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Anne Sexton  Feb 2010
Barefoot
Loving me with my shoes off
means loving my long brown legs,
sweet dears, as good as spoons;
and my feet, those two children
let out to play naked. Intricate nubs,
my toes. No longer bound.
And what's more, see toenails and
all ten stages, root by root.
All spirited and wild, this little
piggy went to market and this little piggy
stayed. Long brown legs and long brown toes.
Further up, my darling, the woman
is calling her secrets, little houses,
little tongues that tell you.

There is no one else but us
in this house on the land spit.
The sea wears a bell in its navel.
And I'm your barefoot ***** for a
whole week. Do you care for salami?
No. You'd rather not have a scotch?
No. You don't really drink. You do
drink me. The gulls **** fish,
crying out like three-year-olds.
The surf's a narcotic, calling out,
I am, I am, I am
all night long. Barefoot,
I drum up and down your back.
In the morning I run from door to door
of the cabin playing chase me.
Now you grab me by the ankles.
Now you work your way up the legs
and come to pierce me at my hunger mark
Graff1980  Jan 2015
The Violence
Graff1980 Jan 2015
I beat my feet against the floor
Thud thud thud
Till the dark red blood
Spews from my new nubs

I bang my head into the wall
Thud thud thud
Till the crimson drips
Drop silently into the mud

I punch the glass window
Thud clash crash
The glass shatters and my fist
Fly’s past the panes

Again and again with no end
In sight
I rage against the night
Violence incarnate
Fury in human form
Flesh and blood storm
No sanity for this mad refugee
Just blood and gore
vircapio gale Jul 2012
shiva knew from ashes, what we from
baring bodies claim to know, that
down-dogs in the buff sets vanity aside,
if not by force then over time
along with any pretzel pose, or
tapas, work, or sweaty hopping
balance challenge deeper rhythm breath
revealing limits undenied and beauty
now revised for harmful lies to go.
beginning **** and ending ****
the mirror is the sun, the blue
horizon line of thought of one.
to bend is in the mind as well,
the keener meaning flexible
of soulful empathy of self.
the class ends in corpse and being
peaceearth-airsky-lovewind-all
apparels us only with the same light
we know and bow in namaste
to saunter to the beach and swim away communal heat.
i'm underwater soon,
three hours of dominoes
fading into deep greens
of algae kumbhaka pranayam. released.
the pond-bottom gasps at me with silt, such
delight shining darkly cool and shouts
jump in bubbles at the greenrays
piercing sweetly down to play our bodies perfect.
this is an existential feast.
old rocks on which to stand connect our feet,
waterslip awareness of the deep
and of the sky
gives rise to touching 'accidents' --
we clothe ourselves in thinner veils
we talk of history and elders, while
hormones sparkle greetings stroking clear we swim
in circles slowly, diving down and playing at pretend.
'adults being children' being adult in reserve
being 'natural' being ****,
discreet in underwater lust...
'i love you' our dripping eyelashes say
against the hot raft that burns our skin;
above the surface
neutral for the genitals we are
evaporate of self-seeing worry not
to spash each other's souls.
kindred lovers elsewhere whine possession
of us, but 'living, you said, isn't about being safe,'
seducing all, at every turn, an unabashed
reflex there to be desired in.

beachbathers, nubs of pink, tan and brown
shine unbroken at the shores.
occasionally waving 'nonjudgmental' waves.
sunglassed faces work away at being easeful:
assuaging fears of voyeurism far

i have set the wall to play vairagyam
naked in the open family value smiles
leaving me to judge our acts undone
or sensed beyond the moment in the center shade,
beneath our floating hiding place
our echoed panting speaking more surreal
than just the treading water in my space
you spit the teasing offer naturally
while hidden in the middle of a lake
our shocks of pleasure, gleaming eyes
in echoes brahmacharya pulls
with spinal lock of spiral loving this
we cannot have our vibrate bliss

i name it potently for what it is,
it cools the ***** enough for
feigning innocence

i duck in and out with image firmly planted
playing on an unreal living all
caution gone~

but not before imagining
the details stored away and swept together:
in that single moment apex entrance
of our carnal members swaying into
underwater yogasex.

