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The bottom of my dress
ballooning out,
like a doily on the dance floor.

Feeling like a princess
As I held Mommy’s hand.

Twirling me all around,
Like a ballerina let out of
Her jewelry box.

My greatest dance partner,
To the best drummer in the band.
My dad was a drummer for a local band. When I was younger, my mom used to twirl me around in circles in the midst of people on the dance floor while he played. My greatest memory from when they were married.
Patrick Conroy  Mar 2013
Crutches
Patrick Conroy Mar 2013
I've been using crutches ever since I was small.
It used to be my parents when I would fall.
Lacking the strength or knowledge to stand on my own,
they would lead me
teach me
support this insecure child.

I've been using crutches ever since I was small.
A shot of *******, another sip of alcohol.
Liquid courage to face the day,
flexing my beer muscles for the ladies
my true self atrophied from years of inactivity.

I've been using crutches ever since I was small.
With my crutches gone, it's time for me to stand tall.
I've worn out every crutch
under the ballooning weight of my insecurity
and now with wobbly legs and unsure steps,
I must learn to stand on my own.
Death is not the final word.
Without ears, my father still listens,
still shrugs his shoulders
whenever I ask a question he doesn't want to answer.

I stand at the closet door, my hand on the ****,
my hip leaning against the frame and ask him
what does he think about the war in Iraq
and how does he feel about his oldest daughter
getting married to a man she met on the Internet.

Without eyes, my father still looks around.
He sees what I am trying to do, sees that I
have grown less passive with his passing,
understands my need for answers only he can provide.

I imagine him drawing a breath, sensing
his lungs once again filling with air, his thoughts ballooning.
judy smith Nov 2016
Fashion designers love foraging through the antique markets of Clignancourt in Paris and Portobello Road and Alfie’s Antiques markets in London snuffling out vintage pieces for inspiration. The flurry of romantic Victoriana on the catwalks for autumn can clearly be blamed on this obsession.

There has been an undercurrent of reserved, covered-up fashion ever since Pierpaolo Piccioli and his former co-designer Maria Grazia Chiuri introduced a more demure aesthetic to Valentino five years ago. Longer skirts, prim higher necklines and covered arms have become the slow trend of recent seasons creating a hyper-feminine look.

Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy and Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen have long been beguiled by the Gothic romanticism of Victorian fashion with their use of corsetry and dark dramatic lace and velvet for eveningwear.

In fact, London-based vintage fashion dealer Virginia Bates admits she doesn’t remember there ever being a time when Gothic Victoriana didn’t feature in at least one designer’s collection. “The fascination with the romantics, poets, artists and even horror [classics and films] give designers a great source of inspiration,” she says. “It’s an irresistible era.”

Certainly a lot of it has appeared on the catwalks this season at McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Burberry (shown only a month ago in the see-now, buy-now collection), Simone Rocha, Preen, Bora Aksu and Temperley London, as well as at smaller brands such as Alessandra Rich, Three Floor created by Yvonne Hoang and A.W.A.K.E.

There were dark distressed Linton tweeds, unravelling knits and black tulle in Simone Rocha’s autumn collection. Rocha was pregnant when she started designing it and was inspired by Victorian dress and motherhood, in particular the nightgowns and matrons.

“All the wrapping and swaddling of babies,” she says, before elaborating on how “the Victorian ideals of properness were made perverse with the conservative and covered-up pieces contrasted by the sheer and embroidered fabrics.”These gauzy vaporous fabrics succeeded in making her eerily romantic silhouette look rather contemporary and daring.

Subversion is key to making such a prim and proper period in fashion history modern and relevant for women today. Marc Jacobs, for instance mixed long Victorian coats, ballooning crinolines and crochet doily collars with sweatshirt tops and laser-cut leather for skirts and jackets together with some scary Goth horror make-up. Nothing is, or should be literal.

As Justin Thornton of Preen says “we love the Victorians, the laces and the white shirts, but it is the vintage pieces rather than the era that inspire us”. His partner Thea Bregazzi has collected aristocratic laces and ruffly vintage shirts from Portobello Road market for as long as he has known her and these frequently find their way into their collections, “but linings would be ripped, garments will have holes in them – it is a deconstructed look”.Virginia Bates once owned a famous vintage fashion emporium in Holland Park with a client list including the biggest names in fashion from John Galliano to Donna Karan and Naomi Campbell. Now she only works with private clients and designers and they, especially, she says were looking for genuine Victorian pieces when planning their autumn collections.

“A black fitted jacket with inserts of handmade lace [that is] embellished with crystal and jet beads, ***** and silk lined ... How exciting and inspiring is that? Silk and fine lawn shirts, soft and flowing with ruffles. Don’t we all want to wear one and live the dream?”

