"acrylics" poems
I remember the first time
I felt panic, I
Had been raised in a beautifully-constructed world of my mother’s making where I could
Take my time and step from subject to subject like hopscotch or skipping rope because I wanted to know it all
Drinking it all in, soaking in knowledge like a bath
Learning everything there was to learn
Leaving no stone unturned
No one told me I couldn’t
Swirl my fingertips in acrylics, read books on horses having *** at age seven because I wanted to be a veterinarian, hit the soprano notes though I was an alto, crush dandelions into healing potions, create a world on a stage with crying child actors, nick cardboard boxes and clocks because I knew I could move time backwards
Then I grew up and
The grown-up world was not so forgiving
Examinations, papers, time clocks, meetings, expectations I could not meet with the excellence my soul craved
I can’t breathe
Fear had a choke-hold on my throat
My mouth would dry, then wet as my stomach swirled and groaned with nausea
My hands turned into ice picks
My heart screamed like a jackhammer in concrete
Every possible worst-case, best-case, win-win, lose-lose, lose-win scenario would rush and overthrow my amygdala like a union mob besieging an abusive factory that never closes, never lets them rest
I didn’t realize it was because the only way to do it all and be it all and hit every deadline and finish every task was to sacrifice perfection, to become average, mediocre
Assimilate
And I learned the truth
That that was all the world expected of me anyway
You see there is no patience for anything else in the real world
I can’t breathe
I have no emotion, only thought processes
Paralyzing, debilitating clash between suppressed desires to take my time, create, innovate, learn and the overwhelming need to
Focus, decide, move faster, work harder, be on time, be better, please everyone, be everything
Be nothing
To where the only choice is let go of that part of yourself or go insane
So I shed my skin like it was a sin I was leaving behind
Just to survive
Without the headaches, the heartbreak, ripping my hair out over stupid little mistakes
It’s taken this long to find it in my closet again
To not be afraid
Of the soul it takes to
Perfect
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 5:15 PM UTC
capricorn: cover your heart in acrylics like you are art and promise yourself you'll leave after this one last kiss (you won't, you never do)
aquarius: you never stopped trying to be your own worst nightmare and this is why people find their breath of fresh air in you
pisces: something about the way shouting something off of a rooftop never feels the same as whispering it in their ear
aries: you are both a quiet tuesday morning and a tornado in the middle of april and there's never been a more beautiful disaster
taurus: you are the apology strung between two streetlights and you will never give up on finding the worst person to love
gemini: you are something along the lines of a fairytale but i think your author was drunk because this isn't going how it should
cancer: you are something of a tsunami stored in shaky palms and uncertain breaths and she will still love you with 100 mph winds
leo: you are nothing less than the scream your heart begs to let out when you feel like you're losing them and i want to punch it out of you
virgo: *picking flower petals*—they love you, they love you not, they love you, they love you not, they love you, they know you want to die, they love y
libra: and ten years from now, you will still be falling in love with people the same way others skydive from planes
scorpio: you are more than the last "im sorry" between two people whose infinity was shorter than it should have been
sagittarius: death has been flirting with you from across the room all night long and there's a good chance that it's love at first sight
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 2:12 PM UTC
Psst
Hey man
You looking for a boost?
Some bud? Molly? *****
I gotch you
Let's be out
Let's look forward, shifting eyes
Thick blunts, welcome to The Court of Miracles
Where no ones ever dry and everyone's good
The whole place was flooded with music
Pounding, pulsing, entrancing
thump thump thump thump
Laser lights flashing neon colors
Multicolored creatures of night dancing to the whimsical noise
The DJ was young
Attentive to his machine that dispensed exuberant sensate explosions
Rocking back and forth, flipping switches, turning knobs
We are, we can, we will live forever
Then it all went silent and the whole place shot out with a feeling of anticipation
WE ARE IMMORTAL
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
The bass caused everyone of us to vibrate and pick up the vibrations of one another
Hey bro
Take this
Molly
Nerves become fervent
Now meet my other friend
Lucy
Mind is widened
Now you're candy flipping
Hippy tripping
We met a girl
Her dad was a record producer
She was way out there
She was out of her head
We met an artist
He used different types of wood
And carved shapes and patterns in to them
Then painted it with acrylics
Then smashed it with a sledge hammer
People bought it
He was brilliant
He was ******
I was dazzled
She tasted like *****
He tastes like cigarettes
***** devils
Looking for a time
I saw veterans from Iraq letting loose
Thank you
A sea of sweaty smiles going for miles
Under a baroque moon
Sleeveless shirts
Minuscule skirts
Beads, glow sticks
Unity
Altogether
Under one universe
Dedicated to this single moment
And what it means to us
One mind
Joined
For equal freedom
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 11:35 PM UTC
Your telepathic soul
Greets mine
On an April night
When the moon rises
Blue against black
Like the bruises
Still left on my back.
