"bronchitis" poems
myopic frames on a stern temple remind me that once he too wandered recklessly and felt ardent
empowered by time on his sleeve
there was nothing he couldn't conquer and nothing standing between the open air and breathing it in
i suppose the difference here is i grab the breath of air and hold it in my pocket for when i stop being so nervous
marshmallow heart
the road only goes one way and the streetlights hover and coil eternally, you can never meet the epilogue
a drive-thru drink in one hand while you feel your hair tangling into a mess of a beehive, the one that likes to unwind in soft tendrils on a weak pillow
heart racing for the constant fueling of a near empty tank telling you to go further this time, this time
time isn't yours
holding in a cough
i too have tried to drown waterbugs
my cheek pressed against the tiles of a kitchen floor, hand perched languidly as my fingers make circles in the tiny swamp i made in the middle of the room
but i forget laying there until i hear my own soul walk in with bare feet addressing the elephant in the room, the one that hasn't left since i was sick with bronchitis that winter years ago
and i want to tell her to come here, to come back inside myself so it doesn't feel so cold this season of frost but she brushes me off with the temperament of a child
"i don't exist, i never did" the words dawdle back and forth from her back molars to her incisors
and i remember when i felt like i was dying when i hopped from one state to the next but realizing a little to late that if i were to go back my dread would jump on the back of my shoulders and force me to look it into it's shiny face and show me the mild nuisance of what it means to be alive
so my soul closes the door and i hear the keys rattle and i myself sink into the warm arms of someone i spent my entire life with
Oct 6, 2018
Oct 6, 2018 at 12:32 AM UTC
I wish I still smoked
**** yeah
It's the ritual
the need to make time
to die a little
opening a new pack
shiny cellophane
the lid flipped back
paper seal for freshness
pulled out to reveal
20 happy moments spent
inhaling, coughing, thinking
the soft packets
where you flicked the
cigarettes out like movie
stars and the Marlboro man
who are all dead now
roll ups, kit form bronchitis
liquorice flavour papers
combining childhood flavours
with adult life takers
the smell clinging to clothes
and hair dragon breath
but we all looked so ****** cool
so adult so grown up
so ****** clueless, *******
on our manly pacifiers
I wish I still smoked
**** yeah
just don't have the courage
some how
Feb 28, 2022
Feb 28, 2022 at 5:12 PM UTC
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
The smoking and drinking and snorting and fighting and drinking and crashes and drinking were not good for him.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One summer, when he was 16, everyday he would take a bottle of wine from his mother's liquor cabinet, buy a pack of cigarettes at the corner store, meet up with his friend Mario, who also stole a bottle of wine, and together they would ride down to the river and smoke and drink and swim. Everyday, for a full 1970's summer they did this.
And now he tells me, that at the time they were having fun and they were not worried about money or addictions or the future.
They were just having fun.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One day, in the dead of fall 1981, he and his friends Mario, Mark, ****** and John all got together at Mark's apartment on the corner of 51st and Diablo boulevard. They hit the town, drank, snuck into movie theatres, harassed girls and had a good time. They returned to Mark's apartment at 2 am and thought it a good idea to steal Mark's mom's new car. They decided to go to Reno.
Driving, as my dad put it, well above the speed limit on Highway 49, they collided head on with a big rig. There were no fatalities but my dad broke his shoulder and suffered a minor concussion. Mark's mom chose to not press charges nor did the driver of the big rig. The next day my father was back at work, refusing to adhere to the doctor's orders of taking it easy and wearing a soft cast, entrapping his left arm against his chest, climbing under cars, changing oil, and repairing engines.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
One cold winter's day, in December of '82, my father's ever faithful companion, Mario, picked my father and his dog, Wimpy, up and they drove over to a small burger joint named Big A's. My father ordered two bacon cheeseburgers and a large rootbeer. Mario got the same, only with a single bacon cheeseburger. My father father gave his second bacon cheeseburger to his pitbull Wimpy.
My father was better to his dog than he was to his own body.
Now, my father coughs himself to sleep every night, and has chronic bronchitis. His liver and kidneys are shot and he plans to not live passed sixty. He will be turning fifty in two weeks.
My father was not good to his body when he was younger.
Feb 27, 2013
Feb 27, 2013 at 12:04 AM UTC
You want to know what's unfair?
Unfair is having diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 22 despite never having smoked a single cigarette your entire life.
Unfair is having to take 3 months unpaid leave because you're "not safe" to be around anybody.
