"brainstem" poems
The parasympathetic nervous system
is responsible for regulations
unconsciously transpiring
within the organs and
the glands of
the body.
Such as:
urination, salivation, digestion, defecation, and
lacrimation
(noun. ‘the flow of tears’. Latin.
from lacrimare (‘weep’) and lacrima (‘tear’).
It’s why I cry
even when I don’t want to.
You are the parasympathetic nervous system.
The (ortho-)sympathetic nervous system
is responsible for the mobilization
of the fight-or-flight response
and constantly maintaining
homeostasis within
the body.
It acts
rapidly, enacting an attempt at stability and
the necessary and critical ability
to suddenly escape
on pulsing legs or
cling to survival through
brandishing adrenaline-doused knuckles
and dilated pupils.
It’s why you live
even when you don’t want to.
I am the sympathetic nervous system.
The parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
are two of three essential nervous systems which
compose the autonomic nervous system
(a part of the peripheral
nervous system)
that manages
involuntary
functions of the body. Such as:
swallowing, perspiration, arousal, breathing, and
heart rate
(noun. ‘the speed of the heartbeat’.
usually expressed in beats per minute. mine speeds up when I see you).
Individually these two systems oppose
but compliment
each other like our hands do—
pressed together and omitting equal force;
veins meeting
at the fingertips and throbbing at the wrists
but running amuck on our respective digits otherwise.
You are the invariable and unspoken reminder to
breath,
love,
sweat,
and live.
I am the sudden snap of reality always aiming to save you
but grudgingly willing to fight you and
ready
to
leave.
From the deepest lower half of my brainstem
and from every nerve
in my cycling body,
I’m sorry.
From all of my chromaffin cells
and from the truest parts of submandibular ganglian,
I am sorry.
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 8:17 PM UTC
Watching from beyond, writing their little notes.
Look behind the brainstem and see the past perfect present tense.
You thought about it and I heard it. We grabbed the thoughts.
New bones and muscle.
All the different ones, all the same thoughts pulsing, like brain radar bounding back.
They're of me. they're in me.
But he is not.
The serpent retains it's form but it stays inside. It blinds my dreams.
No escape, let craving; an eternal void.
As it all becomes one form and function. We join. We are the new being, hideous and beautiful.
I think he has taken my soul. I probably wasn't using it anyway.
I am his disguise.
Sep 7, 2015
Sep 7, 2015 at 3:43 PM UTC
for those that may not be aware
I suffer from a disease that doesn't visibly appear
I suffer from a disease known as epilepsy
it's my burden, and I'm not writing this for sympathy
one question that always is asked and repeated
what does it feel like when a seizure occurs? can you beat it?
I think I'll sum this sensation up the best way I can
so please forgive me if this poem is bland
What's the most exhausting thing you've ever done?
whether that be marathon *** or running in the blazing sun?
take that sensation and make it twenty times worse
now there's the physical aftereffects in this very verse
Now for the mental feeling of solid lucidity,
a full but empty feeling that can't really be explained
only experienced really, and that doesn't sound sane
it's like being drunk yet sober, high but haven't smoked
but all the while, your brainstem is being choked
You know, I've realized it's impossible to describe a seizure completely offhand,
but count yourself lucky if you aren't prone to them,
even with this burden, I'll make my life grand
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 12:33 AM UTC
The fall out of the alphabet
Letters in the atmosphere
Spinning as planets
With gravitational
Motivational
Habits
Continuously
With individual
Entities as phrases
With mouth
Attractants
Words forming
Magnets
To the eyes
Memorizational
Remembrance
This do
In paragraphs
Blood and bodied
Configurants of
Metaphorics
In vowels and consonants
The constance
Sentences said by
Existence in alphabets
Of the fall out
Deciphered by the brainstem
Of mens
Difference
Every one has a pen
And writes gibberish
To deliver it
To someone
who just might give a ****
The fall out the alphabet
Preparing for the aftermath
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 11:46 PM UTC
my female cicada
found way to lay eggs
inside of my nasal cavity
our larvae are
pupating
hatching free
screaming inside of my frontal lobe. maddening me.
