A marinate was played
Full of granite and fine rings
A bathtub of nosebleeds Danny and a bathtub of kings
All the cards that were dealt all the hands that we played pulled the curtain bell
Of my sleeve up to delay what I'd say and
All the cards we swept under the rug Danny all the music we screamed
From my sore throat and broken hands came the sound of suffering on a silent note in an empty room a bell jar and a piano and a single key being pressed in time to the sound of my weeping Danny
My friends ignored my cries
But here we are now with a new drum set and two sets of sticks for hands and we break everything we try to touch Danny thinking it can be played like the single key in that lonely room
Listen there are vultures in my throat in all my baby teeth and landlocked blues
I know that's the name of the song but I wanted to play it for you
Just in case you forgot I could sing out my suffering
And it doesn't sound so horrible now does it Danny
Because you don't know the story it tells
The blood diamond behind the curtain
Well it glimmers just as well
And I'm sure we can find a way to forgive ourselves for everything that was done
But I'm in a two step programme
Where everything gets reversed
And no I haven't slept in weeks Danny you're right I know I look like ****
I just haven't had time to think about what I'm putting in me
When I try to scream and I come up on a single static piano key
Listen there are ways we broke each-other and I'm sorry I tried
But the sound of my suffering
Doesn't mean waving goodbye
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 4:20 PM UTC
Here it is
the poem on survival, the one you've all been waiting for
where I learned to untie the noose from my smile,
my smile from the trigger warning.
Here's your trigger warning:
I shivered when you kissed me.
I had a hard time believing my heartbeat was a good thing; had a hard time
believing the front door was still an option.
I wake up some days and remember when I used to sing bruises onto my skin,
fill up large towels with my blood,
watch it go black,
watch everything go black.
Still remained smiling;
still stood with the scars; with the ink between my teeth baring
a warning sign for whoever comes next,
for whoever wants my body without wanting my mind.
here it is
here is how i survived:
I hurt myself
I still do it just doesn't show
the scarring.
here it is baby boy come inside its about to get ugly,
you're about to see me cry,
you're about to see me shake,
you're about to find out what im really made of,
I'm about to find out if you break.
are you scared yet
this is a challenge you never step down from,
you brave boy!
you with your sword and white horse;
shining at the darkness inside of me; shining at the stench inside me ; come here,
make me feel whole.
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 8:03 PM UTC
I am awoken by a nagging in my head
its in my mothers voice
the urgency,
I don't know what for, its 5 am.
my submission doesn't speak.
I fill the air with the sound
of my nonsense, a rambling of dreams,
"dont burst the bubble, burst the bubble, burst the-"
a never ending melody.
Because there is nothing louder than this, I have wanted to crawl out of my skin long before I knew it was mine.
And theirs, not mine entirely, composed of DNA so imperfect
even the gods would've laughed.
If you ever want to **** something up to the point its unrecognizable,
give it to me, look what I did to my own potential.
Squander doesn't begin to cover it, almost out of spite.
and i must stop it before it reaches my eyes
it has a certain way of clouding them over
and I just dont want people to realize
that I am swallowing a lump
at the back of my throat
what seems like forever
trying not to get my eyes to burn or
dig my nails deep into someones throat
just to feel their artery and scream
"YOU ******* FEEL IT DONT YOU?
ARE YOU ALIVE? ARE YOU REALLY HERE?
YOU ARE ALIVE, ALIVE ALIVE!."
Then place the sharp bits of my nails
against my skin, hard
and not feel
anything
I struggle with self control
especially with ***
and drugs
and alcohol.
I yell too often, never loud enough to make them hear me.
I am afraid of my own voice
telling people to shut up
Jack knows its not a good thing if I whisper
last time I did I said
"I don't have a pulse, I cant find my pulse."
Before I freaked out and smashed that vase against the wall
and laughed at what a sad broken cliche I have become.
My anger came out in sputtering sobs
And he tried to hold me
because that's what people do in movies
cue the background music
but I didn't let him because I was never any good at acting,
and he never got mad when I hit him
I can hear that "Sshhhh" at the back of
my ear
Forever.
and I could wince at my own humiliation if I gave a ****
I wont lie it was awkward he sounded scared
"aww dont c-c-ry"
thought I saw a tear there too
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 1:04 PM UTC
He plays the the sound of a rainfall in Manhattan.
As he chases paper thin skin out of this sorry sob story
another fairy tale in his head.
I think you've had enough for today Alex
why don't you sing of pretty things?
Eyes like coals too dark to see,
do they stop your hands from strumming that guitar?
the tunes you play
the melodies
echo in the absence of your voice
and alex you taste so sweet
sweeter than the alcohol you use to get to sleep
I tell you one day the past will catch up with you;
but your smile looks like a well adjusted childhood.
Something were all surprised to see.
