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Nov 2013 · 708
HB2
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
HB2
Thank you
for lighting up this room
just by entering.

And thank you
for talking to me;
I know it can be hard to do.

Thank you
for loving me
and all my faults.

Yes,
I've been thinking about you
and yes
I've been drinking
and yes
it is a lovely combination.
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
Cast your eyes down from the shooting stars;
I am everything you have been wishing for.

I am everything your father does not want you to bring home
and everything your mother wishes your father was.

I **** like you wish your boyfriend could
and my tongue will sing you a song until your abdomen explodes.

My writing causes girls to cry like all the boys wish theirs could
and the pain in your chest will recede with every kiss I give you.

I fight better than my father and his father, all the way to Cain.
only, God won't see what I've been doing and He will not forgive me for it.
Nov 2013 · 485
AM
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
AM
I don't know what you're thinking
(if you're thinking)
but I want you to take a minute to rethink it
(or just think)

This doesn't have to turn to shouts
(it always did)
Nov 2013 · 545
Short Number Six
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
I'm glad she's gone
and out of my life
but I don't regret what happened.
I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Nov 2013 · 451
Short Number Five.
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
What a beautiful place
the thought of your face
allows me to roam.
Nov 2013 · 1.1k
Happenings Part Four (Lilin)
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
I thought having a cigarette break
would allow my heartbeat to return
to a standard clip
so I stepped outside
and had one or five smokes.

The winter night was
crisp and it was cold
and the air I returned to it
was polluted and poisonous.

Noticing a star in the sky
I decided to follow it
and it took me to Greenland
and there I met
a beautiful little boy
who told me it was time for him to go home.

He invited me into his home.
standing on the doorstep like a
succubus, his mother greeted
me with sanguine lips
and rosy cheeks.

After dinner
they told me it was time for me to go home
and so I followed the first star that caught my eye
and it brought to the place where we
fell out of love
and there on the ground
I found a circle of wine bottles
that sparkled, containing their dry fluid
they beckoned me to sip
and harshly I did.

The trees barked
and the bark whispered
and the willows
never wanted to be alone again
and so I drank and I drank and I drank
until my body was full
of heat.

I followed the smallest star I could see
and it brought me to your back porch.
Covered in snow and *****
from the winter clouds
I stood, not ready to knock
but more than ready to see you.

I sent out an invitation to you,
via the wind
and you answered with a demonic growl telling
that all is well and I should not be treading here.

Softly
and solemnly I returned inside
to the place I was before,
smelling of cigarettes and apathy.
Distraught,
she asked me where I had been and I told her
I saw an old acquaintance outside
and just needed to recollect.
Nov 2013 · 449
Short Number Four
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
As the windows fog
and the wipers wipe
I can't tell what is driving me away from this town.
The car I am in or the empathy you give me.
Nov 2013 · 911
Titled Number Thirty.
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
I write about it a lot,
but the truth is
love is fleeting.

Like a bird
that lands on a lamppost
it will remain for only a moment.
Before departing;
spreading it's wings
and flying to a new heart.
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
Love is the only tangible emotion.
Nov 2013 · 719
Happenings Part Three
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
I will open your mouth
and I will devore you.
Love will pour
out of each of your
pores
and you will drown in it.

You will be exhausted
and filled.
You will be distraught
and emancipated
your soul will lay
in the dirt.

Devoid
of anxiety
and surrounded
by creatures
summoning you,
you will lay
in the water
sputtering
and sloshing
and gasping for breath.

I will fill you
and I will heat you
and then just as the last
drop of human essence
drips from you,
I will consume you
and you will fuel me
as gas to a star.
Nov 2013 · 394
Thirteen Words
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
It's all a copy
of a copy
of a copy
of love.
Nov 2013 · 721
Short Number Three
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
I hope you find your Walden.
I hope it helps you discover
those things about you
that I do love.
Nov 2013 · 429
Short Number Two
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
Pour a shot of your love,
I'll take it in one gulp.
Lying on the kitchen floor
with my stomach bursting
I swear I love you.
Nov 2013 · 962
Anxiety.
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
It's like falling into a spider web.
The more you struggle,
the harder it is.

