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Sharkie Jul 2019
Blood
Running in the veins of every one of us
Without it, we perish.
But bleeding is bad
Never let someone know you have blood in you
Lest they faint
Remember, kid
You bleed because inside you is blood
But nobody’s looking for what’s on the inside
Organs are beautiful why do we fear them? You’re human, we all bleed. We’ve all fallen and scraped our knees. So why can so many of us not stand to look at the damage? “That’s supposed to stay on the inside, darling”
Justin Aptaker Jun 2019
i insist on suffocating slowly
still
    i refuse to die
    imposing my will to weakness
    avoiding applying the "why"

implications are closing in, oppressive
my mind is open, fluid
suggestive
interposing meaning and form with
    the spoken and written letter

the light source filtered through all this
            wreckage
  the squeaking moving in, oppressive
  regressive, the way my vantage remains
a disjointed unit-whole

you persist, and i suffocate quickly
you ask so nicely for me to die
deposing my God ****** will to power
why do i seem to avoid the "apply"?

THE SYMBOL ON MY HAND IS BURNING

    into the flesh, and back out from inside
illuminates Prison, a chasm, a prism
dividing a spectrum of impossible light

we wholly refract the soma, the psyche
The Panic transforms into beauty inane
compulsion, obsession, redemption, addiction
we know we're alive    
                      we perpetuate pain
Written by Justin Aptaker, 2006
Justin Aptaker Jun 2019
all together
with numbers and rulers we form
circles in playgrounds like schoolgirls

with jump ropes and all with short sing song rhymes
short, and now shorter, now shorter
like ozone

with long life hum whispers and all with eyes
like lacking
Written by Justin Aptaker, 2006
Justin Aptaker Jun 2019
every line bears this weight
clumsy truth, crucifix-like
and in bearing alone, they are born

up and sing
on the wings of those demons we've seemingly seen
to be
descending
one ladder inverted
where once Jacob had torn
down his alter
in anger, in the dry place where we left the vision
Written by Justin Aptaker, 2006
Justin Aptaker Jun 2019
i am the man who weeps for the world
i am the man who weeps

i do not, I will not
bleed for the world
i’m not the one who bleeds

little sister, my love
do not dry your eyes on my account

i am a fleeting consolation

i have been
to the ends
of the world
i have seen
the great emptiness (it lies)
on the other side of that horizon
Written by Justin Aptaker ca. 2010 - 2011
Justin Aptaker Jun 2019
this four-cornered cave, i’ve been calling my home
the sun has dried up
and left bleached like a bone

this bone i’ve been living in, like an old woman’s shoe
but i have no children
and i have nothing to do

this deed that i’ve done, it has been done for me
but I was condemned
and condemned to be free

this freedom is nothing, not like freedom at all
i sit staring at shadows
shadows play on the walls
Written by Justin Aptaker, 2006
Justin Aptaker Jun 2019
the stars are lying
between layers of ether and projected purpose
burdened with grandiose plans to toy with the dust bunnies that blow
everywhere like tumbleweeds
in a western flick just before final showdown
the outcome depends on an angry Matryoshka doll of endless ecosystems

remember that perfect silence fell on our history like a shadow, guillotine-sharp
cutting out any tongue that would retell the fable of Hiroshima
reborn, She was immaculately misconceived as the unwanted child of a firefly
and a street sweeper
while in correlation a pin crashed to the floor of a factory somewhere
in the boondocks of Babylon

i mention this in riddles, not to mislead, but hoping to preserve my own
slimy muscle tucked safely in its bacteria-laden skull, where it burns white and blue
to taste, and somehow amoeba all things sensual into itself
sweet water, salt and iron

for no reason i riddle on alone
as plain discourse will not prove to be any more terrible for me in a day
my tongue, the unstable centerpiece of all things volatile
will prove to be its own undoing, not needing a blade to mute it
its white glow will one day implode to expand in an instant of recklessness
which vaporizes tongue before skull
to at once spray my organic-wet thoughts through every quantum nook of the known universe
and parallel, to finally satisfy my undiscerning palate with the rich, heavy taste
of every decomposing delicacy that truth grows in

