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Madisen Kuhn Sep 2013
I'm afraid to write about you because
Ink makes me feel everything,
And everything feels so much more real
When my cursive words smudge up against
The side of my hand and stain it blue
As my pen races to keep up with my heart

But it can't be real,
Because I thought I was moving on,
I thought I was growing up,
I thought I knew all of this was
Foolish and starry-eyed

I thought, I thought, I thought
But maybe I need to stop thinking
And just let myself feel;
Feel the butterflies you put in my stomach,
Feel the pure bliss you infuse into bloodstream

And maybe I don't need to know everything,
Like exactly what you're thinking
Or exactly how I feel
Or how all of this is going to turn out

I guess what I'm saying is that
Everything isn't always going to be clear,
I may come up to "two roads in a yellow wood"
And not be absolutely certain which one I'm meant to take,
But I do know that whichever path I choose,
I'd like to be able to scan the trees and smile
Because you're there walking alongside me.
M  Mar 2014
Atoms
M Mar 2014
Scientifically, we are made up of a combination of atoms that somehow resulted in spinning minds and thirsty hearts, soft skin and aching bones.

I heard somewhere that if the atoms of an object could spread far enough apart, we could pass through anything.

If we are merely atoms, I suppose I spread mine so far that you passed through me.

You came through me, you hit my bloodstream and God was it a rush.

My atoms reacted with yours and it felt like they started to merge into one.

I felt you become a part of my spinning mind, my thirsty heart, my soft skin and my aching bones.

I spread myself so far so that you could really see who I was and before I knew it you had passed through me.

My atoms are tinged with specks of yours and I can't get you out of what makes up who I am.

This is why I miss you with all that I have.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2018
Songs of Oregon: No 5 no general impressions specifically

For the Poets of Oregon, each a unique travel guide

no salt n’ pepper shaker of general impressions for the offering,
for now, ubiquitous generalities means inclusionary which means
likely accidental to be exclusionary,
so specifically,
no ‘all in' clauses

just a few specific eye-sights, hoary words, new birth canals,
to be either eaten, resurrected, van-slaughtered, backyard buried,
all are filed nearby in the seed cabinet or the garage freezer,
or on the C drive of your brain

awaiting ideal planting conditions, and the rest,
a series perhaps,
Songs of Oregon?
Someday

someday, when all the big brief poems are fully formed,
earth ripened, mind fomented; oak barrel aged,
harvest-reading-ready,
green trees shoots busting thrusting through
misleading sandy looking soil,
needy for quenching from
aquifers that are gold geyser plentiful,
a hundred feet deep, needy only for a
“please sir, may I have some more,"
they’l be writ

but for now, these below are,
some easy to be specifics,
reveling and revealed, useful takeaways,
specifics pacifics
for those who might be traversing upon
Lewis and Clark’s Oregon Trail:

them multicolored redneck
full bearded boys
and those of the
vinnie, millennial hipsters and aging ex- hippies, also,
full bearded boys  
are indistinguishable!
many of both wear matching bib jeans,
so be careful who you be calling
a hillbilly in open carry country

the forever refilled coffee mug still exists though the price
is now $2 but the coffee is sustainable (I am evidence)
organic, from a rain forest from Timbuktu,
so it gets planted in your bloodstream and then replaced
in the soil & land,
the loam of the soul
by you

in Milwaukee,
they know how to spell Milwaukee but
not in Portland

don’t be shocked at the town naming,
these borrowers got no  i-magination,
that’s surly lacking in Oregon; mthey’ll steal your
Nor’easter or Indian
town or city’s name
with no shame
or comp-unction,
claiming it’s different cause
they made it organically and
then misspelled it,
correctly

think that pointy poem point well made,
god made only one coast (theirs) and
just forgot to put Shelter Island NY  upon it;
threw it up randomly skyward, landed on some
atlantic backwater body

