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Janette Jul 2012
The labyrinth of a sleepless mind....



Sleep lurks in a peripheral vision,
Twilight intoxicates, a strange pageant of longing,
My hands still burn with light,
A diaphragm of breath bathing reflections etched upon glass,
Held hostage amid the still of the night...






Shadows slip amongst shadows, cast in unearthly mist,
A single silver tear slips,  and
F
A
L
L
S
Across blank lines ...





The wind has whispered memories in my ear,
The fragrance of longing left upon my pillow;
Behind my eyelids
I wait
To be taken to that place
Where Love is painted wordlessly,
In soft shades of jade and sienna..






It rests against my back
Breathless,
Touching deeper than skin
Without touching at all...........
Ramble of thoughts, slightly bruised....pen the hush...touching upon soft shadows...tracing those secret places hidden beneath the blush of a rose....... J
Keith Ren Oct 2010
I am the Joom Jot
Draw center
Fickle taste tester

I am the Un-block
Faith lender
Stitch-Med ******

I am the going
I'm the going
I'm the there right now


I am the Joom Jot
Doodle-ease
Caffeinated lung

I am the Roe-bot
When I please
Diaphragm sung

I am the knowing
I'm the knowing
I am the Over-bone plow


Would you stutter in my face?
Would you find your own place?


I am your instinct followed
I am:

                           "Create Right Now"
Leal Knowone Apr 2015
I am leviathan swimming through
the ashes of your remains
dying on the ground
you will soon be saved

masses falling to the graves
fearing fire and brimstone
your soul enslaved
ready for your grave

resting there under the sun
finding comfort in the birds song
escaping the malicious tongues
All will be rebuild before to long

life is just a lief falling
beautiful yet slowly dying
fleeing there torches and guns
maybe it is just time calling
balancing your life on the run
balancing life on the run

walk the beaten path
carry the weight of the wizards staff
through the mountain and  seas
see his trinkets glistening

the agony of your hypocrisy
vanish into thin air not to be seen
don't give validity to your insecurities
make life the way you want it to be

the sunflower set in the west
white rabbit rest on your breast
words don't always make sence
everyone has there own quest

sing your zombie song
dead astronaut and lizard skin
the devil's in dark cats and woman
marvel at the colors of your death

take the veil from off your eyes
and watch the sunrise
The beauty you seek is inside
my heart goes out to the night

resting here under the sun
finding comfort in the birds song
escaping the malicious tongues
life is just a lief falling
beautiful yet its slowly dying
fleeing there torches and guns
maybe it is just time calling
balancing your life on the run

racing to the red light
you fear personal hell
violate every law of the universe
and yet you feel so frail
put your  coin in the wishing well

Satan's diaphragm, pentagram in hand
Die is the O, death is the answer
voice carrying,  through the  under lands
tempting you like an exotic dancer

resting there under the sun
finding comfort in the birds song
escaping the malicious tongues
life is just a lief falling

beautiful yet its slowly dying
fleeing there torches and guns
maybe it is just time calling
balancing your life on the run
Doom Metal song in the works
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   Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.

Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.

A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously we held
As hawk and prey apart,
Preserved classic decorum,
Deployed our talk with art.

Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late -
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.

So, chary and excited,
As a thrush linked on a hawk,
We thrilled to the March twilight
With nervous childish talk:
Still waters running deep
Along the embankment walk.
Jordan Frances Nov 2014
Anxiety is not a feeling
As some of you may believe
You wouldn't be alone
Because plenty of people place it in the same category as
Sad, angry, elated
But one of these things is not like the others.

You see, anxiety is everything and nothing
All at the same time.
Anxiety is when no matter how spacious the room is
It seems to be getting smaller
Until you can see every intricate detail on every wall
Each corner touches your skin
And flattens your chest
As it rises and falls
Your breath is getting short until it stops
And then you become as functional as a corpse
After all, isn't that what you are?

Anxiety is
When your love stands over top of you
Watching your diaphragm as it rapidly pulsates
Wishing he could hold your hands as they sweat profusely
Wanting to breathe life into your convulsing body
But instead, he cannot even grasp the concept
Of why you are not alright.

Anxiety is
Accepting that your reality is not truly real at all
And deciding to realize that people wish they could fix you
But understanding that they don't know what to do
And you don't either.

Anxiety is
Learning from all the
You're blowing things out of proportion's
And
You put to much pressure on yourself's
When you begin to have these panic attacks
In which you feel like death in imminent
Over trivial things.

Anxiety is
Being with people who love you
And still getting bursts of loneliness
That ignite and explode inside your pores and underneath your skin
The blood flowing silently through your veins reminds you
That you are all alone.

