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AJ Aug 2015
Give me a unisex name,
my soul’s a fickle, fortified thing,
my spirit’s blue with happy pink eyes.
I get so ******* in the ugliest knots
so I just shut down and become
gender neutral.
Tell it in a letter:
I hate myself.
And that’s the thing,
I can’t straight myself!
I’m a crooked parasol
that was to shade my eyes
from the blinding sun
and that’s the thing,
I can’t see a **** thing!
past the run-of-the-mill
air-conditioned trap-house
set up for the megalomaniacs
to **** the **** out of my soul,
so I yell! and do some self-harm,
maybe a little suicide
next time. Who knows?
To get me through, dear,
only necessity permits.
I dream of living in isolation
in the woods with trees for company
because whenever I get
the urge to wail,
not a **** soul will care
but the birds.
Julie Grenness Aug 2015
Seduced by clichés of love,
We signed on for wedding doves,
Being at those wedding receptions,
All clichés of norms' conventions,
Having a cream puff wedding day,
An expensive way of getting laid,
All clichés for the bridal industry,
Trite cant, and hypocrisy,
BUT--the appliances outlived everyone!!
Wedding gifts when once were young,
On film noir weddings I ponder on,
As these golden years I wander from,
All that phony hypocrisy,
Cliches and norms of society,
D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
(Who didn't hate going to the in-laws for tea?)
I ponder on white weddings, norms, and cant.
Jae S Feb 2015
There aren’t beings, just bodies.
Just skin
and parts to be conscientiously coded
as we are packed into boxes
like commodified corpses.
Carcasses eroded. When will we learn?

Can we still learn?
Learn to look at all beyond the body.
Or are we doomed to linger, these living corpses?
Oh, if only we had greying skin,
broken out of wooden boxes
and, in doing so, break into the Code.

**** the Code!
Yet, no mind is bold enough to learn.
To unpack brains overflowing with long forgotten boxes.
After all, it is your body.
In the end, it is your skin.
And it’s you who dwells in this corpse.

But please, oh please, do not pity the corpses!
Empty shells enslaved only by a code
of laws as pliable as skin.
And despite lessons past, they never learn
to take hold of horns hitched upon the bull’s body.
But, instead, cower and corrode in the comfort of an illusory box.

A cadaver’s box
fashioned by corpses.
Bodies led by bodies
no more fit than the next to conjure an unquestionable code.
But they never learn.
Where is the sanity beneath that skin


so telling? The different skins
in color-coded boxes
with the definition of difference never truly learned.
There are only corpses.
Existing encoded
as senseless, sightless, and soul-less bodies.

Let us skin the corpses!
Trade the boxed remains for lessons learned:
The mind and the soul, beyond the body. We are the Code.
ray Dec 2014
“do you love yourself?”
they say as you
pluck hair from your face
cover your pores with who knows what
apply blush when you are already shimmering
dye your hair the opposite of what it should be
skip dinner every week day
then throw up what you do eat
sit under the hot water until your skin aches
glue lashes to your eyelids
heat your hair until you can see right through your self esteem
**** in the gut you never had
rub self-tanner into your skin in hopes of evening not only your tan lines but your life
pierce your cartilage with metal bars
pierce your life with distractions
pierce your skin with blades you took from your little sisters pencil sharpener
pierce a hole in the things that really matter
when you let the poison run free in your blood
eating you away until you are dying from the inside out
but you keep your wounds well hidden
“yes, I love myself.”
Tommy Johnson Sep 2014
A line has been drawn
And you have nothing to say about the height chart in the door frame
***** smocks
The ebbing and flowing of passengers in the middle seat
Who do nothing but leave coffee rings everywhere they've been
And say, "my left shoes has a sturdier soul than I do!"
Then forget to close the toaster oven
Rusted lamp posts and artificial flavoring
The Kettle telling The ***, "don't do me no favors"
I see clear coasts and those who've missed their boats
They should have taken their piece of cake
Now, this is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you
Getting back to business and usual
Better make that eyelash wish count
It's a free for all
It's sibling rivalry
For all the brown-nosers
Who live up to their reputations of raised leg urination
Give me a pull start
And then demote me to cabin boy
       -Tommy Johnson
PrttyBrd Jun 2014
RESPECTFUL
                       HELPFUL
                                        REVERENT
        ­                                                     KIND*

Steeped in licentiousness
engulfed in shadows
10w
62514
Zainab Attari May 2014
I have dreams, just like you
I want to make mine come true

But every time I try to reach for it,
You pull me down into the pit

You shove me with errands, which are yours
I am ******* again without a cure

I shed tears and stare up into the sky,
And wave my dreams goodbye.

