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Nov 2018 · 858
Lava or Ice
John Benjamin Nov 2018
She said hold the weight upon your back
Count the films, let them stack
Find the layers that you lack
And add them up
Wear your stigmata like your scars
Embrace the strange and bizarre
The things that make you who you are
Not what you were

Forgot the things in that car you wrecked
Bleed new blood, paint it black

Play the saddest chords you know
Play them soft and play them slow
Sing your melodies in your lowest tone
Forget what they mean
Take your drink and take your drugs
Remember how it feels to fall in love
Let the notion wash away in the flood
Each coming spring

Build a raft of tinsel and tar
Flow into that cold sullen reservoir

These colors are nice and the rain is warm
But winter is coming along with the storms
Oct 2018 · 1.2k
Love
John Benjamin Oct 2018
I never wanted anything
   that would make these notions stay
And I never wanted anything
    No, that only causes useless fraying.
I never wanted anything
   that would make these things go away.
And I never knew I could bring
   all this pain and suffering.

Love only separates;
Love only makes me hate you more.
Oct 2018 · 752
Words
John Benjamin Oct 2018
Words no longer flow from my head;
     only unrecognizable patterns
and words I think I may have once said.
Aug 2018 · 586
Nightmare
John Benjamin Aug 2018
Last night I dreamed I was within a pinwheel or some kind of terror
and you were the one to choose my fate.
You chose the number I was most afraid of but held my hand through the doorway.
You only looked back to smile and I only held your hand to drag you down.
It was a daft dream.
But I dream daft things.
Aug 2018 · 680
Is this something?
John Benjamin Aug 2018
I feel like I could love; it feels like I do.
But I feel I am playing some role in this life
The role of "What if?" and "I'll be here."
and "She may love me, too."

I feel like I could love; I don't know if I do.
Maybe I've just confused love
with a different emotion. Maybe two.
That could be true.

I feel like I'm in love; but I don't know. With whom?
Maybe with just some words or fantasy
or emotional fever dream
Where we are dancing, somewhat inimatly,
Hands tied, swaying a candles gleam
In some dreamy ballroom.

I must be in love; I feel I love you.
What other force could make me say this to you?
What kind of dream could be composed of only you?
And be it just some dream, at least it's with you.
Jun 2018 · 591
Indian Giver
John Benjamin Jun 2018
Come consider down by the river.
Shiver; drink my liquor, Indian giver.
Then, little by little, come to the middle
Where ripples trickle and dwindle, through the hospital.

You, my daughter; wade through the water.
This father falters and todders. "It can't be. No, not her."
Face meets floor, washed to the shore.
For four hours more, daddy mourns his *****.

So gun shy. Drink your gin and rye.
Sigh, dry those humid eyes. Lie under Dubai's sky
And go consider, down by the river;
Shiver, drink her liquor, you Indian giver.
Then little by little, come to the middle.
Ripples trickle and dwindle, through the hospital.
Again consider, above the river.
Shiver, drink her liquor;
now she won't even care at all.
Jun 2018 · 548
I'm sorry
John Benjamin Jun 2018
You call me up in the middle of the night.
    What is it now, what’s the problem this time?
The same **** thing.; too much on your mind
    But you have too few words to explain it.
So spout me all the parables.
   Speak all the metaphors and analogies
My dear, oh my, that sounds so terrible,
   and Im afraid it’s too much for just apologies

Well, maybe you wouldn’t be filled with such regrets
   if you had the foresight to not do what you haven’t done yet.
But you’re a child eating paint chips filled with lead
   while you’re parents watch and chain-smoke cigarettes
So I guess you’re just a product of the times;
   thinking everything is greener on the other side
Well oh my dear, oh my,
   I think it might be best to just apologize

So what if you ****** in the back of a car,
     or injected needles filled with beautiful black tar.
And so what, you self-inflicted these scars,
   it’s only skin, and only matters if you cut too far.
So what if you steal and you lie;
   it only gets you closer to another high.
So what if you are fading from life?
   I think the best thing to do is apologize
Just apologize.
    Apologize don’t mean anything,
Just apologize.
    Apologies mean nothing.
Just apologize.
    It means nothing.
May 2018 · 498
it bugs me
John Benjamin May 2018
My mother has trapped some kind of bug under a cup
and told me to **** it with a napkin.
         I don't like to **** things caught like that,
         and moreover I'm afraid of bugs and insects.

At this point the cup has been still for several days.
             I'm not sure if there even is a bug under there now.

'Oh, just take it outside.'

I'll keep pretending the cup is empty.
John Benjamin Apr 2017
Words fail.
A happening ceases to be happening
and just is.

As if subconsciously,
deliberation becomes the same as breathing
blinking, equilibrium, panic,
and then all at once,

Love

All become impetuous.

Turn into some twist of fate,
or some happenstance;
it doesn't matter which.
All that matters is the pulsing dilation of the skin over her veins.
The crashing, writhing, weaving, turning, twisting waves of her body mirroring mine and vice versa.
I am just here; present.
Face flush to downy hair while wandering in some chaotic void of uncertainty and doubt and violent turbulence.

