"compensating" poems
If you are uncomfortable when you look in the mirror,
keep in mind:
We spent thousands of years
trying to convince the earth
she was flat.
We wrote her maps as evidence of the things we saw;
and she believed them.
She cried tsunamis, and had earthquake breakdowns.
Keep in mind: the Sun never gave up hope.
The earth will keep spinning and breathing
the star-dusty space void of encouragement.
Next time you look in the mirror
and second-guess your potential divinity,
remember you will keep shining and living.
Because the Sun is out there
believing in you,
compensating for lack of the human capacity
to treat each other empathically.
You don’t need proof or approval
to be exactly what you are;
Eventually everyone will see
your infinite beauty.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 9:54 AM UTC
there's ethical idealism:
where ethics is discussed...
there's ethical relativism:
where ethics is practised...
there's ethical realism...
where ethics is quantified
as an improbability;
and then there's ethical
absolutism,
where we supposedly
"progress" -
in this scenario are
the laws of physics actually
suspended:
whereby oculus qua oculus
is replaced -
a loss of an eye is "relative"
to 10 years in a cage...
really?!
ethics is
ideal, realistic, absolute or relative...
we're encouraged to live
in "realistic relativism"...
never in an absolute realism,
since realistic relativism
only compares itself
to ideal absolutism...
and nothing more...
ever watched that film
secrets in their eyes?
you ever wonder what
ethical idealism is to the ethnical
consequence that can absorb
a realistic libra?
i can only believe in
ethical absolutism,
ethical relativism is horrid to me...
relativism adorns idealism,
absolutism adorns realism...
a life sentence is worse than
a death sentence,
whether justified or not,
prison is sadism,
but at least ****** is simply ******
a space-time intact,
a ****** penalty is not
inhumane, nor a ouija board...
it's time for time,
space for space,
the actual punishment comes
with the missing adrenaline rush
of the unexpected reception of the wielded
weapon...
either send these jealous plonkers to
siberia, or sentence them to death,
for you are no more than they are,
nay, you are more...
you're akin to cats toying,
playing a sadistic games with half-mutilated
mice...
this is why i abhor
ethical relativism of the crucifix...
hence my belief in ethical
absolutism in the paragraph of realism,
which is perfected, by
being exacted, and never, ever,
being leisurely discussed,
on a farcical palette with a grimace
to boot: ******* a lemon;
compensating the horrors within
minutes, is never compensated
with ordeals that last years...
which is why i find the death penalty
an act of authentic humanity,
and not this quasi-humanitarian
act of pardon, ******* hypocrites -
i abhor the caged rat
more than the rat gladly nibbling
on a dead corpse...
at least there was passion
in the ******
waiting for death penalty is like killing
a vermin with poison,
disposing them with nonchalantly...
the wise maxim states:
ledo ferrum sicut id est calidi -
strike the iron while it's hot...
death is the dawn-broker -
a new tomorrow promise -
left intact, the fermenting process
of ethical dynamism takes over...
then again,
the supposedly "evolved"
preferred moral relativism to moral
absolutism,
because there was no
moral realism to speak of,
since morality could only
be talked about in ideal terms of
the supposedly so, supposedly
fashioned via: it ought to never happen to
me...
and then it might, and then:
oops... argument sinks like a wet fatty ****
into shambles of keeping up with
the presupposed pillar of argument
being "impenetrable";
hey, genius, back to the blackboard!
Nov 11, 2017
Nov 11, 2017 at 8:50 PM UTC
When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.
Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired - though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank of fact, to be expressed
In terms of others, or it's just
A compensating make-believe.
Much better stay in company!
To love you must have someone else,
Giving requires a legatee,
Good neighbours need whole parishfuls
Of folk to do it on - in short,
Our virtues are all social; if,
Deprived of solitude, you chafe,
It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.
Viciously, then, I lock my door.
The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
4.9k
I kiss you and it seems like the stars shine for us and waves crash along the musky shores for us
But then I realize, the us that once sent my stomach in a frenzy of butterflies
is not the same.
And I find my self holding on to something that does not exist.
And I cry.