the ladder slips along my sides
weaving up unbreathing giddiness, as
nubile, as young forever yearnings mar until
i hook my toes and float for you
clad by sun and sky, clearest ripples
flick the lips of vastness into grin
reflects your dive,
spread silouette above
you fly into my breath
to pinnacle the dance we live
without an act we guard propriety
until alone and years have gone
i'm here before a screen to live it over differently
Colleen Lyons  May 2015
Nubs
Colleen Lyons May 2015
Tattooed and holding cleavers,
we chop off our limbs
to give as random gifts
and lop off each other’s
to sew onto ourselves

between rotting brown brick towers
on infinitely numbered streets
in dim drywall suites
all along the gray, hazy horizon

hanging rusting lamps
flicker incandescent light and

swing above our pill heads
whose floating eyes
dilate
to watch drops of blood
mix
as the needle and thread
yank us closer to becoming
clones.
Brandon Webb Jan 2013
Sometimes it seems like the only emotion
I ever see 100% of the time
is nervousness.
I have become a master at finding
those little nervous ticks-
chewed fingernails
face scratching
the occasional repetition of one word or another
the occasional downward glance.
sometimes i wonder
if I'm making this girl
(whichever girl)
tick like a clock about ready to explode
and leave it's arms loosing lying upon me
it's innards lying there in front of me
the inner workings, the inner thoughts exposed.
Or if her mind is just wandering to others
and i'm just the one sitting here ,
hoping to find a clock,
never knowing if i have,
my heart beating violently in my chest,
my nails already bitten to nubs,
small holes on my face and neck
where I've scratched the hair off
my hair pushed and pulled
this way and that by nervous hands,
my head **** near exploding with the thought
"opposites attract, but i need a ******* clock
before i myself explode
leaving my arms hanging loose in the air
and my innards raw and exposed
for more than just a lovers eyes"




©Brandon Webb
2012
By innards i mean inner thoughts and true feelings
Lorelei Adams  Nov 2011
Nubs
Lorelei Adams Nov 2011
I bit my nails down to a nub
Am I a ghost? A long forgotten
Memory, eased into your backburner, well
Oiled with the sweat of my lust?

When may I emerge from the
Shadows and proclaim that my
Love may be silent, but
It screams so loud in my ears.

Hey, I am hurting here!
Can you put down your life for one
Moment and just sit and justfucking
Listento me?

Or perhaps the image of myself I held so dear is
Now a killer, destined for
Damnation along with all the other
Souls that murdered everything they touched.

I swear, I didn’t mean to.
But it all just crumpled in my
Hand like ashes and I tried to be delicate, but
I pressed too hard.

I wanted to know if it was alive.
I wanted to be sure that this
Love was real, and not just some
Plastic penny-box letter.

I cannot escape for you.
These bars bind me down and
These walls close me in No
Matter how much I runorrun
Or run into them they won’t
Budge.
Please, just this once?
Maybe, this time if I am strong enough they will
Move
And I will taste freedom

Please **** them
Every single one'a'em *******
I'm gunna shootemdead.
Gunna gunnemdown
We is gunna get ourselfs happy, fer once.
Issa great game, this "life" thing.
david badgerow Jun 2015
i'm searching for the comfort
of an old flame to keep me warm
tonight knocking on familiar doorways
to foyers where my boots have already rested dripping
with snow or shedding beach sand and all i want is her
the one i remember in bouts of photographs
bright hair hidden in a knit olive colored snood
with big blue eyes set on full power
as we set out on the open road together car
packed full of soft blankets groceries illicit drugs
cigarettes and the fumes of santiago ***

she convinced me to quit smoking saying
she hated kissing the marlboro man and
i'll take you to the coast i said meaning
every single one because i had harbored
my love for her in a million ways of secrecy
and only survived on a currency of torture
pain inflicted
pain withheld
pain drugged away

she was absolutely perky for the first thousand miles
hair haloed and face lost in shadow as we drove
into the sun out of a cocoa beach condo
leaving behind bikini squeals and smiles
she was with me like an ethereal dream
eating scones on the boardwalk beach
in bitter cold new jersey and that night she was
a long legged american girl astride me
sweaty hollering in a secluded gazebo

she was a blur of parrot colors to me
spending most of july dancing in a daffodil field
in oklahoma while i changed tires on the
hyundai her daddy bought one after another i
just gave her the pink slip to my heart
under a pavilion of light pink fractal fabric
pitched on high beams ascending into
pale gold otherworldly billows

she's sweetly ****** and surrounded by patchouli haze
hanging off my back like a monkey wearing a
wide high fashion soft brim hat she found before
i surprised her with a bunch of freshly picked
wild violets from the roadside she
cripples me and we go tumbling
wrinkled and aimless both exhaling plumes
into the paisley purple sky already full of clouds
blowing straight north hair tangled together
full of windswept snarls barelegged now
and writhing creating craved friction
just two souls of pure energy on the loose

