heather leather

heather leather May 2015

the sad part of it all was that he still saw
it, he could picture it in his mind, all of it
the flames, the burning of it all; the screaming
the shouts of leave right now, run, they're coming
he could see his mother escaping into the
painful abyss of death as she was shot, he could
remember her cries, her plead to leave her
alone, he could see it all and he could feel it too
he could feel chubby and familiar fingers
grabbing his and he could feel the ache of his legs
from running too hard and his lungs
felt like collapsing, he could feel the sense of chaos,
he could feel the weight of death pressing against him,
wanting him to give up, willing him to stop
but he couldn't because he could still see his seven
year old brother pulling him, he could still see
her even though she was five and he was just six,
he could see her as clear as the very image
of the burning, of everything and it willed him to fight, to
keep going, and so he did

(h.l.)

heather leather May 2015

nail polish

whenever i paint my nails i cannot help but
be reminded of the way you smoked cigarettes
because the fumes of the nail polish are
terribly toxic and yet i crave it because
some nights we would stay up all night--
you getting high on your cigarette daydreams
and me getting high on how happy you looked
with a death stick in your mouth,
i should've stopped you
i should've been there next to you, at the very
least in the back of your mind a warning, you
should've thought of me, you should've cared,
you should be right here next to me,
laughing because i got nail polish on my hand and
teasing me about how i should just give up
you should not have been driving home that night, you
should've known, you should've stopped--
months before that, you shouldn't have even
began drinking or smoking or even driving
for god's sakes you were only fifteen
and so was i, i was only fifteen, much too young
to fall in love, and much too stubborn to care

whenever i paint my nails i cannot help but
be reminded of you inhaling smoke from your
marlboro silver cigarettes and i cannot help
but make a mistake and stop midway and scrub it all
off because you are no longer there to tease me
about how i should just give up and i can no longer
get high from the image of the boy sitting on my
window sill, for he is now dead

(h.l.)

#sadness #death #cigarettes #lostlove #nailpolish

May 2015

WickedHope

Named.

I write my name
My label, my identifier
My word, my definer
I write my name
And it looks wrong, outgrown
Do I have the power, the control
The grip
To change it

Get a grip
Stop slipping
State the facts
Stop tripping

You’re 17 and you’re young
You’re 17 and you have metal in your head
You’re 17 and you have metal taste
Stuck on your tongue
Dripping off when you talk
Forming the puddles in which you walk
Pooling in words that burn
They are a curse slipping through the smile
That reaches your eyes
Only because you painted it there

With brown eyes you can't make friends
With brown eyes you cried until you couldn’t
With brown eyes you smile like it’s free
You quit dancing
You quit schooling
You quit pretending
You started pretending

I am not the same as the infant born 17 years ago
I am not the same as the name that they gave me
I am not the same as the others that held my name
I am separate from that title
I am something new, beyond
Something true and someone gone

Scar after scar twinkles in the light
Hair after hair is torn out every night
What do you call a work in progress
Incomplete is not my name
I am not quite obsolete
To many I appear petite
To many I should just retreat
What a privilege to be given something to cling to that you never desired to own
No, rain is not the same as snow

A name is not a name
My name is not my name
It is a label I stole from fame
Nicole Kidman is not my role model
But her role was my model
My mother was her model on set
But this is a stage on which we are players
And I will not give a verse a name that is not of my own creation
I will not credit the broken, glue-coated, splinters of myself
To some foreign and separate person
No, not to someone else

Spoken word poem for a Slam in one of my courses. I know it's shorter than regulation, but I'm not allowed that much time anyway.
So... How is it?

#life #label #me #name #growth #given #earned #title

May 2015

Connor Buckingham

Monsters

As a little kid, I was afraid of the monsters that were under my bed
Now they've come from under my bed, and into my head
Burying themselves, deep inside My thoughts
Buried so deep that they'll never be caught
My mind has changed, in a way that no one understands
I'm trying to pull my heart out with my hand
Because it aches and it burns me, they want it out
All they want I'd for me to rip it out.

This is a small poem about how sometimes the monsters under our beds, come out, only to climb inside our heads when we're sleeping.

#love #heartbreak #depression #pain #sadness #sleep #bed #happiness #monsters #loathe