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...
Cate Feb 2015
...
And after a while
Your coughing becomes
Comfortable,
And consistent,
and the soot in your lungs
Becomes just another layer
to keep you warm.
....
It's just another
Thunder storm
Avalanche.





Call me
When you get the chance.


C.e.M. 2.17.15
8a
Cate Apr 2017
8a
the chime of a phone call awoke me.
the message was simple.
"don't come today".

The murky sun
peered curiously
past sheered grey

phasing in and out
like a kitchen light on a dimmer
or an oscillating fan.

I rarely taste this version
of morning breath much
anymore.
Cate Sep 2015
I will protect you with my life
That is to say
I will wrap myself around you
And not let anything
Get to you
I will deflect the shrapnel
of subconscious doubt and
Envelop you from the inside out.
I will coat you
in layers of sweet caresses  
Scratch your back,
Tell you you're impressive.  
I will swat away that which
might deter you
From getting where
You're supposed to.
Even if I'm not close to you
I'll do the most for you.

C.e.M. 9.9.15
First draft. Corny but cute.
Cate Aug 2015
Tombstones marked with years gone by. A personal, though nearly inconsequential timeline that has filed by and left a full life and a hollow body in its wake. The give and take, the motions that propel us into the future one moment at a time until quite suddenly and certainly too soon the track runs out and we all crash into the black. We will be commemorated in the most carefully worded manner so as not to insult our memory, making our lives much more tidy in death than they could ever been seen while we were still about walking. The others left will cry for us and mourn our impressionable personalities and the impending lack thereof. But to passersby, in life we were just a few gestures and a face. In death, we are a Slab of rock and two dates. The question is what shall be done with what very well could be hoarded into an ever-widening stockpile of unused moments, never considering the irretrievable vault into which we place them until it finally swings shut and closes us in  along with them. That is, until we reach this unmovable and unchanging space, disintegrating and replaced by new voices, new notions, and new life. Will you fight? Or will you lie down out of practice and in wait for the steadily encroaching date we all must face.
C.e.M August 10, 2015
Cate Sep 2015
water poured, hot
bag steeping
quiet feeling of displacement
seep in with soft speed
tea leaves dispersing.

lemon squeezed
take it easy.
stir, stir, clink.
consider the options
for the second half.

map out plans
though title waves
and an old title track
on napkin or flyer back

jukebox static
brow semi circle refills
cream curdles from
remnants and resales.

stale smoke
quiet choke.
cup empty, the words gone
and payment is entailed.

grab your small cash
set the sails
past parking lots and guard rails.

Original Write: August 19, 2015 Edit September 13, 2015
C.e.M.
I write a lot of heavy stuff so I figured I'd lighten up for a change.
Cate Apr 2015
Face to the sky
Even if the sun is in my eyes
and it's blinding me
so that everything I see is
in moonbeam white
and everyone is just as polite
as I want them to be.

In reality
there is darkness
and it seems it's only me,
who will give as much as I take
thinks promises don't break
knows I am headed to the grave
and (tries to)
make something good of it.

Because driving is just like smoking...
If we walk can we stop?
or at least slow down,
and move in blocks
instead of miles
and across the neighborhood
instead of The States.

The soot in my lungs
never felt so great, anyway.
I think my cue was a while ago.
Excuse me,
I'm coming in late
and these excuses stammered
are layered.

I'm too old to believe prayers
are anything but
a little self recognition and release.
So please, leave me be
while I lay on my face
and cry to the sky
for some semblance of relief.

I'm stoic and solidified
my mind, a block of ice
drifting through glacial tides
of callous contempt
exempt from empathy-
I don't want to relate.

Yet even still, I retaliate.
Home-grown surgery
might do a little good for me
a root canal
for that weird little machine
between my eyebrows
I might espouse humanity
back into my vocabulary.

All in all,
the ups and down will fold neatly
into an interesting
half-page obituary,
the sumination of a
less-than-elegant sequence
of events.

I am ever hesitant to repent
lest I resent my own penitence
for lack of pertinence.



