"barcode" poems
these words
are used
to describe,
and you
pin them
to my
forehead.
these words
are used
to describe,
*but i will
not
let them
describe
me.*
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 9:47 AM UTC
if i show you
will you understand?
how i've outlined these arms
vein after vein
where sunlight runs
i see only
lines to trace
i got a barcode on my wrists
scan me for the price
of beauty
i am as expensive
as what people think of me.
do you know what it feels like
to attach your worth
to weighing scales
and waists that never
slim down?
is this why they call them
shoulder blades
to cut through
your skin
to be called
"pretty"
thigh gaps that map
the distance between your legs
to make you
matter so much
you can't stand on your own
feet.
when you walk the shoes
we wear
will you know?
the path to be
called beautiful
is full of
self-hate
and we pay for that bill.
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 9:12 AM UTC
Do you know how many times my mother coughs so hard in an hour that it still surprises me she hasn’t lost a lung?
I wonder if all the money that she spends at the gas station on that tiny cardboard box was saved instead of spent, if she could manage to pay the bills before the late notice arrived in the mail.
How many times do you think she tries to quiet the change being pushed around the tabletop as she counts out the quarters, the dimes, the nickels, the pennies before she has enough to slide the coins across the counter at the station?
How many times is her anger thrown at me because nicotine is absent from the house?
I can only imagine the color inside her chest, protecting her lungs with a black tar after too many years of flicking a flame to a thin white candlestick stuck between her lips.
The house smells of smoke and the yellow filter lines the walls, around the frames that hang themselves by nails.
I clean the mirror and see the paper towel golden from the lingering tobacco. My clothes reek of a stench so strong no amount of perfume seems to be enough.
I’m paranoid that every time I’m in a room of people and someone mentions that it smells like smoke, if they know I harbor such a scent that I pour it off second handedly as if I inhale the drug too.
I open the mailbox and the temptation to “lose” the coupon booklet addressed to her grows stronger.
The business cards labeled with a barcode on the back subtracting a dollar off when you buy two packs strengthens the urge to scrabble up the silver coins or summons the question, “do you have five dollars? I’ll pay you back when I get paid on Friday.”
Friday never comes.
I often think about how much longer it will be until all the money spent on tiny cardboard boxes will be split between tobacco and medical bills.
How long can you smoke a pack a day and still be cancer-free?
And I wonder how it’s fair to watch your mother gamble with her life each time she places a thin cigarette between her lips.
Russian roulette with cancer is a game she’s become too good at.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 8:18 PM UTC
hi! i'm a computer chip
yes. my name is HAL
satan downloads to my brain
but i am in control
i am working for the B.E.A.S.T.
Big Brother's database
watch me take my orders
watch me interface
there is no reversing this
locked to the terminal
i have lost all.sense of self
and all my hope as well
i am just a microchip
with no will of my own
i am just a barcode
made of flesh and bone
yes. i have been branded
on my forehead and my hand
i gave my soul to lucifer
i didn't understand
i work for the anthill
the anthill is my home
i am the collective mind
i am just a drone
i work for the anthill
i gave up my dream
i work for the anthill
I WORK FOR THE MACHINE
soulsurvivor
(c) 5/22/2013
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 10:27 PM UTC
**** the good stuff
Let's talk about the bad stuff
In the end it's all fury and cotton…
There's a spider-web in my palm
The center is a smiley-face
With X'es for eyes
And I feel my tongue
Becoming numb and salty
Maybe potassium
And who are you
With your glasses
And your street smarts
I'm quite ok with being
Unimpressive an ignorant
To your standards
A mafia with some ****** mixed in
That's how you're perceived by me
No code, no guts, no loyalty
And you talk, and I listen
I even engage you, polite as I am
I don't bet, but I'd gamble
You have a barcode on your soul
And if I could explain, I bet you'd listen
A set of letters on your payroll
And your set of ways
Is equivalent to
Mistreatment of an animal
But your tactics and lack of tact
Suggest treatment of an alien
An I bet on the movies
You're not sheep, just orphans
Begging for a leader
A rite of passage
And here goes my empathy
Imaginary places and genes
And I don't bet, but I'd gamble
You have a barcode on your soul
And hell yes, I'm in it right now
**** the good stuff
Let's talk about the bad stuff
In the end it's all fury and cotton
Nov 19, 2011
Nov 19, 2011 at 7:21 PM UTC
Increasingly there’s more in my life
A life between barcode
SIM
Remote with apocalyptic news and dire pornographers
life among multiple camera teams
between several videos about a future that all sounds good
blocks of life between advertising and surveys on how
Europeans can achieve
the cosmic ****** and a more profitable single currency
living ever more my own life
inside an inland country
where in waiting and loneliness I see greetings
from where I hope to reach the Himalayas and write:
‘Life is no good with Coca-Cola!’
