"cuticle" poems
Her weary eyes, skin torn at the cuticle
Feet aching yet marching still
Cotton on the heir’s back
Canvas on the feet of the dutchess
Triple the hours, double the dough
His crimson cheeks, toes purple with pride
Not a single tear, nor a single fear
No fuel for his ego
No warmth for his heart
Just a lonely street corner
Their tear-stained dress, his voice, her choice
Deep in their skin do they confess
If God was real, he'd want perfect
God wouldn't make them a sin
A “he” or “she” is not needed
The silent voice of forgotten
Too afraid to speak, startled still
Too afraid to be saved
Gone but never forgotten
A son or daughter, broken
A wedding, thank this “God”
Where men can act as such
And women use their powder
But genders may stay pure
It is a sin, after all
A young girl watching the news
Filled with hate, this world turns
She is coming of age, is she not?
She understands their struggle
And ready she is to stand up
For she has kids to feed
For he just needs a meal
For they want to be real
For they were never heard
For they wed their own
She understands. She accepts.
She is ready.
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 12:55 AM UTC
997
Crumbling is not an instant’s Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation’s processes
Are organized Decays.
’Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust—
Ruin is formal—Devil’s work
Consecutive and slow—
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping—is Crash’s law.
5.6k
your soul is
what tumbles
from your old youth;
toothless, mute -
and beautiful.
it disputes the diluted musical
that unfolds you...
proof-less, your lute
is full.
your soul is
where you twist rocks and fell from -
a great height, below your skin suit, dull.
it drew you
with resolute ink, with a needle
and spoon...
etched on the cuticle,
a portrait
of your
skull.
and
you're every
nebulous
moon.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 8:45 AM UTC
Out of everything I saw, I remember
the thumb.
Swollen and lopsided.
There it was, conquering the wires--red, blue, and green,
commandeering the clear tubes coated with stomach bile.
And the nail. What a healthy nail.
A pink rosebud with cuticle trim. Piqued with a white crest, curling.
Prime for at least fifteen more back scratches.
A drawerful of button-ups.
Pockets of heads and tails.
You can do it, Grandma.
One, two.
Heads, tails.
Up, down.
Up for braid, down for bun.
Braid? Yes. Braid.
And then there are two small thumbs bumbling through foreign terrain.
The braidee now braiding. The baby,
aging.
Tucked in, lulled by echoes of strange mothers. Bleeping pressures, sugars, drawing lines and colors.
But you have me.
And I have this thumb,
hidden under mine.
I’ll keep it safe for you, here in this shadowed palm—sanctified, secret dome.
I’ll protect it from the unhooked jaw.
From placid flesh curtains, over a damp backstage.
White light hanging over the insect—splayed on a lightning-gleamed car windshield.
I’ll hide it away.
Intermission.
Hush now.
Quiet, you. The show is not yet done.
And ****** it won’t be. Not with this thumb.
Not on my time.
I bite it.
At you. Skyward you.
Elusive and slippery. Shiny, rubber-like, all but new.
A blank belated card, lost in the mail.
What it might have said,
had I left a forwarding address.
But we’re here now in this dark hand cavern.
Tucked away, safely in lines.
Those of the palm.
Of tree rings.
Of love songs, and
Pretty things.
Lines, like wires
red, green, and blue.
They bring me closer
And closer
To the thumb.
Fat, with shiny aged skin,
stretched new.
And suddenly, I’m
Old.
Numb along one side.
Useless and dumb.
A limp puppet
plunked down
during intermission.
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 3:38 PM UTC
I pressed my left heel down to get it into the strap of my sparkled sandal--bought from the cheap version of the rich girl store; I got them more than half off.
I'm a fraud.
Sliding my foot into the shoe,
the way I've done so many times before,
I lose my balance.
And there goes the first one.
I knew the nails were coming off;
I'm not all that wealthy.
I have to wait until the last minute to cough up fifteen bucks to get these things re-done.
I thought it just popped the nail straight off,
but it throbs and is begging for me to pay it some attention.
I peer down at where the once perfectly manicured nail (baby blue tips and all) had sat upon my index finger.
It has left a ****** mess--jagged and imperfect.
I can see my real nail drawn up next to my cuticle like a smile.
Placed on top is a half moon of hardened acrylic until it breaks off near the soft doughy point of my freshly exposed fingertip.
Edgy.
Almost.
The blood lines the rim and trickles it's way down
curving its way around the smile;
highlighting the crescent of my own fingernail.
It throbs.
****
I say wanting someone to hear me.
