Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
brandon nagley Aug 2015
i.

Mine artistry inamorata
Airburshed on tapestry upon;
Fernando Amorsolo canvas.

ii.

Thou art mine Atlantis
The air I sucketh in;
Mine piece of God, timeless.

iii.

What id do without thee?
I couldst not liveth;
I'll giveth thee mine last drop, of blood mine dear.

iv.

Cometh near
Shadow's dance with us;
Filipino perfume's, ancient dusk.

v.

In the negrito of Luzon
Bead's shalt bounce ourn neck's;
Red one's, yellow one's, tribal seed connect.



©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
©Earl Jane dedication
RyanMJenkins Dec 2013
Somewhere along the line I broke my internal compass.
Already inhaled our poisoned water, fearful of not reaching the surface.
Never knowing the right direction, leaves me left alone.
Done so much to weather this body, not as clear cut as a broken bone.
I just feel I want to go that way.
Eye see what I want - stumble, blackout, and stray.

Script already written, but the characters are constant variables.
Knowing everything in our heads is all malleable
Reading in between the lines searching for guarantees,
Feelings come influx.. and then slowly flee

Anchor me down to anything.

Sinking into a black tar pit abyss, wondering when I'll leave.
But maybe my soul was always meant to roam foreign zones, alone, free.
It's in moments like these where to thoughts I feel shackled to, can't release.
It becomes a hassle to feel happy, struggling to properly breathe.

Maybe no world is the same as yours
Each path has perfectly placed locked doors,
That's as individual to you as what you soak into your pores.
Getting *****, but we still want more.

It'll soon be time to graduate from our physical capabilities,
But man, how did I go so long without seeing the synchronicities?

I bleed red, I'm tired, but true.
I can't bridge past the fact that I don't know if this is for me or you.

My monster of malice,
Helps me hold high, the aluminum chalice.
Knowing these roads don't help feed my head,
Left Alice in bed for the next adequate depressant threshold
Draining my spirit and the malicious comes back-
Writing down symbols, using me as a vessel.

This dream of a life can be stressful
My walls I am enclosed in has become a mess hole.
Halls with trophies that look much like alcohol bottles.. oh wait.
Little victories! - I'm still here.
Make the liquid disappear so you can see the skewed you a little more clear.
I make the art of dying look so graceful,
Just hoping before the expiration date I left you with something tasteful.

My genes are tearing at the seams.
Glittered with fractured beams of half- hope
Slipped down the rope before I saw the light
Shining down on disappointment.
Been joyously walking to the liquor store for my alcoholic ointment.

Too much cancer, fresh internal scars, and airbrushed perspectives.
It's too bad we mostly only look at our exterior when being reflective.
*** becomes a place where we can forget.
It happened for more than hormones, yet many tend to regret.
People can run off course and divorce themselves when ******* leads to remorse
But the choice is yours.
Then we develop new feelings whether intended or not.
A home for new wounds, just waiting to clot.

We're simply riding through life chemically imbalanced,
Happiness turns to madness, sadness, numb.
Jumping from this feeling to that, this person to them.
Firing more into the overworked synapses that overreact through connection
When you clash with your mind, and embody all it's destructive four course meals
It eventually takes control over your entire life, robbed blind, an easy steal.
Peel away each sentence, and bask right now in the surreal,
Make a deal to be your divine self and let the soul show ya what's real.

In these very limited bodies, currently, time is currency. *
With your unlimited potential act purposefully-
Spend the ticks wisely to enrich your soul.
Mind plays tricks from time to time, never let it have control
Open your third eye and dare to be bold
Strengthen vibrations with intent to share the love
and you'll be riddled with appreciation without deviation,
From the heaven within us all, to the heavens above~

But I trust our spirits know our way around the blueprint.
Despite the many unseen forces, forever at play.
Look deeper into the depths like an enthusiastic student
**Reality is just a matter of what you believe; namaste~
AMcQ Dec 2014
Your leeward left lays
steeped in shadows,
as a perfect line flickers
outlining your silhouette.
Incandescent light makes
porcelain of your skin.
Its honest touch embraces
you with artificial moonbeams,
airbrushed and pale.
I watch your chest rise,
as you inhale the
atmosphere you have
created with your presence.
AE Wilson May 2014
We are imperfect products
placed in the midst
of an imperfect society,
a vicious cycle of perseverance
and failure:
constructed,
broken,
fixed,
and fixed again.

Airbrushed and painted
to perfection:
pale skin
flushed cheeks
slim legs
and a smooth mindset.
Opinionated only
on the matter of
superficial products –
glamorizing and embellishing.

Deteriorating enamel –
cracks in a varnished frame.
A scratched surface,
damaged to the core,
polished and glazed over.
Skin made paler,
cheeks more flushed,
skin and bones,
and a mind wiped clean.

