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Richard Grahn Apr 2017
A writer writes…
so that’s what I do.

Not that I must
But it’s the right thing to do.

It’s not always easy
to lay down a line
on a small scrap of paper
that’s so hard to find.

Expressive nouns and passionate verbs
they assault my brain and
take me away.

There’s no way to dictate them
out on a page.
So I write them all down
any place that I can.

While at the bar,
a napkin will do.
Or in my car,
a matchbook or two.
A Post-It will get me by
in a pinch.
Or any other paper
I’m happy to find.

And into my shoebox
I tucked them away.

I laid them right there
for another day.

Occasionally I’d come back
to see what they say.
Reading them over
again and again.

Into my brain,
that's where they have gone.
Stuck in my mind
for a decade or more.

The shoebox is gone now
from so long ago…but
the memories still linger
inside my brain and
out to my fingers
they continue to flow.

I write them all down
and expand on those thoughts.
Remembering the memories
I once thought were lost.

An explosion of words
pouring out on the page.
These many little thoughts they
now have a stage.

The lasting memories
are now down in print.
The shoebox is gone
but the words are in ink.
Isha Natsu  Mar 2017
Maudlin
Isha Natsu Mar 2017
It's strange how I could fit so much in a shoebox. A shoebox made for a pair.
There is this specific shoebox I have tucked underneath my folding bed.
A relatively new one, with its glossy lid and blunt corners.
I can name its contents by heart.
A letter dated September 27.
Two pairs of tickets to movies.
A priceless photo of you as a kid on horseback.
Six receipts I managed to save from places where we've shown our true colors.
Nine bus tickets.
One valentine's card with a doodle I'd frame in the Louvre for everyone to appreciate.
A list that says ten things but actually has twenty. My favorite one being "I love that you love me. I cannot even."
Two poems.
Five photographs of us, two of you, one stolen, most with teeth, some wacky.
An ice cream tin. I can still taste the pistachio and see our smiles while we shared and fought over who gets the tin.
A notebook holding a sacred bucketlist, boxes unticked.
This box is small, but it keeps a lot more than that.
It cradles a semi-epic backstory.
It possesses a playlist inaudible to all, except for two people.
It confines a few arguments, little squabbles, and maybe a tiny bit of resentment.
More than that, it is abundant in affection, concern, last-minute cuddles, kisses given and taken.
I won't deny it, I'm a sentimental person.
I've been keeping and snatching little parts of you and placing them in plain sight around me.
Where I can see them, see you, when I flip through my books or open my wallet for change.
But now you're gone, hidden from view. Diminished inside four corners, right under where I sleep at night to forget you.
It's strange how I could fit so much in a shoebox. This shoebox I made just for you and I.
This is my Shoebox of Poems.
You know, the poems you didn’t wanna write.
The poems that you wish you never thought of but, if you didn’t put them down on paper they would end up staying in your head all night, they would end up keeping you from sleeping at night.
The poems that revel your scars that you didn’t even know you had.
The poems that remind you its okay that you’ve been hurt.
The poems that if your house was burning down you would go back in for.
The poems that belong in the shoebox in the back of the closet behind every other box.
This is my Shoebox of Poems.
louis rams Aug 2014
It was a shoebox of poems written over the years
Of joyous moments, heart aches and tears
The fond memories of her life, of being a mother and a wife.
Poems of her child bearing years, and all the joys that she shared.
A poem of the moment that she had dread
Of the day that she wed.
With butterflies in her stomach and tears in her eyes
And being strong so she would not cry.
Poems of when her children reached school age
And each year was a different phase.
Poems of family times, vacation times
And even of the nursery rhymes.
Waiting till the time was right, and to have
Quality time with her husband at night.
Her entire life was in a shoebox of poetry
Left to read by you and me.
Joshua Haines May 2017
I approach most desires
like a competition; can I
**** better than him;
can I be famous at twenty-
-three since he was famous at
twenty-four -- I must be able
to sink better than him.

God, it is exhausting. I
feel like I'm dancing with
a machine; a phantom that
I can never catch, for it runs
on my blood; my insecurities;
my passion -- and, boy, oh boy,
can I attest to having plenty of
  that stuff, ladies and germs.

I think, truly, that I am
encompassing the American Dream
I think is utterly flawed; that I think
is futile in nature; that I am sure of
is the closest thing to Hell, in this
Godless, spiritually motherless
dark shoebox of sudden collisions;
this space of useful and useless
results, splayed onto and into
our hearts, asking for reverence.

