"compulsively" poems
I learned how to draw dragons in 3rd grade.
I did so compulsively, and voraciously because it was therapeutic.
But they loathed me, and inherited no majesty from whom they were made.
Though I loved them. And I empathyzed with what they would never be.
Because what if my creator had no plans for me.
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 1:17 AM UTC
I hate labels.
so you may ask me why do you compulsively put words and purposes and dates and times on everything you have.
I hate labels but I love organization.
The problem with labels is they rarely tell the whole story.
Labels are short, just a snapshot of the essence that the thing or person boils down to
but I don’t believe anything can really be that simple.
Labels can make everything easier.
You get the main point, the thing that stands out, FAST.
but that’s like starting a story at it’s ****** you get no previous information and that high point that holds so much meaning if you've read the entire story turns flat.
A flat character doesn’t grow or change or feel all that much but they usually have a label.
Labels turn real multidimensional, complicated, interesting people into flat characters.
He is not gay.
She is not a cutter.
and He is not transgender.
They are real people and you cannot possibly fit a person into a single worded description of the thing that stands out about them or makes them different.
That is not enough for me!
The gay guy likes ice cream and romantic comedies, he's afraid of commitment, that scar is from his own blade and he volunteers on Wednesdays.
The cutter is seventeen and she lives with her grandparents. Almost everybody shes loved has walked away.
She has hair the color of sand at the beach and she wants to work in security at the airport so she can finally have control over who leaves and who stays.
The transgender man never felt trapped in the wrong body, the world just told him that his body was wrong. He’s a freshman in college and nobody ever told him how hard it would be. He calls his mom every night because he knows she worries and he cares. He has skin the color of caramel and he desperately wants to get married.
I hope you now understand that a label is never never enough.
You could argue that I’m afraid of being defined and of defining others with just a word,
but if you ask me a fear of labels is a very legitimate, considerate, and justifiable fear to have.
Labels are simply not enough.
And that's why I hate labels.
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 3:17 PM UTC
They say that just because someone doesn't show affection in the same way you do doesn't mean that they don't care or love you.
I believe it. We can't all be silent lovers, we can't all be screaming it from rooftops either.
I understand it. We're all different people, with differing tactics and ideas of what it means to love and care.
But **** if I don't know any better way to love than to tell someone what they mean to me, to always kiss before I leave and kiss hard, nothing soft and forgetable. I don't know anything better than drunk calls confessing how much I like you, or loud laughs at your stupid puns.
I don't see love in quiet embraces and glances and iridescent, see-through compliments. I don't see it in tolerance. I don't see love in those things.
I see it in 2 am talks when you're tired but hell, maybe I like you more when you're half-asleep in my bed. I see it in scratch marks down my back and hands grabbing at my hips. I see it in consistent, small efforts. What you do every day says a lot more than what you do every once in awhile to me. I see it in the little reminders and notions that I'm on your mind, that I'm someone in your tangled, messy brain.
I need something tangible. I can't love someone with my lips closed unless they're closed by yours in a kiss. I can't love anyone who can't shout it back to me. I can't feel for someone who only feels my skin with his finger tips, and can't make me feel any other way. I can't do that kind of love.
So, everyone shows affection differently. I'll paint it in the sky for you, shout it from rooftops and proclaim it for everyone to hear. I'll write you and kiss you in the rain and make you breakfast and whisper "I love you" when we watch movies and tickle your feet and admire you naked and press you against a wall. I'll tell you you're beautiful. I'll love you with all I have.
If anyone out there loves with all they have, then maybe we could disregard what they say, that everyone shows affection differently, and show it how we know best-
Loudly, openly, compulsively, whole-heartedly.
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 1:22 AM UTC
I think about my mind as a paintbrush
The strokes uneven
The vision not quite what I had in store
But I keep painting more
I think to myself compulsively
That this this will be lovely
This will be a masterpiece
Others will view what I have created
And will think great thoughts
They feel what I feel
Then I realize that I like the mess that I made
I made something real
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 1:32 AM UTC
*For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons...*
Beyond the blackest cotton glove,
the compulsively edited manuscripts,
unmentionable lines untrained ears love;
beyond the satin lining of a human husk,
the failing engine or cooing soul
nightingales smuggled in the dusk;
beyond asking how giraffes like to die,
the moon's waxing through a kaleidoscope,
eyes hollowing before hearts tell a lie;
beyond the manifestation of a mental illness,
the coffee spoon having no coffee left to measure,
an overwhelming sense of an unseen presence;
beyond where the orchard truncates its blossoming
is renewal of equality like an unmapped sea
spilling its welcome to a choked wish.