Unachievable expectations
and inevitable failure
are enough to b r e a k
even the toughest material

d
o
w
n.
Chloe MT Jan 2014
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
When I look in the mirror,
I do not see beauty.
Flaws.
Flaws.
Flaws.

Growing up in this generation,
it seems you are not beautiful unless you are
thin, tan, airbrushed, well endowed, etc.
The list goes on
And
On.

All I see are in the mirror are
Flaws.
Flaws.
Flaws.

Countless times I have wondered
Why can't I be beautiful?
When I was seven, I came home after
Doing makeovers with friends.
I asked my mom,
Am I beautiful yet?
She looked at me with sad eyes and said that I was always beautiful.
Of course, I didn't believe her.

All I see in the mirror are
Flaws.
Flaws.
*Flaws.
karin naude Feb 2014
my 3rd vice
my catalyst for food restriction
desperate to sooth my shattered self image
daily bombarded by airbrushed perfect female beauty
braking my image of beauty and showing my cellulite
followed by overloading information about fixing me
regular exercise, beauty routines and Cal restricted diets
insecurity the new female epidemic
we fight for women's rights
and threw the baby out with the bath water
a basic human need
unmet and exploited
our legacy
the English standard
geneticly out of reach for women of color
Carlo C Gomez May 2022
~
find your torch
light me up

brittle and cracked
I like feeling this incomplete

I hope the nightmares don't start
without me

but if they do
let them stir
as the crow flies away
on dangerous days

with a host of stars
fiery god-smacked
in the vast well of night

where I could play king
for an hour
to a wounded land

and a pair of queens
kept in high dudgeon
lest they sing

their burning song
in rich hues
and deep tones
painted on the warm
analog tableau
on my skin

distant
distillation
happiest when sad

with time and space, some
of the intricacies
can be airbrushed out

but I don’t think
imperfect love
can take too many fires
like that, because then
a renaissance heart
would certainly go black

~
Taylor O'Hara Feb 2016
I lumber sluggishly,
dragging the weight of my body.
Every pound is tethered to me,
I can’t escape the heaviness.

I am stuffed into clothes,
encased in figure-hugging fabric
that looks better on the hanger
than my rounded, fleshy torso.

The scale is an unlucky lottery ticket
displaying a number
that I will carry around
shamefully like a scarlet letter.

I count calories like beads on a rosary,
making sure I shrink to conformity
critical of every extra curve
because to love my size is a societal sin.

Airbrushed beauty queens
and slender starlets
wear their size 0 like a badge of honor
in the battlefront of glossy magazine covers.

I’m crushed with the weight of the world I inhabit
a place that teaches girls to be self-conscious
of each pound that sticks to their body
instead of teaching them to be confident in their own skin.

I’m tired of micromanaging each nutrient that touches my lips,
to achieve a slender frame that resists my big-***** body
self love is not a one-size-fits-all
and I will radically adore every ounce that is tethered to me.
-Taylor D. O'Hara
Crysta Gingras Jan 2016
Morning comes as the sun says it's hello
I open my eyes to an airbrushed yellow
My first thought is of you
My second is too
And how your day will go
And what you may do
So here's a bright start to your day
May it carry you far
Take a wish from this stray
May you shine like a star
Good Morning to my Angel
Raj Arumugam Jul 2011
now, I was just minding
my own business
brought up by very virtuous parents
steeped in a culture ancient and proper
and graced with divine revelations;
the lotus forever growing pure
even in muddied waters;
and so minding my own business
and vowed to matrimonial chastity in mind
never looking at another woman
and never thinking of another ever

I mean no one thought
looking at Mona Lisa
even in my younger days
was ever bad; they simply said:
Oh, Mona Lisa…what a painting!
so I went about years
chaste, pure and I think, angelic,
until these women come into art books
and now more readily in cyber-life
like Rembrandt’s Bathing Woman -
oh, how could I not look?
She, Hendrickje, more natural and
more come-here-you than
today’s airbrushed digitally enhanced beauties…
O Hendrickje, Hendrickje,
entering the water
and lifting up her dress
so it won’t get wet
but O – was that really her intention?
Or perhaps to entice Rembrandt further?
Or to look at her own reflection?
and then what about us, full-blooded men of latter-days –
O Rembrandt, what have you done?
how can I not look, and look?
and come back to look again?
and under pretence of aesthetics I trace every
limb and curve of Hendrickje, O Hendrickje –
I become a Rembrandt of sorts,
just tracing lines on her image

O these cyberspace beauties
they corrupt my high ideals
And Rembrandt says across the ages:
Remember you your traditions and virtue…
And the morally upright say:
Hey! She was Rembrandt’s woman!
And I can only quip: Yeah - she was!

