"chafed" poems
Stuck at this game,
In what seemed like forever.
Stuck at a stage where...
Experience points don't matter.
A game set in an expansive universe,
Rife with problems that arise to haunt.
You can't pass and can't concede defeat.
Troubles' only function is to mock and taunt.
I've chafed my thumbs raw...
Manipulating the knobs on my controller.
My mind is a mess...
In search of a happily ever after.
Puzzled by puzzles,
There are no cheat codes...
Can't blast my way through,
There are no god modes...
Neither are there any hints,
Nor is there a walkthrough...
I'm just running in perpetual circles,
In this game of me and you.
Feb 18, 2015
Feb 18, 2015 at 8:13 AM UTC
her mouth was sandpaper.
her mouth was sandpaper
and she spoke like
a smooth surface,
words scraped into fluidity
like a wooden sphere,
turned over behind teeth ‘til all friction
is lost.
she spoke like the walls of a birdhouse
in the room of a dead carpenter:
pretty unassembled things.
her mouth was sandpaper
and every kiss chafed,
rubbing raw my lips
and tongue
crafting with each touch
drawing blood like
juice from an apple,
like sap
from wood already cut from the tree.
her mouth was sandpaper
and she told me
*i bite my lips,
rip at
the inside of my mouth,
cannibalize myself cell
by cell.*
bone saws in her mouth.
the only difference between teeth of jaws
and saws
is mercy
(and she swallowed her mercy long ago).
her mouth was sandpaper
and she spoke like a carpenter’s hands:
rough palms,
tough pads,
a utilitarian artist
a crafter of dead flesh.
a mortician for dryads
and kodama.
the art and the artist
in lips
tongue
and teeth.
her mouth was sandpaper
and i brought mine to hers
again and again,
her bitten-rough lips
opening like doors to
purgatory.
less entrapment than addiction -
returning once more to nails and hammers,
hell’s blacksmiths below
heaven’s painters above.
coming back home
to the space between,
to bone saws
and a carpenter’s hands.
her mouth was sandpaper
and her voice was carpentry,
her teeth bone saws
her words
birdhouse walls.
her mouth was purgatory
but her hands
were hands.
her mouth was sandpaper.
i held her hand
and chafed my lips raw.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 12:26 AM UTC
Cautionary visions visit in viciously vivid fashion
I'm dead and my head is missing
Everyone is laughing
But me
And the sky is sorta dreary but I don't know
With no eyes you don't see too clearly
Sew me a new one on,
Attached at the neck
Plastic instead of brittle skin and maybe then
I can exist in some form above the normally gray and grim
I pray to a faceless facade
I made a "God" in my head
An eternal alternative to turn to and blame
And claim to strangers that he works in mysterious ways
My lips are chafed from singing unheard praises
I'm tasteless and it has me thinking that maybe my mouth was only a product of my imagination
**Food for thought I chew and stop
Its too **** hot for contemplation**
Still, I used to think my hands belonged to someone else
Right up until I used them both to **** myself
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 12:38 PM UTC
i
i washed up for a living,lily,
for a while there
this is something george**
and i have in common..
on the whole i was treated
decently
pearl divers are a breed unto
themselves..
mine was a life of ease
over eating and boredem
it was hard on the spine
and knees..
a piece of cake compared
to digging holes
(surrounded by the boss
and his extended family..)
the pop wagon on friday
cement as a whole
the olive oil factory or
carrying bricks..
ii
the pop wagon on a friday
took only two hours
brevity
that was the answer..
the cement truck on
tuesdays
took two and half
hours..
but ended in tears..
the shift in the olive
oil factory
could last eighteen hours..
digging holes an eternity
carrying bricks up stairs
works up quite a thirst..
never mind soon be..
be in pauli´ s soup kitchen
where wine smooth and cool
as honey bees..
chicken and macaroni..!
iii
the cement was high in lime
and invariably chafed the skin
and in that hole it would set
to be picked out with olive oil
and a pin..drunk,the screaming
and carry on..
we laughed and held them down
better digging holes..!*
*it was so painful..!
**down and out in paris and london
by gearge orwell
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 8:33 AM UTC
It is like some steampunk nightmare
Where working overtime is a racket
When what was time and a half pay
On the day I get my check, I make less;
Some kind of tax bracket scam thing
Where working extra hours put me
Into another category and increased
The tax they use to grease the wheels
Of a bloated government that hates me.
Maybe that dates me and it isn’t true;
That things have changed and it is
No longer arranged that way. And maybe
The way things became done was that
I got it all back as a refund. But isn’t that
Redundant, that I had to pay it to them
To use it like per diem for their games?
