A lifetime ago, I was younger like you,
before my dreams faded and life was still new.
I wish I knew then, all that I know now,
I wanted our life but didn’t know how.
I settled for less and tried the right things,
and cashed in my soul for all that it brings.
I’ve made my mistakes, like others before,
forgiveness more fleeting, ‘til you closed the door.
Waiting for answers, I went into shock,
you left me no choice but to turn back the clock.
I walk this new path while finding myself,
forgetting our past is best for my health.
As I move along, a decade removed,
my body more fit now to go with my mood.
I realize by now we could have had more,
alone I will see what life has in store.
I so miss the comfort of you every night,
kindness from others, brings love at first sight.
Each new encounter, just gives me a shove,
reminding myself not to fall back in love.
When, where and who will be the right one?
I’ve so much to give, just let it be done.
I may never take them, to become my wife,
but I need embraces to sustain my life.
Addiction exists with drugs and affection,
I’m itching for love at each intersection.
How long must I wait to rip out the sutures?
Pleasure Delayer, indefinite future.

stitches.
a stab taken for healing purposes
proof my being is but dangling on a string.
mental scarring turns out to be more permanent than the ones I gave my wrist.

self-hate, self-doubt, self-destruction
I'm a snake that bites its own tail
donating a venom transfusion into my bloodstream.

staples.
shards of metal punched through my life
in a sad attempt of composure.
running from myself as my life runs away from me
emotional damage runs deeper than any blade could.

self-medicated by the pain
and mistaking poison for a sweet elixir
my world turns upside down in a matter of minutes.

sutures.
a single strand of fiber
responsible for keeping everything sewn together.

I'm a pretty little cross-stitch
patterned to perfection but laced with nightmares and a handful of bad memories.

2 better days
of better ways
too bigger dreams
in better words
to the express
of my renditions
in wish-less missions
to infringe in fantasy
as i write out the years
of fearless tears
and scream
in happiness
and chant
of the blasphemers
laugh
in the murmurs
of drunken
entrepreneurs
admiring
sewer structures
plucking
the sutures
of my missed maneuvers
clueless
in my bruise-less
cutsss
toofwisss
and still strutting my luck
in abrupt
catastrophes
compliant
to the clause
of impunity
to rhyme-less scrutiny
to sooth the dream
for today
bolstering
the blame
of melancholy messiahs
playing pariah
on xbox
they gonna fry ya
through savvy ****** talk
with their mouth on your ****
but their ears on the block
to fulfill the onslaught
of a distraught
goofball
in lock
about to drop
calm
in happy bombs
of debilitating
shock
you cannot
talk
when you are
smiling
you cannot galk
when you are
smiling
violently
happy
with ******
knives
fixed to enrich
the lives
of the many
i have plenty
in the trunk
just bend down
and look
ill blend in the boom
of bass
thump
ding
the second thump
closes the trunk
strap up
with me
be blunt
don't want
a ninja on the run
in the sun
of reputation
1 finger away
from
nation-less
the mostest patientest
lyrifi$t
a bu3ro$hit
to 0bl1terat3
the glUt3nou$
of thy most muTtonest
of ch0ps
i cropp3d
the plopp1ng rainb0ws
of raindrop$
and Stopped  .
thE hoPped up ho0ligaNnry
of my N1njary
in my socks
sometimes i rock
but mostly not
i wont stop
until outlined
in chalk
until the froth
from my lips
blinds me
in trips
crossed
with a 5th
into thine own
obscurity
from the groan
of maturity
and the **** flapping
of insecurity
i try lyrically
to be free
and stop rhyming
at least stop whining
just trying
to do my thing
dost thou heart not sing
when im plowed
within the silver lining
devout
with a little shining
came hither
to where the sliding turned to slithering
delivering
my ministry
of infantry
infamously
into comedy
applauding me
in my idiocy
its daunting
in simplicity
marinade me
in a massacre
or a major disaster
watch me blow my ***
in haughty claims
of clogged
alpha/beta waves
enslaved
to a pre paid card
and charged
for helping a man up
in a corrupt
city of butts
entrusting
my paychecks to the *****
of never was
im riding the short bus
until she blushed
and brushed
the *** from her mouth
im gross
a little weirder than most
i boast
in defeat
i facebook
over tweet
as if there be a choice
as i crumple
the invoice
and rejoice
in knowing
i know nothing
i'm [Esc@ping]

I'd follow you
  To the ends of the earth
I'd sell you my soul
     For what it's worth

A sign for the blind
    And brale for the deaf
You told me you loved me
   & then you left

       Theft!

