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Amy Perry Jun 2020
We stitched a patch together
On my flesh in the shape
Of a cartoon heart.
I would have your heart,
But only a caricature of it.

I’d approach you the first year
As much as you’d approach me.
In that year, you’d stitch me more,
Kissing and caressing me with your
Passionate gift of language.
I asked you to make my stitches
Tighter and more numerous
With your luminous promise of love.

The second year went on like the first.
Less dialogue acquainted me with
Thinking of you like clockwork, like records,
Your sickly, gangrene patch
With familiar stitches from your own hands
Attached to the flesh on my arm,
Reminding me you were there.

On the third year, I drove through the seasons
On a tank of memories I called love.
I sought to find you but my tank was empty,
I walked and took a train, then walked some more,
Towards your hopeless direction,
Only to fall upon my face and become a bust,
Like a watermelon hitting cement.

As time ticked on, I’d say words here and there,
As yours grew fewer and fewer.
I grew used to your ghosts,
Gave them all names.
It’s only just now that I realize what’s been done.
It’s hard for me to come down and sit in this
Cold room with cold ghosts.

It’s only from this moment
That I’ve begun unraveling
All these threads.
I’m not sure what my skin
Looks like underneath.
I undo what’s been fastened to me
Day by day and wince in pain.
So this is what it’s like to breathe.
EmperorOfMine May 2020
Clipped by the cage you're confined in,
Dark and compliant, a conflicted life of air,
All faces remembered, those who are in debt to the raven's snare,
Inspired by shadows that lurk in the sun, the ones with many sins,
You have a story to tell, but one mustn't dwell,
You will sing your family's name, let it echo like a bell,

Caged raven...what is it you think?
Crisp linen sheets
Like the Autumn leaves
Broken twigs
Like broken wings
Of a bird or a butterfly
Perhaps mine

We are all puppets
Manipulated by our minds
Caricatures of our true selves
We live
Like comic book characters
Actresses and actors

The words and pictures
Evidence of our existence
But mine is a child's diary
The unruly handwriting
Stick figures and paper planes
Fairy tales and day dreams

All too soon
They will be forgotten
Daniel Mashburn Apr 2017
It's become exhausting being a caricature of a human. All at once, I'm too over-the-top to be considered normal and much to internalized to have real depth with the people I wish to have depth with.

And god knows, I've gotten better at being honest. Not that I was much for lying, at least in perhaps the most traditional sense of the word. But I certainly was incapable of having real human interaction. Maybe it was fear that kept me frozen and unable to communicate what I wanted most to say.

Surely, it was a defense mechanism. It's a lot harder to be disappointed by someone when you refuse to let them be close to you. And it's certainly a lot harder for someone to break you into insignificant pieces when you don't allow them any hold on you.

But somehow being distant because of the fear of people breaking you leaves you even more vulnerable to it. I lost ----- because I couldn't be a real person.

I lost you too.

And perhaps it's too late to make amends and say, "I swear I'm not quite as horrible a person as I've pretended to be. The caricature I've become is definitely not what I intended to be."

But I just want you to know that I'm trying to be honest. And I'm trying to be happy.

But I know I'll never let you know.
JDK Jan 2017
Let's get together and be lonely.
I'd feel a lot better if you'd just hold me,
I mean lonelier.
It'd trigger that mental state where I'm floating six feet away from the scene,
where I can see everything with the added bonus of not having to experience what I'm feeling.

Let's be lonely together, only,
I'd feel a lot better if you uttered a phrase that ended with "forever."
It'd make it easier to remember that I'm not the type to stick around,
and I could really use a good reason to leave right now.
Why are you reading these? They're awful.
traces of being Jan 2017
a storyteller's perspective, steppin' off the ordinary edge, into the unknown

An unsent letter lay on the rustic log cabin floor
A cold wind musta’ blown through the cracks the light comes in,
where it laid fallen, half *** crumbled, yet never a wadded ball;
never an unspoken thrown paper stone,  a befallen regret was all.
Silently atilt and leaning against the canted wall's slant
behind the gathered dust a squeaky hinged burl wood door

A timeworn tarnished copper wind up clock roosted,
an old lip smirched coffee cup time stood still;
an empty bottle of gin sat near the bed post headboard
where the ink stains and blotted spillings let the memories in.
Stained pages torn and bent like fallen paper wings
returned to the unread sender … postage due,   south a heaven sent ―

A sullied envelope, gnawed and mouse chewed,
for a nest of new beginnings ―     
                                                          just read:                   Lydia  ...  
                                ... followed by a scribbled empty heart               

The time aged brown tattered tablet paper left behind
stifled like the unread heart it holds upon the threadbare pages
of smudged tear’s ache and spilled gin

The weathered rock hearth fireplace filled with spent ashes,
hand rolled cigarette butts, traces of an aching lament;
scratched up old vinyl records lay ***** and tired out,
from a time of sweeter fallen fences, a musical bliss, and
a lost angel's abandoned red slinky party dress,  
aside a busted off black velvet high-heel stuck sullied
in a hollow knothole in the ancient barn-wood floor
a sparkly pearl pink jewel entangled in a spider web

An unsent letter lay on the rustic cabin floor
A cold wind musta’ blown through the cracks the light gets in

The final unread words silently said:

                               "We lost our way,
                                  it all went wrong,
                                  it all turned bad"

                             ..."This is the outcome when someone you love  
                                  up and throws you away"

                             ...“I’ll reach out from the inside
                                  I’ll rise up again and do without”

                             ..."You went out into the world
                                  with an untamed hankerin’ ―
                                  like a carefree restless gypsy breeze
                                                                 and come back worlds apart"


The Unsent Letter,  
                          just whispered words to the dust in the wind
                                                            ­                        in quivering ink:

                             ..."how can I ever unremember you...?
                                  a thrown stone sinks wordlessly as a rock...,
                                  an old wood bucket with a rotten hole the heart,
                                  fallen forgotten, rock bottom as an empty well"


                                        just signed:   ...   ❤  August


                          *January 1st, 2017 ... august ... wild is the wind  ♡
postscript: trying to write outside my comfort zone box
                  this storyteller's perspective, steppin' off the edge the unknown
                  i did have fun from behind the incarnation of a caricature's eyes
                  some say "it's always about the writer"...what say you(?)!
.
Matthew Jun 2014
I fell in love at a McDonald’s. I expected it to happen in an overpriced cafe or a fancy Italian restaurant, but it happened at a McDonald’s and it was love all the same.

We were on our way back from the beach. We went whale watching but the ocean could have been empty for all the fish we saw. We paid good money for a caricature of the two of us. The graphite image of a happy couple with our faces sat in the back seat of your car. It would be framed and put up. We went into the sea as deeply as we dared and laughed and screamed as the waves came and came and came.

We were driving home with bits of mountains and boulders stuck between our sandaled toes and that’s when you pulled into a McDonald’s.

You ordered a sandwich, 100% real beef, never frozen, and asked me what I wanted. I said I would have the same. 100% real beef. Never frozen. I hate spending time and money on that which can only be consumed. We sat down with our food underneath the fluorescent lights next to a Happy Meal kiosk and I decided that I was in love with you and it was love all the same.

— The End —