"cpr" poems
Failure is the hardest emotional hurdle to overcome.
It means the end of the adventure,
And worse,
That this particular end is your fault.
Failure means a creased brow, fidgety fingers, and knotted stomach
It means confrontation
And admission of guilt.
Failure means you didn't succeed.
When failure sneaks up on me at night,
Seeps into the skin on my back,
And wraps its slimy hands around my rib cage
When I'm in its vice grip
And I can't breathe
Will you give me CPR?
Aug 20, 2015
Aug 20, 2015 at 12:17 AM UTC
Nangako ako sayo na poprotektahan kita kahit anong mangyari
Nagsinungaling ako
Dahil noong araw na pinulikat ka habang nasa gitna ng dagat
Na sobrang lalim na hindi mo na makita ang ilalim
Hindi kita nasagip
Nangako ako sayo na iingatan kita ng di nagdadalawang-isip
Nagsinungaling ako
Habang naghihingalo ka at humihingi ng saklolo
Wala akong nagawa kundi tignan ang paghampas ng mga alon
Pinapamukha na bakit ba kasi hindi ako marunong lumangoy
Nangako ako sayo na hindi kita papabayaan mag-isa
Nagsinungaling ako
Hinayaan kita malunod at hatakin pababa ng iba't ibang lamang dagat
Hinayaan maubos ang hangin hanggang sa huling hininga
Pinanood lumubog ang mga matang kasing ganda ng mga perlas
Pasensya ka na at nagsinungaling ako
Dahil akala ko matatakasan ko ang sariling anino
Pasensya ka na at hindi kita nailigtas
Hinayaan ko na may ibang sumagip sayo dahil kung ako 'yon
Baka pareho lang tayong lumubog at malagay ka lalo sa panganib
Pasensya ka na at lumutang ang mga pangako
Na sabay lalanguyin ang lawak ng buhay
Sisisirin ang lalim ng ating mga pangarap
Sasalubungin ang mga problemang dadaong
Iiwasan ang mga dikya na dulot ng nakaraan
Kaya patawad dahil ngayon lang napupuno ang pagkukulang
Wag ka mag-alala,matututunan ko din tumalon ng walang alinlangan
Susubukan maabot ang dagat na tinatahak mo kahit gaano pa ito kaalat
Pero sa ngayon, pasensya muna unang nagpakilala ang takot kaysa sa lakas ng loob
Pasensya dahil tinangay tayo ng alon palayo sa isa't isa
Oct 15, 2016
Oct 15, 2016 at 4:33 AM UTC
I hope you know CPR
So when I drown
Inside your eyes
You can save me
Over and over and over
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 2:56 PM UTC
I kissed him!
Stole his love from within.
A libras spell,
He turned pale.
His soul had left his body.
this wasn't good, I felt naughty.
I wanted to give him back his life, CPR maybe?
His struggle for air drove me crazy!
But a voice told me not to bother,
cuz this was the normal reaction for a fish out of water.
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 2:53 PM UTC
We learned about a boy in class
In 1st grade, some god granted him wings
But he flew too close to the sun
and died and drowned a terrible death
I meet this boy a few years later
I tell him about my death-wish
Thats at the bottom of my bucket list
And he tosses them all away
He says his wings have been clipped
and that he still thinks hes drowning
in a sea of vast emptiness
And the only burn signs on him
are his eyes
like dying embers that I cant save
he kissed me with abandon
threw water into my heart
it was dried out and torn
you see
his eyes they burned their way down my throat
igniting a light
as he leaves
And I think about that boy
Icarus I believe his name
He flew too close to the burning flame
Like a moth to a light
and singed his broken wings
but they forgot out the part
where the sun melts his wax heart
and he drowns in the deep dark
blue
And I forgot to tell you about the ending
about the salt water in my lungs
that I lurch back profusely
I realize its just the second skin of a little lost zombie boy
This isn't CPR
this is choking on his dead weight passion
drowning on his blue eyed sorrow
Like he choked on the sea.
May 11, 2012
May 11, 2012 at 7:40 PM UTC
I have locked myself inside of my car in the middle of the school parking lot.