Anxiety is
Relating each and every thing you do
To how you are not adequate
And how you must take charge of everything.
It influences the things that tell you
"Make yourself throw up"
And
"Skip that meal today."
Most times, you shoe it away with every particle of strength that you have
Other times, you are not so lucky.

Anxiety is hard to personify
But it is.
And as I muster up the courage in my soul
And the hope in my being
I realize that those things need not be stored
Because I use them every day as I fight this battle.
We are all waging wars
Mine just happens to be against
This thing that is so intricately woven into the chemistry of who I am.
It is a part of me
But it is not all of me
And my voice is louder than this sickness.
Jack D Serna Sep 2015
Discontentment always be
knock, knock, knock!
On thoracic diaphragm.
All cavities get filled
with emptiness and the brain
It sees this anomaly, does its great job:
"Fill the emptiness!";
Ironically keeping to the heart's shadow.

The blind leading the blind,
blood is boiling up inside.
Voices keep repeating
Same old eulogy
Attendees deserted the ceremony
Muscles convulse
One last waking breathe
"Wake up!"

As if this some dream before
The the soul floats above, observing life.
The tangibleness of time:
<Fear>
              <sadness>
<anger>                  <surprise>
<happiness>          
                        <disgust>; now reprise.

"Take this drug for medicinal purposes."
$Paralyze
               $Numb
                          $Tranquilize
               $Dumb
$Petrified
               $Stump
"Why don't you wake up?!"

One loud shrieking gasp
Ooh-aah!
Heavy pants
Agh
                           Agh
            Agh
"That was a close one..."
The dark matter shifted away.

The brain followed its cue;
What was the discontentment?
It hasn't got a clue.
"I only want more"
Said the voices in the brain
"Of life, that is"
Tommy Johnson Apr 2014
Hey little miss singer girl
Belt out a soulful symphony
My ears are hungry
And they must be fed soon
Serenades of fallen kingdoms
Of love that has been lost
Being left, abandon
And winters shimmering frost

Hymns of exhaustion
Of being overworked
Of feeling overlooked
Of obscure, unknown books you've been reading
Oh little miss singer girl
My attention won't divide,
Interests multiplied, when you sing
All my worries subside

You chant to the radio in my car
The echoes travel far
I keep them in a jar
The message and the meaning
The timbre of your throat
Perfect every note
Sheet music that you wrote
And the smile that keeps on gleaming
      -Tommy Johnson

Well little miss singer girl
You have cause my jaw to drop
You have me on the edge of my seat
As you preform miraculous feats of harmony
The power from you diaphragm
Applause from adoring hands
The seas of dazzled fans
Are all astonished by what you can do
Never have I heard a sound so true
Or seen a beauty just like you
A hidden talent that we never knew
You'll be the brightest star of all by the time you're through

Dear little miss singer girl
I love the way you croon
Your range, your pitch
The way you're always in tune
You can cause the clouds to move
The stiffened straight edge groove
The layered hearts go ****
Just by opening your mouth
You can lift the spirits high
The star crossed lovers sigh
And bring tears to all our eyes
And we all know this now

Now little miss singer girl
We're all listening
We're on the same frequency
And we'd all love to hear you sing
      -Tommy Johnson
sparklysnowflake Apr 2021
There was suddenly sun spilling all over,
and suddenly hyacinths everywhere.
I have watched everything change so slowly
that nothing ever seemed to move at all,
and in my obstinate blindness, I didn't notice
that the ground had thawed, never mind that it had begun
to bleed spring.

I have never seen spring.
In all honesty, I have never lived
in any sort of weather –
only the starched, air-conditioned bedroom
in my parents' sickeningly stereotypical suburban concoction
of a house, where nothing –
not the dusty closed blinds or even
a blade of grass – ever moved at all.

Here, there are magnolia trees that move,
swaying in soft rhythm.
They have peeled themselves like vinyl stickers off
the backs of my windowpanes, and they really are
alive. I know because they wave to me
in flurries of dip-dyed pink petals –
like a good diaphragm-laugh,
or maybe like a good cry.

I have never laughed,
or cried.
But I cry at everything now –
now that I see it is all alive.
It must be what happens when you start living
alone – growing pains –
I imagine the hyacinths must get growing pains, too,
from exploding like purple fireworks
out of the frozen soil in
no time at all.
about two months now since I moved out and have been living alone. feel like I'm actually in ... a life ... which is cool.
J Super Star Feb 2013
My throat’s all scratched from this screaming I’ve done
My diaphragm is all rubbery from these animal calls
But I carry on until you answer my distresses

O Captain, o Captain! Take me away from these generic hoes
I’m too swag for this ghetto
These ******* be hatin’ but you were always mine for the takin’

So take me now—like I did you…
Please. We’re friends. We’ve partied together and cried together.
I even bought you taco bell.