Doctors won't help you.
They'll just give you drugs
that take away the anxiety,
but bring your emotions along with it.

Friends will try and help.
But they can only do so much
before they tell you to get over yourself
and to stop being a baby.

So you'll stay at home,
and smoke your cigarettes
and bite your nails
and take shallow breaths.

All you want
is someone
to put their hand on your shoulder.
To be patient.
To understand,
to kiss you goodnight,
and ruffle your hair in the morning.
All you want is someone to whisper in your ear louder than anxiety already does.
Nov 2013 · 1.3k
Cottage by the Sea.
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
I don't want
my life
to be the worst joke in all of history.
I just want
you
to spend the rest of your days living with me.
We could build
a house
a pretty little cottage right by the sea.
We'll spend
our days
taking walks on the beach and kissing tenderly.
We won't fret
or fight
over the petty little things, we'll live comfortably.
And at the end
of the day
we'll lie in bed, let the night rot away,
while we,
kiss
and laugh
at all the things that troubled us so long before
we met
and loved
and began our lives.
At the end
of our lives
we'll sing each other to sleep, so softly.
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
Tell me,
dear friend,
are the leaves changing color in Denmark?

Does the moon guide you home at night?
Does the sun wake you up with gentle kisses?

I would walk a mile
and a thousand more
to hear you tell me everything will be okay,
to hear you tell me
that I will make it.
That it only gets better.
Because that's what I need right now.

Are the leaves falling of the trees in Denmark?
Are the children getting paid to rake them up?
Are the mothers loving their children?
Are the fathers keeping them safe?
Can you hear me calling?
Over the mountains
and the across the ocean
my voice will be heard.
And you shall be the one to hear it.

Tell me,
dearest friend,
is it raining in Denmark?
It won't stop here.
Nov 2013 · 1.2k
Titled Number Twenty-Nine.
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
Seeing you
makes me homesick
for a home that was never mine,
but one that you allowed me in.
And welcomed me in,
and ushered me into.

I smoked my cigarettes slower around you.
I don't know what that means but I know
that I like it more than being around
someone who subliminally makes me
smoke quicker.
Jeremy Duff Nov 2013
I'm wondering why
tonight of all nights
you look as gorgeous as you do.

I'm wondering why
the minute I try and forfeit the game
you lure me right back in.

Why is it,
that on a Friday night
spent with friends and drugs and bad decisions
I refuse to make the one good decision I desire?

I struggle to see the moon for the clouds
and I struggle to see your eyes for the light
and I can't make out which is worse.
Not seeing the one thing always there to comfort me
or a chunk of rock in space.
It's really bugging me that I don't know whether to capitalize "for" in the title or not.
Oct 2013 · 664
St. Albans, Vermont.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
There is a quite town
in the quite state of Vermont.

Not much happens there,
but it is the place to be.
The place to think
and the place to breathe.

All I want rests there,
while all I need to get
away from lives here.

In the summer, the sun shines
and in the winter, snow falls.
Which is just like it is here.
But, it is the 2nd least populated state,
which gives me less of a chance
of running into you.
Oct 2013 · 660
Tug-A-War
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
****.

Pardon my brute choice of English
but ****.

I'm slipping again.
I'm sinking.

I was good.
Believe me, I was.
I promise you, I was.

But I don't feel good anymore.
This doesn't feel good anymore.
I don't want to do this anymore.

Caught in a tug-a-war with the rope wrapped around my head.
Depression holds one end,
and Happiness the other
but tonight,
I swear to God
Depression is winning.

All I know is that I sure as hell am not.
Oct 2013 · 553
Nights Like These Part Two.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
It's on nights like these
when I wish I could press replay.