C.e.M. 4.21.15
edited 2.9.17
Cate Nov 2014
And it will be ok when you walk away because
Maybe that’s me
And our temperamental interaction
Was a simple distraction
And a waste of gas.
This too,
shall pass.

c.e.m.
Cate Aug 2015
The windows are down and the rattling sound of my eardrums at high speeds are drowning out themselves.
It's threatening to rain again.
Ever since the onset of the strawberry moon,
a half mile of persnickety storm clouds seem to be tracking my every move
As I soured inside my stale bedroom.
Gloom and doom seemed to be my only mood,
tattered souls of old ideas blocked from new perspective
the only left to lend a hand.
compassion and wisdom are in high demand
but this current distopia is anything but the
promised land.

Often, when devoid of all the normal worrisome pondering, I evolve to questioning if I will always wander,
wondering who's company I will hold or will hold me next.
I have found it to be that both myself and others have regressed from the best
and with ample stress
we're just searching for the next place to rest.

I dream of heading out west, but I don't see myself being
any less depressed.
Everything is a mess,
I'm attempting to tell myself my chest won't always feel so heavy
if I keep my steps and breathing steady.

When it's time to go, I'm most certainly never ready.
"I'm hiding inside more and more but at least I tried"
is becoming the titletrack to my life.
All I can do anymore is gripe-
It's no wonder I'm alone night after night
unless I employ the poor company
that is sure to haunt me
longer than long enough.

Momma said "I live life hard",
that is to say I've been roughed up enough to make me tough,
but the soft insides of my toes still rub
and I'd say I'm due for a hug.

I can't stay much longer
but I'll take a sip or two of something stronger
and remind myself to
"hold on".



C.e.M. 7.22.15
Make last stanza wrap back around to the fact that the speaker is in a car
Cate Feb 2016
There is no beautiful epiphany
just an epitaph of a symphony
that's tastefully distracts
from the lack of substance to
our actions.

Jam packed with opinions
and devoid of meaning
I consider giving in
to believing
high personal treason-

A step towards discrimination
and hatred towards those of
other affiliation.
once my mind may have been swayed
but twice brought my second chance

To change and today swings in
and I stand solid in scientific fact,
no room for a trinity
or Didactic pact
and I consider it the right path

But logic leaves no space for love
and the grey space expands
above us between
what we think we need to hear
and what will truly awaken us

and I am disgusted
With my lack of purpose.

C.e.M. 12.18.15
Cate Aug 2015
The groceries and the rent
I 've already spent
what was meant to be my savings

trying to save me
from rockabye baby
to the grave because lately

I feel a little less stately
and a little more disheveled.

I might ask you to embellish,
forgive me
maybe I'm just nosey

or prone to misunderstand closeness
to a speculative humanity.
Can we truly interact spiritually?

Or is it less empirical than it seems
and we're just vibrating in our own
                                               paradigm
             template
                                 dreams
we weave our own gods eye
to see things.
Everything.

Human beings or
human doings?
Lately I've been toggling through

between the two
in indecisiveness.

"Ah, give it a rest"
Chides one side of my mind

In return comes the gruff reply
"It is what it is, isn't it
           and it's what I do best".

C.e.M 8.14.15
edited 1-24-2016
Cate Feb 2017
I was going to write
of infatuation.
instead,
I wrote of death.
I seem to be hovering
forever in between,
a partial combination
a fickle being.

I was going to write
how his eyes glint
when I catch them
unexpectedly peering at me.
Now, I can only imagine
the endlessness of eternity
leering at me evilly
Taunting  my carelessness.

I was going to reminisce
small jokes that soothe anxiousness.
Now, consumed
by the inevitable
sweeping me away into nothingness.

I was going to question
“does he dream of me as I do?”
Now I wonder
what my dreams will dissolve into.
Fleeting moments pass rapidly
Gaseous, unaccounted for and ghastly.

