"braille" poems
you don't understand at all do you
not truly
you think
I'm a liar
that I still hold the knife
that
stabbed you in the back
[and in the heart]
kinda speechless
that you feel that way
think that way
believe it
untrustworthy? misleading?
false emotions?
can you not read?
here let me try again
maybe I can make it like braille
feel the words
it's like when the clouds stormy eyes
welled up and let fall the
tears of weekend rain
soggy, we laughed along with the thunder
and under our waterfall we let the windows
fog
tell me I lied then
or picture if you will
standing by the tree I
always parked by
it was a starry night, but we didn't see it
we were too focused on our faces
except
why is it I was the only one
drowning in the sadness that overtook my eyes
shaking with each strained, choppy breath
clutching that gray shirt like a life jacket
do you think that was all
for show?
haven't you looked at
my collection of black and white
silly letters scribbled down as fast as possible
trying as hard as I can
to leave it all
on the paper
but it's as if each word I write
is a tattoo
slowly invading every part of my skin
it's sinking in, it's staining everything
do you think this agony I speak of
is fake?
if so
if I am that liar with the knife who
led you astray and ******* you over"
let you down, kicked you around
if you can't seem to
open your eyes
and notice
just how much I love you
just how much I always have
then you don't deserve it
ill run miles for you when I know I only
have the strength for one
but don't you
dare
watch me run
if you don't even grasp
that I stabbed myself in the back
led myself astray
you have a right to
hate the wound
but if you can't see
what I feel
one day
I will learn
that I have to let go
and I will
then all these silly letters
all for you
well. go ahead and throw them away
on that day
they will carry no life
anymore
Nov 13, 2011
Nov 13, 2011 at 6:59 PM UTC
I traced the texture of your words
Like my heart was blind
And your voice was braille
Feb 5, 2019
Feb 5, 2019 at 1:02 PM UTC
If you give a girl a with a big heart your broken pieces,
she will gently pick them up and carry them in her soft hands,
and pay no mind to your sharp edges.
She will try to glue you back together
and she’ll do it in a way that made you forget you were ever broken.
With scratched finger tips and ****** palms,
she’ll lift you up to the sun,
letting it's blinding rays shine through you
to show you that even the worst things have things to love in them
and that even the shattered can again be whole.
If you give a girl with a big heart your body,
she will study you like an archaic God.
She will learn your curves and surfaces like braille,
she will adjust her hearing to the pitch of your laughter
so that no matter how far apart you become,
her ears will perk up like a dog's when you giggle,
and she will smile, knowing that you smile.
If you give a girl with a big heart your time,
she will make each second feel like infinity,
and each sunset like the end of the world.
You'll forget that the universe is as vast and wondrous as it is,
because you will be so captivated by the light that she emits
right where she sits,
by your side.
And if you take from a girl with a big heart,
please,
for the love of God,
do not take it all.
If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember that her love is not a renewable resource.
The wind and the sun and the water will forever be there to serve you but
she will run dry, and become another fact of history that will one day be forgotten.
If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember how sharp your edges were before her,
how lifeless your body was before she touched it,
and how meaningless time was before she made it into something magical.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 4:20 PM UTC
With my eyes closed I'd let my hands roam across your skin, reading all your goosebumps like braille.
I'd listen to your body telling me how to respond, speaking with my hands in case my tongue and lips fail.
Nonverbal conversations because actions speak louder, and conversations getting crazy in these late hours.
Speaking yet not speaking. Kisses are breathtaking. Touching. Squeezing. Holding a conversation.
Nervous? I'm searching but i'm still uncertain. Think you can make this heart fulfill its purpose?
Beneath the surface I'm imperfect. Yet on the surface still imperfect. It makes no difference if we pull these curtains.
Let's leave them closed then and stay here. Lay here. Say we're in a race here, but i'm not tryna finish first...
Pillow talk and under covers with these conversations. Before I hit a home run i cover all my bases. ;)
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 12:08 AM UTC
he reads the goosebumps on my skin like an old blind man reads braille.