-Zainab Attari
Dedicated to the people of a society clouded with judgements based on social norms.
Dhaye Margaux May 2014
Oh, man you are so wise, you’re always right;
You always speak the truth and what is right.

You taught me your culture, I have to blend,
I’m scared but tried to live for what is right.

You sang the oldest songs I hate to hear,
My ears are wanting bad for what is right.

You pulled me and asked me to dance with you,
You knew that music’s off, it is not right.

You held me close to you, I have no chance,
To see, to hear, to speak for what is right…
Ghazal
A Ghazal is a poem that is made up like an odd numbered chain of couplets, where each couplet is an independent poem. It should be natural to put a comma at the end of the first line. The Ghazal has a refrain of one to three words that repeat, and an inline rhyme that preceedes the refrain. Lines 1 and 2, then every second line, has this refrain and inline rhyme, and the last couplet should refer to the authors pen-name... The rhyming scheme is AA bA cA dA eA etc.
KB Apr 2014
She walked in with a cut up eye, stardust in her broken bones and a smile
And before he and I could ask, "what have you done now" she held out her hands
In her palms she collected galaxies that sprouted not from this universe but strength.
And when you looked in her eyes instead of brown,
You'd see songs from seabirds that I never heard because,
Seabirds don't sing,
But in this scope they also tight line across the ways her eyes lit up the moon in the sky.
And then she says, "little sister, never let anyone make you manageable. Always remain untamed."
The swirls in her dress when she spun out of the room
Burst out flared frayed and flamed.
She was an atomic cloud of energy, but her rain didn't fall; it splattered.
Then that night wrapped in white sheets that failed to hold me still
Watching her from the bed across from mine,
I whispered: "welcome home, I’ve missed you."
But instead of peaceful prayers and stories of springing surprises,
I hear the sounds of hurt dripping into soft pillows and wet tears.
My sister never cries.
Sitting up in bed with the streetlight glowing on her face
The only thing she tells me using sea salt and lemons,
Dangerous dreams from swimming with the devil
And daggers made from hopeful rising levels
Is, "please don't fade away.”
The cobwebs on my lips where spiders have spun intricate art
On my teeth told her I don't speak very often.
This individuality has been stripped off my tongue
Now I only taste fire made of wooden chips, not adventure.
The sand grains from the park on school premises
And not the beach where at least they'd be water kissed.
Please don’t fade away.
I could be the replica of everyone else; my shadow kind of looks like yours doesn't it?
I sunk back in the sheets afraid of her tears but before I could disappear into blankness
She gathers feathers in her words and asks,
"Who wouldn't drown the stars for you?
You painted yourself with the colour of the ocean
But only you understood the ocean is not just blue
During sunset it’s the colour of fire running through your veins
As you sink your teeth in the bar of yogurt, ambitions, dreams and raspberries.
In the middle of the night it is the colour of the moon
And the ruffles of waves that shake you awake.
During the birth of dawn it is the fight in your heart bleeding electricity in your eyes,
The light of illumination never lacking loyalty in those dreams of the sea you swallow."
What’s more familiar to us, time? Or memories?
Instead of playing life on the record player
We play it by the clock and repeat the same day over again
Our air smells the same, and we all play the same games.
The message is urgent and it lies in all of us.
Please don’t fade away as I lose all of my trust.
Dying in secrecy that no one wants to touch
It’s a boundless barrier, scary bordering scarier.
Please don’t fade away.
Everything inside of us that craves to be heard,
Is bottled up in the same fashion trends clothing our bodies
The same career choices that teach no new hobbies
The same sentences cling to the walls in hallways and lobbies.
The ignorance in not trying new things
Flies into everyone
Maybe it was a plane crash
Made of rumors and old traditions
That killed people’s appetites for new choices
That suffocated the volume in people’s voices
That left me swimming between everything but rejoices.
When I cant think right I walk left
But we are not old photographs that deteriorate our personalities
We are bodies of water but no one needs a shore
No one needs to send you approval when you’re so sure
Like I was told using sea salt and lemons
I’ll build on that with cucumbers and daisies,
Break out. And please, don’t fade away.
How can someone made of flowers be degraded to dust?
How can you sit there in chains that turn you to rust?
How can ugly gnomes manage to catch stardust?
How can monsters keep murdering like they must?  
I don’t know which way the wind will blow
But when it does it will blow strong
And I will not blow with it.
I heard you say society tells you to be yourself
You are yourself, and then society says no you’re doing it wrong.
Here, watch me, it’s like this.
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