What's not fair is the inability to walk 5 steps to the kitchen without running out of breath.
What's not fair is the never ending painful coughs at night and having neighbours complaining.
You know what's unfair?
Unfair is losing half of your lung in a battle you never started.
What's unfair is hearing your family members talking behind your back claiming you have Aids, despite never been with a woman before.
What's unfair is fighting so hard to get back on your feet, to get back to full recovery only to get the news that you are now diagnosed with Bronchitis;
Hearing that you will never be able to run like you used to.
That you will never be able play soccer again.
What's unfair is the constant fear that follows after.
The fear that no girl would ever want you.
The constant fear that you might never be able to satisfy any girl.
The fear that, what if you get someone sick despite being 100% cleared?
Now that is unfair.
Unfair is whilst other people take few days to heal from cold and flue, you have to take weeks of antibiotic treatment, just to rid off the same cold.
What's unfair is people constantly thinking your TB is back everytime that cold starts.
Unfair is constantly having to explain why you breathe so heavily.
Unfair is always trying to act "normal"
You really wanna know what's unfair?
Unfair is having your brother lose the battle against the same TB you won against 3 years ago.
What's unfair is having him leave behind his 3 year old with no one.
What's unfair is that you didn't choose any of this.
And Unfair is writing all of this with a broken heart and a tear rolling down my cheek, because this is a true story.
It's My story. And regardless, I'm Still here.
Mar 26, 2019
Mar 26, 2019 at 3:07 AM UTC
do dreams mean anything or was freud full of ****
bronchitis symptoms
american life expectancy
how to use excel
what is a mortgage
average american student loan debt 2015
why is everyone more successful than me?
how to delete facebook
facebook linked to depression study
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 3:04 AM UTC
Call delicate sirens of the working class!
half-bum minimum wage poverty line
subsidy sages hollow of materialism devils,
devoid of darkness internal fire strike rage
and hellion god bowels light flickering shallow men.
The rich men.
The truly poor men living in clouded manors on
Ignorance Avenue.
Delicate sirens not so poor after all,
not so empty or so full.
God is the prayer call
and siren droll
and *** roll-in-sleep afternoon shore-breeze faint of hope
approaching winter-fall showering divinity flowers the same material as Peter's scraggly beard while he coughs his angelic bronchitis wheezes, purifying the western air.
Peter is apostle
his snores are their own gospel
the doves in his dreams
will always be there.
The battle goes on
the bottle goes up
the rattle hollers out
the chatter not without.
Sirens call! Call with short breaths as
the world cyclones through universal woe.
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 11:53 AM UTC
Have you ever had bronchitis?
Tuberculosis?
Have you ever shot pigeons?
Been to prison?
Played with yourself?
Have you ever been to Egypt?
Told stories of your backyard?
Been to two places at once?
Are you religious?
Have you had dental surgery?
Does your knee hurt?
Are you scared stiff?
Do you envision everything working out?
Are there toys in your closet you haven’t played with?
Are you sexually satisfied?
Do you cry at the drop of a hat?
A sad song?
A beautiful sunset?
Does the mere act of hugging make you long for more?
When will you be happy?
Are you already happy?
Does your medical record tell your whole story?
Do the stories you tell reflect the whole you?
Are you free to visit your true self on a daily basis?
When will it be too much?
Where do we go from here?
Are there aspects of your life you would rather not talk about?
Or are you willing to tell all?
Who is your best friend?
What can we have for dinner?
How hungry are you?
For ***
For companionship?
For peace of mind?
Will there be ample time to figure it out?
When?
Why are you so impatient?
Is it your age?
