What they don’t tell you in school,
while you’re trying to remember
the difference between prophase and metaphase
chromosomes and chromatin
is that really
biology isn’t science
biology is life


See, divorce
divorce is like mitosis
slow to start, but quick to finish

Begins at prophase
when conflicts arise as your family’s nucleolus,
your family’s unity
disappears

Your carefree life, your chromatin,
coil and change
become tight, tense chromosomes

Outside forces, mitotic spindles,
residing in the cytoplasm
start creeping towards your parents
to separate their souls

Metaphase:
you’re all lined up
single file
ready for battle

Centrosomes, middles of each new life,
poised opposing each other
with their spindles latched onto you kinetochore, your middle,
like a dog with it’s leash

Anaphase:
everything separates,
your world’s torn apart
and you’re left silently
watching
alone
as your sister is torn from your life

Telophase:
the pain starts to lessen
as you uncoil
and your broken family’s nuclear membrane
begins to reform

Once the paper’s are signed
once the cell’s wall’s rebuilt
your old life is over
and the process
it’s finished

See, they don’t tell you
don’t think you need to know
that
divorce is simply biology
and
mitosis
well, it’s life

We are all so very fragile.
Our sun kissed porcelain faces
are freckled with Achilles heel fault lines and chipped paint.
Shining through to our nervous nervous system and our tendency to over think things.
We hide so much inside of us.
Behind dance less masquerades
Our bodies held together only by cages of ivory bones
cages that cradle the thin winged heart beats of our chest
nervous moths stumbling around inside
knocking books off of shelves and
eating the sweaters that we use to keep our hearts from freezing over.

The autumn wind is cold like sad glaciers
and it's easy to break down at times like these.
Our bones ache and shriek like boiling tea kettles.
Making it hard not to shatter.

We are all so fragile.
Burnt out light bulb fragile.
Frozen lake fragile.
Defibrillated heartbeat fragile.
We are broken branch fragile
chronic alcoholics sobriety fragile.
The middles school girls reaction to the word “fat” fragile
We are the kind of fragile that set off big bangs.
We are, paranoid breakable.
And its got to the point where
we have begun taping up our light leak vulnerabilities
with perceptions of perfection and thoughts of rejection
spending our time in dark rooms as our minds just keep reeling
and trying to shut off feelings and unwind
but we have been over exposed to such ****.
To slides and slides of negative negatives

we used to burst apart with so much light.

but the sun isn't shining honest, the night sky is black
and its raining in all the wrong ways.
We're out of season.
sewing up the holes in our personality
with floods of insecurities and droughts of identity.
damning what matters.

****, its hard to know what matters.

But I am still trying to figure that one out
And the moths are still here
as the pendulum clocks keep ticking
eating the sweaters that we used
to keep our hearts from freezing over.

But we are freezing to the core.
The atoms inside of us splinting into half lives;
we haven't even lived half of our lives
yet we feel so ancient.
The dust piles growing on our slanted bookshelves shoulders
Our bright idea light bulbs flickering,
getting covered up by snowdrifts.

We are gas giants wrapping ourselves into open space darkness
hiding from the bright side of the moon.
Like a black cat superstition we are running from our own precondition
of lying about being ourselves
We pull dark black-hole hoods over our eyes
wincing at the light trails of shooting stars
though we, too, want to be brilliant.
We try to orbit the sun hoping that humanity is a symphony;
that being popular and having the most friends is what matters.
and we can be where the grass is always greener by fitting in and by being mirrors
Even though not being yourself is nauseating.

We can be nauseating, we can be mirrors.

Because we are scared that if we don't
hide who we really are
we may end up like Pluto.
Ostracized for existing.
floating around in space having stare downs with wormholes
A shivering rock entity with a complete loss of identity.

We already are so lost.
Our souls waning and waxing
Rocking back and forth
on wood beams and porches.
like an ADD moonbeam rocking chair.

But now its time to stop in one place and readjust our backbones.

