"airway" poems
Sometimes I get stuck in this state of Darkness
where my eyes can see
but it's like my head is just pitch black
and I almost wish I couldn't see anything,
like I wish I could just curl myself into a ball so tightly that I disappear from space for a while
sometimes I get stuck in this space
and I feel like my tears and my thoughts
are climbing up my esophagus and clogging my throat
blocking my airway
suffocating me from the inside
maybe I never told you I was depressed because who wants to relive that moment
that choking hazard moment of cotton ***** in my throat
maybe I never told you I was depressed because there are no words I can use to describe it that don't transform themselves into their meanings
that don't take over my mind
crawl through my head like little worms
eating away at my brain
my thoughts
my skin
have you ever thought of a traumatic experience and then felt those events happening again
felt the dark hole of life-threatening-trauma attack your mind
Shiver through your body
like it was a demon you let in through a memory-
through a word
maybe I didn't tell you I was depressed
because I wasn't strong enough
my depression fills me to the brim
fills my head and my chest
my arms and my fingers
I can feel it moving through my body
I can feel it expanding and engulfing everything inside of me
every last vein, nerve, ***** and tissue
how can you expect me to have the energy to fight
how can you expect me to have the energy to pick up the phone
to open my mouth
how can you expect me to have energy-to have the courage to utter the words of how I feel
I feel so worthless
in those moments I feel like there's this black whole inside me and it's consuming everything
it's taking everything but my skin
and it disgusts me
can you imagine the feeling,
having something so utterly repulsive on your skin you had to scrape it off immediately
It felt like you needed to be cleansed
like you needed a shower
take that feeling
now imagine it being under your skin
imagine, every muscle ***** vein nerve every cell in your body underneath your epidermis disgusts you
imagine all you wanted to do was to
GET
IT
OFF
and you can't
no matter how hard you try
you can't scrape it off
you can't claw It off
imagine you're scared of spiders
now imagine you're covered in spiders
and someone's holding down your arms
so you can't get them off
imagine them walking on your skin
in your mouth
crawling on your open eyes
in your ears
you're cringing at your own skin
You can feel them going down your throat
Their disgusting tickle in the pit of your stomach
in every crevice of your body
their tunneling under your skin
and you can't get them off
what are you supposed to do
but cry
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 11:30 PM UTC
Gendering Woman *******
Beautiful, anatomical part // Ugly, anatomical part
Natural, pleasurable // Burdensome, loathsome
Female Symbolic // Femme Symbolic
MALIGNANT HEALTHY
fearful, tearful, wretched // joyful, hopeful, euphoric,
bereft, wept, grieving // embryonic, rapt, relieving
leaving, loss // believing, gain
m a y b e - d e a t h r e - b i r t h
BI-LATERAL
MASTECTOMIES
Operating Theatre
SURGEON ANAESTHETIST
cleaning/ cutting/ knife/ scalpel // doping/ unconscious/ airway
blood / tissue // hypotension
loss/ damage // shock
drains // sinus rhythm
stitches // pain deadening
tight binding // reversal drugs
POST-OPERATIVE
a l i v e a w a k e
draining, bound & stitched draining, bound & stitched
DRAINED
~ UNBOUND
-- UNSTITCHED –
Empty chest Flat Chest
FREEDOM from Disease FREEDOM from Dis-ease
© M.L.Emmett
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 12:28 PM UTC
I Send my words hurling into your airway like swords
I bite off your tongue with every sharp response my body conjures
I have every witty comeback on speed dial to drill into your spine
The way your gays drilled into mine Pull old pennies from my pockets and throw them into your eyes
So you may not look at me the way you have for so long
You're are barely worth my pennies anyways
Here's a donation to your sorry ***
How about I grasp your neck, at just the right spot, just hard enough, to crush your voice box
To dwindle your air pipe just a little
So you cannot throw those trash comments at anyone else
How about I crack each of your fingers
Push them deep into your pockets
So that you can't feel anything without remembering me
You look at me like a mannequin in the window of your favorite retail store
You try yo put a price on what I'm worth
Maybe you can try me on
Throw me on the floor
Grab another
How about I tattoo my name on your chest
So that you cannot take off another piece of clothing
Take off another girl
Throw them in the floor
And not remember me
You will never throw me on the floor again
For I am permanently burned into your chest
How about I burn off each hair on your body
One at a time let it Sizzle down and sear the skin
Let each tiny poor feel the pain one at a time over and over and over again
Until you are left, raw
This
Is the day I speak back when you catcall me from across the street
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 7:21 PM UTC
Today, I wear nothing.
