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Juno Oct 2020
the scratch of a pen as it glides across the paper,
ink pooling in the words.
a stain on fingers here and there,
rustling pages full of thoughts.
sunlight filters in through curtains,
settling on the pages like snow on the ground.
ink bleeds through to the blank side of the paper but the pen keeps writing, regardless.
kind of ironic to write this on a screen.
ri Oct 2020
last night I dreamt
on fettered branches
the green edge of your knife
splitting us in two

and your wicked tongue
poked out to taste the salt

how many times
will I scribble these lines
praying for ink to fill the absence?
Norman Crane Sep 2020
My writing desk
My chair
A slap to the face
Fingers running through my hair
I will words
Which refuse to appear
I will
That which I will always fear
That only the quill knows how to be sincere
Unbuttoned shirt
A battered sternum
Under the hurt
The heart
Blooms the poisonous laburnum
Beating like a drum
I insert the quill
Holding in
Until it's had its fill of yellow ink
I do not think but write
Numbed but the words appear alright
I repeat until the flowers pass their bloom
And blackened fill the room
My throat is dry
My writing desk is wet
By my laburnum blood and sweat
Time to rest
To sew up my open chest
To sleep and in the morning feel again
Anatomical garden
Quill pen
Sammi Yamashiro Aug 2020
Why is all the world light, and I am small underneath?
Just a black bottom under this apple tree?
Why am I in the limelight, the foreground?
The light pours no citrus drink, but a cyanide fruit pit pound!

The over-saturated curtains tail my frail feet.
Much busier than a yellow-black bee, bumping till its stinger gets caught in a fabric hemming
and it dies with no one noticing.
The girl who reads, the tree that sifts its rotten leaves;
they care less, less for a discoloration that unfortunately eats at me.

Even when the elders waltz the foxtrot dance so that even my dwarf legs can follow suit,
I will never be quite slow, or fast enough? for all of you.
I disintegrate daily into almost nothing.
I stare, but no one stares at me.

Oh, haven’t I written a piece about shadows and light?
What’s with me! I use the same machine work!
Metaphors, imageries, diction, diction mutating to a deeper fiction. Unoriginal it is!
The masses cling onto clichès with their pointed teeth;
why can’t I, I lodge into that all-inclusion?
Why do I repeat my own themes? Have I never learned critical thinking?
I depend on repetition: same old, same old (did I mention the old ‘same’?)
thing to grasp any new concept!

Maladaptive daydreamer
who cannot conjure up any ink
of fresh difference! What purpose do I hold
in this awful, spineless world?
I am too awfully, awfully simple and dumb
to succeed in any other playing field!
Reality, what foreign entity is she?
Maybe a solemn quiet would do it for me.
(So maybe I’ll have an extended vacation,
and revisit my only talent some other day.)

What do the (sappy) honey-loving poets write on?
The (sawdust) stardust in eye pupils, and
igniting our hearts alight (till it guzzles that red stream and we become only such, and the carpet gets a free dye job).
Apparently, everything pure and worthy is atomized into
(carbolic soap I allow carbonation of its soda acid in my eyes) diamonds.

On the subject of atomic level substances,
let's rehearse the Compton effect:
Heat me up to a hundred keV
like cheap microwave dinner, so that I propel—
whoosh!— tink against metallic beings
till I decrease, and I am powerless.
Each new orbit of opportunity I seize,
I result with less, and the opportunity snatches from me.
Glistening shoe shiner whose price tag appeals to the average Joe,
then I swipe: scuffing up my rounded toe.

She tattooed those other girls’ arrow on herself because:
“I’m pulled back to soar farther,”
yet this stretching has lasted for… months?
Compare this not to a crossbow, but to that of a
medieval rack, that gruesome torture device!
My tissue is tearing asunder, but this is polar from breaking bread!
I ache, I ache, I ache! Isn’t yoga supposed to tranquilize you to a grounded state, not death?

Why is the world so light when I am so heavy?
Why must I “lust for a life” that lusts not for me?
Pockets Aug 2020
Hit the pen
Pick up the pen
Bleed ink
Till you’re free of sin
These poems are confessions
These poems are life lessons
That I was second guessing
Mistaking curses for blessings
One night stands
Instead of weddings
Who I am
Is foretelling
Of where I’ll be
Heading
The world’s ending
Is Armageddon
And I know what I’ll be regretting

All the poems in the world
Won’t get me into heaven
clementine Aug 2020
she's a poet —  
whose soul is a mystery  
and is full of loneliness.

she's a poet —
whose mind is overflowing with ethereal beauty of words
and mellifluous screams of agony .                                        

she's a poet —  
who uses tears as her ink
and scarred skin as her crumpled paper.

she's a poet —    
who weaves majestic metaphors
and sails through her ocean of thoughts.

she's a poet —  
who sits at a dark corner of the room  
and cried into poetry by her tears that are made of ink.
Anastasia Aug 2020
he said our story was over
and that it had to end
i said i wanted us to have a sequel
he said we already did
i keep reading it over again
tears smearing the ink
as i feel his presence fade
my heart begins to shrink
i started out running out of black
so i decided to use red
no more fluid midnight
i used my blood instead
my pen is sharp
right at the tip
liquid ruby
pooling at my wrists
looping letter
fancy scrawl
sobs escaping my throat
as salty tears fall
i wrote in cursive
i wrote it every day
but even the brilliant crimson
couldn't make him stay
Emmanuel Davies Aug 2020
Ink dabbed on empty sheets
Jailing behind lines
Almost lost memories
What a perfect sublime
Ink and pages
Of almost forgotten memories.
A short pencil is better than a long memory
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