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jack of spades Feb 2015
I'm a Barbie Girl,
in a Barbie World.
Life's fantastic: I
feel like plastic,
aiming for an eighteen-inch waist because I can afford to throw my internal organs away.
I feel like plastic,
having to choose
between eating and breathing with not enough space for two tubes.
I feel like plastic,
a thirty-nine inch bust and three times the forehead.
I feel like plastic,
a size nine squeezed to a three, spending
three to nine avoiding mealtime because my weight loss book says
'Don't eat.'
I'm a Barbie Girl,
in a Barbie World.
Life's fantastic, but...
I'm not plastic.
I've sat here listening while you complain about society but I don't think you realize that
society is made by you.
You complain about masks but you're masked by your poetry and
trust me,
it's trendy:
Psychiatry.
A bottle of capsules captures your soul and your dreams,
fading
reality.
I cannot be defined because a definition leaves no room for change and I
am a flame,
ready to burn the cardboard box of priority you put over me.
All the cool kids are lesbians and thespians on about repressions
and I care,
I do,
I mean... I'm standing here among you.
But words are just air.
You can stand on this stage and tell me I'm beautiful, but
I am more than my face so
disregard my mild distaste for your
inspirational speech.
Now, this...
This isn't a call for help.
This is a call to arms.
This
is a battle cry because
I
am sick of waiting for a future that should've happened yesterday.
So use this air to live the words you say and
rally.
Do not soothe, because we've already been cocooned by soothed reality in
Shawnee,
Johnson County.
I'm a real girl,
in a real world.
Life's fantastic, and I
refuse to be plastic,
aiming for generic weight range based on content, not scale number.
I refuse to be plastic,
a neck moulded perfectly for both eating and breathing so I don't have to choose.
I refuse to be plastic,
a bust that you don't need to be sizing
when I've got eyes
a green not of romanticized meadows but of drunken
puke.
I refuse to be plastic,
a size nine foot in a size nine shoe,
spending three to nine
enjoying my meal times,
because my weight loss book is
chucked down the chute.
I'm a living girl
in a beautiful world.
Life's fantastic,
because I'm not plastic.
highlight of my career ****
jack of spades Feb 2015
I'm sad and alone and everything I touch turns to gold,
but that's the life,
amirite?
Money's the only matter that matters and some kids three worlds away are getting kidnapped and killed for quotas while these kids are worried about their quote of the day. And,
by kids,
I mean little girls at age three being sold on the streets and in between sheets in countries that aren't all that far away, and little boys whose coloring pages are filled with explosions and guns cause it's literal
war
they're waging. But down the way, parents are posting posters in their children's rooms prompting inspiration: it's something about peace and love-- I mean, that's what they all say.
Well, I've made my peace with the pieces of this prayer, a priest standing golden over me as I throw my diamond-encrusted hands to the air and scream, "Someone
save me."
But these people don't care.
I am a man of gold with a heart of stone and no one cares because, frankly,
Neither do I.
Statistically speaking, everyone in the States clings to the belief that if they just earned an extra fifteen percent wage annually,
then they could live happily.
But,
darling,
when everything you touch turns to gold, statistics don't
quite
fit
the diagnostics.
I
am the outlier, the outright liar, the purveyor of pride that cost me my life but
who cares? I mean,
I've got my money.
I've got my money in a capitalist country that feeds off circulation and circumstance that leads brains to short-circuit short-cut economic politics and slaughter chances, rather than enhancing the value of a life that money can't add up to.
Welcome to the slaughterhouse.
Welcome to the tolerance of intolerance of humanity. Welcome
to the closing scene, where we can be seen on the Globe, on William Shakespeare's pun-fully named stage cause that's what all the world is,
and so's
this gold.
It's a play,
cause some day the curtains will close and all my props will remain on the stage and I am sad and alone with my heart still fo stone but without any gold. I've
lost
my
touch, and
without this cash I'll be nothing but a ten second news flash announcing to the rest of these underpaid actors that I've been knocked off my throne.
I don't think I was ever a king to begin with,
just a man who could forge
fool's gold.
so Slam Poetry is my life.
Ellie Martin Feb 2015
Highschool! Supposingly the “time of our lives” or where a study guide is more important than our mental state of being! It’s also the only place where you write thousand of definitions every year, but you can’t even define your self worth. Where you solve millions of equations, but you can’t even add up your life value. Solve for your life, school-health(life)= future. The definitive times of our lives are turning into the worst. Balancing your social wellbeing with the hell of being popular and skinny, even starving yourself for days because the queen bee bought herself the newest style, and it’s a size too small. Subtracting the calories from the equation of wanting to binge your heart out while cramming for the test of flirting with that new boy after school. Adding the new dress, new heels, and new personality to your already masked appearance because the party you got invited to is where the “prettiest” of girls add up your self worth for you solving for the simplest equation. Makeup(Skinny)(Big ****)(Tall)= PRETTY. The word everyone seems to have a definition for except you. A word that could try to define your schooling career, but you can’t find the correct sources. Then theres the nights where you stay up until the early dawn, sobbing yourself to sleep because you can’t remember how to do so on your own. The definition of sleep : A natural periodic state of rest for the mind and body. But who remembers that? How am I supposed to solve the equation of rest? These definitions make up your state of being, piercing to your brain like clothing labels, being ripped off when they are no longer needed. The equations make up your body, or what's naturally left of it. Memorizing everything a person says about you, adding up the looks you get in the hallways rushing to class, reading the syllabus to everyone’s expectations for you. Expectations. Expectations. EXPECTATIONS. They come as blurs, never specific or clear enough. They shove through your tired brain and ram your esteem up walls. The perfect image of a student and friend and girlfriend and PERSON. Applications come out, every question answered honestly, truthfully, a reflection of SELF. Self? Can you use that word in a sentence? Is there a way to solve it? You’ve thrown out the files to your internal layers, not seeming important enough to pass the next big history test or worthy of the SAT prep due in a week. You can’t pass the exam in your mind testing on the ability to stay sane and make it into the college in your brain because it’s been shut down due to: inclement conditions.  Add up all of this and you get the equation of highschool and equation to pass the social barrier. Congradulations! You’ve graduated someones judgement of your self worth and now you have to define it on your own.


