Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
27
Lara Lewis Apr 2014
27
Have you forgotten, old man, the wild youth?
Zephyrs will knock you back, zooming, stumbling drunk on power
All these children, worshipping speed in constant flux
Face-first, papercuts from paper cutouts all around,
I went crazy, old man, my mind exploded in wartime plumes;
You once called this yours, too, under hahas and rough guffaws.
Illuminating all, what remained unseen, with iron grip, I grasped at straws,
Remember old man, because when you forget, it wins all over again.
I beg you, salty old sinnerman, soaked in the spray of the silver sea,
Shine your lamp this way, but don’t dare Gaslight me.
Old man, our body was a wonderland, you’ve turned it a junkyard,
Salvage; choose optimism over efficiency,
Monumental, recycled effigy.
Our father told us he’d be dead by 27,
Remember, old man, he would roll spliff in the barn,
The green and brown, offered for lost time;
Creaking joints whisper family secrets,
Wheezing lungs paint a portrait over a mirror.
I thought I’d be dead by 27,
Dented and chipped, different ways to cheapen;
Trans-Am aspirations but a body of a bicycle; semi-collapsible.
My nose long since hollowed.
What will we be, will we see 27?
Clad in armour of words unspoken,
Polished in appearance like the bottle from last night.
Old man, you’re so funny, hungry and hard,
Leathered skin suits you well.
In these jean short summers, Be not afraid.
Twisted metal blocks out brains,
Tanning our shared skin,
Revealing our blood,
Secrets embodied,
One Grandmother madonna, another a *****,
High cheek-***** olive skin,
Contrasted with Viking lovers.
Different pieces welded together over generations,
Tones and textures,
If there’s one thing we know, it’s that there’s no shame in sleeping with a Frenchman,
Gushing like the first time, when we were 16,
Silent and guilty eye contact, Sploosh.
Old man, some things never change.
We can be so much better.
We have been so much better.
Third-year modern theatre assignment: A letter to your future self in one of our studied styles. My choice: futurism.
Lara Lewis Dec 2013
I’ve felt the rhythm of the world,
Pulsating from an unknown source,
Illuminating every facet of existence.
Life and death are Illusions.
They are choices that we make,
As we drift asleep,
In the transitory second,
The twilight in between dreams and reality.
Preservation is unnaturally natural.
Everything will fade,
Everything will die,
Sustainment is useless,
Ignorant of facts, our brains think in Formaldehyde,
Doing anything to hold on to gold dust as it slips through our fingers.

I’ve been caught in this roundabout for as long as I remember,
Assured that the chain would never be broken,
Fearing what we can never know,
Fearing more what I truly understand.
Understanding allows for criticism,
People who hate themselves know themselves too well.

I’ve become so evasive towards touch;
I thought I was made with scissorhands,
Sharp blades, unable to satisfy what phantom limbs cannot feel,
Now I know that it is okay;
I am afraid.
And now I understand why.
Lara Lewis Jan 2014
Dry scents linger in paralyzed air,
Creeping bony fingers,
A comforting specter, and a reminder of home,
But the sky's children freeze before they're born.
Miscarriages of moisture,
Nurturing nectar gone sour,
You will provide nothing.
Lara Lewis Dec 2013
We haven’t spoken like we did,
Words feel like discarded currency;
Useless now, and inconsequential in hindsight.
Query into the why,
I respond with what,
Like a dam of unspokeness has burst,
And words flow past;
Powerful, but inevitably more destructive than I hoped,
Pushing away the life preserver I am offered,
I can do it alone, because that’s what it will come down to,
Dismissive of pessimism, you make claims of happy endings, so I refute:

“Babe, we’re fighting a cold war,
No one can win when there’s everything to lose.
Lines are drawn, allegiance implicit.
Unspoken resentment.
Vocal frustration.
A couple’s quarrel that never was,
Like Frankenstein’s monster,
The rearranged parts of our whole,
Pieces of fiction,
Light folly with cruel consequences,
Denial sets in,
My road to hell will always be paved with your best intentions.”

I will not hear, I will not see.
Willful disability,
Crippled with envy.
I am a monster with emeralds in her eyes,
Seeing the universe through glass tinted green instead of rose,
I am the monster who is thin and jagged,
Unable to produce my own warmth,
Cutting everyone near.

I am the monster who plays house,
The monster who wants it to be home,
The vicious beast with a place to rest its head,
It’s easy to be alone, but somehow less satisfying.

"My road to hell will always be paved with your best intentions.”

Our destruction is mutually assured,
No move is left unanalysed,
Hyperawareness.
Things we side aside before are the objects of argument;
Proxy wars.

I am a giraffe racing a gazelle,
Long strides mean nothing;
Beauty is the crowd favourite,
Tripping over my own limbs,
Tendons severed by chasing wildcats,
Falling, devoured, as beauty reaches the finish line.