****
a little louder.
I just want to complain lately.
I want a little attention for the suffering I put my own self through.
As I wait it throbs more.
I wipe the blood away just to watch it refill.
I walk down the stairs,
and they take care of me.
They give me my oohs and ahhs and owes,
put some ointment on a paper towel because we don't have bandaids,
wrap it with tape,
and I'm off to sew my dress back together for dinner.
My sister's dress;
my sister's dress that she got from a nearby neighbor
who stuffed it in a trash bag and left it there for us to take.
Maybe I will get a discount.
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 12:49 PM UTC
I am your eyelids and the train-tracks of your stitches. I am the cracks in your bones and the wealthy mind riches. I am the fluid of your language that speaks in every sentence of your prose, I am the syllable you cannot speak though your tongue still knows. I am the chapel of your rib cage and the rage that it slows, closing the gates to the crosses in rows. I am the dirt under your cuticle and the follicle of your skin, sprouting a thread of your body within. I am the anxiety of your brain and the ecstasy of your flesh, crawling at the sense that you attain and possess. I am your lost baby teeth and the way that they chatter, I am the neurons, the synapses, the white and grey matter. I am your saliva burning caverns in the cave of your time. I am the line of your lips and the lungs you call, "mine." I am your soul, your secrecy, your sanctity. Your spine.
May 24, 2013
May 24, 2013 at 3:58 PM UTC
i don't have anything to say. not really. how can i when my own bones feel like strangers that pilfered a body when nobody was looking? when i speak, small echoes of some one else kindly pull at my fingertips, slipping under the nail and past the cuticle where it unfolds like sad gods found to be made of origami swimming in a sea of memes. it hurts like hell. and so, i've come to know silence. it holds me. brand new shell. my process, felt.
Dec 27, 2015
Dec 27, 2015 at 2:51 PM UTC
cut cute cuttlefish
cutthroat rotisserie
cuticle tickling
cutoff
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 12:35 AM UTC
Five nights a week at midnight, he dyes blue.
Angel, you’re bad news.
Salvation Army button-downs unbuttoned in a second our hands have introduced kinetic bear hugs, although visually frail and weathered.
Shoulder length hair and a cuticle away from pure. obsession.
Of all the heartbeats and hop, skips and jumps; I surrender.
Adding the lye
m.
cm.
mm.
Get closer.
Knock me over in slow motion.
Tumbling rotary dial “1” click. “2” click, click.
Rendering the grease
I’m closing the locker when
He appears at 11:55 P.M.
Beat up, an 8 track cassette surviving a barrage of garage sales.
My dear affection is still a child labor law. Juvenile.
Staring Aderol Syndrome (S.A.S.).
Birds nest palms, the delicate benchmark.
I would give up half of $4.75/hr.
Warm me up and share $9.50/hr.
Collecting Grease
Gunmetal blue, locker “27.”
I read an article of clothing yesterday, not from these parts.
At
Your
Steel-toe
Boots.
Please listen. You know the dialect.
Coffee brewer, lighter sharer, you are the Aurora Borealis eventful.
Five nights a week at midnight, I dye blue.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 5:51 PM UTC
tingling. my fingers warn me
that anxiety is nibbling
that my heart is transforming
it beats then tweets
a bird locked in a rib cage
That is rapidly shrinking
feathers fall as wings beat fast
a cage that grips the bird at last
I gasp for air and feel the choke
my hands cover my mouth
I know that I will faint if i
let air in again
faster
faster
faster
until I feel the bird passing
my rib cage loosens grip
my hearbeat take
a sweet doves place
a little sad
and more worn then before
and I am forced to take this
Scared, torn and beaten *****
as a token that says life
can just be living sometimes
I look inside a mirror and see
frigid ice crystalize around an iris
Reflecting this coldness
chilling my spine and reminding me of loneliness
even when its taciturn pools
of tears sent ripples
laughter fled and long missed giggles
my eyes see winter
where they once saw
wildfire dancing
and doves sing songs
I look into the my hands
each fold of skin hiding secrets
every etched out finger print
like a deciphered map
trying to take me to a place I haven’t been yet
perhaps 3D puzzle
that fingers haven’t fit yet
every short torn nail
every cuticle
looking for a space to fill
is as sad as the heart and eyes before them
I beat. I look. I feel
its all so hard right now
to be a living declaration
given word to life’s just living
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 11:49 PM UTC
And the worst thing is,
I muttered to my right thumb’s torn cuticle,
The Absolute Very Worst Thing In the History of the Universe is
My tongue flounders to find
what I want to say.
