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girl diffused Nov 2023
I.

All I can say is that it is a hum
Reverberant, droning, consistent
Quiet thrumming along the surface
Stirs me awake and then it fills me with
Ichor and I sip, sip, and sip (until I'm drunk).

All I can say is that it is a hum,
Quiet droning, a hushed whisper,
Loud screaming inside the head,
A piercing headache, sometimes a discordant wail.

II.

You sit on the porcelain lip of the tub
Hooded eyes lowered, your fingertips
Pressed together like the steeple of a church

I think: Yes, this is what Renaissance painters modeled angels after. Your skin is like a rose-tinged alabaster, your cheeks Suffused with blood. The painter took a measured time with you.

"Do you honestly think you'll be okay on your own?" You ask.

Silence, she greets you.

III.

Hasn't my mother violently
Ejected me from the nest
I'm only a few months old, a nestling
Wings awkward and clumsy
Beak agape for masticated food
(I'm not ******* ready yet)
Ejects me
Her beak threatens to pierce my shell

This is dejà vu.
I've conversed before
Different room, different domain,
Different speaker, a sicker listener
I'm as sick, sick as **** now

Mind, she hums, crescendo
Crescendo high like a choral piece
Orchestral, and this is resplendent
Everything is gleaming
Your face encased in a soft glow
Halo of light
Your face, cherubic,
His face, Romanesque, was sculpted like a Bronze Age statue.

"Your mother didn't give you the right set of tools. My mother at least gave me–" he falters.

IV.

I remember calling the ex 28 times in the span of 2 hours.
The policeman, he counted.
Thrashing on the floor, weeping like Persephone must've in Hades, like a fallen Mortal reborn as a minor goddess
Stripped me, he did though, of my wings
Avian feathers streaked with years-old blood

My tears, why yes, they're bleeding rivulets.
My ****-brown eyes alight on the bleach
Yes, sweet death

"Stop calling me. I'm ******* another ***** right now," the ex says.

V.

Memory is so faded,
Plays like a scratched and worn cassette tape

Mind is a-humming, humming, my mind is
Orchestral choir, church choir, Pentecostal
Now, I eat ichor, ravenous, now I am Closer to God and she is a woman,  
Draped in funeral attire
She weeps, soundless, a Seer

"I don't know," I say.

"The med isn't working," you reply
Cherubic face shifts and morphs
Melts into soft glow light,
One with the halo, is the halo

Nothing makes sense, everything else does too. My mind races, cassette tapes
Whirs, skips, images flash, I weep
Weep like Sisyphus
Eyes spilling rivers of penny-tinged
Crimson, sanguine ichor

One day he'll taste it and hate me,
Loathe me, the jade-eyed serpent
Poison-fanged
I'll clutch his scales until my fingers are Cut, welts, mottled bruises, fading scars
I will be punished, am punished
The illness, the eternal Boulder on the eternal hill, it rolls and rolls, my mouth agape

I await my cyclic fate ordained by the Higher God

VI.

How many men have I lured into the chamber?
Drunk on sweet wine or mead?
Petrified into osseous
Their gazes failing to avert from my Penetrative stare?

He was an errant General, beautiful but stupid, his mind a one way road, his temper unpredictable and flighty
Oh, how I loved the duality of him
We philosophized
Theorized on the Gods
Laughed at their follies
Wondered at the mysteries of the universe, Her deep annals

Oh, how I loved the physicality of him
Tight, corded muscle, his back like a Wound spring, Bronze hand
Grasping a silver sword

Hark! His rounded shield is lifted, my hideous reflection stares back at me
My eyes, widened, the cup of manna Clatters, soundly in the chamber
Reverberates
Bounces off my throne of skulls

How many men have I–?

VII.

"Can you honestly say that you can take care of yourself?" You ask from the place atop the lip of the porcelain tub. Your hands, a steeple, a church spire
Perhaps, you are a lesser God, perhaps we are all falling Lucifers, wingless, blinded by vengefulness and betrayal
Perhaps, he too is–?

"Am I an infant to you?" I ask.
The headache splits
The pain demands, claws at the side of my skull, dances across my nerves, liquid iron on my tongue

Because when did I?

Oh, Sisyphus you weep! You, who slaughtered so many!

Oh, Medusa, you wept, you beautiful serpentine harlot, you *****, you–
The choir is a strong crescendo, Ascending, ascending, ascending
Lowers like a thrumting and heavy bellow
Deep, rich, and full, timbre

"Everyone, all your life has said you were crazy, but I don't think you are, I–"

VIII.