Take me away on your disco stick because
This club can’t handle me and my electric *** pants

What good is your love when just our chakras touch…
I need your grasp, I need your smell…and your ****, dramatic stare

Captain, my Captain, you may not be fly like Kanye
And I may not be glam like Beyoncé,
But this club can’t handle us right now
lol, don't take this seriously, i'm not a poet...yet
Jack Turner Apr 2014
I have nothing left.
I never truly got past
How I felt,
My feelings for you.

My eyes so bright,
Excited by the light
At the sight
Of the one, of you.

I'm ok, I'm alright.
I know I'm not.
I hate you in the moment.
I still love you.

I live a lie.
I tell you a lie.
I'm done with you.
You are out of my life.

Yet seeing you again
Tells me I'm done.
The knife to my diaphragm.
I'm not over you.

So what do I do?
I ignore you as best I can.
I don't look at you
So you can't read my eyes,
So you can read my lies.

I have nothing for you.
You've moved on in ways I've proved
That I am well and truly incapable of.

My body aches and my body hurts
With the sorrow that I cover
To never let you see
The wounds I carry deep inside of me.

Back on our last day
You drove a shard deep in my core,
A fragment that I never could remove.
I can't let you see
That you still control me.

I'm lost.
My mind is gone.
Theres nothing here for me.
I am nothing to you.

I hate you.
So infinitely with everything that is me.
And I love you.
Uncontrollably, devastatingly.
I never want to be happy.
There's nothing left to believe.

Please, just go away.
I want it no more.
Please, leave me be.
You've paid me back and more,
I am ravaged to the core.
There's nothing left of me.
You've left nothing to me.

I burn brightly in the silence
Of the fires of my own making.
Welcome to love station.
Please dock your heart here
Slowly, softly, carefully!
Hope your journey thus far
Through the moon-bathed tunnel
Aglow with the choicest stars
Was pleasant and dreamful!
It would be sometime
Before you come out of the hangover
All earthlings have when they arrive
And be blissful in your time here
Holding onto your heart knowing in peace
That it would never stop beating
And instead be caged in another diaphragm
To live, love and go into transit again!
It's such a tragedy across millennia
That heart after heart was lost in death
Till mankind could find way to change it
Discover the key to immortality
Of transiting heart from one to other
And not let it be buried with the corpse!

You're now entering the heart lab.
Your replica is too eagerly waiting here.
See how it's already dancing in joy
Celebrating your immortality
And also its own!

Welcome to love station.
We assure you when you wake up
You'll know what it means
To be undead in love forever
And the key that was love!
Martha Jordan Dec 2014
My chest feels like it's been carved out with a spoon. There's nothing left; no beating heart, no churning stomach, no fragile ribs or frantic lungs. Just a void where you used to reside.

And I climbed a mountain to forget you. I picked out the debris from my diaphragm and from my palms as I dragged myself up what used to be communication, and now is just a monument to how ******* crazy people are. My feet slipped on red rocks and even though I was victorious, satisfaction did not fill the crater.

We held our last communion, and I finally felt at peace. But wishing for all the happiness in the world curses someone else with just as much grief. God, do I hate myself for causing him grief.

I thought that I hated myself, but now I know. There was no creature as foul as I, and there is no poison as strong as the one I make for myself. All I wanted was to make someone happy. All I wanted was to feel normal again. It's like you make my cheeks ache with smiles, and all I can do is twist knives in to your heart. You almost had me thinking that I was whole again.

But I know. I know that as toxic as I am to myself, I am just as deadly to everyone else. I will destroy everyone I touch. Why can't I destroy myself first, before I cause anyone else such pain? Am I really so selfish?

I know. I know that you love me. And I'm sorry that you do. I'm sorry for anyone who has been persuaded to love me.

I can string lots of pretty words together. But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

I managed to feel, with your help. There's something residing in that cavern that used to house my heart. A throbbing ache that taints my blood and freezes my bones. It's probably not what you wanted me to feel. But it's almost a comfort. I understand this pain. I understand trapping it inside of me, and shutting you out so that you don't get caught in the fall out.

I know you don't want to be shut out.

But I am selfish.

And this pain is mine alone.
brokenperfection Dec 2014
Urn
I am a master at the art of ashes
human cremation takes artistic commitment
once the smell of singed eyebrows
burns your nose you can never be the same again
you know, my skin grew flame retardant and at first I wished grossly to return it and buy a new shell
but I've made the executive decision to aerate my diaphragm and pump this fire out of my pores and into your palms
singing with a slow burn
branding your sweet fingerprints into my skull
see, something outside of myself must contain me or I'll spill, gritty and fine
end over end into the depths of the alleyways and cobblestones
but, to be quite frank, I'm drowsy
so I'd rather you climb to the top of the world and release me, softly letting me blanket everything I've ever come to love
instead of confining me in that ugly porcelain jar that I spent my entire life peering at
while it hovered, haunting me, above my birthing ground
sitting precariously on that wooden mantle
above my fireplace
above my home.
Bianca ortega Jun 2014
There is a cosmic explosion of ******* that occur when you make love to me through my soul and not just my physical being.

