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Rob Jun 2014
Trickling tingles bubble, goaded from the verdant body
As a butterfly’s flutterings coax the flow
Widening and filling
With a gentle lapping of inlets
Ripples tease the reeds into turgid tremors
Merging to waves
Wave upon wave
Curves slide over curves
And at the Delta’s swollen, gaping breadth
Crests slip over craving crevices
Slapping froth in desperate gasps
Milking cruel spasms from the urgent need to reach escape
Until with turmoil resolved
A gentle calm inundates the great ocean of sleep.
RD© 2014
Donall Dempsey Apr 2017
"...YES. . .YES. . .I AM!"

He was like the dark.
When the light went out.

Himself, but:
not himself.

Erased.

More the map
of himself.

And a crude map at that.

Here his mind
marked with an X.

Contour lines
impossibly close together.

Then the continental shelf
of self.

Different shades of blue.
Deepening...deepening.

This somehow
much more detailed.

Half the map
torn in two

as if something( or other )
owned the other half.

He couldn't say what
or who.

Only...it wasn't him.

Now the fever
nibbling his consciousness.

The world gone.
AWOL

as if it intended
never to come back again.

Somewhere in this thing
that wasn't him

his sister's voice
trying to coax him

back into being.

Her voice
cool water.

His mind sipping
the sound of each syllable.

Speech.
Precious.
Delicious.

Ridiculous words.
But words...nonetheless.

His voice answering
just for the sake of answering.

Thought once again
dressed in words.

"Yes..!" his voice said "...yes I am
alright!"
What good
Are all the words
What good
Are all the stars,
Under this vast sky
The distance
Between us
Is as far
As the sun,
And just as
Unreachable,
Like hot coffee
Burning the roof
Of my mouth,
I keep trying
Over and over,
Stubborn,
Not minding
The pain,
Though I've sung
All the songs
In my heart,
She won't listen
Tone deaf I must be,
I can't coax a twinkle
Out of her eyes,
Unlit sparklers
I've run out of matches...
© okpoet
Lucy Michelle May 2015
My mother’s a writer
My father’s a writer
And they have plenty to write about
But nothing to do

And my mother is sad
Because she says,
“I’ve run out of emotion,”
She misses that raw pubescence
That I’ve so gracefully wrapped myself in

I love to love strangers, the stranger the better
“I can only stand the people I know,”
But she used to steal road signs
And she used to coax the white teeth teens
Out of pearl-sided mansions
Onto oil slicked streets

My mother’s a writer
My father’s a writer
And they have plenty to write about
But nothing to do

My father was rich when he was 21
He had a leatherbound book of poetry
A fiance and three best mates
“Loved them, crazy guys”
But then he said, “we were all crazy then,”

But then there were children and houses
Mid-life crises, loans to be paid
They were wild, broken when they joined the PTA
And now they’re sick
Of raising their children
They’re off to South America
To feel human again
Marigold Jul 2012
I am a dubious believer,
And an un-abiding listener.
I do not heed your warnings well.

I thrive off the thrill of second hand smoke,
Bringing the tendrils down to my lungs.
I coax them in.
I haven't decided if i like the taste,
But I know I like the feel.

I've never had a nose bleed.
And nor do I intend to.

Will you run away again,
Or can you bear to stay here with me
A while longer until I repel you?

There is a trill of promise,
Wavering on the wind.
****** it up before it finds somebody else.
index finger of left hand
     (likened to Michelangelo
meticulously chiseling away
     at marble block), this poe
whit attempts to coax (zealously
     tap into his latent indivisible quo
shunt, sans self imposed

     quotidian literary endeavor slow
lee witnessing, an emergent
     reasonably satisfactory, though
hooping unbeknownst readers
     (perchance even a scribe from Yugo
Slav via) will only resort
     to lard out positive unsolicited feedback,

yet this scrivener well aware
bluntness evokes
     fulfillment loud and clear
inflating jowly machismo thru ether
narcissist quintessential rabid glare
     unpretentious vain warbling yakking

     zither plucking boastful demonstrably
     fatuous haughtily immodest luminaire
dismissively smug,
     sans literary endeavor aye share
thus, tis one objective when attempting
     to corral rampant thoughts,

     (that charge hither and yon, to and fro)
     at pace of greased lightening tear
chasing hash-tagged elusive
     Smokey and the Bandit
imp posse sub bull
     back to the future of 1977 year  

temporarily abandoning awoke
motive, i.e. initial challenge,
     viz going for broke
to sweat blood and tears
     digging deep within noggin, or choke
myself if merely draw blanks

     versus (beginners blind luck), and evoke
accolades accidentally
     tapping into creative
     (qua literary) mother lode
     joining belle lettres authored folk,
whose metier comprises compendium

     of alphabetized words
     receiving surprising windfall
     asper pig in a poke,
novel idea after nostrils emit smoke
the amazing dragon
     within (sol fully bellows)  
     finding me to feign taking a smoke

aware fame and fortune,
     where a written best seller brings renown
can essentially only be verbalized
     as a pipe dream from this clown,
who best **** sitter
     living hard scrapple

