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"classrooms" poems
Why go back when you can move forward? I face this question each day I breathe. It's not always so easy to answer. P T S D Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Keeps me looking back to my past behind my shoulder. P T S D Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Usually associated with our war heroes. The ones who can't leave the battlefield behind. I am not one of them. I am just an anxious a depressed in pain person. But I can't help that I have it. P T S D Post Traumatic Stress Disorder My battlefield was the school, the classrooms, the playground. The babysitter, the dark closets, the dark rooms, the basement. P T S D Post Traumatic Stress Disorder The anxiety the migraines the depression the fibro no sleep. All lead back to square one. The abuse by my peers by my teachers by my babysitter. P T S D Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Four easy letters Four simple words Lifetime in pain from those simple things from those not so simple things. P T S D Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
0
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 12:12 AM UTC
PTSD
Every time people start to rise up, a whole buncha problematic mess gets thrown around regarding VIOLENCE. So, what is "violence" really?... It's the use of force. Plain and simple. What makes folks uncomfortable (who are otherwise comfortable in this system) is that UPRISING IS A SOMETIMES VIOLENT (read: forceful) REACTION TO SYSTEMATIC VIOLENCE: Yes, just like the Hunger Games... Thus, there are many types of violence... The fact that we are paying taxes that are funding the genocide and ****** of people of color (here and abroad) is violence. People with guns (former slave patrols and overseers, now cops) who come from outside our community and treat our folks as criminals on the daily is violence. Capitalism, i.e. wage/property/ecology-based exploitation in the name of profit is violence. The fact that LA County spends more $$ than anywhere in the world on prisons and police is violence. The fact that the US locks up more of its own people than any other country on record is violence. US aiding/funding the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of Israel is genocidal violence. From Congress, to the boardrooms, to the classrooms, from the gaze, to the unwanted touching, to the **** to the pay, Patriarchy everyday, is violence. A few people jacking some **** at Walmart or breaking a window is really minimal violence in comparison. A couple people throwing **** at armed cops is not serious violence. The idea of owning property that other must rent to live is violent. Systemic, chronic, global insecurity in the form of material poverty is violence. Wage slavery is violence. Gentrification is violence. The War On Youth, i.e. the School-to-Prison pipeline, and, thus the War-on-Drugs with its attending 76% recidivism rate in the prison-industrial complex, whose populations are disproportionately black males, is violence. The fact that people can't go to the doctor and dentist, or eat food every day is violence. Deportations are violence. Homophobia is violence. The world's largest global military that vaporizes people without due process in dozens of countries violating their biophysical and national sovereignty is violence. The United States government sanctioning the ****** of non-white, but especially Muslim bodies across the world... is violence. So, when you condemn violence, do you mean resistance? Because there is a whole lot of violence you should be condemning instead. Adapted from Emilio Lacques-Zapien
0
Dec 31, 2014
Dec 31, 2014 at 11:14 AM UTC
The fire this time
Every time people start to rise up, a whole buncha problematic mess gets thrown around regarding VIOLENCE. So, what is "violence" really?... It's the use of force. Plain and simple. What makes folks uncomfortable (who are otherwise comfortable in this system) is that UPRISING IS A SOMETIMES VIOLENT (read: forceful) REACTION TO SYSTEMATIC VIOLENCE: Yes, just like the Hunger Games... Thus, there are many types of violence... The fact that we are paying taxes that are funding the genocide and ****** of people of color (here and abroad) is violence. People with guns (former slave patrols and overseers, now cops) who come from outside our community and treat our folks as criminals on the daily is violence. Capitalism, i.e. wage/property/ecology-based exploitation in the name of profit is violence. The fact that LA County spends more $$ than anywhere in the world on prisons and police is violence. The fact that the US locks up more of its own people than any other country on record is violence. US aiding/funding the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of Israel is genocidal violence. From Congress, to the boardrooms, to the classrooms, from the gaze, to the unwanted touching, to the **** to the pay, Patriarchy everyday, is violence. A few people jacking some **** at Walmart or breaking a window is really minimal violence in comparison. A couple people throwing **** at armed cops is not serious violence. The idea of owning property that other must rent to live is violent. Systemic, chronic, global insecurity in the form of material poverty is violence. Wage slavery is violence. Gentrification is violence. The War On Youth, i.e. the School-to-Prison pipeline, and, thus the War-on-Drugs with its attending 76% recidivism rate in the prison-industrial complex, whose populations are disproportionately black males, is violence. The fact that people can't go to the doctor and dentist, or eat food every day is violence. Deportations are violence. Homophobia is violence. The world's largest global military that vaporizes people without due process in dozens of countries violating their biophysical and national sovereignty is violence. The United States government sanctioning the ****** of non-white, but especially Muslim bodies across the world... is violence. So, when you condemn violence, do you mean resistance? Because there is a whole lot of violence you should be condemning instead. Adapted from Emilio Lacques-Zapien
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26
i've never been to any other highschool in my life. therefore, i cannot speak for all schools. but, i can speak for my school. about every other student here is a druggie. which means you have your choice of two crowds. but once you choose, at the beginning of your freshman year, you can't change your mind. and the teachers here rarely teach. they throw slideshows up and blame you for not paying attention if you actually get the nerve to go up and ask for help. our principal promotes mental health, but doesn't give any resources for mental breakdowns, anxiety, or depression. sitting in classrooms for eight hours, with people you can't stand, with nowhere to go will completely destroy someone especially someone already suffering.
