"deflated" poems
Hello, Waitress in the sky
So long her fear to fly
She throws the world a smile
bats her eyes in a wink she's gone
hurling through the clouds
calming others through turbulence
**** the corporate scene
Type A personalities acting mean
humiliating her in a board meeting
so she trades blue for green
Goodbye Waitress in the sky
trade her wings for a diamond ring
So long her need for speed
racing on the runway
She was flying with the birds but now
she's swimming with the fishes
Deflated dreams of broadening horizons
a-popped balloon and a rolling stone
nowhere to go but everywhere
Oh Lord, she won't get the answer tonight
Oh sky, give her the strength to fly
Oh Queen, find her a smart place to run
and that's why she took US 66 for a drive
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 3:17 PM UTC
Hues of violet
As the azure meets the reddened sun
Sparse deflated clouds
Floated quiet as into each other, the colours run
Lavender streaks
Trail far into the horizon
Tracking the sunset
As the hour struck seven
Purple gladioluses
Bowed to the evening sea breeze
As if mourning the departure
Of the day's warmth with silent pleas
The orb finally sank
Beyond my sight could reach
Disappeared from here
But rising over someone else's beach
Last dregs of light
Slowly swallowed, giving birth to indigo
This night would last long
Before the first rays of tomorrow...
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 8:24 AM UTC
Oh no
it must be *****
After we ******
a bit
and she
said
I ****** at it,
deflated
I wandered off home.
But I realised much later
she needed me to cater
to everything.
Shaft me side on
with a tuning fork
she's long gone,
destroying some
other
poor soul.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 1:12 PM UTC
i hear you say
"i don't want to hurt you"
as i feel your words, like a knife
pierce through my chest
and go through my heart
and suddenly my passion
is deflated like a balloon
being pricked by a pin
-
"i don't want to hurt you"
but this feels like an elephant
is stepping on my chest
and i hurt.
despite your narrowing efforts
to keep me feeling safe
please stop making me feel like
i should just jump into the lake
o.o.
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 11:31 PM UTC
And so the green balloons did grow
Inflated, nurtured over time,
This tree of air
Nitrogen,
Oxygen,
Carbon
Dioxide,
Argon,
Traces of other gases too,
Out side was warm
Internal temp minus triple degrees,
What had been barren branches
Now sustained as these
Strings matured forth
Buds of latex and rubber grew,
Liquid air exhaled as the buds nurtured
Air expanded with warm the green balloons
Grew
&
Grew
Sprung forth in to life what once was
Small, now expanded fuelled by the
Cold fuel of the tree of white,
In the winds they did gesture
As if dancing putting on a show
Tree,
Branch,
String,
Green balloons flourished there veins
Feeding air anew,
Blustery winds picked up
Strings did snap, green balloons did
Float away, drifting upon high
Into a sea of blue,
But as seasons change,
Green balloons became loose
Many floated away to places new
Those that did not,
Deflated,
Depleted,
Exhausted,
Nourishment of air, no longer green ballons
Phenomenon's of gases changed
And green faded now this tree of air
Brought forth new shades of
Yellows,
Purples,
Black,
Oranges,
So these colours did fall from the tree,
Floating not as before,
They did descend, slowly to the floor,
Biodegradable. they did fade
From view, not what they were before,
The life cycle of these green balloons
The tree of white grows evermore cold,
For seasons change and green balloons will
Grow again next spring floating in the air once more.
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 6:15 PM UTC
In childhood, your father’s name is DAD
Now grown, maybe with children of your own
But his name is still DAD
DAD, the teacher, the consoler, the advisor
Admonishes: “Drive safe” and “Save your Money”
Today he’s the bard
“This is like prison,” DAD laments while rolling his eyes
Tubes like thin plastic chains tether his deflated body
to blinking panels; paintings (factory printed ones)
pretend the hospital room is more than just a sterile space
Today, DAD’s eyes cast a faraway gaze, projecting
And I see the characters in his story
I see the 10 year old boy he describes, who snuck to stash a set
Of English Composition Texts in the boy’s bathroom
To escape Mrs. McElroy’s Fourth Grade course in Morose Poetry
I see the thin, sandy blond, 6 foot 2 high school rabblerouser
Who broke into the Vice Principal’s old Fiat
And buried Stilton cheese in the dashboard
All done on a sweltering May school day
The anecdote is punctuated with a smirk and a: “Who would do a thing like that?”