I remember how you looked
in your black dress
and I remember how you kissed
with your red lips
but I cannot remember how it felt
to hold your swollen heart.
Oct 2013 · 398
Eleven Words
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
We can live
only to the extent
of which we love.
Oct 2013 · 397
Nine Words
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
Stop killing time
and it will stop killing you.
Oct 2013 · 870
Oh God, How I Hate Myself.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
I remember
the way the stars shined
and I remember
the way your eyes twinkled,
but I cannot remember
the way our love felt
and oh God,
how I hate myself for
letting something so beautiful slip
through my fingers.
Oct 2013 · 835
Titled Number Twenty-Eight.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
I have been in love since the moment I was born.

My mother was first and for a long time she held my heart.
At five she still had my love but so did Clint Eastwood.
That poncho wearing, cigarette smoking cowboy was the dad I never had.

In the sixth grade it was Stacy Smith.
She was my Wendy Peppercorn,
my Messiah,
my World Series Ring.
my love.

I made it to high school after
a few brief people put stars in my eyes.
In high school I met a girl
who took all the stars that had ever been in my eyes
multiplied them by all the stars in the sky
and put them back in my eyes, only for her.

Now, three years later,
a ******
excommunicated addict
I am in love again.

He is an author and he writes novels.
He is a novelist.
He is a genius.
He told me:
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

And I have figured that one out.
Until I have devoured him,
until I understand every single one of his literary pieces
I may not die.
I may not.
Until then,
I may love no other.
I may not die.
Oct 2013 · 833
You Entice Me.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
You entice me.
With your lips
you
      e
          n
             t
                i
                  c
                     e
                           me.

               With your legs you
                  
                      e
                   c
                 i
               t
             n
         e
.me

With everything
you
       have
you make me lust.
With everything
you
       got
you make me yearn.

Y
e
  a
   r
    n
for something I cannot have.
L
u
  s
   t
for something I have not got.
Oct 2013 · 889
Matching.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
We found it funny
that our shoes and shirts matched.

We heard people ask if we had planned it
and we told them we had not.

You also matched me shot for shot, until we lost the ability to count
and we decided it would be best to stop drinking.

In your bedroom I matched you kiss for kiss,
until our lips could not satisfy us anymore.

Breathe for breathe,
****** for ******,
moan for moan,
we matched and we matched and we matched
and nobody asked us if we had planned that.
If they did, we would have told them that we did not.

And now,
when people look at our lips
and necks
they will not need to know if we planned it,
because the matching of our hearts was planned
and perfected, and practiced.
Not by us,
yet we enjoy the rewards.
Oct 2013 · 603
I See My God In You.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
I see my God in you.
I see him in your eyes
and hear him with your ears.

Through you he speaks to me
and with you, he shall know me.

The wind rustles the leaves on the tree
and causes the sleeping child to stir.
For reasons she does not know, she feels warm.
But she has seen the good and the bad and was given a choice.

The daylight streams through the window
and the kettle is boiling
and in the next room, my love is stirring.

Awaken! her heart sings to her.
Go! Enjoy the light, the shade, the sounds and the silence!
Go and enjoy all of this I have laid before you!
Go and kiss your lover, through each other you have found me!
*Through each other, you have found love, and that is all I want of you
Oct 2013 · 1.3k
Lady L (The Wizard)
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
You bought me a wooden pipe
on my last birthday.
I had it for a few months until I lost it.
Now, you're not here to spend the day with me
and neither is the pipe I named after you,
my lovely Lady L.

On a whim, however, I purchased a new pipe.
Inside a gold box,
long and brown,
like something Gandalf would smoke,
my mysterious Wizard.
Just like the girl I share tonight with.
Oct 2013 · 580
Seventeen.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
Happy Birthday to me.
So light me up a cigarette
and get the water boiling.

