Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
1.0k · Jan 2013
Alex
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2013
When you were a little girl, did you think love was an easy concept to grasp? Didn't it make you laugh the way that everyone said,
"It's undefinable, it's complicated, it's the root of so much pain"?
When I was a young boy, I used to sift through sand looking for the broken beer bottles
Because I wanted to try and find beauty in something horrible.

So I have done for years.
I've lied, cheated, stolen... sometimes from my own family members.
I used to assume I could pop into your life any time
Like a bad father
And you'd come running into my arms.
Just like a bad father.

When I left you standing at the altar, dressed like June Carter
I remember wishing I could have altered my timeline
So I could be Johnny for real, and we could make it big
People could start writing our names on jail cell walls
"R.I.P. Alex and Sidney"

These are the days where I scatter papers around my room
Pinholes in the carpet from relight after relight
Trying to find the right words to say
To convince you that I'm not the same as I used to be.
I've seen my own eyes gazing at me without a mirror
I've seen galaxies screaming at me and exploding

You pull my heart-strings.
You separate my anxieties.
You are the little bit of crazy within me
And when I let it out it's all sadness and wine
But when you let go, you're just a sugar plum fairy.
You dance and you sing and you laugh like I were a comedian.

Oh, that's right, I am a comedian.

Well, if my job is to make people laugh
Then my last laugh would be you.
This is a bad time, I know
But I still would do anything to rewrite our history.

I can wait a year if you want to run your course
Maybe you'll stay in our little town.

But this poem is to tell you
Your clothes should be in my laundry.
996 · Jan 2011
Barefoot Conflagration
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
It is the time of a paranoid season
We'll smile and laugh for your appeasement.
Hands over your ears to block out reason.
How dare you claim I've sworn to treason!
You are nameless word on every mouth.
When you speak, our eyes fly south.
And what the flying **** are you singing about?
Your quality's dimmed and now you simply shout.

I can hear your falsetto cracking.
Your clear, dim eyes boring. Your
Gravel voice, gargling black tar,
Speedballs shining in the whites
Of your nose.
Glancing my direction,
As if you didn't notice...

Clear your ******* throat,
And quit avoiding my face.
We all love your bitter ways.
We all smile at your irrelevancies (gun to head), but
You stress the importance of falsehood,
By laughing with the best of us the rest of us.

I can see right into your skull,
You don't make it difficult.
How dare you speak once
(And only once)
On such blasphemous shame.

Are you having trouble sleeping?
I laugh at the idea of you tossing and turning.
Is that why you're always drinking,
Does it help you to suppress thinking?

You are a person with no shadow, no outline
No nucleus, no carbon make-up.
Just fire.

You are a lost cause,
Burning.

And you've trained us to turn away when you scream.
989 · Mar 2011
Genius Scars
Ryan Bowdish Mar 2011
Your nose scrunches up in normal conversation. It makes you look a little bit like a piglet.
Trust me, that may sound like a backhanded compliment, but it's adorable.

When you yawn, you sound like you want to cry.
Nothing freer than you transposing your tears for the sake of singing sad songs,
To Children you've never met, as if you've never slept.
We're both a little too sure about what we eat, and
The times you sit on your hands are the days when your guts moan...

[Others would call these imperfections, but the little things are always the best parts...
Birds flapping their wings (hollow arm-bones)
Tree-roots burrow and anchor (lungs)
Grass pets your eyes]

Always busy, the words form on the tip of our toes, everything I say
Is written with our silhouettes.
Outlines pigment the natural world...
Like a horror-show,
Hallways stretch for hours
(I can not currently see out this window).

Your open sockets spill waterfalls of true understanding from a crimson sunset of genius scars,
Like open wounds of the best silence, only the sound of teeth clashing
Between stretching lips
You hook your palms into my cheeks, bones creak
Gazes reflecting thoughts, unity in unmerited shame,
Our legs conversing softly, hair intertwined (snakes on our necks), and all night...
I keep playing a triplet between your ribs
A simple arpeggio archway under moans from dead skin in light,
I hold you by the red skin, carve you, for just one moment
Until we're living art. Skin static, roots spreading wings.

No expiration date for us, just a point when our bodies no longer parallel
But after that, we speak in clouds
We paint murals for each other in abandoned city parking lots
Or empty train halls.
The moon is our vanishing point,
All eyes on craters.

My language is something undiscovered to me,
I don't know if I want to let all these words go.
You mean Reincarnation to me,
Some jaw of life, some whale's mouth.
I am snow.

Everything loses focus but the stars...

Like teenagers.
985 · Dec 2012
Picking Ribs
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2012
Her body. She scowls.
She counts the calories on the bottles.
She waits a few months between binge drinking...
That way she doesn't overextend her choleric intake.

She eyes me in such a way
That I can't tell if she's ***** or angry.
We both take another drink and we let
The best pieces of ourselves rot away.

She brings the flashlight under covers
Her smile is just water refractions
The room begins to fill with jewelry
Nothing between the bed and we.

I'm so alive with you nearby.
You make me want to die sometimes.
I wish that we could start a life.
You make me wish I could still cry.

I will think of you when I sleep tonight.
I'll hope that these next 3 years go by.
Without you I just might fly
But there would be no reason why.

I love you
You **** me
I love you
You **** me
I love you
You **** me
I love you
You **** me
I love you (You **** me)
I love you (You **** me)
I love you (You **** me)
I love you (Please **** me)
951 · Dec 2010
#50
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2010
#50
The one that balanced out the flag.
The Aloha state, palm trees glinting and feathered
Like a heart, to a streetlight, tethered.

This is where your intelligence hides
While you lay inside an empty motel
Nothing but the smell of gunpowder
And sweat, and her tears on the barrel.

Who are these people? They keep breaking down the walls.
I don't know if they're fighting or making love,
These Days,
which is to say,
has there ever been much of a difference anyway?

Ice being shuffled by a small, Spanish woman
Who moves silently between doors
Crowing like a bird, to keep the house
Clean, raw, like her hands.
Strands of hair hanging loosely in front of her forehead
Dangling like your fingers in front of my face
Trying to take hold on my thoughts.

The machine hums a steady frequency
And makes ice
She thinks of the power box outside your Hawaiian home.
The emptiness is humbling.
Heatwaves are rolling along like leaves would
If there were any trees to drop them.

