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Ani Naser  Jul 2018
The Projector
Ani Naser Jul 2018
She looks at the room in front of her
Students stare back
Neatly arranged in rows
The projector faces her but
She can't help but project on the students facing her
What they would look like in fear
Faces ****** and scarred
The horror of a shooter
The pain of what's lost
The projector faces her but
She can't help but project on these neatly arranged desks
What they would look like empty.
DP Younginger Nov 2014
Red streaks of thin hair, finely cured,
Sugar-coded skin, sweet yet sticky inside…and then you sniff,
Freshly sliced with soft cries for help, the grass grows,
Dried in the most delightful setting; a miniature shadow of the sun,
The initials share a basketball in one palm-
-The pop from the stereo reflects the ripple of a king-
-----------------------0----------------------------0------­-------------------
A complete package within, once the engine has revved- the liftoff-
Find yourself inside of her powers; the majestic magic maneuvers the mind,
Mend many memories and flick the switch on the motionless projector,
Guilty pleasures please the people and protect peaceful guidance,
Keep close the cultivation of a captivating lover-
-She will rise in your soul like helium in the lungs-
--------------------0--------------------0----------------­----
She, who I breathe for, calls my name; forever entering the cave,
I broke off a chunk of everything she has grown to be,
Crumbled, chalk-like pollen, piles into mounds of distraction,
I set flame to the lone match and touch the wick- a silent sway-
She burns, her hair still a fiery-ruby blend, but like all living expectation-
-The ash separates and with the wind…she performs flips-
The poem is supposed to look like a gorgeous nug of ****.
Shakytrumpet Sep 2021
I've cut open my eyes
And to my surprise,
I found an old carousel projector
With millions of upsidedown pictures inside.

The machine starts to whir,
And my life flashes by,
Every memory frame by frame,
On these convenient little slides

Every laugh, and every smile
Every absence of joy,
Those slides seem to last longer on this carousel of poise.
My friends were talking about writing poetry and it's admittedly been awhile since I've written anything so I decided ***** it one more wouldn't hurt, I was gonna touch it up a bit here and there but tbh I can't be bothered, it was also gonna be longer butttttttttt :p (also if someone says carousel of poise doesn't make any sense too bad deal with it I do what I want)
Maggie Bartolome Jun 2013
When I came over to your apartment
a couple of days ago
We pushed the couch to face the wall,
and tipped the lamp over
making it a projector for our hand's silhouettes in the light.
I taught you to speak in a Liverpool accent
Your voice glazed my ears like honey
dripping sweet vowels
Carrying your breath
To disperse in the air around us,
like fog.
And I feared that if I should touch
The glaze you left me
I would smear the sugar
and muffle the sounds.
But you spoke to me.
You spoke to me with your hands
casting shadows like magic
Speaking of time being a string
and we walk across it.
All of the time that ever has been.
And you stopped.
You stopped waving magic around.
You stopped casting pretty shadows.
You looked at me and asked me
if I would go back.
No I wouldn't. I'd be an elephant on a tightrope
Weighing the tiny string down
Walking across time,
Nimble toes
Forward, or backward.
Whichever way you are going. I could follow.
Circus, Love, Time, Tightrope, Shadows, Magic, Light, Dark, Sweet, Glaze, Honey,Sugar, Speaking, Spoken Word,
I have a vast amount of things to put behind me
But never will i forget any of them
The projector screen is at the corner of my vision
There to remind me just in case
Something comes up similar to the past mistakes
I have no intention of repeating them.
I can't look back but i'll never forget my mistakes. I'm taking my losses like a man and carrying a sheepish smile on my face.
Molly Hughes Dec 2013
There is nothing more unsettling
than a teenage Christmas.
The coming of age
when adults find their inner child again
and you have to try and get rid of yours.

11 is fine.
Part of you still believes Santa put the presents under tree.

