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vivian cloudy Aug 2017
I have been
stuck
on this rubberband for days

I keep pulling
extending
and stretching it
back

I quickly release it
until I hear it
snap

It hit me quite hard
up against my wrist

The minutes and seconds
are raking again
The strands of my hair
on the ground

I feel
lonely

Or even worse

Trivial

Like a shallow river
in the street
After several days of rainfall
I'm an overbanking creek

I flood the town

As if I were the ocean but
there was never
any depth
There was never
any substance
to this interest

Because I
Never felt important



And so I lie flat
on my bed
Until I let
loneliness

Do open heart surgery
It makes a mess of me

And then it stitches me up

Necessity has the teeth of a dog

But I let it burn through
And in my own dissonance
I mother significance

Swarming out of my chest
Until the rubberband breaks
Gwen Pimentel May 2015
Drift
Noun
A slow and gradual movement or change from one place, condition, etc. to another
Drifting
Verb
The ******* feeling in the world
It’s like, were still friends but we’re transitioning into acquaintances,
maybe even strangers in the near future
Daily conversations start to get rusty
And every word said feels like so much effort
Real talk, becomes small talk, and soon, maybe even no talk
Maybe we’ve just exhausted the list of things to talk about
And you know everything you wanted to know about me and I know everything I wanted to know about you
Or maybe you’ve reached your word limit or something, I don’t really know

But what most people don’t know about drifting is that
Drifting can be a one sided process
Like I’m here freaking out about our friendship and how we haven’t talked in days
And you're just there, probably not even noticing that we haven’t had a single conversation
If our friendship was a group work
I’d be that person doing everything, trying to fix things, putting so much effort
And you’re the one who seenzones the facebook group chat
It’s like we were on boats and suddenly a current rips us apart and if you just pull me in your boat everything will be okay
But no, the current is pulling me away from you and I am using all my strength to paddle back to you
And you don’t even notice and you even find the time to take a swim
Our friendship was a rubberband
You were holding one end, I was holding the other,
The rubberband stretched as the friendship grew, it got tighter and tighter
and suddenly, you decided that rubber bands weren't cool so you let go and i got slapped in the face by our friendship
It’s like wanting to chase you, but not wanting to chase you
Because it can come off as clingy
It’s like wanting to talk to you but I don’t
because I don’t want to disturb you
and that ***** cos you're the only one I want to talk to
but I'm probably not the one you want to talk to
so I just scratch the idea out of my head
and think of another way to talk to the person I once had endless conversations with

the hardest part in drifting is deciding what to do
should I let go?
Because they say that drifting is just a sign from God that you’ve learned everything you can from that person, right
And if I do let you go and we’re meant to stay friends aren’t we eventually going to find our way back to each other?
Or should I hold on, on this one-sided stretched rubberband of ours
and try to fix something that might not even be broken in your eyes
Esme Venegas  Apr 2014
Rubberband
Esme Venegas Apr 2014
You keep pulling
Tugging
Never knowing my limits
Until I snap!
Kairee F  Nov 2013
Rubberband
Kairee F Nov 2013
Pin my arms to their furthest range,
so they’ll forever outstretch to everyone else.
Strum me unendingly. Listen to the hum.
I always do what’s asked.
I can’t wait for the day my insides tear
to the point of steady separation.
Then maybe they’ll stop pulling at me,
and I can tug at my own heart strings.
david badgerow Dec 2011
the mockingbird is four yards in front of me.
it is 5:47pm.
it is just barely December,
but already my heart has frozen.
i am no longer able to turn the great wheel of the stars.
i am but a fragile stem on a withered rose.
the old grandfather of winter has come to live in my heart.
night has wearied my bones.

the mockingbird is perched low on a cushion of oak moss.
he is taunting his feathers the way mockingbirds do.
he is basking in the sun.
he is wearing a beautiful coat of indulgence.
he is twitching his tail and quickly bobbing his neck.
he is deflecting and dodging and eating flies out of the air.

i decided to take aim.
i have no rhyme or reason.
i have a slingshot.
i flex the rubberband once for tension and twice for luck.
the bird sees no evil intent in me, nor i in it.
i place a single devil's eye marble into a warm leather home.