Your name here_________________ (not required)
Mar 3, 2012
Mar 3, 2012 at 3:13 AM UTC
It’s not about the money
it’s not unusual
it’s not over
it’s not a tumour
it’s not easy
it’s not easy being green
it’s not easy being me
it’s not enough
neverwinter
never let me go
never say never
never back down
fix dead pixel
fix drywall
fix design
fix dripping faucet
find me spot
find me
find me guilty
find me love
why are flamingos pink
why are people gay
why are flatworms flat
why are we here
why is the sky blue
why stop now
why am I so tired
why do cats purr
then I got high
then I learned French
then I saw her face
then I got bronchitis
what is quinoa
what is love
what is the fiscal cliff
what is dubstep
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 9:32 PM UTC
Like a ***** on a blood buzz
That surrendered to the dragon
Like Jupiter in a strange land
Water colors and cannibals
Like lemon world, minus candy
And true promise and false let-downs
Like McCandless or a Thoreau
Down a river lacking mystic
Like a soldier safe from harm's way
Watching pen-pals throw big grenades
Like echoes heard from a black hole
Filled with demons and Madonna's
Like an idea in a time warp
Full of castles and time capsules
Like a fire burning brightly
By Eskimos throwing blankets
Like Orestes punished greatly
By loud sirens in double-bind
Like a big world in alignment
With a spindle made of chaos
Like paisley love remaining still
While new age brings adhesive hate
Like a black swan, last unicorn
Asleep during apocalypse
Like kind vultures killing a beast
Because his stripes were too crooked
Like a family unforgiving
Of an angel born of their blood
Like a bad cough in a clear throat
Of a drunk God with bronchitis
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 12:42 PM UTC
It was
One of our
Childhood habits
To crumple
The wax melting in front of St.Antony
And make new candles.
The tapers of
Thresya whose house got mortgaged, and
Selina whose wedding never got fixed, and
Anthappan who mourned his lack of offspring, and
Thankamma whose chickens died of infectious bronchitis
Stood and liquefied for us in those days.
Math test, pimple,
Cancer, wedding,
Death, visa, love,
Lost hundred rupee note,
Why, even missed periods,
Hair graying too early,
All these daily deliquesced for us
Day after day.
What did the new candle
We lighted in those days
Melt for?
We cannot see a thing
In its light now!
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 1:54 PM UTC
Biting bitten lips
Your body is inescapable and a temple all in one
Can you believe the smiles that crack the dried skin held together by saliva, courage, and mediocrity,
You lay in bed with a lead pipe feeding through your lungs
You breathe as mucus drips, a soft echo inside the metal,
Stale granola crumbs still sit upon your nose and you don’t have the energy to swat them away like flies upon rotting fruit
You’ve become too sweet, too weak
Your skin bruising without warning
You love the strange lingering pain but you wish you could tap at it with the exhausted arms at your sides
I’m sorry but you’re left to feel as big as you are, taking the space you have claimed
I know you want to feel small, but if you do that, you may not wake up
Let yourself heal in the space you are given so you can shrink when the time calls for it
Sep 11, 2019
Sep 11, 2019 at 2:43 PM UTC
My home.
Those two words most people
take for granted.
I miss my home
playing in the grass.
I miss my life
I was forced to leave behind.
Those lovely places
I can no longer remember.
The lives I touched
are no longer shining.
The faces I knew
are now just blank stares.
My home.
Do you ever think
about if you were to leave?
Where would you go
and would you be accepted?
Did you ever think
of these things?
Will you ever have
to put them into action?
Will you always
stay warm in your bed?
Will you live
forever?
Will you live past
your thirties?
All of this should
trigger some thinking.
Can you think of someone
just dropped off on their ***
My home.
Where is your home
if you have one?
Where will it be
if you leave?
My home is back
in Ireland.
My home was, was
so beautiful.
Everything was taken from me
all in just a few days.
I was so young
barely 24.
Everything was so simple
until things smashed down.
My home.
My home was all
I had for myself.
It was all taken from me
in just two weeks.
Once the sickness
sets in there is no hope.
My health rapidly declined
and I was no longer me.
I was just a fleshy mass
that looked like me.
I had no emotion
or expression.
My home.
My home quickly became
that hospital I was dying in.
I had bronchitis at first
but pneumonia quicly followed.
They did everything for those
two diseases but ignored underlying ones.
In the second week of my
hospital stay.
I was put on a
breathing machine.
Hypothermia set in
and Death visited frequently.
My home.
My home was my bed
I layed and died in.
Life support was
my only option.
Three days of no response
I was taken off.
I died in my
so called home.
In that bed
I layed in for two weeks.
Death was swift and my new home
was yet to be determined.
My home.
Those two little
important words.
Think about your life
and what you will leave behind.
Think about who
you leave behind.
Just think about
your home.
My home is obsolete.
Oct 13, 2012
Oct 13, 2012 at 4:06 AM UTC
---
If you read my last post you
know that I was in a relationship
which has ended. I was devastated.
I have been writing about how
depressed I have been.
That was before I watched a YouTube video of a sermon given by
Bill Johnson. It was about resting and
abiding in God. After viewing this i went outside onto my porch and talked to God. Never before had HIS LOVE for me been so palpable.
