Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
MJ Sep 2020
Is it the red crescendoing of trees lining the icy lake?
Or the pebbles popping under the rubber wheels of my old car?
Is it the warmth of picking up wool scarves from their summer cocoons? Being shaken out and wrapped around cold necks?
Is it this lower state's familiar weather, blending brisk wind with bright sun? The way it heats the second-floor windows in the frigid mornings?
Is it the scents of sage and roasting meat floating through the door, welcoming me home?
Or the mismatched pairs of shoes kicked under the hallway bench?

It might be this last bit of Cabernet slowly tumbling to top my cup, or the ceaseless squeak of my childhood bed.
But yes, something calls me here, back to the beginning.
Back to the autumns of our home.
Shawn Dec 2019
Oh, how you spin
the words
I wanna hear
Soft and gentle
the whispers
lightly reach
my waiting ears
Consonant
and vowel sounds
vivid adjectives
and strong nouns
They reverberate
and flow
thru me...

Amazed I am
by you
Captivated
by tales
untrue
and fables
I wanna believe
Oh...please
Tell me again
how you
love
me...

Riddle me this
a setting of
poetic bliss
with a
protagonist
who makes me
forget
this is
all
a dream...

Let the
conflict
unfold an
exposition
full of precarious
positions
and a
rising action
that leaves me
breathless
and
wanting
more...

As we reach
the ******
Don't you
drop me
as the
falling action
brings me
to my senses
and
I moan....

Denouement.
Elena Jun 2019
changing profile picture
being on instagram
not texting me
forget me
me being paranoid that you don’t love me
body hating
you hate me
forget me
I’m stupid
i’m scared
i’m sorry
forget me.
seeing you be on every social platform but not being able to respond
am i being lied too
does he really feel how he says
i’m stupid
i’m sorry
i’m not okay
please
forget me
Brendan Roher Nov 2017
Is it a little pitiful thing
Shut and lock
My shutters rock slightly
And a light enters, subtly
I know what beckons me
And recognize it well,
Wholeheartedly
Fear and anxiety
Haunt my walls and furniture
Like a putrid odor:
I harbor what little will is left,
Do you still think me pitiful, yet?

It slithers in
A flowing, glowing sinner
It is the true winner
And a shining, plundering wonder
Eliminates my incense
Showers me
And makes me cower
In my own existence
Foster, don’t I still foster some adopted hope?
Outside strength
Inside weakness

And it's all blocked out of me
And I'm left alone in the colliding powers
And it explodes in my face, flammable
Understandable, for me.

And I'm homeless
Again, it seems.
Alex Greenwell Aug 2017
quiet. still and silent, a little taste of mystery to hold us over in panic. let the fear drip from the walls as they close in, bandages adhering to our cracked and breaking lips. a silent screaming sigh, that plays out the cords of misery's disappointment in discovering that speechlessness has found us first.

a cold touch down our spine like the drip of winter water from a decade old rain pipe, set on a roof of rusted, warped tin. a scrape of nails down iris purple shoulders pushed deep into the skin, but we are told to stay quiet about the truthfulness of things.

but little consequence, and little fear. for much longer we won't be left down here, though we might miss the quiet. voices travel better through cement and rebar walls. little whistles of laughter and slight mania, but left alone who wouldn't find comfort in the crazy.

for we have lost the longing for fear. it seemed to disappear after spending a few years resting here.
Alex Greenwell Aug 2017
sputtering and submerged. choking on baptism water, salvation salting my throat. a coliseum of lapis and jade, shadows solidly shifting while swimming, brushing, and lifting against folding flesh.

it's sudden, letting the world sink above you. letting graves enclose you, letting rose vines entomb you. a quarry, a chisel, a graveyard - they all shallow out the earth, ethereal in nature and uncomfortable to the nurtured. necessary.
Alex Greenwell Aug 2017
I am uncomfortable. It feels like the very bones in my body are revolting themselves. My stomach is tied in knots, my head is pounding and my heart feels so heavy that it seems to be collapsing my chest. Oh, what a horrific war it is when your instincts battle your beliefs and you are forced to be the battleground.

I feel a warm, rotting coldness in my gut. It feels like a corpse in a coffin. I feel like a funeral, a morgue, a tragedy.

The problem is, I don’t seem to feel anything. Not anymore. My emotions are numb, like they have been submerged into an ice bath and have not yet been lifted out. I want to feel sad, I want to feel depressed and get over it; but I feel nothing.

I feel nothing. Just this corpse in my chest and this pounding elation in my head and this urge to feel but not feeling.

It has been five years.
It has been five years.
Half a decade. Five out of seventeen years of my life, this addiction has been a part of me.

Because for as long as I have had this addiction I have been haunted by the event, the moment I went from innocence to lust and I regret it.

My body now hungers for something I do not want. I am saying no to myself and myself isn’t listening, my hunger is molesting me.

This is what it does. It excites you, makes you want it before you understand what it is, and then when you do it has cornered you. It has played its game and you are now its pawn and you cannot escape. It twists you around like a puppet on strings, twirling you across its stage and making you intimate with every niche of its addiction. And then the sadness comes. It comes in waves and washes the strings out and for a time you are safe. You are allowed to drown yourself, to float through an abyss that expects nothing of you. But then the tide turns and it retreats again and the addiction makes sure to chomp down any ground its lost, and gains more. You return to your strings and continue to dance in a jiggling dangling fashion and it continues.

Finally, you cut the stings, shorten them a bit and it loses a bit of its grip but overall it just holds you closer to itself with the shorter strings and you are left with a numbness similar to when you are held too tight. Too tight.

That is addiction, you become entangled in a thing that you don’t want. An urge that attaches itself to you like a spider web and softly encroaches on yourself. Makes its way into your hearth and home and shuts out the fire. Smothers it, till the room grows cold and there is nothing left. No heat, no flame, no spark, nothing. Just ash and ash and ash and memories because that is all ash is, memories. The leftovers of the flame, the leftovers of the life you had before it all turned gray and oh what a horrible bitter thing it is. It is forced to be consumed down your throat and coats and coats with its gray coat and you become a gray thing, an ashy flake.

That is all I feel right now.
That is all I am, for a time.
I do not feel anything else.
It’s true that from dust man rose and to dust man returns.
I just never thought I would return to my origins like this.

— The End —