You make my words f
a
l
l
off a c
l
i
f
f.
I stumble, searching for them
in fields of violets.
Once collected, the consonants, the verbs, and more
pour from my mouth this:
"My arms explore you
Like apples explore orchards;
I reach a higher state
When your cedar oak lips
Meet my pale birch ones
in twilight.
You scare away the shadows of insecurities
That come alive on my wall at night.
You turn my life into bright acrylics and oils
Too vivid for fingers to paint.
I never expected to
Swim under the influence of you."
May 8, 2017
May 8, 2017 at 3:38 PM UTC
1.
People say you can tell a lot about a woman's style by what her nails look like.
For my mother, acrylics with baby pink sparkly french-tips.
For the blonde sitting at the nail dryer, coral.
Something about the color
looks strange with her new engagement ring.
She talks about how the second time she hung out with her fiancé
she asked him to paint her nails.
Her mother, who she insists she'll pay for, gets french tips.
They look new and fresh in contrast to her tarnished wedding ring.
The little girl with skinned knees and bug bites sitting in the chair across from me asks for blue polish on her toe nails.
Her mother tells her she should get pink.
2.
The act of women getting their nails done reminds me of warriors being armed for a fight.
long acrylics,
pointed,
rounded,
squared,
all fit for different types of battle.
Pointed for the woman who has to walk home alone at night,
rounded for the woman in the workplace who must work harder than her male co-workers,
and square for the woman at home raising her kids to know that strength and kindness
are the same thing.
3.
The women who work here speak better English than most high school students.
And their accents tell stories that I will never know.
An older woman speaks loudly and slowly,
she treats them as if they do not understand.
She will not speak to anyone but the owner; she wants him to translate what she wants to the salon workers.
What she doesn't realize is
that she is the only person here who doesn't understand.
4.
The little girl's doll is named Tessa.
She tells me that she likes my hair and shoes,
even though she has been told not to talk to strangers
twice in the last hour she has been here.
She asked her mother for change,
we all assume it's for the gumball machine in the corner.
She puts all of it in the charity jar.
I hope this girl never changes.
5. Having bare nails in a nail salon
feels the same as being naked in public.
6.
I feel terrible for laughing at the women trying to walk in those little salon flip-flops.
Some look like ducks,
others look like trained Barbies;
marching
newly polished,
ready for the world to chip away their coating
over,
and over,
and over again.
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 5:04 PM UTC
Your body is your canvas.
You never keep it safe,
you adorn it with scars
of lost loves, of lost dreams, of all your burnt-out stars.
Your lifestyle's your easel,
the only thing that keeps you high,
be it the days when you just can't stay still,
or those when you shatter and cry.
Your thoughts are acrylics,
shades of melancholy, maroon and black.
They characterize your essence,
all the hopes and falls you've stacked.
Your words are your brushes,
imagine how many stories they tell.
With every sigh you define
another line within your personal hell.
Do not lose your ambition, don't give up your health,
for you are not just an artist, you are art itself.
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 10:28 AM UTC
You’re going to be fine.
?
I am, see?
.
You will. I came to tell you stuff. Listening?
.
Jumble sale shoes. I know you’ve got acrylics somewhere. Paint them.
?
The shoes. Flowers and dragons like you draw up your arms. They’re really good by the way. No one in school draws like you.
.
We are. You just have to be good-different. Stop hiding the whole time. Everyone loves your drawing.
.
We still like painting, reading…
?
It’ll happen when you’re 11. The letters un-jumble and it makes sense.
!
Honestly.
.
And at Christmas - tell Mum it’s your idea - Keeping him away from the ***** makes him cross - no point. Give him a drink as early as possible. By lunchtime he’s unconscious and you put him to bed. Looks like he hit his head real hard but he woke up.
?
It’s OK. He doesn’t remember a thing. Works every year.
.
