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zebra Aug 2016
on the first date
she confided in me
i have a chromosomal disorder, disorder, disorder
i need love and pain strangely mixed together
my elixirs
i suffer reality distoooorrtions
a ghastly Vatican of ****** compulsions
my soul is black matter
my **** a seething cauldron of despicable desire
my *** cries for homicidal cruelty

mold me into a *******
fold me like a two dollar beach chair
the wrong way
tear me to bits
unwind my intestine
eat me like a blood ******* ghoul
make me squirm like an anime victim

i thought oh finally a soul mate
with soul

strange as a Dionysian mad hatter on hallucinogenics
hot girl creeping
grimacing at me
meandering conjurations by ****** contortions
stunning impersonations of a Fellini impaling
shes a famous artist
keeps broodish bowels and blood tampons in stainless vitrines
spot lighted
ready for her debut at the
Museum of Modern Art

she blows torrents of snot like ****
her beautiful desperate tongue searching the upper lip
a salty runny viscoses snack
oozy
finding it finally with her frenetic tongue
feeding her gooey ****
with wet fingers
oh yummy yum goo
up her *** too

first smiling then hideous scowls
exposed teeth
posing with a knife
wana see me cut my self bad boy, she taunts
wana see my impersonation of pizza with extra tomato sauce

blood blood *** in the be in the bed
wipe it up with ginger bread

some how she miraculously bulges her eyes out
then performs, ******* lips as if a minnow in a fish jar

pointing to her ***
giving me that **** hurt me twisted look
how about a peanut butter jelly ******* sandwich
with a side of ****** feet
**** and **** on toes
its especially prized this day of the month
as her **** tears like a vampires mouth, a torrent of blood
pouting **** with white red stained thighs that break a mans heart
*** nothing at all she quips
just a little accident
do you like it?
as she glares like an invitation
to play slip and slide bare foot in her puddle of blood

oh she made me *****
my cherry red **** having a nervous breakdown
from apoplectic horror gasms
a dose of heavens hell

i want her
she is voluptuous like a dozen venomous snakes
copulating in warm soup dark water everglades
she is slither theater

curdling screams
then muggling *******
brought on by the first belly stab
falling to her knees
looking up shocked
mouth gaping
eyes wide
grinning
glance steady
holding holding holding
the belly cut
a cacophonous modern dance of agony
followed by rapturous convulsing *******
that went on and on and on

get a bat she implored

she is a real ******* movie star
the Greta Garbo of *****
a dark jewel
a must have
a hell wife
goddess of dread
a ******* *** genius
my best girl ever

fused by desire
we kissed like **** loving catholic priests
in adoration of their savior
young boy *** castrato hitting the high notes


she looked up with desperation
eyes with glittering tears
and said
are you my black knight?
do you know how to hurt a girl
are you my
Vex Mallus
Dr Satan
Marquis De Sick
Nick Nick
Dark Officer
Remus the Werewolf
Dom Sugar Daddy
Pit Bull
Tommy the Tummy Gutter
5 o'clock Shadow
London Cabby
Amputee ******
Uncle Surgery Gone Wrong
King of the Carpathian Vampires
my sweet kissy Kitten

ooohh yes i said
i am all that for loves sake
albeit twisted
i am what you crave.. your no taboo lover boy
your ******* licking foot slave with a razor in hand
a bubble of poison between my legs
your homicidal suicidal cockealiciousness

she said good,
now that we have that settled
can we go out for dinner
ill be dressed in a jiffy
if i can find my dead skirt
of soft white gauze
with that lovely motif of dread red
and my precious toe tag jewelery
My poems remain explorations of the subconscious ******
If i where a film maker or a novelist  you  would see me telling a story, not judge me, although i admit to my paraphilias  
These poems  are lunar anamorphic streams of consciousness from the deep chaotic subterranean glitz of transgressive  impulses we all share
Read them if you dare...You might find that part of yourself that you don't want you to know about and then again  you may feel more complete some how if you do....I always loved that dark thing that sleeps with in me
Forty Days

A Season of Grief, a Season of Rejoicing

November 9-December 20, 2014

For Barbara Beach Alter 
It is Christmas morning in Saco, Maine, where today Bett, Aaron, Emily, Thomasin and our beloved cousin Marie find ourselves gathered to celebrate our first Christmas without dadima (our name for Barbara Beach Alter).  Brother Tom writes that already in India he and Carol with Jamie, Meha and Cayden (the only of her seven greatgrandchildren Barry never held) have celebrated.  Today Marty and Lincoln join us in Maine.

This gathering of documents—notes, drafts of memorial services, poems, homilies—is my christmas present to each of you.  It is a record, certainly subjective, of grief and rejoicing.

John Copley Alter
1:14 a.m.
Saco, Maine 
November 9

Loved ones,
Barbara Beach Alter died peacefully at 2:55 Sunday morning (today).  Bett and I had the good fortune to be there for the final beating of her good strong heart.  She murmured charcoal.  The nurse who was bathing her afterwards noted how few wrinkles there were, and it is true.
For those of you nearby you may if you want visit Mom in her room at hospice this morning (until noon).  Visit? Darshan? Paying respects?
Bett and I plan to be there around 11:00.
Much love to all. A blessed occasion.
John


November 10

Matthew 5:13-19
Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
"You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

yesterday in the early hours my mother died her saltiness
restored all that had through the months of her old
age and convalescence obscured the lens of her life cleaned
away so that for us now more and more clearly
as we hear about her through the memory and love
of so many people her good works shine forth in
their glory but it is to the days of her
convalescence the days of her dementia I would turn our
minds those of us who spent time with her at
Wingate long-term care facility remember that Barbara Beach Alter became
at times fierce in her commanding us that ‘not one
letter, not one stroke of a letter’ of the commandments
should be altered do you remember that those of you
and us who were given the work and gift of
spending time with Barry in those days in that condition

remember for instance how fussy she became about the sequence
of food on her tray how impatient with us for
our trespasses and violations how adamant that we look forward
for instance and not back at her how she would
say stop holding my hand and saying you love me
you have work to do o she was almost impossible
and certainly incoherent and demented in her obsession with law
and procedure fussy impatient imperious I do not forget being
scolded reamed out put in my place for having somehow
failed to do what the ‘law and the prophets’ demand

Barbara beach alter in the days before hospice in the
nursing home and hospital and even if we are honest
in the final years of her life found herself caught
up in the rigidity of her anxious desire to be
faithful to the laws and commandments of her life and
that made her at times extremely demanding to be with

amen and the epistemological confusion of course the clash between
her reality and ours it was all an ordeal for
her and for those of us who kept her company

and yet and yet through it all and now as
that ordeal for her is no longer paramount as she
dances in heaven all the wrinkles and discomfort of her
life removed and forgiven Barbara Beach Alter kept the faith
living in the midst such that those who cared for
her most intimately the strangers all professed your mother blessed
us


Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.



So, brother and sister, here are my thoughts about the memorial service(s).
Let’s find a time when we three can be present; that’s the most important thing.  My life is currently the least constrained by agenda and schedule.  And then the grandchildren, recognizing that Jamie may not be able to come.  So, our work is to find our when our kids are able to come. Bett and I are exploring that with our three, each of whom has some constraint: Emily, the cost; Thomasin, the piebaking demands, Aaron school.  But we are flexible.

Much love.

John



Walking in my mother’s wake today some trees
a gentle breeze some dogs a little boy
the neighborhood and I took joy from interaction

we are at best a fraction in love’s
calculation after all heaven I realize is not
above or below cannot be taught comes naturally

as death does walking in my mother’s wake
I found new allies learned yet again not
to take myself too seriously to be caught

off guard as a matter of principle and
not to insist that I understand but live
in the midst of forgiveness


in my mother’s wake I am reading these books for
some way to continue to knock on her door Wendell
Berry he can tell me some things and William Blake
he can take me closer and I remember she described
me once as an unused Jewish liberal so I am
reading about protestant liberalism but ham that I am also
reading Carl Hiassen’s Bad Monkey and Quo Vadimus that my
daughter left behind and mythologically Reflections from yale divinity school
no fooling Denise Levertov David Sobel Galway Kinnell’s translation of
Rilke some wake

November 11

Matthew 25:1-13
Jesus said, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

this morning in the wee hours my mother died one
of the wise bridesmaids whose lamp to the end was
full she carried always the flask of oil that is
joy that is the love of the kingdom of heaven
and of the bridegroom a flask always replenished by prayer
by devotion by a humble courageous living in the midst

she expected every day the bridegroom to come in other
words and she was also one who would never refuse
to share even the last drop with somebody in need

and at the end it is so clear the door
into the banquet hall was not closed to her as
it is not closed to any one of us foolishness
is to believe otherwise to believe that the bridegroom will
not come today in the early morning in the wee
hours that is when he comes in the midst of
other plans is when he comes even when we are
doing what we assume to be good work when we
are doing what gives us pleasure our duty joy comes
then unsummoned unpredictable random even according to all our best
laid plans my mother loved so many things her pleasure
included dancing late in her life terminally unsteady she invented
what we loved to urge her to do namely the
sitting jig and we grew up with images of her
Isadora Duncan dancing with white scarves in an enchanted forest

Barbara Beach Alter aka Barry aka dadima bari nani aunt
and daughter wife missionary is now I know dancing a
rollicking boisterous jig on the shores of a lake that
is as her grandson once confided to her god in
liquid form spilly Beach of course also dyslexic executive function
compromised she was but one who loved to be always
in the midst surrounded by loved ones some of them
absolute strangers she shared her oil because for her it
came welling up from an inexhaustible source a deep eternal
well of such illumination and laughter such giddy divine chuckles

for her there was to be no exclusion she would
not find the awful idea of being one of the
foolish applicable to anybody but happily she welcomed into her
midst so many it is hard to imagine how many

so there she is now a bridesmaid dancing for joy
in such elegant clothing with such perpetual brightness

amen hallelujah rejoice


sometimes I think she pulled us all out of the
magic hat sometimes I think she knit us all into
one of her theologically impossible sweaters and then with a
wink she passes through the eye of the needle and
is gone and we are left to play in her
honor endless hands of solitaire sometimes I think we are
no more than the hermeneutics of her life the epistemology
artless she was not her heart like one of those
magical meals for her then a doxology praise then praise
she knows salvation

what is a life’s work it is like a landscape
dotted with oases and gardens for the thirsty and the
lost it is like scraping through dry barren ground and
finding there suddenly not only the theology of paradise but
such seeds your hands ache to begin the planting what
is a life’s work what has been shut for too
long opens what has been shut for too long opens

a life’s work renews itself then with death the kernel
of hope that dies in springtime sprouting is what a
life’s work becomes

November 12

John 21:15-17
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.

I know my mother very much enjoyed having breakfast with
god and that the meals of her nursing home drove
her nearly crazy and that when at last she found
hospice o she again could imagine the feast of heaven
at which Jesus breaks bread with us and speaks with
such clarity do you love me more than these I
know it was questions as simple and overwhelming as this
that dominated her final days do you love me love
being  one of the last five words she attempted to
speak do you love me she wrestled in her last
months with epistemology and psychology and theology and all had
to do with whether she could answer unequivocally you know
that I love you and that she could say of
her life that she had broken bread with god we
all remember in her life those moments when there was
a great gladness an innocent acceptance of what lay immediately
in her presence now those months in the nursing home
tormented her in precisely this fashion that it was hard
to accept to be in the midst of such mediocrity
and woe to be innocent and accepting but now praise
god there she is a happy guest at the great
feast and we left behind bereft can acknowledge that she
loved god in her own fashion as best she possibly
could and do you remember being with her there in
hospital or nursing home and she commanding us to move
beyond holding her hand and saying we loved her and
to feed the sheep to do that work which will
make of this earth this here and now an outstation
of heaven Barbara Beach Alter loved god in her own
fashion as best she possibly could we remember that and
that memory is today like a great network a web
of love and inspiration o we would gladly one more
time hold her hand and say I love you but
we know also clearly I think today what the work
is to love our neighbor as ourselves to work for
peace and justice I think of my sister with her
colleagues in WEIGO and how her sisters have understood her
grief  let us break our fast together then glad for
the worldwide web that in these days is reading the
gospel of the life of Barbara Beach Alter praise god


feed
tend
feed
in exchange for his three denials Peter is given three imperative verbs
feed
tend
feed
this is the commission Jesus after breakfast on the shore of the sea of Galilee gives to Peter
twice he says feed
in the commonwealth of Massachusetts 700,000 people are hungry
1 in 6 americans are hungry
living in uncertainty about their daily bread
more than 18,000,000 in Africa
842,000,000 around the world go to bed hungry


Marty and Tom
The thinking about the memorial service is taking this slow and cautious turn, namely that we have three services (at least), one in Sudbury, one in New Haven (allowing Stan and Chuck and others to come) at First Presbyterian (with Blair Moffett we hope), and of course one in India.
The date frame appears to be somewhere between December 17 and 20, unless you have other thoughts.
The actual cremation happens tomorrow.  Lincoln, Bett, Alexis and I will attend, and then of course there is In the Midst on Friday.
Love you more than tongue can tell.
John


the thing with a life well lived is that many
people have partaken the way let’s say a river moves
down through any number of different lives all the time
sedulously seeking the shortest path to the sea to steal
a line from somebody or other meandering a watershed within
which so many of us find a way to live
our own lives nourished and for each of us the
river distinct and different white water the slow fertile meander
the delta and we say to each other this is
the composite river


sometimes I feel like a sleepwalker trying to run a
marathon sometimes I feel like a speedbump in a blizzard

an arrow in a wind tunnel sometimes I feel like

a hazard sign in an old age home sometimes I
feel like a tyrannosaurus rex trying to ride a tricycle

and sometimes those are the good days when identity is
strong like an icicle in a heat wave is strong

I try to read wisdom literature at happy hour scotch
and Solomon can’t go wrong I think and sometimes I

feel like crying

November 13

four days ago we were left alone there with your
body after your breathing ceased and the proud stubborn beating
of your heart and in those four days beloved mother
so much I would love to say to you and
share the antics of the squirrel late leaves on the
neighborhood trees music Orion the network the atlas of love
your life has left behind and all the words we
are the gospel of today and I would sit with
you there then in silence as I sit now four
days later vigilant insomniac aware that the kingdom of heaven
is not more complicated than singing than love than dancing

we are all dancing the dance lord siva teaches and
the s
Mary McCray Apr 2019
(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 3, 2019)

“Not all those who wander are lost.” -- J. R. R. Tolkien

I was an office temp for many years when I was young. All the companies: Kelly girls, Manpower, Adecco. I took innumerable tests in typing, word processing, spreadsheets.

The worst job was at a sales office for home siding. I logged complaints all day on the phone about faulty siding.

I worked at a construction site in Los Angeles, a new middle-class ghetto they were building on the Howard Hughes air strip. I worked in a trailer and had to wait until lunch break to walk a block to the bathroom in the new library.

There was one warehouse I worked in that had mice so employed a full-time cat to work alongside us. The cat left dead mice everywhere. I was always cold there.

A lot of places I was replacing someone on vacation, someone the office assumed was indispensable but there was never anything for me to do there but read. I wrote a lot of letters to pen pals and friends. Email hadn’t been invented yet. Sometimes I’d walk memos around the office. Nobody ever invited me to meetings. Be careful what you wish for. Sometimes it comes true and you end up sitting in endless meetings.

In one swanky office I prepared orders in triplicate on a typewriter. I kept messing up and having to start over. Eventually I started to enjoy this. It was a medical lab and was convinced they were doing animal testing so I left after a week.

One of my early jobs was as a receptionist in a war machine company. My contact there asked me to do “computer work” (as it was called then) but I didn’t know how to use a mac or a mouse. My contact called my agency to complain about sending out “girls without basic skills.” My agency told me not to worry about it, the war company was just trying to scam us all by paying for a receptionist to do “computer work.” So they stuck me at the switchboard up front where I found bomb-threat instructions taped under the desk.

