Barrel of gun to temple
I turn straight so it’s between my eyes
If this is my demise let it be
There’s no connection between series of me
This episode holds my demise
I told you, between the eyes
Push closer and hand wavers
Supposed to be my savior
and you’re doubting yourself
Reach hand back to distract
Kick up gravel with a quick shift
And a pedal to the carpet
Escape one death still seeking another
I’m leaving this place dead or dying
I have no emotion attached to either
Crazed in experience and falling deeper

~kb

Every Christmas morning
I wake up
Alone
I have for years
Just me and my dog
My family comes later
From miles away
And I pick them up Christmas Day
But there’s something strange about the way
Being alone on this morning
Is so absolutely peaceful
I sit outside hear kids laugh with their
New toys and new lease on life
See the couple nestled gently
On the couch
Sipping tea and admiring their tree
And I admire it too
Each sip of coffee the world is no longer
So deafening
The sounds have changed
If just for one day that’s okay
Because it’s quiet now
Rare and ineffable
Every sense is grateful

~kb

Everything’s offensive,
thoughts are too pensive
Enraged and defensive:
Tell me how to speak

Breath lined with tall fences
ablating my sentence
so it doesn’t mention
words you find so bleak

Won’t change up my ways
so the ears in your day
hear the right thing to say
I’ll take your critique

**** being offended
Your life hasn’t ended
See how these amended
words make you so weak

~kb

Picture Prompt: https://ap-pics2.gotpoem.com/ap-pics/contest/2717/9.jpg?FBIMG15460956

Bustling and busy
There used to be a city
Graced with healing Hudson waters
Dreamers dreamed with
Street corner schemes
Hopes soared higher than the skyline
But the timeline of our saddened state
This human race sped everything up
Blue water turned grey and
Foamed at the mouth swallowing light
Like a black hole
Leaving darkened streets
And acid fog met breath
It was too much to bare
For the weak we’d become
Abandoning homes for higher ground
The sound of tall buildings
Aching in the wind like they cry
For someone to stay
It never used to look this way
Like it quietly weeps alone
Space becoming limited here
Take our statue and move on

~kb

I looked down at my hands
and they weren’t trembling.
My face was dry,
no tears were assembling.
I told you goodbye and
this is my reaction.
A looked deep in your eyes and
saw no attraction,
no fondness of me,
just your usual scowl.
And a peace fills my chest
like the night calms the owl.
I turn away, bag in hand and
get into my car.
I look up once more
to see your face from afar.
That’s when I finally
settled in my peace,
and drove off in the night;
a caged owl’s been released.

~kb

I lie upon a table, open to the world.
Fingers slowly straighten,
losing anxious gripping curves.
Gentle hands behind my head,
I’ve been told this may be rough,
but something deep inside this soul
has had about enough.
Let me fall into
the darkest places webbed and trapped.
When I come out bathed in tears
I’ll have a better guided map.

He presses on my head,
and I breathe and count to three.
The rest of my experience
is no longer up to me.
He says: find a happy place,
notice all the smells.
The noises and the feeling
of a comfort I know well.

I fall onto the floor
of my late Grandmother’s home,
the place I never wondered
if I’d ever feel alone.
His pressure becomes greater,
and the darkness takes its shape.
The bed she lay upon,
her last breaths while not awake.
I am there beside her now,
but lie in trance from brain control.
The sadness becomes worse
and emotion takes its toll.
A snap of gentle fingers
and I’m suddenly awake.
Face is drenched in tears
and I’m far from feeling safe.

The doctor looks at me
and asks me softly how I feel.
I say I don’t know why,
but I fear what he’s revealed.
I ascend up from the table,
dry my face and soaking ears,
I know I will stay stuck
if I keep in all these fears.
Bearing through the pain
of reliving blocked off issues,
I tell him next appointment,
I’ll bring my own tissues.

