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674 · Aug 2014
Childhood's Hypnosis
Justin S Wampler Aug 2014
Shifted furniture days
spent trying to relocate
after raucous children
crusade to graduate
into the ever quickening
undertow of Father Time's
incessantly caressing
fingers and tongue
672 · Jan 2015
Red Shores
Justin S Wampler Jan 2015
The boardwalk itself did sheen with a collective sweat,
basking in the orange glow cast by the approaching sunset.
All remaining heat of the day was begging my body for night,
Through my shirt the sun burned, my skin cursed the light.

As the sun became a semi-circle and was concaved by the horizon,
I was on the dark piers utterly awestruck, whilst putting my eyes in.
We could see them down on the beach, each more painted in crimson
and, as the night progressed due East, all the people stood and listened.

And I glanced at the sun after it was far too late,
the rays had gone and my memories changed.

Leaving me staring at the back of my eyelids.
671 · May 2015
Memoriamnesia
Justin S Wampler May 2015
Behind your bi-folding mirrors
I'm led into the closet.

The closet where you kept
endless time and history.

When you opened that shoebox
and showed my eyes, and let the light
shine bright on, the past crammed tight
into that beautiful cardboard coffin

I took up your red sharpie pen
and wrote generic lyrics along
the lines of an empty tissue box
kept right by your so sickly beside.

Years later when you moved out
and found my words written
while you picked up those memories
from your one and only room,

I cried when you told me
you never even knew.

I died when you showed me,
because we never even grew.
670 · Mar 2017
Wednesday haiku for Emily
Justin S Wampler Mar 2017
Knotted strands of blue
stuck in my slightly red beard,
means her heart is here.
667 · May 2015
Garbage
Justin S Wampler May 2015
I was writing this
earlier today
and it's my last
because I crumpled up my monitor
and threw it away.
Justin S Wampler Aug 2015
My tongue thought it was love,
but my heart knew better.

And my mind was suffocating
due to lack of blood.
660 · Apr 2015
Dying for a Cigarette
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
Scott took a slug of his beer, reached
deep into the breast pocket of his coat, and
pulled out an empty pack of marlboros.
He flipped the top and was distraught
when he saw the empty space where
his addiction should've been hiding.

As he shrugged his way into that coat,
which has warmed him for years, he thought:
Jeez, these sleeves are ******* cold!
He told Vince, the immortal barkeep, that he'd
return ever so briefly as he stepped out into
the weighted rains and ceaseless winds.

Making his way down the road towards the
inevitable gas station while counting his
dollars and cents, Scott is blinded to the world.
But a seventh sense strikes him suddenly
and he hears his neck creak as he looks up,
over, and across the busy street.

Wait, he thinks, how did she get here?
yet there she stands alone on the corner.
I'm drunk, the thoughts roar, she's no more..
Cars and trucks cut through his vision and
she is but an afterimage, her dripping hair
blowing in the unforgetting winds.

She's gone man, his mind screams to him,
but it's his eyes that deter potential lies.
He actually sees her over there, even meeting
her own eyes in an endless moment of futility.
Whispering incomprehensibly to himself
he steps towards her, onto the street.

That's when life becomes shrouded in
screeching tires and burning brakes,
and Scott forgets all about his smoke break.
That's when life becomes darkness,
and she fades away into the rain as
a bus paints the road with his brain.
656 · Mar 2015
Peers
Justin S Wampler Mar 2015
A generation force-fed beautiful lies
more desirable than their own lives.

Touchscreen dreams and virtual societies
keep the mass' minds dry and occupied.

Their bodies malnourished and deprived
from all of those
delicious GMOs

Wake up, humanity, and
smell the final rose.
655 · Jul 2015
Moen
Justin S Wampler Jul 2015
My shower head was down to the last seven streams of water,
the other thirteen or so were either clogged
or just slowly dribbling out sad little droplets of hard water.
The calcium and lime buildup around the jets grew
greener and thicker with each day passing,
yet I never felt the inclination to attempt cleaning it.
I just stood there in the few remaining streams each day,
rotating slowly like the ballerina in my mother's jewelry box,
trying to wash away the ***** suds from my hair and shoulders.