but the best memories i have of that trip
are the nights we spent in joshua tree
not-sleeping beneath a meteor shower every
night for a week when her *****
was still running the show and i
was just a poison rash itching her
calf muscle before i became the master of myself
we were a flurry mess of long naked limbs
tuned to the exact same frequency

she was a fresh meadow flower naked
under taupe corduroy overalls cut ragged
into shorts walking with her arm twisted through
mine and i thought i was the happiest man alive
when we crashed in colorado for two weeks
and every morning i woke to her incandescent
hair sprawled lazy on the karastan rug under
the turquoise glare of the television or to
the smell of a gong sized breakfast casserole
consisting solely of her dreams the previous night
and i would kiss her good morning with her hair
up in curlers and my face between her knees

but she started to grow wings in montana
little nubs etched out on either side of her spine
i noticed them one night while she was sleeping
face down chest stretched across my chest
i watched them grow the further south we got
and by the time we reached the heartland
under those glistening river cypresses
or the banks of that great muddy river
canopied by huge florida palms
she was itching and molting them all over the car
and she finally flew away from me
said she was born for the city but i hope
she's waking up now not under skyscrapers but
a metropolis of oak strands governed by the tyrannical sun

and since that day i've painted her lips on
every girl i've ever seen in the morning every
face that emerges from indigo ambience is hers simply
i hear her nothing-to-lose laugh in every fog or faint haze
after every lunar prowl through a mushroom ranch by the coast
my eyes get shined up with dew every time
i find seagulls nesting in a cypress grove holding
some kind of seance for the flash of sunlight off the nape of her neck
in front of the watery green sunrise of the atlantic
and in my teeth-grinding night terrors i have
a hard-on and i can plainly see her dancing
luxuriously on a deck stretched out over a shaded creek
tight and smooth like the skin of a djembe drum

and sometimes when i feel very weird
with something like sick stomach hunger
churning in my gut i shave my ******* clean
and trim my ***** hair into a crude cave-painting
version of a mountain lion just for her
i wade out into the sea passed the orange trees
and wait for the moon or her lips
to rise and lick me full on my face but
she doesn't return my calls suddenly
having phone
trouble i
guess
George Anthony Apr 2017
god, words, where do you start?
when i get like this, i just write my thoughts
is that the same as speaking from the heart?
what heart, what heart?
this thing that beats against my ribs
i'm sure it's just a hollow shell;
pumps blood and oxygen
allows me to live through this hell
but there's nothing more to it
i'm not doing so well

do rhymes make pain sound simpler?
i have a bad habit of using them when i'm heartbroken
rhymes are used to undermine meaning, according to my old English teacher
half rhymes and nursery rhymes and rhyming couplets and sentences left open

to interpretation, to ambiguity, to aching wounds and clinical analysis
i'm thinking of pretentious hipsters and all my therapists as i'm writing this

"the mechanism which allows you to feel is broken"
it wasn't the best movie but that line stuck with me
i think the mechanism which allows me to feel is broken
don't worry, Harry, i know how you feel, Harry
i, too, use the adverb; i, too, feel badly.

the sharp things that cut me, the dull things that bruise me
everything i should feel is either absent or agony.
love, they say; let love in, she heals your thoughts and broken skin!
fickle *****, she is, what lies i've heard her spin.
do you love me when you lie to me, darling love o' mine?
do you love me when you trace your fingers over the nubs of another's spine?
love o' mine, love o' mine, that Touch was supposed to be mine,
divine, divine, beloved and reverent and MINE

it's a good thing i don't want to hold onto you anymore
the rope burns were finally sleeping into my core.
my god, these splinters, i'm bleeding from my fingers
as i try to reach out for something that isn't withered,
because the flowers that you bloomed are shrivelled and abused
i refuse to water them, give them life anew
does that make me a murderer?
well you murdered them, too.
Persistent exertion of body or mind, Drew which is it the mind or the body that puts you in an upper class position way above and beyond the rest. Without a single poem for the rest to read and put to the test, rules are rules. If you aren’t going to play nice and share your shear genius how dare thee critique in such fashion of bashing and sliding your nubs that you call fingers across the keyboards of your choosing whether it be any computerized word document or written prose with empty ink well pen slid across onion sheeted papers.