The body among the bed, lying in a heap
Of loose teeth and lost sleep
Of licked feet and low upkeep

When the clock strikes, you can't hear it.
All you know is the sun turns white.
And the coyotes begin to howl and whine
Under the black skylight.
The date is December 11, 2010. Please leave feedback.
950 · Dec 2010
Everclear Angel
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2010
I want to tear you away from the clouds
From the ballfields way away from here
To scream right at your face in violins
And swelling horns and drums crashing
Choirs crying out a deafening triumph!

You would be blinded by your own tears
And your smile would light up this passage of time
Galaxies would burst open with our hesitation
We come closer and closer, clouds explode
Three suns are yours, eyes and mouth
Enwrapped in snow, we'd clasp and dig holes
In each other's backs.

I want to grab hold of your ribcage
I want to open my door and fly under six feet
At the force of your body totaling mine
Your lips breaking my teeth
Our tongues tied.

Bones bleeding into one another
Color receding...

Your initials in the sky
Title biting
Fall into my chest...
Seraph, succubus,
Everclear angel.
Emission of Massive Art Allah
941 · Jan 2013
Laid
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2013
When I started up, I had no arms
When I woke up, my thoughts had formed
I tried to sleep, but whispers were bold
I tried to sing, but my lips were cold

Levers pulled and starter guns
Fired
Severed from the earth and
Retired

Though I was young, you said I was smart
Irony stung, for fool is my art
I try to **** your dreams in my words
I try to fake a burn in your fur

Never scream and never try
To laugh
I only see you when you split
In half
Levers pulled and starter guns
Fired
Severed from the earth and
Retired

Scream for me, would you please just
Inscribe my tombstone for me?
Like stories of your fetus
You lay your eyes upon me
My chest splits open and my
Legs come back to me slowly
I see you from the inside
And you compress my body
Lay me!

Lay me!
Lay me!
Lay me!
913 · Jan 2011
All Your Pretty Flaws
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
The most beautiful and perfectly straight teeth
They're really quite misleading considering what's underneath,
Yet, quite a metaphor for you.
Your body perfectly angled and beautifully carved
With perfect little problems and all your pretty flaws.
You're mad and I love you.
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2014
And when the world turns I laugh like it's my last chance (to laugh again)
And when the drums play I find another who wants to bury their last dance (in burning sand)

She's gonna say no!
She's going to go!
She wants to throw
Your hard work out in snow!

And then you think that maybe you had gone too fast (and then you laugh again)
Because when marriage is the primary topic (maybe you're not)

A MAN.
Where has my will gone, Lord, I implore you?
I know I don't believe but I need answers while I beg for them!
The world says if I help myself I'll hear you!
So maybe it's all my fault when it comes to the end!

So I won't ask again.
Strike me right the hell down
If I ask..............................................................­............


IF I ASK...

To be alone
To understand what home is
To truly own
What I desire to be what hope is
To disown
The undeniable things I wish were unspoken
To enclose
The letters that my heart always wrote and

Burned.
Burned,
And burned.
Burned.
Burned (let's learn the error of our ways)
Burned (Sometimes I wish it were another day!)
And burned (There are lives I wish I could have swayed)
Burned (But the world never stays the same!)

BURNED (We left ourselves out by the temple gate)
BURNED (We led ourselves into a different same)
BURNED (We thought that it would be some other name)
BURN IT ALL (We laugh until the entrance to the gates)

Someday you will see
I am not the man you always feared I would be
Someday you will believe
I am the man you left in indecision.
Someday you will see
I am the person that you hoped you would be
And that day you will see
I raised a flag in what I thought we were truly

But sometime's I'm wrong.
886 · Mar 2013
The Story Thus Far...
Ryan Bowdish Mar 2013
I'm clinging constantly to consciousness
For some reason tonight it seems like I can't
Seem to shake that feeling like
The world is all falling apart
While I am wasting away my life
Seconds thundering in my mind
Like droplets from a broken pipe
The roof caves in from water damage...

All I do these days is work, does that sound about right?
Am I hitting a little too close to home here for those of us who can't sleep at night?
I stress until my tears are shed until my eyes are bled until my lungs are dead
People around us are turning to thieves day after day, taking countries by storm
Hopping trains, eight-week vacations, nine hundred thousand dollar sensations!
It's aching, it's agonizingly tiring and ironic because my mind is still screaming
Full speed ahead, she said, the book read, but I still fell sore into my cold bed
Because I can't convince myself to stop caring, but I just can't summon what it takes to be angry anymore.

As our founding fathers said before us,
"Nothing's gonna change my world."
876 · Aug 2010
Equal Lip R.E.U.M.
Ryan Bowdish Aug 2010
A [R]ainbow [E]cstacy [U]nderneath [M]e
Such beauty in the colors that I see
Because in this crowd of gray uniformity
You're my daily dose of purple and green

Come find me
I'm hiding.
Let's play
I'm deciding
On fighting
Or flying
Or spying
Or dying.

Come play dead, be my glorious Mrs. possum
Where we'll strip the snakes skinless
And wash ourselves in this river of red
Endless red, it's all I see, besides you and me.
Three orange suns set to raise a yellow one
Bringin green grass back to who are shunned
And blue skies will forever grace our face
As Equal Lips lock in this endless purple craze.

What's this, my dear?
You say I missed something?
Indigo, you say? Oh no, no, no.
For indigo was the color of your hair.
847 · Jan 2011
From Crystal Peaks
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
I'm miscarrying. I'm losing a Child I could never have.
I expected an abortion and what I got was a second trimester.

I feel like everything beautiful I could ever say to you,
Everything that could truly add up to your worth,
You already know, and I have never even said them...
Except with my eyes. All I want is to have
And to hold.

I feel you have always known me.
Like a little piece of what I am has always been in you
And everything you are has somehow sunk into my
Conscience, my soul. When I am around you,
I feel I have a soul. Remember? An entity. It's really there.
People like you make me hope hope hope TO GOD that there is a Heaven
People like you make me pray pray PRAY to someone I don't KNOW that we, as a species, can finally transcend and become something MORE.
People like you make me BELIEVE that there is a possibility
That humans can be the epitome of goodness, and tenderness, and responsibility, and care, and equality, and pensive, and love.

