"chokehold" poems
Put me in a chokehold and press my face into goose feather
Pillows
stained with mascara tears, acid rain rolling down translucent
Cheeks
glowing and painted with rouge the color of
Fire
hot in my heart and pumping to the furthest reaches of my
Limbs
bound and held captive by smooth black ropes leaving me
Helpless
to go against your will, I am at the mercy of games we
Play
rough and don't treat me like I'm fragile I'm not meant to
Break
down barriers and ascend stairs toward the gates of
Heaven
Is found in leather and lace, cuffs, safe words and
Submission
resonates with angel wings beating as drums
Mar 17, 2016
Mar 17, 2016 at 9:45 PM UTC
for Lori, Riley and Kendrick
the questioning words jump off the page,
into two hands transforming,
words shape shifting into
multicolored ink stained fingers,
now, all a chokehold on my brain,
my throaty gasps rasping from
a simplistic convolution -
single questioning deserving an answer
what are you made of?
the obvious answers left in the slow lane,
bone, tissue, rivers and arteries of blue bloods,
just oil and fuel of a containership,
but the cargo carried, that’s the real stuff
you have insight inside that cannot be seen,
self-survival instincts that morph into morals,
our shared air affects you differently,
a sense of defending, caring,
costless and costliest simultaneously,
spaghetti strands strong sinewed intertwining,
into a better human than most
to call you hero is wrongly insufficient,
but the thesaurus lends me no substitute,
weep, I do,
as the spring and summer blushing green
will not be seen by you at all, and by me,
seen now so differently,
when thinking of
soil-born courage instinctual that has no name,
but grows only in nature
what are you made of?
we know now, but knew not well,
that thing that makes you leap first,
was all you, the entirety of the best,
that exists, existed, as reminders to us,
to mine it, wear it,
medal it upon our fabric
*you three,
breathe it back, exhale it from where ever you are,
that trace chemical odor in our atmosphere,
of life-giving sweetness, a rebirthing chlorophyll freedom
that we humans all desperately need,
even just to know it exists,
and inform us*
what we need to be made of
May 13, 2019
May 13, 2019 at 5:43 PM UTC
I loved you.
_Yes, I did._
But I should’ve known better than to have believed the web of lies you sprouted at me. I should’ve known better than to believe your “I love you.”
_Why did I take that bite from the apple, if only I had known it was poisoned._
My mother warned me about strangers with blue eyes walking down the street. She said that was why she was protecting me.
_I should've never let down my golden hair, if only I had known._
It didn’t have to wait until the clock struck 12:00 midnight for it to happen; bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, I’ll have to hand it to you, you really had me fooled.
_You were never Charming, I needed to be my own Prince._
I’m stuck in a timeless blank, neither moving forward nor back, a canvas that has not been painted yet and sadness is the only color I know.
_I’m afraid I don’t have much patience to wait for a 100 years for true love’s first kiss._
A thousand times you tore my walls down, tore me apart and even when I’m at a chokehold, I thought it was still love.
_Maybe I was a fool to have thought there was beauty in the beast._
I traded my heart for something temporary, I lost my voice just to let you step all over me, and some part of me hates that I’d still let you if we were to try all over again.
_I’ve become the foam of bubbles lost in the sea because I couldn’t hurt you the way you hurt everyone._
Jul 20, 2019
Jul 20, 2019 at 11:54 PM UTC
I am not going to lie anymore, it is easy to write about you.
It is a gut instinct.
It is muscle memory.
I kept the letters, the postcards.
The first one you sent is in bad shape; folded edges, crumpled body.
I almost set it on fire twelve times.
You don't understand how every night I stand outside looking at the stars
realizing that we can probably never see them at the same time.
There is nothing poetic about how we feed off of eachother.
There is nothing healthy about holding on to this.
But all I know is that when I talk to someone, I almost always say I'm sorry as a greeting.
Because nothing I ever say will be pretty anymore, I have a serpent tongue when you're gone away.
And I'm sorry that they're not you.
I will still get your words on me. I will hold on to the pain of the ink seeping into my skin.
Forever doesn't have a fighting chance against the chokehold grip you have on my thoughts.
Instead of this train of thought, paper bodies.
Ignition.
Fire.
Think of me when the candle goes out.
Think of me when you're drunk again.
Instead of this poem, broken bottles.
Instead of this poem:
Blue sheets. White pillows. Your hair was never this color before.
Your poems were never about me.
