flatten your tongue
slip it between your teeth

n.

your little lips
forming an elipsis

o.

put them together
and may you declare
a word you’d so carefully deny—
no.

you spell it out
on table tops
shout it
from the rooftops

and when cursed hands
seek to defile your shrine
may you exclaim
"i am mine"

Mr White Rabbit
Take me down
To where the grass is greener
And the Queens are meaner
I'll follow you anywhere
Down that Rabbit Hole

Cerulean skirts and white lace petticoats
I pout and I cry
I sulk and I lie
Eat me, drink me
I don't know what to think
But I do think
That I pout and sulk and cry and lie
Too much

Pour me a drink
Tea in a teacup
Quibbles wrought in mercury
Perhaps not retrograde
But perhaps a renegade

I believe in fairy tales
I believe in tall tales
I believe in animal entrails
I believe, I believe, I believe
In magic and in mythology

Wonderland, oh, Wonderland
Take me to Wonderland
Let me wander through
The Land of Wonderland
Come with me
Come down the Rabbit Hole

If not for hellopoetry
I would have given up
The writing was starting to take its toll
Left me emotionally exhausted
I was forced to take a break
For all my energy it had drained
Sleepless nights, endless lines
Trying to switch off my brain
Left me depressed
When sentences formed
A story I'd tell
About my life in hell
Sometimes dramatised to a new level
Sometimes I have seen myself become the devil
All my emotions that stain the page
The blood, sweat and tears
Written into each line
Left me losing moments in time
And for this writing became a crime
Didn't feel like I was utilising my mind
Until recently I realised this was the only legacy
I would leave behind
I've seen this art in a whole new light
Through words on a page, I've shown my fight
I've shown all my emotions, I have been totally open
Gave my all in every line
Sprinkled in a flavour of rhyme
If not for hellopoetry all I'd have is blank pages
A mind full of lines, forgotten in time
Took some time to unwind
And that is when I realised
These writings and I are bound for life
I've learned to embrace this now
Finally proud of all my works,
how has it taken me this long
To fall in love with this art
If not for hellopoetry
An appreciation I would never have tasted
And this whole community I've embraced it
Don't care if you love or hate it
It's made me make some changes
If not for hellopoetry
There are talents I may never have uncovered
Some of us are still so young,
Still, more room left to improve
The elder ones raising us up
Understanding a whole new love for this art
I once said These lyrics were written in blood
Straight from the arteries from my heart
That metaphorically speaking
I spread all I am, all across the page
Bled the led with what I felt  
So much heart into every verse
All this time it was never a curse
It was something special I've been gifted
To get all these thoughts out of my system
If not for hellopoetry
I wouldn't be here...caught within this poetic atmosphere

©2018 Written By Benji James

A panda sit on the frozen water.
Another stares at me from the wall.
Two pandas.

Then my phone rings.
The bears sing!
And bees swarm from their mouths
and sting me with needles.

Needles full of ***!
LSD!
ACID RAIN!
ICE COLD *******!

And then there is no more pain.
Sleep comes.

The pandas sleep under my bed.

stress blooming forward
in chest like
erratic butterflies flapping
away
and thoughts spiraling
down towards
my stomach where
they do not dissolve
in acid, no matter how
desperately
i ache for them
to leave me

times when
i think about my
future - they are not
etched in stone, they
are fleeting and temporary and as
miniscule as grains of sand

how could they be anything
more than dust
when the possibility
of any greatness
or worthiness
or meaning
is so
tiny, so
small
as to not
even
be there at all