and leaving it at that
with O Hendrickje, Hendrickje,
gazing at her own reflection
and I wondering what she sees –
well, after Hendrickje, O Hendrickje
am I safe? you think?
Then come the women of Japan –
for instance
A woman Applying Powder
while Hashiguchi Goyō sketched and mixed his paints -
and why? Oh why, Hashiguchi Goyō?
why do you release these sirens, these women
this Woman after her Bath
this Woman combing her hair -
O these mistresses of the arts
O why release them
on my sensitive and pure
and morally upright mind?
O why you do corrupt
such a one
such a noble mind
that centuries of spiritual values jousted one another
to produce? Such a delicate specimen as I am.
Or may be
all these women should be deleted from cyberspace
and only decent women with quizzical smiles like
Mona Lisa should prevail…
Sure, we don’t know what she’s smiling about
but at least Old Lisa’s not as dangerous
as youthful Hendrickje, O Hendrickje -
or
as the Woman Applying Powder
baring her shoulders and her Japanese *****…
I mean, how can I not look?
and come back again to look?
O my adulterous heart!
but delete them all
or black them out
or cover them all up from head to foot
(technology can do wonders nowadays)
so
I can just be minding
my own business
brought to you by very virtuous parents
steeped in a culture ancient and proper
and divine revelations
the lotus forever growing pure
even in muddied waters;
and I’ll end up in Heaven after all my Holy Days
and for my Eternal Holidays there
I’ll be given all the virgins I’ll ever want
companion print: Woman Applying Powder by Hashiguchi Goyō, 1918/also see Kamisuki (Combing the hair) in my previous poem; other works of art I wish I could show you: "Woman After Bath," 1920 by Hashiguchi Goyō; Rembrandt's Bathing woman, modelled by Hendrickje, 1654; Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci; the illustrated Kama Sutra; works and art and performances I cannot show you: various **** websites...
Amber Blank Aug 2013
Hidden behind the makeup of society
Painted faces gaze as they tread through life like a zombie
Bright colors camouflage the emptiness behind their eyes.
Airbrushed smiles cover their faces that are emotionless underneath.

No substance, no depth of spirit
Fake kindness, rude and cruel compliments
The sweetest words pour out like poison
Puppets strung up by their own insecurities.

Sad and deformed clowns on this stage of reality
The play is so routine they perform without any cues
Drunk off attention only the audience can supply
Becoming so inebriated that no function of self control exist

Plastic dolls arranged in a row
Uniform and neat
No uniqueness, No imagination
Positioned and moved by riches and cold hard cash.
Michelle Garcia Dec 2015
I am here to tell you a little secret. It really shouldn't be one, but perhaps that is the main problem. I hope to somehow fix it. But here it is:

You are beautiful whether you believe it or not.

Here is a dangerous lie that our society and culture endlessly romanticizes:
• Beauty is skin deep.
This is the part where I prove them wrong.

Beauty is not skin deep.

Beginning at a young age, I developed an unhealthy concept of what true beauty was. To this day, I can still recall being twelve years old and devastatingly unhappy at my physical appearance staring back at me through my own reflection in the bathroom mirror. I saw nothing but ugliness glaring at me, the glass revealing all of my visible flaws. I didn't look like the girls in the magazines that scattered my bedroom floor, faces glowing like angels on glossy paper. I wanted to. I wanted more than anything to be comfortable being myself.

There was just so much that stuck out to me, so much that needed fixing. Curves in all the right places? Forget about it, more like a stomach that hung over my jeans. My hair was so thick that it snapped every single hair tie and couldn't hold a single curl. My nose sat awkwardly on my face, always something to sigh at whenever I would catch a glimpse of myself. My eyes were too dark, too brown to be beautiful. I couldn't grasp this idea of unattainable perfection, the kind of beauty that only exists on the airbrushed models on movie posters.

And because I could not love my appearance. I could not love myself. My self-confidence plummeted at this age, causing a wave of hysteria to envelope me. Trapping me in its embrace, this flourishing hatred began to consume everything that I was, distorting the visions of the potential I carried within me.

There was nothing beautiful about it, hating every single inch of myself. I was so busy trying to fit into the mold of the most gorgeous human being, trying to wear a mask of a person who turned heads whenever they entered the room. My mind had been wrapped around this idea countless of times to the point where I could no longer find anything worth loving inside of me.

But while chasing this idea of flawlessness, it was almost as if I had forgotten about everything else. The things that composed myself during that time period, the things that were not visible to the naked eye. The magnificent things that were present in me, that made me who I was- hidden by a wall I had put up by myself simply because I felt the need to hide from the judgmental eyes of an imperfect society.

Years have passed and now I love who I am. I am no longer twelve years old, but there are still many painful insecurities that plague me, except now I am strong enough to look at them and smile.