mr. mockingbird is surely mocking me.
this one's pure observation.
Robyn Feb 2013
7:43 AM - Period 1 - Symphonic Band
I hid behind a bank of instrument nooks, each beaten, worn and termite chewed to ruddy brown and grey colors. Doors of old supply cabinets with peeling, plastic, paper coverings squeaked in a draft that no one could find. I kept my backpack against the trumpet section, just around the corner from the door, where no one could see me. Class started eight minutes ago, but Mr. Rants was gone as usual, and our student substitute Nick, was not not here yet. I unhooked the metal clasp on my Fossil backpack, searching around in the front backpack for my gum. I popped it in my mouth and bit down. Crack! Stale.
In a side pocket I found a tube of mascara I had shoved haphazardly in due to my rush from the house this morning. I untwisted the cap and wiped the tip of the brush on the rim, looking for a reflective surface. In the cubby directly in front of me was a trumpet case and a harmon mute. A shiny harmon mute. I stared at my warped reflection in the surface and laughed at myself. I thought "Only a real musician would do her makeup using a trumpet mute." I stabbed myself in the face leaving a long streak of gooey black on my nose. "******" I whispered and licked my finger to wipe it off. I laughed again, my hand still at my face. "This is one of those significant moments" I realized. "I'm not sure why though."

2. 4:21 PM - After School  - Way Home From Orthodontist Appointment
She stroked my hand, which was flat against my leg. "Sorry honey, just because I am a little disappointed because of what happened doesn't mean that." I was silent, staring straight through the windsheild. She sighed and pulled her hand away. I fiddled with a rubberband, my legs crossed beneath me in the passenger seat. I was hurt; I thought we were done talking about this. Hadn't she forgiven me? Like it mattered. Telling her was the right thing and there's nothing more I can do. Light Gives Heat by Jars of Clay came on the radio and as I looked through the rain, repeatedly punching my window, I felt something well up inside me. The feeling that actors must get in dramatic movie scenes. Closing my eyes, I imagined I was in a movie. That it was about me, that I would win whatever I wanted in the end and that I was clever and beautiful. "This is a significant moment" I thought. "But not like this morning, not at all."
I looked over at her, she was expresionless, tapping her finger gently on the steering wheel.
"Maybe I'll post something about this on HelloPoetry later." I thought.
Christina Murphy Jul 2012
like the flap of butterfly wings,
and softer, smaller, thinner things.
golden shimmer blackened rings,
the tips of your limbs fluttering,
landed weightlessly on my skin.

tickling to my bone glowing hot,
you whispered in my ear, the *****,
hairs at end by winds collapse,
revealing secrets, treasure maps,
weak rubberband encircling snaps.

the spot was marked by sweat to graze
the endless fields of goosebumps raise
an image of a butterfly, it plays,
and whisked into my range of hair.

when i can smell the sound it makes,
and feel its taste in stomach aches.
the butterfly of the body shakes.
into its home, my heart, it takes.
and wraps in black my golden shimmer veins.

your breath the breeze that brought the butterfly's
wings to form to speckles of your eyes.
and lashes batting winked into the skies,
and kissing cheeks and spaces between thighs,
to make goosebump mountains to scale.


when you feel the flap of butterfly wings,
in your bones valley, in blood springs,
into your ear a hush, whisper, the insect sings,
and pulls you in by golden harp strings,
wrapped in black in ropes and rings.
a melody in passion, it begins.
Anig Muh  Jun 2016
Woah.
Anig Muh Jun 2016
I just want everyone to be happy, why can't I be?
My head hurts,
as my heart parts from my body,
is this what's left of me?

Detached numbness I feel,
is this the calm before the storm?
How will I go on,
without your presence as the norm?

I am a rubberband,
pulled tightly by those who care for me.
I bend and pull in knots,
when will I snap completely?
Inevitable, but I socialize my way into solitude,
mournful of my own attitude.

You're such a good person,
it's my fault
it is my fault.
I never wanted you locked up in a vault,
though I'm now safe
from your preying on my insecurities,
my mind is still busy and full of formalities.

Everyone thinks I'm better off waging war,
but I just wanted peace.
Still, you needed to be gone,
you weren't even on my lease.
The feelings still shake me that I cannot release,
Regret and Remorse
Your love a drug highway,
I GPS'd the course.
Driving forever,
Stranded
The love ran out,
I searched and I pleaded
but there's no fuel about.

Don't ever forget that I care,
even if to you it seems wrong.
One Day I'll convince you,
in Rhyme, and in Song.

