Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 Mar 2018 KieraYale
Olive Rain
there is a whiteboard next to my bed
it says “don’t be lazy”
even though
my mom would say
“we all have to do things we don’t want to do”

but you don’t understand
it’s not that i don’t want to,
it’s that

i can’t.

i wished i forgot to set the alarm
so i would be late for class
but the whiteboard says
“don’t waste your money”

so i force myself
to stare at the wall in the shower
and the wall in the classroom
and the wall in the doctors office

and i force myself
to have conversations
that i am not present for,

to write papers
with words
that i cannot articulate

and this made my mind more tired than it already was.

and so i fell apart,
expecting that you would take care of me.
thats what i’m supposed to do right?
but i messed up somewhere along the way

because you remain
looking anywhere
except my crying eyes

and my tears are fixed on you.
on your hands hoping they will touch me,
and your lips hoping they will tell me
that i will be okay.
 Mar 2018 KieraYale
Nat Lipstadt
A HUGE discovery (on an overheated wet snow stinky stuffy bus


no one

not the grannies, the discolored, the over bundled,
or even the seven and eight year old noisy brats,
(towing blonde nineteen year old au-pairs from Sweden)

doesn’t have their face planted on a screen

most messaging
when the light shines in and the illustration is illuminated
through the stink of overheated humans on a bus-poet

i can tell everything about you from the way
you tap on the screen

you nice you mean
you possess a southern drawl, a handwriting less ‘n a scrawl,
you are a passionate lover slow and languid,
you’re a bath splasher, a snowball thrower,
believer anything wet, well, should be a shared liquid

your think all lives matter especially mine

who plods thru life slow and safe one key tap at time,
making love in the same way and never in the afternoon

whose mother loved them swell well and made them
crazy people who smile at everyone
sharing their terra chips, body parts and
sweet spicy spit
with loving tenderness

the ones who write beneath colored decorated fingernails
so careful not carefree using the finger pads to message and
never break a nail or own a heart making a mess worthy of
cleaning up with a repairman

who lies ‘n cheats on their taxes and their lovers with
reckless impunity because you are so important
then what the heck you doing on this bus with us plebeians?

and the one next to me generationally born to use two thumbs,
but pauses to reflect on the way humans speak to one another before desensitizing blurting any old thing

And the one to whom I show this poem and insists I miss my stop so she can text me her digits and kiss that thumb
a year  later in front of a smoke perfumed fire and she whispers
smarty pants, mr smoke scribe,
who writes only love poetry
watch, what does the smoke say?

but it says nothing that cannot be best expressed by
letting my thumbs do all the talking by tapping
all over her body
1120am est  over Utah
and she laughs and pinches punches me saying
u thot Utah a purry cat!
I think
as artists
we owe a lot to pain.

Put on
a robe of thorns
and write

about the nice weather outside
and that delicious burger
you had today.

Write about happiness
when you're in pain-
beauty.
 Mar 2018 KieraYale
Mitch Prax
You can watch a fire
begin with a spark,
so I’ll stand by your side
until I spot a flame.
 Mar 2018 KieraYale
Grand Piano
Step 1: Get out of bed
Step 2: Look in the mirror
Step 3: Practice your smile
Step 4: Eyedrops to hide the red eyes
Step 5: Conceal the dark circles
Step 6: Breathe
The curtains are almost up
Step 7: Lock down the pain
Step 8: Ignore the weight on your chest
Step 9: Silence the screams inside of your mind
Step 10: Choke down the sobs
Step 11: Ignore the stinging in your eyes
Step 12: Swallow past the tightness in your throat
You’ve put on this show a million times
Step 13: Don’t let them see
Times up. Curtains up. Camera rolling
You know how when you’re not ok but you try so hard to pretend you’re ok that it becomes a ritual
Next page