There is nothing  I want more
than to be sure that my importance
is not illusory. I am not sure if
I am real.
Jon Tobias May 2012
It was like the time our cat died
And we buried it in a shoebox
And made a wind chime out of the bell
Carved her name in the tree we buried her under
Just says Beans

I imagine this confuses the family who now lives there

Coffins shouldn't exist for things that small

I asked a friend to sew you a quilt out of her clothes
So you still might know her warmth

Babies grow fast
So much clothes from the shower
It will be a big quilt

Your belly still a bulb of life bursting
But hollow
In thick black sharpie you wrote
                MORGUE
Just above your belly button

You maker of life
Giver of the good stuff
Holder of the second heartbeat

You can only make good things
Your body is a mess
Genuinely ugly on the inside
But it creates good things

Remind it of that
When it rebukes its purpose
And lets go

The next one will stay

Because there shouldn’t be coffins
For things that small

You said I could be Uncle Jon
I have never been given that
I’m not allowed to see my own nephews
Because of how the past eats us

The past is a morgue
Of heartbreak festering

And forgiveness is not a time machine
Set to 10 minutes before regret kicked in

When my own children bury me
I hope they do something with what I leave behind
So I know that I actually have something worth
Leaving behind

You did not leave her behind
Even though you named her
Ellie
Elizabeth
But we knew it would be Ellie
She is not how you will be remembered

You do not make mistakes
You make life
In everything you do
As long as you are living

You make life

So when your body forgets this

Remind it

With breath
And tears
And sleepless nights
And anger
And happiness

Make life
I spotted the box
out of the corner of my eye
There in the closet
stuffed into a corner
covered in cloth

At first it mattered not
I had other priorities
I had to meet

But then a memory
knocked upon the wall
of my curosity

So I took the box out
and sat upon the bed
And I started to take
the photographs out

So many faces , so many places
lost in time's goodbye
So much found
and so much lost
so , so very much

After all the you and me's
After all the summers
and winters too
Life has boiled down
to a box of photographs
made for a shoe
Smoke Scribe Mar 2015
Part II  of "Got 0 Followers"

aim high
to keep
it low

expectations
such an
Awesome Awful
curse
others infect
you with

don't, yada yada,
ya wanna be like
Tom, **** and Jane,
even Harry, a transgendered
friend and fellow (ha) outcast,
all with a good job
prospects of a
goodly tented long life?

so ya write poems
to nobody
about nothing and
you are pleased
to be pleasing just yourself

in writing you have
nothing to prove,
so read them
like keepsakes
ya like,
keep 'em & me hid,
in the shoebox
under the closeted
pile of ***** clothes,
special designer outfits concocted
so they keep my remains,
privatized and unsanitized,
my equity,
hidden,
disguised as disgusting

but for god-sakes
don't follow me,
unless
you want to curse us
both with
Expectations of Expectations,
then comes with
illiteracy of
Affection

then the literary
pre-tension
that always follows,
leading to

Affectation,
the first derivative of the infection of affection

yeah,
then comes
caring
and it instantly it's too late,
you're *******,
right up the mental heine,
lost condemned
ruined annihilated
crushed subverted
crushed into
mental death camp suffocation of more, please ma,
can I have some more?

**crap, why did you have to go and follow me?
CM93 Mar 2015
I live in a shoebox all alone
It's the size of a nutshell I call it home
Here just me and my white walls talk
if they get too close I take a walk

A bed, a table, a chair, a sink
makes me happier than you would think
I took a chance on a crooked floor and  an un-open-able door
how could I ever ask for more.
  
So here I sit and write and to whoever that might read it
I hope you have a place just as magical as mine
and that you never want to leave it.
A little poem dedicated to my cute little single room!
emma l  Mar 2017
shoebox
emma l Mar 2017
i want to write you the perfect poem
i want to string words together so spectacularly that you tattoo them on the inside of your eyelids
i want to write you the world, wrap these lines in a bow and leave the package on your doorstep
i want to write you the perfect poem,
but i'm an imperfect person and love,
so are you

you are the bags under my eyes
i carry you with me wherever i go
and you draw the most attention to the brightest parts of me
my under eye bags are the only cosmetics i wear daily;
you are the result of late nights of laughter and 1 AM drives home

you sopped up the spilled cherry coke in the back of my car with napkins from my glove box
i braked too hard and it spilled all over your feet
it was a quiet ride home
my knuckles were white on the steering wheel and my head a blur of apology
my favorite mop;
my messes are yours and yours will be mine and i've never been one for tidiness but i'd scrub the world clean for your smile

you are
the dent in my passenger side door,
the soreness in my muscles,
the paint stains in all of my jeans;
i can’t get rid of it, i’ll never get rid of it;
the dent gives my car character
the soreness makes my body feel real
the stains make me feel free and the jeans fit me like a glove

i like routine and you are a part of mine
text you tease you love you
wash rinse repeat

i could send you a thousand love letters
i’ll keep them in a shoebox instead

i'll write your name into the stars,
i'll carve my love for you in the moon,
print it on postcards,
press it into my skin
but i cannot write you the perfect poem
i wrote this for my boyfriend because he's the only person who cares about me anymore, i think
ummily Apr 2016
La Ratita Presumida
“... y sentia muy feliz. Pero al terminar, el gato se lanzo sobre ella para comer se la. La Ratita lorgo escaper y aprendio a no fiarse de la aparencias”

Generally speaking, the most romantic matters take place beneath the moonlight. It shone down on the city of Barcelona that night with a certain intention, a mysterious plan. She went out for a cigarette, or a “thought” as she liked to think of it, her soul already marinating in a bottle of cheap, red wine.  She let the moonlight pour its possibilities upon her skin as she exhaled into the night.

It was this recipe:
¾ bottle of red wine,
1 pack of Marlboro Lights,
a pinch of red lipstick and
a dash of moony-mist  

on the dimly lit terrace that started it all.

Just then, a tall, blondish, smart looking guy walked into the room. She felt as though she could see the weight of his brain sitting in his head. Almost visible were the synapses firing within.

He spoke so smoothly, in a comforting, southern accent.
His words cast visions of sunsets,
surrounding her
in an unfamiliar, yet soothing
warmth.
She drew closer.
His southern spark lit her cigarette and
with that flick of the match,
an immediate magic ignited between them.

They spoke of Matthew Macconaughy, death and anxiety... death by anxiety, art and music and love and lust.

lovelustlovelustlovelustlostlove

“Just come with me,” he said,  “I’m not expecting anything... we’ll get brunch!” , he said. Ooooooh that’s a mighty word there, “BRUNCH”.

“Brunch”,
A word capable of bringing this girl,
to her knees
~the birds and the bees~
she left with him.
                                                              ..­.

“You had me at ‘brunch’.”
They took a cab to his shoebox-sized flat in Gracia, “the best neighbourhood of Barcelona by far”. They linked lips, caressed, clutched each other’s flesh and faded into one as the sun began to rise.
                                                           ­   ...
The sun came beating through the dungeon –like windows of the shoebox-shaped room. The laundry hanging outside-as it must in this city- cast shadows across their naked skin. It appeared to be dancing quite joyfully, despite the intensely hung-over state of the two strangers that lay entangled amongst the sheets.
As promised, BRUNCH ensued.  They chatted, and laughed and flirted. They shared secrets that no one else knew.

“I like your brain”, he said.
                                                               ...
In the weeks to come they spent every waking moment of each weekend in each other’s company. The rest of the time was spent as the charismatic protagonist in the day dreams of the other one’s mind.  

Hospital General, Sant Cugat Del Valles, Valldoreix, La Floresta, Las Planes, Baixador de Vallvidrera, Peu del Funicular, Reina Elisenda, Sarria, Les Tres Torres,  La Bonanova, Muntaner, Sant Gervasi, Gracia, Provenca,  Passeig de Gracia, Placa Catalunya.

The Trains chugged on
And on
And just remember it’s hard to stop a train...

Gracia -the best neighbourhood in Barcelona- sang like a bird in her ear and a sore thumb pressing its weight into her aching heart.  

Take me Spanish Caravan, yes I know you can...
...I know where treasure is waiting for me
Silver and gold in the mountains in Spain
I have to see you again and again.

Take me Spanish Caravan, yes I know you can.

                                                           ­        ...
That dreaded, dreary morning, the rain beat down. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plane -Or all over, really.

She helped him stuff his damp laundry
into his star-spangled suitcase,
himself into her...




He came,
she left, and so did he.




*I'd like to see you again
and again.
a short story.

a ghost story.

— The End —