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blklvndr  Jul 2014
My Ibuprofen
blklvndr Jul 2014
I keep my ibuprofen in a Marlboro box
hidden deep beneath the pages of books that ever so kindly let the time pass by.


I take my ibuprofen two at a time
because they always used to tell me “good things come in twos..”

I guess that was true before I met you.


I swallow my ibuprofen with anything I can find because substances like this are highly divine, one of a kind.
Ryan A Flournoy Feb 2014
Submissive my body tender and weak.
Closer to death my body must be.

If I must attest then it's fluids at best.
Submissive my body the pain and the rest.

I should have known from the jump, for I had not been foretold.
Steer clear of its wrath, it's no common cold.

The fight continues, the world on a spin. God speed to you and this ibuprofen.
ethan  Aug 2018
closeted
ethan Aug 2018
when i was a freshman one of my friends told me that there was a girl who was talking about me
asking why i was pretending to be straight and that everyone could tell that i was gay
my friends and i laughed it off like children and i quipped “i’m not pretending anything, just ask anyone and they’ll know”

now, i think of the rainbow socks, the only thing i own with a rainbow on it, being shoved down to the bottom of my sock drawer as if it would pop out at any minute and proclaim it’s existence if it were any higher. now, i think of the rainbow highlight that i applies in the bathroom at midnight, pausing every now and again to make sure i was alone. Now, i think of the pride nail art that i scrubbed off my nails minutes after i painted it on. now, i think of the last word in a poem that i wrote and turned in, scared i was being too obvious with the word they.

now, i think of the horrible creature sitting in my chest that simultaneously begs to never tell my secrets and to also scream them from the roof tops. i think of the sludge that lives in me and climbs up my throat, whispering safety into my ear while also ripping apart everything it touches. i think of the pain i feel whenever i say that i’m gay, because it makes things easier if the works sees me as a girl who loves other girls.

before thinking of this poem i had sat back and wondered how many bottles it would take of the various prescription medicines that my parents kept in the kitchen cabinet to **** me. when i remembered the name they would put on the tombstone i stopped and walked away. i remember the time where i couldn’t walk away and i had reached in and grabbed a full bottle of ibuprofen and i took a single one, hoping that my screaming head could be sated by the feeling of a single pill crawling down my throat.

i had a dream last night about someone called addison.
they looked me in the eyes and before i even knew what they looked like their physical form flickered until they were a bright shining star in a vaguely human form.

they sat next to me as we floated in a void on a picnic blanket and they put their arm around my shoulder which felt like a hug from someone i used to know but had forgotten
i stared at their glasses that looked too much like mine as they flickered in and out of existence and they told me i was not where i was supposed to be.

i didnt ask them where but they heard it anyways as if breaking into my thoughts. they answered that they could not tell me and when i thought why they said they didn’t want to spoil the fun of a brighter future for them and me.

i woke up with the taste of lavender on my tongue and the desire to change my name.
i’m not sure who i want to be
Noelle Matthews Oct 2023
girlhood is clinging to each other, heads on laps and intertwined fingers.

girlhood is crying with each other, over love or sickness or the depth of life and the end of it all.

girlhood is eating ten potato chips, nine cubes of cheese, eight skittles,  seven apple slices, six chocolate chips, five small pickles, four carrot sticks, three ibuprofen, two cookies, and one tangerine.

girlhood is feeling a desperate need to get out, go far, be free.

girlhood is realizing your friends are similar to you but also so beautifully and insurmountably different.

girlhood is figuring out how to be good in a world that thinks there's nothing you could do to make that happen.

girlhood is rolling on the floor laughing at the dumb romcom playing on the tv.

girlhood is ignoring the yelling from behind you, walking faster even if you think you'll trip.

girlhood is sitting in the school office after getting dress-coded.

girlhood is hating someone but defending her to any length when a boy wants to say something bad.

girlhood is having weapons within reach.

girlhood is scary, beautiful, confusing, meaningful, formative, trivial, important, connective, loving, hating, all the feelings all at once.

girlhood is ours.
Al  Sep 2016
ibuprofen
Al Sep 2016
in my sweaty palm, melting
is medical-pink candy coating.
the pieces click, clack, roll around,
and the generic sugar tastes sweeter
than ever, sweet like a fever, sweet
like smiles under the concrete bridge.

