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Ellen Joyce Jul 2013
Her laugh broke the window pane -
shards of glass pouring like rain,
the sound of shattering safety made her blood run cold
as she clung to disintegrating silence.

Grains of silent-self
pricking the backs of her eyes until tears streamed down her cheeks
wiping fiction from flesh, eyes turned to the floor
so you won't see the sadness where the sparkle should be.
Could be.
Would be.
Maybe.

She feels the barbed wire noose around her tongue loosen,
unfurling its razor sharp grip on her throat
to the melody of the sweet small voice singing soothing songs
seducing her to speak.

Speak.
The words fall clumsily from her lips like ***** clattering plates
splattering waste on wall and doors
leaving a mess that cannot be swept
nor hidden under the carpet or clothes.
"Please. Please.".

She feels eyes burning into naked-self
declaring the truth as if it had the strength to stand,
to bear the weight of shame from times that should remain untold,
but she told.
"Look away. Please. Don’t look at me,
I need you not to look at me, please please please".

She squirms beneath the squirming,
the crawling cascade of bugs under her skin,
in her-self, ***** girl -
ankles twisting, fingers bending, hands trembling,
heart beating, breath quickening, mouth begging
"please please don’t look at me".

The kiss to be seen, breaks like a scream
on the back of a lifetime playing dead,
choking back the words left unsaid,
hiding scars of the wounds that once bled.  

Wounds that call from beneath layers of scar tissue,
a symphony of whispering simpering bacteria
recalling the filthy mire imploding from the pyre;
seal after seal broken leaving her less beauty, more beast.  
Her pleas broke the threshold,
falling forward, hands and knees grinding into twigs and leaves,
his grip so thick on her hair
that he heaves out a scream from the depths of her bowels,
ripping through tension and fear
to gift a mark, a shame, a name that won’t disappear –
“Don’t look at me”.  

They call it ******
as if you could name a pain that seared so deep it
drew a blood that would take a week to heal
and a ***** that would never stop rising.  

Her arms buckled under the weight of shame,
of blame, of every screaming name he seethed into her sullied flesh,
with every wavering breath she breathed – “please don’t look at me”.  

His hands grip beneath her hips
nails biting into aching, seeping flesh, filling her pores with
more, more, more.  

Baths - a thing of the past,
water hot, rusted and greying with the rot that lies on her,
with the putrid knot that lies in her.  
“I’m so ashamed.”

Her exhaustion broke her human-ness –
body depleted from repeated invasion that she couldn’t stop,
that he wouldn’t stop -
as forced kisses stole breath,
focus lost and a nip to his tongue would cost a choke-hold to blur the world,
spit on her face hurled with the venom of an injured python.  

Cold, hard, scraping against skin trying to get in –
“Please.” –
bugs crawling, cascading, invading,
fighting my womb, biting my flesh raw, boring into my blood
turning life force to mud and self separated from beautiful source.  

I felt his thrill at my hip.
“Please don’t ...
Is it masochism to share the most humiliating, hurt or is it healthy?”
*
Her mouth broke -
alive with sensations and nerves that serve
to taste to feel, to flex a tongue to sing to speak to eat.  
He drew her to her knees,
with greater and greater ease
to penetrate perception with ******* till her jaw ached and strained,
drained, choking back the spoils of man,
feeling panic as her stomach recoils vomiting shame.

Izan Almira Aug 9
I look in the mirror:
my ribs shape my frame,
like lines that never go away.
They cage my heart,
turn it small.

A week sick.
*****.
Smell of decaying flesh.
No food for a week.
Only the necessary water to live.
I couldn’t breathe.

Now it has sculpted my frame,
made it fragile and small.
I put a shirt on;
hide it, push it away.
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
You're hardly there...
sketched, into the backdrop
of my convalescence,
in hematite brush strokes.
Not a flicker, of breath
warms the cold curve, of my cheek,
but I feel you cup it, anyway.

My own hand,
bloodless, bleached
collapses, in pain.
Fatigued, it creeps,
across the coverlet
in a wraithlike half dose,
to seek you, sleepily
and pull you, across the void.
To capture you, by the mouth,
and bring you, like a magnet,
into another dimension.
Lips, press down, as if stitched;

the Cupid's bow,
folds itself, into the lower lip,
and sutures shut.
It forms a thin veil, of suppression,
and secrets.

Stay with me...
stay with me, a while...
stay with me, until I fall

...a...

...sleep, overtakes me.
I'm too weak, to wrestle with it,
and sink, below its dusky tides.
Darkly, they swallow me.
I float, in an indigestible stupor;

caustic waves, ripping away
at whatever remains,
of me:
half-consumed,
in the raging belly,
of the beast.

Still... the melted glaciers, of my eyes
seek you, above the insouciant turn,
of melancholy tides.

I wish to tangle myself,
all around you
to knot about you, composed,
comprised, in looping ties
like ropes... that only bite,
into the fruit, of your skin
if you draw me around you, tightly.  

And though, there's naught,
but an echo, of you,
above the seismic waves,
of pain

That same thought, rises
A shallow cry,
but it rips, through my soul
with the sudden release
of an arrow, leaving
the taut, aching pull,
of its bowstring.