My tears are an ode to a person who I've loved so long but with every fiber of my being I know,no longer exists.
People change.
Your smile has changed.
We met at the wrong time,
at least that's what I keep telling myself.
Maybe,
Years from now,
We'll meet again, in some extraordinary way.
And love with be rekindled.
And your smile will be the same.
And I won't spend time wondering if you are my way of compensating with a love deficit.
ER.
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 1:32 AM UTC
To be poured like a drink.
The bubbles fizz.
Gathered around, enriched in desire.
To quench the pursuit of pleasure.
Snapping the top proceeding to pour.
Cold to taste.
This was the comfort I felt surrounded
in her arms.
A glass seen half full continuing to pour.
Filling the space around.
Drowning just beneath the rim of glass.
An extension of myself caught in great advantage.
The settlement before the first sip.
Compensating the thrill of being swallowed whole.
In terms of affection.
It was a hug I'd never forget.
A thought that leads into physical manifestation.
The bliss of the moment,
The moment her lips pop at the taste.
Bubbles fizz crackling in the midst of excitement.
Tickling her nose.
The memory of how things were.
Drunk until nothing is left
The reality of how things really are
Jul 30, 2018
Jul 30, 2018 at 3:22 PM UTC
Kissing me
Vicious was my scheme
I made a story of tainted glory
Anticipating his biding sincerity
Craving the touch of my hips
Misplacing perseverance
Delaying conscience
Losing rationality
Watching his admiration
Over compensating captivation
Realizing his conspiracy
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 9:11 PM UTC
if a sound could be grainy
like a photo with the ISO too high
over-compensating for the light that shone too dim
through the patterned curtains in your bedroom
in your mother’s old house
where the peaches tasted better in water than in sugar and that had never
ever happened
not since you were three years old when your grandmother
who was not yet too old to do much besides eat TV dinners
and watch ‘the price is right’
before your grandfather’s funeral
where you ruined your velvet dress
spilling cheap coffee all over the bodice
(if it had been good coffee the situation would be
entirely different)
the sound of you
exhaling like a train rolling right past the house
shaking the walls and the floor and the sofa
less and less as it gets farther away
you sound
grainy
like a photocopy
and i can’t find
the original
Jun 23, 2014
Jun 23, 2014 at 1:17 AM UTC
i'd avoid the sunrise,
it reminds me of you
turn off my eyes around two
stay closed, stay closed
stitched them shut with regret
(out of Elmer's, out of gas money)
did spend his twenty dollars-
compensating for more
than a broken ******
forgot about the plan b
and stuck with plan a
high alone off cheap ****
bought from a kid who's got
a house in the hamptons
i guess we're all
living less than what
the college brochure says
or maybe more,
flip the campus map over
find us alone in our beds
fitting one, two on the mattress
not two, not both
one, two
find us alone
find us alone together
stay closed, stay closed
in the morning sink to the floor
up, shower, socialize, shrivel
to the friends who promised you an in
when you only wanted an out
Oct 19, 2013
Oct 19, 2013 at 9:31 PM UTC
(history)
Quell the bard was silken-clad and ever young.
her flute connected earth and sky,
tamed lightning in the higher notes..
her ancient horse would winnie to her song
of endless breath she blew her story even into stone.
having borne the stigmas of a *****
her martial prowess struck,
trampled disrespect to cacophonic dust
while over hills and vales he carried her--
a love-sick equine heart at peace at last upon the road
between her thighs, commanded loyalty of beasts and men.
none claimed her for their own,
though some risked instant death to try
..stirge beaks tap on bones and rock
to seek corrupted blood of elven kings,
who having reigned and fallen
to a royal troglodyte of dragon times,
paint each eon with ambivalence...
i conjure what my heritage beholds
--reclusive double-tongue to hoard all words,
reinvent religions for a lark
what legend am i privy to the making of
that hasn't had its underwires stripped,
hung about a square in lewd display of Fact
to purge a sense of mystery awry?
i am alone within my fantasy.
its symbols still mythologize my i.