0
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 9:33 AM UTC
school of death
Home is where the heart is but the heart is a broken place.           I hate how loud I must barely scream so that people can see my face:           I am dark and this is a time of shadows. Sometimes what worries me most about us is not that we are forced to carry guns and **** our own mothers is not that we are pulled from our classrooms back into our homesteads is not that some of our leaders feast while we become skinny UNICEF models is not that if only one molecule of my DNA was different I could have lived without ever knowing how to read even a single word is not even that the smallest of things can wipe out entire villages in an instant- mosquitoes, viruses, locusts; slave ships. Sometimes what worries me most is that my headphones carry more sounds of strange places than my heart will ever know-  that not even my brothers and sisters sold off to those strange places ever knew, as their children are hung off the trees of Jim Crow and we call them strange fruit, and that maybe our first president didn't marry a white lady; the white lady might have married him. Sometimes what worries me most is that for just over eighteen years of seeing thinking feeling breathing being I couldn't have ever told you what Africa meant to me past the occasional 'dumela' to my mother's mother but never, never did I know or now know or will know my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother because she can't fit inside the cellular America that I hold in my palm. And this is why they call us lost. Because home is where the heart is but the heart is a broken place. One time, my five year old cousin said matter-of-factly that black is ugly. In my Primary School days everyone said I should stay out of the sun lest I get darker. But I'm here to tell you that I don't even bother wearing a sun-hat anymore. I'm here to tell you that I don't cut my hair because to do so would feel like oppression. I'm here to tell you how vivid and lovely and blessed I do feel to have been born in broken-heart home because at least it has soul. I'm here to tell you that, yes, I do remember that time when the whole world knew what to do about ****** and Bin Laden but never could get round to talking about Cecil John Rhodes. I'm here to tell you that Today, that conversation starts with a toppled statue. Today, that conversation starts with my voice. Today, this conversation starts with a poem which proclaims- child I am, child I am, child I am, child I am, child I am- that this is my day. This is my day. The Day of the African Child.
0
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 1:38 PM UTC
June 16th.
Home is where the heart is but the heart is a broken place.           I hate how loud I must barely scream so that people can see my face:           I am dark and this is a time of shadows. Sometimes what worries me most about us is not that we are forced to carry guns and **** our own mothers is not that we are pulled from our classrooms back into our homesteads is not that some of our leaders feast while we become skinny UNICEF models is not that if only one molecule of my DNA was different I could have lived without ever knowing how to read even a single word is not even that the smallest of things can wipe out entire villages in an instant- mosquitoes, viruses, locusts; slave ships. Sometimes what worries me most is that my headphones carry more sounds of strange places than my heart will ever know-  that not even my brothers and sisters sold off to those strange places ever knew, as their children are hung off the trees of Jim Crow and we call them strange fruit, and that maybe our first president didn't marry a white lady; the white lady might have married him. Sometimes what worries me most is that for just over eighteen years of seeing thinking feeling breathing being I couldn't have ever told you what Africa meant to me past the occasional 'dumela' to my mother's mother but never, never did I know or now know or will know my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother because she can't fit inside the cellular America that I hold in my palm. And this is why they call us lost. Because home is where the heart is but the heart is a broken place. One time, my five year old cousin said matter-of-factly that black is ugly. In my Primary School days everyone said I should stay out of the sun lest I get darker. But I'm here to tell you that I don't even bother wearing a sun-hat anymore. I'm here to tell you that I don't cut my hair because to do so would feel like oppression. I'm here to tell you how vivid and lovely and blessed I do feel to have been born in broken-heart home because at least it has soul. I'm here to tell you that, yes, I do remember that time when the whole world knew what to do about ****** and Bin Laden but never could get round to talking about Cecil John Rhodes. I'm here to tell you that Today, that conversation starts with a toppled statue. Today, that conversation starts with my voice. Today, this conversation starts with a poem which proclaims- child I am, child I am, child I am, child I am, child I am- that this is my day. This is my day. The Day of the African Child.
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42
I've never gone anywhere without seeing crows. In fields and malls, classrooms and bathrooms, they're never missing. Sometimes they'll come right up and those moments are petrifying because there aren't any breadcrumbs but the bits of fears on shoulders. When they land before you, you can feel a massive pressure on your chest, trapping you and catching your breath. I know other people see them too. I've seen people cursed with crows always hovering, whispering in their ears, pecking at their insecurities, and screeching self doubt. Mine is never far behind me and he'll never leave.
0
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC
Crow Feathers
There was nothing I was ever so ashamed of that I dumped it in a river to drown, but one time my best friend accidentally tossed my pink fishing pole into the bayou when a spider dangled from the line. We were eight, everything was wishy-washy because she called herself a mulatto like it were an insult and my older friends kept mentioning that my mom walked herself to a liquor store very late at night twelve-packs bruising her German-colored shoulder. I did not tell them my father had hidden away her car keys. Girls teased me and I still wanted to kiss their cheeks at goodbyes, The Little Mermaid featured at our sleepovers saying, “kiss the girl,” so I did but we stopped talking when I bought my training bra, it proved what was in my skirt, my lips could not touch them again. You cannot kiss a girl if you are a girl, even if Disney movies say it is okay because Mickie Mouse has no ***** to be ashamed of though a wife of the opposite *** I learned important things until I turned ten and Hurricane Katrina unraveled the bayou into my house and I existed in four different classrooms in my fourth grade year where nobody had enough time to learn my name, much less the way it is spelled. Now, in therapy, the certified insists that I am a girl who kisses other girls because my mother only put her lips on a bottle. But maybe I wear striped dresses just because mold grew that shape in my home on Camellia Street, mud decorated the fallen refrigerator so it looked like a cow some punk tipped over. I just wish the sidewalk I use to rollerblade on hadn’t flooded.
0
May 16, 2013
May 16, 2013 at 6:50 PM UTC
the little mermaid
There was nothing I was ever so ashamed of that I dumped it in a river to drown, but one time my best friend accidentally tossed my pink fishing pole into the bayou when a spider dangled from the line. We were eight, everything was wishy-washy because she called herself a mulatto like it were an insult and my older friends kept mentioning that my mom walked herself to a liquor store very late at night twelve-packs bruising her German-colored shoulder. I did not tell them my father had hidden away her car keys. Girls teased me and I still wanted to kiss their cheeks at goodbyes, The Little Mermaid featured at our sleepovers saying, “kiss the girl,” so I did but we stopped talking when I bought my training bra, it proved what was in my skirt, my lips could not touch them again. You cannot kiss a girl if you are a girl, even if Disney movies say it is okay because Mickie Mouse has no ***** to be ashamed of though a wife of the opposite *** I learned important things until I turned ten and Hurricane Katrina unraveled the bayou into my house and I existed in four different classrooms in my fourth grade year where nobody had enough time to learn my name, much less the way it is spelled. Now, in therapy, the certified insists that I am a girl who kisses other girls because my mother only put her lips on a bottle. But maybe I wear striped dresses just because mold grew that shape in my home on Camellia Street, mud decorated the fallen refrigerator so it looked like a cow some punk tipped over. I just wish the sidewalk I use to rollerblade on hadn’t flooded.
