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 Dec 2014 Liz Delgado
Devon Webb
We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.
It's worth it though.
 Dec 2014 Liz Delgado
curlygirl
Find a Poet Not a poser, not a "it's just a hobby" poet. Find one who mumbles lines as they scramble for a pen at breakfast; who shakes their head randomly when their thoughts aren't rhyming properly;  who has notebooks stashed around the house that you must never touch.
2. Listen Savor the spoken words, for those are harder to express. Keep in mind that they can't be edited and re-written, and be forgiving when a mistake is made.
3. Read The body speaks as loudly as words on a page do. When their eyes are closed or focused on the ceiling and the fingers are tapping out syllables, recognize the unique process. Respect the need for quiet, because if you look closely, you can read the poem on their face before they write it on the page.
4. Write Write your story together. Grab hold of the pen and hang on as you move across the page of life. Sometimes you will dance across, others you will be dragged. You may have to cross out a word, or a line, or a page, but don't give up. Discouragement is a poet's biggest enemy, inarticulateness their biggest fear. So end each day with a semi-colon, because the story will never end the way you think it will, and there must be room for more. There is always room for more, more words, more laughter, more tears, more love,
When you love a poet.
You may not have been birthed in the soil,
and granted,
you will not blossom
when spring melts winters wake
but inside of you
grows a thousand gardens
full of exploding stars.
You are of the earth
and your ashes
have been constructed with stardust,
and set free with the wind.
So you may not have a pretty face,
and your body may hold stories
of too many moonless nights alone.
But if you reach inside,
you will find a forest
for a ribcage
and a restless ocean heart.
So don't ever let anyone tell you
you are nothing.
You are a galaxy
holding a million different planets,
and my dear,
that is not nothing.
 Aug 2014 Liz Delgado
amie
i.
i know that the ear is connected to the nose and the nose is connected to the throat and the throat is connected to the mouth
which is probably why, when we kiss, i hear symphonies
and when i hear "i love you" travel from your lips to my ear
i taste bliss on the tip of my tongue

ii.
i read somewhere that smell is most strongly attached to memory
this means that i will keep your t shirt forever, and maybe your shampoo, too
apparently photographs are not enough

iii.
someone told me that it is not the eyes, but the brain that sees
eyes are just transmitters
but what i see in front of me must be love because it does not register with my mind at all
but my heart translates it beautifully for me
it knows exactly why its own beat becomes erratic when you enter my thoughts
it knows exactly what's going on in this tenement of flesh i call my body

iv.
they say that the last of the five senses is not touch, but equilibrium
which is probably why, when i don't feel your hands in mine
when there is air and not skin
my whole world is off-kilter
i know what it means to fall in love
This isn't about anyone in particular, just what I feel like love would feel if I ever get to feel it.
 Aug 2014 Liz Delgado
Sarah Spang
He is the tumultuous ocean,
The twisting, rolling sea
That feigns a certain gentleness
Until its rage breaks free

So vast and so unending
And limitless in worth
I took him once for granted
As I wandered through the surf.

Without the tumulus ocean
Without its rolling seas
Without the tide that tosses me
And never sets me free

The arid, fallow earth would crack
Beneath my burning feet
Reminding me of which I lost
And dried up with the heat

But salt leaves me to languish
No sweetness he can quench
Time will only tell from here
If love can fill this trench.
I think the scent of bug spray on my palms will now forever remind me of you and the late night (early morning) we spent sitting in your car, drawing awfully unskillful portraits on the back of each other’s hands in 
dim light and 3 a.m. stillness. (I wonder if you could tell that doodling on your skin was just an excuse to touch you.) I wanted so badly to let my fingers find yours 
as we laid back in our seats 
and peeked out the rolled down 
windows at the infinite stars scattered above us in the 
early August night sky. I told you I wouldn’t kiss you, 
because I know my heart and 
how relentlessly it would 
replay how your lips felt on mine, and how it would ache knowing
 you couldn’t be mine,
 so I let you kiss my cheek instead,
 and the half a moment that I felt 
your unshaven face brush mine in the middle of the street at five in the morning feels like a fake memory. When you looked at me, I wanted to hide, because I was too afraid to read what words might’ve been written in your eyes, but I felt so content listening to the 
deep tone of your voice 
mix with the obnoxiously loud crickets singing in the trees 
surrounding us. I could’ve sat there with you till the stars disappeared and the sun took their place, but you walked me back home, and you left in the dark, and now I’m sitting in my bed thinking about how the hours between 2 and 5 a.m. have never felt so full.
Love is a 4 letter word that i refuse to believe because of the way i saw my mom break when my dad walked out
Because of 1 syllable that can destroy every bit of a beating heart
Love is a 4 letter word that i refuse to believe because in 3rd grade when my best friend told me he loved me he stabbed me in the back and stole my favorite pencil

Because love feels god when lips are touched and promises are made but what about when tears shed or when the first boy who says he "loves" you kisses your best friend and lies like a coward leaving ur heart ripped and shredded
Love IS cruel and  love IS rude and boastful

Love is why piggy back rides and video games are so fun and why two dollar burritos and mountain dew taste so good
but Love is also why falling off your bike hurts so bad or why failing the only test you studied all night for kills your gpa
Love takes away pain but then shoves it right back into your wounds

Love is a 4 letter word i refuse to believe because of the way I see the  old couple walking down the street and I'm scared that won't ever happen to me
I wanted to write a poem about flowers, so that's what I did.
It was short, expressed how I feel, and cut like glass.
I showed my father "Flowers" and he thought it was mediocre.
And I said, "No, "Mediocre" is the poem where I talk about dying,
and I'm trying to stay alive, so I wrote about flowers."

Flowers strangling soil plots with their roots, with their existence.
And to hurt something you love with your existence is a terrible feeling.
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