I'm honest. Everything will be fine for me:
It's fine that I'll cry
It's fine that I'll feel depressed
It's fine that I'll feel unwanted
It's fine that I'll feel neglected
And rejected, and pitied, and inadequate...
Because these are all normal human emotions.

But before this happens, what about...
How long we can gaze at each other?
What about how perfect our skin feels aligned?
What about what those moments made you say?
Remember the contentment? The beauty in us
Just being there?
What about you wanting it more than I did?
What was all this? A precursor to a let-down?
A build-up and a sudden realization of the fact that we are two separate people who feel completely comfortable as a single whole and you can't handle that right now?
Because I could understand that.
And I would still be here for you.

But for the record...

I feel like if this universe were to open up right now
And time melted and disintegrated into dust
And oceans began screaming and violins exploded
And swans sang choruses with choked voices
And volcanoes erupted, and bombs fell, and echos stopped
And all the bells in the world forgot how to ring,
That my last dying wish would be to run as fast as I could
To find you. And then I would hold you.
And I would hold you as this world collapsed.
I would hold you until my hands grafted into your skin
I would hold you until we were but skeletons arm in arm
Splitting into thousands of pieces from shock waves
I would ****** your spine with my fingers until they collided
Until the world split directly in half
I would rewrite constellations to spell your name, PROUDLY
I would cry blood into your soul and you would know what I REALLY FEEL.
I would squeeze you so hard that you would HAVE to understand and tell yourself,
"These are the very last moments I will live."
And, without speaking, my lips would reply,
"SO LIVE THEM WELL."
These words everyone has wanted to shout at some point or another.

**Definitely inspired by Buddy Wakefield**
845 · Feb 2013
The Fates Drive Me To Sleep
Ryan Bowdish Feb 2013
Stay over me
I feel you on the water
You converge with my faces
We have no space between

Work your way over my chestplate
Earn me with your stressed delay
Trust me when I keep you safe
I hold you here and dear when you're awake

Leave me to rest
Then you come back along to sing
With my body, you make the world scream
And I rewrite myself in you

So don't use me with the limelight
Like everyone has found in hindsight
I don't need another blindside
I need reanimating twilight

(starlight) to be aligned with you
(streetlights) to be aligned with you
(lifelines) to die inside with you
(hold on) to grow side by side with you

Who will be the one to claim me?
Who will be the one to slay me?
Will the music that I make end up making me?
When will there be lucidity for me?
843 · Jan 2011
Simple Truth
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
I love you...

Like women's children love laughing,
Like misery loves company,
Like we love crying,
Like women love their children...

Like ladders love painters,
Like brushes love canvas,
Like the pen loves paper,
Like the world loves Atlas...

Like bitterness loves constant dwelling
Like a housecat loves warm napping
Like soothsayers love the act of telling
Like women love their children, who love laughing.
831 · Aug 2013
tree top
Ryan Bowdish Aug 2013
put off on the sweat
There's something nauseous in my ****
United in the vertices and acid
The axis lamenting and venting
Sitting us out, putting it's mouth
Over you, over me and sorting
Tongue slide around move the mind without
Youthful thoughtful private number one

Exhumed adoption and children listless
Why don't you just give it to me?
I'm tired of gliding in this outlook
Let's ****, let's scream our pain out

Bees in needles and nails deflated
You flatten in your pool of stick
You shine in your muffled movements
This is a temple for the primal language
Words annoyed many moons before me
Howl under the eclipse dissolve me within
The translucency of the way we are
I feel it radiate
I can see her crawl
Away catlike in night
Try to spoil this moment
Let me feed you me

Forget hunger and dreams
Let's lose our minds in ecstasy
I'll never return
I'll never call you again.
830 · Oct 2010
Old Golden Statues
Ryan Bowdish Oct 2010
A new day sprays my room with colors
and dust particles and light rays
like underwater sleep and showers.
There are chemicals to be blasted,
jackhammers with holes to pound
into mountainsides

This house looks like you and it was built in my honor.
Every time I climb the stairs, I hold your hand
Every wall, every angle, every archway, every door
They're all your eyes, your lungs, your veins
I revere in your deep colors.

Arms outstretched, a temple flattened
We will make our patterns loud and our faces heard.

I'd rather destroy this landmark than soil it with people
And their idea of success or power or God.
We are God. It's time we shout it.

We may not have every planet. Or the stars
Or the souls and tears of a million followers,
But we have knowledge. We have wisdom.
We have a healthy curiosity for more.

In this, we are the kings of our own world
We wear the crown of daisies and clouds
Muses are alive in every forest, every fence
Every field that we have wandered without sense
Every breath we have taken in this gulch.

When you looked at me, you didn't have to say anything.
I knew you were mine. I didn't have to say it.
And I wouldn't have given you the satisfaction in doing so.

This is a calling for every American soul aching to be free
I yearn for a revolutionary who will hold this man
With this face: no fear, no guilt, no pain
In the face of a billion firing squads,
At the edge of the gallows
With nooses around our necks.

This is a calling for a patriot:
"I threw that statue down the elevator shaft
Because I love you."
You are the most beautiful person I have ever known and I will never stop loving you. Dominique was a saint in her own right. But one must remember never to punish the ego. In the end, it's all one has.
826 · Aug 2010
Stroud
Ryan Bowdish Aug 2010
A small, white crescent line cascades like Niagara  through the window of your empty aura, and it turns. It boils and spins and whirls into a green orb, floating in place with the rest of the order. A ball fastens itself against its red backdrop, splitting ever so slightly with a soft, sullen texture, mixing with the ring to form a landscape so beautiful that I quiver when it slides across my tongue. This is, of course, the ring which slides around your lip, and puts together the sculpture that is your mouth. I start here, my tongue swirling delicately across a pink landscape, breathing and writhing with dewdrops of cherries, cleanly gliding across your upper lip, just below your green glow.

Next I hover above your collarbone, a sharp cut into the line of your chest, just above your breast, just below your neck. I move to caress the lines that form the right side of your neck, just below your jaw line, which I lick and meet the edge of your ear. Here I carefully allow my tongue to swirl with just the right intensity to make your ear warm. Melt in the sound of love, my sweet.

