"cinderblocks" poems
I'm nervous.
Like really nervous.
Like shaking like a blender full of gravel nervous.
Like atheist in a foxhole nervous.
Why am I so nervous?
Because I have a nagging thought that soon I might just be the last-next-best-thing that ever happened to you,
Replaced by another, better next-best-thing that blows me out of the water.
Because you might decide I don't have what you really REALLY want.
Because at the end of the day, I'm still convinced that your attraction to me is the product of an elaborate facade.
So yeah. I'm nervous.
Like sweating fifty caliber bullets nervous.
Like ******** cinderblocks nervous.
Like chattering teeth cold sweats nervous.
Like dying young nervous.
Like being forgotten nervous.
And it makes me nervous that you put me on a pedestal
Because from where I stand, I didn't do anything to deserve this
I got drunk at a party and picked up a guitar and here we are almost a year later.
So I'm anxious
I'm distressed
I'm worried and jumpy
But most of all I'm nervous
Nervous because I think
You might one day figure out what I already know:
I'm not that great.
I'm lanky and goofy and kinda dumb sometimes
And I can be just as petty as everyone else
And I'm still pretty convinced you're colossally out of my league
So I'm nervous
Like shake-you-to-your-fucking-core nervous
Like really nervous.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 1:19 AM UTC
evening
Maria and Mr. Riner are sitting on my bed
tied up like garlands, against the wall
the words stew inside and I can't seem to
pour them out
but we three fools, sit and scribble regardless
staring blankly at the drooling clock
(persistent, in our memories).
the whitewashed cinderblocks are testament
to the number of walls
the quantity of clocks
this series of chairs
and if we close out eyes we expect to
wake up in heaven
but it's just the same old hell.
she says, keep writing
(if you feel inclined)
and slides her back into mine
but I've got no more letters in these fists
(so I'll lie and think for a bit).
she says,
I've never been a 'she' before...
morning
my coat sits in a bundle near the door
I've been trying to find a way to hang it
but I'm having mixed results, in fact
all this month I've been trying to make attachments
to these white,
white,
cinder block walls
with all manner of adhesives.
but these nightly sessions
have been ******* with the humidity
and every morning something new is on the floor.
all I can do is put them back up again.
try and
be a little more constant
with these climate fluctuations.
try and
sleep a little more, sweat a little less.
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 5:43 PM UTC
she's in the
those pine
floorboards
that cry to you
when your
feet whisper
to the door,
she's in the
backdoor
hinges that
weep when you
clinch your jaw
hoping she stays
asleep
she knows
but she loves you
and she's tired
of being stepped
on and shut out
and soon you'll
find yourself
dragging
cinderblocks on
pine needles
leaving through
the front door. MJB
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 12:03 PM UTC
I am there
Wishing that if I pressed my fingers to your lips
I could understand the broken Braille of your breath
When your throat locks in the noise
Gentle butterfly gut
Fanning flames over burning cinderblocks in your belly
I am there
When you wished the moon in a rearview mirror
Heading west
Wondering if you really could go far enough to see its dark side
When you wanted to turn back
I was there
When she drank razorblades
And Tylenol ink
Into a botched suicide note
I was there
This is the journey
When he wondered when he could hold somebody again
Like a waterbed full of blood
Without the motion sickness
I was there
Every moment y’all
Of your ***** sacred
I want to be there
So when you see that this place is so big
And you are so small
And our souls might be stardust and minerals
Burning blue so far away
At least you’re not alone
Your body is built for love
She said
Beer breathed and true
I smiled
I was there
Kiss me with your car parts
DUI this knee buckle
I want to be tried and arrested
Spit out and spanked
And I will still kneel before you
And praise all that is good in you
Because you are holy
Every moment of you is holy
I was there
Begging to be baptized by your presence
Because in a place so big
I don’t want to feel so alone anymore
I want to kiss you
I want to kiss you
Like you are better
Than everything you’ve ever done
You are
I was there
When the world inside your breastplate
Spun natural disaster
And sunshine
Anvil remorse
And sweet laughter
When I held you
Any of you
And our worlds
Vibrated a conversation only our souls could understand
I was there
And all we could speak was “LOVE”
All we could speak was “Us”
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 4:21 PM UTC
I Have This New Problem.
This New Self Crippling.
Self Doubt.
Slithering It's Way Inside Me.