     (scrabble playing) hand to mouth shuffling
     along (the littered boulevard
     of rejection slips)
     wearing out one after
     another of me buster brown

shoes, perhaps posthumously
     gleaning raving reviews,
where famous names
     amidst cadre (espousing
     wife fours smiting
     social injustices extant loose

zing potential harmonic convergence,
     whether gentiles or Jews
throughout all foursquare corners
     of the world wide web
an economic eclectic diaspora,
     where underbelly of civilization
     pay heaviest ****** dues!
Gerald Campbell Nov 2015
Fish is the worlds problem
Fins and gills a and poisonous jelly
Resting in the crevices of their more vulnerable kiddy-make-cry
To slice at young flesh is exquisite
Knowing the scar you're leaving behind
Will vanish within hours
Yet
Will remain fire-hot and ******
For the rest if the kid's fish-hating life
It's a small pond they took you to
The deepest water beneath a lunky wood and metal bridge
E
Which creaked and groaned begging to give in
We say on that bridge, poisoned legs hanging and dangling
Looking at Aunt Terry coming up out of the water much too quickly
Gravity deciding it wasn't through yet with her swimming suit top
We laughed from emberassment
But even the rowdiest among us clammed up
Breathing harder and deeper than they had ever done before
On the cusp of puberty every single *****, heretofore shrunken and shriveled from the unfortunately cold water in that unnamed pond
Every flaccid, dripping **** , when the brain sent down the message concerning the incredible size and girth of Aunt Terry's ****
Ever little immature Ramma Lamma Ding **** got a fresh infusion of prime hemoglobin straight to the juju
All we knew to do was hide in bushes
Pretend we're taking a **** while in reality we were expending the last couple of minutes it took to coax out that tiny gelatinous goop.
We spit it out of our manhood, unconcerned with where it may have
Eventually fallen. It had lost it's novelty long before we hacked it

Terry was embarrassed, to be sure
She knew what the boys were doing
It didn't bother her at all
There was a time when they fought for it. As if were spoils of war
That delusion didn't last for very long

What could she do? Her swim shirt was ruined. She had to get out
They jerred her as she found her way to the door
On one side freedom, albeit bogged down worh mamy many secrets

This could be the last time anyway
Rumor around town is that the slaughterhouse bought the land and all it's water ways. They planned to use it as  a reservoir for newly killed swine within six months you would not have recognized the ole fishing hole
The hooks baited with frozen shrimp
Grown ups helping sons find minnows gone, ahh, long gone, like the best years of our lives
We stood up as one in order to survey
The carnage, carnage even at this early stage wasa harbinger of bad omens to come
In every inch of the pond, diluting it if possible,
Pig's blood swine blood
The rats that ran with the pigs
As if they too had been specifically sent to insure that enough blood was let into the swamp
Dead swine, harder than a hobby horse, eyes still open, hopin' there's been some mistake
A lack of regulations combined with forced apathy kept us from caring
Much about what e believed was an injustice . We were children. It was enough hell to see the clean waters replaced by pig blood, pig guts. offal, intestines and other items that remain inside the body for a very good reason

May you find streams and brooks
Lakes and. Oceans
Of baptizing water
May you remember with great fondness your toes playing in the sand
Remember, my children, how crystal clear and pristine were the waters
Good, well tended salt water for catfish
Not a pool full of crimson stench.
This is my childhood. Shouldn't someone have let me know a long time ago that you were planning on turning it into the slaughtered pig open grave
It can't be
It just can't be

(And yet, it is)
Based on a true story
Mikaila Feb 2014
You
Are not my crutch.
You've named yourself
But you've got it all wrong.
Even when I crawled through life
I never even took a hand up.
I've never leaned on
Anyone
And I never intend to.
I have no crutch.
I am no *******.
I am simply
Something you have never seen before
And may never see again.
(It takes a certain madness to walk
This tightrope.)
I have no crutch. I have no support.
But
I have my knowledge
That when I fall I will not hit the ground.
That if I am to tumble from love and life
I may be bruised
But I will not be
Broken.
I have someone waiting to catch me.
And you
Are not her, either.
Darling, you are what I want.
You are who
I want.
But you are not my constant.
You do not rise in the east
And set in the west
And I do not expect
That you coax every living thing that grows
Up from under the soil
And give it life.
I cannot count on you
To keep me warm when I am shivering
And that
Is okay
And that
Was never the point.
You are like the stars-
Never in quite the same place,
Bright and guiding some nights,
Shrouded in misty clouds on others,
And that
Is why I love you so.
Elusive and divine,
You shape the night into a glittering sheet of velvet but you
Are not the sun
And I do not want you to be.
I've got someone
I know will always come back and light my life up.
I've got
My safety net of sunbeams.
I am reaching for the stars,
And I want them to set my heart aflame
And print constellations of white light
Along my tender skin
But
Make no mistake
I neither want
Nor expect them
To make the grass grow
Steady beneath my feet.
JD Nyron Jun 2015
Sleep is for the body
But sleep on an infected ear is a temptation of the mind
To know the pain so obscured from passers-by
But preoccupied in the mind of the infected, so craving rest
There thrives the vicious throbbing
A pulse radiating through the cartilage
From the outer lobes to the frontal lobe
The heartbeat has turned against me
Every vessel scrawling suicides on the wall
More than antibiotics can coax