I can still hear the ringing of the bell that caused us to scatter out of the school like ants escaping from a disrupted colony ringing in my ears. I am no longer a fire ant, but a caged animal, and I’m not sure who the metal barrier around me is supposed to be protecting. I still don’t feel safe.
I am thinking about how the glass at the zoos muffles the sounds of the animals, and how you might miss their cries unless you stopped walking and got right next to the glass. I don’t want to be seen, but, at the same time, I am hoping and waiting for people to stop walking past me, stand next to my car, and listen.
I am laying down in my back seat like a wounded animal, and my screams are being muffled by me burying my face into the seat. I no longer feel like a caged animal, but a fish inside of a tank. I don’t know how long I have been crying, but I feel like I am drowning. You can’t hear noises in the water unless you are below the surface yourself. I feel like I am the exhibit in the aquarium that everyone ignores because whatever’s in the water is hiding under a rock.
My head feels as though it will explode, I can’t breathe, everything is blurry, my chest hurts, I can’t stop crying, and I have convinced myself that I am dying. When my cousin was three, he would have died if my dad had not performed cpr on his blue, limp little body after he was pulled out of the pool. Now, he is eleven, and he knows how to swim, but I don’t have the heart to tell him that you don’t need water to drown.
Now, I am wishing that I had been the one that drowned that day.
I am sitting in a fish tank, I have no gills and I can not breathe.
My screams are silent, nobody can hear me, and I am kicking the inside of the car to try and make some noise, but everyone has gone home by now.
I am able to breathe again and I have grown a pair of lungs.
I am sitting in a zoo after closing hours, and all I can do is practice my roar and try to be heard again in the morning.
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 8:04 PM UTC
We live in a world that's so cold
Where its more important to savour the flavour
Than stop life ending up on a fork and knife.
We do good deeds and preach our teachings to the younger future walkers of the earth.
We teach them what's right and what's wrong and get them to listen to our favourite song.
But life isn't important, no cpr classes in school no teachings of being an ***** donar.
We carry on teaching useless, pointless information.
We waste time and effort teaching religion when we don't even know who they will grow up to be.
We tell children to be nice to animals around the dinner table. Carving up what used to live and love now covered in Gravy beyond recognition of how it once was part of its own family.
Every year our biggest celebration Christmas where we celebrate the birth of jesus or just friendly old santa bringing us gifts. Picking out the biggest turkey to be stuffed glazed and cooked. Poor animal killed to celebrate life or joy.
It suck's being on the food chain. You're either above or below an other fellow earthling. Why not break the chain and be you. Not above me, not above a fish that swims faster than you. Not above a lion stronger than you. Not about the farm animals sitting at the bottom waiting to be bled and made into shrink wrapped food.
You take the nutrition from the animal that's spent its whole life collecting from plants. Why is the cow the middle man in this earth crime.
We have consciousness now we know what's right and wrong so why **** for the thrill of flavor. So sad we don't break this habit and mean it when we say to our children. Don't be mean to animals..
Nov 7, 2018
Nov 7, 2018 at 6:16 PM UTC
I cannot keep watering dead flowers.
I cannot keep tangling with powers
Way beyond my ken.
I cannot keep hoping for more.
I cannot keep fighting this war
And losing all over again.
As much as I miss you, dear,
I cannot keep watering dead flowers,
Not even an IV can save them now.
Why I'm still trying is unclear,
But I've been giving CPR for hours,
Trying to save this somehow.
I cannot keep watering dead flowers.
I cannot keep tangling with powers
Way beyond my ken.
I cannot keep hoping for more.
I cannot keep fighting this war
And losing all over again.
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 10:29 PM UTC
I see you,
As I walk my beat.
The soul who's life as been so rough
You've turned to drugs to cope.
I see you over dosing on the corner.
I call for help as you become a pulseless, nonbreather,
I start hands only CPR.
As they dispatch help.
Please don't give up.
There's so much more to life.
I give it my all as I hear the sirens blare in the night.
But help comes to late.
I stand in shock.
I give my statement.
I finish my shift and go home to cry.
I see you,
The guy trying to **** me because I wear a badge and a gun.
Please don't make me shoot you.
