"blacking" poems
Lou,
You're an orphan now.
The deciding vote
In your favor,
The good kisses,
The latent reconciliation
Linger in this thick room.
You won't need to clean chimneys,
Work in a blacking factory,
Get your ears pinched, and your **** kicked.
You've laid out a fine plaster effigy
In this cherry box;
Yet Enzo's nature is hidden:
His personal tears
And public laughter
Aren't in this demeanor
With rosary weaved into the basket of his hands.
We've polished our shoes,
So we stand and discuss
The crucifix wedged
To hold up the lid,
And how we follow our fathers' footsteps.
We knew it to end this way
With our fathers' generation.
*But you must know your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his...*
I too am orphaned, Lou,
And we'll continue on
As orphans do.
Jun 23, 2015
Jun 23, 2015 at 10:04 AM UTC
in june I felt the project change
from trying charting all scenarios of your face
to looking to books to blacking out spontaneous lines in found papers
to clearly eventually
be a misneglected omen of your impending collapse.
"I would like to blame this on the weather,"
I said to the sky,
"I would like to stay."
I felt the camera flash stop taking
strobe light moments of our strobe light moments
instead slipped tape recorder in your cereal box
videotaped the tooth brush
ever scraping dead skin while you slept.
I said, "If you wake up I will know nothing."
if you call this a dream, I will shake
and shake.
I said "it is clear now that you are decomposing."
(there's only so much the heart can take.)
stopped thoughts about the bus would hit you
spent time watching the sun through your palm:
little bones will scatter light.
little scars on thumbs.
we are made up only of who puts us back together.
and I could smell the rain.
I said, "It is easier if you stay angry"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."
I put the Starbucks mug on the radiator
ceased to chart your worried looks.
I knew your brow, heavy clouds as you'd undress
but made a scrapbook of frozen dinner clippings
drew a line through where you went that day.
I said, "I want to prove that you meant nothing"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."
I said to the sky.
and then the rain.
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 4:44 PM UTC
Inside-outside, upside-down. Constant motion, spinning round.
Conscious split, two sides torn. Personalities are born.
Balanced, stabled, falling down. Spilling over onto the ground.
Thoughts amuck, frayed and tattered. Sanity beaten, bruised, and battered.
Sailing, drowning, waters of my mind. Washed upon its shores I might find.
Forgetting rhythm, losing time. Blacking out, right here is fine.
I'll end this now, my own terms. I'll perplex them, their thoughts will burn.
Gathering together my person, my flock. I'll lay it's all down on the chopping block.
Panting, sweating, head in hand. It's okay... Im normal again.
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 4:16 PM UTC
Words shouting, singing, smiling, frowning--
Sense lacking.
Ah, nothing, more obscure than Browning,
Save blacking.
3.2k
Sitting in a restaurant in cottage country.
with my parents, my friend,my sister and her two friends.
I'm eating these miniature boneless chicken wings
I feel a pain in my chest,
I take a sip of my ice tea through a straw
And sit there holding my chest and closing my eyes
--
In my head is a jack hammer just pounding
My whole body feels pinned down
but also moving like the jack hammer
--
Laying on the ground I see my father leaning over top of me
I am on my back
He is pinning me down
My vision blacking out and head still pounding
"Call 911, she's having a seizure"
The only thing I can manage to say is "no"
"no. No! no! NO! No? NO... no no nonono...."
And the only thing I could think of was 'I don'y want to be a seizure person'
Epileptic is what i meant to say, but the word didn't come to me.
Tears are rushing down my face, terrified.
I can only hope this is a one time thing.
As I am helped up by my mom and escorted to the bathroom
I see all these faces looking at me
Faces of sympathy
That is the worst feeling ever.