This is the kind of heartbreak that makes you lose faith in medicine
The eustachian balloon blown up and holding
Swollen like the lung that held the loves unsaid
To burst is to admit defeat, to pick up the pieces too great a cost
To drain is salvation I cannot afford myself
Some swirling impression hangs over
This masterpiece keeps turning sinister in vertigo
Even when the feet are still
It’s a sick dog made of wine and high
Refusing sleep for fear of never waking

I wrap myself in a fur I forget is still wet
Self portraits catch my eye to walk past the drunken mirror
To frighten oneself at how same it looks to crater from the pain
Than to smile at the ignorant friend
How the spine has not bent itself in two
And the eyes have not fogged in the face
But the ear can scream out

I walk the same house in the same clothes you held me in
And throb to remember and to hear
The white feather of your voice
Plucked from the baby bird you saved
So innocent and new, a kiss to the vernal earth
Airy like fog on the mountain
An orphaned fox playing in the midday
That’s the perfume that drips from my lobes
And falls to the backs of my hands
When I remember the way you’d wake
And say my name after a long sleep
Poetic T May 2016
Her father always thought the best,
but a secret lied behind her perfect façade.
Needle,
thread,
puncture
wounds in-between toes to hide the deeds
that were done. she was delirious in actions
as in the woods she wondered
trails
illusions
thoughts
not of a lucid mind was opened up.
Her father thinking the worst searched
in vain for her beauty. But a castle unknown
came into view, as he wondered in thinking
she had sought shelter in the beleaguered place
"Beauty,
He spoke but not a noise was uttered, nor a breath
could be heard. He lingered in views of stately rooms,
how had this place never been seen.
Truth of thought has a funny way of seeking those
who unwittingly pursue its need. As in to a bleak
and dark room he stood, he lit the light with flame
in hand. A crunch underfoot echoed through out,
cloth,
bone,
skulls
littered the expanse of this room. Gnawing marks
of teeth clenched deep, but others yet
to decay. Like rag dolls used as some form
of twisted play things, fear etched in there
features as death granted them a moment of
relief from what used them as a novelty before
that final laceration ended there breath.
Digust,
Horror,
Fear
as he yearned to leave such a place of
lingering death. When appeared young beauty
Worse for wear, father what are you doing in such
a place? I looked for you as it's been two days.
But then without forewarning its cold
hands clasped around her fathers throat.
Heed my warning as death waits for your father,
for things he wondered upon must never be spoke.
Beauty stepped back, her hand grasping the handle
But it was already sealed, the mirror on the wall did
utter,
proclaim,
announce
that the door was not opening as the key
was but a refection of self. With that she threw her shoe,
Its heal shattered the reflective aura and it bleed reflection
upon the surrounding area. With but an action the fathers
neck was but a twig snapped in haste.
His cry was pitiful and last words expelled "Why,
Beauty ran through the garden roses cutting her
with there thorns, her legs weeping she became faint.
"Awaken,
"arouse,
stimulate
oneself before my patience carves seconds in your
subtle flesh. Startled and not in denial of
What was craved, but nothing could coax her
from this debilitating feeling.
She arose, shivering, sweating, it took this
as unbridled fear. But beauty feared no one
she had done, seen things to coax a next high.

"Do you not morn the falling of your father girl,

"He was nearly of his time,
"We all kiss the thorns the rose never stays fresh long,  

A strange look happened upon his sunken eyes,
You are not like any other I have guested here
at my beckoning before. Due to your fathers sight,
you are a guest of no leaving, a bed is made,
wearing's of your taste are in the wardrobe.

Whispers clung to the walls as face ebbed upon
her hearing dinner is served madam,

"What the hell are you,
"Were those within the walls,
"Hurry up miss he doesn't like waiting,

Upon the long table did vast meals endorse,
eat up, have your fill.
With appetite in her eyes she lusted after such
morsels never had such graced her homeward plate.

"Why do you linger in this place,

"I'm cursed with in these walls, gardens
once I permitted my self importance and
walked beyond the chimes of my gates arch
and now my features  are what your eyes linger on,


Silence decorated the room after that, as neither
did ask any unwarranted words expelling out,
His eyes lingered on here beauty, could she be that
which could undo this curse of vanities misgivings.  

Time passed her sweats had past her cramps
that were like a thousand knifes within her
veins calmed and she made the most of this place.
Walks upon freshly cut hedges, these little
Fixtures of horror jagged glasses that
would slit a wrist with a wrongful gesture now
seemed harmless enough.

But as though opposites did attract and
yearning for company other than self.
She took walks upon the gardens,
In disrepair was one such place and what
seemed like roses was something else.

"What are you doing here,

As her breath hassened, and thoughts consumed
of what could be. But clean she had been for
going on months and days.
But the earge grew as night turned to morning,
she loved him but was this enogh for
the kiss of this old friend was once so sweet.