Or His voice so clear.
My dear friends. He has a plan and purpose for everything that happens to us. We are being systematically tried and purified to be inspired and blessed to have HIM in our hearts and minds. Our very lives are at stake.
Events will be taking place that will try our very SOUL. We MUST be prepared! We must be very strong to survive. Not only physically. But our souls must be prepared as well.
The devil has been sitting on me.
He's a fire that has been heating up my mettle. He has been pounding me. With doubt. Denial. And DECEIT. Telling me that I am not good enough. That I am bipolar and will never get better. But I am a sleeping giant! Not in myself. Never that. But the God I serve is awesome beyond comprehension!
These are things I have done with him working through me.
A woman with double phnemonia, strep throat and "incurable" bronchitis brought on by asthma
was healed overnight.
A woman with chronic depression was healed as I watched her start to giggle then LAUGH OUT LOUD! Holy laughter seemed to bubble up in her and she was healed!
My dad (who says he is an atheist) was cured of cancer. He's been cancer free for six years!
I've said the prayer of Salvation with a man who was a "Devil's Disciple".
A notorious motor cycle gang. He had killed three people. I saw him change before my eyes as the demons left him! He nearly fell off his chair. And this hardened man wept in my arms for 10 minutes afterwards.
The list goes on. NOT ANYTHING THAT I DID... EXCEPT I WAS TOTALLY SOLD OUT TO GOD AND ALLOWED HIM TO WORK THROUGH ME!
My name is Catherine Jarvis. I'm a SoulSurvivor. And VICTORIOUS!!!
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 2:13 AM UTC
We grew up together
Two peas in pod
You were my sidekick and I was yours
My one true platonic soulmate
So how did I let this happen?
How did I not know what was
Happening behind the four walls of your mind.
Behind the baggy sweaters that
Were suddenly "fashionable" all year round.
But if I think back carefully
Maybe I didn't miss it
Maybe I just ignored it
Ignored how when you got back from your
Summer in France the snug hoodie I gave you
Was no longer very snug
But rather hung like an ornament
On the thin frame of your body
Or how your legs began to resemble sticks
With a thigh gap most girls would die for.
Maybe I should have known the first time
You refused to eat your favourite ice cream
(chocolate mint chip) because calories!
When you told me you were in hospital
You said you were sick
But not in the way I thought you were
Because you didn't have chicken pox
Or pneumonia or bronchitis
You were sick in way that was much more twisted
You had a sickness of the mind
One that toyed with your thoughts
And messed with your sense
Until your body was wasting away.
I must admit at first I was angry
Because how could you keep this from me
I was your best friend and
You never told me your biggest secret
However then I was shocked
I could not understand
how you were in so much pain
And yet I did not know.
How had I cried for months
Proclaiming pain and suffering
That I believed no one could relate too
And yet here you were
Silently proclaiming the exact pain .
Oct 12, 2018
Oct 12, 2018 at 2:17 PM UTC
Staring right in to this
paper for days. I thought I had
lost my ability to write.
My ability to express.
A gift that I took for granted.
My feelings were just trapped
inside the cage and needed
to escape and soar high.
I couldn't bring myself to write
and the thoughts wouldn't
find words to breathe.
There was a thirst. An
aeonian ache. Heavy pounding
of my heart and an uneasy feeling
like my lungs had bronchitis.
My body unsupported the idea
of writing as I could only
write tragedies and the perpetual
pain of my once upon a time
virtuous heart. How could
I cheat on words? They had
always been there for me.
Most importantly there when
I had slit my malevolent heart
and given up.
Oct 5, 2017
Oct 5, 2017 at 11:01 AM UTC
still on the scent of your commitment
telling me not to hid any truth
begun to hug any of your body parts
tonight is the night, when i don't care that i don't rhyme
in happiness we could
say something sweet like i would.
but the feelings get cold, and i get on all of your silly thoughts
to belong with me, and be still
I'm not that kind of human
that forcing a love to someone she like just by its look
there's 3 men out there reaching for me
and im still holding back into your breathe..
i miss you
like i could die if i dont
i miss your smile on your window car
when you wave me goodbye
i miss you
like i could die if i dont
i miss your cough that day when you said that you had bronchitis on your lungs
i miss you.
like, i didn't know.
i could just fly away to you
say something sweet before you hate me
im sorry this midnight
i call you like four times
i know you're not gonna be there
its my own paradise, let me feel it myself.
on this midnight paradise,
i feel it by myself.