I will remind you,
it wasn't farewell, but goodbye.
When I told you I loved you,
it was never a lie.

I still just want everyone to be happy, why can't I?
A Simillacrum Jun 2018
So I had a moment you
might call a ******* slip and fall
I smudged the lines of respect drawn
for elders and the old blood but
if you thought about it for a second
with discarded pride perhaps
you would apologize for hurting me
and ask of me questions til you understand but
no. It's more important you assert that you're
right. If you want to pretend nothing happened
I'll do you one still better yet, I'll pretend
you don't exist.
Mateuš Conrad May 2020
it's...
listening to metric - clone (2012)...
sipping a whiskey...
pretending to smoke a cigarette
with an unlit cigarette in hand...
the feel and the texture...
the scent of unlit tobacco,...

and then it's... contemplating...
british and "british"...
              and the caves... and... speaking
a language lacerated...
loan words...
   music of corvus corax... katrinka...
i would never...
listening to such music...
attire myself as: bwitish...
technicalities...
              the prefix will do...
                 anglo-slav...
                         like... those anglo-saxons...
but less specific...
because: you'd have to also call them:
   anglo-pseudo-germans...
          or quasi...
                        i'm not being
specific either... an anglo-slav i am...
a patchwork of guesses...
         serb? croat? slovenian?
       the yugoslav? ukranian?
           russian? czech? slovak?
                    i've just been listening to
some videos of nostalgia...
from the natives circa 1978 and...
nik nak paddy... old man... something...

to associated with the british...
to be british...
  do you suppose... there's a turk these days...
that would associate himself
as... an ottoman?
         i wonder...
         maybe the concept of empire being...
domino... connected by land...
and not scattered like the greek diaspora /
empire...

           the empire of roman?
weird... isn't it? to be surrounding a massive
salt pond...
            while the constant chance of having
your back turned...
seemingly protecting this salt pond...
yes... sea...

- i found the stare of love at first today:
but i was numb to it...
deer eyes of an indian girl -
darkened / riddled by the equator...
while i was... picking three kings of chillies...
some fresh coriander...
cumin powder... kashmiri powder...
and black cumin seeds...

    - i saw eyes and i also saw two
nuggets of charcaol...
   my knees left nothing of the sort of iritation
fo drop everything and swim
against the current like a salmon...

- come mid-thirties and...
   i'm starting to feel comfortable...
with the solo-project... the dodo-project...
looking for signs of: waking up
to what could have been an abortion...
or a genocide into a tissue, flushed down
the toilet: the horror of being circumcised...
without jewish or muslim...
social structures...
         it could be much worse... i could have
been circumcised...
i could have been born with
both a ****** and a strap-on *****:
seeking the ****** st. of tic-tac-toe and
a skipping rope of:
  that i have kissed a man...
that i have gorged on a *******'s
****** like a wrath and love of god...
that suckling to the **** didn't
pose a problem: got choc tinged teeth
and bitter-corn in between...
oh i'm pretty sure she wasn't in love
with me:
             a wry smile while i didn't
speak the "proper" native...

mongrel soul retaining a weird question
about who's who and who's a token
postcard on loan from...
lost from former forged empires...

on my way back home...
   i was... once upon a time...
that sort of guy... loitering... waiting...
making waiting... a ritual...
worth smoking a cigarette...
patience is a religion that's not invested
in peace to all: for all...
     first comes first...

nearing the magic number 35...
it's very sensible of me to state:
it's quiet impossible for me to share a bed...
with anything or anyone except
my shadow...
considering how when i expose
my shadow to sunlight...
mindless shadow pretends to have
eyes... when it crawls into my head
at night: when i sleep...
and tells the alternative story of
the day...

    to be wedded and with children...
one would most certainly need to be coupled
with prospects in one's early 20s...
after the mid-20s... well...
the boat's about to sail...
the solo- / dodo-project is...
  a bit like... with writing being concerned...
one's hope for a career in...
    a chemistry lab...
or the selfless-acts of hippocrates' students...

all very well to love children...
but... ******* them up...
never really becoming that...
nobel prize winning psychologists
with a break-through...
when the whittle cherbus... gremlins...
kritters arrive...
an over-zealous cat meowing / moaning
about curfew is one of those spin-offs
of madness...
talk to me about a babe crying...