I worked at a design store and learned a program called Word Perfect. I started typing and printing the letters to my friends. The St. Louis owner was trying to sell the company to a rich Los Angeles couple. Once, a young gay designer I admired called and referred to me as “the girl up front with the glasses.” I immediately went out and got contact lenses. Before I left, I bought a desk and a chair they were selling. Years later, I sold the desk to an Amish couple in Lititz, PA, but I still have the chair.

I once worked for a cheap couple running a plastic mold factory. The man was paranoid, cheap and houvering and I said I wouldn’t stay past two weeks. They asked me to train a new temp and I said okay. The new temp also found the owner to be paranoid, cheap and houvering and so declared to me she wouldn’t stay past the week either. She confided in me she had gotten drunk and slept with someone and was worried she was pregnant. She was freaking out because she was going through a divorce and already had two kids. I told her about the day-after-pill which she had never heard of. I don’t know if it worked because I never used it myself and I never saw her again after that to follow up.

At another office I did nothing at the front desk for three weeks, bored and reading all the Thomas Covenant novels. I would take my lunch break under a big tree to continue reading the Thomas Covenant novels.

I worked for months at a credit card company reading books and letting in visitors through the locked glass door. Week after week, the receptionist would call in sick. One young blonde woman would give me filing work. She was telling me all about her wedding she was planning which sounded pretty fun and it made me want to plan a wedding too. After a few weeks she asked me what my father did. I said he was a computer programmer. She replied that my dad sounded like somebody her dad would beat up. I was too shocked by the rudeness to say dismissively, “I seriously doubt that.” (For one, my dad wasn’t always a computer programmer.) When it became clear the woman I was replacing had abandoned her job, they asked me if I wanted to stay on. I said no, that I was moving to New York City. I wasn’t  (but I did eventually).

Some places “kept me on” like the mortgage underwriters in St. Louis. That office had permanent wood partitions between the desks, waist-high and a pretty, slight woman training to join the FBI. She fainted one day by the copier. It was there that I told my first successful joke ever. Our boss was a part-time Baptist minister and we loved him because he was able to inspire us during times of low morale. One day we saw a bug buzzing above us in a light fixture.  Before I even thought about it I said, “I guess you could say he finally saw the light.” Everybody laughed a lot and I turned bright red. I wrote my essay to Sarah Lawrence College there after hours at the one desk with a typewriter. My boss and I got laid off the same day. He helped me carry my things out to my car.

I worked at a large food company in White Plains, NY. I often came home with boxes of giveaway Capri Sun in damaged boxes. I helped a blind woman fill out her checks. She was really grouchy and I wasn’t allowed to pet her service dog. She had dusty junk all over her desk but she couldn’t see it to make it tidy. I realized then that she would never be able to use a stack of desk junk as a to-do list...because she couldn’t see it. You can’t to-do what you can’t see and how we all probably take this fact for granted with our piles of desk junk. Years later I had the same thought about to-do lists burned in phones or computer files.

They also “kept me on” at the Yonkers construction company. I was there for years. The British woman next to me was not my boss but she ordered me around a lot. She told me I looked like an old 1940s actress I had never heard of who always wore her hair in her face. I was annoyed by this compliment because when I looked the actress up on the Internet I could see it wasn’t true. At the time, everyone was just getting on the Internet and I was already addicted to eBay. I would leave meetings in the middle for three minute at a time to ****** items with my competitive late-second bids. It was my first job with email too, and I emailed many letters to all my friends all day long. One elderly man there thought it was funny to give me cigars (which I smoked socially at the time) and told me unsavory ****** facts to shock me. I thought he was harmless and funny and his attempts to unsettle me misguided because I had already grown up with two older brothers who were smelly and hellbent on unsettling me. Later the man started dating and seemed happier and I met his very nice older girlfriend at one of the laborious, day-long Christmas parties our Italian owners threw every year. Months later his girlfriend was murdered in her garage by her estranged husband. Most of the office left to go to her funeral and I felt very bad for him.

And they kept me on at the Indian arts school in Santa Fe. I loved every day I spent there, walking the halls looking at student art. I had never seen so many beautiful faces in one place. One teacher there confided in me about her troubles and I tried to be Oprah. She ended up having to take out a restraining order against a man she met online. At the trial, the man tried to attack the female judge and she awarded the teacher the longest restraining order ever awarded in Santa Fe: 100 years. He broke the restraining order one day on campus and we were all scared about where he was and if he had a gun. All around the school were rolling hills and yellow blooming chamisa and we found tarantulas in the parking lot. I was there almost a full school year until I moved away.

I was once a temp in a nursing temp office that had large oak desks and big leather chairs. The office was empty except for one other woman. The boss was on vacation and she spent all our time complaining about what an *** he was and how mistreated the nurses were. I remember feeling uncomfortable in the leather chair. The boss, who I never met, called me one day to tell me he had fired her and that I should know she was threatening to come back with a gun. When I called the agency they laughed it off. I told them I wouldn’t go back.

My favorite temp job was at a firefighting academy in rural Massachusetts. I edited training manuals along with two other temps. It was very interesting work. The academy was in the middle of the woods, down beautiful winding roads with old rock walls. Driving to work I would listen to TLC and Luther Vandross. And whenever I hear Vandross sing I still think of the Massachusetts woods. When I left, they let me have a t-shirt and I wore it for years. One of the trainers had a son who was a firefighter who asked me out on a date. I said I was moving to New York City (this time it was true) and not interested in a relationship. He insisted the date would be just as friends. He took me to Boston’s North End and we ate gnocchi while he told me how he didn’t believe it was right to hit women. This comment alarmed me. He then took me to a highrise, skyview bar downtown where he proceeded to **** my fingers. I thought about Gregg Allman and Cher’s first date where Gregg Allman ****** Cher’s fingers and how now Cher and I had something in common: the disappointment of having one’s fingers ******. My scary date didn’t want to take me home and I was living with my brother at the time, so I told him my brother was crazy and if I didn’t get back by ten o’clock my brother would freak out like a motherf&#$er. That part wasn’t true...but it worked. I made it home.

I used to be deathly afraid of talking to strangers on the phone. I used to be bored out of my mind watching the clock. I used to wish I were friends with many of the interesting people walking past my desk.

When I look back on all this and where I’ve been, it seems so random, meandering through offices in so many different cities. But it wasn’t entropy or arbitrary. I was always working on the same thing.

I was a writer.
Prompt:Write a meandering poem that takes its time to get to its point.
Andrew T Jul 2016
Backstory: A Memoir

For Vicki

By AT

5

While I was downstairs, folding laundry in the basement, I heard my sister Vicki stomping upstairs to the room that used to be mine, slamming the door, and locking it shut.

I was a ****** older brother. And Vicki learned that action from me.
Then, I heard more footsteps. Louder stomping. And I knew, with certainty, it was Mom coming after her.

I'm not an omniscient narrator, so I don't know what Vicki does when the door is locked.

But I do imagine she is reading. Vicki’s been using her Kindle that Mom got her for Christmas. She adores Gillian Flynn and Suzanne Collins. She's starting to get into Philip Pullman which is swagger. I remember reading His Dark Materials when I was in elementary school.

The Golden Compass ***** you into that world, like during June when you're hitting a bowl for the first time and you're 17, late at night on Bethany beach with your childhood best friend, and the surf is curling against your toes, and the smoke is trailing away from the cherry, and you begin to realize that life isn't all about living in NOVA forever, because the world is more than NOVA, because life is bigger than this hole, that to some people believe is whole, and that's fine, that's fine because many of our parents came here from other small towns, and they wanted to do what we wanted to do, which is to pack up our stuff into the trunk of our presumably Asian branded car, and drive, drive, until they reach a destination that doesn't remind them of the good memories and the bad memories, until memory is mixed in with nostalgia, and nostalgia is mixed in with the past.

Maybe I'm dwelling on backstory, maybe you don't need to hear the backstory.

But I think you do.

Life isn't an eternity,
what I'm telling you is already known, known since there was a spider crawling up the staircase and your dad took the heel of his black dress shoe and dug his heel into that bug. And maybe I'm buggin’, but that bugged me, and now I'm trying to be healthier eating carrots like Bugs. Kale, red onions, and quinoa, as well. Because I want to be there for my sister, Vicki my sister. All we got is a wrapped up box made from God, Mohammad, and Buddha.

Soon, I heard Vicki’s door handle being cranked down and up, up and down.

Mom raised her voice from a quiet storm to a deafening concerto.  
Then, there was silence, followed by a door slamming shut.

Welcome to our life.
Later on that night, Vicki sped out of our cul-de-sac in her silver Honda Accord—a gift from Mom to keep her rooted in Nova—and even from the front porch of my house, I felt a distance from her that was deep and immovable.

I sank deeper into my lawn chair and lit a jack, but instead of inhaling like I usually did, I held it out in front of me and watched the smoke billow out from the cherry.

I always smoked jacks when she was not there, because I didn’t want her to see me knowingly do this to myself, even as I was making huge changes to my life. It’s the one vice I have left, and it’s terrible for me, but I don’t know if she understands that I know both things. Maybe instead of caring about what jacks do to my body, I should care about what she thinks about what I’m doing to myself. This should be obvious to me, but sometimes things aren’t that obvious.

4

As we grew older Vicki and I forged a dialogue, an understanding. She confided in me and I confided in her, sharing secrets, details about our lives that were personal and private, as if we were two CIA agents working together to defeat a totalitarian government—our tiger mom.

But seriously our mom was and still is swagger as ****—rocks Michael Kors and flannel Pajama pants (If I told you that last article of clothing she'd probably pinch my cheek and call me a chipmunk. Don't worry I'm fine with a moderation of self-deprecation).

The other day Mom talked to me about Vicki and explained that she was upset and irritated with Vicki because of her attitude. I thought that was interesting, because I used to have the same exact attitude when I was my sister’s age and I got away with a lot more ****, being that I'm a guy and the first-born. I understood why she would shut the front door, exit our red brick bungalow, and speed away in her Honda Accord, going towards Clarendon, or Adams Morgan, spending her time with her extensive circle of friends on the weekdays and weekends.

Because being inside our house, life could get suffocating and depressing.
Our Grandparents live with us. Grandpa had a stroke and is trying to recover. Grandma has Alzheimer’s and agitates my mom for rides to a Vietnamese Church. Besides the caretakers, Mom, Dad, Vicki, and I are the only ones taking care of my grandparents.

Mom told me that she believes that Vicki uses the house as a hotel. Mom didn't remind me of a landlord, and I believe that Vicki doesn’t see her as that either.

I didn't believe Vicki was doing anything necessarily wrong.

She had her own life.

I had my own life.

Dad had his own life.

Mom had her own life.

I understood why she wanted to go out and party and hang out with her friends. Maybe she was like me when I was 21 and perceived living at home as a prison, wanting to have autonomy and freedom from Mom because she was attempting to make me conform to her controlled system with restraints. But as Vicki and I both grow older I believe that we see Mom not as an authority figure; but, just as Mom.

Vicky and Mom clash and clash and clash with each other, more than the Archer Queens of The Hero Troops clash with the witches of the Dark Elixir Troops.

They act like they were from different clans, but they're both on the same side in reality.

The apple does not fall far from the tree. And in this case the tree wants to hang onto the apple on the tip of its rough, and yet leafy bough.
Because the tree is rooted in experience and has been around for much longer than the apple.

But the apple is looking for more water than the tree can give it. So the apple dreams about a summer rain-shower that will give it a chance to have its own experience. A similar, but different one, to the darker apple that hangs from a higher bough, an apple that has been spoiled from having too much sun and water.

3

During Winter Break, Vicki scored me tickets to a game between the Wizards and the Bucks. From court side to the nosebleeds, the audience at the Verizon Center was chanting in cacophony and in tempo. Wall was injured. But Gortat crashed the boards, Nene' drained mid-range shots, and Beal drove up the lane like Ginsberg reading Howl.

Vicki and I both tried to talk to each other as much as we could; unfortunately, Voldemort—my ex-gf—sat in between us and was gossiping about the latest scoop with the Kardashians.

Nevertheless, Vicki and I still managed to drink and have an outstanding time. But I should have given her more attention and spent less time on my smartphone. I was spending bread on Papa John's Pizza and chain-smoking jacks during half-time, and even when there were time outs. When I would come back and sink into my plastic chair, I'd feel bloated and dizzy.
And I'd look over at Vicki and either she was talking to Voldemort, or typing away on her smartphone. I didn't mind it at the time, but now I wished I had been less of a concessions barbarian/used-car salesman chain-smoker, and more of an older brother. I should have asked her about her day and her friends and her interests.

But I didn't.

Because I was so concerned about indulging in my vices like eating slices of pepperoni pizza and drinking overpriced beer. There's nothing wrong with pizza or beer. But as we all know the old saying goes, everything is about moderation.

Vicki scrunched her nose and squinted her eyes when I would lean forward and try to maneuver around Voldemort, trying to talk to her about the game and the players in it. I imagine that when she smelled the cigarette smoke leaking away from my lips, that she believed I was inconsiderate and not self-aware.

After the game, we went to a bar across the street from the Verizon Center, and bought mixed drinks. Voldemort was D.D., so Vicki and I drank until our Asian faces got redder than women and men who go up on stage for public speaking for the first time.

I remember this older Asian guy was trying to hit on her.
I took in short breaths. Inhaled. Exhaled. I cracked my shoulder blades to push my chest forward.  

And then, I patted him on the back and grinned. The Asian guy got the message. You don’t **** with the bodyguard.

Vicki had and still has a great boyfriend named Matt.

I guided Vicki back to our table and laughed about the awkward situation with her.

The Asian guy craned his head toward me and did a short wave. And then he bought us coronas. Either, you’re still hitting on my sister, or it’s a kind gesture. She and I better not get... Or am I overthinking it?

But seriously, I wished I had been the one to spend money on her first—she had bought the first round of drinks. Because at the time, my job was challenging and low-paying. Or maybe I just wasn't being frugal enough and partying way too often.

I still remember the picture that a cool rando took of us, drinking the Coronas, and how I was happy to be a part of her life again. Our eyes were so Asian. I had my lanky arm around her small shoulders, like a proud Father. She had her cheek propped up by her fist, her smile, gigantic and beaming, as though she had just won Wimbledon for the first time.
I was wearing a white and blue Oxford shirt that she had gotten me for Christmas with a D.C. Rising hat. She had on a cotton scarf that resembles a tan striped tail of a powerful cat.

My face was chubby from the pizza. Her face was just right like the one house in Goldilocks. The limes in the Coronas were sitting just below the throat of the bottles, like old memories resurfacing the brain, to make the self recall, to make the self remember how to treat his family.
Or maybe this is just a brand new Corona ad geared towards the rising second-generation Asian American demographic? I'm playing around.
But end of commercial break.

Vicki pats me on the back and we clink bottles together. Voldemort is lurking in the background, as if she's about to photobomb the next picture. Sometimes I don't know if there's going to be a next picture.
Either we live in these moments, or make memories of them with our phones. And like sheep following an untrustworthy shepherd, we went back to our phones. She made emails and texts. I went on twitter in search of the latest news story.

2

Before Vicki and I opened each other's presents, I remember I blew up at Mom and Dad, and criticized everyone in the family room including Vicki. It was over something stupid and trivial, but it was also something that made me feel insecure and small. I was the black sheep and she was the sheep-dog.

I screamed. Vicki took in a deep breath and looked away from my glare, looked away to a spot on the hardwood floor that was filled with a fine blanket of dust and lint. I chattered. She rubbed her fingers around the lens of her black camera and shook her head in a manner that suggested annoyance and disappointment. I scoffed. She set the camera down on the coffee table and pressed the flat of her hand against her cheek, and glanced out the window into the backyard that was blanketed with slush and snow.
Drops of snow were plunging from the branches of the evergreen trees and plopping onto the patches of the ground, plunging, as though they were little toddlers cannonballing off of a high-dive.

She turned back and looked at me straight in the eye, so straight I thought she was searching for the answer to my own stupidity.

I cleared my throat and said, “I need a breath of fresh air.”

Vicki bit her bottom lip, sat down, and put her arms on her knees, a deep, contemplative look appearing on her face.