I just want to go home at night.
Shoots fired, shoots fired.
He's down, I gave him five warnings,
“show me your hands.”
I didn't want to.
Really I didn't.
I see you,
The guys that ***** me.
I see you
You forced my hand.
I can't walk the streets unarmed.
You messed with my head,
And got away with it.
The nightmares come.
I see them.
I want them to stop.
I'm so numb now.
I cut myself to feel again.
I see the scars.
I cover them.
Others cannot know I'm weak.
They look up to me.
The horrors I see.
Will they ever stop?
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 9:29 AM UTC
He had just sat down to dinner
at the Heart Attack Grill.
The fab Las Vegas nightspot
where the fatties eat their fill
A place where the morbidly obese
and Summo wannabees
can chow down to their heart’s content
cause Fatties eat for free.
Nurse Bridgette brought his burger
and he started feeling ill.
As he slurped his triple milkshake
did he feel a sudden chill?
Was it the unfiltered cigarettes
He went through by the pack?
Or the triple bypass burger
that brought on his heart attack?
He started turning purple
and was rolling on the floor.
He was regretting his decision
to bypass that health food store.
Nurse Bridgette practiced CPR
and dialed emergency.
Thanks to her ministrations
He'll make a full recovery.
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 16, 2012 at 10:14 PM UTC
The reason
I don't fear swimming
in the deep
is because I know
if I drift down beneath
you'll dive down
and revive me.
Maybe
that was just
another reason
to feel your lips
on mine.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 1:46 PM UTC
on the night my uncle died, i prayed for the wrong person.
between the tears and the telephone static, his name was muffled, and i spent all night trying to save somebody who wasn't in danger.
and if god is real and a properly placed prayer can save a life,
then i am a murderer.
i was twelve. this poem isn't about me.
every poem i write is about me
(introspection is a nice term for narcissism),
but not this.
my uncle was fifty. he was a good man, gone too soon. it always seems like everybody is gone too soon,
i think when people die, everything that was bad about them is forgotten.
it eases the guilt of the living, i guess.
this poem is not about my uncle.
this poem is about my cousin.
my cousin found his father that night,
in a heap on the floor, convulsing.
he was 8, and he was bringing his father upstairs to tuck him in.
this poem is for matthew, who has difficulty speaking for himself,
because he screamed enough that night to last the rest of his life,
and maybe it's hard to dig up words without digging up memories.
this poem is for abandonment issues that will never have a chance for closure, and for the nightmares, and for two years of sleeping in his mom's bed to make sure she wasn't leaving too.
this is for too-young-to-understand, for every he's-just-gone-to-sleep.
young does not mean oblivious.
this is for every guilty thought that he will ever have. this is a poem to say that you couldn't have done anything. to say that you couldn't have known, that you couldn't have found him earlier and that it wouldn't have helped.
it broke my heart when you asked me to teach you CPR.
how you knew once you discovered the body he no longer occupied.
matt, i remember you saying that his eyes looked empty.
please don't remember them like that.
you were only eight.
he was only fifty.
i hope that you dont see his ghost everywhere,
i know you might.
on the night my uncle died, i prayed for the wrong person.
Feb 9, 2014
Feb 9, 2014 at 4:20 PM UTC
Back home,
There is a boy
With red hair, freckles,
And eyes the shade of blue
His mother calls "lady killers."
He's colorblind;
At least enough to believe
In jellyfish.
His father builds houses
With a rib-less heart
The boy calls home.
His mother,
Sews trust with her spine.
And thirty years later
They still find love
In the lonely isles of
The local Laneco.
His teacher says
He needs a pen pal,
So after school
He writes to me:
"Hi, how are you."
"I'm fine, thanks, and you?"
And then he asks me
What it's like to be
"Grown up"
And just how many
Stars I've scarred
With nothing but the rusty
Edge of my name.
So I fold the
Envelope of this
Crinkled heart into a letter
Of tattered Bibles
From hotel drawers of
Lost loves and dead friends
And find the courage
To tell him what
Being a man means.
I tell him:
We call it growing up
Because boulders
Always roll down.
It's refusing CPR
For every time you drown
In your own pride.