You See I Have This New Problem.
This New
Tick,
Tick,
Tick
This New Something - Standing Sidewise In The Back Of My Mind, That Makes Me Insane.
I
N
S
A
N
E
Instability Like Crumbling Cinderblocks.
Convinced That My Muse Will Leave Me.
Get Fed Up With My Messy Bedroom And 5 Hour A Night Sleep Schedule. Decide I Don't Appreciate Her Enough. She'd Write A Love Song About Leaving Me. The Red Lipstick She'd Wear And Yellow Cab That Would Take Her Away.
Nauseous.
Like Sick To My Stomach.
Like Dizzyingly Drowsy, Like Taking Four Hour Naps Between Work, School, Homework,
And This Thing Called Obligation,
This Thing Called Obligation,
This Thing Called Obligation.
Obligated To Myself.
Redefined By A Number On A Score Sheet, Let it Tell Me I Wasn't Worth The Effort Anymore.
Let It Tell Me To Give Up.
Let It Wake Me Up At 3 am To Write This.
Sanity, Like The Thing I'm Sure I Must Have Misplaced.
Like Anxiety.
Like This Inability To Stop Eating Myself Alive, Separating Fingertip From Skin, Biting Down To The Quick, So Everything I Touch, Hurts Me.
Like Telling Myself No.
Like Staying Awake Seventeen Hours, And Seventeen Assignments Later, Like Seventeen Years Of This.
Like Enough Already.
** I Said Enough.**
May 14, 2013
May 14, 2013 at 1:00 AM UTC
The movement of her body was entirely too loud
She is desert throat gasps
When the water is so good
She doesn’t stop for air
Can hear her comin’
Her rusty train wreck tremble
On loose tracks
Her collapse is a cinderblock rain
The crumble is so much quieter than the crash
Her crumble is so much quieter than the crash
Her hands shake as she swipes her EBT card for the fifteenth time
She puts back the bacon this time
Throws down 5.50 for the Marlboros
She talks to herself
Angrily
Slams ever door she enters
Every door she exits
Her children think she is crazy
She is crazy
She is a body built
On passive aggression
And the threat of a shaky foundation
When the earthquake hits
Any day could be my last day you know
Her son turns up the tv
Her daughter plugs her headphones into her cd player
Do you all think I am talking just to hear myself talk?
And if you don’t stop sleep talking
*Telling me you’re going to **** me*
I am sending you to the hospital
The boy mutes the tv
Dries his eyes before they’re wet
He shakes his head
Begs her not to do that
Says he doesn’t know he’s doing it
Says he doesn’t want to **** her
She walks away
And he is left wondering
I remind him later
That we were not raised on truth
So it’s hard sometimes
To trust people
I put a lock on his door
Tell him to shut himself in at night
As for the mother
We don’t talk anymore
Like I said
She’s crazy
And I’ve got too much of that myself already
Somewhere a door is slamming
Somewhere cinderblocks are crumbling quiet
There is a sizzle like slowly cracking glass
I feel it crawl my spine
It crawls his
The girl misses it
Head buried in pop culture
Going deaf in trying to drown out
Her mother’s noise
Do you think I am talking just to hear myself talk?
As a poet I ask myself the same thing
Ask how far the apple can fall from the tree
If any one of us are lucky
It will be just far enough
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 1:20 PM UTC
Hot sun is blistering my shoulders
My dripping sweat stings the exposed mounds
Each breath burns my lungs
My feet are pulsing cinderblocks
She waves at me,
waves away the pain--
a wave of relief
sweeps me off my feet.
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 1:22 AM UTC
management and what YOU do with it
you'll noticed, i emphasized YOU
carve my likeness out of marble
cast it off shore, covered in barbed wire and
with cinderblocks attached by means of
a rope, let it sink weighed down but
unanchored and unsettled and disassociated and disappointed and concerned and confused and most of all but at last mention, alas
the sickness that i can
never seem to rid my orifices of
static usually but
for now frozen in endless motion
dead at first glance
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 7:00 PM UTC
It seems like the entire world knows
how to dance except for me.
There must be a metronome
that ticks the tempo
right out of the torso
of Mother Nature herself
but I cannot seem to tune in.
Everywhere around me
I can see a rhythm that refuses
to run through me like it somehow knows
that I am always going to be that one kid
left standing with my back against
the gym wall and the beat is just another club
that cannot afford to let any losers in.