I stormed into the narrow hallway, slammed the front door back against its rusty hinges, and trundled down my front driveway, the cold from the ice and the snow dampening the soles of my tarnished boots. I lit a jack at the far end of the cul-de-sac and counted to ten. I watched the cigarette smoke rise, as the ashes fell on the snow, blemishing its purity and calmness. I inhaled. I exhaled. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach that Vicki knew I was having a jack to reduce my stress, stress that I had cause all by myself. I ground the jack against the snowy concrete, feeling the cold begin to numb my fingers that were shaking from the nicotine, shaking from the winter that had wrapped itself around me and my sister.

When I came back inside of the house, I told Mom and Dad I was being an idiot and that I didn’t mean to be such an *******. I turned to Vicki and put my hand on her shoulder, squeezed it, and smiled weakly, telling her that I didn’t mean to upset her.

She nodded and said, “It’s okay bro.”

But her soft and icy tone made me feel skeptical; she didn’t believe me. I didn’t know if I believed my apology. Minutes later, I gave my present to her.

Her face brightened up with a smile. It was a gradual and cautious smile, a little too gradual and a little too cautious. She hugged me tightly, as though my earlier outburst hadn’t happened.

She opened the bank envelope and inside was a fat stack of cleanly, pressed bills that totaled a hundred. Being an arrogant, noob car salesman at the time, I thought it was going to be a pretty clever present. I could have given her a Benjamin, but I thought this would make her happier, because it showed my creative side in a different form.

I remember seeing her spread the dollar bills out, as if the bills were a Japanese Paper fan. Vicki told me not to post the picture I had taken on insta or Facebook. I smiled faintly and nodded, stuffing my smartphone back into my sweatpants pocket. I understood what she wanted, and I listened to her, respecting her wishes. But I also wasn't sure if she was embarrassed and ashamed of me. And maybe I was overthinking it. But again, maybe I wasn’t overthinking it. Social Media, whether we like it or not, is a part of life. And in that moment, I actually wanted social media to display this a single story in our lives. I wanted to show people that Vicki was the most important person—besides my parents—in my life. Because I was so concerned with how people viewed me and because I lacked confidence, lacked security, and lacked respect for myself

Vicki's present to me was a sleek and blue tie, a box set of mini colognes, and refreezable-ice-cubes. I think she called it the car salesperson kit. But I knew and still know she was trying to turn me into an honest and non-sketchy car salesman. And you know what, I was genuine, but I also couldn't retain any information about the cars features—to reiterate my Grandma has Alzheimer's, my mom writes down constant notes to remember everything, and I forget my journal almost every time I leave the house.

After Christmas I wore the tie to work a few times, but the mini colognes and ice-cubes never got used by me. They stayed in the trunk of my Toyota Avalon. I should have used the colognes and the ice-cubes, but I was too careless, too self-involved, and too ungrateful.

1

Back in the 90’s, when we were around 3 and 6 years old, Vicki and I shared the same room on the far left end of the hallway in our house. She had a small bed, and I had a bigger bed, obviously, because at 6 foot 1, I was a genetic freak for a Vietnamese guy. I read Harry Potter and Redwall like crazy growing up, and I would try to invent my own stories to entertain her. Every night she would listen to me tell my yarn, and it made me feel that my voice was significant and strong, even though many times I felt my voice was weak and soft, lacking in inflection, or intonation.

I had a speech impediment and I had to take classes at Canterbury Woods to fix my perceived problem. I wanted to fit in, blend in, and have friends.
Back then Vicki was not only my sister, but my best friend. She used to have short, black bangs; chubby cheeks, and a dot-sized nose—don't worry she didn't get ****** into the grocery tabloids and get rhinoplasty. She wore her red pajamas with a tank top over it, so she looked like a mini-red ranger, and her slippers
Dedicated to my baby sister, love you kid!
H A N A Jun 2018
Those silly songs;
so sad but true
With lost feelings
of me and you

I played it on
with the tape's side A
Felt like blossoms of dawn
and flowers of May

I flipped the tape
Found side B's empty
The same thing I get
Every time you look at me

"You'll get over this."
You once confided
That's what our love is;
Too one-sided
I wrote this three years ago and I'd love to share it here with you! ♥
kevin morris Jan 2014
This is a fictional account of the abuse suffered by a young boy. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1

Lady Macbeth remarked “Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil”. All children have their terrors. The bogeyman who lurks in dark corners patiently waiting to harm the unwary child. The ghost who haunts the attic where, even on a bright sunny day the child fears to go alone or some unspeakable terror, a horror with no name which lies just below the surface of every day life. In my case the ghoul who cast an all pervasive shadow over my childhood was Colin, a man small in stature but, to a child a monster of epic proportions.
I have, on occasions tried to comprehend why my abuser acted as he did. As a boy I had no desire to understand Colin. I hated him with an all consuming loathing. He was the devil incarnate who, if it had been in my power to do so I would have destroyed with as little compunction as a man would show when exterminating a rat. As an adult the hatred remains although now tempered with a desire to understand why Colin abused a small, defenceless child, physically and mentally over a prolonged period.
Was Colin abused by one (or both) of his parents? And, if so does this help to explain (but in no way excuse) why he took such great delight in inflicting pain on me? I met both of Colin’s parents and stayed with them on several occasions. At no time during those visits was I subjected to any kind of abuse. This does not of course prove that Colin’s mother and father where not abusers. It demonstrates that they did not abuse me, no more, no less. However, looking back at my visits to their home and, in particular the fact that neither of Colin’s parents abused me, I am inclined to believe that he was not ill treated by either of them. So what turned Colin into the monster who took delight in twisting my arm so hard behind my back that I thought it would break? The answer is, I have no idea. What turned apparently normal Germans into mass murderers in ******’s *****? The answer is the same, I don’t know. As with the concentration camp guards who committed mass ****** I can speculate that some where subjected to abuse as children and that this led to them becoming psychopathic killers. However not all of those abused in childhood go on to commit abuse, while many in the SS experienced apparently happy childhoods untroubled by abuse. Colin may have been abused by someone other than his parents but even if this is the case this does not explain or justify why he became an abuser.

Chapter 2

I was born on 7 February 1971 in the north of England. Soon after my birth it became apparent that all was not right with Donald Myers. I cried far more than any normal child ought to. In addition I banged my head against hard surfaces on a frequent basis which, obviously gave rise to concern. My mum, as any good mother would took me to the hospital only to be told that there was nothing amiss. However a mother’s instinct told her that something was terribly wrong with her son. She refused to leave the hospital and demanded a second opinion. This was provided by a Polish doctor who, having examined me diagnosed a blood clot on the brain. My distraught family was informed that I required an urgent operation and even if the blood clot was successfully removed I was likely to be severely mentaly disabled. Fortunately the blood clot was removed and I am not mentally deficient. The clot did, however leave me with very poor vision (I am registered blind and use a guide dog as a mobility aid although I possess useful vision which assists with orientation).

Chapter 3

As a young boy I spent a great deal of time with my grandfather. This was due to my sister, Janet being ill and my mum not being able to look after 2 young children simultaneously.
I have fond memories of playing in what I called “the patch”, a piece of the garden which my grandfather allowed me to do with as I chose. I recall making mud pies and coming into the house caked in mud literally from head to toe.
Being blind I relied on my grandfather to read to me. Most weekends found us in a book shop. Whenever I walk into W H Smiths the scent of books brings back happy memories of time spent with my grandfather, me sitting on his knee as he read to me.
My grandfather was a dear, kind gentle man. Had he known how Colin was abusing me he would, I am sure have gone straight to the nearest police station to report him. However he never knew and, being a small child I never confided in him.
I am amazed when I hear people ask “why didn’t so and so report the abuse?” As a small child I was terrified of Colin. Had I told anyone I was sure that he would deny everything and the abuse would intensify. I was not aware of the existence of the National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children (NSPCC) and even had I known of their existence I would, as a frightened little boy have lacked the courage to pick up the phone and call. Colin would, no doubt have accused me of lying and in the 1970’s and 1980’s children where rarely believed when making alegations of abuse.

Chapter 4

I used to dread leaving the safety of my grandfather’s home to spend time with Colin and my mother. My heart would sink when Colin or my mum came to collect me from my grandfather’s. On one occasion I deliberately dropped the car keys behind the kitchen worktop in the forlorn hope this would prevent my mum taking me to stay with her and Colin. Oh vain hope, the keys where discovered and I found myself in the lair of the abuser.
Colin took care never to abuse me in the presence of others. He was, however adept at tormenting me when my mum or other people where nearby but couldn’t see what he was doing. One incident is indelibly etched on my memory. I was sitting on the sofa, in the living room. The room opened straight out into the street and I was seated close to the front door. My mum called to me from outside asking whether I wanted to accompany her to the supermarket. I replied “yes” but before I could leave to join her Colin, who was sitting on the same sofa twisted my arm behind my back and whispered that I should tell my mum that I had changed my mind. I continued to attempt to leave but Colin increased the pressure saying that if I didn’t inform my mum that I had changed my mind he would break my arm. Naturally I called to my mum that I no longer wished to go with her and she left without me.
Being outside my mum did not see the abuse taking place a mere few feet from where she was standing.
On another occasion, while Colin and I where sitting in the living room, he forced a chipped mug into my lip which drew blood. Again my mum was present in the kitchen, which was located next to the living room but did not observe the abuse. On entering the living room and noticing the scar a few minutes later she enquired what had caused it. At this point in time I don’t recollect whether Colin put the lie into my mouth or whether I concocted the story in order to avoid further abuse. In any case I informed my mum that I had cut myself with a chipped mug, a version of events she accepted.  
At times I thought that I was going to die. No small boy likes washing but I used to dread bathing due to Colin’s own unique method of assisting me to wash. This consisted of holding my head under the water so that my nose and mouth filled and I felt as though I was going to die. I would emerge, terrified coughing and spluttering.
Colin obviously derived tremendous pleasure from half suffocating me. On numerous occasions he would place a cushion or pillow over my face and hold it there until I felt that I was about to die. Years later when I attended counselling with the mental health charity Mind, the counsellor asked me why I thought that Colin had not killed me? I replied that he probably derived more pleasure from having a living child to torment than he would have gained had he murdered me. Also, had he murdered me the prospect of detection and Colin spending a long period in prison would, I said have acted as a disincentive to  him taking my life. .  
Colin was a sadist. In adition to systematically abusing me he also abused my mum. I remember him hitting her on a regular basis and on at least one occasion pushing her down the stairs. He was (and is) a ******* of the first order.
Colin didn’t confine his cruelty to people. I recall him flinging the family cat at me. The poor animal stuck out it’s claws to gain purchase with the result that it scratched my face badly. Like all bullies Colin was, at bottom a coward. I never once saw him abuse the family dog. I am sure that this was not out of any affection for the animal, rather it stemmed from the fear that had he done so the dog would, quite naturally have bitten it’s tormentor in self defence. Oh how I wished that the dog had sunk his teeth into Colin.          

Chapter 5

We all have nightmares. As a young boy one of my recurring bad dreams concerned being chased by a hoover. To anyone unfamiliar with the abuse inflicted on me the relating of my dream will, no doubt result in mirth. However my nightmare was no laughing matter as to me the vacuum cleaner was a thing of terror. We owned an upright hoover which Colin would, periodically place on my head while the motor was running. I well recall the terror as the wheels of the machine ran across my head. Colin was nothing if not inventive as in addition to putting a working vacuum cleaner on my head he also made me hold the machine above my head. My arms would ache terribly but I dare not put the hoover down until ordered to do so by Colin. For many years following the ending of the abuse “the chasing hoover dream”, as I refered to it stubbornly refused to go away. While the nightmare no longer plagues my sleeping brain, whenever I use a vacuum cleaner the recollection of a terrified little child being tortured by a hoover comes back to me.
In another of my childhood nightmares I would enter the spare bedroom only to be grabbed by a clicking monster which wrapped it’s hands around my neck attempting to strangle me.
Colin choked me on numerous occasions. One incident remains vividly imprinted on my memory. It was evening and my mum, sister, Colin and I sat in the living room. All of the family accept for me where watching television. I was listening to a talking book about a footballer which contained many amusing stories. I laughed uproariously throughout much of the book. Later on that evening, following the departure of my mum and sister to bed Colin choked me telling me never to laugh like that again as I had “disturbed” people. As I recall Colin’s strangling of me the old terrors reassert themselves. At the time I felt that I had, perhaps done something wrong. However the logical part of my brain told me that I had done nothing whatever to justify Colin’s barbaric treatment of me. He ought to have gone to prison for that incident alone. He was (and remains) the personification of evil to me. To this day I can, on occasions feel self conscious about giving in to the natural desire to laugh at a great joke when in the company of friends. I can (and do) let myself go and laugh uproariously but Colin remains in the background, like Banquo’s ghost putting a dampener on the feast.

Chapter 6

Colin possessed considerable charm which is, perhaps how he came to entrap my mum into marrying him. I remember sitting around the dinner table with guests present and Colin holding forth on Charles Darwin amongst other topics. Although not university educated Colin was by no means unintelligent and could, if one was unfamiliar with his propensity to abuse, appear to be charm itself, a man whom it would be a pleasure to have over for dinner.      

Colin possessed the capacity to make people laugh which he used to devastating effect when making barbed comments at the expense of my mum. I hated him for his comments but laughed none the less which is proof of the idea that hostages frequently try to please their captors by forming some kind of relationship with them. I can not at this juncture in my life recall in detail how, precisely Colin undermined the confidence of my mum, I suspect that this inability on my part stems from the fact that I was, quite naturally concerned with my own suffering and the abuse perpetrated on my mum was of secondary concern. My own pain preoccupied me. I had little time for that of others.

Chapter 7

My counsellor and my dear friend, Barry have raised the issue as to whether my mum was aware of the abuse to which Colin was subjecting me. I have thought about this question long and hard and I still can not provide a categoric answer. I am sure that my mum never actually observed Colin in the act of abusing me. She was, as explained in the forgoing chapters, never in the same room when the abuse took place. The fact that her son showed a profound disinclination to be alone with Colin should though have caused alarm bells to start ringing. Colin was clever. The only time I can recollect when he caused me to bare a physical manifestation of abuse was the incident of the chipped cup related earlier. On all other occasions the marks where deep psychological wounds not visible to the casual observer.
I have tried discussing the abuse with my mum. Her reaction has osilated between stating that the abuse occurred a long time ago and that I ought to forgive and forget, to questioning whether it did, in fact take place. My gut feeling is that my mum does not doubt my veracity. The anger she manifested on discovering that I had informed my wife of the abuse perpetrated by Colin demonstrates that she does not doubt me.
Shortly prior to my wife and I separating we went to stay with my mum and sister. One morning my mum, my daughter and I went for a walk during the course of which my mum received a call from my sister. Janet said that my wife, Louise had told her that I had informed Louise of the abuse to which I had been subjected to by Colin. My mum rounded on me asking “why the hell I had told Louise about the abuse”. There ensued a blazing argument during which my mum hit me. On returning home the argument continued with Janet stating that I should talk to Colin about the situation. The fact that Janet did not defend Colin and state that he couldn’t, possibly have abused me indicates that she was, to some extent aware of the abuse.
I love my mum deeply and have no doubt that she loves me. Yet whenever we are together the elephant in the room (Colin) stands between us, seen by both but mentioned by neither. In my case I fear the eruption of a blazing argument. I have always shyed away from arguments which is, I suspect down to me having grown up in a family in which vilence and arguments where commonplace. As a small boy I developed strategies for minimising the likelyhood of being abused. My main strategy was to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. I became a master at sitting quietly, not speaking unless I was spoken to and doing everything in my power not to antagonise Colin. While I don’t fear being physically abused by my mum I shrink in terror at the prospect of a verbal tyraid eminating from her.
In my mum’s case she does, I believe feel guilty due to her not having protected her son from Colin. The fact that she refuses to discuss the abuse to which I was subjected shows her inability to acknowledge to me her own sense of culpability at her failure to prevent Colin’s behaviour. On at least one occasion my mum has told me that the abuse could not have taken place as, if it had she would have been aware of it. This is contradicted by her statement (refered to earlier) that it was a long time ago and I ought to “forgive and forget”. Both statements can not be correct and in her heart of hearts my mum knows that I am telling the truth, she lacks the courage to admit her own failings and apologise to me.      