You make me fly high as if i owned a pair of wings.

You truly see me and accept the vulnerability of who I am.

Creating butterflies that float around in my diaphragm.

Oh how you ******* with love and pleasure.

Filling me with a love that couldn't make me feel any braver.

You give me reason to believe.

Creating a bliss in me that I never knew I could achieve.

This cosmic love of ours shows me that you were meant to be mine.

Allowing me to see the inner works of the true divine.
Fah Aug 2015
Forensics couldn't figure out what happened to our bodies because they never looked closely enough into their own eyes.

When we walked out across those wild flower grass plains,
moving
our bare feet meandering , twirling, toes earthy, past the goddess river, bowing our eyes and laying sweet blessings of hopeful poetry at her edges with the mountains ahead of us going on and on and on.

Our heartbeats sinking into the smell of summers afternoons.
We
two beings
stand and watch as the water shows us the way across
her gentle back cool and singing.

We keep on laughing to the forests edge and settle by the Elder Trees to pray for the way ahead and the way already gone, we pray to the sentinel trees for their gracious beauty and we leave a small offering of a song.  

We
two beings

I'm all over Hummingbird
She's all over Dragonfly

Listen to the forest for the sign we can move on,

We
two beings

listen with our eyes and our hearts, ears and noses.
We wait, long moments sensing,
attuning ourselves to the rich forest song.
Later, we see the flash of Owl sister and know it is time to move along

in silence, we listen as we walk and let the sounds we hear guide us.

She's all over Wolf Teacher
I'm all over Lynx Secret Keeper

We're both keeping time alive with our actions.

Way in deep, where the floor is soft decomposition-in-motion and the sky is hardly seen, little tickling breezes stir us, we walk along in silence, side by side, always listening

until our feet meet the edge of a clearing and we whisper our offering:
the story of who we are, why we are here, how beautiful this place is and how it came to be that,

I'm all over Calendula
She's all over Nettle.

Here the sun lays upon us once more and we sit , facing each other

We breathe ourselves into mediation.
We breathe ourselves into silence.
We look at each other
past our skins and through to the light emanating from our DNA

and we start to hum.

We hum our spirit song and begin to unravel so slowly the ways of this world,

we begin to unravel so gently the bags we carry under our eyes
over our knees

we begin to unravel so softly the song of our hearts.

Flowing through us a motion so suspending we seem to no longer be singing, but the sounds somehow pour out of us
our bodies start to sway, no judgment, our bodies start to relax, no suffering

perhaps her toe taps and my ear wiggles
perhaps it's her nose jiggling
perhaps it's my elbow nodding.

We two beings
pray to each other sweet words of beauty
sweet words of honesty

we let those bodies dance
up on our feet
twirling and leaping around the green grass, wildflower clearing
until we feel a twang of connection,

like curious little deer we follow that cord in our chests , pulling us towards each other.

She's on the other side of the clearing and as we make small steps , I feel the boundaries of her person. Her energetic walls , I feel her enter into mine. And we stop, acknowledge the space we are entering and ask for permission to move on. We move on

layer by layer, always stopping to acknowledge, stopping to ask permission until we stand 4 inches between us, breathing.

By now we are no longer thinking, we only sense.
She moves her hand close to my wrist,  I meet her the rest of the way.

All collapses in on itself and opens back up again at our meeting.
She rides her hand up my arm to hold my face so gently.

I bring my other hand to her wrist and she meets me half way. I ride my hand up her arm to hold her face so gently.

I bring my hand to her waist and she leans in softly, she leans in softly.

She brings her hand to my waist and I lean in softly, I lean in slowly.

We move like this, unwrapping each other of clothes, breathing ourselves in meditation, going as slowly, gently as we possibly can.

When we are in our natural way, we wait a moment to take in the beauty, we **** our heads and as our words no longer matter we both know we hear a sounding stream.

We beings
perplexed and amused, find ourselves next to a small rocky stream, somewhere else in the forest. Dappled light finds it's way onto us , the trees and the water. Everything is orange and brown, mossy green with occasional pinks and purples.

She smiles and I smile , we make a motion of gratitude to our Great Water Mother and ask to wash.
When a small fish appears and jumps glistening
we move to scoop up running water in hands, pouring it over each others crowns. Again and again we scoop and we pour, we wash our walking sweat and clear ourselves.