Détente.
Lara Lewis Nov 2013
We are magnetically bound,
Where I go you will follow.
You retired your bloodhound,
You’ll find me on your own tomorrow.
We are anonymous, reviling in nothingness,
But how many times has nothing been wrong?
Nothing is the last straw,
There is no appeal process when you are nameless,
The fringe keeps you hidden;
Hidden from your monsters,
Hidden from your salvation,
My personal Jesus.



You have thrown me into the deep end,
My hands and feet are bound,
And my voice can’t make a sound,
But my worth will be proven,
I will swim until I reach the sun as it sets on the world,
And I will tell him everything about you and that special girl,
He’s seen it all and will see it all again,
He is the light; he is the storm and the rain.
Hate is a model;
A person with their solar removed:
We all shine like stars, but this one has collapsed,
This one has lapsed into a different state,
In a stranger’s shoes, drinking a stranger’s *****;
He will cry for a man he never met,
At the alter he burns his regrets,
In tribute to a God we tend to forget,
To make amends for our debts,
The collection company is calling.

Face first.
The water is cold,
I am cold,
I have been cold.
I have been aging too fast,
Lara Lewis Feb 2016
Should have looked before I leaped

Now falling     again

Falling     again
Falling     again
No?
Not falling.

But quietly accepting the consequences
Lara Lewis Feb 2016
Tooth and claw, fighting instinct.
Tooth and nail, breaking laws.
Fury --
Your last decision on my behalf.

I promised to always be in your eyes
I promised to always be
I promised, in your eyes.
In your eyes I --
I will never promise again.

You know my real name now;
The last Kindly One.
Lara Lewis Dec 2013
We were parodies of our parents,
Twisted mirror images,
Emulating something we can’t understand,
Trying to mimic something we haven’t seen.
Unsure of what we are, or were, or will become.
Control is the new black, painted on the walls in our love shack
That hasn’t had a visitor since this time last spring
Light filters through muggy dust, floating through the air like plankton in the sea,
And we were the whales, filtering through our mouths,
Unable to consume anything more substantive.
Our teeth fell out with old age,
But my face is still smooth.
We are green shoots, erupting with violence from the malnourished soils,
Desperate for a drop of sunlight,
Sweet relief.
Sweetest silence in another’s company,
Words were made to lie with,
Bodies are made to lie with,
As they huddle together to try to warm up,
But my hair is needles, and my arms are razor blades;
Steely coldness, severing all that tries to warm it up,
Stabbing what gets too close,
Feeling like you're quarantined.
The phoenix is reborn to be given the chance,
to be the man he thought he could never be,
But scrub and scald, the slate won't come clean,
The only escape is constant escape,
Never stop moving.
Venom leaks from my skin,
Bright colours warn predators,
While sweet sounds attract mates,
Aural honey sticks in the holes we put in my brain,
And for about three minutes and forty-seven seconds
Everything is about the vibrations.
Lara Lewis Jul 2014
Warm a house, wreck a home.
Denial of cracks in pavement, in drywall.
My back is unbroken
My back is will never not be unbroken;
The only way back is to move forward,
Restart; Groundhog day.
The subtle difference experience makes.
Playing parts only goes so far,
You want the real thing,
But I will never be afraid again.
Lara Lewis Dec 2013
I would **** the venom from your wound,
If you’d come close enough to the ground,
Come down for a day and rest your head,
You don’t have to stay, but I can’t see you dead.
Your gashes are self-inflicted,
Your soul has been addicted since day one
When you first felt the sun,
Because when you listen you understand,
You were born a boy and transformed into a man.
You burnt your bridges and then mourned their loss,
You lie back in sunglasses and catch a tan on the cross.
Lies are your clothes,
You layer up and talk the talk,
You’ll take every blow,
If it means you can walk the walk.

Your brain blacks out and your mouth becomes a portal to the deepest corner of your mind,
My lips pout, as you crave the immortal, and I am sickened by the selfishness I find.

Before you leave like I know you will,
I’ll force the sun to stand still,
Relish in what is now,
Let yourself take a bow.
We all want to be special but no one could stand to be alone,
Your mind binds your heart, but I can feel you to the bone.
Every dark story pours from you like a fountain,
The tallest mountain shuddered when you approached him,
You declared your sins with pride,
Before you decided to run and hide.
Afflicted by others beauty stuck in your eyes,
The mirror shows the boy you used to despise,
So you killed him, and you buried him there,
You marked your body and cut your hair.
You placed yourself high enough for everyone to see,
They watch as you drown, and you smile with glee,
One day this will make a great story,
Then maybe they’d be sorry,
The man you are is split into parts,
They drink your beer and smoke your darts,
Children of your mind you’ve let grow,
Things we should keep hidden show off to the world without shame,
And if you’re ever done seeking fame
Know that I know you from the inside,
I’ve seen the “you” that you’ve denied,
Just relax, and learn to say:
“I’ve done enough, it’s been a good day.”