12 is also okay,
just a little less pixie dust stirs in the stomach on Christmas Eve.

13, 14 and 15 are tricky.
You don't want to look babyish by getting too excited,
so you shrug it off and ask 'Santa' for a mobile phone,
a laptop,
a TV,
until by 15
you ask for the most 'grown up' present of all.
"I just want money."
The words burn your lips and tongue like acid,
a yearning for the sensation of a gift you can unwrap
tugging in your rib cage.
You can't buy that.

16, 17 and 18 are Christmases tinged with nostalgia.
Little ghosts of the younger you run down the stairs on Christmas morning,
feet clad in slippers and Power Rangers pjyamas askew,
whilst you follow in procession,
almost a funeral.

It's not that you don't like Christmas.
It's not that you don't love your family.
It's not that you don't feel a fire light in your belly when you bite into a mince pie,
it's not that the battered Christmas videos your family replay each year don't still make you smile,
it's not even that you've gotten too old for it all.
Have you?

Slippers and tiny fists batter against advent calender doors,
begging you to open them.

When you're 19  you do.
You let them out and let them rush to rip open their presents under the tree.
You let them eat their selection box first before dinner.
You let them cry when the Snowman melts
and you let them laugh and not mock heave when your father chases your mother with mistletoe.
You let the ghosts become holograms you can play in your mind like a projector and slides,
no longer a need to leave holly by their graves
but a chance to remember and smile.

You let them be happy.
Merry Christmas everybody!
Lendon Partain Mar 2013
Wanted to get drunk today.
WANTED TO WRITE TEN POEMS.
None of this happened, but the postman brought letters.
I opened them.

Skin felt absent on the occipital lobe.
Where amber, silica, sconce, crackle, glass exploded.
Lifted pillow 'bove my head.
Gravity took its power. Hold, sand shard dust and vase piece,
in my bed.

Wanted to sit in the park.
WANTED TO MAKE TEN ******* POEMS.
Needed a six foot tall model by my side,
in the windy park in the sunlight.

Children needed to dance around.
Wanted to see them puke up happiness.

On swingsets/marygorounds.

Wanted to be their fathers.
WANTED TO BEAT UP THEIR FATHERS POEMS.
Wanted to the cops to catch me.
Slaughter pigs, drink their blood.

Wanted lost in wanting.
WANTED TO BE BETWEEN HER LONG SOOTHING POEMS.
Wanted to clutch pretty.
Needed something like love...

or like drunk.

Needed to buy a forty today.
NEEDED TO COUGH UP WORD THROAT.
80 will do. If you have the proof
This didn’t happen. Instead,

I
Sat
Inside
And
Choked
On
My
Own
Enunciated
Emaciated
Words.

The poems never come out right anyways.
Tempestuous longings from behind the screen of life’s moving picture
You stare back at me, in a glimmering, shimmering afterthought
Laid low by foregoing passion
In a moment’s torrid glimpse from our hollow reflections
Fragrant evenings during seasons of filming
Solemnly captured and revised then experienced
The all encompassing struggle with context and setting
Abides a steely night, in the rustle of autumn branches
Requiem for an unremitting beloved!
Sung in the valley between piercing peaks of sorrow
She floats through the scene as distinct aura and vague essence
An embrace from the trail of vapors and misspent gestures
All emanating from a glass of cider beneath nostrils
Gracefully, you embank on the wind of time’s shadow
And nudge my cheek with impetus and vigor
Lashing out at my skin in ambivalent revelry
As if my follicles were vacuous caverns
Catching the callous moments which flutter the ***** of hillside tents
The unearthly gusts of banality extinguish the projector’s gleam
While nature embodies your beauty furthermore
Toward the end of the pathway
And the credits of the film
And the allegro of the score
And the solitude of eternity
And the rustling of the branches
Joshua Haines Apr 2014
If I want to die, I'll do it myself
I'll save a kid or some **** and make it look like I died a hero
But nah, I had a death wish.
Didn't any of you know?
I said it probably forty-million times.
It's cool the kid is alive, though.
And it's cool that this all rhymes.