He knew in his heart he had changed no longer feeding
on the flesh of mortal men, he had mirrored his
thoughts of loves bloom on his heart.
But could one love someone this hideous in features
only this moment would tell.

"Beauty, I have something to mention,

But the house was silent the features on the walls
ascended through out to find the beauty that
meant so much to all that were apart of this house.

Not a single breath was found,
neither by shadow or mouse. Had she left?
No why now, her heart was entwined
with his but he could not feel her essence
no beat was echoing out.

"My beauty, my love,

Moments past as a scent was picked up,
But it was not of life but of decay.
He found her with the needle cracked on the floor,
Her features of
bliss,
horror,
death
was her lover now, and it taken her away.
He saw a note scrunched in her hand,
he read it out in thoughts he was lost,

"My darling beast,

"I have noted your thoughts towards me,
and I lingered on them as I must.
But you are a beast and only for life
did I do as I must.
I was dead inside when you were upon me,
my yearning or horror I hide in lust.
I could not escape you, eye were upon
me even in sleep I was never alone such mistrust.
So now I leave this place a free woman.
not in love, not in fear, in life I was a prisoner
but in death I am a free bird no longer an empty husk,*


He reeled in disbelief at what her words spelt out,
Was he truly that horrifying even to touch.
he held her in his arms, carried her to the gate,
and looked into the distance seeing the sun setting
He raised a hand a cleft her heart out.

"You took this from me world, but I take it back,

He threw her to the dogs that waited eagerly
for flesh, they had not fed on this delicacy
for so long, While she was here no one was to touch.
In heartache he walked to the arch and carried on straight.
His figure was contorted and with one final out spelling
of grief he was consumed in embers then gone to ash.

All who had fallen from grace when he was made
beast returned to normal form. But happiness
was a short miracle , for all were of sin for what
had taken place, behind walls and doors as
all were consumed and the palace of a king
now burnt like the sun set. Only gardens and
ashes were a testament of what was. But love was
never a happy ending when a persons true features
were surfaced, how can you see past that to true love.
Will Snelling Oct 2013
Out there,
In the thick of breathing woods and fresh droplets
Of vapour and dust and invisible life,
Entire oceans writhing with colours and light,
A millisecond for a million growths
To burst upwards and just as quick to die.

Flick a switch and it all evaporates.
Clinical surfaces and straight lines,
In a kingdom of slick whites,
Scrub out every piece of dirt,
Till it slots in with everything else
You've bought. Dull the emotion,
With endless loops of information,
Sprawling chunks of text
On a black glass surface.

Don't push away the problem,
When your thumb prods and slides
Your whirlpool of information
To fill every gap between every conversation
Because you can't bare to let it slip,
Let the grains of truth begin to tumble
in the back of your mind, the realisation
That you're petrified of spending
A moment alone in the void.
So you look and laugh on your own,
And **** the satisfaction from yourself,
And the coax out the momentary simulation,
Housed in a glass box.
L Oct 2014
You're so terrifying and sweet.
Baby knuckles and
fingers.

I wonder what I have to tear open
to get to your pearl.
You are a treasure chest
and I haven't even found the X.

I want to know what's under your dress.
I want to feel what's inside of your chest.

I would deprive you of oxygen
so you learn to breathe through my words.


You're some kind of angel.

I'm going coax you
into writhing

for me.
Michaela Ferris Sep 2015
Lights don't shine as bright as a thousand stars,
Reflecting off moonlit rivers
Formed by a thousand tears.
Lights don't lead you through the darkest of nights
Unlike the moon's beams which guide you through clouded thoughts
Leading you from their eyes into their very souls.

Falling leaves of autumn linger along deserted streets,
Scattered like a thousand memories
Desperately clinging to life; to be remembered.
The autumn leaves rustle on a bitter, cold night
Reminding you of his unforgettably warm embrace,
Not completely gone but just out of reach.

The darkest nights of winter hide your placed dreams,
Smothering your happiest moments
Until you long for the newest of beginnings.
The coldest nights of winter give you hope
Curled up by a fire remembering summer nights
Of how his kiss would leave you smiling like a fool for hours.

The gentle caress of waves and summer breezes
Enlighten your heart to new dreams and new beginnings
That coax you into new adventures.
The graceful movements of budding cherry blossoms
Opens the soul to new adventures
Threatening to take you to new heights of pure bliss.