Slam poetry in the way you threw my necklace in the river.
Find me waiting at the window for you to let me in.
You left the bottle open, it smells like whiskey in here.
Blue sheets but yellow flecks of sunlight and candlelight and streetlight.
The light has almost disappeared since you went away.
Instead of this poem:
Come back. Stay away. I am fluent in ******* things up.
Fire.
Ignition.
Paper body.
Think of me when the candle goes out.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 8:54 PM UTC
Avian slave beneath arrays of decay
Beneath the will to move on
She is so rusted and gone
Afar from quintessence crossed
Into the realm of the lost
Slipped into the clutch of the maw
Of madness it’s savage
Where the judge is the jury
Executioners laugh at the magnanimous
Everything stripped from the flesh
Nothing left to see but a dejected show in the throes of wreckage
Because these lost prophets sit upon a stolen perch looking down on a fallen goddess
A desecrated figure devoid of any promise
The primary custodian of a land forever conquered
A society gripped in the chokehold of despair
Perpetual attunement to ruin consumes a flock of sheep in the leviathan’s lair
And the pretty little songbird
Torn asunder by each verse
Learns that from her inception
She never was a free bird
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 5:58 AM UTC
Put your demons in a chokehold
And refuse them room to breathe
Let them lay doorment
In a bed more comparable to a tomb
Like they've spent years doing to you
Nov 28, 2018
Nov 28, 2018 at 11:49 PM UTC
they have my heart in a chokehold.
their rough hands mold it into shape
while I am in a deep, deep slumber.
my eyes are greeted by the sun.
the white-hot pain in my chest
knocks the wind out of me.
when silence is thick, I sculpt my heart
back into its lovely, imperfect shape,
and I let it lead the way forward.
Feb 18, 2022
Feb 18, 2022 at 9:12 PM UTC
Justice is a *****
With claws
Miles and miles and miles
Guillotine jaws
And when she throws the book at you
It's 1000 pounds
With a curse in every clause.
And when those swords
Turn in on you
It's miles and miles of claws
To wring you out
In a razorblade chokehold you won't ever
forget.
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 4:22 AM UTC
For the girl who doesn't know how to say no:
I have been a version of you too many times
I have worn your body on frequent occasions
Always physically neutral, stock-still
Denying purpose into static
Eyes open
And breathing
I know exactly how it is
To not know how to refuse
Or resist when rough palms press on your skin
I know how it is
To feel there is no other option
But to lie still while eager hands pull at your body
Uninvited lips stepping into your mouth
How quickly a tongue becomes a weapon
I know it all too well
It is iron-clenched fists
It is unforgiving friction
And disintegration becomes second nature
For a girl whose limbs
Are already paper-made
Stares burned into too many white walls
A woman watching her own shadow
And the word no never escapes the vocal chords
Because there is never a question to answer to
It is assumed
That our shared pulse is enough yes
And consent is an easy thing to ignore
When it is hardly ever asked for
Men are taught to halt
Only if it is preceded by screeching
I wonder how many silent cries
Are covered by darkness and heavy breathing
This is for the girl
Who doesn't know how to say no
For the girl who chokes on her words before they can leave her lips
For the girl who freezes in uncomfortable situations
For the girl who has played mime too many times
For the girl who has been made surface to sandpaper hands
For the girl who is always vocal
But in a single instant became victim to chokehold silence
This is for you
I have been a version of you too many times
I have worn the fingerprints on your phosphorescent skin
I have pulled off your clothing after a night of detachment
I see you in every mirror I look into
Every stained glass reflection
I hear you every time he doesn't ask
It is so easy
To forget you have a voice
But I know with certainty that you do
I know
That you understand the stillness
The quiet
The hush
The absence of language
Words held hostage
You are the only one
Who bares the heaviness of night kneeling on your chest
The added weight from all those
Who have touched you without permission
I want you to know
I would carry it for you
If I could
I want you to know
It is not your fault
That your calmness
Is often mistaken for compliance
It is not your fault
That you so quickly fall paralyzed
Playing statue may seem
Like the easy way out
But you were never meant
To stand still
We are built to listen through our bones
Your voice is a million vibrations
Received through the skin
You were made
To howl our names into the ground
Until the forest shakes its trees to their death
And no one is around
To hear it.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 5:09 PM UTC
Am I among those they write
deep in the threads of contempt?
For no one truly can be
a hero to all.
We all imagine the songs
powerful and triumphant
will someday be our own.