2/2/2017
Cate Apr 2016
Rot where you lay, see if I stay to watch
Let your telomeres unwind into a heap of chicken wire
Let your wrinkles carve your unspoken secrets
In all seven layers of your stinking skin,
My love for you has ended.

C.e.M.
April
Cate Jan 2015
The clouds seem to mock the buildings
On days like today,
Flamboyantly drifting across the space
Their grounded counterparts
Don’t have the heart
Nor the stamina
To conceive;
Knowing they will never part
The ground.

Brick and mortar,
They stand
Stagnant in cement;
They believe they have the upper hand.

When capricious skies
Are prone to fickleness,
The buildings stand
Like they do best.

Staring out their window eyes
Story by story
People-watching people
Oblivious to their silent presence
And their
Delicate, intricate scaffolding
For a more pressing interest
In those cloudy skies
And the imaginable possibilities
spawned
By their passing by.


c.e.m. 1.19.15
Cate Aug 2015
When the month has fizzled out
and the moon
has given you two tries
and you're still stuck on goodbyes

do you even remember your last words?
or were they just for the sake of reply.
I'm wondering why you've even wasted your time.
C.e.M. 7.11.15
Cate Mar 2017
Rusted ringlets hang
Precariously pouring out
Of a metallic scrunchy.
I can’t keep myself
From glancing intermittently
At the slight glisten
Of a cocktail
On her cupid’s bow,

Then, a few inches below,
Her taut neck,
A small piece of cloth grasping
Its sculpted edges
Begging the question
How it would feel
To cup her face
With fingers embellished
By cheap and chipping paint?

Would she settle there,
A placid pool of profundity?
Or would she seep between
The cracks of my fingers
Unable to be contained
By such a simple stranger?

She adorned the corner
Of the couch
With such grace.
It was breathtaking,
As she spoke in rhythms
Lining the crests of her intonation,
Hazel flashes kept tempo,
A conversation shifting in tandem.
Poetry in motion.
Cate Jan 2015
There she  lies
Wide awake in this cellar of her  nightmares;
A prison army camp
Stamps it's boots across her
Charcoal heart;
It's remnants will be spread across
Many eras. Smudged mascara
And a sallow face
She will replace you
Because she was trained to.

Cem 420a 11015
Cate Dec 2014
I've written pages upon pages of
Poetry
About the ways you find
To know me

But these attempts will always
Falter
And eventually fail-
Maybe this wasn't supposed to be.

You ask me what that means
And I don't have an answer.
Maybe you'll find one in the lap
Of last weekend's dancer.


When I no longer have the words to write
I hope you trace my freckles with
Cracking hands-
Sand me down with selfish demands.

There is a lot to discover
But you were never interested in
The Braille of my squirming skin.

When the carnivorous sun
Comes
I will sink to the bottom
Of a sunny sea
Turned desert

You might be the antidote
To a calloused misery

But in reality...
Our interactions were just short
Of dreary.

You were never quite what
I dreamed you up
To be.

Try not to take it too personally,
This rehearsal of simple dexterity
And our perplexing lack
Of similarities.

What are you doing with me?
I don't have a place here-

I will always awake first,

Bleary eyed and swimming against
The tides of a wordless agreement
That I've tried to please

I know when I leave you don't-

No, You won't

Grieve.  

Should I just leave?


C.e.M 12.9.14
Needs critique please!!!
Cate Aug 2015
When you're skating by on unpaid debts
having grown to the point of
potential arrests...

Can I get a witness
to get me out of this?

or maybe just someone
to do the dishes
while I'm away.
I've used up my energy
and all
one million wishes.
I spent them all on things
I'll soon need to fix

until soon rots into now
and I'm still in the house
maybe tomorrow I'll have
the energy to get out and about.

Quiet as a mouse
If I eventually arrive
tatty and scrambling
wrinkled blouse and a half-assed lie
that wasn't worth trying to say

one way or another
I need you to show me the way
but you've already turned to leave
while I'm
still trying to find me feet.
It's too late again.

C.e.M.
Write date, June 2, Edit Date, Aug 11
Cate Mar 2015
oh,
to drift away.

that's all I want
from this place.

