"disconcerting" poems
I am a chameleon
Black, white, red or blue I’ll be whoever you want me to.
In therapy I’m told it’s because I don’t know who I actually am, but the thing is there I am also a chameleon.
While sitting in that uncomfortable leather chair I’m a girl unsure- broken by the weight the world places on my shoulder but outside of that room I’m more sure of myself then I am sure of the laws of gravity.
I am a chameleon
Most days my name is Emma, other days its Emilia and on the rare occasion its Ellie. It may seem a little odd to you to have so many different names but I think it’s because I truly am different people.
See Emma is serious, but she has a fun side, while Emilia is fun with a serious side. Ellie is that broken girl from the uncomfortable chair while Emilia is always smiling never feeling an ounce of pain. Emma, well she’s broken too, but in a different way- that dosen’t matter much though because there is no way in hell she will let anyone see that.
I am a chameleon
But not in a disingenuous way. I’m not trying to lie or make you like me. Don’t get me wrong, I want you to like me, but I learned long ago that no matter how hard I try there will always be someone who doesn’t.
I am a chameleon
Because I love you so much it hurts, that’s why I want you to have a version of me you flel in love with. The person I truly am changes with the tide- she is far to disconcerting. So for you I will pretend that I find “Grey’s Anatomy” enjoyable or that I like eating eggs because you deserve some shred of consistency.
I am a chameleon
I hide from the world by blending into the background- it’s safer that way. Not just for me, but for you to. That way I can only show the parts of me that is safe for you to see. The heaviest pieces that have caused so many people to run will remain invisible.
You tell me you want to see. You tell me that you want to carry my burdens. The thing is, others have tried but, eventually, they are all crushed under the weight of my brokenness. So, I am not afraid that you will leave, I am afraid that you will stay.
I am a chameleon
Because I choose to be. See if I blend in then you can’t get too close to me. The farther away you are, the less it will hurt should I disappear and the last thing I want to do is hurt you.
So…
I am a chameleon
Because I haven’t truly decided if I am going to stay yet.
Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 5:58 PM UTC
On this train journey I sit
with my precious child
I contemplate,
people, places and time,
passing so fast
too fast
It's disconcerting
how it mirrors life,
this journey,
and I worry
that my life too
passes me by this way
I'm concerned that I spend
too much time
fearing exactly this scenario
Yet here I sit
pondering these fears
still
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 4:34 AM UTC
It creeps up on me.
The sneaking suspicion
that I'm stuck
in it.
My hair is falling
in my face.
Only a year ago...
I built everything —
it was so clear.
Even though —
it was chaos.
People were worried.
But it was simple.
It was as simple
as simmering sausage
in a saucepan,
sweating in a brick kitchen,
listening to Sade,
and thinking of rooftops.
Things are more grounded now.
People are less worried.
The kitchen is smaller,
and shared.
I turn down Sade
when someone enters.
I'm still sweating,
but it's because something
is wrong with the heating system.
I long to take
an anonymous walk
between buildings.
There are only
neighborhoods
and shopping centers here.
And I keep running
into people who know me.
It's either too cold or too hot —
It's never summer every day.
Everything that was hanging on
my walls
is on the floor.
Precious paintings and prints
dusting with potential.
I reveal myself
less to strangers.
I don't take public transportation.
It's disconcerting how
comfortable having a vehicle is.
I feel urged to uproot,
swinging in someone
else's hands,
but feel like..
I'm interrupting.
Can't I just arrive for awhile?
My safety net is too big
and my home is too small.
But if I abandon it,
I'll wonder if I'm bound
to be restless.
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 11:35 AM UTC
if words are food for the mind,
then here is a glimpse of mine
if words are drugs for the brain,
then here is why i'm so pained.
