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Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
These eyes, mirror child,
glassy in your head,
are rivers flowing inwards,
towards knowledge of the dead

Your hands, running wild,
under the sheets of your bed,
as creased lips spit words,
you've never before read
Justin S Wampler Mar 2021
It's a silent desperation.
like screaming underwater,
or sobbing into a pillow.

It's like I'm living my life
on the razor-fine edge
of complete abandonment.

Is today the day
that I throw my phone away,
and turn up missing?

How long will it take
to hire my replacement
at work?

You can knock all you want
but there's no one home,
my apartment will be empty.

You'll find my car at the curb,
my wallet and keys on my desk,
but you won't find me.

I'll be gone.




Then I wake up,
shower,
and head to work again.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2021
Finally.
Ahh, this again,
it's what I've been craving.
This sense
of brutal satisfaction,
of severe attraction,
laced with indulgence.
I'll watch it turn blue.
I'll drown it in purples,
I'll throttle it with a deluge
of various temperatures.

And when.
When you're dry
and spent.
I'll cover you
with hard love.
Like nothing.
Like long yearned for
dribbles of feral
ecstasy.
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
*******!
How did you get down there at the bottom of my beer?!
Oh ****, don't drown down there!
I'll save you dear!
*gulp
Justin S Wampler Aug 2022
So smooth and so fair,
fashion isn't really my taste
but her legs are my new favorite accessory.

Whether as a scarf on my neck,
or as a belt cinched to my waist,
**** they sure do look fine wrapped around me.
Justin S Wampler Feb 2021
Ain't there always
a back road?

Ain't there always
a long way there?

With you
riding shotgun,
I always wanna take it.

Music, or not,
or just listening
to the exhaust.

Let's take our time,
let's try to
get a little lost.

Yeah, let's take
the long way there.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2021
Where do the lights go
when they leave your eyes?
Do they waft along through the rafters,
do they linger on long after
love has come and gone?
Do they illuminate darkened rooms
with a subtle radiance,
like seeing heat on the horizon
that sunny afternoon I spent
speeding down I80?
I saw a mirage mirroring your vestige
and my flesh rippled with goosebumps,
my thoughts had been on the lines
right as they began to blur.
Justin S Wampler Dec 2021
Now and then, words fail me.
I can't find the right ones,
I stutter and mumble.
Expression is lost to me.

Yet late at night
I can communicate perfectly,
armed with nothing more
than a pair of headlights
and their high beam counterparts.

"Go ahead," I think to myself.
Ka-chk ka-chk ka-chk.
"Make your left turn, friend."
In return they then light up my little smile
with a quick and brilliant "thanks."
Justin S Wampler Jun 2015
Baby I've been drinking about you
like I need new brakes;

I just can't stop.
Dry
Justin S Wampler Aug 2016
Dry
Don't buy my drinks,
and don't sing to me
because I'm tired and I
want to go to sleep.

The ***** sets me free
but it's not who I want to be
so just don't buy me drinks
and don't sing to me.

It's so dry in these dreams
but it's nice being thirsty
on this vast open sea
without a drop to drink.
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.
Justin S Wampler Aug 2022
Baby, you ain't blue,
but I'm still finding myself
tangled up in you.
Justin S Wampler Nov 2020
Soaked with yellow light,
Steam rises from the street
In twirling vertical rivulets,
Like ghosts of the midnight ice.

Blooms of frost bouquets
Begin to wilt and recede
Across the panes of glass
That cover the world today.

Goosebumps become smooth
As the sun touches cold flesh,
A sigh escapes, with visible breath
And the day comes.

The day comes.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2022
I spew
trite.

Atonal hum,
tines ashiver
in harmonious
discord.

Every word
has been heard
countless times
before.
Save the planet;
**** yourself.
Justin S Wampler Dec 2021
Comparing my driver's licenses,
my eyes stay the same
but, God,
my face sure has grown.
Tiny little eyes stuck in my big fat head.
Justin S Wampler Jul 2015
I spit on the light bulb
floating above her head
and as I listened to the
spit begin to slowly sizzle
the light started to fade
and her idea became
nothing more than
nothing.
Justin S Wampler Jul 2021
Well ain't the glass rained down
on an idle Tuesday, downtown.
Greeted with a tinkling,
shattering sound,
I slide into a booth and let
the rain soaked hat on my head
just drip.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2015
I think women are dead
until they live for me.
Justin S Wampler Aug 2021
Quick, man.
It goes ****-ing quick.

Woke up today
about thirty,
even though
I fell asleep
about twenty-five.