Seasons morph and change as time goes on,
Counting down each day until the end
Waiting to become something new.
Just like the seasons we morph and change,
Ignoring the complexity and greatness of life
But just like the seasons we have the opportunity to be great.
George Anthony Jul 2017
i feel better
when my bones threaten my skin,
stretching it,
pushing against it
like they're about to burst through

i love myself better
and like myself more
when i stop taking care of myself,
just like i did before

and you can call this a relapse
but i'm tired,
tired and tired of being tired,
tired of hating myself

so when i skip a meal,
don't coax food into my mouth:
all i'll want to do
is spit it back out

i won't drop as far this time,
just enough that
my shirts hang
away from my chest again,
away from my stomach

i'll be high
on self-love
when i treat my body
with the resentment i feel towards it

oh i'll be healthier
when i'm unhealthy

i'll be happier
when i'm skin and bones
eating disorder trigger warning
Steve Page May 2022
The sun is down
It's been down for a while
and while she hasn't said outright,
we think it might
be a power play
for a perceived lack of praise

The sun is down
We have been discussing
ways to raise her spirits
without out and out worship
(which would set
an unhelpful precedent)
And so we start with a song
A homage, thanking her
A call, asking her to rise and smile
And it only takes a child sacrifice
once, twice and thrice
to coax her back - a small price,
and before long she's her old delight
and we tell ourselves it's not worship
it's just the just payment due
based on the new tarrifs
for light and heat
and the cost of living
in this solar energy
over dependancy
greener economy
Not sure what this about.  If you have any ideas, let me know, otherwise I'll chalk it up to whimsy.
"Surreal skeptic, cynical cryptic! Licentious lecheries fabulist façade fantasias. Wild eyed spectral serene. Dream of catenary concoctions, ethereal salacious conjugation, bridge the gap in metaphysical mystique. Erotica erectile errantry’s exserted protuberance is a kinesiology kleptomaniac with his embark embargo extraditions and his eventuation evocative execrations, a positive amalgamated anathema android of a terminus thrall. The shadow in the shade of the silhouette sojourn. The bailiff’s rakeness rails incarnate, unicorn railway nails and all. He will paint mirador bartizan panorama tableaus all over your proximity parameter perimeter peripherals. Force the enmity to acquiesce into impunity.” “Why this is not but an ogling ogre of an oligarchy omelet” she shrieked as he continued to tickle her. “Down here at the bizarre bazaar we all believe in the blasphemous farcical fugueness,” he said. “Positive orchestration renditions of transpositional interlude.” “Come here,” she said “let my clambering clamorous clangor write you a wield wile treatise expose’.” “The legions of Chinga da are battling the hoards of Gunga din saying ‘kinetic supremacy temporize tractive fluent’ , it’s sheer genocide. That plasty goop nosed Gumby ****** Gunga doesn’t stand a chance. Coax cacophony clout, catatonic phonics, grizzly grotto grouches all”, She squealed. “Now you’re gumption dreaming”, he chimed. “Chutzpah panache spontaneous generation complicity, gambit alluvium aloof succor.”
Kally Jan 2013
What if this is me, losing my love?
What if this is my love being taken from me, kidnapped and ransomed and I don't have enough energy in my body to pay up?

Saturdays were her favorite.  She'd watch cartoons in the morning and play with paper dolls in the afternoon.  She made sure all the paper dolls had another doll to love them, a perfect match of brown eyes, cute smiles, light hair.

Where have you gone? I barely recognize you anymore.  How can I make you look new if all you ever do is sit in the corner like an old doll?  You're fragile, you're breakable.  I don't like what you've become and quite frankly, you're scaring me.  Stay over there, don't come close.  Tell me why your eyes are glazed over like that, tell me why your hair is coming out in patches and why your full pink smile has turned into a thin white line.  You were my best friend, you were my sister, you were my little Kelly.*

Sometimes she would watch the people that walked by.  She would choose names for each person and pick one individual out, imagining what their reaction would be to her saying, "I love you, will you run away with me?"

Come back, please.  When you started fading I thought it was because you had been in the sun too long, I thought it was because you hadn't had any food in some time.  Our tea parties became rare occurrences and you were always sleeping.  Come back, little Kelly.

One day she woke up with an energy made of something she couldn't measure.  Not joules, not electron volts, not anything she could quantize.  It wasn't the caffeine and it wasn't the 7 hours of sleep the night prior.  She woke up in love.

I've been trying to sell our house for two and a half years and it just won't sell.  You're poisoning this house, my old friend.  You need to leave, you need to be buried in the backyard, with the puppy we adopted and the bunny I hit with the truck when I was 17.  You need to get out of my house now.  We're both much too old to play together, and you never seemed to understand that I had to move on.

Her trouble was that she woke up in love with one stranger too many.  She's lied so many times that she doesn't trust herself anymore.  Make her decisions for her, she's not a fit mother to these poisonous ideas she is fostering in her head.  Don't allow her to choose her future.

Kelly, don't you see, I don't love you the way I used to.  Kelly, you need to go.  A family is stopping by this afternoon to take a tour of the house and you need to be swept out of the attic by then.  Pack your things.  Take your cracked glasses and your grey shoes.  I'm too old to be a part of your family now.

--

She sees a hint of what she fell in love with.  His eyes are downcast, his fingers strumming and thrumming her love songs without words, his mouth twitching with thoughts he can't seem to string into sentences.  He is a beautiful child again.

Sing me songs even chickadees don't know, strum me the most beautiful lullaby.  Take a picture of this moment- bottle it.
  
She loves the hint of a smile when he catches her staring at his lips instead of the neck of his guitar, when he realizes she is in maddening, chaotic love.