You forget how to stay the same because it took so long for you to love yourself,
You are a siren on the rocks with your heart on your sleeve and a bottle on the shelf,

You are a fire; so pick a side:
Light their way or burn them alive.
Children are so cruel, I know this well,
Home is a heaven and outside is hell.

You tarnished your silver spoon,
And you found the rabbit in the moon,
You didn’t know what it meant,
But it’s worth the money you spent.
And oh, how I mourn for what never was,
Pretty is as pretty does.
When you love someone but then you keep seeing all these faults with them, and then one night when you're both really ****** up he tells you that everything you thought was just your own chemically inbalanced brain was actually true and everything finally makes sense when you put it into context, when you understand the path they walked; the pedestal you put that person on is flimsy and fragile and now is when it finally breaks.

Watch out for falling glass, and remember that no one wants to be deified.
Lara Lewis Jan 2014
Love is an iron anchor,
Who keeps a strudy home,
Who seals the fate of the falling.

Love is a burning bush,
So glorious it has to ignite,
Brighter than the sun, yet inflammable.

Love is the sound of the seaside winds,
Ethereal whispers turned howls,
Spawning waves to tug and hug the coast line.

Love is a family home,
With age comes more memories,
With time comes more maintenance.

Love is half a cigarette,
A safety net when you need it,
A stink you can't wash off.

Love is but a nightmare,
A beautiful dream gone wrong,
What lofty ideas did desire taint?

Love is a game of house,
Familiar, easy archetypes; performance,
Life is a game, a good friend said.

Love is a double-edged sword,
The strongest weapon,
Your hands always end up ****** when you use it.

Love is pride.
Gaining ownership, control, security.
Love is shame.
Losing autonomy, independence, sanity.

Love is the fuel of the Beloved,
Sacred mana,
Emotional crack-*******.
Simple musing. Immature feeling in hindsight.
Lara Lewis Dec 2013
We cut through frigid air,
We are ice picks;
We are pointed each way we turn,
Figure skaters,
Dancing on the sidewalks,
I trip.
Metamorphasised a triple salcow,
Ten points.
The transfiguration of mistakes into works of art.
What it all comes down to at the end,
The delicate task of placing the mask on any symbol of effort.
Hyperaware of the absence of originality,
Overfed and undersexed;
A bleak outlook.

Willful domestication
Willful enslavement.
Lara Lewis Mar 2014
Lunar rays, the moon's array,
Through window screens and windy dreams,
Piercing minds like I pierce my face,
Without a trace, the human race
Chases time, charts out time, every time.
When no child is left behind,
The malformed mooncalf gets to shine,
On carpets; wine,
Matching glasses carry moonshine,

A rabbit one day, a man the next,
Kitty-cat smile, auntie knows best.
Bind Oceans and blood, marine ebb and flow,

Oh! You drive me mad;
Colour fades from visions that I had.
Tell-tale clip-clop of a modest kitten heel,
Starry-eyes, cruise the dark side,
Hell behind a wheel.
The moon as the master
Lara Lewis Jan 2014
Tiny toes pitter patter,
The dish, the spoon, china clatters,
In the end it doesn't matter,
Nothing is new anymore.

Reduce, reuse, and recycle,
Take an inch, I go a mile.
Faces tighten with a smile,
Tired ankles, wanderlust-sore.

Marching songs, stomping feet,
Blood shed on the fresh cleaned street,
Sight of violence, scent of defeat,
Find a way home, find a way home.

Louder voices, stronger words,
Fleeing children, roosting birds,
Frame and focus, rule of thirds,
Final days of the Peace of Rome.
Lara Lewis Jan 2014
If I come to terms then my world will collapse.
You said time's made of pockets, so when in doubt just dance.
Once I was guiding light that he wouldn't go without,
Now a mass of ash, dry in starving mouths.
Remember how I melted into the carpet that moved; the ebb and flow?
Remember the day we stayed up through a hurricane, remember ****** snow?
Memory is a sacrifice buried at our ***** feet,
Sacraments that leave our minds incomplete.

You were my purgatory, your burning makes me clean,
I sat in Persephone's throne, it's fit for a queen.
Stolen maiden turned *****, six seeds seal fate.
I'm consort on your royal tour, but you need to abdicate.
Your morganatic lover under covers.
Sharpened claws hide in kitten's paws,
Concern hovers, while I discover
Who I am, will be, and was.