I feel sickly
my thoughts,
still bickering.

I'll leave the dishes
for another day.

cem
Cate Dec 2014
"How do we even have fun sober"
A candy coated joke
Left to choke on when your throats dry
And you're too high to talk-

Just cough or walk it off
But when you come back
Honey, mind a top off?
Better tips if you take off your top
morality is a short drop.

C.e.M 12.3.14
Very rough please critique
Cate Dec 2014
Maybe
If I buy new sheets
I'll have an easier time forgetting you
And your shifting eyes
All morning sun and maroon.

I had better get a new color too

Just not blue...
That was the one before you
With the thin hair and half lies
And winter city lights.

And before that I like to remember nothing besides the yellow daisies on a peachy sunrise of my youth,
But the silky stitches will forever hold
Their petals;  
White centered with a splintering,
Tainted innocence;
A pasty white puddle of
Bodies too young-
Caught in the riptide of our
Childhood storms
And a desire for adulthood
Or something seemingly more....
Stable.

Details will only cause us to once again derail
so I must insist you don't question this.

I've been going out of my way so long
Trying to wrap up my Saran facade.
Now every interaction
Feels wrong
And rubs me raw.
My plastic skin is wearing thin
And I might melt against the heat
Of the confrontational defeat
That I suppose ...

We all just get used to.

I keep tripping over perceptions
Strewn across a convex looking-glass
Of stereotypes and slurs that shaped my past;
And I suppose
Made a lasting impression
Rooted deep enough
to now be the
Instigator of my regression
And unrelated, runaway thoughts

That seem to always get deeper

On accident.


Everything will become a hazy memory
And glob into two word phrases
Of the forced politeness
That accompanies the acknowledgement
Of a past regret-
Still freshly gawky
As a transitional stranger;


I am inquiring
In an attempt to find an explanation  for this untold something
That remains unseen
Until we're too disheveled
To distinguish it from a
A misplaced dream or idea.


Relativity counteracts the sheen
And perspective is everything,
But I feel myself slipping away
Into a despondent complacency.

I left all my linens in places
I no longer cared to be.

Yeah,
Maybe new sheets are what I need.

C.e.M 12.23.14
I am starting to think it's only somewhat productive when I turn my rambling into poetry. You guessed it guys- stream of consciousness again and my first draft. Critiques are welcomed and encouraged! Written from the perspective of people in my past and the respective sheets I remember sharing with them/ politicalish rant, all combined together into the symbology of wanting a change- starting with my sheets. I have no idea of that's clear in contex clues. Ok ya the end.
Cate
Cate Nov 2014
I won't make a fool of myself
trying to excavate your passions;
We will return to
polite smiles in passing.

c.e.m.
Cate Nov 2014
The silence is too loud-
the background noise is making my ears ring.

I don’t know how much longer I can tune it out.
I don’t know how much longer
I can control my mouth
from wandering away on your forehead
and your cheeks
and your collar bones.

I’m sorry if I end up picking you dry,
I just have a lust
for love that seems
to be perpetually unsatisfied.

It cannot be denied I am a fiend,
but to tell you what you do not know
would destroy my pride and
most likely cause your retreat.

How do we go about telling them how we met?
Am I just a bet?
Or just the best that you could get.

I can't help but be cynical towards your approach and
you unfortunately
meet the status quo.

The more I get to know you
the more apparent it becomes
I’ll never be able to control you;
nor will I want to.

My freedom is contingent on yours
as well and it may leave us
in a well

but then we will
finally be alone
and forced to talk and
what if you choose to break it off?

Well then off I go like I had planned for you
the whole time,
zip away on a plane like
I am riding white lines through
white winter skies.

When your hands are on the
insides of my thighs
I can only adjust in passive-
aggressive consent
that could easily
be misinterpreted-
either way.

Don’t let my terrible,
smooth,
icy skin
be the only reason you stay.

I am a hypocrite at best-
hand up my dress and
you biting my lips
like you know I like.

