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Most of the time,
I find it difficult to harvest
the proper words from the curve of my neck
where the skin dips down
and shakes hands with my chest.  
The fine hairs raise and fall,
the color of wheat,
exhaling what others want and inhaling what I need.
In,
out,
in,
out.
Using my primitive tools,
I rip
the necessary parts of speech
from my throat
and use the so called precious arterial mud
that is equatable to manure
to fertilize my lungs
so that although I am dead,
my voice
is
not.

Sometimes,
I can pluck
proper phrases
from my eyebrows;
I can hunt them
through the tall grass that sits
upon my livid plains.
I imagine my pencil
is a spear
and try not to look
when the graphite
pierces their pure bodies,
killing the meaning
as yet another mediocre artist
paints them upon the lines of his notebook,
wounding
the effect words have on the world
because if they are used too often,
they mean nothing at all.

Occasionally,
my ink pen
forms a circle of deep blue
into which I can cast my line
and retrieve the perfect letter from a sea of ephemeral pieces.
I am merely part
of a larger industry
that traps
the delicate curves
of spines
and sharp points
of serifs
nestled between ascenders
and shoulders
into nets
made from blue lines on bleached paper.  
I desperately cling
to the descenders
that hang past the edge of the cliff
because by God I will not die
even if it means shooting something as beautiful as that
which I rely on to keep me afloat.

However,
there are times,
when that is too much effort -
too much exertion required of my small, inadequate equipment,
I am left
to abandon the ink-laden sea,
to discard my fields of words and phrases
in search
of a way
to pull the plug
at the bottom of the bathtub in my brain
and watch as the opaque,
grimy,
filth-ridden water circles
around
and
around,
exposing things
I never knew were there.  
In those milliseconds
where the contaminants drain away
and there is complete transparency,
I find what I am looking for
before I am even certain
what I needed in the first place.
Published in ASGARD Literary Magazine, 2014.  Received a Scholastic Silver Key, 2014.
Anxiety is not
Only sweaty palms and racing thoughts

It's thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and thoughts and oh my god I need to stop but I can't because if I do what if my world stops too?

Anxiety is not
Finishing things
Because there are things and things and things and things and
That need to be done and you can't just stop at one.

Anxiety is depression's friend
The friend that springs you out of bed fifteen minutes before your alarm, wrenching you from depression's arms and shattering your sadness.
But upon impact with the floor,
Your feet are cemented down and your goals are just out of reach because god you have the will power and you swear you're trying but why can't you be perfect and perfect and perfect and perfect.

Anxiety is the feeling
That pushes and pushes and pushes and pushes and pushes
Until it pushes you over the cliff
And you land amongst the lives anxiety has claimed that litter the bottom of the canyon that surrounds you and stops you from achieving what you wanted because god forbid you're actually trying.
Published in ASGARD Literary Magazine, 2014.  Received a scholastic Silver Key in Poetry, 2014.
When I
Am in a manic
State
I cannot
Form complete
Thoughts
And usually forget things
That

I feel
Extremely alive
But also dead
Completely immune
To
Pain
And
Defeat
And

My mother
Says to take
My
Medication
But
It doesn't help
Me

Food is useless
It doesn't...
Stay...
Down.

I can't
Go outside
Without screaming
And
And
And
What was I saying?

I am afraid
That if
I step
Incorrectly
The pavement will shatter and so will my foot and I will be unable to

Father mother sister brother
Help me
B1
The color of a slightly tipsy tongue peeling my resolve from my own is that of a winter morning
-- clear and concise in its purpose,
Sending signals to my brain, which, in response,
Transmits slight shivers down my spinal cord,
Raising the fine hairs
Along my smooth skin
--the same relaxed, whispy, ***** that covers tense, terse, and trembling muscles.

The sound of a shirt being pushed
Out of the way;
The sound of pants already crumpled,
Settled,
On the carpet my mother cleans.
That sound that represents
Everything I've ever wanted from nothing
But can not accurately depict
Anything I've wanted from one thing in particular.

Because you are special and
You make me want
And
You make my body tense and
My words short and
My lips loose.
Loose so as to open and receive your secrets given
In
False
Drunkeness
--to allow your breath to absolutely fill
My lungs
As you drag me down beneath the surface
And into the dark.

We are not blind.

Our nerves spark in the darkness,
The area devoid of any light source
save for those that arise from the
friction of skin against skin
and mind against mind,
Ideas crashing and banging together
As they
Escape
From our mouths
During our futile resistance to anything logical
Or rational,
Our selves piloted by the thought of
Unfathomable numbers and equations
That led to this moment
When our bodies feel everything
And our minds feel
Nothing.

We are naked before the eye of the God neither of us believe in.
Published in ASGARD Literary Magazine, 2014.  Received a Scholastic Silver Key in 2014.
Words
words to say
words to say for those who possess a quiescent soul
vibrations forming into susurrus breathes,
spun by Love.
Love is an oxymoronic, overly celebrated,
seemingly sempiternal happening that is eternally ephemeral,
lasting
a
very
short
t
i
m
e.
Love speaks with words that no matter how
dis-joint-ed
sound wonderfully euphonious -
a sonic euphoria
a billet-doux made from absolutely nothing
but
the very
rawness
of being absolute.
Love is a little more than
chimerical.
Love is a clinquant aubade that requires redamancy.

redamancy.

Love requires love to exist in it's eternal shortness,
to exist
in the mere seconds that are allowed
to exist in the ephemeral time frame of a blip in space
of decades and decades that no one will rememeber and that will not matter to the masses
and
will mean
absolutely nothing to everyone else except
for the one that is awake enough to look directly at
Love.
Quiescent - a quiet, soft-spoken soul.
Chimerical - merely imaginary; fanciful.
Susurrus - a whispering or rustling sound.  
Clinquant - glittering; tinsel-like.
Aubade - a song greeting the dawn.
Ephemeral - lasting a very short time.
Sempiternal - everlasting; eternal.
Euphonious - pleasing; sweet in sound.
Billet-doux - a love letter.
Redamancy - act of loving in return.
I am so hungry
For new words and new musings
I’ve tired of mine.
I’m always starving
For the sweet sounds of your tongue
I miss all of you.
I’m lusting after
Your late night curves and comforts
You, everyday.
I am craving you
The peaceful quiet after
A night of laughter.
I am in love with
You you you you you you you
You you all of you.
Do you understand now?
That I’m tired if all this?
Hearing myself speak?
You are so quiet
Received an Honorable Mention from Scholastic, 2014.
1
The pavement is full of spurious persons,
Training each other to pretend they're eclectic,
Using differences to assert the vilification of mankind.

Cross from them stands the truth,
Perspicaciously watching
The hedonists
Be not heedful,
Listening to their speeches full of trifling, inconsequential consequences.

A furtive plan snakes from the mouth to the ears of the truth,
Manipulating it to bolster the lies.

The belief that everyone deserves rights
Akin, alike, homogeneous, to the human nextto him,
Is brought down with the laud, the praise, the inception of the end.
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