"callouses" poems
kiss me with mango sherbet
in your mouth and sticky
orange tinted lips
these car tires are growing old
but I am young with three
dimples on my face
callouses on my fingertips
of my left hand
stop with the
'you're scared'
in which century does
refusal amount to fear
liberation by the pen drawings
on my hand consumes me
individuality is not dead I
am here
with fiery intent occasionally lost in
a girly figure with a small
waist and awkward ankles
don't dance alone dance a soliloquy
like the bruise on my neck
(labors of love are not
merely towards humans)
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 11:12 PM UTC
i want to be able to see my heart in word-form, all of its callouses and scars spelled out in strings of the alphabet
i want words to flow off of my fingertips like the drippings of water droplets into a sink from a faucet closed only half way
yet i've found that the four-letter word i've been feeling
can only be expressed as it is
numb
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 8:44 AM UTC
Mount Recovery
Recovery is described as a mountain
And here I am on my path to the top
Holes in my shoes bumps and bruises on my body
Blood staining the clothes I’m wearing
Not from rough terrain but from the abuse and pain I have put myself through
Callouses and scars each finding new homes on my body
Leaving held breathes on my skin
This is my recovery-
Not just from the drugs and alcohol…and from myself
On the path to the top of mount recovery
The path that seems to be traveled more and more today
Each step is a struggle as I strain to keep my balance
On what seems to be a narrow path
But filled with pain and self-discovery
A sense of wonder as I struggle to keep my balance
Amazed at myself that I haven’t fell yet.
As I look ahead I wonder if I will ever make it to the top
I continue to stumble forward
Sometimes to loosing direction
Step by step I rise in elevation
Growing callouses
Healing wounds
I stop to look up and admire the beauty of the life around
As the horizon is filled with oranges, blues, pinks and purples
As the sun sets on another day in Mount recovery.
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 12:46 AM UTC
this is a series of brief letters to the pieces of my body
dear body,
we don't always work together very well,
but i swear i am trying.
dear hands,
the callouses and crescent moons in your palms
will not be for nothing.
dear knuckles,
aren't you tired of painting yourselves black & blue
every time words fall short of the fire burning behind my sternum?
dear feet,
you know better than to follow roads that lead to dead ends.
there are better places for us to go.
dear eyes,
you have sunken so far into my skull
it shocks me you see anything at all anymore.
you're fixated on shades of gray
but i promise the world will regain its color soon.
dear knees,
stop crawling.
this broken glass is from his bottles.
get up. no more blood.
dear shoulders,
it was never your burden to carry. let it fall,
and try your hardest not to feel guilty.
dear neck,
his hands will never make a home here,
and you are worth more than one night of empty bruises.
dear spine,
stop waiting to be warmed by fingers
that would reach for another body if they could.
dear tears,
do not waste yourselves.
dear ears,
you have been filled with ghost songs for too long.
stop listening for things no one is saying -
it will make life much simpler.
dear mouth,
i know these secrets have been threatening to break my teeth
but please do not open your gates. i am not ready.
dear skin,
we have never been close friends.
i am sorry for the scars.
i am trying to learn how to be comfortable in you.
dear mind,
if i could wish you into an etch-a-sketch
and shake you clean of these bad memories i would.
dear heart,
i hope you can forgive me for being so careless.
i feel how tired you are. rest is on its way.
dear body,
you will one day see a grave,
but it must not be by your own hands.
- m.f.
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 6:28 PM UTC
my boy with fig leaves and lightning bugs
tied up in his hair, he kneels with
crimson palms pressed to the unquiet dirt
and hums an abandoned melody.
my boy with sunbeams shining through his skin on the riverbank,
neatly coating the grass in thin white trails, woven into footprints like cotton twine, snaking their way across brown earth,
ankles slick with mud and the dead things that lay just underneath.
my boy with rosewater and stained glass ashes
feels me bless him with blackberries and the softest crush of words,
ice cubed, beneath my lips,
as he wipes the ichor from my chest with callouses
worn down gentle.
the light echoes from his skin
there are no symphonies nor sacraments,
only cicadas singing warmth to shivering willows.
