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 Oct 2012 Arkips
Megan Grace
I don't stay
up
until 5 a.m.
anymore
because my brain
worked
way too much
on so little
sleep.
Because
the only words
I heard were
"you, you, you"
and I didn't
like it.
Because I woke up
with pen marks
all over my hands
and smears
on my face.
I don't stay
up
until 5 a.m.
anymore
because it started
to know
all of my secrets.
Hey, I miss you
How've you been
I've been missing you like crazy
It was my birthday recently
And you didn't call
Then again, I've never called you up
On your birthday either
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you
Where have you been
What've you been upto
Any new people that I should know about
I wish that our relationship was that easy
Gods, if only it were

I punch at these walls, till my knuckles
Are bruised, the nerves below straining
The skin peeling, my hands stinging
I want to punch them till they fall
And you can see the things that make me Me
I wish I could reveal my scars to you
I wish I knew for certain you wouldn't
Never, ever, would you, give them away
To anyone else, laugh about them
Don't hear me, don't see the tears
Pooling in my eyes

All I want to do is let you know
How much I really treasure
Your companionship, your warmth
Your sardonic comments, thorny opinions
That let me know you care
How can anything be perfect if you aren't here
I ignore perfection, hoping to be content
With mediocrity instead
Why aren't you here? Right here
Where I need you, when I need you

It has been ages since we met
I am forgetting your eyes, your smile
I really want to sit next to you
Listen to you talk the night away
About trivialities, then a little while
Later, I want to tell you about school
That horrible ***** who was mean to me
Tell you how betrayed I feel
How lonely I really am
How these walls defeat me each time

As I blink away my tears,
My voice hitches
I can imagine you patting me on my back
Politely, nicely
Saying that it'll be fine, it is only a matter
Of a few more years, that I should remain strong
If you knew how I looked up to you,
Would you be scared?
Don't be, please just don't be

You live a thousand miles away
There's no way you can let me down
You can't let me down
Which is why I trust in your image
Not you, your image
I wish I could share my cynicism
With the person built up in your image
Have them react as I imagine them to

Maybe, they'll lean over for a hug or two
But it won't matter because it'll never be true
The walls will stay up
Despite my punches and if I told them to anyone
They'd just feel awkward knowing someone
Stripped of their barriers
They'd take advantage, laugh it off
Laugh me, my troubles off as
The ramblings of a fool,
An Anonymous Joker

I wish for your reflection in a mirror,
The person built up in your image
Wish I could tell you of the dark
Dark thoughts that linger
Sometimes past nighttime
Talking about crimson dreams
Blades, knives and high buildings
I wish I could confide in you
And I'd gain strength from
Your confidence in me
Telling me dawn will come soon
I wish I could call you up at three
Desperately gasp out whichever nightmare
Woke me up this time

Yet I make do with rubbing my face
Nearly peeling the skin off
With cold water and soap
I rub at my eyes frantically
Waiting for the tears to stop
I avoid looking in the mirrors
Avoid seeing my reflection,
Which features in most of my nightmares

I just wish I could talk to you
A mirror image of you
Quietly, silently
Maybe just a sentence or two from you
It would calm me down
Lord knows, one sentence said by you
Left running in my head
For over half a year,
Gave me inspiration, strength
To live on, fight on, keep smiling
Through the day, everyday
People looking at me and wondering
Whether I'd heard about the latest
Hot gossip about me, questioning
My ideals, my morals, my goals
I wish, I wish, I wish

But it's alright
I'll be strong
I'll converse with my mirror image,
My reflection till you return
Give me another phrase to gain from
(I sound needy, don't I?)
I'll talk to it quietly because I know
Despite the blurred outline,
Sharp edges, and little cracks
My reflection understands more about me
My inner desires, than I do
An anonymous reflection
For an anonymous personality
Can there be anything more justifiable?
I suggest that you don't really look at the title for this one. Couldn't think of anything better.
http://zenpencils.com/comic/74-clive-barker-fearful-things/
Just found the above link. Not mine, obviously. But I thought it suited the poem. :P
 Sep 2012 Arkips
Amy Lowell
On winter nights beside the nursery fire
We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals
Builded its pictures. There before our eyes
We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone
Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung
With pendent stalactites like frozen vines;
And all along the walls at intervals,
Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,
And ramped and were confined, and clustered leaves
Divided where there peered a laughing face.
The foliage seemed to rustle in the wind,
A silent murmur, carved in still, gray stone.
High pointed windows pierced the southern wall
Whence proud escutcheons flung prismatic fires
To stain the tessellated marble floor
With pools of red, and quivering green, and blue;
And in the shade beyond the further door,
Its sober squares of black and white were hid
Beneath a restless, shuffling, wide-eyed mob
Of lackeys and retainers come to view
The Christening.
A sudden blare of trumpets, and the throng
About the entrance parted as the guests
Filed singly in with rare and precious gifts.
Our eager fancies noted all they brought,
The glorious, unattainable delights!
But always there was one unbidden guest
Who cursed the child and left it bitterness.


