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Mimi  Jun 2011
Palahniuk #1
Mimi Jun 2011
If you can hear this
I don’t know
Been waiting in a cookie cutter hotel
the sheets turned down starched white
scratchy
So you’re not coming today?
that was both rhetorical and sarcastic.
Today or tomorrow
the next day, no
I crossed off your name but
I don’t know
If you can hear this.
tabitha  Nov 2015
blood work
tabitha Nov 2015
i am reminded again of why i hate hospitals,
                                        especially when there alone.

maybe it's the scuffed floor or ugly upholstery of the chairs,
             or the doctors half-attention,
             or the way everybody stares,
             or the way i try not to....
             or  the way that one guy just needs to ask me what book i'm reading.
"it's... well, it's a book about these writers who are deceived into isolation
    and they write all  these stories of life and desperation"                              
              (he doesn't actually care)
              i hide in my hair.
              at least we tried to have a conversation....
              and then we just sit there,
              until she calls the next patient.
              i hope i'm next.

i am reminded again of why i hate hospitals,
                                       especially when there alone.

maybe it's the stale air up against the smell of warm blankets,
             or being fully clothed but feeling totally naked,
             or being wheeled around to some other location,
             or that being wheeled around kind of feels like
             a ****** up vacation....
             (you just get to lay there)
             ((and be numb))
but i think it's the way she rubbed that gel **** all over my tummy
                                                                     and that when i say tummy,
                                                                     i don't feel like a woman i feel like
                                                                     a baby
             and the way those plasticky tools let her see right through me
             and the way men just do not know what to do when
             women are bleeding
the nurse named jeff asks me, "oooh, which palahniuk?"
  "it's... well, it's the one about twelve writers who fall into the clutches of
      this crazy guy who locks them all up! this story's about guts n stuff,"
              "nice," he weirdly smirks,
and thankfully gets back to work.
jeff touches my arm a little too much,
and i didn't really want him to have my blood,
and maybe that's just vain stuff
but the conversation was... good enough...

and i am reminded again of why i hate hospitals,
                                            especially­ when there alone.

only got mister palahniuk*
trapped in a purple book,
this paper-bound blood work,
to keep me company.
i lay back with the iv drip next to my bed
as i sweetly surrender to his gory head....
this book, it's called haunted.


*i wish i had chuck's guts ~ literally and figuratively,
he has no ****** and incredible creative bravery.
i was going to call this poem "stuck in a hospital (yuck) with Palahniuk" but then realized that it sounded like a poem about Dr. Suess having to share hospital rooms with Chuck Palahniuk, which is hilarious and something i will save for an entirely different, much more eccentric piece.
Advent  Jan 2015
unread books
Advent Jan 2015
i have plenty of unread books
from Roth
to Palahniuk
supposed have been read
at a good nook

these books I have
are stacked on one shelf
cause time hasn’t given
a minute for myself

these books I have
are my companions
when I’m split into halves
amid destruction
Anthem Dec 2016
I sing of "Beautiful you"
and it makes me want to choke
i avoid the eyes of the angel, lest i be ******
i fill a diary
with all the ways i'm doomed
i want to fight
i want to join a club
i am haunted
by these invisible monsters
while they sing their lullabies
i try to make something up
rendered a pygmy
always ranting, raving
***** out all the candles
the truth is stranger than fiction
i am a survivor
this is nothing but a tell-all
Jodie LindaMae Dec 2013
We writers are insane.
All of us.
We revel in our own sad mess
While picking green grapes
Off the wallpaper,
Smecking away like mad
At the wondrous juices
Of the imaginary, judicial
Forbidden Fruit.

We, like Hemingway,
Take our scotch in the morning
And our gin at night
And try with brutal, lashing effort
To make it through
Everything in-between.

We have put ourselves in shoes
We will never be able to walk in.
We must walk miles as
Linguists, as
Assassins, as
Outsiders, as
victims, as
AIDS sufferers, as
Brutalizers of women.
We must deal with their pain
As if it were housed in our own entity of being.

