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 Aug 2015
Joshua Haines
Tortured people tell themselves the past never happened.
They sit and reminisce about memories that they created.

Their hands are brown and worn down,
looking like a sibling of the ground that will eventually be a tomb for their bodies.

The teeth are fake and so are the smiles.
Hair falls off like rusty leaves brushed by a breeze, warning of the death of winter.
Limbs turn into string, ******* hang, and guts grow; like pregnant, stray cats.

Whenever they die, their houses will be eaten by their children, and not even a piece of gristle or a picture frame will be left.

The house will be nothing but a sun-dried ribcage:
a discarded postcard with the address marked out.

The children will sit and talk of their parents, repressing the abuse and the inability to meet expectations.

The children will work in sterile cubicles, thankful that their hands will not be stamped by calluses, yet knowing their fathers would not approve.

The children will open up the dust-blanketed boxes and stare at old family pictures, not able to recognize the people who smile and have perfect posture.

The children will lay in bed with their spouses and say, to no one in particular,
'Why was it never enough?
What did I do?

Was it me?'

The children will be tortured by these words,
by lives that weren't in technicolor,
by the paranoia of being tolerated instead of liked,
by the anxiety that a paid-off house
and nice car couldn't alleviate,
by themselves.

The children will retire and will have realized that they worked their entire lives just to enjoy ten years.
Their hair follicles will let go of strands and locks,
like a dandelion being stripped by the wind.

The enamel on their teeth will corrode and, before long, they will be thankful for the sensitivity of their teeth because the coldness of senior-citizen-discounted ice cream will be one of the few things they will be able to feel, let alone put a genuine smile on their face.

They will sit on their recliners, stare at their keyboard-kissed fingers and tell themselves the past never happened.

Because that's what tortured people do.
Ashland, Wisconsin
 Aug 2015
Marisa Lu Makil
Have you ever
Been so deeply
Moved by your love
For another
That you cannot
Hold back the tears?
I have a family member who has always disliked me. I am on a vacation right now with the other side of the family, and it's sunny, and beautiful, and everyone here loves me. I am barely holding my tears in. I am so happy. I don't want today to end.
 Jun 2015
Pax

I’m strong enough not to let you see me fall apart
So I hide my cries between my sighs.

I’m strong enough to stand alone against the cold landscape
So I hide my sadness between fake faces.

I crave, I starve, I wonder
And get lost in the process.
Then end up getting back to where I started.

How far will I stay strong?
How far will I carry along this dying song?
When will I ever belong?
......

..
.

I always talk on how poetry is an embark journey of mine. But more often I came back with recurring questions. I can say “I’m strong enough” but for how long, how far long will I go, or how much more I can take… big sighs…
 Apr 2015
Liz Hill
It's always on a night like tonight.
The drifting backwards, always backwards,
into our old places.
Together, driving our ambitions down blackened back roads
on late night drives without destinations.
Attempting to find ourselves in the space of a beat up Toyota,
we are the wandering souls
that find each other in the late hours of the night.
Drawn to the beat reverberating in the small car
and the thoughts thrown out the window
that fly to the pavement of the black highway.
We are vagabonds.
Searching,
always searching.
But moving backwards,
always backwards,
towards each other.
 Apr 2015
Kai Williams
The excess raindrops
get louder
with every open window
like you become
more tantalizing
with every cheap tile
you cross over
with your ashamed
feet
in those miserable
hallways
And you know as well
as I do
that it is not easy
having a sentimental,
earthly element
remind you of
where you wanted
your last breath
to be raked from
the blood and
the gray
that would have
been soaked into
soil
before anyone noticed.
 Apr 2015
Liz Hill
The thought of you making time for others,
and not me, kills me because I was
your best friend and you are still mine but
somewhere along the way, that phone line got cut.
And maybe I missed the memo that the alarm on our friendship began beeping and you woke up
while I was still sleeping.
Or that the clock struck
midnight, leaving me sitting in the rotted remains of our childhood.
How is it possible that the added days of us
became so replaceable that you "Don't understand how you made it through until you met, blank."
I don't see how this recurring trend became a thing,
as if recycling friends as if they didn't
exist is okay and how
"I've been busy"
equates to making everything just fine.  
I would have settled for a text just know whether or not you would be the next in line with every other person
I had dared call "friend".
How did we go from strangers
to sisters, to you not caring, and me just staring, waiting for you
to make a move, but knowing it would never come.
To all the girls who's "friend" only understood the word "end" and to all the people who inspired this, I'm sorry you did.
You're never as brave
As you think you are.
Not until you wear your
Courage like a permanent scar.
Don't forget the impossible
Is never really that far
And dreams can be reached
By wishing on a shooting star.
You can only be as brave
As you
 believe *you are.
For a friend dealing with some stress, I'm here for you. Always. ❤
 Feb 2015
Anna Brown
"YOU SHALL NOT PASS"
lord of the rings fanatics, typical
Somehow controlling thousands of people turned us all into Gandalf
I guarded the food, you two the door
Most people don't tell you how healthy it is to assert yourself,
They crave passivity, fear aggression
Assertion doesn't mean aggression
Patriarchal society
How good it feels to stand tall
Huge like a mountain, wise like a wizard
If we are Gandalf you're the ring
I hope you get thrown into the pits of Mordor
 Feb 2015
Kevin Eli
Expressive and frustrating,
The fire inside enduring.
Time to concentrate on loving.

Time to see the truth in our moment.
Make hope in yourself and show it.

Closing your eyes and escaping,
Imagining and dreaming,
All the feelings tumble away falling.

Singing loud out in the open,
The people begin to join in...

This feels like lifting up to heaven,
To live inside each moment...

This makes me believe that this is real.
To understand the world and still
Throw my doubts all away.

This sensation grows in size,
Inside it breathes a tiny little sigh....

To remind myself of loving,
Creating and believing,
A life always grows in meaning.
 Feb 2015
Liz Hill
The shirt laying on top of my wash basket today wasn't mine.
But, I remembered the moment when I took it off of you late Saturday night as I held the white material between my fingers.
Sparks flying in between heated kisses, trailed down beating chests,
as clothes became fewer the closer.
Savoring the comfort of skin touching skin in our short time alone.
I clung to you then,
and now, I'm left clinging to your ***** shirt that still smells like Old Spice and home.
And laying in my dorm alone,
your shirt held to my chest,
I realize that we both want to go home.
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