WerepupJeremy: poem

Do Not Put Flowers in my Hair.

art

I do not want to be envisioned with flowers in my hair.

Or be seen with my back arched, eyes smiling at the sun.

I want to be seen with my head down,

My neck stiff from memorizing every crack in my floor

As I pace back and forth in the night, because I’m too afraid to go to sleep.

I do not want my shoulders broad,

But instead rounded,as I hunch my back to sit,

As I hold my mouth open when I’m not talking,

Yet can’t speak up when in public.

I do not want you to put the flowers I pick from the stems,

As we walk home in my hair,

They do not belong there.

As if you try to paint me like something not from this earth,

As if to remove the dirt from under my uncut fingernails that make me so flawed.

As if to edit my edges that don’t rhyme, from your lullaby.

Put those flowers on the ground where I leave them.

Leave them at my feet where they no longer dance in the breeze

But lie flattened beneath my stomps,

Destroyed by my carelessness.

Do not envision me by the shore with golden skin,

When I am pale from winter’s glow and cannot swim.

Do not exaggerate the secrets of my eyes,

When you tell me I seem to eternally squint.

Do not envision me with flowers in my hair.

It is not the truth.

If you must change me.

If I, as I am, am not worthy of your pen.

Not ready for your canvas,

Then see me with two giant heads at war,

As I buoy back and forth unable to make up my mind.

See me with my dragon’s tail as I tear our pictures off the wall.

See me with my harpie’s wings as I flee from every broken word.

See me with my ogre’s growl as I curse the names of stolen dreams.

If you must change me.

Make me more the monster I already am.

But don’t you dare put flowers in my hair.

By: WerepupJeremy
Photography by: Melissa Cheng

11:38
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Reflection #3: Lost Words

Sometimes I would just watch him drift away.

And disappear into words he’d never tell me.

Get lost in conversations in which I had no role.

But I always understood.

I understood that between the real world and his own,

Between him and the oceans in his mind,

He would be searching for himself.

Looking for that elusive ‘unknown’ to make sense of his being;

A being that refused to be personified through what has been seen

And what has been known alone.

But needed ears that would listen to what was never said,

and eyes clear enough to envision instead of see.

A being made of dreams yet to be dreamt, and sins not yet born.

So when he says “huh” for the twelfth time

because your words only danced around his ears.

Do not get upset.

Just repeat.

He’ll hear you this time.

Maybe even smile.

Mostly at himself, but partially at you,

because he’ll notice he’s being rude again.

He’ll never say this out loud,

because like always his words are just for him. His world, is never for you.

But that’s okay.

Because one day he’ll find himself between one world and the next,

and he’ll reach for your arm to anchor him to a shore he can trust.

A land in which for mere seconds he may stand without falling.

Where his body can lie still instead of float adrift at sea.

And he’ll smile just for you,

and he’ll say those hidden words with his deep voice.

And they’ll dance around your ears, like children in the sun,

and you’ll be glad that you repeated those thirteen times.

Cause it’ll be just right.

And then after that moment, he’ll go again;

his words running home,

the laughter in his melody fading in the air like a broken note.

But it’ll be alright. Because you’ll feel it was worth the glimpse.

So as I speak, I’ll watch him drift away.

He was never in my grip.

By: WerepupJeremy

Photography by: Melissa Cheng

11:31
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Reflection #2: The Losing Battle

It was hard to watch him fight for nothing in particular.

To strive for no real goal.

To watch him try his best in the day for a rest he would not get in the night.

Not when his worries shone like stars in his darkened mind:
Endless and Multiplying.

It was hard to watch him try when I knew he would have to try again,

to always try again.

There was no prize.

No victory song to sing in loud glee.

No happy tears to shed because the journey would finally be complete.

And he would finally be the winner.

And I would be by his side, and our laughs would echo across galaxies,

sharing the tale of his survival.

Proclaiming through golden notes that he had won, and that the world could indeed be conquered.

And that dreams which are chased could indeed be caught.

But this was not to be.

And the tears shed remained sad,

and our song only remained a whisper of hopes that would not rise from their slumber.

Hopes that refused to be awoken from words to breathe their own life,

To become real.

Instead laughter remained trapped beneath sighs,

Pulling themselves out our mouths with great force.

Taunting us with a reality that refused to walk on the tips of its toes,

Instead crashing down on the earth with great stomps and vigor,

Reminding us how easily we are shaken.

Reminding us of how easily we are thrown about by a world that refuses to be conquered-

But challenges us to try as we bruise for its own pleasure.

Our scars the scorecard of a game rigged to be lost.

The challenger receives no spoils.

Just merely an invitation to try again.

And as the new day would dawn, so he would.

Try again.

Because tired bones never stop til they are returned to dust,

and the will never out of reach til fingers are unable to grasp.

And as hard as it was to watch him lose.

It was even harder not to hope that one day he would win.

By: WerepupJeremy
Photography by: Melissa Cheng

09:16
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Reflection #1: The Lost Ones

I often wondered what would have happened.

What would have changed if we knew then what we know now.

If it would matter?

Would we have tread more cautiously down a familiar path?

More alert in our own suspicion

More conscious of our own expiration- the finality of our beings?

Or would we have ran and ran more fearlessly,

more carelessly to our own demise, on a road with no name,

but vast promises.

A Street with no signs but countless doors,

all lit from above by a traitor or a friend.

Would we have allowed ourselves to be fooled by the promises of a deceitful moon

for gifts we knew it could not grant?

Gifts of lands, it’s rays have never shone;

corners still plunged in darkness, but drawn by dreams of the young and the foolish.

I wonder, would we have battled our odds more courageously?

Or would we have surrendered with a smile?

Knowing that the battle was not to be won but enjoyed along the way.

That maybe losing was winning in that we would have been absolved of past lives

Lives that didn’t meet their full potential.

Lives of wrong dreams, that took right turns, to leave us with nothing.

Would ambition have meant nothing to her this time around?

The informed time around.

Or would his hope be wasted yet again, as it always was

in some more powerful unknown that refused to be seen?

Would we, if permitted,be found for once by the sun?

Or would we, tired, continue to wander around……

Lost.

By: WerepupJeremy
Photography by: Melissa Cheng

10:39
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(BONUS) Midnight Convos #4: Under Construction

It’s Midnight and My eyes burn,

Red with the truth I can only speak when everyone I know is asleep.

Because my demons have always listened better than people.

They are fed by my prayers.

My hands are soaked with the dreams that hurt too much to keep inside,

So I empty my tank;

The pipes of my brain stained and rusted-

Screaming as every drop falls from my mind.

Hopefully for the last time.

And as I sit in my room, I’ll cry.

I’ll cry to forget the things I’ll hide come morning.

My feelings like fine china, placed in the back of the cupboard.

Come morning all my guests would have left.

But til then I’ll shed tears in mixed company.

Remembering every word that broke my heart

For old time’s sake.

As if I owed the past any more of my time.

It has already taken too much.

And in the corner of my room I am a king, dethroned,

A human without a being.

For to be is what I wish to be no longer.

As my hands wet, cannot grasp new lies.

Lies not solid enough to hold with bare heart or bare hands,

and my red eyes cannot see new days without strain.

Have I not already wasted too many dead wishes on waning stars?

Squandered too much ‘self’ on failed selfhood?

It is midnight and I am tired.

But my bed holds no rest.

It is a reservoir of moments gone, a sea alive

So do I toss and turn among the waves?

The force of the crash as strong as unhappy memories.

As clear as shards of glass, broken in my spine.

All my scars are signed by my own hand.

As if I own this body just to destroy it.

It is midnight. The lights are off.

I confess:

I have always craved my own malfunctioning.

By WerepupJeremy

22:42
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Midnight Convos #3: Night Four.

We’re sitting there.

Just my head on his shoulders,

just my voice in his ears.

Sharing everything. Absolutely everything,

as if for the first time my truths can breathe their own air.

As if for once my shadows don’t seem so dark.

In that instant everything is right,

and it’s just me and him and our truths

because when we’re this close there is no space for our usual lies,

no room for doubt between our fingertips.

Clasped tight; secure.

No time for despair because all we have is now,

and now is perfect and now is fleeting.

And now will never be again, so it can’t be wasted.

And it’s just me and it’s just him and it’s just us.

Happy.

Stupidly happy as if we know no sadness

Because in his arms he can’t hold both,

and he chooses me over his daily demons and I choose him over giving up.

I choose him to be happy.

And so with just my voice in his ears, I tell him everything and smile.

Because now it doesn't seem so bad. The world doesn't seem so angry.

And for once it’s just the way I want it.

And he smiles, so I smile and we smile and just this once I know the joy of being heard,

in this perfect and fleeting time I know what it’s like to be free.

And with time both perfect and fleeting I accept that it will end.

But for now I can smile, as he smiles, because for now it is mine. And I choose it.

I choose this now.

If I could, I would choose this now forever.

By: WerepupJeremy

23:26
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Midnight Convos #2: Head to Feet

You just heard a sound.

I can tell because the air is different.

More tense.

I can feel you panic; First a little, then a bit more.

I can feel your back straighten, your ears becoming alert

your mind racing, your body ready to spring to tired feet

in case the imaginary footsteps grow louder.

In case that invisible man who roams my empty staircase decides, just for tonight, to be seen.

You can never be too careful.

Not at night.

Not when sleepy eyes see more than what’s there.

And noises in the bushes refuse to stay outside.

Not when the creaks in the floorboards and cracks in the walls don’t need bodies to make sounds.

And minds don’t need permission to wander.

Because it’s different for us.

What we are belongs in our shadows

:hidden hands, held tight.

Secret kisses in stolen moments.

Love that can only be whispered

just loud enough to know that words were said.

Never entirely sure that they were heard.

Though we hope they were.

It’s important to remain quiet.

To not be too loud. To not share too much.

Because they aren’t ready.

And ‘they’ have somehow become more than ‘us’.

So ‘we’ cater to ‘their’ whim.

So every time you hear a sound, I know you’ll spring to your feet

your neck stiff, your head tilted slightly to the right,

your fists clenched. Your breath short.

Your brows furrowed.

Your focus…theirs.

I know this without opening my eyes. I don’t have to.

And after You pace, half awake, completely uncertain,

I’ll tell you to come back to bed.

And I’ll rub your tense back and kiss that stiff neck.

I’ll grab your waist and I’ll draw you close.

So close that our chests collide.

Harder at first then softer.

Just the way we like.

Then I’ll look at you while you look at the door “just in case.”

Just in case someone is coming.

Just in case someone sees.

Just in case someone hears, or knows, or cares.

And I’ll just look at you while the night reclaims a moment we could have stolen.

A kiss that could have been ours.

Then I’ll say goodnight, and we’ll go back to sleep.

Your head to my feet.

By: WerepupJeremy.

01:11
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Midnight Convos #1: 12:03 AM

I just want to hold him.

To feel his breath on my neck,

To have his hands in my own.

I just want to be the pillow that he chooses to hug,

To be the thought in which he chooses to linger,

just long enough to be that force, great enough to keep him at home,

In my arms. Just for me.

Just for my eyes and my hands and my warmth

and just... my time.

I just want to keep him here in my sight,

away from the lights that sing to his soul,

that make him wander and lure him into the night.

Sirens’ calls that sink my heart in seas I dare not know.

Cause if he leaves he won’t return.

I just want to be the flavour,

with which he chooses to drench his lips.

Instead of the bottles that ignite his rage,

Those full cups that blur his eyes

and make him forget.

That I’m here and I’m whole and I’m his.

I just want to be enough.

The old love that outranks the young night,

A flame that glows greater than any new promise.

There should be no fight.

I just want to hold him.

But now is not my turn.

By: WerepupJeremy

11:20
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