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Ceida Uilyc  Aug 2014
My Toska
Ceida Uilyc Aug 2014
And,  I smiled at my own nakedness.
Pouring down my thighs,
With the *****,
I stood stark ****.
Unbounded of the brassieres
And support of the *******,
It was a plain freedom.
But, I.
I felt the air quench horror down.
The tingling of the copulation
And, its sweaty remnants glued the ***** soil,
Onto my tender body,
While crouched further into the ground.


It was very dark.
And, two limelight.
I could see me in one.
Bare.
Shaved
And dripping.

And, in the other,

A he,
Was not there.
Two dozen men stood
In front of me.

All those acquaintances it seemed like
The new age resultant of a dozen
Photoshop-ed faces reflecting the crimson of  
Familiar intimacies of all the swallowed *****,
It seemed as if.
Well, I could recognise all of them.
I had slept with each, once upon.


The beautiful ***, the sneering *******,
The-neourotic-awesome one, the pro-marriage one,
The sweet one, the afraid one, the older one,
The browny,
The passionately wild and genuine one,
The drugged one,
The fat ****
And the **** guy.
All in front of me.
While I was nubile,
Begging in clasped hands,
A tear of joy.
Of thankfulness.
Of a heavy thankfulness.
For having worshipped my innards
My ejaculations, perpetually wet vaginal facades
And escapades.

For the li'lest that time they did.

But, then.

Yes.

Ya, I was grateful,
I was simply grateful
For having been objectified.

For having been indebted to those zillion
Dissolved and
Disposed tissues in their garbage bins
That was blotched with my vaginal smear, ***** and mucous.

Time never felt necessary
A romantic forgetfulness!
For love had,
Taught me co-existence.
And only,
Co-existence.
Which, would come to use only if I'm shipwrecked, alone.


I stood up.
Yes, I stood UP ON MY LEGS.
My ******* panted off
the last bit of sweat,

The wind was pleasant,
But strong.

I couldn't feel the cold.
My fingers Icy cold I wrapped against the warm elbows,
And nails,
Gushing with an ablaze of bloodiest red of
A life so dead white.

And, the sweat had disappeared.

The ***** too.


I was drought, clean.

I was done.

A heavy tornado of misandry
Came buy,
And I jumped in.

And howled with the wind.


Loud, clear.
And, red.

And, howled the world to howl with me.

For the celestial lesions up above,
to buy my rage.


Because the effervescent stake was
Too holy a scent
For my scanty dermis.

I Howled,
Through my rusted lance
And swamped hips,
Too dry.

To Spike my cramps
And howl into my knee-caps a full blow of pure kush for the empty cavities.

Ha ha.

Entrap the last ounce of warmth
Of a paranoid agony.

And howl the misandry.

Around. And around.
And around.

Around.


Till it comes back,
Around n round n round.
N round.



Misandry, my toska.
My final Toska.
Toska is a Russian Word that is inexplicable to translate to English.
AMBR  Oct 2013
Toska
AMBR Oct 2013
Written in the stars
a message just for me.
You always ask me why
I'm stuck staring at the sky.
They're blinking up there to tell me the Truth:
immortality exists for the masses,
a beautiful tragedy for the individual me.

When one ant dies,
you still groan over the colonies' persistence,
even while they process
that pour soul to his grave.

When one stars goes out,
you still gasp at the sky on a clear night,
saying there couldn't possibly be anymore out there.

Well I may die my own woman,
and I may make my mark on this world,
but someone will be looking down on us
when my colors fly,
remarking on the endurance of the human race.
today, I have a biting case of gray-
a need, for what I don't know.
like there are pine needles, under my skin, digging their way in,
splinters through my rib cage, tickling the strings that attach me to my heart.

I have been checking my pockets for days now, found only worry stones,
shined and polished by my thumb.
For days now, I have had dusty fingerprints, for days now, I have felt this way.
for days I have carried warm cloth, the unborn child of my spirit,
fresh from the machines.
Buried my face in them- in order to find solace,
for days now, I have slept in.

Sometimes gray is soft and daze inducing-
somedays it is a scratchy wool afghan stretched thin across my body,
leaving channel marks and rashes-
it is an unforgettable, unexplainable feeling,
the feeling of gray.

One day in march I took a walk down the greenway
and my movements became clear to me-
cigarette flicks and head shakes had purpose.
Since then- Gray is overwhelming.
It was a cloudy day when I took them- it has remained that way since.
For days now, I have let my worries gather on my thumbs and fingers-
for days now, I have swallowed the stones.
Mandy Rowe  Nov 2014
toska
Mandy Rowe Nov 2014
the sound of my own breathing gives me comfort
tells me i’m still alive
even though i can’t feel it

empty, hollow
full of air, of tears, of ice
of something missing

all the heat leaves me
through my eyes
shivering in the negative space

falling
into the dark
behind everything and everyone

forgetting to keep my head up
i let myself slip
just like everyone else

forgetting to remind myself i’m worth something
i’ve seen the truth
i’m nothing, in everything
3/18/14
"Toska - noun /ˈtō-skə/ - Russian word roughly translated as sadness, melancholia, lugubriousness.

