Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Manuel John Sep 2018
like you died a little with each word.
Slow, yet sudden stabs in your chest
every time their tongues danced.
Like glaciers threaded into your ears,
melting into acid on your eardrums.
So much weight that you carry
underneath your eyes
from staying up by the window,
being envious of the moon
-how she’s distant from harm.
Oh, how your night is eventful-
routine compulsion of counting sheep
-the ones jumping off the moon.
Gently, you crawl in bed and count
the ones drowning in the sea
of apathy that is your ceiling
And as your ritual, you find yourself
filling your diary with tears.
Quill tears, and yours to compete
for a place on your pillow
as you fall asleep, ink in hand
and thoughts on a battered paper,
hurt just as much.
Manuel John Oct 2018
A leaf slowly danced his way onto my laps and the stars fall out of place
in just that way
whenever I’m in bed. The shape of my state is blue; ready for your
autopsy of questions, ready to be tried once again. I am barely home
now but my eyes are dimming - flashes of white roses and purple
bracelets spill all over.
I just will not fall asleep. I won’t give myself that
satisfaction. Not even now that I deserve it. Time pulls on your face
and chest and *****,
but only if you’d ask nicely and agree to fade in wait.
I am always found groaning of
wanting cake and never getting any,
squatting in my good boy corner. The only place I am at peace with
myself, where I can agree with all that I have to say to myself.
Manuel John Nov 2019
will all spill alike
One seeping into the other
A symphony of chaos and darkness_ An order from prophecy; of disorder
and a raised structure of destruction
For the skies will be as earth_ Dusty and dead
The earth, just as dead
That everything in between
Would be buried
That everyone in between
Would be buried alive
in blood, fear and fumes
Manuel John Sep 2018
Deep in the darkness of my soul
A darkness not even I can behold
Somewhere far beneath my eyes
A spec of light you can barely see lies
You reached out to it but to your greatest surprise
The light within is moved farther despite your tries
Nothing can save me from myself you thought
But even at that, with persistence you sought
Digging through my clusters of damage
Clusters I think not to manage
Risking the many things we that we share
The very thoughts of losing a friend, you seemed not to fear
You dug for my own good "rescue the light before it's long gone"
"For if the light leaves, this can't be undone"
Worried not by the outcome
Giving it your all "still I'll overcome"
Getting closer to the end of the darkness's frontiers
Darkness cannot help but give up "I'll surrender the light" it volunteers
Finally the search and pursue mission is over
In a cage the light is handed over
Retrieved the little light in me
Brought out the light and set it free
"The light is out" darkness begins to cry
"For when light is out how shall we pass by?"
Wiping all the darkness my light broke out
"Finally he is broken" you begin to shout


The old me is gone now, no turning back
My insides no longer painted in black
Darkness is gone, locked away in a cage
So now I can finally turn a new page
So, I finally tried rhyming and I think I pulled it off lol
Manuel John Sep 2018
Is it cliché to say that I dream of you
or that I stay up in bed thinking of you?
Indeed an apple falls far from a tree
and into a basket, somewhere overseas.
My Adam’s apple breaking over the phone
and chutzpah china slamming on the floor
leaves few words to remember you by.
My blinds will never carry a scent
yours, too much of a burden to bear.
A wooden bed with walls and moist soil
the only smell I pine for now
the only thing I can pray for now.
Manuel John Sep 2018
lust's hypnotic song
in fervent whispers
seeking servile obedience.
“Please, give me chains”
-man’s latent lyrics, in tune.
His soon remorse;
a plightful penance
in laurel of a deal
- an abyss
beneath wreathed flowers
inlaid with illusions of fruits
-tender, yet forbidden.
Just a gentle kiss,
shortly, a fiery gratification
-vivid and sharp to sense,
then desire seeks an embrace
-trouble’s warm embrace.
The melody changes
to a cloud filled passage
that is forte and ambient;
a gloomy coming awaits.
Best anticipate the dynamics
when desire knocks.
Manuel John Sep 2018
the one he had built
with his crusty hands.
So like him-
to leave us a tough impression.
Mother gave us dried leaves,
to graze the fire,
so it never died down-
so we never died down.
Our totem was perfect,
Having perfect laws to abide
To season the fire and grow hungry,
“the fire is your god.”
To watch the dance of the flames,
“the fire is your teacher.”
To instruct the fire with our hands,
“the fire is your weapon.”
And so it will be,
that we are one with the fire-
the fire one with us.
He would have wanted it that way.
Manuel John Nov 2019
It has taken a few weeks
to perfect your recipe
A few more to taste it. The sadness on you
has become your scent,
lingering on your sheets,
just like you. And its the same everyday, routine, until you’ve become a stereotype. You spend the whole day
watching phone calls
rise and fall like empires
or forgotten cities. Like this, you want to be left alone
To wonder why you’re alone. And so you seem to think
about everything, yet nothing at all. And you like how it feels
how the darkness is flirtatious. So you go another night,
just another night. Manuel
Manuel John Sep 2018
I am writing as though there were thorns in my sleeve