An OxyMoron
     Stole my heart
Found my sutures
   & picked me apart

A blow to chest
    He rattled my cage
Took my paper heart
  & turned the page

birds alight upon
sutures of a licked-thin night—
tree branch at sunrise.

In west Virginia, they do things different
they don't want to advance too soon
if you don't believe me let me take you
to a west Virginia emergency room

deer hair sutures for stitching you up
then a duct tape bandage on your wound
redneck responses by physicians
doc needs a break to spit in the spittoon

this one is in critical condition
this poor feller has run out of luck
doctor redneck turns to mention
"go get my gun out of my truck"

i'll split my ribcage
to show you how i work
if you promise not to laugh
or look repulsed.
i'm so used to cutting you open and
stretching your very heartstrings
to relieve a little tension
without you even asking
that i can create that incision blindfolded,
but when i need sutures
for a lone rose coloured ****,
i ask and you're gone.
i'm prepared to rip my ribcage apart
but you have to get a grip
of the knotted pulpous mess my organs have become
over decades of neglect
when they erupt from my chest
and sprawl at your feet.

woke up not knowing what time it was, looking toward a sewing machine instead of a clock on my desk, still reeling from hypersexual dreams of celebrities, old friends, fast cars, thunderstorms, video games and social experiments, mutual ******* without contact, floating in a nothingness world of bliss, then, thinking about sewing the right way, with seam allowances, wrong and right sides, and cutting out pizza slices from curves, wondering if my forlorn yellow polka dot shirt with the holes in the yoke would look nice as a giraffe, or if it's still worth mending. shades of marigold and dandelion pouring through my hands, buttons touching down on my great grandmother's old flowered quilt, taking their places over the holes. a needle threaded with delicate string weaves in and out 'round the tears, the negative space, the flaws, closing them up, sutures administered on a long forgotten corpse, breathing life with every stitch. open the curtains and it looks like dusk, though i'm sure it's morning: dark clouds, lightning, mist, fog, grey, gloom; promises of a storm, like in my nighttime mirrorimage otherworld of chances never taken, experiences that never, can never, will never, present themselves in reality. taste tests of who you want to be, but without the risk of ruining everything you've worked for. secrets you can keep, burning through eyelids, wanting to get out, but staying just below the thin layer of skin and lashes poised just right, painted and black and reaching toward the heavens, before flaking off into tears that confuse a happy face, slow dancing to the sweetest music, smiling to the words, the motion, the what will comes and the what might happens and being carried away with the love in the room and the sun in the sky and the warmth in the wind. no dreams, no mirrorimage otherworlds, no pretend existences, could ever ever ever be as sweet as these feelings, this love, the beating of twin hearts, the warmth of skin on skin, the colours of sun-shone sea and land irises looking at mine, through me, into places only you can see, only you know, only you've ever been. my comfort, my rock, my anchor in the storm, holding the moon tight in orbit, even when it pulls, even when it wants nothing more than to get in a boat and never see land again. heavy weathered metal from the earth digging deep into the ground under wires and waves and crashes of the sea, tethering the melancholy man in the moon to the only place that makes sense: helping sailors see the way on clear nights, reflecting sunlight from china to the seven seas, shining through dark windows to light up blushed faces of lovers and dewy tangled limbs, twisting sheets and straining steel, singing quiet songs of familiar feelings only we know, never wanting, never needing, to write the lyrics down; they whimper, weep, wail, cry out with passion, from every pore in our heaving entangled bodies before laying down to rest, to visit the nighttime mirrorimage otherworld that will never ever be as real, as sweet, as warm, as this real world life we share.

Society, the embodiment of human securities
Is in reality the stark confirmation  
Of a conglomerate of screaming insecurities
Begging….its leaders….fervent introspection

Bending logic is an art perfected by all
Regardless of creed class or stature
No wonder the walk is seemingly a hard laboured crawl
Culminating into deep exposed…psychological sutures

**Beings are bedevilled by a roving myopia
Craving a farfetched grandiose utopia
That’s why a bespectacled cynicism
Is ironically of essence…to neutralise a deep rooted parochialism

The window creaked. I heard the breeze

My mind was what I must gently ease



I grabbed a pen, trying to write something worthwhile

I turned on the radio, and cracked a smile



I sat at my desk, thinking of themes

But I drifted off as I wrote, sweet dreams



I went to a land of magic and splendor

Though part of me says I'm just a pretender



It's Spring and I can feel the sun

I can see a swingset, and a child having fun



It got brighter, and the heat rose fast

I wondered how much time had passed



I watched this boy as I sat under a tree

Recalling the way things used to be



I sat for hours until I finally noticed something strange

The season, it began to change



I saw leaves of orange and grass of yellow

But near the tree, just like the other, I saw this fellow



He sits and reads about the future

Feeling the wounds he must one day suture



Finding things he must one day revive

And dying, just to feel alive



I walked up to pat his shoulder

Winter's coming kid, and it will be much colder



And I left the boy with that simple quote

And, before I left, as well, my coat



So I walked as the breeze continued to blow

But soon the leaves turned into snow



The ground turned as white as the sky

When I turned my head and heard a cry



And snow like tears to the earth would douse

And I looked up, and saw a house



I floated to the window and I saw a shadow of someone sleeping

It was a boy, not much older, in his pillow, weeping.



I watched him lay there, feeling dead

I slowly moved and approached his bed



On his table I placed my ring

And told him to hold on until it was Spring



And I whispered everything will be alright

And I gently kissed his head goodnight

Why attempt to claim the moral high ground
When your pathetic argument holds no sway
Why march to war with the rebel bound
In the uncommon disposition of yesterday
Why hold pretentious personality
When acceptance is based on adaptation
A pyramid scheme brings fatality
To your pseudo-martyr nation
Unwarranted non cooperation
With the voices of the future
Speak without brainwashed sedation
And unravel your poisoned sutures
Your self proclaimed image of authority
Is unwanted within the confines of freedom
You back a mentality of all encompassing conformities
When the generation of today can't see them
Your hubris lacks the willingness to act
Yet you call yourself Ole-Times-Hardened
And the simple depressing fact
Is that your ignorance cannot be pardoned
Leave while you hold a handful of passion
Before it is lost in the folds of time
Because dignity with age is not everlasting
You are but another one track mind
Whether or not you care to move forward
The world turns on an invisible axis
There is always a new world order
And living life requires emotional taxes
So be willing to express and voice opinions wholly
But like many lost souls before you say
Wander unknown territories carefully
Because the past is lost with today

i'm a volture with a scalpel and cropped brown hair, circling over the injured in the field as if i'll find something that will make me feel important enough to push through the failures of the past. Dark blue scrubs cling to my tired, worn out body like a second skin; at least that's what it feels like. it's my body and my being, but it's not enough for you to want me after this final mistake.

you're a beautifulmess ; just as cliche as everyone assumes you are. your first skin is your only one and you can't seem to understand my need for the feel of flesh giving way beneath the sharpest weapon in my artillery. it's completely different for you, a feeling like lightning coursing through your veins in the place of blood. a transfusion of mystery and obligation that you have to undertake.

he is nothing you ever thought you might want but everything you can see next to you, handing you the forceps as you do your job, working to save lives. but he's not someone you can see next to you in bed, strong arms wrapped tight around you as if he's afraid you might try to escape while he's distracted by everything you pretend to be but is really only your new transplanted face; the surgery went well by the way, even though the procedure was basically brand new. i just thought you should know.

she has dark blue almostblack bruises lining her neck like a macabre collar, left there from this mornings goings on with her g.i joe, fresh back from iraq like he has nothing wrong with him. she hugs him and it disgusts you but you say nothing. she's a grown woman and you're her person, but she doesn't want you right now. she's flying solo for the first time and she panics and lets go the strangers secret. then she cuts into his skin and sighs in relief. she's all better now.

i'm falling apart at the seams, my sutures unraveling before your surgeons eyes and you cannot help because i'm angry and drunk and the body bleeds more with alcohol in its system. you can't operate without consent and i won't sign the form and i throw your promise into the trees like it means absolutely nothing to me.

the stranger is alone and fragile and the voltures are circling again but they won't find anything that can save them this time. she's without a cause and i'm a neurosurgeon with alcoholicbreath and shakinghands and cropped brown hair. the scalpel in my hand is like a lifeline; you refuse to give me another promise because it might be my easy way out of saving the stranger. you couldn't risk it any more than i could.

the "chief" wouldn't let you choose your path and so you ended your day in an elevator lined with x-rays and brain scans; patients saved because you wouldn't let me quit. it's my love letter to you, no matter how unconventional it may seem. it's your second skin and i'm your promise; cut me open now and let it begin. "scalpel please?"

I feel sorry that some people think

They
Weren't
Born
Whole.

So they go out searching,
Waiting,
Abating,
For somebody to complete their soul.

At a young age I was blessed to be broken
Got to put the pieces back together myself.
No man, no prince, no shining bright knight.
Just me and my sutures
Disinfecting alcohol on the shelf.

I don't need a healer
So no human need bother
I fixed what was broken
Saved you your wine-and-dine dollar

Spend it on a damsel
Who's been tricked into thinking she's distressed
Because I'm having none of that **** here
I'm the latest model of me and it's simply the best.

See medically speaking,
Scars won't ever leave
But they can always be replaced
By smaller ones chosen at your knives' reprieve

So I've built myself a brand new me
As whole and together
As possibly could be.

Patched up nicely with sutures
Tied ever so tight
Keloids like embedded trophies
Many a victorious fight.

And while one might go searching
Like a pollinating human bee.
I know my self worth.

I'll never depend on thee.

I am ready
to ring your rib

around my wrist
in triumph—

the faintest of relics    
enliven me. My lips

still layered
as in the night you lost them.

I hope to hammer  
your heart

& stuff its soil
in the sutures

of your skull;
I want to call that

the shadow to
kintsugi;

I want our memories never
to seep; to set

them up for decryption.
Unloving is a study—

consider an archaeologist’s
tentative hands

demystifying an artifact
once treasured for its secret

& leaving no spots
behind.

My heart
has cracked open
like the most
fragile of
elusive
eggs
viscous fluid
drips d
            own
upon the plate
filled with
fissures,
spidercracks that
threat to
quake into
seismic
         measures
and eventually
piece off into
oblivion
and only when
I can finally
unfold myself
from these
underwater
embryonic bends
fetal stretches
and folds
that never end
only then my arms
reach out
into the night
searching
and,
in tiniest of beams,
in one fell stroke
of midnight kismet
I find you
around me
in colored chromium
wrapping me up
headstrong,
filling my
wounded sutures
with
     liquid
gold

Must you be here in such an interesting illusion?
Why must you sit in such... vogue?
Here though, you exist in fashionable cyst.
Bygone futures of blighted sutures
Youngster-stale and eight-hundred pale
Destitute pasts of layer passes present
Horses gather at the gates of heaven
Spitting at me
And in this way, I've given myself nightmarish feelings.
Yellow blocks provides battery-colored translucence a doubt of mortals
Tungsten belated harmony

And I hope she’ll be a fool, that’s the best thing a girl can be, is a beautiful little fool.
To see no fault and see no cause, a demeanor that elicits the ceasing of qualms
She will drink mint tea while sitting with glee on top of a cloud above a raging storm
Her focus is precise and what she sees will be calm
I wish for my daughter to be one

She will live in a bubble, plated with the toughest material and doubled, and coated with rose-colored glass.
It will be her veil, disguising injustices too well, but her aura will always be electric
Her tears will be daisies growing amongst the lilies near a pond where there’s coy and fairies casting spells.
She will sleep and dream neutral, as the sandman began his sutures, to maintain her outlook that life is swell.
I wish for my daughter to be one

With her sway and her gallop and her nod and her twirl, she will please the sensibilities of the world.
I pray to the heavens, her angels and gods, that there will not be a crack in her armor.
For if she is to see how the world truly be, then her face will forever be furled
She is my joy and my love, a pearl necklace with a hug, a jewel that can never be matched
And I hope she’ll be a fool, that’s the best thing a girl can be. Is a
Beautiful
Little
Fool

Hellenic
Flesh and marrow
Raphaelite form
painted into life.

Honey hair
slipping through the vees between my fingers like
sand
conch-white skin
You blind me
like the noonday sun.
Enveloping—
body wrapped in body—
ocean and sky
meet
at the horizon.

Peel my skin from me
like an orange.
Apple.

Heal me
with hands upon thighs
Stitch my ragdoll body together with the sutures of your kisses
Stuck
by the glue of lips

Raise me like Lazarus
from the valley of death
from the orchard in Eden and the shame of skin

Reupholster me
like a dinette chair.

Vivid as the Sistine Chapel
your hand
outs t r e t c h e d
toward God

I find you in
pumpkin seeds
scattered
like tears
on the floor of my car.
They were yours.

I reached into my chest
To free these sutures of moonglade
Reaching deep into the pulse
That is sinking into this still water
My boat, tethered to my hands
Cuts its ties, taking this heart
Deep into the moonlit sea

We used to say " I love you";
Now we just think it.
The people we became
are an odd fit.
I will admit
I am no longer pleasant
to be around.
Constant scowls and frowns
amidst the silence.
The clicks of keyboards
divide us.
Define us.
Align us.
We used be to analogous
like Bubble gum Princess
and Finn.
Just like them we've become unakin.
Padme & Anakin.
My fear of loosing you has caused me to loose you.
Like an episode of That's So Raven;
attempts at the prevention
of the future
ripped open the sutures
in my heart once again.

I see it in
         shades of
liquid coal
  slaking
    my aching
           thirst in
black ocean shoal
      onyx crystals
             washed up
            in tides
       of barely
    peeking,
night-lava eyes
     silently spoken
                   and through
     the waters of deep
my soul is
    waking up from
          eons of sleep
              weaving garlands
             of darkest green,
            seaweed tips
that I tenderly keep
       strewn, in chlorophyll strips  
                      across the stardust glow
                                       of my naked skin
                                     as I liquid float,
                       spirit whirring within
                              eyes bright
                in illuminated
          moonstone glow
picking up signals
of halted flow
This is needed here,
in this darkest of dark
waters abundant
with tight, broken sparks
shards of the living
and fragments of souls
                  a luminosity of darkness
                  making us whole
      And pulsing next to me
   in beauty's surprise
phosphorescent creatures,
     a feast for the eyes
           loving, gently brushing
                my outstretched fingers-
                     bioluminescence divine
                         on my body lingers
                   from jellies to squid
                to jet -hued sharks
    knifing through layers          
     of dark on dark
         within the
lush waters' quiet force
a dance in faded flicker
conjures the source
                 within the depth
                         of the depths
                            of my endlessly
                            wet
          in my darkest of dark
between blood and sweat
penetrating the mysteries
   that quake through
          this heart
         filling it up
  as it tears it apart
         smashing it
    to smithereens
   creating sutures
   of ironic healing
until through the cracks
both wide and slight
        shoots up
the flare
of my own
    inner
          light

Masks hide true burns
With no futures
Take off your mask
Wounds need sutures
Try to stitch with drips
From a whiskey flask
Taste numbs cherry red lips
Whose all for another
If they pucker again
See me quiver and stutter

I found my grandmother the night she died
The room filled with mourning tears
My mother slapped me
because I hadn't cried in two days
At 18 how do you emotionally process a body that once held a life?