It's loving a girl
For every time she tried.
Tried to
Convince your tunnel vision
That her body is not a cave.
That respecting a woman
Is more important
Than how well you pave
Your parking lot heart.
Shallow like a baking pan.
This is an apology.
For every man
Who ever thought a woman's body
Is the only temple worth praying to.
Making four leaf clovers
From petals of roses
Trying to get lucky.
I know it's not lovely,
To kiss someone who
Is so constantly
Full of ********
And I'll admit it.
I'm not yet
Where I need to be
But I thank God
That I'm no longer
Where I use to
See I'm used to
Smoking way too many
*** scenes to know that
There is not enough
Alcohol in the world
To ever clear my mind.
And I have caused way
Too many Prozac commercials
To know that there is
No effective dosage
For this disorder
Of indecency.
To know that it is
No measure of good health
To be well adjusted
To a sick society
Of mechanical men
Always worried about
Who and when they're going
To plug into.
So I tell him:
You are not a robot,
A computer, or a program.
And your choices are the only
Thing that will ever make you a man.
So strap up your boots,
Bury the ashes,
Shake the dust,
And dandelion your
Heart in every
Direction of home.
But most importantly,
Go easy on the ladies;
Because
The older I get and
More I learn about myself
The more I'm writing
With my eraser
Than with anything else.
Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
When I have fevers
I grow *****
I say things like "Quit your ******* whining."
Or "You're such a **** dad."
When my skin burns
And my pores feel like they're on fire
from the inside
I say things that rhyme with the truth
Resemble a certain meaning
unfiltered
I don't make it sound melodious
Or tedious
Its factual
and im ballsy
I talk to walls about that crackhead on the fifth floor
Who I hear talks to herself at night
Or is it her baby girl one that was taken away
Her words are mumbles that resemble a feeling I cant quite name
I tell the walls they're too ****** thin
they should eat something
Fatten up or they'll end up like my sister
when I have a fever I don't remember the sound of her cracking rib bones
under my useless hands
I don't dream about CPR
Sometimes I hear children crying; the floor up above me
And If I listen really hard they aren't really crying, they're laughing so hard
And the man that is yelling he isn't really yelling hes playing peekaboo with his three
laughing
squealing
children and I smile
I am delirious
The truth is delirious
We are all ******* delirious
and drugged up
and ****** up
I laugh
It is one endless fever after another
And all the truth I think I've spoken
It was just a dream
The delirious kind
I laugh
Mar 29, 2012
Mar 29, 2012 at 2:46 PM UTC
Dragon in my Closet
1.
I should write a poem
today. Now. But
I just don't feel like doing so.
Instead, I'm going to write
a story
about why. About the Dragon.
And that'll do.
2.
Once upon a time,
there was a To Do List
that needed to be Done.
It had items and points
and notes and scribbles;
she was absolutely the most
prettiest thing.
This beauty belonged to a Knight,
a pilgrim in the Land of Adulthood.
And I'm about to tell you
why, though he wanted,
and tried and tried
he never could
get the stupid List Done.
So, one day while
he was wooing Lady List,
a thunderous roar stopped him
in the middle of his speech.
He smelled the sulphur before
he saw the shadow fly over,
but it was too late
and the dragon grabbed his Lady lover.
The List yelled for help,
but what could Knight have done?
Before him stood the vicious
Merciless Procrastination Dragon!
With a slice of its claws
and just one breath of flames,
the poor List was done for
and could nevermore be Done.
Well, you can imagine
the scenario that now unfolded:
List gargling on the floor,
Knight screaming like a toddler.
The Dragon wasn't done yet, though,
he still had one more goal:
Keeping the Knight busy all day
so he won't rescue List with CPR.
This was the easy part,
and loads of fun too.
Knight had snapped out of his shock,
but the dragon just had to
keep his paw on the Knight's head
and hold it there until
the Knight got tired of fighting air
and became very still.
Then the Dragon lifted his paw.
Knight fell on the floor with a
THUD.
Dragon flew off with a smile on his face,
happy with the fun he'd had.
The Knight scrambled the strength together
to crawl on all fours to his List -
or rather, what remained of her -
and pretended she still exists.