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 11:55 PM UTC
I don’t know if you know
I carry you
in an involuntary sigh
in a constant exodus of yearning
and in the frantic deepness of all
nostalgic thought, shaking time and distance
to place me near you
in the closeness of your warmth
remembered
I carry you in sorrow
precipitated
in the absence of your voice
and in the memory of your rib cage molded
in the shape of ardent weakness
my embrace
I carry you, the braille at the tip of my fingers
life drawn in lines on my left palm
and in the carcass of calm interrupted
by the pounding of a heart’s ill-time
I don't know if you know, but
I carry you in the crown of memories consoled
and in the spine of excess
where I fall, between involuntary sighs
defeated
in your skin remembered
from the confines
of the heart
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 2:46 AM UTC
i've moved past my belief
in the Christian trinity...
for me...
the meditation stands
on the pivot of
the following translation
the hexagon,
start of david -
which translates
as the Holy Ghost -
which denotes
a congregation...
the pentagon?
of the befitting analogy
to the five senses...
the "son of man" -
or simply...
the myopia of man
having to excavate
the sixth sense
using telescopes,
microscopes, the like...
and, finally?
on a hand of five extensions,
there are four...
the square...
Y H
⠁⠑ read clockwise
like English traffic
H W on a roundabout.
which? denotes the father...
if the Hebrews "think" they
can hide their vowels?
the Latin answer is...
to interpolate Braille into
their language...
and Emperor Nero would have
appreciated it...
whether with, or without
the Byzantine propaganda machinery
of the nevus testamentum...
and it wasn't a propagandist
piece?
how much longer did the eastern
Empire, outlive the Western
empire, when the onslaught
by the Ottoman's reached
Constantinople?!
the Greek were craving
a cultural revival!
they believed the Romans
to have origins in Troy!
they plaid the weakest cultural
card of Judaism,
revamping it into Christianity...
hell... that's what i believe...
and i'm not about to meet
a Jehovah's Witness propagandist,
or some aged Pakistani
citing the Quran on a park
bench...
or some Scientologist
on Oxford St. with his wacky
machine...
or some pseudo Hare Krishna
monk with a book about
some guru, pushing it like
marijuana...
to change my mind on what
i'm digesting!
plus?
⠽ ⠓
Æ ( read anti-clockwise)
⠓ ⠺
fits in perfectly into the Adam
and Eve narrative -
as with all mythology -
given the extent of time...
nuance, metaphor...
abbreviation...
ars poetica!
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 8:32 PM UTC
i used to cradle her bleach-cracked hands in mine
and decode the stardust resting within her fingerprints
up until the day that i lost touch with the art of reading braille
and she stopped slinging tall-tales for me to fetch
and rest the plot-twist at her feet
often in the post-script
i'd find my train of thought highjacked by the sunlight illuminating the rainbow of earth-tones ablaze
in her frizz-ridden curls
as if she'd been washing her hair with the damaged case of beer
she'd gotten for half-price at liqour depot
she never did quit drinking
but neither did i
at least we tried
though sometimes
in the middle of the night when nothing was alright
and we'd barely survived another fight
her face would catch my glance
cast aglow by a flood of lava-lamp light
the sea of freckles resting at the crest of her cheeks
rose lips perma-pursed in half tilt
her resting heart-rate so high that i could almost see it
pirouetting within her chest
it was then that i'd love her best
amidst the ruins of who we were
just moments before
Mar 10, 2014
Mar 10, 2014 at 10:19 PM UTC
Overlook the fragile hourglass figure
Beyond corsets and pseudo-beauty rules,
Endorse thy curves and stretch marks strewn,
The dusky skin and frizzy curls,
Braille like pimples on the face
Discoloration, bumps and pores;
This Body shaming, I shall pass.
Writhing in pain and humiliation,
Drenching in rage and insecurity
While I lie,
Society curses me
Defining and redefining my chastity;
'T was the crop top, the alcohol and the sly behavior.