and a swarm it swims out
every time that i sneeze
and i ask them to please **** me
with their disease
but they chew through my hyde
(and who knew that id
find the hard way these incestuous insects could tease
til they torture the swallowed man, hollowed inside,
empty,
wallowing,
died
(and now no mind to mind,
so i guess i forgive em;
their mess, as the walls of my mind are lined with em))
yes theyve blessed these
molested and
nested flesh pieces of me
and replaced em with feces and waste:
rest in peace.
guess a curse would be worse,
now i know that my family
makes our home in the earth,
and they take what they give;
they give Death to take birth
and take breath from each other to give to themselves,
and what else?
Fathers Brothers
and Sisters and Mothers
are Kissing cuz thats what lovers
do to lovers
before they enjoy their next meal made of ******
"Meat i would like you to meet Meat and Meat" cuz thats all that they are to eachother like i was to their second cousin and mother. and she was to me a sure way to become better father and son by means of becoming fully free of this Life, what a wife, giving me family at the same time as taking my life so i dont have to end it by sending a knife through my wrist or my neck, oh and lest i forget: well, i beckon to send you a message, my wife: "im so sorry that i wasnt there when our our kids started ripping and taring your body apart. Love i Swear if i couldve been there idve stopped em and started to chop em and never have stopped. but its over now. lover how lovely itd be if you were singing delicately next to me with your legs and then climbed back inside of my skull to lay eggs in my nasal cavity. the screaming and ravishing, pupating, oh its so maddening not be having these. hacking and wheezing and coughing and sneezing til my nose is bleeding and they can start feeding. i wanna feel feelings of them eating on my brainstem and the rest of my flesh and then hollowing out all of my bones and then make a home as they start to have larvae all of their own which then, they will then start to eat, from my head to my feet, and between, from my elbows and knees, im a death bed of meat which my family needs;
theres so many to feed cuz - theyduplicatein3's...
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 12:07 AM UTC
There was little that dribbled from my pen
On the night where I desired it most
And your ghost haunted my fingertips
And the words I said haunted my lips
And there was nothing left but silence
And emotions that no one felt
And there was nothing left to say
Because the air swept it away
Aug 23, 2013
Aug 23, 2013 at 3:01 AM UTC
There are bees in my brain again.
All that's in my eardrums is the
picking,
gnawing,
chewing;
the incessant buzzing of their wings beating against my prefrontal cortex.
I can hear them working away, relentlessly, day&night;,
trying to make a home for themselves.
A hive in my head.
They have taken up residence.
They are quite comfortable.
I imagine their tiny bee legs mixing a golden, syrupysweet substance.
Thoraxes and abdomens dancing a little bee dance on my brainstem,
happily humming,
poised to pour the poison.
The sauce saturates my cerebrum.
Thickerthanhoney...molasses.
It weighs me down--adheres me to the ground.
Now I am suspended in a tub of the suffocating stuff.
Jul 27, 2013
Jul 27, 2013 at 4:48 AM UTC
Lotus position,
River running
Overturning the pebbles
Beneath the surface
Thumb and middle fingers
Pressed together
Leaves are falling
From the tree I sit beneath
Cherry blossoms fall around me
Like pink rain
Inhale, exhale,
My lungs fill and then deflate,
And I feel endorphins leave my brainstem
And spread through my body
As I repeat my mantra,
The birds are singing above my head
I see the late evening sun
Paint the sky burnt orange and pink
Through closed lids
all I can smell are flowers and dew
I taste the peace upon my breath,
And it's very sweet
I am what I am,
I am nature
I am human
I am the universe,
simply observing itself
For a while
I am beautiful,
I will witness myself
In my full, and glorious splendor
I will understand
The real nature
Of things
Inhale, exhale...
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 9:03 AM UTC
Find me.
Callouses bubble born of survival
Barefooted, bare-backed branding
It's psycho-tribal.
It's in the bible.
Something on makeshift witchcraft
An (in)impatient scripture draft
Find me.
All of us, answers for anatomy.
Grey slate, tabula. And. scar tissue tough
Illness or just ill-wish is brainstem spinal
Callouses bubble born of survival.