Disconnected from my thoughts
I felt neither pain nor love nor loss
How could I say that, without feeling defective
but I couldn't get past that shell with empty eyes
that stared at me until I noticed they weren't smiling

When the body turned to flesh
she was gone and I was lost
in those empty eyes that seemed to
hold a universe of nothing
and if I stared too long I'd disappear in that void
where her light used to shine

**

Too soon, I held my mother's hand as she passed
and watched the life leech out of her skin
The eyes were the last part of her to fade
I stared at her
Willing with all that I am that they would
spark and reignite the fire of who she was
But her skin ran cold the second the light ceased
So cold, yet so very soft.

Two days, and a blended family to hold up
Even with makeup, dressed to the nines
It didn't feel less... wrong
She was beautiful, but she wasn't my mother

I couldn't escape the knowledge
of invisible sutures
As I held her face and fixed her hair
I cursed those television shows I once watched with her
The ones that taught us how things worked
The ones that burned the knowledge of
the sutures into my memory
a memory I couldn't escape

Four days and two shoulders heavy with tears
Too busy with paperwork and wishes
to bleed tears of my own
Thankful for things to do
So I wouldn't get lost in her empty eyes
that stared at me whenever I closed my own

I sit here, grown, wondering how to
emotionally process a body that once held a life?
Praying that she will slap me for not being able to cry
Just so I could feel her

I woke up on the gurney
with pain that robs my breath.
Broken ribs and a row of sutures
running down between my *******.
Strange to still be breathing
when my heart is dead and gone
In my chest Abio-Cor
stubbornly pumps on.

Was it really just a week ago
sitting with my friends  in class
when first I felt the stabbing pain.
when each breath came as a gasp?
My teacher called an ambulance
He saved my life, friends say.
A muscle killing virus
caused my pulse to fade away.
One hundred over forty
I was quickly losing ground.
I would need a donor transplant
but none compatible was found.

I’m a high school girl, just seventeen
-I should be college bound
Not fighting for each breath and
destined for a plot of ground.
The surgeon asked my parents
if he should try Abio-Cor
an artificial heart replacement
in which researchers placed great store.
My crying parents, grasped the straw
consenting he should try.
They would operate immediately-
delay would mean I’d die.

So now I’m in recovery
with my artificial heart.
My fiends call me the Tin Girl,
because of my replacement part.
It will be a long recovery-
seven weeks if fate is kind..
I share my feelings with a heart
still learning to be mine

relief is such a good feeling
all that weight off your shoulders
you can now start over
your head is suddenly clear
contentment is near
the past is behind you
taught you things you never knew
you're ready for the future
you've healed all your sutures
now life is on your side
you've gotten over your pride
the light at the tunnel is beginning to shine
once so low but now feeling fine
life has a way of working out
there is no reason to doubt
fate has in store something great
sometimes you just have to wait
relief is such a good feeling
no more false hope
or walking on a tight rope
positivity takes over the negative
and now you begin again

Turn back the time
Change the channel
Erase the old tape
Move to Montana

Am I afraid of my past?
Or afraid of my future
What am I running from?
Please insert the sutures

When will I be whole again?
I lost my only friend
The bottle is empty
Here we go again

One day at a time
Doesn’t seem to go very fast
Every day is pain
I don’t think I will last

Grey and sodden clouds cry
From my north-western sky
Where I used to fly with satellites
Before I was stuck at traffic lights

I'm pretending that I'm sane
With a bandage around my brain
Pretending that I'm whole
With sutures in my soul

Tight and screaming reins
Hold the prophets in my veins
Aquarius turns again
Again and yet again

                                  By Phil Roberts