-kb


*A true story about emotional healing and Cranio Sacral therapy

Evil escapes from blackened throat,
floats in smoke through crooked teeth
A thunderous scream, no haunted dream
just haunting beams of energy
emptying an unstoppable exorcism
Prism of color that covers reality
picks me up and carries me
above to watch my body tremor,
parents clamor to cease and destroy demons apparently employed to
spark the kerosene in the center of me Exploding scene, pieces that be
scurry for shade aided by men paid
in empty bank accounts to strap me down
and numb me up, mid weight sedation
and unconscious frustration
in the way these internal
tectonic plates have forever shifted
Once gifted, now gifted new hell
Numbed and dumbed down thoughts
seethe and swell and
I can tell the world I see
will no longer be the life of a girl
who’s only fourteen

~kb

I’ve stood where I can’t stand me
I’ve been where I won’t go
I’ve seen what I can’t recognize
I’ve grown where light won’t show

I’ve copied blank white pages
I’ve written letters but no words
I’ve crossed lines never drawn
I’ve turned normal to absurd

I’ve fallen down while getting up
I’ve known peace within disorder
I’ve slept through violent sudden storms
I’ve gone back while moving forward

I’ve never hidden who I am
I’ve often thought in sin
I’ve always made perfect mistakes
And, I’ve never given in

~kb

Sugar coated verbiage
Lengthy sentences
Phrases sink in sunk places
Spaces containing
Made up boxes
Fan open and spill
Plot twists and tone shifts
Into our visual ears
Eyes become narrators
Hard cover to unwanted thoughts
Get lost
In fantasy words
That make fantasy worlds
When pieced and assembled
Precision of a surgeon’s knife
Hidden in stamped black ink’s life
The title makes sense

~kb

Lights flicker,
sicker to safe
Game gets lame
Drains hold elixirs

Finished with fixers
Gut rips up chemicals
Tamed animal;
numb pill mixer

Synthetic sister
Phantom friend
Life ******* daughter
Cancerous blister

**** down the sinister
mute of my life
True face is faceless
Pull this proverbial trigger

Pine to see luster,
human free of these chains,
no chemical restraints
Reveal identity of this figure

Clouds outlined in silver
New fresh lit cheeks,
stand tall, and recall,
dark has a tricky whisper

~kb

impatient arrival
the gloom and dread
dead thread sewing
stories together
when I sleep
i read them better
awoken brain taken
to familiar places
claustrophobic spaces
and my face is
now a dark tint
from insomnia’s bruises
taking their energy
trying to use it
to step over dark
that seeps through cracks
same as the last ones
that broke my back

~kb

I can’t speak anymore
my vocal chords are
tainted painted red
from rapid screams
into the pillows
pressed with tears and smeared mascara
an era I need desperately to end to mend become a version of sane again
it’s insane when these cycles
continue to haunt me
a gauntlet to the faces of
happy peaceful and pure
just continuing to break me down even more people going about their day
and I wonder if they
ever feel this way
if they’ve ever felt despair deep in their gut or if they’ve ever wanted their eyes
permanently shut
or if they ever even look at me
the mute headed for entropy

~kb

Call me crazy.
No, really, call me crazy.
There is no but after that slaughtering word.
It just happens to be intermingled with me.

See, it’s not my fault I live with dark art
splattering my insides, pick-pocketing
my thoughts. And I’m sorry I can’t come
to that party, or bar, or your house.
I’m ******* at the moment, fist fighting
demons
you can’t see.
Or maybe,
you’d just rather not look.

I can compute tough equations, speak eloquently and with poise. Despite the noise. I am productive and kind,
always others before me.
But it’s never enough
because
someone
called me crazy,
and I believed it.
Despite the diagnoses,
believing you made me worse.
You infiltrated my soul, and I became
who you told me I was.

Words can be a curse.
So call me crazy.
It can’t break a heart
that’s been broken
for years.

~kb

There are three realities we live:
How we perceive ourselves and the world,
How others perceive us, themselves, and the world,
and reality- the truth of life without the interruption of perception.
Which reality is true? And how can one live in reality when it can’t exist as one entity?
Who am I, truly?
I am one of three
And none at all

Heavy in argument
Opposing sides
And both are right
Right?
Because now it’s not ok
to have an opinion
Because now the term fact
has a new definition
Because now being smart
is condescending
Because now being offended
is some violent offense
On the fence about how all of this will go
Truth is no one really wants to know
We just keep taking our pain out on each other
Hate will continue to prey under this
clouded cover
This fog not lifting should make you shudder

~kb

What would truly be
poetry
for me
is if I could write as fast as my mind thinks.