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31
As a college freshman I find myself time traveling. I close my eyes and I appear in the classroom where a group of over-confident, lazy, too smart for their own **** good students stood on the precipice between leaving and staying regretting and dreaming. Leaving would give us freedom Leaving would fill the creases of our palms with sweat We kept our palms outstretched and empty not daring to grasp anymore of home because the weight would only anchor us to the vines we spent 13 years unraveling from our ankles. Maybe we should not have been so eager to leave, maybe this is a mistake. The girl with the mermaid hair The boy with books stacked in a corner of his desk They both, we all, sat dreaming about the same thing while Ophelia drowned herself in the river Shores of the ocean and city skylines Classrooms that did not feel like cages and eyes that did not reflect a memory every time you glanced into them In a high school English class, a group of over-confident, lazy, too smart for their own **** good students, stood terrified and mystified stood united in there persistence to become something more than test scores and the ability to memorize facts. Fact: Some mornings I walk to class and I can feel the girl with the mermaid hair in Los Angeles walking beside me and when I sit down I can see books stacked on a corner of a desk somewhere in Berkeley. I wonder if they wake in their bed and hear airplane engines roaring somewhere above a valley. The engines roar with warning. sometimes it sounds like hope. Baby, something is coming, we promise We all began at the start, dreaming as one and fearing as one Today, she is five spaces forward He is ten spaces forward The others are halfway down the **** board and I find myself back at the start every few weeks. Four spaces forward then three spaces back-- I don't know where I am going. But I know where I have been. I open my eyes. A college freshman. I hear the engines roar above me. Something is coming.
0
Mar 20, 2013
Mar 20, 2013 at 8:42 PM UTC
college freshman.
As a college freshman I find myself time traveling. I close my eyes and I appear in the classroom where a group of over-confident, lazy, too smart for their own **** good students stood on the precipice between leaving and staying regretting and dreaming. Leaving would give us freedom Leaving would fill the creases of our palms with sweat We kept our palms outstretched and empty not daring to grasp anymore of home because the weight would only anchor us to the vines we spent 13 years unraveling from our ankles. Maybe we should not have been so eager to leave, maybe this is a mistake. The girl with the mermaid hair The boy with books stacked in a corner of his desk They both, we all, sat dreaming about the same thing while Ophelia drowned herself in the river Shores of the ocean and city skylines Classrooms that did not feel like cages and eyes that did not reflect a memory every time you glanced into them In a high school English class, a group of over-confident, lazy, too smart for their own **** good students, stood terrified and mystified stood united in there persistence to become something more than test scores and the ability to memorize facts. Fact: Some mornings I walk to class and I can feel the girl with the mermaid hair in Los Angeles walking beside me and when I sit down I can see books stacked on a corner of a desk somewhere in Berkeley. I wonder if they wake in their bed and hear airplane engines roaring somewhere above a valley. The engines roar with warning. sometimes it sounds like hope. Baby, something is coming, we promise We all began at the start, dreaming as one and fearing as one Today, she is five spaces forward He is ten spaces forward The others are halfway down the **** board and I find myself back at the start every few weeks. Four spaces forward then three spaces back-- I don't know where I am going. But I know where I have been. I open my eyes. A college freshman. I hear the engines roar above me. Something is coming.
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62
1 THE KIDS it’s a simple toy that’s all they want these gypsy kids Plastic discards cups and basins consumers-people throw away change into toys and inventions in the hands of the gypsy kids Simple inventions unique in the change a life of the imagination free, unencumbered just a place on the earth the space they play in today That’s all the kids want this moment not confined walls of classrooms 2 THE PARENTS Just like the kids Just these dads and moms who still revel in the infancy of the earth And their women who cook a meal with what the wild might offer who are content with what’s in the basket And who can see into the sky and see what‘s the weather coming this season And so when it is time to move, and where 3 GYPSY BEAUTY Gypsy beauty dance your body for me swirl it like water spin it like a top fly it like a kite O gypsy beauty with your knowing smile and your distant eyes O you beauty who wears the colors of the earth twirl the elements for me like the winds show what’s behind the clouds 4 GYPSY SINGER O gypsy singer your voice in the air like the voices that filled the first days of the earth that still echo down the crags and valleys of the mind O gypsy singer, sing the earth to peace Sing hard hearts to gentleness Raise that voice of yours that voice pure always so unencumbered and bring back vision to these tired spirits that possess and ravage the world sing these city-organized minds to calm, sing all living beings into clarity
0
Nov 22, 2012
Nov 22, 2012 at 5:58 AM UTC
gypsy
Pale-skinned girl from Indiana, with freckles, yes, freckles, on your cheek, this is who I am. This is my story. It is only coincidence that I sing it to you, but sing, nonetheless, I do. One morning amidst the restlessness of my top-bunk sheets I heard a whispering and thought it might be God it was me. My unconsciousness begging me for nourishment, silently loudly attacking my awareness with questions: it asked why I neglect it. Pale-skinned girl from Indiana, with freckles, yes, freckles, on your cheek, is this, too, why your body vibrates when your thoughts are feelings? Because you too have recognized feeling as thought? That that faculty of wonder you hush about as if a ***** secret of forgotten childhood memory is something that is as real as the metaphysical pores of a skin you cannot touch, but know is not some foreign, distant, effacing thing, but is thick, is thick, thick as words creaking like old wood in a library filled with students who read so much ******** to get into college but never venture forth for such skin in the skin of those unconscious voices in the shelves? Selves: we call them books but they breathe. The ideas wriggle in your veins like a worm. They block your blood yet move your soul. The stillness of your speechlessness is some movement in itself. So I suspect of you, pale-skinned girl from Indiana, with freckles, yes, freckles, on your cheek. So I suspect of myself. I do not understand how else I could have been born without eyes which we call eyes. I cannot see why else. I cannot. You cannot. There is light over there in that darkness. A glimpse of it- a sliver of silver has shocked you into your paleness. Into my blackness. It is the same difference. A different same. Line break: A mirror tells me things with my eyeless eyes. My brownness ***** me into journeys with tunnels so deep that we call them pupils. In the distance that I gaze into I find myself gazing into a distance I gaze into. Fathom it. Do not. Will not will it will it will not willed. Touching it will wilt it without touching: this is the soul you said does not exist. It is not there. It is. In Indiana. Where's that? asks my blood. In Indiana. Over there? my finger points out the window. No. It is. It is. Not. Suddenly I smell something and it is myself. It is not Indiana or freckles or pale-skin. I ask you where it is. Suddenly you smell something and it is yourself. It is not Gaborone or curly-haired or black. You ask me where I think it is. What the **** do we know?