Being stared as you are leaving the room after a seizure
Feb 23, 2014
Feb 23, 2014 at 6:18 PM UTC
Justin I forgive you, won’t you call me, your birthday must be coming soon we haven’t spoken since we moved our family into the desert. I just pray you’re not seeking cotton fever yet again, chasing the dragon, or at the very least eating school buses while falling into ‘H’ before you find yourself in bed drunk again, and on Ambien too. Dead too soon. You’ve always wondered why I didn’t introduce you to Ryan, my other incredibly dear and brotherly friend. Well wonder none more, he’s in a padded room at Mt. Sinai in Lakeview or perhaps Northwestern’s adult care unit, there was talk or at least I imagined he could make it to Lakeside Manor right there East of Foster. So it’s clemency, peace of mind, and something to loosen the edge off your back, something to let you fall, something to set your pain at weightless your mind at I-Don’t-Have-To-Give-A-Fuck-Anymore, my friend where have you been? Where have you taken yourself? Please drag yourself back at least a half-step, reverse your position and engineer an out please. I can’t begin to accept losing both of my brothers to two versions of the same disease.
Oct 20, 2019
Oct 20, 2019 at 1:10 AM UTC
I wish I was your little
whiskey girl and you
were pouring yourself
into my bottle to come
drink me up.
But you drained me
dryer than the Savannah.
Now men build boats
inside me, and I haven't
a corkscrew to get out.
I wish I was your little
*** doll and you were
dizzy over me, slurring
I love you's and burning
with me in your throat.
But you don't drink
expensive liquor anymore
not since you spent your money
on losing lottery tickets
and vinyl.
I'm top shelf
but that is only because
you put me there
to forget about me.
And now you drown
yourself in wells,
blacking out
the parts of you
that loved me.
May 1, 2012
May 1, 2012 at 7:21 PM UTC
Well since you gave me the idea,
I'll just to my alley of worship
to sing hymns of ecstasy and ****
to glorify the power of my all mighty drug dealer,
with the rest of my burnt out, strung out congregation.
A few beers doesn't make you an alcoholic
it means you were thirsty.
Before you read the rlab report.
Do you mind if I make a drink?
I wasn't going to show,
but our blood has bound us to the familial microscope.
Blacking out the bull **** with the facts that proove you wrong dancing on the tip of tougne.
Your wasting my time.
I'll be the gentleman and I'll hold the door open for you.
Now walk right out of my life.
Mar 14, 2012
Mar 14, 2012 at 6:20 PM UTC
This strange egg you've incubated
has sprouted skinny chicken legs.
It follows you around clucking at
every throaty word you nasty-utter.
Pointing and pecking at your guilt
borne by some years ago sin which
all others hatch from and you keep feeding,
Remorseful grains of misdeed shell grit
to harden its anxious green shell.
With no law outside itself the taint faint
heartbeat of your reproof I hear beating
like fear's unglued false eyelashes
You soft swaddle it with empty gestures.
It gestates in every grimace of piety.
I watch it govern your vocation of drab
and undramatic mastery of feathered illusion.
I want to tear shreds in your black satin cape,
To avalanche your fears into frosty exile.
Burn them screaming in the blinding white of
anemic unconscious,
the blacking out.
Hang a trophy **** of your winged demon
taxidermied with glass eyes above my bed.
My compass needle has lost your polarity
there's just a crude representation of pain
I will plant this seed you gave me, in Lethe;
The River of Forgetfulness on its grey shore.
A watery landscape without vanishing point.
Where a white heron will weep tears of sorrow,
like a human to feed hope's tender shoots.
