Benedict wheeled Anne
out the back gate
of the nursing home.
The sea was calm,
the tide was out.
He pushed her wheelchair
along the path by the beach.
He could smell the salt
in the air, the mild breeze
through his well kempt hair.
She sat with her hands in her lap;
she wore a blue skirt, her one
leg showed from knee down.
You’re not a very exciting pusher
of wheelchairs are you, she said.
My old gran could push me quicker.
I don’t want you falling out, Benedict said.
Don’t be a fucking weed, Kid,
push me; I want the air in my face,
the wind up my nose, she said,
grabbing the arms of the chair
and shaking them. So he pushed
her quicker, his puny arms giving
it all they could, his legs like frail
pistons moving quickly onward.
That’s it, she bellowed, faster,
faster, Kid, get those lazy legs
of yours bloody moving.
He pushed harder and gathered
speed, his hands holding on
to the handlebars for dear life.
They had covered a good distance
in a short time and he had to take
a break for breath. What’s a matter
got a puncture? she said. No, he said,
out of breath. Well bloody rest then, Kid.
He turned the wheelchair round
to face the sea. Then stood beside
her looking out at the horizon.
The blue sky, grey clouds, gulls
in the air. This is the life, Kid, she
bellowed This is fucking living.
He said nothing; her language
stung his ears. His mother would
have washed his mouth out
with soap for saying such.
There were people on the sands;
some in deckchairs, some standing
gazing out to sea; kids with buckets
and spades making sand castles,
some swimming, some throwing
a ball to each other. Look at that fat tart
over there with her swimsuit on,
Anne said, pointing to a woman
standing with a man on the sea’s edge,
bet they had to pour her into that,
she added. Benedict said nothing.
He looked down at Anne’s one leg
sticking out of her blue skirt.
She looked up at him. Help me up
and out, she said. He took her hands
and pulled her upwards and she
swayed slightly, but then managed
to stand erect on her one leg,
the wheelchair behind her.
Should have brought my bloody
crutches, she said. Sorry, he said,
didn’t know you wanted to get out.
You’ll just have to hold me up then
won’t you, she said. She put her right
arm around his shoulder and he let go
of her hands. There we go; you can be
my crutch, she said. He could feel her
arm about his shoulder, her weight on him.
You’re a good mate, Kid, she said.
She kissed his cheek. None of those
nursing sister would have wheeled me
out along here not for all the bloody
rosaries in Rome, she said. He smiled.
He could feel the damp patch of skin
where her lips had been. They stood
gazing out at the sea together, she swayed
slightly on her one leg, he sensed her
nearness; wanting to be stronger,
he stood firmer, his feet planted deeper
in the sand. Then he sensed her stump
beneath her skirt, rub gently against his hand.
Why do people get so mad when I tell them I want to die.
We all end up dying.
But it so happens that I'd rather go sooner than later.
I'd rather rot now than rot later.
The pain triggers my heart.
Like an untreated wound.
I thought we had so much spark
Until you left me right there in the dark.
Everyone had so much to say.
Like why did I lose my virginity so young.
I lost two of the most important things to me.
My virginity and the boy who took it.
Five months later I lost my baby.
I sat eye to eye with a counselor who told me everything was going to be just fine.
It never was and in my heart I truly believed it would never be fine.
So I stopped going and I stopped writing.
Instead I made bracelets out of rope hoping it would hide the scars on my wrist that I would soon create.
Then I remembered how abusive my father was and how many scars he left.
So I began to hate scars.
The pain was tearing me apart so I wrote a couple of poems.
The pain got worse and my thoughts got radical.
I always went to the bathroom every time I had a suicide thought.
I would cry my eyes out and look in the mirror and wonder how did I become so broken and dumb.
I never told my parents about this because I knew they would worry.
I didn't want them to think I was a joke.
A sick messed up joke.
I wanted to take my life.
Kill myself.
Damn, let me just say it.
I wanted to commit suicide.
I thought of it as picking every petal of every flower in this world.
I came to the conclusion that flowers are beautiful.
And so am I.
Wait, so is my life.
So I even though I still have these thoughts.
Im strong enough.
Im stronger than a
BLADE
OVERDOSE
DROWNING
ROPE
MEDICINE
COUNSELING
DEATH.
im stronger than death.
I Am The New Age Villain. No Masked Maccasurer, I Carry My Blades On The Inside.
More Terrifying Than Any Clown, Or Ghost Faced Monster With A Butcher Knife. I Am The Teenage Girl With Daddy Issues.