But what is desire?
What is the facade we wear
day in and day out
to power the most illusive masquerade?
What if the turn from my childhood
was never a turn at all?
Is it so strange, is it too far
of a line to draw
that I may be the villain?
Perhaps we're all simply searching
in desire for an adversary.
The call to arise, the call to spur us forth
from the pit too many have found as solace.
Now what if I am
not even a pawn
and barely a sheep
in life's great puzzle,
or is it a mystery
never to be solved?
I long for the moment
I'm desperate for change
I've bit the blind eye
And now I wish my own would remain shut.
So who or what is to say
that I won't snap like the thinning rope
caught in a chokehold?
My dear is the victim
and the fall is too far
to survive.
Where shall I be when
my final spin has spun?
Will I drag to a halt or
careen face-forward?
A gradual decay
or a shot to crack the wall,
either way I may merely be
the villain.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 2:58 AM UTC
She stopped breaking laws when she
started breaking hearts
Bottled tears in the vial around her neck
She lays in bed like a spider in their web
They say curiosity killed the cat but in this story
Curiosity killed you
And you love kissing her because she is not like the others
She does not pull away out of shame
She kisses hard like brick on brick on window pane
no face aflame
And you love ******* her because she does not hide away
Begs you more more more
She stopped breaking laws when she
Started breaking hearts
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 9:35 AM UTC
it all starts to blur together and every day fades further from the horizon.
every word uttered, every smile grinned, every surface touched
falls short from the whole when not lead back to you.
I haven't recognized my name since it was last spoken from your mouth.
I haven't let my hands float above the sunroof as I've traveled down each lonely highway, stretching farther away from you.
I haven't exhaled all the air in my lungs or been able to relax all the tension in my muscles from their constant preparation for the crash-
waiting on standby only makes the blow more painful.
I haven't been able to swim in the ocean without feeling your love.
you're like a tide, pulling me back and shooting me out again, crashing over my body with immense pressure, yet so soothing- coating every cell on my body with liquid- you pour over me and drown me whole.
I haven't been able to sleep the same.
Every time they ask me how I'm doing or if I still love you, I mutter about the "not enoughness" and the lack of, while staring at my hands, trying to retrace the last time i ate a full meal or fell asleep for more than three hours.
The one thing I run back to kills me like a bullet, firing all the way through:
The smoke in my lungs mimics the breathlessness I felt when you choked my throat
It's turning me to ashes,
but I choose to not get better.
There's some correlation between the way your existence has haunted me like a ghost,
Sticking to my skin like all this inhaled smoke,
Demanding for the light to be left on in case you wander from the unknown-
Back to your garden, your chokehold, your throne.
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 9:11 PM UTC
rain drips from the dead limbs of trees & i think about those old monsoons. the road trip was dead silent this time. those two years were a storm. he said we're going back home, i said my body's tired of making homes out of empty houses. my final house with him was drafty & small. i'm moving out but i'm done trying to find home. all i remember was how his chokehold blossomed into warm embrace.
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 7:21 PM UTC
With every breath that escapes your lips
Another soul collapses to its knees in shock
With every touch you attempt to place upon purity
Leaves the tears that fall to freeze into loveless icicles
In the wake of your presence Mother Nature asks for peace
Roses beg abundantly for forgiveness in gentle tones of suffering
Though being the criminal you are you don't possess a heart
And if you do it remains covered in shadows of narcissism
It must get extremely lonely living in vain memory of your existence
Without hesitation you impose your chokehold of tasteless agony
Around the delicate throats of the angels that attempt to help you
A cold, grim grin spreads across the surface of your wounded cheeks
Entertained by witnessing humans be stripped bare
Their bodies serving as the canvas to your steel blade
In the air you wave your hands just like a magician
Sliding the blade back and forth across their skins
Carving death upon their foreheads
The echo of your laughter being the pistol
That pierces their skulls with fierce pressure
As they drop dead with cowering fear
Fuming from their lifeless corpses
By Glenn McCrary
© 2011 Glenn McCrary
(All rights reserved)
Nov 7, 2011
Nov 7, 2011 at 10:44 AM UTC
I was walking down a dirt path
Deep within a great forest
The trees laid bare by Winters chokehold
The background varying shades of gray,
It was a dreary day
I stopped on a cliff face above a river
And sat on the edge of it's furthest point
And stared between the trees into the early morning sun
Coloring the horizon burnt orange
With the silhouettes of branches swaying in ballet
This was it.
