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M Annalise Sep 2010
I will not raise my head today
For I must keep my eyes fixated upon
The tiny shadow in the crease of my own arm

If I blink, it shall swallow me whole

And send this body through a gauntlet
Of heaving breaths
Heaving breaths
And the blood in my skin shall course through my veins
So bitter and foreign,
Carrying lightning bolts of pain
Cold, but burning tremors of pain...

Healthy blood should not behave this way
I'd swear this was something injected...
But my bruiseless arms say there is no way

This is my body
I am this body
I am this waif, this witch, this wraith,
Drifting through these streets of nowhere
Moving left and right,
Left and right
Hither and thither...
With the breeze of the evil man's breath
And all I can hear are my toes on the pavement
Reminding me that
I am completely alone
A preliminary draft
Paul Idiaghe Dec 2020
december is the dust dripping from the body
of a closed book, dry and dreamy
like an opening—like the dent
on your doughnut dimple, our lips,
loose from loving, luminous
from our icy irices
igniting;

it is what spills after the storm—
a sweet slice of sky, its silhouette
soft and soothing
like silence.

now, the moon is mounted as a mistletoe
on the tender twig of midnight, now,
our dreams, draped in december dew,
are cold kisses of eternity.

see as december drags the dead
back to breath—our bodies,
bruiseless and born

out of the broken,
wiping afresh in the white,
wet wool of winter.
I promise myself to never stop creating
To always dribble ink onto my flesh
My soggy wrists and tear ducts always open like my silly pegs

I look at the ladies before me
They are polished or they are cracked
Either way, people talk slander, meaty anger and ***** dribbles

I look at my sandwich
Whether it had meat or cheese or nothing at all
Either way, people would talk slander, slap a comment

I wonder if I could ever live bruiseless
I wonder if the only marks on my body would be my own
I wish my only mark on me was my henna

I've decided to make it very clear
I will never yearn for anyone's back
I will never smile for anyone but myself
I will never put my hands anywhere but for myself
A drink or two is my delight
Not my service to loosen into your mould, to be played with

Yet you see, here alas is my tragedy
I am free but I am caged by my own humanity
My human desires and cuddling yearns all across the ages of years

But even amidst the gloom and doom
I hope inside the cradle of my centre that a little angel girl with dreams
of solidarity and self-sufficiency
Could maybe one day read my words inside her entirety
Feel herself in these words of me
And see that I am her and she is me
I want you to learn from my example, not what they give me

I want to one day inspire a generation to think freely
Do for yourself but never once forget your personal responsibility
A balance of woes to create a life free of opulence and free of hate

One day, hopefully, one day
A little angel baby can look back to me and see
A way to move further and forward
A way to remain her fragility and live with her life hopefully.
Elle Jul 2019
I wanted you to tell me about the books you've read
To recite the sentences that made life seem kind
But your words got caught on the sharp mountaintops
And blended in with the snow between your lips

Your name stood thin
Sprawled out in front of me with a bruiseless form
I wanted to reach out and tear at the milky flesh
To find something beneath that resembled home

Once you were as I have said
A lamb that followed the light
You only dreamt of days within your sight
When I see you now, you are battered

Your sagging flesh, sick and dying
A stranger to the world
A world that insists on pushing you out
As it pushed you in

When I think of you
A flash of satin and violet
A lamb underneath the claws of life
And a woman who lost her story
Tita Halaman May 16
Was knowing less, was bruiseless
Thus impetuous, hence careless
A high diver, a high spirit
Only to find out,
I have drowned, just in shallow chances
I have melted, just in shallow phrases
And it built me,
A tactical diver, a toned spirit
Less smiles, more doubts
In knowing love, in knowing life
Side by side
A poem for a painting

— The End —