Tell the kid while I convulse, choking on blood that  I said,
"Eat your vegetables. Stay in school. Being in love is really cool.
It's okay to be alone. It's okay to be afraid. Don't make the decision I made."

Then play some surfer music and have him stand in front of a projector,
projecting video waves and dreams, as they start to dance.

Honestly.
If I wanna die, it's by your side.
But you're gone.
Away.
It was too hard, and you're afraid.
I'm afraid, too. I don't wanna die.
But this isn't living, what I'm doing now.
It's survival, and it's just
blood and bone.
Eat and walk.
In a crowded room, alone.
Smile and talk.
I can't feel. I can't feel. Keep saying it: I can't feel.

But I feel it all, and if I want to die then it's by your side.
If I wanna die, then I want to talk to you before I go.
If I'm going to die then it's because it's hard to cope
knowing that I love you, and you love me, but you don't wanna anymore.
So I don't wanna anymore, anything.
I don't wanna be here.
I don't wanna be anywhere.
I don't wanna be.

I dream a lot now, more than before.
Reality has become the compass to a draining nothingness,
and I don't want to stick around.
Either way, I'll dream or think of nothing, and it couldn't be that bad.

"No one is worth taking your life over."
"It gets better."
"What if she wasn't the one?"

How do you know how I feel?
What if it doesn't?
What if she was?

Can I bathe in nihilism or is that too transparent?
Should I shake the salsa in the silver room of the Lisbeth Salander character arch or should I be in the ark, two by two, with Noah?
At least I'll be able to feel, taste, see the shine, relate to another's pain, realize a life, be next to one meant for me in the shelter of doom and eventual hope, and be with a man with as much certainty, perceived as crazy or brilliant as me.

Can you walk home to me?

To know that what I knew is what I may never know is something I don't want to know, and something I'll always know could be something I live for and by, and that's all I knew before and now I know nothing but that.

If I wanna die, then it's knowing you as I walk to you or you walk to me, in depth, in death, in soliloquy.

The crumbling clock is my hoarder as it keeps everthing I don't need like memories, future events, and times and dates for places I don't want to be.

Is it too much to want to be a fly on the wall that is smashed?

I've never been so lost.

"Don't be so dramatic. Don't be so dramatic. Don't be so dramatic."

Okay, thanks. Now I can think of that, and what else is wrong with me while I feel lost. So lost, and unlike ever before if I ever was lost before.

What do I even say on my note?

Ooops?
Whoops?
My bad?
It's never enough, isn't it?

If I could wrap your sorrow around my lungs to where I could only breathe your sadness as I give you my hopes, joys, and everlasting essence to fuse with you as you feel complete, I would, I have, and I lay empty.

Is this enough to say?
Do you get my point?
Harry J Baxter Apr 2014
I am up at night
sending my prayers to anonymous strangers
because maybe they have the answers
maybe not the ones I want, but the ones I need
there is something beautiful about them
human blank canvases
potential for beauty
comedy or interest
their nameless faces
playing on the projector of my mind’s eye
the closest I have come to finding God
Darbi Alise Howe Jun 2013
It's a sweltering night, a sweltering morning really, and my body is tattooed with spider bite kisses and bruises.  I smell of park grass and chlorine and someone else's sweat, my lips are chapped, swollen, my eyes encircled in crimson undertones.  The people on the street stare- I am blonde, a dead give away, slighter and taller than the locals.  Men are confused, women are scornful, police are helpless.  My legs cramp with the dawn as I walk back to the apartment in my hospital-gown green tunic, sobbing openly, hair tangled with twigs and dirt.  It's still dark enough for that, but too quiet.  A milkman stops his work to look up at me and whisper ciao in the most kind and gentle voice I have ever heard, especially here, and I want to throw myself into his arms and sleep and scar his white uniform with the black stains of my tears, though I restrain myself and nod, shuffling forward, shoulders slumped, no eye contact, his gaze a hand stroking my back like the father I never had but always wished for, and I cannot help but cry harder, though I try harder to restrict each sob until I sound as though I'm gasping for air, but I would rather seem asthmatic than week, rather be strange than pitiful.  It is always better to be unknowable, much more simple than openly vulnerable in my experience, though my experiences are drunken from the bottom dredges of a half empty glass, so truly I do not know if this is true, and and every day I understand Hamlet's letter to Ophelia just a bit more, because every day I doubt truth to be a liar just a bit more.

Still, there are some things I know, enough to be called intelligente by a man named Simone, whose eyes shone with solare during the day, but at night became dark and hungry.  I know now why my friend chose to fly off a building in Spain without his wings.  There is a disconnection abroad, no sense of security or protection, demons are awakened and restless, dreams colder, and more cruel; the heat drains one's essence, melting the glue that keeps us who are broken together.  I know that expectations are sad reflections of desires, shadows of my own inadequacies.  I know that I am afraid, that heaven and hell are not places but permanent conditions, that my head is the prison guard of my heart.  Blame and guilt come easily.  There are no distractions, just meaningless directions, and I seem to have forgotten those I brought from home. Here, I am concerned with physical threats, trauma that can be shaken off with a block's worth of strides, yet I cannot seem to lose my naked shadow between the buildings.  I thought I hid it well behind frozen gazes, but the mirrors say, no, no, they know you are all wrong, you foolish girl, you poor little lie, they see through you, they sense your fear and feast upon it, you ignorant child, you are as small as the motes of dust drifting through the beam of a forgotten projector, the film torn and tangled, the screen stuck on one frame

I should have stopped when the milkman spoke. He knows that it is not mirrors who lie, it is us.
short story I wrote about something that happened when I was living in Florence.
LDuler Dec 2012
ok so here is what we are going to do
i'm going to get a bout de souffle
what was i gonna do..
one thing getting to nether still need you
are you all here
one thing getting getting to noter
288 guitars 
i've been hoping  don't get much dumber 
and getting to noter
this movie is not yet rated
i'm kind of trying to decide
i will send an email to your parents
so… just off the bat 
your parents are not ok with that 
kind of thing
she was out there interviewing her?
right there… have you seen that? ok good
movie theater to hide
c'est rare
reste avec moi
ciao petite fiiiille
elle est la bas je crois
vous parlez français? yes
attention ma petite fille on ne plaisante pas avec la police parisienne
you think i'm lying? you are
i didn't see you
you don't believe me
bonjour mignonne
qu'es ce qu'il dise
les flics me recherche
parle le moi quoi? ca alors
tu es marie
c'est trop **** maintenant d'avoir peur
bonsoir madame
il faut absolument que je trouve antonio
accelere minouche
il est alle a monpellier
why don't you smile
it would certainly surprise me
sourrrit sourrrit
je pense a quelque chose?
je ne sais pas
je voulais être seule
c'est finis
tu m'emmene au champs elysee
au revoir 
tentez votre chance
un cafe alors
moi je peux pas partir
et puisque je suis méchante avec toi c'est la preuve que je suis pas amoureuse de toi
ahh c'est trop complique
j'ai envie de dormir
c'est vraiment dégueulasse
how would you relate
destroy the rules
young actors
....sommes seuls, cette certitude de nous-mêmes dans la sérénité de la solitude ne sont rien en comparaison du laisser-aller, du laisser-venir et laisser-parler qui se vit avec l'autre...
audition for the leading character
interesting combination
the criminal
just the edge of his frame
she seems innocent at the beginning
looking at his notes
just fyi i throw out someone
loving and desirable
playing off of that very consciously
you just not be working
archival stuff is on Facebook
c'est l'heure du gouter
de la glace au chocolat
working on your transcripts/ paper edits
that's probably not a smart thing to do
t'y va
Not this sense
that I don't know what the hell
a human girl is...
where’s the coast guard? 
just a spotlight gimme something
ca commence a 6h 
t'es cool
quickly
i smells like **** did you ****?
you are the love de ma vie
he talks like that he is french
she is like ze morning sun in ze...morning 
beautiful
ze temps is in ze essence