- and yes... some people shouldn't drink...
their genetic disposition: ah ah...
their individual metabolism...
they never conjure up the amphetamine
(metaphor) ***** from the lullaby
zombied-out death-cult of sedation...
- and these same people shouldn't pick
up smoking a ritual tobacco stick...
even i venture to call it:
a bullet to the head...

  how is it... to become... selfless?
when... one... has become...
self-realized... past the groan of:
the facts... aged 25 and your brain
should stop... window-shopping
function suffixes... no?

i had an idea for a glove...
with a rubber-band...
to... restrict... the natural laziness
of the hand when walking...
but because i drink and only jargon
poor poetics...
in rage i ripped the rubberband
off my arm... lost to history:
lost to the void...
oh i know how that it feels...
would it have been of use...
i guess not...
     a bright idea in a bucket
of maggots and maggot ****...
is... about as much worth as...
a screwdriver is to a forest of nails...
chisel... n'est ce pas...
i was... asking: grit teeth...
soul... clenching... bizarre objects
of gradations of sharpening...
the obvious square-headed axe...
pulp...
      a whole rainbow of objects...
perhaps a scalpel is the last resort...

i smile because: i've turned angry into
funny...
who doesn't have the monopoly on violence:
well... i also do not have the monopoly
on c.c.t.v. -
   little help from coming from
under the iron curtain...
the local seem to be... all ah...
oh so detached... missing las vegas cousins
and...
if i could only allow you...
to allow myself... to fathom...
the maldives of my mind...
a drag of a cigarette... a bottle of whiskey
35cl... you start the bets...
who's about to...
      find prison in solipsism...
solipsism as a mental illness...
as an altruism: as a atheism as a...
genius maddy: spezial neds: youz callz
'em... quivering folk?
what'z that phra-phra-puccino?
    autist-spec:   ah yes! those rare breeds!
spazz-taculars!
i was one misunderstood for one of them...
i took the insult to the grave...
well... i took it to her grave...
by the god of the hebrews and by the mythology
of cain... from siberia came the huns...
the turks... the slavs and the mongols...
only germans ever came from
       afri-*******-ah-hahaha!
they skipped the toll of sanskrit:
the birth of writing...
why? it became complicated...
when beijing was founded...
but sure... a replica tux of skeleton came out
out... fringe kenya and landed in: old delhi...
as many consonants if not more:
down to the core: with the spices...
the unfortunate indians of north
america...
the somewhat fortunate indians
of: south america...
brazil: post-racial mecca...
argentinian beef and...
                             myths of nazis
living to old age...
                 no... oh no... i will not die...
first comes ol' lizzie then comes
my sodden sorry ***...
envelope of a missing postage stamp
of a world: we've been to the moon...
via new york and the leviathan london...
where's afghanistan cave fighting...
the pashtun women of... glorifying
copper and cinnamon / cumin and coriander
ash... and beauty...
how doesn't it sound:
the day the music died:
we sang dirges in the dark...
                 bye bye: may-pole luck with
christ: the advent of...
the crucifix is hanging... ornament piece...
but the... iron maiden isn't...
           it's enough to identify a god...
it's quiet another matter...
to torture him... and... sorry...
but if i were to be crucified...
   sooner me and the comfort of hands...
outstretched... than... hands-tied...
pushed onto a pole: to impale...
lost advent of etymology: slav...
and the lost "e" of paul...
to remind... the crucifix... well...
            to impale...
                       looks like...
the crucifix is missing limbs... it would take...
days... the arms that would be
flapping... agitating an imitation
of a swan breaking into flight...
the two lungs... imitating drowning...
while hanging... extended...
     to crucify... hardly: the affair of...
being... impaled...
perhaps joking: slav(e) gave the clue...
germans: whether orthodox
anglo-ßaß - celtic mingling...
    germs... who's eating what... "leftover"
etymological clues...
we can play this game... forever...
it's hardly the hebrew the original:
indu- prefix of... roaming... or not...
                      
guise them up as the exodus as the fomer
lands of Jagiełło...
the battle of Hastings: blip...
             who am i... but at least in england...
i can speak the language
like some conrad of masovia:
readied to sell the "lesser creatures"
for the... encouraged...
integration to the *****: kneel...
of the baltic pruß...
who weren't... coddled...
the welsh weren't coddled...
they were "told" to... brighten their
day to day... expand...
fathom the easily accessed seas:
expand...
who owned the monopoly of
the baltic sea: as if it were
the bosphorus...
beside... the danes?
expansion of: ****** come together
with a ******: breathing
h. p. lovecraftian h'america...
loot maine and call it... start:
bittersweet apartheid...
not me: i'm still half of Vilno...
and the most remote aspect of L'viv...
no... crusader songs... no crusades: per se!

