#razor
I never liked shaving,
a blade in my hand,
scraping across body hair
that never asked to be gone.
They called it *****
so I was *****
I carved at my skin,
slicing away
the girl they wanted me to be.
The girl I was told to become.
Now my armpits are hairy,
the razor’s long dead,
rotting in its plastic grave.
And me?
I don’t care anymore.
Aug 27, 2025
Aug 27, 2025 at 2:18 AM UTC
the trees branch as they grow,
the wind cuts through the forest,
the sea breaks into itself eternally—
this is cleaving,
this is creation.
cells split,
shadows stretch long and thin
over trimmed grass
as the light returns
to the other side.
and now the moon floats
in ghostly meditation,
hinting at what’s hidden
and how close
it all seems sometimes.
I was never far from myself,
except when I was,
and writing this doesn't
make any sense—
why should it?
who’s keeping score?
who’s the grand cosmic judge
of all artistic expression everywhere
across all
dimensions and time?
nobody.
that's who.
nobody cares.
that’s the point.
it doesn't matter what
I say on this page,
even if it's terrible,
even if it’s rotten,
even if no one reads it.
it felt right
to let it flow freely in the moment,
to spill it all out.
that’s what matters—
the spilling of it.
there’s a sweetness in that.
in the clean slice of the razor
and the blood it draws—
quiet,
quick
and true.
*drip,
drip,
drip,*
all over the page.
May 11, 2025
May 11, 2025 at 9:40 PM UTC
Seeds of doubt churn with streams of hurt
Leaving it's mark from brain to heart like ruts in plowed dirt
It all collects and pools, a bottomless oddity here
Who's the capture, who's the prisoner? That's never been clear
Up to the moment life boils over the razors edge
Ribbons of crimson spill quickly, careening off the ledge
You had to have known it's all hollow, must I follow?
Must I always question while you threaten the finality of every tomorrow?
©2024
Jul 23, 2024
Jul 23, 2024 at 5:42 AM UTC
Seeds of doubt churn in streams of hurt
Blazing trails from brain to heart
It all collects and pools deep
Turning me prisoner
Before life spills over the razors edge
Ribbons of red spill over, off the ledge
Must I follow?
Must I alway question the reality of every tomorrow?
Who wants to trade me for this sorrow?
Who has a reset button I can barrow?
No one?
Thought so
I'll just go
©2024
Jul 23, 2024
Jul 23, 2024 at 3:37 AM UTC
I think time is like a razor. It cuts away flaws. I think it is like a river. It takes away sin. I think it might be like the sun. It bleaches our bones. Maybe it is like us. Finite and uninportant in the grand scheme of things. Or maybe it is like the mountains. That stand tall forver.
Sep 9, 2021
Sep 9, 2021 at 3:45 PM UTC
Ticking time bomb friends
Will lay themselves dead
Before you can understand
What's going through their head.
Death filled minds
With death dripping hands
Might include you
In their end of life plans.
You'll see the knife wounds
Cross hatching chests
You'll see the pills
That one day will put them to rest.
Death filled minds
With death dripping hands
Might include you
In their end of life plans.
They'll show you razors,
Knives and blood.
You'll never ask why
They'll never mention it again.
You'll excuse the rope you find
Filling up corners
You'll ignore sturdy beams
With chairs underneath them.
You won't think twice
When they ask for one bullet.
Maybe you'll be the one to put it
In ticking time bomb hands.
Death ridden minds
With death dripping hands
Might include you
In their end of life plans.
It's not your fault.
How could you have known?
You've made an art out of ignoring.
You assume the blood and gore meant
nothing.
It was just a bad night.
It's not your fault.
How could you have known?
It's not like you've lost
Every other one you've known.
It's okay.
It's really not your fault.
You can never stop
Death ridden minds
With death dripping hands.
You can never help
Your ticking time bomb
Friends.
Aug 30, 2020
Aug 30, 2020 at 1:51 PM UTC
Written word used to be an
extension of my mind; my
thoughts imprinted onto paper
in neatly formed sentences.
but now
they are jagged
uneven.
tired.
torn.
malformed.
incomprehensible.
I can't seem to put the words
together into sentences that
have meaning.
The razor edge of my words
cut me, bleed my body dry
until there's nothing left
but dust.
Aug 19, 2020
Aug 19, 2020 at 9:40 PM UTC
You don't have to love me anymore
But I'll always love you
You'll always have someone there
A wide open pair of sliced-up arms
I used to dream of you laying on my chest
Now all that lays there is razor marks
I almost don't mind if they scar;
They can represent my pain like a crest
I'll never be able to hear of your country
Not even see the southern cross
Without remembering your eyes
I'm so broken, I can't find it in me to cut ties
And so as you move on with life
I hope you know I still wish you the best
And I know you don't believe me, but I'll be here
Dragging the next blade across my chest
I know you'll be happy
And one day, I pray I can be too
But until then
Australia still makes me think of you
Jun 10, 2020
Jun 10, 2020 at 12:47 AM UTC
The tears that razor emotions bleed,
can we ever recover from
those momentary eclipses
that smother light from the darkest needing..