Until one day,
after I had gotten home after a grueling twelve
hour shift at the dogfood plant where I worked and
stepped reluctantly into my bathroom, I peeled
the sweat stained clothes from my reeking body
and reached behind the curtains to turn on the water.
The only response I received from my poor shower
was a loud groaning noise, like a man attempting to
pass a particularly large kidney stone but having no luck.
Three or four drops of water escaped from the mere pressure
building up in the old pipes, then it quit altogether
and the groaning ceased with a brief moment of silence
before the face of the shower head burst, throwing plastic
shrapnel in every direction and spraying the ceiling and walls
with rusted water.
too lazy to finish this right now.
655 · May 2016
Scoffing at your doctrines
Justin S Wampler May 2016
Their eyes.
And their pupils.
Let the lectures permit,
instruction in incredible hues.

Paint me with you,
really soak it in-
to my skin.
653 · Nov 2015
Won't you?
Justin S Wampler Nov 2015
Strip enough lights from our lives
and you'll find that we're all blind.

Feeling along walls,
and stubbing our toes
in the long darkness.

Be my light, my Polaris,
be my full moon in the night,
and save me from myself.

Save me from this begotten hell
that we've so carefully crafted
within our own hearts and minds.
650 · Jul 2016
A lot of nothing.
Justin S Wampler Jul 2016
I can't hold all of this,
would you lend me a hand?
Come down for me
like I know you can
and stay awhile longer
This time around.

Maybe the days just
aren't long enough
and the miles between
are too far for us.
Come down from there,
and bring a piece of
the clouds with you.
649 · Jun 2015
possessions
Justin S Wampler Jun 2015
I have time
I have shelter
I have food and money
I have love
I have hate
I have so much nothing

I have nothing
I have vast collections of nothing
I have nothing stacked to the celing
I have nothing draped upon my body
I have nothing in my heart and mind
I have an immeasureable wealth of nothing
I have nothing in my eyes
I have nothing

I have so much nothing
647 · May 2016
Bits and Pieces
Justin S Wampler May 2016
Love lies on the worn carpet of our lives,
bearing the weight of years of footsteps.
It supports us all without question,
never once posing impositions upon us.
We all have our own form of this love,
defined uniquely by personal experiences.

It coats us all with a fierce veil of memory,
it bears the weight of life.

Show me your love
and I'll show you mine.
645 · Apr 2015
Perspective of Pain (Vol I)
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
When I was sure she was asleep I
slithered my way out of the sheets
like the snake I am.
I stood and gazed upon her
as she dozed apparently
safe and sound.

When I was dressed I stepped
into the hall and flicked the
light switch.

Gathering my toothbrush and
things, I turned and went back
to the bedroom, where she
was sitting up straight and
just staring at me as I
entered.

I hesitated when I met her
eyes, seeing the questions
she was unable to hide.

But she didn't say a word,
just arched her brows and
watched me.
I felt her vision track my
movements as I went and
packed undergarments.

When I was wearing my
bags and ready to leave
I hesitated in the doorway.
She hadn't moved, but when
I looked back she said to me:
Turn the lights out before you go.

Meeting her sight was
like being alight with
emotional fire.

So I hit the switch as
I tromped down the
steps,
and ventured out onto
the front porch and into
the dark.
639 · Dec 2016
Tanuki
Justin S Wampler Dec 2016
When she comes
she brings the snow with her,
circling her white hair
in spirals and waves.
When she comes
the sun shines brighter
even behind the clouds
that veil the horizon.
When she comes
I'm always there,
ready to fall in love
over and over again.
635 · Oct 2016
Untitled
Justin S Wampler Oct 2016
Waste time with me
just for a little longer
and we can finally be free.

Free from the rushing lights,
free from the starless nights,
free like stringless kites
soaring through the vast skies.

Sundays will come
no matter what,
yet let's see if we can
last just a bit longer
and maybe touch me
just one more time
until the long wait
between now
and next Friday.
633 · Aug 2015
Neck beard lady
Justin S Wampler Aug 2015
She doesn't love me
when she tells me goodnight,
and I wouldn't have it
any other way.
625 · Apr 2015
Tough to Swallow
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
Ribbons or rope or
laces that loop while
embracing your waist and
encroaching your throat.