0
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 9:04 PM UTC
A Walk to the Science Classrooms on a Post-Rainy Autumn Day.
Pale-skinned girl from Indiana, with freckles, yes, freckles, on your cheek, this is who I am. This is my story. It is only coincidence that I sing it to you, but sing, nonetheless, I do. One morning amidst the restlessness of my top-bunk sheets I heard a whispering and thought it might be God it was me. My unconsciousness begging me for nourishment, silently loudly attacking my awareness with questions: it asked why I neglect it. Pale-skinned girl from Indiana, with freckles, yes, freckles, on your cheek, is this, too, why your body vibrates when your thoughts are feelings? Because you too have recognized feeling as thought? That that faculty of wonder you hush about as if a ***** secret of forgotten childhood memory is something that is as real as the metaphysical pores of a skin you cannot touch, but know is not some foreign, distant, effacing thing, but is thick, is thick, thick as words creaking like old wood in a library filled with students who read so much ******** to get into college but never venture forth for such skin in the skin of those unconscious voices in the shelves? Selves: we call them books but they breathe. The ideas wriggle in your veins like a worm. They block your blood yet move your soul. The stillness of your speechlessness is some movement in itself. So I suspect of you, pale-skinned girl from Indiana, with freckles, yes, freckles, on your cheek. So I suspect of myself. I do not understand how else I could have been born without eyes which we call eyes. I cannot see why else. I cannot. You cannot. There is light over there in that darkness. A glimpse of it- a sliver of silver has shocked you into your paleness. Into my blackness. It is the same difference. A different same. Line break: A mirror tells me things with my eyeless eyes. My brownness ***** me into journeys with tunnels so deep that we call them pupils. In the distance that I gaze into I find myself gazing into a distance I gaze into. Fathom it. Do not. Will not will it will it will not willed. Touching it will wilt it without touching: this is the soul you said does not exist. It is not there. It is. In Indiana. Where's that? asks my blood. In Indiana. Over there? my finger points out the window. No. It is. It is. Not. Suddenly I smell something and it is myself. It is not Indiana or freckles or pale-skin. I ask you where it is. Suddenly you smell something and it is yourself. It is not Gaborone or curly-haired or black. You ask me where I think it is. What the **** do we know?
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72
How wonderful it is, I say, to the retreating yellow form of your feelings I mistook For Infatuation, you’re a romance heckler far and far away from Accepting fruition within classrooms and being labelled as an angel. And it was within forbidden hell of euphoria, I found You nestled in the society’s psyche neither content or calling For help. Neither did you neglect the pink spectacles of the society, Even found yourself moulding and moulding into a fungi green That I could not recognize, within that half-sanctum, half-oasis I found you absentmindedly Bathing in, you were already out of its waters. And I was no longer seeing you within the dry desert or the sibilance of my desires, but instead in cement woodlands and Within artificial communication and Intimacy I gave willingly. Now how does it feel, to have your heart in one piece, How does it feel to not use whipped cream to fill in the Cracked, salty sections of your own ***** that, Out of confusion, continues to play its favorite song but in all the wrong beats. Somehow within cacophony I found you, nestled, comfortable in Bogus, fraudulent wings of a former angel- who now weeps under our Feet in theory- Somehow, somewhere, I lost you within an epiphany That reeked of bliss and pleasure- Somehow, we end up losing Twins of the heavens when all is well. How wonderful. How wonderful it is, I say, to your lost, secretly-weeping figure That I can’t tell whether transparent or yellow your figure is. But I keep speaking- “Oh, how (falsely) wonderful it is- To love the first angel I’ve set my eyes upon- “Oh, how (falsely) wonderful it is- To lose an angel, no matter how phoney, to a social heaven.” - enriko. aug 5. 11:45pm
0
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 12:32 PM UTC
Empty Residence Of Aforementioned Angel In Training
How wonderful it is, I say, to the retreating yellow form of your feelings I mistook For Infatuation, you’re a romance heckler far and far away from Accepting fruition within classrooms and being labelled as an angel. And it was within forbidden hell of euphoria, I found You nestled in the society’s psyche neither content or calling For help. Neither did you neglect the pink spectacles of the society, Even found yourself moulding and moulding into a fungi green That I could not recognize, within that half-sanctum, half-oasis I found you absentmindedly Bathing in, you were already out of its waters. And I was no longer seeing you within the dry desert or the sibilance of my desires, but instead in cement woodlands and Within artificial communication and Intimacy I gave willingly. Now how does it feel, to have your heart in one piece, How does it feel to not use whipped cream to fill in the Cracked, salty sections of your own ***** that, Out of confusion, continues to play its favorite song but in all the wrong beats. Somehow within cacophony I found you, nestled, comfortable in Bogus, fraudulent wings of a former angel- who now weeps under our Feet in theory- Somehow, somewhere, I lost you within an epiphany That reeked of bliss and pleasure- Somehow, we end up losing Twins of the heavens when all is well. How wonderful. How wonderful it is, I say, to your lost, secretly-weeping figure That I can’t tell whether transparent or yellow your figure is. But I keep speaking- “Oh, how (falsely) wonderful it is- To love the first angel I’ve set my eyes upon- “Oh, how (falsely) wonderful it is- To lose an angel, no matter how phoney, to a social heaven.” - enriko. aug 5. 11:45pm
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56
We sipped boulder rock from refrigerators doors and watched the heavens hand out food stamps with IBM logos. “ode to Mehmet” we sang, and licked the Mossberg— fixating on the blue collar philosophy that lived in our empty wallets. Trash cans filled with water bottles stared at us to find our essence— the one we had lost while being fed quintessential American idioms in state-of-the-art classrooms sponsored by slaves and Popol Vuh blood. Six million years of human existence trivialized down to a single sentence— ** Man loved God, man wrote, man conquered God, and now man loves science** — scribbled on SmartBoards afforded by fire burning from Prometheus’ female liver. Trees sing with oxygen no more for the sake of making paper, and eyes soak in the words on paper for the sake of making paper. Trees make the avenue but the future holds an Avenue of no trees— … for in the land of the free, anything but freedom ain’t free.
