Charles Barnett

Jun 2014

gg

to smile like that,
you ******* Cheshire cat,
your lips curled up
as you lounge in the grass,
your legs sprawled out,
your face painted every
shade of smug
because I want to kiss you
(and you know it)
because I want to **** you
(I hope you know that)
for ruining roundhouses
with weak knees
for turning my right hook
into my right hand on your chest
as you pull me in closer
you turned my (occasional) quick wit
into pure aphasia
brought on by your all-consuming gaze
and I'm left awkward and dumbstruck,
wondering who gave you the right
to look at me like *that

#crush

May 2014

Tom Leveille

submissions to post secret

kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds

Charles Barnett May 2014

Twitter Poetry Vol. 3

1) 12 thousand tweets and none of them are substantial. They're becoming less and less about you though. Maybe that's what is substantial about them.

2) Something in the way you wrap sin in worship.

3) I'm an arson waiting to happen, is the funeral pyre really necessary?

4) Writing about you angrily isn't doing it anymore. I want to smash bricks through windshields that used to hold flowers I bought you.

5) Looks like you're not at the bottom of this one either. ****.

6) My love has always been leprosy.

7) You're the interlude, not the chorus. But, that's okay I'm a terrible vocalist anyway.

8) She wants to date boys that are self aware and boy did she hit the jackpot.

9) You smile with the grace of grandmothers and I'm a bad boy like your grandpa after the War.

10) Can I cut out your grin and put in on the wall next to my framed poster of Bob Dylan and Charles Bukowski?

11) Trace my outline in chalk when I finally drink myself to sleep. I'm euthanizing the pieces of me that belong to you.

12) If I find you in Heaven won't you be in his arms? If I find you in Hell won't you be my torment?

13) You make me feel as insignificant as God does and I think that says something about prayer.

14) I quit paying my phone bill so I'd quit dialing your number like a suicide hotline.

15) My teeth are rotten like the lies that spill out of my teeth. You find me beautiful and I've never been more self-conscious.

16) Your silence fills my abdomen like daggers and words clot where crimson should flow.

17) Loving you is *******.

18) My heart is at a crossroads and you're drowning in dust in the rearview mirror.

19) You prefer the subtle burns. The flames so hot they sever nerve endings when they lick your fingers the way I imagine I would.

20) She sings the body electric and I'm forced to worship her through computer screens and the scratch of needle on vinyl.

#love #alcohol #loss #thoughts #twitter #one-liners

May 2014

berry

the first and last angry letter

this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.