I have so much to be thankful for. Though I do not stand 5'7 like I had wished, I feel tall when I radiate kindness to the people around me. I do not have runway legs, but they are strong enough to leap through the air and run away from everything that no longer respects me. I do not have piercing blue eyes, but mine are capable of finding art in everything around me. I may not possess an hourglass shape, but I know how to use the time I am given to impact my peers in a positive manner. I may have bad days, but that doesn't mean I have to give up every ounce of faith and hope left within me. I may be ridiculously imperfect, but I am so outrageously real- and surprisingly, that is all I ever want to be.

The skinny girls in magazines and shirtless poster guys are still beautiful, but that doesn't mean that you aren't. To my boys- You can be attractive without a six-pack or a six-foot stature. And ladies, you can be stunning without a Kim Kardashian figure. You cannot be defined by a number that reads on a scale or the way your hair looks like when you forget to brush it in the morning. You are not labeled by the color of your skin, your athletic abilities, or whether or not your thighs touch when you walk. You are beautiful because you are you. The way you speak passionately about the things that keep you breathing. The way you laugh with your friends on the bus ride home from school until your sides feel like they're going to cave in. The way your eyes light up at the desire to understand, to learn, to grow. The way your smile spreads like the flu, even the way you fall asleep at your desk when you spend four hours finishing up the homework you could have finished two weeks ago.
You are made of blemishes, scars, imperfections, and insecurities- but they are just as wonderful as your soul. They are constant reminders of how far you have come, and the journey you have yet to fulfill. This is your life, and it would be a shame to go through it without leaving a mark.
They are the flowers growing in the sidewalk cracks of your mind. Do not let them be overshadowed by the debilitating weight of the world's words.

Let them grow, Let them be free.
Let yourself be beautiful for who you are
rather than who you are not.
craig apogee Jul 2015
i have revisited the thought of revisiting thoughts of you
for our memories hold nothing
just a vast empty space that your insincerity made
emptying out anything that i held dear from each photo frame

i love the music that played, our soundtrack, so sweet
but the music reverberates far deeper, in my veins and bones
than the meaningless, shallowness and airbrushed harmony
which was a year-long facade and a full-blown emotional felony

the ability to untag, delete, block and look away
has gifted me with the modern miracle of digital amnesia
and if i wanted, i could look back and reminisce
but with such sweet beauties on the horizon, this amnesia is bliss
a reminder to myself why i have removed someone from my life
Jon Tobias Jan 2012
Show me your pastel shades in water colours

And hide your laugh lines in candle light

Please

Keep your grimace in your sneer pocket

No one wants to see your teeth

I know how sharp they are

I know your growl is so guttural

It is hunger

This canvas soaks up everything it touches

But can’t force anything to mix

There is no texture in your vibrancy

And too much in your shading

So much green in your jealousy

That no one is debating

I know what shades of orange to be

When I need to light a fire

What shades of grey to fill my mouth

When I need to be a liar

But you

Dear model

Airbrushed to centerfold

Show me

Your pastel shades

Where your humanity should be

Watercolour your water colours any hue of blue and green

Picturesque my sunset

And lay me on the grass

Between the fading of your daylight

And the dying of my earth

And don’t dandelion my locks

Because

I won’t turn to face your sun

Don’t dampen my clay

With whatever colorful tears you drip

Some things just never mix

Even though

They look so beautiful

Together

On paper
This poem is for g jha, and the first line was donated by her. Thanks for playing!
Raj Arumugam Jul 2011
now, I was just minding
my own business
brought up by very virtuous parents
steeped in a culture ancient and proper
and graced with divine revelations;
the lotus forever growing pure
even in muddied waters;
and so minding my own business
and vowed to matrimonial chastity in mind
never looking at another woman
and never thinking of another ever

I mean no one thought
looking at Mona Lisa
even in my younger days
was ever bad; they simply said:
Oh, Mona Lisa…what a painting!
so I went about years
chaste, pure and I think, angelic,
until these women come into art books
and now more readily in cyber-life
like Rembrandt’s Bathing Woman -
oh, how could I not look?
She, Hendrickje, more natural and
more come-here-you than
today’s airbrushed digitally enhanced beauties…
O Hendrickje, Hendrickje,
entering the water
and lifting up her dress
so it won’t get wet
but O – was that really her intention?
Or perhaps to entice Rembrandt further?
Or to look at her own reflection?
and then what about us, full-blooded men of latter-days –
O Rembrandt, what have you done?
how can I not look, and look?
and come back to look again?
and under pretence of aesthetics I trace every
limb and curve of Hendrickje, O Hendrickje –
I become a Rembrandt of sorts,
just tracing lines on her image

O these cyberspace beauties
they corrupt my high ideals
And Rembrandt says across the ages:
“Remember you your traditions and virtue…”
And the morally upright say:
“Hey! She was Rembrandt’s woman!”
And I can only quip: “Yeah - she was!”

