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5.5k · Dec 2012
The Hiss of Deflation
DM Pierce Dec 2012
He sees the world as her backdrop,
And loves her wholly.
She knows that and wants to love him back, but
All she can feel is lonely.

As he sleeps she cries in
Tight, silent heaves in rhythm
With his chest as he breathes.
His face is lit from neon light,
Slipping through a slit on the strung-up sheet--
An eye to the street,
And to everything that's beyond this life that she leads.
But she needs him and
Please, she begs, Have him
Hate me, at least.  I'm weak--
I'll linger until he throws me away,
Because at least then I can say
That it wasn't my choice, but
Everything must fade.


She goes on a walk every night now,
Riddled with complexes and smoking,
Eyes roving with 2AM mascara,
Wearing a spring dress in dead winter.
Head down in a crowd, aware
Of herself existing only when men stare.
They crave for her, she craves for him,
Her sadness, a narcotic magnetism.

She drowned off the coast
Of the island in her kitchen.
She weighed herself down with
Her faults like mountains and
Yellowed ambition.
DM Pierce Dec 2012
I awoke one morning
To light beating through the window,
The steady hum of the city
In my bones. I was in a manic mood
Before noon, half-dressed with my hair
Standing straight from a nervous hand.
My chest throbbed with a warm weight,
A smoldering ember that expression could extinguish only.
I wrote and cried and bled
To get the vibration I was feeling
Down on paper. In vain I spewed
Collections of letters, contorted and foreign
My mind was
Shooting up skyscrapers and
Strolling down streets of shine;
I could but lust at a copy of Gatsby through a puddle of cheap wine.

I suddenly found I couldn't take my walls,
Any longer.
I forced open the window
And the city flooded my room,
Sending papers sailing. I resonated
With the silver river
And all of me cried for release.
I scrounged together clothes and wet my hair,
Then bolted out the building.
I was embraced by the world and twirled along,
Hull to hull with the lonely lot.
We, the builders of this landscape,
The elemental moving force
That hollowed these ashen canyons.
Day by day we toil along our track,
Carving deeper and wider, shifting specks,
Seamlessly, we are one-
     Crisp dress shirt and an expensive smell, cracked black work boots and a ponytail.
I raised my eyes to the brilliant glare
Of the segmented sky and considered the beauty of being
A drop within a trickle.
Rushing, rushing, I flowed around corners
And broke against departmental shores.
I sought my gaze in a fifth avenue reflection but found only lips.
If people are the sea then I am the mist.
Understand me-- I felt not love for others,
But a crushing connectivity.
Drifting, drifting, I was swallowed whole by anonymity, crew and ship.




*Critiques are very much appreciated.
1.4k · Dec 2012
Flecks of Gold in this Age
DM Pierce Dec 2012
Drifters, sick with Now,
Swell and crowd the Elm Streets.
We, the self-anointed secretaries of culture war,
Parallel-parked car poets trapped in suburbia,
We claw our generation forward.

We seep from shifting city to evergreen forest, to
Seek answers from the grave-stone gods before us,
Learn of what they knew of man--
His vacuous constructions and his ash fortunes,
How to be martyrs and what makes us worth it.
1.3k · Dec 2012
Rocky Coast, 1AM
DM Pierce Dec 2012
This small boat of mine is battered and chipped.*

And
I don't know,
Who I am, where I've been,
Why glacier shackles crown my wrists,
How I survived this gunshot wound shaped like sin,
Or what it means to not disappoint my father,
And be a ****** Man.
1.1k · Dec 2012
Snapshot at When?
DM Pierce Dec 2012
Writing with tired eyes,
Tie-dyed red.
Through wine mist he stares ahead,
Through walls and time until he finds,
A scene with Alice, in January:
Her cherry blossom nails sailing
Down shivering spine,
Petal bud lips stalk my neck--
We advance and retreat,
Drawing out the chilled honey time
Until we meet.
Her hair cascades around me,
Waterfalls of Midas-felt wheat.
Waves of revelation overtook me and
   Shivers of honesty shook me,
Under her starched ivory sheet.



*Critiques and comments are much appreciated
897 · Dec 2012
Slow Burn Band-Aid
DM Pierce Dec 2012
I don't want to get started; I don't know if I have what it takes to stop it, once life is static no longer*

Transient winds dislodge cobwebs from closets--
Silk mist that drifts
(Like half-daydreamed doves from our
Starlight and eyelash ark
Half-reclaimed by the sea)
Across our
New car smell, white-wash wall
Stumble before the fall,
Pick each other up and kiss the gravel off,
Apartment.

I scream "apartment",
To the concrete and steel
Of her skin, a bridge that's
Closed as tightly as her
Proust pressed flower lips.