I strip away the hot heavy
shoes, the tights that constrict
my airway. My underwear, lacy
and uncomfortable and unseen by
everyone but me.
My deepest darkest most sacred secret
is held down
slipping between my legs is
my moist wet womanhood
not stopped by any obstacle
and you try to touch me there
on my pink love button,
touching it
to understand a different part
of me that you wouldn't have
been able to see otherwise.
I keep it hidden.
it comes out
when they come off
Release
Aug 16, 2011
Aug 16, 2011 at 6:01 PM UTC
As she is Feeling worthy,
She takes the journey
With Eyes wide shut; in truth ever so blindly
Embracing her spirituality Divinely
She Rises As Peek of the Day At High Noon
She’s In tune
Like the Sun in rotation to the 28 phases of the moon
She’s in tune as summer in the month of June
Just as a flower in its fullest bloom
She’s in tune
As the skin embracing the molecules of perfume
She’s in tune
Just as a baby in the mother’s Womb
Just waiting to be born soon
She’s uses Art of Divination
Shes sees Life/God in all of Creation
She self heals through crystals, spiritual baths and mediation
Her Aura is that of roses, poetry, and galaxies
She pulls one in with her defiant rules of gravity
Draws one closer with her celestial cavity
She’s cosmic candy
Some may say They call her the Milky Way Because around her even the stars feel safe enough to come out and play
She’s a whole vibe, the rhythm of reggae
She’s life one breathes into their airway
She’s paradise’s secret highway
She’s Cosmic Candy
She’s As beautiful as watching the chaotic grace of a Star burst to me
Her spirit is wild and free as the unknown depths of the sea
Speaking aesthetically,
she is truth So heavenly
She is Cosmic Candy
Sep 14, 2019
Sep 14, 2019 at 1:05 PM UTC
It was silent as Chelsea crept into the room
There I lay, nestled to sleep with a teddy bear
The moonlight on my back, soothing light
She awoke me violently, shaking me ashen
And my eyes widened in terror at her face
It didn't take long for her to find something
A tool to suit the job, my punishment
I was a bad sister, always was I wrong
So she found a pair of shoes, my shoes
And I braced for the nightly beating
But Chelsea had something else in mind
As she removed the lace from one of them
She gripped an end in each hand, staring
And she moved on top of me, saying;
"I hate you, stupid attention *****
She placed the string over my throat
And she pressed down very hard, frowning
I felt my airway constrict, and I struggled
She put her knees on my elbows in anger
And my begging made her push harder
As I began to see gray, I remember a tear
But not the many that I released, I know
Because I felt it patter onto my dying face
And I sputtered and arched my back, hoping
And Chelsea only pressed harder, murderous
As I drifted out of consciousness, I heard
My brothers voice, sweet brother Damien
And he slapped Chelsea and pulled her off
As I curled up and breathed delicious air
And he caressed my face, and hugged me
That night acted as a catalyst for hatred
And within myself I bred a monster
But I suppose I cannot give credit for
My mistakes, to the true genesis of pain
I just haven't found anything else to blame
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 4:15 AM UTC
Today someone laryngospasmed and dropped to 65%
Before I opened their airway
Last week, same thing, except 55%
I’m finding myself increasingly dispassionate and unconcerned during these episodes
Externally it would appear
I’m skating by
Skin of my teeth
Brushing off increased agitation by the OR staff
Watching the patient’s life bouncing on the roulette wheel as I tilt the table
........Come on red ................
But it’s not like that. I have a plan. Always a backup. Tertiary options.
A, B,C, and [God forbid] D.