So I say,
I’m talking to myself.
I bite the cuticle,
and it stings in that way
that somehow makes me want to do it again.
The Absolute Very Worst Thing in the History of the Universe is
that I don’t know.
I don’t know what I want,
I mean.
The Absolute Very Worst Thing in the History of the Universe is
to have a frozen skeleton,
I sample, though I’m not quite sure
what I mean to mean.
To have these metal fish-hooks
snagged in my skin,
one pulling north, the other dragging south.
You see?
To keep digging holes and sowing seeds
that I have no idea what they’ll grow to be
(pumpkins or daisies
or something awful. Like beets.)
but I’m blistered and there’s sweat that stings my slivered palms (not in the good way) but I keep digging and digging and I can’t stop because someone says I have to move forward, forward, forward, but really I’m just moving in circles, and I’m not doing anything but something, and what is the point, in that, really?
But the worst thing is,
that knowing that to be happy,
and not even like a kid,
beaming, triumphantly holding his lost tooth up in the air,
(I’ve given up on that)
but in the,
I suppose I can sleep at night
way,
(these days, I apparently talk to myself instead,)
The worst thing is
knowing that to feel warm,
to feel things,
Something drags me forward,
in my stupid shoes that make me hobble instead of walk,
I must keep moving forward
in spite of
the shade of a ghost,
that kisses the hollow of my neck
traces his fingers down my spine
and whispers,
you’re getting tired.
Come lie down with me.
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 9:39 PM UTC
Twenty-nine scars
Twenty-nine lessons I have learned
Twenty-nine reasons why I am now a warrior
Instead of a worrier
I craved the blade to ride across my skin
Slicing open that first layer
To let free the blood that cried for an escape
This was my way to deal with the pain
Because I thought it was the only answer
To deal with my fear, my worries, my loneliness, and my insecurities
These scars aren't just from kissing the blade
I had another love from the plastic cuticle pusher
With a metal end
And the lighter I ignited to heat it up
I was convinced that physical pain
Could fight off emotional pain
But if seen by those I love
Then those scars from the physical pain
Would only bring them emotional pain
I am sorry
This is not wanted
I do not deserve this
No one at all deserves this
Pain I sense
Will be pain I will approach
Pain I can find
Will be pain I will fight
These are twenty-nine scars
Twenty-nine reasons why I deserve to live
Twenty-nine causes of self-love
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 6:29 PM UTC
that deadened fingernail
first damaged long ago
not quite a lifetime but
time enough
to feel that way
is showing signs of regrowth
partially shrouded but visible
beneath the lingering ruin
the fingertip was caught
ensnared and pressed
more firmly than
could be endured
though care was provided
the bruising ran deep
and undermined any chance
of this body's repair
unexpectedly
and unimaginable
in spite of this layer
of lamented keratin
there stretched forth
a sudden burgeoning
a crescent of cuticle
and lunula
telling of the strength
of the fingernail to come
Jan 2, 2024
Jan 2, 2024 at 7:20 AM UTC
First stage
Man and wife are equally blind
Not a single blemish comes to their sight
Like Cyclopes they are one eyed,
Each feels a love like theirs is hard to find
Every now and then they chant the litany of love
They are on an exciting expedition
Explorers rather than fellow travelers
And thrilled at every new discovery,
They stick together as two magnets,
Moving in a high powered circuit
Second Stage
They begin to taste life’s bitter juice
Between them grows a stale familiarity
Which on their face they carry like an ugly wart
Now they become Argus eyed
Nothing escapes their notice
Distance creeps into them
Tastes differ, arguments prop up
Sometimes they holler at each other
Even minor differences of opinion
Can end up as a high voltage drama
Third Stage
Both grow equally frail and infirm
Differences are ironed out
Their talk always verge on their ailments
Constipation and insomnia often surface up
In looks, they grow more and more alike
As though the long years
Have made their features blend and bleed
Even they smell similar
A mixed odor of dried cuticle
And the smell of some balm or ointment
That they liberally apply
On their aching back and stiff joints
While walking, they support each other
Careful not to slip and fall
Has the lost love come back?
Or is it all just a survival mechanism!
May 15, 2016
May 15, 2016 at 6:29 AM UTC
I played with the charcoal pillow on my head,
My greedy fingers refusing to let go of those soft strands,
I stared into the mirror to get the pillow to rest,
When I saw the monster society had created.
A self-centered human being who thought everything nothing,
Her dress must be crisp and no crease should be shown,
Her fingers were polished and there was not a single cuticle out.
