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Kathryn Houghton Jul 2010
I love the thought of a big city
People at my elbows
And buildings licking the sky

I love the thought of a secluded town
Silence at my ears
And mist clouding my eyes

I want a cityscape
I want a mountain range
I want neon nights
I want just moonlight

I want to live
Breathe smog
Breathe fog
Saltwater and fish
Gasoline and garbage

A city
A town
A life
In both.
I want them.
Kathryn Houghton Jul 2010
I voyaged through pink-bubble oceans
filled my nose with peppermint-sea air
spotted a sudsy blue whale

I fought through shampoo-froth rapids
with my trusty back-scrubber oar
spotted floundering soap-bottle salmon

I floated on spicy still-waters
wash-cloth water-weeds tickling feet
spotted a squawking rubber duck

I sat in chilly bath-water
scents long faded into nothing
spotted an old bobbing sponge.
Kathryn Houghton Jul 2010
Day and night
Embrace a world together,
But never each other.
All that one will ever see
Is a glimpse of fleeing back
That sets desire penetrating both skies.
They plan together without speaking, without seeing,
To crush the world cradled between them
So that they might mesh together,
End this unwilling chase
And satisfy eons of longing;
But when that happens
They look upon each other,
Only to find that they are the same;
There is no more night
No more day.
The chase is over,
But the longing remains.
Kathryn Houghton Aug 2010
I don’t know rattling gunfire terror
Sand in eyes when sight is key

I’ve never had life flow
From my best friend onto my fingertips

I’ve never killed a stranger
Or hated one enough to seriously consider it

I haven’t watched metal angels soar
Releasing exploding flowers from their bellies