Is this what it’s like to be a grown up?
They say always a bridesmaid,
Well for me?

it’s always the couch.
Never graduating to the ascent
required
to tumble onto the pocketed recesses
of the spare mattress.

I often wonder if
I am simply
The World's Best Unpaid Actress.

C.e.M. 11.22.14
Cate Mar 2017
Suddenly... Your idea of someone is shifted...irreparably, so it seems. At first. At the least. Maybe over time you'll forget, somewhat. That is to say, whatever disappearing moment may transition into a partial, fickle memory.
You will recall it, inconveniently, possibly with slight inconsistency, and they will claim, should you choose to mention it, some sort of factual discrepancy.
It may well hover, all the way to the end of your personal eternity, and it may go unnoticed, covered by each new epiphany, layering in thin, single coats to be reminiscently noticed as a shadow.
No matter how deep into someone's secrets you may go,
There is always more to know.
        
          There is always more to know.

2.23.2017
Cate Mar 2015
Finding myself tired and uninspired
at least the bed left me today.
I did my laundry
what more do you want from me
I can't think of much else
in this haze.

Sometimes,
the passions stop.
I no longer see the sputtering
of yellow lines down
a highway

as something I could recreate
into a beautiful composition.

The sky is only grey
and no longer the keeper of
nostalgic malaise.

My feet only move me
when bothered for the trouble
and howl and moan
every mile of road
they encounter.

I don't have a real position on
the matter
when my thoughts scatter
and I'm left with hollow eyes
and a succulent consciousness
gone dry.
I don't have a snarky reply

just another useless day
I unwillingly offer up
to the unforgiving clock
and a loss of sentiment.

C.e.m.
3.10.15
Cate Aug 2015
subtle yellow bruises
obtuse and inconducive
to the injury that
left you spoon-fed
by society.


C.e.M. June 4
Cate Nov 2014
Satan was swinging over me
the seduction of solitude
ever encroaching into my slippery thoughts.

I'm in a race to retrace back to what I forgot
but in a effort diluted by my distraction
I will surely rot
before I arrive to the place
where I might get off.

I missed the last stop with eyes
heavy with wine and sleep
and the poisonous concoctions
I so eagerly drink

Just a momentary quenching;
simply sated for the moment.

Chapped lips and a rattly voice
this is the brink of atonement.

There is a man on a stage
three feet from a crowd who gazes on
clearly enraged
though nonetheless engaged.

He is rabid with malice
and a darkness in his heart
tainted blood in his chalice

this coal will never spark.

c.e.m. 11.24.2014
Cate Aug 2015
My head is fuzzy-
I can't pull myself out from underneath
the intoxicatingly tiring weight
of my multiple comforters and blankets.
I think of the inside of a koala's ear.
How fuzzy that must be.
That is what I am, yes.
I am nonsense, innocent pink and gaping.
No complex encroaching my perception,
no predelection for the preceeding day.
No bias nor misdirection yet, i am
unwavering as a week of rain
that leaks into two;
heavy grey clouds that won't budge
for longer than a half-hour.
I am a spelling bee and the certainty
before the fall- the letters came out wrong.
I am a churning gut, egging me
towards the "right call"
with the strumming of my moral fibers
or something of that nature.
I am the creeping heat of a humid day
no present danger
just sense of exhaustion;
feeling drained.
I am the pain on the page
and the **** poor decisions
that lead to a scalding shower
trying to smoke out those spur-of-the-moment sins.
I'm alone in your parent's walk-in closet
sobbing behind your father's golf polo's
while you make desserts
for a party full of strangers.
I always hated how you tried
to impress the neighbors.
I am the next day hurt
from a wrestling match that popped up in the
back yard over some hurt feelings
and a misinterpreted meaning.
I am all you know
but won't believe in.

