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336 · Sep 2016
break me
Benjamin Woolley Sep 2016
always
it starts the
same

cold, callous
and
scared

always
the leaving is the same

I cannot help
but wonder
if
they are all the same
woman

but really
it is just that I
am the same man.
301 · May 2016
somes nights keep coming
Benjamin Woolley May 2016
Drunk on the couch
You
Peeked nimbly over,
Shining wet,
******* pressed, half-held,
To take something from me;

So wet
  you slip
from my
fingers.
Benjamin Woolley Dec 2017
why be great
when you can
be mediocre

celebrate your birthdays
drunk

a cake your step-mother
baked for you
Betty Crocker
add eggs & water

while the good die young

find a stray dog
bring him into your meagre
home

week-to-week
while unknown numbers
ring ring

atone

learn to sleep alone
write alone

seasons and calendar gods
numbers
bones

turn away
smile alone

share with a stranger
arch-angel of one

forgive yourself

play the lottery
(if you like)

lose and lose
ache and ache

embrace
come undone

out of gas
miles from home

a few more steps
grown
287 · Sep 2016
Shakespeare
Benjamin Woolley Sep 2016
Do you feel
the same
pleasure of twisting
yourself
around his words,
line-by-line,
to disentangle his meaning;
reading and
re-reading,
fitting into his forms,
again-and-
again,
not so much for
the story,
but for the stretch?
277 · Feb 2017
Women
Benjamin Woolley Feb 2017
Women walk
through my life
tourists
never to stay a
passing fancy to
tell their friends about
over brunch
after yoga
I read a book that
told me to live in the moment
so I don't really need
more than a couple weeks
and a warm bed
slowly gone cold
257 · Jan 2019
living terror
Benjamin Woolley Jan 2019
“What Love there is
in dark!”
,exclaimed the wind.
“What Peace is there
in night!”
,cried the ground.
“What Safety there is
in silence!”
,the faucet dripped.

While
the man, with -
white knuckle grip,
hugged his covers
round.
257 · Dec 2017
dust and bronze casings
Benjamin Woolley Dec 2017
that unending
grip
stomach
throat
that everything can be taken
away

the day
you pegged the
cottontail with
your
22-rifle
unaware
until

short breaths
between
eyes dart
quick and eternal
riding the edge of the
moments
death waits behind
249 · Jan 2019
top of the bottom
Benjamin Woolley Jan 2019
does balance
even exist

fly high higher
blind bliss

but gravity calls
and always
you fall
- you

cry & scream
why me why me

?
no one wants to hear
it still you

scream
- stand up you
say

silently begging hours
away go away

i just want to be
- okay.
248 · Feb 2017
The Fall
Benjamin Woolley Feb 2017
Icarus is burning
and blind

plummeting

tumbling

smiling
.
193 · Apr 2018
Untitled
Benjamin Woolley Apr 2018
i feel my father as silence
always standing
ahead of me
never
turning around
179 · Dec 2017
Stagnation
Benjamin Woolley Dec 2017
when the
air stands still
overhead
- stale in 112 -
nothing happening
everywhere a
stand-still like
a bright room
all the cockroaches already
ran out of
the unchallenged fluorescence
freakish & bizarre
riding rascal scooters

holding in
your breath only seems natural offensive to
stir
a sea of death

living and dying
are often paired
up
living condemned by optimists
proudly dying "is living"

cherish instead
those bold cynics
above
such rationalization
content to push death
as
far
from
living
as means make available
150 · Dec 2017
refrigerator door
Benjamin Woolley Dec 2017
always-too-cold-metal-handle
the refrigerator door
opens with an elastic jolt
never easy
always excessive
violence pressed deep
into squeezed palm
whether you go:
slow or fast;
never easy
whether:
anticipation ****
and  rip through
resistance;
or tear slow with quiet tenderness
pops

this can't help but leave you
a savage.

— The End —