J.D. Salinger wrote that
His literary son, Holden,
Wore a “people-shooting” hat and
Made it **** clear that he suffered from wild
And erratic fits of overwhelming depression.
Writing from a bunker
Far from his wife, kids and home,
His stories sparked ****** in the hearts
Of already oppressed men
With “people-shooting” hats of their own.
We must toil with language;
Put it in the corner,
Love it, hate it,
Shift it and slave daily with it.
We must lose hours upon hours upon
Days of sleep
Before we find ourselves
Dangerously asleep at the wheel in front of us
In order to make the slightest change in our regular ways.
Even then,
Our handwriting only becomes sloppier
And our words,
Only fiercer.

Kaysen, alone in a psych ward
With women who slept around and
Tried to maul each other,
Wrote diligently
To try to release the the demon
Boiling the very blood inside her veins.
But demons do not disappear easily
And unfortunately,
Neither do the tortuous memories.

Even today,
They attempt to label me
With words of the disturbed.
Anxiety
Floods my synapses and neurons.
Depression
Happily urinates on my serotonin levels.
I bring myself to write
The effigy of the ******
Day by day
As my pen scratches paper
And the doctors expect razor to scratch skin
Though it never has
And never will.

Writers are psychos.
We all are.
We remain the mad, psychotic, literate monsters
Who worm our ways
Into your head.
We nestle beside your dreams and fantasies,
Waiting to strike
And tear them apart or,
If you’re lucky,
Build them up.
A woman writer named Sylvia
Once put her head in the oven
Because the writer-demons were driving her to madness
And they wouldn’t leave her be.

Handling us is a torture
Only the most eloquent and experienced reader
Could enjoy.

Love Always,
Salinger and
Plath and
Kesey and
Vonnegut and
Burgess and
King and
Sandburg and
Snicket and
Hemingway and
Palahniuk and
Kaysen and
Gaimen and
Green and
Trumbo and…

Holtry.
B Young Feb 2015
The suburban housewives are all prostitutes.
Cuckoo CUCKOO cuckoo
Sings the cuckolded husband
Bury the demons in the backyard,
Jack.
Decomposing rotting souls
Enriching the soil
Get rich without any toil.

Step
Outside

A glance to heavens
From the floors of a forest
Reveals a distant star.
Symbolizing neither here, near or far
A twinkling image destroys the ego
Although in this here woodland
Anything goes.
I am the king.

The truth only goes as far as the rocks thrown
So I asked the reapers which way to go
Take a trip with me down memory lane
my past has no real pain.
And no thank you I would not like any fame
I really have nothing to gain but catharsis
So please don’t call me an artist.  

I learned how to read from Frodo
Potter got me through puberty
Infinite Jest is too long
They say the strong dont read poetry
Naked Lunch ravings from a ***** gone mad
Anything discussed on Oprah during brunch is just bad
Satre and Camus too absurd
Stephen King too frightening
David Sedaris too homosexual
Chucks Palahniuk and Klosterman too hipster
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test for van wagon hippies
Lao-Tzu is too Zen
James Paterson and John Grisham are a waste of pen
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is too needy
Just begging to be loved
Like stupid Twilight
Ann Rice already got it right
Political books are for crooks
Self Help too pretentious
God Dillusion and God’s Not Great too scary
Romances are all wrong
Farces are all right
The Torah too infallible
The Gospels too life changing
Fear and Loathing, On the Road drugged tales disguised as art
Truth can be found in A Million Little Pieces
Lies found in the truths of our textbooks
Vonnegut is always too short
Woody Allen plays never long enough
Waiting for Godot left me waiting for an ending
The Big Book didnt work
Tweak is a ****** piece of work
Henry Rollins yells Get In the Van with a vein pulsating out his forehead while,
Nikki Sixx makes millions from a marketed selling of his soul
The Hunger Games are over popular children books
Did not stop me from getting hooked
A Brave New World is a reality
Dune a vision
50 Shades a pandering to public lust
The etchings left on my mind by Supertramp McCandless and Hesse will never rust
Edward Albee is everything you could ask a play-write to be
Harmony Korine just makes me envious
Even grand mom has the collected Carlin
Twain is middle school
Hemingway high school
Coleridge is college
Dostoyevsky too daunting
French books are too ****** french
Joyce too Irish
Kafka too German
The great American novels are comic books and tabloids

I get it life is both entirely ****** and perpetually beautiful.
One needn't to read to see
Trevor Gates Apr 2013
V.