C.e.M. Aug.18,2015
Cate Jan 2015
How strange is it that I forgot about you?
I used to write poetry about you-
you were my stand-in muse.
again and again
I replaced a strangely
unspecific space
somewhere I’m unsure of
somewhere a midst my center.
you.
don’t exist.
you are the minutes,
yes,
and all the miles between wherever
I may happen to be
and whoever I currently need “you”
to be.
you’re fabricated, you see.
and only briefly appreciated
because you will never
blow my mind.
you’re only as large
and fantastical
as my imagination can stretch.
so you see?
you’re no great threat.
c.m.
8-19-14
oldie from my old poetry site/blog conspire--inspire.tumblr.com
Cate Aug 2016
gravity masters buoyancy
Cate Mar 2015
I'll stuff myself with sweets
and line my bed with pillows
but even in
the impending summer heat
I'm cold
and you're nowhere near me.
my head,
my bed...empty.  
the way it must be
meant to be.
too honest and to no one.
Cate Apr 2016
I've come to realize when I say I'm people watching it really means I'm trying to find
My place in line,
Trying to figure out which standards I fit
And what I can commit to
In order to drift with little to no conflict
All the way to the end of it.

This version of my excursion
At times feels counterfeit,
A minute off
I take a day to split the difference
count it up and call it consistency
between the days I existed
and the days I persisted through towards more.


C.e.M.
April 15, 2016
Cate Aug 2015
I am monday morning
come too early
waiting, dirtied from
the weekend;

come to wash off your alter ego
and decisions,
split like the bill
and all those little hairs
that tickle your face
when the wind whispers secrets
too quiet to decipher.

I am an indecisive shiver
of awakening
and the cool tile bathroom
that calls you from sleep
after the second snooze expired.

I am the hot cracking leather
beneath sweating thighs
a thirty minute traffic jam
after a dull day,
radio buzzing and daydreamy.

I am the tension before rest and release,
cool sheets
and sweet sleep.

C.e.M. Aug.24, revised Aug. 29 2015
Cate Dec 2014
Twist me into
A sick, sad fool;  
I would,
I would for you.

C.eM. 12.13.14
Cate Dec 2014
I awoke with a burnt tongue
And wild hair-
My body shriveling up
At the touch
Of the cold empty air.

Naked, and you had the blankets;
How did I ever think we'd make it.


C.e.M. 12.26.14
Cate Feb 2015
It's nights like these
That make me question
If my fallibility has come sooner
Than I had expected
And I will remain forever defective.
A kink in my neck
and hair in my eyes
Predictions of an impending fate
That I might be stuck this way
If I keep making this face.

C.e.M. 2.17.15
Cate Sep 2016
My synapses are misfiring-
this weight more than gravity.
Depravity’s disastrous grasp,
the exit is not escape.

 Feel the world spinning,
churning on without.
remants, stationed
stagnant and static.

Buzzing in discomfort,
blistering heat
of combustible refuse
left only excuses.

Catatonic catastrophe,
blasphemous bile spews,
purposeless penitent sentiments,
drowning logic in mental mishap.

An exploding star,
Separating fuselage,
limbs detach from frame
Splintering out into space.
Written 9.14.16
Edited/tightened 9.15.16
Cate Sep 2015
The battering ram of the underclass cruelty had left pocket marks in his dark skin as the quarrelling customers threw down cash just to ****** it back up as though they were bartering against each other for due time and money owed. He did nothing, save sit there and blink. I thought to myself it almost looked as though he was counting each second in the brief flutter of his eyelids. Open and closed they went, up and down, on and on. The two men were still bickering, each insisting the other owed more than he. My orange juice had begun to sweat in my hand, and I was anxious to eat my late night snack. I considered quietly persuading the two boisterous fellows to conclude their business and exit, but I feared what form their anger might take when reassigned to my annoying interjection. Saying nothing, I waited, testing my own patience and hoping fiercely they could move along. Some fifteen minutes later when all insults and insinuations were spilled out into the open air like oil into the ocean, the duo finally exited and I made my purchases, thankful to be rid of their company, and as I left I saw him sitting, stoic, still blinking rhythmically, not a word nor breath escaping his lips.
Cate Nov 2014
and then all of a sudden
you meet someone
who shuts your mouth and
opens your eyes
and you just lay there on your side
and smile the dopiest smile.

you feel like singing and
screaming and perhaps
like you might explode
if the radiation
from the insides of his mind
that slices you from
six inches away
continues for much longer.

and if you do?
it won’t matter
because he will scoop you up
and kiss your pieces-
barely even noticing that
you are broken and

when he leaves
it is always
too soon

and the sheets smell like
the sweat after a long day
and you love it in all of its honesty
and the hard work that it eludes to.