abandoned, abhorrent
abnormal, absent
abstract, abuse
addicted, anxious
betray, bitterly
blank, blasphemy
bloodless, breakdown
breathless, brutal
captive, casually
catastrophe, cautiously
change, cigarettes
crucial, clueless
damaged, dangerous
deadly, disastrous
disheartened, disconcerting
dramatic, dreading
eager, eccentric
ecstasy, eerie
effete, effortless
embittered, excess
faded, failure
faintly, fallacy
faltering, fatally
fearfully, finally
garbage, gawky
gibberish, gloomy
gone, goodbye
graphic, gratify
hallucinate, harshly
hazy, heartless
hectic, helpless
hesitant, hit-and-miss
idiotic, idly
ignorant, intimacy
illogical, imaginative
infatuated, intoxicated
jealousy, jittery
journey, journal
joylessly, judicial
junk, juvenile
keen, killing
knavish, knocking
knockout, knotty
knowingly, knowledge
laborious, lacking
lame, languishing
lifeless, literature
lovelorn, lugubrious
madness, maintenance
make-believe, malaise
mean, melancholic
mellow, melodramatic
naff, naivety
nameless, naturally
nauseous, nebulous
neglected, nervous
oasis, objectionable
obliged, obliterate
oblivion, obscurity
obsolete, one-and-only
pacifist, pained
pale, panicky
paradise, paralyze
passionately, passively
raging, ranting
rationalize, raving
realistic, reasonable
rebellious, reckless
saboteur, sadness
sake, sameness
sanity, satisfactory
scar, steady
taint, tangled
tasteless, tearful
telling, temperamental
terror, theoretical
unaffected, uncanny
uncommon, unconsciously
undesirable, uneasy
unfortunate, untidy
vaguely, vanish
vanity, vanquish
versatile, vicious
violence, voracious
waiting, waking
walkout, wanting
wasteful, weary
withering, wrecking
if words are food for the mind,
then you've seen a glimpse of mine
if words are drugs for the brain,
then no wonder i'm so pained.
-djs
Aug 5, 2013
Aug 5, 2013 at 11:21 PM UTC
*How much do you have to hate life,
to not be scared of death?*
- ThePoet
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't
Because I really am afraid
But life has only sharp things
Wonder if death is willing to trade...
Longing
...a splinter
Embedded in the recesses of my core
Nestled deep, this tiny thorn
The source of my disconcerting sore
Need
...a shard
That stabs itself deep
Extract it I will not
Think it's worth the keep
Miss
...a knife
With never a dull blade
Stabs itself right through
Pain that will never fade
Want
...a syringe
Injecting the good and bad
Side effects loom
Driving me quite mad
Love
...a stake
Rammed into my heart
It doubles me over
It rips me apart
Life
...a spike
Impaling without fail
Siphoning my soul
Through the holes in my mail
These are the few sharp things that I own
The only things I've learnt to savour
I've nurtured them large; now fully grown
Always wondered what death has got to offer...
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 7:38 AM UTC
Long ago dreams
Dead cuz of choices made
No rhyme or reason
To this ****** addiction
No one can hear my screams
Inside my head they never fade
Living in hell no matter the season
Lost in this ****** addiction
Unbearable demons haunt me
No longer able to maintain
I give in to the anger
Finding absolution in this ****** addiction
This isn't how I want to be
Life's roller coaster ride has been insane
I have nothing left to wager
Stagnated by this ****** addiction
Broken promises left broken hearts
And kids without their mother
And a Mom beaten down and ashamed
Pain became the justification in this ****** addiction
Filled with guilt that never departs
And an anguish like no other
My past can no longer be blamed
Reality is I got complacent in this ****** addiction
Fighting so hard yet only feeling defeat
Can't seem to find the light
So tired of always hurting
I run into the chaos of this ****** addiction
I bow my head without conceit
Crying out to God with all my might
But desolation can be very disconcerting
When trying to escape this ****** addiction
Time and time again I tried and failed
To leave this life behind
Only to lose myself once more
To the hypnotic pull of this ****** addiction
This crazy train has been derailed
No longer strung outta my mind
Going to spread my wings and soar
The hell away from this ****** addiction
Jul 17, 2021
Jul 17, 2021 at 11:06 PM UTC
Joe wants to know
how'm I doing?
an innocuous query,
little can he know,
bye bye is my merry,
marooned on a skerry,
noxious fumes in the aerie,
currently inhabiting my foreheady,
worry waves, rolling thunderous tides,
have myself beside
thus the answer to your toll,
something bad, on me, got a hold
Joe,
life is,
more than a tad
concerting
concerting?
surely you meant
converging, or perhaps,
concatenating, or concaving?
discombobulating, or more likely,
plain ole disconcerting?
indeed, all of the above,
fit like a glove,
but best combinated in steaming mug of
concerting
"to contrive or arrange by agreement: to plan; devise"
the world is secret contriving,
the world is secret devising,
a plan for my demising,
forces are concerting re me...
most concerning,
as trends converging,
concave hollow chains clinking,
a concatenating chorus
voicing their displeasure,
at my happy existence,
which now gone,
its loss, wept for, in great measure
life dissing me, in a manner
concerting and dis-concerting,
my composure,
decomposing,
the ides of depression,
hip hop discombob-
(undu)lating throb
but then again,
what's in a word,
what's in a rhyme,
jes that old timey R&B;,
rhyming and blues,
of a verbal kind
so, Joe, how'm I doing?
now that you are knowing,
as men of distinguished letters,
students of history,
part time poets,
Your Reply
must only be:
"Oh no, Natty,
say it ain't so"
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 5:03 AM UTC
"Mistakes are like constellations.