Chapter 8

At this distance in time I can not pinpoint the precise point at which the physical abuse stopped. At some indeterminate point (I think during my early teens) I began to challenge Colin’s behaviour. I remember wishing to join a social club and Colin informing me that I could not do so. Full of fear and trepidation I said that I would join to
Neville Johnson Jan 2019
Sue Venir loved Hugh Biquitous, but he was unreliable, so she confided this to her friend, Di Namic who confirmed he’d been seen with Penny Farthing and Miss Chevous. Then she ran into Ken Tucky, who’d just broken up with Jen Erator, and was known to hang with Mel N. Choly. Together, they and Dan Ube went to a party thrown by Perry Winkle at the house of Dana Point.

Con Valescence introduced Sue to Marine Layer who asked Mr. Tucky to join the conversation, and they’ve been conversing ever since. Lou Kemia couldn’t make the party as he was ill. This was confirmed by Nick Knack who’d been informed by Conrad Alert.

Penny Saver left early, heading over to the home of I. Stan Bul, who was throwing a celebration in honor of Hazel Nuts and Grant N. Aid, who were to be married by Will Power, though Miss Givings, his former girlfriend, did not approve. Celebrants included Buzz Saw, Ma Larkey, Ben E. Diction, ***** Pack and of course Ann I. Versary, who deemed it worthy of being remembered. Tom Foolery was always good for a laugh, which was appreciated by Art I. Face, Dee Vice and Tess Osterone.

Some chose to dine alfresco, notably Flora Fauna, Heidi **, and Ed U. Cate. Barb Ituate was a downer, though Ma Larkey tried to cheer her up, watched by Cliff Hanger who wanted to see what happened, until a dispute arose between Ana Conda and Ann Ticipation, who’d both been vying for the attention of Billy Goat.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, Terry Dactyl was in a dispute with Billy Club over Lilly White because of something Miss Conception had reported after hearing from that duo, Caesar Salad and Reuben Sandwich.

Junior Mints tried to mollify the situation with sugary statements, but was interrupted by Yuri Nal, who said he had to go, and then left with Jay Walking and they were off to congregate with Diane Tomeetya.

At the next table General Jive held court in a warlike mood,  that Cary Cature tried to lighten.  With them were Tex Arcana, whose accent was amusing to Bill Collector, Al Gorythm, Tim Buktu and Marv E. Lous, who always had a great time wherever he went.

By then, Bobby Pin, the luscious seamstress, had given up on Peter D. Out, after seeing him clowning around with Butch Wax and Slim N. None, all of them malcontents and disrupters.

In walked Daisy Chain, newly arrived  from the Southern Hemisphere, along with Sydney Australia. Klaus Trophobic had initially agreed to travel with the two of them, but said he had to stay at home. Frank O’Phile overhead this and confided to Phil O’Sophically that there is sometimes merit to such position.

The restaurant was owned by Ty ****, managed by Chuck Wagon, with the food delivered by waiters Clay *** and Terry Aki , assisted by busboyTara Misou.

The next morning, everyone gathered at the home of Dawn Patrol, who was there with her new husband, Earnest Money, after divorcing Perry Mutual. Deb Enture was her maid of honor.  Nick O’Time was nearly late to the party, driving in with Stu Debaker, via a shaky Uber driver named Manuel Shifting.

Al Acrity was his usual sunny self, but not when Den O’Thieves interrupted his conversation, which was shut down by Kay O.

Sherman Oaks and Van Nuys were late, having gotten mixed up on the location. Cliff Hanger was worried about the falling stock market, and as a result was getting drunk with Jack Daniels. Stan Dup was his usually assertive self, but was overshadowed by the always munificent Cy Pres.

Claude Hopper was dressed in yesterdays’ styles, but that didn’t matter to Dov Tail who  was going into business with Matt Chabox, known for his incendiary personality. They had two other partners to round the group out, **** Ular and Ben E. Fit.

Gar Gantuan loomed large, and was unstable when paired with Mo Mentum, who said in such situations, they needed to involve Otto Matic.

Terry Cloth was wrapped around Jan U. Ary, ogled by Barbie Queue and Coleman Lantern.
1748

The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan—
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.

If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her
Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?

Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every babbler be
The only secret people keep
Is Immortality.
Valsa George May 2016
Unexpected…..
So unexpected was the meeting
It was in the dim candle light
of a city restaurant that I saw her
How time had etched its marks on her
The long dark curly hair
has turned all white
The even set of pearly teeth
now discolored with missing gaps.
A weeping willow with gnarled branches!

Did she recognize me?
Her searching eyes registered
a limp awareness
Soon I saw her cataract eyes shining
in unclouded recognition!

My memory like the arm of a crane
lowered to plough up the hard crust of the past
and rose with heaps of broken rubble
I nosedived into the past
to the little village
where, as children we ran round
the long necked shady trees
until our little heads went dizzy

Stealing behind the tall grass
how I would suddenly yell out;
‘The thief is in hide
Come and track me if you can’
forcing on her an arduous search,
all the while giggling at her vain efforts!

How we ran after the ripe mangoes
that fell in ones and twos
when the winds shook the fruit laden boughs
and how we quarreled over the yellow ones
like mongrels over a piece of bone

I remember once when the drizzle
suddenly strengthened into a heavy down pour
with thunder and lightning accompanying,
how we ran dripping and frightened
seeking shelter in the empty cow shed
at the backyard of a house,
clasping tight to each other!
She was then a little girl
with springing feet and dancing steps
naïve and naughty with all mouth and ears

But as time skipped by
she kept a safe distance
No more I saw the former ebullience in her
In its place, a quiet reserve settled in
The chatterbox no more opened her mouth
To my questions, her answers were mono syllables
My efforts to walk by her side
always ended in futility
either she would quicken her gait
or lag behind at snail’s pace
Seeing me somewhere
she would walk away with eyes down cast
But I always noticed a faint smile
lingering on her curved narrow lips

Around it, I built my dream castle
where she reigned as my dazzling queen!
I am not sure how it was with her
One day even without an abrupt goodbye
I had to leave my hometown to an alien soil.

For long, she came, sailing in my dreams!

After a couple of years when I returned
to the land of my childhood
the mute witness to my unuttered passion
I knew from a close friend
that she was forced into a marriage
much to her consternation!
She is reported to have confided to someone
that she hoped the ‘thief who stole her heart
would one day, come out of hiding’

We met again
We heard each other’s cracked voice
and stood unable to recollect all

Much water had flown down
under the bridge
And we floated in the rush of currents!
This poem has to be understood in the light of the highly orthodox milieu of an Indian village of the time between 1960's and 70's when no computer or internet facility was available. There was a lot of segregation between the sexes and no free mingling was allowed. So there was no open expression of love. In a society where arranged marriage was preferred, even falling in love before marriage was seen as a taboo !
I speak to the trees about my qualms; knowing they will keep them rooted and hidden from the world above.

I cry with the rain about my dysphoria; so that it's curved drops might cleanse me and wash away any anguish.

I whisper to the burning fire about my desires; so that they may ignite and transform into something unquenchable.

I confide in the wind about my loneliness; so that it might blow someone onto  my path so that I would be given a reply to all the things the trees, rain, fire, and wind have heard but could never give me an answer.
Daniel Tabone Feb 2015
You were razed,
To hate my kind,
You broke the prejudice,
You’re not blind;

You don’t trust me,
And I get it,
You barely know me,
Or just a bit;

You confided in me,
You know I’m here,
For anything you need,
For anything you fear;

I’ll get to the inner circle,
One way or another,
I’m patient like that,
I feel like a brother;
Eliot York Jun 2017
that i've been reading your poetry
(on the new front page)
and,

I ******* love
your words; your worlds;
it's like i'm,
    there. right there,
with you.

you see, i didn't do what you do--
         write my story aloud
--when i was fifteen, or even twenty-two

just an inch off the ground
                        i confided in clouds
stayed lost (was a puff too proud)

that was then, sure, but even today
   (it's 11:11, now)
putting any of it down
committing to this word, not that
this sentiment,
      not that
this meaning
       (and not simultaneously that)
              is walking through fire

and so, for leading the way
           let me just say,
                       i love you

and please,
don't ever stop.
Prelude  PART I


"Today when the threat is looming, as close apocalyptic years approach, it will be by cohabiting itself and the ruining valley of debris, which will make this world corrupted the next issue of the numeral scale of the new count, a rising hyperspace , concerning the parts of the kingdom of God ... "

Then on the Lord's day, John saw the glory of the risen Christ, and she understood from the point of view of God, he saw that the fate of the Church and threatened in the first persecutions took the appearance of a dark beginning.
And the time John wrote the Evangelist, including books were Jews called Revelation, that is, "Revelations". With fantastic images of monsters, angels and cataclysms, evidence of the Jewish people are stressed and are invited to await the judgment of God who intervenes from heaven with all his power.  So my beloved world is harsh and does not represent an apocalypse, but it is the true reality is when I will bear its overwhelming slaughter.

" Today when I walked with my winged feet near my friend Victor, I confided down the road crushed by afflictive legs; how difficult the taste of laughter when the decadent surrounds you, the human, the vile, the loose ...
Even though the celestial charisma invoke his memory and help nourish the weakness of Robert in hyperspace, with clean clothes, I can see his beloved mother consumed as automaton can take care of him. She is also her father, because it carries rooted in its members and manners, infinitely sharp look; in their arms they will gather wherever his soul is under his patronage that lives there ..."
I am  who  say that Roberto is a dog, who bears all the faces of dogs humble and serene. Perhaps tired of hearing young people, it is flush adults who do not accept, and who do not share as young faces were watching them, getting them to receive them what they should disclose them.
This is how we are numbed and distraction is fleeting, and he looking aside in his astrayed, he would be saying ...:
"Among the cradle and the grave I have a feeble scaffolding, and then complains, though his other I demolishes; unsconcient defends his executioner ... that the threat of death is its widespread depravity, which dominates it and want to go on like mortifiying.

      I want to talk about life ..., he said in his short years of life, which is more of it; possibly coming to complex, what our Somatic territory responds in normal or involuntarily. Comparative anatomy, and its innermost portion, the link body and mind, as a pure white as Samadhis and nature.
Homeostatic factors regulating our vitality, making its experimental modification, increasing to evolution, or maturation as a criterion of personal psychology go with the passage of time into in the depths of our mind.
Thus in a known threshold of Vedic architecture, its sensitivity is excited by regulating the effectiveness of the response to be made ... and everything related to the world of Ludwig Garroch; brother Robert in his strange Emigrate.
Yesterday when my arms away from hers, my fingers pounding away and recording what the heart more than a song, was a symphony sonata with a single end, long and sustained movement; It was the adage inner melancholy with an eye romanticism, which dominates the
passions of the visible world, which inhabits Antonieta, causing me, unbalanced living.


                                       CHAPTER I


In the beginning years of his childhood, little Ludwig sitting at home, in the gallery. Ask her aunt who was ironing ... Madelain, how I would always be a child of five ...?, And being as such, a privileged to receive toys for many years. Attentive aunt, maybe go to hear with little complacency as his hands only want unroll clothes.
After two years at the age of seven, when her aunt arranging his coat to go to Mass, she teaches a carol that had been taught in childhood. When many wondered whether there is a Santa Claus ...?, And among his friends they looked to unravel the mystery. One year later, when he enjoyed his unicycle, who just dominated him, called him a cousin telling her it was her birthday. He did not hesitate to go to find out what was behind the call, so he found the means by which we celebrate, we live and cooperate towards happiness and delight to have us at each other.
Not long after a friend told him .. "You do not have ten years are too big And Ludwig thought he was well endowed and well stopped, so not your friend was wrong in the above. It is my label and my stance has put the world on me.
Every passing day came the stamp of manly character, a woman or girl who made change her hairstyle, and he did dress more attractive every day.
Later, in his teens, his gaze was well received and their voices radiated security screening. Where He must continue the line of men. Even when I was living as smoothly, looks out strong destination with which calls us to live with skin clean or *****, because it is inside the feeling and the pain does not come out, it is enclosed by the overflowing affection. Here is the portion of good or evil haunting things casual and destroys the healthy, it fertile.

                                        
              ­                           CHAPTER II


Then was a year with a sports compensate pleasant summer sated outdoors, almost fugitive ... will not wonder that life smiled on him serfdom, and very willing opened his prudence.
Every time I decided to go to his favorite places, he went with his burly comrades in the best mood to conquer optimistically. Thus, no wonder he wanted when he was alone and put your reasoning judiciously, because nothing is distant, nothing is impossible.

After unite desires and forces, to clean your bike, piece by piece, in full sun know much security would not allow the mother of vices ruin their fun, that scarce alive to possess the desire to move and go on compliance instinct. Casts on itself, the vigor of the inner, its desolate world full of free enthusiasms who obey no doubt the vital complex activity.
Ludwig and entering the maelstrom of men love hate Godson, you can glimpse the friction with the air, with people ... I wore. That their voices heard their soul contracts, and thus puts light feet towards an acceleration which does not afflict his troubled stomach, nor regret his decision and put fearful, but, bring himself retained encouragement of his mind to remember the maternal cooing, comfort and timely relief to protect forever the suffering, the suffering of torment without end, not he shut the inspiration of the good man that no harm will result, and not for nothing the valence of living and not quarrel prancing. No existing could shed some light on what role, and that little thought is not complicated, and thus shown kneeling and unable to distressing oppressors and agents tangled conduct to chaos, those characters of ambition and discrimination.
Ludwig, who lives in the Ecologist City, where large forest ... budded, is home jungle floral site, whose relations are flowers, trees ..., next to Strange birds migrate flower in her intra nature reproduced, and pods evacuated by butterflies.
His close friend, is the watery and salty sea, which is beloved because he falls in love, puts on alert and curses him by his surroundings and invoking him. Anyway, it dwells wherever it is, and is accepted as a basic element of the universe.

                                    
                                         CHAPTER III

The act of tender love would be fulfilled later ..., what his voice fell silent and had his eyes and heart fortify, which will be linked from far inside.
At night, with Roderick going to a festive night, they climbed the rungs center alone, with heat in his shirt skin later. And in a deliberate action, someone asks you a sign that taking care tired and distinguishing see that John was his friend, school mate. He did not hesitate, he approached, greeted him and his sister and a cousin when she noticed well, he saw that he wore perfect for your night.
Debra wore elegant, dark clothes and sang with her dark brown wavy hair; his white brunette and harmonious ****** complexion line, gave her constant reflection. Fate was present, as it would not go around the world to be looked at by someone, he would watch his choice. Little was said, he only realized he was not passing and North America came eleven years ago.


They roasted the hours and the party ended, Ludwig remained with her new friend and his old friend John. They went downstairs, thinking about committing his new friendship, as I had noticed a slight interest in it. This happened and the meeting lasted for several hours.
The next day, he went to see her lawns roads where she lived, always with its mystique and kneeling the beast that wanted to impose upon him, that gives it excessive materialism unloved peace.
She arrives at her house, which was to John, though not very comfortable, but sure to please and attentive to host it.
And that night said much that was the tender feeling and liking her, but as his policy was rigid and concerning celibacy, only mattered to him, the unknown world of madness in his brawling to survive.
Time passed and deepened love, Ludwig went to say goodbye to his beloved, especially that he had faith, but that day would betray him. And so I wanted to put his heart and iron sleep peacefully, but Debra no secret  to tell ...:

"Ludwig, do not abandon our own, we must have faith, and I understand what it is. Ludwig rested and then brought her hands to her, hugged her and kissed all over her face, covering her eyebrows, nose, forehead, mouth; his lips positions in the middle of it, wanted to feel her warmth and tell her he loved her and would miss a lot of pain. But there was no show weakness, he must be strong and not to complicate the farewell from North America. Mourn scared him, because he had forged the feeling, because his aching grief was deep and it was at an undetermined point, with great desire to hold her and kiss over his face.
So ever, it was unbearable, she would like to die in his memory and had to remember in the collective thinking of his family circle. Which it fits the feel shivers ideas with sensations, such as the best in its inherent upstart point.