Instinctive. Normal.
What we learned when the books were burned
Cave paintings made in the padded cage
Barefooted bare backed branding.
Now, make it gentle.
Through looking glass, exhausted paragraphs
Be blind to the bodies and dance
It's psycho-tribal.
Jul 5, 2017
Jul 5, 2017 at 5:05 AM UTC
It's bad metaphor Monday
and the fluorescent lights
are still pulsing.
My hair is tangled and matted
and I ran out of cigarettes
hours ago.
Deep pools of purple
are welling under my eyes
and a knot in my stomach
is chewing on my insides.
There's an acid slug
slinking around my head
and liquid candy drops
are trickling down my spine.
I picked off all my fake fingernails
because there was an itch underneath them,
and there's a clammy moisture
gathering at the bottom of my brainstem.
I haven't slept in days
and I'm still lost in last night,
because the sun don't shine
in a drug-cluttered mind
Jul 1, 2011
Jul 1, 2011 at 7:56 AM UTC
a hideous beast wakes in the
depths of my heart.
crawling from the shallow grave I buried him,
silent and dark, tip toes on guitar strings.
he shoots through my brainstem like ******
intoxicating my dreams, gnawing his teeth.
I thought you were dead!?
why are you here!?
©Dylan Whisman
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 7:34 PM UTC
I turn my volume up
Till the voices slowly fade into gray
My heart marches
Along a solidified line of doom
Representation of how the phrase
"I'm fine" is pinned into the center
So instead of just saying it
When my heart beats each time
Eighty beats a minute
It'll say it too
It'll believe it too
So that means I'll believe it
When it croaks from my throat
Searing a path
Burning dishonesty
I have to
When it traces the seams
Of my most vital *****
Besides my brain
But that's fine my brain is taken care of too
Its got the shining
Defiantly bright
Undimming
Tattered word
"Happy"
Swathed around the Cerebrum
Happy
Crusted into the grooves of cerebellum
Happy
And entombed into the brainstem
Happy
I'm happy
I'm fine
I'm happy
My crumpled and wrinkled soul knows differently
So many holes
In this black stained fabric
Moths of self consciousness
Fluttered wings and feasting teams
I'm happy
I'm fine
I smile
I believe it
Almost...
Sep 6, 2018
Sep 6, 2018 at 3:29 PM UTC
I don't care
About all the other jewels you hold in cusped hands,
You make me feel as valuable as each and every one of them.
I want to adorn your skin, just to leave a subtle hint
To make you feel beautiful with the way I complement,
Throwing compliments to your feet, on my knees
Begging you, please, just one
Chance to release these feelings.
A day of your love. A second of your touch,
I just want to say that I've had the experience.
I crave your kiss, I crave your tongue.
Your body is where my fingers long to run,
Across every flawless inch of skin
Every rise, every dip
Let me burn you with fingertips
And scorching lips,
Whispering promises of rhythmic hips.
I just want one day.
One measly minute.
One tiny, insignificant
Miniscule second;
To taste your heaven.
To etch every detail
Into my brainstem.
-SLuR
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 2:02 PM UTC
so here it is: the lain bare strewn messy clod of
sampled
brainstem
I call my mind, and it wants something! something
else
and beyond the vacuities of the faculties accused of 'humanity.'
what are you searching for, separate self? are we not the same at
*root
cause* and the same at
b
a
s
e
- p
m
a
c
thousands of feet
above
the
typical
wavelength? where wax philosophical filtered me into
category
after
category
with every received monotone and
morbid
cancellation
of the
p
r
e
v
i
o
u
s
t
h
o
u
g
h
t
?
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 4:23 AM UTC
Heart attacks, en masse
I wear a mask when I relapse-
Dumb *** The laugh track’s scratched.
Tied a knot out of my tongue, instead of the cherry stem.
It’s so sad... how when I fall apart,
It’s like I needed that; the blowback,
From a shot through the mouth into a brainstem.
The hole that starts in my nose ‘cause I snort things that erode-
The soul, and leave my bones to hold a fetal pose.