But these same fingers used to be so sickly,
Her body covered with marks of a razor’s edge
Her heart bruised with the words of others
And in her painful flashback she remembers the words,
“I am used to it”
I don’t see that pain filled girl in that mirror anymore
I smirk; this is the best for me I thought
And then mirror cracked and my reflection was broken
When I saw the monster society had created was no better than the sickly girl.
I wasn’t accepted by my own soul.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 7:53 AM UTC
Long ago that day
A song crawled in my ear
Kissing the sunset in a pray
The sweetest sweetest one you could hear.
Better than at a breaking dawn
Farewelling the sun
Awn and awn
It folded my heart as the horizon run
Out of light of the drowning spot
There was something different
It was a melancholy strain, a lot.
The beautiful waves
Warped my tears
Pulling my legs
Closer to itself for me to clearly hear.
Blindly my way was made
By the voice my conscience afore-bade
When it first pricked my ears
With a farewell so beautiful,
So sad it brought out my tears,
To the shine going cuticle
'Tis a song better than at dawn
I hoped it went awn and awn and awn.
At the tip of mount
She sat
Knees on ground
Her beautiful lips suddenly spat
Infuriating tone cursing the winds
It wasn't a song it was a chit-chat
With someone for her heart stings.
Familiar her tone was
Long ago described by my mother
The old singer knelt down was
Someone whose tale had shuddered
My heart, my soul
This old lady
Once in a baby princess's role
Now sitting in dark shady
Sunset, was crying and wailing at them
Who destroyed her as they blasphemed
Her holy euphoria,
Her only joyful memoria.
The night darkens
And the story flashes
Of no Romeo no Juliet in their pretty garden,
But countless stars beating hardens
Not life of two but the whole universe
Let me start it with a violent verse....
(continued in Chapter 2)
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 9:15 AM UTC
This is the poem about itself
In a futile attempt at meta cognition
Why would a poem detest its own self?
Why bother discerning purpose beyond all else
*Why do I consider myself an anathema
When others behold and perceive me as beautiful
I'm devoid of a body to do anything dutiful
Nothing prepossessing, not even a cuticle*
For what, after all, what role do I play
In a convulsive storm of life each grim day
Bleak—the subtlety of shame, agony of dull pain
Haunting me! What less may I speak
*I constantly ponder my creator's reason
For penning me in that malevolent season
Was I evoked by boredom or pain?
My consistency only denotes dismay.*
This is the poem about itself
Ruminating the hell of all hells
A poem of darkness, perplexity too
What is my meaning, why?—I now ask you
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 11:54 AM UTC
When a spider is scared,
Too scared to run,
To bite,
It draws together.
Knees press inward,
Meeting at a point,
They cover their vulnerability
In an impenetrable wall
Of legs and cuticle.
Tonight, when I close my eyes-
When all I want is the silent,
Empty screen of sleep-
I see the octopedal child
Curled,
Frightened.
I think; "this is me."
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 4:08 AM UTC
You made “you and I” not exist
And that’s kinda cool in an aesthetic sense
But when I ****** dry your essence
I could taste only me in your skin
You took the chord and chewed it
Tore it with your incisor and spit it in my teeth
Children of the gourd
Children of the gourd
We swim in eels’ flesh
We mix with organs gutted and bleached
From fish in a factory
My fingernail split the cuticle and fell
Curling into your ear
That all you hear of me is mine on a chalkboard
And in a dream my bones rotted
Dancing against your form and encasing you to me
That my touch is nothing but raw and unwanted
I popped your cornea into the pocket of my cheek
Stole your vision for only that of me
That such a vision is now irritating and blinding
Lover lost I blew you away like dust to the wind
Every light popped and sizzled to show mercy
Then I whispered “to the pain” and cupped a vial of our blood
You made “you and I” not exist
But you drank deep until you drained me
And I could taste only me in your skin.
Aug 4, 2014
Aug 4, 2014 at 2:29 AM UTC
A hangnail that ends beyond your cuticle,
I wish I could say it hasn't happened before.
It feels like I'm rotting on the backburner,
On everyone's backburner.
It feels like payback for the years of dust I've let them collect.
I've lost my touch; I can't sell it like I'm busy.
I just don't care to sell it at all.
Mar 18, 2014
Mar 18, 2014 at 5:08 AM UTC
Heart's burst into a thousand
brutal glowsticks.
The vase of the body
pulsates
with shoots of light
and in the night
You can be seen
from space
a head a thousand filaments wide.
when i put my hands
on my chest,
thinking of you
and lick my lips,
thinking of you,
I can taste
black,
I can feel
black,
I am blackened
and dark
in my bedroom.