His hands feel warm on your skin
even when they are too cold
and you have rolled
away with the quilt once again.

He’s respectful
and he’s got a big goofy laugh
that comes
from the recognition of a lingering sorrow
he is still
unwilling to share.

He will leave you
more tangled than your hair
in the morning
after it has spun itself
across the static surface
of sheets and skin.

He’s letting himself in and
you dream of him
even when he is beside you.

Your thoughts never tire
of retracing the steps you took together
and you will walk down familiar trails
hour by hour
when you mind needs a rest.

He is quite possibly the best,

the best


The best.

and you'll get to the rest.


c.e.m. 11.24.14
Cate Mar 2017
I left my home
in the hands
of estranged friends

only to find it again
nearly two years later,
a weekend in Cleveland.


I made it to the door
with the last sleepy tendrils of sun
flaking from drooping eyes.

Communion is served
at 5:30 sharp by hands
adorned with hard work.

The elements are passed,
fire and glass,
'round a table with seats for 6.

It is then I realized...
in the half-light
it was decided.

I never left the pew.
My religion is still community.
for my friends. you make me whole.
Cate Mar 2016
Thump thump
Black velvet Velcro clumps across the lot
Was there anything I forgot?
Cart collector calls out a claim of the weather
And I replied with a cry of fear wondering if
The earth could still hear my sigh
Or if the climate has changed past
The refresh button
And we'd be stuck in a rut
A rotten glutton ******* our giver dry.
Cate Aug 2015
Finding inner strength is hard
That is to say,
when my eyes are tired
and I'm perpetually bored with everything
that might be the possibility
of some sort of
unforseen progression,

I lose any words
to hold in the moment
with something you might conceed
to understand.

Sand me down with your selfish demands
and gritty hands
after two days past
when you should've cleaned up a bit.

Maybe in late summer
the rag **** will swirl about
and I'll say I have
an allergy headache
and maybe that's why
I'm congested
and mildly depressed
and sure, maybe
that's it
or maybe
it's because of all the cigarettes.

Don't hate me if I don't answer
I've just found something new
to captivate my attention
for the moments when we part.

The tension of what's expected
hangs thick in incense smoke
and anticipation.

I'm migrating into something misplaced
and full of consternation.

C.e.M. August 16, 2015
Cate Jan 2017
Whispering eternally into the void
Hoping internally
It can turn the black
churning bile of thoughts
into incandescent showers,
specific epiphany.

Lately, I've been laden
with the epitome of anomaly.
Loner labotomy,
living in self devised autonomy
A private economy of thoughts,
exchanging deranged for sane

Only to flip back again
Turn around, full swing
Indignant incantations ring,
Echoing down the corridors


This skeletal paradigm
Of rusted pipes
I've unwittingly installed
above once placid pools,
A wellspring for many muses.


Caught in a rift of dimension
Words begin to leak
Without direct intention
And with little attention for the details
My thoughts quickly become words
That derail more than just a conversation.
My hesitation to engage
Is a fair wage for holding my silence
Tightly,
But the precarious musings of my mind
Must tumble out to spite me.


I tried cutting out my tongue to save face
But a poet who can't speak is a disgrace.

1.8.2017
C.e.M.
Cate Dec 2014
Capture my body and a night of my life and you will have won nothing outside of my perpetually rotting shell.
My mind though-
Win my time
And you will have won everything of my spiritually nuclear substance-
You may keep all you find.

But you must leave when I say it's time.