getting there or anywhere in Oregon traffic
about the same as in NYC traffic, thus
the heavens balance the scales of justice with
dramatic automotive irony

in some counties, the school week is a
four day affair, for the children need to repay
their parents birthing labor, by laboring beside them
in the vineyards, on the tractors, learning from
the book and look of their parents
sun aged faces and hands,
life learning
that man must earn his sustenance
with the sweat of ones own brow
and that word;
week,
can be spelt in contradictory ways
but only one is acceptable
out here

do be careful though Oregonians are very willingly to lam it,
(Willamette) if you ask nicely,
pick up normal looking weird hitchhikers
and drive many a mile
in yours, not theirs, but sure,
“going-the-same-way direction”
if you ask polite with just a smile

and the river salmon have hired their own governmental advisors


like I said,
no general impressions
just a private’s brief recollections
from his first tour of duty
abroad
where he was purple heart medaled shot
through ‘n through with
Oregon kindness

some juicy real specifics to follow eventually
someday
songs of oregon No.5
Asphyxiophilia Aug 2013
I don't know why I went to the park that day, to be honest. But it was as though the idea was contained in the center of one of the anti-depressants that I swallowed that morning, as though it was released into my bloodstream along with the rest of the ingredients that usually bring me a sense of peace (on good days), as though it bloomed like a vine that weaved through my capillaries and consumed every part of me. Once it took hold of me, I couldn't rid myself of it, so I succumbed to it. As soon as the bottom of my sandals made contact with the soft dirt of the playground, goosebumps rose to the surface of my skin like every memory bursting through my subconscious. The last time I was here, my shoes never met the ground, because you carried me on your back like a child and set me down gently on the tire swing just inside the entrance. I walked slowly towards the swing, envisioning how we must have looked that day. My hands clinging to the chains supporting the tire like they held tightly to your heart strings, my legs kicking from beneath me as though I were splashing in the waves of every ounce of love that poured from us, and my hair flowing in the breeze with the same ease that we existed in each other's presence. Your hands pressed against my back and pushed me higher and higher, and although I was swaying several feet from the ground, I had never felt more safe. I could hear your laughter from behind me and the soundwaves wrapped around my chest like a parachute that I knew would carry me to safety. I felt drawn to the swing once again, so I lifted my legs over the tire and wrapped my hands around the chains once more, rocking back and forth slowly. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to feel the rythym of the swing throughout my entire body. But my meditation was interrupted by a familiar sound that seemed to be gliding upon the invisible fibers of the light breeze that was softly kissing my cheeks. The sound wrapped itself around my head and entered my ears, filling them. I opened my eyes to see several shadows walking in my direction in the distance. The trees overhead were offering them a cover that they slipped quietly beneath, but within seconds, they stepped into the sunlight and I caught my breath. You were among them, and your head was tilting back in laughter, and your hands were moving gracefully in front of you, and your feet were walking swiftly as though you weren't wading through a swamp littered with my memory. And that was when you saw me, and if I hadn't been looking right at you, I wouldn't have noticed the slight twitch in your smile when your eyes met mine. But you didn't miss a step, you never did. Not even when you wrapped your fingers tightly around my heart and then shattered it into a million pieces. I couldn't remove my gaze from you, from your graceful and unaffected presence. I couldn't even register who you were with because I was so focused on the way your tongue slipped effortlessly in and out of your mouth. And if I wasn't mistaken, you slightly lifted your head in my direction as a nod of recognition, but you kept on walking. And I kept staring, because I always seemed to be the one clinging to something that was already gone. But it was in that moment that the vines in my bloodstream dissolved and I suddenly felt free from it all, as though it was my purpose to revisit the place I have replayed in my mind a thousand times only to replace it with a new memory. And it was in that moment that I realized that all you would ever be from now on is a memory, an empty tire swing swaying in an invisible breeze.
Lejla  Jan 2014
bloodstream
Lejla Jan 2014
I hate how your memory is stitched onto my veins,
I spent all day in bed trying to scrub you off my skin,
I spent all night trying to escape these shadows,
I can't seem to allow myself to let you walk towards the light,
I'm waiting for something that's never existed,
It's so cold here and I can't feel my heart beat anymore,
It's so loud here and I can't hear myself think anymore,
I spent all year hoping to stop this feeling of regret,
I blame myself for all that pain you conjured,
The creature in my bloodstream chews me up,
I can't feel the blood flow through my veins anymore,
I can't hear the strange voices anymore.
Megan Feb 2018
My therapist used to say that
I get the flashbacks because
I don't talk about it enough.