So far, C and beyond is unknown territory.
I’m concerned with my confidence. Too much?
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 7:51 PM UTC
stay
fight
cataclysm
summary
resistant
eyebrow
crackle
dinner
fishhook
blunt
tribute
margarine
widow
****
scar
glory
elephant
planet
swallow
forget
blanket
fear
smooth
black
vent
curvy
translation
smooth
warrant
concussion
fluid
red
airway
postmark
testament
carpet
denial
flex
touch
real
married
armchair
sink
ebb
soft
touché
foam
stone
float
torn
away
see
tremor
marrow
bright
side
god
deep
hurry
inject
wither
moon
noun
full
stop
wild
year
done
everyone
enough
disco
skin
same
dream
chest
roses
proof
tacit
dire
soul
posit
wide
shy
city
run
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 11:52 AM UTC
.
and your mug shot's shining through
it's a vision true (but the subject's taboo)
all ugly here
morning sunshine breakfast table autumn cool
you're poised to speak a fly lands on your lolling spoon
then i stand up merry
i make my vital move the table backs away distressed
your eyes raise
i flop open my faminous mouth and let the fumes draw in
Surprise !
(no time for you to hold surplus breath -
- form an expression - make any objection)
mechanism disjoints like the raw riches
i whip the plumb weight of my head and strike
mouth-chomp-grip over your scalp
and i am working you in
with swift jaw shifts and hingery
i **** on you with a smile and gullet
(past photos of you shuffle glaucous before my inner eye)
yap sock muscle i operate gumming on your head
(ours was the world ; we got so lazy)
budging in your hair dampened by my saliva
(our timid first meeting at a bar)
and airway and my teeth softly folding back
(us in bed-us in bed-us-in-bed)
and whole hog jaw agog
(the tourist we made as a couple)
i dilate and distend crouch low to take your weight
(the rise and falter of your sleeping chest)
upend your hands panic typing in the air
(the eyes of your investment in me)
your feet flinging the heft back and forth
your shoulders break in and forward folding
my chest cracks and wells
(gifts we gave that touched heart and others that fell short)
a complete engulfing meal of you
(your childhood antidotes and teenage feelings we discussed)
down my soft disposal
(all my memories of us in a fizz
and all the inaccuracies)
...and then i head off to hibernation
ferrying an idea that ' i have you now '
that perhaps you were my enemy
all this time
and i am digesting the beast
(what a feast !)
Sep 16, 2024
Sep 16, 2024 at 9:39 PM UTC
I know.
I know it feels like your body is disintegrating,
How it aches in places you didn't even know existed;
That you want nothing more than to rid yourself of this skin that burns with loss in every fragile movement.
Your heart and mind are betraying you.
Bones incapable of carrying around this
Palpable heartbreak.
The infrastructure
Of everything you had carefully built
Shattered beneath your feet.
I know it seems like the walls are closing in,
Cornering you,
Suffocating every airway
Until you cannot see tomorrow through the darkness.
Darling
Be patient,
I promise you'll find seeds of recovery amongst the rubble -
Your stems of self worth were never rooted
in anyone's actions but your own,
Your flowers never fed by anything but love for yourself.
Your crushed spirit will break through
These confines of hopelessness
To blossom, once more.
Nurture your growth
And protect it like a diamond;
Cover it in gold.
For you will never own anything more precious than this existence.
You have all the minerals you have ever needed
right there inside of you,
Blood flowing like lava,
Fire burning through your veins since the day that you were born,
Strength emanating from your core.
I know.
I know you're struggling to find the light
But in this darkness you begin your healing.
Remember all that you are
And all that you have been through.
You are loved in ways you can't even imagine
And will grow to love, once more.
Darling
Be patient,
For you are as tenacious as the sun,
And every sun will rise again.
Mar 11, 2017
Mar 11, 2017 at 1:07 PM UTC
My sister Annick fixed me, locked me in, with cold, blue eyes as she sat down slowly next to me at the table. “I’m a surgeon,” she said, not quite casually, “a board certified surgeon.”
I give her a questioning look.