"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom."
— Vladimir Nabokov
I share this with you because the word “Toska”reminds me largely of the feeling of depression. In fact, it is the embodiment of the feeling I have often felt myself. The way it is described here supersedes anything I could come up with. Therefore I simply copied and pasted the definition. The definition itself is, in a way, poetry. So I saw it fit to share here, on this site.
Rebecca Gismondi  Aug 2016
toska
Rebecca Gismondi Aug 2016
I saw two grown men cry this week.

heaving their bodies, weighted with wails

my father with guilt burrowed in his gut
live streams his tears asking anyone for
answers to fix his sick son

my lover wishing to be shattered into dust,
logging each passing thought in emails
parceled with regret

I carry them;
I bundle and swaddle and embrace

I light three matches for each of us,
the flame kissing my index finger

we are one

in the ember I hear

we have taken only one family vacation
I wanted to cut off my finger and send it to you
you promised to protect me

my father is martyred
my love is sleepless
these are my men

and although this week I have had
black thread weaved underneath my skin

and I have carved out my name in my stomach
with worry

and I have been swallowed whole by the memory of
my favourite small town in Long Island

he is black
he is in a drought
he is marred too
Caitlin Drew  Jun 2014
Logophilia
Caitlin Drew Jun 2014
In Welsh
The word "Hiraeth" means
A homesickness for a home
To which you cannot return.
A home which maybe never was.
The nostalgia,
The yearning,
The grief for the lost places of your past.

In Russian
The word "Toska" means
A dull ache of the soul.
A longing with nothing to long for.
A sick pining.
A vague restlessness.

In Yaghan
The word "Mamihlapinatapai" means
A look shared by two people,
Each wishing that the other will
Offer something that they both desire
But are unwilling to suggest or offer themselves.

You say that you love my words
And wonder why I have such a passion for them.
It's simple, really.
I'm merely trying to put a name
To everything you inspire me to feel.
Graham L Martin Jan 2011
Mischief

I.

Inspiration,
The view of the screen is blurred,
The scenes blend into one another
You take every actor at action, or word
The world has taken new meaning with the veil lifted
Pages merge as Jack against Tyler
The Durden family united by gun smoke
But lies you tell yourself
They begin to show themselves
And your world falls apart
You stop seeing you
And how everyone else sees you
Can’t you see the color fading from the page?
The ink wells dry as you turn them
The stories you once loved are fading into the whiteness that destroyed you.

You are no longer the man you dreamed of being
An astronaut, a zoo keeper, psychologist,
All faded dreams, from a time when innocence reigned supreme.
What will you do with this new profound knowledge?

I walked to the same shop as I did everyday
Sipped the same coffee
Saw the same people, drank the same gin
Nothing changed, I was still dreaming.

II.

Impatience,
You walked away years ago,
Months, weeks, days, just now
But with two thousand years behind me
I will find a way to forget you!

I would say I’m Sisyphus,
But my boulder does not see peaks
An endless climb, to the stars
Does he know his efforts are fruitless?
Because I do

Smell-less smoke creeps under my door,
I will not wake for it, it is sightless as well
But if I do wake it is violent,
My juniper friend calms my hand,
I know this is wrong,
The window needs to be opened.
The gas needs to be let out.

I thought I cast you from my life
But your ******* portrait hangs above the mantel
Do I really want to forget you? Or is this the face everyone else wants?
I can’t get you to leave me alone, although you’re motionless.
You are some one else, I am still right here.

III.

Unprepared,
The news rooms only rehearsed one ending
All the papers printed victory for their man,
Everyone foresaw this victory.
Millions of papers printed,
Posters, statues, schools,
All made in his mad image.

But the papers were burned,
Statues torn down,
Printers were executed.
How dare they  


IV.

Surprise,
I see you sitting there with him.
At the café sipping tea, or coffee,
I don’t remember what you really preferred
But I take comfort knowing he doesn’t know at all

You’re both laughing and smiling
And I’m left breathless,
Upset,
Frustrated,
I know I could do it better
But you don’t know
You never will.

I was just walking to work,
And you’ve changed my entire day,
V.

Greed,
Do not be ruled by your possessions
If you spend all your time worrying about the bills
You’ll forget to use the utilities to live!
Try to own as little as possible.
It will be easier to move.
Try to die in the winter time,
Those who have to burry you,
Will remember you better.

Throw away half of your stuff,
Live without electricity or running water,
See the world.
Try new disgusting looking food.
Don’t be afraid of falling,
How will you be able to see the bottom?

IV.

Toska,
We have no word for it,
My professor warned me about that word.
Once you read it, you cannot forget
It rings in my ears a thousand times a day.
I’m sorry for damning you with it.
I meant no mischief by it.
midnight prague Aug 2011
you are the toska breeding in me like vicious flowers
cannas perhaps lotus or bleeding hearts
haunting the excruciating longing in my sinking chest
a calming and white haunting

I hear a thud in the middle of my body and it seems
that my heart levels itself in between my dimmed ribs
so that it may nervously burst in my core
to let that beautiful yellow childlike  sun into my body

what am I without you, a weltering raindrop
on top of a dark wooden roof
falling into the rustic mud while nobody is watching
being absorbed into the earth while nobody
cares

when I spoke my voice was hallow
and now you fill my speech and the streaks of tunes from my neck
like a starving man who by the grace of God has been blessed
with the feast of kings and queens

the phantom artist of something like a never ending dream
the gentle spirit
the serene incubus

you
daydreamer of withering beauty
heartless and genuine
I rest my smile upon your spine
I suffocate into your talent
of a deep and barren like litost

your calm ocean
as mine
filled with creatures only our imaginations
can begin to decipher
a tender arena of hearts and fowl play
you have taught me more about myself
I am bathing in beauty
drowning in a glorifying deep silk

I would bring my last weeping words  in a coffin
with  dark and rich embroidery resembling
that of your driven eyes
for a simple brush of your hand
upon my cheek

— The End —