Nov 16, 2018
Nov 16, 2018 at 10:41 PM UTC
i would hate to be built a brick wall
linear as immovable constants
and the wristwatch hands i fear
weave me around callouses
like a spring, double helix,
and i will shrug in content
nucleotides formed of consciousness
hydrogen and karmic bonds together
jacob's ladder extending to liberation
and sincerity for all the moments
i was missing from the jigsaw tangle
of pillows and down and sprawl
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 1:26 PM UTC
breathing down my neck
smelling like axe and testosterone
a mixture of callouses on my
baby doll hands
and the sun's reflections through dusty windows
on a winter day
I know that my actions are erroneous
stained with reluctance
the windows in my old church
scream at me for the reluctance
I stopped believing in god when I realized it spells dog backwards. or was it when I was 13 and realized I would make 75 cents to every dollar.
my unfounded reasoning for running
substantiated only by my astrological sign which I reluctantly believe on days where I need a hiatus from the dirt in between my toes
SCORPIO
it plays hard to get
but astrology spells dog backwards too
I should've said yes to the axe smelling boy
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 11:58 PM UTC
every drink to numb the pain
drowns His voice
dulls my hearing
callouses my heart
for how can I raise my hands
to receive, to worship,
when they are filled with a pint?
Sep 21, 2025
Sep 21, 2025 at 7:20 AM UTC
sleeping tears awoke to crimson crust & apple red veins,
eyes peering through the dizzying fog to find a faucet
& drizzle rain like nectar down the peach pit's core,
along rugged edges & oval pores,
imperfect patterns & lightning blinks
remind the second sadness to cry once again.
My swipe of crust is rusting
like a smoker's yellowing finger tips gathering paint on callouses
& cracked lips
mirrored reflections shadow gaze,
squinting to locate bronze crow's feet of a man, mid thirties,
lying for what-to die
dying to wait-for what
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 at 12:25 AM UTC
A pencil is of dreams,
the Sandman sings sweetly on graphite.
Unlearn your rules,
unleash your light.
Dance on rhythms of pentameter
and sing melodies that twinkle
on the tip of your tongue,
alliterative opera and assonance
played among the bass that is literature.
Sometimes you must ignore the pain
in your hands,
let callouses build and relish
in blood filling your blisters.
Pain here means progress.
Sweep agony away for the sake of day then sink into the ink of night.
Float on clouds of fantasy and write.
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 11:21 AM UTC
I have two bruises on my shoulders
blue as the oceans and marbled white,
storm-foam spilling from my head
and eyes.
That’s not your responsibility--
but what else could it have been
when I knelt silent, scrubbing, palms
red as my sister’s sticky wrists, clorox
wipes balled and piled in the corner?
I am not
steel-skinned, some mechanical being
mistaken for a human with her eyelids
torn from her face, blindless to trauma
and the callouses it leaves behind.
And yet
the oceans on my shoulders blow salt
healing the wounds to smooth, pink scars,
reminders in every mirrored surface:
I am still standing.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 12:09 AM UTC
I look down at my feet,
toes adorned with chipped nail varnish,
a pitiful plaster clinging to the sole,
and I grimace at the
purple marks, reddening blisters,
cicatrices of stories long forgotten.
The ***** of my feet are thin and worn,
my heels rubbed raw from
shoes I have loved and shoes I have detested,
faded scars from childhood accidents.
I have aged hating my feet,
the discoloured skin, dotted with odious callouses,
my throbbing, wrinkled soles.
They have grown with me,
from tiny clumps unrecognisable as a foetus,
to wide, long size 7s.
My toes are misshapen, twisting this way and that,
freckled with sun kisses from foreign countries.
They’ve been battered and bruised
repeatedly,
victims of my hurtling abuse and mortal neglect.
I have punished them
with verruca socks and freezing ointments,
pin ****** small shoes, razor blades, nail clippers and
not once
have I nurtured them, soaked them with praise.
These feet have walked me up mountains,
aided me in athletic championships,
withstood six inch heels on weekends,
ran me through marathons,
enduring my never-ending physical torment and though
they may buckle,
with weeping blisters and aching pains,
dry skin, broken bones and sprained ankles,
they will recover,
rebuilding the scabrous skin.