Ticket please?

Ah yes good

You're right on time

Please, through the double doors

Now for the main event.



A boy in his bed was sleeping
he slept throughout the night.

Until the door to his closet crumbled like ash
Exposing the pitch black darkness of his fears

He wished

He prayed
For more than anything for it to not happen again.

This happened too often
And he wanted it to stop

But it wouldn't

The stuff toys on his shelf gaped their mouths open in terror as saliva dripped from the ceiling

The walls inhaled
then exhaled

A woman moaned from the depths of the closet

The boy wouldn't look

He couldn't

The air in the room fell hot and humid

Arms with massive hands crawled from underneath his bed
Trying to take the boy away.

He struggled to fight them off until a loud noise was heard in the closet
The assaulting hands stopped and retreated

From they darkened closet emerged a man covered in black oil.

He walked out

He had no eyes

No hair

No ears

He walked up to the boy

He grabbed the boy and dragged him through the closet
The boy was scared

He didn't want to go

He was forced

In the darkness he felt the return of the hands

They touched him

All over

He didn't want them too
But they did

The boy cried and screamed
But the hands covered his mouth

The boy's mind retreated to a place of relief and comfort.
He laid on a wide grassy meadow atop of rolling hills

His lovely, caring mother laid next to him
It was the way he remembered her before she passed.

She laid next to him

His favorite teddy bear, Johann nestled between them

The valley below sang to them the echoed phrases of Schubert's Ave Maria
Played on the mother's record player

The twilight of the scene eased the boy.

But the nightmares would return

The snakes and spiders
The worms and roaches

The clown with three faces: laughing, crying, screaming
Unison

The boy recalled all of this, all of these terrors
in the midst of adulthood

Where the boy becomes a man

The nights are the same
But
Even more
Nefarious
And ominous

The halls of his mind stretch to ceiling-less masses.

Portraits of noir faces looking into his dark, encircled eyes
Blood oozing from underneath the frames

The eight foot tall man in a body suite of leather with no face
The woman crawling on the ground with eight legs and
Hands where her eyes should be

The pile of decapitated dolls rapidly performing an **** of devilish coitus
The limb less girl with maggots crawling out of her exposed ***.  

The sleepless nights
The screaming nights
The tears shed
The blood drawn

The boy that became a man
But
A man who is still a boy
From his deepest fears
The boy that was touched and taken
The man that was touched and brought back
The evil that was endured
The evil that was served

No song is sung
No music is played
No painting is painted
No paradise is found

Lost is he and so are you
Less so than him
But more free are you
Than the boy
Who claims to be a man

The man who was once a boy
For all men were once boys  
All plants were once seeds

All death was once life

All that were forgotten
Say be remembered

Here

There

Then

Now.


Thank you.
Please dispose of your 3D glasses in the bins outside.  We'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank all who made this possible:  Masks, ether, cough syrup, Chuck Palahniuk, The Koran, the Iliad, Virgil, Freud, Dante, John Milton, Stephen King, Mp3 players, chain stud belts, eye liner, food stamps, Russian women, electronic cigarettes,  Uncle Tom's Cabin, Wolverine, wiener dogs, Anthony Hopkins, Roger Waters, Emma Stone, Olive oil and all that I should mention but won't (they know why).
This is a free-form writing exercise. Comment if, aroused, annoyed, disturbed, offended, *****, inspired, discouraged, enticed, flattered, impressed, depressed or simply curious
Danny Adams Oct 2013
I let an object take control of my life
as palahniuk would put it
my possessions have possessed me
but this thing is not my possession
this thing is everyone's
the internet has completely swallowed and devoured me
and now my existence has become a faceless identity in the vast majority
a sea of people who merely live
day by day
what do I do?
do I create?
why does it matter?
it matters to me
and no one else
i am alone
and in my loneliness I find
that my mind
is incredibly
empty
Mari Gee  Oct 2011
Help I'm Alive
Mari Gee Oct 2011
“To be or not to be, that is the question”
The answer, still unclear
Cans’t we be and not be at the same time?
That way we can choose how to be when life gets in the way
Would be easier on everyone