Soon, the stream starts to fade and we are now on flat topped knoll, looking out over shallow banks of a wide flowing river.

The knoll is about the size of a large bed , wintergreen rustles beneath our feet.

We sit together and she brings her face close to mine, I bring my face close to hers and we look into each others eyes until we see.

I bring my lips close to her cheek, she brings her cheek close to my lips. And so we find ourselves tasting each other.
Slowly,
gently,
softly her lips come to my ears and her tongue moves on my lobe. My mouth to her nape and my breath is coming slow. We take as much time as we possibly can.

The Sun has not moved from the afternoon position. We are no longer in a place where time is quite the same.

Soon, I lay on the ground and she comes down beside me. Our dancing hands and tongues never in a rush, at a pace like the tide with movements, repetitive definitive and measured. Washing over our earthen valleys and hills, dipping low to our canyons, serenading our ravines. But never quite touching those extra sacred pleasure places.
She lays on her back and I sit beside her.

I kiss her chest and give thanks to her skin, her blood to milk trees and the crystal caves that lay within. I kiss her belly button and thank her mother for carrying her all this way. Her father for holding her. I move down to her womb and she makes a space for me between her legs, I lay there with my head on her belly listening.

I hear the beating blood and gurgling belly, breath staying slow, I hold her hips. and kiss her womb from the outside. I kiss her womb from the outside. I find I am at the edge of a small curly forest, I pray gently with a song at the borderline and kiss her there too. She tenses just a little and a pause, look to her eyes and see she does not want me further.

I slip out from her legs and lay down by her side.
The wide river is moving and the wintergreen is serenading us with her smell as our bodies movements bruise the small leaves. The sun has moved a little further across the sky, shadows are pulling longer now.

She puts her head to my chest and listens to the heart just below skin , bone and muscle.
She hears my breath and is riding up and down with my diaphragm movements. She slows me down until we are both inside the space between heartbeats. Encompassed in those melodies. We breathe again and see each others eyes. She kisses my heart from the outside and caresses my chest. I open my legs offering her space between them. She moves, lingering, one hand first on my face then on my heart, then on my solar plexus. Then her body is softly laying on mine, her head on my stomach. Listening. She laughs a little because the spaces inside of her don't exist inside of me, she says my secret caves are up in my heart, she heard them. She smiles and sighs a little, resting at the edges of my forest.
We beings
lay here, like this for a long time. Until the Sun is way low.
But we don't move. We just keep right on laying. Our eyes closing.

The wintergreen gives way to a bed of Jasmine vines way up in a tree. When we awake we look at each other and recognize our spirits.
She climbs onto the limb of a tree and sees  way across the forest, to more forest and more forest, to mountains and more mountains.
She begins to transform, her body rippling, scales made of light, emerging from her back, her eyes glistening, her dreams swirling around her, fruits ripe for the picking, some still maturing , her legs start to dance as they form one long tail, four legs with claws follow not long after. She is glowing a vibrant green touched with sparks of grey. A Naga flies out from the trees and is off. Into the night to do what she does.

I lay on the Jasmine, inhale sweet sweet scents and dream my own dreams where I'm an Owl , all my feathers pale pink and deep navy blue. I leap up through the canopy and sweep down into the forest to do what I do.  

Our spirits meet sometime before the Great Grandpa Sun is born again, to greet him with a song, to keep on exploring these earth bodies, to keep on singing to the forests, to keep on smelling and eating and drinking and washing, finding others to play with, to keep on thanking and laughing and moving time along with our movements.

The forensics sent into the forest to look for us didn't find diddlysquat because they hadn't looked deep enough into their own eyes.
releasing this now, letting it become some ingredient someplace else, whatever I was holding out or on to,.
It's been a while since I wrote a story.
Neither beings in this poem are anyone in particular, but it is powered by these past months And doors closing.
Lungs constrict with a sudden halt to breath,
Blood still pulsing in veins, cells now hungry for oxygen,
Starving for air.
Useless gasps **** gravity deeper,
Watermelon in throat sinking to diaphragm,
A desperate situation grows worse,
Lending to despair.
Hands claw through nimbus,
Pointless and futile,
Frantic gestures begging for help-
A language of signs no one else seems to speak.
And then,
It's too late...

My heart is reborn an infant,
Learning slowly to walk,
Sluggishly it starts, crawling, stepping,
Then running again.
And I can finally breathe.
Shyne AM Feb 2016
Those were the days
We saw each other each day
Things change, people change but pictures remain the same

All those little things you said
I think of them and they make me think
Is there a part of the story I misread?