~kb

Twitch and the itch is stitched through my nerves the curves of endless verve intwined my mind laced signs of insane a brain tainted and lame from the same elixirs to fix her tiny powder tricksters losing sisters testing brothers working father worried mother and the other friends and foes they don’t know how low my heart’s gone wall up armor on whisper songs to tin plates hide my face stay in place until the wolves go away

~kb

Overthinking again
I can’t get this pen to write light
So nightlights line the walls
And the halls are the only
Brightness in my life
I wish you could see
That the flurry of words
Assembling into meaning
Are the front line soldiers
For me to take aim
Trigger finger to thoughts
That plague my brain
******* to those
Who show disdain
I don’t complain
Phrases are no plea
Humble not sufficient
To define how it feels
To know who I am
Never fear to be real

~kb

Spirit intrigued me but
leaves me deceived when
relief is the same thing I fear.
Coming together in
warming up weather,
I find I feel better
when the sun is so near.
But the real sky’s bliss
that I lust for and miss
is the moon and its’ kiss
when the light hits me clear.
This moon turns hawk,
swoops me up to space walk,
traces star light with chalk,
and my fears disappear.
Take me down, gentle wings,
on the ground we will see
our souls sing in glee,
reflecting like a mirror.
Love in and love out,
doves embrace on this cloud,
our feet pace to meet now,
the energy feels so dear.
Hearts wrap arms round each other,
finding nothing but lovers,
growing close under covers,
whispering into ears.
Discovering soft secrets,
pinky promise to keep it,
not a shadow of regret
in the light we endear.
Hold tight to our dreams,
stitch up broken seams,
let smiles and souls gleam
from the heartbeats we hear.

-kbww

I clamor with the words
to simply ask you how you’re doing.
I’ve loved you from afar
And I sit here simply viewing
what you do, who you are,
what you like, and what you hate.
I’ve shattered all relationships
to acquire my perfect mate.
Yet you don’t know I exist
and I’m almost quite sure
you have yourself another
that you care deeply for.
Well let me tell you, brother
she ain’t as good as me.
I will take care of you
to the highest degree.
You don’t know what you’re missing,
so I’ll sent you a note,
of my dying love for you,
with a blackness in my throat.

~kb

Crickets now chirping and
cars in the distance.
Feeling the earth questioning
this existence.
How others live is
not my worry.
My concern is my own
inner hung jury.
What is real and
what is not and
why are we in
this frying ***?
What truly matters, though,
at the end of the day
is the energy coursing
when feeling this way:
when I think of my man
and our plans and our goals
and how closely we hold
the molding of this growth
and explore each experience
deliriously true.
At the end of the day,
all my thoughts turn to you.

And I wish you understood what you can’t
understand where I stand is nowhere that
you’ve stood, and I would never want you to
Vision of a distant made dismay, I cannot
comfort you while rewiring my brain so stay
the sane one so when the sparks fly as I
stand in the rain watch shocked I’m back to
life for a little while, makeshift smile and
happy tongue create verses for everyone
and eyes are pleased but diseased bleeding
an internal beating and the wires take off
their coats, let misread codes stay a while
and the smile fades, compile shades of
finest greys to throw away because only
finest black paves the way for this creature
inside who pushes me aside a divide in one
being creating two and the glue that holds
any stability together separates step in rate
of slow paced breathing seething for the
dark so shadows don’t exist and you’re the
one that’s ****** because I can’t get out of
bed tell the voices in my head who have got
me near dead to cut out the dread they hold;
darkened girl poems are getting old, and the words keep repeating themselves

~kb

Heart mended just enough
To get back in, wet my feet
Bathe in sin.
Gravity pulls me in.
It's from the wrong place
Wrong space, wrong morals
Sheds light on a glorified horror.
A sparkle and I'm fully submerged
Urged to purge my ****** pores
And fully bathe you in my unrelenting
*****
Disinterested in the mended heart's desire
Only wanting a **** and a relationship funeral pyre.
Can't help my drive, no sorry from my lips
You'll get your wish below my hips.
All I'm good for or good at
Either way, you're a ******* diplomat
Fill my body with your monotone seed
Watch me dress and let me leave.
Burn the pyre a little more
I'll still come back, cuz I'm just a *****.
Text you tomorrow, you never respond
Like a man without mirrors
You see nothing wrong
With leading me on
Leading me in to your trap
And I keep coming back, because a ***** needs her stage
She needs the false recognition
Of a distant spotlight
A false warmth and a glow of your empty heart's cage
Trapped me inside like I'm something of use
And even when I'm not, I'll accept the abuse.
You want nothing more than my body and skin
And in sin I'll deny the heart mended within
Deny my heart's pressure of beating out more than the only thought left
That I'm just a *****.