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 8:45 PM UTC
My Traitor’s Heart
I cut your heart open with a knife,
And drink you up like the elixir of life.
My body would now be the perfect host
To house the remnants of your ghost
Forestalling your indignant daily riposte.
At the dining table, I compulsively realign
Silverware. I take a crystal glass, pour red wine,
Knowing I’ve committed a murderous sin
Goosebumps form on every inch of my skin
Dark memories resume within.
You spoke to me of girls undreamed-of
You taught me lessons of absent love
Such stories only fed my vengeance,
And now my body pays it's penance;
Flesh laid bare. A life sentence.
Tonight, I trace with fingers, tramlines of
Forgiveness; my Mourning Dove.
I am now so pure, and Satan
Cannot punish me with rattan
Palm. I was never part of his grand plan.
© Sia Jane
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 7:20 PM UTC
She Let A Moth Drown In the Lake
She let a moth drown in the lake,
Waves taking stackars* little thing
Further than her oar could reach.
Standing on beach, cupped eye,
Squinting, trying…
Moth was gone.
Death had won.
Just so you know I do no lie,
That ‘she’ was I.
I am the wimp who hesitated.
Fear of depth, of cold, of wet.
Excuses inexcusable.
Death of moth, still flapping moth
Is just as undeserving as our own demise.
Pedestrian, prosaic, commonplace,
Disgusting,
Yet compulsively discussable.
All living things delight in life-ness.
While they move and throb the slightest,
They delight.
Who takes a life by standing by
Will also die.
It is essential, is it not, to cry,
Identify with kin?
Kin hereby meaning ‘life within’.
Left with remorse and shame
She self-condemns,
She takes the blame.
She hopes some force
That knows the individuality of moth
Shows sympathy in rebirth
In some future form that has a breath.
So be it, Om, Amen to Earth!
She Let A Moth Drown In the Lake 6.14.2020 Birth,Death & In Between II;Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Nature II;Pure Nakedness;Circling Round Experience; Arlene Nover, Corwin
*stackars; Swedish; ‘poor thing’
Jun 14, 2020
Jun 14, 2020 at 6:17 AM UTC
I see a solid object, in my mind,
Grasped by a phantom human hand,
Explored to distract, or pass the time,
Every day carry to a distant land.
Fidget, spin, or brass fitting held,
A soothing reminder, dense and cool.
Carried with me,
Compulsively,
In the pockets of a child,
Or maybe,
A fool.
It escapes,
Irretrievable,
Time.
Nov 11, 2021
Nov 11, 2021 at 9:59 PM UTC
sometimes the funk grows in my back of my head
and I start to feel like the sum of my mind
isn't good enough for my brain
and that nothing can please this monster of judgement
that sleeps behind my eyes
sometimes the funk cakes my entire perspective
and I'm so disappointed in the human being
that unfortunately constitutes the father of these words
yet I keep eating raw deli turkey right out of the bag
like some extra protein will kick my ego into overtime
sometimes I turn the mirror on myself
and I compulsively search for blackheads on my forehead
and they're always there
and its nice to pop them
because its an immediate blemish I can banish
a flaw with a fix
and it never crosses my mind
that the oils my fingers paint with
will birth the next blackhead for me to obsess over
a fix with a flaw
sometimes the funk recedes into the shallow
and I can happily hold my breath underwater
without even realizing that the pressure and heat
will scare those blackheads off my face
and not leave any fertile soil in their wake
i've been trying to assign a name to the funk
to dispel the crooked heads and furrowed brows
and all I can think to name it is human
and there are four destinations that let human thrive
hungry, scared, alone, alive
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 6:32 PM UTC
NOT LOOKING AT OURSELVES
August 7, 2009 - Damascus
Ayad bin Izzet
Why is it so hard to think of ourselves?
Why is it so hard to change bad habits that seem to possess us?
It seems to be a near certain fact, that humans do not like to think of themselves; certainly, very few seriously, deeply think about themselves. Who asks himself: “How do I look like to people?” “How do I sound to people, when I say this and that?” “Why is it people like certain aspects of my behaviour?”