0
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 9:46 PM UTC
80's Fried Chicken *******
You’ll never see me again. Who’s going to cry for you? This pen writes in black, but its green. I want to dance under a silly disco ball. I want to feel the earth on my skin. dig in the dirt, bury myself in the sand, climb a tree and swim in the sea. looking over me. I want to paint my nails with every color in those kindergarten classrooms, every pattern we learn in geometry. I want to no longer feel the need to look this color (arrow pointing to the color of the paper: red). I want to do yoga when I can and go for runs and eat healthy. I want to starve and feel hungry and weightless 24/7. I want to make a decision. I want to make music. I want to dance with a stranger, hands held, eyes close and sweaty bodys. I want to get their number and fall in love. I want a movie moment. I want to kiss everyone. I want to be wanted. I want to apologize to everyone. I want to stare into someones eyes; not longingly, but lovingly. I want them to look back just the same. I want them to make me things and work for me and only me. “make sure to write a poem about my prettiness”. I want to have a higher self esteem than her. I want people to come when not directly called. I want to look **** I want to hold someone **** I want *** to be my celebration for (arrow for where my self esteem is better). I want to think rationally always. I want to stop disappointing people I care about. I want to know the difference between a good impulse and a bad impulse. I want people to be okay with what I want. I want to sleep. I want to kiss. I want to give up smoking. I want to give up on my quest for the perfection every one speaks of. I want to foster dogs.
0
Oct 23, 2012
Oct 23, 2012 at 8:46 PM UTC
flower ***
You’ll never see me again. Who’s going to cry for you? This pen writes in black, but its green. I want to dance under a silly disco ball. I want to feel the earth on my skin. dig in the dirt, bury myself in the sand, climb a tree and swim in the sea. looking over me. I want to paint my nails with every color in those kindergarten classrooms, every pattern we learn in geometry. I want to no longer feel the need to look this color (arrow pointing to the color of the paper: red). I want to do yoga when I can and go for runs and eat healthy. I want to starve and feel hungry and weightless 24/7. I want to make a decision. I want to make music. I want to dance with a stranger, hands held, eyes close and sweaty bodys. I want to get their number and fall in love. I want a movie moment. I want to kiss everyone. I want to be wanted. I want to apologize to everyone. I want to stare into someones eyes; not longingly, but lovingly. I want them to look back just the same. I want them to make me things and work for me and only me. “make sure to write a poem about my prettiness”. I want to have a higher self esteem than her. I want people to come when not directly called. I want to look **** I want to hold someone **** I want *** to be my celebration for (arrow for where my self esteem is better). I want to think rationally always. I want to stop disappointing people I care about. I want to know the difference between a good impulse and a bad impulse. I want people to be okay with what I want. I want to sleep. I want to kiss. I want to give up smoking. I want to give up on my quest for the perfection every one speaks of. I want to foster dogs.
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1
If I close my eyes and think of you I can smell your scent From a mere two days ago The flutter in my heart follows If I close my eyes and think of my father I can smell the joints That I identified aged 10 I try not to ***** If I close my eyes and think of my best friend I can smell her perfume and washing powder It makes me smile And want a hug If I close my eyes and think of my father I can smell the stale beer A middle of the night smell It meant 'don't leave your room' If I close my eyes and think of my mum I smell safety and comfort Strength and gravity The balance keeps me strong If I close my eyes and think of my father I can smell the stale sweat The cruel words of abuse The hatred inside myself If I close my eyes and think of my sister I smell vanilla and style Fashion and creativity Sullen kindness If I close my eyes and think of my father I can smell the cold of the room With its broken window in the arctic temperatures The fire unlit because the marijuana needed somewhere to grow If I close my eyes and think of school I smell the comforting sawdust The corridors familiar The classrooms like home If I close my eyes and think of my father Not having friends round to tea- because. 16 not 6- you can't buy my trust 16 not 46- don't want prayer flags for my birthday If I close my eyes and think of home I smell the damp washing hanging up Every squeaky floorboard Every drip, clank, comforting noise If I close my eyes and think of my father I smell the power he loved to have How I haven't seen him in three years The fear that still remains If I close my eyes and think of myself I smell nothing Hear and see nothing At that is what scares me the most.
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May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 6:48 PM UTC
Close my eyes
If I close my eyes and think of you I can smell your scent From a mere two days ago The flutter in my heart follows If I close my eyes and think of my father I can smell the joints That I identified aged 10 I try not to ***** If I close my eyes and think of my best friend I can smell her perfume and washing powder It makes me smile And want a hug If I close my eyes and think of my father I can smell the stale beer A middle of the night smell It meant 'don't leave your room' If I close my eyes and think of my mum I smell safety and comfort Strength and gravity The balance keeps me strong If I close my eyes and think of my father I can smell the stale sweat The cruel words of abuse The hatred inside myself If I close my eyes and think of my sister I smell vanilla and style Fashion and creativity Sullen kindness If I close my eyes and think of my father I can smell the cold of the room With its broken window in the arctic temperatures The fire unlit because the marijuana needed somewhere to grow If I close my eyes and think of school I smell the comforting sawdust The corridors familiar The classrooms like home If I close my eyes and think of my father Not having friends round to tea- because. 16 not 6- you can't buy my trust 16 not 46- don't want prayer flags for my birthday If I close my eyes and think of home I smell the damp washing hanging up Every squeaky floorboard Every drip, clank, comforting noise If I close my eyes and think of my father I smell the power he loved to have How I haven't seen him in three years The fear that still remains If I close my eyes and think of myself I smell nothing Hear and see nothing At that is what scares me the most.
