Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
no cliche flowers,
petals ripped off and stuffed
under our naked bodies.
no sweet nothings whispered
into the deepest crevices of my ears.
no, nothing but
ratty floral couch
under freezing toes,
and silent breathing
-we didnt want to wake up his friends parents-

it didnt hurt,
he moved my body like i was the ocean
tide
pulling in and out
it felt like a mixture of cold
disbelief and riveting
ecstasy.

he didnt even know it was my first time,
and when i told him later, poison almost
visibly dripped down his lips,
but he was quick to **** it back in and sugarcoat
it with honey flavored chapstick.

and i'm not saying i regret it
because it was nice.
but "nice" is not enough for Chandra Lunah Moore.

and afterwards, when he tried to lock me to the small
foam and spring innards
couch
with his soft legs glowing golden with the help of an
off-kilter lamp in the corner,
when my muscles strained against his,
i knew the frightening power of human
desire.
how when he didnt offer a drag from his
cigarette
at all afterwards, just ****** at it needily,
all for himself,
didnt drape his jacket around my
treacherously shivering shoulders
like he had on the walk there,
didnt carry me the rest of the way,
stomping through the snow,
lips bitter after two long drags
off a joint,
he didnt hold me like he did so many times before,
(almost like he believed he was heavier with the weight of my
saved up childhood, like some kind of bank account. life savings,
dragging on his shoulders, making them, sag. skin heavy with my touch.
and i was lighter, without it.
i could walk.
he was obviously carrying the real burden.)
i knew, when he kissed me goodbye and it tasted like
a
wasted night
spent on not getting what he
wanted

i knew he was meaningless and i would
never again settle for
                                     just
                                            nice.
"granday"

its not a *******
twang,
like a rubber band loosened up,
you're like a white sheet
with absolutely no
wrinkles no
lint no
culture.

its not a droop of letters,
like the syllables are carrying old bathwater
on hunched spines;

you sound like dusty paper
left on the shelf too long.

its
"grande"
poner un verano en tus palabras.
put some summer into your words.

fill your mouth with mid-august sweat
and belt it out like a pistol,
bullets ripping the fabric of blue
sky.
you are a flame in snow,
your tongue is supposed to be dancing on the top of your mouth
when you say it,

"grande"
roll your 'r's like you would to tamales in
corn flour,
like you would your body in mud
carpeting every inch of your soul in dark, crusted
veneer,
stuck between your toes.

your tongue is supposed to be ***.
exotic chocolate,
french rain.

your tongue is supposed to be like a wild motorboat upon
the raging ocean,
hitting the 'r's with savage animosity
                                                    "g­-rrrrrrrr-ande"
none of these
"grandays"
words like plummeting wrinkles
under tired eyes, your lips like dead fish floating
shallow and flaccid
in lukewarm
soup.
like rotting fruit left out too long,  
squashed, useless, a waste.

do not fill your mouth with
mierda,
****
poner un verano en tus palabras.
put some summer into your words.
 Jan 2014 bobby burns
Jeremy Duff
In the sky there is a lonely star,
and in my heart there is a starless sky.

With the help of friends and methamphetamines
its been forty-eight hours since I've slept
but I am not tired.

Last night I laid awake on a lovely boy's couch
thinking of the moments we spent together
and I couldn't help but replay them in my brain
over and over,
hoping beyond hope for sleep
and you to share it with.

I guess I didn't see your scars,
blame it on the lighting or the beer,
but I knew they were there.
As my hands felt their way across your beautiful landscape,
I took special care not to rest them upon the raised, pink lines,
not wanting you, for even a moment,
to think the thoughts you thought when you created them.

I would tear my skin wide open,
stretch it across all the seas seven hundred times,
if it meant a single, tiny scratch would never find it's way onto your body with the guidance of your hand, the guidance of your starless night sky of a heart.
 Jan 2014 bobby burns
Jeremy Duff
the easiest way to tell another of anxiety
is to simply say that it interrupts.

it interrupts your life,
gets in the way of love
and laughter.

Just like a well placed hyphen - anxiety interrupts
naked skin,
sun-baked brown and sunkissed freckles, and ***** white, an olive from overseas.
we traipsed down the road, the never-ending black of concrete.
we yelled. we screamed like there were marching bands in the cages
of our ribs.
we drew in smoke and our instruments played the music
of lit tobacco
“you're a hurricane”
one of the best things ive ever been called

cut skin,
as blackberries slapped our legs,
leaving marks of red and purple,
as we ran through secret forests,
our laughs rising into the sunshine,
filtering through the leaves,
like chiming bells in an empty sky
we started a fire, dancing as earthy smoke
slithered on our skin.
we lit cigarettes in the flames.

icy skin,
as we stumbled,
springs bubbling inside us,
down the brown, mud painted hills,
and cried in wonder as we saw a treasure in the thicket of trees;
a frozen lake staring us straight in the eyes like an
antarctic cyclopes,
daring us to take a step closer.
first, tentative,
then we went rawly, crashing through the undergrowth
like small houses,
headfirst onto the ice,
with all our skin for its one eye to see,
our clothes in a mountain,
and our vulnerable bodies free
on the cold surface of a
secret winter in the middle of a
sun coated town.

warm skin,
as we raced down asphalt mountains,
like goosebumps on the skin of the earth.
we ran like tigers and cougars and cats and
lions,
roaring in the afternoon sun
as we embraced the completion,
of a four piece puzzle of our
youth.
warm,
as throat burning brandy from the womb of my couch,
and burning pain
as we poked holes into our skins,
red tattoos of a flamelike
trilogy.

red skin,
as blood dripped down through the
cracks of the Balcony,
as we painted the walls with it,
laughing squeezed between every
long drag of our cigarettes,
burning like two new stars in the
oncoming night,
tattoos and shapes appearing on our skin
faster than bruises
showing a young girl the ways of our corruption was almost as
fun as learning them
ourselves.

goosebump skin,
as we sank into reality again,
halfway in,
other half still shaking
hearts beating fast
i trembled
as i screamed across at a cat eyed girl
i was too shaking to fight like this,
and you are too lovely to cry like that,
and my dear sunshine,
your blue hair is almost as soft
as your voice floating in the
after dusk darkness
assuring that things would be
alright.

tired skin, as we lay on my sheets,
and kissed one anothers soft cheeks,
tired skin as we dragged our drugged up
skin
all the way home,
in a careless sack.

yes,
maybe “three ****** up girls”
one tall, soft words,
one kneeling on the pavement,
one shaking like an
earthquake,
but thats what makes it like
dawn,
beautiful.

wouldnt you rather be a tornado of impulsive decisions
raw twilight words
whiskey ridden breath like summer
air
sunset tears
and icy skin painted with shivers?

alive skin.
if you only could taste me
now,
my lips would say to yours,
the poetry of
"pancakes with too much butter
slipping off like young men's
clothing"
and
"frigid air before the sun has woken
latched on my teeth like drowning men
holding onto rocks"

you'd ******* dreams
of sneaking out midsummer,
(always my favorite, when nights were merely darker echoes of
the day)
of running down roads with black
feet,
in the disguise of a naked crow.
flying in the heat with a pistol in her black fingers.
that was the first
                      time
                            id
                              ever
                                   dreamed
                                              of
                                                 a
                                                  gun.
i'd swear you'd taste the blood-like twang of fired bullets like shards of metal on my lips, too.
the smallest things make me want to sink to my
knees and scream;

my mothers shiny new black boots,
she's treating herself okay,
she never thinks
about herself,
she's done something about it for once.
Next page