But how am I supposed to talk about it
when everyone tells me that my story has been made invalid
by the alcohol in my bloodstream,
and the fact that I laughed about it the next day?

We all have different ways to survive.

How was I supposed to process my emotions the morning after
when I had blood dripping down my legs,
standing in the 6am cold,
because shivering outside without a jacket
was far better than staying in a room with one of my rapists,
and the lingering smell of shame?

I am far too young to feel a pain like this.

A pain so heavy that my entire soul is flattened
by the weight I carry around.

A violation so evil
that I cannot help but leave my body -
it is no longer mine
but a vessel
that carries the blackness of my ache,
my thoughts that turn to ash when I try to say them out loud
and the demons that have possessed me.

Demons born from the three of you.

How can I continue
when I can still feel three pairs of unwanted hands,
      gripping,                                           ­         
hitting,                                        
bruising me                    
all at once?

How can I breathe
when I can still feel six eyes
on the most intimate parts of me,
every vulnerability and weakness?

How can I live
when I still have pieces of you
entangling yourselves around my bones,
suffocating my heart?

I thought that by burying it all deep into myself -
every 'it' that you called me,
every bruise left on my skin,
every single ****** that tore me apart -
encased by my ribcage,
wrapped in skin that you made into paper,
I would be able to carry on.

I created my very own Pandora's box.

But you escaped;
every millilitre of your venom
is combined and coursing through my veins,
poisoning each one of my nerve endings.

I no longer see the same version of myself,
like looking in a broken mirror,
each fragment showing a different flaw, a different shame.
I am not me.

I am full of darkness.
My mind is sick,
I am filled to the brim with hate and anger and inescapable sadness.
You made me into a monster
that leaves fingerprints of acid on everything I touch.

Is there anything worse
than seeing six vitriolic eyes
everywhere I go?

Is there anything worse
than your visits to me when I sleep,
waking up drenched in sweat because of the horror?

Is there anything worse
than feeling a constant lump of anxiety in my throat,
whenever I'm left alone? -
because please
please
please don't feed me to the wolves again!

Is there anything worse
than starving myself because
no-one will ever love me unless I'm thin because
I'm too riddled with trauma?

Is there anything worse
than blaming myself so much
that I started hurting myself again?

No-one ever tells you that trauma lasts forever,
but I'm learning that now.
Because it's been ten months and twenty-two days since
the three of you destroyed me...

And you've been destroying me every day since.
If you've read this to the end, THIS is the destruction caused by **** - stop injustice anywhere you can
Leah Jun 2014
Don't do that, babe,
don't tell me I'm not trying.

I swam through 12 oceans and drowned
in every single one of them but
each time the water swept into my lungs
and the fish started swimming
in my bloodstream.

I spat it all up and went on swimming
'cause I know I can't face another day
without you in my mind.

There will be no life rafts
and I will definitely not pop in the middle of the ocean
like murdered bodies in crime scenes.

I am a ****** sinking ship.

I promise you
I will make it to shore alive, though.
Note: This is a revised poem off a work of someone else from Tumblr. All rights reserved for that person, not me.
My note: Nothing would be the same if you didn't exist. I miss you but you would be better off without me, honey. I'm a thinker, not a talker.

— The End —