let me paint you a picture with my tongue instead
A marketplace in heaven, a retail store for souls
flowers of lashes open and flutter at me all day
and it is flattering to be human. Being human-
my sheets tease me of it when I lay alone.
Alone is where I am at some point, so the taste
of white noise will keep stinging.
A dark owl falls in my laps and to the ground
but as a mother would, I nudge her on to fly.
This is becoming routine. All of it, circling
over and over again, a messy time loop.
A ceiling fan with no circuits. A life.
This is where I am at some point,
alone in paradise.
Manuel John Nov 2019
You have tried to find love. You have searched in the most
utile of places, thirsting for a sip. You have asked your
lover what lies between her thighs
maybe you could find
some love there. She’d say rosé… she always does; the
older it is, the drier it gets. And now, you have drunk so
much rosé
practically all day, or every other Thursday
night till you have grown weary of its taste. But you
have heard that love lasts forever_ a lingering heartthrob , not a recurring hiccup from too much wine_Yes, you have
heard tales of a fairy tailing princesses until true love is
found. Yet, you remain here-loveless, loveless
and
loveless again. Maybe if you looked for love less, just
maybe you would find it, maybe it would find you. Maybe…eventually
Manuel John Nov 2019
Would it make any difference if for our love, we died? Punishment
upon us_the sinful but loved. The pride of our desire, the fervour of
our abridged lust, all banished to solitude. Now, only curiosity stands
between us, our naked souls. We, executed for who we are, outcasts
worthy only of each other. Separated and with all elements spawned
against us. Time pulling on our faces and chests and ***** as we fade in
wait. Laws over our heads till we die. We died right from the start. We only grow
now in death. Till we die again, to meet again, to live again, for in my
book the black sheep make the finest wool.
Manuel John Nov 2019
What is hope?
Hope isn’t much, actually, but it’s a lot.
I like to see hope as a Huge On Positive Enigma…difficult to
explain, maybe just as difficult to have.
I see hope as us…Healing Over Past Experiences.
I see hope as us…Humans, On Persistent Expectations, living
to see tomorrow. Hope isn’t just Her Only Powerful Exertion over these tough
situations. It’s his as well. Hope is Having Our Problems Eventually die out someday. Hope isn’t just a name, How Often Placed Especially on girls.
It’s much more than an identity. Hope is us, Having Our Patient Expectations met…waiting
till then. Hope is Here…Our Present Euphoria, just until we have
what we hope for. Hope is How Our Planet Escapes being swallowed by
negativity…but that’s just my opinion.
HOPE has been defined
The beauty in this is how each definition spells out hope in acronyms...
Enjoy
Manuel John Sep 2018
leave heaped pieces of lint in your soul
You wake up to the scent of a nostalgic host
pumping adrenaline to kick start your day
-a hot cup of anxiety to make sure you stay awake
These first days seem to have time at their mercy
-they embrace and dismiss her as they wish
while you just sit back and watch her pass you by
It’s how these first days give you a heavy impression
and give to others, a heavier impression of you
that makes out what other days have to offer
It’s how you hope these first days meet your expectations
that makes these first days linger in your memory
- like the smell of a fresh cigarette, under your breath
It’s how you hope these first days meet your expectations
that makes them and latter days worth living through
These first days are all up to you.
This poem is about the difficulties faced in the first days of mostly anything. I hope it is relatable
Manuel John Oct 2018
It’s 15 minutes before I die.
I’ve been here before?
Déjà vu? Routine? Hobby?
Uneasily, I am waiting for my groom.
Loneliness has walked me down the aisle
which is my kitchen, a job well done.
And yes, I have been waiting
all day in my bathrobe
sipping wine; the one called washing dishes
-miserably preparing the witnesses.
How I want to be remembered?
How I want to be forgotten?
They’re all the same to me.
-Men. Always running late.
I’ll wait a little longer, as I’ve always.

— The End —