i will not bare it here, or anywhere--
concealment is its freedom, and its boon--
in which a frame of tenuous material appears
where antidote addictions cycle musically,
the timeline's summoning
a game of recompense, compensating wanderlust
won by whim and licorice for thought;
it finds familiarity untamed--
adolescent anchorage aweigh--
adventures into wildernesses lost
.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 1:56 PM UTC
Court of owls
New ink, new shoes
Clocks on, I'm about to run it
Fast as my pain's Timeframe, bout to gun it
I hope you feel something better my man,
***I'm feeling something
I'm feeling something better than planned***
Tuck in the winter, dam i fall into action
springing past Morty and summer
While I'm watching TV slumber
shaking off chains of reactions
is it a new start
call it innov8ing
or maybe to our past
Definistrating
memories, atoms alternating
like the world sputters aspirating
Spit split straight portals compensating
I'm drunk on Dark matter ever oscillating
the wind turned to me
just so it could turn on me
Judgment for eternity
Experience is the same
it howled with certainty
MY Experience denied 3x
so now you hear me?
from this judgment
I'm always ripping free
I don't generate art
so you can whip at me
I might penetrate stars
The universe is an artist
so Why does it ****** us
Aint the universe ever even heard of us?
I'm the passenger and still woozy the sickness
feeling the pressure but I gotta be a witness
compassionate, no judgment
we all have our reasons
~Got a spot that I keep w33d in
Hidden with the green stem bleedin
we may have different heavens
but we come from the same soil
When others decide our emotions
Got so many reasons for defense,
reach out and tipped it for the deflect
emotions reflect the deficit of me breathe
I just shake my head
so heavy, I need rest
Court of owls
Port of vowels
I am Born of miles
So I adult when you consult the Occult
knowings the lotion but still decomposin
all this is music I just need to recompose it
Saved another life Now the reaper owes it
I think I've got amnesia,
Waking up to
Sir you had a seizure
Eyes always look like
Man...I wouldn't wanna be ya
Empathy
is another form of slavery we sign up for
We live and we learn
Boomerang on the mic
I go and return
But its not just about living well
its about knowing the root of life
its Taking the threads in your hands
to rack the rains and crack the chains
Caught in the dream, my ego forgets
Sleep is such a shy death
***Court of owls
Port of vowels
I am Born of miles
in the Korn of howls***
May 4, 2022
May 4, 2022 at 12:33 AM UTC
Somewhere there exists a girl.
She is kind, and soft, and sweet,
And a reader, a lover of books.
She would read every one if she could
People say she looks just like her mother.
She doesn't know what to think.
Some place in the world there is a boy.
He is shy, and peaceful, and small,
He is adventurous, dreaming of planets unknown.
He would wander the galaxy forever,
Trailing after him stardust and clouds.
Nobody notices him.
Connecting them is one person.
They are creative, and caring, and bright.
Protective of the people they love,
Even if those people overlook them.
They feel too small to make a difference.
They want to find a purpose.
Three people, so very much alike.
Simalar in so many ways, yet still different,
Each unique in their own right.
All existing on the same Earth.
Seperate, but never apart.
They like being themselves and each other.
The only downside to their lives,
Is that that have to exist together,
Stuck in the same body, unable to change.
Each wishing to fit their own mold.
But they can't leave each other.
Sometimes the Girl in control.
She is the happiest of them,
She loves her body, which amazingly
Fits her, like the perfect glove.
She wished to make the others just as happy.
The In Between doesn't hate their body.
They like how soft they look some days
Like when they can look in between.
But they still feel wrong sometimes.
They don't feel like they can complain.
The Boy has it much worse than them.
When he has control his body is wrong,
The opposite of what he need to exist.
He deals with his problem though.
He binds his chest and wears button ups.
But that doesnt make it right.
Nobody knows that they share.
Most people are content being one thing.
With having a solid identity.
But it wasn't their fault, it is how they are made.
They didn't ask to be a river.
But they still follow the tides.
They wouldn't change who they are.
They get along fine with each aspect of themself
Compensating, trying to feel whole.
They have tricks to help them feel right.
But perfection doesn't exist.
Dysphoria comes as a storm.