It's slippery,
your boy needs traction.

Sick of spinning my wheels.

It goes quick.
Justin S Wampler May 2015
Blah, blah.

Blah b-lah blah,
blah blahblah blah blah.

Blahbl ahblah blahbla h.
Blahb lahb lahbla hblah.

Blah-blah,
blah blah,
blah.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2022
A gaudy bodice,
a Goddess's body.

Gold and emerald,
heavy and haughty.

Swollen with sweat,
rolling deep breaths.
Give me that love
of yours, give me
every last kiss.
Justin S Wampler Sep 2016
The zipper cried
as I ripped it open
and I took deep breaths
before lighting
a cigarette,
and sigh
blue clouds into the mist.

She said something,
what was it?
I turned to hear her better.
It was something about her hair
wasn't it?
So I told her:

"I think your hair is beautiful,
I love you."
I said,
then hesitating
with a shocked look
wrapped round my head.
She smiled at me
pleased
and began to giggle.

I didn't mean to say it,
it was far too soon.
Admitting I loved her
just reinforced the fact
that we've been together forever
and there was no going back
to the lunch table at noon.
Justin S Wampler Sep 2015
HAHAHAHAAH
you ******* scumbags and scrublords
think you actually know something

and it's cute
god, you're all so ******* cute
HAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Justin S Wampler Jun 2016
I've got a problem with my self-control,
I fall in love when I'm with any girl.
Tonight it's you and me against the world,
though tomorrow I'll be gone for good.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2020
Blossom
With the nuanced energy of remembrance
Shine
With the piercing light of yesterday's sun
Smile
Until the muscles ache with joyous pain,
And strive to never forget
All the memories that
We've created with each other

May time's erosion be kind to us all
Justin S Wampler Dec 2020
Isn't it always a sonuvabitch,
When someone takes the wind out of your sails?

My uncle hung himself in twenty-sixteen.
At that time I had been thinking about suicide
For maybe three or four years,
And when I had heard that he went and actually did it
I remember feeling so irritated.
I remember thinking that he stole my thunder,
He went and crowned himself the selfish King
And I was left being the Prince of ******* nothing.

Suicide had been my fall back for awhile,
It offered me a certainty that I couldn't find
In my day to day life.
It offered me a sense of control.
When I couldn't sleep at night
I could just remind myself that
No matter how bad things seemed,
Or how massively I ****** up my life,
That I always had a way out.
I always had that escape hatch.
It was calming imagining the cold circle of a barrel
Pressed into the roof of my mouth,
It soothed my existential dread and
It gave me a swaggering confidence
That I wore like a cloak of indifference.
Nothing mattered,
I didn't give a **** about anything.

When Mike hung himself I spent the following weeks
Living with my Aunt, and my two cousins.
A new widow, and her children.
I lived there and helped her make funeral plans,
I helped in any way that I could,
And I watched the aftermath unfold
Like an emotional tidal wave.

I used to think about commiting suicide
To help me fall asleep.
Now I just think about my family,
How much I love them and
How much they love me.
I sleep like a baby.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2022
It's only been a week
but I already miss her
when she leaves.

Anything that tastes this good
can't be ******* healthy
for either of us.

A Goddess's body.
She's pure, distilled
essence of woman.

Contoured perfectly
to be pressed
against me.
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.
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 Jan 2022
What is it?
What am I supposed to,
to...

To want?

I'll crawl over the shattered glass
left from the window I broke
when I was trying to desperately escape your love,
I'll crawl over it all
just to get you back.

No, not you, ****.
The previous one.

I'll lacerate. It'll all be in vain.

Because I know I don't want you,
I know what I don't want.
Cut this **** out of my previous poem. Poem poem poem. *******.
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
I go outside to sit on the steps,
and fumble in my pocket for cigarettes.
I flip the top and start thinking
about her, and my great regrets.

I hate thinking so I begin to look
through my pockets for my matchbook
and my heart starts sinking
as I find the torch I used to use to cook.

It was my utmost favorite flame,
yet whom other than myself is to blame?
We were in love while drinking,
yet when we burned it was always the same.

The same days and,
the same ways;
the same daze and
the same, weighs
heavily
on my heart,
in my brain.

She loved me, yet I was unsure
of whether or not to endure
my ego shrinking,
and becoming impure.
Justin S Wampler Aug 2015
I don't want anything
I don't want anything so **** much
Justin S Wampler Feb 2021
Ain't so shakey-armed no more,
but still,
reminds me of when I was.
Justin S Wampler Apr 2015
I was burning a cigarette down
when the stomach cramps struck.