Stories of when he spotted a shy brunette at the dance and knew
Knew he was to marry her;
Stories of when his own DAD grasped his infant grandson’s dimpled hand
Before giving in to complications of a heart attack
The bard stops and exhales a sigh
He cringes in his crinkled skin
Sunken eyes squeeze close “I’m sorry”
the nausea interrupts his tale “These drugs are…”
“It’s okay. Take your time” I console, trying to comfort the pain in the room
Now I’m the consoler, taking on the job to ameliorate
Now this man, vulnerable in his suffering, is no longer DAD
Now mortal, a child, a brother, a lover, a patient
A man chained by the body’s sickness
He is distilled by chemo
reduced to a soul, who, through affliction,
Forgets
As his children remember
He is as helpless in this life as we are.
Jun 17, 2016
Jun 17, 2016 at 12:38 AM UTC
Before walking through the doorway
Made of trash bags
A woman checked our ID’s
We passed the booth with the feathers and the ball-gags
Passed the woman selling *** toys
Just a white awning with plastic chairs
We sat and watched a man dressed in leather
He was the kind of expert who understood his passion
But for him there was no teaching it
Beer saturated my white shirt
As I sweated it out
I could feel the alcohol in my lungs
I breathed slower as if it would hide the sensation
He explained to us puppy play
The dynamics
He had his own puppy with him
A man so good at making wet eyes
So good at seeming lost
He barked and wagged an invisible tail
Chewed on rope
Probably he thought about burying his bone
What his wife might be making for dinner
Wondered if I had recognized him as a regular
At my work
While taking questions the leather man said
It takes time to discover the puppy inside
It makes me think of how
In order to view ourselves as anything
We need a filter
I want you to **** me
With a ****** full of yes
I told them
If I were a puppy
I would be very stupid
But great to cuddle
We can admit these things about ourselves
While in character
If I tell you
I am pretending to be anything
I can still find ways to pretend to be me
It is like an electric chair
Disguised as a lazy boy
It will not hold you for long
Your skin does not fit proper
It makes me think of my father
The Clown
Who bent me into shape
With his balloon animal breath
Only he had asthma
The empty static
My inner puppy
Is a half deflated balloon poodle
Ends pulled tight like amputee sausage link limbs
Looking lost and lonely isn’t hard
What’s hard about it is
Looking like that was your intention
In character
Some invisible narrator
I can admit anything
Jul 28, 2012
Jul 28, 2012 at 4:28 PM UTC
They deflated the ball
They had no problem catching it at all
They kept one inflated to kick
Cheating lost them their draft pick.
Why did you have to cheat?
You still wouldn't of faced defeat
Second time cheating since spy-gate
Now, you have deflate-gate
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 8:21 AM UTC
Fingers make contact with hands,
we can’t stand like,
butter
flies
on
a
tree branch
amidst a strange wind.
Fluttering above
trees rooted in sidewalks,
out of sight.
And it feels like
the texture of our shirts
is truth,
the cat fur,
the bed sheets,
our clenched teeth,
Molly whispers in our head
a meditative melody,
and we’re rollin,'
our infinite eyes
hung together
in widened silence,
enjoying a good lie.
Indigo children
with no words, just hands,
applauding the feeling,
dreading the end.
Time past,
grown up,
deflated,
we come down
to see that
sober is just
categorizing
adjectives.
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 6:30 PM UTC
Late night dedications from you to me.
Writing you letters to see if you are holding it down for me.
Collect calls from me to you and some steamy conversation...
when your family inquires about my whereabouts....you say I'm on vacation.
Your image in my head is what makes each day easier to bare.
I'm writing and doing this time instead of stressing and pulling out my hair.
It's been said that you do the time and don't let the time do you.
I don't want to see the white jackets and be 302'd.