Turing the river into a rushing waterfall,
Full of doubt and self-loathing.
Certain things help calm the storm,
But sometimes it just keeps raining.
They push through the floods
Of anxiety and doubt and fear.
Giving themself a bowtie for the Boy,
A beanie for the In Between,
A skirt for the Girl.
They persist.
And they live.
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 6:25 AM UTC
another construction friday:
smash, lift, grunt, clean, sweep, collect, empty . . . (grind)
lift up (hup!) doors, hang 'em, nail 'em in.
rap up the stairs, feet heavy in big old boots
thighs aflame --- heavy--fuck
clomp
clomp--stomp. swish.
stop for lunch: sandwich/grapes/arizona
sandwich only cheese so not satisfied full..
dusts in the mouth
(and nostrils) so i sneeze & sneeze
raw-nosed in the attic cleaning
---brooms and dust dust dust.
good view to the bay up second level tho:
autumn vistas and panoramas and waves on white shorelines
giant's tomb in the deep, breast heaving
big wide windows w/wasps buzzing eternal
buzz
whack each with rolled window installation guide
grind with the heel
grsch
each one dead is replaced with one more
crawling from odd upstairs nest
---from rest.
feel guilty & awful killing them but
so aggressive in their slowness (compensating) this time of year that
moving material presents good risk of sting.
---zing.
hope they will forgive me.
Oct 7, 2011
Oct 7, 2011 at 5:54 PM UTC
She is stunning.
Wavy hair, the color of sand
on a calm California beach.
With wide, naïve green eyes.
Her lips,
the color of cupid pink,
slightly parted with confusion and distress.
Where is she?
She surrounds herself
In a field
of black roses
and tainted carnations.
Her mind is blurred,
Her movements are shaky.
She looks around,
Where can she go?
She wants to go back home,
Where the hopeful daises
and the white lilies lie.
She wants to look at the world,
and see the protective, green trees as she tilts her head up.
She wants to see
the bright, yellow sun staring at her,
with welcoming eyes.
She is tired of seeing
Air filled with smoke and despair and sadness.
She hates seeing the
grass on her lawn,
that used to be so clear and vibrant,
turn to utter decay and an anguish color of
Lost hope and defeat.
She wants it back, she wants it all back.
Little does she know, that no matter how long
she spends contemplating and compensating
in that repulsive field of black roses and tainted carnations,
She will always turn back to those
lovely,
hopeful daises
and white lilies.
-andrea
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 10:26 PM UTC
Her look is holding
Her dreary and depressed eyes digging into me, perplexing
The scarlet red rose petals that ring around her pupils entrance me
She stands tall, strong and contained
Strong like the world trade before it was struck down against it's will
She's only awaiting her time
She puts on a good act
Nobody can tell that
Behind her strength and pseudo-bliss hides a lifetime of sadness and self-hatred
The perpetual clock dictating her existence ticks endlessly until she too falls to the ground
Inevitable.
Masks her bottomless pool of insecurities with a smile
Compensating for them with a false ego the size of the sun
Acts like she is better than everyone
But she knows that she's not
Her mind set on keeping all the feelings hidden
She rejects help
Neglects the ones who care
Thinks she can do it all by herself
But we know that she can't
Her wrists full of scars and regret
Her eyes like an endlessly flowing water fountain
Caught in a recurring state of despair
Despite all the people who love and who care
"Everyday is a battle", I tell her, hoping that she will open to me
"And it's mine to fight", she replies aggresively
I try to share with her my days
I subtlely urge her to do the same
I want to help her heart to mend
So all her hate and pain can end.