I Will Swallow Your Sons Whole. I Will Pull Them Under The Covers Until All They Can See Is Black And Blue. I Will Carve My Name Above Their Still Beating Heart, And Turn Them Ugly. I Am Their First And Last Love, Wrapped Up In Old Christmas Bows That My Mother Could Never Bring Herself To Get Rid Of.
With A Tongue Piercing And A Bad Tattoo Of A Rose On My Ankle, I've Got Problems With My Identity, Seems To Me I've Lost It On The Assembly Line Of You What You're Supposed To See On MTV , I've Never Been Given Anything To Really Stand For.
So This Means I Fall In Love Easily.
I Fall Into Bed Easily, Between Layers Of Needing To Be Needed, And A Bottomless Appetite For Hands Across My Flesh. Bruises Make It That More Much Worth The While, Because Hours Later The Marks Will Still Be There To Remind Me Of Just How Badly You Never Wanted To Let Me Go.
He Places His Palm To My Chest, Mine To His, Says "Baby We're Making Love." But How Do You Make Love When You Hate Yourself?
I Have Learned The Hard Way That Your Mother Doesn't Want You To Bring Girls Like Me To Christmas Dinners. I've Felt My Stomach Curl Up Around My Insides, Chewing Me Apart, From The Inside Out, I Am Empty.
So I Beg Them To Fill Me.
Pour Promise Between My Sheets, And Breathe Into Me. I Am Broken.
I Know You're All Afraid Of Me, And Thats Why You Hate Me. I've Seen The Sneer Across Your Lips, Spark Starving And Growling. You Want To See Me Fail. You Probably Don't Know How Often I Cry Myself To Sleep At Night. I Was Bred, Not Built, I Am Human Too. But So Much Less Real Than You, Because This Hollowness Is Like A New Anesthetic.
But Like Every Good Comic, The Villain Was Not Always The Villain. Some Sick And Twisted Past Has Ripped Him Apart At The Seams, Left Him Begging Desperate, Lonely And Fragile, Chasing Down The Kind Of Sweet Revenge That Rots Your Teeth.
I Wasn't Always This Way. I Was Delivered Into The Mouth Of Temptation, And Damn Did The Bite Hurt.
Like Any Good Story, It Had A Begging Middle, And End, But Not Necessarily In That Order, Because My Beginning Was My Mothers End, And My Father's Story Seemed To Happen Without My Existence. Without My Permission
Because He Walked Out. Like Backlit Silhouette Of Shadows Against My Bedroom Walls, He Was Always Leaving In My Dreams.
He Met A Girl With A College Degree, Called Her 'Babydoll' And 'Lover', And She Gave Him The Gift Of Three Sons, Who Search For The Thread Of Meaning In Their Father's Speech When He Kisses The Tops Of Their Heads At Night.
He Made This Way. He Tore Our The Seems Of My Storybook And Left Me Screaming In My Sleep. This Lost And Angry Abandonment Couldn't Rest Any Longer, I Now How Streets To Chase Away And Hours To Destroy, And This Would Be The Time For Our Rib cages to Meet, In Hot Heat, And Spark Into Something Bigger Than Me,
So Yes, Call Me Your Villain.
Because Like A Villain, I Am Chasing A Revenge Deep Into Myself, Down Highways Called Veins, Where I Once Wrote The Word 'Happiness' In Blue Ink For An Older Me To Find Someday. I Am Waiting For A Redemption To Thread Its Fingers Into My Hair, And Tell Me I'm Literally Worth Fighting For. I Am Exhausted, Because I've Got Blooded Knuckles, And Broken Battle Hymns.
The Only Hero I'm Fighting Is Myself.
My mother brought down the storage
box from the attic. I swore it was bigger.
I went through every single picture,
pulling aside all the ones I wanted
to bring back to Tallahassee with me.
I was choosing my past.
I didn't think it could mean anything, but
I have no proof to show of my vacant father.
No picture of my clumsy, pre-teen years
where I weighed more than my mother.
When I pick out the pictures I want on my wall,
it's the past that I created for myself.
My night sky has turned into a distant blur.
Staring out
I manage to lick the edge of it.
And I receive a now common taste
of numbed pain and sleep full nights.
Everything is a haze
and I'm the center of it.
Feeling everything I needed.
But what was that again?
Oh yeah, nothing.
Feeling better than before
I crawl into bed
and my dreams blossom more than the sun's sky.
Every morning I wake with the taste of the night before.