Listening to the radio as the love songs play.....
Daydreaming as I glance at the pictures of us together on Unity day.
The reason I love you is not hard to see or maybe it's just me.
My emotions run wild whenever you're next to me.
Expressing to you my visions and dreams while I'm incarcerated.
Promises that when I get out ....our lives won't be complicated.
My thoughts become hot air balloons and the English language becomes foreign.
A refugee in my own land except my name's not Lauryn.
Wishing I could hold you and fall into a deep sleep.
Time would stand still and nightmares would never creep.
Our love is like a mountain that has no peaks.
I'm missing you like crazy as I'm counting down the weeks.
I'm holding you hostage. You're a prisoner without the cuffs.
You're saving yourself for me, but it's evident I'll never be worthy enough even if I was free.
The money was my idol and it came so fast.....
Partying my life away and having a blast.
I never thought about how long the money and fun would last.
My rise and fall like a pool that's been deflated.
My capture and imprisonment greatly exaggerated and celebrated.
The families that I've hurt......by them I'm hated.
I've destroyed my neighborhood. That's what many have stated.
All this is true .....so I'm setting you free.
Consider this the last correspondence you'll ever receive from me.
Please accept this heartfelt apology. My love I am so....so sorry.
My love has revolved around you. My every waking thought has been about you.
Now you are telling me that you're setting me free.....
Whoa! wait a minute......How could this be?
Since we were little kids it's been me and you.
You were the paper and I was the glue.
My people said that you were not good enough for me, but I was still stuck on you.
This really hurts my heart as I read the words you've penned.
I realized not so long ago that this relationship must come to an end.
The transition will be difficult and it will take time for my heart to mend.
As I listen to the lockdown love dedications again and again.....
I'll have vivid memories of how this relationship began it end.
4ever in my heart
Lockdown Love
Oct 7, 2012
Oct 7, 2012 at 4:36 PM UTC
I feel like
I've been deflated.
And it's melodramatic
but I'm a little heartbroken, too.
Because in my head
I built us a future
and I knew all these details
I shouldn't have.
It seemed right,
completely perfect,
and I was ready for some fairytale
ending.
Aug 25, 2012
Aug 25, 2012 at 11:57 PM UTC
The flowers will bloom, when will this child inside me bloom?
The vines have thorns.
Will these thorns keep pricking me?
I can't even really feel them.
Will I heal?
This deflated heart is waiting to be pumped with your love for all the right reasons.
This ain't no treason.
The emptiness in between the walls.
Spaces between my teeth.
Can I just feel again?
Make me feel again.
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 1:58 PM UTC
There's a fire hose:
You drink it.
Well, you try to drink it.
You playfully examine it
For a few moments, then
You wrap your lips around the nozzle,
And pump up the pressure:
It blows you back
And pins you to a wall.
The spray stings your eyes,
But if it brings tears to them,
They are washed away by the flow,
Before you, or anyone else,
Can be sure they were there.
Your limbs ache,
You think that if only
You could rest them,
You could hold them stronger
But the time for rest rarely comes.
Some people, washed in despair
Or simply sanity, step out of the way
Never to look back and never to regret.
Some collapse or simply drown.
Others stand the force.
The mass of the waters accelerates,
But still they stand strong.
Wavering at times,
But never giving up.
And one day the flow slows
To a stream, to a trickle, to a drip
Then it stops.
You stand there:
Sudden and Sullen,
Dripping and Deflated,
Percolated, but Proud,
Wet, but Wise.
And you reach out,
Brass Rat rusted to your knuckle:
You grab a beaker and into it
You wring the waters of knowledge
From the clothes of your experience.
You take this drought and distill it.
You bottle it, you market it, or you give it away,
But, with luck, it takes the world by storm.
From the fire hose flow rises the rarefied results
Filtered through your hands,
Tested in your trials, Fortified in your failures,
Vivified in your victories.
You look back with mixed emotions:
Wondering if it was all really worth it.
Your prospective my grow,
It may never be clear,
But the fire hose flows on...
