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Best Poems Written by Audri Carlevaro

Below are the all-time best Audri Carlevaro poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

3:01

3:01

Its midnight,
And it’s settling in.
I’ve been home
Just a few hours.
Comfortable in my home,
At ease with my hobbies.
But then I feel it.
It starts with a tingling,
All over; inescapable.
But then its gone.
Like it was never even there.
And its okay.

Its one am.
And its back.
I’m sitting on the couch,
Reading a novel.
Something about people
Who have overcome their troubles.
They’re happy.
They have no reason to be afraid.
I have no reason to be afraid.
And yet.
There it is;
Like a pin prick to the heart.
But just as quick as it appears,
It’s gone.
I pretend it was the emotions
The book instilled in me.

Its two thirty.
I’m still reading.
The book has gotten intense,
But so lovely.
Everybody is happy,
Living through their dreams.
But I’m not there,
Not experiencing.
The words I read
May as well be blank paper,
Because I’m getting nothing.
I’m numb.
It’s like the world around me
Has completely disappeared.
I’m alone,
Left to fend for myself in the darkness.
But the light is forming
At the edges of my vision.
And the words are
Meeting my recognition.
The character is laughing.
I’m smiling.

Its three am.
This is the worst of them.
It always is.
I’ve put the book away,
I can’t concentrate.
Its dark,
Despite all the lights.
I’m alone.
I’m always alone.
I’m scared.
Scared to die this way.
I can breathe,
But my chest barely heaves.
I can feel tears in my eyes,
But they won’t fall.
I can’t cry.
I’m numb again.

It’s three am.
It’s not going away.

3:01.
I want to die.
Im sitting here,
I’m staring at nothing,
But my mind is racing.
I’m screaming.
But, my mouth is shut.
My mind is telling me
This is all my fault.
And it is.
It’s all my fault.
I’m a failure.

Its three fifteen.
Panic sets in.
I’m heaving.
Shaking.
Thrashing.
A weight so heavy on my shoulders,
Bricks stacked high on my chest.
Eyes are burning.
I’m on fire with
Every feeling.
It’s searing through me,
Coursing through my veins.
Waking up every fear,
Fault,
And shame.

Its three thirty.
I can barely move.
The pain isn’t real,
But its agonizing.
Its all in my head.
Its all in my head.
Its all in my head.
But I can feel it deep,
Deep in my bones.
White hot lava is burning it all,
Ripping me apart from the inside out.
Every word I’ve heard,
Every jab thrown at me,
They’re whispering in my ears.
They’re telling me things
That I already know.
Things I’ve always known.

Three forty five,
And I’m curled up on the floor.
My heart aches;
But not in the way
They say it will.
My heart aches as if,
A million strings have been attached
To every vein.
And somebody is pulling them
In every which way.
The pressure builds,
Excruciating and dismantling.
Until Ive forgotten my own name.
I’m no longer a “who”
I’m a thing,
Floating,
Drifting,
Aimless.

Four twenty six.
It’s subsiding.
I know who I am.
Worthless.
No.
Not worthless.
Ashamed.

Five am.
I force myself up.
My muscles burn,
Bones ache.
I can feel the knots building
In my shoulders.
Know the physical pain will last.
Even as I force the mental away.
I’m in bed by
Five twenty.
My mind blank.

5:33 am.
I can feel myself drifting now.
I know who I am.
What I am.
But the time has passed.
And I have a day before
I must face it again.
I allow myself to dream.
Because in this space,
The things that haunt me,
Are kind enough,
To give me a moment of peace.
Where I’m happy.

