Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Maggie Bartolome Jan 2014
How to rise to the occasion:

I have broken everything. 
All of the garbage on the foggy cracked streets. Midnight starts humming softly 
at first
 winding over the streetlights
 shimmering
 off of the metallic wrappers from 7/11
My adaptability to your absence is a clear
 alarm buzzer by now. 
'because he was there and I was not.'
Bananafish swim in the thick of the foggy fissures
Of my new secret. 
The fat boy in the drivers seat
Compliments me
"thank you."i say and
One bananafish swims faster than the others 
Breaking throughout the tears
Passes the windows and rips the dashboard. 
I swallow the bananafish whole 
And after fat boys hands are firm and
Infatuated on my cheeks
Bananafish swims in my head violently 
He is so large that he wags his tail in my stomach
Scratching at the walls of my belly
Poking his head out of my throat. 
"I'm here. Let me out. Let me out."
And I hear your voice ask me if this is okay. 
And I imagine all of your long fingers 
Gingerly touching my cheeks. 
I think of your breath asking me if this is okay. 
The sax playing fat boy
 makes me open my eyes again
When we pull away. 
And that's when I know I've killed my bananafish.
spysgrandson Sep 2012
11/11/1918
12/07/1941
11/22/1963
09/11/2001

catching children
before they fall from cliffs
can be tiresome
perhaps ‘tis our mission
to prevent the fall

but    

we fail
slashed down by
numbers and slashes
09/11/2001
slashes, numbers
blood, sweat, and tears
mangled memories and fears

if they could only
play longer
in fields of rye
but we must blink an eye
then they grow grievances
not wings,
fall from friendly fields
and from our sight
and make the plunge
into the fiery night

if only numbers and slashes would not prevail…
title is reference to a story by J D Salinger and there are also allusions to his writing in the poem
Daniel Mashburn Sep 2014
I'm feeling like the hero in a Salinger book
Dodging your questions and all your ***** looks.

And when you turn the next page
I'll wish things'd stayed the same.
Between the lines about last year
And this year's opening phrase.

Every feeling I've carved
In with a pen
Dragged across paper
And threw in the trash bin.

What a waste of my time
Can I please waste yours?
I'm sitting on front steps
And knocking on back doors.

It's a perfect day for bananafish
It's a perfect day to feel alive
It's a perfect day for bananafish
It's a perfect night

And at times,
I feel like I've changed.
Learned all my lessons
And shouldered all the blame.

But I know,
It's a feeling short lived.
I'll give up the ghost
And let bitterness sink in.

And I'm sure
By the end of the night,
I'll have plans to call you
But those plans just won't feel right.

It's a thing
I know I'll regret
But you'll get married next year,
so I might as well forget.

Raise high the roofbeam, carpenters
We'll make the house come crashing down
Raise high the roofbeam, carpenters
I'm bringing it down
Justine Sep 2010
Think back to a time when the world was innocent
When the sun didn't torture
Think back to the last time your smile wasn't a lie
I bet you can't
You live in your plastic world
Where nothing can be tarnished
And a single dent in your flawless identity
Is worse then ******* the oxygen out of a child's lungs
And devouring their soul deep within your selfish throat
My identity is full of darkness
Yet it's required in your presence to find a positive light
It's exhausting to pretend, it's exhausting to see your perfect face
Because you know what I'm never going to be okay
I hate how it's okay to be happy
Because happiness is only meant to leave those who are unfortunate enough in feeling it more aware of what it is like to want to watch the life drip out of every pore that freckles their skin
How can you possibly understand?
You wont until you blow you're life away because the only time you felt pain you couldn't handle it
I guess it's just a perfect ******* day for bananafish
boom

Read more: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAllCustom&friendId;=124424912&swapped;=true&pag;;=1#ixzz0zlEWNV8S
8/28/2009.

— The End —