And some days you're just a friend.  I see you leaking from your life, straight out of your backyard.  And sometimes you mean nothing.  I see you standing alone on your deck, sitting on your cement paradise like it's your imaginary god.  Keep yourself in check.  You won't be getting any more kisses tonight, I can't – I can't let you be the one to make up my mind.
  
She can barely remember the days of being alone, of being unable to tell anyone about her scars shrouding her hips and her head that hung heavy.

Today was a fever, a fog of anger.  I want to make you hate me, I want you to leave.  Save your lies and excuses for someone else, I don't want to hear them. I hope the fog can creep in my ears and into my brain.  I want it to make me forget everything about you.  I'm sure I'd be happier.  Maybe if the fog can erase my memories, I can finally stop crying.  Maybe I can stop trying to prove I want to die.  Let me **** myself, let me go.  You're smoke in the wind and you're fading with every breath I take.

Sophomore year of high school was the most difficult time of her life.  Fortunately for her, she met you that winter.  You made her smile, you made her laugh. She found a boy whose blue eyes and long brown hair complimented her own. Her paper doll dream come true, you loved her as she was.

You are smog.  Your face is no longer a child of summer, your hair has gotten long and tangled.  Your eyes are clouded, and you are fading, slipping from my fingers.  As your soul dies in my arms, as I try to save you, you steal my breath, grab at my lungs, take what is keeping me alive.  What is there to fix, and can it be put back together again? L-o-v-e is only four letters long, but then again, so is your name, and god knows that doesn't mean anything to me anymore.

--

His back was straight and his stomach was soft.  The hollow of his collar bone and hip bone spelled her name in 12 point font kisses.  Her breath came out in gasps and he shivered from the thought of being able to coax such unfamiliar passion from her lips.

You are the night.  You are the wind in my dreams and the birds in my hair.  Lift me higher, I want no control.  I want to see the tops of buildings above the low level clouds; the spires piercing the sky like needles piercing my flesh.

The feeling doesn't wear away.  Days have passed and they still long for each other.  Their bodies feel the urge to be near, to be touching.

*Let us set sail on the tunes of summer, of air conditioners and scratchy radios.  Let us sail away from this life.
Let go, of the chains that bind you.
Push them in to an overflowing box,
Tie it up with chains,
Lose the keys to the locks.
Take Rejection,
and ***** it tightly in to a ball,
throw it out over the touchdown line,
watch it fly in to space,
like a message in a bottle,
it's a feeling to let go and erase.
Take Fear,
and coax it out in to the sun,
tell it to 'stop now' and 'go no further'.
Take it's hand and place it over your heart.
Make a stand,
bid it farewell,
'dear friend, go to a new land'.
Take Emptiness,
dig it out from the hole,
that lies just beneath your breast,
claw it out with your fingers,
collect in that vest you keep of your ex,
throw it in to the air,
take all the fake glitter and ash,
and say out loud,
'this too shall pass'.
Now please,
Take Your Heart.
Hold it like your newborn child,
coddle it like any new parent would,
hug it so very tight,
to heal the cracks and fissures,
like any new parent would.
And believe, now it's unbound and free,
that this heart is beating,
and say out loud,
'this heart is beating for ME'.
Break these binds and I promise you,
as your heart beats hard and red,
You will become you,
and lie more easily in your bed.


Much love **
Rj Jul 2015
I'm a little messy
I tend to have big dreams
That seem cliche
And I like the smell
Of old gas stations
And strawberry milk
And green tea
And my laugh is obnoxious
My smile is crooked
And I've grown
From asexual aromantic
To maybe the most romantic
Person you'll know
(If you coax me to say)
I like love movies
(Who knew)
And roses and kisses
I like touching,
(I used to not)
I like being in love
I like laughing til I ***
I love singing
(Even though I can't)
And I love dancing
(Even though I'm awkward)
I like sunrise. Early.
I like hats (stupid ones)
I like simple moments
And I love people
I love love
I love love so much
I love you
I love this world
And I know.
That one day.
Someone will notice all these things.
Mish Aug 2012
eyes are bursting
(insert adjective here) feeling has found me again          
this time I was careful to hide far enough away                    beyond fields                    beyond highways                    beyond everything I once was

..but it found me anyway
deep footprints in snow that hasn’t even arrived yet          
streetcorner calls my name (straight up after Tunney’s)          
bright lights of a (not even on a) corner store          

I remember staring so long, sitting in that cold apartment

6am sitting on that cold kitchen floor by the heater
because that was the only place that was warm

& writing poetries until I knew I was done
those moments are buried so deep - (or at least I thought they were..)
six feet of memories pushing metaphorical nails out of their coffins

my mind has to intervene & immerse questions,
coax them to retrace fumbling steps
bribing my own brain w/ promises
best kept under                                     locks & keys..
Natalie Neo Oct 2014
You're perfect.
Well grown
Well taught
Well delivered.

You're perfect.
Your poise.
Your smile.
Your humour.

You're perfect.
You romanticize.
You coax.
You submit.