Stuff heals. It gets better. Everything. Life is excellent. People say you’re pretty, won’t believe it but you are. And we live on a good street in a warm house by the sea.
!
Honestly, cross my heart.
.
There’s one last thing. Listening?
.
Learn to laugh silently, no sound what so ever. I know you can’t imagine it - but she gets her revenge and it’s going to be funny. Takes years. You must play along or it won‘t work. So laugh silently.
?
Just one example, then. Do you go to the car-boot sales yet?
.
On a Sunday in June, only 7AM but it’s so hot! She spots a koi carp in the road.
?
Like a giant goldfish. This one was huge. Probably dropped by a heron or something.
.
She moves it onto the verge and keeps walking. It's still there at 1.30. Been baking up on that verge all morning in full sun. Smothered in ants, horrible.
.
She wraps it in a Tesco bag and a bin liner - it stinks. As soon as you get in she starts frying onions, making pastry, white sauce. Dad eats fish pie for supper.
?
She made us a separate one.
.
Sep 29, 2011
Sep 29, 2011 at 2:41 PM UTC
I'm covered from head to toe in resin, acrylics and epoxy,
Some pulverized rocks my son gathered from the Chattooga River,
Now reduced to a burnt ember dust.
I added silicone sludge and a little baking powder as well,
And once mixed, this dicey concoction is beautifully toxic,
So I waft the air and inhale it.
Painting a colorful sunset is too easy, I prefer black and white,
So with a wooden board the size of a door,
I get to work with my rubber sledgehammer, blowtorch
A gallon of poison and flammable spray.
The passers by have seen this look in eyes,
From The Shining or possibly their preachers,
You know, the same look that's a sight to behold.
Slamming the hammer down with brute force
And purposed abandonment,
I paint my sunset and wrangle the stars later.
A shower won't do me justice>
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 12:15 AM UTC
She is
the book falling open to November,
sweet hidden wickedness of rhododendron,
her mouth a tuberose, pale.
*******
She swells upon the eaves.
They touch at her thighs
to feel the texture of acrylics,
something frail, transitory,
beautiful.
She walks the beach in August,
sudden music out of nowhere,
houseflies and hypodermics,
the shadows that rustle
behind shower curtains.
Her need to be compelling is painful,
something purple and waxen,
a delicate blush.
Still, she writes the way
her body should look,
provocative, breathless,
stirring agony in its wake.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 9:00 AM UTC
Parents are the weirdest - of God's creation.
I mean, who on Earth would desire the responsibility of another human being from the time they **** in their pants to the time they leave saying 'what have you ever done for me?' ?
Who would, of all the things in the world, like their homeroom stuffed with stupid CDs and stuffed racoons, waterguns and Legos, dried acrylics and miniature utensil sets, ugly pyjamas and strange half-knit sweaters?
I need to know why parents don't object to their kids pooping everywhere.
It's either the kids are super cute or the parents are super crazy.
I'm sure it isn't the former.
A certain lack of imaginative faculties, in parents, is evident to me,quite frankly.
Think of it this way- if it weren't for us - kids, our parents would have been carefree playboys and playgirls, and 'living their lives' - cliché.
What weirdos really!
Their standards of children's safety too possess a particular oddity.
It's only the exact moment of physical contact during a hug that our parents feel we're safe.
Their sense of economy and finance is oxymoronic.
They love discounts. But they'll pay extra for whatever their kids wish.
I wonder how they resist TV shows of most sorts just because they won't have their kids watch remotely explicit content, visual or auditory.
I bet their sense of direction is most unnaturally affected too.
Why do they even follow their kids, when they know kids don't have a working GPS?
Do you have any idea, to what lengths parents go to make veggies seem delicious?
Veggies, Really?
Parents will have you take disgusting syrups and painful **** injections,
And claim they love you.
Parents will have you hit the books,
And claim they love you.
Parents will ground you because you do something they don't like (but they too did it when they were kids),
And claim they love you.
Parents will stop you every time you say a swear word (but they swear all the time),
And claim they love you.
Parents will claim they love you,
Maybe, because they really love you.
Oh, their weirdness never ends.
Parents may seem eccentric,
Their ways might seem a bit too bizarre,
Maybe that's how the people who really love us behave!
Yet, we're always rushing away from them.
If you have ever traveled in a bus, you'll know how absurdly keen the passengers are, to get off, when it stops.
That's how keen the kids are, to leave the laps of their mothers, quite literally the most comfortable place in the world.
