Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 Oct 2012 Evan Backward
Max Jones
i'm not afraid
to get on
the roller coaster,
i'm afraid
to get off.
There's a middle aged woman; she's dragging her feet.
She carries baskets of clothes to the laundromat
while the Mexican children kick rocks into the street;
and they laugh in a language I don't understand,
but I love them.
Why do I love them?
So the neighborhood is dimming as I smoke on the porch
and watch the people as they pass, enclosed by their cars;
on their faces just anger or disappointment.
I start wishing there was something I could offer them.
A consolation, what could I offer them?
And they are sad in their suburbs; robots water their lawn
and everything they touch gets dusted spotless,
and so they start to believe they've not touched anything at all
and the cars in the driveway only multiply.
They are lost in their houses.
I have heard them sing in the shower,
making speeches to their sister on the telephone
saying, "You come home.
Woman, you come here."
Don't stay so far away from me.
This weather has me wanting love more tangible.
Something I can hold 'cause it's getting cold.
I say, "Hold up our fists to the flame in the sky.
to block out the light that's reaching for our eyes."
'Cause it... 'cause it would blind us. Yeah, it will blind us.
Well, I've locked my actions in the grooves of routine.
So I may never be free of this apathy,
but I wait for a letter that is coming for me.
She sends me pictures of the ocean in an envelope
so there is still hope.
Yes, I can be healed.
There is someone looking for what I've concealed
in my secret drawer, in my pockets deep.
You will find the reasons I can't sleep and you will still want me.
But will you still want me? Will you still want...?
Well, I say come for the week.
You can sleep in my bed,
and pass through my life like a dream in my head.
It will... it will be easy. I will make it easy.
But all I have for the moment is a song to pass the time;
a melody to keep me from worrying.
Oh, some simple progression to keep my fingers busy,
and words that are sure to come back to me
and they'll be laughing, and they'll be laughing.
My mediocrity.
My mediocrity.
(and they'll be laughing.)
 Jul 2012 Evan Backward
her
you told me I could tell you anything.

and from my tongue slipped chaos.

broken consonants, faulty vowels, damaged syllables.

from my heart slipped shattered feelings that cradled every word that was to be delivered to your sensitive ears.

I spoke unto you everything that was hidden.

I brought them back to life and served them to you on a platter so silver you can see my innocence fading from your eyes looking back at you as you stared in it.

and from my soul slipped trust.

and into your hands it entered.

and then I was safe.

you may not have understood.

but you listened.

and that was more than I could do for myself.
I would LOVE feedback!  :)
 Jul 2012 Evan Backward
Odi
You look for meaning where there is none
in the crook of my collarbone or curve of my spine
or ribs you love to trace with your fingers
as if you could tuck your delicacy between the spaces intertwined by
nerve and muscle
As I breathe
you think your touch is all powerful
a healer
You look for beauty where there is none
in the curve of a smile
that rarely dances across my lips
as  if you could catch a fleeting glance and frame it somewhere behind your eyes
all you see is gold
fool's gold
brutally unaware that every-time you kiss the place below my neck
its as though you cut my throat open listening for the sound of a song I wouldn't sing
looking for words I wouldn't say
and they pour out of me
like the sweat from your pores,
in your need
You forget to be disappointed, when all you hear
is the sound of my gurgling
choking
on all the things that threaten to rush back to the surface
Now your eyes have a tint of orange coloured bitterness to them
The promise of something sweet
that only sounds sour
Your voice holds a note of deception
your touch doesn't dance as delicately across my skin
I no longer make my tongue move to the rhythm of your lies
As if I could taste the words at the back of your throat
Worst of all
I think I like you better this way.
 Jul 2012 Evan Backward
Odi
I don't think anything
I don't speak or write
Never mention the silence
that this void leaves behind
and no one sees that
behind my eyes
because deception is brutal
though some people aren't killed
never even fooled
(such a pity)
**** them all
I stare at you all my circle of friends that I-
(or **** yourself)
and feel nothing for these blurs of people
They look familiar.
Thank god for the idiots that-
no hand prints by passing strangers
the Russian palm on the back of my neck
Eugine, Nikita,
big boys, big big big big big big
with big ***** and strong hands and broad shoulders
(look away)
god bless the ******* that buy you  gin and there's this miracle
in the form of something lyrical
runs like water tastes like liquor I
love
the lyrical melody of being so ******
off your ****
face, *** whatever you wanna call it-
drunk.
I'm soberly contemplating switching the feelings off
Oh how it works
nothing but irises and going back home and kittens you don't bother to save-from
the streets
they all die anyway.
its a grown up kind of feeling
(silly)
Laughter doesn't ring the same way
you bash skulls against the wall
On Leo's drum kit and you swear his eyes are a deeper purple than the shade
of your hurt
you don't care
cant find it in you to care
we are the same you see we dispose of those we need nothing of
so its okay I guess

I can judge you anyway though
nothing nothing nothing
no feeling
"the contours of your face as mysterious as the scars that lined your hands"
left a place back there as cold as daddy's coffin
they don't tell you that sometimes
you hold onto a little bit of childhood, like laughing at
people falling on their *****
now protect us against that kind of crass humour
Ill pretend to care
-but you'll see that I really don't
the restless way my knee jumps like
your heartbeat and eyes that swim over walls and
faces
like a ski *****
left too many bruises
were all going down
and I just don't care any-more.
Ma, Ma--look what I did, Ma. Look what i did to my hands, I broke 'em.
You gave me the stone, gave me the chisel, didn't say how to hold 'em.
I seized your sleeve, rhythm, pulse..soon to be easier, learning about when to hold on and when to let

go to the end of the road, I'll know where to look. I won't waste time, always trying, always trying. I

promise raw ignited thoughts repeated...rolling into fabric and turning up against the heat of another

being so young and so old allows me to make all sorts of right choices that happen all at the wrong

times like these make forgetting you and all you hide as easy as forcing truth from the lips of my liar

heart problems may arise if one eats as they do instead of as they can. I know you will tell me much

more claims, undeniable fragments. I'd rather see the complete landscape instead of your puzzle

  pieces of your life always leave me with chills, and there are times where all I want is to fill in the

space always seems to exist within and between us. yet "us" still survives and we still admire how it

sounds like we have a long way to go before we have the ability to steal any part that shows

endurance is more than sweat and battered muscles. will you ever know how hard I try to be the


best?


                                                                                                    but what does that mean anyway
italic words end a sentence and start and new one.
Being on dirt's level
looks nice
when you're
six feet under.

I just want to break even.
Or break your fingers.

Whatever the Lord,
let's me do.

I'm hoping he's feeling vengeful today,
too.
Next page