So I ran to the bathroom and
spouted methane gas from my ***,
then shat out four beers
and nine shots of brandy.

The tip of my smoke glowed
bright orange and ignited
my feces, blowing everything
to kingdom come.

I found peace there,
mixed in with blood and ****.
Justin S Wampler Oct 2020
Like a fire come
During drought season,
Ain't nothing coulda been done.
Red, White,
Blue lights
Pour like liquid
Into my irises.
Deaf to the sirens,
Congested to the smoke,
Numb to the pain.
Another one down the drain.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2021
They watch me,
at the counter.
In my car.
Under bridges.
Standing in line.

They watch me,
watching movies.
Playing games.
Visiting family.
Checking the time.

They watch me,
in the field.
On the freeway.
In the plains.
Out to sea,
they always see.

Glass lenses
are always watching me.
Justin S Wampler Feb 2022
There's a sinking ship
beneath our feet.

We don't notice it though,
we can't see.

Busy playing in the metaphysical dirt,
busy tumbling gravel and stones from our shoes.
Busy. Too busy.

What do you notice
first thing
on a Sunday morning?

That's all that
ever really matters.
fac
Justin S Wampler Jun 2015
fac
typing is hard
Justin S Wampler Dec 2020
******* with my watch on,
Left hand in her hair.
My right's making bruises
Between her gasps for air.
Getting so close,
She matches my pace,
When finally I pull out
To finish all over the face...

Of my watch.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2015
Tattoos are ******* dumb
and piercings too.

You look so **** unique
just like everyone else.
With your eyes
you grab my hand
and pull me
out of bounds.

No, not quite.

You guide me
to the line,
but it's up to me
to step over it.

There's no referee
to call a foul play,
just guilt.
More guilt.

Just what I needed.

I inch my toe forward,
wanting to take
a full step, and
you push me back.

Now we're just standing here,
eyes full of everything
that will never
be spoken.

Words of lies, truth filled eyes.
"It was nothing"

I guess so.
Justin S Wampler Oct 2016
The confidence that I gave her
abolished that insidious
shroud of self doubt
she wore about her shoulders,
but now it seems
that when she believes
in herself
I don that cold shroud
and hide in it's folds
of insecurity.

The light I held her in
cast me in the shadow
of her darkness,
and now the brightness
that she shines with
just tends to hurt my eyes
and burn my skin.

I'm happy this way,
cold and afraid,
because though I may lose her,
I know this to be true,
it'll be her turn to find someone
that is lost in the darkness
and make them shine brightly too.
Justin S Wampler Aug 2014
The worst thing that ever happened to me
Wouldn't be when my father left
I'd be lying if I said it was.

The worst thing that ever happened to me
Didn't leave visible scars
Up and down my arms

The worst thing that ever happened to me
Happens to begin with 'L'
And ends with an 'E'

The worst thing that ever happened to me
Is the title of
This ****** poem
Justin S Wampler Dec 2016
The best idea
I've ever had.
Justin S Wampler Oct 2015
She whispered that she liked the feel
of rough hands in bed,
so I gave up going to college
and became a stone mason instead.

I know I didn't expect much,
except I didn't know much
about who or how.

But with callused skin
and a bed full of sin,
boy do I miss it now.
Justin S Wampler Aug 2016
The cans dry me out,
the brandy's got me hung up
and sober from the relentless lust,
and for the first time in a few weeks
I can smell the putrid way it reeks when
my lips crack and leak liquid copper
all over that loud and sour smile
I wear plastered on my cheeks.
Justin S Wampler Jun 2020
Pizza gimme I want it now
Hungry mungry like a cow
Wanna eat the crusts ooo
And the box and the plates too
Wanna chew some leather shoes
Slurp the laces like spaghetti
I swallowed up the socks already
Hungry mungry I'll eat the curtains
I'll eat the couch, of that I'm certain
I'll eat the paintings on the wall
I'll wolf them down, frame and all
I'll bite the hat right off your head
I'll eat your ears when you're dead
I'll eat your lips
Your nose
Your throat
I'll eat your fingers off the bone
I'll rip a hole inside your chest
I like to eat the heart the best
I will eat your eyeballs whole
Hungry mungry
I'll eat your soul
Justin S Wampler Mar 2015
She got ***** like a punching bag,
I just can't stop hittin' it.
Justin S Wampler May 2015
I want to smother her
in fallen leaves,
making Autumn eternal.
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