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in our besieged republic snipers are popping up everywhere taking *** shots ending lives with a well placed head shot active shooters star in world premier events jokers rise like dark knights casting large looming shadows on real 3D cinemax multiplexed screens sprinkling overpriced buckets of popcorn with generous dollops of blood others head back to school still ****** about missing recess and excessive sentences to detention halls where bullies tortured scrawny inmates with wedgies and painful ***** twisters they’ve come back to even the score leaving bullet hole pockmarks on Sharpie smudged   smart boards declaring endless summer vacations for classrooms of children who don’t give wedgies and only dream of soft ***** these urban guerillas are now working to liberate airports from the tyranny of TSA agents fulfilling PATRIOT ACT duties for 10 bucks an hour and last night the latest active shooter showed up at the Garden State Plaza, -my hometown mall of america- mumbling about his Grand Theft Auto score, strung out and crashing from an unfilled pharma addiction script he grew up as a Highwayman in Teaneck a former classmate working at Nordstroms said he was a really good kid he was, one of the good ones, he could have shot some people but the only person he shot in the head was himself legions of police officers surrounding the mall stood down grateful for overtime milling about in the flashing red strobes inhaling the heady blue fumes rising to commend Bergen County Blue Laws and next Sunday’s time and a half active shooter training day Jimi Hendrix: Machine Gun Oakland 11/5/13 jbm
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Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 1:12 PM UTC
active shooter
in our besieged republic snipers are popping up everywhere taking *** shots ending lives with a well placed head shot active shooters star in world premier events jokers rise like dark knights casting large looming shadows on real 3D cinemax multiplexed screens sprinkling overpriced buckets of popcorn with generous dollops of blood others head back to school still ****** about missing recess and excessive sentences to detention halls where bullies tortured scrawny inmates with wedgies and painful ***** twisters they’ve come back to even the score leaving bullet hole pockmarks on Sharpie smudged   smart boards declaring endless summer vacations for classrooms of children who don’t give wedgies and only dream of soft ***** these urban guerillas are now working to liberate airports from the tyranny of TSA agents fulfilling PATRIOT ACT duties for 10 bucks an hour and last night the latest active shooter showed up at the Garden State Plaza, -my hometown mall of america- mumbling about his Grand Theft Auto score, strung out and crashing from an unfilled pharma addiction script he grew up as a Highwayman in Teaneck a former classmate working at Nordstroms said he was a really good kid he was, one of the good ones, he could have shot some people but the only person he shot in the head was himself legions of police officers surrounding the mall stood down grateful for overtime milling about in the flashing red strobes inhaling the heady blue fumes rising to commend Bergen County Blue Laws and next Sunday’s time and a half active shooter training day Jimi Hendrix: Machine Gun Oakland 11/5/13 jbm
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in the beginning of my first year of high school, i was the girl with messy hair who tried to off herself in summer's past, the one with tired eyes who skipped lunch despite empty stomachs feeling heavier, the freshman with open wounds grazing the veins in her arms who sprinted out of classrooms due to the sporadic nature of panic attacks. i'd like to say that i've transitioned out of the cocoon of panic disorders and ptsd and depression, but somehow, the butterfly wings haven't grown in yet.
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Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 7:04 PM UTC
i am not a butterfly
What happened to us was something like what happens to flowers when the vase shatters, Or what happens to misplaced keys; Someone was careless, Didn't pay attention, And now we're left with empty spaces. What happened to us was something like What happens to the moon as the Earth spirals on its axis, Or what happens to the trees as it starts to snow; We were inevitable, natural, But cyclical, Never able to withstand the darkness, Or keep together through the cold. When you left, you took my pride with you, Swore it was all my fault Until I believed you. I let you think that you meant nothing, But you were the moon and I was the tide, Without you, I'd cease to be. In some other life, you'd be an artist, and I'd be your muse. Long after we'd gone, they'd hang your paintings at The Met and say, 'Look how much he loved her.' I'd still be a poet, of course, only this time My poems would be taught in classrooms—Picked to the bone by children who'd scribble verses on their arms, Wishing for a love just like ours. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel better, but right now Everything hurts and I wish you were here.
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Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 4:01 PM UTC
What happened to us?
Let's talk about heroes the everyday kind a Jordanian principal at a school for girls offering a simple solution rather than slamming another hateful door in the faces of children who have done nothing to create the war forcing their families to flee or die in the hateful dust clouding the world's vision the school is overcrowded but when Syrian mothers beg for their children to be taught instead of saying no room the principal asks each girl to bring a chair and she will find room for one more students walk to school carrying multi-hued chairs so many eager daughters classrooms full beyond bursting but the principal keeps her promise none are turned away a loving heart refusing to be the lock on the gate offering instead a key a mother's simple wish for her daughter to write her own name becoming "maybe she will be a doctor" a seven-year-old girl declaring "I want to be smart" the world begins anew with open arms, willing minds perched on the edge of bright plastic chairs asking only teach me I am hungry to learn
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May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 8:40 AM UTC
Hungry Chair
In high-school chemistry classrooms across the country, you are forced to memorize all of the different lab equipment. They never tell you to memorize the constellation of freckles spattered across the bridge of your lab partner's nose, but you do it anyways. You learn about Marie Curie and radioactive decay, but you find you are more interested in the way his smile starts small and grows to light a fire in your cheeks. You blame it on the Bunsen burner. You study polyatomic ions and how they act as a single unit, and it reminds you of how he winks at you right before quizzes and you find you can't focus on anything at all. You blame it on the lack of breakfast. You test over periodic trends and ionization energy, but all you can think of at night is the way he taps his fingers and maybe it's why you can't sleep at night. You blame it on a restless mind. In high-school chemistry classrooms across the country, you are forced to be careful when handling Erlenmeyer flasks. They never tell other students to be careful when handling your heart. They never tell you how much easier it is to clean up the mess from a shattered beaker than it is to clean up the mess from your shattered heart.