You set the monster free and blame the ****
This Victim shaming, I shall pass.
Beige and ebony;
They call me names blatantly
Betwixt skin color and bleached smiles.
Laugh and scoff all you want.
Harass the Black, detain them,
Prejudiced minds rule your dystopian world.
This Black shaming, I shall pass.
Without creating a labyrinth of stigma,
And seeking refugee in collective blame,
Let's construct our utopian world
Acknowledging all freaks and flaws
This Shaming, we shall pass.
Apr 10, 2020
Apr 10, 2020 at 8:05 AM UTC
---
the raw
wounded words in
Braille awaiting
a tender, gentle touch
waiting for
a voice
the silent ones
stare upward at the sun
their eyes streaming tears
notes that resonate
they fall into uncaring soil
silver seeds screaming
with none to listen
do they not listen to us?
the fortunate with full
rich operatic tenors
---
i have heard them
the two words as eloquent
as a simple "i love you"
those two words?
HELP ME.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 1:21 AM UTC
As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.
Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game *****
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,
And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall--
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,
Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.
The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser--
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.
7.6k
Some days I wake up with my neck slick
beads of sweat soak the pillowcase,
my hair as though I've been bobbing for apples.
Perhaps I should be.
I'm starving, I think,
for the kind of knowledge which is dubbed
forbidden or shrouded,
hidden.
Written in redwoods,
eyes like nebulae
and sandstone futures.
If I could read the Andes like braille, what revelations would
erupt?
I'm yearning to greet the haunts and beetles once my clock
runs out.
But I lie
awake
and am greeted by
no one.
I'm frozen, now,
with molasses
feet
like running from the Golem in a January dream.
My fingertips leave damp, checked cotton, reaching out with an earnest desperation, and
I'm left sticky, swatting at vapors.
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 4:48 PM UTC
his teeth marked my thighs like love letters written in braille. lightly, running my fingers through his hair like guitar strings and moaning harmonies through my lips. I swear, I could feel earthquakes erupting inside me as hot lava danced down my skin.
Dec 18, 2015
Dec 18, 2015 at 1:21 PM UTC
Let's set sail
and float without fail
even if we go blind we'll read whole books in Braille
and life will never get stale
we'll drink tea and we'll live free as she and he
her and him let's do it on a whim
you'll be thought of before me
I'll even sign a decree
or a contract
it's love when we come in contact
and I believe it as fact
so let's make a pact
to set sail and never come back
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 3:38 AM UTC
The snow is thin and pale today
like that girl –
you thought –
from the Home Depot –
the palette of an empty day
I think, instead
to smooth my hand along your arm
extend dominion 'cross your chest
To till the damp slope of your shoulder
in surging heat
of earthen tones
to find in winter flames
your brow, your cheek, your neck
...your mouth that way...
This is the braille I'm all about
being far-sighted
and just too close
to even focus on you –
your eyes –
and all
the loss
these days
Jan 16, 2018
Jan 16, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
She was the shortest poem I ever knew
She was five foot two with eyes of blue
And while we had just met,
I felt as if I knew her my whole life
She was the shortest poem I ever tasted
I drank her in like the summer sun
And while I was intoxicated after one sip,
I can still remember the taste of her kiss
She was the shortest poem I ever heard
Her voice sang the correct combination to my heart
And while her song has long since ended
I can still feel the beat within my heart
She was the shortest poem I ever felt
My finger tips traced her body under the light of the moon
And while I can't read braille,
I could feel her skin say I need you
And in that moment I whispered the shortest poem i ever knew...