The shame is that I chafed and did nothing
Besides ******** and frothing at the mouth.
It’s not like I could go south to Ensenada,
Buy a piñata that looked like Mickey Mouse,
It was just that the house always wins.
But I have to pay for my tiny, mundane sins.
Why don’t they? Why does it go on and on
And then the money’s gone and I pay more
The next time some fat ***** of a politician
Begins a petition to increase their slice
And nicely reduce ours to a pittance
So low there is no admittance to a show
Or enough to replace a car that is a wreck?
The albatross around my neck gets larger
As it I move farther from the day it died
Even though I have tried standing up straighter.
It’s The Grand Guignol Theatre that life is
And the strife is to not let it get me down;
To be the happy clown and not the sad one
In a game that was begun to make me lose.
I am not confused. I see it, but it seems
Even in dreams I get no kind of relief
From a governmental thief with immunity;
The pillages with impunity and teases
That he does what he pleases. Neener, neener
What in hell could possibly be meaner?
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 6:32 AM UTC
I love the cold, the chill on my skin.
I love the way it makes my bones want to crack and break through my chafed flesh.
The way my blood slows, numbing my limbs, slowing their movement.
I love the way you left me...
I love the way I've been torn and left. Yes, love it how with every breath my lungs strain and gasp for the air that once soothed their burning....
I love this frustration. love how it consumes every waking moment. love how I can't get passed you. Ilove how I've tried....
I just love the corruption of my thoughts, the way they long for what was: to be tormented, twisted up yet again in mindless passion, spinning...
I loved the crash that followed that high and those glorious nigh5a that are now so empty....
I love being alone. love listening to the sound of your silence. I love how it's been so long since you've graced me with your untimely presence. I just love it to death!
I love still freezing from the absence of your touch. I love longing for the warmth of an endearing word from your now forlorn mouth. I love it how you still have nothing to say now that time is spent and it's too late.
I love it so much, it kills me
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 6:27 PM UTC
unscrupulous universe
steeped in illusion and so
electrifiedcrazy
with
infernal edges chafed
against tinfoil stars
bent and
broken.
they make believe that they are beautiful.
unscrupulous people
sharply disillusioned and so
upandoutwild
with
rough edges filed smooth
with makeup and glam
but they're still
bent and
broken.
they make believe that they are beautiful.
understated words
creating an illusion and so
slipperysilverfleeting
with
dark corners coming
alive under the
pretense of fiction
bent but not
broken.
they know that they are beautiful.
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 12:59 AM UTC
I sprinkled sunflower petals in the warm water,
to make it gold.
Then dipped my body quietly in the bathtub,
to wash my tainted soul.
The morning light peeked through the lemon coloured glass,
while the fading fate dissolved in the pearly waves of my lash.
My lifted hand reached for the sunlight,
the feeble fingers swayed like dandelions.
A swollen gaze perched on the broken mirror,
a burning sensation impregnated my chafed lips; turning them bitter.
The beauty they preach about is not divine,
nothing in this world stays sublime.
The saffron tinted ancient walls,
kissed the amber tiled floor
Everything fire; everything gold,
yet no power can assuage the murkiness of my soul.
My dear Van Gogh how could you think?
that the yellow, if you eat, will lift your spirits?
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 4:37 PM UTC
Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast--
The desert and illimitable air--
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
2.3k
Was I maudlin over our breakup? For a minute.
If I think of you now, it’s like a slideshow of unflattering images.
At the time, my breakup buddies reminded me you were a bad
choice - like a brand of deodorant that gave me a rash or fashionable shoes that chafed, even after they were stretched.
“Ruca,” my girlfriends would say, “you’re shootin-terrible, they’re a million pork-swords in the sea.”
Finally, I pulled the trigger - double-tapped us.
At first, reminders of you, those siren whispers of nostalgia, were everywhere - like the moon - which, I just had to live with.
You passed from memory though, that’s how memory works. Events fade, like last week’s chemistry test, or yesterday’s lunch.
Now, if someone asks me, “Hey, remember, what’s his name, your big love from high school?”
I say “Nope.”
I chose to laugh, dance - and shoot birds at the moon.
May 30, 2023
May 30, 2023 at 8:37 PM UTC
She is the color of passion ー
The heated sighs and whispers
of promises to be broken in
cold, lonely nights.
She is the color of kisses ー
Chafed and bruised in stolen
Moments, never to be
experienced again.