~D.B. Guy (March 6-12, 2010)
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 2:32 AM UTC
I still dream you hold my hand
as we walk across the pond.
but its surface was clean and unharmed by filth.
Your lungs were never deflated
and you would breathe so graciously.
I waited so long, my hair has grown
& your emerald eyes
had a lust for life.
I wish I could conjure your spirit when
they say how much they see you
in me.
But I'm left empty in the midst of all
they could never see,
I've grown up, but I'm never free
of the child you held in your arms.
I don't want to spend my life being haunted by a woman
that never fought her own ghosts.
Cancer is not a demon, it is an illness
and the zodiac you were born as
should be the only thing to touch you.
But still those weakened cells
took your body as their host.
Now I mourn you in the reflection of ponds
and wait for waterlilies to bloom in the place
of your face.
now I wait for your soft hands to hold me in your lap
and place a soft kiss on my forehead.
And when I think of my mother;
her poise and grace,
dresses of lace.
My desire for our souls to meet once more,
or to see your face in front of pearly gates.
—V.H.
Apr 19, 2018
Apr 19, 2018 at 10:41 PM UTC
Arrive in a neighborhood not mine.
Phoenix sun splits the mailboxes,
Cracked cement, bald lawns, deflated kiddie pools,
sippy cups gone brittle in the sun.
A toddler screams
until a sibling gathers him inside.
Helios whips his chariot down the street,
steals my parking space.
White Shell Woman hushes the child
with a wind of cool dust.
I buy
donuts, Cheetos, pickles-
eat them in the car.
Gas station sink, hair and grit.
I scrub off orange powder.
Kokopelli swings from the paper towel rack,
flicking drops of water onto my face,
flirting, laughing at my small hungers.
Cemetery, sitting on the hood.
Graves hum in the heat.
Yours more-so.
Hecate steps from the shadow of a mesquite,
offers me three paths,
none of them home.
Coyote pads along the stone wall,
head cocked, grin sharp,
watching my pulse quicken.
White Shell Woman whispers:
_Run._
The blood in me stirs-
knife-bright, restless.
I step off the hood,
already fleeing toward
any other life.
Aug 2, 2025
Aug 2, 2025 at 12:44 PM UTC
Three minutes of song
flooded my brain
with images of that night.
It felt like I was there again—
you,
me,
and a deflated mattress.
The window rattling in the rain
as we whispered
our darkest truths.
It’s night now, baby.
Do I still make you stare—
stare into the sky
the way we once did?
Or do I melt
like a snowman in the sun,
leaving a puddle
for you to run through—
laughing,
barefoot,
untouched.
Just three minutes.
I’ll be sure to skip it next time.
But for now,
you can consume me.
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 1:09 PM UTC
(Read from the bottom up)
~kns
At the bottom.
Old news.
Dead.
Nothing but deflated.
Now I’m no one.
the sneering planes.
the disdainful clouds,
the sarcastic stars,
The mocking planets
Past the laughing heavens.
I’m falling now.
POP.
It backfires.
Everything.
Every ***** trick.
Every lie.
I use everything I have to get up there.
I struggle.
Higher.
Higher.
Higher.
I need to go
Yet, I’m not satisfied.
The imperfect heavens.
The shoddy planets.
The second-rate stars.
The mediocre clouds.
Beyond the substandard planes.
I’m at the top.
To dwell in the shining heavens.
To greet the egotistical planets.
To outshine the fading stars.
to test the pressure of the atmosphere.
my greedy desire,
I must fulfill my need,
Higher than any cloud has ever reached.
height.
To float higher than
height.
in a competition of
To beat each plane
than to go higher.
Nothing else matters
Higher.
Higher.
Higher.
I’m floating now.
Freedom.
I grab the chance to get out.
releases its grip.
It gets distracted and
some cruel being.
Chained to the ground by the claws of
At the bottom.
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 12:41 AM UTC
Your head on my chest:
thumping hare and cerebral mess,
the electricity and disconnects
drove my rhythms out of breath.
I didn't know that this was you:
a tantalizing wit in lieu
of the neurological faculty to
feel my chest pounding for you.