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

Midnight Mutes the Chiming

Midnight Mutes the Chiming

There’s nothing here
I’m surrounded by things and people
and entertainment that never ends
but there’s nothing here

My mind is empty
filled to the brim with stories
and movies and interesting facts
and I could pull from it and show you everything
but my mind is empty

There’s nobody near
they’re all around laughing and joking
and they’re waiting for me to say something
and I can interact with them
but there’s nobody near

My mind is a screaming silence
ideas bouncing through again and again
my room is filled with useless shit
but i keep buying and buying 
my life is a world of loneliness
and all I have to do is reach out

But I can’t 
I can’t reach out and 
they don’t understand 
They say its an easy fix
Just do it.
Just be someone you’re not.
But I’m already doing that.
They’re all strangers to me
and they think they know me,
how to fix me.
But I’m a broken clock
and I keep bouncing between seconds
I’m fine I’m not I’m fine 
I’m not.

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

Weathered

I looked in your eyes today. 
But something told me
If I were brave, I'd look away. 
So I turned my gaze
To the horizon.
Lost myself in the sunset. 
And even though you were there,
Just two feet away,
I saw you in the orange and pink rays. 
The gathering of clouds in the distance,
Shifting effortlessly in the sky.
They were like you. 
You make it look so easy.
The concept of loving you. 
But like the pastel beauty way up high, 
My love for you weighs me down,
Pulls me apart,
And makes me rain on a sunny day. 
I lost myself in the dream
Of floating off with you,
Of happiness and of your beauty. 
But then you called my name
And I came crashing to earth,
The dreary mist of spring morning,
Lying low to the ground,
Colorless and lifeless. 
I looked in your eyes today,
But something told me
If I were brave, I'd look away. 
But I'm a coward,
And I'm a sucker for summer days.

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

Structured Integrity

They tell you to just be you,
But then you smile
And your teeth just won’t do.
They tell you to always be happy,
But then you lose someone,
And you’re too depressing.
They tell you it’s okay to be different,
But you’re a vibrant blue,
And you’re strange and insignificant.
They tell you embrace your body,
But you’re too big or too small,
And you’re a disgusting nobody.
They tell you words can’t hurt,
You listen and refuse to let them,
So your name is dragged through the dirt.
They tell you your imperfections are lovely,
But you embrace and appreciate them,
So suddenly you’re ugly.
They tell you your nose is just right,
But then they look down theirs,
Because they see you in a different light.
They tell you it’ll get better, it’ll be alright
But when it doesn’t change right away,
The encouragement fades out of sight.
They tell you to love everyone,
But when you try,
They laugh and tell you you aren’t the one.
They tell you to follow your dreams,
So you do and you’re happy,
But its not good enough for anybody.
They tell you to do so many things,
But once you do,
They tell you you’re nothing,
They tell you you will succeed,
But when you’re at the top,
They say you’ll start falling.
They’ll tell you you’re the greatest they’ve seen,
But their eyes were closed,
And they weren’t even listening.
They’ll want you to believe it all,
Trust them and do what they say,
But they really just want to watch the fall.
They’ll laugh as you climb to the top,
Because as you sweat and bleed,
They’ll already be there wondering what took so long.
They let you believe they care,
They’ll make you trust their every beginning word,
Because they know you’re scared.
They know you’re insecure and they’ll use it,
They’ll sneak in through the back,
Whisper in your ear, sully you with their spit.
They want to catch you, tame you,
Break you so they can ride on your back,
Train you so you’ll be a puppet,
Take every word for fact.
They want you to do what they want you to do,
What you want and what you need it doesn’t matter,
Because you’re here to do what they tell you.

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

What Is a Life To You

What is a life to you?
Do you wake up to love
imagine a future with someone?
A wife or a husband,
a child or ten?
An exaggeration,
but love is different to everyone.
Do you have a cat or a dog,
that you carefully
care for?
Who’s life you would
ultimately kill for?

What is a life to you?
Alarm clocks and paychecks
or midnight snacks
and twenty cups of coffee?
A pack of cigarettes
you hide in your glove compartment?
Or that one note
in a song you love?
The verse in a poem you read
a decade ago that you can’t shake
Or even the 9am radio talk show
that you listen to every day?

Is it the silent onward tick of a clock?
An assurance that time goes on?

What if the soothing
and somewhat irritating
guiding force of a grandfather clock,
the chiming
and the tick and the tock
morphed into something
Something you can’t quite place
but angry
in a not so far away place?

What is a life to you?
Cold metal shifting beneath
even colder hands?
Anger pounding and sirens blaring?

What is a life to you?
Smiles through stupid jokes,
and the smell of rain after a drought?
Familiar eyes gazing into yours
holding something you couldn’t explain
but somehow makes your heart beat faster?

Is it blaring music in a concert hall that
takes you away from your pain
and let’s you escape?
Or is it the careful sounds
of chalk on a chalkboard
carving out your day?

Is it soft skin beneath your fingertips
tracking a course you take every night
and soft breaths and careful grins?
Maybe it’s a familiar scent
wafting in through the vents
like cookies or pie
or home

Is it dreams of a future
where you are all you know you can be?
Success and power and money
but not overrun by greed?
is it safety?

What is a life to you?
Is
it safety?
Is it knowing that when you close your eyes
you’ll wake up
and nobody will have died?
Is it holding a hand through the night,
staring up at the ceiling
wondering
when and how and why?

Is it the feel of grass beneath your feet?
Or rain on your skin?
Is it the sound of thunder striking,
far off but near enough
to remind you you’re alive?

Is it freedom?

What is a life to you?
That you can look up at the sky
and watch as the flag falls
to half mass
surrendering to another
massacre?
Is that life?
Is that freedom?

Is life the calculated draw
of a machine
pulling at the strings
of what holds us together?

What is a life to you?
Is it getting a call just after two
when the police have arrived
and the ambulances still drive
and the sirens still blare
and the blood still pools on the sidewalk
or the dance floor
or the stage
or the school
where someone you love
someone you live for
has fallen
and you don’t know
if they’ll get up?

What is a life to you?
A machine that can’t love
but can only take
or a person
who loves
who breathes

What is a life to you?
A mascot or a color
Is it blue?
Is it red?
Is it a debate you make
Is it proclamations of your rights
and the ignorance of their deaths?

What is a life to you?
Is it forgetting their touch?
Is it turning on the news
and feeling something clutch
at the very core of you
and ripping at all you are
because this is the when
this is the how
But there’s no Why.
Why?
Why weren’t you there?
Why couldn’t you help?
Why wasn’t your side arm
there to catch the bullets
that someone else side arm
shot out at the one you
would give you life for?
There is no Why.

What is a life to you?
Is it an empty gaze
in a bloodied field
that once was a school
that once was a sancutary
that once was a home
or a church

What is a life to you?
Is it the cold metal clutched to your side
when you jump out of the passenger side
of you friends car
and rush in
because this was the one place
the one thing
that wouldn’t happen to you?
You had your protection.
But what use was it?

Was it worth a life to you?
For you to have your safety —
for them to have their weapon?
You don’t see a weapon.
You see a light in a tunnel that just gets darker
but do you see why the light fades
do you see what you’re losing?

What is a life to you?
Is it the careful beeping of a heart monitor
counting down seconds
overpowering the clock in your brain

What is a life to you?
Is it years dwindling to hours
to minutes to —
“We did all we could do”?

What is a life to you?
Is it this?
Is there anything you could do?

There was.

There is.

Lives lost, and nothing gained.
No protection, and no groundwork laid.
“It’s a shame,” thats what they’ll say.
“There’s nothing we could do.”
But we both know there’s another way.

What is a life to you?
Strangers dying that’s one thing
But imagine your love being where they were
imagine a shooter atop a tower
where your side arm did nothing
but permit them the opportunity
to aim down with a cold gaze
cold like the metal against your waist
cold like the machines keeping them alive
like the morgue
and the blood on the ground miles away
cold like the nights
when you lie
staring up at the ceiling
wondering
when and how and why

