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jonchius Sep 2015
checking potent aftershock
observing seismic anniversary
checking another tremor
resuming constrained writing

annexing hidebound constituents
hugging incoming eschatologies
fighting pervasive insomnia
battling invasive fatigue

damning incompetent fools
awaiting furtive escape
abandoning corporate wasteland
summoning celestial syzygy

detesting spaghetti code
protruding riparian dolphin
establishing unilinear escritoire
glowing cybernetic cynosure

avoiding eternal invisibility
supporting valued customer
performing lexical gymnastics
scrooping notification sounds

restoring usual happiness
glorifying darkwave fanfares
collapsing old relationships
raising ambient awareness

defining wolf people
propagating yesteryear's spectre
achieving hemispheric virality
testing weekend legerity
installing iron curtain

propagating today's spectre

developing niche audiences
transmitting abstract propaganda
disappearing thought experiments
overusing various condiments

double-checking hyper-real emotions
rubbernecking celestial explosions
observing splendid holiday
exploding volcano day

erupting bucolic mountain
disrupting hectic shouting
perfecting suggestive triptychs
checking festive pyrotechnics

drifting across multiverse
regifting glossy paperwork
writing six-lined hexagrams
liking two-toned instagrams

recalling pygmalion sculptures
brawling tatterdemalion cultures
"rambling corporate shill
rattling rapid prosody"
"battling hamburger hill
ambling hundredth library"
"sensing ideological schism
pending guttural neologism"

glowing verdant background
foreshadowing palmyra takedown
developing geopolitical mess
geminating quasi-couplet stress

"hugging cultural diversity
shrugging irrational adversity"

distancing spooky raindrops
avoiding potential burnout
implementing lexical databank
approaching crash-scene sudser

becoming increasingly selective
escaping tyrannical bureaucracy
perpetuating cut-throat capitalism
purchasing contrived happiness
incorporating chance elements
relaxing rigid structures
reheating your retweet

holding theoretical design
smiling beach life
scrutinizing eternal simulation
rushing artificial apothegm
annexing facetious document
freaking creepy centipedes

writing neural structure
congratulating yestreen's warriors
encouraging seatbelt usage
boosting abstract setting
sensing frivolous ochlocracy

keeping hypothetical metropolis
blurring metaphorical æsthetic
scrutinizing computational festival
memorializing towel day

raising six-fingered paw
eternizing fragment schedule
liking subtextual repository
quoting quintessential quidnunc

finding ideological style
disregarding their slovenliness
planning spatial factoid
spinning glacial ellipsoids

enjoying eternal spreadsheet
deleting repetitive tweet
awaiting festival lineup
gainsaying unethical startups

observing turgid experiment
contemplating conniving contrivances
enjoying dynamic project
dropping two-toned simulation
finding harmonic space
finalizing warring cavaliers

detecting enigmatic apathy
retrieving potential exchange
meddling middling muddling
baking hypnagogic pizza

spinning galactic dinosaur
building trans-pacific partnership
finishing theoretical mission
giggling agog googlers

crashing atypical tessellation
cherishing precious hexagons
proliferating western lottery
cretaceousing funkaholic skeletor

blurring turgid gallery
cancelling tsunami warnings
extemporizing incoherent neologisms
transmitting harmonic rave

gliding black hawks
hiding quacked ducks
archiving animated light
googling moonbow imagery

ignoring relatable messages
observing unfinished world
generating optional content
continuing exponential growth
May 2015
Francie Lynch Jul 2014
The world is losing
Gravity,
But no one can escape,
We're hurtling on our petrie dish
In a gel that seals our fate;
Gravitating
Towards black holes;
They're closer than you think.

In China
There's a wall of dust,
Seen clear from outer space;
Our living waters die
In a legacy of disgrace.
We're citizens
Wearing masks;
We should hide our faces,
But we're running daily tasks.
We're fossils burning
Fossil fuels
Found in cremation gas.

The amphibians
Are on the fringe;
Whales can't sound,
They run aground.
It's an environmental slaughter.

Our world has lost
Some gravity.
We need to plant our feet,
But  charnel fires
And greenhouse gas
Have hastened our retreat.
Migrating birds lose sense of time,
Confused by the lights.
The morning dove coos at night,
The nightingale at dawn;
We're like
New turtles muddling,
Under lost starlight.
We must grasp
The gravity
Of burning
Burning  light.
Edit, repost.
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2019
~for the one who will know it was written for her~

muddy verb and adjective,
muddling and muddled

have you ever seen a pas de deux/deluxe,
one dancer, proscriptive,
and her partner, prescriptive?

the stage, of course,
exactly the width of your head,
from ear to shining ear

this couple o’muses dance en concert,
though their very natures are anti-logarithmic,
the value of their exponential activity is a
descriptive nomenclature