muaaah
is our classroom
i can sense the connection
the connection? 
the connection entre nous
so madame alezraa give me this much
i heard boss
he is not doing anything
to give me a kiss 
it's in the 1st tab
it's still there
you don't have to click
i can't save it, just stay with me
there is no word on this ****
i need the inspiration
you are my muse
c'est pour ca qu'ils sont si petit
small
je vais m'occuper de
the whole point of life is to rearrange it in a coherent running story
people don't talk in stories
cut each section
some sort of a story
nice
tu veux que je mette
ouai ok attends
elle est l'autre feuille
permien tu veux que je colle recolle decolle coupe recoupe decoupe
how do you feel about solving…I mean it's an interesting way to solve it…
〜flowed〜 nicely
it was sort of an ingenious solution
she's in the airplane, she's in the sofa
try to transition between the two subjects….where does your friend come from?
what it was like landing in New York, looking out the window...
the process of arriving
not really fair to say that
in the future, if you're going to try to tell a story…in their minds….what's the story she's going to be telling me?…..coming home
fill in the blanks
don't go shoot blind, that's the biggest mistake
does that make sense?
great!
wubwubwububwubbbbbwubwb
gloving is......flowing lights in sync with the♩music ♫
flowing in gloving is broken…
liquid
finger rolls
tutting
figure eight ∞
wubwubwubBAMwubwubwoosh
wave-like movement…basic thing….wrist in a motion
tutting is like the angles…. not um 〜flowing〜….like tetris
you want to more, rather than following
solid ⸪lights, ⸫single⸭ solid lights⸬
pink to green to orange to yellow to blue
advanced strobe, solid line of color [...] streak of purple
electronic, dustup, elector, house, trance…
you’ll probably never see anyone gloving to like, classical music ♬♪
my name is Henri Geneste and I'm a glover WUBwubwubwubbbWUBWUBAHHHwubwubWUBWUBWUB[ONE][TWO]WUBwubwub[THREE­]
putain c’est magnifique
je me demande si il fait ca la nuit, quand il arrive pas a dormir...
window thing, kind of dumped
either the ours magna or the I equals me squared²
like language, like art, there are rules
go out and break them, just mucking around
fix it, wanna make one, totally your creative decision
how awkward
a bout de souflle
totally revolutionary
ainrr
radical, argue truer, but it's jarring, that's one way to do it!
aware that they're there but not ⑈jarring⑇
close to wide…..there's a cut there but the eye can follow it
um i have to go...
bye henri!!!
bye!
bye man.
see ya monday!
the hair!! im gonna shave it this weekend
I've been to raves
is he, like, a straight-edge?
there's drugs…do you guys ALL go to raves?
how the audio?
looked cool, the rain in the background
DUHDUHDUH that's hard to do
a huge amount, i'm sorry but gloving without the music?
if he does drugs OR NOT, how he's enjoying it OR NOT, if it interferes with his studies OR NOT..
just FYI we were all young yesterday
two bodies
he's here cause he's not going, right?
are you interested?
oh i would be very interested
yeah i see what u mean
you could come with me….i could always take the bus
it'd be cool
moi elle sera belle
here we go!
woah
their audio visuals are not very HOT
hours per day?
1…2 hours a day
sometimes 30mins
mostly people, sometimes like little animals
mostly people
i look at their art a lot
really interesting style
environments
if i want to…how I see them in my head
stuff like that
usually kinda random
i pretty much self taught
mostly from practice
everyone draws…but i got serious about it, like very…6th grade
i don't like the idea of competitions
and mum drawing is like, something that's kinda important
a passion
not sure i would want to go into it as an industry
more than just art
for now im not really sure
alright
so our usual questions
eyeline! thank you
on the couch….at the end it was really weird
who was…sitting where?
where were you?
she didn't really even really look, she was too far away, she just kind of….looked
