometimes I am
Pills don't bring joy
Or peace
Only occasional solace from the buzzing of the inner demons that tell me I'm shit.
The angels love the shiny happy people
And run from those whose souls bleed pain
Which is why sometimes steel on flesh
Has been the only way
To eradicate the cancer
Of intolerable psychic agony.

Cie
12/26/2006

To Those Who Think They Know What I Need

Don't try to change me
To fit your view
Of what I should be
To make you more comfortable
Because something about me
Makes me question your values
I am
What I am
Maybe I'm completely mistaken
Maybe I'm utterly mad
Maybe I'm chasing myself in circles
Maybe I'm damned to eternal hellfire
Maybe everything I've ever done or thought or dreamed or believed is one big fucking stupid ugly lie
But don't you ever
ever
ever think
That you have the right
To tell me how to be
You may think you know better
But you don't live inside my soul
So don't you fucking try to force your values
Your beliefs
Your should be's
Onto me!

Cie
12/19/2006

Spirit Of The Moon

Ethereal being, moonlight fair
With opal skin and moonstone hair
Wings of black like the night sky
Disappearing when the day is nigh

Daylight lays bare my misery
To the ridicule of those who see
The sorrow I cannot put to rights
My tears are hidden by the night

The moon-priest holds me to his breast
Safe in his arms allowed to rest
Embracing my secrets tenderly
Never mocking, sets me free

The daylight dwellers ridicule
Call me a madwoman and a fool
But their blind souls will never know
The beauty in the tender glow

Within the moonlight's sweet embrace
Even those despised are given grace
Flaws unacceptable in sun's bright light
Are sometimes beautiful at night

To those seen as ugly and maligned
The Spirit of the Moon is kind
Behind the black of nighttime's shield
The beauty of our souls, revealed.

Cie
12/11/2006

I generally prefer not to write rhyming poems, but I kind of like this one.

Achievable Aspirations

I wish that in my youth I had aspired
To be a fat, ugly, gray-haired old woman
With no accomplishments to show for having achieved vintage status
For I would have succeeded undeniably.

Cie
12/10/2006

THIS is poetry???

Click the title link, and be shocked, disgusted and appalled.
This is NOT poetry. This is stupid!

Done

I don't want to do
What you want me to
Any more
When I'm done with what
I need to get done
I'm winking out
Like a genie going back into it's bottle
And I'm taking the goddamn bottle with me
So you can't bother me
With your wants
Needs
or unwanted desires
Any more
Your scapegoat is escaping
Your vicarious dreams are gone
In a puff of smoke
Your sacrificial lamb is growing horns
I'm gone
I'm done
I'm through
With your wants
Your wishes
Your needs
And you.

Cie
11/20/2006

The Soil Of My Heart

The soil of my heart is poison
Bitter ground in which nothing good can grow
My hatred and my pain
Toxins in my veins
I spit venom and frighten away
All who would propose to save me
Save yourself
What you see here is the walking dead
No sweetness
No light
No goodness
No hope
Your kindness shall fall on a corpse's deaf ears
My blood is venom
My touch, death
My words, despair
Hate flows through my veins
Cursing me to continue hearing
The mocking of my hollow heart
If you cut me, I bleed acid
Searing your flesh
I tear away
Hiding back in the night with the rotting things
Dead and corrupt inside
Like me

Cie
10/03/2006

Free Me

Let me out of myself
Before I suffocate in the vacuum
Of the emptiness in my heart
And the hopelessness in my mind.

Cie
11/03/2006

A Bit Surreal

Hellish Beauty
Viewing the Lucifer beauty
Of a gossamer cloud stained rose, teal and golden by jet fuel
I realized that the gates of Hell are opulently adorned
And guarded by pornographic seraphs
Offering myriad empty pleasures of the flesh
No holds barred.

Cie
10/28/2006

Beneath the Surface

This poem is excerpted from my book, which should be out next summer.

