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Listen to us, immersed in life:
Feel sensation (wipe away strife),
Know experience (and never desensitize).

Let the breeze amble by
touching clothes, flowing robes drifting over
soft air so quiet. Hold it there.

In the name of the wind
that brushes against our face,
Close contact on delicate skin, so
boldly tempting fate;
The words remained traced in the air:

-ALL ALPHA ALBEITT ACE.

Emulsified by dark days,
I used the memories to stay awake.
Keep it clean they say,
But my soul had been stained;
The senses had strayed too far away.

Bent to the will of the chems
they had been rendered slaves;
Surreality does slyly misbehave.

Draw simple oxygen into your being
as an empyreal tidal wave rises again;
The air around me speaks psychedelic zen.
Refresh
Shiloh  Dec 2009
Time.
Shiloh Dec 2009
Things are winding down now,
I can see it clearly
I never meant to be like this
It's not who I am, not really.
You told me so many things
That I now see as lies,
But when I try to tell you
You just desensitize.
I'm somehow really good at
Messing everything up,
But I always try to be a good person
Even though I should just shut up.
Kai Jan 2022
Forgot what I searched for to find heaven.
But I know that at the age of seven
I seized my mother’s phone and found a god.
He led me to an arresting world with strings.

Strings that swept your hair the way the wind does
when your ego would reach the sparkling skies.
They touched your heart no matter how heartless.

I refused to blink because if I did
I would miss a second of his gentle
fingers gliding across the maple fretboard.
And no sane person would want to miss that!

Strings danced back and forth as he played a chord.
Oh, his fingers grew sore, but calluses
helped desensitize them from aches and pain.

The instrument he mastered was waiting
to call him master cause’ guitars love how
he manipulates and makes them his slave.
Strings begged for his touch, for sounds they could make.

My eyes felt heavier than dense gym weights.
I mustn’t stop gazing if I want to
stay lost in heaven. So **** riveting!

“School is tomorrow.” “******, I forgot.”
“Give the phone back. Hmm, what are you watching?”
“Heaven.” “What did you say?” “I said heaven.”
Mom didn’t say anything afterward.

A few hours came, she asked for the phone.
I gave it to her, prepared my backpack.
Maybe in a different universe.
I would have proclaimed, “Don’t take the phone back.”
My first encounter with the most remarkable instrument: the guitar.
Trevor Gates Apr 2013
Sweltering insurgencies of electric power chords
Tribal reverberations of skin-stretched drum boards
Rolling and filling; syncopating the noise
Of the ***-less toys
The ****-less boys
Enraptured in the music
The anthem
Of invidious phantoms
My eyes hurt inside and
I want to pull them out and
Scrape out the gunk and rust
that’s behind my self-indulgent perseverance
so I can cry
for the first time in years…

Wrapping my hands around his slender torso
Licking away the paint, the dripping ooze; more so
Than hastening my ****** and mordant urges
To bite what emerges
And my mouth purges
The obelisk from underneath
The iron-pierced jester
The voracious molester
My hand tightens as I grip
his throat tighter and
I want to squeeze until his eyes pop
from his sockets and
laugh until I puke against the walls,
watching the ****** fluids mix
like an execrable marinara sauce…

I turned thirty while still being sixteen
The vivid beauty of the world was only in dreams
But none of mine, none that I can recall
Many years have passed since I took the oral fall
Where no one saw
Intransigent need to live
For the snake in my veins hungered for more
So many had their way
until I was limp and sore.
Defamatory fingers of mire and strife
Probing and stretching
My insides
And devilishly comforting
With limpid ambrosia
That’s infected by bilious worms and maggots covered in icing
And fruit

Amatory gauntlets fastened and secured over
Handless limbs that retract under matriculated frictions
That fracture, crack, morph, distort
Emphasize, marginalize
Rationalize, desensitize
Acts of *******, evasion, moral drainage;
Pieces, bits, chunks, sections, portions, servings;
Arms, legs, eyes, tongues, fingers, toes,
Love, lust, infatuation
Adoration
Boys, girls, women, men,
Angels, demons, monsters, humans
Creators, gods, titans, divas
All extended and limited from the minds that worship
Sanctify, mesmerize, glorify, rectify
While humans eat more, love more, **** more
Than the angels, demons, monsters, and titans
We ponder and cherish
Nevermore, for me
Ever lore, for all
Crows surround
And chaos found.
A Thomas Hawkins May 2010
The phrase "collateral damage"
is used so not to cause offense
to desensitize the public
'bout the ****** of innocents

We're spoonfed daily numbers
of those who won't come back
but for innocent civilians killed
we dont bother keeping track

Because they're "collateral damage"
a nameless faceless entity
so easy to ignore
if they don't look like you and me

But when the shoe is on the other foot
and our innocents get killed
we put pictures in the papers
and monuments we build

Have we really sunk so far
as not to comprehend
that "collateral damage" means people,
and that war just has to end.
©A Thomas Hawkins 2010
http://poetryinprogress.com