And yeah your fingers pour over the strings,
because
the only time they dont shake is when you play
so play for me
play play play
sing sing sing
dont stop
dont breathe
just play
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 8:23 PM UTC
Today I wanted to buy the copyright to the process of hallelujah
******* in joy the same way whales eat krill
You just bottle it up inside your lungs until you have enough
Inside my fridge I have vacuum sealed jars of hallelujah
There’s nothing religious about that
Jars labeled things like
Loss of virginity
Rob lived this time
The homework is complete
Hallelujah
It’s the same way prayer works
Backwards
Pulling bits of god like an inhale
I want to hyperventilate on your hallelujah
Like a gospel choir on speed
It collects
Over time
For instance
It was maybe a month in to sleeping at Delia’s and Toffer’s house
Before I realized
I didn’t have to sleep in my car anymore
You go into the bathroom to **** and realize
Hallelujah
A jar labeled
Found a Home for now
I know science can do this
For the sake of all that is a monument to a single life
So that on your death bed, or at your funeral
Everyone there can hold a jar
Cold and warm at the same time
Vibrating in their palms
In violent joy
Like mozzletoff cocktails
They are thrown
And when they shatter there is a song
That has been collecting for years
The same word in different tonal joys
Your life
Every good moment
Hallelujah
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 10:35 AM UTC
I never called it ****
the events of the night the gin had made us hazy
and the drugs had us reckless.
The half hour you spent strumming me
like some pawn shop guitar
Suffocating me in the sheets
which were covered in the filth of your former lovers.
I never called it ****
The way your hands had rudely ripped
my previously untouched skin
and your mouth devoured my innocent lips.
Never thought much of the way you had told me to be quiet
while I whispered for you to stop
because I'd never done this before
and it was painful
and I wept.
Because you had warned that I would wake the others
and I was embarrassed
and you had made me *****
I never called it ****
Never let the repetition of your phrases sink in too much
as you told me it was fine
and it was okay
that I'd like it.
I never thought too hard.
Because you moved too fast
and the room was spinning
and I gave in to waiting for it to be over.
And when you had gotten too tired of hearing me whimper
and my pleading had become obnoxious
you sighed an angry **** this"
and stomped off to the bathroom to finish yourself,
after commanding I put my clothes back on,
And find somewhere else to sleep,
I stumbled across your ***** basement to where the others slept
and collapsed hiding silently in the sinkholes of your couch,
Listening to your grunts before the light came on and you passed out
avoiding the stains of my youth on your sheets.
And I never called it ****
In the morning you drove me home
making little effort to hide your disgust in my failure to get you off
While I looked out the car window at all the houses I had grown up next to,
None of which looked familiar any more
attempted to ignore the stinging of the poisonous scars you had left behind
pretending that my body wasn't covered
in the scratches and bruises of your insincere actions.
And when we arrived outside my parents' house
after an eternity of painful silence
you didn't speak merely
grunted at my departure
and I snuck quietly through the front door to the shower
where I scrubbed until the marks from your fingernails
became indistinguishable from the skin I had rubbed raw
until it bled
trying to convince myself
that I had eliminated all the remnants of your scent
and the dirt from your actions.
But I never called it ****
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 9:45 AM UTC
I tell him about the 90 year old that made a home in my body.
Say "I feel more than the nineteen years, I feel more than your nineteen years."
He takes it as evidence towards what he calls my "superiority complex"
makes a joke about thinking I'm so much wiser than everybody else as I stammer with arms crossed trying to find the words my nineteen year old vocabulary does not know.
This has nothing to do with being wise you sonofabitch, its about an exhaustion that paints the dark color around my eyes and the sigh that lives in my belly you ******
He interrupts, laughing "What do you mean? Your bones ache or something? haha hahaha." Loud, obnoxious, not the first time,
not the last. I want to say yes
yes
yes they ache ad they creak
and they burn and so do my eyes and so do my insides and so do the words I say and the way I say them and the way it scares others when I say some profound **** I almost sound like Gandhi, like Bukowski, I just never learnt of a beautiful way to disguise my pain. Not enough so It could sell.
I was better off alone when the ice made a security blanket around my heart-better off with no pain.
He shines a mirror on all my missing parts, calls me ****** up.
Stand next to me just to lean over in his height, superiority complex runs high among privileged nineteen year old straight males.
The ice thawed but he came with no gloves
I found the bruising less tolerable than the cold this time around
Less bearable than the lonely beat my heart learned to sing.
Its the same story he just repeats himself as another boy who says the wrong things and makes me feel
exhausted for every having opened up my icebox full of secrets.
Every conversation is an emptying out and not the cathartic kind.
The kind that leaves the ninety year old in me shaking with nothing left inside her but rotting gums and eyes that have seen too much **** Nobody is supposed to make you this unhappy. This is not what I asked when I asked for you to make me feel something.
Every time I say your name Matthew, it almost comes out Nathan, in my head. Nathan with his accent, and the same humor, same jokes. Nathan the boy I emptied myself out to just so he could leave bruises on the uncovered parts. It was so easy to to leave somebody I never gave a **** about.