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 4:31 AM UTC
A student of mine sat on the steps
Clenched, clammy, and bulging with strained strength
Periodically overcome by shadows of pathology
This night he begged for help through gaps of cyclical consciousness
A funeral trail for clarity ambled solemnly to the gymnasium
He was surrounded, and they plotted, and advanced, and he was engulfed
They were upon him like a ****** seeking seed or vulture carrion
He seized on an arched back and suffered under octodemons
On that hard wood floor under dead bulbs that swung like momentous pendulums
My student transformed into a tiger leaking rage from rusty cage
Explained in eloquent detail and prophetic tone his will to ****
Blacking out to full extent
He was amygdala, he was instinct
Battling grown poachers until they stole his fearsome fangs
Clipped his claws, and painted over his stripes with calm
When contained, vicious umbra cat turned tranquil
We sat circular and played lobster ball pass with our toes
And talked about buses to New York
His mother taught him to be a songbird
While the streets moved his feet
Goodnight Archery, we hugged
I wonder how he's
Breathing
Sep 12, 2011
Sep 12, 2011 at 8:24 PM UTC
anxiety: my heart wakes me up, tattooing irregular beats against
my ribs, pulse racing, breath shaking. i cannot tell
if this is real or psychosomatic. these days,
i think about death all the time,
no longer by suicide. now, i am
an accident waiting to happen,
fragile from years of misuse &
neglect. the shallow inhales
of my lungs tell me
i am not okay.
depression: this is a gray day. i swallow my meds even though
they take away my mania. so i drink black coffee until my mind
races itself in circles, chasing its tail like a rabid dog.
i keep the razors hidden in my sock drawer,
just in case.
anorexia: my ribs ****** forward from my skin again, the sharp
protrusion of my bones beginning to show through. i am eating
but drinking my weight in water
& mainlining caffeine to keep my metabolism high & my weight
low. i am still child-sized & i don't want to grow.
they lift me easily with their arms & marvel
at my featherweight body.
the compliments i get only make me
eat less.
self-harm: on the days when i am low, i trace
the silver stretch of scars scattered over my skin
with a yearning for a blade between my fingers
just one last time. i swear to you, the bleeding is over,
but i need to know
i am still brave
enough
to hold a sharp edge against my flesh
& press down,
hard.
addiction: a month ago,
i downed four adderall in one sitting,
luxuriating in the heady rush & lack of pain,
the quiet & the calm.
when i lived at home, i stole
my mother's vicodin & took the whole bottle.
i'm not sorry.
when the boy who only cared about ******* me
offered mdma for free,
i accepted, but i shouldn't have trusted him
to keep me safe,
blacking out on his kitchen
floor.
drink red wine to forget
my insecurity, inhale
thick, sweet smoke to feel
some semblance of happy,
drag on cigarettes
down to their filters
until i feel properly
alive.
all i want is to be better, but
where to begin?
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 9:59 AM UTC
Once I was at a house party in the highlands, I got very drunk.
We were skateboarding on the large tennis court up on the top of the extravagant property which did not belong to any of us.
I was trying to do a trick and the board flew out from under me and rolled out of control into the center net. I didn't know it, but I broke both bones below my wrist clean across.
When I fell, I was initially disoriented.
I remember everybody letting out a big gasp or "Oooh, ouch."
I staggered to my feet and tried to assess the situation.
I started to feel dizzy and fell back over.
I think two people helped me back up and got me sat down in a chair.
I remember the feeling that I was blacking out and couldn't breathe.
"I think I am going into shock." I said to everybody around me.
"I think I might need some medical attention." I said immediately after.
Nobody really paid attention.
"You're fine." Somebody said.
I shook my head as to say no, but to no avail. Nobody was listening.
"I need an ambulance"
I passed out again.
At some point, I woke up and drove myself home, drunk and with a broken arm. Nobody wanted to give their good time to help me, even though I knew everybody and I desperately needed it...
The terrifying part about this, is that it has happened before.
Know who your friends are
Know how cruel and negligent they can be.
Know how little drugs and alcohol care about you.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 3:21 PM UTC
Cherry red nail polish chipped from nights before.
After blacking out she will later notice empty bottles sprawled out on the floor.
Ignoring her shame
she will once again play this game
by promising to have only one more.
Despite previous knowledge
she denies ever being an alcoholic.
She becomes out of control when she is full of liquor.
Why speak out about her problems? When drinking is so much quicker?
With hands decorated in chipped cherry red nail polish
She wonders if it could be symbolic.
She looks down, noticing the cracked lines of what was once a cherry red.
She considers retouching her nails but takes a drink instead.
She looks once more this time understanding the cracked lines of what was once a cherry red.