Thankfully a few designers do right now, and there were lots of heavenly creatures in fragile asymmetric lace dresses toughened up with leather corsetry at Alexander McQueen, and richly coloured swishy dresses at Bora Aksu. While Christopher Bailey cherry-picked the centuries in his Burberry collection, lighting upon frilled white cotton shirts, nipped in jackets and military capes from the Victorian era. Given that Victoria reigned for more than 60 years there is a lot of history for designers to plunder, so this will not be the last we will see it.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses
Alice Lost Jul 2013
Fly, Fly free balloon…

My romance has just bloomed,

I’ll grab you with my hand

As if you were a piece of land.



Now you are locked

On my precious park

To remember the sweet

Times, that were never once dark…
Still in motion, I struggle with shrinking sounds
of my shadow resisting the ballooning into life I find articulating so often.
What is the self?
I have been skinny dipping with this question
because I can not forget what it is to be an object,
a sense of the ever present weight of a secret word
we’ve been struggling to define.
Do I even need a diction for direction?
Could we not let our selves wash
over us like we could not falter
and if not then aren’t we already dead?

Will.

A horseshoe on fire with all the weight of emotion.
A far more intoxicating psychosis,
than being a program.

I dare the children;

play god,

there is a reason he’s known to be jealous and a man.

I will play but I’m going to bend the rules as it suits this shade at my heels

driving me further into my own lightness so that it may grow taller.

The ant and the sapling.

A sensation of of being… SNAP OUT OF IT.

Too close. You don’t want to feel this love.

You’ll become contrary to your cage

and It is that very tension that will vault me

into the sun where again I will melt back down into a wash basin

of soapy science trying to scrub reality clean.

When everything is spotless,

what will the dirt mean when there is nothing left to refer as an opposite?

The earth will become the numb halls of sadist’s with not much left of

home to live in unless we learn to fly by our own direction.
Ephemeral Em Apr 2017
Floating, floating carried by the soft air
Dressed entirely in billowing white
Eyes closed, guard down, chin up without a care
There has not ever been such carefree flight

At least that is what I try to believe
If you pretend you're free then you can be
Ignore the aching feeling, let it leave
Nothing hurts you when you fly blissfully

Until your husband comes to shut the door
Stops the wind from carrying you away
From him, trapped without love, just like before
Will you again be able to be gay?

Floating way back down, trapped by my husband
I was loved once, never to be again
Based on Chapter One of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Jeremy Duff Mar 2014
Even though I've been writing for years
(not that it's any better than when I started)
the title still holds true.

Words don't spill out,
thoughts don't process
like they used to.

Pieces need second checks for meaning,
thirds for grammar,
and a fourth for meaning.

Maybe it's the absence of physical affection;
certain chemicals aren't being triggered to release in my brain
but I decided if I couldn't keep my unspoken promises,
if I can't touch with a deep understanding of love
I will not touch at all.

It was shocking,
the impact one night could have
and so I have not had a second try
(or a six or seventh if we're counting).

I let the words of Thom Yorke
and Ezra Koenig say all that I cannot.

"Slowly we unfurl as lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if, just to see what is
I can't kick your habit
Just to feed your fast ballooning head
Listen to your heart"
Quotations from Radiohead's "Lotus Flower"
give it a listen
Brandon Navarro  Aug 2014
You
Brandon Navarro Aug 2014
You
Without
I am just here.
Somewhere between living and
death.
Sitting next to
is all I need
to feel that
coursing crimson in me
the ballooning of my lungs
body heat.
The thought
of gone.
Makes the crimson gets iced
the balloons deflate.
All I see is
a funeral.
Holding hands
soar throat
wet
cold
scared.
Everything escapes.

Suddenly

the ballooning is back
crimson coursing
tears rushing
body heat on my hand.
Words "I'll never leave"
come in my head.

"That isn't true"
Someday
the're will be
emptiness
and a coffin.
Tried to make a love poem without using the words "you" or "love"
Love too strong for
those who bear it
is a curse invoked
by a deficit of worth.

It is not enough to
seek validation through
a proxy designated
Heaven on Earth.

With no center of gravity,
no anchor in character,
obsession is the limit
of the capacity to love;

Projecting impossible
desires and untenable
expectations amounts
to blasphemy of.

True love may not be
forever or easy;
parting may never
be pleasant to bear;

Love is not merely
what's pleasing or comfortable;
love is a crucible;
love is not fair.

Those fleeting failures
and moments of error
are chances at triumph,
a challenge to change.

Breaking our boundaries,
ballooning outward:
love is inevitably
savage and strange.

Unbefitting to cling
to the bridge that enables
a star in its wand'ring
to cross the abyss;

To carry the ballast
of vast insecurity
over that chasm,
untenable risk;

Or swallow the poison
of foolish dependence
on whimsical paramours,
obesiance thereof,

To be hung from the neck
by detestable premises,
weak and debased
by untenable love.
To learn how to love well, we must accept everything it throws at us - including heartbreak and thwarted expectations.

— The End —