and leaving it at that
with O Hendrickje, Hendrickje,
gazing at her own reflection
and I wondering what she sees –
well, after Hendrickje, O Hendrickje
am I safe? you think?
Then come the women of Japan –
for instance
A woman Applying Powder
while Hashiguchi Goyō sketched and mixed his paints -
and why? Oh why, Hashiguchi Goyō?
why do you release these sirens, these women
this Woman after her Bath
this Woman combing her hair -
O these mistresses of the arts
O why release them
on my sensitive and pure
and morally upright mind?
O why you do corrupt
such a one
such a noble mind
that centuries of spiritual values jousted one another
to produce? Such a delicate specimen as I am.
Or may be
all these women should be deleted from cyberspace
and only decent women with quizzical smiles like
Mona Lisa should prevail…
Sure, we don’t know what she’s smiling about
but at least Old Lisa’s not as dangerous
as youthful Hendrickje, O Hendrickje -
or
as the Woman Applying Powder
baring her shoulders and her Japanese *****…
I mean, how can I not look?
and come back again to look?
O my adulterous heart!
but delete them all
or black them out
or cover them all up from head to foot
(technology can do wonders nowadays)
so
I can just be minding
my own business
brought to you by very virtuous parents
steeped in a culture ancient and proper
and divine revelations
the lotus forever growing pure
even in muddied waters;
and I’ll end up in Heaven after all my Holy Days
and for my Eternal Holidays there
I’ll be given all the virgins I’ll ever want
companion print: Woman Applying Powder by Hashiguchi Goyō, 1918/also see Kamisuki (Combing the hair) in my previous poem; other works of art I wish I could show you: "Woman After Bath," 1920 by Hashiguchi Goyō; Rembrandt's Bathing woman, modelled by Hendrickje, 1654; Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci; the illustrated Kama Sutra; works and art and performances I cannot show you: various **** websites...
Ayeshah Dec 2013
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 ®
Barton D Smock Sep 2015
from self-published collection The Blood You Don’t See Is Fake (poems, Sept 2013)

available on Lulu

auteurs

I am in your house
being you

when the boy
enters my house
with a sack of ash

to tell my wife
he has come
to avoid
a whole

personality



my wife is one to believe
she was carried
by child



listen,

a baby’s cry is the oral future of what touches the brain

individuation

in a previous imagination the boy was able to overcome his attention span. it was there he pummeled his pregnancy. I wanted a clearer image but was told to take the boy as is or not at all. I could feel his sister trapped in the same horror she was later revealed to be outside of. up until then, I was sad her whole life.

stressful events

a father and son argue outside a small town barbershop in windless ten degree weather. inside the shop, which is closed, the barber’s wife is clipping away at a wig. nearby, and quite by accident, an invisible man uncovers a fainting spell before which some will disrobe. namely, women declaring that the eye is always naked. who are these women?, ask my teeth, which are snow.

lacuna

Ohio 1976 I was given a word. a helluva word. I went unborn. a word my mother swallowed. a troublesome word. nervosa sans pretext. my father slept until his sleep became self aware. he paced. then gave me his word. stood over me.

Ohio 2013 you ***** on my shadow in an abandoned building outside of which a pregnant woman bikes herself into a garage door and bloodies her nose between sound and horn.

recovery

I fry a single egg
in a pan.

the sound places me
in one of my mother’s
teeth

as it dissolves.

I bring mother
the egg, and she believes
I am the same son
who brought her an egg
yesterday.

she eats the egg
over and over.

her attempted suicide
is not something
I know of. she keeps it to herself

in the person she was.

youth

a jailer
talking through bars
to a ventriloquist.

youth / spent trying to yank a doll
by the ear.

the wave

we let the phone ring out because it keeps the babies quiet. we have this dance we do to straighten side leaning semi-trailer trucks. the sports we play require that one’s sickness occur only when it’s run through the others. we limp beside any creature that limps. the great romance of a complete thought is something our parents plan to leave each other. our father is two mathematicians who argue. our mother says her feet feel as if they’re still in prison for what she’ll take to her grave. our guesses mean little because they are facts. at school we are voted on and kissable. if you see us coming, *** is a small unplugged television on top of a small casket. details belong to god.

stray dog leaping

the poor are beaten
from the future

they get off work
the day is hot
it’s ungodly

as ungodly as placing a single chair in a garage

the poor get home
the chair remains in the present

the dog
can’t afford to be here
appears mid-scene
in the backyard

the poor imagine
an electric fence
scrounge together
the amount they would pay
to fix it