Beneath the Surface

Forgotten over the years
Pushed to the back of minds weighed down with mundane concerns
He waits in solitude for the day
When someone may remember, and keep him company

A chill wind blows from the north
Reminding one who lives along the shore
Of someone she held dear in time long past
Yet the thought is more a whisper than a shout

He feels the pain of being a promise broken
Yet still he abides behind the veil
A soul immortal cannot die
But can be buried by the wretchedness of anguish borne alone

He looks down upon the sea below his vantage point
And longs to be free of his boundless solitude
He extends his arms, and falling forward from the height, joins the sea birds in their flight
Twisting, wheeling, unafraid

The soul immortal cannot die
He touches surf and is drawn beneath the waves
The sun reflects off the surface of the water,
Revealing a dark, familiar shape below

Along another shore in a world far away
A woman feels a pang within her breast
She is weary and wishes she could sleep forever
And walk the shores of an eternal dream

Something lies beneath the surface of her memories
A treasure that she lost long ago
Someone who understood the unflagging sorrow
A breath inhaled and exhaled, lost forever

She will reach beyond the veil this night
And take the hand of the one who waits
Forgotten to the conscious mind that buries dreams beneath stacks of unpaid bills
Burdened by joys thrust aside in favor of unending toil

Some things cannot be explained away by logic
Tested away by science, prayed away by dogmatic religion
She has labored long and hard for futile gain
Happiness has waited long enough

Tonight she shall sail away to join the one who waits beneath the waves
To dwell on shadowed shores where the blinding light of the orthodoxy never reaches
She is weary of a world wherein to survive she must forget what she holds most dear
Tonight is her last night among the striving masses

Tonight at last he rises from the sea
To dwell forever in the shadows of a land
Created by the dark dreams of souls misunderstood
Never again shall he abide alone
For at last he has someone to dream with

Copyright 2006
Cara L. Hartley

Why Is This Place So Damn Gloomy???

Mostly because I can't write poetry when I'm happy. Anything I try to write when I'm feeling good is either funny or it just plain sucks.

Reversal of Fortune

Reversal of Fortune
See how everything crumbles when all hope is gone
Watch the world fall apart inside my troubled mind
What was beautiful in the eyes of the destroyed becomes monstrous
Watch as hope before me bleeds and dies
Watch as love turns to hate
Watch as dreams turn to nightmares
Watch as everything I've worked for crumbles into dust
Watch me wander through the ruins of every shattered dream
Every ruined hope
Every foolish wish
And laugh at the reversal of my imagined fortune
Laugh and revel
That you are "normal"
That your expectations do not exceed your reality
But if you had my reality
Your wishes too would be lies
I was born to die
But not allowed to live between the dates on my headstone.
Cie
10/16/2006

Undecided

A feeling of terrible loneliness and betrayal washes over me
But I don't know if the sadness I experience is from my wounded heart
Or just my fucked up brain.

Cie
09/28/2006

Shakespeare Sonnet #80

Sonnet #80
LXXX.
O, how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark inferior far to his
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building and of goodly pride:
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this; my love was my decay.

Deadly Secret

The secret inside me
Is a raging infection
A boil threatening to burst
Spewing its polluted contents through my blood
Destroying my soul

My secret is a festering, infected wound
Deep inside of me
Hidden from the world
Exuding a putrid stench
That no-one but me can smell

My secret is the shame held by
Anyone who has ever been violated
The filth that can never be washed away
The unbidden, unwanted arousal over unwanted thoughts
The sickness over the parts we hide beneath our clothes

And no matter how often I remind myself
That others hold similar secrets
Mine still feels like the filthiest secret in the world
And I feel like the world's filthiest liar
Cloaking the infection from the world
Whenever I speak

Cie
09/11/2006

Alone With Myself

Tonight the pain within my heart
Flows out on a river of wasted tears
Alone with the moon shining coldly down on my agony
Alone with the sound of no-one's footsteps at my door
Alone with the sound of my breaking heart
Alone with only the pathology of my distorted thoughts
I don't know what love is
I only know obsession and loss
Desire is not love
And this can't be love
Because love is not pain
Desperation is not desire
But desire can be confused with obsession
I wait
Dangerously alone
Obsessed with no-one I can see
Desiring something I can't touch
Desperate for something I can't have
Alone with my thoughts torturing me
My mind twists around itself
And I slowly
Painfully
Go insane

Cie
08/15/2006

Unrequited Again

Unrequited Again

Hate myself.
Hate my stupid life.
I would want to come be with you
Except I know I'm not the one you want.

I don't want to find nobody new
It hurts too much whenever it's done
Guess I don't want nobody at all
I just want this shit to be finished.

I miss a love that never was
I miss believing that I could be loved
I miss you more than anything
But I don't want to live a lie

Born to weep
Born to lose
Born to die
But not soon enough

Cie
08/13/2006

True Beauty

Beauty on the inside
Is more difficult to see
Than beauty external
But far more precious when uncovered
Unfading
Eternal

Cie
08/09/2006