It was hard, as if more than man Ludwig out the feminine side of himself. But irremediable was the end, eager poisonous reaper approached. Ludwig hugged her, kissed her and stroked her right breast ... saying: "Do not forget me ..." and so left. Then he wrote her, that madness had transformed her away, but the distance was prevented against carcinoma being all postponed.
To know he could not boil your blood heavy thinking, they were contracted muscles. When he relaxed, he saw back through the hatch of his head, the soul that was in an ****** tragic holocaust, where Eros tenaciously and rebellion dictated its laws. Ludwig slept, and consciousness became natural color, as if it were safer, eternally fresh and manufactured this dream a poem ...:  

" That one corresponding to the celebration,
I wish to reunite with enthusiasm and strength ...
touching eyes closed
the sad sky, the dry ground, dried flowers
and people backward habits.

As meaning if it takes itself ...,
is the meaning
although they are scattered
in flows oppressions ...
the animosity of delight just widow and desultory,
losses and more losses at the time of aging ...
and profits to appease others.

For more like,
there seems to be a big drop ...
the same credibility ...?
and setting as a feeling
remain imagination stationary.

As hard it corresponds to the body,
It is destroyed inside ...
and hardened thoughts
tears falling to the esophagus,
without recognizing either way.

Who the pace of living is customizable,
and no opportunity is lost ...
but growing and creative
rears its profile,
as an unforgiven mirage. "


    Have been and unrestless forms of peremptory perceive, and when it starts to wander in my solitude, transporting my sorrow with grief, wherever I go I will take silent and vivifying separation completes the probable brain, which lives and endures in avidity stamped man with his need to want the Lord's command that made me forge this creation .--- he told himself, as a witness epilogue of his poem, albeit as the cry to its essence it was about. Originally from the Ecologist City, where reigned the wise and calm, where he healed their diseases, which has dodged the putrefaction of their wounds, where you inhale the aroms most want and cordoned off its without a grave lack of soft and flowering odour.
To believe missing, do not be afraid and trust that will grab everything, that not a drop of air was not lost on her fingers, which will not fail to display their imaginative stuff Alma Mater.
With all their eating, you want to cure your bad like venereum, and would go into the hands of a counselor or a warlock who extirpated the curse. Heal her feet and hands to despair, to heal the memory of his thought that I seasoned and voluptuous breaks the veins of his caleter, which seems not of it like a dwarf be provided with a dagger will break their venal, and this to commit such surgery, he laughs loudly with garnets eyes, full of the worst evil.

And this way Ludwig Garroch, vague without fear of rags, without fear of hunger or the messiness, only idles so that someday I can walk on the water surface, leaving their hydrocentric footprints where plankton reverence their sense of pain, his infarcted heart , her long fingernails of violence.


TO  BE CONTINUED….
Under edition,  then under All...
JB Oct 2018
You shouldn't have told me the truth
Because now I know
How you feel about him
I shouldn't have listened
Or questioned

I wanted to hear
"Yeah I don't really think about him like that anymore"
"I was never into her, my mind was all about you"

I wish that I could take it all back before you said 'I love you'
Before I spoke
Before you both confided in me about how you felt
Not about me
But each other

So here my heart lays
Shattered
Cold
And still

Me scraching at my thoat,
Wishing I never spoke
Matt Sep 2014
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
Blake Sep 2018
And I'll try to delay what you make of my life
But I don't want your way,
I want mine

I’m lying, I’m so very far from fine

I don’t believe, in talking just to breathe

I’m here to give you words as tools that can destroy my heart

He thinks that faith might be dead
Nothing kills a man faster than his own head

*** nobody knows he’s alive

I want to crack the door so I can just fall out

I begin to understand why god died

And I want everyone to know that I am half a soul divided

Don’t be afraid. We’re going home.

We had to steal him from his fate so he could see another day

Am I alive and well or am I dreaming dead?

Where all your blood is washed away and all you did will be undone

We pick songs to sing remind us of things that nobody cares about and honestly we’re probably more suicidal than ever now

If we wake up every morning and decide what we believe we can take apart our very heart and the light will set us free

Please don’t be afraid of what your soul is really thinking

It’s time you pick your battle, and I promise you this is mine.

I know what you think in the morning when the sun shines on the ground

But there’s hope out the window, so that’s where we’ll go, let’s go outside and all join hands but until then you’ll never understand

Simply suggest my chest in this confused music it’s obviously best for them to turn their guns to a fist.

I’m taking over my body back in control no more shorty

I fought it a lot and it seems a lot like flesh is all I got not anymore

You should take my life, you should take my soul

You are surrounding all my surroundings

Fight it. Take the pain ignite it tie a noose around your mind loose enough to breathe fine and tie it to a tree tell it “you belong to me this ain’t a noose this is a leash and I have news for you, you must obey me”

It ain’t the speakers that bump hearts, it’s our hearts that make the beat.

I’m pleading please oh please, on my knees repeatedly asking why it’s got to be like this, is this living free?

Some see a pen I see a harpoon.

I’ll stay awake, *** the dark’s not taking prisoners tonight

I don’t hear those voices calling, I must’ve kicked them out

Why won’t you let me go? Do I threaten all your plans I’m insignificant

I’m afraid to tell you who I adore, won’t tell you who I’m singing towards

I know it’s dire my time today

Somebody stole my car radio and now I just sit in silence

Sometimes quiet is violent
I find it hard to hide it my pride is no longer inside it’s on my sleeve my skin will scream

There’s no hiding for me I’m forced to deal with what I feel there is no distraction to mask what is real

This time there’s no sound to hide behind

I find over the course of our human existence one thing consists of consistence and it’s that we’re all battling fear oh dear I don’t know if we know why we’re here oh my too deep please stop thinking

Peace will win and fear will lose

There’s faith and there’s sleep we need to pick one please because faith is to be awake and to be awake is for us to think and for us to think is to be alive and I will try with every rhyme to come across like I am dying to let you know you need to try to think.

I don’t wanna be heard, I wanna be listened to.

I scream you scream we all scream *** we’re terrified of what’s around the corner.

My brain has given up, white flags are hoisted

The stomach in my brain throws up onto the page

I don’t understand why everything I adore takes a different form when I squint my eyes have you ever done that when you squint your eyes and your eyelashes make it look a little bit right and then when just enough light comes from just the right side and you find you’re not who you’re supposed to be?
This is not what you’re supposed to see, please, remember me I am supposed to be king of kingdom, swinging on a swing, something happened in my imagination the situations becoming dire, my treehouse is on fire, and for some reason I smell gas on my hands. This is not what I had planned.

We’ll be on fire

We have romantic fantasies about what dying truly is

We all know somebody who knows somebody who’s doing great, I know some people who know people who are flying straight, but I’ll kindly enter into rooms of depression, while ceiling fans and idle hands will take my life again.

But I would rather sing a song, for the eyes to sing along

I’m holding onto what I know and what I know I must let go

Redemption’s not that far and darkness is going down.

Nobody thinks what I think, nobody dreams when they blink, think things on the brink of blasphemy I’m my own shrink think things are after me, my catastrophe.

Are you searching for purpose? Then write something and it might be worthless, paint something yeah it might be wordless pointless curses nonsense verses you’ll see purpose start to surface, no one else is dealing with your demons meaning maybe defeating them could be the beginning of your meaning friend.

They will play a game and say they know what you’re doing through and I tried to come up with an artistic way to say they don’t know you and neither do I

I hear a second voice behind your tongue somehow

They will not take you down they will not cast you out

Dear friends here we are again pretending to understand how you think your world is ending sendin signals and red flags in waves it’s hard to tell the difference between blood and water these days
I pray that one day you see
The only difference between life and dying
Is one is trying that’s all we’re gonna do so try to love me and I’ll try to save you

Won’t you stay alive I’ll take you on a ride, I will make you believe you are lovely

Your redemption won’t grow stale, we are now just setting sail, on the seas of what we fear, treason now is growing near to me, I’m coming clean, god hit me straight on.

I know, where you stand, silent in the trees
And that’s where I am

Why won’t you speak, where I happen to Be? Silent in the trees standing cowardly
I can feel your breath, I can feel my death.
I want to know you, I want to see, I want to say, hello

I don’t believe my ears and I’m scared of my own head.

Clearly I am dying, dearly I am writing

I’m lying cause I say I am fine

I’m so sorry but I do believe that all my bridges I have burned and I’ve earned a policy of no return

Today, day, I want to go away, way

I put my sock on my feet, just so that my soul would fall through my toes, And I walk through my door, just so I don’t fall through the floor.

So bold and fearless in the risks we take, laugh in the face of gravity as it’s laws we’d break, on trampolines so high, we reach for the sky, but I do not look up anymore and I don’t know why.

I take my face off at the door because I don’t know who they will take me for

I’m the son of all I’ve done

When we’re done we’ll all have made something new under the sun

“Where’s your home? Where are you going and why are you here?”

I will tell you what I can, but your mind will take a stand, I sing of a greater love, let me know when you’ve had enough.

When your father turns to stone will you take care of me?
I will make you queen of everything you see, I’ll put you on the map, I’ll cure you of disease.
Let’s say we up and left this town and turned our future upside down, we’ll make pretend that you and me, lived ever after happily.

Since we know that dreams are dead, and life turns plans up on their head, I will plan to be a *** so I just might become someone.

Taking my only, friend I know. He leaves a lot. His name is Hope.

I’m never what I like, I’m double sided

*** I’m twisted up, I’m twisted up, inside my mind

When the sun is climbing window sills, and the silver lining rides the hills, I will be safe, for one whole day, until the sun makes the hills it’s grave.

By the time the nights wears off, the dust is down, and shadows burn, I will rise and stand my ground, waiting for, the nights return.

I do not know why I would go in front of you na shied my soul, *** you’re the only one who knows it

I don’t know why I think I could lie, *** there’s a screen on my chest

I’m standing in front of you I’m trying to be so cool, everything together trying to be so cool.

I can’t see past my own nose I’m seeing everything in slow-mo look out below crashing down to the ground

A train from the sky locomotive my motives are insane
My flows not great okay, I conversation with people who know if I flow on a song I’ll get no radio play.
While you’re doing fine, there’s some people and I, who have a really tough time getting through this life so excuse us while we sing to the sky.

We’re broken people

I can’t take them on my own, my own, pa, I’m not the one you know, you know

Don’t wanna give you all my demons, you’ll have to watch me struggle, from several rooms away. But tonight, I need you to stay.

I am up against the wall, the wall, pa, I hear them coming down, the hall.

I want to drive away in the night, headlights call my name.
I’ll never be, be what you see inside, you say I’m not alone but I am petrified.

Is close the closest star? You just feel twice as far.

I’m so afraid, of what you have to say, cause I am quiet now, and silence gives you space

And the wrists of my mind had the bleeding lines that remind me of all the times I have committed

What kids are doing they’re killing themselves, they feel they have no control of their prisoner cells, and if you’re one of them then you’re one of me

Now the night is coming to an end

The sun will rise and we will try again

Stay alive, stay alive, for me.
You will die, but now your life is free take pride in what is sure to die.

I will fear the night again.

I hope I’m not my only friend.

There’s an infestation in my minds imagination

This not rap this is not hip hop, just another attempt to make the voices stop

This doesn’t mean I lost my dream it’s just right now I got a really crazy mind to clean.

Can you save my heavydirtysoul, for me?

If I didn’t know better I’d guess you’re all already dead

You’ve got one time to figure it out, one time to twist and one time to shout, one time to think and I say we start now

Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit

I wish I found some better sounds no ones ever heard, I wish I had a better voice to sing some better words, I wish I found some chords in an order that is new, I wish I didn’t have to rhyme every time I sang

Now I’m insecure, and I care what people think.

Sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when I was young, how come I’m never able to identify where it’s coming from?

It would remind us of when nothing really mattered out of student loans and treehouse homes we all would take the ladder.

We used to play pretend give eachother different names

Used to dream of outer space but now they’re laughing at our face saying wake up you need to make money

I wanna stay in the sun where I find, I know it’s hard sometimes

I think about the end just way too much, but it’s fun to fantasize

I won’t fall in love with falling

I’d die for you that’s easy to say we have a list of people that we would take a bullet for them a bullet for you

Metaphorically I’m the man but literally I don’t know what I’d do, that’s harder to do even harder to say when you know it’s not true and it’s harder to write when you know that tonight there were people back home that tried talking to you

All these questions they’re for real like who would you live for who would you die for and would you ever ****?

I’ve been thinking too much, help me

I’m fairly local, ive been around, ive seen the streets you’re walking down

I’m evil to the core, what I shouldn’t do I will, they say I’m emotional, what I wanna save I’ll ****. Is that who I truly am? I truly don’t have a chance. Tomorrow I keep a beat. And repeat yesterday’s dance

I’m not evil to the core, what I shouldn’t do I will fight. I know I’m emotional, what I wanna save I will try. I know who I truly am. I truly do have a chance. Tomorrow I’ll switch the beat, to avoid yesterday’s dance

It’s the few the proud and the emotional

The world around us is burning but we’re so cold

Our minds change on what we think is good, I wasn’t raised in the hood, but I know a thing or two about pain, and darkness, if wasn’t for the music I don’t know how I would’ve fought this.

I’m in constant confrontation with what I want and what is poppin in the industry it seems to me that singles on the radio are currency my creativities only free when I’m playing shows.

Who would you live and die for on that list but the problem is there’s another list that exists and none really wants to think about this forget sanity, forget salary, forget vanity my morality, if you get in between someone I love and me, you’re gonna feel the heat of my calvary

He cranked out those dismal chords, and his four walls declared him insane.

I found my way right time wrong place

I know my souls freezing hells hot for good reason

But I’m not good with directions and I hide behind my mouth, I’m a pro at imperfections and I’m best friends with my doubt.
Now that minds out and now I hear clear and loud I’m thinking wow I probably should’ve stayed inside my house

I don’t know if this song is a surrender or a revel. I don’t know if this one is about me or the devil.

Help me out, my friends and I we got a lotta problems

Wanted to be a better brother better son wanted to be a better advisory to the evil I have done I have none to show to the one I love

Polarize is taking your disguises sepersting then splitting them up from wrong and right, is deciding when to die and deciding when to fight

I don’t know where you are, you’ll have to come and find me

We have all learned to **** our dreams

I need to know that when I fail you’ll still be here. *** if you stick around I’ll sing you pretty sounds and well make money selling your hair

I don’t care what’s in your hair I just wanna know what’s on your mind.
I used to say I wanna die before I’m old but because if you I might think twice.

What if my dream does not happen. Would I just change what I’ve told my friend. Don’t want to know who I would be. When I wake from a dreamers sleep

Scared of my own image. Scared of my own immaturity

Fear might be the death of me. Fear leads to anxiety. Don’t know what’s inside of me.

Even when I doubt you, I’m no good without you.

Temperature is dropping, I’m not sure if I can see this ever stopping. Shaking hands with the dark parts of my thought no, you ar wall that I’ve got no.

I want the markings made on my skin, to mean something to me again.

Hope you haven’t left without me, please

Who I am today is worse than other times. You don’t know what I’ve done.

Why I’m in denial that they tried the suicidal session. Please use discretion when you’re messing with the message man, these lyrics aren’t for everyone only few understand.

Hope you’re dead *** how could you sleep at a time like this

I’m the kinda guy who takes every moment he knows he confided in
Music to use for others to use it

Life is up here but you comment below And the comments below will become
Common motivation to promote
Your shows next episode
So your brain know to keep going
Even though hope
Is far from this moment but you and I know it gets better when mornin finally reads it’s head, together we’re losers remember the future remember the mornin is when night is dead.

My people singing

Be the one to take my soul and make it undone

Be the one to take me home and show me the sun

Where we’re from, there’s no sun, our hometowns in the dark
Where we’re from, we’re no one, our hometowns in the dark.

We don’t know, how to put back the power in our soul

We don’t know, where to find, what once was in our bones.

I look outside and see a whole world better off without me in it trying to transform it.

Listen I know, this ones a contradiction because of how happy it sounds. But the lyrics are so down.
It’s ok though, because it represents Wait better yet it is, who I feel I am right now.