She is the color of scorn ー
Laughter, icy and vengeful,
over desperate pleas as they
fall to Bitter ears.
She is the color of women,
of mother and child,
Forgotten and forsaken ー
a ransom paid for one eternal
Night.
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 12:45 PM UTC
Your nails were
soft pink crescents
they chafed
along my cheek.
You plucked
the silken petals
watched them wither
at your feet.
I fed you dandelions,
Picked stems
from your teeth
with my tongue.
But in the creases
of your mouth,
I saw the weeds of doubt.
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 11:15 AM UTC
You can’t really picture the place.
You don’t recall who was there.
But you remember surprise
That human ashes are not powdery dust,
Apt to disintegrate like snow,
Or soft like bread cast upon the waters.
Dad’s ashes chafed your palms like jagged seeds
As you clutched fistfuls from a plastic purple box
And flung them down a hillside
Somewhere in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
And you remember the feeling of urgency
As you retreated up the hill.
You had motions to go through,
Space to occupy,
A black and white landscape to walk
Among small figures filing along a dirt track
In the airless September heat.
Jul 25, 2015
Jul 25, 2015 at 6:54 AM UTC
I couldn’t have no bunch ‘a “Baby-Daddies” hanging around my life
Jugglin’ ‘em- and tryin’ a keep track of
What each was supposed to do for his
And when
And how
And how much
Naw…that ain’t my style
~
I’m the lady that he introduces to other ladies in his life
I’m the lady that he takes to dinner with his mama
I’m the lady who
Can stand up under his friend-girl’s scrutiny and
Bear the weight of his auntie’s infamous stare
I got
Way too much class to have too many babies
With too many different daddies
Right?
You understand what I mean…
~
So when I looked up
And I had ****** up
And was knocked up
By another woman’s husband…
(With my classy self)
Well… that just would not do at all
I mean I may be
PRO-Choice
But in truth
I had
NO choice
Right?
You understand what I mean…?
~
Hell,
Too many kids and girl might
Fool around and end up a “pogo stick”
And I ain’t no **** pogo stick…
You know…
“Fun to bounce around on-
But no self-respecting grown man
Will be seen in public with one…”
I had NO choice…
Right?
~
It wadn’t so bad…
Once I got past the
Nightmares of vacuums and clogged ******* sounds and the pain in my guts
and the bleedin’ ‘til I chafed and the crying ‘til I puked and the sore leaking ******* and the
Hole in my soul…
It wadn’t so bad…
~
And it had to be done
Right?
~
Besides, I lived through it…
And in the end- it’s all about ME
You understand what I mean…
You hear what I’m screamin’?
You hear
What
AAAAHM SCREEEAAAMING!!!?
May 16, 2013
May 16, 2013 at 9:12 AM UTC
we talked about it at my place and yours
but mostly I mourned
seeing the socks pulled over your
ankles
while walking across streets during rain.
how warm
like a second skin, they rubbed
against my thighs and it chafed and you
kept cotton to shove down
our throats
when being broken felt like too much
for two people so in love
and so far apart.
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 6:19 PM UTC
THE SHADOWS PALMS
STRETCHED IN THE EBONY ROADS
MUSING ON THE BLOCKS OF RUGGED STONE STEPS
GARNERED AND GATHERED BY CHAFED PALMS.
STRADDLING OVER THEM
THE DEEP FURROWS AND HEATED BROWS
NOW BROWN AND TANNED WEARING
A RUMMAGED MOUSTACHE OF CLIMBING VINES.
EVERY STEP AMUSES,
A MUSE THAT DOES NOT CEASE TO AMUSE,
IN THE HEAT OVERDOSES.
AND WHEN THE ARECA PALMS PALIPATING
IN ARRAY
HOIST ABOUT LIKE ROWS OF MEN DOPED
IN CEILED BANKS OF DISTRUST
A CYNICAL NILA CRIES ,
HER PLUNDERED SANDS.
NOW THE SUNKEN FERRIES ,
HAVE APPEARED AT HER BAY,
AND PAINFULLY CHAFE EACH OTHER.
A ***** FROM THE BOTTOM
STIRRING THE BELL FOR THE REQUIEM
PAY THE FERRYMEN.
FOR THE WAYFARERS WAFFLED WRITINGS
ARE ADDRESSED
TO THE MEN WHO PLASTERED HER WALLS ALONE
May 20, 2012
May 20, 2012 at 1:31 AM UTC
The first time he came into the light
He thought that his eyes had gone,
The sun was shining, ever so bright
With nothing to focus on,
They led him out to sit on a rock
And hacked off his ball and chain,
It took a week of his ticket of leave
Before he could see again.