Kiss me on the cheek
and I'll kiss yours,
now how about pizza, I'm buying.

Take me to a movie,
but smoke me out first,
buy me a soda, it doesn't have to be a large.

I'm a week older than I was last week,
and seventeen years older than when I was born.
But don't worry about numbers, just give me a hug.
Oct 2013 · 857
Titled Number Twenty-Seven.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
It feels like a life time ago,
but in reality it has only been a few months.

I remember, the last thing I did before falling asleep
with you in my arms was kiss you,
and the last thing I did before that was make love to you.

I remember, the first thing I did after waking up
with you in my arms was kiss you,
and the next thing I did after that was make love to you.

But that's gone,
it died with the summer.

Tradition dies with love  
and distaste is born with loss.

Sniff sniff, swallow,
to get the feeling you gave me.
Sniff sniff, swallow,
to make myself feel.
Oct 2013 · 351
China Grove.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
The sun rises slowly at first.
But wait, it will be high in the sky sooner than you think.
And again, before you know it, it will be setting.
Only now, it will take what seems like forever to die.

It will breathe it's last breathe
and then another
and then another.
It refuses to die; to sink.

The night time is tricky
because the stars will stay in seemingly fixed locations
but if, and only if you lie on your back with a loved one
you will see that they rotate and sing a song just for the two of you.
Oct 2013 · 684
Of You and Me.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
Nothing is more gratifying,
than my friends talking
about you and me.

The truths of you and me
and the predictions
and the destination.

I went to a wedding tonight.
My mother was the Maid of Honor
and I was the drunken teenager.

My mother's best friend of many years
was marrying her best friend of a few
and I took advantage of the open bar.

My sister brought a blackberry pie
my mother a speech
and I got to hear about how much I reminded everyone of my father.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
Tonight the moon has a yellow tint to it.
I could not tell you if it is waxing or waning,
but I can tell you that it's beautiful.

Tonight your eyes rest in my mind.
I could not tell you what you look like right now,
but I can tell you that you are beautiful.
Oct 2013 · 462
HG
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
HG
Sure,
I'm sad you're gone,
but I'm happy you can be anywhere at all.
And sure,
I miss you,
but I'm happy your first breath of the day is no longer in this town.
Oct 2013 · 476
Her // Part Six
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
Her heartbeat
is playing a song.
jump! it says,
run!
*love!
Oct 2013 · 1.1k
Sugarloaf Mountain.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
I torture myself in many ways.
Be it these cigarettes,
that bottle,
those songs,
or your letters.

When the sun goes down
my little sister asks
"Can I see the moon?"
So I hold her hand and take her outside
and sometimes we don't see it
but on nights like tonight
it shines brighter than it should.
Brighter than it has any reason to.
Yet Audrey thinks it's pretty
and I guess that's reason enough.

I remember the night,
when Guardian Angel, My Best friend, The Girl Who Fancies Scared Faces and myself drove up to a moonlit
little place called Sugarloaf Mountain.
And at the top
we drank cheap wine,
smoked cheaper cigarettes
(Hey man, they're all we got)
and each took turns playing a song.
My Guardian Angel started with Neutral Milk Hotel,
then My Best Friend played The White Stripes,
then The Girl Who Fancies Scared Faces played Atmosphere,
and finally I used my turn on Clapton.

We drank more beer
and smoked the last cigarette,
and laughed,
and laughed,
and marveled at how beautiful the moon was and how it doesn't need a reason to shine.
I ended up in My Guardian Angel's bed, after some more cigarettes and beer and ****.
We shared kisses and cuddles and laughs and sweat.
Dedicated to Tyler, Megan, Dylan and of course, Audrey.
Much love.
Jeremy Duff Oct 2013
~

I torture myself in many ways.
Sep 2013 · 857
Wildly Inconsistent.
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
Seeing how our subliminal tactics didn't work,
I decided a new method should be used
to win her heart.