much…she might not have ever looked
with the eyeline…it was pretty steady, no jerky-herkys, there were several edits
forgive it cause there's enough change
you could follow it, you could see that time had shifted
the content demanded it
WOAH okay now i'm really curious
we could see it, but then it was on the something else
process the image
now we're trying to look at the art, now we need more time
arc? did u feel like there was an ◜arc◝?
umm yeah…..
how many hours a day do u draw?
try to make sensible out of that
is that they use 2 3 four…
uh...cut..i did….cut
the cutting itself is like a commentary on her
since i was little. when i was little
when i was little
but my parents, my family don't
hands and arms
collages, magazines
photography
big part of photography
San Francisco Art institute
graphic animation, we only had like 3 weeks
still lives, models we would draw them
we had like an exposition
the person my mom works with's husband
wanna do an artistic career
alright so
not the greatest projector ever
too much head    space    
a lot of nothing
it makes it a lot more interesting
i think it was okay in the video cause
what she was saying and stuff like that
fair enough but I don't agree
lost in this big sea of wall
you're totally forgiven
no questions
power of a well-placed microphone
fantastic
the beans!
alright
you guys are the wrong audience cause you all know each other's stories
good feedback
movin' on, okay
very frustrating
and now.....surfing! woohoo!!!!
30 loooooong minutes, it's a nightmare!
7 minutes
3 minutes
it's a 10th
there's something fascinating about listening to people…you can do it yourself later
bolinas, del mar, sometimes surface, livermore, ocean beach
......riding the waves…....man….....it's the best feeling
you're walking on water you know? that feeling…….i love the ocean
i love the water, after you get that perfect wave you just feel accomplished
that feeling…..is awesome
surfing, it's all about having fun..
you surf once, and….you know?
if you're a surfer, you have a love for the ocean
my, my grandpa always loved the beach, we would go there at two in the morning and just….
my grandpa died and he asked to be cremated, he wanted his ashes to go in the ocean, so we took his ashes out to the ocean
I remember walking out to the ocean with my dad, we threw his ashes into the ༇wind༅ above the ocean, and we looked down….
we want to get the pain!! and the sorrow! because we're vultures you know? we just zoom in to get his expression
little bit weird
i do, i like it
it's black and white
it's just a surfer, it's not movin', it's there…it's not always the same
sort of echoey
…the ocean, and so i remember my dad taking the….
too much archival? too much? not long enough? both.
there was sort of a disconnect at times
her story, you have to cut
when she says "CAT" i want to see a CAT, when she says "FIRETRUCK" i want to see a FIRETRUCK!!! i was like, okay, i  just went to school…
and now this?
or you see a woman that looks like a cat
it's hard, it's complicated, it's not given
so they just kind of ended
you guys im trying to help them
oh okay
hey you know what no no no you know what don't take any of this personally just be like oh okay
he's got a funny manner of speech
any thing else?
arlo says no
"it would not go well"
what IS the really great ending?
amazing feeling one can have…..
you feel like you own the ocean, like it's heaven on earth
this technique it's called killing your babies…i love that
uh what
he says "uh no no no this is a 3 minute film"
sad but true
we all get attached to things, we don't want to cut them out
just play with it, if you decide
we can schloop
can we watch
not exactly…here's..uh okay a quick heads up
oh
for this summer
advanced lab, art advanced films, screen-writing, animation and more
field trip!! i need to contact your teachers
what day? a thursday
almost all day…nine to three
we would leave here
now im gonna erase this

— The End —