& smile as they would smile
at the mindless sap
whose job it would be

whose chair it is

orb

the back of my mother’s head was spotted in an Ohio movie theater by a boy whose eyes were covered or maybe closed. I received word secondhand from the boy’s stepfather whose own recollection was marred by the violence he shied from to reach me. in fact, the theater was even possibly a drive-in where the boy remains in the bathroom standing on the toilet to avoid the knowledge he is no longer deaf. like most information regarding my mother, it hasn’t aged well. she’ll set the table at noon for two and drink her coffee and I’ll join her convinced no child dies from its hair being pulled. more secret than my son is his ability to withstand miracles.

earthling

not there when your mother
cries into a poison soaked towel
to a childish god
while kneeling
before the remnant heat
of an open dryer.

not there when your father
by the sound of it
breaks your arm
pressing it into
the shrunken right sleeve
of a shirt that should fit.

not there when your brother
spooked by a deer…

not there when my body
stops the procession

that one might be held in its image.

virtuoso

mommy I am stones. I am in the blacktop river. my veins have been used to unpiss cows. like my father after me I don’t want you to be my mother but you are. the men catch me with the fish they’ve eaten. they slap at me beneath a robe to make the robe move. I recognize my photo shopped savior as airbrushed. I blind whole neighborhoods with snowplow models of their choosing. if you receive this it means there is much more you haven’t. there are ashtrays no one makes anymore and tumors we don’t call phone-shaped. I am beautiful in the baby you sing to.

notes on the saints

younger times, I’d lose some of my hair when bathing the sick. now older, I am not a private person. I foresee helping father with his winter gloves and him thinking I’ve returned his hands. if sick, one shouldn’t be grateful for the inclusion. there’s a **** son in all of us.
kfaye May 2012
GOD
I saw a man once,
walking slowly.

and
once behind the plexiglass wall of a bus stop overhang
I saw an advertisement that read
BLONDE IS GOD
and the model was thin- and her skin was enhanced by zeros and ones-
and I was entranced by her.
and she was GOd
and she was made to be beautiful.
and she was made out of beautiful.
and then, on my way home I passed by the place again and her picture was gone
and instead was the image of a raven haired beauty-
***** and lustsome with bedroom eyes
and she looked at me and said,
I AM EVERYTHING
and smiled, adding bluntly,
BUY MY BODY AND DRINK MY BLOOD.
I gazed upon her airbrushed ******* and breathed,
No,
I refuse you,
BLONDE IS GOD
and bleach touch-up foam, Our Savior.
and *** is God
and the Natick Mall is my favorite place to be
and I love you.

and I am i
and barely . -
and
YOU ARE EVERYTHING
and I will always adore you.
and

everything i have ever done, becomes quantified in this, tell me how to be beautiful- tell me how to be worthless-  tell me-



once, behind the plexiglass wall of a bus stop overhang
I saw an advertisement that read
BLONDE IS GOD
Steven Hutchison Apr 2014
Declare pragmatism a vulgarity,
a taste fowl to the tongue.
Embrace the long way home as
an integral part of healing
and swear by the virtue of art.

Decide that you will not be swayed
by flashing lights, airbrushed make-up,
or impressive displays of feathers.
Seek only the flower unseen
in a globe armored to the teeth.

Flea the baroque temptation,
extravagance will not suit you.
Confess to the heavens
your deepest desires
and find them in your own backyard.

Accept helplessness as a gift.
Stop wringing your hands,
for they will not wind the clock
in either direction you mistakenly feel
would be to your benefit.

Savor the precious little
any one thing can give you.
Scrape from each moment
all that is beautiful and velvet
and forget there is anything else.
Dorothy Apr 2014
A size 14 at the age of 14 she didn’t love the body she was in
But how can you blame her, she did have a seventeen magazine subscription
Airbrushed girls, with their perfect pin curls showing you how to be pretty
Gap thin thighs, the one thing she did despise but would certainly die
to get.
She tried it all
Starvation lasted not more then a week because for food she was weak
Switching it up
She would feed her addiction just to plummet it into the toilet and then flush it away at the end of the day
She tried it
Gagged so hard, stuck her fingers down her throat so far
Till she thought she felt her tonsils
Worst decision of her life
She never tried it again after that night.

She gave up the pursuit of the beautiful magazine look and lived her self conscience life
Grew up with it until it became her best friend..never to part until the end.
Junior year, she’s now 16 turning 17 and some things are starting to change
She’s getting attention from other guys and yeah it’s a bit strange

That day she stood in the mirror and just stared
Stared at what she avoided for three years
Stared at her curvature, skin, smile and then
That’s when she realized, she was actually a beautiful toothsome girl
A different kind of elegant pearl
Belonging to the finest columbine

She had the hips that every girl in her school talked about
The teeth of pearly whites that complimented her biggest smiles
She was growing into herself, slowly loving herself the way she is
Five years past now she’s in her 20′s
Her best friend from earlier years still pays a visit because even though she knows her beaut she still held on to her self conscience mess
Oddly enough it was her comfort from the first time they ever met.
Maybe one day she’ll find herself a new best friend
One that’s more uplifting then the last one has been
e Jul 2014
Real life isn't always perfection
Often it's nervously bitten digits and cracked nail polish.

