liam-kleinberg - Hello Poetry

I’ve always had a fascination with bones. The skeletal system was taught to me in my fourth grade year. I learned the name of each bone that laid just under my thin layers of skin. I read books on how they were made, how they were broken, how they fixed themselves. I saw them as self-sufficient. I gazed at the plastic skeleton that lived in the corner of my classroom. I tried to match his bones with mine. ******* in my stomach to pinpoint each individual rib. Stretching my skin to watch the edges of my bones appear. I remember narrowing my eyes at the plastic toy in front of my face. It was like he was mocking me. He was showing me everything I wished I could see on myself. Staring at me with such contemptuousness in a sneer of his plastic teeth. I walked away in a mood that rivaled a hurricane, tears that felt foreign against my soft cheeks and a boiling pool of disgust deep inside my body that was covered in too many layers of skin. I spent my first two years of middle school in quiet distaste. I forgot my fascination with the bones inside me. I never quite existed anywhere but in my own head. I was content. When my father pushed us away the first time, we fled to a different home on a different street. The second time, he shoved us into a different house in a different state. I started a new school with new people that inhabited new sets of bones. In my biology classroom, another plastic skeleton took up home in the corner. I went back to my new house everyday to my mother who I only saw once a day if I went to seek her out and sisters who had to take the blows silently. I trailed behind them, gathering their missing pieces and using the glue holding me whole to stick their parts back together. I scrambled to feed the zombies wandering around my house, shaving off layers of skin. I had to stand by and watch my own body turn into the skeleton I envied. I could peel back the skin I had left and finally see the sharp edges of milky bone. We were pushed again. To another house in another state. I panicked to hide what was festering inside my chest. I tried to shield it from the eyes of my sisters, trying to keep them pure from fear of death or something just as scary. I pulled a veil down over my face, building a wall between the people I loved and myself. I watched as girls my age twisted and smiled and matured. I felt uneasiness as I tried to be like them, taking note of the way they flicked their hair back and tried to replicate it in a mirror. I painted my face with powders and rimmed my eyes in black to cover the red. I grew out my hair long enough to cover the bones trailing down my back, trying to bend in a shape that I didn’t want them going. I spent nights trying to find something that could bring my bones to life. I danced around death, grinning like a maniac when I dipped my toes into the white power I had found. I watched the blood drip from the cracks in my skin as I stared by at my own face that looked like a ghost to me now. I didn’t recognize the person in the mirror. With white around their nose, red around their eyes and with features almost parallel to the skeleton that had mocked me so long ago. I came back from myself in the months following. I tried to rip off the veil over my eyes. I worked to carefully dismantle the wall between me and everyone else. I let my skin grow and grow until I couldn’t see the bones I used to find beautiful. I let myself dress how I knew I wanted. I let myself be who I wanted. I took the pain I had nurtured in my chest since I was a child and bundled it up, pushing it away because it was a friend I didn’t want to be around anymore. I had to learn how to hold my sisters up and climb up with them too. I started scribbling a new name on the canvases I have poured my heart into. I stopped trying to carve my own bones into the shape I wanted them to be and instead, I painted the way they grew. I molded creatures out of clay. I drew beautiful things. I made beautiful things. I began only drawing the things I saw most beautiful. I drew flowers and animals and the people I had allowed to help me. I drew architecture and waterfalls and insects. After my bones had disappeared and the smile on my face wasn’t pulled up by the thought of being non existent, I drew myself too.