the gods are afraid
of what we might become if we could lay hold of their winged heels
or learn to outrun their surest arrows and fastest dogs
if we were to stop dangling mouth-first by their ******* threads
as if our very existence was the carrot

the ascendant, sun of morning reduced to earth
he looks up with such longing, where his trusty dog still sits and stays
not returning his gaze, but having every appearance of doing so
the black paper sky splashed with white ink, folded in half, and unfolded again
we stare on and on
and project all of our unconscious into something meaningless
and create our story

a freudian chuckle rumbles in every thunderclap, while we lie
on riverbeds like cold sofas, pondering our lives and our futures, while we feed
every kind of fish and scavenger--a mock eucharist which moves molecules
as above so below to the universal singularity
in the redundant shape of a figure eight

self-emaciation, a violent circumcision that cleanses like soap
discarding the fat which no machine needs for survival
like Howard Hughes i scrub until every bone is bare and bloodstained
empty, i step into the holy of holies afraid that i must die again
forgetting everything, i begin to slide
Written by Justin Aptaker ca. 2006
Alek Mielnikow Jun 2019
A Lazarus body litters the sidewalk
outside a well-lit, desolate lobby.

On the left is a mexican restaurant,
with a line reaching to the
entrance. They should stamp
the grey and scratched up
plexiglass with a light and
dark purple neon:
Welcome To America.
It would be reinforced
by every delicious crunch
one hears on the way out as
cheap crumbs garnish concrete.

On the right, there’s a bar
alive on a Friday night.
Friends share hearty laughs
and pats on the back.
The bitter and the perishing
pretend they want this
when they should be
somewhere or someone else.
And mingling singles look for
compliments and numbers,
or maybe just someone to
take back and **** the **** out of.

But in the midst sits
a throne for ghosts.
Ceiling fluorescent reflects
off porcelain, paler than a farmer tan.
There are no other colors besides
the receptionist, bored to death,
leaning on the wall behind
the porcelain reception desk,
reading a copy of Ebony.
No ottomans or chesterfields
or benches. No consoles or cocktail
tables. Nothing adorning the walls.
Not even a stain.
Just a white hole, a bright
***** in an otherwise colorful
street on gray canvas.

I rise from my slumber
and mosey on out the lobby
in my purple linen suit.
The impoverished scrag,
his dog lapping his sores, asks
if I’d spare some change.

“Sorry, I only have card tonight.”

“That’s alright, sir. God bless.”

And I walk on, aware of the
Abrahams rubbing up against
a ****** in my wallet. I take a sip
of whiskey hidden in my empty
can of a drink that can never
satiate me. I wait for traffic to pass,
and then I jaywalk across Sticks St.


-
by Aleksander Mielnikow
Luke 16:19-31
Phil B May 2019
Its disastrous out there ~ the world burns and starves itself while I’m here taking a drag.
Ignorant to change, we’d rather be stuck in our ways and continue hating on “the ****”,
As if the love that two people share for each other could somehow impeach on your parade.
What difference does it make at the end, of the day, because its getting awfully hot under the shade.

For everyone.

No matter the banner or the flag you fly, the country or your nationality all filled up with pride.
No longer can it be the land of the free when time finally runs out, whether you have belief or simply doubt
The rising sun which should feed bellies and help crops grow but instead fills me with dread.
When I think about some starving children who won’t get their daily needs met because of rampant drought.

So to everyone still listening to the signs that the end times are really here,
I can only comfort you in your time of need through the insecurity and fear.

We’ll distract ourselves and drink and make merry before being shipped off on the ferry,
But I’ll try not to think about it as I fall asleep tonight, because it all quite frankly scares me.

Exhale.
Composed out of breath
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