I see the leaves—crisp hues of
yellow-bleeding-into-orange,
orange-bleeding-into-brown—
being directed by the air that they cut
as they learn to dance the American Waltz
left box, right box,
underarm turn,
hesitation step
spinning to the ground
and swell approaches the shore
carrying forward a small roar,
energy circling from deep to shallow,
waves shoaling, rising up,
moving along to the Foxtrot
feather step, three step,
natural turn,
hover cross
uncurling onto the shore.
But still, after all of these years,
I am here with shoulder blades pressed to cinderblocks
trying to tap into the meter while I tap my toe
inside of my shoe so the mountains will not shed rocks
like tears that come along with steady laughter.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 9:22 PM UTC
Tell me what I did wrong,
Was it the way I laugh at the wrong times?
Or maybe the way I just see smiling faces?
I don’t know.
I’m moving cinderblocks,
and you’re moving dandelions.
Why don’t you love me?
Grey consumes my life-
I thought you would be a definite,
I was wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 10:57 PM UTC
If you ask me, blissfulness is completely overrated.
It's a feeling too close to excitement and being giddy,
Except it lasts way longer.
It can be a terrifying feeling.
You feel like you're flying.
And your feet don't feel like they're hitting the ground
When you walk down the street.
You're high.
And you're not in control.
And you can't imagine what life could be like
Without this wonderful sensation coursing through your veins.
And once the feeling is gone,
Your feet feel like cinderblocks on the pavement.
And all you want to do is sleep.
And colors seem less vibrant.
Jokes aren't as funny.
Hugs aren't as warm.
...No...I'd rather feel content.
I find it much more appealing to be
Not completely unhappy,
But not too happy either.
And to feel like myself.
And to be in control.
Oct 23, 2012
Oct 23, 2012 at 10:55 PM UTC
they ThEY
they WERE ALL Wrong-
really THEY WERE when
they told me
but when can they be right?
on a school day.
between cinderblocks
between classes grasps-
of skin like the smooth touch of water
thirst makes more sense when we are
so made of water
in our brains and body
how can water be wrong
water is all right in its place
but when
THEY come out its just wrongThey are bad water feeding bad plants
all in favor of you know who
maybe the world will end up flooded after all
when the water finally
sings its song and
reclaims
what it wanted all along
to be right to be free
all right
but they are all
not rightwriting away on waves of paper
everything they say is to be right but they are wrong
when they talk they say that being wrong is
bliss
but i know otherwise
rightness is bliss and
is righteous and right
i know because i have felt the tides, yes tides of what they think is true
all in favor of you know
maybe it is the same
if they are the same
rightness and ignorance
then i was and will be mistaken all along THEN
the Water will have me like it had them all ALONG ALL along
a Flood.
into the depths i go far from what i have felt from their tides and i go deeper DEEPER
DOWN
until
i know.
it is gone
bliss
it was never there
to begin with
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 1:11 PM UTC
The oil it pops,
God it's hot,
This lot, I's my dots.
Scatter plots, disconnected spots
All I get taught,
Is sought and bought.
The dripping mops,
The spinning tops
They talk, and they walk.
The failing crops
grasshopper hop,
The flop will never stop.
Sopping wet socks,
The snow it locks
The doors and panes that lock.
Southward the birds flock,
In the trees that Hawk
Avoid men's cinderblocks
The future sulks,
as time does its stalk
of all upcoming squawks.
Nov 1, 2011
Nov 1, 2011 at 1:27 AM UTC
I haven’t been
drinking much lately,
I haven’t wrote
anything in a while,
and I always knew
putting the two
hand in hand was never fine,
a healthy vice is trapped
by an unhealthy outlet,
and the curious kid looking
for a spark
had dried his fork,
I do miss the teeth sinking
into my throat
having the pain
run to my hands,
I miss waking up
with cinderblocks
glued to my scalp,
the nightstand used to eat
up the empty bottles
and the stomach pains are
now keeping me up at night,
I remember whiskey stained
chest hair and biting at hangnails,
****** fingers and the
taste was fuel,
I remember writing
and waking up
and erasing
and waking up,
what is a poet?
I’m going to have
a drink and this was
written sober.
Jun 29, 2016
Jun 29, 2016 at 11:52 PM UTC
Mildew bruised walls
dappled spread of white
between damp
black patches
spaning cinderblocks
beneath dry-rot rafters
supporting rusted
corrugated tin roof
worn thin and
pricked with holes.