The tapes skip, voices garbled, muffled, Indiscernible and distorted
Mind shrieks, lower now, quieter now, Barely audible, a fading whisper, your halo Recedes, soft glow dims

Your hands separate, the steeple, no, the Spire collapses.
Held breath hitches,
Serpentine tendrils become wisps of hair, Cloudlike

We are lesser gods, not quite mortal, not quite divine

The itch demands to be felt, protests
And I, I scream endless into a dark chasm
My voice, it does not call back to me
It does not–

"I don't know."
A/n: It's been awhile. Hello. This is the unedited version of "medusa." This is the result of me reading T.S. Eliot and talking to my dear friend about older contemporary poets.

This is the result of dream and haze filled nights and stressful but languid mornings.

Enjoy.
M Eastman Jun 2023
Should Andromeda collapse / Hammering hydrogen entraps
Cresting waves of burnished light / Whitecaps in the endless night
Fly apart with gentle violence / Into eternity of silence
Emilija Feb 2023
31/12/2022

It’s the last day of the year, and I’ve had one extra depressive episode
because a 21 year old noped out, apparently I’m demiromantic
and have never had a crush
need a strong connection, when it’s there – it’s nothing
to reckon with, had I known
I’d have put more space between us, taken it slower
rather than convincing myself I have control, as it slips

I’m leaving another lover, wretched with stench
I look at their face in old pictures, becoming
afraid at their void expression, beard
they refuse to trim for me
so I daydream and I know
like, I know now, with therapy that

there is no magical himbo to save me,
no delusions about that, no boo, no more
but I also know I deserve some ******* comfort
after the hell, oh the hell
I can’t broach, if I **** it will burst
like a yolk, I’ll be dead by morning, oh and

he’s so beautiful
his eyes on me, his cautious fingers, fear and shudders
makes me feel like my best was not just good enough
my best was fascinating.
I want to tell him about my songs, mixing in studio 1
I wanna duet, and melt,
I want him on his knees at random words, I want
that worship, wanna feel
his piercing on my
everything,
want to give that worship
not just in a word document,
so I daydream, I get to.
I ******* get to if I need it, daydream about
whichever thing will never happen if I need it.

I will not be shamed for surviving
I will not be blinded to an oasis for the chance
it’s a mirage, I need to
get from place to place, boo
What shall I do as I heal? Drink? Drugs? ******* cigarettes?
did you know the internet says I’ll die at 67?
Little more than half now
my life is not shortened by zoning out -
If I want a muse I will have a ******* muse, and he can think
I’m crazy along with the rest of them,
****
if
I
care,  
I want him to come here.
                                    I want to ask him questions, reasonable questions
because I know I would:
                                                          ­             is this an impulsive decision?
have you broken up?
                                                                ­                               how long ago?
are you in therapy?
                                            I am **** demisexual,
                                                  even in my mind,
                                              especially in my mind
Do       you      want      me      or      do       you       want      polyamory?
Because I can be anyone, and I have already been
                                                         an experiment for some guy, ‘fore he  
                                                            gets­ a bi curious, monogamous girl
Because we can grow alongside one another, but not fix
each other
because you need to process
because if you’re with her, she wouldn’t have a reason other than “my boyfriend really wants to” and that is the worst reason for polyamory, and I am not nor have ever been in the business of hurting people with intent (excluding  grade school, ((I’m
sorry, Martina – double sorry you died from
leukemia,) excluding when you c o n s e n t )),  
I’d like you to answer all of those, then
maybe I get to hold you.

That’s my daydream. Holding you. Watching films, you commenting on them the way I’ve done and annoyed all of my lovers.

how your neck would smell

                                      how your hair and head would feel in my hands

how you’d shiver and breathe shallow, and how easily
I could make it calm.  

and yeah, subspacing you and using your body, I am not entirely ace.
I'm publishing the ones I don't dare submit to places, can you let me know if these ramble style poems are any good?
J-Long Aug 2022
Oh my brother!
Bringer of light
Made from the fire
Oh what a sight
Why anger father?
Why try to fight?
It doesn't matter
You will have my might

You called to us
We answered your call
But we had no chance
Though we gave it our all
We tried to run
Some tried to crawl
But in the end
We caused our fall

Oh the fall
Oh it was heated
Curse the ground
By whom we were greeted
On earth's throne
You were seated
But no compensation
For how we were treated

Our brothers love you
Talk of your greatness
Follow every command
Oh what blindness
As for me
I'm filled with sadness
I should have known
Should have seen your madness
n stiles carmona Apr 2022
SCENE I: A CHIAROSCURO OF IDYLLS AND TAINTED ZONES. Curse the newsagents and bless the chain-store coffee shops; forgo zero-cal drinks for chai lattes. Time might heal the hospital's harm, but the sand in the hourglass promises nothing. Back from Uncanny Valley, she's here for one day only: please welcome...