“I could take your steak knife,” she says, eyeing it, “plunge it into your neck - and oh, sure, there’d be a question or two but in the end - I’d walk away clean.”
“I don’t think,” I start saying…
Tears well to near overflowing in her turquoise eyes. “I came in - officer” she says, sounding stunned and surreal. “She was having a convulsion, she exhibited severe cyanosis, I couldn’t clear her airway, it was a classic tonic-clonic seizure.” she goes on, her voice rising to near panic with the diagnosis.
“You’d never…” I start to interrupt but she gently covers my mouth with her left hand while gathering the handle of the serrated silver steak knife, expertly, into her right hand.
“I attempted to perform a tracheostomy,” she continues in a traumatized but professional voice. “but as I began a transverse incision above the sternal notch,” a tear rolls down her cheek, “Anais suffered a severe generalized-onset seizure and convulsed, forcefully into the knife”
“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!” I confess suddenly, as if under oath, in court.
There’s a moment of still silence.
“And WHEN,” she asked, wiping away the tear and turning the knife for a downward ****** “Were you going to MENTION IT?!”
“NOW! - before dinner!” I look around the empty room - for help - for a sympathetic jury. “It was an ACCIDENT! - I’m SORRRRYYYY!” I plead.
My sister slowly sets down the knife and says deliberately, purposefully - like a death sentence: “My Valentino sheer floral-lace top is STAINED.”
”I can FIX it!” I insist in a rush.
“Keep OUT of my room - and my stuff.” she grumbles, “And REMEMBER what I said,” she adds as she pats the knife before getting up and leaving the room.
“I WILL’” I promise to her back.
A second later, my mom sweeps in from the opposite direction.
“What’s up” she asks.
“Nothing” I almost whisper, head down.
Aug 4, 2021
Aug 4, 2021 at 10:04 AM UTC
She disappeared
what seems like eons;
I miss her everyday.
Carefree... flamboyant
reckless and tortured.
She grasped for solitude.
She disappeared
for who knows how long;
but time is running out.
Each day grows shorter,
and I’m no smarter.
I wait for her return.
She disappeared
from body and soul;
for no apparent reason.
She flew up...grew up
and found her airway.
She left me in her wake.
She disappeared
I wailed and puled;
hey wait, it’s me you flee.
But the look of her pain
and the shame in my heart
were really both the same.
She left
and disappeared from sight;
her name scrolled in the sand.
She disappeared
and won’t come home,
til carefree days are here.
Nov 5, 2010
Nov 5, 2010 at 12:41 PM UTC
soft soliloquies cannot touch me
for the mountain tops have blurred in the stratosphere
and still deny their shadows from the fog
and sink like marionette martyrs to the ocean floor
and sway refused forfeit flags painted as seaweed
--
stiff joints acost
and above, an albatross!
roams discreetly through the sky
yet all hell's dead
wretched through molten lead
succumb to false alibi
(and fate's caress never questions why)
--
your
bamboo words
and
tourniquet hands
bear loss of convicted man.
and
piano strings
like
forgotten things
have cost all the contraband.
--
--oh, but sweetly they had fallen
the petals which forgot the sun
and faces the moon while acrobats
form the constellations of the sky
and so— so weakly it had passed us by
but yet had still seen the sails of clouds
adream of every lost sunken shroud
ever shining by.
--
defeat me, hang
a noose from every ceiling
--and maybe i'll change my mind
or faint like festered wounds
trailing down the hallways
--and maybe i'll forget the way
you made me see it
clearer than mirror rooms
and moulded like day
(your lungs full of clay)
breathe me out or
sheathe it in
complete me, hang
an emptied world from every airway
to rust all the ventilations
to flood all the irrigations
and condense into the black hole
you left behind.
--
words called windows walk on sunday lanes
toward sideways tree roots with hallow'd veins
and iced over stairways that have no name
or excretories called inventories that fell on dead ends
or ghouls that catapult just to make amends
then rise from idle tidal waves with the bends
perhaps even holes called souls can confine
and mists like cysts fail to intertwine
and fall away as heaven feigns to maligne.