You are a palpable glitch,
with a brute heart and incisive wit:
my form deflated under it,
I gasp, writhe, and then submit.
My eager sentiment waits for the sound
of your breath catching then and now
and I think that you'll come around
when you grasp at me and moan aloud.
But you are steadily in place,
I, silly hare running a race, breathless face
your backward truth, the callous fate,
the need you can't reciprocate.
Apr 14, 2012
Apr 14, 2012 at 6:15 AM UTC
Not too distant beach tree sways in distance
Mandala Rorschach blot patterns dance like celebrating Salish drum circle
There's a hallow college sound of crime show to my left
Bickering with the occasional crush of,
**** my job is stressful."
A sleeping armadillo composed of quarks reflective within a drop of water
Fallen from the bottom-bulged North 49 canteen
A foot and 3/4ths away the snow-white generic of a ***** coffee mug formerly host to a Tetley green stands silent
Reminiscent of the eternal stillness of a mountain range
Fibonacci's name rings inexplicably from tilting branches
And I can't help but wonder if I would be grasping his hand in grasping a branch.
19 years alive and I can't help asking if I've grown-up too fast
Or simply grown into myself.
I feel old
young
and somewhere indescribable most of the time
and it's funny I cannot even fathom the length of 22 years.
A deflated balloon yellow like trend pants or sunrise sits like dejected missile
No longer screaming towards Gaza
No longer screaming.
A Holiday Inn Express pen sits with a ready-call number
Part of its mustang flame
If its quality of penmanship has any parallel to hotel service
Perhaps I'll stick with hostels.
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 2:34 PM UTC
.
The oceans are dying,
Coral reefs are bleached,
Ghostly acidic in the seas,
Climate is changing, not for Nero,
But for subjects who wait in whirlwinds
Eye, underneath uncapped mountain peaks,
And water is draining underground. Where is
Reason, where is sense uncommon? Not with
Elected hands who are wringing to lords of zero,
Whose legions are sent off, engaged in foreign wars,
To scathe, faraway dramas brought back home,
Politicians squabble, as they reel, cashing in,
Seals of unapprovals, witness hollow, low rings,
Infrastructure crumbles, above our dry heads,
And Nero plays his fiddle, in a land of perky dead,
John Lennon said NYC was in reality the new
Rome, soon set to burn, in a decade or so,
Nero knows, Nero plays, could give a feck'
Humanity is Nero playing his fiery fiddle
There is only one issue of news that matters,
Not bread, or circus, Kardashians, or deflated
Footballs, it is our survival, the earth, heating up,
Is angry and we are small, deaf, blind and numb,
A mankind of fools with Nero playing his fiddle.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 8:35 PM UTC
Your words are precision Bombs from slow junkers,
Exploding between my ears. there are no bunkers.
My response tumbles out stuttering like anti aircraft nests.
They hit smoke at best.
The alarms in my brain go off suppressed by tears discharged
Heart, Trust, Ego, Friends over the years the shards.......
Your armaments know where to hit and cause most damage,
The sarcasm of your arsenic love language.
Plumes of fiery emotion flare up, soon loves smoldering cracks .
I dodge your heat seeking adjectives, they encircle in packs.
Cold nights afloat clinging to this yellow deflated ego. falters
Awaiting hope in pirated waters.
Our love is war
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 3:07 PM UTC
Here God,
Everything is for you:
Here are my
Testicles, looking like smashed purple grapes,
Bruised, mashed, and crushed along with what
Is left of my once proud, now exploded, tattered *****
I have laid before you my
Disemboweled, bloodied and tangled intestines;
Blown into bits and pieces, here lays my torso along with
Shattered ribs, ruptured lungs, exposed internal organs:
Erupted heart; battered, split, spleen; torn, mangled liver;
Next to them, my legs, minus a few toes;
Arms with hands missing thumbs, fingers;
My head,
Less pieces of skull, cheek bones, nose, tongue, and teeth,
Is nearby;
Those puffy messes of glutinous, jellied, deflated ****** orbs are my eyes;
Over here, piles of chunks of obliterated pieces of flesh floating
On a thick soup of congealed blood, mixed and meshed with
Splintered, fractured, cracked bones; everything
Convoluted, disfigured, impossible to identify.