0

Jun 9, 2015

Jun 9, 2015 at 3:09 PM UTC

why I hate skeleton's and everything those jerk's stand for

I’ve always had a fascination with bones. The skeletal system was taught to me in my fourth grade year. I learned the name of each bone that laid just under my thin layers of skin. I read books on how they were made, how they were broken, how they fixed themselves. I saw them as self-sufficient. I gazed at the plastic skeleton that lived in the corner of my classroom. I tried to match his bones with mine. ******* in my stomach to pinpoint each individual rib. Stretching my skin to watch the edges of my bones appear. I remember narrowing my eyes at the plastic toy in front of my face. It was like he was mocking me. He was showing me everything I wished I could see on myself. Staring at me with such contemptuousness in a sneer of his plastic teeth. I walked away in a mood that rivaled a hurricane, tears that felt foreign against my soft cheeks and a boiling pool of disgust deep inside my body that was covered in too many layers of skin. I spent my first two years of middle school in quiet distaste. I forgot my fascination with the bones inside me. I never quite existed anywhere but in my own head. I was content. When my father pushed us away the first time, we fled to a different home on a different street. The second time, he shoved us into a different house in a different state. I started a new school with new people that inhabited new sets of bones. In my biology classroom, another plastic skeleton took up home in the corner. I went back to my new house everyday to my mother who I only saw once a day if I went to seek her out and sisters who had to take the blows silently. I trailed behind them, gathering their missing pieces and using the glue holding me whole to stick their parts back together. I scrambled to feed the zombies wandering around my house, shaving off layers of skin. I had to stand by and watch my own body turn into the skeleton I envied. I could peel back the skin I had left and finally see the sharp edges of milky bone. We were pushed again. To another house in another state. I panicked to hide what was festering inside my chest. I tried to shield it from the eyes of my sisters, trying to keep them pure from fear of death or something just as scary. I pulled a veil down over my face, building a wall between the people I loved and myself. I watched as girls my age twisted and smiled and matured. I felt uneasiness as I tried to be like them, taking note of the way they flicked their hair back and tried to replicate it in a mirror. I painted my face with powders and rimmed my eyes in black to cover the red. I grew out my hair long enough to cover the bones trailing down my back, trying to bend in a shape that I didn’t want them going. I spent nights trying to find something that could bring my bones to life. I danced around death, grinning like a maniac when I dipped my toes into the white power I had found. I watched the blood drip from the cracks in my skin as I stared by at my own face that looked like a ghost to me now. I didn’t recognize the person in the mirror. With white around their nose, red around their eyes and with features almost parallel to the skeleton that had mocked me so long ago. I came back from myself in the months following. I tried to rip off the veil over my eyes. I worked to carefully dismantle the wall between me and everyone else. I let my skin grow and grow until I couldn’t see the bones I used to find beautiful. I let myself dress how I knew I wanted. I let myself be who I wanted. I took the pain I had nurtured in my chest since I was a child and bundled it up, pushing it away because it was a friend I didn’t want to be around anymore. I had to learn how to hold my sisters up and climb up with them too. I started scribbling a new name on the canvases I have poured my heart into. I stopped trying to carve my own bones into the shape I wanted them to be and instead, I painted the way they grew. I molded creatures out of clay. I drew beautiful things. I made beautiful things. I began only drawing the things I saw most beautiful. I drew flowers and animals and the people I had allowed to help me. I drew architecture and waterfalls and insects. After my bones had disappeared and the smile on my face wasn’t pulled up by the thought of being non existent, I drew myself too.

4

pretty pretty girl all wrapped up in pretty pretty ribbon like a gift an object wrapped like an object stuck in a pretty pretty box a pretty pink box dance on your tippy toes raise higher higher higher, darling break your pretty pretty pink toenails i want to hear the snap your bones make when you bend backwards trying to please the people all roughly wrapped in blue pretty pretty boy all wrapped in pretty pretty ribbon can you hear the whistles? can you? that high pitched squeal that shatters your ear drum it beats like the bang of a drum march, soldier march open your pretty pretty eyes all sewn shut shove purple paint down your own throat if it helps you pretty pretty pretty girl pretty pretty pretty boy pretty pretty people don't exist

0

May 19, 2015

May 19, 2015 at 1:31 PM UTC

pretty pretty pretty people

pretty pretty girl all wrapped up in pretty pretty ribbon like a gift an object wrapped like an object stuck in a pretty pretty box a pretty pink box dance on your tippy toes raise higher higher higher, darling break your pretty pretty pink toenails i want to hear the snap your bones make when you bend backwards trying to please the people all roughly wrapped in blue pretty pretty boy all wrapped in pretty pretty ribbon can you hear the whistles? can you? that high pitched squeal that shatters your ear drum it beats like the bang of a drum march, soldier march open your pretty pretty eyes all sewn shut shove purple paint down your own throat if it helps you pretty pretty pretty girl pretty pretty pretty boy pretty pretty people don't exist

27

i was born with a sickness that dripped from ***** blood bag she was born with gold ribbons tying her skin together i wish i could have pulled a little harder unraveled her from the outside in she said i was small and insignificant i told her to water me give me incisors sharpen them like the knives in my kitchen drawer you won't recognize her can you drown in the forced love of yourself? i love me i love me i love me i love me i love me is that why i can't dig up the old roots that she buried inside my chest? i am filled to the brim with artificial self love where does the love for other people fit inside? im a broken puzzle piece that only fits inside itself i thought i had found all my pieces but really it was an ampersand trying to make a bridge to cross from one life to another smooth sailing oh mother oh father you created something that looks like how scratches on a chalkboard sound i am so so sorry

