"crinkles" poems
Sometimes a miraculous thing happens.
The body ages,
And the skin crinkles like an old plastic bag.
And even though the body fades, the soul still fights on.
And the soul comes through the eyes.
And the most crinkled, faded old people will have the deepest eyes. Sometimes deeper than any others. Their soul comes through their eyes and draws everything in.
They glow with a brilliance earned over many years,
And even though the body withers, the eyes stay bright.
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 7:08 PM UTC
when she was eight years old
she
asked her mother
have you seen the girl with
lashes like butterflies against sharp cheekbone branches?
a dandelion sprouting from sludge covered gutters and streets
streets, where you feel that bitter bland nothingness in your stomach
it feels buttery to stare at her:
see how snow outstretches arms and twirls tippy toes, envies her grace
see how balloon sized raindrops pop, target the freckles on her arm
see how her forehead crinkles when she concentrates, nothing more than a beacon
proclaiming she trickles with stars
when she was eight years old
her parent's violent protests slipped bruises under her skin like pennies in a coin slot
but they could not contain the celestial girl tucked under her ribcage.
she would still look at her like she was the breakfast sun on a saturday
whistling by the creak, catching glimpses of dresses from behind the legs of trees.
see how this is special love, sweet as strawberry fields under soft sun
they would never feel on their forked, sour tongues
Oct 15, 2017
Oct 15, 2017 at 2:35 AM UTC
Sparkling petals slice through feet of wanderers
Dashing hopes and slitting tendons
Each day she visits
Sprinkling books and soda-filled sponges among the wire vines.
The sizzles excited her
And she smiles in spite of her sizzling feet
Pleased in her harmless sabotage.
The suffocated earth shutters beneath
Layers of circuit boards, damp and rotting
Steam rises from the core
And crinkles the pages of
Jane Austen
Dr. Seuss
Kurt Vonnegut. Her mother’s journal from pregnancy.
Apr 10, 2014
Apr 10, 2014 at 12:51 AM UTC
My heart hurts
And so do my eyes
And what's left of my brain
And my legs ache
It is if as I am running from who I am
All the time.
I love her so much, I cannot even explain how deep
My love for her truly is.
And I cannot imagine my life without her
Because she truly is my light.
But I can't help how afraid I am.
I am not afraid of our beautiful relationship,
But what our relationship might be if
Someone-our school and/or parents- we're to find out.
I can feel tension and anger and sadness swell up inside of my chest
And all I want to do is to protect her.
But how can I do that by hiding all of the time?
We kissed openly yesterday by the lakefront
And my God, I miss the way she looked under that sunset.
I miss the way she tasted with that hint of salt in the air.
I just miss being hers openly.
Sometimes I ask myself and God, why am I gay?
Is there no man who will ever perfectly complete me like
She does? I honestly think not, she truly feels like the only one
Who can know me better than I ever could.
And does any mans lips feel any more truer than when her lips
Are on mine? Everything about me in this moment is a fire that is burning. I am burning and raging against this door because I'm not sure how much longer I can be contained. I simply cannot live in secrecy but if I ever let this flame out then everything would burn. I love her so much and I simply cannot let this flame go because if I did, all hell would break loose and we would both be put to death in the worst manner possible.
I just want to love her the way God meant for it to be, but how can I do that when everyone I've ever loved has told me it is wrong? That it is immoral and disgusting and a sin. I can't believe for a single second that our love could be a sin. Maybe we can't have children and maybe the way we make love is different from the way you do it, but in all honesty, is that what makes a relationship beautiful? I find the way she crinkles her nose to be enough to set a flame in my heart and the way she points her toes when swinging on swings to add to ignition and the way she smiles at me to keep me going forever. I love her so strongly and passionately that maybe I am crazy, but this love can certainly not be immoral. Why would He make me this way? Just to put me in hell? Did Satan indeed win my soul from the moment I was conceived and God just... gave up? No, I cannot believe this for a single second. He loves me and he loves her and he loves us and if you cannot understand how we have maintained this beautiful and loving relationship for so long while staying hidden it is because you do not see the effect that God has on us. I believe that he wants us together, not to eventually cause us pain. I hate lying, and I'm sure God can see it even more easily than my lovely girlfriend does, but maybe He lets me lie because he does not see any other way to let me be with my other half.
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 3:30 PM UTC
My dream girl found a lover
She speaks of him in rhyming lines
the joy she feels dancing between every heart shaped syllable,
thumbing it's nose at my breaking heart.