The world shifts downward as I journey to your chest, your strong breastplate serves as a rest point for me to breathe into. This journey is for the Goddess of Everything, and the intensity of this love is forbidden to take for granted. The pure simple shining happiness washes me away as I bite the supple and sensitive area that carves the tip of your breast, which forms, for me, a crescent moon. I caress the wilderness and I embrace God for all the journey has been worth.

The heat bakes into our skin, my hands slide wetly across your waist and my teeth rest around your bones. I withhold the urge to weep at the beauty as I move down. And here we go…I start at your ankles.

And I move

                    All

                                      The way

                                                                             Up.

With my tongue, carving a place to sleep up your thighs, and into your temple. This is where we go to worship. And I worship you.
I grasp and hold with slow breaths and slow thrusts the temple, I hold the center of all goodness and beauty, I am one with the edges of the universe. And you breathe, and breathe, and add to the condensation slowly rolling down my cheeks, and you moan, and you bite, and you lick and sweat and breathe and the fire builds and the heat builds and soon the green is a ROARING RED INFERNO, burning down all that is evil, building from nothing, and creating a kingdom set in flames. The kingdom of heaven. The center of God. I am here, I will never leave. I will sleep, tonight, in your glorious light.
822 · Dec 2010
When I'm in Bad Shape
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2010
Claustrophobia, bouts of depression
An extreme sensation of longing
A sudden realization to the loneliness
A harsh fervor for the idea of loneliness
Bitter repulsion at the self for the loneliness
But when you get over loneliness,

then it's just guilt. and then nothing.
It's worse when you forgot what you did
Or you choose to deny it.
Lying to the self.

That's when I drown.
I need you to be my gills, so I won't drown.
I need you to be the truth, so I can't deny it, so I can **** this guilt.
I need you to be loneliness, so I can crush you.
I need you to be longing, just for me, for a balance.
I need you to be depression, so I can be free
Of claustrophobia.

And then I will swim.
821 · Sep 2010
Sunshine, Utah
Ryan Bowdish Sep 2010
Around a fire laughing like wolves
Nostalgia ran, the wind was cold
Eyes from a shaved head, her shoulders
Glowing in the firelight like a limelight night

Skies of the ocean run around beach-tree eyes
Put your arms on mine, laugh with me
Gaze into your blue eyes and ask why?
Why is your mouth so dry?

Let's go out and get some fresh air!
What's on your mind now?
I bury myself in your red hair
Vaporizing all the clouds

In a cocoon of your pale arms
Like the womb and its charms
You feel wet and red like a lamb
We all wept and fled for the sound.

Lies of the motions around peach-tree thighs
Put your arms on mine, laugh with me
We gaze into our own eyes and ask why?
Why can't I lay with you tonight?

Let's go out and get some fresh air!
What are you thinking about?
Bury myself in your red hair
And forget the shroud

It's all right now. Come close to me.
Let me hold you. Let us sleep.
It's cold right now. Come close to me.
I will warm you. Let us be.
811 · Oct 2012
Been a Long Time Comin'
Ryan Bowdish Oct 2012
So I've been a little hermit lately. Kind of a homebody. Sociophobic.
I have been missing you so much.
I remember we used to be attached at the hip, the soul. Our faces on underpasses.
We had all we could do. It was only you.

Now you act almost like we're different. You act like we just passed each other by.

My acquaintance.
I remember how you smell. Exactly how you smell.
I can never look at a person who shares your name and think of them
"The Usual Way,"
How I Am Supposed To Look At Them.
How I Am Supposed To Look At You.

You don't understand my anguish anymore, do you?
I guess not, but I forgive you. Your life is big, too.
But avoiding the truth won't make it untrue.
We may be young but we've both lost our youth.
This trend is not old, this love is not new.

I miss you. I hate to repeat myself, but...
I really do.

Do you still think of me, too?
I hope so.

Because these signals will never go out.
Those Everlasting moments
Memorized always.
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
Like strings tie us into impossible knots,
No one can pry apart our eye-contact...
And even when you weren't watching,
I was poking holes in your mind.

Distance is only a conceptual nuisance.
But what is distance to us,
When we share a soul?

I feel my heart beat behind your ribs,
I feel the steady tempo of my snare
Within your contrasting veins.

Mixing bodies, forgetting that we each
Have an ending.
All I know is somewhere in the midst of tracing you
There's a fine shadowy line
And then suddenly I'm tracing me.

Or maybe I was just tracing the same person all along.

Your light touch, gliding along my neck...
Air particles, dust wisps
Dead skin from sweating children.

Here's what I will do:
T-shirts and cologne
Hidden away in between your raveled muscles
So when you stretch your legs
You can feel my finger-tips
Tracing your calves
Wrapping around your heels.

And when you're here, bury yourself alive
In my bed. Between the sheets and feathers,
So when I want to cry at your struggle,
I can simply smell you in my clouds.

And when it begins raining,
I can see you leak from my pillowcase.

But once again, what is distance
When our minds stretch across oceans
And our love withstands society?
808 · Jan 2011
Spines & Backbones
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
HE. IS:
A whirlwind of absolute rage and apathy
Cruising through life like a pitfall
Without a place to land.
All these problems, all these horrors,
Mugging, ******, ******, genocide,
Making people pay to live,
Making people believe money is the root of all evil.

When I met you, I wanted to dominate you.
And you wanted that. Is that really right?
Because now all I want is to show you affection.

We would take each other as ******.
We must take each other as we are.
I love you for every single thing you ****** up.
I love you for every single thing you did right.
I love you for understanding I am a child.
And so are you.
We are children, wandering and wondering
What is it we're going to do?
"I can't take care of myself!"
Neither can I! But I can take care of you.
Let's eat.
Let's enjoy it.
Let's not feel disgusting.

Because we're beautiful.
And putridity is wondrous.

I wanted you to hit me so hard.
I wanted your lips to break in mine.
Your teeth are wise, your tongue is buzzing and fluttering.
Your eyes, red and itching,
Burning and running black down your cheeks
Your pupils so large,
Your irises glowing
The whites were just water
Water and salt
And pain

And agony
For him
For you
For me
For our parents and that girl I met when I was ONLY NINE
And alcohol and war and self-loathing
And lack of confidence.

We will cry for everyone we can not fix
And it will be the best thing in the world
Because when we're fixed, we're going to be real adults.
Geniuses.