The Community Poetry Project
The creation of a handwritten poetry compilation featuring poems from poets around the world. For full details visit http://cheaperthantherapy.net
Devon Baker Apr 2013
Thatcher vacuum seals nicotine
Slurps cigarette like mosquito
Ravenous lungs gnaw and grind for the slow pander,
Thatcher’s just another name for the labeling
We plaster and pine for an out,
Stitch that finite lie beneath squeamish child skin,
Thatcher’s the black lung paradise,
******* infancy coddling cigarette stifle,
The caloric crack of his canines fletching out lust and sickly groove
As he’s scopes out fiend and vexed vandals,
Clutches the sick theistic *******
Cuddle those bruise licked hips
Give God the gross percent,
Cause heaven’s in those greenbacks
and God’s in the ******* kick,
Suckling bout the American tip
The Christian capitol,
Seething on shadow puppet ****** and American dream,
Gods got nothing to do with the slickened crinkle of gain and glamour,
Thatcher’s just the candy man give and cult,
Cough the crutch of contagion greed
And clutch the cuff of your porcelain sleeve,
Thatcher gleans your blackest suite tight,
Struts raven blade shoulders perched on American made spine,
Thatcher does as Thatcher please,
Thatcher thinks as Thatcher bleeds,
And Thatcher bleeds venereal blend,
Gout with the American veneer of broken girl and scabbed moral traumatic,
Trauma tastes as the hollow pixies give out the get out,
Bandaged baby girls,
The teenage horror show,
Just another blazoned hit of one two take the hand me down generic give away,
Desensitize the humanize,
Girls got to get the days glossy puff and sniff,
Thatcher’s content to satisfy,
Callous coroner a spectator suckling Marlboro lick,
Lodging thick smoke and toxin between spittle slick lips,
Albino plumes clotting and unfolding,
Thatcher clicks back the cartridge
Filter and cigarette,
Thatcher gulps back the need because brain’s got a favoring kink for the buzz,
Thatcher sings with the screaming in his straggling lungs,
Hums the western creed
Laughs fickle with God at his need,
Thatcher’s the true American dream
Myrrdin  Nov 2018
Desensitize
Myrrdin Nov 2018
I love you's
Were for goodbyes
They were paired
With apologies
With excuses
With control
I love you's
Meant "I own you"
And now
They mean nothing to me
Unless they hurt
Ann M Johnson Oct 2016
What I fear most are not the things that go bump in the night.
The things that frighten me are often times things that at first you can not see.
These things that first start with someone elses thoughts can too often be turned into negative actions. What may start as a passitionate thought, or cause can too quickly turn into a distructive action. This is why I fear insensitivity, crude jokes, apathy.
Other things I fear are people that talk without thinking about what they are saying first, or how others might interpet what they are saying.
I fear selfishness which may lead to uncaring actions.
I fear crude jokes that do not respect ones fellow man or women, because it could subtlely desensitize ones perspection of those around them. They may get defensive and say it is just a joke.
The constant violent images on the news and on television, may further desensitize others to think that volence is normal or okay, or worse still that it is a normal part of life. It don't have to be perseived as normal we can chose to limit our own exposesure to violence on television. We can let others know that we don't condone violence, whether it is on television, or in reality, or in our own community.
I fear all these things that at first hide inside the deepest parts of someones mind, long before it is publically seen. This realization of this hidden darknes,makes me cry, or scream, if I thought about it all before going to bed. I would cover my head and sleep with the lights on, and every noice would make me jumpy.
This is why I fear the things that I can not see the most.
Silver Wolf  Nov 2013
x y z
Silver Wolf Nov 2013
The logic, math problems threatening me
Laughing in my face
Emerging from the deep dark depths of
The textbook of my life
My hands trying to make it work
Dividing until there is no leftover
No remainder
But there’s always going to be a remainder
An unexpected variable thrown in
Watch out for that
Make one change one mistake and
You end up with a different answer
As your footsteps deviate from the path
You thought was right
Hopelessly wander, search for your light
And find yourself immersed in an ocean of
Parabolas and quadratics of the equation
Attempting to answer
Decode the numbers
Read between the lines
Break down the algorithm
And desensitize
As you calculate the rate at which
My mind speeds towards insanity
Measure how much you love me on a scale
Of one to ten
What if the number is eleven?
Then compare to a love for her
The question is irrelevant
Because what is equality
Two different things so much same
How can one surpass another?
Always want to know how can
You compare and contrast the highway
Of your body your mind to that of
Another body another mind
What makes one worth so much more
Is it really worth that much more
It’s unfair once you factor in opinion
After all love can’t be measured
In quantity or numbers
scully Jul 2016
i know there have been moments where you pulled yourself down the stairs just to collapse onto the kitchen floor
i know there have been moments where you repeated,
"i will most certainly not make it out of this alive"
and you wake up the next morning and make it an inch further
my dear dramatic girl
there is no fault in loving with all of your heart
you will grow up and know what each word he presses to your chest means
you will have an Oxfords Dictionary for every time he tells you he was just out late
but if you keep putting pieces of you into everyone who runs their finger over your lips
or tells you "forever" as if it hasn't already lost its meaning
you will lose yourself
do not let the world desensitize you to its contents
theres nothing more tragic than watching a romantic become a cynic
you are full of a quality you cannot let every boy that stops loving you when it's convenient take from you
you are truthful and forgiving
you are trusting
and whats left of your heart is safety-pinned onto your sleeve
your heart belongs to you alone and i know its been a while since you heard this, but
you are full without people miles away telling you that they think you'd look pretty without your clothes on
dust it off,
lie on the kitchen floor and remember what it felt like when you said
"i will most certainly not make it out of this alive"
for when you wake up one morning and forget how it sounds
to be despondent in love
do not let the world take you and spread you over people who push you to fill pieces of them they have lost in others
you are prevailing every time you whisper
"i love you, too"
eh

— The End —