Real life isn't always photogenic
Mostly it's oily faces and adolescent outbreaks.

Real life isn't perfumed or pretty
Sometimes it's pit stains and bad hair days.

Real life isn't a page in a glossy magazine
Airbrushed and edited to curveless perfection.

Real life isn't about salads and diet coke
It's more like ice cream and pizza at 3 am and fat days spent in yoga pants feeling sorry for yourself.

Real life isn't always smooth sailing
Rather it's more like "I hate you" one minute then "I love you" the next then "shut up, go away" right after that.

Real life isn't fantasy
It's the 9-5 grind and knowing you'll never make enough to afford all the things you want.

Real life is never how you expect it to be
So when you tell me that I'm beyond perfect and that you don't deserve me . . .

What do you expect me to do . . . degrade myself so I'm imperfect for you?
Paula Swanson Oct 2010
A sweeping staircase is her stage.
mahogany and marble.
Dressed to thrill, a fashion plate,
your heart she will ensnarl.

Each step she takes is calculated,
to keep your eyes upon her.
With waistline tight and neckline low,
accentuating the lure.

Her dress does slip, down behind her,
like a river, flowing red.
A sultry pout worn on her lips,
her eyes, promising her bed.

Perfection, there, before you now.
Yet, there stands an obstacle.
There's no chance, for she is just an
airbrushed, magazine model.
Red-haired artificially
with shiny teeth,
clean knees
with a gap in between.

and my voice will carry
like a songbird in the morning.
Beautifully composed
uttering a peaceful warning

My linens
So pink...
no blue stains to be seen.

And the skin I wear
Porcelain.
airbrushed and screaming
a lulled importance

With my night creams
and appointments
lessons and ointments

I will become the most perfect woman-made sculpture America has ever seen.
DeeDeeK May 2012
they say, 'You're beautiful' and I look around
to see who they are talking to
always shocked to hear the sound
of compliments

beautiful is the perfect wave crashing
while sunlight shimmers through aquamarine water
or wrinkles at the edges of smiling
eyes full of life

beautiful is the feeling overcome
pure emotion that fills you up, bursts out
when you're with the right one
authentic love

beautiful is not simply seen
nor is it defined as a commodity
on the pages of an airbrushed magazine
to be bought
ConnectHook Apr 2018
You leave me cold—and so forlorn;
thou weary jaded face of ****.
Does any of your turgid action
hold a trace of true attraction—
more than the membranes, moans and glands
that move your products’ many brands?
Your upper face looks haggard, used
your orifices gape, unmused
in lurid and contrived excitement
offering at best, incitement
to a spurt of blasé bliss:
a risk-free game of Hit on Miss.
Fleshtones moan: transparent fakes
where tremors masquerade as quakes.
For such hard work you’re unimpressed;
your weary looks leave one depressed—
to seek, instead, an amateur;
the accolades belong to her
whose modest shoot on humble bed
ensures her book of love gets read;
much better than that HD trash
where made-up squeals meet ***** cash.

Recalling now the titillation
of my youthful ***-fixation
wherein falsities were prized,
airbrushed half-truths, oversized:
thrills to nevermore regain
nor recreate, much less attain . . .
yet, seen beside today’s hot mess
it’s more alluring to undress
the past, by varying degrees
(her imperfections sure to please).

Perennial curiosity
spreads carnal luminosity
upon the mysteries of the flesh
to tease our hungers; and refresh
our longing for the great Unknown;
flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone.

Those naughty childhood memories
transmute the lustful ecstasies;
each glance, each timeless thrilling tease,
was stronger then—compared to this
whose pull is harder to dismiss.
It fades more quickly once it’s past—
but Venus’ vintage treasures last
until the suns of lust grow cold
and all of desire’s daughters old.
y'all can call me
the one who was a poet
but thought Haiku ******
I took a walk to see.
All the queens down market street turning just for a fix .
The ******* of the day doesn't matter when you only live for the score.

Greetings from the gutter.
Go wash yourself clean as I embrace it's decay.
Least I know my place art is never a safe bet sweetheart does  his touch still make you cringe?

Meet me at the bar and we will get lost together.
Goodnight to the fakes I have little more to give.
Goodnight to you all it's ran it's course shall we just let it die?

To the designer junkies who's prison resembles a palace I prefer the chaos of my own reality keep your distance for your ******* need not apply.

The cutter scars I  prefer to some airbrushed queen your flaws are your perfection were all ****** up so embrace the truths and ignore there lies.

Goodnight my friends my buzz has began to fade .
Life is a bruise beautiful in it's story .
Never hide the flaws for art is the biggest train wreck of them all.