Stay with me...

stay with me, til night, falls...
hold me, til the dawn, breaks...
love me,til our worlds,
collapse...

and, stay......
stay with me.
Gavin Starr Jul 20
I've spent most of my life
being fascinated by the flame,
trying to figure out how close I can get
without burning myself.

At the times where I've handled it closely,
it has left me charred—
but when I've tried casting it away altogether,
life is grey, cold, and lifeless.

So I keep returning
to the edge of the flame—
fingers trembling—
hoping this time,
it'll warm me
without consuming me.

Sometimes, the flame finds its way back—
not sparked, not summoned—
reminding me
it was never something I lit,
only something I carry.

I find myself haunted by the flicker—
drawn not by recklessness,
but by the unbearable quiet
of a world without warmth.
The Battles of Life,
through sickness, and through health,
through blessings, and good wealth,
all the trials, tribulations, and
everything else,
the wants, and the needs, and
the envious, and the greed,
the feeling of success, and
wanting to succeed!!!
the feeling of hope, the feeling of fear,
the feeling of Challenges, and
the fact that they are near,
don't give in, and don't Cave in,
Stay on the road of
excellency, because
YES!!!
YOU CAN WIN!!!
Keep your eye on the prize,
Keep working for it, and
YOU WILL SEE,
YOU DO HAVE THE ABILITY,
YOU JUST GOT
TO BELIEVE!!!!
AVOID SELFISHNESS, and
CARELESSNESS, and
ALL OF THE ABOVE,
Do your VERY, VERY BEST,
I AM SAYING THIS TO
YOU WITH LOVE!!!!
THE THINGS that we ENDURE,
with AGILITY, and with STRIFE,
the CHALLENGES that we FACE,
THESE ARE THE BATTLES OF LIFE!!!


B.R.
Date: 6/29/2025
mae Jun 29
i walk into the clinic
like it’s a gas station off Route 66,
neon buzzing, hearts tired.
my body full of roadmaps & warning signs —
but no one reads the signs,
no one hears the engine knock.
they call it stress, call it nerves, call it nothing,
but I’ve been breaking down in slow motion since the Eisenhower years.
You, my past and my present
You try to help with lonely lessons
You, you **** me and you bleed
Through every vein inside of me

You, my future and my end
You stitch me up with torn back mends
You, you keep my joys unfound
I gotta gut me to end you now

It never will be easy
To get tumours removed
That’s a fact especially  
When that tumour is you

I need to rip off my own flesh
This cyst, this germ, this flu
It’s me, the chronic sickness
That needs to be removed  

I’ll dig you up with sharpened steel
And rip this tumour out
I don’t think I can fully heal
Without killing myself

You, my love and my sorrows
You bleed me out until I’m hollow
You, I’ll never say goodbye  
You’re all I have and I’m all bled dry

You, you’re something I must lose
But you are me and I am you
You, you’re something deep engraved
And I’ll live with you until my grave
It’s hard to get rid of someone toxic in your life when that toxic person is you.
Mariah May 26
I love
I hate
I yearn
I ache

The pain
The chase
Eyes and ears and taste

The hands
That shake
Making love to my mistakes

Regret
Remorse
Embracing my own corpse

Change
Sorrow
Waiting for tomorrow

Paranoia
Trust
Drenched in pixie dust

Manic
Placid
The future's dipped in acid

Hope
Unrest
Bricks inside my chest

Friction
Freedom
Lies that I believe in

Tears
Laughter
Curate my own disaster

Chalk
Frost
Skin made up of moss

Tide
Concrete
Death before retreat

Time
Space
Stuffed inside a case

Fraud
Truth
The difference between the two

"I'm fine"
It's true
And if you actually knew
What could you even do?
I'm sick. I'm sad. Thank god.
052625

It rained.
The sky trembled,
and so did I—
waking in the hush of lateness,
a body unraveling in silence.
Illness came not like thunder,
but like memory—
quiet and overdue.

Weeks ago,
voices too young to understand
asked me things I couldn’t answer.
I smiled.
But something inside
went missing.
So I closed the door
before the next knock.
I named it fear,
but maybe it was a kind of vanishing—
the way I’ve always slipped through
before connection could tether me.

Trust—
a thin, brittle bridge
between islands.
I walked it once.
Now I float
in my own weather.

I thought
I was finished breaking.
That the years had made me whole.
But strength is not stillness.
And even stone remembers
how to fall.

There were worries
I tore from my own hands,
pages I left blank
so no one could read me.
And yet—
this morning,
I unwrapped something fragile
I had wrapped in forgetting.

And it was me.
Still here.
Still trying to become.
R Spade Mar 22
Kneel beyond my throne, unaware it was born of lies.
Eyes linger on my every move, whispers shouting.
Am I meant to replicate perfection, or just die trying?
Cold smiles approach, thinking they have uncovered my tell-tale heart.

But I am a seasoned ghost.

Being raised to suffer, I have learned to hide.
To mold myself to fit the standards.
To grit my teeth and stand still as my form shifts once again.
Knowing the brief seconds of waking are a soft euphoria I will soon miss.

I wake to a dawn meant only for the dying.

I wake to reset my own jaw,
bending my bones backwards
with the occasional crack,
a ritual ensuring I resemble something human.

People believe I am powerful, successful, happy,
(but i am as fragile as frost on a window touched by morning).
My costume is convincing, but cannot change what I am.
Invisibly so, and so the pretending continues.
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