Ribbons or rope,
no difference I hope,
for the use of helping
me force you to choke

"Ribbons or rope?":
in a whisper you spoke,
as the air you gasped
tasted of broken glass.

So turn blue for me now,
as blue as I've been
for you.

So lovely to choose
between ribbons
or rope.
623 · Apr 2015
Low
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
Low
We wade and wait through the daily hate to
practice our fractured love each night.
We make and mate once it gets late, just
to have a day's worth of material to write.

Now you're the wet dreams
slowly rusting away my mettle,
and I just smile, nod, and
paint you a ****** portrait.

In the silence between dry heaves,
while waiting for my gorge to settle,
I pray to the porcelain god and
spit on my reflection in the toilet.

I venture outside then to choke on a smoke
and I **** your name into snowy leaves.

Can't afford a deathbed, I'm so ******* broke,
please just **** me on the loveseat.
623 · Jul 2015
moist ointment
Justin S Wampler Jul 2015
slug slime on your skin
salt it and it begins
to wither and writhe
deliciously

yum.
622 · Jul 2022
Wish I wasn't
Justin S Wampler Jul 2022
I'm oft-focused
on the meta.

An enjoyable moment
can't just be
an enjoyable moment
without me
acknowledging it.

I guess I just like to make sure
that we're both on the same page here.
621 · Apr 2015
Memory Foam
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
My ears forgot her laughter
My hands forgot her body
My skin forgot her touch
My nose forgot her scent
My tongue forgot her taste
My eyes forgot her beauty
My heart forgot her love

But my ******* bed
still has her *******
imprint upon it.
621 · Apr 2015
Look, Begging
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
So brightly her flame burns for me,
and no one can hold a candle to it.
When she says my name I only seem
to be less and less able to handle it.

Yet still she bathes me in white hot light
and I am relentlessly pulled closer.
Like fascinated moths on a summer's night
stuck inside of a streetlight enclosure.  

I was upon her fire, cast deep into that flame,
illuminated from my old soul to the tip of my brain.

When out stretched for miles my shadow became,
everything I've put behind me, now swaddled in shame.

Out, she reaches,
to touch my hand.
But I'm all dried up
and turned to sand.

In, she breathes, all of those
ridiculously stinky green ounces.
And now I'm lost, I suppose,
in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Were I only a critter
then maybe I could've stayed with her,

forever trapped in a locket
or suffocating deep inside of her pocket.
620 · Jul 2015
searching
Justin S Wampler Jul 2015
Why, o why?
Must she be
so hard to find?

A woman, depressed,
with scars in her mind.
A woman to **** and to feed,
wanting things I can buy.
A woman, without need
of a meaningful life,
never to be a wife.

Why, o why,
do these women
only want happiness?

I just want someone
who is ugly inside.
I just want someone
to wallow with,
someone with which
to share all of this
beautiful anguish.

Why, o why?
Why do they hide
the pain inside?

Can't they see
that their sighs
are more pretty
than a fake smile?
Can't they feel
the weight of
of the skies?

Why, o why?
617 · May 2015
Antonyms
Justin S Wampler May 2015
She only gets high
because she feels so low.
I know this because
she told me so.

It's tough waking up
because the dreams get her down.
Especially when she's got
nobody else around.

Now she's the only one left
and it just feels so right.
Even though it's so wrong
having to spend her nights

alone.
617 · Jul 2016
The little things.
Justin S Wampler Jul 2016
The big picture looms
as if it were a thunderhead,
shadowing us all in entirety.

Sometimes it's difficult
to notice the little things
in this dusky light.

But, never stop looking.
Don't give up the fight.

Dawn will come,
and banish the night.
616 · Aug 2014
Beauty Beheld
Justin S Wampler Aug 2014
You.
Yes you, constant reader.
Can you see how lovely you are?
You are my reason to rhyme,
the reason I keep my head up and my hands busy.
You are my soul, you...
You and I are entwined in this moment,
forever a part of each other's mind.
I love you, constant reader of mine,
thank you so much for all of your time.
I see you, seeing me.
615 · Aug 2014
Conjecture (10w)
615 · Apr 2015
No longer
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
Blank pages haunt me so.
I want nothing more than
my words to flow

freely from my fingertips.
I crave expression worthy
of her attentiveness.