Self (n:) a person's essential being that distinguishes them from others.


Distinguish from others. Different? NO! Suspension has kicked you out of the brain and difference is a TOTAL reputation ruiner. You’ve spent your entire life hypothesizing the idea of NORMAL. Different is an old definition with a new sound, wanting to be sweet and free. But in reality locked in a detention classroom, waiting for it to be used openly. It’s like this: run multiple copies of the same person on the copy machine and then paste them around the school with imitating personalities and similar words. The word different doesn’t apply to this equation.


Can you even use it in a sentence?  


Can I even be used in a sentence?


-e.m
A slam I wrote for my honors English class.
Miranda Renea Feb 2015
We live in a world of high speed wreckage, so much so that I fear our youth
Have been desensitized to the sight of death and destruction; It's only a
Few clicks away with our media addiction but, that's not what I'm here to
Talk with you about today. No, I think it's time we take a 3 minute break
Of high-speed mentality, to break free of swift reality if only for a moment.
Speaking of moments, I need everybody to close their eyes for a time. No, seriously, close them.
I want to tell you a story that sight cannot settle, no semblance of reality, for
Some things are meant for eyes, others for ears, still yet others are meant
For the mind. For the soul. Let us sail on a ship of sound, a journey, collectively.
Now sit still, and listen.

So what is it we percieve behind eyelids shut tight? Before we fall asleep at night?
On one hand, it is nothingness; no light to comfort us, such a solemn black.
I guess I can't speak for you but, at times I get sad before I sleep. I think back to
Every promise someone didn't keep, all the words I was too scared to speak; or
the whispers my lovers' lips never returned, like "I love you". In short, I
Was lonely. There is something in the act of cutting off sight that leaves me
With a crippling sensation of isolation. But something tells me I'm not the only one
All-too familiar with this sense of suffocation. Somehow I feel as though this is
Shared not only with you, but with the person sitting next to you, and beside them too.
But, I'm not here to depress you, and so let me share some words I once wrote with you;

Lost souls
Drink ink.
But only wither,
With the weather.
Like roses,
Red-
And dead.
But they're beautiful,
You know.

You see, it was a poem I had written around the age of sixteen, and I didn't really get it then but,
"But they're beautiful, you know" was a seed of thought that blossomed in the next few years;
The thought that sometimes the broken things are the most beautiful for they are perfect in the story
That they tell. The story of imperfection; of affection; of sweet affliction; whatever words you
Deem worthy of describing our time here on Earth. Put simply; we are stupid, pointless, silly, exquisite humanity.
Like shattered glass, we can never be what we once were but only arrange ourselves into a magnificent stainglass window,
Allowing the sunlight of our lives to paint a picture of whatever unique self-disciplined blessings we choose to give
And when the sun starts to set, allow me to remind you of this; being along has never hindered the beauty of a sunset over a meadow,
Visible by standing in the treeline on top of a gently rolling hill. And so I dare you, I dare you to live alone, yet married
To the aesthetics of one eye, instead of two. I dare you
to fall in love
with you.