The only imperfection
lies in me.
The inability to see your perfections.
samasati Feb 2014
Grandmother Willow said
listen to your heart, you will understand
but when it pounds all I want to do is run

my heart says so many things
one minute it's telling me to climb a tree as high as the branches let me
the next it says hook line and sinker
and when I'm with someone beautiful, it says
nothing, it just
flutters and pitter patters

Mulan was always my favourite because
she had her heart broken and still
She Saved China
all on her own

my heart breaks like twigs and crumbles like dry
stiff leaves
in Autumn
and my heart is also a rubber ball that bounces from
one place to the next
too rapidly,
I forget where I am
and where I just was a moment before I ended up
wherever I ended up

my heart is like ice and sometimes if you are the right temperature,
it will melt for you
my heart is aware of fallacy and sometimes if you try to coax it,
everything I ever felt for you
won't exist anymore

a few months ago I was sitting at the back of
a midnight bus
in my hometown,
with a hippie headband on, accompanied with braids,
a long dress and moccasins of black suede
when a drunk teenager pointed and hollered directly at my face,
"you look like Pocahontas, how many John Smiths love you?"

I don't get angry anymore
I just get tired
my heart goes to sleep for days and wakes up at
the sudden gong of recognition
in eye contact
that lasts longer than just a few seconds;
my heart awakens at sunsets,
when I am sitting in a tree alone
and it awakens each time I successfully skip a stone

I've always thought highly of the two
disney cartoons
and it's not just because they can fire a harpoon
it's something like embodying the female
self-assurance,
strength of the soul,
embracing solitude like wind on a stroll
heart strong from a softening,
heart loved from singing just for singing
heart open like eye contact
that lasts longer than
just a few seconds
Michael Hunter Dec 2012
I have found a new companion to take my morning coffee with.
He’s sharp and very observant – and he’s honest.
So honest, in fact, that I’m often stunned into reflection and reverie.

Mr. Whitman’s words coax from me a surprising intensity of feeling and joy,
and at the same time, cause me to have to pause and write unknown words
in my notebook, to be discovered later.

Walt is a most engaging fellow.
I picture his halo of white unruly hair and beard,
and understand more what he means as he
‘… Sounds his barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world!’

My coffee grows cold as I am swept away by his snap-shot catalogues of life around him.
I sit breathless at the end of these lists – feeling as though I’ve only just arrived
after a long journey abroad!

And then his wisdom and gentle heart speak to my soul and takes away my protective wall.
He speaks of ‘god-like’ man,
‘… Whose human mind is but a gem in black decay enshrined.’

I weep to find such a companion of my heart.
A friend who keeps me company in the dark morning hours as my coffee slowly cools.

© 2012 Michael Hunter
Sarah Ellis Mar 2010
Once we have lost ourselves in dreams
The river ripples slow.
Whilst wind has ceased from swaying trees,
The dust falls where He strode.

A shadow finds a place to rest.
Our dreams pass lasting hours.
The silence warms us in its nest.
The rain pours gracious showers.

The cries of birds are silenced by
The leaves of autumn hues.
'Til morning comes and darkness dies
Our minds are still subdued.

The stars sit on my windowsill
But soon it shall be morn.
The bright blue sky, though early still
Shall flags of light adorn.

Those kindred hearts of old ones near
Shall keep ours beating still.
The purity of memories dear
Will our minds surely fill.

Around my feet I feel the sea
Her waves, my dream, they coax.
The splendid sea, she calls to me
Her whispers not a hoax.

The mountains pray upon their knees
For clouds to pass the moon.
The moon man sees the lonely trees
And sends a wind to swoon.

Once silence broke from whistling winds
The ripples start their dance.
The birds have stirred for nighttime's end;
A new day's given chance.

We children wake and rouse and blink
To greetings of the sun
Though stars no longer shine and wink
It's morning; night is done.
aj May 2016
Rain falls like a lead sheet beating
ages on my back. The water rises,
but through the muddiness of the dividing sea  
your light stands clear. You stand 
beyond my riverside,
the birth of Venus before my eyes.

Skin like seafoam and eyes
like amber coax my hands into fists, beating
ripples into your image that not even the riverside
rain and my own reflection could rise
over. As the waves ripple across your cheeks, I stand
to remember you are also across this sea.

Caught between this love like religion, the sea
breeze makes poetry of your hair in the wind, and my eyes
have never been drowned deeper. I have never had to stand
a love so murderous; even your mirror image gives my soul a beating.
All the while, the water rises,
crashing against the riverside.

Across the riverside,
your gaze is resolute and colder than the sea.
The sun rises,
to find her light breaking the horizon with her eyes
that held back whirlpools, beating
my soul with crashing waves of division, which I can no longer stand.

Too deep to stand,
dangers of the divide bound my desire. A prisoner to the riverside.
The chains of star-crossed lovers crash with the waves, beating
my sense into sea.
Pain is no stranger to your eyes.
The beauty of the sea would always rise.

Hurricanes beat you into perfection and you rise
and stand
above the ordinary eyes.
Storm-beaten and Tempest-tossed on this riverside,
A godly daughter of the ominous sea
has overcame a beating.