My brain recites such delicate prose,
Whispered to me by the specter of your notes.
A voice I no longer know…
Where’d you go?
My head’s a black hole.
This grey matter’s decomposed.
I’m scared to death, talking 'bout
“Ruh-rohs” and “Hell nos!”
Trying to outrun your ghost
but, I’m stuck inside smoke Os...
Scattered across the ozone,
Riddled with “I don’t knows”
I want to exorcise my heart,
But I don’t want to be alone.
-SLuR
May 27, 2021
May 27, 2021 at 1:54 PM UTC
Climb my spine with feet of flame,
and fan the smouldering need
within my brainstem
to a burning ecstasy,
as I take flight.
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 11:08 PM UTC
Oh, That my heart could t h r u m
out a morse. code.
to my mind
so my eyes could
tear moistly, or WriNkle at the e d g e of humour
my ears resonating with
peals of lau g h t e r
or
reeling sil e n c e s
so my hand could reach
and pick the l o w h a n g i n g
fruit
from my brainstem
mouth to sample
the f l a v o u r/
and toss the bottled message
a l o n g the vein to my thrumming
.heart
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 1:05 PM UTC
last night, for what may have been the first time in what felt like centuries of me loving you,
i felt, in the base of my brain, barely perceptible but there nonetheless,
doubt.
it's presence alone would not have been as alarming if it had not been for you.
doubt, fear, rage have no place in the home we may never build
but love to dream about when we feel the most alone.
and yet there it was now.
and i sat there feeling doubt slowly spreading like cancer along my brainstem, and i wondered
how long it had been there but dormant.
how long it had been there waiting for the correct catalyst.
i wondered if i still knew every layer of you.
i wondered if i still had you memorized or if all i have learned is a lie.
would you ever lie to me again?
how would i know if you had?
why am i even asking myself these things?
in my mind's eye i crawled into your mouth,
searching inside of you for any trace of deception,
forcing myself to look,
and hating myself for looking.
when i awoke this morning, my hands were empty, and i do not know whether that was good news.
frankly, i am afraid to ask.
Aug 11, 2021
Aug 11, 2021 at 11:50 PM UTC
This fool doth not consider himself wise,
writing paltry poetry difficult
to read and/or actualize
methinks perusers of great literature
snub nose how I miserably advertise,
laughable attempt to aerobicise
fifty plus shades of gray matter
lobbying showy words agonize
zing effort perhaps best to cauterize
near petrified glob - boon
for scientists to analyze
baffling laboratory technicians
unusual crenulations
a profound surprise
pitiful peremptorily doth apologize
unlike verbalization feasible
after webbed whirled fist size
terra incognita reveals numbskull years
wrought yours truly to anesthetize
smelting, squelching,
and suppressing emotions
scored how tree rings annualize
environmental conditions definite
premature imp of the pervert
poe fella lifetime channels,
where bullies did antagonize
upon death requested autopsy authorize
zing eager scalpels to apprize
miniature dried river bed
formerly streams of consciousness
lake never seen before engendering
crowdsource to hypothesize
baffling every expert,
how terrible fate did baptize
ala lemony snicket series
of unfortunate events
multiplied power bajillion times
number only Google could surmise
obvious tell tale signs did brutalize
as if smacked upside the head
one unfortunate gladly apparently
suffered maelstroms of armageddon size
poet chars evidently
succeeded to burglarize
more successful than Watergate
psychological ploys hackers
noninvasively did cannibalize
(perhaps bored furloughed
government employees)
albeit noninvasively deeming
imposible to canonize
resultant cerebral corpus
understandably did capsize
entire body politik (Democrat)
faced, booked on hatred did demonize
verbal assaults indicate
suffering did caramelize
cerebrum, cerebellum and brainstem
resembling burnt offering
impossible to categorize
glommed hardened integument colleagues
hard pressed to characterize
highly rendered anomaly,
hence unfair to criticize
erratic schizoid personality disorder
quite evident amyloid plaques
did significantly crystalize
definitely explain aberrant quirks
resultant incessant emasculation
unquestionably led him to demoralize.
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019 at 1:39 PM UTC