Maybe I assume too much.
Dream of Fall in June too much.
Stare beyond the moon in lust.
Beg the stars for warmth and touch.

Seek the meaning of false rhymes.
Testing tempo, wasting time.
Mind beyond horizon lines
hides from eyes and warning signs.

Racing thoughts and tracing stare.
Fear drops by to stop and glare.
Fight, don’t let it take me there.
Inhale deep, become aware.

Look, and feet are on the ground.
Tether down this brain abound.
Silence, soul can feel the sounds.
A hopeful heartbeat proudly pounds.

~kb

It’s not my place.
It’s not my place to tell you you’re ignorant.
It’s not my place to tell you you’re disrespectful.
It’s not my place to tell you you’re unhealthy.
It’s not my place to tell you you’re wrong.
It’s not my place to educate you.

All of those perceptions and behaviors are your path, your truth.

It is ONLY my place to BE the compassionate, the respectful, the healthy, the charitable, the intelligent, the confident.

My only purpose is to be my values
and love whoever follows
and whoever doesn’t
equally.

~kb

Swirling minds
lead to circular thoughts,
releasing one transgression
but another gets caught.
Digging deep
uncertainty begins to creep,
it's not weak to weep,
sometimes the hills are steep
and the gaps are hard to leap,
but we keep pushing
until we reach the peak.
But the pinnacle does not
mean the journey has ended,
it's just one part
of many that has mended.
Once we conquer
our earthly errors,
we can move on to
existential terrors.

I have been on this path
alone so long,
but now I roam with someone
who helps me be strong.
With her I know I belong.
I have someone who brings
harmony to my song.
Not every day will turn out
the way we intend,
but we each have a friend
we can depend on to defend
each other from that which
would have us descend.
We take flight beyond these
earthly plights and will
reach new heights
and see new sights,
for we will smite
our ego and spite
to do what's right
and be a light shining bright,
even during the darkest of nights.

Posted for author: M. Buff

I thought we could
                          Be
but your love is a lie.
Your words weren’t
                          True
mouth open, glazed eyes.
I’ll send you
                          To
the landfill of my heart.
You protect
                          Yourself
yet tear me apart.
I look at you
                          And
find myself learning more.
You weren’t
                          The
one, and I won’t settle for
another day without
                          Rest
not another sleepless night.
This testing of
                          Will
I’ve lost this fight.
I can no longer
                         Follow
you into the dark.
I will walk in the light,
and find a new spark.

~kb

Choice in trepidation
With every palpation
your chest grows close enough
to feel my rhythm
And I’m smitten yet cynical
Brain stutters on whether or not
to accept this kiss
I’ve felt this bliss before
And I’m scared
Terrified to admit my heart
is feeling more
than I’d like it to
This back and forth game
plays in my brain
and my body simply
responds
Flush filling face
Warm lips embrace
And I wish I could just
press pause
I don’t want to see how this
plays out for me
I just want to stay
right here in this purity
Nothing in the future
Nothing in the past
Don’t make this a memory
Make it last

~kb

Suffering scales fill the page
Angry tones and recorded rage
Violent words come out sharp
Raises flat phrases and
a furious heart
Only get to play with
the instruments I’m given
Off key notes
are all that’s being written
You can undoubtedly hear that this
*****’s out of tune
Crashing the symphony between my ears
someone needs to fix it soon

~kb

When you look at me do you
worry about your daughter?
That she’ll be the same as me
and **** someone like her father?
A vile man fifteen years older
preying on little girls that are
lost in their own worlds
you say you like em’ young
but would you like your
daughter’s tongue in the
same places mine have been
on other men with thin skin?
You’re a creature at best
But I stick around because it’s
not the best *** in town but
I get free drugs and
free hugs from a sweet little girl
that I hope never grows up like me
and never looks to her father
for integrity or compassion
All she’ll get are lies and rejection
She sticks with her sisters
she’ll having a fighting chance
Oh sweet baby girl
get out while you can


~kb

Your ear lent to my pain
would be a blessing.
My self disdain
by your presence lessening.
Understanding unwanted,
nor needed through tears.
Ears enough to steer
thoughts away from their taunting
and haunting demeanor.
Thoughts become clearer
as sharply soft ears
utter, “I don’t understand,
but I’ll always be here.”