Feeling everything that wasn't wanted.
Feeling everything.
A sore head and an un easy tongue
keeps me distracted.
Kind of.
I crawl into the shower
and thoughts start to fall on me.
I see the distant sky
and poke my tongue at it.
Mr. moon tugs at it, and pulls me in.
it doesn't hurt because it mattered
it hurts because i was stupid
i blindfolded myself
and followed every choice you made
never once stopping to ask myself
if it was what i wanted
but then you left
and i didn't recognize
my reflection
i kept following you
and your choices
until i was a different person
you were gone
and i was too
It was supposed to bring them all together,
It would keep them together and no one would forget.
But it ended up destroying them in the process,
He couldn't think straight and his vision was to complex.
He reached out to her but she withdrew,
He was angry and scary, her fear grew.
She hanged onto a friend she knew,
But as he saw it, his furry grew.
He wanted to go lay on a grey twisted path,
But he finally settled on the soft evening grass.
He got back up feeling much better,
He went inside and found them lying on a couch made of leather.
He broke down as he ran outside,
Another piece of his heart had already died.
It was after that night that things weren't the same,
The continents were being separated by an open flame.
It's done. Everything is over now,
He's trying to forget. As much as his mind will allow.
I love
You want
But life knows
How to make the world
The future is just people dying.
When hearts live
Words are happy and eyes are like better days
Are you ever going to do things?
Maybe something real?
Make a home to care for,
To carry away the time.
The body must feel
And the mind must think.
I trust that your lives are better on the inside,
The best are long and the worst are longer.
A place changes with years,
I hope...
A head is more than a brain.
It makes children into birds.
The mind is the past, a time traveler.
That kind of sad person that dreams things so human
Only to stay alive in a room in need of a story.
You realize you thought you'd exist,
But you're dying years ago.
You wanted the earth's history to lie beneath the sky
And touch your feet until you were old,
But it flew upwards,
I'm sorry.
It means so much to write,
To learn from a child who belongs...
now i had a cousin named named Patrick
who had a lovely partner named Michael.
let me tell you, i did not believe in the myth of true love
until i saw the look in their eyes when they saw each other;
until i saw the way Michael looked at Patrick and the way Patrick looked back
with that tiny twinkle in the corner of his left eye.
naturally, i saw nothing wrong with the
situation. love is love and what they had was definitely
love.
they had a beautiful wedding on a beach in France
and they both still call that day,
that moment the best moment of their entire lives.
all was well and the newly weds honeymooned
all throughout Europe and the world seemed at peace.
until, they got off the plane that landed them right in Houston, Texas.
they walked out of the terminal hand-in-hand,
some "aw"ed, some looked away in disgust, but one young man
threw a balloon full of paint of my dear friend Patrick and spat on Michael
as he yelled the word "faggots".
the new couple hadn't prepared themselves for this.
time continued to pass and they soon bought their
first house. a lovely little two-bedroom, 700 square foot home.
news quickly spread around the neighborhood of they new
"homo couple" down the street. one day,
Michael got home for work to find the garage
spray painted with blue ink reading, "God hates fags".
after hours of scrubbing away at the blue ink
that polluted the air, the couple finally learned a few rules.
they were not to show affection in public.
they were not to be open about their sexuality.
they were not to be themselves as long as someone else might see.
the years flew by and this love dwindled down to
nothingness.
the flame of that red glowing candle was put out.
years of avoiding public affections all for the fear
of being called a "faggot".
after three years of marriage the couple split.
claiming to no longer be in love, but they knew,
i knew, that they wanted to be in love.
they just didn't want to live in fear of being called the "F" word.
She tuned her conscience to a high frequency
Tall, handsome...with enough hard currency
I balanced through the tight rope with Tigers below
You wanted sleep, I brought matrass and pillow
I gave you sugar, I gave u glucose
Yet you are still looking for something sweet
I gave you fire, I gave you flame
And you are looking for heat
When people say women don't know
What they want,people think it's a myth
All my love entreaties went down the gutter
Impressing you was a basket full of water
Yet I'm a specimen of your requirements
But when I show up, you front
Women don't know what they want
Even if we make love in the river, under the rain
You will still want to be wet
If I give you brandy inside an elevator
You won't still be high
I will never rest
Until I sweep the Sahara
And mop the Atlantic
Even push Everest
You can never be impressed or happy
Because even in the midst of a feast
You will still be looking for what to eat
I wonder why
Yet you want a perfect guy
When you have me...
@lyricalpuntiff