Because I know that we are fragile, I know that.
I know that its hard filling in the cracks that have found their way down our back-stabbed spines
we all have our histories with being dropped and rejected.
But we weren't made to be cardboard box people,
packing tape and labels wrapped in all of the wrong places.
we are boxes full of wormholes into other dimensions
we are full of life and blood and bones,
full of oceans and stardust and daggers
There is so much more to us than our brown paper complexions.
So climb out of those kangaroo pouch caves that you have called home for the last few years
There's no need hiding anymore.
You can be safe in your own skin.
You can climb the Himalayas and scream out as many lightning rods as you want
we will all be listening as you burst apart into thunder claps.
As you bleed yourself into infinity

So, dim the lights

Throw your self at the world
and crash like waves into existence
you are perfect when you are yourself.
Grab that porcelain off of your face
and let your smile super nova fracture into a cosmic grin of constellations.

People will look up to you and be inspired.
A cardboard box rookie sprawled out in the stars.
Lighting up all of our faces with E.T. fingertips.
No longer hiding being reflective eclipses
There's only one person who can tell you who you are.
Only you can speak for yourself.

I know that your fragile
I know that.

We all are..,

In that period of time he began pouring his trust into a half a pint cups of local beer and cheap cigarettes, local as well, which he could afford, who would have guessed?...
He used to gaze at girls with a curious and contemplative look that was also full with sadness and despair, instantly advocating for the holy mission and function of the prostitutes and the escort ladies and he already a abandoned the idea of having a pet except the turtle.
From time to time he use to scribble incomprehensible prose and poetry and couldn't find any condolence even in Hemingway or Cobain.
His only consolation was with the pen and watching the sunset off the sandy sea shore, for he could be sure that the same sun isn't dying buy only moving to a better place.
It seemed like he will leave after him numerous beginnings for stories and a lot of middles as well...
Sometimes, it would have seems to him that the first end he's going to write is going to be his own.
Leaving behind communities of characters that all their world is nothing but a few words, that seems like they are going to prosper and blossom but they were faded and gone like the sole of the candle's flame on top of a birthday cake, which was blown off while giggling her childhood laughter, leaving behind a delicate and curly thread of smoke, that is gone in a blink of an eye.
At the age of twenty-two he began writing his own eulogy, like this miserable old woman, preparing her own shrouds, but from that too he was finely despaired.

If you're expecting a regular, silly me,
well this is not for you.
And if it makes you uncomfortable,
I recommend leaving right now.
But my body
literally cannot take it anymore
and I feel that making an essay
explaining how anxiety affects me
will not only help me cope and deal with it,
but it may even help other people out there
come to terms,
or relate,
or empathize on just
what it can do to a person.
If there is only one single person out there
who finds even a smidgen of solace or comfort
in knowing that they're not alone,
then this whole essay will be worth it for me.

As you may or may not know,
I like to keep my personal life private and away
from strangers
as much as I can for the most part.

Not because
I'm embarrassed or scared of what people might think,
but mostly because I think it's unhealthy
to share every waking moment of your life
with a collection of strangers on the Internet.

Everyone deserves privacy,
and it's not something most people
even have to think about.
Never in a million years
did I ever even consider the possibility
that my privacy would be something
I may have to worry about.
So what does this have to do with anxiety?
Well,
in May of 2018,
I vanished for nearly a month.
I barely posted anything anywhere,
the only place you could have found me
was on classes.
Where I definitely wouldn't have mentioned
or talked about what was
happening to me at the time.
I did answers questions, where I loosely and vaguely
explained where I was for that time,
beating around the bush and avoiding
the exact reasoning,
but let me explain to you what happened.

Near the middles last semester, or early April,
I can't really remember,
The play and my overdue assignments
I have to catch up to,
had been tiring me
to a quite extreme extent.
And thus personally
it started to get...
insane.
No, I'm not talking about stupid essays
or poor language.
I mean exhausting,
crushing, abhorrent nature
of relationships
This includes not only relationships
between classmates and such,
but all members of my social circles:
my family, lecturers,
combined with some very personal issues
that i may or may not talked about.
I even developed multiple "voices" in my head
that was dedicated to ridiculing
my abhorrent behaviour
saying things like,
'Nobody likes you.'
'Why they would even bother anymore.'
And not surprisingly,
this completely threw me for a loop
and ever since then,
my anxiety has been
pretty much a daily struggle.
It can be anything that causes it
Maybe only a small thing, like...
being too scared to call up friends
to notify others about my sickness
because they are excited
about the play
and need my cooperation.
Or rushing out from classes and events
just because i don't want
to interact with people.
Or even more destructive behavior, like
panic attacks that wake me up at like 6 AM
and leave me shaking and out of breath
for seemingly nothing.
Or locking myself away
and refusing to interact with anyone
and just leaving myself
to my own terrible thoughts.