Silence...
May 17, 2020
May 17, 2020 at 4:41 PM UTC
Ben Sana Mecburum (“You Are Indispensable”)
by Attila Ilhan
translation/interpretation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
You are indispensable; how can you not know
that you’re like nails riveting my brain?
I see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions.
You are indispensable; how can you not know
that I burn within, at the thought of you?
Trees prepare themselves for autumn;
can this city be our lost Istanbul?
Now clouds disintegrate in the darkness
as the street lights flicker
and the streets reek with rain.
You are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...
Love sometimes seems akin to terror:
a man tires suddenly at nightfall,
of living enslaved to the razor at his neck.
Sometimes he wrings his hands,
expunging other lives from his existence.
Sometimes whichever door he knocks
echoes back only heartache.
A screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih ...
a song about some Friday long ago.
I stop to listen from a vacant corner,
longing to bring you an untouched sky,
but time disintegrates in my hands.
Whatever I do, wherever I go,
you are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...
Are you the blue child of June?
Ah, no one knows you—no one knows!
Your deserted eyes are like distant freighters ...
perhaps you are boarding in Yesilköy?
Are you drenched there, shivering with the rain
that leaves you blind, beset, broken,
with wind-disheveled hair?
Whenever I think of life
seated at the wolves’ table,
shameless, yet without soiling our hands ...
Yes, whenever I think of life,
I begin with your name, defying the silence,
and your secret tides surge within me
making this voyage inevitable.
You are indispensable; how can you not know?
*********
Original text:
Ben sana mecburum bilemezsin
Adini mih gibi aklimda tutuyorum
Büyüdükçe büyüyor gözlerin
Ben sana mecburum bilemezsin
Içimi seninle isitiyorum.
Agaçlar sonbahara hazirlaniyor
Bu sehir o eski Istanbul mudur
Karanlikta bulutlar parçalaniyor
Sokak lambalari birden yaniyor
Kaldirimlarda yagmur kokusu
Ben sana mecburum sen yoksun.
Sevmek kimi zaman rezilce korkuludur
Insan bir aksam üstü ansizin yorulur
Tutsak ustura agzinda yasamaktan
Kimi zaman ellerini kirar tutkusu
Bir kaç hayat çikarir yasamasindan
Hangi kapiyi çalsa kimi zaman
Arkasinda yalnizligin hinzir ugultusu
Fatih'te yoksul bir gramofon çaliyor
Eski zamanlardan bir cuma çaliyor
Durup köse basinda deliksiz dinlesem
Sana kullanilmamis bir gök getirsem
Haftalar ellerimde ufalaniyor
Ne yapsam ne tutsam nereye gitsem
Ben sana mecburum sen yoksun.
Belki haziran da mavi benekli çocuksun
Ah seni bilmiyor kimseler bilmiyor
Bir silep siziyor issiz gözlerinden
Belki Yesilköy'de uçaga biniyorsun
Bütün islanmissin tüylerin ürperiyor
Belki körsün kirilmissin telas içindesin
Kötü rüzgar saçlarini götürüyor
Ne vakit bir yasamak düsünsem
Bu kurtlar sofrasinda belki zor
Ayipsiz fakat ellerimizi kirletmeden
Ne vakit bir yasamak düsünsem
Sus deyip adinla basliyorum
Içim sira kimildiyor gizli denizlerin
Hayir baska türlü olmayacak
Ben sana mecburum bilemezsin.
Keywords/Tags: Turkey, Turkish, Attila Ilhan, modern English translation
Feb 24, 2020
Feb 24, 2020 at 9:13 PM UTC
Hitting you up side the head,
concussion from my lyrical spread.
You got cerebral haemorrhaging as
my words hit you with a even spread.
Your ears are bleeding,
dry mouth as nothing said.
My words drip from your ears
enough you said.
But im not the one taking
weak **** shoots.
You tried an failed,
now your get syllable assaulted.
But no prosecution,
cos the only
witness is incoherent mumbling.
If you come at me again,
better get those words sharpened,
cos they need to get past
your breath.
As they blunt at the moment.
My words are a razor cutting your throat,
you'll bleed out but, ill smother your
Haemorrhaging silence,
On bottom of my shoe.
As i throat choke you,
listen to that...
Its the silence of you,
And I looked at my watch,
your the last second past,
uninteresting and not worth remembering.
Feb 7, 2020
Feb 7, 2020 at 7:36 AM UTC
Up and down,
Written in my
Own personal language,
Crossing my skin
In a sharp,
Bitter, language- personal
To me and
My skin, an
Ode to life
Jan 29, 2020
Jan 29, 2020 at 8:19 PM UTC
the first time, it was cold.
a dark November night.
what else was I to resort to?
there was nothing.
my mind fuzzy.
my vision blurry.