Dec 11, 2013
Dec 11, 2013 at 3:14 PM UTC
I remember when you asked me if I had ever wanted to be someone else and all I could think about was wanting to be the person you thought about when you fall asleep,
I'm ***** a greedy, selfish, fool,
To think that I was everything you ever wanted out of anybody, I kissed you softly, and I could tell no one ever treated you, that nicely
You flinched at the sight of my hands and you never finished your dinners,
You're gone now and I'd like to think I'm still bitter, just to prove to everyone around me that you didn't mean a single thing, but honestly, as much as I want to call you a nobody, a nothing, you taught me absolutely everything
You always slept with a night light on because you were afraid of the dark and what it had to offer,
I was never scared of anything, maybe that was my problem,
We never worked things out and I was just angry that when it came to yours, I could never solve them,
I was under the impression that in time it would get easier but all it got was harder
Your father was an honest man, and maybe that's why he left your mother,
Maybe you can't sleep at night because the ones who are after you, just want another, like you do,
I see you're badly broken, me too,
Let me be your caretaker, I can fix you, I've done a lot to the world and I owe everyone in her a favor or two
I guess I'm just over compensating for something you made me feel like I was always missing,
And now it's all in my head,
I can't think of anything else besides you when it's raining,
I remember you grabbed me and pulled me into it, but you made me think we were just playing,
We let it go further than either of us wanted but I guess that's just what we get for thinking it would stop the hurting,
Over everything else I just wish you would've listened to a single word I was saying
We used to load our bodies up like guns and unload our clips into each other, using our bodies for target practice every night, but we never seemed to hit each other's mark,
The sparks fly and the room catches fire, but we stay where we are
I tried to dip the world in gold but it was still so ugly and valueless to me, I should've never let you make me think you were the only thing my eyes could see,
Maybe I should just walk around naked, finally feel vulnerable in front of someone else besides just you and me
I didn't mean to ruin this,
I never really mean to ruin anything,
But I guess everyone has their hobbies
Jun 11, 2017
Jun 11, 2017 at 2:20 AM UTC
What are we to make of one lifetime? Any given lifetime? Is there a goal for everyone? If there is, clearly each goal is not necessarily the same as all the others, though it might be the same, or at least similar to, one or more than one. If there is no goal to any of them, then what is the reason we live? That would be nihilism. Why, in fact, has the human race propagated for untold millennia? In some respects, human life has evolved progressively positively, but in many other respects, it has devolved disastrously. The way each one of us has lived our lives is a function, I believe, of whether we were loved enough, if at all. If we live a loveless life from conception onward, we wind up unconsciously compensating for the emotional dearth we have suffered by accruing wealth, achieving fame, aggrandizing power. If we look at the 3,400 years of recorded history, there have been exponential advances in warfare, but humanistically relatively few by comparison. As of 2023, there are 10,000 diseases that can and do afflict us, but only 500 cures for the ones to which we fall victim. We have been fighting countless wars against our fellow man and killing millions and millions and millions of them, but discovering an exiguous number of cures for illnesses that often **** us. Why this gross, this grotesque, disparity? And we now find ourselves on the cusp of extinction from catastrophic climate change and the existential threat of nuclear holocaust. So, are we here on Earth simply and inexorably to destroy it and all its living creations? Or are we going to have soon enough a worldwide epiphany: to begin and never stop realizing that first we all need to be loved to love others; that there is but one land, one sea, one sky, one people; that the boundaries that now divides us are not on maps, but in out minds and hearts; that while we live on a small planet, it is big enough for all of us if only we are first loved so we can then love all others.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jul 22, 2023
Jul 22, 2023 at 12:59 AM UTC
I know you're bad for me
no, scratch that
I know you're killing me
Each time I breathe you in
I exhale as violently as I can
desperately compensating for my shame
But your dark fingerprints linger
I know that if I drink too much,
I will find you between my dry lips,
their cracks, formed by the action of spitting you out
providing inroads for your thick, stifling presence
Someone keeps writing about you in my notebook
but whoever it is seems scared to pen your name
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 9:19 PM UTC
I’ve diagnosed it with industrialized rickets,
stomach is open and distended
metal is bowed with greenstick
fractures, hard and bendable,
compensating with growth
disturbances and wider wrists.
If I squint enough
there is movement
in permanent metal, micro-movements
as the ants shape sand hills
far from half-buried
fire-hydrants and barely there
Red Hot Chili Peppers
laced with frat-boy yells.
I’ve named it insieme
just far enough away to be together.
It’s body isn’t big enough
for all the purpose that it has.
At some point it’s been welded,
Atomic number 29,
add tin and it becomes 79.