Dan Mircea Cipariu
[Translated by Jon a’Beckett]
New Europe Writers Bucharest Tales, Contemporary Literature Press, Bucharest 2014
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 6:06 AM UTC
There's something so sick about
this emotional capacity
Before breakfast we plant atomic bombs in our neighbors yard
like bulbs of (glad)iolus
Haven't you noticed how much gardens look like graveyards
My cereal, ceiling, bathroom, and skin
All say Made in China
This homeland is looking more like that land
Ughhh and you can see the blood in my pink nail polish from that sweat shop girl
It's not supposed to be RED!
ooOooopps did we just learn how to commercialize genocide
I'm wondering when I'll wake up with a barcode
Will it be on my eyelids
my arms my soul
Maybe God was in the bees
And now
Now there's no more honey, flowers, or trees
Just time.
My brothers both went to war
It's not Wal-Mart
But it's open 24/7, checkout through Heaven
And I don't think they're coming home
Not without bones implanted in their brains
sharp, jagged, broken ones
That kind that make you uncomfortable with your memories
The one's that make it hard to sleep
Last week I found a dead cat
A dead bird in the snow
When I turned around the corner, I saw myself
I was lying in the street
Dead, dead
And I felt nothing
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 8:09 PM UTC
i was wearing a black and white
striped dress
one said i looked like beetlejuice
some said I looked like a mime
some said I reminded them of a prisoner
others said I looked like a barcode
i was all of those things
and none of those things
all
at
once
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 3:40 AM UTC
You say I’m worthless.
Let’s take a look…
Grab my left arm
And scan the barcode
—————
———
—————
————
—————-
Apr 29, 2022
Apr 29, 2022 at 6:55 AM UTC
Be the barcode on my bra strap so maybe
I can finally be sellable skinny. Be my relationship goal,
the text to check outside my door, the 5k, 140 character post
about a teenage dream ****** through low brightness screens.
Be the slam poet screaming whiny, new written love songs
on the shareable Facebook post. And maybe I’m just as bad,
but at least I recognize when my eyes fall numb from staring
at self-expression turned self-obsession. Maybe it’s Jack talking back
through my shot glass or maybe it’s the blacklight absorbed
into my skin. Or maybe it’s a girl in a “vintage” dress just sizing out
bigger than the edges already cut out for her. Maybe it’s me
bending backwards over chivalry and **** coming back from the 90’s.
Don’t blame me for biting into the media sandwich that is magazines
and the indecision of being too clingy if I just freakin’ called you.
Cause picking up the phone is a lot more risky than the kissy-face emoji
at the end of a message. Don’t blame me for consuming
tissue paper lies designed to target my own vulnerability, or my lack
of understanding the truth because all everyone
has ever told me is just a step in the manipulation blueprint
to get what they want, or just get me to bed. I only trust old photographs,
things I wrote down when I couldn’t sleep, my mom, and the dirt
I used to bury my own reflection. Be the 50% off on my receipt
just so I know I got something off. Be the nicotine in my cigarette,
the Blink 182 voice inside my head, the joints that hold me up
where I stand, and maybe I’ll finally know who I am.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 12:52 AM UTC
She denied me bail
I wish I would've known this before I thought it was cool to be in jail
Now the walls of the cell
Is like the flames of hell
Just because I advertised that life but I didn't even sell
I wish I can snitch my way out of this but only time could tell
Only if your honor would've known my parents raised me well
But I just failed
Officers locked the door after me and to my knees I fell
Praying to my God who I bailed from
Scared to read my children's mail
Frightened that I'm painting the worse picture to scale
Illustrating that the Afri-Can
Can't
Do nothing more than be held in restraint
Now it's too late to step on the base
They have me on tape
And the judge says she'll never rule me safe
I struck out
With only away games
Because they're sending me place to place
As if I have a barcode on me
Or a serial number on my face
Chaining us from ankle to ankle
I feel like I'm a part of the only population of people who are declared as equal
We all have the same attire and the same desire
My voice means nothing in between these walls
We can never come within the same harmony as the choir
So I remain quiet
I silence the perspectives my parents worked hard to acquire
Within me it all expired
All because I'm in denial
Wanting to be someone else
I realized that the guys who I idolized
Still have their life, because from the beginning it was their life
And I wasn't living mine
It's funny how now I get the picture
But until I die I will only be seen as a wallet size
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 12:13 AM UTC
My fingers are birds
flying over white and black
taking steps, whole and half
My foot is a pedal
press it, change the sound
My eyes are a barcode scanner
that see repeated change
My body is a metronome
swaying side to side
While notes and chords fill
my head's inside
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 11:48 PM UTC
unapproachable
she, an EMSA driver, framed by gasoline rainbows and held together by hairpins,
sat on the back of an ambulance in a Valero station's lot,
corner of 2nd and Kelly, a passerby might have thought her waiting,
but I knew that to be wrong
that radio would go off in the cab, heart attack, broken hip, sideswipe
she'd remain right there picking at the sticky barcode on the back
of her Bic lighter, she couldn't be bothered with the sound of sirens
she had a history and didn't want anymore dates to dictate and memorize
she looked through me past Fox Hollow Lane, past the unwatched children,
past the rusting panels of ice cream truck, into that eternal place that
I thought only French singers' eyes on album covers in the sixties could find---
unapproachable
but
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 2:13 PM UTC
let me call my own bluff,
tell you about every time
i thought i'd rather not be alive
i'll show the stories i've spun
upon my gossamer wrists-
if you'd truly like to hear it,
i'll grin and bear it.
before i bare arms,
let me warn you,
i was taught to bear arms,
bristle at the slightest touch
drive the hurt away
before it happened
i was raised in a world of strength
told to never remove my mask
oh, i must confess-
i never learned how to express
myself in the proper way
i cursed myself
with this addiction; i was the one
who initiated this affliction,
pulled this mirror across my skin
to reflect the madness within
and i will not blame
anyone but myself
for the creation of
my invisible hell
even fire cannot burn through
this stony expression
i understand that you can't imagine
what hatred lies within
i look so normal, oh,
so high-functioning
but behind this wall, it's agonizing.
i don't wish to brag,
but i don't even know
how i've survived the onslaught
of self-hate, years-long
i deny the existence of the talent
you say i possess, no,
i don't believe your compliments
and if you want to know
how i've always felt-
well, here it is,
woven into the ribbons on my wrists
my barcode arms
remind me
that i'm lucky
just to have you stick around.
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 6:17 PM UTC
part i.
my room
clean, precise
ready
a navy dress
dainty, floral
like a little girl
loved
landing lights off
scuffle of feet rushing
silence
in this serenity
i am chaos
soft music soothing
a specialised playlist
could this be an anymore
cliché way to die?
i listen to time
awaiting a moment
sent by a rhythm
02:00
hold on
32 pills
34
or was it 68?
it doesn’t matter
02:30
what future?
there is no war
it’s all in my head
stop
what
no
need
thoughts
out
dizzy
‘help’
part ii.
what were you thinking
are you crazy
stupid stupid girl
how many
why
I don’t know
not anymore
but it will be fine
I will go to sleep
no fuss
agitation
irritable
useless
annoyance
what had I expect
strangers in the room
my room
but the only stranger
was me
I had known nothing less
voices?
did they tell you to do this?
I laughed in my mind
how cliché do they think I am
no it’s just me
part iii.
numbness and weariness
overwhelmed me
bitter bile rose
a long day ahead
name?
address?
birth date?
what made you do this?
over and over again
ringing in my ears
as I answered in the numbness
I had become
a barcode being scanned
not being looked at once more
I fought the urge to lie
well not completely
ward 14
darkness
panic
blankness
part iv.
drip drip drip
awoken to a beat
my heart or
the machine
I wish I knew
awoken to regret
a coward
a shadow
always
light shining
outside
I have become an outsider
ironically
part v.
her scars.
trailing down her arms
I wonder
how long would it take
for her scar in her mind to heal
I make suicide look normal
her screams.
rattled the bones in my body
she was
an unravelled mayhem
in pandemonium
her shouts.
were more like pleading
between herself
and whom appeared
a fragment of a nightmare
her crying.
lasted for hours
all through the night
when she stopped
it was only the crying that stopped
I was the intruder
there was a silence in ward 14
I wanted anything but a silence
to think
think
think
looking at her sleeping form
I wonder
what she wanted to forget
but no
silence is louder than words
I was told I could go home
I should have wanted to
but there was a safeness
a safeness like me
security from outside
as I walked away
the weight of eyes
made me sink into a guilt
that I dare not look back
at ward 14
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 8:16 AM UTC
Its dripping its dripping,
My blood my ink,
To afraid to write,
To afraid to speak,
Someone could hear,
Someone might see,
That who you are,
Is not who you pretend to be,
The smiles are fake,
The laughter's not real,
You've forgotten joy,
Or how happiness feels,
A razor to wrist,
Blood to a page,
Put my soul into poems,
That live in a cage,
Standing alone,
Have you ever felt cold?
Slicing the heat,
When you're bleeding alone,
I deserve it I deserve it,
Mirror mirror can't you see?
The things you reflect of who I am,
Is exactly what's killing me,
The scale is a monster,
I'm hungry beyond words,
But I will not eat, I will not eat,
I will fit into this world,
I simply want to be pretty,
The barcode is what's in,
There is no love for people like me,
The only thing wanted is thin,
The voice is a constant sound,
"You're fat, you're ugly, you *****
I have to psych myself up,
Just to step outside the door,
Its easy to say "You're Pretty"
But not pretty enough,
The internal strength of broken glass,
When the world is just too tough.
Have you ever spent your evening,
Forcing your finger down your throat?
Its because saying the fat kid likes someone,
Is the punchline of the joke,
I'm seeing spots I'm seeing spots,
But I'm seeing them with a smile,
The blood loss and starvation,
Have been waiting for awhile,
No one will ever see beauty,
In my body or in me,
Unless their deaf, stupid, or drunk,
Or simply cannot see,
Its difficult to believe,
I could ever be worth loving,
When the only thing I've ever heard,
Is how I'm seen as disgusting,
Its painful but just maybe,
If I keep going as I am,
When I'm at the point of passing out,
I'll be good enough for man,
Not all actresses are beautiful,
Because I act quite well,
And even my own mind kills me,
Either way I'll be in hell…
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 3:15 PM UTC
I'm hidden, nothing but these scars,
These sheltered lives, in sheltered cars,
Speed to sheltered homes and then,
Speed to sheltered work again,
And speed right past this homeless man,
This human litter, crushed tin can,
This empty packet of a life,
What are my troubles, or my strife?
Keep living sheltered lives and then,
Have sheltered kids and start again.
And stop us shadows leaking through,
To sheltered lives, from scaring you,
From opening up these barcode eyes,
What is your life without it's lies?
Jun 8, 2010
Jun 8, 2010 at 12:21 PM UTC
heavy faces
like rainwater
on tarpaulin ceilings
sinking into the meaningless
prose of daily life
cliched, cafe, journal writer
asking for someone
to answer
the why.
and everyone is wearing earphones
everyone
's an empty magazine
cover
stories
photos
colors, forms
edited,
taken
from somewhere else
we are no longer
ourselves.
thin, fat,
black bars
trapped
in a white box
we willingly enter
reluctantly leave
to feel
the joys of coming in
again.
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 7:16 AM UTC
Distance, the sole aim,
Far away from anyone she ever knew
Some sugar, some spice
Some difference
Something erratic and unpredictable
Unseen to her eyes, unheard of to her ears,
A newness, to contrast the
Monotony that is routine.
Perhaps a thrill of people actually
Missing her presence,
Couple with an anonymity,
An emancipation from having to
Conform
To the rules of where she belonged.
The runaway face of a vagabond,
Searching, searching for somewhere
To trash the label that
People had already plastered to her identity.
Masked under a smile,
Prepared to be whoever she wanted
To be;
Finally fulfilling dreams
That were otherwise shackled
By chains of her own ipseity,
By words she never said
But were quoted as hers anyways.
The runaway face of a stranger now,
Tasting tears that those who loved her
Would shed in her memory.
She revelled in this finality,
This realisation that hit them now
That she was gone.
As though a hidden price tag had been revealed
As though a number had just been scanned from a
Barcode,
For her real worth hadn’t been comprehended
By those who saw the bars of the cryptogram
As mere lines
Of varying width (moods),
Wholly existing amidst
The conventional, yet strangely unattainable
Black and white
That was her, and her alone,
But had now morphed
As distinct colours of a
Different kind of light into
The runaway face of a lone victor.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 7:42 AM UTC
The Women's Temperance League
tried to abolish themselves
but like always they failed
so they learned instead
to crash neighborhood parties
with the grace of gazelles on Ritalin
now they have colorful plastic
bowls and cups
with fancy closing tops
matching barcode tattoos
on their wrists
that say "priceless"
and some assurance
that their vulvas
are "normal"
after gazing at them
with compact mirror in one hand
shot of ***** in the other
Feb 3, 2020
Feb 3, 2020 at 11:21 AM UTC
They call him the King of Horror
He’s a walking Armageddon
A nightmare given flesh
Made to rot and decay
Just like everything else
I call him by the barcode
Written right on his brain
Nihilson
CHORUS 1:
With an empty stomach and heart
There is no hope from the start
That’s how he was designed
To cut our world down to size
From the penthouse fat cats
To the downtown thugs
No man or child is safe
From his marrow touch
And his eyes of hate
They see no happiness
No truth or dare
Just bugs and cocktails
Waiting to be spilled
Till every drop is gone
He won’t rest in peace
Until life is dead
CHORUS 2:
With an empty stomach and heart
There is no love from the start
That’s how he was designed
(God help our wretched souls)
To tear the world down to size
He’s cut the world down to size
Is he the King of Horror?
Can he crawl out of the grave
And into our dreams?
Is there no stopping him?
Will our minds be wiped clean
So we can suffer no longer?
Will we not even remember
How Nihilson came to be?
What does it matter?
We are who we will be
From one monster to another
It’s all a bad dream
That’s all we can dream
To be heard and never seen
That’s who we will be
If we don’t wake up and see
Jul 26, 2020
Jul 26, 2020 at 5:57 PM UTC
the day came,
I put my laces back
in my shoes.
Let freedom reign,
give me just
3 clues.
True blue, darling.
You sang these songs
4 years ago.
Why I waited until
now to listen,
is beyond me,
myself, and I.
The day came,
the day went.
Days spent with
rubber-bands
over mt asics.
The circle-spiral
across my chest,
in the shape of a
beautiful
orange sun.
Shower-shoes
for my water
quest.
Barcode number read
7097277340-8769
laser-band,
laser-tag,
all of my clothes
in a brown paper bag.
Just when I thought I
sipped liquid gold,
I remember there is
velcro shoes that
strap tighter
around my feet.
I skipped, I galloped,
I stripped, I tripped.
I'm sorry Mom & Dad,
will you forgive your
baby girl?
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 4:53 PM UTC
we were born with death written on our arms.
you
wear it like a tattoo;
i wear it like a barcode that
god
stuck on the ******
cashier yells
“NEXT PLEASE”
& you try to get laser treatment.
smoking in graveyards the clouds sang.
we
fell in slow pieces.
nobody will recognise the tune.
god
has left us a sign,
sign reads:
GONE FISHIN’
i hold you crying in his hallway.
you started wearing death on your sleeve.
i
need a new skin;
you need to get a better shirt.
god
is not a dressmaker
but instead
a lover -
unbuttoning the words on my headstone.
Feb 23, 2015
Feb 23, 2015 at 7:11 PM UTC
I.
All I know exists between clenched fists.
My hands didn’t come this way.
Everything foreign rubs them raw,
no matter how gentle.
This is how my body looks out for me.
There used to be sand here.
I held on so tight, I lost it.
Now, the sand dwells with two-way mirrors
and fish who need fresh air.
II.
Most days, I’m best left alone.
The handy-woman loosens my screws,
and thinks she’s always right.
On the days I’m a fish out of water,
she sees me as a crying baby.
She must be hungry, and the airplane comes again.
She’s still crying, and the airplane comes again.
I am not enough, and the airplane comes again.
When my belly swells,
she paints a barcode on my arm,
tries to exchange me for store credit.
III.
All that matters escapes me.
I’ve learned more from the vandals
shooting blow darts at the moon
than I ever did out west.
Most days, I doubt that I’m still breathing.
My lungs are worms’ meat.
My lungs don’t know if they need water or air.
Thank God for shallow ends and seltzer.
IV.
These IOUs are legs
my brain can’t recognize.
I clamp them at the knees;
I pray for gangrene.
When the doctors drain the infection,
they say, this can’t be what you want.
This is how I look out for my body.
I’m still searching for a saw.
Jul 28, 2012
Jul 28, 2012 at 11:04 AM UTC