Allow me to count the ways of your mind being splattered tattered all over Kingdom Come’s pearly white walls, leaving blood puddle splotches in intricate places. Only to spell out words of distraught behavioral patterns and rambunctious ditty flopping. Twisting up words, spitting out tantalizing paraphrases, spewing out last night’s junkets…without even placing your mind in another’s shoes, how dare thee call themselves a poet. Respect dies short of another ******* in the wind, farting midnight anthems of disrespectful ploys.  

Now we come to your body, hmm…what toys are there to play along with, when the heart doesn’t exist in open minded doorways leading to your defeat? Believe me when I say I will hunt you down, with homing devices ******* into place of ever living crevice of your rotting carcass left out in the sun to roast like last week’s luau piggy. Taking walnut crushers to every fingered bone in your body, this little piggy went CRUNCH! This little piggy ran into a CRUNCH! This little piggy went to market square to his surprise he also went CRUNCH!  

Now listen up you twisted little sick **** with a toothpick of an idea of getting your rocks and socks off at turning the world upside down and showing what a wonderful bugle boy you are. Bow down and beg for mercy, because you are now my ******* up storm racer as I place my 8 ton sledge hammer down on your cranium, Lightning may strike…but the force will not be reckoned with my dolled up misdirected **** of misfortune.
©Aiden L K Riverstone
John Thomas Oct 2010
Sometimes I wish I could talk about the pain an hurt that I hold inside..
I guess it’s just a matter of maintaining self worth and emboldened pride…
That, and I hate revealing the scars and wounds I take time to carefully hide…
Because I’m pretty sure that’s not a look of empathy I’m seein there in your eye…

See, I’m usually the last man in the line lookin for a handout or pity…
And sometimes I’d rather stroll at night alone and get swallowed up by the city,
than go out thinking about how I’m feelin hollow an still tryin to act witty..
But it’s a good thing I got drive to get past it and I thank my father that he instilled it in me..

See I grew up a good kid on the wrong side of the tracks, just a half a block past hope..
Had a childish dream of bein a politician or a lawyer but here I am, still *** broke...
That life was stolen when the last bit of air was gasped from my fathers throat..
It wasn't his fault he passed away that night, I just never learned to cope..
Instead I went out an found another life, I stayed hustlin an lightin up dope..
Constantly lookin at my morals dying through a smokey ****** scope...
A shell casing of self loathing almost destroyed the work of my loving folks..

Still through it all my mom an sis never gave up on me though..
Matter of fact, they fought harder for me at times than I did, that's the love I know!
Real talk, my big sister probably saved the life of her little kid bro..
That day she dragged my *** to college, pointed me forward, and told me to go!

I didn’t change overnight though an I’m still walkin forward on that road..
Yea, I’ve stumbled to the point that all I got left now is ****** nubs for toes..
But one foot keeps falling diligently a step ahead of where the other goes..
An aching reminder in every stride that pain and I are forever juxtaposed…

Burned into my consciousness, it’s seared deep with a long list of heartbreaks and R I P’s...
Coupled with the dull ache of lonely nights, lost love, and shattered beliefs…
These thoughts clatter around in my head whether I’m awake or asleep..
But with twin sides to every dagger, it also keeps me sharp on my feet..
Cause I don’t think there’s a heaven with angels pluckin harp strings on a golden street..
It sounds too good to be true… when it ends, I think we just skid to a stop, a whole six feet deep…

To me, there ain’t nothin heavenly about a grave, no matter how elaborate the headstone…
I know from experience that cross displayed won’t ever give you a hug or a friendly welcome home..
Even so, I still persuade myself to open my heart an truly love my fam, now I never fear the unknown..
In order to cope I’m self taught, my lesson plan to shed words instead of tears, formed into a poem..

So I live with the pain inside and hurt that glows deep in my bones and I’m learnin to happily explore it..
Call me a *******, but I figure if I gotta suffer a beautiful life on earth, I might as well be smiling for it..
g clair  Mar 2014
Love Is Hairy
g clair Mar 2014
Love is hairy, stubbly stuff
shave all week it's never enough
whether I shave it or slather on Nair
whack it or hack it will always be there.

Keeps coming back as much as you crop it
waxing and chemicals can’t even stop it
try to ignore it, the nubs comes in thick
even my eyebrows, a uni-brow chick.

Come Saturday I don’t really care
let it grow outta my underwear
Let it alone, that unruly mop
looks like I got me a nice bumper crop

This is my way, ain’t gonna change
my love and my hair are looking deranged
Sitting there pondering love and love's looks
flippin’ through Cosmo and metrosex books

Beauty is bare in my favorite rag
Nary a hairy or haggard old nag
Eyebrows are separate and carefully arched
Lips are injected and never seem parched.