"Danika I love you"
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 11:04 PM UTC
I haven't done it in a while,
But seeing the faded outline of my friends,
The scars that make me feel calm,
Made me want them back
I used to run my fingers along the cuts
As if I was reading braille to soothe my head;
Because I felt like those fresh wounds,
Were my only friends along with my blades
Those blades and the scars that accompanied them were something I could count on,
No matter how bad my day was I could cry all night
And sit in the bathroom mirror and talk to myself as I stared into my own eyes
Letting my blade dance across my skin,
Leaving a beautiful red trail;
The stinging sensation that came after that turned into the blissful pleasure,
That wonderful feeling I once loved was something I couldn't remember
Until today;
I wasn't even sad at the moment
It was just something my mind drove me to do out of sheer nostalgia
Because seeing the faded outlines of my scars
Counting each one replaying the night I created them
And remembering how close they were to me and that they were once my friends
Brought it all back;
So I threw a little self-harm depression party once again,
I created this little get together
And invited those old friends and demons of mine
Where my blade once again danced
And my scars then cried red;
Where I stared into my dark chocolate brown eyes
And let tears of my own claw their way out;
Where I smiled and laughed, talking to myself saying how much I missed the stinging pleasure
And relapsed again for the first time in a while
I thought about how what I was doing was something so wrong
And I told myself I was sadistic for laughing because I missed the sensation
But my god does it feel so right
I guess that's why so many people
Do all these things that slowly **** them;
Just as I do with self-harm...
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 3:48 PM UTC
A dying girl
hung her heavy head
over a carpet
aged to smoker's gray.
She collapsed on a floor
covered in crumpled clothes,
stripped off and
tossed aside.
She knelt beside
a bed that once held
goodnight kisses and
rosy morning cheeks,
now full of tears that
dawn turned to braille,
spelling slow defeat
beneath mourning fingers.
Pulling her curly hair
taut in tired fists,
she freed every bit
swiftly from her scalp and
nicked her tender skin with
tiny rusted blades until
there was nothing left
but raw flesh.
She caught a thief
moving in the mirror
with body bags
beneath her eyes:
a ghostly girl,
a stolen soul,
a blank mask,
a hood of bone.
Oct 12, 2012
Oct 12, 2012 at 12:07 AM UTC
He was blind,
but when he read the braille
of her shaven stubble it said
one thing..
⠓⠕⠗⠝⠽
*****
Nov 8, 2019
Nov 8, 2019 at 6:35 PM UTC
You asked me to write
a poem that killed
all the parts of you
that make you love yourself less.
But darling, I don't
know if anyone's told you:
The things that make you
afraid to show yourself
make me love you
all the more.
And you may talk
about how much you hate
the bumps and ridges
splashed across your skin,
but you also talk
about how much you love
the mountains in Colorado.
Do you think that the earth
has ever cared
that it has drier parts
or areas with a little more texture?
Do you think that Nature
ever wanted to cover up
the parts of her that weren't perfectly smooth?
If the water stayed still,
and never rose or fell
the oceans wouldnt be quite so breathtaking
because waves would never crash.
And you might think you're covered in tsunamis,
disaster zones left in the debris of your disease,
but don't ever tell me
that a home in that aftermath
isn't still a home.
Because with or without the water damage,
the part that makes it important
is the things on the inside—
and no, I'm not referring
to things in a home anymore.
Now I mean your heart,
now I mean your passions and your past
and ever single word
written in the story of you.
So darling, you might tell me
that you hate the bumps on your skin,
but there is something amazing
spelled out in Braille
written on just the outside cover
of one of the greatest stories I will ever know.
The thing about Braille like yours is that
it can open the eyes of a blind man
without even needing any magic.
And the thing about book covers is
that you'll never really know
how much you love a book
based on the words on the outsides of it.
But darling.
I need you know know
I've read you cover to cover
and I absolutely think
your story is one of the most beautiful ones I know.
With or without the tsunamis or Braille.