I am overly abstruse this Saturday morn,
mushing mathematics and ballet, verbal word games
as is my wont wanted,
everyone sleeping while I rise at 6am,
doing ablutions, seeking absolution,
pulling weeds from our respective gardens,
answering old friends I have yet to meet,
to whom I answer,
“still here, though long time no see,”
which is of course hysterical funny, inherently contradictory,
as the brain grasps well my
Red and Dead Sea brain cells, a splitting motif

muddling and muddled,
proscribed from getting on transport,
to deliver to you the proper healing prescriptive,
as if I had in my possess to diagnosis and correctly assess

even though one of my many passport names,
a requirement, to visit,
this inter-netting ether, that both combines and separates,
permits me safe passage,
over the historical lineage of borderlines of land and sea,
to deliver this message,
to you
woman

I am here, waiting patiently, though long time no see like ever,
absentia, dementia, both self-censure,
here, then, my cadenza,
dedicated solely soulfully for you,
as the sabbath sun rises over the East River,
saying, laughing unto me,
“still here, though long time no see,”
for though I cannot look upon her, my sun, my sun,
yet she, as well, is everywhere-inside of me,
warmly illuminating my muddled mind
March 23, 2019
by the East River sunrise
7:14am
The concept of a whole person is an enigma that evolves within a culture . Often it is not a transitive concept and can only be conjuncted within it's social setting . In fact the realities of social fragmentation make most all concepts of a whole person universally inapplicable .

Literature is often a good tool for developing an understanding of a culture and it's inclinations . In a cultures folk tales , plays , and fictions you find authors making a deliberate attempt to portray the basic dramas of their society .

Greek myths are a vivid example of this ; they are literally frought with characterizations . In their development these multitudes of characters weave into an elaborate tapestry that depicts the developing Greek moral ethic . The intricasies of the analogous content are brought across in a multitude of forms . Names were very important and a major force in clarifying the concepts being presented . The multitudes of characters portray a multifaceted understanding of the human psyche . The chauvinistic banality of their culture and it's gods is graphically depicted against the backdrop of their developing ethics .

It is difficult for a modern man to construct a vision of a whole person from a strictly ancient Greek point of view . The obvious anachronisms envolved make such an attempt partially ludicrous . Contrarily the bulk of their characterization paints a vivid picture of their primative social state .

Of course while the Greeks were muddling through the multicolored quagmire of human frailty many societies where learning to master the powers they had developed through centuries of strict adherence to religious and social mores . The development of their socially biased realities make many Greek nuances seem decadent anachronism . Rather than deitizing their baser natures as the Greeks had thay had learned to master them and turned to new paths to clarity . Spiritual pragmatism and lack of comunication nullified the social attributes of many of these extrapolations on positive orientation .

Jung preaches that man has an innate need to assimilate all external sensory perceptions . I find this untrue . In fact I find it self abortive . Human beings have a complexity factor that is individual and must be protected from overload ; man's moral ethic is a tender and deludable feeling directed by empathy . In the hectic world of modern mass media this tender individuality can become dwarfed by the percieved need to obtain social acceptance . Whole civilizations have become deluded by the flow of their complexities into an outright denial of their moral ethics .

I find this partially estranged condition prominent throughout social history . Children are brought up to respond to a vast realm of presupposed social ideologies and are not allowed to venerate themselves until much of their conscious matrix has been established . This of course makes self evasion an easily attainable goal . Sometimes politically speaking the actual goal . The mind satiated by it's social framwork is the ideal tool for a socialistic or tyrannical government .

To me the value of social history lies not in it's application as much as it's illumination . All the fragmented pockets of human coalescence should instill an understanding of man's posibility factors . Man's inability to supersede his developing anachronism may well be the cause of his annihilation .

Modern man has learned how to use tact in instilling the acceptable social mores . Solviet psychiatrists have spent years on perfecting these social sublimations ; children learn how to make their personalities conform to the accepted mean . I think that the true nature of a well rounded being lies in an ability to reject the fragmental nature of these instilled mores and develop a more universally acceptable social orientation . Does the son of a ku klux **** member have to hate blacks ? The obvious answer is no ; contrarily socially acceptable orientation is a product of environment . This is the pitfall of man's evolution as a race ; his inability to rise above the quandary of his immediate surroundings with all of their overwhelming complexities and demands to become a cognizant and empathetic being . There in lie the keys to his future .

This does not necessarily define the well rounded person . A well rounded person must be able to cope with his immediate surroundings withoutan abject denial of his empathetic being .

I believe well roundedness lies in thoughtful orientation and a well centered understanding of self . One need not be socially active as long as they are thoughtfully cognizant . Obey the golden rule ; you can not allow your objective orientation to supersede your subjective empathy . You can't allow yourself to be thwarted or overcome by your peers into being something they might want to make you because temptation may overwhelm them and you will become a transient tool in their succession .
You brothers, who are mine,
Poor people, near and far,
Longing for every star,
Dream of relief from pain,
You, stumbling dumb
At night, as pale stars break,
Lift your thin hands for some
Hope, and suffer, and wake,
Poor muddling commonplace,
You sailors who must live
Unstarred by hopelessness,
We share a single face.
Give me my welcome back.
Francie Lynch Apr 2016
The world is losing
Gravity,
But no one can escape,
We're hurtling on our petrie dish
In a gel that seals our fate;
Gravitating
Towards black holes;
They're closer than you think.

In China
There's a wall of dust,
Seen clear from outer space;
Our living waters die
In a legacy of disgrace.
We're citizens
Wearing masks;
We should hide our faces,
But we're running daily tasks.
We're fossils burning
Fossil fuels
Found in cremation gas.

The amphibians
Are on the fringe;
Whales can't sound,
They run aground.
It's an environmental slaughter.

Our world has lost
Some gravity.
We need to plant our feet,
But  charnel fires
And greenhouse gas
Have hastened our retreat.
Migrating birds lose sense of time,
Confused by the lights.
The mourning dove coos at night,
The nightingale at dawn;
We're like
New turtles muddling,
Under lost starlight.
We must grasp
The gravity
Of burning
Burning  light.
Repost in honor of Earth Day, April 21st.
Carlo C Gomez May 2021
~
The disruptor,
whether digital or analog,
strikes the bell,

bioengineered automaton
—a manufactured life form
given little agency or dimension,

mnemonic to the finitude of life,
and subtle muddling of humankind's
supposed moral transcendence.

~
Michael Ryan Apr 2015
When is your birthday
I only wonder when so I can wish you the best--
each  year you may not ask me to show up at your door,
but I will gladly surprise you with a cupcake and a smile.
Maybe a card that randomly says way too many things;
muddling the message that I really was trying to say, you are special.

Not only today is your day, but today is more your day than anyone else--
That while I celebrate when you came to life,
I also celebrate your struggles and I celebrate your victories.
Cheering, screaming, and chanting for the public to know, today, is yours!

I will gladly burn down any building with the candles from your cupcake--
Because you are getting older, but **** it, it's tradition.
I have to pack that cupcake with 24 candles,
even though they stopped looking good at 16,
I could have gotten smaller ones, but I keep buying the same pack every year.

No matter who you are, I will bring the cupcakes--
just accept that while I attempt to ****** you with diabetes
I'll also be showing you to the whole world around us,
so don't be shy, because it'll only give me more ideas for next year.
When people tell me that it's their birthday or it's going to be soon.  I just plan things for them because it's such an important day.  I want people to know that they matter and their birthday is an amazing day to do so!
Are your goals incentive
To get you through your life
Is the end result a good one
Can you share it with your wife
Is it worth all of the struggling
To put up with the muddling
Of folks you just abhore
Of folks you'd soon ignore

Are your children on the sidelines
While you work away your years
Are they just collateral damage
As you work on through your fears
Do you ever think you'r losing them
That you may just be abusing them
Those children there
Show them you really care

Is it time to take a back seat
As you ride upon lifes train
Time to hand over the driving
Or are you to proud to abstain
Do you want to end up all alone
Go and throw the dog a bone
You're almost there
Nobody really cares

Take a step and join them
They're the ones you should support
Give up all the overtime
Or you'll end up in court
A lonely, hopeless businessman
Who always does the best he can
All alone
There's nobody left at home

Share your time with work and family
As you make your way along
Don't forget to hear the music
Don't forget to sing  the songs
It happens so **** easily
You only need to look at me
I stepped back
After a heart attack

Get priorities in order
don't forget just how to play
Don't put it on a bucket list
Go out and start today
The earlier you leave the race
The longer you'll be in this space
Come on...begin
The water's fine...now please jump in.
Jason R Michie Apr 2021
You enchanted the moon, didn't you?
Maybe you promised her a star or two?
She hunts me with Orion's bow, pacing behind shadowed cloud,
My celestial stalker ridin' low, wanly wrapped in misty shroud.


She whispers stark, yet soft as a breeze-blown tune,
Press on, my pet. You've done so well, we'll sleep again soon.
But we've a fortnight to go if we're to come full circle by month's end.
So many dreams still to sow...To reap those lupine howls once again.


Serenity to insanity, delirious depravity to moon-magicked majesty,
A cosmic clockwork cycle muddling my mind with lunar gravity.
She pushes me to frenetic furies then pulls me to solstice solace,
She masters tides in her caprice, what hope has a malcontent apprentice?
© 04/04/21 Jason R. Michie All Rights Reserved

There's a bit of the moon in everything I say and do,
I shouldn't be surprised she reminds me of you.

Just an interesting note: I was inspired to write this last night as I was watching the moon from the window at my desk.  Today, I was wondering if the moon was actually anywhere near Orion...

Turns out Orion is just to the east, but the moon was in the house of Libra when I wrote this, which is friggin cool.  :p
Izlecan Jul 2019
Attires of a closer regime,
Closed in on the muddling assets
of a light,
Flickering.
On a dead end street,
Through a meandering
There’s an eventful animus.
Past eleven,
P.M.
“To lobby is to redeem,
Apparently(!)
For I sin and repeatedly sin.”
Only by 1 and only through one
Single flock of wind-blown sediment,
man acknowledges life and
It’s dreadful stripe,
Laid upon a landscape;
Full of faux images of random schemes.
Well, there the ongoingness goes
Of moments that are no way chronologic
Where one plaster over another
Seems like a perfect match.
When the clock strikes to 3
A.M
Merely a sigh passes along,
Yet another minute,
On the cold street
The light knows no acuity at all.
It means for another tick,
Yet does not wait for the tock;
Tick-tock(!)
Tick-tock.
There lies 3 hour worth concurrence,
Confronted for each tock, for half a minute,
But only the seconds pass.
And with each skip that matters,
and only that matters nevertheless,
The clock goes back to
Eleven
P.M.
There(!) the gutter calls for another drink,
For another trace
On another strike.
However mournfully,
Escort of a humanly maze,
The muddling sort,
Births confusion.
The attires seem gone by now.
The heaves; quite impeccable,
The path adopts another protest,
For a much tackled breathing
Time overlaps,dreamily,
On a spectrum,
Laying as a single faceted imposture;
Mocking a postering of shed upon the pavement.
For another street that seemingly differs;
where the marching will always depend
(Regardless)
Solely on the counts of seconds
By the potency of motives
That merges as to defy
The years accounted
On the flesh and bone.
Now there goes another strike,
Audible over the plane
And
It carries on as
“To lobby is to redeem
For I sin
And sin
And sin
On a 3-hour worth strike,
Starting at 11
P.M,
Over another man’s bearing.”
Philipp K J Jan 2019
If this vast azure emptiness can prove
An aghast endless vacuum measure
Take it for granted, research process sure
It will fuel your thought resources, true.

Mining specks and dots in deep space treasures
Boundless designs shine assigning pleasures
Unfurl within mind in gaseous beams
Overflowing the banks of conscious streams
Filling the utmost sanctum with soft skills
Milling vacuum with colorful quills
Calming the pulses with embracing lulls
Warming all lives with fundamental pulls
Creating a sense of duo, I and you
Love and dislikes and points of view.
Feeling satiety in charity
Finding synergy in activity.
Minting amity in society
keeps you young aged muddling in daring dreams
Deeply engage you cuddling realms supreme.

So what? if this vast thought mine be blanked out
Will the ghost mute vacuum follow suit?
If sense aides guide a slow downward exit
And mind bids the fairy lids to close it
Will the sun bewail, bemoan and eclipse?
Or will the same smile prevail on red-lips?
If souls sunset in seamless sea of mind
Will lights spill out; team up to stay behind?
To form anew a fresh long microwave
To indent a start with a soul suave
A new spectrum to perceive the forces
For the soul that constantly resources
That differently formats transceiver courses
The energy that cannot be destroyed
But that which can be candidly portrayed
On a vast emptiness fluidly stolid
On a continuum vividly solid
On a clean canvas without dimensions
In a brave new world that cannot mention
A name which is beyond comprehension
A frame that doesn't fall on known convention.
Laura Wall Nov 2012
Shrugging your words
You left, racing away on your bike
While your curfew chased you down the road

Gone in the blink of an
Eye,
And often I wonder
Why?

Semi-tragic chords
Mixed with your words
Build harsh, dissonant sounds…
Words that often assured me
In times of doubt and misfortune,
Such that plagues me now,
Muddling my words…

No entiendo
Your intentions
No entiendo
brandychanning Aug 2024
it had better be
the best
of me

want to go out
kickin’ & screamin’
with words that rip
those ***** bandages
holding us together,
rip’em with more than the
merest passing ounce of
a simplistic
ouch

poetry,
a sun reflector of
the daily of living, you’re up,
then floor crawling,
not for the first time,
and most likely,
you
never saw the sucker-
sunburn-(pow)-punch
hitting you from behind

the muddling of memories,
them, that can weep and sweep
you into comfort, sustained,
by the knowing at that exact
moment, I,
gave you
the best of me

no joke;
yeah I’m young(ish),
partied hard, fell hard-in love.
only to be busted opened up,
like too many else…nothing
there to write home about,
but to write a poem that
survives in someone else’s
heart, that would be miraculous,
as grand as the grand things
and truly great people I know,

but hello, poets,
this promise, for real

but David Foster, et.al,
said all this better,
and so melodiously
~~~

“And I think I've gone this far
Because of you
Could be no other love but ours
Will do
No one will ever touch me more
And I only hope that in return
No matter how much we have to learn
I saved the best of me for you”
The Best of Me
Song by David Foster and Olivia Newton-John

So many years gone
Still I remember
How did I ever let my heart believe
In one who never
Gave enough to me
And so many years gone
Love that was so wrong
And I can't forget the way
It used to be
And how you changed the touch
Of love for me
You were my one more chance
I never thought I'd find
You were the one romance
I've always known in my mind
No one will ever touch me more
And I only hope that in return
I might have saved the best of me
For you
And we'll have no ending
If we can hold on
And I think I've gone this far
Because of you
Could be no other love but ours
Will do
No one will ever touch me more
And I only hope that in return
No matter how much we have to learn
I saved the best of me for you
Cooper H Oct 2015
Muddy Muddy Monday

Cold air
Cold glare
Lurking on a window that shields our felt insecurity
Summertime we all come to
We all come together then unravel apart
I am a man for a short bit then I quit
And retire
Retire to regimented round the clock lonesome longing of money and a schedule, scheduled schooling of sorrow
Growing up I,
I'm utterly useless
I’m painfully plain
This become the real repetition
The depiction and depression in the U.S. Of A
It's simple
And simply it's dull and sad it's melancholy at its finest
And this carnivorous cancer grows calculatedly sneaking steadily and processing with prowess
And Lexus lingers after Lexus near our neighborhood of suburban sadness,
Sorrowful slumps stuck in sand
Succumbing to ******* the life out of myself muddling through murky days
And this depressive digression into normal no-thing-ness that does not know nothing
But private school privilege pressuring me till I press my heart and it pops
Mundane money Monday murdering my mind mother and might
Monday each day
Becoming Monday
My mothering Monday
My absent adolescence
Chuck Jul 2013
Even the best mothers muddle
Some are just more subtle
Than the others who stew up
Emotional storms with every cup
Of tea they poor and sip
Not a loving word drips from the lip
How dare they conceive
There are those who believe
There should be a test
To have the job that's the best
My mother McNaughton
Has never forgotten
What it means
To love all fourteen
Of her tumultuous brood
For she is shrewd
And knows what it takes to be
For she is keen to see
A muddling mother
Must be an advocate lover
No matter what
A kiss or a kick in the ****
To let her children know
Which way they should go
The is no need for insurrection
Or for the pursuit of perfection
Just love and cuddle
It is okay mother to muddle
For my mother and my poetry mother, Mamma Mae, who inspired this poem by her humility.
River boats float along,
up and down
from side to side,
Putney to
Rotherhithe

all this
stems from the Thames
the arterial tree

for the sailor in me the Thames will do
on a flat bottomed barge
muddling through to
St Katherine's and Tobacco dock, to
Tower bridge and make a stop

Ferries and Wherries and
waterways
days on the Thames

making friends
with the mudlarks, the spivs
the preachers, the sharks
all parts of the stem
a branch of the tree

life is for me from
the Thames to the sea.
Thomas Popp Apr 2012
I ask myself, "What is lacking?"
as vanity chokes the answer,
Forced to admit that I am perfect,
Perfect for myself and only in mine eyes.

I see now,
See clear as beautiful Narcissus.
While virtue pools around me,
I stare back into my limpid eyes.

A ripple tears across the surface,
Muddling what a moment ago was so clear.
Imperfection in the smallest of measures.
Oh how I hold that moment dear.
Jim Davis Oct 2018
Aleksandr Pushkin

The Poet
1827
While still Apollo isn’t demanding
Bard at the sacred sacrifice,
Through troubles of the worldly muddling
He wretchedly and blindly shuffles;
His holly lyre is quite silent;
His soul’s in the sleeping, soft,
And mid the dwarves of the world-giant,
He, perhaps, is the shortest dwarf.

But when a word of god’s commands,
Touches his ear, always attentive,
It starts – the heart of the Bard native –
As a waked eagle ever starts.
He’s sad in earthly frolics, idle,
Avoids folks’ gossips, always spread,
At feet of the all-peoples’ idol
He does not bend his proud head;
He runs – the wild, severe, stunned,
Full of confusion, full of noise –
To the deserted waters’ shores,
To woods, widespread and humming loud…  


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, November 13, 2003
Pushkin is not listed under the Classics tab here in HP, thus I am posting this from https://www.poetryloverspage.com/yevgeny/pushkin/poet.html
Kush Jun 2016
I would crush the guilty like ants under my boot
I would build monuments of their sins and watch evil legacies tailspin
I have had enough of their moral muddling and murderous marauding
No more innocent blood will be shed, not on my world
War will be a fable told to children before bedtime
Those with hate in their hearts would have them forcefully removed
Those that have worked and toiled in pain will be given rest and reparation
Empathy will be the currency most desired and dispensed

I would seat the deserving upon crystal thrones and indulge their hope
I would slit the throats of those that speak violence and scatter their flesh
I have no desire for solace until all have received their karmic doses
Fear is an instrument of weakness, a **** fit for vermin, not my society
I'll make a great scale within my mind and weigh deeds done
Good people deserve more than the flimsy vestiges of past charity
They will see my face and recognize that swift justice is the only solution
They will see an acceptance of death if corruption overtakes my spirit

I would raise the slaves and groom them into kings
I would turn their ancestors’ sweat into red wine and diamond rings
I would lift their chins up to the limitless sky
To infinite empires waiting to be built
This world?
This galaxy?
Ha!
The entire universe will be a reflection of my design
Aspen Apr 2015
everything's gone to hell but
i'm still clinging on to the hope
that i will wake up one morning,
finally feeling at peace,
and turn everything around.
but, until then, i'm muddling
through the storms and
crawling through the barbed
wires and that's okay with
me because i know this, like
everything else, will pass.
in time.
shrinking violet Jun 2016
You come home from a busy day in the city.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all spent with “friends” happy to be in your company.
"How are you doing?"
"It's been so long."
"I'm glad you could meet!"
Things go swimmingly.
Conversations open with smiles, flow with laughter and gossip, and end with XOXO in live form.
"Let's do this again sometime."
"Hopefully I'll see you again soon."
"Take care."
You walk back home to your apartment, calling your best friend on the way, telling her about the movie you saw today so you don't feel so alone on the 12-block trek back to your apartment.
You feel sorry for everyone walking past you who didn't watch the latest indie dark comedy you watched yet because you're giving the entire plot line away.
The journey becomes blurred and finally you arrive at your door, and you hang up and get inside.
Your father is home, getting ready to go out and do whatever it is adults do on the Upper East Side at night.
He leaves and you spend hours texting your best friend, preemptively looking at wedding dresses online, listening as she devises her perfect “four-year marriage plan.”
You just recently broke up with your partner and have no plans.
You give another friend at home a call and rant about passion and justice and other big ideas muddling in your brain.
You send peripheral texts to the friends you saw earlier today, thanking them for their company and solidifying plans made in conversation.
To anyone observing these private moments, it is clear to see you are more than connected. You are more than cared about. You are more than loved.
Except you can’t even fathom such observations in your own mind.
And when you hang up the phone, when the goodnight messages are exchanged, when your father comes home, and the lights turn out, you feel alone.
Within these moments, you are a prisoner to your own fears and insecurities--your biggest fear being the Silence, which forces you to face them all.
Your face crumples.
You analyze every mistake, every regret, every misstep of the day.
You regret all the plans you made.
You don't need to convince yourself you're unlovable-- you believe it already.
Then you begin to think of all the friendships you ****** up on, the things people didn't say and the people that weren't there.
You imagine only negative space.
In sorrowful attempts to cheer yourself up, you repeat one of your mantras in your head.
"Nobody's perfect, we are all changing, nothing is constant"
Until unwanted arguments dispute these mantras on command, shooting down every ounce of light in your dark, muddied thoughts.

It's nights like these where suicide might sound like a good idea.

Then you wonder when the self-inflicted mind wounds will end, if ever. You wonder if you'll ever have the strength for light again. You wonder if you could ever experience joy again without pain. Most of all, you wonder what particular culmination of events led you to become this way.

The only thing that keeps you going is the hope that everything will slowly get better, and one day, things will be ok again just as easily as they went awry.

In the mean time, you watch your phone light up from notifications on the Selfie you posted on Instagram earlier, before you started crying. The likes give you just enough shallow reassurance that you are enough for some people--even if only aesthetically-- and this fact gives you just enough solace for you to finally close your eyes.

2:53 am.
CW: suicide, depression, social anxiety
Brynn Louise Dec 2014
They burn in my bones.
They course through my veins.
They eat at my stomach.

Each and every one of my fears.

This is my life now,
All shrouded in panic.
Picking away at what sanity is left.

Muddling my brain.
Sharpening my reactions.
Piercing through my eyes.

Each and every one of my fears.

My world is nothing
Except a whole lot of confusion,
As to why the world isn't collapsed.
Tally Knighte Jan 2015
Sometimes, I look at you and I can't speak.
Once in a while, it's because I'm marveling
At what a work of art you are.
Now and again, it's because
I want to hold your hand.
Occasionally, it's because I want
To feel your arm around me.
And once or twice, it's because
I want to kiss you.
Mostly though, it's because
I start to feel like I'm dying.

There's something that stabs into me,
Twisting my heart
And muddling my mind.
That's usually due to a couple of things.
One: I miss you more than I can explain.
Or two: you forgot about me.
Sometimes it's both.

I know you never really forget about me,
But it feels that way.
We're sitting five feet apart
And you don't look my way once.
I challenge myself not to look at you for a minute,
Then two or three, four or five.
Because every time I glance your way,
You're laughing at something someone else said.
Another person made you smile.
You're so wrapped up in other people
That I slip your mind.

And that's totally normal.
It's to be expected.
I know it's weird,
And it's probably wrong,
But I think about you all the time.
I wonder what you're doing
And how you feel.
I hope that you're doing okay,
And that you're thinking about me.

Sometimes when I get upset
I want to see you so badly.
Want to talk to you,
Hear you say my name.
Hear you say that it'll be okay.
That always helps.
To feel your hand on my shoulder
Or even better,
To find myself wrapped in a hug.
You have the power to make things better.

You matter to me a lot,
And I know you so well.
There's always a joke to be made,
Or a smile to be shared between us.
Those times are the best.
But then, sometimes
I look at you and I can't speak.
JoJo Nguyen May 2016
I'm interlacing with Lehman
again what does
that mean I
don't know but maybe
the answer connects Dean
with Ella and
him with us in Film
on TV through VR
singing Broadway Medleys
in a cool Grandfather's wobble
in a crystal Voice
like Mom's clarion call
a silver thread
running through our dull
tapestry I'm mixing
metaphors
muddling music
weaving songs before work
before heatmaps
Seurat R packages
multicolored modality
in higher dimension
again what does
that mean I
don't know but maybe
we just keep interlacing
Nabs Dec 2015
By : Nabs

At dusk, I woke up to find that my whole body alight with pain
From the very tip of my hair
To the very tip of my toe
A pain that struck me deep as it is rooted in me

My head feels like it is not my own
Where my thought are filled with images
Where they took every single memories
Just to replay it over and over again

Although it is some specific memories that they play

( I should have known it was you)

They are images of you
Either the way your eyes disperse the light
Glinting with rainbows as you laugh
Or the tingling of your voice when you speak

Or the little quirks that you have
How you scratch your head when you're confused
Or how you tighten your fist and hold it close to you when you are in anger
Or how you look pained every time someone mention your father

Even my subconsciousness was not safe from you
How in the nights you seep into my dream
And how my mind seem to speak your name with reverence
As if you are a saint and i am a sinner begging for forgiveness

Not to mention
My head feels like it know you more that I know my self
How my consciousness remember every single way your body move
How you react
How you never seem to notice how breath taking you are

You do take my breath away, you know
You make lungs constrict
My throat sore and my windpipes clogs
My chest ache

Just from seeing you brush a stray strand out of your face

( No wonder I always choke)

I know now that you are poisonous
Because often you made my mind sluggish
How you made my tongue numb
Struggling to just say something

I feel like I could die from just being in your presence

Some how, I wouldn't mind that

You seem to have taken over the control
Of the beating of my heart
It is not mine anymore
You took it from me

And i'll let you do it any day

How do I not realize that you poison me?
That you attacked me

No

I couldn't say attack when I, my self are a part of perpetrating the crime

I let you poison me with your kindness
And I succumb to it
Kindness is very lethal I find
Very potent

You are causing an infection
Spreading across my heart
Making it rot
The stench is cloyingly sweet with a hint of pain

I think I know what poisoned me

You make my heart a bruised little thing
Banging across my rib cage
Sometimes I can feel it to thump so hard
I wonder if there are fractures littering my ribs

It is a miracle I do not get a stroke
With the way my hearth clenches
Every so often just by a single word you said
No matter how un important it is

There is something growing inside my body and I know I am diseased

I'm going to be erratic soon, at the rate this is spreading

The rate this is spreading

Why

I know you planted some seeds inside of me
And how it is growing in my body
The pain is caused by them
How it is thriving alive, and ******* me dry

******* life out of my marrows
Making me prone to bend and break
To bend and beg
For you, I would do it in a heart beat

Why do you do this to me?

You do not intend this for me
As I do not intend to succumb in the first place
But intentions will always be intentions
If we do not manage to realize it

One of my symptoms is butterflies in my stomach
How did the caterpillars get in there?
How did my stomach turned into their cocoon?
It does not feel beautiful, the butterflies in the making

They feel like acid and agitation

Now I am trembling

You make my whole body quake
My bone to ache and shake
It is as if you made them corrode,
Maybe that's why my knees shake just because of you

How it will always tremble
How you make my hands tremors
How psychosomatic it is
And I seemed to caught this sickness right to the bone

Maybe I tremble because you are more than I can handle

You with your kindness
Your attempt to become normal
Your fear of closed space
And how you would unconsciously scratch the silvering wound across your heart

Maybe because yours do not rot, you infected me and rotted mine instead

( There is something wrong with my eyes)

As i said, not only that you have took over my heart you also took over my mind

I seemed to still do not mind

My whole body is trembling
My lips quivering
I feel my eyes are watering
I feel my temperature rising

I feel horrible and yet I do not mind this pain
This high fever I am in
Comfort me some how, even if i know that
if I do not get well soon this might **** me

If I do not get it treated, it will **** me

But I am still hesitant to cure it
I do not want to be diagnosed
I do not want to
I do not want to

I am infected

(There's something trying to get out of my stomach)

I am trembling again