I want to grant her a repose
from the mediocrity of my
anemically feeble prose.

But my words no longer
shock and stop her heart,
her knees are stronger
and harder to make weak.
And I know my words no
longer impress her because
they no longer impress me.
I **** and I'm boring.
Justin S Wampler Aug 2015
I'm homesick for my own world,
spinning through these rings.
I'm just tired of being whirled,
and I long for gravity.

It's funny how these stars
are so ugly up close,
when viewed from afar
they looked so beautiful.

Just like a lot of things.

Like Saturn's rings.
Like my neighbor's lawn.
Like my neighbor's wife.
Like memories.
Like faded love.
Like idealism.
Like my father.
Like family in general.
Like myself in the mirror on your bedroom ceiling.
Like you.
Like critters and guitars.
Like interstellar coffee.
Like sad little love poems.
Like hopeless romanticism.
Like me.
Justin S Wampler Sep 2015
Blue twirls and twine,
exhaled temporary halos
give us sanctity
in the din and the dark
of this ***** night.
610 · Apr 2015
Shellfish
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
I had my sidewalk-stride going,
when I encountered a puddle.
So I took my jacket off
and threw it down
in the stagnant water.

Gracefully upon it I strode
to keep my shoes clean,
but I ended up being cold,
downright bitter
and mean.

Because I didn't notice the
other humans, I'm far
too selfish.

Yet they washed off
my coat and managed to
resell it.
.


follow me for free money
610 · Jan 2015
Romantic Attrition
Justin S Wampler Jan 2015
Dreams long left undreamed unfold before my eyes
in a muzzle-flash of nostalgia and foreboding.

Lest these lights be lost beyond the gates standing
guard at the entrance to my secret heart,
I must grasp and reach for this dream in front of me.

Lay aside my pretensions to instead embrace and
endure a willing change of my spirit and mind,
right here in the stationary aisle of a foreign Walmart.
609 · Jul 2016
Tiger lily
Justin S Wampler Jul 2016
I don't care
if they grow everywhere,
I still think
that each one is beautiful.
607 · Jul 2015
pay for fame
Justin S Wampler Jul 2015
now this website
is just like reality,

whomever has the
most expendable income
becomes the most known
SHINE LIGHT ON THIS, *******
*******
GO DIE IN A FIRE
605 · Jan 2019
Every once'nawhile
Justin S Wampler Jan 2019
It *****, y'know,
life & ****.
Everything *****,

sometimes.

But I guess
that's what makes it
good too,

sometimes.

It seems that
'always'
is the enemy
of emotion.

Or at least

sometimes

it is.
605 · Aug 2015
numbers
Justin S Wampler Aug 2015
Three shots and I'm free.
Five cigarettes filled with regret.
Two miles home.
Three more hours of being awake,
then comes time for dreams.
604 · May 2014
I never needed it.
Justin S Wampler May 2014
Beautiful things that you'll never have,
clashing lights dance to an orchestrated symphony
and I sip quietly in the corner.

Protons sent at light speed blind you,
tidal waves curl and bind you
while I peel the sticker off of my lighter.

You've set your heart before me now,
crucified and defiled,
begging for the slightest glance.

I set forth my gaze becoming a statue
to never give you what you need.
Because I like to watch you bleed,
and I'm certain of the doubt
that lies within me.
603 · Apr 2015
Coffin'
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
I woke up and started coughing.
I coughed up the taste of you from the dream I had.
I coughed brown phlegm into the sink basin.
I coughed and coughed and coughed.

I coughed until sour spit filled my mouth
and I puked all over my socks.
I coughed until my ***** throbbed
and I ******* myself.
I coughed until tunnels threatened to
make me black-out.
I coughed and coughed and coughed.

I coughed until I choked,
my heart was stuck in my throat.
I coughed until I spat it out,
still beating, onto my coat.
I coughed and coughed and coughed.

