"bandaging" poems
Walls of silence,
Of guarded wariness.
Walls of hesitation,
Of experienced caution.
Walls of distrust,
Of practiced isolation.
Walls I put up intentionally.
Walls you tore down unknowingly.
Walls I found crumbled,
The door of my heart opened.
Walls I found breached,
And you were just sitting there.
Walls I had never lived without,
Suddenly seemingly unneeded.
Walls I was glad to let down,
Until you shanked my heart.
Walls I should have fortified
With anger and hate and experience.
Walls of "I know better."
Of "There are NO exceptions to the pattern."
Walls of protection,
Of much needed security.
Walls of insulation,
Of broken-heart bandaging.
Walls I won't let down again.
Thanks to you, I've learned my lesson.
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 9:25 PM UTC
My voice is nestled within a river
of transitions, positioned
in endless sets of pre- and post-
parentheses. Pre-revolutionary,
post-Missing Link. Post-postmodern,
pre-postmodern revival.
I sit in a somersaulting purgatory
sandwiched between evocation
and paralysis.
My hatred is exhausted, shoulders
hunched over a guillotine,
cursing with its tongue sprawled
dead and dry at an imaginary hunter,
a mass of bones clumped
under the rug I keep pulling
from my own two feet.
Will you hack through this cocoon?
Have you got the muscle
and the patience?
Nevermind that bedtime story.
There must be some wounds
of yours, those placed beyond
the verbal tanline, that need
immediate bandaging.
Can I get you anything?
Feb 4, 2012
Feb 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM UTC
My first paper cut happened so fast
I didn’t know something so thin
Could hurt so badly.
Thin was never an adjective
I’d associated with pain but
The sting of red blood that
Appeared on the surface of my skin
Would later become an addiction
I couldn’t get away from.
Thin silver razor blades
And thin white paper
Shouldn’t seem so similar.
My teacher asked me if I needed a
Band-Aid at my kindergarten conference
When a paper cut sliced my finger
While we were going through my materials
As if looking into my future.
I told her I didn’t need a Band-Aid
And in return, she told me that I was strong.
Kindergarten has come and gone
And after a very long time of thinking
Band-Aids made you weak,
I’ve realized that bandaging up your
Wounds actually makes you stronger
Than trying to bottle up the hurt.
Aug 19, 2014
Aug 19, 2014 at 11:12 PM UTC
Happy thoughts shape shifting into illusions of monsters.
Metamorphosis.
A caterpillar to a butterfly.
That's the final phase of that lonely caterpillar.
War of the mind.
I'm morphing into a hideous demon.
The face melting into a pile of mush.
Broken limbs, torn flesh,
skin oozing to the floor.
That is what WE want...
A man made metamorphosis.
Now the limbs can be reconstructed into the proper shape.
Molding, bandaging, painting.
Perfect eyebrows,
luscious lips,
rosy cheeks,
smile plastered on.
It all looks real.
No raised eyebrows even with all the head turning,.
Neck breaking.
The unimaginable has been deemed the reality.
We are not what we eat.
If we were we would be perfect.
Eating the perfect politicians in their perfectly pressed suits.
Eating the American Dream.
The marriage. The happy home with 2.5 kids ad a golden retriever named Annie.
We are broken now.
All of these falsities have morphed into something terrible.
Reality.
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 1:28 PM UTC
To hell and back again on a floating wreckage of love.
Your voice calls like sirens from a far off shore,
inviting me to care once more in a land unknown;
to a paradise where only love can live again.
My heart is swept up in your whisper.
It carries my thoughts on a prayer of silent hope.
Your soft breeze caresses and warms my frozen heart,
lovingly holding and healing my broken soul.
This new wind has taken me to your shores
Like silk wrapping me in soft acceptance
bandaging my fractured existence,
I bask in the warmth of your sun.
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 9:00 PM UTC
So much time used up
On something I thought
Would be lifelong
That was murdered by the creation.
So much time used up
Filling my voids
Bandaging my wounds
And avoiding my heart.
So much time used up
Having sleepless dreams
Eating anxiety soup
and trying to break my mind.
So much time used up
Washing my face in tears
Putting on the makeup
That masked my dead face.
So much time just,
Used up.
Then you.
So much time used up
Listening to that voice
Soothing as the breeze
Scary as the ocean.
So much time used up
Letting our souls out
Talking about anxiety meals
And holes barely stitched together.
So much time used up
Learning all about your heart holes
Stitched with gut wretches
As she made every hole.
So much time used up
Grabbing your hands
And showing you how to sew
And we sewed each other up
So much time used up
After we realized we shared
The same string to sew our hearts
and now they connect forever.