My dream girl found a lover
the deal was sealed with a rain soaked kiss
and hands that fit just-so.
A love tightly bound,
according to her rose tinted ink.
My dream girl found a lover
I hope he hears the fragility in her sighs
over the beauty that radiates when her smile crinkles her nose,
for that alone can distract a man from the sound of breaking.
My dream girl found a lover
to mend her broken heart,
a coveted position filled.
Leaving me forever dreaming
of almosts and half smiles.
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 4:12 PM UTC
I’ll paint the colour of your eyes
toffee brown
contrasting the crinkles beside
that always appear when you lie
I’ll paint the blue of your smile
the corners of your mouth
slightly upturned
with a quirk of your brow
I’ll paint the yellow in your laugh
your cheeks slightly tinged pink
the way your eyes twinkle
without uncertainty
Every tone and every hue
captured in brushstrokes that end too soon
But darling
I’ll always draw you gently, like a soft croon
Here is the finished
portrait of you.
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 1:35 AM UTC
Hi there,
I see your brown eyes that dare
I see their happiness,
and unpredictable mischievousness,
Warm with crinkles on the edges and all
Promising me an irresistible fall
you there
They said, your brown eyes that dare
Telling me to be brave
and pursue these things I dare crave
Swearing to be there by my side and be
The best of friends with me
hi there
I say to your brown eyes that dare
I see your happiness,
and blatant lightheartedness,
But I see behind those madness and all
That your heart and soul are ready to fall
I'll be here
I wish your brown eyes could hear
I'm now telling you, be brave
Just let go of the darkness you crave
I swear to be by your side and be
Ready for you to lean on me
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 6:59 AM UTC
The monotony of adolescence is a laughable oxymoron.
My mom keeps saying to me,
"Caitlin, you're in a state of flux. Just wait."
Little does she know
I'm waiting for anything
to ebb.
Flow.
Twinge.
Any lurch of impulse of life
in this constant static lullaby.
Maybe I'm just itching to slough off my skin of content
and breathe in a fresh new disposition.
Become intoxicated in the maybes,
and the possibly's.
Embracing the oh-wells
and the never-enough-times.
Eschewing the feeling of everything I've missed
by having it near.
Having him here.
Getting trapped in the crinkles of his smile
and the freckles on his shoulders
that navigate me to the spots I feel most comfy.
Losing regard for the world as I become transfixed
in us
and our patterns on his couch.
Tumble into elation.
Quirks transpire the me's and you's
into the us's and we's.
To think... I was so scared to hold his hand.
Not knowing at the time
how great his waffles would taste
after a night of holding him.
Sep 23, 2012
Sep 23, 2012 at 4:27 PM UTC
Cockcrow harbour:
the gulls whining like tethered dogs
about rooftops
paliophobic cars and
grounded vessels..
Look:
on the hoary horizon
a glaucous strip
beguils
with backwater.
Not putting on a show
the frigid sea benumbed..
Easily,
with a tail of emerald jelly
skim a vanishing lane off that
lustrous sheet
and watch
the trailblazing mainland
scuttle.
Now,
Only scattered dreaming is possible.
In it's bachelor pad,
cradling over crinkles,
away from the meretriciosness
of validating the real by sharing it,
THE WIND
blusters off any veneer.
Here,
stale but spry,
fare your way around the inoffensive isle
to it's most shyest of harbours:
a mouth full of silver
saving it's breath.
The windows facing the sea
seem
black & white,
their wooden frames hooked to the wind,
the splattered gulls meow
your name
in a way
that's
personal.
Of course comes to mind.
The pines
are demanding a visit,
They're whispering
so you can hear them,
each as different as every snore,
these pines know
how to grow in the sand
and still reach for
the Nimbostratus with heads in unison.
The spaces
between their trunks illuminating
the blazing needles
raining down
painting the ground
familiar
to your lover's
skin texture:
Feel her closeness
from jilted borderwatchtowers
as she speads her mire
like no one's watching:
weedy and sugared
with bellflowers,
the waves in her shallow armpit
billeting a pair of white swans:
demurely they float
sometimes as pillows and sometimes
as question marks..
Go ask the seasoned locals,
they say the bones she parked
when she let her ice sheet melt
are portals
to her noble underbelly.
Hidden in the woods
reminiscent of your heart,
the red
tank-sized stone
is sealed,
but what the lighting reach cannot
the rain shall sluice apart
dumbly.