Facing me and fantasy
they transform and morph
to marble rich castle walls
draped with bold tapestries
dripping crystalline feathers
from golden vaulted ceiling.
A fool sings a bard's song.
Nov 11, 2016
Nov 11, 2016 at 4:16 PM UTC
XXIX
She has haunted my sleep for long enough, I fear-
My nightmares of ghost ships break the still night air
Too swiftly, too fiercely- the wound still stings.
In the night my heels and toes wander listlessly to the graves
Of those others have perhaps forgotten. I have not forgotten.
Fairview cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The blank faced child, whom no one claims,
I fear has entered the end of life without the warmth
Of a mother’s embrace. I would hold them. I would love them.
The graves climb the hill like cinderblocks, one pushing the other
Up towards some heaven
Some beautiful blue sky where their souls must lay
And though the trees are bare and the sky feels cold
The silence calms me; here, they feel no water. No collapsing
Floor.
One hundred and twenty one ladies and men and children
Will rest here forever.
Among the graves I lay down my funeral bouquet,
Along with my ghost ship nightmares-
The world’s pain, and mistakes, and visions of a darker day
May perhaps one day rest here too
And float up towards some heaven,
Some paradise.
Jul 2, 2017
Jul 2, 2017 at 1:05 PM UTC
I've been hurting recently
In every way imaginable.
My heart shatters within my chest
And the pieces splinter painfully.
My mind has been pushed until
It can take no more.
It does not want to be strong anymore
How long will it take
Before it finally breaks?
My hands, they shake violently
I cannot keep them still.
My legs lug themselves along
As my feet become cinderblocks without a cause.
My core meets its volatile friend, Anxiety
Shooting knives into my stomach
With every movement.
She makes my breathing shallow
And saturates my body
In buckets of sweat.
Why must this happen now?
It's ******* the life from me
Day by day
Minute by minute
Every second
I cannot talk
I cannot move
I cannot be.
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 9:38 PM UTC
meanwhile it's my lunch hour --
the sun burns the cinderblocks pink
12:40 on a thursday with sawdust in my hair
and a piece of lead pinched between
forefinger and thumb fighting the
sudden onset feeling of vivid panic
i'm obliterated by the sense of being alone and
lost outside the plexus of purpose
my docile body is being stretched open
i am churning unsexed and weak
weeping on the steel edge of hysteria
half gouged and puttering beneath
this burden of butterflies in my chest
the girl is a great distance away but
maybe she'll notice my plumage rising
and receding like a brittle sail on a
dark green sea or hear
my cells test the very limits of elasticity
diverging terribly into flamboyant aqueducts
and humming on the wind like
the plow tractor trumpeting in a far-away field
she is a fawn lying on a summer picnic blanket
sprawled on the rolling meadow as if it were a beach
a genuine beauty in the white of the sun's light
wearing a pair of reflective sunglasses holding
her face puckered up expecting a kiss
and a delicate fire surges through me
my eyes are blinded by the green grass
radiant all around her
and my pulse thunders inside my ears
longing to be immersed with her in safety
ripped up by a lust to be accepted and free
and folded together softly against the hard world
i am being hollowed out into electric rivulets
by the painful consciousness of my isolation
by the broiling heatwave of july against
the longest winter of my life
my heart aches in my front shirt pocket
waiting on my phone to light up or ring
and so i fill my ***** glistening torso
with what i hope is a lethal dose
of papaya-coconut water
Jul 2, 2020
Jul 2, 2020 at 2:38 PM UTC
I'm down on myself
I've been thrown on the shelf
I don't wish i were dead
But never born instead
Oh you wanna be friends
Well i think that depends
I can tell you what i think
Until the cinderblocks sink
I'll help you with things
Like the madness love brings
I'll say you look good
True meaning understood
I can listen to your life
Oh, you live with great strife
I can give you advice
Without any price
I'll watch you marry
With the burden i carry
You can look toward me
With the loyalty that was free
Make my weekends and nights
With no fits, feuds, or fights
I can **** and lie for you
Until the day i die for you
Or
And this is just a shot in the dark
With the bullet as a spark
I can call you mine
Until the end of time
We'll descend into love as we must
And we can just see where that takes us
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 10:12 PM UTC