So much time used up
Listening to our heart string tunes
Play a new song
Of soul love
So much time used up
Laying head on stomach
And afternoon laughs
Sprinkled with our breaths
So much time used up
On dreams of you
Anxiety soup isn’t
Served here anymore.
So much time used up
On never having enough
Time with you,
My love.
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 12:35 AM UTC
I take my prescribed pills with an energy drink
Monster energy if your wondering
And it's always the zero-sugar version
Because the sugar will rot my teeth.
I’m constantly on the verge of healing and destroying myself
Like a seesaw that's perfectly balanced
I am fed up with breaking my hand
And then bandaging it up myself.
I am my own executioner and doctor all in one body
The healing in the midst my own self destruction
I am the silence before an explosion
The calm before the storm.
Oct 5, 2022
Oct 5, 2022 at 11:42 AM UTC
My heroes don’t wear capes or camouflage
Don’t snipe from sand dunes or hide behind mirages
Don’t shoot hoops in Nike shoes
Or praise Jesus while supporting corporate issues
My heroes hold hands on picket lines and tear gassed streets
Wear blood red wounds from aggressive police
Sigh and cry for the innocent
Try and try against impossible odds
Sing songs of freedom
Not the military type but the kind that social movements keep bringing
And they are still bleeding
And they are still singing
And they are still marching
And they are still dreaming
My heroes keep
Carrying children from the wreckage
Running into burning buildings
Bandaging wounds
Holding the hands of strangers who are in danger,
Sheltering strangers, feeding strangers,
Caring for the poor,
Singing songs of love,
Putting down their guns and refusing to ****
While they pass out water bottles on the battlefield
These are my heroes
And they are still healing
And they are still singing
And they are still loving
And they are still dreaming
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 11:02 AM UTC
Today I went to a
Red-Cross Baby-sitting course.
And we had to pair up with a
partner,
so the girl sitting next to me
turned to me to
practice
heimlich positioning.
So she stood up behind me and
put her arm across my chest and
we went through that position,
and then tried the other one,
where she put her arms around my stomach.
I could feel her breathing against my
ear, and her hair smelled
sweet and fresh and for the first time ever,
I wondered if my hair smelled like my
watermelon conditioner.
Then we switched,
and I put us through the
first position,
and I liked hugging her waist and
feeling her against me.
We sat down after that and learned about
CPR, and the instructor said we wouldn't be
practicing listening for breathing on
our partners,
and I let my mind wander to
a place where we could,
where she put her ear down
to my lips,
and her brown and blonde hair
fell over her ear and onto
my face.
I shook myself out of that
reverie,
and tried to pay attention,
but my eyes were drawn to her,
so I studied her instead.
An over-large grey sweatshirt,
with an icon of two green hockey sticks.
Blue denim shorts with
light blue lace on the ends,
black hightops,
and her socks were the same
hot pink as my own
shoelaces.
We practiced bandaging each other
up, so I wrapped
a strip of gauze around
her right forearm
and she did the same to my left.
And at the very end she rolled up her sleeves,
and I saw why she had me
wrap up her right arm.
Her left contained a
tile of faint scars,
criss-crossed like
spider-webs,
along her arm.
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 9:35 AM UTC
He said that he had hurt himself on a wall or that he had fallen.
But there was probably another reason
for the wounded and bandaged shoulder.
With a somewhat abrupt movement,
to bring down from a shelf some
photographs that he wanted to see closely,
the bandage was untied and a little blood ran.
I bandaged the shoulder again, and while bandaging it
I was somewhat slow; because it did not hurt,
and I liked to look at the blood. That
blood was a part of my love.
When he had left, I found in front of the chair,
a ****** rag, from the bandages,
a rag that looked in belonged in garbage;
which I brought up to my lips,
and which I held there for a long time --
the blood of love on my lips.
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Give me..
**Give me that good ****
You know, *that good ****
We're handed pipes instead of pills.
Told to smoke pain away something that's been breed 4 generations deep.
A poverty in the sheets.
An allergic reaction,
nuclear,
biochemical -
skin abrasions, lacerations -
3rd degree burns on our hearts.
Drink away the pain to sooth the burn.
To silence the scald.
No one even teaches you to hold yourself.
Instead they tell you to find someone else to do it for you.
Make you unable to be whole.
To be three fourths **** up.
Bandaging your own self inflicted scars in the bathroom sink.
To be metal jackets made of sorrow.
To be blacked out Saturday nights, too hung over to go to church with your family in the morning.
To be so high, you never even get low.
To be light bulbs busted, stayed bright too long.
