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jack of spades Oct 2017
it was you and me until it wasn’t anymore--
i’m realizing that state borders are bigger than i thought they were,
that four seven ten hours is a longer drive than it used to be.
it was you and me until it started getting darker earlier.
i’m realizing how dark the sky is when light pollution blots out the stars,
when all i can see is the moon blindingly bright.
it’s the kind of condition that daedalus would’ve wished for,
because if icarus couldn’t see the stars then he wouldn’t have fallen.
i’m realizing how dark dorm rooms are
when there’s no one else there except the solid weight
of loneliness.
i either forget to fall asleep or nod off too early;
it’s not like i have anyone keeping track for me anymore.
i’m realizing how free i used to be, a car and a highway and time,
and i’m realizing how stranded i am now: i’m feeling the freefall
of finding that i’ve lost my feathered wax wings.
it was you and me until i stopped listening, and then it was
just you.
i’m still waiting to hit the water, with bated breath to feel the shatter.
it was you and me--
until it wasn’t anymore.
until there wasn’t any more.
whaddup this is my 100th poem on this site ayyye
15
jack of spades Aug 2017
15
so as of next week i will be starting my first year of college in a town too far away to come home for an evening and people keep telling me about the “freshman fifteen,” its inevitability, like i dont know how to live alone and the response to that is somehow gluttony. i dont think people realize how good i am at not eating. my digestive system still hasnt forgiven me for when i was sixteen and liked the taste of anorexia. no one ever talks about the fact that apparently part of recovery is running to the bathroom twenty minutes after every meal and having to stay there for twenty minutes after every meal because once you stop eating, your stomach stops holding anything. your intestines start making up for lost time. and it’s gross to say it but it’s something i live with and in reality the symptoms make me want to just stop eating again. there’s a reason i didn’t get the biggest meal plan. maybe i’ll start working out again, because that always helps make me forget that im missing dinner again, because thats what i did last time. i dont like the way people talk about the “freshman fifteen” because they dont know what i was like when i was sixteen. they dont know how good i am at not eating.
jack of spades Jul 2016
long hugs* like anchors to keep me steady out on turbulent seas
2. dance music that beats my heart to basslines injected with adrenaline
3. warm weather that holds me close with gentle breezes and sunshine kisses
4. bright colors like neon signs in dark rooms and old toys and cartoons
5. love songs for strangers with deep smiles across crowded rooms
6. stained glass windows of churches because God gave humans eyes for beauty
7. long drives with good music and good imagination for good thoughts/good talks
8. bath bombs that color me beautiful, perfumes and pinks and blues
9. tomato soup + grilled cheese that melt in mouths and keep cold hands toasty
10. heavy summer rain drenching everything without chilling bones to the marrow
11. reading for hours on end with the steady mantra "one more chapter, one more..."
12. slam poetry that reaches out to souls and empathy, connecting melodies to bodies
13. holding hands, fingers tucked between so skin sticks with affectionate friction
14. purring cats that keep away all the depressive episodes
15. round stones like lost dragon eggs waiting to be furnaced into new life
16. fresh laundry with warm hoodies and the simple motion of folding clothes
17. the moon and her pale smile, a reminder that the sun is still there
18. swing sets in any setting, ghosts of children of memories on worn ropes
19. fresh flowers that sit in grocery stores waiting to be the highlight of a day
20. hot leather car seats that stick to sweaty thighs on sweltering summer days

*21. one-line poems written in the belly of nighttime on too-hot summer nights, counting down the days and counting up the stars, crossing fingers in 'x's over slowly-beating hearts.
jack of spades Aug 2017
down
   the
steps
  to the
underworld,

across
   the
river styx,

even hades
cannot hide
from

HELIOS;

when persephone
brings spring,
the SUN
touches even

pluto

(small,
at the
edge
of our solar system).
jack of spades Oct 2017
who needs sleep when there are galaxies to be seen
teeming with suns spinning with planets with other lives to be living?
there’s a chill setting in the marrow of your bones
where dead flowers continue to grow, under your ribs
like longing, like homesickness, like fighting a feeling of needing to be
anywhere but this
place, this planet, this universe.
no one will ever know the heartache that lives in the lump in your throat
that grows when you look up and know that there is somewhere else
that you’d rather be. you just don’t have a name for it yet.
it just hasn’t told you its name yet.
maybe in the dusty bindings of old books, you’ll find
the secret to a future set in stars
that always seem just a little too out of reach.
maybe a different sun will be better at warming the cold winter
that long ago set itself up in your body.
maybe a different sun will show you what summer feels like,
the way freedom can feel when you’re free of longing.
jack of spades May 2015
Sometimes, I wish I had cameras in my eyes so we could look back on these moments and hold them and you could see how you made them golden.
Someone in the future could put my life on the screen,
cut scenes when I go to sleep, special behind-the-scenes of us making these memories
and I could just delete the ones I didn't want to keep.
I would never lose a second.
If my life was a piece of cinematic genius then I might try harder to keep this up:
I'd adjust my angles,
I'd check my volume,
I'd have the perfect songs to sing along to and everyone would buy the soundtrack CD,
if they were
just like me.

But you aren't.
See, I had a better opening verse but when my mind is made up of rhythm and rhyme, everything that isn't written down gets driven away in a ******* metaphorical hearse, the kind that you aren't allowed to ride in yet.
Your job isn't finished until mine is,
car crash collisions, underwater violence, silence, broken heart strings strung on a violin and a bass drum keeping us up to speed. See?
I'm a mash up of bad one-line poems and I'm not slowing down, not for anybody.
I've seen angels with broken halos and featherless wings, trying
so hard to fly but they're as successful as that extinct little kiwi,
who all died trying to fly but, hey, at least they went down swinging because we're
all
slaves
to gravity.
So these angels find spaces in their minds to curl up and sleep.
You've got your body on autopilot and don't you find it exhausting, to just stop trying?

Let's get back to the movie.
By then, we'll be living to infinity, like, for real, not just a symbol on the skin but a time to live.
Immortality.
So watching me breathe will be nothing in the wasteland of time that they will have to waste--
not currently, no, because currently our lives seem so short especially with empty promises of infinities and galaxies and light years away on another inhabited planet a kid like me is saying the exact same things because
there's no more originality,
not in this space,
not in the void of immortality.
And in My Life As A Movie, they'll see me:
standing in the street with you, holding hands and praising bands and feeling alive again,
because now we're aware--
of the angles,
of the volume,
of the sets and costumes,
of the film and the video rules
that I learned in high school.
Now that we know it's all a big production, we'll ruin the show.
Our voices will be whispers or shouts and the microphones will be too scratchy to catch what we're saying.
Our feet will fly like the angels once could, ruining any chance of an easy shoot.
My memories of you
are golden,
and I'd sell my mortality just to keep a good hold on them but I can't.
I don't want to.
Infinities are found throughout our galaxy,
but my only real infinity is you.
You, like a scratched DVD that sometimes slips off the screen because
we have our rough times, too.

I sometimes find myself wishing I had cameras in my eyes,
but then I think I'd rather be blind
so no one else sees you like I do.

The world isn't ready for that yet.
apeirophobia: the fear of infinities. written for a friend.
jack of spades Jan 2018
--and the grand canyon is
getting smaller behind you
while your heart is getting
bigger, ready to burst,
craving a return to the journey:
when red dust reflected on
your sunglasses instead of
your side mirrors, the rearview,
when the car mileage hadn't hit
halfway. something
about the southwest settles
under your skin like an itch.
it's almost like-- it feels like--
you're finally finding out that
this must be what it is to be
homesick.
rozlyn's christmas poem
jack of spades Nov 2017
are you collecting the old counts of how
they slaughtered your son and his power-hungry heart,
twenty three knives to the torso,
the killing blow delivered by a beloved friend?
or are those the scrolls that you wish
dust would settle over forever, relics and reliefs of
everything you see behind your closed eyelids.
a politician’s mother
must be all the more clever; her son will not
be going into battle to die with honor
but rather with deceit. give her-- you-- a laurel wreath,
the irony of the goddess nike standing
golden over the tomb of your son: emperor,
caesar. mother of summer, of boiling july,
are you not the sun? are you not the constellations
freckling burnt pale skin? are you not
the fiercest and brightest of warriors, quietly,
without warning?
for the mother of julius caesar, the woman who raised him while his father was away; for the grandmother of augustus, who marked the change of roman history.
jack of spades Jul 2017
first and foremost find your friends find the sanctuaries in other people’s ribs count heartbeats and breaths and breathe don’t speak hand to your diaphragm easy now easy gently please with those delicate wings tiny butterfly feathers caught in dewdrops on tulips and forget-me-nots swallow them down feel the weight on your tongue let them crack your teeth and eat shards of bone washed down with blood wine
stop beating yourself up
stop hiding inside other people’s palaces prisons pieces hearts
beat your own heart not somebody else’s
jack of spades Jul 2017
the sun doesn’t wake me up anymore i’m so tired all the time from the ache in my bones and the pull of muscle dry clay cracking and flaking like sunburn peeling feeling red and raw underneath it all i want to be clean it takes 7 years to have brand new skin taste and take and on trial again for old crimes i forgot to commit but commitment is hard these days finding bodies in the empty space like the gaps between your fingertips and the narrow swell of your knuckles
my bedroom is dark usually and it’s hard to let any light in and my skin itches and itches as it flakes off into something new again
jack of spades Jul 2017
falling is feeling alive again on open roads and dusty lungs filled with old bones my closet feels so full of skeletons I got an adrenaline rush from killing a spider today royal flush full house of cobwebs and dead flies and wishing you and I were whole again
the smell of nail polish is ingrained in everything in my bedsheets bottles bleed black and red and gold and glitter
glitter always sticks to hardwood floors and skin I’m sick of things sticking to my skin I am not a spider web stop sticking to my skin
dusty decay painting my nails the color of old scrapbooks I take photos because I need memories to exist outside of me I can’t remember anything except how it feels to dry-swallow pain pills I’ve forgotten to brush my teeth for the 3rd day in a row old habits die when
count fireflies caught in your claws and claw the mouths from any man who catcalls or calls harassment a compliment fight fire with freefalls oxygen masks and steamboats I want to die on the peak of Mount Everest maybe then I can finally rest my hand hurts from my grip on the pen I stopped paying attention again
my hands won’t stop bleeding my cuticles are ripped again I want it to stop again I want my hands clean again I want to take care of myself again I want to be whole again I want to cover myself in nail polish and then fly
fall down the Grand Canyon
10 minutes
jack of spades Oct 2016
i screamed into the void until my lungs collapsed,
but she barely gave me a glance when the silence relapsed.
i called out to the stars and they gave me an excuse:
“hey man i’m sorry, it’s me, it’s not you.”

i tried to infuse my veins with rocket fuel,
but the mechanical pieces of my internal organs found the chemicals too cruel.
they rejected everything until i coughed up acid:
“why isn’t this enough? please just be placid.”

so i cracked open my ribs along the seam of my breastbone,
searching for my heart in the empty unknown.
instead i found my lungs, punctured and failing:
“why are you here when there’s stars to be sailing?”

i tried hailing a taxi with the blood on my hands,
but my ribs were too messy for the driver’s backseat to stand.
so i tried walking home but the sidewalks betrayed me:
“why are you stepping on me when you should be saving me?”

i broke out into a sprint through other people’s backyards
but i found myself blacking out and not getting too far.
it was then that i found a fence that caused my stumbling and crashing:
“hey kid can’t you read? that sign says no trespassing.”

i pickpocketed other people’s dreams until i couldn’t hold them anymore,
bursting at the seams with too little to show for.
i picked apart my brain to find the source of my decay,
only to find a note in my own handwriting: “find your own way.”

i dropped to my knees and ignored the bruising,
struggling to find anything i’ve done of my own choosing.
i cried out to the sky and the constellations replied,
“why are you complaining when you haven’t let go of your pride?”

so i swallowed my tongue and cast down my eyes,
rising back to my feet but no longer alive.
i looked up to the moon to give me guidance,
but whatever answers i was looking for, i couldn’t find it.

it was then that i realized that i’ve been complacent too long,
finding new beats but always singing the same old song.
so i stitched up all my pieces and washed myself clean:
“i will be okay. it’s just, i don’t ever dream.”
might add more to this someday
jack of spades Feb 2015
I'm a Barbie Girl,
in a Barbie World.
Life's fantastic: I
feel like plastic,
aiming for an eighteen-inch waist because I can afford to throw my internal organs away.
I feel like plastic,
having to choose
between eating and breathing with not enough space for two tubes.
I feel like plastic,
a thirty-nine inch bust and three times the forehead.
I feel like plastic,
a size nine squeezed to a three, spending
three to nine avoiding mealtime because my weight loss book says
'Don't eat.'
I'm a Barbie Girl,
in a Barbie World.
Life's fantastic, but...
I'm not plastic.
I've sat here listening while you complain about society but I don't think you realize that
society is made by you.
You complain about masks but you're masked by your poetry and
trust me,
it's trendy:
Psychiatry.
A bottle of capsules captures your soul and your dreams,
fading
reality.
I cannot be defined because a definition leaves no room for change and I
am a flame,
ready to burn the cardboard box of priority you put over me.
All the cool kids are lesbians and thespians on about repressions
and I care,
I do,
I mean... I'm standing here among you.
But words are just air.
You can stand on this stage and tell me I'm beautiful, but
I am more than my face so
disregard my mild distaste for your
inspirational speech.
Now, this...
This isn't a call for help.
This is a call to arms.
This
is a battle cry because
I
am sick of waiting for a future that should've happened yesterday.
So use this air to live the words you say and
rally.
Do not soothe, because we've already been cocooned by soothed reality in
Shawnee,
Johnson County.
I'm a real girl,
in a real world.
Life's fantastic, and I
refuse to be plastic,
aiming for generic weight range based on content, not scale number.
I refuse to be plastic,
a neck moulded perfectly for both eating and breathing so I don't have to choose.
I refuse to be plastic,
a bust that you don't need to be sizing
when I've got eyes
a green not of romanticized meadows but of drunken
puke.
I refuse to be plastic,
a size nine foot in a size nine shoe,
spending three to nine
enjoying my meal times,
because my weight loss book is
chucked down the chute.
I'm a living girl
in a beautiful world.
Life's fantastic,
because I'm not plastic.
highlight of my career ****
jack of spades Jun 2016
writing poetry in second person is easier
because then you don't have to face your own fears.
writing poetry in second person is easier
because then you don't have to face your own feelings.

your basement is haunted with more than just your own soul
the lights flicker every time you forget
to remind the monsters under your bed
that you get a 10 second head-start after the lights are turned off.

you keep track of the moon's phases because you know
that somewhere out there, she's staring up at the same sky
and you want to close your eyes and picture how moonlight
reflects off of her moonlight hair, stars in her midday eyes.

you haven't looked yourself in the eye for a very long time now,
unable to bring yourself to take in more than
the fleeting moment of a mirror reflection. nothing is worse
than a dark phone screen. unintentional observation of what you want to forget.

you want to forget.
you're so terrified of the thought of spending eighty- to
one hundred-K for four years of college that you can't even begin to
imagine what exactly you would dedicate a degree to.
is anything worth that much? you change your mind so easily.

you want to tuck her hair behind her ears,
but she always wears it tied back. the same shade of brown as her eyes.
she's so unattainable that you've settled for just being friends with her,
being in the same space as her, listening to her talk about her home
and wishing that you had the same kind of place for your heart to go.

you're scared of the dark.
you're scared of commitment.
you're scared of the future.
you're scared of the past.
you're scared of your own reflection.
you're scared of your own eyes.
you're scared of never feeling comfortable in your own skin.
it has never felt like your own.
you have never known comfort in your own bones.
they've been the construction crew of too many
of the skeletons in your closet, tucked between stuffed animals and long sleeves.

it's easier to write poetry in second person,
because sometimes i like to pretend like i'm not the one feeling things.
it's easier to write poetry in second person,
because sometimes i'm not sure if i'm ever actually feeling anything.
jack of spades Mar 2016
my hands smell like chemicals from developing film rolls and no matter how hard i scrub at them i can’t get you out from under my fingernails.
i had a dream about you the other night.
it was casual, fingers intertwined as we walked down twisting streets and we didn’t say anything— you just smiled at me,
that grin could heal broken bones and black eyes.
i wasn’t ever in love with you. i don’t know if you realize that. you were exciting and interesting and intoxicating, but the problem with talking to someone every single day means that at some point you’re not going to hear from them for 24 hours and that can **** you.
i don’t really miss you, not anymore, but sometimes things like dreams happen and i want to smile at you when i see you in the halls.
your hair as gotten long. it looks good on you.
i guess you just always knew how to keep things light and when everything always feels so heavy on my spine, that was a relief. you were easy to be around, until suddenly you weren’t.
i don’t think i’m ever going to forget you.
you’re going to be the first wound that ever scarred. i’m sure losing a lover is hard, but losing a friend can rip you apart. trust me, i’m an expert on it at this point, and i let all my weight rest on you to the point where when you suddenly weren’t there i couldn’t feel anything but falling.
for a long time, i romanticized my memories of you, trying to grasp onto you with rose-colored lenses that faded with age. i used to be angry at you, but the red eventually evaporated too. now i just.
see you.
you still make my hands shake and my stomach churn but mentally everything has stopped.
until i have another dream about you.
jack of spades Dec 2016
what’s your favorite kind of flower?
mine’s a forget-me-not,
a fear settled deep in my chest
that remembering me might
not be for the best,
a knot in my stomach formed
from your stormcloud eyes
like summer skies.
like forget-me-nots.
loyalty and long-lasting
and pleading to remember me, forgetting.
december makes me forget sunny weather.
i think i’m kind of
in love with the sound of your voice,
and your smile,
which is dangerous because smiles
are always going to be the
worst kind of weakness.
i hope they don’t forget me.
i hope you don’t forget me.
i’ll send you bouquets of words i never said
of texts i never sent:
yellow acacias and yellow tulips and blue forget-me-nots
(secret and hopeless and true loves);
angelica and amethyst and flowering almond
(inspiration and admiration and hope);
red columbine because you
leave me anxious, trembling;
white camellia japonica because
your loveliness
is perfected.
send me red carnations
(yes and yes and yes)
with unwritten handwritten answers
(yes and yes and yes).
flower language source: http://www.languageofflowers.com
jack of spades May 2016
SET ON REVENGE
BLOOD ON OUR HANDS
PRECISION
ASSASSINATION
THEY WILL STAY OUT
OUT OF OUR HEADS
WE ARE THE LOOSE ENDS
THAT THEY ARE LEARNING
NOT TO FORGET
TAKE MY KNIFE
TAKE MY GUN
NOTCH AN ARROW
LET FISTS FLY
WE ARE NIGHTMARES
(THEY MADE US)
WE ARE NIGHTMARES
(THEY GAVE THEM TO US)
WE ARE NIGHTMARES
WE ARE WEAPONS
WE WERE HUMAN ONCE
jack of spades Oct 2015
You’re not allowed to step into the house.
You’re not allowed to open your mouth too widely,
your ugly teeth bared and gnashing. You aren’t allowed to be that close,
so close your mouth and sip your tea through the window,
where expensive and matching dining chairs circle around a table
set for nothing, for no one,
because you can’t touch that silverware. You can’t wash those plates.
You can’t fit, your neck so long that your head is in the clouds,
your not-quite-bony legs serving as a reminder that your feet are still on the ground.
Can you feel your heart in your throat?
The way that it pulses every time you rest your chin on the roof or
the way it pounds when you’re at the doorway, much too close to this house
that you bought and built and you aren’t allowed inside. Why won’t they let you inside?
Why won’t you let yourself inside?
Invite yourself in; maybe your head will come down from the clouds and
your heart won’t beat quite so obnoxiously loud and you can
smile in a mirror while flashing all your ugly teeth.
You can’t build a house without thinking about how you’ll fit into it:
that’s basic architecture, basic design, basic
everything that you never bothered to learn,
bent on keeping your head so much higher than the ceiling.
Asymmetric, sloping,
like your shoulders and the alignment of your eyes
and your crooked smiles and ******* tongue,
like white lies and broken foundations
and a doorknob that doesn’t work,
doesn’t turn,
won’t let me in
despite the fact that I built this place with my bare hands.
It doesn’t recognize me anymore, a fantasy
so tangled up with reality
that all the nightmares and anxiety ruin even my cloudiest positivity.
I built myself a world and a future
in which I myself am not allowed to enter.
Maybe I should brush up on my knowledge of basic architecture,
because God, I’m horrible at interior design
and mapping things out ahead of time.
I’ve tried just living without but the winter gets chilly and weakens my bones
and it really sets in without the warmth of a home.
based off of this image prompt: http://s1141.photobucket.com/user/smerdly/media/smerdly102/0524_giraffe-window_ob_zpsadb65372.jpg.html
jack of spades Sep 2016
king of stars and star-crossed hearts
constellations like freckles across shoulders with eyes like dawn,
like whispers of cloudless skies and summer days,
all of humanity's finest qualities:
curiosity and vulnerability and loyalty.
captain has been in your blood like gold,
like lullabies sung to already-fulfilled dreams.
how does starfleet regulate smiles so addicting?
a soul too big for a solar system,
too much for a galaxy:
your soul is simply cosmic, darling,
mesmerising in your daring.
don't stop running until you reach the edge
of the diving board into the great unknown.
one end is the beginning to another.
don't stop running until you're satisfied,
until the universe stops expanding and starts to collapse.
you don't know home until you've left it,
but home isn't on terra:
it's a crew of family and friends,
a ship that will take you everywhere and through everything.
cross your fingers and hope not to die,
for you must live a thousand more lives
before your adventure ends.
jack of spades Dec 2015
buy me on the black market like the instability I am.
watch me hurtle through negative space backwards,
the planet-wide catastrophe of a sun-sized storm in me.
Call me Carbon-14.
it’s the latest piece of my galaxy-sized identity, another chemical
small enough to wage nuclear war.
you’re witnessing my radioactive decay,
the deterioration of everything I used to be into
everything I might be,
a kind of reaction that happens when one of my ‘downs’
becomes an ‘up,’
no aces up my sleeves or full houses of face cards in spades,
but I’ve got straight sevens,
protons neutrons electrons, carbon to nitrogen.
beta decay, the mass production of passive procrastination;
second in command, sidekick sidetracking heroes.
Call me Nitrogen standard 14.
watch me decay into the air that you breathe,
seventh most common gas in the Milky Way galaxy,
keeping things fresh and stainless like my steel armor,
try and make me combust but I’m fireproof, bulletproof,
balanced and on my toes in a defensive position,
fists raised for the fight that you’re going to put up.
my axis is more stable than yours. step into the rings of saturn,
ring the bells to start the rounds, champion takes home the stars,
wraps orion’s belt around their waist and buckles it tight with nuclear waste.
everyone loves an underdog story, but only when they know,
positively, that the underdog will win.
with you and me, it’s a 50/50 on who exactly has the upper hand
and who exactly is going to win, but I’ll make bets with the elements around me,
the carbon that I used to be hashing out 20’s and oxygen
claiming she’s not one for gambling.
baby, you’re in my lungs, you’re in my corner of the ring.
she’ll slip in a 50 like my chances, and I’ll pretend that I don’t notice.
phosphorus is too fiery to root for me,
he’s more of a heavyweight believer than me.
Call me contagious
when my knuckles bloom across your jaw and knock away
all of your sensibility, stability, bruises like moons
as the mirror shatters every reflection of who I used to be.
Call me Carbon-14, but know that I am radioactive,
actively changing, reigning champion of breaking perceptions,
and you’re just the impression of the death that I’m carbon-dating.
did u know that im a chemistry nerd
jack of spades Mar 2017
how many times have your eyes haunted mine?
--a fading dream as daylight finds its way through your window frame,
like wooden fences with invitations to climb, to rise and rise
til you're mountain high,
to the top of the Tower of Babble and touching God.
cotton candy is the texture of heaven on the tongue,
the bite of hell when it sticks to the sweat on your fingertips.
everything is hazy at the state fair,
and no one knows how long they've been here--
your smiles make days blur and slide, like you've painted your nails
with the fabric of space-time.
phantom touches from lingering gazes are all i know now,
extinction of the way that i used to be,
because your eyes won't stop haunting me.
jack of spades Oct 2015
for every copper piece of me,
you are gold.
for every rough stitch pulling me together,
you have been a flawless seam.
you are every proton
and every color
of a chemical reaction,
and i am just the steps in between.
you
are a catalyst,
the start of something,
a star to wish on
as it streaks across the sky.
for every dark,
you are my light.
you are the match setting
fire to my veins made of gasoline,
your body moves like
those flames, flickering,
and your coffee shop smile
keeps me warm
when the rest of my atoms
are nothing but cold.
you
are a catalyst,
and i am going to be here
for the beginning of everything.
jack of spades Dec 2015
Sugar and spice and everything nice,
Wolverine claws and a venomous bite,
Armed to the teeth for a ***** fight:
This is what teenage girls are made of.

Maybe I fall in love too easily,
But I’m just sixteen.
And I’m just sixteen but
When you cat call me and I pretend not to hear you,
You call me catty as if it’s surprising.
When you wolf whistle at me and I ignore you,
You call me names that aren’t PG.
I’m just sixteen but I’ve got news for you:
I’m a she-wolf, far from domesticated so
Whistling will do nothing for you.
I don’t answer the call of any man, because
I’m a lioness, and every time you catcall me
You forget who does the hunting.
You need reminding, to be put in your place.
You’re a predator but I’m not your prey-
No, you’re a predator but I’m much, much
Much higher up on the food chain.
Whistle and call all night long,
I’ll chew you up and spit you out
Like the kind of bubble gum that isn’t worth a trash can.
I’d call you a pig, but pigs usually have a
Higher IQ than you do.
My bones are made of titanium, of Adamantium, and
My rage came from the cosmos, and I control hurricanes with the water in my lungs.

I am catty,
And I am a *****,
But you are a nobody,
Food for the vultures and
A piece of furniture to sharpen my claws on.
You may be a knife, but my heart is a diamond.
I am a diamond, and you are made of fossil fuels.
We are both the product of years of pressure,
But I took my disasters and made myself beautiful.
You let yourself become ugly, nowhere to go
Except standing on corners late at night,
Pollution spilling from your mouth and your eyes.

Leave me alone.
That’s not me being ‘hard-to-get,’ no,
That’s my wolf howl and the growl of my inner lioness.
Leave me alone,
Or else.
read it while wearing dark lipstick that stains microphones
jack of spades Jun 2017
why do i always feel
like my chest is caving in
i stopped breathing a long time ago
every exhale leaves me empty
every inhale collects dust
the base of my spine cracks
like the spines of old books
and like old books i too am heavy
i too am quite a burden upon your bones
but please please i swear
my chapter titles are written
in gold calligraphy
hi it's been a while !
jack of spades Mar 2016
IT WAS 1712 IN THE PEAK OF JULY HEAT AND I WAS VOMITING INTO YOUR KITCHEN SINK THE BLOOD OF A SINGLE MOTHER. YOU LAUGHED LIKE I SHOULD HAVE ALREADY LEARNED ALL THE ROPES THAT YOU NEVER BOTHERED TO SHOW ME. “I THOUGHT YOU SAID IT WOULDN’T HURT,” I SAID. YOU LOOKED ME IN THE EYE AND ANSWERED, “WELL YOU’RE NOT IN ANY PHYSICAL PAIN.” AS IF IT’S SOMEHOW ANY DIFFERENT THAN THE CATASTROPHE BUBBLING AND BREWING IN MY DECONSTRUCTED BRAIN.

IT WAS DECEMBER OF 1827 AND I  HELD YOU IN SHATTERED HANDS AS I SNAPPED YOUR NECK AS IF IT WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE. I WASN’T THE ONE WHO KILLED YOU BUT I WISH I HAD BEEN. YOU WERE WORTHLESS TO ME.

IT WAS THE FIRST REAL DAY OF SPRING IN 1922 AND YOU WERE EVERYTHING TO ME.

IT WAS 2016 WITH SUN-KISSED SEPTEMBER SKIN AND I WAS SWALLOWING BUGS IN OCTOBER PRETENDING LIKE I COULD POISON MYSELF WITH SPIDER LEGS AND MOTHS. YOU’VE BEEN DEAD FOR TWO CENTURIES BUT YOUR GHOST STILL HAUNTS ME. I’M WAITING FOR YOU TO BE REBORN AGAIN.

IT’S 3275 AND FOR THE SECOND TIME YOU’RE THE LAST THING I SEE BEFORE I DIE, AN OLD SOUL IN A NEW BODY, ALL THE MORE DEADLY. YOU WERE WORTH THE MILLENNIUM AND A HALF OF WAITING. I’LL KISS YOUR KNUCKLES BEFORE YOU BASH MY TEETH IN, AND THEN I’LL SAY THANK YOU. MY BLOOD HAS ALWAYS TASTED BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE’S ANYWAY.
for the vampires in love
jack of spades Dec 2017
i've been tripping through cemeteries again
searching for all the old skeletons
covered in cobwebs
from the depths of my closet
i wonder what would happen if i lose them

i don't know who i am when i'm not
falling for you,
falling apart at the seams.
"at least it isn't another ******* poem about icarus" (or is it?)
it's actually the beginning of a song and it has a tune but i can't sing so that's the end of that lol
jack of spades Feb 2016
you know how the song goes:
a stitch away from making it
and a scar away from falling apart.
holding on gets hard when
the light at the end of the tunnel
goes dark.

my friend told me he doesn’t purposely
befriend actively suicidal people anymore.
so when a 14-year old friend
was hospitalized for an attempt,
he was shocked.
I’m not fourteen
and i don’t go to the hospital for anything,
but when i was fifteen i
asked my mom to start taking me to therapy.
she told me,
sweetie,
you can just talk to me about anything.
so i started writing poetry instead.
but poems can’t diagnose me,
poems can’t prescribe me meds to
fix the chemical catastrophe in my head
poems can’t cure me.
but neither can people.

there was a boy that i used to call sunshine,
but he told me that he would
rather be the moon.

i deleted your number from my contacts
once you stopped using mine.
you don’t keep me up at night.
i’ve stopped losing sleep over you.

i haven’t broken the habit of checking
people’s wrists when they move
because of all the girls i knew in grade school.
i have a friend with the first letter of help
permanently scarred on his stomach.
we’ve never talked about it.
i don’t know if either of us know how to,
or if either of us really want to,
or if either of us really need to.

when my brother was 18, he was convinced
that he wanted to go into psychiatry.
i think the closest we’ve ever been
was when i had a mental break over
orange juice at one thirty in the morning,
watching him play GTA on his Xbox 360.
when my brother was 17, he was convinced
that his future was in professional photography.
i’m 17 and i don’t have a ******* clue.
I’m 17 and i don’t think I’ve ever felt so much
like I’m just constantly drowning.

they say a captain goes down with his ship
and I’ve set myself up for losing all my friends.

she’s got year-round summer skin
and winter has never been my friend.

i sleep seven hours a night
and i wake up exhausted.

my cat has all his claws
and when he crashes through my bedroom
when i’m on the brink of extinction
it leaves me haunted, hearing
breathing and footsteps that aren’t really there.
so i’ll put studs in all my jackets
and wrap myself in blankets.

i wish you were here,
i wish i was there.

the first rated R movie
that i saw when i turned 17
was that one that brought back ryan reynolds,
starring a moody teen with
the best superhero name ever,
a CGI man who acted as her mentor,
a pretty girl like a damsel in distress,
and the bad guy called himself ajax
but his real name was francis.
i cried
a lot.
i’m not sure why, really, but when the credits
started rolling and it was everything that i’d
been waiting for in a movie for the anti-hero
that I’ve been in love with since i was 13,
i sat in those velvet seats and started sobbing.

when i was six, my dad took my
9 year old brother and i
to see ‘revenge of the sith’ when it came out
in 2005.
the scene on mustafar, the volcanic planet,
the downfall of anakin skywalker
stuck with me until i was 12 and rewatched
all six of those old movies,
stuck with me until i was 16 and rewatched
all six of those old movies.
when i was a kid those scenes were scary,
now i see a mimic of Shakespearean tragedy.

i pick things apart until i know that they’ll scar,
but scars have always faded for me.
the first mark that ever lasted for
more than a month was when i
burned myself getting a cake out of the oven.
i remember my brother telling me
that he wouldn’t care about the burn
if i ******* up the cake.
we laughed about it because it was a joke.
i still think about it.

i still check to see if you
watch my Snapchat story.

i rip the hems out of all of my clothing
compulsively. I’m sorry.
i’ll pick up all the balled-up threads from
the carpet eventually.

i keep ticket stubs and scraps of notes
hazardously strewn across my bedroom,
because i’m too sentimental for my own good
but organization has never come naturally.

solar systems are borne from my fingertips.
supernovas power my lungs.
stardust glitters in my veins
(i tell myself these things in order to
keep thinking straight)

hey, look at the moon.
see how she reflects the sun for you?
it’s because she’s got nothing
of her own to give away willingly.
i gave you everything willingly
i spent too many nights
shredding notebook paper into pieces
of white birthday party confetti.

i swallowed six painkillers today.
I’m passive like aggressive,
letting my liver slip into uselessness.

it’s really hard to write poetry about bruises.
i am a constant state of decay
jack of spades Dec 2015
suicidal thoughts are kind of like
having a really deep cough.
they’re the tingling sensation on
the bottom of your lungs each time you
start to inhale and if you try to breathe too deeply
they take over, they double you over,
filling up your lungs like water, sloshing,
and suddenly you’re drowning
as you fix your red lipstick.
you’re dressed for the **** and your
hit list stares you down through the mirror every day.
waste of space waste of time waste of money waste of good lines,
a ‘wanted’ ad that specifies ‘rather dead than alive’
because it’s less personal for it to be ****** than to call it suicide.
how sad is it that you peaked in middle school?
that the height of your social and emotional career was
the seventh grade, before all your friends
skipped town in eighth and then
freshman year you weren’t even an ex-friend but
manipulative and they labelled you
‘abusive.’ you find yourself having a
coughing fit every time you remember it,
watery lungs patted dry with paper towels
because yeah maybe you’re all friends again and
maybe they’ve apologized but do they really mean it,
or are you being a victim blamer,
you emotional abuser?
when you wake up at three in the morning
because the creatures in your nightmares are just barely
scarier than the skeletons in your closet,
think about everything you’ve ever done
in the past three years and manipulate it.
give yourself panic attacks over conversations
that have never happened,
riddle yourself with anxiety over what never was,
overexpose the photographs of your darkest memories
until they’re nothing but another lead weight in your stomach.
make yourself sick.
wake up with a throat sore from your
swallowed down screams
wake up with a tingle underneath your lungs
because you know that you’ll never be able to properly breathe,
that you’ll never get a full breath of air without that cough
swelling up and leaving you gasping
remembering some stuff
jack of spades Nov 2015
i cant remember a word that you were saying
but i remember every single drop of venom
that fell from your fangs the night that you
infected me with death and decay and refractum,
refractus, broken up or open in a dead language
that still stings in hexes and wills the dead
to life. necromancy is your specialty, commanding
a skeletal army to all your evil bidding, all
collar bones and wrist bones and bony knees
scraped up from all the tripping you've been up to,
running through thickets away from the white lie
of an elephant that haunts your room, conjured
from when you dug up the graves of every single
name that i tried to lay to rest, every action and
reaction and dejection and rejection and destructive
tendency, tendencies, tending to distract from
the subject matter at hand, the rules bent and broken
as you spit your poisonous latin palaver,
empty talk to move the empty skulls of your pawns,
empty threats of empty memories that no longer
have any kind of meaning to me. i laid them to rest.
i held their funerals a long time ago, and there's
nothing you can hold over me besides the skeletons
you left in your closet, that you never bothered to bury.
the dead don't scare me, not anymore, and i've
developed an immunity to your toxicity so that
you don't scare me anymore, not anymore,
because you're just another passed-on memory.
i will never forget the venom that drips from your
lips, but i will not let it run through my veins anymore.
your dead words and dead memories are all uttered
in a dead language, not spoken anymore, not real,
a dead effect that cannot touch anything because
memories lack tangibility, dead regrets in a dead
language that got buried when i decided to stop
listening.
jack of spades Dec 2016
dear mom: (this is a poem)
     (this is typed so that you don’t have to struggle through my handwriting-- which is, like me, sloppy and a little difficult, but sometimes people tell me that it’s pretty and artsy. your handwriting is swirly and elegant and sometimes hard to read, but i love looking at it anyway.)
     psychologically speaking, children do not understand “good” and “bad” in terms of flaws until they are taught by observing, watching their elders discriminate peers based on skin and shape and size and little pieces of identity that seem to be unusual. children see moles and freckles as interesting marks. squishy tummies are good for laying on. good hugs are good hugs, whether you’re tall or short or gangly or round.
     psychologically speaking, a child’s insecurities will stem from their parents--
     when a girl sees her mother disliking something about herself, that girl is more likely to grow up and feel that way as well.
     people tell me that i look like you all the time. (i like to roll my eyes a little passively and act like i’m sick of hearing it (sometimes it does get tiring) but it has always been a compliment.) this is not me telling you that i have your insecurities (i know you don’t like your chin and your arms and sometimes you don’t like your tummy) but instead this is me telling you this:
     you and dad always like to tell me how beautiful i am.
     momma, i look like you. you’re beautiful too.
     you’re the perfect height for hugging because, if i want to, i can engulf you and pull my arms over yours and tuck my face into your shoulder. but you’re also the perfect height for hugging because if i need to, i can tuck myself under your arms and press my face against your collarbone and feel protected by you.
     your hands hurt a lot now but that doesn’t mean they can’t still make beautiful things. i love the way that your fingers compliment your wedding/engagement rings.
     your arms are good for lifting, picking up new projects and painting and framing and helping me carry things.
     (harry potter had his mother’s green eyes and so do i. lily potter didn’t have glasses but that just means that we’re beating them by just a smidge, then.)
     your hair is perfect for being played with, soft and easy to run my fingers through. (you endured countless Little League baseball games with me twisting your poor tresses into knots, didn’t you? and you’ve spent hours patiently playing with mine, because even though your hands get tired you know that it feels good.)
     dear mom: i know it kinda ***** to deal with moody teenagers (twice!) especially when you can’t really figure out what we’re upset about half the time, but you never get angry when i cry out of frustration. you listen to my dubiously-correct fun facts and watch silly videos of adorable cats and you buy me books and paint and all kinds of crafty things, and i know from experience how hard it can be to love yourself sometimes but mom, here’s the thing: *i love you.
my mom is having a rough time so here's part of her christmas present
jack of spades Sep 2015
Don’t love me.
Please, don’t love me.
I know myself, we’re quite close actually, and let me tell you, you don’t want to fall for her,
you don’t want that girl, I hate her.
I hate her because I know her so well and I know how horrible the truth can smell.
Don’t love me, because even I know to hate myself,
the vanity that despite this loathing I might actually believe that someone could fall for me.
Don’t love me.
Don’t love me, because I met Heartbreak once and she left me gasping for air
and I will never meet her again.
I refuse, so if you love me, please be aware that when you do,
some day I am going to leave you, battered and bruised, because
twisted self-preservation has taught me all the tricks to keep myself afloat by drowning you.
Don’t love me.
Because as much as I will love you, I’m not friends with Commitment,
and whenever I see him on the horizon I set off running in the opposing direction.
I will treat you like there will be no oxygen unless I’m holding you,
but when you’re the one reaching for my hand I’ll become the wind.
Commitment is not my friend, I said, but no one listens.
Don’t love me, because I am a tornado, a storm to chase until I’ve taken everything from you.
Don’t love me.
Someday, you will be married and happy, and I will
whirl back into your life like the hurricane that has never been named after me, and
you will believe that all your scars
and your broken heart
have healed enough that you can run with me.
But I have razors between my fingers and wedged in my teeth,
and your scabbed over heartstrings will be powerless against me.
I am an expert at running, at hurting, at ‘maybe’s.
Don’t love me.
When you ask me for something more,
I will tell you that I am not ready, because I never will be.
Chances scare me, and trusting someone so much will always be risky.
I will tell you that I am not in the right place for your Commitment,
for your future Heartbreak,
and you will tell me that you understand but you’ll stick with me,
and fire will consume everything.
Don’t love me.
I can’t even go a few years with a friendship before
burning it all for at least a few evenings, but we’ll always rebuild the
rickety ashes of the bridges we’ve passed.
Don’t love me.
I’m only saying it for your safety.
remembering someone tonight
jack of spades Jul 2015
please
don't touch me, okay?
please
stand back at least 3 feet
in a perfect circle,
missile range.
please
keep your distance, okay?
please
don't attach yourself to
my brittle bones
and aching soul.
please
don't leave me, okay?
just
don't touch me
stand back at least 3 feet
keep your distance
(missile range)
and attempt to avoid attaching
to my brittle bones
and weary soul.
another oldie, but hello once again, HP!
jack of spades May 2017
i'm scared of a lot of things like clowns and spiders which sounds kind of normal but my room used to be infested i felt them crawl across my face with all eight legs while i laid awake in the summer heat i'm scared that my closet will be covered in cobwebs and skeletons;

i'm scared of airplane bathrooms.
my reflection doesn't look quite right in them
after eleven hours in the air
the bruises get so deep under my eyes
like i'm already zombified--
listless and tired and craving for something that
doesn't have a name;
i'm scared of not having a name
because then i won't be a person and it's
already hard pretending to be a person
so what happens if i lose that part of me
and stop being a person
without a name and without a face like how
airplane bathrooms always blur out my face
like how
airplane bathrooms always whisper my name
from the corners of my sleep-deprived brain
i can't keep my eyes focused straight
without a name without a name without a
faceless spiders crawling and
clowns and skeletons looking out from my closet--
i'm scared of a lot of things, normal things, like
clowns and spiders and not having an identity.
"here's some grammar" this ***** empty! YEET!
jack of spades Apr 2017
You’re a Monday child, born on the first day of the week--
the weakest link--
You’re like the moon.
You’ve got nothing to give--
the sharp darkness of your crescent is someone else’s shadow,
and your light is nothing but the reflection of something bigger
and brighter than you.
You’re a disappointment child,
potential building like the Tower of Babel,
everyone telling you that if you had just tried hard enough,
then you could have touched God.
But you’re just a Monday child,
an extrovert who runs up the electricity bill by leaving on
all the lights when you’re home alone,
how even with your earbuds in you leave the TV on.
Pretending to be near people who are alive makes you feel a little less like you
already died a long time ago.
Darkness doesn’t take days off and
neither do your thoughts, so
wrap yourself in stars.
You want to find light in the constellations but
it’s hard to trace lines between dots behind fog.
Mondays are longer on Mars.
You were born with stress in your veins, heaping projects with no real due date,
in a constant state of waiting for Friday,
but weekends are for the weary,
and the taut line of your spine implies that you
don’t deserve a break.
The thing about Mondays is that they’re crushing,
filled with longing,
the way that you only feel homesick when you look up at the moon and her fraud light.
You wrap yourself in nebulae and galaxies to try to
keep the homesickness at bay while you sleep.
Nothing will ever be good enough.
You will never be good enough.
You are a Monday child, a bitter aftertaste of someone else’s loss,
like you’ve smiled too brightly at a stranger leaving a funeral home.
You dug your own grave a long time ago.
Your eyes are clouded with looking too far forward, stretching yourself backwards,
hanging onto the aftertaste of the weekend while living for the next.
You hang like laundry,
brittle in cold wind,
the step between that no one likes to linger on.
You were born on a Monday.
But your eighteenth birthday fell on a Wednesday,
your sixteenth on a Sunday,
and you are more than a desperate reach for empty space.
The Tower of Babel did not touch God.
You are not here for someone else to tell you to touch God.
You are not here for someone else.
You may be a disappointment child,
with your Monday fog eyes and shaking hands,
but sometimes you have to choose your own joy over someone else’s expectations--
because I was born on a Monday,
and poetry comes easier than physics but nothing
calms me down quite like solving differential equations.
I was born on a Monday,
and I’m used to looking at other people’s faces and seeing disappointment
because I don’t think I'm quite what any of us wanted me to be.
I cling to the past the way that Monday clings to Sunday,
but daydream about the future like it’s Saturday.
The problem is Tuesday through Friday, because
nothing quite makes me want to die like the concept of
planning out the rest of my life.
I think I’ll be alright, though,
because on Monday nights I look at the stars and think that
I might be figuring out how to feel alive,
like maybe home is in the constellations that I still don’t quite know.
Maybe home is in the Mondays,
or maybe it’s in the weary camaraderie of humanity’s ability to cling to weekdays.
Most days, I have to remind myself that this is just the beginning,
simultaneously relieving and daunting,
because I’m scared of the future and I’m scared of being disappointing.
I’m a Monday child, born under a full moon that feels like home
whether I’m looking at it from Jamaica or Germany or Kansas City.
Chaos comes with the start of the week,
and losing myself has always felt comforting:
that’s the only time when I have no one else to be.
jack of spades Feb 2017
I don’t want to be an astronaut.
The thought makes me feel small.
I want to be an alien,
something to marvel at;
I want to be new and exciting and out of this galaxy.
The problem with believing in Vulcan
is the fact that we can’t even get humans to Mars.
How will we find somewhere else
when we’re confined to our own solar system?
We barely know anything about the depths of our own ocean.
The universe is still expanding but Andromeda is crashing
into the Milky Way at the most excruciating rate.
Why do we let ourselves think so small?
Where do you see yourself
in fifteen years?
Fifteen years away from here.
How do you major in dreaming?
How do you achieve
financial stability
with daydreamer words?
The problem with believing in Mars
is the fact that it has been thirty-seven
years since we touched the moon,
thirty-seven years since we let ourselves believe in touching the stars.
I don’t want to go to the International Space Station.
I don’t want to go to Mars.
I don’t want to stay in this solar system.
I want to take the distance of thirty-seven rotations
of Earth around the Sun,
and stretch the miles, square them,
multiply the kilometers by tens until
the astronomical units start adding up.
Only then will I know that I have gone far.
But how do you get SpaceX or the government,
to fund a mission
to explore new worlds,
to seek out new life and civilizations--
How do you boldly go
where no one has gone before,
when every penny is going
towards building a wall?
The problem with believing in democracy
is that we haven’t seen its true form since Ancient Greece.
How can we strive for unity
when we
amplify the voices of genocide
and silence any movement forward?
The problem with believing in progress
is that history repeats itself,
and we can’t see it until it is too late.
The problem with destroying our own planet
is that we don’t want to push out into space.
The problem with being human
is that I can’t seem to ever learn my place.
The problem with being a dreamer,
the problem with being a poet,
the problem with being an artist,
the problem with being a writer,
the problem with breathing:
eventually,
we are going to have to pay for air,
because oxygen and nitrogen
will be precious commodities with an overflow of carbon;
because argon and helium will be all gone without medium;
because while green energy watches from the sidelines,
we use fossil fuels to cloud our atmosphere
like we are trying to choke ourselves out.
Somewhere deep inside of each of us,
we don’t want to be here.
We dream of intelligent life because we are lonely,
reaching into space with one hand
and crushing each other with the other.
We would like to believe that we would be accepting
of alien life and cultures,
but we cannot seem to accept the life and cultures
of our own fellow Earthlings.
The problem with believing in Vulcan,
is that we are under the impression that
they would want to go anywhere near us,
that they would accept our offered hand,
with all of its scars and nuclear bomb marks.
We cross our fingers that there is other intelligent life,
but if they are anything like us
then why would either party want to get involved?
Why, when we sit at the brink of destroying
our own home,
would someone else open their doors to us?
The problem with believing in Earth
is that every single time we get so far,
we trip and fall and have to start all over.
How many more scraped knees can
humanity put Band-Aids on and heal over
until the scrapes start to scar?
I don’t want to be an astronaut.
The thought makes me feel small.
But I don’t want to be an alien,
a refugee of somewhere war-torn,
where the strangers of better places
lock their doors
and turn their backs on us,
because it’s our problem, not theirs.
I don’t want to be everything that we already are.
revised from 757 words to 697
jack of spades Oct 2017
fireflies blink patterns of constellations
like glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to your
bedroom ceiling. sometimes,
home is not where we expect it to be.
sometimes you know that you just have
to leave. light a candle at your own vigil,
your own funeral, then take to the sky
on trembling wings. it’s okay: you can
still visit if need be. but the future is not
certain (you never liked tellers of fortune
anyway.) so stick to your runes and
what your dusty old books tell you, words
in dead languages speaking easier
than the tongues around you. maybe
you’re just too stuck in the past-- after all,
most stars are already gone by the time
the light reaches your skies. there’s
nothing wrong with never burning bridges,
but keep the matches in your pocket
just in case.
jack of spades Apr 2017
we got dressed up for dinner but didn’t go to the dance
it was prom night and we were wasting time in my friend’s basement
when the question was asked:
how many men in your life are you comfortable around?
‘well,’ we said, ‘what do we mean by comfortable?'
we defined it like this:
how many men in your life could hug you
without making you flinch?
none of us had more than a handful, ticking names with our fingertips.
my total was two-point-five:
because i’d trust my dad with my life in the way that
you have to question authority to know that it’s right,
so i don’t ever **** away in fear from his familial touch.
(i’m the only one of us whose father makes the cut.)
the second name on my list is a kid from AP physics.
his name is trent and i’ve had a platonic crush on him for like a year.
we’ve bonded this year over math socks and clorox and death jokes.
(a few hours after this basement conversation,
we’re going to an afterparty and he yells my name
from across the parking lot;
we meet each other, running, and he collides into me with joy.
i don’t flinch away— i meet him half-way.)
the point five is
tricky
see, half the time, my brother grabs me and it terrifies me,
begging for him to just let go because he’s hurting me,
i don’t like tickling because it leads to panic attacks—
i don’t like unsolicited men touching me let go of me let go of me.
when my brother reaches for me, i flinch—
half the time.
but when he wants to actually hug me,
he just lifts one arm from his side and lets me tuck myself
under his shoulder, loose and gentle and loving, like good siblings.
half the time, my brother is reaching, and that is terrifying.
half the time, my brother is offering, and that is comforting.

how many men in your life could hug you without making you flinch?
take
a minute to think about it, it takes a lot of reflection.
a man without boundaries,
who takes what he wants and touches you when he wants to,
a man who doesn’t care that i’m flinching—
rapists and assailants don’t have boundaries,
they don’t listen when you say stop let go of me let go—
how terrifying it is for someone you know to just
grab you whenever he wants to.
i don’t want your hyper-masculine hands touching me without asking.
not unless you’re part of my two-point-five person list.
otherwise, you're just going to make me flinch.
speed write: 10 minutes
jack of spades Jul 2015
she
makes me
feel like a
summer storm when I
most believe im a hurricane
she is my special
little fix of
perfectly blonde
nicotine.
lol so once upon a time I had a crush on this chick...
another old poem ** (i'm going through a notebook)
jack of spades Dec 2017
like the ones who know me best
are the ones who don’t know me at all

like i’ve been staring
at this mirror for
so long that i
can’t remember what i’m
looking at anymore

how much better is it,
do you think,
to be who we are now
instead of who we were?
jack of spades Apr 2016
1995 saw the start of Generation Z,
the ‘iKids’ with a knack for this new-fangled technology,
Millennial 2.0,
caught in the limbo of the World Wide Web development and Rose Gold iPhones.
They say we’re adaptable,
but apparently we can’t make our own decisions about anything.
They say that we don’t care about anything
except for our tiny little screens,
but they forget who put them in our hands,
and they forget who they run to for help
when they forget how to troubleshoot.
They forget what kind of technology we need to keep sustaining life in the Information Age,
Caught in a crossfire because
Yeah, we’re 90s kids—but the 90s never really actually ended until 2006,
the only difference between two decades being
how much neon versus how much chrome,
and just how expensive accidentally opening the internet app on your mom’s blackberry phone was.
We’re nostalgic for all the things we can’t quite remember,
and half these high schoolers weren’t actually born until 2000 or 2001.
Most of us aren’t old enough to even remember 9/11, nothing outside of the news clips that our teachers show us in history class every single September.
I was born in the same year as the Columbine shootings.
The United States has not been at peace for a year of my life.
We are always fighting— fighting for everything.
Human equality,
posing arguments about micro aggressions and refugees, seeing the inhumanity in the past that we’re living.

None of us are older than 21,
under such hard scrutiny while Baby Boomers Wave 2 still run our country.
We inherited the Millenial’s exhaustion,
the generation before us spending our childhood fighting for all the things that we have never really believed in.
Fairytales.

Generation Z.
The ‘iKids’ who are going to one day be making leaps and bounds with technology,
the generation to nurse this dying planet back to health,
Millennials 2.0 who know how to learn from our forerunners’ mistakes,
who know how to adapt from Sidekicks to iPhone 6S Plus in less than a decade.
We’re the kids who have realized that fun is found in safe spaces rather than invading each other’s personal spaces.

They say we’re too sensitive,
but at the same time they claim that we’re desensitized.
And I thought we were the generation that couldn't make decisions.
jack of spades Sep 2015

… …
see,
im struggling to even write poetry these days.
everything
is like taking a deep breath only to find out that you’ve actually been
trapped inside a void and there’s nothing in your lungs
and nothing to exhale.
id like to think that i still have my good days
and really, i do,
its just that they get kind of fuzzy when im stuck in afternoon sunlight
wondering what happened to all the people that are usually around me.
i feel like a ghost in my own home
and driving ten over the speed limit doesnt even make the
bitter black box in my chest beat,
so maybe ill push fifteen--
and suddenly,
im going fifty-five in a thirty-five zone because maybe itll make me feel alive
knowing how fast im going away from the buildings that makes me feel
like a ghost,
like im drifting.
maybe the less i eat the better ill feel,
but either way theres some kind of guilt weighing me down,
cement blocks tossed into a lake.
i cut my hair to lighten up,
and its been at least three weeks
since i wrote a bad space metaphor about a boy
with a galaxy smile and, ****.
there goes that, restart the count.
fifty-five miles per hour away from memories that
my mind twists into negativity at eleven-- both evening and morning, really.
fifty-five miles per hour away from the people that might just
make me feel alive again,
but fifty-five miles per hour away from the places that thin me out until im nothing more than
a cartoon ghost outline,
running from pac man.
jack of spades Nov 2017
I THINK MY PROBLEM IS FLINGING MYSELF OFF CLIFFS WITHOUT BOTHERING TO SEE HOW DEEP THE RAVINE IS. I CARE TOO MUCH TOO FAST UNTIL I'M *BURNING
alternate title: "shut up about icarus already" / alt. alt. title: "why can't you write about some other myth for once?" / / / from my zine, "i, icarus..."
jack of spades Nov 2016
nephil of ancient age,
your flaming sword lights my way,
keeping the dark at bay and the path straight.
watch your footsteps, guardian,
lest you forget your own importance,
wilting feathers from once shiny blades.
let air fill your lungs, the scent of old but strong loves.
let light fill your eyes, glimpses of golden gates.
fill the gaps between your fingers with someone else’s flesh--
gently, with care, the way callouses always are.
you are amazing, worth the weight of a thousand stars,
the way laughter lights up your face,
how smiles find their proper place.
you are the cadence of waterfalls,
hopelessly romantic in your strength and fighting calls.
misty and shrouded and all to yourself,
carefully tucked like a secret into half a dozen hearts.
jack of spades Mar 2018
i know i dont live in a movie
this isnt an episode of skins, my name isnt cassie
but i didnt eat for three days just so i could be lovely
and you didnt even notice me
maybe thats why the only musician ive really related to lately is josh ramsay
it's been a decade since its release but im still looping 'fix me'
when you hit the bottom of the marianas trench youve got to pick up a shovel and start digging
but once you get through the mantle and past the core
suddenly you're not going down anymore
random draft from the autumn
jack of spades Aug 2018
I JUST WANT TO BE HAPPY,
just want the light feeling to stay.
i don't want to feel this heavycrushinglonely,
don't want to be summer sad.
I JUST WANT TO BE HAPPY
IN THE WAY THAT THE ADDAMS FAMILY IS,
IN THE WAY THAT THE GRAND CANYON IS,
IN THE WAY THAT IT SEEMS LIKE
everyone else already is.
i just want to be happy.
i just wish that i knew how to feel light.
i wish that i wasn't heavycrushinglonely,
that i had adventures and memories and smiles.
i wish my friends wanted to do more than just
drink and play video games in their apartment
that is suffocating with the smell of chase's vape
and cold and too cozy. i wish my friends did more
of that "aimlessly driving with the windows down,
the music blaring," but more importantly, i wish
that in those instances i could just stay in time.
i spend too much time stuck in my own mind,
and i don't know how to get out anymore.
I JUST WANT TO BE HAPPY.
i just don't know how to make that choice,
how to stick with it.
I JUST DON'T WANT TO BE LONELY.
I JUST WANT--
i don't know. i don't really know
what answers i'm looking for.
i just know that i've been
heavycrushinglonely for too long now.
what's the alternative to that, if not happy?
im glad that summer is almost over
it's my favorite season but the memories are miserable
at least when there's snow i have an excuse to be sad
jack of spades Jun 2015
you can try to steal the show
but baby, remember your place
you're a sidekick, not a hero
maybe there's some grace in martyrdom
but that's not where you wanna go
step down, sit down
you're a sidekick, not a hero
I need to write more
jack of spades Jan 2017
Down on your knees for Donald, honey.
Locker room talk for a warm-up, honey.
Are you using the right email to talk about your war crimes, honey?
Hey, baby boy, don’t forget
that you have the right to pressure any girl that you’ve ever met into non consensual ***.
Hey, baby girl, don’t you forget
that no amount of experience or intellect
will get you farther than nineteen percent of a combined House and Senate.
Then again, over fifty percent of white women voted in the Red.
I wonder if any of them have voters’ regret.
Looking down the line of faces that have held office since 1776,
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just the first one we’ve called out as a ******.
Serial killers put on the nicest faces.
The nicer the “nice guy,” then the scarier he is.
Fold your hands and press together the tips of your fingers:
this is the church and here is the steeple.
Look inside: here are the people,
hiding from a teenage white boy terrorist
that the media claims has a mental illness.
How many more lone wolves can there be
until we realize that they are part of a hunting party?
So cross your fingers and cross your heart
and cross your eyes to blur the start.
Cross your fingers and cross your heart
and pray that these bullets miss the mark.
Load your words into your hands and steady the point of your finger gun to my head.
Freedom of speech is being attacked now, honey.
The “alt-right” doesn’t like it when you say Neo-****, honey.
Are you taking notes for your next rerun, honey?
jack of spades Oct 2013
How dare I living among the dead?
How dare I stand where death has tread?
How dare I take a stranger’s tomorrow?
How dare I steal joy from their sorrow?
How dare I smile in the tears?
How dare I brave through your worst fears?
How dare I want what you cannot?
How dare I take for what you fought?
How dare I run when you just crawl?
How dare I have silvertongue instead of your drawl?
How dare I own your dreams and needs?
How dare I bite your hand that feeds?
not 100% pleased with this one but oh well
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