C.e.M. 12.2.14
Rough draft
Cate Jul 2015
You say you need a doctor
We'll send a helicopter
Because my love is dry
And I won't even try to save you this time

What's your alibi
Tell me,
will you smile the whole time?
watch me choke down your lies
Cem 7.15
Cate Mar 2015
Stale crackers and
Quivering cigarettes
Held in a hesitant hand
And lonesome lips.
Nothing tastes more of regret
Than the spit on your chin
On your way back
From the bathroom,
Twenty minutes after your knees
Have finished holding down the floor
While the cold wrinkled faces
Of your feet turn up towards
The dull buzzing of the fan.

Your vision is blurred
By the tainted tears
That squeeze out
When the hand over your mouth
Just isn't enough to cover
the cost
Of last nights tab
And the penalty you avoided
By taking a cab back to
Your flat for a short nap
Before your six am shift.

But eleven hours later
And the ding of the elevator outside your door
Jolts you awake-
Seven missed calls mark your mistake
And there's a feeling you can't shake
That this is terribly wrong.

Turn over again
Running miles, still in bed.
You've spent too long
Marinating in your poor decisions
And night after night
You succumb to your vices.
You will make no progress
If you cannot be contrite.
You aren't
Alright.

C.e.M. 3.28.15
Cate Dec 2014
Because in the end I'm still standing
in the corner
like I like
or don't like
I have yet to decide but
I'm laughing with myself;

vanity never got me anything.

So I'll wear exactly what I like or
what you want me to like or
whatever I found on the floor
and I'll collect more and more
until I finally realize what I chore it is

Pretending who you're going to be each day.

Dress me in grey
Stick me in a simple box
Set me on fire and
throw me to the rocks in the sky
that always reflected the dreamy mist of another life
into my vacant eyes.

C.e.M. 12.12.14
Cate Apr 2017
I've got a hand-held mirror
and an old can of spaghetti-o's
in the back pocket
of the passenger side seat.

I'd call off instead of quitting.
I'd pack my clothes
and my books
first.

I'd miss my quirky
little knick knacks.
I'd bring all my blankets
and a lot of beef jerky.

I'd learn to grow
my own tea.

I'd write letters.
I wouldn't send them.

I'd think of returning
often.

I never would.
that's not junk in my trunk, it's my go bag.
Feb.6, 2016
Cate Jan 2015
I called you at 2am
because i missed the way
your voice crackled
in the static
even at an unreachable distance.
I lay here,
eyes shut.
imagining countless scenarios
of how I might see you again.
however,
you look so much better in my mind.
and online.


c.m.
8-19-14
also from conspire--inspire.tumblr.com go look at it for some early summer, late spring poetry from yours truly!
Cate Dec 2014
We left on the excuse of
Wanting to listen
To
"Just one song".

But when we arrived at the place
That kept us from the outside
We decided to go ahead and drive

And I've never had a smile so big
I was actually scared
My face might rip

And I could die
Or we could drive off a cliff
Or smoke a laced spliff
It makes no difference to me

As long as you're around
Even if that means muddling through
The week
In our seperate towns
Until one of us can come down
For the weekend.  

And we're too loud
But it's only because we're used
To trying to bridge the distance
With a vocalized insistence

That we'll find a way back
Even if it's back roads and red eyes and runny noses

I know how it goes
And I've chosen to stay
When I would usually take the easy way
I'd be out and gone
But we're leaving together
And with you
I try to do less wrong.

Last night
one more song
Turned into a vulnerable
Sob
And awkward consolation
Turned to snot on my shoulder
And the comfort of
Human warmth.

I would address how we should go forward
But I know it doesn't matter

I'll see you again
And you'll catch my spinning head
And I'll hug you
And hug you
And never get enough

Sweet thing,  
You're the good stuff.


12.20.14 cem
Because you can't have a best friend and not write an awful poem for them. For my sweet sweet girl. You know who you are! (For everyone else this was stream of consciousness you can judge me idc I know it ain't great)
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