Beyond the riverside,
across the sea,
my heart is beating.
Joel M Frye Feb 2015
gently
            coax
the vision
from
          the ether
nurture
              the swelling
of the shame
with a warm
compress
                  of words
it will

            drain

when not
contained.
Shevola Sep 2013
A dream wrapped in a silver cocoon
Sunbeams coax it out of its gloom
It trembles in the light of day
It spreads its wings and flies away
You pursue it with a feverish passion
Your heart, your soul full of wanting
There's nothing better and nothing worse
Nothing in your head but verse
About this dream, this little monster
That makes voices in your head grow stronger
That tells you life now isn't real
That to be you, you must feel
This dream fluttering in your hand
This dream will love you and understand
It will break dawn on endless infinite night
Open closed eyes, grant Earth light
You leap, you reach, it's in your palm
The world stops still. A wave of calm.
Your vision is blurred, it glitters
Cruel taunts dissolve to girlish titters
But the silver colour crumples to fade
And a cloud over the sky gives shade
And butterflies wings weren't made to touch
Still you hold on to what you loved so much
What was once a dream, a hope, a beauty
In your grasp dims to reality
Under your helpless eye
This butterfly in your hands must die.
Oskar Erikson Sep 2022
i mourned
us
on the train back.
North East to London,
Norfolk into Suffolk into Home.

England,
a green, scarred patchwork,
blistering apart while i sit.
A woman opposite tries to coax the
context
out of me; the entertainment,
before we're pulled into Liverpool St Station.

to credit my memory -
it frames itself nicely, my mugged up
glasses.
a sunbeaten, reddened, ruddy face -
holding back.  swallowing the
outburst -

"i let myself believe for once."

we sit.
the quiet unbroken.
save for the sounds of me
steadily
getting further from you.  

the sounds of me steadily getting further from you.

i mourned us once again.
ten months in and now
six months out
filled with immeasurable moments later.
there was no woman this time.
and only without her
or us -
i found the truth to say


"i let myself believe, for once."
Baffled this was a question you’d have to ask, I sat tremulous.  I’m insular; I’d be enamored with even the most amorphous love, but I’m not inept, and won’t preclude that answering the question is salient.  And although I’m not taciturn, I’m rarely extemporaneous, so please excuse my need for verbose prose in answering said question.
You’re attractive.  Your strong jaw, small chin and cheekbones were sculpted to make your own eyes glow and an artist’s eyes expostulate dreaming of anything else. Don’t dismiss this as delirium, but rather relish this recondite fact—my first crush came in the fifth grade.  It was on a diminutive, outspoken girl, and I was enormous and timid, which developed into a village girl vs. Mowgli, me Tarzan you Jane, King-Kong-Ann Darrow complex.  And although I believe with zealous fervor in your strength, your size still incites the young jungle boy inside me.  And I hope I can say, without being terse, I’m afflicted with a mysterious affinity for red-hair.  
Although I could dwell in the obvious all day, I’ll redirect from the blasé.

Abandon
beats within us both
like hearts to the same pulse,
we don’t coax smiles, we let them slip,
we aspire to happiness like falling of a log.
I have to pry open time’s lockbox and plunder
the night just to relegate the dawn.  Bliss becomes
a tangible ****** making even the most existentially
exasperated docile.  Knowledge that every other thought
is dominated by one another without it attenuating the magic.
Knowing that if all I have to say is it’s raining outside, you
want to hear it.  Twenty-one years of my life I thought
I’d have to hunt love with a knife but you showed me
roaming where you like to wander can wake
the irreverent gods.  It’s your superlative
honesty that’s only for me; that virile
smile in your eyes that bid
doubt vacate my mind

Knowing that if I went catatonic, one reproving look from you would cause my heart to break and force my hands to put the pieces back before I stopped breathing.  If I could, I’d dawn you like a blanket before every dinner, dusk and dream.  And most importantly, we both like crowns.
If you took the time to read this, first, thank you, second, some fun helping facts: my vocabulary is... embarrassingly stunted compared to *hers* and I had a list of her favorite words to use... I'm sure you can pick many of them out.  The last word "crowns" is an alternate enunciation of crayons. Thanks! ~Matthew (<3 Sarah)
Chelsey Mar 2015
You envelope me in your big, strong arms,
Coax me into staying in bed just one more day.
"You don't need to go to class," you tell me. So I don't.
I know that I should go,
That I should want to go,
But your grip is so tight that I can barely breathe.
You are the dominant one in this relationship.
I think I tried to fight it at first,
But this has been going on for so long that
Somewhere along the way I stopped trying.
I stopped fighting
And let you take me over.
Sometimes I don't know where you end and where I begin.
You and I are so intertwined.
I would love to experience life without you,
But I don't think I would know how to.
Unlike everyone else who has come and gone like the tide,
You've stuck around.
You're the only constant I've ever known.
I guess I should thank you for that.
Chloe K Jun 2013
I listen to synthetic music now
because my heart’s a little less raw,
a little more metallic,
and Conor Oberst cannot
coax open pandora’s box.
Because your ****** eyes
are no longer my 10:30
goodbye.

— The End —