Touch that orb inside me, or mercury,
that loneliest lover slipping
off the cuticle of the horizon.
Reach out with your hands
to that compilation of so many lights
that seems one.
Become the glove that traps
infinity and bridges gaps
that break bodies into particles.
Make love to an earth of oblivion
an earth of nonsense,
an earth of pointlessness,
make love to the years of youth,
the years we waste
not making love.
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 8:03 AM UTC
puer
puera puerae
puella puellus
puelli
mani
cured and trimmed
too close almost
cuticle cut
blister sigh
blood blister
blood blossoming beneath
the nail bed
hit it right on
the nailhead
shaved legs,
and a neckbeard.
sledgehammer Sally
sips sweetly from silly
saddle-wearin' thoroughbred
unicorns
I am a fairy faun from
deep inside your frightful
wardrobe roaring lion lyin'
through the skin of my teeth
ice queen itch
I scream for
tag team *****
*** bag drag teen
ditch
pull queen grab
done deal dean
pull mean
and drag me in and
pull me out and
grab a hold and
leg it go and
let's flow and
I'm a ******* princess
gasping
and I'm Prince
Caspian
dead and
drowning between
blurred lines between
between the read the lines blurred
and I'm just trying to reach through
the seemingly subtle spaces
in between rows of words
between letters and faces
but every line and every
curve of the pen is an
iron bar and I'm just
trying to reach through
reach up through
all these symbols
pull myself out of
all these vague
misrepresentations
of understandings and
I accidentally cut myself
on the serrated edges of
the pixelated abstractions
and drip drip
Let's get some coffee.
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 6:57 PM UTC
i guess all those nights i spent studying
just weren't worth it.
and the hot flashes of nausea that kept me from sleeping
were just warning me of my incapacity.
and my cuticle-less fingers that dripped blood on the exam paper
must not have been wanted it enough.
and my stupid brain was foolish enough to believe that
i'd "done my best"
(was it? was that all i could have done? ever?)
god what was the point of it.
god it's not even that big of a deal.
god you're just stupid and you're inefficient.
god maybe you should have just done better
god you just can't get it can you
god if this is hard, imagine college
god stop! stop hitting your wrist against the table, it's not helping!
god google it, can you lose your academic gift?
god imagine their faces when they see your score
god how will you hide it now
god help me i can't go back don't make me go back please please
god wow you really thought you did well you thought you earned it
god what if you didn't care about it, then it wouldn't matter
god imagine that, you don't study, and all the expectations are gone
god imagine that, you don't try.
you don't try.
oh.
maybe i shouldnt try anymore maybe i shouldnt try anymore maybe i shouldnt try anymore maybe i shouldnt try anymore maybe i shouldnt try anymore i shouldnt try anymore i shouldnt try anymore i shouldnt try anymore i shouldn't try i shouldn't try i shouldn't try i shoudn't try i shouldn't try i shouldn't try i shouldnt try i shouldnt i shouldnt i shouldnt i shouldnt
Nov 28, 2024
Nov 28, 2024 at 12:21 AM UTC
Ayinke mi, eleyinju aro
Your arms comforts me... like ēka iroko
your eyes... so colourful like rainbow light
and your cuticle smiles.... gives ah heavenly sight
Nibo lo wa, Ayinke mi owon
Omo to rewa ti o la 'bawon
Our heart has been intertwine to one
So living alone suffocates my lungs
What else could I have hoped
Luxuries and gold, don't want none of that
The doctor said I've been diagnosed
And ife re nikan lo le mu mi lara da
Ayinke mi, igbawo lo' made
If you want me to, I'll forever wait
Cos you're worth more than okuta iyebiye
I'll spend all I have.... mi o ko iyekiye
To make my heart' the home you forever stay
Aug 27, 2023
Aug 27, 2023 at 11:12 AM UTC
one long difficult
brow hair
sticking out
with a slight whirl toward the end
bending its once linear course
i pull at it
whiff on the first three tries
but get it on the fourth
one smear of red
marks the deed
holding it between thumb and forefinger
i observe its root
pale translucent box-like tag
bags layers of me
the shaft of hair itself
wears three layers
its cuticle tells species
the cortex tells the sort of hair
and the medulla tells ethnicity
but the follicular tag
brags of my very own me
that i cannot see
ladder of unusual protein
pirouettes
and scene
Dec 25, 2015
Dec 25, 2015 at 1:54 PM UTC