Words become meaningless.

All hope of understanding this fleshy, helter-skelter concept of
A sinuous 'élan vital' to 'inevitable ceasing death'
All hope of understanding fails.

But I will forever be in this calm of the storm.
Witnessing this pastel scene behind your eyes.
Through the nihilism and anarchy
I feel I am right where I need
And that is all that needs be.
John Benjamin Apr 2017
A little cold away; a little walk.
A little hair down your shoulders.
A cold tint on your back,
On your back.
I never knew what that was for; I knew enough then.
I knew enough then

A little bit of wood;
A little tinder.
Your little flexible legs
Around my neck, around my back,
Around the walk-way.
Walk away.
A little girl who never knew
the *** and prostitutes around here.

What was that ****** towel on your back,
****** thing around your neck,
****** thing across your legs?
Who was that?
-What?-
Who was I?
*** I never knew, I never knew, those black and blue
Faces that hit you.

If it'll bug around,
You're gonna mess me up.
Mess me up.
So why don't you cause your pain;
if that's what you want to do?
*** you'll mess me up, so mess me up.
And your feet will dive into my mouth.

So **** me up. **** me up
So **** me up, **** me up.
**** me up.
**** me up.
So **** me up. **** me up.
**** me up.
So **** me up,
****.
https://soundcloud.com/user-197907135/youre-gonna-****-me-up
John Benjamin Apr 2017
It is not some dusty frame,
            hanging rusty nails;
                        chaotic mess.

            No es amor solo amar, to you,
                      just some language you,
                                can't comprehend.

Distraught, despaired, disheveled,
                a dystopian novel notion,
                                     romanticized.
        
                     There's no need;
you don't need to patronize.

Cold hand upon cold hand;
       lifeless smiles colluding.

                                 And as if you were a Monet sunrise,
my impression of you is that of drunken brush strokes,
                                                        ­                   dull blues,
                                               and angry orange hues,
Left on display within a rotting, wooden frame.
Dec 2016 · 772
absolution
John Benjamin Dec 2016
Some sinister stare, some mocking grin
Some sauntering gait
Poison drips from the chin
Smelling of medicine though reeking of sin
Sweet, sweet, sweet absolution

Guilt isn't heavy, regret is a feather
Love is a memory buried deep in your dresser drawer
What is more; the sores cease to sting
Lacerations healing
Love is a son who's died in the war

A war that's for peace but brings disconcertion
My son died in a clash of raw rash emotion
Drowned in the Pacific under titanic swells
And here, where I stand, I will drown just as well

In some fight I surrendered so long ago
To some serendipitous tide
Some hellish curse
Some bittersweet brutish tempestuous flirt
For in a fight with a devil I know I can't win
Inside this bottle I find absolution
Jul 2016 · 873
Eleanor
John Benjamin Jul 2016
Must be a mesh gazebo,

                               or maybe she's read too much,

                         what's the genre?

No matter, she enjoys rain for her patrons.
Jul 2016 · 873
Echo
John Benjamin Jul 2016
My echo is light enough
Two forces I couldn't touch
My serious turn of phrase
My sarcasm not phased

I let go and tighten up
New courses all made of rough
Lie eerie listless and say
Could I really give a ****?

Stuck in this current of mine
Enough to swallow and die
Fish food I knew, close they drew
But they just gnaw at the rinds

Love is the drug we rely
On to be closer to fine
Wish that we already knew
Must be those warm hearted lies
Jul 2016 · 582
Came Here Just For Me?
John Benjamin Jul 2016
A world with the answer to your inquiry craved in your back
A lack of perfect mirrors as everyone needs to disprove superstition
A position based on faith that two wrongs make a right
A plight for a useless cause to try to give chaos meaning
A seemingly trite case of "I need more than them"
Phantom limb performs sad hymns only to the wielder
All of this in mind, I could guess what part of hell I'm in
So when, with your disposition, your body so thin
When did you sneak through the cracks
Jul 2016 · 578
Yours and Mine
John Benjamin Jul 2016
We are sinking with the ship
The oars have gone to ****
Now we only have four arms to row
The sea's tide carry us from the landslide
We sleep with the fishes tonight
So just let the boat sink below

And I'm so high
But Eleanor, would you mind?
Talking to me like you've know me all your life
And it's fine
Eleanor, could you find
Some of the orange warm light
Or maybe make it mine

The brown ground is soft under our feet
But sinks us into the street
No branches to pull us out
So our lungs leak air and swallow dust
Now I know what must be done
I have a feeling you do too

And I'm so high
But Eleanor, would you mind?
Talking to me like you've know me all your life
And it's fine
Eleanor, could you find
Some of the orange warm light
Or maybe make it mine

If you could try
I hope you will sleep tonight
But if you don't that's just fine
Because you've got yours
And I've got mine
To Eleanor.

— The End —