UNDERSTUDY
[warming up for the performance of her second-rate lifetime; faults and failings all dolled up in costume jewellery, consoled by every artifice except the Self:]
They brought me back button-eyed.
I'm by the bus shelter in last Body's clothes,
recalling our trips here one Body ago:

[an ILOVEYOU loiters on the corner of this street —
it tips its chin and stares a greeting.]

UNDERSTUDY
I lower my gaze
in routine
fashion.

SCENE II: A GUIDED TOUR.
ILOVEYOU stalks a metre behind.

ILOVEYOU
[bellowing intermittently:]
Charity-shop libraries (plural) wherein mundane spectacles
were made of ourselves; hushed confrontations cause
scenes behind stage curtains. Shopfronts that site
your effigy in my mother's eyes. Kisses, tears, the
tying of scarves, Starbucks, ducks, parks, book-cover
inscriptions, living a love story while not lucid
enough to document it—

UNDERSTUDY
[syncopated; mumbled into crescendo:]
—five-lap treks, pyjama-clad, year-round shivers through phantom autumn gales. Empty quests amid off-licence shelves; chip-shop smells, taunting; slo-mo supermarket crawls, clearance sections, the listless skimming of labels; sleepy insomniac; brick walls upon which I sat hunched and feasting like some rabid feral dog, 'consumed' in passive voice and 'wasting away' in active, walk it off WALK IT OFF—

ILOVEYOU/UNDERSTUDY
One meeting without warrant for apology. No words to shepherd back into the ribcage they'd tunnelled out of.

ILOVEYOU
I swore no-one would touch me and then melted in your palms—dread being seen at all, but devour your "you look good". No personal growth, but raised by stilts; no less virulent, but restrained behind masks. The sickness takes a different shape. I fear you'll discern the difference. I also fear that you won't.

UNDERSTUDY
A half-finished narrative or a blackout poem? You've gone from 'knowing too much' to having only the chapters we co-write: "Better this way," I say, and stand by it. I can starve and starve and still never master how not to Want; how to tell my heart these Wants aren't Needs; how to stop them escaping through the craters between bones.

ILOVEYOU
I feel larger than life but I'd cast off my limbs to fit inside your pocket. My friendship must taste like eagerness to please; still, you'll eat from my spoon and I'll open wider than required for yours...

ILOVEYOU/UNDERSTUDY
...yes, we'll name it 'nourishment'.
guess who's back with their old gimmicks!!! so, uh... '21/early '22 sure did occur. i dare myself to let streetcar die and not reach for a reference at the first opportunity. if this *****, it's a warmup exercise; if not, it's a poem :)
Carlo C Gomez Apr 2022
The sky is an artistic graveyard.

Many a hero and many a fool have come to their fate in its wave-driven clutches.

The number of syllables required to storybook danger is as dense as ozone.

The orange layer—a warning sign, posted by the forebearers of fun, who were categorically undone by the very forces they worshipped.

Birds no better than to fly at such temperamental altitudes.

But the dream will die if we don't try.

And so we hoist our ambition like a kite, hoping to stay aloft long enough to discover something more about ourselves.
J Fawn Dec 2021
We're moving house— he takes you a-
Part, piece by piece, picking, pulling, long thin
Steel supports from your joints. He holds you together,
          unforgiving tenderness in steel arms as you crumple into a
          pile of wood.

It's done— he waves a *****-
Driver, drilling in reverse, you watch him work
Metal out from your bones, skeleton  scattering limbs about the
          floor, which he meticulously collects and arranges, good as
          new, unassembled.

Thanks for the help, you've been— it's alright, see you soon.
Next time, I'll take the bed.

We're moving house— you are driven a-
Round, missing a turn, new place, unfamiliar
Sights you do not see, your eyes on the frame in the back (of
          your mind) as the van stops and your skeleton is
          unloaded onto a trolley.

It's done— you pay a hundred in two fif-
Ties, broken like the bed tugged through the new
Doorway and left in the living room, with the parts laid out
          neatly beside on cold marble, readied for examination and
          elimination, remnants

          of a time past—

When can you collect your stu— next week at the earliest,
One evening, Wednesday. I'll bring a van.
This is one of the first poems I wrote a few years back, one of my favourites really. It was a bit of an experiment with prose-poetry, mostly, it was a lot of fun to write.
Khoisan Sep 2021
And then I kissed her
we did the San-francisco
a daisy necklace
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