And though her hair has
come to be
the moss
black and hoarse
as sailor's beard,
there is still time.
The void says
her noisy neighbour is nothing
to die for.
The theadbear car with absent doors
incites
to drive her
in reverse gear
to the first few
days of holidays:
her golden locks a-blaze,
her arm around your
hind-sighted doppelganger.
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 2:20 AM UTC
I think I love too easily.
I find it so simple to pick out the best traits in somebody.
I like to know what makes people tick and what makes their pupils dilate. I can fall in love with the way they talk about
their favorite shades of color
and the way they pick out groceries.
I am interested in the way people take their coffee
and if they prefer tea better.
and why
herbal
caffeinated
I find myself loving people for their laughter
and the crinkles beneath their eyes when they smile.
And I think it’s so cute whenever they suppress their grins
when they think of something funny or memorable.
I love the way people talk about life
and what’s on their mind;
it’s nice to know that there is more
more to discuss than the sounds on mattresses
and the type of plant they inhale.
You are beautiful.
I love the way people spill their hearts out when they’re happy
or when they’re sad.
Sometimes, when they don’t let me love them,
it makes me want to love them even more.
And even when they don’t love me back, I still continue to love.
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 3:01 AM UTC
When crystal droplets of rain fall on the ground
When the smell of rain mingles that with the sand
I will remember you
When petals first open their very eyes
And emit fragrance, showing their colorful dyes
I will remember you
When a rainbow forms, a prism, a multitude of color
When plants germinate, drink rain and grow taller
I will remember you
When autumn leaves begin to fall on the countryside
Crinkles of red and orange, carried with the wind's tide
I will remember you
When full ripe Granny apples and Smiths begin to grow
And the river's sound rhythmically flows
I will remember you
When you harvest your crops and gather your wood
When you light a candle, wait for winter as you should
I will remember you
And when winter snowflakes begin to fall
And you wear your gloves and scarves for warmth
I will remember you
In the long dreary dark winter days
Lingering smells of coffee and apple cinnamon bakes
I will remember you
As the children's laughter slowly returns
And your smile that I long for and yearn
I will remember you
When the sunflowers directly gaze at the sun
And the windmills across the fields begin to run
I will remember you
When drunk are the freshly squeezed lemonade
And along the wind sways, little girls braids
I will remember you
A seasons love, I will remember you
I will always remember you
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 4:36 PM UTC
She Doesn't know how I feel about her,
Her smile, her laugh, her eyes
it all blows me away
When I look at her,
it leaves me in awe on how one human being,
can be so mesmerizing
taking me and engulfing me
into a moment of beauty and wonder
She Doesn't know I sneek peeks at her
just to see her bright smile,
She Doesn’t know I adore her
from the way she crinkles her nose
to the way she laughs at stupid little things
She Doesn't know I thank god for her presence every day
because every little thing she does brightens up my day
She Doesn't know she's part of the reason I enjoy life so much
She Doesn't know I think about her when i'm alone and gloomy
She Doesn’t know the reason behind my smile,
when I look at her
She Doesn't know I constantly sit and think
aspiring to find
someone as amazing as her to call my own
She Doesn’t know how i feel about her,
…….simply because I can't find a way to tell her
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 3:49 PM UTC
Soft shapes touch a child's finger,
Memories of their sweetness linger--
Helping grandma roll the dough
In her kitchen long ago.
I like the shape your cookies take
When they spread out as they bake,
Like the changing shapes of crowds,
Melting snow or summer clouds.
Oven-hot and placed on racks,
Lined up , lying on their backs,
Coming from a single batch,
But none of them a perfect match.
Toll house cookies, soft, convex,
Each perfection, like the next:
Chocolate chips their surface grace--
Freckles on a child's face.
Pecan ball aren't perfect spheres,
But they're gentle little dears:
Bottoms flat, sides dented slightly,
With white sugar sprinkled lightly.
Sugar cookies cold days cheer,
Shaped like angles and reindeer
Glazed with frosting sweet and white,
Decked with sprinkles all delight.
Santa's Whiskers, coconut rolled,
Long fat logs of sugared dough,
Cut in portions smooth and round,
Pecan bits, cherries abound.
Molasses crinkles' faces lined
Like old men's--the friendly kind--
With lines like back roads on a map,
Dunked in milk before a nap.
Oatmeal cookies, shapes amorphous
Juicy raisins budge enormous,
Semi-blobs, their texture rough,
Sometimes packed with nuts and stuff.