I’m a goner, somebody catch my breath

I wanna be known, by you.

Though I’m weak, and beaten down. I’ll slip away, into this sound.
The ghost of you is close to me.
I’m inside out, you’re underneath.

I’ve got two faces, blurry’s the one I’m not

I need your help to take him out

Don’t let me be gone.

I can’t believe how much I hate.
Pressures of a new place roll my way.

Spirits in my room, friend or foe?
Felt it in my youth feel it when I’m old

I’ll be right there, but you’ll have to grab my throat and life me in the air. If you need anyone
I’ll stop my plans, but you’ll have to tie me down and then break both my hands.

You can learn to levitate with just a little help

Cowards only come through when the hours late and everyone’s asleep mind you

My heart is with you hiding but my minds not made

No we are not just graffiti on a passing train I got back what I once bought back in that slot I won’t need to replace

Sever all I thought I could depend on my weekends on the freezing ground that I’m sleeping on please keep me from please keep me down from the ledges

At least they all know all they hear comes from a place.

When everyone, you thought you know, deserts your fight, I’ll go with you
You’re facing down, a dark hall, I’ll grab my light and go with you

Surrounded and  up against a wall, I’ll shred em all. And go with you
When choices end, you must defend, I’ll grab a bat, and go with you

Stay with me, no you don’t need to run, stay with me, my blood.

They’re callin for your head and they’re callin for your name, I’ll bomb down on em I’m comin through

Just keep it outside

If you find yourself, in a lions den, I’ll jump right in, and pull my pin.

East is up, I’m fearless when I hear this on the low
Easy is up, I’m careless when I wear my rebel clothes

They will know that, Dema don’t control us

They wanna make you forget

Save your razor blades now, not yet

I’m flying from a fire, from Nico and the Niners.

What I say when I wanna be enough what a beautiful day for making a break for it, we’ll find a way to pay for it, maybe from all the money we made razor blade stores, rent a race horse, and force a sponsor, and start a concert a complete diversion, start a mob and you can be quite certain we’ll win but not everyone will get out.

Can’t stop thinking about if and when I die for now I see that if and when are trike different cries for If is purely panic and when is solemn sorrow and one invade today while the other spies tomorrow

If I keep moving they won’t know I’ll morph to someone else

I’m just a ghost

Defence mechanism mode

What are we here for if not to run straight through all our tormentors

Anybody listening?

This beat is a chemical

Lovin what I’m tasting
Venom on my tongue
Dependant at times
Poisonous vibrations

I’m running for my life

Hide you in my coat pocket

Felt I was invincible you wrapped around my head now different lives I lead my body lives on lead the last two lines may read incorrect until said

I despise you sometimes I love to hate the fight and you in much life is like sippin on straight chlorine

Grows while I decay

Can you build my house with pieces I’m just a chemical

My interior world needs to sanitize
I’ve got to step through or I’ll dissipate
I’ll record my step through for my basement tapes

Nice to my kind will be on my side

And you know you’re a terrible sight but you’ll Be just fine

Your exterior world can step off instead
It might take some friends and a warmer shirt but you don’t get thick skin without getting burnt

No I don’t know which way I’m going
But I can hear my way around

I never look for conflict for the thrill

For you I would get beat to smithereens

And my problem? We glorify those even more when they

My opinion our culture could treat a loss like it’s a win and right before we turn on them we give them the highest of praise and hang their banner from the ceiling communicating further ingravjng and earlier grace is an optional way. No.

What’s my problem don’t get it twisted it’s with the people we praise who may have assisted

I could go out with a band they would know my name they would host and post a celebration . My opinion will not be lenient

We don’t get enough love well they get a fraction they say how could he go if he’s got everything I’ll mourn for a kid but won’t cry for a king.

Neon gravestones try to call for my bones

Promise me this. If I lose to myself you won’t mourn a day and you’ll move on to someone else

But they won’t get them

Don’t get me wrong the rise in awareness is beating a stigma that no longer scares us but for sake of discussion in spirit of fairness could we give this some room for a new point of view and could it be true that some could be tempted to use this mistake as a form of aggression a form of succession a form of a weapon thinking I’ll teach them well in refusing the lesson it won’t resonate in our minds I’m not disrespecting what was left behind just pleading that it does not get glorified maybe we swap out what’s it is that we hold so high. Find your grandparents or someone of age. Pay some respects for the other that they paved to life they were dedicated now that should be celebrated.

I could take the high road but I know that I’m going low

I’m a bandito

This is the sound we make when in between two places where we used to bleed and where our blood needs to be

In city I feel my spirit is contained like neon inside the glass they form my brain but I recently discovered it’s a heartless fire like nicknames they give themselves to uninspire begin with bullet now add fire to the proof but I’m still not sure if fears a rival or close relative to truth either way it helps to hear these words bounce off of you the softest school could be enough for me to make it through

I created this world to feel some control destroy it if I want so I sing Sahlo Folina

I can feel pressure start to posses my mind so I’ll take this beat I should delete to exercise

No I move slow I wanna stop time I’ll sit here til I find the problem

This clique means so much to this dude it could make him afraid of his music and be scared to death he could lose it

You were one of those classic ones
Traveling around this sun

I wish she knew you

You were here when I write this but the masters and mixes will take to long to finish to show you I’m sorry I did not visit did not know how to take it when your eyes did not know me like I know you

Then the day that it happened I recorded this last bit I look forward to having a lunch with you again

I’m tired of tending to this fire

Embers barely showing proof of life in the shadows dancing on my plans

They know that it’s  almost over

The burning is so low it’s concerning *** they know that when it goes out it’s a glorious gone
It’s only time before they show me why no one ever comes back with details from beyond

In time I will leave the city for now I will stay alive

Last year I needed change of pace
Couldn’t take the pace of change
Moving hastily
But this year
Though I’m far from home
In trench inches not alone
These faces facing me
They know what I mean.
I made this more for me than anyone else. It’s a really fricken long piece. They saved me tho so I do not care. K bye.
Ayaba Babe Dec 2012
Your eyes.
I can't stop writing about them.
I can't stop dreaming about them gleaming like sunlight beaming into the windows of my soul.
And I've been meaning to tell you-
Heighten the blinds.
I can't stop fiending to be the reflection in your infliction
The mirroring of eyes, my line of sight in your line of vision
Our pupils don't just collide, they cause a collision
And uh,
The precision of your gaze fogs all coherency to a haze
And it's seeming
There's a thousand words teeming off the levees of my lips
But you got me in a daze and the waves crash silent
See inside I'm screaming
They say the flames radiated from desire are the fires most violent
And I feel your vibes like radiation;
Hazardous to both mind and body.
Detrimental to the soul.
I believe in whole this is not an illusion
They say the eyes never hide from the truth
-and the truth never lies-
See, I've already eyed your eyes
I'm not convinced this is confusion
I've come to the conclusion that
If I confided in you,
Could you agree it's a delusion
You've been opening the window;
You want to be
Inside.
Jordan Farelli Oct 2012
You came to me many times
In distress and in shambles
I held you close and gave comfort
I let you sadly ramble

I was there for you
In loneliness, grief, and success
You were there for me as well
When life gave me the hardest test

But what I could not see
You hid behind a veil
It distorted what I saw
It corrupted that which I felt

This veil of sorts
I would call it a mask
Allowed you to take things from me
As you creaked in from the back

You snuck up behind me
You defiled what I confided
It wasn't my friendship you were after
It was the one that betrayed me in which you were guided

This mask it so blocked
That which I could not see
Your eyes of deceit
And your face as it gleamed

For the one that was not
For the one that was coarse
It gleamed for the one
That one to whom you showed remorse

Of all the time we spent
Bonding and growing
It is with her now
Her now with which you are moaning

In the bed which her and I shared
Many a heated and passionate night
To where my unmentionables were stored
In her body so tight

Live your life with one eye
As it looks out far and beyond
For it is I that will be creaking
Creaking up behind you one morn.
A big clock stood tall in the center of a park
With long hands and wood that was carved with much care
The carvings so detailed yet adding a spark
To the trees that surrounded it's great wood frame there

I noticed and awed at the effort at work
For it's hands seemed to reach out to the skies as they search
And i noticed that the hands were all lined in thick gold
The beauty mesmerizing although it was old

As i came up closer to view the great clock
I noticed a problem which came as a shock
The hands were not moving as they lay still and bear
What a shame as this clock was a beauty standing there

But when i looked down to the base of the clock
I could see a gold glimmer as if writing were there
So with curiosity springing in me i immediately flocked
To it's base were i then read aloud with much flair

"Time is but a moment in the span of a life
And a second only the beginning of a minutes ending strike
And forever only the equal to an eternity's one night
So with care every second use wisely for might
As a second is as precious as a minute of time"

As i read out the words more than once in my mind,
And still trying to grasp what intentions did write
A footstep so faint yet my ears could not lie
Approaching me softly ever slowly behind

And turning around an old man met my eye
A man full of years many a season he did mark
His hair white as snow and his face worn and dry
A worried and troubled reflection from his empty glassy eyes

He then said "The big clock's tick
Many a day i privileged saw
The chime of that bell thick
When a child i would awe
Those days were my young years
My body then strong
A lad who with honest fear
Was taught right and the wrong

My parents had raised me
As best as they could
Love, respect and show kindness
Were the things that were good

Back then i despised men who i'd see in our town
How they ruined their lives so freely
It made me shiver, made me frown

I would then tell myself
That i'd never drink or smoke
Vices would not be on my shelf
That my life was no joke

The years went by and i was eighteen
A boy fresh out of school
The excitement of college awaiting
Freedom from home seemed so cool

So i packed my bags and clothes
And bade my parents goodbye
I was now alone to roam the roads
So excited i felt i could fly

So i then got settled in the big city
And studied my wanted degree
First year passed yet oh so quickly
Time passed with the feeling "im free"

I headed straight home on vacation
My family i now longed to see
And spent those days in anticipation
What could next year have in store for me

Vacation ended even more quickly
I almost couldn't leave
But determined to push through this so sickly
My degree ever my goal to achieve

I then met one lad jason
A schoolmate of the same age
Although he from the city's inner mason
Was someone i readily engaged

He then became my room mate
And that is when it began
Jason was different a drinker
My sleep oft disturbed i did hate

Although he tried to lure me
To try even just one
Yet i so promptly rejected
As my conscience no evil had done

I was taught that evil be feared
But then doubtfull thoughts filled my small mind
Had my parents been too strict and weird?
Was there danger i curiously whined


So i thought and i thought and decided
It won't hurt it's just once i confided

So i drank my first beer
And i puffed my first smoke
Then i tried my first stronger drink
This is great though i thought
Not too bad i revoked
As my conscience now beginning to shrink

So i added another exemption
Saying just a little more's fine
Till the alcohol turned into drugs and addiction
I was now pushing it to the line

I would mock at the holy scriptures
And curse God when drunken or high
I would sometimes try and picture
How cruel my family's lies

A year passing by i still loved it
I free and now unrefined
But my vices eventually my health hit
I  was forced then to pause and recline

My body was racked with a fever
And i bound to the bed where i lay
I was sick and now not a believer
I'd forgotten how to pray

My life continued on this way
For years with no restraint
My friends all left but didn't say
Their reason or complaint

I went into depression
My pain and guilt remorse
I needed intervention
Twas time i changed my course

And as i in my darkest hour
Was sinking in despair
My heart's once fresh and lively flowers
Now crushed down burnt and bear

And as i lay in bed that night
For the first time in 3 years
I prayed dear lord please save my life
This pushed me into tears

And while i now was sleeping
I dreamt about that clock
And God as i was still there weeping
Approached me and we talked

He said that life is fragile
That time is not a joke
And day by day time's counting down
Convicted i awoke

And then God said to me what if he
For one day made time still
And on that day i would be free
To clean my life and will

Right then the clock stopped ticking
 Long hands eleven lay
I shocked jumped up heart beating
But i just didn't know what to say

Then HE said my child this is your chance now
To redo the wrongs you've done
And the chance now to change as you have vowed
Will soon be late my son

Live your life while imparting life giving
Love to all the poor one's who need love
With your hands now undo evil's giving
And remind of their Father's great love

Feed the poor and be eyes to the blind one
Give your strength to the crippled and the old
Bring the dying man good news of salvation, my son
For in heaven he shall walk streets of gold

As the time will soon end now forever
And your chance for redemption no more
It's the time now for sins to be severed
As heaven's gates soon open their door
Once the clock is at twelve you will know that,
Tis the end and we're now going home

As his words hit my heart i then waited
I would check how much time i had now
But as i fixed my eyes it all slowly faded
And my bed was what pressed on my brow

I awoke realising that i was sleeping
And the dream was my life counting down
And the more that my sins i'm committing
All the more my head won't wear that crown

See the clock was not there just to tell time
But to also guide ones on their way
Like the man who was lost and ran out of line
The clock was placed there as a sign

Today is the day that we must choose
If today is the day that we will start
To change our life and become true
And learn from our mistakes but move on and do our part

And you keep saying to yourself "ah yes tomorrow"
But again you commit the same wrong
We never know how many more days can be borrowed
As the clock keeps its ticking all along
This poem was inspired by my own life experience...
Kida Price Jul 2014
Just because you're family
Doesn't mean you have rights to me
My secrets kept
Are just that
They're hidden and swept
Under the rugs from your eyes.
If you find out you'd just call them lies
And there's truth to that plight
Blood hasn't  given you the god given right
To have a say in everything in my life
Keep in mind
The things you've confided in me
Without judgement and without confessing
To the rest of the world
Defining
What kind of person I've come to be.
Play your game
Let me play mine
You grew up with me
But you weren't always there to check my vital signs
You weren't there for every bit of time
I collapsed and reached out to find
You weren't there
And I still ended up fine.
Being the youngest of five
Doesn't make me the dumbest one in line.
I learned from the mistakes of four others
To keep my faults under these covers.
Being naive in front of the clan
Is apart of my plan
Blend in and refrain
From voicing opinions that won't be heard anyways.
Just because you're family
Doesn't mean
You own me
So *******
Or play my game
Edna Sweetlove Aug 2015
Another enchanting "Barry Hodges Memory" poem for you all!

O glorious Art Deco edifice, tucked away behind the 'Dilly!
In your near century of hospitality, how many millions of visitors
Must have thronged your rooms, meeting, greeting, eating, sleeping
And (need I specify the obvious?) ******* away the fleeting hours?
How sad it is to think that the dear Regent Palace has fallen victim
To the money-grabbing developers' philistine wrecking *****.

Rumour came to me in the Seventies that the ground floor cocktail bar
Had gained a somewhat , shall we say, *louche
reputation,
Being frequented by ladies of the night and part-time gigolos;
And that the hustle and bustle of the reception area meant that
Staff would hardly notice if guests invited a newly made friend upstairs
For some horizontal entertainment, be it on a cash or ex gratia basis.

Several evenings, perhaps after a night at the theatre, I paid a brief visit
To the dimly lit bar, with its sophisticated black pianist tinkling out a tune
In the very best Casablanca tradition, perhaps even crooning a little ditty.
One summer night I recall I dropped in, probably post-prandially
More in hope than serious expectation, ordered an over-priced G&T;
And settled down to assess the odds on some casual leg-over action.

Much to my surprise I was soon joined by a large middle-aged blonde
(to a naive young chappie, any woman over 35 is no spring chicken);
She was Icelandic and big with it in the mammary department,
But not fat I hasten to add, just sturdy, like a splendid Wagnerian Valkyrie;
Yea, I knew she was gagging for it when she confided that, only last week,
She had shared l'amour with a young stranger in the Wienerwald al fresco.

I cannot recall much of our no doubt fascinating intellectual conversation
And I certainly can't remember her name, but I do know I readily acquiesced
To her generous invitation to participate in a glug of her duty free allowance
Within the intimate privacy of her spartan little bedroom on the seventh floor.
Delightfully, to my mild pleasure, our upwards journey in the crowded lift
Enticed her to caress my eager testicles in a heart-warmingly experienced way.