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

Intruder Alert

If they'd told me I'd fall for you
I'd have offered them the number
To the local psych ward -
After a sufficient Google search
To ensure they received
The proper care they'd need.
If they'd said to me,
"One day you'll look up,
And realize he's the one."
I'd have raised an eyebrow,
Pulled a thermometer from
Some poor unfortunate souls ass
And checked them for a fever.
If they'd look from me to you
And smirked like they knew something
That I didn't,
I'd have grabbed the largest sharpie
I could find in the vicinity,
And draw a penis
Directly in the center of their forehead
While they were sleeping.
If they'd told me,
"I know you don't believe in it,
But you'll come to love him."
I'd have -
Well. To be completely honest,
I'd have probably laughed in their faces,
And said something none too pleasant.
Probably would have received glares
From nearby parents.
If they'd warned me,
I wouldn't have listened.
Would have denied it
All the way to the local horse races,
Where I would have bid on the underdog,
That had never won a race -
Just to prove to myself,
That things that can't happen,
Won't happen.
But knowing my luck,
If I'd done that,
That damn horse would've won.
Sadly, if they'd said anything,
Things would end up exactly as they did.
Only the Google search
Isn't for them.
It'd be for me.
I'm still convinced this whole thing,
Where I'm feeling something
Specifically a thing for you,
Is a symptom of mental disorder.
And I'm the one with the fever.
But if I go to the doctor,
It'd just be a freaking case
Of loving you.
And that bill would just be
Another heaping disappointment
On this cake of misguided love.
I'd still draw a penis on someone's face.
But I don't have a key to your place.
You'd better be happy buster,
Because I draw a great dick.
And you'd never get rid of it.
If they'd told me that I'd love you,
I wouldn't have listened,
But at least I wouldn't have been
Blindsided when it happened.

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

Promises, Promises

As kids we're asked
What we want to be when we grow up
And whatever the answer - 
That's our goal.
Our dream. 
It's a promise
That we will succeed.
Only. 
As we age,
we slowly come to the realization
That they lied to us. 
That they took that promise
And with their money
And their war
And
Their greed
They broke it. 
They took a future from us
And even when we know
When we speak up,
They reflect it back onto us. 
Tell us how they managed to succeed
In a world so much different
Than what they passed down to us.
In a world where the earth didn't cry.
Where money wasn't worth less
Where the minimum earning
Could serve a family of three. 
Where the cost of an education
Could be earned during
A short summers work.
Those who gave us hope 
Now yell accusations at us -
We're lazy! 
We want pass outs! 
We aren't willing to work for anything! 
Only -
We're working two to three jobs,
Eighty hours a week,
While we're in school,
Learning to be this thing -
This dream 
we've had all our lives. 
We're in debt because we
Wanted to learn
Because 
We had to learn. 
Because if we didn't
Delve into a game of massive debt
We'd be out of it -
The game,
The promise. 
But even our debt is
A force of debate
Because it's not necessary. 
We could have gone straight to work
But that's what we did
We work
And we learn 
And we work 
Because that's all we can do
It's not even what we love,
Not the dream. 
Because the dream won't sustain
A healthy life.
We are a generation
Of generalized anxiety 
And all we want
Is to make the world better
To fix what's been broken
But those who came before us
They laugh in our faces
Because this world
Wasn't meant for their promise.
They never intended
Our success.