I reached for the slick piece of metal.
the sharp object that would soon be my saving grace.
the answer to my questions.
the right to my wrongs.
it felt better just to drag it across my thigh at first.
feel the scratching of the metal across my untouched skin.
to barely leave a mark but still feel the pain was my intention.
but soon it turned into more.
six lines in a row everyday over my beautiful skin.
a punishment for the things I thought I had done wrong.
soon my untouched skin turned into a scarred masterpiece.
something so horrible...
but yet so beautiful.
something I hated...
but yet was so proud of.
but nobody was supposed to know of my masterpiece.
it was supposed to be the secret between me and my demons.
the ones I fought everyday.
the ones I still fight to this day.
and finally I let the secret out.
<3
May 23, 2019
May 23, 2019 at 12:38 AM UTC
i watch the ink run down my arm
the pen, writing the feelings
i could never explain with words;
sitting on my bathroom floor
never led to anything
but unwanted art
May 1, 2019
May 1, 2019 at 12:01 PM UTC
Why they call me the fearful poet! (The Razor Thin Difference)
*”but who am I to complain
the razor thin difference tween
blessings and curses so thin,
sometimes are they not, the same thing”*
Aug. 2018
~~~
this familiar line, well traversed, lives on the maps
sketched indented on your palms and brow,
at the edges of the crow’s nests, the eye’s keyboard witnesses,
recording every stroke
we tap in seeings, forming letters,
letters into lines, lines into verse,
as we alliterate, we walk unawares,
of the razor thin difference tween blessings and curse,
indiscernible until concluded, perhaps, not even then,
the stanza’s probable outcome,
always unsure, unknowing destiny’s decision
so we walk, tread, plumb, shoutout
“vive la difference,”
hoping the blessing messengers hear us first,
consummating our pleas on their favorable sight & side,
ever fearful, we do not shout loud enough,
do the blind hear,
need me, possess my sacrificial offerings,
my trepidations, burnt on the Temple’s altar
who will breathe their smoke and understand
their fearful origins?
so we-write, cajole that our every moment’s fear,
find the difference, that we don’t bleed from life’s razoring,
the thinner thinnest
needle threaded,
**and fear is the threat,
and fear is the thread,
that holds me together**
until the unraveling
requires me to write again,
the fearful poet
Mar 22, 2019
Mar 22, 2019 at 7:18 AM UTC
Razor on the bathroom sink and the smell of pine and aftershave
Calloused hands
Dirt fingernails
You packed and formed the soil like clay
Like paint
You were an artist, silent in the morning
Coffee before work
One beer after
One beer after and a warm dinner she made
Pine and aftershave
on the stairs
on the carpet
on the carpet on the stairs
Lean in
Lean in, kids
Lean in and I’ll tell you about them
You said,
You are an artist,
Silent and coffee in the morning
Loud and beer on the stairs,
on the carpet in the afternoon
Leather seat
Newspaper dogear
Brewers turned on
In the leather seat,
‘Turn it up,
They’re winning!’
They’re winning
They’re winning
Screen porch
Wooden door
Screen porch through the wooden door
Sitting
Bumblebee Boompa
Bumblee Boomps
In the garden
On the sink
In the kitchen
On the stairs
In the living room
On the porch
You are an artist
Silent in the morning
Loud
Loud
Loud in the afternoon
and winning
Dec 12, 2018
Dec 12, 2018 at 4:09 PM UTC
'Failing t-t o'
She has 1 regret before she closes her eye's forever, 2 night, she wishes she could take back that moment after she found that razor blade, she shoulda burned that bottle of sleeping pills and never filled the tub up with that water. Well now it's a lil too late, and she can't stay awake, Everyone that promised to be her savior turned out a lil too fake, She can't lift her head now and yet she can still feel the pain where she cut her vein with the **** old blade. Yet she still feels the same, cold and all alone but her rhymes are failing to: my rhymes are failing t-t o
~SacredInkedBlood same as
Author Ven J. Author.
VenJencie Clifton Arnold
Nov 23, 2018
Nov 23, 2018 at 2:30 AM UTC
She never minded the scars I carved.
She'd beg me for more, and as her wrists were tied in knots.
I'd make sure another night was never forgot.
Sure, she'd struggle, much as any of us must.
But she was lurching toward me wild and bewildered such.
She would calm as I tended wound and her panting
below became a parting of bloom. Springtime crept
in like a slow, low light on a horizon only meant
to be seen by us two.
Her struggle turned to sound and her mouth stuffed still.
Her lids heavy hiding stained glass eye windowed sill.
Her knees buckled with belt tied firm to keep her tight.
Her smile crept wide as tongue wetted what kept words inside.
Her drool ran and stained our sheets,
her eyes filled with tears which ran down cheeks.
Pleasing pleadings strung out by Morse code taps of her feet.
She was more than a canvas,
she became my tapestry.
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 3:23 AM UTC