#dorm
I asked if you recalled
the time in the snow
to mega bed you hauled
your bag and your speedo
Got there, you sprawled
said your back had a blow
Said the mushrooms you did
made your self-worth glow
You claim you're too busy though
I know you still care
but something warm fills me whole
not happiness, its unfair
How you once trudged through the snow
just to smell my hair
Jul 21, 2025
Jul 21, 2025 at 12:21 AM UTC
The lonely moth sits perched on the shower wall
Raindrops fog up the mirror quite unconcerned
Shampoo drips and stings my watchful eyes
The lonely moth moves between my lashes onto the faucet
Scruffy loofahs exfoliating my dirtyy limbs fall to the side
Water pools outside the hair-clogged drain
The lonely moth flutters– gone in a trick of the mind
Hair cream coats dripping, bouncy locks of curls
A fresh towel becomes soaked and softened
Mar 12, 2025
Mar 12, 2025 at 1:26 PM UTC
On days like this, I am reminded of a feeling once foreign to me
A concept I’d only caught from books and from movies.
One that crushes yet contains no mass
That cripples heart and brain alike yet bears no blade.
It is the bitter, biting brutality of winter with no fire nearby to curl up to
Nipping at the heart and leaving it crisp with melancholy.
It is a plague which I seem to have regretfully caught
Despite having recently become so very aware of how to use its cure.
The girl across the hall opens her door and produces a weary, sigh with her exit
Perhaps a plea for an ear to listen or another to exist with.
She passes by my open doorway silently, contradicting herself
Our pleas for a social volley cast together into the blizzard.
I imagine she feels that same apprehension; hesitation
Or perhaps she had something to do.
The simple smile of another among the thousands here
Would be an ember of joy sufficient to set my hearth alight for days.
I crave that warmth like few things I have craved before
So close by, yet more scarce than it’s ever been.
Chatter was once my sun, and I basking endlessly below
How I yearn for summer in this raging storm.
Jan 31, 2025
Jan 31, 2025 at 8:15 PM UTC
Moonlight through a quilt of clouds
we rush before the storm
lightning, like a camera flashed
as we made it to the dorm
We shiver as we rush the stairs
to the thunderous afterboom
I survey the nights assignments
when I’m safe inside my room
We’d planned for this foul weather,
and our tempest borne confinement
by stopping for some chinese food
- it was practically a requirement.
Dec 14, 2021
Dec 14, 2021 at 7:29 AM UTC
I finished moving into my residential college as a storm began
- fat raindrops, as big as coconuts, falling from a black and fouling sky.
These northerners were acting like a "tropical storm" (Henri) was a big deal.
“Surely New England gets storms?” I ask, from behind my mask.
“What about NOR_Easters?” I say, like a meteorologist.
“Those are different.” I’m told, with no other explanation.
“Did you bring this storm from the “SOUTH?” I’m asked, accusingly.
(This was after I told them about coming from one ”bulldog-college-town” to another.)
“Yes.” I reply, “It was in my luggage.”
A silly question but they have a point - the storm feels like it’s involved and fulfilling some obligation to dramatize my college move-in story.
“Time to quarantine!” I’m informed - “Yep, can’t WAIT!” I lie.
One disaster at a time.
Aug 22, 2021
Aug 22, 2021 at 2:41 PM UTC
Millay Has Her Way with a Vassar Professor
by Michael R. Burch
After a night of hard drinking and spreading her legs,
Millay hits the dorm, where the Vassar don begs:
“Please act more chastely, more discretely, more seemly!”
(His name, let’s assume, was, er ... Percival Queemly.)
“Expel me! Expel me!”—She flashes her eyes.
“Oh! Please! No! I couldn’t! That wouldn’t be wise,
for a great banished Shelley would tarnish my name ...
Eek! My game will be lame if I can’t milque your fame!”
“Continue to live here—carouse as you please!”
the beleaguered don sighs as he sags to his knees.
Millay grinds her crotch half an inch from his nose:
“I can live in your hellhole, strange man, I suppose ...
but the price is your firstborn, whom I’ll sacrifice to Moloch.”
(Which explains what became of pale Percy’s son, Enoch.)