I hope you don't have to leave.
Because you are strong enough to do this yourself.

And no matter where we go...
No matter what God is watching
(if there is one), I love you.

And ******, I love myself.
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2013
This place is becoming saturated...
Like the radio. The same old songs playing.
Words aren't worth the time to change
Waves and wavelengths.

I can't comprehend mistook madness
Or ignorant sadness
Or glorified suicide
Or justified genocide
Or hesitant trust
Or halfhearted lust
These things all exist
But who's to say they must?

I'm done being nice when I read something like,
"This fire burns so cold, it's like ice"
Or "I need you, baby, I miss you so"
Try a little harder to generate some response
Some actual emotional attachment.

Though I could say I am being a hypocrite,
As the only thing I feel right now
Is Annoyed.
801 · Aug 2010
Ayala
Ryan Bowdish Aug 2010
Sun shimmering highway violin
The eyes of her like clay painted porcelain
The air dry and frosty like moon-dried paint
A face drawn downward into the sand

Centering around the spaces between sounds
A great white somersault and then we lie down
It’s almost hard to sleep when you’re there next to me
It makes me breathe uneasily it makes me want to dry up

Worrying about your preference is way past pointless
A smile so simple and words becoming useless
Thoughts melt and blend into perpetual transcendence
Other people end in infinite dependence

Your voice is so refreshing in a setting so unsettling
A world unforgiving, and yet never forgetting
Concise and not faltering by around-the-bush beatings
All irrelevancies bleeding and restlessness receding

To come at such a time as this is divine.
All I can say is Thank you
For being mine.
788 · Aug 2010
A Dish Served Cold (3-Part)
Ryan Bowdish Aug 2010
PART ONE:
Shifting through the night
Year after year
Carrying the bodies as they
Grin ear to ear
Dancing in the moonlight
The fire in my mind
Ready to burn out as I strive
To keep my sanity alive.

A shovel is the tool I've
Been blackmailed into use
A beating of the skull, I've
Taken the abuse
I'm just a broken hero, I've
Always been able to see
There's no one out there
Truly suitable for me.

But one night, as the stars
Hung themselves from the sky
A woman, I saw in the yard
Tears cold in her eyes
She was wearing a bright white dress
And was rich, the eye could see
So it was no wonder why I took
Such interest in thee.

I stepped gingerly toward her
As her droplets shined bright
And asked why she was weeping
On such a lovely night.
She replied that she was in love
With someone rather bright
But he was poor and unstable
And loving him was a fight.

I asked who this poor man was
For I knew everyone in town
She said she has seen him
In the cemetery, wandering round
His eyes were dark, as was his hair
His nails ***** and clothes brown
As I realized who she described
I told her to turn around.

She looked at me with steel blue eyes
Shining with moon and tears
And I pushed her down unto the ground
And gently bit her ear.
I wiped away her eyes and
Washed her dress clean.
With the tears of my joy
Of which I'd never before seen.

I helped her up from the dirt
And we found we were in love
And that we'd be together
Until the sky fell from above
The graves played us a song
And the spirits smiled down
And they whispered to each other
Their heads whipping round.

We parted ways until today
And I'm off to find her with my rose
We said at ten we'd meet again
And still, she hasn't shown.
I wandered a while after
Back to my graveyard home
When a black coffin rested on the ground
Surrounded by crying crows.

I went to investigate
And see the empty grave
When to my surprise, before my eyes
In the grave, my darling lay
I jumped down to see her
And hold her one more time
When I felt a jolt ...
A bullet in her spine.

For hours I have cried
And felt my heart disappear
For my darling, besides all others
Did not grin ear to ear.
My depression turned to blind fury
And my mind broke into a roar
I swore that whoever guilt bore
Would rot away in my graveyard floor.

PART TWO:
Blurs are appearing in my brain
Blurs are obscuring all my pain
Blurs in the sky are throwing rain
These blurs in my head drive me insane.

Blurs of red splatter on my blade
Blurs stare at me and then turn away
Blurs of white are my guide to day
Blurs in my eyes turn wet and fade.

Blurs in my muscles make me feel weak
Blurs in my chest trickle and leak
Blurs in my care forbid me to speak
Blurs on my clothes stay there for weeks.

Blurs on the doors lead me to you
Blurs through the window tell me it's true
Blurs on my babe's face, black and blue
Blurs in my sanity tell me to **** you.

PART THREE:
Black, gray and red
A combination that's foretold
Many depressing endings
Where a man grows lone and cold.
I ran and I fled
And I tried to hide the body
But I suppose it was inevitable
That they would eventually find me.

I hid under the bed
They busted down my door
And didn't even bother to
Search the whiskey-stained floor
But now I've been found
And deprived of all the sounds
That kept me alive and breathing
That kept me around.

My baby died in bloodshed
For money of many sorts
For poor men with rich lovers
Is love that ends too short
Day by day I try to
**** myself in many ways
Just so I can die
And see some better days.

Red is a boring color
When it's the only one you see
For after all these days of trying
Anger won't leave me
Finally, I've got it!
It's been there the whole time
An asylum patient has to die
A penalty worthy of the crime.

Night by night I plan
And hide the paper in my skull
I'll bury her beside me
I'll fill that empty hole
Beating my own head
With my fists in a padded cell
I've been planning the day
That we overlook this Hell.

The final blood is spilled
They grab my knife and gun
There's no where else to go
There's no where to run
I've been sedated and I've waited
To meet my love again
And in minutes I'll be hung
When the clock strikes ten.

The noose waits for my feet
To collapse and hang beneath me
And I wait for the priest
To put me out of my ******* misery
He sets down the bible,
"Have you last words to say?"
"...Bury me next to Lydia
So I can see her every day."
783 · Aug 2010
Red Face Paint
Ryan Bowdish Aug 2010
A paradigm that changed everyone.
Loving you in my own mind
Following you through my life.
Senseless lust: a twisted crime.
Did you see your own face
Buried in heaven?

A hidden tape shown to everyone.
Seeing life through your eyes
Following death in my time
A revolver: My greatest find.
Can you see your own face
Buried in heaven?

[Bridge:]
You've shown me your voice
Through the style of madness
Our death will be solely my choice
Despite our shared sadness

A desperate heart like everyone's
Feeling madness in my fingertips
Feeling your tongue between my lips
A bomb: Your one-way ticket.
You'll soon see our faces
Buried in heaven
This is about a man who killed himself and tried to send a bomb to Bjork so he could be united with her in heaven.
776 · Jan 2011
Emma
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
Incense and steam listlessly fractal
into air molecules. Keyboards weep,
A typewriter ticks on awkwardly.
The hallway wide awake;
Kids crying.

Letters can't reach you quickly
(I'll write 7 by the time you have 1).
There aren't enough hours in the day.
Phones should be like lions' roars.
I wish I didn't have separated parents.

Hoping you have a full stomach.
I saw your warm bed.
Hoping your ears are covered,
Your back straight, your hands strong
Your grip tight.

I want you back.
Let's make love.
Sketches of you scattered.

Sirens forewarn rescue.
Maybe yours? (Please)

Please be free.
I love you.
775 · Aug 2010
Forcing Love
Ryan Bowdish Aug 2010
I carried her into my house
And I didn't want to wake her
So I carefully ripped her blouse
And removed her rare fur.
I was hungry for pleasure
So I ripped everything else away,
Opened her up and loved her
The tears in my eyes eating me away.

Suddenly, I nearly jumped a mile
When she slowly opened her eyes
And she grunted and they grew wide
So I held her words inside.
Quickly, I showed her my fist
And she replied by softening up
I remember that I was ******
And stopped early, for I was drunk.

She thought her ride was done
And I could see she wanted more
For she was crying to the set sun
But I had none to give her
So I had her sit still and quiet
And went across the hall to
The kitchen, grabbed the knife
And came back to the dark room

The skin was begging for my bite
I decided I had to make it right
And her heart was velvet in the night
Her blood had a taste of great heights.
I was done now, and so was she
But the remnents were a sad sight
So I threw them in and let them freeze
And smelled her soul in the night.
Um... I'm not a ******. Just from the viewpoint of one.
770 · Jan 2011
Us in My Sick Bed
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
Your hands are cold and soothing on my shoulder blades
My head leaking rain buried away from the air raids
I can't sleep anymore, I'm done with the sweating.
You crawl under covers and press your legs into my back
And I stand hunched over every time I get my heart on track
I can't relax anymore, I need a change of setting.

Well we lie among leaves and you rip up the grass
And we douse ourselves in kerosene and try to get there fast.
Everyone we love is putting themselves last,
They're taking off their faces and putting on masks
And if they ever decide that their lives are worth living
We'll be standing idly by just working on forgiving
Ourselves.

Your eyes so gold, they etch themselves into my soul
And here in my sick bed, you warm up my legs until they're full
I can't sleep anymore, I'd rather melt into the floor.
Your hair so smooth emphasizing the beauty of your youth
And here where I feel dead, you wrap me up in blinded truth.
I can't relax anymore, I'd rather pass through your front door.

Well we hug all the trees and kiss with our noses
With my face in your knees and our bodies full of roses.
You whisper in my throat that we're not coming round.
Everyone we love is getting stuck in this town
And if they ever decide that their lives are worth living
We'll be standing idly by just working on forgiving
Ourselves.
for Emma.
766 · Jun 2013
Billy May
Ryan Bowdish Jun 2013
The magnificent stifling of a beating heart,
Supported by the cobwebs of regret and second-guessing,
Can be explained in the song of her drowning irises,
The streams of stellar jays and icicles gleaming.

A moment of weakness is sacred and cathartic,
For minds wander between truth and self-doubt
The pieces of you being put back together
Are letting the rays of your honesty out.

The best days of my lonely nocturnal ways
Were complemented by your steady rays
And though fear has consumed your future in waves
The rose-pedals and ashes are one and the same.

So let yourself lonely this dark summer's night,
Knowing you're only a full day away.
I may be craving to make you the master,
But you'll be the highlight of my day.
Ryan Bowdish Sep 2013
When the devil comes knocking, you better get the door
He'll give you something beautiful you've never had before
You could blindly obey your country and lay awake inside
But you'll be sorry you didn't take a chance when you're facing your demise.
Thanks to Doug Stanhope for that title.
743 · Dec 2012
Father
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2012
The chains grow red
The taste of the teeth I ground away
I talk too much (not that I didn't know already)
And I hate myself for it.

Change! Where does it come?
Why do I try when all I end up feeling is alone?
**** my soul with the taint of struggle
To pursue everything but the American dream.

My place is no where.
Into space is everything I want to bleed
The filter in my head (has never been present)
And I hate myself for it.

Please! All my friends come to my aid!
This is a cry for help if I had any.
Fake my happiness every time you ask me
If I found anything that works for me.

Lessons learned untie in my mind
All the smoke clouds are fogging my up inside
My father once told me to shut the **** up
He told me to speak when spoken to.
I dominate the conversation
Obviously I have no place
I never know when to talk to someone
I never know what I shouldn't say

Letting go of the rose
Just keeping the thorns in my hands
There's a gun in the next room
And if I sneak past him I can bring it to my bed

Stay alive! Thats all I try
But why when I push all I love away?
Things I invest in I can never stick with
I put one egg in every basket
And I can no longer mask it
I got all my eggs in every basket
But I have no right to ask it
Why can't I be good at anything?

(Cry for help)
(Look to sky)
(Try to hope)
(Don't see why)
Should I?
737 · Dec 2010
Just Want Limbs
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2010
Arms intertwined
Telephone wires
Lay on my spine
Simply desire

You don't have to be scared to let the thoughts in
This morning would be pointless if forgotten
My body being pulled apart like cotton
Was this room made for truth or to be fought in

Violence and *** separated by a
Thin Line. Talk that way again and wreck
My Spine. Say those words again and then
Grind.
Precipitating on the windowsill, she's a widow still
Her pending husband killed before he was even real
I can't imagine the spasm from the thigh-bridge chasm
Until she pins down all my arms and keeps me fastened