The fire falls asunder, all is changed,
I am no more a child, and what I see
Is not a fairy tale, but life, my life.
The gifts are there, the many pleasant things:
Health, wealth, long-settled friendships, with a name
Which honors all who bear it, and the power
Of making words obedient. This is much;
But overshadowing all is still the curse,
That never shall I be fulfilled by love!
Along the parching highroad of the world
No other soul shall bear mine company.
Always shall I be teased with semblances,
With cruel impostures, which I trust awhile
Then dash to pieces, as a careless boy
Flings a kaleidoscope, which shattering
Strews all the ground about with coloured shards.
So I behold my visions on the ground
No longer radiant, an ignoble heap
Of broken, dusty glass. And so, unlit,
Even by hope or faith, my dragging steps
Force me forever through the passing days.
 Sep 2012 Arkips
lorence beckle
Because I cannot write, I cannot tell you what my brain knows and has known since ancient days (such as the early nineties).

I cannot tell you that I know where we go when our bodies die, how to free the Jews, the best way to lose weight, if the tree falling in the woods makes a sound when no one is around to hear it, how to cure the common cold, who killed Tupac, and, ultimately, the meaning of life.

Because I cannot find the words, I cannot tell you what happens to all the characters that collectively make up whoever I am, that all the tiny people who experience life and report back often do so in a garbled mess that I have to accept as my own, that they don't know what they're talking about, and they're contradicting, and so am I (as a result).

I cannot tell the reading community how to straighten circular reasoning into a nice fit line, remove red wine stains, or determine the *** of an unborn child.

Because I cannot make thoughts more concrete, I cannot build a door through which my ideas can run out, like the incandescent light bulb and the printing press did that one time, when they didn't even bother to turn the door **** because they were so **** excited to get out of the prison cell that was their home, when they found out that these concrete walls were obsolete and forgot to tell me, so everyone up here is getting real claustrophobic and vomiting on one another.

I cannot let them free, because my brain, like most peoples' brains, has a "guilty until proven innocent" system with all the tiny thought people, and I can't let them out unless I am certain that they are sober and unarmed.

Because I cannot create anything worthy of literacy, I cannot use words like "contumacious," "ambrosial," "frutescent," "barcarole," and "peccadillo." I cannot communicate to my Chemistry professor the reasons why my answers don't match his and why I am absolutely correct in my reasoning.

Because I cannot be a translator between ****** information mediums, I cannot explain how the sun actually melts at the beach and drips and floats on top of the water in a jillion pieces, that the butterfly that got half ****** up by the vacuum cleaner today looked pathetically like the veins of a decaying leaf, that the sound of knuckles cracking is actually a miniscule drum that your fingers play as an outlet for stress, that there is a partially chemical, partially magical reaction when you're outside sweating out all your insides and the air shifts and a breeze forms for the purpose of running, sprinting right into the brick wall that is the back of your neck.

I cannot convince all living organisms that we invent the universe in our heads, then how we're all supposed to avoid insanity while outwardly moving about in it.

I cannot explain to you why I will walk past my destination carelessly several times without noticing, why I pull out my eyebrow hairs, what kind of construction materials I use for my self-esteem, why I am nostalgic and regretful and satisfied, and why I adore the people and things I adore.

If I could write, I would write poems and short stories and love letters and angry letters and journal entries.
I would not write comparative essays, experiment abstracts, binary codes, or unfunny comic strips that exist in great quantities (and no quality) every day in the newspaper.
I would explain my universe and compare it to yours.
I would write something other than this...
Performance assurance,
it's not on my mind.
But a next-morning
pillow, complacent with time,
or the wedding to party to funeral line,
and the "Sorry's" and "Thank You's" and
half empty sighs.

Not a fan of commitment,
but just love is just fine,
not the money or muscles,
for which you will pine,
when I'm grumpy and bitter and old, and confined
to the frame of a man who was once so sublime.

— The End —