-sunny-
Dec 1, 2017
Dec 1, 2017 at 9:22 AM UTC
People always tell me this poem isn’t quite finished.
People say, it seems like you’ve let your thoughts just sort of taper off...
Well, besides the fact that that’s the whole point of the poem I’m about to unfold I whole heartedly agree with them.
So, maybe you’ve given up hope.
Maybe you’ve told yourself, well I’m gonna be alone forever
Nobody wants me
But if I can just be real with you for a moment
Your generation, OUR generation
The girls spend their time looking for a prince
And the boys they spend their time searching for that princess
The key, is that although not all of them may look like royalty
None of them truly have to be
And truly you most likely haven’t seen the possibility of the tapastry I’ve been weaving
Let alone the facts it’s concealing
So you can save your practiced apathy
And actually, no I’m not seeing anyone at the current time
I don’t really want to be
And I don’t say that out of modesty
And I don’t say that for society
Honestly I’m not sure why I say it at all
I guess you could call me overly intellectual,
but I don’t really see the point in ineffectual relationships with women,
because the thoughts cloud my brain box,
and my heart blocks my train of thought,
because after all it’s the wars we fought that makes us different right?
It’s the arguments and sour tastes left in our mouths that means we’ll last.
Right?
I never know what to say when someone says that to me
The pause after the long heartstring they’ve tossed my general direction,
hoping I can tug on it to put them back in tune,
but is it really a chord at all if each string sings the same note?
After all, it’s benjamin franklin who said it best
Only a fool does the same thing twice and expects different results
I’m not saying don’t go searching for love because it’s far from a lost cause
But rather if your hands are sore from singeing don’t put on a glove
But rather if you’ve caught a case of bronchitis Don’t eat tortilla chips
It hurts
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 11:45 PM UTC
It’s common knowledge that nobody dies of AIDS,
it’s the common cold or bronchitis or some other infection
that annihilates the broken immune system.
Alternatively, people with AIDS die
of suicide.
I didn’t even consider suicide an option
until you bolted your front door twice
and strung your neck up with a rainbow silk tie.
I don’t have AIDS,
I don’t even have the common cold or bronchitis,
but I do have a long gold cord under my bed
coiled up like a snake curling around its own head.
I do not want to die today, but I checked tomorrow’s forecast
and it sounds like the perfect day
for my madness to burst outward in hot yellow rays
as I choke on my own grey spit
and fatal sins.
Jul 6, 2017
Jul 6, 2017 at 12:34 PM UTC
i am the bronchitis afflicted
memory washed rogue that
spills across the streets like
tears of laughter
i am the screen breathing
hand trembling sweat bleeding
souls of heaven
eyes skyward
i am the all striped all checkered
all wooden apologies
smiles of understanding
leers of worry
tears of laughter
i am the all aching all breathing all shuddering all fire all water
all WATER
all fog
all cold
all alone
ALL JOY
Aug 18, 2014
Aug 18, 2014 at 5:09 PM UTC
helps treat bronchitis
aroma makes one alert
relieves stress, spearmint
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 5:36 PM UTC
A car full of crazy
each mask fully functional
Wine stained logic with the auto pilot motions
I only wanted a new copy of "The Plague"
I gave my last one to a stranger who ask me my thoughts on the human condition
Somehow traffic sticks and I'm left with a stagnant wave that cannot be traversed
My passengers are all professionals in their respective fields of strange
I'm not sure where I found them or how they gained entry
They told me when we first met
"A vehicular persuasion can be potent"
I nod like I understand
With only pocket lint powder and tree's
surely they will have no words purchased
They ask me this and that like I have a clue
With two days no sleep and an unshakable humming of the eardrum
I am on the brink of bronchitis and padded squares
finally we arrive and I leave them to their nonsense
they all went next door to a pool hall
I bought all the Camus I could
I left them there for discovery
Nov 26, 2016
Nov 26, 2016 at 5:14 PM UTC
.
//you've got to stay active.
she says, with eyes deeper than my own bronchitis voice .
shadowy in the way she stirs her cup
stepping over ice cubes with careful tiptoes of her
w r i s t.
she, there
[like light raking across the sides of pictureframes along the
hallway]
the edge of her jawline drips into my ______ mug
steeped into dark
truth is i don't drink much coffee
Sep 23, 2017
Sep 23, 2017 at 11:17 AM UTC