(But she was dead,
and the Knight was broken.
He would never even look
at another List again.
Until he gets lonely and
tired of Nothing,
then another To Do List pops up
that's in need of Doing...)
3.
This tale is true,
believe me, 'tis so.
I have met the very Knight
and greeted the Lady too.
And the Malicious
Procrastination Dragon
made its nest in
my closet.
And that's why
I'm not writing a poem.
Sep 1, 2020
Sep 1, 2020 at 2:30 PM UTC
Sometimes listening to the ceiling fan
Will get me calm enough to see
That the sun didn't set any faster today.
But there are bruises I get quite frequently
From words strangers whisper to each other
Halfway across the country.
Their names are engraved in my lungs,
Their names will never be mine to see.
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 12:37 AM UTC
You breathe in
I breathe out
there is just one difference
you breathe with doubt
your eyes are glazed
with staining tears
pain and frustration
and terrifying fears
I try to save you
but its no use
I scream and shout
but my voice is mute
I reach out to you
try to touch you
but you back away
why can't I love you?
I see you suffering
and I'm trying to fix it
But your to stubborn
and you won't listen
so I leave your side
as your breathing grows hard
and my heart breaks
into tiny glass shards
I feel your hand
as you reach out to me
silly child can't you see?
I loved you I did
but you lost your chance
and now you will never
have the last laugh.
Dec 17, 2012
Dec 17, 2012 at 4:04 PM UTC
She was one of those girls. Easy to love, bright, but when the season changed she was full of rain and overflowing gutters. I could get an umbrella, even a small boat to ride her waves, but she would always sink me. Just before I could drown in her waters she would give me CPR in the form of Spring kisses. Rays of sun shone through her eyes.
For two years I managed to survive through her storms just long enough to bask in her ever flitting warmth. Our one year anniversary threatened to rip me limb from limb, she was a tornado that day. Flowers and home made pasta blew away her storm clouds, just barely.
When two years rolled around I must have looked like a weathered sailor, knowing the exact moment to pull the sails, or when to just hang on and ride the rolling seas. So when she sat down one day and said,
“I can’t do this anymore.”
I just froze, caught completely off guard.
“I love you like…a brother.”
I started taking my ship into shore, to retire, maybe become a mountain man.
“I can’t talk to you…”
I pulled into the harbor, turned around, and set my vessel on fire. No more storms for me, no more blessed, tropical trips either. As the tip of my ship’s mast sank into the water, I let out a sigh of relief, shaved my beard, and disappeared down the coast.
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 3:21 AM UTC
I don't drink because I like it,
I'm just giving CPR to my dreams.
Love means just being an idiot.
Oblivious.
Friends come and go.
People die.
Work. Earn money. Keep on running
because you choose to exist.
Create art. - ***** your feelings.
That's good.
Who knows if there is God.
What comes after death?
Follow the rules.
Be unhappy. - You're living the life correctly.
I don't drink because I like it.
I'm just giving CPR to my dreams.
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 7:28 PM UTC
With my poetic words, I’m looking to breathe Life
into the souls and spirits of others to prevent…
the conditions that lead one to a spiritual Death;
with directness, my messages’ clarity is clear,
as instructed in the Great Commission from Christ.
Temptations of head-scratching, clutter, confusion
and being overly clever are avoided, when Biblical
references are supplied; hopefully, my personality
shines through, despite my analytical thinking and
my spiritual creativeness of expressing Salvation.
My idealized thoughts are evident and recognizable;
now most of my readers, can easily detect the sound
of my inward voice, with its straight-forwardness
and consistency. Finding a resonance of Faith, they
can identify and love poems… that are analyzable!
