they hang as banner flags in a sinning room
peace
purification
compassion
prosperity
knowledge
all but reminders,
all but suggestions.
surely, purification is out of the question,
sitting unquestionably in a college dorm.
compassion is seldom met,
as tests land, obtrusively on the same Friday.
a Friday.
prosperity in which we are striving to be,
losing sleep,
losing time.
all for it.
knowledge tries to be a friend,
tries to take time to nourish the alcohol flooded brain
the flags continue to flutter, eyeing all those who pass,
reaching out sewn up fingers and cloth covered mouths.
maybe they should be listened to, devoted to, prayed to,
or perhaps, they should be ripped down
Feb 6, 2019
Feb 6, 2019 at 3:03 AM UTC
Because I loved you
Because you filtered away my doubts
Because you created a picture, a frame, and a decoration
Because you promised
Because whenever I see your name I want to scream
Because when I see your name I think of you
Because when I think of you, I think of it, that day
Because you promised
Because when I was down, you picked me up
Because your soul was in sync with mine
Because you brought out the best in me
Because you promised Because I loved you
Because you filtered away my doubts
Because you created a picture, a frame, and a decoration
Because you promised
Because whenever I see your name I want to scream
Because when I see your name I think of you
Because when I think of you, I think of it, that day
Because you promised
Because when I was down, you picked me up
Because your soul was in sync with mine
Because you brought out the best in me
Because you promised
Because when you said “forever” I tried not to believe it
Because when you said it, you were so confident
Because you told me I was your one and only
Because you promised
Because when you shattered my heart, I cried
Because I cried for days and days, my eyes grew tired
Because my eyes grew tired so did my mind
Because you promised
Because when someone promises, I expect them to let me down, and
Because I was hoping you’d be different, I fell
Because when I fall, I fall hard
Because you promised
Because as I sunk deeper into your arms, I saw my future
Because I saw us at the altar, I saw us in the delivery room
Because I felt sure that you would be my always
Because you promised
Because 3 month and 9 days ago you let me go
Because when I begged for you to stay, you said “I don’t know what to say.”
Because you cried and I cried, I believed it wasn’t over
Because you promised
Because when you took our pictures down I felt empty
Because I hadn’t taken mine down, mine are still up
Because you happened
Because you promised
Because I let myself fall for you
Because I let you take my heart into your two greedy hands
Because when you looked into my eyes, I believed
Because you promised
Because when you said I love you, I didn’t know it was
Because you were saying goodbye
Because you were with her now
Because you promised
Because she was closer in proximity
Because 131 miles was too far for you
Because when you wanted *** I wasn’t there
Because you promised
Because when I said forever, I meant it
Because you were my all
Because I was the fool who let you in
Because you promised
Because I dressed how you wanted
Because I did what you wanted
Because I was the “perfect girlfriend”
Because you promised
Because you were mine
Because I was yours
Because I thought we would be that 2%
Because you promised
Because you left me broken
Because you crushed my heart
Because I wished you well
Because I promised
Feb 6, 2019
Feb 6, 2019 at 3:02 AM UTC
1. Imagine you’re in an oil painting, hung up by just threads of string
This painting is of a beach, off the coast, sea breeze smells of wet sand
Everything’s magical here, the sky burns brighter and his smile seems more relaxed
Here is where I first met his demon
1. They say “it’s **** when he’s rough.”
So, it’s **** when his fist seems like it’s about to break my nose like glass
Or is it hot when the grip on my arm will be a small
Unnoticeable bruise tomorrow
His lips drip toxins like absolute ***** that I’m forced to drink and
His eyes no longer shine like the oil painted sky,
They look like two pits of blue flames burning down a church.
1. When I was backed into a corner, I pretended the walls were cylindrical
And the corners were curves
Matching the body, he presumed I didn’t want and
“make sure to write your food down.”
1. It was the first time I feared my prince,
Of the one who said “your hand is only fit to hold mine” and
Morphed my brain into a puzzle piece for his game.
2. A time when new beginnings occur
The sky lights up like a child in front of birthday candles and
A midnight kiss starts the year off right.
Another brawl, more angry words,
I told him to get away but his ears must have been deaf since all
He heard was “come here”
2. His nails scratched marks into my skin and
my stomach turned in anguish against his chest
when your angel sheds its wings and
the horns appear, don’t pretend they aren’t there.