I'd found it
The most perfect spot in the world
to be alone
This cliff a shrine of inner monologues and meditation
I have laid my soul here
This forest and I are one
Everything is connected, a system
Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4
Exhale
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 8:39 AM UTC
Every ending starts where the next beginning plays
Followed by a rush of people who hurry to be delayed
Absence makes the heart wander for those who cannot wait
For the signal to pick up lines of oblivious candidates
Self-doubt leads to blame leads to truth leads to death
It hides behind your mind to find you blindly obsessed
You don't know why it fails when then you were best
At leaving a place with another, now you're one less
Are you lost or just lonely?
You stay up all night thinking, “If only...”?
Ghosts of Desperation holding
You in a choke hold; is it warming
You all up from the inside?
Casting half-laughs staring wide-eyed
Ghosts of Self-Pity abide to reside
In that choke hold redefine pride
Why are you not happy solo?
Don't give excuses like “I'm friend-zoned”
Why put her in a choke hold?
Afraid to let go and leave her throat cold?
Get off my stool let me drink alone
No, Lady my heart is not sold
Laughing at my jokes does not make you gold
You're drunk and embittered: self-taught choke hold
Why do I feel so god **** tense?
Pasts present my present paid penance
One more drink then I'll go home
Six more to numb my damning sold soul
Liquid hubris raise my confidence
Make us all feel less incompetent
Let our veracious selves go unfold
Transgressions greet us with your choke hold
Let's frolic in our loss of breathing
We like the taste and we're not leaving
Alcoholic for this scheming
Forget your lives live like you're dreaming
In love with ideas in lieu of reality
Make us feel like we are the normality
One knight stands with armor rusting
Lusting for the din; it's rushing
Popped collar Icarus:
Get into the choke hold
Self harmer ichor blessed:
Get into the choke hold
Lost soul navigator:
Get into a choke hold
Ex marks the *** for later:
Get into a choke hold
Ice cold analyzer:
Get into a choke hold
Wise tending ***** prescriber:
Get into a choke hold
Fate maker pushed and pulled:
Get into a choke hold
Let this story to be told:
Let's get into a choke hold!
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 9:02 PM UTC
Hands wrapped around my throat
like a bow
A gift to the present times.
Am I pretty enough in this
chokehold?
Squeeze my throat until I fall in line.
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 4:35 PM UTC
I feel your departure
in thoughts of alien abductions
stolen away in the night
leaving nothing but
the lingering puffs of smoke
from my last cigarette
in slinking shadows —
white ghostly figures
just out of reach
like the days last rays of sunshine
as the sun goes down
my sanity bleeds.
each month, we dance this haunted tango
just me and my 3000 dollar tourniquet
against the world
enough money in my deltoid to pay the rent
today, I’ll be too tired to leave my bed
but in a few weeks
I won’t be able to sleep till
golden rays
filter in through window blinds
finding my solace in sunbeams
when you fade away, my demons take hold
the complicated part of dancing with demons
is sometimes you get burnt
third degree pains holding my brains
in a chokehold
when all I’ve ever wanted
is to breathe
(in, out)
Jan 9, 2023
Jan 9, 2023 at 7:46 AM UTC
Sometimes I think that my depression has me in a chokehold so
I pull off its mask only to find that it's been rage with no place to go
Where do you put rage that sneaks up on you?
Do you put it in a flowerpot only to wilt the calla lilies that it touches?
Do you put it in a collar and leash only for it to lunge at the first stranger to approach too quickly?
Do you hold it between your teeth so that it slowly dissolves on your own tongue until every strawberry tastes like grape leaves?
Maybe I'll just file it away
on the top shelf where I keep my winter coats in Texas.
Then, years from now, when I pack up to move to the mountains, it will topple over and smother me.
Maybe then I'll finally leave it behind
in the pile of things too broken to donate to Goodwill.
Jul 17, 2022
Jul 17, 2022 at 6:09 AM UTC
Take me another drive in memories. Washed by the thousand fallen tears in Toki's fur.
Would you help pull it away? My raining blood of so called stupidity?
I'll hide away so you won't leave just yet
We're mearly just two souls trying not to die alone
With a chokehold of established reality
And pretend together. I love you.
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 5:16 AM UTC
It all kind of hurts
Ok not kind of
it really hurts.
And it hurts more often than it doesn’t
But when it doesn’t
Oh, let me tell you about when it doesn’t hurt.