Over a malt whisky and, following an extended exchange of warm saliva,
We ended up stark ******* naked in the rather narrow single bed;
Sadly, my recollections of our coupling have gone the way of all flesh
(but my well-preserved diary for that year notes I gave her the works thrice)
And I do vividly remember wondering what time the Underground started
on Sunday mornings as I was no longer enamoured of her tobacco breath.

Now, dear reader, we come to the ****** of my night of Nordic nookie:
Just as the dawn's early light was filtering through the ill-fitting curtains,
My partner in lust informed me that she desperately needed a squirt
(I fear I omitted to mention that the RPH didn't run to en suite facilities)
And that, rather than struggle down the corridor to the communal bogs,
She intended to void her bloated bladder in the waiting washbasin.

She enjoined me to be a gentleman and to refrain from watching her
As she performed her toilette and I assured her, with a covert smile,
That I would not breach her urinary modesty. Thus I slyly observed her
Waltz over to the window and, with the assistance of a handy little chair,
Hoist her ample buttocks up on the basin and let fly her steaming ****;
O, what a romantic sound it made as it splashed onto the porcelain!

As I lay there, entranced by the sight of my piddling blonde Brünnhilde,
An unexpected sound intruded over the splatter of her seething waters:
O Jesu! Suddenly, in the veritable twinkling of an eye, the basin's supports,
Unequal to the unscheduled weight of the female Goliath squatting thereon,
Gave way and what's-her-name fell to the economically carpeted floor,
Screaming in fear, spread-eagled in ****-drenched shattered chinaware.

To say I was beside myself with mirth would be an understatement but,
Gentlemanly as always, I managed to pass off my gargled giggles
As evidence of gallant concern. As soon as common decency permitted,
I made my excuses and left the disconcerted dear to tidy up a bit.
But I will confess to emitting a huge howl of uncontrolled laughter
As I raced off to the nearest toilet (I too was bursting for a huge slash).
Grace Jordan May 2015
You know what, this is not a love story this time. In this case, it never was. I thought it was, but I was mistaken and lied to by my lonely heart. And For once, I am standing my ground and telling you what you deserve to hear.

*******.

******* for making me so dependent on you that I was scared to stand up to you, even though you were cruel to everyone I loved. You may have thought you were cute, you may have thought it was your odd way of love, but it was honestly just an excuse to be an utter ***** to everyone and none of us should have tolerated it.

******* for competing with me. I am not a competitive person, but you'd laugh and comment how you were better, smarter, more mature. It drove me wild. Not only because your arrogance made me want to drive you into the ground, but also because it made me feel like I had to prove myself to you, brag in front of you, compete with you to feel worthy.

******* for turning on me at my weakest. Over a boy for god's sakes. I was your best friend, the one you turned to and confided in, and you started to completely disregard me over a boy I had feelings for first. You had no respect for our friendship in any facet, and it made me regret letting you in at all.

******* for always being at the back of my mind, for being so infuriatingly insidious that I have to always check up on you and worry about you even though you don't deserve it. For doing things that don't make me feel anything but pity and concern for your life, instead of being proud and maybe thinking I could accept you.

******* for making me want to **** myself. For being the selfish catalyst who showed me the cuts on her legs and made me feel so guilty that I didn't deserve life. Everyone deserves life, even the cruelest of people, and to purposefully make me feel that worthless, just to try to win me back, was the most heartless, selfish, thoughtless thing you could have ever done.

******* for being similar to me in any frivolous way, because now I am utterly terrified to be anything like you. Obsessive, rude, cruel, thoughtless, and selfish. I fear for my boyfriend, my friends, everyone around me because I know being your friend has given me the capacity to be just as ruthless as you. And I hate you for it.

******* for making me forget anything pleasurable about our relationship. All I can feel is a burning frustration when I hear your name, or an overwhelming sadness, or endless anger. None of it is pleasant.

******* for everything you've done to me, and **** the dark part of my heart that exists now because of your knives stabbing me in the back.

******* for still making me think about you, and ******* for any part of me that is like you.

I'm done with you. This is the end. Its ******* over.

And just remember.

*******.
Mark Jan 2020
Penny got married young, she idolised her new man  
Penny turned 16, said, I do I do, priest wed them both  
Penny was happy, never complained to anyone, too shy for that  
She crashed a party once, and met a gal named Sally  
They became friends  
And she confided in her  
 
Shared little secrets, lips sealed, shook their little pinkies, never to tell  
Then hubby walked in with curious smile, said you going to stay awhile  
I'm not coming back until sunlight, best thing Penny had heard all night  
‘Cause her new beau, wasn’t all that he seemed  
But only Penny knows so go go go oh no go  
 
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Feel you hurting beneath, when we cuddle-up  
Fooling some, but mommy sees past that makeup  
 
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
 
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Feel you hurting beneath, when we cuddle up  
Fooling some, but mommy sees past that makeup  
 
Penny started staying inside, never going past the front gate  
Some friends called saying you ok you ok you ok girlfriend  
Penny searched websites, looking for a way out, deleting history, nobody got suspicious  
While trying to play the good wife, reality started to sink in  
Then she thought  
 
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Feel you hurting beneath, when we cuddle up  
Fooling some, but mommy sees past that makeup  
 
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Feel you hurting beneath, when we cuddle up  
Fooling some, but mommy sees past that makeup  
 
And I don't want anyone knowing about the abuse, just in case  
I've covered up since day one, swollen face  
A nightmare, ever since our honeymoon  
Childhood dreams were locked in a cell, but kept them alive and still didn’t tell, even while being slammed unconscious  
It's like my security blanket, it's the reason that I'm alive  
Everyone has childhood dreams, but most will never survive  
They don’t always come true, maybe one out of five, be wise  
Believing Hollywood tabloids, that they are still very much together, all lies  
So go about your ways, put up with the one, that doesn’t love you anymore and continually hurts us and says sorry, again  
Always just after they have, again bruised us  
Forgetting about the pain and coverups that were made  
Thinking it was just a sleeping nightmare, oh no  
 
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Feel you hurting beneath, when we cuddle up  
Fooling some, but mommy sees past that makeup  
Go now, Go now  
 
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Penny get away, far away, go, Penny go  
Feel you hurting beneath, when we cuddle up  
Fooling some, but mommy sees past that makeup  
Go now, Go now
x Dec 2018
i no longer have the time,
to coddle the feelings of others
who have disregarded the emotions
i have confided

i no longer have the will,
to beg for the love of people
who don't deserve mine...

i no longer have the heart,
to hold on to, and give my all to
someone, who will
not give even a fraction to me

i no longer have the patience
to apologize for things
that are not my fault

i am growing out of the mindset,
to be upset.
to rant and to rave.
to hurt, and to hold grudges.
to be petty,
and to strain my heart.
... my patience has run thin for those types of things


..... and for things of that such
sadgirl Dec 2017
//

The definition of thot [that ** over there], via Urban Dictionary

A woman who pretends to be the type of valuable female commodity who rightfully earns male commitment—until the man discovers that she’s just a cheap imitation of a “good girl” who is good for nothing, and definitely not for relationships or respect.

If women are products, then thots are cheap goods. More than that, they’re knockoffs: low-quality merchandise that attempts to masquerade as luxury items.

They generally dress in cheap clothing, try to act like they're better than they really are, or think they're not ****** but high class when they're nothing close to classy. They demand respect, money, gifts, dates but do nothing to deserve any of it because they have no self-respect, no manners, low self esteem, little education and on top of all that they are thots because they have no self worth.

//

he called me a thot.
the same blood-boy nightmare who bragged about his ******* and double cup. too cheap to buy actavis generics, so he drank himself into a stupor on walgreens brand dye-free cough syrup. he acted black, said words white boys shouldn't have near their mouths. his friends were ableist at the best, and misogynist at worst.

he called other girls thots too.
but i was different. stick-and-poke told trans king who told american spirit who told blood-boy what i confided in a friend. a story that ends and begins with my tears, tears from gagging, tears from telling my mother about the worst three minutes of my life and how my knees and heart hurt afterwards.

i embodied thot.
left my family for friends, joked about the pain until it hurt even more. i found myself crying in bathroom stalls, looking down at my body in the bathtub as i learned to breathe water. the girls said i was thick, i didn't know if they meant it in a good way. the boys said worse. i wore camouflage pants, comme de garçons tops, air force ones. i jumped on trends like a wild cat stalking prey. but i could never catch anything worthwhile with my soft, clawed paws.

he smiled like he was better than me.
after blood-boy stunned summers and winters alike, burned spring and fall, and for what? to call me a thot? i knew what i was to him. but he didn’t define me anymore.

he called me a thot.
and this time i fought back with my eyes, didn’t just sit there and feel words welling up inside.
because even thots are queens.
because i used to be deciduous, but now i’m evergreen.


//
nosipho Jun 2010
In the stillness of the night beyond one can see,
When the expanse holds the stars for my mid-summer’s dreams,
Where only the presence of the birds of the night calms my spirit
And in such stillness fear preys my soul.

I could only find my wellspring of life quenched to aridness,
And only as a mirage such life exists in my being.
I find my thoughts confined in my deeds of shame or rather
Those that the enemy claims, and so
I find my cries being droplets that befriend my cheeks,
To cease and move on is as building a home as a house of sticks.
For in this journey of mine, the storms rage and roar and in such stillness
I only could hear them call-in thy gentle whispers they are as frequent
As the leaves that drop from a tree in fall.

In the stillness of the night- whom do I call?, when all lifelines
Seem to be on hold.
“Hello it is me speaking-do you recognise, Please be patient, please Hold”.
My mind is in ruins; behind cages for life in the desert has no patience.
Only it persists to feed on my soul and lives on my very last breath-
It is to my wonder that life is not the breath and the heartbeat,
For they continue to live even when life is gone.

I look up to the hill for whence my help cometh from,
Such knowledge is as vast as the sky, when only sand dunes are before my eyes.
However, I look up to the hill from whence my help cometh from,
For in such a hill rest my soul and life that has been redeemed.
Rest the life that is orchestrated and moulded into a perfect ornament.
In such a hill, rest a life that is of harmony, that is of melody ,
that the angels stride before because of its music.

In the stillness of the night, when the stars are shining and the moon
Is half asleep. When the flow in rivers walks in silence and only the insects sing.
I now find my thoughts confided in you saviour,
Even in the valley, the arid deserts and the stormy seas.
I find that you are my source of being-even far beyond what I can see.
Carmen Ray Oct 2012
I opened my eyes once just to see if his were shut as tight as mine.
I could tell by the way he moved, how angry he was with her.
It was nothing between him and I.

It was pure emotion we couldn’t express to each other without imitating the act of making love.
We were the only ones left there for the other
or maybe we were just there.
Probability.

I do not love him.
…but he breathed like you. Kissed like you.
He was built like you, cried like you.

I hope you understand.

It was my only release.
It was not affection for each other that drove us into such a passionate entanglement but the restrained love we had for each of you.

The Anger. The Sadness. The Loneliness.
We were open journals,
and we filled each other with feelings that words could not express.

…I missed you so much.

He’s the only one who could ever understand how much I did.
While our bodies were dripping with shame,
what else could we have done?

I felt his feelings for her and they broke my heart.
There was no stopping.

The tighter he held,
the softer he whimpered,
the more it pulled me in.

The more I understood the less alone I felt.
This dismal place became less painful.

I was not out to hurt you.
It did not bloom from spite or revenge.
Not for you.

While his body did grind into mine,
I felt the pain of his anatomy and I used it against myself.
His body was my only way to repair and destroy myself all at once.

It was pleasurable due to the dream I had woven into it,
and I could feel his muscles forgiving me.
Forgiving her.

I wonder what he felt come from mine.
Relief, I hope.

Once the sweat and tears had dried,
and our bodies lay throbbing and limp
there was a sense of calm neither of us had ever experienced.

Although I’ll never be able to tell you how I feel,
I know I confessed everything I could that day with my writhing
and with my heat.

It was all for you.

Even though we did not let it happen through love or adoration
it was not meaningless.
Our souls confided in and approved of our scene.

That’s all I needed.
For it to be known I did not cheat.
I did not cheat you and I did not cheat myself.

Now, I don’t think I could love you as much as I do now had it not happened.
I found us that day.
Buried beneath years reconstruction and restriction.
More importantly, I found myself.
Lodged in between the freezing of time and heartache.

I’ll miss my innocence, but not my ignorance.

I opened my eyes just to see if his eyes were shut as tight as mine.
I had never felt so utterly complete.
How do I go on?
You claimed to be my White Knight
Your words not mine
I felt a disconnect and knew you would break my heart
I tried to break it off

These words I said
I love you deeply
You my soul mate
The response was the same
Your words
You are my soul mate

We were so happy
Happily ever after type
You begged me not to leave
Called me your lifeline
I would have given up everything
Just to be in your arms

A picture of you
Shared only with me
So I thought
You said only me
Only me

We were a secret
You didn't want others jealous
But everyone knew
You get to the airport
Tell me it's just me, only me

My friend talked of you
I confided in her of Us
A letter arrives
You cut me to pieces for telling her
Telling her we were Us

You were my White Knight
I was your lifeline
Pulling you from the brink
Soul mates
Stars aligned

I will never know
You would never tell
The picture partly a clue
You sent it to her too
Dumped me for saying you loved me to her

She was our friend
Only a friend you said
Then why
why all this pain
I saved you

You almost killed me
I saved it all you know
Every word, phrase, poem
The pain unbearable
You had to know
I would try to end my life

Your lifeline would be dead
Nothing but silence from you
One day out of the blue you show again
Say you still love me
Still desire me

What were you thinking
After all that time
Just needed your lifeline again
Then what
Disappear after

What you did White Knight
Was inexcusable, cruel, vindictive
You swore you would be back
I would see you again
You might as well have been the knife

Sliding across my skin
This time you succeeded
Severing all ties
Bet you didn't think it would go this far

No longer your soul mate
Your lifeline gone
All because our friend's feelings were hurt
You could have done better
Should have done more