Originally published by Lucid Rhythms. This poem is based on an account of Edna St. Vincent Millay being confronted by a male Vassar authority about her rogue behavior. However, there is a some poetic license involved, for the sake of humor. It was actually Vassar President Henry Noble MacCracken who mentioned Shelley. Here is his account in a response to a question about Millay cutting classes: "She cut everything. I once called her in and told her, 'I want you to know that you couldn't break any rule that would make me vote for your expulsion. I don't want to have any dead Shelleys on my doorstep, and I don't care what you do.' She went to the window and looked out and she said, 'Well on those terms I think I can continue to live in this hellhole.'" The stuff about Enoch and Moloch is, of course, pure fabrication on my part.
Keywords/Tags: Millay, dead, Shelley, Vassar, dorm, hellhole, drinking, partying, *** cutting classes
Apr 17, 2020
Apr 17, 2020 at 12:32 AM UTC
The stars sparkle like
LED lights
Hung upon the walls of a celestial dorm
A college student in the skies
studies the small creatures below
She writes her essays on myths
that humans told long ago
Her professor grades the paper
judging not on fact, but on prose
Classmates chat in the halls
About classes, about dating, about parties
But the lunar lady continues watching
with a cautious eye
As we go about our daily lives
Apr 7, 2020
Apr 7, 2020 at 7:13 AM UTC
These Hallowed Halls
by Michael R. Burch
a young Romantic Poet mourns the passing of an age . . .
I.
A final stereo fades into silence
and now there is seldom a murmur
to trouble the slumber
of these ancient halls.
I stand by a window where others have watched
the passage of time—alone,
not untouched.
And I am as they were
...unsure...
for the days
stretch out ahead,
a bewildering maze.
II.
Ah, faithless lover—
that I had never touched your breast,
nor felt the stirrings of my heart,
which until that moment had peacefully slept.
For now I have known the exhilaration
of a heart that has vaulted the Pinnacle of Love,
and the result of each such infatuation—
the long freefall to earth, as the moon glides above.
III.
A solitary clock chimes the hour
from far above the campus,
but my peers,
returning from their dances,
heed it not.
And so it is
that we seldom gauge Time’s speed
because He moves so unobtrusively
about His task.
Still, when at last
we reckon His mark upon our lives,
we may well be surprised
at His thoroughness.
IV.
Ungentle maiden—
when Time has etched His little lines
so carelessly across your brow,
perhaps I will love you less than now.
And when cruel Time has stolen
your youth, as He certainly shall in course,
perhaps you will wish you had taken me
along with my broken heart,
even as He will take you with yours.
V.
A measureless rhythm rules the night—
few have heard it,
but I have shared it,
and its secret is mine.
To put it into words
is as to extract the sweetness from honey
and must be done as gently
as a butterfly cleans its wings.
But when it is captured, it is gone again;
its usefulness is only
that it lulls to sleep.
VI.
So sleep, my love, to the cadence of night,
to the moans of the moonlit hills’
bass chorus of frogs, while the deep valleys fill
with the nightjar’s shrill, cryptic trills.
But I will not sleep this night, nor any;
how can I—when my dreams
are always of your perfect face
ringed by soft whorls of fretted lace,
framed by your perfect pillowcase?
VII.
If I had been born when knights roamed the earth
and mad kings ruled savage lands,
I might have turned to the ministry,
to the solitude of a monastery.
But there are no monks or hermits today—
theirs is a lost occupation
carried on, if at all,
merely for sake of tradition.
For today man abhors solitude—
he craves companions, song and drink,
seldom seeking a quiet moment,
to sit alone, by himself, to think.
VIII.
And so I cannot shut myself
off from the rest of the world,
to spend my days in philosophy
and my nights in tears of self-sympathy.
No, I must continue as best I can,
and learn to keep my thoughts away
from those glorious, uproarious moments of youth,
centuries past though lost but a day.
IX.
Yes, I must discipline myself
and adjust to these lackluster days
when men display no chivalry
and romance is the "old-fashioned" way.
X.
A single stereo flares into song
and the first faint light of morning
has pierced the sky's black awning
once again.
XI.
This is a sacred place,
for those who leave,
leave better than they came.
But those who stay, while they are here,
add, with their sleepless nights and tears,
quaint sprigs of ivy to the walls
of these Hallowed Halls.
