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Jade Apr 2020
Spinal column
a stairwell of books,
rungs of untouched vertebrae
avoided by the bibliophile herself

[myself].

Brain is wired differently
than the rest of them.

At first,
I thought it was a matter of being
****-retentive.
A veteran perfectionist
who strives to imagine every detail
as intricately and accurately
as the author must have intended.

Character's faces morph into
sloppy, patchwork collages,
features copied and pasted from
beautiful strangers and
celebrities who played
in the movie adaptations.

Their appearances are both
cliche
and
incomprehensible.

I am told a character is pale,
but can only manage to visualize a complexion
the colour of notebook paper,
penetrating blue eyes mere apparitions
against a wintry terrain--
her ears
nose
lips
misplaced beneath the tundra.

I lay the book atop my collarbone,
its cover pitched into a make-shift tent.

(Cautiously).

Almost as if I am
afraid to disturb
the seriffed constellations
that flicker above my heart.

I stare up at the ceiling
(vacant, as am I),
my eyebrows scrunched
into nooses of concentration,
several minutes passing before
her cheeks gradually begin to thaw,
warming over in an ombre
of pinks and olives.

And I rejoice!

Strike down the tent,
pupils hungry for prose.

But there is always
another character.

In Valley of the Dolls,
a handsome man,
whose hairline I cannot
properly envision

(this makes him less handsome).

This time,
when I lay my book down,
I do not proceed with caution,
the corners of its pages
dog-earing against my body.

Google:

men's hairstyles, 1940's

(I need to commit to memory
three different styles
so the three different males
I am working with
are not trite clones of each other).

I can only manage three pages
at a time
before having to take a break.

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is an exponential task,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting
Jaqueline Susanne's vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

Three pages for me
is strenuous,
as I pause to formulate
images befitting Jaqueline Susanne's
creative vision;
as I look up every word
I don't know the meaning of
in the dictionary;
as I repeatedly deliberate
the same passage
because of my incapability
to thoroughly process the text

on the first
(second...
third...
I don't know...)

try.

Turns out
this is more than just
being ****-retentive.

This is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

I yearn for times of old
junior high
when I could finish a novel
in a day--
ramona and beezus
butterfly lion
the silver donkey.

But even then,
the obsessions were there,
one substituted for another:

the ceaseless gushing
of the soap pump
and dizzying rotation
of the faucet taps.

Could barely hold literature
between my palms
without aggravating
the rosettes of eczema
that had sprout
along my hands,
scoured clean and raw.

Eventually,
I outgrew these harrowing baptisms.

Am still waiting to outgrow
the laborious nature of my readings.

My only antidote poetry,
for it heals me in
every way
fiction could not
[cannot].

The poems do not trouble me,
do not burden me
with overwhelming arrangements
of ink and letters.

Instead,
I confront the English language
line by line,
sedated by the simple
fragmentation
of each stanza.

Because even when fragmented,
these stanzas offer up to me
the written word
like it is ambrosia
when I am starving
for intellect
but cannot feast.

I am spoon-fed words
until I am full--
am reminded that
I am not the stupid girl
I believe I am,
courtesy of my
obsessive, compulsive short circuits.

I do not relate to the cohesion of prose,
cannot deny the brilliant likeness
that exists between the reader
and her enjambment--
both fractured mosaics of metaphor.

I am
as broken
as these verses.

But

it is only as
I shatter
that I am freed.
Don't be a stranger--check out my blog!

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josh wilbanks  Sep 2017
Suicidal
josh wilbanks Sep 2017
Being suicidal doesn't mean i'm going to **** myself

Being suicidal is having this unexplicable ache while you're living

It's waiting for your life to end, and wishing you didn't have to carry on

Having this ache, an incapability to feel happy living, doesn't mean that I am going to **** myself -