20 shots of Cinnamon *** later
I lay puking into a toilet
with her in the next room.

I fell asleep there, on the bathroom floor,
and woke up on the other side of town,
in a nice comfortable bed.

Sitting up, I noticed the array
of posters on the wall and remembered
never having been in this room.

Surveying the room,
pulse pounding,
I found a note:

"Nolan,
went to work. Feel better.
E."
Sep 2013 · 968
EL
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
EL
November brought
rain,
snow,
sweaters,
and kisses.

We discovered what our lips could do as we lay huddling together.
Under blankets,
in a house,
in a tree,
we discovered the sensation of
excitement in places we thought to be unexcitable.
Like our lips,
our tongues,
our fingertips
and our eyelashes.

I can't remember how many times we watched Harold and Maude,
I only know that we never got through it.

You told me I kiss like I'm in a hurry.
Like I need to catch a train
but I also need to kiss you,
and nothing on this earth can stop me from doing both.

And you kissed like you knew it was a good thing.
Which must be quite a sensation to have.
Just like those we felt in our lips, tongues, fingertips and eyelashes.
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
Surprisingly enough,
this little vile of some
horrible stuff
called "Pink-Pink"
is actually rather
musky.

And to think,
after three months
and then two more,
I would get six checks.

Micky Mantle captivated
the nation,
and Lars Montannaro
is captivating
this town.
All the while
Michael Moore is killing God
and God is killing us.

One must ask oneself,
did God create me,
or did I create God?
Is God within me,
or am I God myself?

Throughout John Carpenter's life
many questions plagued him,
most remained unanswered,
few allowed him to live
and one killed him.

He lies dying,
gasping for air,
with nothing but
Steinbeck and brandy
to bid him farewell.

On a bed without sheets,
in a motel without a kitchen,
in a town without a theater,
in a state without a king,
in a land without hope,
God lays dying.
With nothing but the prayers of
Mary Stein to bid him goodnight,
he prays himself.

Every man is a believer in the foxhole,
just as he is a saint.
Praying and praying,
the fire rallies
around a man,
his emancipated guts
lay spewing blood in the dirt.


Without a clear objective man is nothing.
Nothing is everything,
and everything is unexplainable
just as nothing can be explained.

The Dark sings a song it believes to be beautiful,
and the Light finds it discouraging to it's attempts
of what it believes to be beautiful.
So the Light chases away the Dark
and the Wanderers wonder where it went.

Wandering this world,
they try
and try
and try
to find it.

They are looking in the wrong world.

The man with a gun
runs to the store and back
and back
and back again.

The willows whisper a tune for their god
that the oaks find blasphemous.
The oaks chant louder and louder
so as to please their god.

Life goes on
and life goes on
and life goes on
and then it doesn't.
Then suddenly it  begins
in a thousand more forms
and in a thousand more lungs
it breathes.
Life will continue to exalt God
and God will continue allowing life to breathe.

For as long as there is air,
breathes shall be taken.
Sep 2013 · 644
Her // Part Five
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
You'll occupy my bed,
for a day or two,
regardless of whether or not
I am in it.
//
Then you'll leave.
For a few days,
a week,
a few weeks.
//
While you're gone
the coffee will still be made,
the showers will still be taken,
and bed time stories will still be read.
//
However,
my body will shiver
without your heat,
and I'll go to bed earlier,
without your heat.
//
I may not play my guitar,
and I may not memorize my lines
while you're present.
But God ******, you're present.
//
//
The sun shines
and it will continue to shine
and the clocks tick
and they will continue to tick
and my love yearns
and it will someday cease yearning.
Cease burning.
Cease.
/
Just as your presence has
ceased.
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
~

Shadows can be scarier than darkness.
Sep 2013 · 572
Pie For Breakfast
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
~

It was a Saturday morning.
We got cigarettes around 10:00,
***** around 10:30 (they just wouldn't leave the liquor isle),
and drunk around 11.
We didn't stop drinking
and smoking
until we ran out.