2. Fear.
My tears streaked down on my evening look but
His eyes singed them up,
Licking each one like sun flares on Mars
And I found myself curled up in a ball of doubt
2. “it’s over. I’m done. I won’t deal with this anymore”
but I made him this way, I turned his baby blues into
terrible twos that grew into his teens.
I made his smile turn to an upside-down rainbow and his arms
into steel gates.
3. Winter wonderlands, where children play make-believe games and
throw harmless snowball blows.
He, wrestled my arms and bruised my heart,
Snatched it from my chest and gnawed it with barred teeth.
I think, demons come in many shapes and his was icing on a
Birthday cake.
His was the ring on my left hand that curled around my finger like
Barbed wire and held snug like a chain linked dog.
3. think of a mother’s whisper, a dad’s sweet song, imagine the sounds of laughter
now ignite it gasoline and you’ll get his voice.
Cutting deeper and deeper into my torn up, ****** up mind.
3. It’s hard to hide in a car with seats greased by leather
Find somewhere to avert your eyes while his
Hands clutch your chin but,
Not in the way that’s “endearing”
No, the way that makes you turn away if seen in public, if seen here,
If seen anywhere.
3. “This won’t happen again”
“I’m here till the end”
“I love you baby”
“Please just come here”
“I would never hurt you”
3 times it happened, 3 times I stayed.
Oct 10, 2017
Oct 10, 2017 at 4:03 PM UTC
Can’t I just hold your hand
Try to feel your soul inside mine
Relax, exhale, take my final inhale
Drift off to sleep in my arms,
Blanketed in certainty and unattainable infatuation
Make me whole
Fill my fragmented cracks with the cement of your devotion
Tile the rooms of my brain with glass
To see within the deserted halls
see the shadows creeping out of obscurity
see the graffitied window panes,
Covered with initials of lost people
Make me feel alive
Enchant me with your laugh
Douse me with your tongue licks,
Feeling like stinging hornets or a
Tattoo needle crawling across my flesh
Battling the many scars, bruises, freckles, marks
Trace my veins with fingertips of silk
Dance under this canopy of frostbitten ceiling fans
Relinquish power to the earths seductive pulse
Be with me
Conform your broken body with mine and
Feel my sweet tears drip into your abyss
Soak them up like dried up dandelions
Shed them too
When you feel, I feel
Say jump and I’m
not scared of the height
Air is openness and the ground is your arms
Gravitate towards me, my
radioactive body decays
Feel the radiation, the heart wrenching terrors of
unrequited loves that have left me in
shackles designed for thieves
You have stolen my heart
****** it out of its cold castle,
Crystalized by broken promises
Dream me a new day
Enfold me in destinations beyond our reach
And make sure to catapult my shattered limbs and
Flailing body at the sun,
For it shines brighter than me
Need the comfort of your giggle
Tickling me from the inside, invading my digestive system,
Planting seeds of butterflies
Cope with my sadness
I’ll cope with yours
Please
Can’t I just hold your hand.
Sep 26, 2017
Sep 26, 2017 at 10:49 PM UTC
Pencil tips are like
Ladies hips
Gently swaying to the music
Gliding on frosted marble,
Drinking in the purity of
Rough parchment
Pencil tips are for when
ideas form words and
words form complexity
Scratching into notebooks,
Mountain peaks,
Translating concepts into
Mount Rushmore
Pens are too forceful
Permanent
Pencils can be erased
Just like every memory stored
Within a coffee can
In a homemade time capsule
The priest said God is pure
But when he made us,
He used pencil tips,
paper thin lines
Tracing and retracing
Imperfectness is perfect he said
Japanese paintings
Created with brush strokes
Evok-ing pictures of marvelous queens,
Cowardly jesters,
Mighty kings,
Elegant ballerinas, and
Alluring princes
Pencil tips created these fantasies
Dreams
Grandiose mirages fold and unfold
On top of tissue paper bibles,
Delicate taut skin
How do words create overbearing tears,
phantom heartbreak,
Jealous ex-girlfriends,
Infidelity infested ignorant ********
breathtaking wedding bells?
