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All I wanted was you,
but all you wanted
was her.
Every poem I name "Cigarette Burns" are all connected to the same event in my life, just in case you were wondering.
And i knew
i was completely ruined
when the sight of your
eyes started to make me
weak at the knees.
i started to memorize
each curl at the
nape of your neck.
i promised myself
i wouldn't let this happen,
but we all know i'm weak for
the things that don't need me.
I can hear the sound of rain
Against the asphalt
The cars honking with
The almost unheard birds
Just a beat behind
But what stands out in my memory
Are the smoky grey skies
And the tree barks looking like
Shades of watercolour brown
Everything shining
Steaming silently, looking silvery
Peaceful
I remember a number of things
But I cannot forget
That smell
So reminiscent of rain
Comments?
Raw flesh drenched in alcohol
Burning numbing till paralyzed, keeps me still
                         Power you have over my being, keeps me fearing

             Your presence destroys me, shatters me
Feeling naked, inadequate when my eyes see
My reflection's negation in you
Cannot hide anything when you expose all of me

Wounded animal beaten without avail
Knowing, proprietor of my pain
               You don't understand my whimper, wail?
My blood being diluted by the sweat of your laborious efforts
Precociously tactful, inhumanly strangling my will

Ever-becoming antithesis to facades, fears, farces in me
Facing scalpels and clamps to my insecurities, my tactics, my pride
Leaving me open not caring if I'll die from exposure
                    Caring only that you're exposing the real me

I-nvoluntarily l-acerated, o-n the v-erge of e-nding u-ndone
Somberly Always Unsettling Leaving me bare
February 4, 2013
What are we scared of?

Fending off hoards of oppressed human beings
Of acquisition, of possession, of autonomy, of legitimacy
Never been anyone; why empower them now

Legitimized crucification
No exoneration for grave transgression
Morality of mankind stabbed, under siege, defiled
Integrity constantly bloodily ***** like the virtue of women during war
Transgression, nonetheless, legitimized not by the law of a god or science
But that of a righteous m/an

Bodies without agency traversing into illegitimacy
Becoming illegal human beings
Transgression thrusting them into humiliation
Derailed, deprived, dehumanized
Earning rights to hunger, sickness, homelessness in the eyes of civilized man

Growing global economic hubs welcoming
Illegitimate bodies with contempt, violence, violation
Don't belong, lives becoming expendable, adversary to structured society

Trafficking, dragging, trading disempowered labor across meaningless borders
Nationalists disregarding with much pride illegitimates' desires for life
Killing them after you've beaten their soul, in negligence, extracting the fruit of their labor

Xenophobia killing Japan, dying refusing to open its borders to starving workers
When will a muslim sister in headscarf travel across ALL Europe without discrimination
Be careful America, you're murdering liberty's meaningless oath to the homeless of the world
Preaching the birth of the greatest nation on earth on the backs of immigrants across time
When it refuses to cease the political firing of condemnation against displaced human beings

Greatest plunderers of this world, those who set the rules, guarding their loot
Having had displaced black, colored, and brown bodies across time
Abducting black bodies from mother Africa
Contaminating mother America's native bodies with the corruption of whiteness
Causing mother Asia to discourage its pores from allowing the mobility of bodies

Greatest plunderers of this world, those who set the rules, guarding their loot
Legitimizing their stolen appropriations for the world to see
By excluding those they extract the wealth from
Displaced bodies achieving transnational identities in pursuance of unreachable wealth
For far too long trickled out of their home nations
To build the wealths of the new homes they're delegitimized from

Every country great or small falling in line with border policies
Desperate developing countries much too worried to contain fleeting flocks
Developed and thriving nations too ready to ****** the souls of bodies without agency

World's population imploding
Countries' power structures hungering to exploit the oppressed within their borders
Majority of us peasants, poor, without agency, moving across borders
Everyone's in danger of falling in line with the masses
Or the monopolistic governments deliberately creating monstrous line divides
February 4, 2013
 Feb 2013 The Key
Terry Collett
You used to cross
Rockingham Street
to the bakers
on the corner

of Meadow Row
and buy 6 crusty rolls
and a white loaf of bread
and carry them back home

to the fifth floor
of the flats
where your mother said
keep the change for going

and you pocketed the change
to save for the 6 shooter gun
you’d seen in the toy shop
along the New Kent Road

and your mother
would butter a roll
and put in a slice of cheese
and you would go sit

in the window
over looking
the railway
shunting yard

and eat
taking in the rail trucks
loaded with coal
being shunted into

the yard and the trucks
unload and the coal
would fall down through
to the coal wharf below

and then you saw
the coal carts loaded
with sacked up coal
and the horses in harness

waiting to go
and you imagined
one of those horses
in saddle and you

taking off across
the Wild West
with your new 6 shooter
in your hand

tracking the bad cowboys
and dropping into
the public house
for a glass of redeye

or lemonade
don’t be too long
your mother said
nearly time for school

and as you ate
the last few crumbs
and sipped
the last drops of milk

from the glass
and wiped your mouth
with the back of your hand
a steam train

crossed the bridge
and you thought
of the bad cowboys
on Bank’s House Ridge.
 Feb 2013 The Key
Haley Brown
why
 Feb 2013 The Key
Haley Brown
why
i am more than alone
nothing will comfort me like a mug of oats
nothing will frustrate me like a stubbed toe
nothing will make me smile like the warm rain
i struggle for answers to questions i already know
sometimes i just want to run until i can barely stand
sometimes i just want to punch something until i bleed
sometimes i just want to let go after holding on too long
i am more than alive
 Nov 2012 The Key
Melissa U
Madness
 Nov 2012 The Key
Melissa U
It creeps beneath your silent wall
And slips into your bed
Embraces you completely
So go ahead
And scream
Or shout
Its too late now
Your breath wont come
And, paralyzed, you wait the end
Of reason
As you fall into your body
And escape the fearful season
Of sleep
And all encompassing
The madness brings you down
Into your soul of souls
Relaxing now
Insides its womb
Your eye of eyes will close
And breathing forth
And stepping down
You take a breath

In it
You drown
 Nov 2012 The Key
John
Scratch out the time and throw away your watch
Etch off the very conception of how things come and go
For this is the way it is now and this is eternal
This will be forever, our desires being perpetual and infernal
Everyone elses little heads, little existence as important as a popcorn kernal

I promise you this, yes and I promise you that
The truth is that I don't know what the truth is
I can't tell you how things will be tomorrow or the next day
I can't say anything important until I know you're feelings are no longer at bay
The only thing I can do is say that you will know the truth and so will I if we both decide to stay

So just stay here, locked in my cold arms
For the winter is back and it shows no mercy
The nights are frozen and, at times, grim but the snow is beautiful
We might be closest when we are horizontal but the aim is always vertical
Up in the air and the sky and along with the wind
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