Like a chrysalis hatched a week too early,
Like plastic, pulled from Laura Palmer's head,
Like latex, pulled over another's,
Like sheets, ripped out from under,

Fear, excitement,

Anticipation.
Lara Lewis Dec 2013
You are a wounded lion,
I would make myself small to pull the thorns from your paw.
Your words translate from my thoughts,
While my lungs fill with water from my eyes.
Drowning in the reflection of dreams,
Without a paddle, caught in the riptide.
Every word you speak pulls me deeper,
Pulls me farther away from what I know is real and solid.

You would be a band-aid for loneliness,
Stuck to me.
In silence is trust,
That what we have is enough.
I watch you through glass the most vivid rose,
My expectations are great, and you set the bar.
I would let myself burn to see you shine,

I am here to help.
Lara Lewis Jan 2014
You are the golden boy,
I, silver.
Your immaculacy is enhanced,
As I stand, downstage/left:
Tarnished.
Trophies are coveted,
Trophies are discarded,
Shiny space-fillers, second place is shame.

I want to be as a child's toy,
torn to shreds with use,
A noble way to go.


You are sanctified, your apotheosis is imminent.
I will stand witness to the fall,
I will stand witness to you.
A one-way ticket to hell, comfortable in a designer handbag.
You watch the world unfold around you. You feel like a move extra, you walk across the shot, you are in the action, but you aren't playing the game. What's it called, observer sports? The ones that are fun to watch?
That's people.
Lara Lewis Feb 2014
Comfort me, choke me;
Tough love is suffocating
Soiled securities brushed away with morning light,
Like the sun I will rise,
Glorious, warming, magnificent
Untouchable, the fountainhead of being,
Radiant isolationist.

I want to be like the moon,
Adored, explored, celestial decor.
Shining, round, and forever turning from your eyes.
Human face with a hungry rabbit's body,
Assaulted and scarred by a life-well lived,
Dancing around your gravity,
A gesture unreturned.
Our system is not binary.
I'll turn from you, I'll let you be,
One of these days with bang and zoom,
You'll come straight back home.
Lara Lewis Dec 2013
I’m more afraid of losing you than I am of losing myself

To force one to create;
To turn the gears of the mind by force of will
Ironic;
That the source of creativity has become so artificial,
Like plastic flowers in an outdoors garden,
Not wrong,
Not dangerous,
Unsettling;
One of these things is not like the other.
Something is wrong;
This is too familiar,
I have been here before.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve known you my whole life,
Silence is a spirit which haunts me,
Hold my tongue,
Punching my gut,
Every time brave words bloom in my throat,
This banshee screams reality in my wind-beaten face.
She is subdued by a fraternal bond, a weightless chain,
Silence is tamed by the right company,
The demon exorcised from my body,
I am sanctified in brief lucidity,
Clarity, however fleeting still exists,
Despite the holes in your brain,
The ultimate in body modification.
Every ugly duckling is told they’re a swan,
So they seek their kind,
Unable to set roots,
Assured that there is a kindred spirit,
You just have to find them.
You don’t know what you have until it’s gone,
They ugly duckling becomes more shark-like every day,
Unable to stop, a flower constantly about to wither,
With age comes beauty,
The Rhododendron expels an army of stamens,
Male in essence, coloured neon pink,
******* objects of desire for the hungry bee,
Honey and perfume,
Comfort and poison,
The children of flowers,
Opposing in nature,
Twins in function,
Sweetening, attracting, saturating,
Numbing the tongue,
Burning the nose,
So sweet I could *****.
I want more time and you want more attention,
Kind gestures, kind reward,
So sweet that I’m sick.
Lara Lewis Feb 2014
I once knew a doll with a chalky face,
Sweaty, scared superman, don't fly away;
Don't dare cry if you won't give chase.

Thorned hands hidden by gloves of lace,
Don't be a beggar; nothing can stay.
I once knew a doll with a chalky face.

Lost and scared without a trace,
Sun takes your lover; Cosmic heat ray
Don't dare cry if you won't give chase.

Your stillness will only ever debase.
Alone I told you on the seventh day:
I once knew a doll with a chalky face,

A bottle of courage and 3 lines of grace,
Paralysis will never carve your way.
Don't dare cry if you won't give chase.

Blackbirds wait while you set the pace,
Fly on home, be safe, I'll pray.
I once knew a doll with a chalky face,
Don't dare cry if you won't give chase.
A villanelle I spit out during a film class lecture on Blue Velvet. Completely unrelated.
Lara Lewis Jan 2014
Words, heavy, dripping from lips;
Lazily falling to the ground with resolve.
A sense of finality,
Blunt ends, fullstop.

Sleepy eyes, bedroom eyes,
Lacking in focus, in definition.
A crown of feathers, a crown of thorns,
Talking heads with sacral scorn.

How fast the seasons change,
I survived a hellfire hurricane.

Smart men are incredibly attractive.

— The End —