The ease in our flirtation is no cause for alienation
You're a potential scream sensation, no room for retaliation
When my legs are in the basement and my back suffers lacerations
Nail recalibration in the spinal cord creation
Your hair still caught in the drain and the humidity of the rain
Peeling the walls off the paint, i always said she was a saint
The pulse will make you faint, in the rivers that I'd taint
I'll give you my heart and brain if you promise to keep me sane.
Lonely People Love Lonely People
People Lonely Love People Lonely
735 · Feb 2014
Mawudeku (Revised edition)
Ryan Bowdish Feb 2014
*******, you crazy *****.
I wish you could admit that you don't give a **** about anyone else.
733 · Feb 2013
Narcoleptic
Ryan Bowdish Feb 2013
Sleep brings no rest:
When one dreams only
In lucidity,
It turns reality
Into unimaginable chaos.
730 · Jan 2011
Defragment
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
We're Replicants.
We boot up, we shut down, we most definitely restart.
Viruses make us sick and sometimes break us to the point where we need new hardware.
Sometimes they break our firmware and we need to wipe.
We have command lines to perform actions, and registry keys to keep memory stored of the things we learn.
The world is our power supply,
and when we boot up in safe mode,
like
some
people
do
every
day,

we only use the bare minimum of our potential.
728 · Jan 2013
Laughter.
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2013
I don't feel like writing today
So I won't.
717 · Dec 2010
Two Single-Sided Coins
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2010
Begging you
My knees scarred and raw
Purple
Bleeding profusely

Skin falling off
Stare at these eyes
Can you see the gold?
A frequent memory of lawns
And sheets among dawn
Thankful to simply be a pawn
Apologies unneeded
Warnings unheeded
Don't you utter a careless word
Is this all we have with which to work?

You may carry the aroma of harmony,
But your twisted psychiatric cacophony
Is a melody to the sad symphony
That I wish I could sing you
I would put you to sleep
Every single dark evening
By feel, under star-shine

If my songs were moving enough to make you stop crying inside,
Would you finally carve our initials into trees
And spray-paint our faces into underpasses, please?
714 · Jan 2011
Coast
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
On ladders about to give way,
I'm having guitarist's block.
Waterfalls on the freeway...

Streets bathed in virtual light,
Golden luminescent glare.
Strangers stand in the driveway...

Screens are broken wide open,
Worthless tokens, I'm smokin'.
Flies are chokin', who's jokin'?
Souls have spoken, cheeks swollen.

Passers-by leaning forward
To meet the grade of the ground
Climbing roads in search of more words...

Dreams, we've found, are untoward
Interrupted by that sound.
Deep inside, their very core hurts...

Met you crying under spotlights
When we were frying, it was alright.
Echos bouncing off the black skies
Faucets leaking in the night.
711 · May 2014
Priced
Ryan Bowdish May 2014
When lightning strikes a tree
Sap boils, cells explode, bark strips off into oblivion
And the tree melts, revealing a new form to the cool wind.
When you opened your eyes through the guise of a fading child,
I felt this happen to me.

My heart struck by your thunder, the leaves and ashes
Of my nerves
Blasted away
My DNA peeled away and there in its place lay a new man
Melted into the shape you pounded me into
With vicious eyes and stares that disintegrated injustice
Almost like a new world lived within our gaze.

Somehow, this universe has been opened
Time brought us to this moment. Gravity
Pulled us here. Revealed a blind spot in the folds
Between the atoms and the space from my mouth to yours.

We're like magnets
Like polar reversal
Hanging gardens of universal hope
And a lust for comfort
An insatiable hunger for simplicity
And solace

Uncompromisingly, we surpass the unnecessary and move straight into
The Moments We Wished For.

Closed blinds, wax and oil
Steam rising from the drain
Your hands entwined with my spine
Hair a maze for our fingers

You
Are
A mountain of passionate letters
From kids who thought no one would read them,
Sent through the ears of judges who never looked up at their victims

You were an undeveloped diamond
A sunset that someone polluted
With lies of impurity and worthlessness.

You wanted simply LOVE
A true hand to hold you and show you
That not everything in the world was so hopeless

Well your father may not have been the one to do his ******* job
And get right into all the reasons why you're beautiful so let me be the one
To pick up his slack and change you.

You're a raver with skylines in her eyes
An excuse to roll out of bed with a smile
Seventeen years of pent up compassion
Waiting to be released on some lucky bystander
Someone guilty of desiring you
Of telling you
You can do better.

You were always the one
Before we met
Before we did whatever we could to be in the same room for more
Than just a breath

You may be a dragon, a cougar,
A Jackson Pollack spattered with blood and ***
And anger and years of self-doubt

But I am your new canvas

And right now, I am empty.
And you are overflowing with colors.
I think I may actually be more into you than I thought.
703 · Jul 2013
blacks
Ryan Bowdish Jul 2013
I am afraid to **** the man who robs me of my entire well being.
Let us all force each other to make change.
You'll tolerate everyone on earth or else.

Sell my house. But only to a criminal

After all, I need federal funding.

Mandating is always wrong.

Challenge me.

Discipline these ******* kids.

Am I wrong or are you ******* ignorant?

Stop worshipping criminals. Stop glorifying hedonism. Change your culture. I don't care if you're *******. Challenge me.
703 · Oct 2010
10-40::10-61
Ryan Bowdish Oct 2010
There is a pounding at the door. Soon it will fly open.
Men in gas masks will flood the hallway.
With shotguns.
You have so much to live for, man, don't do this.
We'll come in if we have to. But we just want to talk.

Your children love you.
God knows why
After the things you have forced them to see.

It's humid and the air is causing the culdesac to shimmer
Just above the road, like we lit the tar on fire.
Gangsters lean on their cars to watch
Your misery unfold.

Helicopters keep breaking my concentration
Glowing eyes from the floor
A collapsed heap of laundry
Rustic

All curled in on herself.
Where did we go wrong?
How did it get to this? How did the police get involved?
Smashing up counter-tops with a golf-club.

The windows are breaking and tear gas starts to rise.
The last thing I taste is formaldehyde
And then steel
And then red life
Flowing out the holes
And the orifices.

Carry the children out.
Give them some air.
Move along.
There's nothing to see here.