So many cookies through our life,
Since we became husband and wife,
In their sweet aroma and taste
Years rushed by like cars in a race.
Looking at their shapes diverse
Reminds me of our love at first:
We weren't sure just where we'd go
And all we had was cookie dough.
Dec 17, 2017
Dec 17, 2017 at 11:05 AM UTC
Something’s stirring
- hey honey, sweetie, sugar-
Something’s ******* up and in, like their stomachs,
(why don’t I look that flat, mummy?)
Something’s furious and seething, something strong
And stuck and breathing
My bones in. It’s the *** you see, yeah you bet,
All they are is *** sweaty, oily, wet
With some such suffocating, suffering, surrendering
Desire to please.
Please the man, the thick man, with your eyes.
Please him with your deadened stare – glare -
Please him with your chest, your hair,
Feel the way that wind rustles and tousles, as you dance,
As you feel the liberation of a thrusty, ***** pleasing stance,
As they slip money between your legs. As they wrap you up, up,
Up in its crinkles, up in its arms,
Swept from your feet and in love, swept up from harm,
Just as you desired.
Love is the one – but what? Love comes from beauty, right?
Full lips, bright eyes, as dead as the night,
The best thing a girl can be is pretty.
(well that’s what they are on screens)
And that’s why I cried when they drew a picture,
Fourteen and they took all our ‘best features’
Ripped them from our bodies,
Bundled them up into one jigsaw creature
-where’s mine?
They forgot me,
But it’s fine – she’s got your per-son-a-lit-y.
And I cried.
It’s easy to say, I know, and I see
That things are better now, I am almost free.
But oh she’s been in the wars:
She’s hit; she’s ripped; she’s cut; she’s lost;
That pleasing object onscreen – she’s yours.
But passion’s no good, gotta be pure, sweet and true
Well she’s gotta be new, and a girl's gotta do
What a girl only can do,
‘Til she’s through,
‘Til she’s cold cold and blue,
So hey lady, lady, lay-dee,
Who are you?
Sorry for the passion, words disordered in a heap.
Didn’t mean to make it bleak. Didn’t mean to make her speak.
But you see this is how she might.
Flocked in furious, in flight,
The little bird - the beast - is heard:
Each word, each word, each bite.
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 2:35 PM UTC
A Valentine's Card dressed
With Steve Buscemi's face,
photoshopped onto a child,
disturbing and hilarious,
tattooed on the inside
with once-true truths.
Flammable.
A severed chunk of
35 mm film,
cut in a rhombus,
or trapeze or whatever,
highly flammable.
A piece of cloth
I brought with me,
And the part of
the belt I had to cut
off so it would fit
my skinny ***
Flammable, slightly.
A dead and dried up leaf,
Impaled on the bulletin board,
From a tree I don't even know what,
That sometimes crinkles with the wind,
If she were alive still,
She would comment on the
Cold thumbtack spear
In her abdomen, and
Sniff regrets at the sweet,
Artificial Vanilla waves below.
I keep my wall of
flammable memories
Above a lit candle,
Every day, I wish the flames
Would reach a little higher, but
Every day, the wax sinks,
low, low, lower still.
Feb 26, 2017
Feb 26, 2017 at 2:55 PM UTC
Its faded pink parka,
Stretched tight across its shoulders
Even in the summer twilight,
Crinkles, stale newspapers and plastic bags
Cacophony with the rhythmic
Thud of shopping cart wheels.
Its rotten malt liquor stench--
Astringent ammonia sweat
Runs in rancid rivulets down
Decaying skin on decaying face.
Pimples and pus and
Meth-notched teeth.
It offers a drink
In exchange for change.
My pockets jangle noisily,
But I offer only empty hands.
Aug 11, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 9:09 PM UTC
the lines on our hands
mingle with the
roughness of the fibre
of our skins
*talking of touches
long spent*
-
there are grooves decorating
our feet
our soles are flattened
only reminders of the places we've been
-
crinkles beside our mouth and eyes
*they speak
of smiles
to faces
whisper of tears
in air*
-
sometimes
we forget
we drift
*and just like the last time,
we're drawn into the story that never finished
- a story never told*
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 12:19 PM UTC
a person barely within earshot
may absorb the cheerful ring in my voice.
they see me in glimmering gold
embellished with refracting glass -
always with crinkles adorning my eyes.
someone else may be right across the table
and see small smoke tendrils escaping my ears.
laughter follows the smoke, and it fades away.
they see dull gold topped with smashed glass.
the crinkles sometimes disappear,
only to return a few seconds later.