It just means I wouldn't mind dying.
Karan Sherwal  Aug 2018
Haze
Karan Sherwal Aug 2018
I used to believe in good old days,
Still concerned about the little ways.
To get back in my childhood era.
Those uncountable acquaintances,
Now they are just faded faces.
Buzzing around oftentimes,
I do look at them with all my gracious Rhymes.
Those long sandwalks, I heard many voices & those preacher talks.
Standing on the top of a pile,
I saw the world with my pure human eyes.
My incapability of not performing as others,
Don’t forget we came from different mothers.
Though the course may be disturbingly fascinating,
Spot you there at the end of the lives you kept devastating.
I walked clean and I did no mean.
There was nothing to fear, but one day someone molested me who was so near.
Crippled inside myself that night,
Was so devastated couldn’t spoke a word inspite.
Moments still glare, dig in your knife so that you can pare.
Shadows no more controls me,
I fiercely play with them, and still move freely.
Enjoyed every bit just like my first bicycle wheelie.
I did both,from playing with slum folks to slept like a sloth.
Now I miss my never ending era.
Entered my puberty,
with little bit of curiosity
To not to have those thoughts control authority.
I was wild, a state called child.
Facts of my past life...
maisie khan  Nov 2013
leaving
maisie khan Nov 2013
The way you spoke felt the way hot sand felt between my toes, a kind of painful pleasure that eventually made me run back to the ocean to cool off. You remind me of the ocean too, although not the ones seen in holiday brochures. More like the angry part of the ocean I saw in Spain years ago, rising high and mighty above me, putting me in my place. It even knocked me down, just like you did.

I don't regret knowing you, I just regret loving you. I regret surrounding myself with you and your incapability to love anything other than yourself, your incapability to care about anything that didn't directly involve you. How sad, how unfair that I am left here to drown in self-loathing and you are still out there, still happy, still care-free, still clueless about what you did to me.

I miss something particular about you; not your hands, not your lips, not anything near your skin. I miss the little neurotic pieces of your mind and the way you said my name that night. Most of all, I miss just having someone to talk to. How stupid of me to convince myself you are all I need, only to have you leave like everybody else. It's frightening that even though I am surrounded by people, you're the only person that really exists to me, the only person that made me realise I'm not alone. And God, I am so lonely.

I'm leaving. I'm scattering my soul to the wind in the hope I'll find myself someday. Try to love yourself and next time, fall in love with someone who looks at you as though he can see your soul more than he can see your skin. Stop looking for reasons to die and start searching for reasons to live. You are worth more than what you settle for. You are not alone.
Minal Govind  Mar 2016
Hypocrites
Minal Govind Mar 2016
Never judge a book by its cover - they say.
Never believe a man's word over his actions - they say.
Never trust without reason - they say.

Why not? - I say.

Humanity (as a virtue) is being crippled by humans as they
stride
past the crippled man, hunched-back and desperate to extend,
to stand up,
to reach out
for that can of coffee at the grocery store.

As they violate, debilitate and penetrate our
minds by starving
us of
education
and
taunt
us
with
grant
money.

As they reduce our
complexity and significance and capabilities
to
stats
charts
numbers
lines
dots
.

As they stand, staring
up
eleven floors
at a flailing, failing student ready to
jump.

As they stereotype us
into boxes
that we use to hold our belongings -
our interior design.

As they spend more
money in one day
than they
pay
the gardener over
a week.

As they scoff down ketchuped french fries
after saying they were
starving
whilst they edge
forward
at the
robot
to
ignore
hungry begging children.

As they complain about being
alone
when the others around them are also
human.

That's just it.
The 'they' that we always speak of,
'They'
are us.

Unsheltered, not oblivious -
we see the misery, suffering,
pathetic pain -
but we are ignorant of the
barefoot woman with
a load
on her head and
a life
on her back,
asking for a
lift.

Some of us see the strain
but convince ourselves that our efforts would be
insignificant,
assure ourselves that it is
hopeless,
we are helpless.

Science and religion
seem like parallel lines but
they
converge on the point that
Mankind
is a superior species.
'Made in his image.'
'Increased cranial capacity, developed the ability to reason.'
Yet we use that magnificence to justify our
INcapability?

Advanced beings in an age of connectivity and
so disconnected from the essence of our own kind.
We decide
to be
alone.

There are rainbows of
'umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu'
but Ubuntu becomes
'don't want to'
and apathy is what makes us insignificant
- indifferent and inhumane.