My faults are
Tattooed across my skin
In full color comic strips.
I tongue the interior dents
Birthed when
She taught me
What apart meant.
I started writing this as I was getting in bed, and got caught up in it. It might be a little rushed because I'm lusting for some sleep, but I like the skeleton of it. It continues a loose narrative I've been following.
828 · Nov 2013
Smoke
DM Pierce Nov 2013
I scrawl ****** love notes
On grease-stained napkins
To women and visions,
But mainly the latter.
825 · Dec 2012
Roadside, Pass Her By
DM Pierce Dec 2012
(She cries)
Sobs in hands while kneeling,
Painted face streaking though
She's familiar with feeling shattered
And as if she's floating,
In a subjective spatial sea
That surrounds her in this ,
Eyes-to-the-ground, individualistic city.
But she's willing to suffer if it means,
Eventual healing,
And not waking up every night screaming
With blind eyes wide, grey face, fist balled tight.
There's not a dawn to come for her
'Cause it's been dark her whole life.

(She wades)
In water
Ripples flutter with each dip and kick,
Her neck sparkles from splashes and sweat.
Her underlined eyes are tired and red from having wept
Instead of slept.
Guns on shelves
Asking if she needs help.
High balconies shout down to her
On the streets and inquire
Why she hasn't climbed them,
Looked down at the tiny specks winding,
Gears whirling, patterns and plans unfurling,
Observed she was of no use, and
Suffered a last shuddering breath
And leapt
To a mercifully abrupt death.

(She wonders)*
On this daily as
She comes to grips with failing,
At life and her goals.
Having squandered any hope that was shown,
Choosing instead a life of
Closed glass doors and burned out rooms,
Quietly never forgiving herself for who,
The world tells her she is
And who she is in her heart-
That hollow rock that stores
What remains of her wishes
Stacked in columns from floor to ceiling
Silent borders of her buried tomb of mass killing.
She roams among it like a library,
It almost feels like home, to
Browse steep piles of dreams dead
From a thousand and one styles
Of homicide, alphabetically stored and stacked.    

(She stares)
Into her oxidized mirror and
Studies the divisions of face along the cracks,    
Wondering when and where she went wrong,
How far lost she is and if she'll ever again see home.          
Most days,
   She doubts it.
Whispers what do i do?
   But wants to shout it.
The fissures on her face break wide,
Plunging her into vicious waters high
   Above her,
She shouts a final something,
But produces only finite bubbles.



*Critiques are very much appreciated.
823 · Dec 2012
An Extra-Credit Sonnet
DM Pierce Dec 2012
No ceilings here; the pure high air is sweet,
Gently drifting over a crimson stream,
Lips meet neck above a sea of concrete,
Sailing soft and smooth through valleys of cream.

Secondhand shine might make the best street light,
And beyond her shoulders, stars seem lit gems.
But do I dream if all fades with the night?
Arrogance takes the heart and leaves the limbs.

For the head grows wiser when it's alone,
And deprived eyes see lies on lips like crumbs.
I hope to split open her heart, that stone,
Live there and be the broken song she hums.

I can see her now: stung lips, legs like May,
Dusk in her eyes, "Love me like this" she'll say.
804 · Nov 2013
An Ode at 3AM
DM Pierce Nov 2013
i miss you, you know.
not as urgent or as painful
as i used to, but i do
i do, i do
i used to burn, now i ache
my soul’s scarred with
an image of your face
759 · Dec 2012
After Sight, Before Sound
DM Pierce Dec 2012
Her face was middle-class regal,
With clear, winter skin of cotton
And a blush,
A blush that rose naturally,
Like a pink fog
Across her sharp cheekbones.
I traced the gentle curves
Of her gentle lips.
Thick hair
Fell to thin shoulders
In sunset-red waves.
Her almond eyes
Were basins of liquid emerald,
Dancing and bright,
Shaded by luxurious lashes
That fluttered delicately like the down
Of a black velvet swan.



*Critiques and comments are much appreciated
745 · Dec 2012
One of Those Days
DM Pierce Dec 2012
I can't take this city much longer,
It's wrong here; I feel it watching and
See it in your misty eyes when
You lie and say it's nothing,
You're great.


There's a haunting, a menace.
Something we've disturbed or offended
Is taking an extended vengeance,
Trapping us in a poetic wilderness
Lacking invention or vision. Days
pass like weeks and I make ropes out
of bedsheets, marking runaway routes
on maps before they even halfway
Reach the golden delicious dead grass.
714 · Dec 2012
On Conditions
DM Pierce Dec 2012
When glass fogs,
And I see her prints,
(Those flat and cold smear fossils),
I know they're oval ghosts,
Or bodies.
Lonely remnants,
Of
Some girl,
Some body,

    

Just that,
No more.

But the prints, they stay.
Long after the funeral bouquet
Decayed by her grave.
After it became more difficult to be brave,
Day by day, until
I couldn't, or
I can't, because
This struggle doesn't end
Until it's over.
We bleed, are broken
And grow older,
Burdened by the inherited blame
That we shoulder.
We are so many lost, adrift,
Darkly hidden from rescuing planes and ships,
     Yet,
Deep in our abysmal rift,
I found the peak of existence,
Resting on her gold petal lips.
I lived more in the moments she blessed me with,
Than I have lived ever since
And if I could choose, I would live in my youth
With her,

Just that,
No more.