A few can see my heart whenever they like.
they hear unsteady tremors between words.
they see billowing smoke
emanating from my ears and mouth.
they know the wrapping is gold foil
with smashed hourglasses piercing my skin.
the crinkles appear whenever they want.
nevertheless, they see me rise, even as I ache.
I, the permanent resident of this body,
shed the itchy foil whenever I can.
my cells are clouded by smoke,
and the hourglass fractals
swirl into a tornado behind my sternum.
the crinkles have been starched.
But, I remember I am walking on diamonds,
and I slowly sculpt my armor.
I exhale, and the smoke clears, bit by bit.
I reach behind my sternum,
grabbing the fractals to line my armor.
I splash water onto my face,
and the corners of my eyes crinkle again.
Apr 10, 2022
Apr 10, 2022 at 11:40 PM UTC
There's always an
inexplicable something
about all things old.
Maybe, these yellowing, crinkled, slightly forgotten
-slipped off the inky azure of the mind's corners-
have felt the way a pair of lips
moves & crinkles
as
they make
wide-eyed wishes and closed mouth good-byes.
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 10:46 AM UTC
I fell in love with a boy
whose smile outshined the stars in the night sky
I fell in love with a boy
who couldn't stop laughing
with the crinkles by his eyes
making him look older than he is
I fell in love with a boy
who had dreams
big ones too,
and the world was his oasis
I fell in love with a boy
who could make the saddest story
have a happy ending
I fell in love with a boy
and how lucky I feel
to have loved than never loved at all.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 8:00 AM UTC
A hot spring
In the midst of Brooklyn
She walked in
An empty basin
Porcelain!
Suddenly rained
The water moving
Rage!
No wind to sail
No sun glare
Raveling black fiber
Ravened the rain
Stabbing through
Skin!
Awakened millions
Thirsty pores
Two hands walk
Ten fingers
Doing push ups
From head to toes
Bubbly bubbles
A bouquet of cloud
Smells of utopia
Rinsing off!
The curtain opens
Crinkles
A middle aged woman
Leaped out
A naked trickling rain
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC
To lose the robust and ephemeral vitality,
is waking up in dazed desolate imitation,
that creases and crinkles euphoric principality.
Blades of grass, sharp tipped spears of unreality.
A chilling, a challenged negation;
to lose the robust and ephemeral vitality.
Spinning round the ugly formality,
are snickers, unshy sneers of an evil salvation,
that creases and crinkles euphoric principality.
Thrilling no longer a verb, piano key pressing its precious mortality
into her throbbing thrashed temple dictation.
To lose the robust and ephemeral vitality.
A ****** numb soul with the criticality
of skeptics, chewing their lips, a dead cell castration
emotional stripping, slipping into complete impromptu filtration.
That creases and crinkles euphoric principality.
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 10:39 PM UTC
Its sun-bleached pink parka
Limply hung over slumped, thin shoulders
Even in the summer twilight,
Crinkles, stale newspapers and plastic bags
Dissonance with the jarring
Rattle of shopping cart wheels.
Its rank malt liquor stench—
Astringent ammonia sweat
Runs in rancid rivulets down
Decaying skin on decaying face.
Pimples and pus and
Meth-notched teeth.
It offers a drink
In exchange for change.
My watch has never been more riveting.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 1:15 AM UTC
the feeling of your fingers
tracing the scars on my skin,
the tingle you leave on my lips
as your mouth parts ways with mine,
and the way your tongue forms my name
in a way that no other can match.
I crave
the light in your eyes
when my pupils are reflected in yours,
the wrinkles covering the folds of your forehead
as worry takes over every cell in your body,
and the way your voice cracks
when the worry refuses to leave.
I crave
your arms around mine
gentle, calming, warm,
the strength in your hands
as they grip mine tight,
and the way your nose crinkles
from the pain you refuse to admit you carry.
I crave
the times we were together,
nothing able to break us apart,
because you used to
crave me too.
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 12:52 AM UTC
My notebook
Full of words
Letters
Commas and periods
My notebook
Full of smudges
Eraser bits
Crinkles and creases
My Notebook
Full of messages
Hidden Meanings
Energy and life
My notebook
Is the place,
The book
In which
I write
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 8:31 AM UTC