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Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 4:06 PM UTC
Chemistry Class
Addiction ......is a mountain that you do not have the strength to climb, but do so anyways....and you know that there is an avalanche..a moment of collapse and destruction....that is bound to happen at any moment in time, but you do not care because....the view is so beautiful addiction is letting your highs carry you throughout the night because it's the only way you'll be able to greet the day and then allow your lows to drag you through it addiction is small puddles of water in the desert that lead to a mirage in the distance, you continue drinking, believing that you are being led to your salvation only to realize it has all been an illusion addiction itself is water, although it does not reside in the desert..it's in your stomach as opposed to food, because if you were to eat you would not only throw up the food, but also the truth addiction is silence within classrooms....why speak out loud when you are already screaming at the temptation in your mind to leave you be.. addiction is a race between bank accounts and bodies..and its hard to tell which one will cross the finish line of complete emptiness first addiction is skin clinging to bones like a baby to its mother....but its only ever perceived as beautiful addiction is carrying vile poison in your veins, and so in your backpack you also carry blades because you never really know when the temptation will scream just a bit too loud..and the time will come to let it all out addiction is locked doors and cold bathroom floors that you sit upon for hours contemplating your fate.. Addiction is what has carried the minds and souls of those I love to a far away place, and so I suppose I allow it to carry me now in hopes it will bring me to them someday...
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Feb 13, 2018
Feb 13, 2018 at 3:10 PM UTC
Untitled
Addiction ......is a mountain that you do not have the strength to climb, but do so anyways....and you know that there is an avalanche..a moment of collapse and destruction....that is bound to happen at any moment in time, but you do not care because....the view is so beautiful addiction is letting your highs carry you throughout the night because it's the only way you'll be able to greet the day and then allow your lows to drag you through it addiction is small puddles of water in the desert that lead to a mirage in the distance, you continue drinking, believing that you are being led to your salvation only to realize it has all been an illusion addiction itself is water, although it does not reside in the desert..it's in your stomach as opposed to food, because if you were to eat you would not only throw up the food, but also the truth addiction is silence within classrooms....why speak out loud when you are already screaming at the temptation in your mind to leave you be.. addiction is a race between bank accounts and bodies..and its hard to tell which one will cross the finish line of complete emptiness first addiction is skin clinging to bones like a baby to its mother....but its only ever perceived as beautiful addiction is carrying vile poison in your veins, and so in your backpack you also carry blades because you never really know when the temptation will scream just a bit too loud..and the time will come to let it all out addiction is locked doors and cold bathroom floors that you sit upon for hours contemplating your fate.. Addiction is what has carried the minds and souls of those I love to a far away place, and so I suppose I allow it to carry me now in hopes it will bring me to them someday...
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Out of all the gin joints Classrooms Bedrooms Ballrooms Hospitals Temples Minds Spirits Hearts You had to walk into mine
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Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 6:57 PM UTC
Gin Joints
There is a tendency among those poets who may be very young frequently to put in verse those foreign phrases, or much worse the now dead words of oh so ****** Latin to boast of classrooms that they’ve sat in. And just in case you’ve never heard ‘em, Let’s reduce a few to ad absurdum. It was amore a prima vista until he left her for her younger sister for, after all, who could resist her, so moving on to secunda vista he took that step and boldly kissed her, behaviour that is hardly utopista. The trouble with modus vivendi is that it sometime rhymes with eye but there are those who don’t agree and think that it must rhyme with tea. Who cares? It’s all the same to I. Or should that be the same to me? You may say it is not de rigueur that I defend with so much vigour what surely is no more than hubris that I attribute to Confucius for he surely ha detto tutto albeit un po convoluto. And everyone’s heard of carpe diem. If not, then I have yet to see ‘em. But I prefer to seize a waist which may be thought somewhat unchaste though far more likely to have shocked ‘em would be to carpe in the noctem. Perhaps you think it’s ipso facto that I’m intolerant of lacto unless it comes directly from the breast. I think it’s better that the rest of this is left to your own opinatus for which I offer no blank cartus. Then there’s the modus of my own vivendi that I indulge in cacoethes scribendi the itch to write for which I daily scratch myself or play my ukulele which is my form of modus operandi before I pour myself a king-size brandy. And thus we leave this boring dull citare, by this time you have certainly grown quite weary of any further venture into tedium Or as ***** Harry might say, fac ut gaudeam For after all a day senza sunlight Might altrettante facilmente be night
0
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 6:15 PM UTC
Pig Latin
There is a tendency among those poets who may be very young frequently to put in verse those foreign phrases, or much worse the now dead words of oh so ****** Latin to boast of classrooms that they’ve sat in. And just in case you’ve never heard ‘em, Let’s reduce a few to ad absurdum. It was amore a prima vista until he left her for her younger sister for, after all, who could resist her, so moving on to secunda vista he took that step and boldly kissed her, behaviour that is hardly utopista. The trouble with modus vivendi is that it sometime rhymes with eye but there are those who don’t agree and think that it must rhyme with tea. Who cares? It’s all the same to I. Or should that be the same to me? You may say it is not de rigueur that I defend with so much vigour what surely is no more than hubris that I attribute to Confucius for he surely ha detto tutto albeit un po convoluto. And everyone’s heard of carpe diem. If not, then I have yet to see ‘em. But I prefer to seize a waist which may be thought somewhat unchaste though far more likely to have shocked ‘em would be to carpe in the noctem. Perhaps you think it’s ipso facto that I’m intolerant of lacto unless it comes directly from the breast. I think it’s better that the rest of this is left to your own opinatus for which I offer no blank cartus. Then there’s the modus of my own vivendi that I indulge in cacoethes scribendi the itch to write for which I daily scratch myself or play my ukulele which is my form of modus operandi before I pour myself a king-size brandy. And thus we leave this boring dull citare, by this time you have certainly grown quite weary of any further venture into tedium Or as ***** Harry might say, fac ut gaudeam For after all a day senza sunlight Might altrettante facilmente be night
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I spent years of my life in a fantasy world. Well. Lots of fantasy worlds. My clothes were cooler Voice smoother Choices simpler. You finish quests, unlock gods, Slay dragons . When my DnD group broke up I thought: If I'm not the gnome bard or the elven ranger or the dwarven barbarian Who am I? The answer: I'm the kid, Who was doodling demons in the corners of classrooms. Who didn't quite make it through the pacer test in one peice. Who spoke up a little too loud about religion and not loud enough about being bullied. Who didn't have party's to go to because he was to busy with his party of heroes. Who will I be now? I can write my charecter sheet however I want too. Natural Twenty on my charisma Critical hit my failures Damage reduction on Haters. In real life, I paint my face on blank canvas I have one simple goal. I want to levitate slightly off of the ground While summoning an undead army and shooting fireballs from the sky. I might not get there. I'll be ****** though, if I don't roll for it.