0

May 7, 2015

May 7, 2015 at 3:05 PM UTC

if i could cross puzzle pieces like a crumbling bridge

i was born with a sickness that dripped from ***** blood bag she was born with gold ribbons tying her skin together i wish i could have pulled a little harder unraveled her from the outside in she said i was small and insignificant i told her to water me give me incisors sharpen them like the knives in my kitchen drawer you won't recognize her can you drown in the forced love of yourself? i love me i love me i love me i love me i love me is that why i can't dig up the old roots that she buried inside my chest? i am filled to the brim with artificial self love where does the love for other people fit inside? im a broken puzzle piece that only fits inside itself i thought i had found all my pieces but really it was an ampersand trying to make a bridge to cross from one life to another smooth sailing oh mother oh father you created something that looks like how scratches on a chalkboard sound i am so so sorry

26

***** ***** ***** dishes scrubbing dirt off them like they have somewhere to be why do they have to be so clean what do they have to prove

0

Apr 16, 2015

Apr 16, 2015 at 1:40 PM UTC

***** dishes

***** ***** ***** dishes scrubbing dirt off them like they have somewhere to be why do they have to be so clean what do they have to prove

4

i wait and wait and wait and wait and wait i sit with skinned knees turned up toward the fluid membrane of the sky wait my mouth is supposed to be a pretty pink like you drew me out to be it's a devastating gray waiting waiting how may fingers do i have to count on before you come back to me stop stop i don't beg for anyone except for the voice in my head to SHUT UP i told myself that beauty is subjective i want to be subjective stopping blood flows through the space behind my eyes i can't see any color but a brilliant red shut up how high do i have to jump before the force of the landing breaks both my legs? my heart beats to no one but the idea that I am superior do i have the capacity to hate myself? no

0

Apr 16, 2015

Apr 16, 2015 at 1:33 PM UTC

brain made of quicksand

i wait and wait and wait and wait and wait i sit with skinned knees turned up toward the fluid membrane of the sky wait my mouth is supposed to be a pretty pink like you drew me out to be it's a devastating gray waiting waiting how may fingers do i have to count on before you come back to me stop stop i don't beg for anyone except for the voice in my head to SHUT UP i told myself that beauty is subjective i want to be subjective stopping blood flows through the space behind my eyes i can't see any color but a brilliant red shut up how high do i have to jump before the force of the landing breaks both my legs? my heart beats to no one but the idea that I am superior do i have the capacity to hate myself? no

23

!

0

Apr 14, 2015

Apr 14, 2015 at 3:00 PM UTC

I had only tasted wine twice in my life once it was from the bottle, stolen from my fathers fridge it tasted like bitterness sliding down my throat it tasted like unhappiness bottled up stupid stupid stupid boy i was as sweet as a candied grain of salt who told me i was special? a vulture sat on my bony shoulder it's claws dug into pale flesh i sat happily singing always singing it leaned over and whispered things that made me crack a smile we sat on the edge of the couch with blood between our legs and blisters in the shape of hand prints where he touched us i was happy to have a piece of cloth wrapped around my mouth the second time i tasted wine it was the flavor of her sugar coated lips i could smell it i could taste it i didn't care she told me it was backround music to the taste of her like it was always lingering i was drunk off the way my heart thunked it sent a beat of nervousness throughout my ribcage she slid her bony fingers under the back of my shirt and told me it was supposed to be this way she whispered that love was supposed to feel this way i nodded and went pliant i thought love was supposed to be like that i ******* hate the taste of wine

0

Apr 14, 2015

Apr 14, 2015 at 2:53 PM UTC

bittersweet things are more often more bitter than sweet

I had only tasted wine twice in my life once it was from the bottle, stolen from my fathers fridge it tasted like bitterness sliding down my throat it tasted like unhappiness bottled up stupid stupid stupid boy i was as sweet as a candied grain of salt who told me i was special? a vulture sat on my bony shoulder it's claws dug into pale flesh i sat happily singing always singing it leaned over and whispered things that made me crack a smile we sat on the edge of the couch with blood between our legs and blisters in the shape of hand prints where he touched us i was happy to have a piece of cloth wrapped around my mouth the second time i tasted wine it was the flavor of her sugar coated lips i could smell it i could taste it i didn't care she told me it was backround music to the taste of her like it was always lingering i was drunk off the way my heart thunked it sent a beat of nervousness throughout my ribcage she slid her bony fingers under the back of my shirt and told me it was supposed to be this way she whispered that love was supposed to feel this way i nodded and went pliant i thought love was supposed to be like that i ******* hate the taste of wine

29

FAKER

0

Mar 26, 2015

Mar 26, 2015 at 1:23 PM UTC

FAKER