*Critiques are very much appreciated.
698 · Dec 2012
A Thirty-Second Scrawl
DM Pierce Dec 2012
she has a heavy personality-
the kind that weighs    
                              down
          and anchors
everything around it.
and man,
               oh, man
how i need that.
672 · Nov 2013
Retrospective Rendition
DM Pierce Nov 2013
I'm 6' 2" and six feet under,
I love like ice and sob like thunder.
All of these canyons in my mind
Will echo with your name for all time
Love a poet? No, love a storm
See your name carved in the landscapes I've torn.
These hands are for making breaks and bruises
With a love like mine everybody loses
641 · Nov 2013
Sudden, Sharp Pain
DM Pierce Nov 2013
Before anything,
Let me say I love you
And that my body burns
With thirst for you--
Dehydrated in the desert
Of your absence, wishful eyes
Spy mirages of you
Masquerading as people.
But, when I lean in closer
I see they're just shadows
Of your laugh, your eyes--
There are pieces of you
everywhere in my life,
Like shattered glass in a carpet.
631 · Nov 2013
Ask Me How I Am, I Dare You
DM Pierce Nov 2013
Some days I can feel
My skin melt to dust,
Taste the bitter ash of
Burned bridges and rust
As everything revolves away
From me and stops at her feet.
Though, most days I just feel like
A unobserved wave at sea,
Fading quietly into the breeze.

So yeah, I'm good, too.
It was nice to see you.
627 · Dec 2012
After Following the Leader
DM Pierce Dec 2012
I'll follow you, darling,
I'll follow wherever you may lead.
Until the sky burns green and
And we've seen trees grow legs,
Just to fall to their snapping knees.


I'll follow you, darling, I'll follow you,
My heart is locked to yours.
Attached by a weighty chain,
That runs under my criss-cross scarred
Paper skin like iron-link veins,
A spiderweb of rust that aches on rainy days.


I'll follow you, darling,
If you'll but do the same.
If I were to leave your side,
Would you call my name?
When you noticed me not existing next to you
Would you feel anything?


More than us, I want you to just
Please, feel something.
Nothing amazing, but hey, it's something.
555 · Dec 2012
Up, Down, Around
DM Pierce Dec 2012
I was alone, yesterday,
     When I began to dissolve.
It didn't hurt at all,
     Except in an abstract sort of way.


The mirror showed cold bone-
     Clean white where skin should be.
A crimson static filled our home,
     And an achy resonance filled me.


In my ocean of dissolution,
     Breaking down for absolution,
I cry not for me,
     but you;
For the burden of carrying not one heart,
     but two.


I felt so vivid as I bled to the sky.
          Scattered to brilliant blue stars, never to die,
I'll be the leaves that fall, the birds that fly by.
              In the next life, when we meet, we'll retry,
          And I'll be better, I promise,
     Because I love you,
          More than anything.
Nothing was your fault.





*Critiques are very much appreciated.
550 · Jun 2017
A Girl in Blue
DM Pierce Jun 2017
She shines like breathing bone
   Cut or beat or twisted
Out of forgettable flesh
  Aching, truth-white
A heart-skip jump to the pit of the gut
   Devil-cold water on a sticky hot day
She consumes all at once,
   Surrounding 'til there never was
      A 'you'

As if
   there was ever yourself to lose
467 · Sep 2013
how're you?
DM Pierce Sep 2013
i close my eyes to see her
because that's the only time i do.
i dream of what we could have had,
the world against just us two.

now my will is gone
and i'm failing
to find strength outside of her.
my world in her eyes but her face is turned
everything's burning and i've nowhere to run.

you loved me then, so love me now,
we used to say "i love you" like a vow.
you can' have forgotten all the years, all of me,
our soft, quiet first kiss or me climbing that tree.

but if you don't miss me,
if the anger's too much and
the love's not enough, if the thought
of living our lives separately doesn't
feel like a noose around your neck
then,
i'll move on.

for you, i'll move on.
or just step back and
let you, at least.
my soul met its mate
and is dedicated.
you might not be mine,
but i'll always be yours.

so if you ask if i'm alright,
i'll say i'm just fine,
because the burden of this love
is now solely mine.
DM Pierce Jun 2017
I don't think about you, except when I do
Like an aching tooth that only throbs when my tongue moves
And generally, I'm a pretty talkative dude
But lately I feel like I'm talking for two,
Reviewing reruns of us like I'm sifting for truth
Amidst the ******* and deceit, I don't know what hurts the most;
The love that's left, or me being left to argue with a ghost
Chained to a boat with no hope for a coast,
I'm inclined to float, or maybe learn from you and sail out

It was nice seeing you darling, hope you're doing well now
love relationship breakup ex ****'em

— The End —