Legs are **** smooth, and so are are the pits
Love is not given to hairy chick fits.
Speaking of nares, mine is exempt
The nose and the ears are extremely well kempt.

Sunday mornin’ rolls around
but his razor can’t be found....
I call out his name and wait for an answer
his ditty bag’s gone could It be that dancer?

The one that he watches the one he admires
could she be the one whose igniting his fires?
I’ve seen her there waiting the picture of grace
smooth, fair and agile not a hair out of place

I sit on the edge of the tub shocked and numb
look in the mirror then look at my thumb
I eye up the woman whose not spent a dime
on personal pleasures as though it’s a crime

My overgrown garden could not see the light
missed out on the sweetness, bare skin’s delight
Bought into myth and every girls hope
that she’d still be worth something without any soap.

Rummaged around in a drawer feeling sick
through my tears I lay hold of my old Lady Bic
Slipped into the shower convinced he despised me
lathered and cried, none of this has surprised me

He'd seemed a bit distant, preoccupied,
the more I persisted, the less satisfied
I should have considered my Love is not blind
his eyes are like sponges his vision will find

The best of the beauties the cream of the crop
as sweet sugar blossoms parade past his shop
I have an epiphany there in the suds
Time's never wasted on pruning the buds

Better to nip 'em if you're feelin manly
can't be mistaken for Charles or Stanley.
Lord knows the time I've put in at Curves
not that i see any good that it serves

So who really cares if he's after that minx
just between us we know how she stinks
Let him go sister try rising above
'cause if that's all he's after it ain't really love.

Making my plans to rip up his picture
wipe out his memory no longer a fixture
I can't say that I needed nor much that I cared
for the man or his ***** laundry I've aired

When into my steamy retreat disconcerted
the voice of the man I was sure had deserted.
I silence my heart and put down the Bic
ease back the curtain and see my St. Nick

The hairy faced heathen battered and worn
face kind of prickly needs to be shorn.
'What is THIS? 'he demands and holds out his hand
'Why, a worn out old mach 3, the triple edge brand! '

"I just CHANGED this blade and the thing's dull and rusted!"
"Heck if I know", but I know I’ve been busted.
Step out of the shower bare skin drippin' wet
'At this rate I think I’ll buy stock in Gillette.'

I hold out my Bic and smile at old Bones
"Would you like me to light your cigar, Mr. Jones?"
Leave him to his business, which won’t include the shave
Love is stubbly,love is soft and hairy to the grave.
Robert Zanfad Dec 2013
just a little bit o' asbestos
unwrapped from 'round the pipes,
yellow-green arsenic soap
in the bucket to make me clean
to eat... sump'n to munch on
like crunchy lead paint chips
and oh, how i love the smell o'
greasy diesel dip -
it reminds me of my last birthday
when we ate my smoggy cake
the kerosene ran dry that day
and smoked us to the street
our tummy aches that time forsake
'cause doctors cost real money.
but, hey, no choice in winter
- Obamacare or heat -
couldn't type his site with frostbit nubs,
no matter what the hype.
life ain't free,
so as fer me, i doctor fer myself
hell, in 50 years i've seen nothin' yet
some bourbon wouldn't fix.
but never in this tidy place we come to call our poverty
has ever lived the lovely stench
of crisp, green, perfect money.
I read that money pollutes societal interactions...
anonymous  Jan 2012
Self-Esteem
anonymous Jan 2012
I should love you as an eight year old,
asking to be excused from your third grade class
to go throw up in the bathroom.
Leaning over your desk in fevered prayer,
hunched over two tender nubs of breast.
Sitting down with your counselor
and a pack of giggling girls to have “the talk”
while bleeding into a *** of toilet paper.

I should love you as a twelve year old,
blue eyes lined and lipstick smudged.
Crouched behind the bushes, expelling chunks
of non-digested pizza and coke.
Taking two bottles of tylenol and laying down
on your kitchen floor, watching the broiler burn.
Calling your boyfriend, and whispering
so your mom won’t hear
“I love you, I hate you, don’t go, leave me to die”

I should love you as a fourteen year old,
thin as a pencil, hair black and straight
Walking with a humming in your head
to your eighth grade classes, slipping away
to the library and reading books on dying
and so you steal a bottle of ativan
from your grandfather’s medicine cabinet.
You take 10.

I should love you as you are now.
Seventeen, eyes darkened to a jade,
and burnt out on suicide attempts.

But I don’t.

— The End —