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Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 9:59 PM UTC
ReRoll
Daisies in hair, freckles in laugh, Summer camp dandelions, Bubbles in the air. Cling like a koala to your back So I can fight off the pirates And the dinosaurs And the giant squid And my mother's meatloaf. Where do teachers go at night? Do they sleep in their classrooms? This caterpillar is my new best friend. But so is this firefly. But not that moth. Roll down hill into mud puddles of chocolate goo. Sing songs and jump on clouds like trampolines. Mouth like an innocent firecracker; 3-2-1 blast off. Kissed and tucked and loved into bed. Dreaming of how good we're going to have it, Not knowing that we already did.
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Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 5:25 PM UTC
Kids
Empty classrooms Filled with sunlight Vacant stairwells Accompanied by cobwebs Busy city streets filled with Rushing  people And loud children   Deserted parking lots With nothing except   Bottle caps And lonely pocket change Placid libraries With abandoned chairs and desolate books Familiar neighborhoods and childhood streets Thoughts of you String along with me Everywhere I go
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Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 1:45 PM UTC
Moments
It’s been a while… It truly has been a while since I’ve written here, but yesterday I was triggered, inspired if you will; inspired to write this and let it be real. When I was a child, 2nd grade to be exact, I befriended a girl on the school bus and long story short she spent my entire 2nd grade year manipulating me into all kinds of ****** acts not only with her but with other classmates. I was told by this girl, my classmate, another child, a second grader that everything we were doing was okay, it was all okay. Why?? Because her and her sisters did this kind of thing all the time. To me as a child it made sense I guess, but she also threatened that if I ever told anyone as in ANYONE she would tell them it was all my fault all my idea. All of the staying in classrooms when no one was there, hiding and being told to do things that were beyond a child’s or even some adult’s comprehension, the hiding anywhere and everywhere and the fear of being caught it all was in my hands, and if i told I was to blame. This went on for an entire year, or so who knows I blacked it out, but I vividly remember using a journal I got as gift to document it all detailed and when I got scared my mom would find it… I ripped the pages to shreds. And I killed the memory. I went my entire life until 19 years old that I realized it was never a dream. It was real. The point of this all is during a deep discussion With my best friend, I expressed to her the moment after all these years that remembered the girls name. I told her one day my mom found a different journal I wrote in as a child, she found it a couple years ago and I was intrigued so I flipped to a random page… and on that page it was a prompt that asked my favorite and least favorite things about school. My least favorite thing about school is: J****h . There it was!!! Her name . I told my best friend her name and seeing as though after I left the school district she stayed, we recalled the girl and how I can’t see her face in my mind but she knew she had a twin sister and they left the district after 2nd or 3rd grade and they came back in middle school. However by middle school I had transferred schools. Long story short it shock my entire being that I missed this encountering this girl again . And I will never know her face or why she chose me but all I know is she was just the beginning of my trauma.
0
Nov 5, 2022
Nov 5, 2022 at 2:41 PM UTC
Remember Me?
It’s been a while… It truly has been a while since I’ve written here, but yesterday I was triggered, inspired if you will; inspired to write this and let it be real. When I was a child, 2nd grade to be exact, I befriended a girl on the school bus and long story short she spent my entire 2nd grade year manipulating me into all kinds of ****** acts not only with her but with other classmates. I was told by this girl, my classmate, another child, a second grader that everything we were doing was okay, it was all okay. Why?? Because her and her sisters did this kind of thing all the time. To me as a child it made sense I guess, but she also threatened that if I ever told anyone as in ANYONE she would tell them it was all my fault all my idea. All of the staying in classrooms when no one was there, hiding and being told to do things that were beyond a child’s or even some adult’s comprehension, the hiding anywhere and everywhere and the fear of being caught it all was in my hands, and if i told I was to blame. This went on for an entire year, or so who knows I blacked it out, but I vividly remember using a journal I got as gift to document it all detailed and when I got scared my mom would find it… I ripped the pages to shreds. And I killed the memory. I went my entire life until 19 years old that I realized it was never a dream. It was real. The point of this all is during a deep discussion With my best friend, I expressed to her the moment after all these years that remembered the girls name. I told her one day my mom found a different journal I wrote in as a child, she found it a couple years ago and I was intrigued so I flipped to a random page… and on that page it was a prompt that asked my favorite and least favorite things about school. My least favorite thing about school is: J****h . There it was!!! Her name . I told my best friend her name and seeing as though after I left the school district she stayed, we recalled the girl and how I can’t see her face in my mind but she knew she had a twin sister and they left the district after 2nd or 3rd grade and they came back in middle school. However by middle school I had transferred schools. Long story short it shock my entire being that I missed this encountering this girl again . And I will never know her face or why she chose me but all I know is she was just the beginning of my trauma.
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