All of this is for you,
I am your martyr,
Your soldier,
Your obedient servant;
I blew myself up,
Along with many infidels including
Men and women,
Unborn babies and children,
Young boys and girls,
I tore their bodies to shreds,
Mangled and mutilated, they
Suffered deaths no nightmare could imagine.
I sacrificed myself for you,
Exemplifying piety and righteousness,
I await my reward,
Wait for you to put my pieces together again;
Been here for what seems an eternity and
You have not come near;
Not made me whole.
Where are you?
Are you not great?
Where are the young, innocent, ****** girls or
The boys with silky, pearl smooth skins;
Will I ever have an ******** again?
Uncomfortable, anxious, concerned I
Lay here on this sacred, hallowed ground,
Like a fleshy puzzle, scattered in jagged pieces,
Waiting to be solved;
Praying to be completed and recomposed.
Where are you God?
A virtuous, faithful, prostrated one waits;
I have much to show you.
Oct 21, 2010
Oct 21, 2010 at 7:50 AM UTC
The little boy left his soccer ball on the field,
perhaps to be kicked around later,
only to find it missing.
And it was a gift from dad.
So dad bought him a new one,
and the little boy decided to keep it in the trunk,
and never play with it.
And he just picked up another hobby.
Years later, he found his soccer ball-
deflated.
So he went out and bought a new one.
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 10:10 AM UTC
I am not depressed
I’m just deflated
Out of style and over-dressed
At second-best, I’m overrated
An old birthday balloon
(Out of breath, somewhat bated)
I hum my jingles out of tune
One-hit-wonders soon outdated
Like a song without sound
Mourning a muted meltdown
I’m at the point of no concern
For my inability to yearn
I am -
Whatever comes after
The past, the future
The cries, and the laughter
I remain –
Whatever came before
The purple rain, the midnight train
The ****** and the *****
I am a pixelated painting
Understood by few
Inexplicably containing
Little drops of you
You’re my middle C
A sepia photograph
Of my mundane eulogy
And my previous epitaph
You are my bitter half
The gall in my bladder
My nervous laugh
My endless chatter
You’re my history rewritten
My once shy, twice-bitten
My state-of-the-art
You’re the bottom of my heart
The top of my lungs
You’re my talking in tongues
The motivational quote
In my suicide note
And although I’ll never be free
From this heart on my sleeve
I’ll always wish you to be
The Adam to my Eve.
Nov 3, 2011
Nov 3, 2011 at 2:18 AM UTC
The rattle is shaken and life becomes unfixed
Torrential rains cascades downwards on ancient bricks
These stunning moments have been rediscovered
In wonder all is flustered in awe as the state of silence honks
Love creeps out of tune in time, the unsureness of cold feet
The voice fades, the toned whispers continually erased
Stormed and soaked, stilled and stalked by a heart that stole my dream
Drenched in uncertainty, non-favouring multitudes won't let me be
These flutters flattens and deflated, I stroll and I will not run
The floating fun fares vanishes, the morning bird furnishes
The time capsule evaporated, unstripped and frozen
Ohh, how I wished to plant and harvest inspiration
Wake up with a renewed breath of air, the flowing river
Of the days when the gloom masked, I hated what life had become
How could humanity be so self centred and selfish?
I looked for silence and the banging never ceased
The masses rushed, never to let me be, they snatched my freedom
I inhaled the hope of the freeness and longed for the racing momentums
How so?
That over time the weather collapsed to coldness, the darkness marbled
A nag of the songbirds, as I escaped in the ****** ozone layer
A disconnect of the mind, body and soul; when I saw my spirit sail
A snail sailing on its own course and journey slowly but steady
Reflections and visions of the timeline of growth and fertility
A heart of one, the soul of all, the mind of many, a tongue in sums
The chandelier hanged on a ceiling, high, holding the flickering bulbs
A condense of energy, the modelled nature of a prognostic intervention
A laughter and synergy rests in the symphony of the unsung melodies
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 6:24 PM UTC