And you saw me trembling
You saw me
You smiled, and a snip could be heard

There are a string broken and it might me my sanity

Why do you deny that there was an earthquake
Why do you always deny that
Why
Why

Why do i still got close to you despite knowing
That the episentrum was you

You are a natural disaster
An epidemic
Spreading disease in your wake
You couldnt help it

No one could help being them self

You know I feel pain all over my body
But sometimes the pain felt so intense
That it renders me numb
How do I still exist in this paradoxes of mine

( I fear my liver have stop trying to purge this toxic away)

You make all my nerve go alight
I feel like i am burning
Ashes, ashes is what left of me
I have nothing left of me

You burned me down

But why do i feel so cold?

Yet, I do not mind
Because even as my heart is aching and in pain
Even if my whole body is black and blue
My body is not mine anymore

That was your betrayal, wasnt it?

(At least i still could bask in your presence)
You made me betray my self
(Such exquisite pain you cause me, i want more)
Why do you keep smiling as if you know nothing?

Maybe you do not know anything

(My legs just gave out and I am on my knees)

The poison is muddling my mind
I am poisoned
I already said that
I am trembling again

The butterflies got out of their cocoon today.

They were beautiful, and red with my blood

I still do not mind

You betray me
You causes pain to me
You poisoned me

I still do not mind

You smiled again today
It was like my medicine
I feel like i am addicted
You smile like you were happy with the way i am

I fumble with words now
There is something wrong with my eye
I cannot see clearly
Everything is blurry and tinted

(You said my eyes were beautiful)

I was happy but now I am sick

Why

My legs and hand do not properly work anymore
I feel like someone just pierce giant big hooks in them
Because i keep being pulled
I keep going back to you

My body is not my own, it is infected

You poison me and then you put parasites didn't you?
I was fine
Did you think your poison was a cure?
I did not have anything wrong with me

I did not
Now i do

( I can feel my mind crashing down, it feels like freedom)

The fever is going up again
My words are hazy
My arms taste sweet
I feel disoriented

Why do you need my to be like this?
Wipe that smile of yours
Wipe it
Please

(Please)

I am addicted to you
Your whole presence
I do not mind
What do i not mind?

I am sick, i am going crazy
You drive me crazy
You infected me and you rot me
I still do not mind

(There are tears dripping down my eyes, it is black)

I do not mind

(My heart just gave out)

I just diagnosed my self today

There is a paper thin difference between hate and love

I think it is the latter

I am such a liar
This was made in span of 3 days.
Its made when I was feeling quite ******.
Ryn Dec 2014
We left on the excuse of
Wanting to listen
To
"Just one song".

But when we arrived at the place
That kept us from the outside
We decided to go ahead and drive

And I've never had a smile so big
I was actually scared
My face might rip

And I could die
Or we could drive off a cliff
Or smoke a laced spliff
It makes no difference to me

As long as you're around
Even if that means muddling through
The week
In our seperate towns
Until one of us can come down
For the weekend.  

And we're too loud
But it's only because we're used
To trying to bridge the distance
With a vocalized insistence

That we'll find a way back
Even if it's back roads and red eyes and runny noses

I know how it goes
And I've chosen to stay
When I would usually take the easy way
I'd be out and gone
But we're leaving together
And with you
I try to do less wrong.

Last night
one more song
Turned into a vulnerable
Sob
And awkward consolation
Turned to snot on my shoulder
And the comfort of
Human warmth.

I would address how we should go forward
But I know it doesn't matter

I'll see you again
And you'll catch my spinning head
And I'll hug you
And hug you
And never get enough

Sweet thing,  
You're the good stuff.


12.20.14 cem
Because you can't have a best friend and not write an awful poem for them. For my sweet sweet girl. You know who you are! (For everyone else this was stream of consciousness you can judge me idc I know it ain't great)
Brent Kincaid Dec 2016
Dyslexia, mixed messages
Everything so confusing
Susceptible to misusing;
A 'B' becomes a 'D' instantaneously
And screws things up simultaneously.

A short trip from insanity to inanity.
Fiscal confuses with physical
Turning laudable into laughable
So quickly eyes can't disguise
Whether one means the skies
Or perhaps one means this guy's.

If read, confusion and contusion
Seem like quibbling over siblings
But things like read and read
Only different when they're said
Take un-signalled turns in the head
And instead come out backward,
Which should be spelled backword.

Muddling and confuddling resides
Issuing thundering broadsides,
Rendering and sundering any
Blundering inadept ineptitudes
Like some kind of garbled beatitudes.
Some take hostile attitudes.

Wheedling and wheeling away
Beetling and saying it wrong;
Maybe a song can be written
And some tongues can be bitten,
Taken aback by words taken back,
As the Raven said "Never more!"
Zulu Samperfas Dec 2013
Deathline, trapped, burdened, crashed, crushed
Locked up for hours muddling thoughts of escape
The sun, the bright freezing sky, dark blue churned up ocean topped with white caps
like moving whipped cream
I dream, from my claustrophobic place
Pressure cooked, mind squished, must I say this again and again
Finish. Burden lifted, fantasy of floating away
must stay, mind locked into treadmill, rolling out producing
breathing stale air, mind in a tunnel, through muddy darkness

— The End —