NOTE: I wrote this poem from the window of my freshman dorm at age 18, while watching students returning from rush week parties in the wee hours of the morning. There is also a sonnet version of the poem. In this longer version there are clues that the poet, like Prufrock, is aware of the quaintness of his Romanticism in the modern age. I consider “These Hallowed Halls” to be my Ars Poetica, along with “Poetry.” Keywords/Tags: College, dorm, fraternity, rush, Romantic, unrequited, love, ivy, halls, learning, education, ivory, towers, stereo, music, romance, chivalry, maidens, damsels, knights, kings, monks, hermits, clock, time
Mar 24, 2020
Mar 24, 2020 at 8:18 PM UTC
Sometimes dorms stink of stories,
Of drunken romps and late night melodies
Of no-good ramen smashed down sinks
Broken hearts and centipedes
Sometimes late at night,
(Tonight)
Showers reset arteries,
'Til we smell of peppermint
And scrub out grime and memories.
Jan 15, 2020
Jan 15, 2020 at 10:30 AM UTC
I’m in a dorm room with the lights all off,
You were there, it’s 5:15.
The day was fading and all I see
Is the flickering lights from the city.
The sun was burning now just like the whiskey,
Or was it Crown? It’s 9:16.
I smelled tangerines.
Was that your perfume?
I swear I could see for miles in your eyes.
You wanted me to say it, so I said it.
I’m afraid.
To be myself, to be a man.
But I’m 19.
Guess I’ll figure that out as best I can.
I really miss that dorm room.
Nov 11, 2019
Nov 11, 2019 at 11:33 PM UTC
Sitting on her dorm room bed
Three feet from the floor
Not quite happy
But not quite sad
She wants to feel the ache in her bones
The hatred she has for herself
She wants that to come back
she doesn’t want to feel ok
Cause she’s not
Trying to make that decision
To walkout in the middle of the night
While her room mate sleeps
And to never come back
She’s ok right now
But she wants that sadness
The depression to fill her bones
She wishes she could pull the metaphorical trigger
And not live
Oh how she aches
To just want to not be ok anymore
Because when you’re not ok
You feel alive
Or at least she does
It’s terrible beast
She hates when she’s ok but hates when she’s sad
She just wishes she could not exist
That would be her ultimate goal
She types this in the dark as her roommate drifts off to sleep
I know cause that girl is me
Sep 9, 2019
Sep 9, 2019 at 10:32 PM UTC
i just realized that tonight might be my last
to spend in bed with my obese cat
purring under my arm
because now im an adult
and my life will move on
no more crying too
or talking and cuddling
and holding in front of a mirror
so she can see her reflection
no more petting or kissing
or waiting to scoop up when i come home
because now im an adult
and my life has to move on
and im moving out
a kiss on my finger
one last cuddle by my face
as she walks on my keyboard
as i type this
accidentally hitting space
the saddest of goodbyes
that i'll ever have to face
Aug 21, 2019
Aug 21, 2019 at 1:17 AM UTC
I hate this feeling
This feeling I’m feeling is a feeling that’s not appealing
This feeling I’m feeling is way to unappealing I scream to god “why aren’t I healing?”
This feeling that’s revealing,
People see what I’ve been dealing with and It’s hard to express this feeling I’m feeling better cover it up better start concealing it…
I can’t say a word though… to anyone about it …because if I do I’d cry,
I’m depressed and people ask me why I get high?
Because I feel college is getting dry
This isn’t what I expected, this is all a lie
The thoughts of me failing would only leave me mortified
Got me in my dorm thinking why should I even try?
Beating me up leaving me with this ugly black eye
And people got a nerve to ask me why I get high?
That’s why I get high
This is what college is about?
This is why I’d cry
Now a days I get so busy and overwhelmed I don’t even have time to admire the blue sky
I’m drained
This feeling I’m feeling make me lean to god more and more I pray I get some faith healing
Kneeling on my knees I pray for the answers I’ve been needing
The negative voices in my head are getting louder and louder
The words that my demon has been speaking can get a little much
I’m screaming I can’t bare to feel this feeling that I’m feeling
I’m stressed
But the cutie on the 8th floor got my back
Call him down for some ****** healing
After he’s gone I’m still left with this feeling that I’m feeling
I’m done
But I can’t be, people say have courage and I’m trying to
They say I’ll be right here for you
But this feeling I’m feeling is so unappealing I just don’t want to feel it anymore
Nov 15, 2018
Nov 15, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
My room is looking emptier than it ever has before,
Got the clothes on my back; boxes are packed, sitting by the door.