If you haven't already, you can open your eyes now. Our break is coming to a close; soon we'll be back to tweets on twitter
Instead of outside our windows before the sun rises each morning. But after I'm done speaking I hope you can take something with you.
Specifically, the next time you feel like crying yourself to sleep at night; remember this poem. If not in it's entirety, remember just this;
You are stupid, pointless, silly, exquisite humanity and there is not one bone in your body that is not broken or incomparably beautiful.
Know that somewhere I'm out there, hoping that you drift with a smile into sleep.
Hey guys! This is a slam piece I just finished. I plan on performing it at a slam on thursday, so critiques/insights would be REALLY appreciated. Thanks so much!
ahmo Feb 2015
The apples tumble down the tree
We swim in the green sea.
That idyllic place
where the camera lens reflects
the sunlight against your eyes.
And doesn't predict our demise.
Or any little fights in between.
No arguments
about the shirt on your back
or the ***** you lack
or the picking up of the slack.
Who wants to hear that?
I want to be back on that picnic day.
No way.
No way anyone this perfect could love me.
No one so free.
No eyes as clear as the sea.
And that one time you pretended to be Ashley.
(How fun was that night?
You got us into bars,
played guitars,
and brought me to Mars?
****, what was in that?)
Don't ask me again,
why you think it isn't worth it.
The touch of her nose
some witty verbose
her hips like a rose
and that little way that she hiccups if she's had a little too much to drink and she starts to laugh really, really hard and it just kind of comes out and then you laugh harder and it just gets worse.
(I can't make this stuff up.)
I'd like to think of all of those things.
And I think you would too.
If love wasn't what we are fighting for,
then do we even have anything to lose?
Some green bills,
some overpriced pills,
a trophy for us today,
a sense of narcissism to stay.
So just try to love.
Because despite anything above,
We have this.
A dauntless, morning kiss.
a star upon which to wish,
a euphoria close to bliss.
Something to always miss.
And the pancakes at that place
and that look on your face.
Erase.
Erase anything else you need.
Trust me.
When you find her,
it won't matter.
You'll fight, and you'll tire,
there won't be any fuel for the fire.
But man,
those eyes that are clearer than the sea
are clearer than anything to me.
PrttyBrd Jan 2015
the clock chimes
but no one counts
the days move at will
forward, backward
days stand still
the ticking of seconds
lost in the minutia
of the everyday
endless mind chatter
and negative self-talk
heart in a vacuum of speculation
what if -
coulda, shoulda, woulda
WILL NOT
DO NOT
STAY IN THIS PLACE
strain to listen
can you hear it
it's there
in the undercurrent of life
lost beyond yourself
tick tock
a shadow of a sound
tick tock
time never stops
tick tock
feel the minutes turn to days
a sense of time thrown away
on nothing
it's easy
so much easier
to wonder
what if -
why me -
than to take a deep breath
and realize
the world does not revolve
around a solitary soul
and no one is ever
the reason someone makes a choice
choices are made of free will
or they aren't choices at all
good or bad
tick tock
tick tock
tick tock
can you feel it
tick tock
tick tock
tick tock
it's the minutes of life
left behind
in a cloud of never was
tick tock
the clock chimes
but no one counts
the days move at will
forward, backward
days stand still
11915
spoken word
Blind Aesthetic Jan 2015
You would think that judging by my demeanor that life was fit, a bit pop, bubbly, all is good, feel good, real good, rainbow, gum drop, sunny side up, clouds never here, lets sit down and enjoy the never fading sunset, cheers.

But no, that's not really me, see, I struggle just like we all do. I fight just like we all do. I cry, I bleed and I try just like we all do. I travel down the beaten path often with the same people who assume I segway my way through life. No, I wish but i don't. I trip some times like you don't. I've been hung up to dry. I've let me tears fly. I've screamed at the top of my lungs **** LIFE like the rest do. Off the top of these concrete mountains but I'm careful not to fall off like some do. I've walked with a limp, asked for change for a change while I wait for my check just like some do. I look happy not because I want to hide, to put up a front and sell my good pickings. I have no shame in who I am and how I came about. I have no shame in the ladder I'm climbing or the shoes that I wear though when it comes to the latter it's not really a choice, I swear. I'm not a liar or a fake what you see is what you get.