Regardless of how unstable my life may become in later years,
whether I am stranded on a deserted island,
or walking the ***** streets of the city, no room to call my own,
my feet will always,
undoubtedly, lead me to safety.
And when I am old
and withered, an exhausted heap of human life,
with my last dying breath,
I will thank my durable, reliable feet.
May 2, 2016
May 2, 2016 at 11:28 AM UTC
Men grow on my fingers
and I assault them when I write
until each becomes impotent,
I will never let anyone hurt me.
Their pulses stutter and echo
as if I keep them in a barn
but they’re hard under my skin,
their erections like callouses.
Some get restless and none cry
because they know I watch:
I am not here to be present, I
am not here to let people inside.
Feb 15, 2013
Feb 15, 2013 at 4:22 PM UTC
The small faced Korean
Man
Paints orange nail polish
My girlfriend's feet
He wears plastic gloves that
Don't fit
Quite
Rightly.
He is missing half a
Finger on
His right hand.
Robb and I talk
Again
Of the orange grove
He will inherit,
We make jokes
That cause the women
Rubbing our feet
To laugh and smile.
My feet begin to lose their
Hard earned callouses.
The soap they use smells
Like oranges.
The three of them
Walk over to a crock-pot
To grab warm rocks
Robb asks if it's time
For chili
He had
not finished
His soup at lunchtime
As we talked of
Old stories
Some that left scars
And others
Callouses.
The soup grew cold
But the smiling
reminded me
It is springtime
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 4:16 PM UTC
Rough tactile callouses.
Jointed mischief collaborators.
Twisted knuckly punishers.
Wrinkled hills and valleys.
Capability embodied.
Sensuality expressed.
Love experienced.
Life recorded.
Dancing Phalanges.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 12:46 AM UTC
My hands are rough
From doing bars
Doing pull ups
Putting chalk
Wearing grips
Constant contact with rough wood
My hands have to be rough for my sport
My hands are rough
A sign of what I've been through
Of how hard I work
Of how much I push myself
A sign of bravery and courage
My hands are rough
Blistered from holding on to people that have already cut me off
Scarred from trying to piece my broken heart together
Callouses from building on one sided relationships
My hands are rough
Something to be insecure about
Something I keep to myself
And I didn't really care
Until you
My hands are rough
And I've been worried
That no one would want to hold on to them
That they'd be hurt by my hands
That they aren't the hands they want to hold on to
And so I warm my own hands
My hands are rough
But you choose to hold on to them
Despite the blisters, cuts, and callouses
I know it might not be the pair of best hands in the world
And I'm sorry I can never give you those
But I have never felt safer and more secure
Than when your hands are interlocked with mine
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 10:14 AM UTC
do you remember calling me up in the middle of the night asking me to help you find your childhood and how i would run to your house and how we would race to the playground where you would sit on the swing while i pushed you so hard that you would scream and laugh and exclaim about how heaven was in this very place
do you remember my weak lungs trying hard not to give up and my fragile arms growing tired and my hands with callouses and how i got tired after pushing you a hundred times
do you remember asking me why i kept pushing you when i felt so weak and tired and sleepy
and i told you that i kept pushing because the definition of my happiness was seeing you four feet up in the ground with your cheeks stretched and your teeth and gums exposed in the grandest laugh and that the feeling of my heart beating quickly was the greatest feeling of all
and do you remember when you asked me a week ago why i still stayed with you when you felt that everything was getting tiresome for me?
it's because i want to see your smile and your hands holding tight and because you are that girl on the swing and i would push you until you find your childhood or even if you never find it at all
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 7:27 AM UTC
In your Sillouette,
Painted Gold, against Magic Curtain.
This Oz Stage, Hiding our bodies.
I am lingering.
You are gilded beautiful
Bare ******* pointed at Chandeliers
****** Capstones sealing perfect Arches
I am a foot protruding from your sculpture
In mustard.
I am that blot behind your Hip Bone
Cold Draft from the window
Opened Opposite the Magic curtain
A breath of ocean waves
Our bodies casting illusions
In ripples of Moonlit fabric
Dancing around our sillouette.