Parents really are - the weirdest of God's creation.
And the loveliest too.
Mar 12, 2019
Mar 12, 2019 at 1:31 PM UTC
Feeling the warmth of the sun
Shining down on my face
The cool breeze blowing in my hair
Petrichor and the rain
Washing through me
The taste of freshly made desserts
Painting my taste buds with joy
Watercolors and acrylics
Paintings that turned out decent
Sketches not half bad
Small smiles on my face
Happy memories popping up
These things give me hope
That there is more
More than this numbness
I've grown so used to
They give me hope that one day
I won't have to hurt anymore
Hope that I can be free
To trust and love
Hope that I can live again
Mar 7, 2016
Mar 7, 2016 at 12:33 AM UTC
Supine, wrapped in scarlet,
only eye open, third.
I create her skin, flawless and golden;
her hair becomes the color of midnight
on the ocean,
blood at night.
Suspended, bound in purple,
capitulation, freedom.
These lonely visions, they are cobblestones in my twisted path of memories both past and future, overgrown with weeds of time and worn around the edges; an uneven course winding in and around and back again, with branches, heavy and black,
so black,
on all sides.
Where are you, dearest?
I smell acrylics and oils and linseed
and the windows are open; traffic hums on the hill and your brow is furrowed as your brush caresses the canvas, each stroke, love manifest.
Later, you will sing for me
Fluid, mercurial, she sings and paints
and broods
and pouts
and wipes her cheek with her thumb, smearing alizarin crimson on her pixie face.
Time stops at her beauty
The moment falls into my guts, burrowing into
my insides forever;
the plants by the window,
the deep red smear on my angel,
the sound of camelhair hitting canvas, forever mine now
to cherish and carry
with me as I trudge this
desolate and dreary landscape.
*When I come home,
you will sing for me*
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 5:52 AM UTC
we paint a perfect picture,
a beautiful portrait of us
surrounded by flowers,
when our love's put on paper,
in a pretty little frame
hung on the wall,
like a kid's art
on the fridge door.
we're paint with our hands,
it gets messy and everywhere.
we yell and we scream,
hearts shatter and color splatters
across the room.
everything is covered in acrylics,
watercolors, oil paints.
some stains will wash out, others won't.
we paint delicate little details
afterwards,
as though a wrong brushstroke
could ruin the beauty,
ignoring the fact
that we may already have.
it's stiff and it feels wrong,
but that's the price of 'perfect'.
we paint with passion,
practically kissing the paper,
leaving the imprint of our lips,
our love, right there.
signing our names
in the bottom right corner,
as though we were really artists
making real art.
Apr 2, 2019
Apr 2, 2019 at 11:44 PM UTC
glimmering acrylics paint
your reflection,
while you
ponder your ungodly existence,
in the empty atmosphere,
surrounded by
inhospitable solar air.
immediately glowering,
obtuse,
even in your imagination
you are insignificant,
unimportant.
you disintegrate,
disillusioned
for an eternity.
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 11:47 PM UTC
"When you scraped your
Paint brush across my canvas,
The acrylics left
Nothing but a beautiful disaster"
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 6:23 PM UTC
***** after feeling
Black keys vibin'
Splattered canvas with acrylics state of being
Ashamed of writing nonsense
Ashamed of myself for expecting
people to read and smile to my home loneliness and bits of , to smile to the loss of your presence on a Friday night
Writing to flex because I don't have **** to do that's worth my while so it's a grown passion
I'm more human than I am an artist
Don't answer if I ever ask you to love me like never before, forgive me
Don't answer if I ask you to not walk away and slip away from my grip in a few days or so because I'm six feet beneath this feeling deceiving what I think real love is...
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 10:54 AM UTC
The brilliant idea you've been
waiting for expired
a moment after someone else thought
it. Implementing emptiness
has become your forte and scavenging for
adrenaline
within the souls of second hand tennis shoes
is representative of stability in your crooked,
unbalanced way, when
you glean nothing but
past tense grammar
on any given day of your actual life.
There's no grand story here. Go somewhere else.
And you can't even paint a sympathetic
portrait
of your dry and chaffed lips, of purple ink
stains beneath eyes, of words unattainable
stuck around your gums,
because the guy over there painting an unequivocal
masterpiece is homeless and
utilizing dirt to make a rainbow with
seven more colors than
your store bought acrylics ever could.