That good **** ain't good **** when it turns you into the kind of slack jawed, numb monster your mother is ashamed of.
We are a generation self mutilated - no, no - self medicated.
Raised by television sets, they made cigarettes look ***
They made suicide look pretty,
And binge drinking look cool.
They made it normal for kids to pass around bottles of liquor at 14.
You're too young and too fast, and **you're trying to not ******* feel ****
I've been you.
I am you.
So no, it ain't no good ****
*I don't have any good ****
Cause nothing is good, if it's never been bad first.
If it's never been broke, and broken, and sick.
If it's never cried itself to sleep.
If it's never seen its own reflection in broken pieces of glass and felt akin to the shatter.
You have to feel every inch of the low to make any high worth it.
And let it be a homemade one.
Let it be love.
And lust.
And the sun, and good art, and loud music, and jukebox laughter, and your family telling you, you matter.
Don't let it be synthetic and manufactured. Don't let it be bought on street corners, let it be home grown, and natural.
Raised in the corners of your mother's smile.
Let those good moments be you.
Let those moments be life.
Let them be the warmth before the scald, let those be the moments before you fall.
And I know it hurts.
It hurts to be a volcano victim.
To be so irrevocably in love with life when it can burn you so badly.
Believe me, being numb means nothing.
And yes, I know it's hard.
Hard to be 14,
And 17.
And 21,
And 45.
I know it's hard, so ******* hard to exist every single day.
I know the bouquets of heart break, feel like chainsaws and forest fires.
I know the boys hurt your feelings.
I know your parents don't understand you.
I know your teachers don't listen to you,
I know you hate yourself
And I know you shouldn't.
Because baby,
A pipe,
Or a pill
Or a bottle
Won't ever do any good **** for you.
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 11:30 AM UTC
You can’t put bandages
on my scars
and expect it to
heal the hurt
Where were you
when I was
bleeding?
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 8:42 AM UTC
It was in the communist winter in a village of Transylvania
Besides the demented cold also rabies walked the streets
The news were like some dogs broke into pieces a raging fox
And to prevent a mass epidemic
Authorities chose the Convenient Solution:
Let's **** all the dogs of the village
Until the last one
Injecting them with Caustic Acid
I was only a poor kid I did not know what was happening
I took my puppy Bamby and lead him up the hill
For the so called vaccination
We arrived in lots of wailing cries and barks
Something was burning with much smoke in a large pit
People standing in a endless line
Dogs were terribly frightened
It was a horror landscape at the end of the world
One of the older boys claimed that no
They do not vaccinate but rather
They **** all the dogs
I thought he was messing with me
And we almost get into a fight
When I got close in front
Where dogs were injected the veterinary doctor
Was suddenly bitted by the hand
The snow was red like on The Pig Slaughters
And obviously terrified the assistant was bandaging the doctor
I understood that all the dogs were exterminated
Then throne and burned in that pit
With Bamby all went quickly he was a good dog
Barely barking he cried a bit and that’s all
Much later I found out that the odious regime
Had came to power with the same terrorist practices
Applied on people
Otherwise all went well and cool
Thanks to God we escaped from The Mean
Because me and my Bamby
We gave our childhood for a proper vaccine
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 12:26 PM UTC
I long for a means coalesce like particulates in suspension and not coagulate.
Into a monstrous scab.
I hate to make cheloid tissue of this deadly grouping.
Id **** to be whole by finding a pairing.
The obstruction to human progression,
The roadblock of progress,
We are merely all platelets in this wound.
These free thinkers are the only.
Thing. Holding in all of the blood of the truth in man's march.
The moon was the beginning the end is the sun.
To a fusion of the atom,
And the birth of our flux.
To the birth of our achievement,
When we let loose the wound.
When the inside has healed and we aren’t bandaging the fumes,
Of a gaseous existence to penetrate everyone’s lungs,
With the stillness of thinking and the spirit of calm.
Currently.
We wait in the basement.
Sitting for our,
Plan.
To strike.
We will strike the match that flames the fumes of human resistance and build a castle of knowledge, hope, science, and destroy the sinkholes for progress.
The things that deplete our resources,
And the fire in our eyes will stab into every bastilles walls.
Of evil.
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 1:51 AM UTC
Never in my inspiration,
Deflecting all imagination.
Breathing through an agitation,
With every mundane conversation.
Predicting expectation,
Leaving nothing but hesitation.
The fear is overwhelming,
But so is every situation.
A choice.
Risking ourselves for no one else,
Selfless in thought,
Letting selfishness rejoice.
Rhyme or reason,
Virtues painted in patient seasons.
In treason.