She considers retouching her nails but takes another drink instead.
She wonders if it could be symbolic
with hands decorated in chipped cherry red nail polish.
Why speak out about her problems? When drinking is so much quicker?
She becomes out of control when she is full of liquor.
She denies ever being an alcoholic.
Despite previous knowledge.
By promising to have only one more
she will once again play this game.
Ignoring her shame.
After blacking out she will later notice empty bottles sprawled out on the floor with
cherry red nail polish chipped from nights before.
Oct 1, 2016
Oct 1, 2016 at 3:03 PM UTC
this is the city
that my daddy built
inside of me
between my guts
where my heart should be.
what isn’t rusted
or burnt out
or tired
is barbed-wire and wary.
this is the city
that my daddy built
with his anger.
it’s set up high
on a hill of scissors and blood oranges
and blood oranges with scissors
inside of them,
red juice stains
in sticky pools and dirt.
this is the city that my daddy built
in our house.
in our home.
where the people are shadows,
speaking in whispers
tiptoeing behind closed doors
so as not to rouse the beast.
this is the city
that my daddy built
here we pay tithes in blood oranges
to humor his desires
warding off uncalled for bloodshed
like the time that I
finally stood up for myself
and he broke the kitchen table
with his fists.
it was an antique
that traveled with my great-grandmother
from Sweden,
now just another broken thing
in the landslide
of scissors
and blood oranges
and dirt.
this is the city
that my daddy built,
scarring my skeleton,
following me everywhere
like a spilled bottle of India ink
blacking out the finely drawn sun,
like past transgressions
follow the guilty,
like the golden touch of Midas,
turning everything into
a mountain of scissors and
blood oranges and dirt.
this is the city that
my daddy built,
making my concept of home
a depiction of ruins;
the vestiges of what
could have been
if we hadn’t lived
too close to his minefield,
before causing my mother
to take my sisters and leave
like a snowbird at the arrival of spring,
at last realizing that her spine
consisted of wings.
this is the city
that my daddy built.
this is the city that
scarred and weary,
shadows of skeletons of birds, we
will move on, leaving behind
brick by ***** brick
until it’s nothing but a memory
of a pile
of blood oranges
and scissors
and dirt.
Jul 26, 2010
Jul 26, 2010 at 10:58 AM UTC
I'm shaking and seeing red
Im blacking out before anything is said
Its the fight I try to hide
The anger that rages in me
The dark mystical clouds in my eyes they swirl till I am shaken
I am enraged I see red and black
Don't know what's happing
I want to fight to relse my anger
But the beast dont want to run it wants to play
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 11:13 AM UTC
My name is Mr. Skullcracker and I'm in the business of cracking skulls,
I whack skulls, I smack skulls, I've got a knack for cracking skulls,
I follow my endeavors for attacking, cracking skulls,
And although it isn't clever cracking skulls is never dull,
There are stupid skulls for hacking that are lacking any brain,
But there are intelligent skulls I'm whacking that are cracking open just the same,
When I'm blacking out from cracking it's the glamour that I lack,
No one's enamored with my hammer or the skulls that I do crack,
And though cracking skulls is colorful there are lulls where I lay back,
And when I'm laying backing instead of whacking there are skulls that could be cracked!
What I need to aid attacking is a girl to watch my back,
She could be tall with auburn hair, or short and fat with black,
Have back acne, be a banshee, I couldn't care less about that,
But if her hacking skills are lacking then my emotions do fall flat
All she needs is a thick enough forehead so that her skull I do not crack,
She could fill stadiums with her voice or be tracking with the bulls,
But she needs a cranium of titanium cause I'm in the business of cracking skulls
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 3:34 PM UTC
**Regressing into happenstance
I grasped the Rabbit in my hand
One sip I took, upon a chance
Off the edge, into quicksand. . .
Blacking out on your front lawn
On the ground, where you could stand
Can’t remember dusk or dawn,
Sinking fast into quicksand.**
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 3:07 AM UTC
(10/06/11)
He had so much anger , so much hate
To lash out at someone he couldn’t wait
An innocent bystander walking down the street
This was the one that he would beat.