How is the wife?
Carry her to the stretcher.
Another day in the life.
Tomorrow will be better.
696 · Jul 2013
shrug from outside
Ryan Bowdish Jul 2013
Sources of inspiration
Dead for years before me
Whispering into her ear
The wind is talking to your hair
Control the tempo like the jaw string
Scraping up against the wall
Bend the eardrums to the crypt
Cruise control on the wild people

I see the cycles
It's all inevitable
I see the cycles
It's on the wall
I see the cycles
All encompassing
I see the cycles
They'll be our pitfall our downfall

Glory moving like an anthill
Wall of wetness upon entry
Can't see out but for a second
Can't make way to the back wall
This transmission is corrupting
Stop the noise and eat the wolf
Chewing on your own teeth
Swallowing the lip ring

Cycling, cycling, cycling. Cycling
Cycling cycling cycling cycling
Cycling cycling cycling cycling
Cycling cycling cycling cycling
You think it's better than?
694 · Jun 2011
Post-Script 2
Ryan Bowdish Jun 2011
Johnson, go ahead and holster your weapon:
The threat here is long gone.
My body used to be a temple,
Now it's more like a time bomb.
My words are honest outbreaks,
...My list of fears is long.
And after-hours of outtakes
Lead me to this song...

There are days when I want to be you
Days when I don't want to be, there are
Long nights of lonely reminders
Of what you mean to me.
There are times when I freeze myself to the bed-frame
And convince myself I'm free
And sometimes it seems convincing:
The idea of you leaving.

No. This is not the end, I fear, my love.
No. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Yes. And when the tears begin to pile up.
I will give you this friendly reminder:

I've dropped all sorts of crutches, I've had all sorts of dreams
I've felt the tension in you when you resented me.
Threw my brain at all my problems and now I'm truly free.
Free to be alone when I don't want to be:

I painted this for you. I painted this for me.
This glass is like a mirror defining unity.
No more shaking heads, just laughing silently...
I won't put out these searchlights.
I love you, still, Dear, E.
For Emma.
694 · Aug 2010
Explain Beauty
Ryan Bowdish Aug 2010
Hair like the hanging gardens
Eyes, Irish portals
Raspberry lips and their absence
O, to soak in the glory of your presence.
686 · Dec 2012
Looming
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2012
This world lies in ruin.
Seraphs clip their wings off.
The pale horse awaits...

A conflagration of mediocrity and razorblades
None shall see past the flies.
Bees will replace our eyes.

Hell is finally on earth.
You think we didn't ask for it?
It's almost like we wanted every phenomenon to be an end to all life.

So here we are, the day has passed.
And all this world here sits.

I'm alone by a broken down wall.
I can breathe, but I know that in the end, it's all methane.
Eruption from the ground, the worms, THE WORM.
Choirs beckoning to the pearly gates
Mirage the flesh, obscure dead trees, blot out the sun.

We are God
And we approve of this message.

I am Satan.
And I am so ******* glad you guys have been sitting on your ***** for 100 years, letting yourself be ***** by the hand of ignorance and greed. You couldn't make this any easier.

No rapture.
Just fire.
This isn't how I am feeling, I just thought it would be fun to write a dark apocalypse poem ^_^
684 · Jan 2011
NATIVE
Ryan Bowdish Jan 2011
Distant cows are humming,
As the crack in the sky appears.
A jagged black line, with white
Snow caps illuminate.
Pollution becomes
Orange, gold and violet
Explosions in the sky
For us.

Your hands, smooth and strong,
Though you're well into year 51,
Wrap around my Levi 501's,
As we bend our wings back in the morning sun.
As we bend our wings back in the morning sun.

You are both beautiful and antique,
Old as these stars are.
Alpha and Omega...
I forgot how long we've really been married.
And I don't care how long 'til we're buried.

This universe is our flawless design,
We will be vocalized in the sky.
Erase this constant limitation,
Begin ascent.

Let's make these galaxies our children.
670 · Nov 2010
.No Water.
Ryan Bowdish Nov 2010
Powder, pulse growing louder
Coward, sour pint growing
Flowers, under my blue veins
Southward, outward up from a cave

Debase, erase, retrace, relate
A growing ******* *****
Eyes flying backward
Seizures coming and going
At their leisure, constantly glowing
I love my spine
But I want to lose it
So I don't have to use it
I'll feel right to abuse it

Obtrusive, under dissolved
Sometimes I feel like it's up on the walls
Always my fault, the simplicity
Of leaving life behind in favor of animosity
The thought crosses me, and the tamer tosses meat
A chance to breathe, desert floor underneath
My scorn disease, burnt and crumbled cities
Everything disappearing, wasteland empty

I don't like this life, it's bureaucracy
Everything we do is pen and paper
Transactions
Distractions
From the true inner peace
The true outer soul
Ego is gone when the world burns.
Ryan Bowdish Dec 2010
This is something I care not to clarify
I love the way you love the way I love the way you think.
It's so passive, reliable, justifiable, true.
Genuine, down to earth, positively youthful
I like the airwaves within this space
The fluttering shimmers of particles
Floating leisurely among these silent breaths
Between words, between sighs, between signals
Never misinterpreted

It's as though a single mind unites both of ours
Not as if we share it, but as if some unifying God shares us
And allows us to share its beauty among ourselves.
This is the moment that freezes the day still,
A completely honest simplicity in naked exposure
Veins pumping radiated green liquid
Nitrogen honeycombs decorating the walls
Splicing and combing DNA strands

This is what it is to be maybe, probably, quite possibly but most likely not in love
But maybe, probably, quite possibly but most likely not just a confusion.

I think, I think this is a blank sheet.
That we have openly filled in
You propose with those bright colors
And i fill in all the dark spots
And this blank paper becomes a painting
And soon, I feel, whether you try to make it work or not
We will be immortalized in this painting...

Because let me tell you one thing I know for sure about us.
Whether it ever got finished or not,
I would never, ever, EVER sell that painting.
667 · Nov 2010
Nanoseconds
Ryan Bowdish Nov 2010
It's over
No more distractions
Curtain's closure
Save your reactions
Not sober
Justified actions
Come closer
We are a fraction

Love, listen to the earth
Speaking to my eyes
Entering the web
Shove me into a curb
Leave me where I lie
Watch the car flip

Gas leaks
Shards of glass afloat
God speaks
The words my father wrote
Our arms weak
Heads in the radio
Your fingers creak
Blood in the raincoat

Soft, unspoken eyelash
Staring into the sun
Kissing thunderclouds
Dogs barking in the rain
At people they don't know
Echoes on my radio
Cough up my keys again
I can not understand
Why this feels unreal
Hogs passing my remains
It plays on over again
Bodies unconcealed.

(It's over)
(It's over)...
Next page