The Echoes poetry competition to celebrate Write Out Loud's 20th anniversary is now open.  Judged by Neil Astley.

Competition closes in 8 days, 1 hour. Get details and Enter.

Popular last 30 days

poetry love Trump nature Democracy resistance Life shame History poem

real (Remove filter)

Recent Comments

Mike McPeek on Running With Dogs
7 hours ago

David RL Moore on Aubade-esque
8 hours ago

Graham Sherwood on Aubade-esque
8 hours ago

David RL Moore on Aubade-esque
8 hours ago

David RL Moore on liberty
8 hours ago

Landi Cruz on liberty
8 hours ago

David RL Moore on Aubade-esque
13 hours ago

David RL Moore on liberty
14 hours ago

AirlogRigsMaria on Psycho
17 hours ago

Simon Zonenblick on Snail Shells - Similes
23 hours ago

Keepin it Real

The twinkle in the eye, a sly remark in the dim light, a healing notion in the otherwise sleepy evening. He lists down his likes for those to appreciate for those to  understand for those who come by and see him take his stand. His stand for reality, his stand for imagination, his stand to take a stand, his stand for the good of man. The plan is simple. Be good be decent try not to fuck up too muc...

Read and leave comments (0)

real   prose   consciousness   contemplation   love   dreams

Beauty

Your beauty makes YOU invisible

Do people see the real you or just your beauty? 

Beauty is a barrier 

I broke the barrier 

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(4) 

Beauty   soul   real   you

through a windshield (11-25-2023)

together

thru all the glue

filn history's glossy cracks

and all the pines

from wane to wax

we were(are, perhaps)

moonrise bent

lain with backs

pressed on tarmac

slid red, long

longer than we thought possible.

dream-licked heads

shattered and spread :

painted lines on painted lines

on

painted lines

down along this serpentine road.

without a motion ...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(1) 

this   is   bad   writing   i   want   to   be   real

I: skeleton

Face like stone

Hard to read

I find myself taking pride

In my totem pole

Of expressions, I can hide

Masterfully deceptive

Every bit secretive

All heart without sleeves

Makes it easier to breathe

But being naked

Really stripping off

And just letting everyone watch

That is true strength

True power

Is knocking down this tower

Being bare

Just a sk...

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(4) 

skeleton   vulnerable   emotion   connect   brave   courageous   true   real   raw   passion   sensation   being   alive   connected   spirit   soul   power   deceptive   hide   protect   defence   stone   poker face   still   express   articulate   unfiltered   bold

Raw eggs

I tried beautiful,

I tried pristine,

I was no good at it

I’m not neat within

I’m not β€œclean”

Even externally, I cannot master

Clearing every bit of clutter

I’m raw, like an egg

It’s not pretty to have a cracked head

But if I don’t

I’m practically dead

As inanimate and detached as my wooden bed

To be raw is

Painful,

Ugly,

Messy,

But it’s rich with fee...

Read and leave comments (6)

🌷(6) 

raw eggs   mess   clean   soul   connect   intrinsic   world   free   freedom   universe   view   perspective   existential   grounded   centred   consciousness   raw   life   live   controlled   wild   sensory overload   painful   emotion   embrace   real   truth

Alone???

There I was,

Standing in the storm,

Walking through the dark world,

Slowly,

All alone. 

Light was dim,

Lamps burnt cold,

Silence all heard,

But my heart's wild roar.

 

Then there You came,

A gust in the storm,

With Your competitive smile,

And encouraging eyes,

"You done, already?", 

You said, with that smile.

"What more can I do?"

"Race till the t...

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(4) 

left alone   dark nights alone   Life   Real   captive   alone   lonely   poetry   lit   creative   writing   freedom   storm

FRIENDS.....

All this world,

Is one big stage,

And we star as mere actors,

In its brilliant plays.

Every face, a pretty smile,

But Is it truly what meets the eye?

 

"We my dear, are best of friends,

 Joy, or despair, 

 I'll be near.

 Cotton clouds,

 Or coarse sand,

 Side by side,

 Hand in hand.

 One day, at last,

 Harsh winds?

 They'll have to pass." 

 

The...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(5) 

friends   dark   friendship   Life   Real   captive   alone   lonely

Empty Chairs

Just a second is all it would take for you to leave this table.

It never gets better, seeing the amount of empty chairs grow.

Still, I remain seated at the table, glued to my chair.

Unable to do anything but watch with pain in my heart, 

as yet another one leaves me alone here.

But what can I do?

Even an iceberg desperately yearns for warmth,

climbing to the sun, knowing it wi...

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(4) 

Life   Real   pain   farewell   tragedy   poem   poetry

Me Minus Pain

I don't know what is right or wrong
I don't understand the way of this world
I can only feel the constant pain
Tears flowing from my eyes
Frequent pain became a
Constant Reminder that I'm not meant
To be loved or to love
So many ways for a heart to get broken
So many hurts and unfulfilled expectations
I want to be free of this pain

I want to be able to prick my heart with a needle yet ...

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(1) 

Life   Real   pain   farewell

MONUMENTAL

Happy alone although not physically alone 

Just two repellent magnets incompatible forces

Fighting to pull closer but no efforts could make the scientifically impossible...possible 

Not in those circumstances at that time 

The facts were just the facts

Unsigned unwritten laws bound by unspoken pacts 

Small print unread but thankfully unsigned 

Well technically 

Just not sys...

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(6) 

Monumental   transformative poem   coded   lovepoetry   heart   soul mate   meaning   poetry   toxicrelationships   Life   Real   pain   transform

More Real

If I feel it,

it's real.

If I taste it,

it's real.

If I love it,

it's real.

When I lose it - it's more real.

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(2) 

love   taste   real   lose

Metamorphous

You’re right

3 years ago, I viewed frogs as aliens

Now I wonder whether they’re angels

Months ago, I hated the sound of songbirds

Now I write their songs

I tweet along

Everything I did, I did do

It still was

Even if it no longer is

Whatever I am

I still am what I was

Even if I no longer am

You’re right

I was right and now I’m left

But the person I was hasn...

Read and leave comments (4)

🌷(7) 

change   evolve   adapt   difference   afraid   grow   same   anxiety   mature   old   life   quirky   real   realism   fantasy   imagery   metaphor   personality   fear   comfort   world   universe   random   social   society   person   people   human   mind

Love: The Truth

Real love is life threatening 

It’s not serene, sweet, dream love

It’s not romantic, rainbow love

No

True love is torture 

Gut wrenching pain

Hands and knees, love 

Need it to breathe, love 

It’s enough to put you away, love 

But never pull you away, love 

It’s masochistically addictive 

It titillates and irritates

Possesses every bit 

Until you have a fit

...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(4) 

love   false   truth   false truth   end   break up   relationship   in love   romance   real   raw   emotion   pain   trauma   intense   torture   recover   lifelong   struggle   strong   human   partner   love poem   hurt   challenges

The Blame

The bird had put the blame

On the wind

To escape from the accusations

Made by the rose

The wind had put the blame

On the season

To define herself as the breeze

That every flower wants to seize

The time had put the blame

On the ambigous space

To defend her soul once again

Arguing that she was not feeling the same

The artist had put the blame

On the lyrics of t...

Read and leave comments (2)

🌷(5) 

life   real   poem   blame   pain

Acceptance

Explaining you about my sexuality won't help
Explaining you about my existence won't help
Thought you are my buddy, will get me without explaining much.
I am just a bit different, can't you get this much.

I know you have a life partner to share all your tensions,
And wanted me to be happy, and feel all that emotions,
But I am happy just by myself,
You again and again telling me what to do...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(1) 

acceptance   Asexual   fake   friends   LGBTQ   love   real   Sexuality

seeping sadness

i would give you the world but it doesn't belong to me

i would give you the universe but its free for everybody

id give you all of me but even im afraid of me

 

i can't guve you what i have never had

because you took what was never yours so i hope you are glad

you left me empty like a black hole

crushed every part of me and swalloed my soul

you will never cut that noose

...

Read and leave comments (0)

pain   hurt   real   dark

The melodic grass

This music,

it makes me want to fall from the water

float in the sky,

stare at those lips

and kiss those green eyes,

drink from the clouds

and jump on the pond

to feel the stars

and gaze at the stones,

 

 

the rythms , the notes

melt my mind

ignite my visible voice

I'm not here nor there

maybe inside a void

 

floating on the blues

maybe its a d...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(6) 

literature   about   me   attitude   bar   best   brokenheart   love   carolina   cherry   commitmen   contrails   sky   death   distance   miles   trust   in   feeling   do   you   know   who   are   England   english   equality   falling   fine   line   grass   Harry   Styles   harrystyles   he   her   him   kiwi   Life   poetry   romantic   stories   music   nature   incredibleindia   poem   nostalgia   creature   ninety   peace   perfect   Real   remember   retro   romanticism   seaside   britain   she   sign   of   the   times   singer   soldier   songs   sugar   sunflower   sweet   melodic   melody   song   war   watermelon   wine.   woman   world

Love’s presence 16

How I feel I can't find the words or ryhmes. Wouldn't be enough paper, wouldn't be enough lines. It started by means of nature and magical fate, a perfect time, an unforgettable date. You've taken my heart, my mind and my soul. Everything I knew and believed  I've parted and let go .

 I want it all, I want us to grow, I need to trust, I need to know. Your eyes take me to a content home of dream...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(2) 

2016   love   real   feelings

Paper Friends

 

Leaving seems so hard

Until you actually leave

 

The peculiar truth is

Leaving feels ludic, orphic, majestic

Leaving the places which seemed to matter

Leaving the paper people I once met

Leaving, forgiving & moving forward

 

What a trouvaille I encountered

To leave the paper connection

Leaving them as they are, incomplete & rustic

Leaving them in the ocean ...

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(3) 

fake   Life   Real   equality   poem   poetry   lit   creative   writing   leave   brokenheart   love   happiness   happy   commitment   hurt   cry   contrails   sky

Florida in April..

I've seen my fair share of cynical "makes no sense" and it's made no sense.. 

 

Rivers of tears afraid to test a current/affairs between men and women, unhappy that it turned out exactly like they said it would/you or wouldn't you? 

 

I would. 

 

But that's only because I like bloody knuckles and bent knees.. I'm a pray for you/and yours. Traded. For them and theirs/where you end...

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(4) 

Real   florida   human   2020

THE WAY AM I

Nobody knows me,

Not even myself

I meet people everyday

I talk , I laugh , I smile

Others say that I lie.

 

I’m complicated, orphic

 hard to understand

Just like the way we don’t know                                                                                                                      what happens in between the oceans.                         

 

I’m an...

Read and leave comments (2)

🌷(8) 

anger   anxiety   beauty   calm   depression   different   equality   happiness   human   imperfect   Life   Real   me   mysterious   mystery   perfect   poem   poetry   self   selfesteem   single   time

THE LEAVES

The leaves of the tree

Behind the house of glass are falling

With each step of the wind

They liberate themselves from the branches

From the complexity of the connections

Connection of the root with the trunk

Of the trunk with the branches

Of the branches with the leaves

The leaves liberated themselves

From the connections

From the dependence

 

The leaves of the ...

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(5) 

independence   Life   Real   runaway   poem   strong   independent   beautiful   freedom   free   poetry   nature   contrails   sky   woman   breakfree   happy   liberated   connections   is   my life   best   be   yourself   self   love

TRYING..

She was trying

Trying to be calm

Trying to mute the

Monologue inside her mind.

 

Full of contradictions to herself,

Full of arguments

Full of endless thoughts

 

She felt like being pulled

In a spiral

Down and down and down

With each breath she took

Swallowing her own soul

 

As if she split up

Into two halves

Halves against each other

She was he...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(8) 

anxiety   poem   depression   poetry   spirals   Life   Real   contradictions   creative   mentalillness   invisibility   lies   unnoticed   hurt   pain   emotions   deep   dark   moments   writing   misery   reality

I AM READY

I’m on a level of being

Where I know the direction I’m following

Where I know I’ll be fine, even if I’m alone

Where I’m aware of my worth

Where I know I’m strong enough

Where I’m aware of my strengths

Where I’m brave enough to walk all alone

 

I have freed myself from the chains

From the judgments

From the council of hate

From the bars of anxiety

 

I have unc...

Read and leave comments (1)

🌷(4) 

life   anxiety   judgement   power   freedom   poem   strong   me   myself   self-love   self-esteem   Real   poetry

Isolation

 

Four walls

Little comfort

Self control, the rage inside

Missing choices
Voices taken
Expelled forsaken
No choice
To live..
To feed the fallen
Four walls
One door
No comfort,
challenges acceptance
we shall over come

Read and leave comments (0)

🌷(1) 

isolation   Life   Real   captive   alone   lonely

Disney Fairy

 

Nancy comes in my dreams 

Like a fairy of Disney Land 

Have two wings and song 

Touch hearts with no band 

  

Nancy comes from the moon 

Where the lovely stars shining 

Calls me to join the song 

And to share her in the dancing 

  

Nancy, I love you so much 

Can you call me only once? 

Don't keep me in dreams 

Just come in real to dance 
 

Read and leave comments (0)

band   benazouz   call join   come   dance   Disney   dreams   Fairy   heart   keep   land   Like   love   moon   much   Nancy   once   real   share   shine   song   star   touch   wings

The farewell

There was no time left to repent.Her time had come.. 
Her serene face made one quiver
All those years of going away made this parting so painful..
Her face will haunt always in the years to come.. 
Her transgressions all forgotten 
yet the happy memories almost obscured by the time when all it was a vacant wall between them.
One wonders if they had more time together, would that have led to ...

Read and leave comments (0)

Life   Real   pain   farewell

The Beast is Me

This is absolute codswallop

my aura remains infectious

it moves in waves

it's fluctuant

and yet I evade another performance of mine-

like a shirk.

When i should be competitively ruthless  as a shark

but, like a snake I slither away unnoticed

Typical Erin the artist a renowned flake

As a starving artist I feel it's my obligation to give the-

audience one hell of a perf...

Read and leave comments (0)

irish poetry   IrishRoads   Life   lyrical   poetry   poem   love   devotion   Real

The Bending..

The bent of path changes the destination.. 
The bent of light alters the reflection.. 
The bent of state chaperons life into motion. 
The bent of mind culminates a distant vision.. 
It is the unique bent of life which transforms.. 
Creates an amazing collage of diversiforms..... 

Read and leave comments (0)

poetry   Life   Real   journey   destination

Surprise

I laid it out

Just like a map

Giving directions

Very detailed information

But, still I came as a surprise

I told you my life in one breath

Finances, school, employment, debt, past relationships, and experiences

You traveled over time

To different parts of my body

Eventually in and out

Learning my likes and dislikes

But, you became distant

As though I was a surpr...

Read and leave comments (0)

surprise   real   honest   time   patients

Nothing

What is this feeling
This heart crushing feeling
I feel like I want to cry
Yet I can barely sigh.
I want to run far away
far away from myself.
My heart has been tattered
my spirits been tamed
I just want to let it out,
but my screams are whispers.
My thoughts are killer,
and my wrist will suffer.

Read and leave comments (0)

Life   Real

A Dream Come True

Feelings that once were hidden
Are now expressed to you.
Days that once were stormy
Are now the brightest blue.

Times that once were lonely
Are now filled with pleasure.
All that once was mine alone
Are now things we both treasure.

Nights that once were cold
Are now comforting and warm.
Fears that once were very real
Are now gone with the storm.

A heart that once was broken
Can ...

Read and leave comments (0)

feelings   once   hidden   expressed   stormy   brightest   blue   Times   lonely   filled   pleasure   mine   alone   treasure   Nights   cold   comforting   warm   Fears   real   storm   heart   broken   finally   mend   person   life   friend   Dreams   true   love   thought   forever   you

Blood thief

There’s a floor called race and a home called blood,

it can be what forms you.

It can be what clothes you, what warms you as it flows through your body,

a rich honey providing brotherhood, relation, family and love -

bonds of pride which cartwheel through your body.

I have a mystery and in my father lies the clues.

I had droplets of speciality, uniqueness, distinction, excitement...

Read and leave comments (1)

blood   relative   thief   lies   family   culture   Greece   belonging   real   confusion   father

Barbie is fake, Beauty is real

What we are is real
and real is who were suppose to be
and If we were meant to be fake
our skin would be plastic like barbie,
but we are all humans.
Humans who make mistakes,
who has scars: seen or hidden,
and who has things that they wish
to change about themselves.
           ~~~~~~~~
But, our Uniquely selves
are imperfections of beauty
because beauty isn't fake; beauty is real.
   ...

Read and leave comments (0)

barbie   fake   real   beauty   imperfections

Ghostly Quiet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was ghostly

quiet, not a

living soul around.

No one to

hear my cries.

If I should

die not to

be found.

 

There was only

silence, I felt

so scared and alone.

To pass away

and it not

to be known.

 

I clasped my

cross tight in

my hand.

I praye...

Read and leave comments (0)

real   dream   nightmare

Just Being Real

 

I can say I love you, I won’t ever hurt you.

We will never grow apart, fall apart, I’ll never break your heart.

I can tell you I will give you the world and more.

I can sing your praises till my throat gets sore.

I can say everyday will be better than the one before.

I can make you believe I will never walk out the door.

I can talk a load of crap if that’s what you...

Read and leave comments (0)

Love   real   true   Paulyn Lloyd   bullshit

Artist Talking-To Artist

Artist talking to artist

 As Light to Light
No outsiders hearing
What viewers have in sight.
 
The colours of the paintings
Reflects the artists thoughts
Though the onlookers never know
The artist’s. Mind.
 
Artist talking to Artist
Like words from a book
Pictures revealing
Their outlook
 
One slash here, a line there
A rounded curve
A mountain
A landscape.  A portrait
Of dots connecting dots
As ...

Read and leave comments (0)

real   nurturen artists   love   real life   flowing

This site uses only functional cookies that are essential to the operation of the site. We do not use cookies related to advertising or tracking. By continuing to browse, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Find out more Hide this message