When I can feel the air I breathe
The languid drifting thoughts just before sleep
Those incredible moments when the only tears rolling down my cheeks are happy ones
When it doesn’t hurt, I see myself as limitless. Boundless.
I can be confident.
I feel beautiful, and loved.
The sweet world wraps its arms around me
And I am safe.
But it all kind of hurts
And that hug becomes a chokehold
And I feel ugly and ignored.
I am scared
When it hurts I am limited and trapped
And the tears turn into sobs
Making the thoughts of the night, terrors
And
I
Can’t
Breathe
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 4:45 PM UTC
ain't no disability, i'm a superhero
- kanye west
/
who i am
is a complicated shit-show of
mental illnesses, diagnosed
and medicated to make me able.
according to the kids at school,
i will put you in a chokehold for flexing your double-
jointed finger.
/
autism is strange,
because words hurt more
than you could image.
a few words are no longer spoken
in our household.
freak is one of them.
/
have you ever feared someone
because of rumors?
if you have, then i announce you as an enemy,
so let's duel with choppy movements
and irrational fingers.
/
school is out,
and i'm thinking that
who i am
is a delicate shit-show of
who i want to be
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 7:27 PM UTC
Grading curves....
Wrongly ruptured neurological nerves.
Condemned by societal hate,
his fluctuating brain synapses tend to create
vicious, malicious and practitious acts
that gravitate to attack the faith
in every church enlisted in every homestead household.
Retaliation puts him in a chokehold.
A headlock, a leglock, a deadlock of the mind
consciousness revoked, the button is broke
vain attempts to find rewind.
Press Pause.
Bask in his murderous glory,
the bodies of the converted; epitome of gory.
Bloodshed because god is dead claimed Nietzche
He kills all his idols and struggles to think freely.
You see the doctors had his mind locked in a cage,
they built the bars since he was at an illiterate stage.
They taught him how to act, then how to think,
a mindless drone choked cause they revoked the power to speak-
toungue in cheek, they'll chop off your arm just to make sure
nothing's hiding up the sleeve
and questioning authority's their biggest pet peeve.
But enough is enough...I CHOOSE WHAT TO BELIEVE...
Drop my textbook, throw my desk, and through those
guidance doors I leave.
Jan 3, 2013
Jan 3, 2013 at 9:40 PM UTC
I haven't yet
figured out
how to put into words
what it feels like
to be trapped in my own head.
I fear that's a fate worse than death.
My whole life
everything--
every single emotional pang--
has flowed from me;
through my pen,
on to paper.
Just like that:
A balloon of troubles
released into air.
Well I've been silent
too long now.
My emotional drain,
clogged,
without a single bottle
of Drain-O left on any
of the Superstore shelves.
I'm in the unforgiving chokehold
of Depression.
With a capital D.
"Write your feelings down,"
my counselor says to me.
"writing can be therapeutic."
I know, Doc.
Which is why I'm here
on this double stuffed couch,
instead of in the safety
of my apartment
with my ink filled sword
and leather bound shield.
No thesaurus can aid me.
Merriam Webster is at a loss for words.
What is a poet without poetry?
I'm as useless
as the g
in lasagna.
Scars line my wrist;
Feeble attempts
of liberating the feelings
by placing them saddleback
on droplets of blood.
Keeping an open mind
is hardest when
your mind is the vault
sealed away
in your Fort Knox skull.
The pill popping lethargy.
This rainy day sadness.
Somewhere inside me
a little poet waits out the storm.
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 11:41 PM UTC
you left with no signal,
flying high, eagled eyed,
peering down at
all the towns
you passed over,
blue through burning
but never stopping, stilling
to listen but not hearing
those other throbbing tunes
playing in back of black rooms
oh, how you concealing
the ambiguous depths,
of ***** deals squealing,
the mess of contradictions
you can’t help revealing,
leaving rust, dimming dust
full in on the chokehold
of others hands upon my heart
still
your hearts are throbbing
in synchronization to
the river flowing of my
words needy & begging
for a timely releasing by,
in anticipation of ending
the sun’s confinement
on the other side of the
dark perimeter of the planet
where poets dare to tread
knowing the jeopardy to
themselves when their truths
are outed by the light shedding
come the morning’s birthing
11:44pm
2/28/25
can you guess what movie I watched last?
Mar 1, 2025
Mar 1, 2025 at 1:04 PM UTC