I don’t wake cold sweaty drenched
Long after the battle has ended

I don’t see faces endless faces
Imagine lives that do not live

I don’t want any of this
I’ll probably never have any of this

I won’t know it
I won’t live with it

So why
Should they?
I've been doing some thinking lately.
Kathryn Houghton Sep 2010
Cavern mouths spill
waterfall words
and they all end up
pooled in one place;
in that place little
fishy thoughts grow
and they slip down
other waterfalls and
grow again in great
word pools filling from
waterfalls flowing from
messy cavern mouths.
Kathryn Houghton Oct 2010
i want to follow my Heart
But i am afraid
That if i let the reins go
It will catapult me
Straight through the clouds
And into the Sun
Where i will disappear
In a sad little wisp
Of insignificant smoke
Kathryn Houghton Jul 2010
“d’ya see it yet?”
“no, no, swing harder!”
Tink tink TINK TINK
“A hole! Hit there!”
SLAM! Crumbling
Falling through
Landing soft on
Nothing
“Her head-”
“There’s nothing in here!”
Skeptic now
Of their own minds
“there should be
An entire world in here!”
Banging at their skulls
“is that how ours are?”
Picks through their own bones
They look into empty worlds
“anything in mine?”
“nothing!”
“yours, too!”
Climbing from the shell
Cracking others open
“there must be
A thought in one of them
For us to live on”
Splitting into white
Finding only white
Staring in dismay
At all the wasted gateways
Kathryn Houghton Jul 2010
A room full of aliens
I feel too warm
They are staring
I swallow dry
Walk up
“Hello. I’m Katie.”
They don’t eat me
I feel better
It seemed appropriate, given this site's name :)
Kathryn Houghton Dec 2010
How deep is the Ocean
Is
Seven miles
Deeper than my deepest thoughts?
Does the lack of light
Breed as much darkness
As I can in
A single night?
Are there creatures there
So heinous that I
Couldn’t even
Dream of dreaming them up?
What mysteries
What horrors
Could lie in a land
More alien
Than the moon?
I think this is
Why the Ocean
Terrifies me
And why I’ll never swim
In open water
With a billion tons
Of blackness
beneath my feet.
Kathryn Houghton Aug 2010
Floating on open sea
the thought excites me
but I am a coward;
falling through open air
that I could do
for I can see the bottom
Kathryn Houghton Aug 2010
I AM GOING TO WIN, I AM GOING TO WIN, I AM GOING TO WIN, I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON
THIS ROCKS MY SOCKS MAN
BECAUSE I AM THE BEST AND I
DID IT I DID IT I DID IT
YES I DID
YES
I AM THE VICTOR
I HAVE ACHIEVED IT
AND I THANK
PEOPLE
WHICH PEOPLE?
I DON’T KNOW
EVERYBODY, HOW BOUT THAT
A LITTLE PIECE OF GRATITUDE
TO CARRY AROUND IN YOUR WALLET
AND SHOW TO THE PERSON
STANDING AT THE ****** OVER
AND HE WON’T PUNCH YOU
BECAUSE HE IS SHOWING YOU HIS LITTLE PIECE OF GRATITUDE TOO
YOU CAN HAVE A GRATITUDE PARTY
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS
INVITE STRANGERS
INVITE THOSE PEOPLE WHO GO AROUND
IN THOSE GIANT STREET CLEANERS AT NIGHT
BECAUSE THEY LIKE TO HAVE FUN TOO
AND WHEN EVERYONE HAS COME TOGETHER
WITH ALL THEIR LITTLE PIECES OF GRATITUDE
THEY WILL MERGE TOGETHER
AND MAKE THE ULTIMATE THANK YOU
AND IT WILL BLOW YOUR MINDS
AND YOUR SOCKS TOO
SO YOU’LL BE STANDING AROUND MINDLESS AND SOCKLESS
AND I WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD
AND MAKE EVERYONE WALK BAREFOOT IN THE SNOW
AND THEY WILL LISTEN
BECAUSE THEIR MINDS HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO BITS
YOU SEE
AND THEY WILL DO WHATEVER I TELL THEM TO
SO I WILL MAKE THEM FORM A PEOPLE HOUSE
FOR ME TO LIVE IN
AND IT WILL BE THE STURDIEST HOUSE
THAT WHEN AN EARTHQUAKE COMES
IT WILL ONLY SHAKE IT LIKE JELLO
AND JELLO IS GOOD SO THAT IS NOT A PROBLEM
AND THIS MY FRIENDS
IS WHY YOU MUST NEVER THANK ANYONE
BECAUSE THEN YOU BECOME
SLAVES
Just nonsense.
Kathryn Houghton Jul 2010
What should go at the top?
This is agonizing;
I need a sum,
Quick but brilliant,
Of what lies inside.
Oh, look,
It's perfect now,
but I've left out
the insides.
Kathryn Houghton Jul 2010
There is music
Made of goosebumps and wide eyes;
When my mind is ragged
I breathe in the sounds
And let them smooth out the edges,
pick my thoughts
Up off the ground
Launch them high
And let them soar
Through the blankness of the clouds
Past the suffocating heat of the atmosphere
Out of unknown darkness,
And into that one place
Where they can find
The smallest bit of perfection.
Kathryn Houghton Dec 2010
My heart belongs to myself
Right now that much is true
But lately I’ve been thinking
Perhaps it should belong to you
You walk by and it hiccups
You talk to me and it sighs
It’s telling me it wants you
And my heart rarely lies.
Kathryn Houghton Jul 2010
I had a dream last night
It started just grand
A rescued baby gurgling in my arms

It skipped to me behind the wheel
(I’ve never really driven, so it was cool)
Riding home to a sad gray house

I went through the white door
The quiet should have made me shiver
I went into baby’s room

She sat in her high chair
Blue eyes gone gray
I choked on the sight of it

I reached for her face
The skin was brittle
I opened my mouth

And
             I
                  Screamed
It was the worst nightmare I've ever had.
Kathryn Houghton Oct 2010
There is a child starving
Save your soul and drop a penny in the box
Leftover from your super-sized meal.
Kathryn Houghton Sep 2010
I look up
At higher faces
Suspended in
Disastrous places
Their eyes don’t blink
They cannot see
Their mouths, they gape,
And scream at me!
I’m terrified
And now I find
With a tremble
That I too am blind!
I can’t feel the ground
I must be in the air
I sense wary eyes,
And know they must stare.
My mouth hangs wide
Flies catch on my tongue
And to those below
My words must be sung.
When the wind starts to gust
I belt out my song
The air around me trembles
When it reaches the throng,
And now they have joined us,
In these disastrous places
Forming so perfectly
A sky of blind faces!
This poem might be included in a book I am compiling for my senior project, so any help at all in editing it would be much appreciated!
Sun
Kathryn Houghton Jul 2010
Sun
Fingers reaching out
Getting close, brushing the sun
So warm, then they melt
Kathryn Houghton Aug 2010
The night creeps upon them
Its fingers slipping into their mouths
“Shh,” it traces over slack lips

The night kisses eyes bloodshot and heavy
Softly mouths them closed
“Sleep,” it drips between eyelashes

The night embraces paralyzed bodies
Massages away the dead weight
“Relax,” it flows through stiff limbs

The night settles upon their heads
Floats in through their ears
“Dream,” it releases into waiting minds

— The End —