~kb

Painted lips a bloodless blue
I exist but I am dead to you
Porcelain skin starts to crack
I cover my eyes and send my mind back
Feathered fingertips graze my skin
Blue an ocean of you where I would swim
Now drowning in your tension and hate
Breath escapes and new hues take shape
Silent screams and a siren’s song
Warning me my lips are colored wrong
Tired eyes behind coarse unkempt hair
Open wide to the truth of my despair
Pink plush gradients return to their place
Without you here I can see my face
I will never break I just get recreated
New palette gives me back
Confidence you complicated

~kb

Sometimes I sit in my backyard
listen to the cars in the distance
I wonder where they’re going
Who’s in them
Are they tired or scared
or ready to go out
or dying to go in
or living in sin
or an upstanding human singing along
with the radio or cursing other drivers
for driving too slow
and which one of them goes home to love and which one of them goes home to hate and which one of them goes home alone
and which ones don’t make it home at all
I guess someday we all fall
Another night in the highway tales
that mean nothing more than a girl
who’s imagination is bored

~kb

I don’t know what to do with myself,
I just keep feeling low.
I want to release the
pain from these bones
and feel a calming glow.
I tend to be fine some of the day
but it’s like somehow time takes that away
and by the end of the night I end up grey and,
I just don’t like feeling this way.

There’s nothing anyone one can do,
not my family not my friends, not even you.
This is the pain I must go through
if I want to make it to my ultimate view.
An ultimate me in all alternate planes,
surviving ultimately with no real pains.
Just the temporary stresses
that everyone feels
and temporary messes
that serve no reveal.
Just a normal life in less nervous skin.
I’ll go through the strife to find what’s within.
It’s worth every tear at the end of the day.
I just,
wish I didn’t feel this way.

kbww

The writers
The poets
The painters
The 3 AM, fingers hurt, brain stirring creators
The perfectionists
The ones who see lines others don’t
The ones that make magic of color,
blindly constructing new hues
that sparkle souls
The coffee dependent nicotine optional private spaces and nostalgic places thinkers
The sunset embracing never picture taking beauty only felt by the soul nature lovers
The lost, the ones that have no idea the gifts they possess
The one’s whose aura floats
masking senses stirring emotions

I need you.
The world needs you.
For what is a world without the beauty of creation?
I don’t want to know.
Expose your soul.
Parts of yours keep mine from breaking.

She’ll touch places
you didn’t think could be found
in spaces you promised
no one was allowed
and you’ll carry her with you
without even knowing
what makes a shine to her skin
like she shines from within
and spreads a glow throughout
each room she graces
leaves light on faces
makes a home look richer
The best woman to love
is one made out of glitter

~kb

Scattered incomplete sentences
Eyes search backs of eyelids for guidance
Thoughts act as adversaries to thoughts
And the crossroad brings no punctuation
A quill without ink is just a feather
A mind floating on light breeze
and blank words is just a tether
Kite in the hand but glass eyes lose height
Nothing to be written here
I can’t see the imagery
And blank stares don’t speak much

~kb

My eyes mimic the skies in dripping sighs and watered truths to battle lies of a messed up system we insist is care, but never finding any there. Shrapnel are these words to purge a putrid sickness of tired limbs and synonyms for various painful phrases. Clouds cover a moon I may have too soon lost to vision, but a mission to take it from my heart won’t part without permission. Warmth of fanned out heat playing sidekick to my seat and defeat of feeling joyous, but this soul is not porous and I hold my pride. Tides change and energetic surgeries heal from the real places they’ve touched, and though much can be praised of these hazy transformations, exhaustion is but a drop away. Even so, I’ll be okay.

kbww

I don’t emote like you
I take emotion potions
to deaden the world around me
why should anyone be subject to this
no care so no care oblivious
to the stats even though they surround you it’s a secret like I’ve
done something wrong
because my mind wants me dead
and you say it will all be ok
but no one can tell me how it will all be ok and my body is tired and frail and worn and ripping at the seams
and for someone like me it just
has to be this way
I don’t want to stay
and I can’t leave
and there’s no other options
for any reprieve
take your meds go to therapy
wait for darkness try to survive
this is your life
deal with it until the energy leaves
and it’s a stalemate with
a bed and drawn curtains
certain this is the end
and then I wake up and cycle again
and I just want to know
when I’m allowed to be too tired to go on without guilt trip songs about
how everyone hurts if I don’t anymore
but what about me
I guess I’ll take the saddened states
of everyone while I’m alive
just so they feel alright and tell me
how it will all be ok
when none of it's ever been ok

~kb