I'm up front and what I said is what I meant, I'm up front. I dwell but I don't set up camp that's why im happy. I dislike but I don't hate that's why I'm happy. I sulk but I keep my back straight that's why I'm happy. I examine but I put the magnifying glass away that's why I'm happy. I'm happy but I'm not ignorant I know my place. I'm happy because life is amazing just look around. I'm happy because of the things we have. Check out this site, look what I found. You don't have to go far to find something amazing in this world. Just open your eyes. This is why I'm happy.
This is a slam poem I wrote. I'll get around to recording it one of these days.
Poetry by MAN Jan 2015
As days do pass we look and seek
Our hearts have words we never speak
To our minds our hearts do tell
Who we love we love them well
To some we are mystery
Discovered in ones history
All out there like the news
Read a page then we choose
Adventure in the discovery
Pain in the recovery
Some will never read the book
Regret the chances never took
Life goes on till we're dead
Reality still moves ahead
Time moves slow and then real fast
Precious moments that we cast
Created like the finest art
Add our flavor do our part
To reach a common destiny
Cherish each others company
So much love we all waste
Don't let frustration change your face
Let it in then let it go
Release the breath of your soul
In our mind we make the turn
Learn from all the pain we earn
Gather it up create a giant fireball
Shoot it out release it all
Ashes blow in the wind
Time for this Phoenix to be reborn again
Challenge me take me to task
To love you as the moments pass
M.A.N 12-31-14 I'm trying to write longer for Slam competition material! ^_* I look forward to competing/performing this poem in the future..
mouse Dec 2014
i killed
a man
so long
ago
and now
his blood
rolls down
my wrists
i don't
have holes
biting through
my hands
but there's holes
inside
my heart
and through
my thoughts.

*(e.f.)
jacky Dec 2014
It all began with a ‘he’
he who said I was pretty
  when my face turns sideways and
  the right amount of sunlight casts shadows
  on the planes of my cheeks
he who kissed me in 6th grade
  in front of my best friend – whom he used to date,
  his lips were cool and moist
  moist – it didn’t feel anything.
he who requested love songs during our high school intramurals
  when all of my friends and all of his friends
  cheer us up like we were the sweetest thing they’ve seen.
he who danced with me the whole night of our junior prom,
  my shoes dangling behind him, my arms and his arms were sweating
  he whispers now, “You look beautiful.”
he who gave me wilting flowers on the 15th of February
  because I skipped school – too scared to face the truth
  that no one would do what he just did. He proved me wrong.
he who said “I love you” too late.
he who said “I love you” too early.
He who made me believe that fate, destiny, sparks, forever, and all that *******
  were real, written in His holy book. Should I still believe in you?
he who said would wait – the next month telling me he realized
  it wasn’t me he was waiting for.
he who told me to stay.
he who left. he who never went back.
and oh – he
he who was never here in the first place.

it all began with a “she”
she who danced in front of the class
  with all her sass, snaps, and we laugh.
she whose hair used to be straight
  swaying down her waist, flows smoothly when she walks,
  falls perfectly down her collarbones. Let’s not start with collarbones.
she whose eyelids flutter like butterfly wings
  making the ones inside my stomach dance like hummingbird’s wings
  her eyelashes are thick, outlining her brown eyes – her perfect brown eyes.
she who throws he head back when she laughs
  not knowing I drift and crash back to the sea
  like a wave thrown back by her chuckles and laughter
she who reads and reads tons of books
  when she could write about her day
  and that’ll still be the greatest stories I could read
she who held me close when she stumbles towards the bus station
  when she’s drunk
she who wanted nothing between us – worried it will not work.
but she made the raindrops of yesterday meaningful
  so it could wash off all the hurt from everything, from everyone.
she who changed me. – no.
she who made me face the mirrors I’ve been running away from
  all those lies I’ve been hiding alone
  all those pain, all those bad memories
she washed them all away, like a hurricane
   she dragged my whole town with her
she who made me forget.
she who makes me ache at times but it’s the kind of ache
  you’d gladly take – a suffering worth all the suffering
she who outshined all of – in the best possible way I could imagine
she who made the stars insignificant.

It doesn’t end with a ‘he’
It doesn’t end with a ‘she’
it all ends up with a simple ‘who’
that person who will always come through
for you

I learned that love sometimes doesn’t last that long
sometimes it doesn’t even start at all.
But I know one thing, you cannot fight it.
I don’t know where – maybe in his hands
or in her eyes. It will make you move like you
have no choice at all – like a puppet stuck
******* and down nylon strings
by the puppeteer
dictating your life
like you have no choice, at all.
This is supposed to be for Slam Poetry =) But I guess, it's okay to post it here.
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