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Andrea May 7
You’re about to give in
You’re collapsing
The walls are surrounding you
It makes you think
About life
Your past
The little details
Then you grow claws
Long mangy things you cannot control
They’re not part of you
But they have become you
It's not the end of the world
But it could be the end of you
You try to scratch at the walls
Bend them
Claw their insides out
But will it stop the walls?
Can they come to a complete standstill?
It is not you against the walls
It is you against time
Because in the end,
We are all up against the passage of time.
Don’t worry about the walls
Worry about the claws you make
Because each one defines a part of you
As they come from you
You make them what they are
And you can control that.
It’s Marge’s.

Her hands planted the
peonies and the lilacs.
She chose the burning bushes that flank the walkway on either side, and the
boxwoods guarding the front porch.
The two massive pines?
Christmas trees from long ago,
legend tells.
Growing ever greater, choking the
light from the eastern beds.

Every day this week we’ve had rain.
Storms sweeping from the south, filling the
Ohio River past her banks toward
civilization.
She never agreed to the townhouses, the
bars and cars, the
soccer fields and parks and highways and boulevards.

I can always orient myself to the river,
despite my sense of no direction.
My gutters spill over, too, and water the multiplying weeds in Marge’s garden.
And the boxwoods, and the
burning bushes, and the
honeysuckle taking root in the old stone wall.
The rain waters it all, unconcerned which is garden and which is wild
Earth.

My mother is concerned. She is
exasperated to hell with me for allowing
Marge’s garden
to become ripe and full and wild.
She’s right, you know,
as a person of civilization,
the bars and cars and townhouses and boulevards,
the gardens of the generations who occupied these homes so long before us,
they demand order.

This garden isn’t mine.
It’s Marge’s.
And so the house.
And so the world.

But I can always orient myself to the river, the
storms, the weeds.
I am the wild things.

A river can
drown.

A garden
can be drowned.
Aliya May 1
I hate pools, oceans, lakes, rivers.
I hate the feeling of the current against my body.
The fight to stay in one spot when the water wants me to go with it.

I hate how it whispers let go,
Like surrender is serenity
As if I haven’t fought too long to be here,
On my own terms

The chill that wraps around my limbs
Not gentle, not kind
But insistent —
Pulling me into depths I never chose

I hate the weightlessness,
Not the freedom, but the absence of ground,
The loss of edges,
Of lines I can hold onto

And I remember the diving board —
Toes curled over the edge,
The sky too big
The drop too deep

The water below dares me to jump,
Like it knows I don’t belong in the air,
Like it can’t wait
To swallow me whole.

I hate the silence before the splash,
That breathless second of doubt,
When the world holds still
And I almost believe I can be free,
Free to fall.

But I never am.
I step back.
The plunge is not worth the drowning.

In water, I am always unrooted,
Always drifting,
Always one breath away
From vanishing
Simon Bridges Apr 24
Pulled happiness towards myself
                                       Held tight
                                       Grips loosen
                                       It sways away

Pushed sadness back
                             Beyond reach
                             Kept pushing
                             It recoiled

       Emotion is best left
           As an untouched pendulum
           Moving freely within my experience
Carlo C Gomez Apr 22
A bit of Black.
A piece of Scarlet.
There's no turning back.
When I place my rings upon you
nothing is beyond my grasp.
Each rotate to became the main body of it.
In place of angels
the hand of friendship
forms a pattern on the wall.
It's there to remind us
we're all sitting targets.
neth jones Apr 19
walking down the street                            
the winters day folded              
              settled snow awaiting damage
waking  as the morning fumbles with city residents
                                    and caravans of cars bumble                        
               unused to the tumble and witty wade of it all

my view is unveiled and hearted
simple vision  in fellow with the other senses
but IT'S THEN ! and then (aftershock )    something was altered
something in perception  was marched astray and put to sacrifice
just a tick off from the uncanny flank of lucid
                         and i know something's not right
my readings rank as nudged
       someone wishes me 'off the case'
what did my senses experience
       that could've been entered into evidence ?
i stop in the street and stoop my bags into the drift
why was my report changed                
       so skillfully between the source
                                            and my intake ?
just a single moment    a blur and a splice snip
what was i not meant to observe ?
was the rug pulled out from under it all
even if for only a spilt second ?
did i witness the goings on behind the scenes ?
the agents of governing wealthy illusion at work ?
adjusting the set ?  correcting an effect ?
wizarding our fantastic lives
the grand fabrication
...or perhaps  simply a feeling
thepuppeteer Apr 16
I'm not in control

I can't stop

I don't want to destroy myself
But my hands, they do

I yell and scream
Try as I might
I cannot stop

My hands won't listen to me
They are not mine

Please stop tearing me apart
Please stop the pain
Please stop destroying this body of mine
This poem is about a type of BFFB disorder known as Skin Picking Disorder. I feel rather uncomfortable talking about this topic other than what it's about, so I would appreciate it if you don't ask questions about my struggles with it personally.
Theo Apr 10
Am I set aside or isolated,
Like a little girl among trees?
Taught to fear the Bad Wolf,
Through my grandmother's stories.

Am I set aside or isolated,
Like grain of sand in an hourglass?
Put away for display,
Only purposeful while it lasts.

Am I set aside or isolated,
Like succulent in a condo?
Deprived of sun, drowned in water,
Bought for someone else's sorrow.

Am I set aside or isolated,
Like a bird with clipped wings?
I have feathers, I could sing,
But was never meant for soaring.

Am I set aside or isolated?
Now I'm pondering in despair.
They say I'm meant for something great,
But not allowed to do better.

"The bad wolf, it'll **** me."
"Outside the glass, I'd be blown away."
"The pretty sun, it might scorch me."
"In my safe bird cage, I'll watch... but stay."
Remember they're monsters

Not just in theory, but really

It's no longer about the evidence

(If it ever was...)

But a call to collusion

They want you silent

Unless you recite after them

So they can write papers

On pipe dreams
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