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 Jun 2018 Alex B
David Lessard
This day has been too long
I'm ready for night's song
a reverie of pleasant sleep
and dreams to keep
and dreams to keep.

This day has been too long
correct me if I'm wrong
but twilight is a gift
a prelude to a rift
a prelude to a rift.

The dark is creeping fast
what light there is won't last
sandman spreads his seed
the comfort that we need
the comfort that we need.

Outside the stars are glowing
a cool light breeze is blowing
and my bed is like a nest
to curl  into...to rest
to curl  into...to rest.

This day has been too long
the heat has been too strong
and the coolness of the night
gives me solace till the light
gives me solace till the light.
 Jun 2018 Alex B
Mitchell
New Home
 Jun 2018 Alex B
Mitchell
My eyes are the shapes
Of avocado pits
Silver as a new peso
Blue as the Pacific
On the first day of summer

That's what
Madre says.

My arms are fat
Like pork *****
Plump and squishy
They're tanned like
Padre's work boots
He shines them
Every night
Con un cigarillo in
The right corner of his mouth

If madre is asleep
And I wake to ***
He's usually out there
Lit by the cornmeal porch light
The cow milk moon
The bullet-riddled sky

Ey boy, he calls out to me in a whisper
I say nothing
I just go

He picks me up
Like a small dog
Or a fat cat and
Puts me on his knee

You know we going soon? he asks me

I shake my head no, saying nothing

Beyond those hills. Over them.

He blows a thin river of smoke through his lips
The air is still
The smoke hovers there, uninterrupted

He takes his cigarillo from his mouth
Hovers it over my fresh, soft caterpillar lips

Open your mouth boy. Breathe in.

I do what I'm told.

Smoke. Fire. Burning.

I start to cough
Padre's hand is over my mouth
He laughs as he pats my back
With the palm
Of his other hand

The inside of the hand
That covers my mouth
Tastes like tobacco
Tastes like dirt
Tastes like the salts of salt
Tastes like work

You ok, he chuckles, You ok boy.

He wipes a tear from my cheek
I look into his meditative eyes
They are jagged, creased, as if
There is a silent earthquake of fear
Rumbling inside of him right there

Where we going? I ask

New home. He coughs
Jams the cigarillo back in his mouth
Gray smoke rolls over his face
He does not blink

Our new home, he says.
 Jun 2018 Alex B
delilah
i dare you
 Jun 2018 Alex B
delilah
tell me that you love me
i
dare
you
stick around after
i
dare
you
wait to hear it back
i
dare
you
wait for silent kisses
i
dare
you
wait for me
i
dare
you

love me
i dare you
uh i don't know
i had that one song stuck in my head
the "love me love me say that you love" song
but like only that part
lowkey this is ugly
 Jun 2018 Alex B
Araoluwa Jacob
I am so calm
As calm as the ocean at night
As calm as I could ever be
I am calm because I am mad
mad at the fact that my heart aches
i cannot express my emotion
my inevitable situation kills me
slowly enough to destroy me
making me break pieces by pieces
and become a shattered memory of the world
people would see my pieces and step on me
those pieces are of no use no more
they have been as calm as they could ever be.
Now they are shattered because of the inevitable pain they are feeling
The pain of a sick horse.
the pain of an eagle whose wing are broken
the pain of a mother during labor.
A hurt child. an abandoned beauty.
A flawless person whose name is flaw.
the pain is so unbearable that i have been shattered.
with nobody to reach out to
they left me in this agony
i still feel spite even when I'm in pieces.
My world of breakable hope and dissatified pain is reaching out to me with chains.
chains that i Can't break from
 Jun 2018 Alex B
cjesus
Sinking
 Jun 2018 Alex B
cjesus
The sun reflects off of your perfect teeth.
Your smile sends shivers down my spine,
Your lips raise goosebumps along my arm.
Your eyes capture my full attention,
They speak to me so loudly I cannot hear
the words that come from your mouth.
I get lost admiring every freckle and mark on your face.
Your nose calls my name and your ears smile at me.
When I’m with you I am blind to the rest of the world,
I am deaf to all but you,
Your voice the only I hear.
Your scent the only I smell.
You let out a laugh and I want to cry,
You sneeze and I want to die.
You blink and I must make myself  look away.
Every muscle you move drives me deeper in love.
I am sinking into you,
Like quicksand you consume me until
the thought of you is all that surrounds me.
 Jun 2018 Alex B
Jamilla
Its been months,
Since we've lost you.
Its been a week,
Since I last saw you.
And its been an hour,
Since I last felt your presence.
 Jun 2018 Alex B
Sylvia Plath
Tulips
 Jun 2018 Alex B
Sylvia Plath
The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to surgeons.

They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.

My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage ----
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.

I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.

I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free ----
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their colour,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.

Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I hve no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.

Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.

The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.
 Jun 2018 Alex B
Emily Dickinson
288

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one’s name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!
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