tastes like sweet'n'low piled high in one-
dollar coffee drained in two seconds,
like buttercream frosting smeared
across your arm. tastes of the indoors,
of doors shut, of stale snicker-doodles.
it is sugar that tastes like promises gone far.

when i swallow (that is three, four, twenty more)
i can taste it in the pit of my stomach:
sweet, sweet candy coating masking
the poison, the anodyne, the analgesic—
candy coating to cover all the little scars.
i was an idiot.
Maia Vasconez  Dec 2016
Blondie
Maia Vasconez Dec 2016
My foreign friend once went through my bag and found a bottle of ibuprofen. She said I wonder if these are her anti-depressants because if so then they're not working. Once my friend, excuse the bruise, my friend thought the rope in my room was meant for a noose. Once I regected food all day and so she spooned the meal to my face. She said "good girl" when I made myself a sandwich. She used to cringe every time she saw my ****** up wrists. She said her dad ******* when she was a kid and once she took a pen to her own skin. She said you know that feeling when you throw up ice cream? and I was the only girl who got it. Who really, really got it.
So, I remember sitting in the park by the waterfront smoking flavored cigars. It's starting to get dark and your leaning on my arm. I wanna split a cigarette but you're saying how I always get the filter wet. You were both the hardest and softest girl I'd ever met. We got our cards read that weekend. The tarot lady said I'd fall in love, I said bring it on. Well, I remember nights in a used hotel room, wound up on the bed was the only time you let me hold you. I used to give you chapstick every time you asked for it. You said you only missed me when your lips got chapped. and those days we weren't friends were the worst ones that I don't remember too well. I forgot how we both pulled the devil when we got our cards read. What I remember is that you were there for the worst anxiety attack. It's still funny cause you're the only one in the room who was scared. And the next day I'm dead inside and somebody's in my ear telling me about how they're making an effort to be friendly and I'm the problem, I'm not reciprocating. You ask me why I'm wearing a hat, It's so I can hide my shame under it. Today I don't have a voice, I can't talk. Can't say what I'm upset about. And I remember somebody telling me that if I thought happy I'd be happy which lead to break down sobbing in the bathroom and you came in and talked me out. You never blamed me, never thought what happened to me was my fault. And you listened to me spew about what it's like to have no friends and to hate yourself so much. And you didn't ask questions... you just loved. Loved, loved, loved. So much that I saw it building up in myself. That first jump into the pool in our sweaters and sharing showers and drying in the sun. Listening to you mumble in your sleep, combing through your hair with my thumb. And you said the first time you saw me you thought ****! Another girl that's too pretty. I think we should still be... lying on a sun lit deck. You're reading my books, I'm wearing your shoes. We should still be out on the lake, eating lunch in one of those big red canoes. We should still be jumping off the dock, yelling when the fish swim near us. We should still be up on a hill where we can smoke and watch the sunset fall to dusk. I should still be waking up late in your tent and stealing the blankets. We should still be up all night talking politics and arguing semantics.
So yes, I remember lying in your arms those last few nights while watching shooting stars. Those nights I wished so long and hard to never feel lonely again, I realized this summer that's my biggest fear. And this summer! This summer I feel healed! You bandaged me up so the good bye was rough. I felt like child peeling old band aides off.
Before she left she told me what I needed to fix about myself. In our soggy t-shirts, we have our toes diped in the water. She grabs a pool noodle out of my hands and as she bends it in demonstration says I have no back bone she can take whatever she wants, she can just have it. I'm too flexible. But she opens up, tells me about the guys she's ****** and how she's never really been in love. She tells me about her girl crush. She says if I'd told her I'd loved her first, "like I SHOULD have" then she'd of been crushing on me instead. I just wish I could have been the one to drop her off at the airport. I helped her pack her bags and watched her slam the car door shut. It's different when you're forced to be apart, she didn't have the chance to make me hurt. I count the miles that seperate us. Guess I'll just love her from a distance.
This is probably the longest thing I've ever written. I've been working on this for a month and a half I think but I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's a true story, my summer with a British girl. We were in a big city but also spent most of our time in the woods in the middle of nowhere. Anyways, suggestions always welcome!

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