Richard Dawson, a broken man
Had finally done his time,
He’d spent three years in shovelling coal
In the colony’s first coal mine,
They said it was only his just desserts
For a pocket, picked in the Strand,
And sent him out on a convict ship
To the hell of Van Diemen’s Land.
At first they set him to breaking rocks
For laying the first rough roads,
He worked while tethered in iron chains
That chafed his skin and his bones,
He wasn’t allowed to take a rest
From swinging the pick or axe,
For the guards would follow the line of men
And lay the whip on their backs.
He lost his God and he lost his soul
Or he thought that he had, out there,
Where men were hung as a matter of fact
And nobody seemed to care,
He slaved four years with the other men
But his future was looking bleak,
When he hit a man who was guarding them
He was sent to Saltwater Creek.
If ever there was a hell on earth
It was called Saltwater Creek,
The devil had got in the minds of men
And they formed a barbaric clique.
The cells were buried, were underground,
There wasn’t a spark of light,
And the men were taken out of the mine
When it was dark, at night.
They started before the sun was up,
They finished when it was gone,
Were locked and chained in their pitch dark cells
In a terror that just went on,
And while they were buried and mining coal
They’d think of the old country,
While their judge sat cool in his stately robes
And finished his morning tea.
A man turns into a surly brute
When he’s kicked and cursed, and beat,
But take the sun from his daily run
And his soul admits defeat.
Richard Dawson, later in life
At night, would take to the street,
And never could quite explain to his wife
The Hell of Saltwater Creek.
David Lewis Paget
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 5:16 PM UTC
Dead summer skin falls from the yielding trees
The bitter wind makes a bitter me
Grumbling inner man regretting
Ungrateful thanks in sweating
Longing for lighter clothes
I blow my chafed nose
People scamper
Teeth clamper
My fun
Done
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 3:14 PM UTC
I craved presence and dreamt of intimacy:
of arms wrapped tight around me in the darkness
and lips like wildfire scorching throughout my skin.
Of midnight drives and trips to crowd-less theaters,
chafed balaclavas and pseudo-murder sprees.
Of laughter and a smile not like the sunlight
but the moon's: enigmatic, forlorn, lonely.
Of self-destruction and notorious luxuries,
and hands, laced against my own,
comforting, solid,
a drop of water in the desert.
(A kind of love that could give me what I wanted,
and what I wanted was oblivion.)
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 9:39 AM UTC
I knew a boy who liked to draw people
(with guns pressed to their temples and blades at their wrists)
he liked to tell stories
(about a girl with a chafed neck swinging from her closet)
sometimes he wrote these stories down and submitted then to the school newspaper
(but no one likes stories about sunset thighs)
they thought he was crazy
(did you hear- let us chat now now now)
but he was not crazy
(just suicidal)
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
he was a burly man
maybe mid-forties
she was nineteen,
a little naïve
a little Lolitaish
she didn’t know him
nor him her
he wore his uniform
the cloak of power and authority
like a sheath on his *****
the only one he had today
her ******* chafed as her bra bit
jeans over tightly wrapped buttocks
she pulls the cord to stop the bus
it is her stop
two blocks from home
she gets up and turns
to face the door
he eyes her from behind
with vision hungry for a taste
just a taste
of what lies beneath
she is thinking about getting home
before she freezes
the door opens
she takes a step down
unaware
he gets up silently
and pushes her out
“that’s where you belong you *****
in the gutter.”
unexpected tears mingle
with rain in the mud.
copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2011
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 10:41 PM UTC
I bleed outside the lines
from the insides of my knees.
The thousand-at-once ******
of your mild affection
that paint my sore, chafed skin
take my breath away- Like
you've never done before.
Your hurt hurts me more Than
your loving ever could.
You're the corner of the table
that I keep bruising my thighs on,
but it's a round table conference
&nd; they're telling me that love
is just around the corner.
I have to climb over the corner
of bruising, vicious love!
But my table is round;
how do I get over you?
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 1:36 PM UTC
Moon
Moon-- roughly
the size of a cantaloupe.
Whom eyes have chafed on,
not perceiving any pain.
Moon, but not quite Li Po's:
Many hungry are below you
hung, paused as if thinking
on the paths to your glaciers.
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 11:35 PM UTC
When we were 25
all night was eight minutes
Now that we're 55
he really means all night.
Pass the **** baby
I'm getting chafed.
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 10:49 PM UTC