To those who
can read this,
we
are hypocrites
- together -
which means that we are never alone and thus we are made
able.
We are not helpless, we just
Help Less.

I refuse to hope less in humanity
and allow us to be coaxed into an inferiority-complex
when we can have
progress and
success but

Only after we have
oneness.
Darryl Johnson Dec 2013
watch you, whisper to you

i want to touch your body
every inch of your flesh should be categorized in to a file cabinet
to be ordered by sensation and  rhythm

a *****, sweaty affair of taking inventory of the defense of the other team
"what hurts them" "what helps them" "what makes them giggle" "what makes them moan"
i know what it takes to make them moan

its a war out here and every is invited,
to the war of the lost, stepped on, and rejected
against the rainbows, puppies, and ******

i want feel your sculpted dancing legs
i want to lick the death off her skin
carcass her imperfectly perfect body

******* the subject is a delicate process
first, the physical clothes,
then, the emotional barriers
finally, the mental incapability

at the end, you are presented with the most pure human form
a fully **** model of your great white buffalo.

for me....  it the one that got away, she sings in the shower
topaz oreilly Jan 2013
You never have to be a flower again
or play those kettle drums, Sheba
bygone from sleeves, dalliances worn.
SerenaDuru  Apr 2021
Abroad
SerenaDuru Apr 2021
Why is it that it is when I am most alone, I feel most present?
I feel like an alien on Earth. I do not understand how I was birthed here.

My home is beyond my physical state, my home is beyond my emotions, and even my desires. My home is where none of those things could dream to reach, in all their perversity and incapability. I will not hurry from Earth, but I do know that this does not even slightly resemble my home.

How blessed I am to know what I am not.
Haley Lorish  Jan 2013
Words
Haley Lorish Jan 2013
Love, night, bodies, world, eyes,
Darkness, lust, life, belong, shine
Losing, time, Lord, death, grave, heart,
Helpless, hope, weep, bleeding
Agony, devil, embrace, souls, yearn,
Escape, awaken, lies, smile, light
Irrelevant, breathing, die, lips, kiss,
Illuminating, feared, everlasting
Unrighteousness, hatred, desired,
Christ, disgust, ever-changing
Grace, insanity, lingering, sinner,
Ailing, lurking, weakening, savior
Desperation, facade, knives, flaws,
Infected, evade, corrupting  
Temptation, forgive, repent,
Contorting, unbreakable, incapability
Bewildered, demon, pain, lost,
Hopeless, dream, aching, shattered
God, truth, impossible, despise, drowning,
Shame, sparks, destroy, longing, flawless

These are my words
But is anybody
******* listening?
Gulishta  Jul 2018
REALISE.
Gulishta Jul 2018
The idealisation of the far-fetched reality ,
Doesn't make it right.
The happiness coming from someone else's pain,
Doesn't make you thrive.
The insensebility of taking wrong decisions,
Doesn't make you look cute, just cruel and naive.
The passing on of the confusion,
Shows your incapability of commitment or in general Life.
The repetitiveness of a command,
Doesn't make people oblige.
It's a simple game...
A game of what's wrong and what's right!.
Of seeing things you ignored ,
Being a self-centred blind.
It's an opportunity to open yourself up,
For the things you've done to others,
and putting yourself in their shoes...
And.....REALISE.
lina S  Oct 2018
Maroon
lina S Oct 2018
Lights dimmed
Red soft lights
Baroque colors everywhere
Like sipping wine in a coffin

Sweet, free, dead.

Like blood pouring out the vains
And it pains but there's no pain

A soft image of you.  Dark ...Slim ..
Distant.

Constantly there
In my head
Constantly out of reach
In my life

And if I can take in this *******, I would.
and if I can make it better, I would.
And if you're disappointed then let it be.  
Cause I made it be .

The rules and regulations put on me.
Renting a few moments of life, and a moment of you is what I need.
A moment I would pay morals for, disappointment for, guilt for.

Work, snakes, frienemies, money *****, white collar slavery, broken family, unwanted love, incapability, mistakes, lost.

But the image of you feels sweet.
A sweet maroon glass of wine
Divine
Mine ...
I wish

— The End —