—and oh, how sullen scenes do compromise
the way our flesh restlessly burns and fies.
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 6:34 PM UTC
Start with:
Airway, Breathing, Circulation,
easy as ABC
they said.
Perhaps they meant
clear my throat,
slow my breathing,
check my pulse.
I could have used
the advice, but
there wasn’t time,
for him.
Perhaps, no.
His pleading eyes
will not fade in time,
and his sand soiled body’s
last electric leap
seems to hover
still longer
with each
repetition.
His blue lips
still murmur
words
to me
from the
water.
-BRD
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 3:37 PM UTC
The lies choke me,
constricting my throat with their icy tentacles.
Vines riddled with thorns,
twist and scrape inside my airway.
Blood running down my trachea
pools in my lungs,
Each burbling breath
a disturbing reminder of the webs I've woven.
Feb 25, 2017
Feb 25, 2017 at 6:50 PM UTC
*Five months for a teenage brain is a lifetime to be with someone...add ten more days and that's how long i got to keep you. This isn't second grade you don't get a trophy for merely breathing and that's all i was doing. Breathing you in every second i got until we stopped seeing each other outside of school. I thought i was oxygen deprived but i was only deprived of you. Fought against my gut feeling that i could not keep my promise of forever. I wanted to burn the memories we had in picture frames. To shatter them like i shattered us. I cant walk past you with out the little pieces of my heart aching. I may have been the little spoon but i had the entire world at my fingertips when you were by my side.
The day it officially ended we said We'd keep in touch. That We'd be best of friends but now we don't even say hello. Bad habits have been restarted and **** the nicotine high is so lovely when i think about you..i forget. The head rush and the burn in my throat i think the firefighters told me i had too much smoke in my lungs for it to be just from a fire. So when they took me to the hospital to try and clear my airway not realizing it was the hospital i asked for my one call. And it was to you but i think i had too much nicotine in my god **** veins pumping straight to my brain that i didnt realize when you answered id be ripping off the scabs that were helping you heal*
Jul 1, 2016
Jul 1, 2016 at 3:08 AM UTC
rainbow curtains that smell of mint
gray sweatshirt my mother sent
suffocating but my airway is clear
where is the voice i want to hear?
i wish someone else could see
the poisonous air of room 11-B
Feb 29, 2024
Feb 29, 2024 at 6:05 PM UTC
You know, I’ve wanted
to say this for a very long time,
but for a very long time
I haven’t believed that
you’ve been ready to hear it nor
have I been ready to say it.
Three.big.words.
So big my throat can’t store it
can’t keep it together it comes
out in stutters,
I Luh, I Luh, I Luhhhvee Y-yu-you.
this, is the first time.
This is the first I’ve felt
vulnerable and empowered
at the same time.
This time is kind of amazing
This duality inside of me
fighting against one another
My heart choosing sides,
Left and right, ripping me apart
A ****** valentine
a serious war. like,
the Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me,
Yes, this is Brand New. I wrote a ballad
For you, a love song from deep emotions
mixed up making
a ballad that cries out
the howls of true devotion
the secrets never spoken
under the sheets where I lie,
next to your embodied soul
You soft ************
Let me hold you, let me cast you
under the spell I brewed myself
brewed right here. Right here.
in the place where I actually love you
because I actually love you
in the softest portion of my heart
the most delicate, touchable, stababble
place in my heart
a sensitive baby
crawling into my throat
choking me with the words
the words inside my throat
I’m choking
on a flavored peanut caught
in the wrong tube I am choking
on something so dang sweet,
like sweeter than the 90’s chokers,
Love. Is. A Hard Peanut.
I believe in the like
Maybe some faith in the love.
I spat up the peanut
It left sugar in my mouth
but I spat it out. It was, after all,
Lodging my airway
Constricting my muscles
Suffocating my taste for reality
Organically altering the song
Of my tongue, like I found the tune at Whole Foods.
You Stupid Peanut, of course I found you at Whole Foods
You’re a Genetic Beauty, modified once originally
You hard Peanut
I Love You I Love You I Love You!