High as the low lying clouds
that rained upon us,
we walked
the streets of the town we were born in.

They have a word for boys like us.
Probably a few,
but we don't need to get into that.
Time ******,
highs fade,
wallets empty
and we got drunk at 11 on a Saturday morning.
They have words for boys like us.
Bums,
hoodlums,
punks.
Whatever,

It was a Saturday morning and we had pie for breakfast.
Sep 2013 · 643
Titled Number Twenty-Six.
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
You take things day by day,
which is a marvelous way to love.

I envy you and the clarity you see the world with.
I as well, take things day by day,
only I am one day behind.
Still lurking on the happenings of yesterday,
the kisses given and love spent.

I'll go to bed tonight thinking about the girl I was kissing yesterday,
not the one I will kiss today.

God loves all of His children,
and I'm sure He will take special care
in bringing His child that you love home
from a war he has no business fighting.
he picks up his rifle everyday
because our country called upon him to do so.
Which is a good cause.

While he's there and you're here, you'll take things day by day.
The days in which you talk to him are great days.

The days in which you do not are merely good days.
And that is how you live.
Everyday is good and yet some are better.
Everyday for me is okay and yet some are more okay.
or less okay, depending on the state
of the weather
and the weather of one's kisses.
Dedicated to TS, and may God bring His child home safe.
Sep 2013 · 481
Titled Number Twenty-Five.
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
Not only heartbeats,
thoughts,
and nights;
I wasted too many wishes on you.
Too much time.

I guess I forgot a stamp
because you never wrote me back.
And I guess you couldn't feel my passion
because you never loved me back.
Sep 2013 · 666
Working On It ~~ Pretense.
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
Everybody wants to be better.
They want to be a better lover for their lover.
They want to be a better person for their loved ones.
They want to be a better teacher for their students,
and leader for their followers.

I want a few things,
for you to smile
and laugh
and not worry
and love yourself.

I want to be a better writer,
for the sake of my writing.
For those reading it,
but mainly for myself,
I want to write better.

For those around me I want
to be a better friend,
brother,
uncle,
only son,
but most of all,
I want to be a better stranger.
I want you to give me a smile when I give you one.

~~

*It's like that spider you see on your nightstand as you go to turn off the light.
Every itch and scratch, is always that spider, for the rest of the night.
So it is for every kiss I receive. For everyone I give back is just pretense.
It's the touch of your lips on mine while your presence is absent.
Sep 2013 · 489
Titled Number Twenty-Four.
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
If only,
this numbness
would surround my whole
body. If only I could bathe in
benzocaine. Although, I would
much rather have no reason to do so.
Sep 2013 · 729
My Two Favorite Elixirs.
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
The only thing left
in this mind of mine
is self destruction.

I know not how I strayed
so far from mother's teachings.
And I know not where I
shall end up.

I only know where I will find
my next fix at.
And I know how long
8 of these pills will last me.
(three days.)

I could place my finger
on this map
and tell you what country it is on.
Yet you could not point
at the crowd
and find one person who loves me.

Albert Camus
said that the only question that
truly matters
must be answered before
there can be discovery,
growth and love.
That question is whether or not to continue one's life.

Unlike the affects of vicodin and *****,
I know not the answer to this question.
And I suppose I will
find the answer,
or die trying.
Just as I did with the mixing
of my two favorite elixirs.
And what a lovely combination they have become.
Sep 2013 · 613
Titled Number Twenty-Three.
Jeremy Duff Sep 2013
Hell fire rains down
as the Last Gunslinger grips the reins of his horse.
No longer does the authority of the Old Folk reign.

They say not since The Catcher in the Rye, has a real person been born from pen on paper.
But Salinger used a typewriter.
And nobody likes Caulfield, anyway.
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