I coughed until I was lying face-up
in a... casket?
600 · Apr 2016
'Dead' without the 'e'
Justin S Wampler Apr 2016
I wonder, the last time I saw you,
did I tell you I loved you then?
Because I don't think I ever realized
that I'd never see you again.
600 · Jul 2016
Trashy Masterpiece
Justin S Wampler Jul 2016
I woke naked atop a sheet lying on the floor
next to a pile of plastic hangers on one side,
her body pressed to mine on the other,
and the faint scent of *** and cigarettes on the air.
Although I doubt you could call it waking
when she and I had such little sleep.

Her alarm was going off somewhere in the haze
and I could feel her skin peel off of mine as
she got up to silence it and call out of work.
I took a deep breath, reveling in the stale air,
and sat up with my back pressed to the wall.
My eyes closed and flashbacks came to the
forefront of my vision from the night before,
my mouth full of her neck,
moans in the dark,
her face leaning out of the window above me
as I smoked outside in my boxers.

I shook myself awake
and the goddess strode her way back in
slowly and salaciously, in a dance with
my tired eyes as they traced the faint figure
that shone through her loose shirt
in the morning light.

I could feel the little time we had
slipping through the curved
hourglass of her body,
and I stood to meet her smile
with a kiss, pulling her against me
with one hand and losing the other one
somewhere in the oceanic waves of her hair.

The flashbacks came again, but differently now.
Years of memories coursed through my mind,
all the times she'd been right in front of me
yet I was too blind to truly see her as I did then.

We dressed slowly in the din of the busy street outside,
gathering the last of her belongings in the empty apartment
and taking them down to her car.

I stepped into the sunlight and lit up a smoke,
it was going to be a hot day,
and she locked the door behind us for the last time.

The car welcomed us as she turned the engine over,
and I buckled up whilst cracking a beer.
The wheels began to spin, I took a long slug,
and she smoked the last three drags of my cigarette,
flicking it carelessly out of the window.
600 · Aug 2015
Change
Justin S Wampler Aug 2015
Saying goodbye was only the beginning
of a whole new world of hellos.
598 · Jul 2015
Forgo Forgetting
Justin S Wampler Jul 2015
Decomposed and spouting methane
I lie beneath incorporeal trees.
They breathe and bask in the glory
of the thing I used to be.

I tolerate the buzzards with their
hunger for my eyes.
I tolerate the wolves with their
insufferable cries.

Yet even in death I cannot stand it.
I cannot stand your burning love.

The wax drips and
I am but a wick,
fueling your feast of heart.

The cloth rips and
I am but a mannequin,
a grotesque manifestation of your art.

Pin me up in your fields,
in your fields of acrylic and oil.
In your fields of photographs
and I'll enrich your soil.

I'll be your scarecrow,
voiding their caws.

I'll be your mule,
working myself raw.
this is **** and I ******* hate it
******* anyone who reads this
**** anyone
597 · May 2017
New leaves
Justin S Wampler May 2017
Turning the page
has never been
as rewarding as
it is with her.

Finally I've
started a
new chapter
that's actually
worth reading.

The kind of book
that has me eager
to learn what
happens next.
I'm happy.
596 · Mar 2015
Becoming a Vessel [10w]
595 · May 2015
Untitled
Justin S Wampler May 2015
writing is dumb
and I like it
because I'm stupid
594 · Nov 2022
No snow yet
Justin S Wampler Nov 2022
Slow whistle.
Atonal wind hums
through the naked
boughs of autumn.

Sunny November.
Hats and flannels
color the cityscape
under assumptions
of nearing frigidity.

But the sun still shines
and the wind goes on
humming, just like
it always has before.
592 · Nov 2015
Circles are pointless.
Justin S Wampler Nov 2015
Again we've come 'round, baby,
living in this dead end town.
When I stop to think about
the days gone by,
it makes me resent
all the decisions
that I was too afraid to make,
and all the time we've wasted
not ******* the nights away
or robbing banks together
or traveling the world
or going to plays
or just loving each other.

I resent all this wasted time
spent alone, baby..

But, maybe if we did end up together
you'd turn out to be
a real numb ****,
and I'd be longing
to be alone.

I'll never know.
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