When you open up such a subject to people in general, it is common to hear: “Look, I don’t care what people may think of me”. But an answer like that will not help you go far in this world. You do need to pay attention to what people think about you, otherwise you will be, de facto, behaving like a tyrannical dictator – you are, in effect, alienating and restricting the advancement of your varied self interests.
Why you ask me?
Because we all need people if we are going to succeed in our professional and social lives. Without the agreement of people you cannot succeed, unless if your work can survive within a hermit’s context.
So why are people so antagonistic to change themselves?
I think that for people they are scared of thinking about themselves because they fear what they might find out the nature of what is existing within themselves.
Another reason, is addiction. A person may simply be compulsively addicted to the harmful personality he has – yes, even if he knows that his personality is harmful to his own self interests.
I talk about this subject because we all do need to change our selves, our personalities - since all the troubles of our entire lives emanate from one source: we dysfunctional humans!
Where else do they come from?
And yet, anyone who has ever tried to explain to another person their faults will surely go nowhere. No one is interested. I know one lady who I call the ‘Pharmacist’ because she lovingly showers everyone else with advice, while she herself cannot bear to hear one word with respect to her faults. And then, as the years passed, I came to realize, why all people are basically ‘Pharmacists’!
People have an obstinacy that harder than leather, colder than an icicle; we simply will not improve, as human beings, if we remain this determined not to reform our minds.
And there is nothing else to add on this sorry subject.
How pathetically sad.
A fine epitaph on Humanity’s grave.
Feb 2, 2010
Feb 2, 2010 at 8:02 AM UTC
Trauma lives on in our bodies
In sometimes unexpected places
It doesn’t just reside
In the malfunctioning lump
Of electrified meat
Encased in my skull
Each part of my body
Seems independently determined
To avoid
To protect me from
Vulnerable or defenceless moments
When the speaker at a training event
Asks the participants in the room
To close their eyes
Partake in a thought experiment
The trauma resides in my eyelids
Which I cannot will to shut
I stare down at the floor
Eyes open in unwilling resistance
The simple act of closing them
In a room full of strangers
Is more than my body can bear
When going on long car rides
The trauma resides in my jaw
Compulsively chewing gum
To stop myself falling asleep
In the passenger seat
Maybe I can retain
Some small semblance of control
Over my body
Over what happens to it
As long as I remain awake
As long as I remain alert
The trauma resides
In that small space near my nape
Where your fingers curled
That one time
Sinking into my flesh
Leaving marks for days
On the rare occasions
I let anyone close enough
To touch me there
It feels as though
My entire spine erupts
Shooting out jagged barbs of panic
Isn’t it funny how we can train our brain
To forget things
To bury things where they cannot be retrieved
But they will still linger on
In another form
Imprinted into our very bones and muscles
Sometimes I find myself thinking
How nice it will be
To finally be free of this body
Which stopped feeling like my own
Long ago
Do what you like with my body
When I am dead
I tell people
As though
They hadn’t already while I was alive
Nov 30, 2020
Nov 30, 2020 at 1:41 PM UTC
the simplest song (seek your prime)
the one that likely never finishes the course
tune that never ceases though it knows well stilling quietude,
one passenger verse in a lean vessel that reveals, declares,
anoints the outwards atmospheric condition with the conditions
of what’s within,
compulsively, incessantly demanding- seek your prime
write yourself a poem, be a poem, write of your becoming
bring the simmering sauce to a furious boil,
the words placed in your soil by your own five,
reap the fruit even if wormed, bruised, overripe
or trite
this is your song
breathe it into my mouth
until the last one,
making me glad to know you
and your becoming,
prime music
yes, this is a love poem
12/10/17 8:38am
Dec 10, 2017
Dec 10, 2017 at 8:51 AM UTC
When pins and pressure plates crawl into my spent shoulders
I clutch madly to crush the offending sinews.
When I’ve grazed the side of my tongue with an accidental death-threat
I revisit the spot and repeatedly incise, until I’m ******* crimson and tears.
When the she-squito shoots me up via serrated needle turning me feastlike
My fingernails compulsively scavenge out the adenosine deaminase.
I sniff the arid bottles of perfumes I love that are no longer manufactured.
I re-trace my lost friendships through the riverside paths we made.
I chop onions and slurp hot sauce until I’m dry.
Maybe that’s why I’m stuck on you.
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 3:00 AM UTC
When a woman is *****
She hides from the cynical eyes.