Sep 3, 2016
Sep 3, 2016 at 6:42 PM UTC
For Christmas
I want a bible with all blank pages
I want a butterfly butter-knife
For surprise attack sandwiches
I want a time machine
So I can go back to when I was a ******
To my first cigarette
And my first lover
And my first broken heart
To where my eyes didn’t have the green tint of jade
Lightening up this solid brown
My favorite color
I want a new harmonica inhale
And exhale
I want to breathe heavy into your wind instrument
CPR your song back to life
I want to slow dance on dying yuletide embers
And regift your laughter til I am not funny anymore
Don’t be mad that I recycled the stockings
You made me remove so slowly last night
They are stretched out now
And filled with crumpled photographs
And candy
And sticky notes full of bad one-liners
Like
“I thought I loved you until I loved you
And now I’m not sure of anything”
Forgive me
It was all I could afford
I want
More than just blankets to keep me warm at night
I want you to keep me warm at night
I want a type-writer big enough to run myself through
So I can rewrite the rough drafts my parents never finished
I want to bring the stars back west
So I can wish some more
I wish I knew how to be quiet
When beauty demanded silence
So her feet could echo proper
Drawing eyes to follow her sound
I want the trillions of miles my mind has traveled
To finally stop somewhere important
Like right here
Near the end of this poem
Where I tell you
I want so much
And need so little
Just the promise of tomorrow I guess
Until there are no more tomorrows
Then just a fair warning
Long enough to make you laugh maybe
That’s it
Dec 23, 2011
Dec 23, 2011 at 7:14 AM UTC
spread me open and lay me out on your table like a blueprint (I'm just as hard to read)
nail me on the wall like a laminated world map (put pins on all the places you've been)
oil me up like your old, squeaky boxspring mattress (you remember the one)
give me life like the cpr dummy in middle school health class (mouth to mouth, get it?)
tell everyone how beautiful I look like a dead body in an open casket (we all know what you really mean)
wreck me like the abandoned house behind the railroad tracks (what a shame, it has so much historical value)
wrap me up like a reopened wound (oops, my bad)
bite me like the hangnails you get from chewing your fingers (it's a nervous habit)
drill my pieces together like ikea furniture (you might just have to wing it, I lost the instructions a long ******* time ago)
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 7:10 PM UTC
Today I went to a
Red-Cross Baby-sitting course.
And we had to pair up with a
partner,
so the girl sitting next to me
turned to me to
practice
heimlich positioning.
So she stood up behind me and
put her arm across my chest and
we went through that position,
and then tried the other one,
where she put her arms around my stomach.
I could feel her breathing against my
ear, and her hair smelled
sweet and fresh and for the first time ever,
I wondered if my hair smelled like my
watermelon conditioner.
Then we switched,
and I put us through the
first position,
and I liked hugging her waist and
feeling her against me.
We sat down after that and learned about
CPR, and the instructor said we wouldn't be
practicing listening for breathing on
our partners,
and I let my mind wander to
a place where we could,
where she put her ear down
to my lips,
and her brown and blonde hair
fell over her ear and onto
my face.
I shook myself out of that
reverie,
and tried to pay attention,
but my eyes were drawn to her,
so I studied her instead.
An over-large grey sweatshirt,
with an icon of two green hockey sticks.
Blue denim shorts with
light blue lace on the ends,
black hightops,
and her socks were the same
hot pink as my own
shoelaces.
We practiced bandaging each other
up, so I wrapped
a strip of gauze around
her right forearm
and she did the same to my left.
And at the very end she rolled up her sleeves,
and I saw why she had me
wrap up her right arm.
Her left contained a
tile of faint scars,
criss-crossed like
spider-webs,
along her arm.
May 13, 2013
May 13, 2013 at 9:35 AM UTC
I was almost the one that got away
Instead I pushed you as far as the east is from the west
But when it happened I just didn’t have the heart to tell you what I needed to say
I messed up big time and there is no rewind now it’s just stuck in my mind
My first chance was my last time
This video game only had one life and I killed myself not knowing the level I could have gotten to
I stole your trust and suffocated it with my bare hands in a matter of moments
Trying to get you back is like do CPR to a test dummy no matter how long I keep pumping there is no reviving
I could care less about my image or anything like that but the fact I’m the reason you hurt is …
The fact that I did you like this is …
The fact that I disrespected you makes it hard for me to glance at my reflection
From the moment I open my eyes to the second I close them
Not a day goes by you don’t cross my mind
You got me dotting my T’s and crossing my I’s
All I have left are the replays of you in my head and with that cute voice of yours the things that you said
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 4:40 PM UTC