Gold. It’s on fire, comprised
of a thousand tiny synthetic
flames fused together by rust.
It’s too open a place.
It should be found in ignorant alleyways
where half smoked cigarette butts marry
pavement, where brash teenagers go to cry.
The ants make sense though.
Dec 2, 2013
Dec 2, 2013 at 12:45 PM UTC
There's a scientific reason to everything
Butterflies in your stomach
as you watch them approach
Is just adrenaline taking blood from your stomach
Sweaty palms and nervous fingers
as you lie right next to them
Is just your increased body heat with anxiousness
Increased heart rate
as they tell you something new, only to you
Is just your body compensating for increased brain activity
The fact that you make me do these things?
Well that should mean something
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 3:48 PM UTC
I oftentimes find myself compensating for my creation
As if merely existing is an extraordinarily enormous insult in itself
And my reason for living is to repeatedly apologize for breathing
Because the space I am apart of isn't and never will be where I am wanted
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 2:57 AM UTC
snowcaps fill my vision
perched upon window
seat; trees line winding
path, through it all I seek
that overhanging crag
hidden by hillside shrubs;
an opening pitch black
my secret cave; my
space for rumination,
that peace of mind that
follows a distortion of
fact, my becalming
before another storm
brews like an avalanche
waiting to happen.
I've come to terms within
self compensating for
other's shortcomings,
delineating oneself with
social grace; allowing
them to dig their own
graves, but, not at my
expense anymore, fore,
I will only compromise
on my terms amicably;
in reflections cave of
thought, minding my
business and leaving
theirs alone.
Jan 11, 2013
Jan 11, 2013 at 2:17 PM UTC
Why? why wont i let me sleep?
why dream of your own demise,
not death, no but the worse possibly loss.
The loss of a dream of love and a long fought for cause.
Why feel hurt not there not real? for what purpose?
This fear is not even real fear this terror only a shadow of the real horror.
I have truly been hurt and have felt loss, deep seated betrayal.
why so dramatic?
why imagine it when its not even there
a culmination of my entire life's sum of pain and terror.
why as if it walks through as a aloof ghost wandering the
endless halls of overly reflective mirrors.
Is this my ego? over compensating for the lack of constant pain
something i was so used too an button mashed and jammed in.
a slight haze of mild depression.
my ego almost hungry for a reason to hurt
as if hurt was a natural normal state
and neutral happiness abnormal.
shut up ego this is not a soap opera.
I have come this far I have fought this hard to attain
everyday happiness and an occasional bad day with my one person
to not halfheartedly later drown my self in a miasma of imagined
scenarios of anguish loss, agony and terror.
Shut up ego i dont need to relive the million probabilities and possibilities
that my life could have gone or might go.
be here now. look around. the demons are gone, wendy isnt here.
and he is still here so am I and no one is changing that.
go back to sleep.
Aug 23, 2012
Aug 23, 2012 at 6:53 PM UTC
Are you a pro at processing?
Digesting information
If so the brainwashing station
Might just be for you!
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 5:04 PM UTC
i looked under my bed
and found my heart, today
it wasn't like i remembered
my old heart glowed, pulsed
dancing to its own music
resting to its own lullaby
dreaming to its own promise
warm with love, and life
soft with compassion
bright with a future
my new heart is unrecognizable.
its breath short and labored
its sight damp and blurred
its touch cold and calloused
my new heart is lifeless
charred from the burns
limp from the torture
numb from the exhaustion
i never knew a heart bled until today.
if i could cry, i would
but now that i've found it,
my heart won't let me.
it's bitter at me,
for leaving it all alone
for not appreciating its existence
for believing in its invincibility
it's compensating for lost time
time i could've healed
time i could've loved
time i could've lived
and now i'm afraid of my heart.
an unthinkable thought
an unimaginable feeling
an unwanted result
i prepare for anger
i prepare for hatred
i prepare for the worst
but it doesn't come.
underneath the nasty glares
underneath the throbbing pain
underneath the shrouded fear
with shameful eyes
wavering doubts
but strong desires,
my heart wants to forgive.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 12:08 PM UTC