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

The Space Between the Keys

I spend my nights playing with words.
I use them, and they use me.
We are a match, and when we work together,
we create magic. 
But there are nights like these,
where words fail me. 
They offer up syllables they think will help
express what I’m feeling,
but as each floats past me,
whispers itself into the keys,
and I erase with a simple press on delete,
I feel myself slowly part with the only partner
that I have ever let into my heart. 
The words come from deep within me,
but still they are a friend who helps.
They offer guidance that I pretend
I could never have dreamed up.
They offer an outlet,
through which my darkest fears
finally face their release.
But there are nights like these.
My partner, so carefully formed,
so graciously crafted,
is staring back at me,
a cautious flashing of a cursor,
quietly asking what words I need.
It’s a hard reality to face,
when the thing you use to except
all the happenings in your life,
seems to fail you in your darkest moment.
I spend my nights playing with words.
Together, we create a story,
an answer to my hearts deepest tragedy.
We work hand in hand to form,
something beautiful out of nothing.
These keys,
the pitter patter of finger to letter,
is my minds way of creating 
resolution through poetry.
But there are nights like these.
Where the tapping has ceased.
and my partner,
the words through which I create myself,
has been lost to the empty space
between A and Z. 
My life is a compilation of words,
of twenty six letters that my partner and I
spend the longest nights morphing
into something that relates to life.
But there are nights like these.
Nights like tonight.
My fingers graze the keys,
but no words form.
My partner and I,
we spend our nights creating.
But on nights like these,
we can do nothing but sit, staring.
My partner blinking, waiting.
My fingers twitch,
but still nothing but letters grace the screen.
There are nights like these.
No word can define what I’m feeling,
and no matter how hard we try,
or how long I type,
on nights like these,
I go to sleep feeling resigned
to the reality that my partner and I,
we can’t always create something
we can’t always hide
the reality of pain in poetry. 
Because no matter how many nights
I spend my time playing with words,
there are some things
that are beyond describing. 
They are the fears hidden
in the space between the keys. 
They are the one thing,
my partner cannot scribe for me,
because they are the part of me 
that words are incapable of mending.

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

Tin-Can

I’m leaking gasoline.
My soles have holes.
Run ragged,
stripped to the bone.
I’m a splintered bat,
shattered by my momentum.
My heart lacks desire,
but it beats
it beats with the hands of a clock.
tick tock tick tock
I’m running on borrowed time
I can’t look back,
see no end in sight.
Lost track of where i am,
the path i’ve been following.
Vision blurry,
can’t see past the mist
I’ve polluted all around me.

I’m leaking gasoline,
I’ve bled all over everything.
Singed fingerprints,
shattered teeth,
no way to identify me.
My heart feels no love,
but it sings.
A tune I can’t identify.
Listen close,
it’s but a whisper,
far on the horizon,
fading with the wind
dancing across my skin.
Who am I?

I’m leaking gasoline.
Near empty.
I can’t find the source,
Can’t see where it’s gone.
Beneath my feet,
I feel what I’ve lost.
Behind me, it calls.
Screams for me,
a child with a soul tossed.
My heart urges forward,
no reason, no cause.
and I move,
there’s no other way.
Can’t look back,
can’t change the past.
My dashboard sings.

I’m leaking gasoline.
Stalled out.
Broken on the side of the road.
No sound but for the
drip drop.
I’m crying.
I’m afraid.
I know who I am,
who am I?
Crossed arms,
and crossed legs.
Wary eyes,
and wary heart.
I’ve been leaking gasoline.
Run out of energy.
Can’t keep running.
No more hiding.

I’m all out.
Empty, and waiting.
Thumb out.
Heart racing.

Details | Audri Carlevaro Poem

Songbird, Won'T You Sing

I can’t tell you.
I can’t say it out loud.
I’ll whisper in the night,
when the wind is high.
I’ll write it into
every poem I breathe.
but I can’t admit this -
this thing 
to you. 
The truth is,
it’s hard to face.
This realization I’ve made.
And it tears me apart,
but I can’t tell you.
Because I am not worthy.
I’ll tell it in halves
to those I trust,
but never in full.
Because I can’t say it,
can’t risk you overhearing.
I turn it into 
a work of fiction,
in the hopes that
someday it’ll fix it.
Because I’m sitting here,
pen to paper,
with an ever-growing list
of pathetic poetry. 
I can’t tell you.
Can’t say it out loud.
Because I can’t lose you.
I’ll tell the bird,
nestled in the tree for winter,
everything I’ve had
hidden away.
Everything bursting
at the shoddy seams of my heart. 
And I’ll smile at you,
tell you I hate you,
tell everyone I dislike you,
tell myself I don’t love you.
Because I can’t admit it.
Not to you.
Not to our friends.
Not even to myself.
Because I can’t face
that rejection.
The only one that knows the truth,
wakes me each morning
with it’s song. 
But come July,
she’ll be gone.
And all I’ll have left,
is my denial,
my tears,
and a stack of poems,
that you’ll never see.