Trying to find the rhyme in reason,
Rather than being investigative,
And bandaging the lesion;
We let it flow.
Don’t let it go,
If you do,
You might know more than you know.
And we’d rather become blind,
Live in a detrimental time.
Seeing the future as our past,
And letting progress happen last.
Political,
Self-critical,
The devil is too literal.
Advocate for less,
Become muted for something more.
Because the goals inside,
The dreams we hide,
Are the demons we choose to store.
The choice,
The existence,
Is everything within us.
Its hope and aspirations,
Admiration and indication.
A vision towards change inside,
Allowing the child to play outside.
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 6:14 PM UTC
let her staunter through twigs, broken leaves and buds of cigarettes.
{Nothing will bloom from them.}
Let her know the difference between the innocence of a white dress and white flowers.
Let her realise the uselessness of a lighter with damp, soggy cigarettes.
{You never needed the latter.}
Let her feel the nervousness of a stranger bandaging a wound,
& then the shyness of the fiftieth kiss.
There is a difference.
Let her know she never needed you, but
The big but is that
she loves him
&
he loves her.
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 7:37 AM UTC
BECAUSE we love bare hills and stunted trees
And were the last to choose the settled ground,
Its boredom of the desk or of the ***** because
So many years companioned by a hound,
Our voices carry; and though slumber-bound,
Some few half wake and half renew their choice,
Give tongue, proclaim their hidden name -- "Hound Voice."
The women that I picked spoke sweet and low
And yet gave tongue. "Hound Voices' were they all.
We picked each other from afar and knew
What hour of terror comes to test the soul,
And in that terror's name obeyed the call,
And understood, what none have understood,
Those images that waken in the blood.
Some day we shall get up before the dawn
And find our ancient hounds before the door,
And wide awake know that the hunt is on;
Stumbling upon the blood-dark track once more,
Then stumbling to the **** beside the shore;
Then cleaning out and bandaging of wounds,
And chantS of victory amid the encircling hounds.
1.1k
As i climbed the shadowless mountain
her voice still ringing in my ears,
that laugh, a child's laugh, with eyes of a demon
with claws that rip and tear
the mountain was tall
its rock face steep
i slipped many times
my hands cracked and bleeding
i forced myself further up
on wards toward the sky
what is this great mountain that i climb?
i ask myself, why lust?
why do i torture myself, with her memory.
Her haunting demands,
her unquenchable taste for desire
its a fools journey
love(lust) never lasts
love (lust) will leave you broken
yet we return to love(lust)
like an old faithful dog
until i reach the top of the great mountain of love(lust)
ill keep searching
bandaging my wounds
along my path of life
Feb 19, 2010
Feb 19, 2010 at 12:02 PM UTC
yes to the mess
yes to the lessons
yes to the illusions
cracking
yes to me
yes to being
yes to releasing
past ashes
yes to living
again
yes to showing up broken
yes to rising in blue and black
yes to bandaging crimson scar-chars
yes to
healing
yes to love
in infinite resurrections
May 23, 2017
May 23, 2017 at 8:31 PM UTC
man seeking woman. man seeking what never was. man seeking a face he recognized in the crowd.
i was him. you were reaching out and i flinched. you offered, you vivisected yourself to prove devotion and bled—you didn't understand why i was bandaging and not climbing into your open heart. the crowd dispersed from the pews and i learned to love in bloodletting. we were bleeding for three years, taking our turns to patch and open wounds.
anemic on idolatry, we bled on the altar we built. sacrificial lambs unto ourselves—at some point the ritual is more important than the outcome. you always tell me you're dying for my sins but i always seem to end up on the cross.
man seeking the belief. man seeking the almost. man seeking the stability of a wound that never heals. man seeking what could've been, man seeking to reach out and grab hold and find warmth in skin instead of sacrifice.
May 12, 2021
May 12, 2021 at 1:08 AM UTC
Walking ahead of me you open the white picket gate, the paint peeling from the weather worn wood, and gesture that I enter the garden.
Along the walls that enclose the gallery of natural perfumes holds roses.
Thousands of them, in vibrance unimaginable.
How do I explain to you the affliction that I carry in which these roses fall from my mouth after they have grown within me
Their buds fill my stomach, a soft tickle as they grow
And as they turn and tumble in their acid bath they wither and eventually their thorns will claw their way up, gasping for air as I gasp for freedom
Scars are left along my throat and blood trickles down, feeding the seeds that were planted years ago.