Laying on my bed, all lights off
I look outside the window
See nothing but fog
Just like the weather, our relation seems hazy

I told you to love me
only if you can stay
only if you can learn to stand still and not drift away
Don't turn out to be like others
After all, people they come they go

I told you people always leave
You promised me you'd stay
Now there's no sign of you
I can't believe

I'm fragile that you know
Please tell me our love didn't outgrow
I'm only as weak as I am strong
Our friendship was supposed to last lifelong

Regardless of what you did
Just know that I love you oh
Maybe loving you was stupid
I'm dying inside but I'm putting up a show

We'd go to the gym, cook and eat together
We'd chill, we'd laugh, there was no pressure
Where did the good times go?
Now I look at your picture and just miss you so

Trying so hard to figure out
What went wrong,
My heart is filled with doubt
Asking myself why don't we hang out?
We really used to get along

So I say, come back and let's live again
Let's laugh until the end
Come back and let's start over
So much left to learn, so much to discover

So I say, come back cause I miss you
Life ain't the same without you
Let's stay up until 2 am
Cause you're the breath that I breathe from the bottom of my diaphragm
People will always leave. That is one of the discoveries I've made in the past couple of months. I know what I should be doing, but somehow I'm still holding on and not letting go.
Pride Ed Jun 2015
i.

you were petals i once
submerged —a fistful i let
go of under a foggy sea
when i was succumbing
to myself

you were the surface tension
screaming my name;
a diaphragm’s lullaby —
old thunder in the rain…

i’ve been fond of storms
ever since


ii.

no one told me
how slow clouds would be —
i would have held my
breath a bit longer…

charted constellations
a bit better before
i spoke of love in light-years

and there you were
on a shoreline,
carrying salt in your palms


iii

how many times
will I walk here, —
a wreckage of bramble
in my side?

“the sea is much too old,”
i heard someone say…

and the wind was salt
on my brain

it left a hole;
a stain,
and i felt a burning
behind my soggy
ribcage

can stars erode
in the tide?


iv.

night adorns it’s veil —
scallops tug at the lace

and i toss inky petals
in the sea

nocturne’s dreamboat
a dead man’s float; —
how i’ve internalized
my hatred for romance

“the sea is much too old,”
i heard someone say…

and i realized my
lungs could speak
for days about sunken
ships returning home


v.

i ignore a
distant moon  — inertia
rocking my cradle

but she stays there
all the same…

there’s stardust
on her breath — whiskey
on mine

“you’ve grown much too old,”
i heard her say…

so i closed my eyes,
and felt sand between
my toes for the first time

it will be eons before
i swim here again
For yet another contest on allpoetry.
Brenden Pockett Mar 2015
Black squares pulled at the soles of my shoes, one unlaced. Brick-red fake bricks were wrapped serpentine 'round a solid cement beam, shimmeringly glazed by epoxy and daylight.

It shone white on the left half a bedraggled face. The other half smirked, sitting cross-legged under a wall-less window, eating carrot sticks with chopsticks.

There was dust in my nose, dust in my eyes, in the blank between us. How I ached to pull up my skin, burning under thousands of minute needles, and the diaphragm-tugging grip of "come closer."
Bill Guy Jun 2012
This place is dead

Except for the cars that fill the seven eleven and WaWa parking lots late at night
They come in waves
But I come with them also
I like to think they come in waves instead of alone, leaving and coming
Waves that fill up the lots

Like the children that have come to fill my household
I am also one of them
And will be for a while I think

The good thing is that my home is not dead
The place is alive
Just as it would be on Christmas or Thanksgiving
As it is on any other day, holy or not
The place is alive, thriving
Its chest expands with each breath
And its diaphragm rises again with every exhalation
It can't be kept down
Not for long
Not while I am still on the back porch filling my lungs with smoke
Blackening as some things should be
Perhaps as those lots should be
Black with asphalt
But also white with the artificial lighting
The deceptive illumination giving a sense of day
Hiding from the night
The house will never be such a creature
The bodies glow enough with warmth and of things that are natural and alive
And the blackened lungs that rest with me in my body on this back porch are still a part of that
Despite the blackness
King Arthur the great, a man to be noted,
head of the table, of greatness t'is coated,
slayer of dragons, killer of kings,
***** of brats and fellater of things.

After a triumphant skirmish, which Arthur did lead,
it was decided he'd celebrate in his great hall of mead.

One of his councilmen,  being ever so corny,
decided to throw old Arthur an ****,
he rallied his men,
about a hundred and ten,
and proved to Arthur that they were quite *****,

He yanked Arthur's hair,
thrashed his fine heir,
and while in the process, he was not far from bare.

He spread Arthur's *** and shoved in his large diaphragm,
then threw in his huge **** and yelled "Here comes the leviathan!"