i used to play video games...
i became... more fascinated
with the romance of: a lost year...
that the school re(a)d... it wasn't in any
fathom of an iota of red:
or a synonym in burgundy:
for the worth of the burgundians:
leftovers of the angevins...
that richard the lionheart
found a love for england...
the island... an abhorring testimony
of youth and no solance...
that old age never found him:
akin to: the needle never found
the mystery of the haystack...

i am not! lithuanian!
common practice of exodus polacks...
paul-lacking:
slav and "e" dribbling...
      like the germanic peoples:
who aren't lingua franca revisions...

    ⰏⰑⰣ     ⰔⰑⰂⰑ...

lingering "blame"... darwinism via
the default...
the monkey skeleton left africa...
arrived in india.. left a schism...
some went to хины
             some went to:         чeнa..

   anglican via: the great mother siberia...
is a mother...
beside the zenith advent of: mother...
muffer: af-af-rye-c'ah'cah!
******* twins to mind the rhodes!

the skeleton left africa...
yes...
   but... the hindu morphed the genesis...
a second time... into writing...
what... phonetic encoding...
beside... the primodial...
   hieroglyphics... from africa... would have...
ever... arrived at our...
emoji internet advent... door-step of
extending democracy / demographics...
central?

the wheel and the square also
left africa with the skeleton:
the arithmetic of bones and muhammad...
but the triangle settled in greece
and became pythagoras...
and the letter: Δ....

    the inter-racial violence of north
h'america... is not... beside the wery bwitish
advent of ****-stan... as... imaginary
loitering of a border: coming to survive
with Belfast-Kashmir...
           that's making priority of...
the written word...
over the skeleton jump-start...
       bypass...
              and the emoji... and... grafitti...
clue out of africa...
never met... the sub-continent of india...
or... the chinese ideograms...
or sanskrit...
but... ******... *** and bounty...
the mongols never made...
crimea... their capital...
hastings was forever a washington's
survival guide...
       that theatre gave the birth
of lincoln and... whitman was...
everything any other poet: including
homer and dante always dreamed of...
that europeans invited themselves
toward: finding h'america in a can
of sardines...
and that the h'americans believed
they found europe... in kent or essex...
or... in books...
or... in loitering... or being...
allowed to be obnoxiously loud...

            like that **** would still stink:
100 years from now...
but yes... the libido of a genghis khan...
i trace my libido to:
how i imitate the people who
check their blood pressure when i *******...
i... genocide my... fractions into
the moloch couldron that's:
beside... the prayers of a...
        tele-evalngelical church of praises!
h'america is nothing new...
it's just better: regarding...
what remains... a solid old.
Travis Green Jul 2022
His treasured unmeasured temple is
Where I want to be, where I want to cling to
Sheathed in his remarkable rock-solid arms
Feel his effervescent incandescent frequency
Streaming with mine, his doperrifically
Unremitting energy lingering in my innerness
Tempting brown delight, my crowned sound station
Emanating with scintillating captivatingness

I crave his toxic narcotic taste
Every part of his astonishing top-quality body
He is what drenches my attention
With supereminent sensuous dreams
Makes me breathe deeper than ever
Makes me believe that we can be fused forever
A profoundly resounding playground is
Where I pine to reside, alive in his brightness

Feel his striking top-flight wildness
Glide in my sweet nectarous vessel
My fantasy rubberband man
He commands and entrances
My unimaginably radiant land
Hypnotic sun-warmed stunner
My rich and mighty warrior
I hanker for thugacetic magnetic ***
Dangerously divine encounters

Devour me like a highly succulent flounder
Enmesh me in his aggressive, masculine hold
Console me in his glorious bad boy flow
Make me gleam like serene supreme Venus
Like 20-inch rims on a candy red Cadillac
Take a sip of my incomparable lushtacular galaxy
Bask in his crashing platinum attraction
anthony  Jul 2022
resilience
anthony Jul 2022
once a rubberband
stretched beyond capacity
now a bungee cord
John May 2012
The barren wasteland
Of my warped mind
Held by a rubberband
Made of space and time
Nothign gets in, nothing gets out
Alive

— The End —