Matthew, I only say your name so often so I remember it, so I say it right, so I remind myself you are not the same person. Matthew sounds allot like Nathan when your drunk or sad which I am most of the time these days, you sound allot like him with your laugh, sound like your gonna leave bruises on all the parts I lift up to show you. I know this.
This is a fact. Like I know I wont ever cry for you until I'm all thawed out.
Matthew, for your painstaking insensitivity, for your lack of understanding
Matthew for you not understanding all the creaking in my bones is just screaming
Save me
Fix me
Give me one reason why you're good for me because I cannot think of any and
I so desperately want to
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 3:59 PM UTC
They kissed you with that mouth
Wrote books about you
Took pictures and hung them up for beer ads
For humans with high testosterone to ogle
While they ******* the top of a beer bottle
Like it will bring their fathers acceptance
Back into their eyes.
Your nine inched heels gave me whip lash
Your ½ inch eyelashes gave me heartburn
Your spit
Indigestion
Because they kissed you with that mouth.
And you still believe,
You asked for it
You still believed you were not worth getting out of the hood for
The hood
what good is the hood and the hood-rats
You ******* ***** in alleyways
All 10 of them lined up
said I might as well have the money upfront
If I'm gonna **** **** I'm getting paid for it
They bashed your head into concrete so hard.
You forgot how your mothers voice sounded like
Almost forgot how your uncles knuckles tasted like,
I don’t know your story
I don’t know your name
I don’t know you
I just know that your friend
And my friends
Last night
Came to the conclusion
That you were a ****
And you were asking for it
You asked for your head to be bashed into concrete
And hey maybe you did
Maybe you wanted something to hit you hard enough to make you forget
The hate inside
The misogyny you swallow
and wash down the drain
maybe you were there in front of 10 guys because you wanted to know what power felt like
what being wanted felt like
because you thought you were worth the money
but they didn't
because maybe that's what you asked for
because maybe your mother taught you to get high and surrender with glazed eyes
rather then take your higheels off and fight
because your laughter sounds more broken than you do
because your eyes hold remnants of your skull
because you remember the taste of your blood too keenly
because my friends, my female friends who are not evil or sexist
my male friends the protector of women
came to an agreement
you asked for it
put yourself in the position to
smell the inside of your brain
because your blood meant power
because finishing them off
meant swallowing or bleeding
and you did some of both because
maybe you chose survival
because maybe you came in kicking naked and maybe thats how you wanna go out with
another mans hands down your throat
some to aid air some
to constrict
weather you bleed or swallow you are only
emptying out
and I tried to explain that to your friend and my friends but
there is so much anger about what happend to you
and none of it is directed at the ten faceless penises.
Because you were once a chandelier of candles
And now you are a faceless light bulb hung on the moldy hotel building
Because your **** gives you free crack and
My friends have disgust on their faces
And I feel
Pity
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 7:12 PM UTC
March comes like a punching bag
March will bring her smiles like plastic bags
Some tear some don’t
You never know when she will glare her teeth like razorblades and bleed the snow
from underneath these fingertips.
Leave my insulation soaked, me; feverish.
And the joke is, I saw this coming
shivering the melted ice out of me she
bares her grin like a warning sign,
and I was either too brave or dumb enough to step inside
like a welcome mat made out of ice
and a cartoon dog
A scared pitbull, and a woman in charge.
The joke is that haha
There is no joke, you walked in.,
and made one out of yourself.
Out of the frost on your eyelashes and grief on your fingernails.
haha get it,
sweat her out like the coldest fever, without dying of shock.
Get it now?
She brings back the taste of firewood and comfort of flames when you needed it the most
Punches like the best punchline
hard enough to make it hurt
not hard enough to make you forget
hahaha
Knocks the wind out of you.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 3:30 PM UTC
Fistfulls of dark hair in darker water
the expression is not beautiful
or ugly
just pure survival.
When hands do what they're meant to do
and you wanna tell him
"I just want to drown"
and you wanna tell him
"I just want to burn out" but
he manages to throw your cigarettes away
hide every sharp insrument in a drawer
flush the xanax down the toilet
he says blue is such a lonely color,
so he repaints your walls and you scream at him to stop
as the sun shines through mirrored curtains.
When you are broken you expect everything around you to be broken.
White sheets replace black ones and he traces your footsteps back to the bathroom tiles,
smiles says;
"let the light in babe"
mistakes the fear in your eyes for sadness
you have no more room left for sadness
and he has no room left for empathy
running on caffeine and sympathy.
youll take what you can get so the nighttime doesnt have to be darker without him
hope he finds your notebook you place strategically ontop of a kitchen counter
because surely if he could read that he could understand
there are days darker than the ones when you chose to let the light in
it will shine on all your rotting parts
on your cracked canvases and too-full-dams
it will bring sight to the stink that is inside you
he will see
and if he cannot understand the terrror of that then he is not human
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 4:26 PM UTC