I went to work
Made idle chitchat
Wrote copays.
Most women avoid ***
And cringe at the thought of ********
I take part in *** compulsively
Crave male attention
I'm engaged nearly every night.
Some go to meetings
To share their struggles.
I don't want to hear your problems
Do not wish to share my own
I offer no support nor input.
**** victims are fragile
They break fairly easily.
I do not break
Nor do I crack
I just am.
I do not fit the description
Of victim nor survivor.
I question myself daily
Was it ****
Or an overreaction?
Most women cry
They seek comfort
They long for understanding
And justice.
I do not.
Am I a victim too?
A survivor?
Neurotic?
Anyone?
Jun 18, 2010
Jun 18, 2010 at 6:22 PM UTC
All I want to do is be.
To live as close as I can to free,
and know what it's like to taste, smell, hear and see,
and to touch things that live, like a bird in a tree.
But they are not only birds, things that live and int'rest me,
things that are alive come from the land, air, and sea.
To say one form of life is the best, would be a travesty,
For what can make a bird more alive than a bee?
I draw great joy and comfort from life's diversity,
but not only in difference, is founded my glee.
There are things the same in lifeforms, from elephant to flea,
like how we rush to please our instincts, so compulsively.
But unlike the lustful wants of others, humble is my plea,
to pass this genuine love for life from my own, on to thee.
I want me and thee to be free to see an end to travesty and plea that adversity flee, for we to love compulsively and treasure our diversity, live a life so full of glee, that it will suffice to just be.
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 10:08 PM UTC
I go through phases of cleaning
And I mean cleaning everything
Your room, my room
The entire city
I could clean and clean
But still feel *****
I'm becoming OCD
Obsessive Compulsively Dicking around
What's gonna happen to me,
When he finally gets out?
It's not like I look in the mirror
and see something I don't want to see
But I can't help but feel just a little *****
Ever since he touched me
When I didn't wanna be
Touched
A three month sentence
For a life long pain
If it wasn't for my strength,
He wouldn't even know my name
He'll never know hers
or hers
or hers
But I made sure he knows mine
I wonder if in just three months
He's had enough time
To remember my name
For the rest of his life
To remember my name
As I unconciously recite his
I wonder if he missed his kid
If he called his mom
Or if she called him
Twelve people sat in the jury that day
And I wonder how many of them
Truly believed that three months
Was enough time
To bring justice
To anyone
I wonder if even one of them
Would change their mind
If they heard what I had to say tonight
If they could hear me
I'd make sure they knew
I spent two years
Believing in a justice system that never came through
That I'll spend the rest of my life
Wondering, trying to be tough
Wishing I could finally get clean enough
And he got three months
Sep 23, 2013
Sep 23, 2013 at 12:00 AM UTC
Under your persuasion...
I awoke this morning not wanting to awake,
because then the fog of agitation began.
What a crazy, fun, and pervasive ray your light shed in the shadow of my disarray.
How precipitously you undressed me with what could have been your honesty.
Maybe it was the guidance of your smile,
or your manner when you asked me to dance.
Something almost surreal and effortless about you unhinged my walls and thwarted my ambition.
A flower on the wall, you noticed me.
Time was of no essence on this unbalanced wave,
only a tremor of reflection.
Every note defined in your melody,
couldn't help but carry me.
Your eyes a mirror of affection.
Left a soft sting of wanting to know you more, but now you've disappeared.
Your revenant scent left behind on my pillows.
Afraid to move as the color of that night might bleed away.
The air of reality waking my consciousness over will.
Your memory left only an alternate advocate of pleasant distraction.
Almost compulsively I sit up and search for shadows you may have left behind,
accepting my perdition I dress and prepare for the daily grind.
Thank you for your mark against the gray,
words I never had the chance to say.
Under your persuasion of romantic disposition,
I was lost in you and forgot to wonder the meaning of your intention.
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 2:57 PM UTC
Crowded streets, alive with a rhythm
That moves too fast for me.
I carefully weave through a town for the artists
Who need someone to be,
Into a quiet place;
A crowded mind, sustaining an echo chamber
Fit for our times.
Surrounded by a thousand decisions
I look back at a life
Up on a pedestal.*
Where I missed the signs in smiles and glances,
And hold out for those second chances
At the moments that I've missed;
Never lived.
* (I) Detach from the dream disrupting the rhythm
That makes you you, and me?