He thrusted and pounded then started to moan,
he ****** on his ******* and continued to bone.

The councilman, not satisfied, pulled out his large knife,
his eyes were bloodshot , his **** was his life.

He stared at Arthur's *** crack, it looked rather thin,
he carved it and sliced it then shoved it back in.

He looked into Arthur's eyes and said he wont waste,
he told all his men to **** with such haste.

Not one hole was spared, his nostrils were bleeding,
he turned at the councilman and asked for a beating.

The councilman nodded and with such a strange grin,
put it in Arthur's mouth, t'is no mere sin.

He slapped it, shook it and cried for power,
the gods must have heard him, his men started to cower.

He screamed and yelled as he let out his gravy,
he licked Arthur's eyes and cried "too bad theirs no baby!"

Arthur's eyes turned red, mad with such rage,
he snapped off his **** and thrashed the old sage.

He ripped out his stomach and had it ****** clean,
he shat on the sack and ****** on his spleen.

He stripped off his shirt and threw him on a bed,
then blasted a load, my word he was dead!

he ******* the mans carcass and licked his curved spine,
he exploded with power and yelled "By God it is time!"

And with a snap of his fingers the man turned to dust,
Arthur then cackled "well he earned my trust".
Meandering Words Mar 2024
nearly five years old
my nephew plays
with a stethoscope
a fully functioning
auscultatory device
not just some toy
of unavailing plastic
and purposeless rubber
lost to his imagination
he holds the chest piece
against my sternum
the diaphragm cold
even through my shirt
making me pull away
momentarily
out of instinct or habit
even though
it is not needed
he sits listening
concentration tight
across his brow
with very real concern
as he informs me
that he can't hear anything
that i must just have
no heart at all
Taylor St Onge Aug 2021
It’s a large cavern.  A gaping hole—
                                                                A black hole.  
Slow and fast.        Pain and numb.        Yin and yang.
The blackened lung.        The bust vessel.        The mutated cells.
                     It’s everything and nothing at once.

                                                    What is the condition of my heart?
I couldn't begin to tell you.
It’s hope and
                    it’s anger and
                                           it’s frustration and
                                                                ­           it’s a corked bottle on high heat.

Lush leaves.  Turquoise lagoon.  Iron sky.  
Everything looks like it's
                                               filmed through a blue filter, Twilight style—
                                                         this is what my heart looks like.  

Grey like brain.  Serosanguineous like cerebrospinal fluid
collecting from a shunt to a bag from a cracked open skull.  
Purple and green and yellow like bruises on
                      hands that don't have enough platelets to heal.  
Teal like an N95 mask.  Lilac like a casket spray.  
Soft pink like the padding of a wood overcoat.  
Grey.                        Grey.                   ­     Grey. 

This is what you will find if you crack my chest,
                                          spread my diaphragm,
                                                   my sternum,
                                               shuffle my lungs.
Sounds like asystole on the monitors, but still
           somehow producing electrical currents.  

The condition of my heart is cavernous.  
A sunset on the east coast; a sunrise on the west.  
                                                         ­                                Bittersweet.
write your grief prompt #16: what is the condition of your heart?
Jake Spacey Oct 2013
he's terrified of her voice
that whips his eardrums like kashmir switches
and tickles his diaphragm until he convulses
in nervous laughter inside his head

the way it inquires broadly,
like an opera written in tornado sirens and megaphones
and the brightness of lighthouses,
for conversation he thought
had drowned long ago and only
reemerges as bubbles on the lake's surface

a boiling body popping deafeningly
with anxiety, and plumping
bravery pasta, which smells seductive,
which he loves...