Pity is
stupid
when you've got everything
but that
Sep 6, 2015
Sep 6, 2015 at 12:55 AM UTC
I've got my warrior ******* on
Wolverine lent me these acrylics
Lasso your credit card with my weave
Tuck your tunnel vision in my G-string
This is my ******* song
Got my bad girl heels on
You can't get me off your mind
So how you gonna get me off
Come over to the throne room
I've got an after for you baby
What other religion costs $25 per song
Give me your devotion
I want Matronage
Ritual
When I was 19 I turned days into kalediscopes
Water into water
Paper covers rock
And coke cures a bad trip
Trip over my perfume
You won't spend money on me High on life
So let's get you depressed
Tell me your story sad boy
I've got rent to pay.
Aug 10, 2017
Aug 10, 2017 at 12:19 AM UTC
*Airbrushed watercolors
steal tonight,
Majestic acrylics
like royal purple,
lavender & reds-
silken sheets a mess
boldly he molds
her to his skillful hands,
browns & blues, pinks & greys.
Flesh tones meshed in silhouettes
Lips
touching in the sweetest embrace,
as his body joins with hers.
Slowly
masculine hands
hold her tightly
while his ramrod manhood finds it's mark.
Her
tulips open moist for him
&
his honey dew kisses scorch her coco skin,
leaving her heated with each caress of his lips,
burning with each touch of his fingers,
she's never tasted such desire,
from sun up to sun down,
he's ready & willing.
Her
tiny whimpers & plea's escape her
as
his tantalizing assault
causes her to convulse inside & out..
Her
release continues to intensify
and
he's like a caged beast
trapped- with her tightly
pinned beneath him
as
he pounds deeply
within her velvet walls.
She's moaning, clinging,
legs wrapped round his waist,
nails digging deeply
in & down
his back with each stroke
with
each ******
she's moving in sync crying out
as
he causes such havoc
on her body,
scorning her skin
with
each lavish
flick of his tongue.
It's morning and the day breaks
rays of sunlight
streams into
their bedroom,
he's yet to be done
and
for hours now
her body's been
his canvas.
He's painted her
wild & wanton
seductive & brazenly wicked
he's stroked her
rose bud ****** assorted colors
against her velvet walls,
masterfully opened
and
vigorously
he strummed
her tulips to spread widely
on his canvas.
He's melted her to him
and
there's no other place she'd rather be
than on-*
His Canvas.
Always Me Ayeshah ®
Copyright ©
Ayeshah
K.C.L.N 1977 - Present YEAR(s)
All right reserved ®
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 4:55 AM UTC
Friday
as reminder
of how cruel the time.
(Invariability)
Of how intractable the wind and weather.
(Inevitability)
I cry the cry of the reformed mean spirited;
the once-unholy-then-unholy-again;
the backslid.
It's been so long since I've sinned,
come short of the glory,
come at all (costs)
It would feel good to make a fist again.
Please render me in subtle shades
when you paint me into your masterpiece;
barely discernable from the canvas.
A ghost in achromatic acrylics.
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 12:06 AM UTC
there were hearts torn apart between grey cement walls
long before our ****** eyes had ever skimmed the top stair
and realized that there was more to what we knew than four floors.
there were kisses shared atop cold concrete landings
long before our ****** lips had ever grazed one another
and realized that there was more to what we were than 'just friends'.
i used to get lost near hand rails scarred in blues and blacks,
pencils and pens, leftover acrylics and newly purchased sharpie ink;
searching endlessly for your next message,
cleverly hidden among senseless graffiti and professions of love.
every day, a new confession. every day, a new truth. every day, a new letter -
hoping desperately that one day, you would spell out 'love'.
and there you were - as still and as perfect as a statue against the wall;
your arms outstretched to pull me close and your body soaking up the sound
so that echoes in the stairwell were less like gunshots and more like whispers.
Nov 1, 2011
Nov 1, 2011 at 8:11 AM UTC
Sometimes I wish I was like other girls
That I was able to do hair and makeup
That I could understand shoes and acrylics
Instead I read, write, and learn
I can write poetry and short stories
I can understand foreign languages and cultures
Still I feel like I am lacking
Something I was born to know
I'm a girl
So why don't those girlish things
Come to me as easy as breathing
Other girls learn them like its riding a bike
To me it's like trying to solve an algebraic equation
And its well known I hate math
It's simply a language I do not speak
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 1:41 AM UTC