Pencil tips
Sep 21, 2017
Sep 21, 2017 at 5:13 PM UTC
Seeing through eyes blanketed by a
Fuzzy blanket, only intended for winter recess
Winter recess where the snowflakes drift in and
Out of ocular view, demanding to be looked at.
Japanese paintings folding, unfolding, transforming into
Little blurry bubbles of dark greens and
Blackened blues.
Glorious sunsets, smearing the sky with red hands look
Flattened.
They’re dry and hands cannot rub enough waterfalls and
Raindrops into them,
Leaving spider webs, fresh with rouge.
Sep 19, 2017
Sep 19, 2017 at 10:00 PM UTC
We danced together but alone,
Slow heartbeats mingled in the foreground,
Hands lightly pressed atop our fabric encased skin,
Eyes hissing with dimmed lust.
We danced together but alone,
Encased in a bubble of two,
Forgetting the steps to the dance,
Forgetting the words to the song.
We danced together but alone,
Smiling awkwardly,
Never making eye contact,
Fear crawling into each throat.
We danced together but alone,
Hiding bruises and scars,
Envisioning a new life outside the bubble,
Squeezing the only hand comfortable.
We danced together but alone,
Remembering days in the light,
Feelings of tripping on ecstasy,
This fairytale fantasy.
We danced together but alone,
Incredibly out of love,
Broken but whole,
Pretending to like the new song.
We danced together but alone,
Uncovering the veil around the brain,
********* the marks under each cuff,
Shedding tears unseen.
Sep 6, 2017
Sep 6, 2017 at 9:30 PM UTC
In the kingdom of Saturday an angel holds nothing,
encompassed by picture frames.
A human trafficker bites a popped Tylenol,
Eviscerates the nightmares that circle his crown.
An optimist puts their hands up,
Envisions a tableau soothed with moisturizer.
A chieftain offers a beer to an orphaned
Child, lush with vermillion blotches.
A physician shrinks down in front of,
A simmered-out wife, head towards the door.
A gypsy considers being alone,
xenophobia resiliently grips her throat.
A mystified boy points to a girl,
Whispers inaudibly “I miss making her laugh.”
A priest begins an unimaginable service,
“My prayer is simple, my dear one,
Live for tomorrow, not yesterday.
Open your hands.
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 8:27 PM UTC
It’s a bar like this:
Smashed in Bud lite cans, Hennessey bottles half emptied.
Cable TV, static at high volume,
Re-runs of Seinfeld and
Occasionally the game.
Men in sweats, men in tuxes, men in rags,
Men in company jackets.
Bonded and connected by their mutual friend Jack
And their ex-lover Brandy.
It’s a bar like this:
Bartenders sniffing coke, pouring
3 parts orange juice, 1 part ***** 2 parts water.
Posters hanging with ******* girls and
Kate Upton.
Smells of defeat and destruction emanate to the street,
The sign swings crooked, uncared for, untouched.
Broken in windows, lined with blackened wood panels
Creatively decorated with graffiti
Lightbulbs act like lightening bugs,
Never illuminating on command.
Plumbing rattles, toilets overflow,
One woman stands alone.
It’s a bar like this:
Two men swear and hiss,
Breaking a table in two.
Chairs part like the red sea,
Bets are placed.
Occasionally, some stray wanders in,
Testing out the waters,
Coughing up nicotine and tar,
holding his door frame crutch.
Scratchy hand towels and oily soup,
Sink bowls re-rusted.
McDonald’s bags liter the stained tiles,
Enjoying rat company.
It’s a bar like this:
Over enthusiastic boss hiring
Sixteen year olds,
Blondes only,
No criminal record.
Eviction notices used as placemats and
Electric bill coasters.
Been open since 1975 but
Even then
it was a bar like this.
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 8:24 PM UTC
walking out of the darkness is hard,
you see it, waiting around corners,
splashing around in the pool.
darkness watches from a distance,
close enough for your scalp to prickle,
enough for you to be scared.
it envelops you in bed,
drowns you with blinks,
darkness scares you.
but then, you see it.
you see the light you've been waiting for.
you see the brilliance, the beauty.
the soft touch invites,
stronger than any dark embrace,
and you walk right into the sunshine.
Jun 9, 2017
Jun 9, 2017 at 2:11 PM UTC