“I’m afraid I’m turning into a cliché”
My entire existence is a cliché
I’ve thought it up before
And here I go repeating
Preaching my so-called life
To those I thought had it different
I was wrong

“What Am I Missing?”
Besides you of course?
Besides your smile?
Not much I think

“Willing to tolerate less frequent service”
From the people in charge
Apparently we have free will
Who knew?  

“Licks his lips , turns my hands”
I am a clock
Only time will tell
When my hands will show
Quarter to midnight
He cannot turn time
Before it turns him

“I am one half of him
You will see
Cut me in half to reveal his trickery”
You will see
Where he tried to turn the hands of time
And failed
Cut him in half
You will find
The bind of time he almost left behind
That he almost broke and shattered
“The trauma cut both ways”

“Juliet’s the word they use for anyone that’s done it with pills or poision”
It’s also our word for a fool
Who was in so much pain
She caused more pain to herself
Who chose to halt the hands of time
Before it was time to
You cannot meddle with these kinds of things
Time cannot stand it



“The wall I was knocking down”
The one that kept me from you
The one that cheated time
“All of it was simply not the real thing”

“Maybe the supreme self-confidence I envied, was nothing more than masked insecurity”
Maybe the whole world is a façade
Just waiting to be uncovered
Waiting for the right person to come along
And reveal the secrets of time and space
There is no use in envy
It causes unnecessary guilt
Towards a cause you yourself did not create

“Adjusting or adapting a scheme”
Time is a pattern we must adapt to
We cannot be radical and say,
‘***** you time, I won’t conform!’
You must.
Being radical isn’t necessary
When you are given one of the most precious things
You will ever receive
Cherish it
It’s what you must do
“Now I understand”

I may have love
I may lose love
But I will never regret a single thing
For I know that I had not cheated time
I had lived a full life
Embraced every moment
“Splendid if I overcome my earthly passion, but if I succeed, still I have known happiness”





  Hamlet by William Shakespeare
2 Midway by David Homel
3 Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard
4 Economic Naturalist by Robert H. Frank
5 Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
6 “His Ace of Spades” by Noelle Havens, a poem from Cellar Roots Literary Magazine, p.69
7 Militainment, Inc. by Roger Stahl
8 Kneller’s Happy Campers by Etgar Keret
9 “An Exclusive” from The ******* the Fridge by Etgar Keret
10 Death of Ivan Illyich by Leo Tolstoy
11Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
12 World of Children textbook by Greg Cook
13Set Me Free by Miranda Beverely-Whitmore
14 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Nabi Jul 2021
Within the purple walls
of my dorm room
a quiet heart began to flutter.
Perhaps it started when you wrote:
"Artemis, happy not valentines day"
on the day after fourteenth
and made it much more special
with an overused brown paper bag
and a Chuck Palahniuk.

Now at home, even within the white walls
of my own room--
I'm missing you.
my quiet heart has just been silenced
but you're there
in every The Flash episode I watch
in every taro drink I get
and in every text message I receive
hoping
for the slightest chance
of you being there.
Because, after all, you are
the Orion I could only ache for from afar.
Indigo Morrison Feb 2014
"I want to taste the literature
Within you
Let me show you how to be free...
Your mind is the most beautiful combination of
McEwan sprinkled with a little Palahniuk, throw in some James
It is **** to me the way your feet stay on the ground,
No matter how high they lift you up.
Sometimes I watch you while you read
And I wonder what could possibly be
Slayed across that page so wondrously
As to grant the room with the parting
Of your lips..."

— The End —