Cheers
joy to most
melancholy to many
and the clouds descend
even on sunny days
or Christmas Eve,
leaving sorrow....sorrow

toys and loved ones
know the ritual,
the ebb and flow of sanity
like falling snow
or balloons deflated
from full moons
luminous with love
to crushed souls
filled with sorrow....sorrow

when the shrinks surrendered
I knew the battle was lost
that causes unknown
would define my fate
and my autopsy would be
an airbrushed question mark
on canvass
in black and blue
like sorrow....sorrow

~ Pablo (#sad)
(10/22/2013)
DranaaAZ Dec 2014
I want you to bite my lip until I can no longer speak
And then **** my ex-girlfriend’s name out of my mouth just to make sure she never comes up in our conversations.
I want you to come to me like an afternoon,
come to me slowly as if you were a broken sunset with a lazy sky on your shoulders.
If you let me be your sunlight,
I promise that I will penetrate your darkness until you speak in angel wings.
Pull me close to you,
tell me that you love me,
and then scratch your future into my back so I can be everything that you live for.
I promise that I will die for you daily and then resurrect in your screams.
I promise that I will love you.
I promise that I will love you as if it’s the only thing that I’ve ever done correctly.
I’ll be honest,
I’m usually not even a love poet.
In fact, every time I try to write about love, my hands cramp.
Just to show me how painful love can be.
And sometimes our pencils break just to prove to me that, every now and then, love takes a little more work than planned.
See, I heard that love is blind, so I write all my poems in Braille.
And my poems,
I never actually finish,
because true love is endless.
You see, I’ve always believed that real love is kinda like a supermodel before she’s airbrushed.
It’s pure and imperfect,
just the way that God intended.
WickedHope Dec 2014
He just wanted to help
An arm is grabbed
Her heart skips a beat
No, not good, not good...
She can't move
Can't breathe
Inhale, exh-
Inhale, exh-
Can't breathe
She is red, airbrushed porcelain
Can't meet his eyes
Says please don't touch me
He laughs
Please don't touch me
Her body is shaking
Her mind is racing
P-please
He lets go
And she's still alone
This is what happens to me.
I just want someone to hold me and for me not to freak out.
- - -
*He* helped me adjust to him. Then he left...
Andrew, I miss you. ( twoam )
Derick Van Dusen Sep 2014
We're as fake as the plastic melting under our skin

The collective imagination of a societal binge

Our beauty is a mask, a lie told to us by magazines

The product of industrial dreams, all fantastic schemes

We live in a Barbie Doll world, where we worship fake *******

We lift weights at Gold's Gym while we pound our huge chests  

We know nothing of true beauty, under the façade of the Glossy

Eight by Ten



We cover our blemishes and we can't even be comfortable in our own skin

We are infatuated with the surface, skin deep, lustful of the pretenses  

Our masks hide our vulnerabilities and our true intent

While reality is crumbling at our feet and we hide beneath a veneer of

A glossy face shot, the airbrushed images on the cover-girl-poster-boy-pin-up centerfold

   We've lost sight of the aged and the gifts they hold

Celebrities ride around in window tinted limousines, so they can't be seen but we're so pretty that we have to preen



The paparazzi all want the next shot for the next scandal but they airbrush that too

We are so busy believing the lies that we have become afraid of the truth

Camera's are as ubiquitous as grass and our privacy is all but laughable while our smiles aren't genuinely affable

We post pictures of ourselves on Facebook, yet our self esteem could use a second look

We talk each other up and beat each other down, but we're keeping it onehundred while hiding a frown

We've become fast paced and slow witted, we're breaking the seams that our families knitted

We place beauty on a pedestal and worship at its alter, but we fail to foster true beauty in our children and wonder why they falter



We listen to society and shun our parents, our role models have become degenerates

We allow our little girls to  dress like tramps and wear makeup and our little boys don't respect them and treat them like toys

And we wonder why they cut themselves  

We pay movie stars and football players millions so we can entertain ourselves

But we can't pay our teachers enough to educate the masses

yet it's okay to collect a check and sit on our *****

And our troops don't have the armor they need because of our self indulgent greed

We forget about the little guy as we climb the corporate ladder to survey the sky at the top

But when the **** goes down, we can't pick up a mop

We won't lift a finger to lend a hand because we're so afraid of our fellow man
Mish Nov 2011
be conscious
     the world is your playground
     of dominant ferris wheels & sugar-coated
     ideals sold at five dollars for three tries..
one shot left
     aim for the biggest prize –

tides of trying times are coming
giant steps toward stones leading toward tomorrow
are placed at even intervals across
                                          oceanic lines flawlessly airbrushed

                                          on canvas purchased outside
artstore windows in a city that I would rather soon forget..

— The End —