Oh, how this is happening oh so soon feels like a dream,
But by the time the week is up, it’s me, my dorm, and the university.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 2:33 AM UTC
Take me back to the night we met
When the day was hot
And the air was humid
The sky was crisp
And the clouds were nonexistent
Our skin spotted with sweat
My life was sprawled out in front of us both
My emotions were high
But you didn't care
You listened to it all
Stories
Memories
About my family
About my friends
About my random little trinkets
Things that meant nothing to you
And everything to me
You listened to it all
Take me back to that night
When we cleaned sticky **** off the wall
With Magic Erasers and Goo Gone
When we did nine loads of laundry
And you saw all the underwear I own
But you still didn't care
The air was silent
But we filled it with our voices
With laughter
With nervous excitement
Coming from the first date
Take me back to that night
When I first fell in love
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 3:39 PM UTC
In this dorm,
Where I first met you
I did'nt like you.
We were roommates,
It was weird 'cuz you're a guy
As time goes by,
We became close friends
But I did'nt realize,
I already fell for you
I wanted to confess,
But I was scared
I got nervous when you called me to meet up
What if you'll say "I have a girlfriend"
Negative thoughts came into my mind
I got to the place where you told me
I saw you, you waved at me
I asked you what is it about
You told me that there is this girl you fell inlove with
It broke my heart hearing those
You describe her and asked what to do
I told you to confess directly even if it hurts
"She is standing in front of me now"
Tears fell into my eyes
We kissed under the moonlight
Well, being under the same roof was'nt bad at all.
Aug 21, 2017
Aug 21, 2017 at 7:08 PM UTC
i fell in love with
the way you put your
pen to paper
so smooth, carelessly
and still so thoughtful
i fell in love with
the way you
looked at me when
you were around
your friends
it’s like im the only person there
i fell in love
when you ran to hug me
when the shooting was mid chaos
i was so afraid
but your arms were
radiating comfort
i fell out of love
when you brought
your girlfriend to the dorm
for the weekend
and she got all of
my attention
i fell out of love
because there was
never any love to give
Aug 20, 2017
Aug 20, 2017 at 2:45 AM UTC
Whose pizza here, I do not know.
He's partying in the dorm below;
I do not think that he would mind
Me taking seven slices home.
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 5:39 PM UTC
Looking out the window,
The melancholy snow stops all.
The once bright city
desolated
left to die
smothered by the bitter cold
I crave the warmth
of a companion
someone to hold me.
It's never felt so cold
Remaining inside
Dec 24, 2015
Dec 24, 2015 at 7:43 PM UTC
Wake up,wake up
It's Still dark,still dark
Wake up,wake up
Keep dreaming and keep snoring
For somehow the feeling was gone,
Four Friend is wake up,
Doing same thing,same thing
everyday in the morning,
left the soul,left it
just a body that going to class
Wake up,wake up
but Already wake up
no?
Souls is still sleeping at bedrooms
Aug 31, 2015
Aug 31, 2015 at 2:57 PM UTC
Some part of you is like the moon
softly glowing beside me on my too-small bed,
and the monumental loneliness you wear as a halo
must be a trick of the eye despite keeping me awake,
hunched over a folder of unedited poems at 2:45AM.
I wonder what the moon dreams of when the sun
tucks it into bed at dawn as your eyelids flutter
and your breathing hitches for a moment
before you roll over, face the wall,
parting clouds with a small sigh.
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 9:01 AM UTC
One little window
in
my tiny dorm
room.
To watch the sun rise
and then
sleep
Makes me miss my tree house windows
untoasted bagels
for breakfast
And a textbook
for a friend--
Thomas's 12th edition
One little
Window.
That keeps me sleeping
Until
noon.
One little window.
That keeps me
so concealed.
One little window
That makes me miss home.
Sep 17, 2012
Sep 17, 2012 at 11:24 PM UTC