Black Moss collects in the shape of your tattoos
Silk screen thighs,
Underbust Corset
where the breeze whispered
where my fingertips wrapped your hipbones.
growing where we Calloused
In our Roughs
In our trenches
Rubbing Leather against Silk
You invested in our common interest.
A mirror, Fastened to the Ceiling.
Reflecting Our Two Loudest Vices.
Ownership,
And your body.
I love the Chips in your paint.
I hate the man who painted you.
infected by Tunnel vision Voyeurism
Sick with a Spiderweb brain
Spinning from your imperfections.
You are so, perfect.
Artists come from all over
To watch the magic curtain.
Your Golden arching Back.
My Mustard Toes.
we all look at you,
even you look at you.
we do not Blink.
Just stare, position ourselves.
behind this curtain.
Our callouses grow like the black moss
bodies marble under ocean pressure
erode from the chill winds
Your archaic exhibitionism
Carved From Counting Gazes
Mustard eternally pondering
why our sillouettes, different colors
Drawn by the same moon,
Casted on the same cloth.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 6:31 PM UTC
drowned the Earth suddenly.
underneath honest light,
all
submerged. this cataract of feeling —
waters pursue beginnings. cradling them
to unknown ends, washed by the shore.
gluttonously the night swallowed
all — parliament of birds warble no longer.
midnight, the Moon
claws the supple skin of organized stone
displaced
where all the edges bloom
forth torrid froth of dappled light which kills no less than a brief life of matchflame. tenuous spar of wind on
the unserious twilight; bulge of death
in the stream — a body haul, rafting
in compost; stench of all topple like
resins held loose in vats. rat **** becomes
as inviting as moulding bread;
tantric music for no instrument, hoarse
cries unbeheld —
until the flesh no longer flounders
pressed against sleep-shaped youngness
hewn lissome in the hours of no succor,
modeling silence in the thrill of
this enthusiastic space,
hands scouring muddied
obscure, atremble,
shadowless hours fill stomachs with
the plump word of rescue yet none
of these fingers unwished the
ingenuity of dull gods — this twilight
nor twinight could ever grive
in forethought, striking bells to signal birds
to arrive again so we could feast
in silver fish, with bare hands scaled to callouses,
looking at it twice-over, this battered yolk
of whiteness, with deeds of the viridian
now atrill in new fragile woodworks
lurching and
ameliorating as we all
stutter and sing
haunts dabbing open
lips of small wounds that
wish to shut quietly, almost
every threat of gray or pummel of
wind startles the flyblown ornate,
hurrying us back to cornerless homes
where all photographs washed away,
very few hang
swayed by verdure
of the gradual throne of sea
curving perpetually the several stars
we have ignored for a while,
where everything quite begins
again to enthrall with a melodic
leitmotif of the most tender of
instances loose
in mouths
and in endless recall
breathless—
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 7:55 AM UTC
Someday,
my hands will be full
of callouses,
old
with wrinkles,
like ripples
in time.
The skin
will flake and dry,
and I
will give thanks
as I sleep.
Someday.
May 4, 2017
May 4, 2017 at 8:58 PM UTC
Do not stretch your fingers in my direction;
I am not your ******* or your heroine;
I am no drug to be addicted to.
My body is bruised and I am bent out of shape;
My ankles are all ninety degree angles;
And my knuckles are caked in golden hues.
The callouses on my heels are peeling;
And your spitfire attitude is exhausting.
"Simmer down, firecracker;
You lionhearted girl."
I'm flying at the speed of light;
I am going to crash, a beaten down piñata;
And nobody will pick up the pieces.
Simmer down, firecracker.
I'll simmer down when I'm dead.
(a.m.c.)
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
I
I feel like my toes
are walking along sandpaper and as they
wear on and on
it's that much more difficult to tell
if I'm building callouses
or growing
tender
II
I haven't found
the slant of light I've been searching for
but I must say
the way I see when the sun
cuts my gaze at dusk
must be close
enough
III
I'm chasing something
either inches or miles beyond my grasp
all I know is
when I'm turning circles dreams
look an awful lot
like my own
tail
Jan 16, 2014
Jan 16, 2014 at 3:06 AM UTC