The cycle of anxiety
is one the worst things about it,
It's a spiral
that just gets worse and worse if you let it.
You may be saying to yourself
'Well, that's dumb, stop!'
'Just don't do it, that makes no sense!'
And you're right.
The thing that agitated me the most
about anxiety at first was the lack of being able
to find a reasonable explanation or cause
for why I feel the way I do.
Because the awful thing about anxiety
is that it's not reasonable.
It defies logic,
it is wrong.
It's a thought process and
a destructive vicious cycle
that is very hard to
wrap your head around at first
and only gets worse
the more self-aware about it you become.
Anxiety is destructive,
Crushing,
It hurts you both,
phisically and mentally,
It ruins relationships with people,
It makes you feel pathetic and lost,
It makes you feel wrong or broken,
Embarrassed and sick.

But let me tell you something;
You should never
feel embarrassed or ashamed for something
you have no control over.
Whether it's a mental illness,
your skin color,
your ****** preference...
Don't you let anyone EVER
make you feel like you should be ashamed,
guilty or embarrassed for that.

Objectively, on paper, I should have
absolutely nothing to worry about.
I have a very comfortable and safe life.
But another cruel symptom of anxiety
can be a sense of constant doubt
and worry.
Things like, my classes is doing TOO well,
My life is going TOO smoothly,
My partner is TOO attractive and TOO perfect.
Things are going too great for me,
and maybe I don't deserve it.
Even if you're joking or not,
the 'I'm stressed' thing
is something I hear extremely often.

But I remember a few years ago
when I worked in retail for a bit
Someone called me over to ask for help
I politely told this guy what to do,
as you're supposed to
and his response was to rudely say
'Well, how the **** was I supposed to know that?
I have a real job'
Now, I'm definitely not suited to retail
because I found it to be horribly crushing
but in saying that
conversely, anxiety was hardly
a problem for me at the time
It was still there,
but the difference is
I had no investment in weekend
throwaway jobs like that
So it was easy to shrug it off and forget about it

But when your life completely revolves around
interacting with an audience of people
that you are always constantly
trying to impress and make happy
because you really, really care about it
I found that I started to ignore basic human needs like...
staying healthy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
I now work every single day of the week
in some regard
I never switch off
I find it hard to switch off
It's always in the back of my mind
I used to take one day of the week to try
and relax and do nothing
But now I going out on that day
Which I thought would be fun
because I'm really bad at interacting with my friends
so I thought this would be the perfect way to avoid it.
But I've been met by a large backlash of people who
because I'm sacrificing even more
of my time to try to interact
and entertain my audience
and its not related with the
my current tasks at all...
I've people saying things like
'You has to get more hardworking.
do you not sympathize with others?'
You get the idea
And comments don't usually bother me,
but every now and again
there will be that one
that will catch me at the wrong moment
and will just make me ask myself
Why do I even bother?
So if getting more hardworking
results in me being able to sleep at night
and not have panic attacks
then please, somebody go ahead and
swap with me, yeah?

I do realize i was wrong most of the time,
or sometimes don't care about my laziness
but sometimes i tend to get overwhelmed
because I'm pretty "unlucky"
The truth is
I like working and talking to people.
I'm happy with it.

I used to often chat with people regularly
but that often led to times
where I forget my tasks.
where a couple of hours
would've made it that much better to me
To be honest, I m a quite forgetful person
and easily distracted with certain things cough
But going back to the main subject of the essay
I'm not talking about this
to try and get some kind of
sympathy vote from you guys.
Although anything kind or supportive
will not go unappreciated
But the whole point is
that anxiety is more common than you think
and if you've been suffering in silence
or relate to anything I've said
or who have let it gradually
build over the years and
spiral out of control like it did for me
Then please, please, please
make an appointment with your local general practitioner
and just talk about it
I know people who have dealt with anxiety
just by talking to people about it
You don't need to suffer alone
there are plenty of us out there
Seeing as anxiety is caused by
your body overproducing adrenaline
as soon as I saw the doctor
and explained my situation
he prescribed me with some tablets that lower the adrenaline output
and I've felt, like, really good ever since.
I know this has been quite a serious topic
but I didn't think wacky lines
and jokes left and right
would be suitable
for the subject matter
This has been on my chest
for a long, long time
So I'm glad I've finally got it out there
I hope this has been helpful,
interesting or eye opening for you
and good luck to all of you out there
who are dealing with similar issues.

See you soon.

Bye.

It was considered expedient
To change the unit of measure
To change scale,
To make redundant all
That could be wasted,
Naturally.

Internal communications
Will contrive suitable verbs
To conceal the brutality of profit
To provide surety as required
To the senior management team
As for the rest:

To those whose insecurities
Are relied upon, whose
Middles have expanded, aged
Receded, human resources
Will issue notice of packages
And opportunities of relocation.

The restructure will require
The recruitment of some
Of the hungry young;
Fresh graduates on the newly
Introduced basic scales.
What of your work you enquire?

Those value added strategies
Of differentiation
Of corporate responsibilities,
Family friendly policies?
In this age of austerity
Such approaches, old man,

Are as relevant as a hard drive,
Or hard copy, this is a cloud
Sourced post-crunch
Twitterverse we inhabit,
This is a time for new prospects
This is cloud cuckoo land.

Between
“Once upon a time”
And
“Happily ever after”
There’s a perfect adventure
You took for granted

I first cried
where freshness itself struggled
to breathe. Outside
the Ganges,
asthmatic,
began to cower
back in fear, in
disgust, in
disease, browning
like the discarded banana peels
on the roadside below.

I first cried
in a dirt town
where kings and queens
drank to grass avenues
and swaying music in the realms
of history books.

I first cried
where those books
aged quietly
in forgotten rooms.

I first cried
where the streets bled
out crumpling homes and
cardboard stores with misspelt names,
spilling children in dust dresses
and hair matted
into rust pieces.

I first cried
where those children hung
babies on their arms
like my mother swung
her handbag, a flag
of Valentino, while stumbling on
crushed cans and dog ****
and foetid mud-water
on the way to the dentist.
And the children cried
out snot, their arms
perpetually reaching
for a rupee
from the traffic.

I first cried
where white-lit department stores
sprouted in defiant sanitation
between eczema-covered apartment blocks
in which washing lines drooped
and parking was always a problem.

I first cried
where many gods and goddesses
resided on the footpaths
decked in glitter
and cloths of rouge
as old men with
skin weathered into mottled
leather shook
beneath sheets of jute
on the roadside below
and offered tiny flames
to their gods
as morning bellowed and their coughs
grew worse.

I first cried
where stareless men burnt
their fingers
on the Chinese noodles with too much
chilli powder
they cooked and fried and cooked
for those who never saw them
but to haggle over a ten
rupee note,
on the roadside,
on every corner.

I first cried
as thread-blanketed teenage girls
with wrinkled faces
squatted amongst cows
in the middles of roads,
chanting prices, in voices
full of tar,
of the mound of peas
they were selling for that week.

I come every year.

And I'm ashamed to say
I'll never live here
but in my verses
because I can't stand the smell
of the place where I was born.

I first cried

here.
I first cried here.

Pinky promises
and praying to goddesses
a picture of your friends on the sagging shelf
and I know I love you
so much more than you could ever,
ever love yourself.
We plucked wild bluebells
and got sick in the winter-time breeze
I'll pick you up
when you fall down
I'll patch up the scrapes on your knees.

Sugar coated candy
turned into your mother's brandy
still over indulged
but I will be here
year after year
you'll always have someone to hold.
Can't leave you out in the cold
no matter how angry you can be.
Takeout boxes,
a key in your locks and
always a place for me in your coral sheets
we roam the city in outfits too tight
we hold hands in the streets.

Only a fool
when I'm in your room, lose our cool
laughing as our middles concave
with your hand in mine
I've always felt so brave.
We were girls together
and that will never change.

porcupine, devil's receptionist,
your splinters are aching again.
manifested figure, you are alien.
more so are your actions.

I am thoroughly impressed
by the displays of your affections
boldly handing them to me,
so rudely beautiful, and my limbs
are too shocked for movement.

each layer within me shifts,
black goes grey, blue goes green,
brown goes red and gold, weeds
become sunflowers, the ground below
us begins to heave, volcanoes splinter
and split down their middles, ridges
of lava gasping for air, bubbling, black to grey to white
to blue and purple fire. sweat, we sweat but we don't catch flame.
sweat, and I am liquid at last.

sweet,
considering possibilities,
shuffling my vocabulary like cards in a deck,
preparing myself for the most difficult game life could offer,
preparing myself in tender fragments of flaky crystal.
words become thin glass in my mind, and I
begin to feel the cuts in my throat, 
climbing up my tongue trying to create some movement,
even if that movement is pain.

movement has suddenly shook my bones out of their choke hold.
I gasp for air, grasp on to what you hold out.
your outline against my insides at last, your third eye cracked open
and I see behind and through the meshing that takes place. I see so
much that I am blind, torn with black and white.

I close my eyes with good intention:
I am black.
more dark than thorn roofed ships,
smashing against waves made of shadow.
I open my eyes with impression and find you white.
more white than the ghosts in my bones,
winter shivers back with thoughts of you.
I close my eyes with good intention.

I tire more and more
my head weighs down
with all the color.
I want no more black or white.

you tire more and more
your head weighed down
by holding your colors in.

we become tectonic
and all goes grey.

ashes of what we felt that day
aches of what we did

morning reaches my empty lids,
you've taken all I could say with
your silence. a plague. a bartenders keep.
I saw you again before the moon,
I even saw you standing beneath it's reflection,
staring.

It's a bad day when you can't get Celene Dion out of your head
Titanic was good
It was not that good

I found a dried flower
Buried in Leviticus of my sort of grandma's bible
She must have liked that part
The only quote about Leviticus I've read on the internet is about stoning gay people
I hope she didn't like it that much

I saw a bagel get made
No one has the job of eating the middles out
I'm 23, this was a let down
I still like bagels a lot

I tacked the dry flower on my wall
Above the reminder that it's $3 a day to swim at the public pool in the mornings
I hope it's not a homophobic flower
I hid the bible behind Lauren Conrad's book
Lauren Conrad's book embarrasses me less

My sort of grandma
Is only sort of alive
I often feel that way

I feel most alive while dreaming of the impossible
Realistic dreams lead to disappointment
Outlandish dreams leave little 'remember when’s’'
No one hates themselves for not becoming an astronaut
A lot of people hate themselves for not losing 20lbs

Friendships are often measured in favors
That is all
That was not all
Favors are measured in sacrifices
Favors are not measured in reward

Today is a reflection of not dying yesterday
There is a one in seven chance that today is Friday
And it is imperative that we get down on Friday
Because the anticipation for this weekend is very high
If today is Monday all of that is no longer relevant to our conversation

I am losing weight
As I lose weight more and more fat girls hit on me
I do not like this as much as what I was imagining would happen

I have learned that being funny **** cool
Like I am becoming
Does not mean hot girls will hit on me
It means they will actually think about it before saying no

To supplement my soon to be chiseled physic
I am learning a Jack Johnson song on guitar
This worked for an acquaintance in 2006
Maybe I should learn Colbie Callait instead

The world would be better if schools had better teachers
The world would also be better if high school seniors paid attention to the teachers they already have
I don't know which one is easier to fix

My past seems rosier than my future
Except in the case of February 16th 2007
And now February 16th 2012

Corner buildings and modern light fixtures are my favorite aesthetics
My favorite building has neither of those features
Those features are not that awesome

Dead flowers smell like dead things
To combat this I spray cologne on my grandma's flower
I have never been to a funeral
I wonder if they febreeze the dead people
Or maybe they use Chanel No. 5
This is something I would like to learn more about

“I ripped these out of your symbol and they turned into paper.”
The words that once read new breath into me now fall just short. They
sink and sag across the pages, lost and wandering without a spine to keep them upright.
Does the value of that symbol become so diminished then? Why, yes.
Yes, it does.
The papers that flutter presently across my floorboards belong nowhere now. The pages might as well be empty.
Without “before”s and “after”s to them, every startling sentence and promising phrase holds nary a glance of the eye.
Listless, meaningless, and inconclusive.
Such a pity.

If I stopped writing I'm pretty sure
my cells would shrivel up and the notions
aforementioned in wishy-washy stanzas
pertaining to the deceptive romantics
would become gold poison seeking to
destroy their maker

-cj

The scent of metal, a metallic vibration, a slam
A cushion, disturbed by many tragedies, this cushion, I know has stories
A circle that steers these stories’ beginnings, middles and ends
Oh, the ends are the best from the narrator’s view
The narrator who has control of the steering of the stories
Who knows all the tragedies the cushions have seen,
Has even been the one to orchestrate such a beautiful scene
An unwilling but manipulated snapshot of a wrinkle in life
There’s no point in trying to see out, the glass is too foggy
Symbolic- the characters can’t see what is waiting for them, the other option
It has been steamed up by the narrator who used his circle to steer them to a parking lot
A metallic vibration felt buzzing through their bodies on the cushion
A pang of uncertainty, but manipulation wins…
A slam as the narrator progresses the plot and the glass windows begin to fog
The metal machine, seemingly unmovable and monstrous becomes victim to his heat
To his desire to have the plot progress as he wants it to- every tragedy is the same
Used, and disposed in the most brutal manner
He is serial, predictable
Once the car stops rocking and the cushion has gained another tale
The scent of metal fills the vehicle
But it’s not the smell of the vehicle, just the metal

What if I were to write a book?
Of love lost and found and then lost again
A book of what is to be alone
At last, and not at first

What if I were to write a poem?
One that transcends time and space and time again
A poem of what it is to be lost
And found, at the same time

What if I were to write an essay?
Of middles and endings and middles again
An essay of no beginnings
With no end in sight

Where are the words for such things?
How do I claim such places?
Who am I to say, anyway?

I pressed the red button
Your smile the last thing I saw
I bid you good night
And was left alone with my thoughts

I told you I would write something happy
and you I wish to impress
but what if the only thing I can write about
are the thoughts that run obsessively through my head

I can only write about dreams
that I wish I had
about charming scenarios
where the ending is never sad

about others’s love life
their feelings and pains
I try to get in their head to decipher
what it contains

is it love or lust
that keeps him going
does he really love her
Or it’s fake love that’s showing

my dear sweet sister
says my poems are too gloomy
she asks why can’t i write
of things that are sunny

she asks for joy,
excitement and fun
but how can I write of feelings
I can’t out run

I do feel happiness
I try to explain
but what can I do when
it’s much easier to write about the pain

about heart breaks and sleepless nights
Crying and feeling alone inside
conflicting emotions when I’m feeling low
I just let my tears guide the way in how they flow

but my dear sister and friend of mine
maybe it’s time to have a change of heart
I should think when I feel and seek the good
for its inside me and I only have to find that page in the book

look deeper
than what I thought I knew
and write about how
my dreams come true

Write about friendships family and cake
smiles and laughter road trips and games
find what really drives me the motivation of my heart
and finally write a story that includes every part

Add my smiles,
the way I get up in the mornings,
my love for reading
and a steaming cup of coffee

The pain in my legs,
after a long night cooking
and how sleepless nights are worth it
when you see how big their smiles are looking

Find within myself
stories that are blended
and change the narrative to include
beginnings, middles and endings.

You can't stop the world from turning
If you feel like jumping off
You can't double up your earnings
If your middles gotten soft

You can dream of the solution
But you must act on it as well
Just make sure of what your doing
Cause you can't unring a bell

You can't stop a word that's hateful
Once it's flying through mid air
You can't make a person grateful
If they've never really cared

You can't change the image in the looking glass
Or halt a wave mid swell
A churning ocean is never clear
And you can't unring a bell

You can't start a new beginning
If your at the very  end
Nor untie a knot cinched tight
With only thoughts blown on the wind

You can't promise the world in wonder
And the stars above as well
Then decide at last to take it back
Cause you can't unring a bell

You can't change the law of physics
Or add words to a dried up pen
There's no fourth to your three wishes
And you can't hide behind your name

It's hard to see light if you're too far down
In the digging of your well
Breathing does not mean you're living
And you can't unring a bell

Does a sociopath love?
does the child who pinches the girl sitting next to him in kindergarten?
The tongue tied middles schooler
hey.. uh.. um.. I was like... well.. just wondering... You wanna like maybe... dance or something
the text recipient writing four drafts of his response reading:
what are you doing this Friday night?
The jolt of lightning which rips through his body
a current sent from her through their clutched hands
or the girl who blushes when Prince tall, dark, handsome, and charming
looks her in the eye and smiles
we all stand on the edge of the cliff
waiting to be pushed
praying that they are there when we hit the ground
with a hug, a coffee, and a thick blanket
we all want somebody to love us in the ways we could never love ourselves
so we might be complete

I just feel numb all the time it's like I'm in my body but not really it's like my body is a prison slowly draining me of anything worth speaking of.
Do you ever feel like your body has betrayed you? I have. I do.
Nothing looks the way it sounds and people don't think before they speak anymore. No one cares and nothing matters.
If I go back to that place would she still be there? No.
There's a playground I think about when I want to die and I like to imagine that the happy version of me has lived at that playground ever since she left me but I know she's not there. I killed her and her absence is killing me.
Every ounce of me is stuck in my head and my chest is empty. I think too much and breathe too little and I think I'm going to die.
When the world stops making sense, start making nonsense. You'll never know what that means because I'll never tell.
Endings are harder than middles but the middles still ****.
Goodnight.

He is man

Sometimes soft
Sometimes hard

But always a man who walks like a lion
With generosity of Spirit, lust of  body and fire in his heart.

He hunts with a clever and ambitious mind
For his seed and dreams demand to be sown

So many curious parts, that make up the fullness of a man
Beginnings. Middles. Endings.

Intricate
Fascinating
Perplexing
Sometimes Vexing

But he is made in the image of creation
And there is always beauty in his order and in his chaos

He is man

Late night scribbles
with late night riddles
maybe morning made dribbles
with half thought out middles
whether it's wood you whittle
or a cello you fiddle
it's never too late to jot down those scribbles.

And on the stairs leading up
your foot catches
and once extricated
catches again. Every stair
the same, every step
an effort to lift
your feet, every inch
of the way a journey.
Every stair
indented, marked
the middles pressed down
by thousands of feet
that once were here
and are no more.

blankets laid
like pastry
twirled and
crinkled
made to nestle
precious
heads
in bed of
curled and
covered comfort
buttered

​
wrapped up
little packages
alive and
breathing
​

heaving breaths
of depths
unknown to
waking worlds
through softened
lungs and throats
and mouths
and gooey
molten middles
​

with shield of
fragile sleep
held up
to barricade in
and barricade out
​

as steam floats
gentle warm
and wistful
blissful up
from tender
scalps
​

from dreams
in gold and
chocolate



© 2017 Adelaide Heathfield

Let's go out tonight and in the cold, we'll
Spirit ourselves away until
The sun appears, in little
Nooks and hollowed tree middles.
Let's go out in the dark moonlight
And take these clothes off right
As soon as we step off the edge
Into cold wetness and nearly freeze to death.
The precipice will smudge
When we walk down the sloping blur
To where the water is photoshopped so nicely.
Our throats will no longer be sore
So we will shout some more,
So we will shout some more.

Hopping spritely across the river on rocks
With our hoods on and our knee high socks
We shall transmute into the smallest flock
Of Canada geese.

there is a reason
woman is shaped
with the curves of an hourglass

the shouldered top
in which rests the weight
of threadbare words
covered in the crimson paste on chapped lips

the ever-slimming waist
the hips that hold our hands
with fingers that slip between
our cracked ribs
and pull. tightly. inwards.
to make it harder for that ****** sand
to waterfall through

and the wide feet
with train-track paths behind them
that lead through middles of mountains
fly over valleys of sugarcane and wildflower
and beneath trenches woven deep in the ocean

there is a reason
woman is shaped
with the curves of an hourglass

that pale, fine time
that slips from
the tip of a rough tongue
and through gritted teeth
falls into the hollow bones
of the hips, legs and ankles

at the moment time leaves her
the sand is now full
of chipped mountain rock
sweetened with sugarcane
colored with specks of yellow wildflowers
and salted with kisses from the Atlantic.

The Reader
Experiences Text:
Tastes the corners,
Chews the middles,
Examines the ideas,
Turns them over and over -
Lozenges to be mulled.

Unique to each Reader
The Text must pass
Each Reader's senses:
His eyes,
Her nose,
Their tongues...
And so begins Digestion,
A complicated process producing
pleasant dreams in one,
Nightmares in another.
Soothing sleep for me
Dyspepsia for you.

Ideas have their routes to pass;
The dross is left behind or lost
And what remains is fiber to our souls
(To steal Walt Whitman's term).

Three thin walls and a faux wood grain
This is my home, four hours a day
Turning the page, writing in scribbles
Hundreds of books with tests in the middles
Out on the hour, sit in the sun
Wait for the scheduled break to be done
Back to our desks, writing away
This is my job, four hours a day

I found myself peeling the skin off post it notes
I was lost
You okay they said, like a statement than a question
People get annoyed like I’m adding oil into their drink water
When I sprout about my sadness
Relax, I’m not asking you to hold an anchor
I’m asking you to listen
Happiness is a bridge on fire with no one on it
Sadness is a metal detector through the streets
Depression is when the roof tops, knifes, and middles of bridges
Start being friendly

I’m stealing thumbtacks off walls
And putting the in people’s
Pizzas to teach them
How to swallow sadness

The problem is I like to pretend,
Which is to say I like to fall in love
We would date for a while
And then I would realize
I’m only in love with the story we made and the ***
Which is to say I was looking for poetic material

Like, Teenage poetry is awkward
And Young poetry is selfish
Middle-age poetry is about my ex-wife
Old poetry is boring
Dead or Near-Dead poetry is what we remember
And all poetry is filled with cigarettes stains and mistakes

Life is short. He says
I hand him a cheese grader
And said back
“Make like a slice of parmesan
and go **** yourself”

Life is long for the people who wait

I was on the bridge with the sun high above
Taunting me and pinching the back of my neck
Do It, You *****!
Around me were families
So I decide not to,
And never again;

divided by classes the Knight first
then....the miller interrupts, telling his tale,
and the Virgilian concern of audience is suspended
wandering between the sects, crossing the dividing lines,
and the puzzle gets along quite really uniquely with the sides
not done before matching the middles,
and whether ***** or my lady is used as a nomenclature,
like pitee may mean one  thing to the wealthy aristocracy,
where it also refers to ****** *******, or "*******", and at times
the merchant or the lower class exhibit, depending on your mores,
more subtlety and class.
And I am am and was among the pardoners. And purchased absolution.
And who may hold me accountable , but history?

without nearly mercy the strange brawn of sinuous boughs thickly forested thoughts. wreathing simple futile furious thoughts. wearing sluggish fatty
eyes prepondered coloured and uncoloured (right in their middles) disks
flinty gristle they're black right in the median outside inside upside downside
left and right and left. my heads wearing them and more flush with nose
and just below them it's there and just below it, lips are waiting slightly
parted waiting to guzzle sickly the ruby hard cords on your face your face
is there with lips and eyes and teeth are there on your head and hair to
is coming right out the top of your head where my fingers go amongst their
limber stocks and digging slightly digging into the pale soil of your scalp
AS YOUR TOUGH STIFF HARD FUTILE LIPS ROIL OVER MY
stupid ugly soft lazy lips, over my dumb wonderful bloodied lips