Lost in time;
Compulsively collecting the moments
That made me want to be
In this quiet place to read *
(Read) All the signs in smiles and glances;
I won't change the world discarding chances
To move on from when we lived,
But we'll live, we'll live, we'll live...
(I'll live)...through all the second-hand supposed answers
Composing poems in hopes of small advances
Towards the peace of mind I need
To find me again.
*Crowded streets, alive with a rhythm
That moves too fast for me.
May 11, 2019
May 11, 2019 at 6:16 PM UTC
five, like clichéd clockwork
every ******* day-after;
after wasting (enjoying)
the better part of a seventy-two
hour stint in wonderland.
i don't know how to
confront the piles of
confetti on my carpet--
stragglers you left here
like it was ok, not rude.
i guess i could try the
vacuum; unplug it
from my stomach
and **** up the
residual signs.
it's funny how
misunderstood
a metaphor can
be, a teenager,
for example.
the vacuum hooked
up to me keeps me
stocked up on longing,
and lacking in content(ment)
what a drag, or a ******
all i can really do on these
rare mornings becoming
regular, is drag this (mis-)
matching hot pink comb
through my hair another
time, in wistful hopes
of restoring some silly
insignificant order to
my disheveled and
"last-year"
hairstyle of a life.
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 10:13 AM UTC
In this morning's waiting room
And then the café, breaking bread -
I might have read,
Engaged in reverie
Lost myself in thoughts,
Or meditative memory.
But someone overruled
To agitate the air
With an imbroglio
With the inane, vain,
Smug banter of local radio.
It claimed the arena,
And turned our space
From haven into mayhem,
Compulsively silting up
My poor, empty ears
With an unhealthy sound.
Like painting out the view
Behind Beata Beatrix
With a filthy fairground.
Just what we need!
This constant aural cattle-feed.
So: every tree in my opinion
- (I'm speaking as a lowly minion)
Should be hung with massive speakers
Huge loudspeakers, woofers, tweeters,
To entertain us in every place
With never-ending drum and bass,
Then verbose youths, with wit so clever
Can pump us full of **** forever.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 6:39 AM UTC
Introspection is cheaper than a horror film and its nightmares will chase you long after Freddy's hands are arthritic and the blades they operate are rusty and impotent. Here I am in this roach den with musty sheets and carpet stains. The place I retreat to in blind panic without considering escape. Here it is, peeling wallpaper and cigarette burns are the hems of skirts you tug and cry to, PICK ME UP PICK ME UP! Inside it is empty, truly empty, no trace of a whispering current in the draft or its cryptic revelations woven under the surface, no beetles scrambling around the corpse to tell its secrets. There is truly nothing and I don't know who called this vacancy "inner peace". It's a motel room with empty drawers and the water is some shade of red and every page has been torn from the Gideon's Bible to roll joints and make origami cranes and free throws into wastebaskets filled with scribbled poetry and compulsively written lists.
May 14, 2010
May 14, 2010 at 4:44 PM UTC
I am working on freedom
But it's a work in progress
As much as I try and convince myself
I know I'm not ready. Not just yet.
To take responsibility,
For my safety and health,
To pick up a fork and keep down its wealth.
To prepare myself a meal
To allow myself to heal.
To put down a razor and use a different technique
Maybe one day,
But at present I am weak.
To walk innocently
Not compulsively.
To tackle negative thoughts in a productive fashion
One day will be the case
When I have the compassion.
To love myself like I do you,
Will take a long time to do.
To allow myself to make,
An error, a mistake
Without having to dance with my self defeating thoughts
I'm not quite out of those courts.
I am working on freedom
But it's a work in progress.
One day ill be ready. Just not yet.
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 10:23 AM UTC
The sun through the trees
The wind and the leaves
The ample glow
Of the pine from beneath
The heat from the sight
As it stands in its light
The fear in its height
Walking underneath
Looking over
Off in the distance the trees
The rustle of leaves
Being blown in the breeze
The comfort in shivers
Knowing you can still shake
The thoughts that you keep from dreams
When you awake
The change that it makes
On the life it's begun
And knowing it's all just a part of the sun
And you're staring
So slowly revolving around
The point to which
It all has been bound
Left over from whatever happened before
And always compulsively striving for more
But to get to the point
Staring at the sun
Is tangible proof
That something's begun
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 3:18 AM UTC