Feb 15, 2014
Feb 15, 2014 at 11:15 AM UTC
Day's end, sun's caisson doth wend
Residual rays a respite to append
Twilight's shroud dreary dividend
Swirls of gray into firmament blend
Vestments of light shed sacral veil
Luna's naked, pale orb flashes its spell
Twinkling sprites across dark tides sail
Constellation's mystical portents braille
Nyx, Erebos eclipse Hemera's blithe melody with bass duet
Earth's warmed bed yields its thermal blanket
Ocean tides move in rhythmic tandem to cadence of lunar clarinet
Swarming shadows stalk each footstep paring each dark secret
Greek gods
Nyx: goddess of Night
Erebos: goddess of Darkness
Hemera: goddess of Day
Sep 15, 2011
Sep 15, 2011 at 6:35 AM UTC
Bright buds hang precarious on their limbs. Their hundreds of digits green and supple sway as the winds try gently at first to shake them from their perches. They snap back, their ties elastic, always bending.
The wind struck harder the third time. It caught them off guard, swinging back to face the sun. It barreled over them like a train, limbs snapped like bones under tons of industrial revolutionary steel, the cracking brings tears to the eyes of passersby.
They were so green, so verdant was their exuberant friendship, covered in rosy flesh and sturdy bark, ring after ring of tribulation and triumph, but it fractured like a wish bone. She, Persephone, prosecutor of Her, Demeter, was judge of them both, prisoner of herself.
Solitary confinement.
She tugged at her half, she needed the wish, She need for Demeter to see that She needed wishes just like the rest of us.
Demeter, jury. 12.
Her crime: attempted impartiality, balancing a utilitarian ideal that we can divide our attention based on who needs it most. She cannot be tried on account of her inability to read Braille ciphers in gestures, ****** expressions, and Tumblr posts.
Demeter tugged at her half, but only enough to show the other that she was there,
but consistently there.
It wasn’t enough.
Snap.
No marrow could be found.
Where flesh was meant to be dripped rot, an odor of resentment filled their nostrils, it choked Demeter, as Persephone had been choking for years.
This resentment, this cancer, this jealousy, it grew inside of Persephone like a tumor, days from metastasizing, the spread could have killed them.
Amputate.
You two are a tree. Bright buds dangling from every limb, they are still soft and green and supple at their ends.
You two are still growing.
Persephone will cut out this cancer, and She will heal herself, scar tissues covered by broadleafs.
You will soothe them for her. And you will see past the rosy flesh what pain it may hide.
And you two will grow. Roots firm, faces braced against the wind, and limbs always turned towards the sun.
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
When you’ve asked yourself, “what the hell am I doing with my life?”
Five times before you’ve even had your morning coffee
Which isn’t enough, so you grab a second coffee
Because you stayed up until sunrise writing a lab report on the psychological effects of coffee
They call that an education.
When you stare at screens and sheets of paper
Until Shakespeare’s sonnets and Sir John A. Macdonald
Are scratched into the blackboard on the inside of your brain
Only to have the slate wiped clean
The second your Scantron card spells “success” in Braille,
They call that an education.
When you’re swimming in, shall we call it, the Academian Sea
And tentacles reach out and start to pull you under one by one
And the lifeguards on the shore simply tell you to swim harder,
They call that an education.
I remember walking onto campus feeling so inspired
Ready to be re-wired
Until they said my arts degree would never get me hired
Now the time keeps passing by and I always feel so tired
And for what reason?
I’ve read countless books on history and Hamlet and how to speak Italian yet it seems as though the most I’ve learned is all the different ways I can doubt myself
I am creative, I am well-read, I am kind, I am caring, but I am a history major
And in a place where 3.0s and 4.0s and future capital value is practically etched into our skin for the world to read like a bad tattoo
Apparently that means I’m not going anywhere.
There are so many days when I want my tattoo removed
So people will stop staring at the decimal points and prerequisites that distract from the rest of me and look me in the eyes for a change and see in my smile that this is who I really am
But instead I’ll probably stay up late again
Learn names and dates again
Forget them after the test again
Because when you stare at that sheet of paper if you’re dedicated (or crazy) enough to make it that far
And you cover up your tattoo with your graduation gown only for them to draw your degree wherever enough skin shows to prove to the world that they’ve churned out another one
They call that an education.
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC