A Baby-Boomer walks so freely through the town
he pays no mind to those suffering around
“Why don’t poor people just get jobs,”
he asks himself,
“And stop bellyaching?
And women need to shut their mouths and stop complaining
the wage gap is a fallacy
they invented to work less.
trust me I am a man who would understand the oppressed,
a man who has always been gainfully employed,
in fact if you ask me I am simply annoyed
that others dare to call me privileged
just because I can afford more than they do
(well that and the fact that because of my face
I can be sure that I will not be chased
by the police unrightfully
or a strange man most frighteningly).”
He walks alone in the darks of night
and yet his bones do not creak with fright
for he knows the world respects his white skin,
his wife, and the money he keeps only for him.
On his wall hangs a college degree
he got from a school in 1983
“I don’t understand why the millennials are such whiners
pull yourself up by your bootstraps while you’re still minors,
yes we ruined the economy, but it’s not that hard
if you just stop focussing on being so avant-garde
and get a job, who do you think you are?
Just kids trying their best to be what they are?
Disgusting excuse,
sell your soul to businesses,
it’s what Reagan would do.”
As he puts his money to bed at night
in the house he bought when the market was still alright
he wonders why kids these days
seem so tired and hungry for praise.
Oct 3, 2015
Oct 3, 2015 at 5:01 PM UTC
I am alone
surrounded and composed entirely of stardust
and fragments of broken dreams-
it is exactly how I planned it to be
neat
but not in a rigid way with implied discomfort
just in a way where it is obvious I tried my best
The walls- finally stripped of needlepoint prayers
and instead layered with every word that has ever danced from my mouth
the smooth ones and the ones that taste like acid
nothing is forgotten or laid aside
My body-
a temple to myself
desecrated in the most holy way
a sacrifice of skin
decorations of valor in a war against myself
it is quiet
every thread I have ever plucked from the seams rips through the air as I come apart
again
spilling tar and galaxies across everything
I have ever known- a mess
I am alone
but not in the way I am supposed to be
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 10:40 PM UTC
If we're being honest
I'd tell you that I wish we were still together
and that
some days
I watch the world
twist and burn
and fall on me
breaking into a million pieces
breaking me with it
and that it doesn't scare me anymore
also I can't spell
Once, I forgot how to sleep
and didn't remember for 10 days
and one day I forgot to eat
and didn't remember for three days
but didn't care
Some days
I can't stand being in my own skin
some days I try to rip it off
I flap my hands
and bite my nails
And I'm afraid not to pray
One time,
I cried for 12 hours
One time,
I passed out from a panic attack
(Okay more than one time)
Some days
I feel like there are bugs
under my skin
I WANT TO SCREAM
but we're not being honest today
so when I'm asked
I'll say I'm doing okay
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 11:22 PM UTC
Her skin has yet to get used to the burn
so she tries her best to pretend it doesn’t hurt
She stopped asking
about her husband
long ago
and the screams of agony still haunt her
She whispers alone at night
“I love him, I love hime, I love him”
but she knows it isn’t true
she remembers the circumstances of their union
and tells herself that lying is a sin
so maybe she’ll feel his touch again
and maybe he’ll even leave scars from the burn
something to remember him by
but he’ll be gone before she’ll see him
She can’t even remember what he looks like
but she tells herself she can
“I love him, I love him, I love him”
but she can only love a man
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 7:09 PM UTC
I knew I shouldn’t drink
Not in the teenager
‘I should be
responsible’
way,
because honestly
I didn’t care about that
About not disappointing my parents
because they can tell me what they want
but everyone drinks
and no one waits until they’re twenty-one
and I know they weren’t exceptions
I knew I shouldn’t drink
in the
“everyone in my family is an alcoholic
and I will be too
it’s a hereditary disease
once I start
I won’t stop”
sense and in the
“emotional drinking is a bad sign
and binge drinking still counts as alcoholism
(at least I’m pretty sure it does)”
sense
but still
I drank
when I was
angry
sad
at parties
bored
because what else was I going to do?
History repeats itself
and I am no exception
So the first time I had drunk
I was ***
I mean…. you get it
who cares really
I don’t really remember it
I remember blacking out halfway through
and waking up somewhere else
but I don’t remember ever saying
"no”
or “stop”
or anything like that
I just remember it all being hazy
and if I went to another party
I wouldn’t even recognize him
but I don’t go to parties anymore and I know
I shouldn’t drink
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 11:22 PM UTC
I scrape away layers of my skin on my legs
with tweezers, often
until blood is drawn,
trying to yank off the imperfections
I feel,
blistered and pocked with red scabs
I will later
pull off,
a physical manifestation of what I want to do inside
littered with imperfect
feelings, thoughts,
digging and shredding into perfectly smooth and pristine
layers of emotions and ideas
ripping up what is good into an incoherent mess
trying to reach the dark spots underneath,
I can’t see them, but I know they’re there
lurking and waiting to come out to the surface
the agitation rises
if I can’t get something out,-
I need to get something out,
smalls whimpers of pain,
hardly noticeable,
until finally a deep exhale
it’s over.
Legs riddled with bleeding holes,
aching but content,
until tomorrow.
May 15, 2015
May 15, 2015 at 12:34 AM UTC
I know things will change
religion class will end
& four advil and 6 hours later my headache will go away
I will get the fire back in my veins
write again
feel full again
I will start taking credit for my poems
Everything will fade back into background noise
& I will sleep again
My prayers will stop sounding rehearsed
& my lists won't only consist of
"Get out of bed"
I'll talk to my dad
and angry tears will stop burning paths down my cheeks
I will read again
and rest with the lights of
Stop flinching so much
and it will be okay
Again
Mar 22, 2015
Mar 22, 2015 at 10:14 PM UTC
If you don’t know the answer
it’s C
If you don’t care if cheating is immoral anymore
it’s normal
If some days the idea of shoving a pencil into your flesh
is tempting
It’s high school
Welcome to the flawed world
of unhealthy habits and competition
a parade of bent and folded bodies
we show off
graphite scratched skin
Future leaders stand like statues covered in graffiti
among ripped canvases and unfinished art projects
Waiting to be beautiful
Friend groups made up of alternatively
muddy and magnificent water colors
of scars and secrets they hide from their parents,
drawn on their skin,
settled in the cracks of broken frames
hiding wolverines under shattered glass and splintered wood
It’s not beautiful to be broken,
but outside of here, it’s beautiful to be alive
and be what you are
so turn scars into lightning bolts
and let stories drip down your chin in vibrant colors
you can’t see
Our best traits
are tattooed on our backbones
hidden under layers of weather-worn skin and clothes
maybe we can't see them,
but they keep us standing up
So maybe it is all a competition
or a lie
or maybe we’re not real at all
But maybe that’s okay
Because neither is any of this
Feb 9, 2015
Feb 9, 2015 at 9:38 PM UTC
When I was fifteen I listened to a religion teacher say
“Maybe” there should be a queer holocaust
and I pretended it didn’t hurt me,
the same way I pretended when she said
trans people mutilate their bodies by becoming who they are
when she misgendered Leelah Alcorn
when she called asexuals freaks of nature
when the other queer kid got sent to therapy
for having the audacity to even try to start a GSA
and suggesting that maybe everyone deserves to feel safe here
and my friends
think I’m overreacting
“It’s not a big deal!”
“Get over it!”
“Stop trying to be so special,
you should be expecting it at a Catholic school,
this is just what religion is like”
Is it?
Head down
Head down
Voices down,
you can get expelled for disagreeing with the archdiocese
Whisper in the hallway
about all the girls with pregnancy scares
who believed that
love
was the best contraceptive
Is that what Jose Gomez is teaching us?
No it doesn’t hurt
to watch my friends cry
about boys who yell ******
down high school hallways
No it doesn’t hurt
when my friend asked me
“what would your kids even call you?”
No it doesn’t hurt
to be like this
Or at least
I can pretend it doesn’t
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 2:15 AM UTC
You told me you were suicidal
and I wanted to tell you how much it hurt to be a person
how my skin and bones ached to part of infinity a never ending spiral of never again having to say
“I’m sorry”
after coming out
You told me you were suicidal
and I wanted to tell you I wasn’t qualified to give advice on the matter of life and death
I have seen too many bare mattresses to understand
what home really is
am I just an ever changing notion of how a problem student might look like
some futuristic idea of the changing tides
being pushed and tormented by the moon
no I am not qualified to tell you to keep living
You told me you were suicidal
and I remembered the page in my ninth grade diary saying the same
followed by the words
“I don’t know what my name is,
not the one they gave me,
but the one I’m going to give myself
The one they won’t put on my grave,
but the one I’ll put on my heart,
the one God will call me in heaven
and the one mom will deny I have.
I don’t know our name,
and I think I want to die.”
You told me you were suicidal
and I typed and retyped messages,
playing in my head the ways you had already left
and didn’t want to make this one about me,so I said
“Call a hotline”.
You told me you were suicidal
and my bones ached remembering the pain of what it is to be a person.
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 10:05 PM UTC