There, I said it
With my choking throat
My loving Soul.
My soft heart
I love you, Peanut.
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 5:50 PM UTC
My lungs are burning
And I start to sweat,
Not being able to breathe
Is my biggest threat.
My lungs fill with water,
And my breath gets shallow,
My chest is pounding,
But my heart is hollow.
My pulse is slowing,
And my stress is on the rise,
The pressure inside me is increasing,
As tears gather in my eyes.
My throat starts to shrink,
And my airway begins to close,
I begin to fall unconcious,
And blood drips from my nose.
Sep 4, 2015
Sep 4, 2015 at 11:29 AM UTC
You were always more like twine,
Wrapping yourself around my neck.
So thin you had seemed innocuous
To my gullible eyes,
But once you had enclosed my airway
I was forsaken to eradicate your embrace.
Nov 20, 2009
Nov 20, 2009 at 10:42 AM UTC
They say that time is just a metaphor, extra stress humans create
Tell that to the man who’s got a time bomb to deactivate
I think in hours, minutes and seconds, the clock takes control
The minute hand constricting my airway, while the hour hand picks at my soul.
And please don’t let my irrational thoughts push you over the edge,
I could really use a friend, I could really use a friend.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 4:32 PM UTC
Constriction,
Restricting your airway
Throw you down the stairway
Violence made my mind break
Oh wait!
You think you can escape?
Leave me after you played your game?
The silence was a mind-rape
And now you try to escape?
Why the **** are you doing this to me
Am I your ******* experiment?
Just another play-toy, just another boy
Only this time this one rises with the decision to destroy
Why'd you **** me over like this?
What I did wasn't this bad
I become obsessed, it's true
BUT NOW I ******* HATE YOU!
Yet I still want to talk, God knows why
When clearly you've made up your mind now I gotta decide
Whether or not to fade away, turn to grey
The mist through the hills on a cold and rainy day
Or stick around and get ****** over more
WHY THE **** YOU MAKING ME ANGRY FOR?
I demand answers, I need some ******* answers
I have too many questions and I never was a dancer!
So stop waltzing with my conscious around this God-forsaken floor
Find a better one, a cleaner one, before I'm missing you when I destroy it all
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 5:58 AM UTC
You know I'm afraid of heights.
Yet you try to put me on an airway flight!
You know I'm not a fan of the dark.
But you still insist on taking my night light!
You know I hate the spot light.
And you sigh me up for my school talent show!
Can't yo see your pushing me towards the edge...
When you know I'm terrified that I'll fall.
Can't you tell I'm about to break...
And you continue to squeeze even harder.
** Can't you listen to my screams...**
'Cuz you don't know how badly I'm in pain.
** Why do you fail at realizing these thing?!**
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 1:29 AM UTC
Speak your feelings to the moon,
Don't wait for death to take your life soon
when you'll choke to death,
your heart would stop beating,
with airway blocked and breathing gone, fleeting.
Feb 13, 2012
Feb 13, 2012 at 7:42 AM UTC
prompt me, if you like
pause me or restore,
fake forward to
another track and time.
please me, if you like
that would be nice,
a gracious game, attach me.
stand with me, if you like
til you feel kinda certain,
in one aspect or another.
do not frame me. i would not like
your bargaining episode,
neither manipulation, would i ….
rather
beckon me, to another order
mind your ways and self
until pleasure beckons you,
for yourself, not me.
i am in tune to you, or not
in sway and light meanderings of mind.
a series of events may take you
in ways you like, or not, with or
without a hand at your side.
speak with me, if you like
but not drag the solution from me.
you are your own way
if you have a mind to see it.
depart from me, if you like
strength to strength, or fall.
while it breaks my heart to await
your outcome ….
of fortune i will hope.
it sours me beyond belief, in wretchedness
for i fear what could befall you and
grit your stumble.
raise me, if you will
into a prosperous outlook
to meet head on.
shy away from your
mouth of negativity with words
bound up from invisible torture,
become light in step and airway
if you like, or not.
Jul 30, 2012
Jul 30, 2012 at 4:55 PM UTC