Now I am gone forever
They buried me today
Our friends were there
But not you
Not even then would you show
Written by Jennifer Humphrey. All rights reserved 1/31/15
Marya123 Nov 2016
"Do you want to talk about it?"
You ask, seeing my impassive face.
It's been a while, and though I could
Remembering feels out of place.
Recollecting just makes it hurt.
Forming the words again is hard-
They're overused; now they sound curt.
In too many I've confided
To too many people I've told
All my sorry, deep, dark 'secrets'
Some warmed me when I was too cold.
I wish I could say more to you,
Explain why it's not escaping
Sometimes it's nice to not talk,
Than to break what I'm now shaping.
Mikaila Feb 2016
It was time.
It was time, and so I read every one of your poems and
Cried.
They were different tears from last time.
Some truer grief fell with these
And they
Were silent.
Silver, like rain reaching its fingers into the soil
Late at night
Ready to grow something
Lovely.
I know you
So much better now.
I loved you- oh, how I loved you
In a complex way
The way that always
Loses me the thing I love.
I shake now, the aftershocks of feeling vibrating my bones
A music too low and too aching
For sound
It murmurs to the earth
And, sleeping beneath the snow, the ground echoes my loss back to me.
I loved you, how I loved you
But I never knew you like I do now.
How you must hate yourself, inside.
People who hate themselves always hate me.
They love me first, and then they loathe me.
If I am lucky, someday they face themselves and forgive me for loving what they hated for so long.
It is all very wearisome and human of them.
Sometimes I see you in the halls.
You refuse to meet my eyes,
As if we were two high school lovers broken up
The week before,
Pretending our lives were not
Altered.
I look at you, though.
I loved you different than that.
There was nothing of owning to it, nothing of flesh,
And so although my heart and mind miss yours
Miss the rise and fall of your low voice,
Miss the thoughts and ideas, so intricate, exquisite
That you would write to me instead of sleeping at night,
To see you doesn't make me angry.
I know seeing me makes you angry.
I see it in your jaw, the way your eyes go dead.
Oh, darling, I know you so well now
So much better than if you'd been kind to me.
Do you forget that as I told you my dreams and my fears
You slowly unveiled your own?
I still feel them, beneath your wax mask of indifference.
They live.
They rule you, as always, more even than before.
They are why
You cannot look at me.
Maybe you loved me. Who knows. And if you did
Who knows how. There are so many ways
To love someone.
There isn't a word for how I loved you.
Now when I dream it is of a little flat with a cat and a curly haired girl in bed beside me
But you never took shape like that in my mind.
You were never a companion, never a lover.
You were never a home for me.
Nor were you a sister, or a friend.
I loved you like I love music, like I love the way rivers surge forward after it has been raining for days, the way I love the sea.
But there was always a difference, I suppose, although I couldn't see it-
For Nature cannot hate. It is, only is,
And my love for you
Was
In much the same way
It was, like a stone is, like the trees are, like the sunlight is.
But you weren't, aren't. You are flesh, and you
Are ruled by feeling and, sometimes, by fear.
I see you now and I know I should hate you
For when you walked away from me
You confirmed every fear I'd ever confided to you.
You took a larger chunk of my soul
Than I had even thought was left, just then,
And I mourned you
Like you had died.
I still remember.
I will always remember.
I sat on Rachel's broken armchair
And I cried for hours
Unable and unwilling to speak.
She stared at me, grief stricken with her own loss
But through it she stared at me as if witnessing a great mountain cave in
Or the sea
Suddenly boil.
She stared and stared, and I shook apart, pieces of me flying into all the dusty corners of that apartment.
I'm sure some are still there, sharp and jagged, ready to cut a foot or tear a hem.
I had thought myself incapable of grief like that anymore
And yet there I was, my soul rejecting itself like a bad transplant.
And yes, I was angry at you, so angry at your cowardice,
So maddened to be left again to try to make sense of a mess somebody else made with no warning
And no
Apology.
Weeks later I asked you why
In a last stand of sudden strength I accused you
And in refusing to tell me you confirmed my suspicions that it was
Your fear and not my wickedness
That lost me your love.
I saw you as such a meld of energies, fierce and delicate all at once
And moons and suns decorated
Some of the most beautiful art I've ever created.
That style died with you. You have the first and last of it.
Sometimes I wonder if you've burned my paintings, or else thrown them away. I don't know. I hope not.
If you ever truly look at me again
You will see that my hands have a white scarlike design of a sun on one thumb and a moon on the other
When I clasp my hands they form a perfect circle.
I couldn't sleep, you see, remembering how you wanted to erase me
Wanted me to erase you.
Everything important in my life leaves a mark
And even if you never speak to me again these hands will make beauty, will spread kindness, will carry loads
And they will bear your mark, for I was so changed by you and your sudden cruelty that for a long time
My own hands looked so... foreign
And would create nothing lovely, nor touch anything gently, nor hold anything fragile.
So much time has passed,
And yet when I saw you again, here, after all the ways my life has changed since then
I knew when you refused to look at me
That you did care
Would always care
Would always hate that you cared
And I gazed at you
Because although I can't say I love you as I did
I would be dishonest to say that I don't. I always will. I always did, really. I chose you. I saw your self loathing and the depth of your beauty and I chose you
To know
And I paid the price I sometimes pay to know people like you.
And I still consider it worth it.
I find I am still partial to your voice
To the lines of your face-
The face I longed to draw, because it reminded me, still does, of some mighty greek heroine.
I still admire how you move, and I still laugh at your jokes when I overhear them, although my face remains unchanged.
Sometimes I am brave enough to search for your gaze,
Sometimes I stumble on it suddenly and it immobilizes us both, and I look away, although I wish I could stare you down and force you to, instead.
Sometimes I think of doing something small and nice for you
Because the desire never really leaves me once I care for someone
But I can never discover something you wouldn't trace back
And I admit I fear your anger.
You told me to leave
And my pride will only let me try so much to give to someone who scorns my kindnesses.
And so there is this odd, unsettled, unresolved feeling I get
Walking these hallways.
I dread and crave
To walk around the corner and see you.
When I do my muscles thrill with fire and ice, ready for a fight, ready for a struggle for my life
And I placidly look your way, force my gaze to slide over you as if you are ordinary.
Know that you are not. That you never will be.
We are so similar, inside.
Reading your poems tonight I cried because I miss your friendship,
But mostly I cried because I understand you
The lost wolf, pretending to be lone
The lonely little girl with fangs.
I understand how much you must loathe yourself, how much feeling you must bury each day to be as you are
And
As all true friends do
I wish you wouldn't.--
I wish you well. I wish you happiness. I wish you all good things. And it makes me sad to see you in the hallways
Because I know that as long as you cannot forgive me for having loved you
You haven't forgiven yourself for being loved.
I was abused literally and pushed aside by teacher
He was in rage to see me when I tried to enter
He might have some grievances in mind to nurture
As I was doing fare in studies and position was assured

I was really ashy boy but excellent in pick up
I heard attentively and was cheered with thumb up
His behavior as teacher made great impact in mind
I might have taken it lightly if he was harsh or unkind

It is customary to show little disrespect to the poor students
Some of the discourtesy is extended with inferior comments
I was unable to think further but bore a grudge permanently
I remember those abusive remarks and   resisted him once vehemently

I thought and rethought about such behavior
As teacher he would have been considerate and held honor
I became reserved from that day and decided to keep silent
As it was now known to me that best way is to offer no comment

In social circle too certain disliking exist for people
It may be more intensive when they are incapable
Not in financial capacity to move forward and compete
Live under their dominance and agree to submit

I remained firm in approach but turned away from close contacts
I kept good will at heart and prayed for their well being in fact
This gave me enough of strength to observe them from distance
I was taken little note of and none observed my presence

I return gesture with kind words and remain aloof
I have enough of strength financially as single proof
They dare not to see me with inferiority and pull down
As I have established of my own and became powerfully known

I wish that same kind of maltreatment is not shown
To children who are unfortunate of having means of their own
They are really asset to us and builder of future generation
How can we be indifferent when question of building nation comes?

I have known some of the people getting blinded  
By sudden arrival of fortune and secretly confided
Their common sense gets unnatural boost to reveal
The arrogance is reflected and shown with no efforts to conceal
Denxai Mcmillon Aug 2015
I remember the jaw dropping moment of you walking into creative writing for the first time.

I remember passing notes daily

I remember the first time we went downtown with our drunkard friend.

I remember sitting in the cold in front of the pond and listening to you ramble.

I remember how happy I was.

I remember how hard I tried to impress you.

I remember it all like it was yesterday.

I remember you going missing from class.

I still remember the stomach churning worry that came with it.

I remember you coming back just to leave again

I remember the years we didn't talk. They were lonely.

I remember seeing you go the first time in forever.

I remember sitting in that swing and holding back tears as I confided in you about how sad I was.

I remember the absence of you again.

I remember sitting at the bus stop talking to you before I had to work.

I remember the night you had a small get together and invited me.

I remember how hard I smiled for the first time in years.

I remember coming over and spending the night with you.

I remember the ****** tension.

I remember laying in bed and inching closer.

I remember how cold your lips were when I kissed you for the first time.

I remember rolling around in bed naked and taking candid pictures of one another.

I remember being officially unofficial.

I remember walking to and fro my house to yours.

I remember you playing guitar.

I remember vaping until we were dizzy.

I remember you getting the text from your ex

I remember losing you to your ex

I remember the devastation.

I remember still seeing you daily.

I remember how awkward it was.

I remember you telling me you wanted to be with me.

I remember then running to meet you half way.

I remember hugging you as if to pull you into my body.

I remember him losing his spot by your side.

I remember fighting.

I remember hating it.

I remember still seeing you and talking things out.

I remember kissing late into the night.

God I remember so much.

I remember going downtown with Dessi.

I remember realizing how deeply I love you.

I remember the pain of missing a night by your side, it's like a bruise on the bottom of my foot.

I remember all the days I spent keeping you company  at work.

I remember getting pulled over with you in the car.

I remember the look of dread.

I remember with no regrets.

I remember your smell from 4500 miles away.

I will remember and cherish every second we spend at one another's side.

And with all these memories behind us in such short time

I know that when I turn my head back to watch my steps I'll see all we have to look foreword to.
Tanvi Bird Nov 2014
I sometimes wish I was more like J. The whole world helps support her, feels sorry for her. She can cry. She can convince people to think what she wants them to think. She holds an enormous amount of power. She convinces people that she is delicate and they do things for her- like D helping her with the FBI job and her professor practically re-writing her Fulbright essay in an intellectual way. Her writing just isn't as organized, but she seeks help and people want to help her.

Me on the other hand-- I do more for people. When I ask them for help, they aren't really useful. I don't know how to talk to the right type of people or how to get ahead. I always knew that J would thrive with just the right opportunities- because she is highly capable.

I just don't do things well enough. Grades ******. Professors don't know and don't care about me. People think I am intense and pushy and controlling. She is all these things to me, and she sometimes makes me intense, but then to the outside world she is sweet and delicate.

Men are attracted because of the way I look, which is pretty but not stunning or gorgeous. In the end, they always leave me for someone more attractive and more chill.

J's ex however thought she was the ideal woman even after they broke up. He wanted to get back with her but did not. It kind of hurt me to hear that because now I know why he kept emailing her after they broke up- he actually was in love with her. She mattered. She was sweet and cultured and delicate.

The guys who left me, left in a heartbeat. They stayed for a while, chasing my tail. Then suddenly found something better and left. Never returned an email, and I was the one with the broken heart who felt dumb and foolish. If you are not going to be stunning like Angelina Jolie, or really attractive, then it's just not enough to be pretty enough and have a high ****** appeal. You need to be calm, ooze positivity and radiate happiness and good energy. You need to be organized and successful at little things. You need to be calm. For those like me in pain, we gotta work harder.

I hate telling J anything about myself, either positive or negative. When I tell her anything that I am sad about or hurts me, she dismisses it so easily. She also doesn't take criticism well. She immediately points to the fact that I have a lot of flaws too.

C was good to J. An intellectual who wished to impress her, he assisted her with her papers, talked to her professors, visited her at E.

I never meant enough to the men I loved. I thought I was lucky to have experienced love three times, but what does it mean when you make sacrifices repeatedly, where you try to change yourself into the way you think a man wants you to be, to love earnestly and madly- and for it not to be reciprocated at all? J is a very lucky girl. She thinks her life was ruined because G chose me over her for my looks. He left me so easily in the end. If I was prettier and my life was more put together- he'd have stayed.

She easily hurts me with her words, they cut daggers into me. They leave me perplexed. She has an insurmountable amount of power over people.

I have confided in a couple people about her, K and S. I hope it's okay. She drives me crazy. Lo thinks I am a mad-woman. I don't want to be a mad-woman.

I have so much pain and anguish inside me, that it just seeps over. Cup of pain is too much to bear. All the intensity I permeate is because of the pain. I want to become less intense. This is my first week of trying to become less intense.

Step 1: I will not tell anyone about my problems with J.
I will only write about them and talk to R, Ch or a therapist about it.

Step 2: This week, I will work on obtaining a therapist.

I need to apply for medicaid properly with all documentation.

Step 3: Study for Algebra 2!
Test on Wednesday- if you get this tutoring gig, more will open up to you.

Step 4: Wake up early so I can sleep early.


Step 5: Apply for jobs.
I gave up on it because I expected the P.O. job. I did horrible on the interview, so chances for a second interview would be a miracle. Getting a job will help me become happier.

Step 6: Talk to priest at English church for spiritual guidance & for help to control vices and add calmness.


Step 7: Meditate at the gym and stretch for 30 minutes before running.

Step 8: Get a mentor, join groups, attend the right kinds of events, make new friends.

Your whole life and issues cannot center around J. She has moved on, she lives with two roommates. She has Lo & the Asians, two close roommates who are a lot of fun and smart, and she has a good relationship with her dad, and she has D and her co-workers.  She has moved out of her house and moving on with her life. She comes back and accuses me of things and hurts me. I on the other hand, have befriended people who are "stuck" like me at home: Ro who is a struggling alcoholic, Ch who repeatedly -after I pleaded with him to stop- asks me what I am wearing and talks to me about us making out, Ka who is smart but a friend of J's ex C. I was formerly also friends with two Indian guys, one who ended up leaving me because he was in love with me, and another who I called the police on for stalking & harassment. I don't judge any of these guys, instead they talk to me because I am pretty-- but I talk to them because deep down they are also intelligent people who are socially or psychologically struggling like me. Still, the right opportunities only come in the right situations- so it's important that I place myself in them.

Step 9: Keep exercising.
Building up your endurance for running is awesome because it will be good for your lifestyle, but also help you train for future jobs like P.O. & F.B.I. Keep doing 5Ks and then build your way up.

Step 10: Dare to show weakness.**
Allow people to see your weakness so they can help you, without being depressed or whiny. Be yourself. Be fierce. Work hard. No man is an island. Even though my pain makes me want to be completely independant, I need a lot of help. Be humble. A lot of people have helped my family. Show gratitude for what you have.
yas Jan 2016
Please help me.
I am trapped in my mind, my pain and my morals.

To Go:
The suffering would end.
A cold needle would not be needed five times a day to relieve the throbbing pain in my arms,
my legs,
my chest,
my fingers,
my heart.
I could rest and sleep and allow my mind to float in the sweet, soft abyss of subconsciousness.
My god, to just sleep peacefully.
I’ve never been an earth woman, but somewhere along the line the smell of freshly cut grass and dirt deep beneath the ground became more alluring than the sterile, overwhelming scent that fills every hallway of this ******* hospital.
The thought of being subject to more years of this endless pain shatters the strings of my heart and makes me want to rip these tubes out of my arms and throw them so deep into the ocean that they float amidst the Titanic’s remains.
Sometimes, in my brief hours of tender rest, I feel myself drifting away, and truth be told I crave those moments.
To feel light, carefree; not dragged down by the weight of carrying death everywhere I go. Everywhere that I can go, that is.
Sickness grips me, snakes around my neck; constricts. Swirls through my ears down to my toes, engulfs me into the shadows. But the darkness is inviting, naughty eyes and tempting smiles.
“You know you want to,” the voices whisper.
“Come with us, be free”
Free.
Floating around the clouds, oh the fresh air that does not reach my lungs anymore. Instead; sterile, clean, hygienic, air, burning my mouth and nose with each breath.
I never thought I would crave the feeling of being *****.
But now, ***** water in the sink after dinner, sneezing children, grimy public park benches; it all just sound so real and full of life.

I was dead a long time ago, so why should my lungs keep breathing?



To Stay:
The angel perched on my left shoulder screams at me. How dare you be so selfish to think of yourself! Think of the family and the kids and work.
To stay means to see sweet, young Joanna graduate, have boyfriends, get married! How could I leave her?
And Peter. Oh Peter, to leave him would be a sin not even the Lord himself has discovered. Maybe I sometimes cannot feel when he kisses my forehead, and maybe I lash out when the pain becomes unbearable, but oh god I love him.
23 years of marriage; 8 of those spent confided to a wheelchair or, better yet, hospital bed.
Little Joanna struggles enough for her innocent mind to fathom that her mother is sick. I doubt that even three oceans of alcohol could bring me to release the words that would break her pure heart, should I choose to end my life.
The devastation of being unable to bring more beautiful lives into this world has been hard enough, and so I cannot imagine leaving my only child on this earth alone.
Morning cuddles with Peter, and Joanna squished in between us would no longer be. This is the only warmth I feel these days. And maybe those small moments of warmth are enough to fight away endless cold.
Oh so patient is Peter. Holds me when I cry, kisses me when I scream at him. To lose him, to give up when we’ve come so far, would be detestable of me.
Joanna is so young.
Wide-eyed and oblivious, she is alive.
She jumps and climbs and cries when she falls but does it all again the next day. I am envious of that. Oh to be young and clueless.
Warmth.
As hard as it gets, the feeling of a heartbeat next to mine and the soft brushing of skin next to one another is enough to keep my faith in life.
Human connection is precious.
Life is precious and I see that in Joanna’s eyes and Peter’s smile and the nurse’s kind hands and my mother’s sad smile and the way the husband of the old woman next door brings her flowers every Tuesday and my gosh, aside from my suffering, the world is beautiful, and perhaps I just forget that when I am blinded by the constant pain.
Maybe, just maybe there is hope for me.

Please help me.
I am trapped in my mind.

— The End —