When they fill up my mouth I am unable to speak and I bite into the withered petals my body has produced
By some degree of magic
Some degree of optimism,
Of hope, of art, of love
I chew and I speak words of kindness and as they spin across my tongue they are revived
I produce a flower in full bloom and it falls into your hand
This is my affliction
From my heart comes flowers that have died and are reborn through my imagination
Your response to this secret I have been hiding is a question
How can I rid myself of this poison?
How can I stop the development of these flowers in the first place, so that I don’t have to taste the bitterness
So that I don’t have to work tirelessly to produce something beautiful from a place of such despair
My response to your question will not spin around my tongue or soak in harshness but will come directly from my heart, bandaging the wounds across the path that the barbs too take.
Before you came the roses came up and came out dead.
Weak, withered, and brown.
And so I have reason to believe that if you take my hand and continue to lead me into this garden, soon the seeds that were planted years ago
Will bloom directly through my heart and I will not
taste the bitterness in my mouth, but will exude the
perfume of the dozens in my heart
Naturally
Aug 1, 2018
Aug 1, 2018 at 12:32 PM UTC
oh, it could be such a lovely distraction.
cavalier bandaging binding unclean wounds
pain? your tragic torment, worsening beneath
faux perfection. the sternest ivy inclines
tangling, reaching for golden lifelines.
a strange comfortable fog mist muffling
echoes drowning pathways. you were always
a fog, a deep hungry cloud
i didn't realize
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 9:33 PM UTC
I have burned all of your letters,
and I am bandaging my wounds.
I do not want to see you anymore.
You now mean nothing to me,
just as I have meant nothing to you.
Your name no longer fills my mouth with sweet tasting wine,
only blood falls from my tongue at its utterance.
I do not want to see you anymore.
I am repairing what remains of my sorry heart,
and I am casting you out.
I have burned all of your letters,
just as you have burned me.
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 4:37 AM UTC
1. I came to you carrying baggage someone of my stature shouldn't be even touching; I thought here I'd get to used to my burdens and forget that the yoke on my shoulders was causing my ribs to close so tight around my heart that I'd find myself gasping for air sometimes, but I was wrong.
2. Here, I found my resting place. Here I learned to lay my head down on fields of green next to still streams and sing the song of revival with my feet wrapped in peace.
3. I thought I knew how to show love by injecting smiles into my system and lightly bandaging the broken, but it turns out that sincerity is a necessity, and what's in always comes out; and I had to learn to cut some roots, break the topsoil and allow the planting to begin. I hope you see seedlings from where you are.
4. Humble myself, humble myself, less of me, less of me. I thought that humility was pouring lies into a cup, toasting to their victory and my defeat, tasting the words on my tongue before allowing them to settle in my stomach where the poison would spread, paralyzing everything I can and could have become.
5. I've seen the way you love. You love with your eyes, with your smile, with the way you tap my shoulder, with the way you speak; your words are an overflow from a well of life, and I want to have that too, but I know the digging must take place. The digging is taking place.
6. I'm under construction undergoing renovation, but it's okay because I came here gagging on my poison, but I'm leaving with the antidote.
7. You never would have guessed by the way I took control that under that calm smile spelling "I got this", I was terrified of letting you down. I decided I wouldn't, so I tried to force flow water into my dry branches even though I knew it was time to cut them off.
8. I could smell change coming before the season began, so I braced myself and tried to direct the sun's rays elsewhere. By the time they hit, I realized that I can't choose where the sun will rise and set, or which sky the eagles will command or how bright the stars will glow. I am the tree, not the tree planter.
9. The sawing is painful, but the fruit I bear will last me a lifetime. So I watch my branches burn with hope, knowing that the seeds I drop will grow. You thought the heat would make me shrivel, but they only pushed my roots deeper into the ground.
10. Another door opened, another door closed. I hope we one day open the same one.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 11:43 AM UTC
stumbling bowlegged through the last subway car,
loose-fit black rags bandaging frail limbs,
face twisted in a permanent scowl,
matted grey hair jutting from a flaky scalp,
she jangles her paper cup of coins
each flail of the arm a sharp crescendo;
I flinch.
She extends her hand with a gaze that says: pity me;
I cannot look. I don’t want anything to stir in me,
my own pain is already too heavy,
but --
here they are: spoiled thoughts wafting over me like the waves
of her robust stench: warmth
between my thighs,
tattoos
bounding up thick muscular arms that aim at me in such earnest that my disillusionment melts away, and I am paralyzed
by the lure of pheromones and the smell of skin
which doesn’t quite leave you after you leave him.
And then truth clangs hard in my chest:
but her bones are made of steel!
So who am I to look away?
Maybe if something were to crash into me,
I’d pulverize
into
dust.
Jun 16, 2019
Jun 16, 2019 at 3:08 PM UTC