If she had suspected what lied ahead
She would have turned her back and fled.
With fists flaring he knocked her to the ground
Her jaw broken - she couldn’t make a sound
They say they don’t know how she survived
With the extent of her injuries
they was sure she would die.
She gave a description of what he looked like
And before blacking out she started to fight
They caught him with the description she gave
They saw that he was full of anger and rage.
They say from his step father he had been abused
And fighting back was of no use.
His mother did not believe what he had said
And she turned - and sent him to bed.
He now blamed his mother for what
His step father had done
no one to turn to, no where to run.
She should have - defended her son.
He and his step father are both in jail
Because his mother had truly failed
To hold a man she did not watch her son
Now look at what he has gone and done.
( child abuse can create stories such as this)
Oct 6, 2011
Oct 6, 2011 at 8:31 PM UTC
I watched a movie the other night and a scene reminded me of you ;
There was a lonely sailor on a fluke
That had a lantern on its far end.
The fluke was delving into a heavy night.
The mist veiled the sailor
Till he looked pious enough
To have the faith to fight the sea.
It reminded me of you,
Because when I observed you fading away
It was like observing parts of me
Sailing the same fluke I saw,
Leaving a fiery trail behind
So when I go back in memory
I could remember that those parts were once there.
They were parts of me,
Before the touch of his hand-
Caressing the bumps on your neck
Suffocated,
Till all you can breathe
Filled only the volume of his grip.
Before your glances became stares-
The myth says,
If you look medusa in the eyes
You will turn into stone
And so you did.
I watched him killing you
Slowly,
Dying,
Blacking out…
I extracted pieces of you from my veins;
It took me a while
To clean them
From tight corners in my vertebrate,
But you were doing the same;
You pegged two hooks
Onto your heart,
Attached to a rope that he pulled hard
Only to make sure
That every piece of me vanquishes.
But in the process you lost yourself
And so did I.
Every time I look at you
I try to scan for left overs of my past-
Instead I find his finger prints.
And every time I hear your voice
I think about the songs
That we never sang
But it would’ve been awesome if we did.
I met a sailor the other day
He was and old frail version of me
With tired eyes
That grew land marks on the way,
With a wrinkled face
Like dry land with no signs of water;
On his chest I saw two scars
That bend like a tiger’s claw
And curves like 2 poorly implanted hooks.
I asked him where have you been.
He answered,
“a true sailor always finds his way back home”
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC
this game of to and fro
ebb and flow
come and go
yes and no
its driving me to the depths of a sea of confusion
where i drown myself in doubt
blacking out and going towards a light
that appears to be unimaginably beautiful
so much so that i can't even recall it
a reality draped in a shroud of my own creation
a potential happiness that has been empowered
before it has even taken its true form
the empowerment of a blind emotion
much like russian roulette but with a dart in the chamber
which has either come straight from cupid's bow
or its dipped with poison of a familiar cardiotoxicity
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
You were the storm
Raging in my heart
My soul, a lively tree
That you swiftly blew apart
I am left
Completely undone
Your storm clouds linger
Blacking out the sun
I was your volcano
Spewing fire and death
Ash is now your soul
Smoke, your very breath
And like the storms we are,
We've left destruction in our wake
All this damage,
Simply For passions sake
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 5:38 PM UTC
i tried forgetting you so hard
my liver's collapsing
& i've got these bruises & cuts -
contusions & concussions -
from my aggravation, concentrated
on the wrong people in crowded places
but we all need ventilation.
so i spilled out abuse
on whoever was willing to take it,
combining fists with faces -
call it distraction or entertainment,
whichever way you phrase it,
i won't remember...i was wasted -
i was swimming in liquid sentiments
the backstroke of the blind
as i'm blacking out my mind,
turning off the lights
on the portion of my life
you partially defined.
Mar 3, 2010
Mar 3, 2010 at 8:30 PM UTC