he's just not hungry right now.
confidence and anxiety, her voice
robin Aug 2013
my first wedding will be a seance because
there is always destruction in my wake
and my words only make sense in your mouth -
i put a ******* hurricane behind your lips
and went silent when you ripped apart
i slit my throat over your coffee and i
think i understand now
why you didn't flinch
(someone is using you and i told you not to be so ******* gullible
and you said -better to be wrung dry,
better to be used to death
that to leave anyone
alone-)
lypophrenia lypemania lyssophobia i find it fitting that lysis means both
recovery
and the destruction of cells
because you said i saved you every day while i watched you
erode
slowly
i gave you love and told you it was armor i'm
so sorry for all the holes in your chest cause i
set you against yourself you tore out your heart you cut off
your left arm
to make more room for me
(you said to me
-i'm not as masochistic
as you think
and i don't pretend to be some sort of *******
martyr
but everyone has a purpose and mine is to be used-)
i've got mouth full of blood and fading anesthetic i need a distraction i hate
thinking about myself because
(i am caught between conflicting states
of lies
and nonexistence)
burn my fingers on a lightbulb and think of you,
trade numb limbs for phantom pain and try to learn to walk slow
to let your ghost catch up to me,
let anxiety pool in my calves so you don't feel so alone
let panic return to my diaphragm so i don't leave you behind
(you asked why i walk like i'm running from
ex friends ex memories ex selves
as long as i move i don't have to think i'll sweat out one more lie and never think of it again
i'll keep my teeth clenched so my diaphragm is a prison)
oh treachery! fraud!
i say so many words and don't know what any mean,
i take an oath for a god whose face i've never seen whose hand i've never held and whose scent
could not compare to
the smell of you in my bed the
smell of your shampoo in the rooms you haunt,
you lie limp on the floor and tell me stories of
jesus,
love and life
who fed himself to the hungry until he was nothing
-my body, my blood- you say
-my body,
my blood,
sustenance for the weak,
nourishment for the starved-
your hipbones through your skin (maybe you should feed yourself) i say
and you laugh
(someone is using you don't make me say it just don't be so naive
someone is using you i am using you you are the vessel for my violence and
emotional death is less apparent than physical and sometimes
you don't
realize
that you've been dead since october)
my first wedding will be a seance.
we will say our vows through an oracle
i dont need anything but proof that this ghost
will haunt me.
this ghost will remain and their scent will fill the room.
this ghost
won't believe when i lie
when i bleed into your coffee,
do not drink.
watch the ph rise like floods.
wait for my apology.
when the haruspex tells you the future is bleak,
believe them.
leave me.
make armor from discarded wedding bands.
do not be used again.
Odi Oct 2012
I am making a desicion
to clean my body of
your hollow whispered bruises
cracks in my diaphragm
your words left sizzling there
like acid that dripped from your lips
I forgot the deception that swam from your eyes
I have never been stupid
enough to believe
that you were only one
when there were three.
But we stood and watched that house burn
never feeling colder,
than we did that night.
Im sorry your brother died and took
your parents with you.
So you are an orphan that
demonstrated car crashes
in the mere rhythm of your hands
or melody of your speech.
But I find myself drawn to angry cobalt blue eyes
too often enough to know that
I cannot grapple out of your choke-hold
and frozen fingers will bruise me every shade of your
roaring ocean-like blue.
I can only admire the sapphire in your soul from a distance
and hope the red ruby rage turns to wine and not blood.
I have left my marks on too many wooden floorboards, pleaded with too many icy aquamarine eyes;
from boys with steel in their voices but a fury in their hearts.
Too many fingernails stuck between infinite spaces somewhere in houses
where the silence reminded me of the stillness of a teal lake in spring
your eyes are reminiscent of a grey morning I do not wish to remember
I will leave a mark here.
C E Ford Jan 2014
I need someone who feels
with wildflowers,
and speaks
in the tongues of streams.

I need their cheeks
to sprout dandelions,
and let them grow,
even though others say they're weeds.

I need their mouth
to taste of earth,
and their soul
to hold the heat of the earth's core.

I need their ribcages
to contain mountain ranges
that can puncture my diaphragm,
and remind my lungs
how much they like the like the taste of air.
There is a rage that fills me so quickly that I think I might just choke. My fists clench tightly, involuntarily. I want to slam my clenched fist right into your face. But I don't. I know it would just cause more strife. But the urge to hurt you is almost overpowering. I can feel the anger and the hurt sitting in my chest, right on top of my diaphragm. It keeps me from breathing properly. I know I should let go of it, **** it. But in a way it feels so fulfilling to cling to this emotion. I feel like I am on the brink of doing something stupid, of losing control, of saying what I think.
          Were you ever scared to jump into the pool as a child? Did you stand on the edge and prepare yourself again and again? Did you FEEL yourself about to jump, every muscle tense, even holding your breath, but the part of your mind you can't oppose said no? That's what this feels like. I am prepared to let all hell break loose. To give you a piece of my mind. Every other cliche you can think of. Why the hell do you make me so crazy?
           And when you are done with your anger you discard it. It disappears as if it never was. That makes me crazier than your anger, sarcasm, condescension, idiocy, inability to comprehend. I am not done being angry yet, **** it! Let me be angry. Don't take this from me too.
Deyer Mar 2016
I sit in a coffee shop
pump pump pump
goes my chest
pump pump pump
goes my diaphragm
pump pump pump
goes these hiccups
pump pump pump
it's rhythmic and
pump pump pump
obtrusive.
2. I lay in bed
pump pump pump
unconscious, unresponsive.
pump pump pump
A stranger presses two
pump pump pump
metal paddles to my chest.
pump pump pump
It's rhythmic and
pump pump pump
obtrusive and
pump pump pump
temporary.

— The End —