They inevitably lead your blind footsteps to places that are utterly dizzying. Tailoring that disconcerting sense of still inebriation pooling between your two ears.
But they are also lead us to places and people who liked me as much I did to them."
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 8:48 AM UTC
A white room hues ocean blue as the sun rises, with a ceiling that screamed to be stared at on another sleepless night. But I continue to see her face like a constellation, and I grow weary, and I grow lonely.
These stars don't shine down on me, in spite of how beautiful they glow; they stared in a most disconcerting way. And I cannot wish upon them, I can only stargaze, and hope that someday they'll no longer gaze back.
Dec 23, 2015
Dec 23, 2015 at 8:19 AM UTC
My family doctor suggested bed rest.
If that was a statement rather than a suggestion,
I wouldn't know, because the redundancy of those
two words was enough to keep me idle,
awake, agitated for days.
It was around the time he carefully
scribbled his script onto the blue pad
that I began to chuckle. This prefixed
prescript was only a temporary solution
that was barely legible. Whether or not
a scribe in this profession is meant to
be as erratic as nomadic cavern canvas,
it speaks volumes that the DSM IV considers
substantial. Until a once thought preconceived
notion becomes precedent in the ongoing
sought after expansion of knowledge.
A continuation of disorder and disease,
the facts and fallacies,
all become testing.
The standard practice is only as strong
as its weakest hypothesis.
More so when it becomes general practice.
I would like to believe
this to be an emergency,
but the white-coat before me
felt the need to sidetrack,
and thought it appropriate to mention
youth in Asia.
The deadpan humor
was disconcerting.
But not as unnerving
as the redundancies that
were given to me as a solution
for my sporadic sleep.
Some insurance!
Reassure me, doctor!
So, he did,
through his proclivity
for pharmaceuticals.
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 8:54 AM UTC
You see I've been waiting for your call back.
Cause to hear your voice is all i need even though i don't deserve that.
I know i made a mistake and baby hate I that,
I didn't trust you but I love you please just call back.
Cause I'm dying without you here, nothing feels right, without you in my life.
Ohhh baby!
Ive got to feel your touch again.... will you let me in?
I knock on your door at 3 come on i i know your in there
you open the door and i say one more time, baby?
I know we just had a break up but Lets just make up and then we'll make love.
Have good good ***
we can let it all out, and forget it all, so baby are you gon give me a call?
See sleeping alone just aint the same.
And baby day in and day out i wanna show you how,
I really am the one.
please don't say were done
You deserve such a big apology.
Even though me blaming you deserves so much more than words.
You've got understand I didn't mean to hurt you.
Remember when we first met, you were hurting, i was the only one not disconcerting you. I gave you something to relate to.
You wanted to feel something so I gave it to you,
i made you feel love and i set you free of,
everything you were scared of, come on baby lets go ****
Jan 4, 2015
Jan 4, 2015 at 8:20 PM UTC
after years of being told how good my body was
i went through puberty.
after years of being asked how much time i spent at the gym
i grew hips
and disconcerting looks from grown men who thought my fifteen year old thighs were too thick to be sexualized.
after years of wearing sundresses
and being applauded for being the first girl in my grade to grow *****
my metabolism slowed down
and i was made to feel like a cowbell in the least practical sense of the word.
i was thirteen and hunched over a porcelain toilet bowl when i told my friend i had purged and she called me gross as if it wasn't because of feeling "gross" that i was there to begin with.
and i'd grown used to my good-gened friends with their tiny waists and size 32 jeans telling me they wanted to join a gym in hopes i'd run along and lose some weight.
because when i was 13 and weighed little enough to turn heads i felt empty while looking whole.
and when you're fat you can't have an eating disorder, because illness can be seen so how good of a job my ana was doing depended solely on how faint i felt by midday.
in a world where nobody buys magazines it's easy to pretend we don't care for skinny bodies anymore, but when every smartphone is linked to an instagram page and every newsfeed is filled with "slim thick baddies" you can't help but wonder.
if i were to feel physically full why am i so empty?
i cheated myself.
she probably went and cheated on me because my body wasn't slim-thick enough to eat.
and it's easy to say this doesn't apply to me when you see the pictures on the beach but you don't see me scrolling through pinterest at 2 in the morning looking at "How To Lose 10 kgs in 3 Days" posts.
if i were so lucky i'd be a success story and could probably post before and after pictures of my body but you can not hear the ache in my belly screaming at me that it'd rather just be cut off.
when i was fourteen i could no longer wear shorts in public because grown men with wives would turn and watch my thighs clip-clap together as i walked with my dad.
i was asking for it.
i resented summer and the fact that i'd run out of clean pairs of jeans to sweat in.
but if i dare love myself, what then? do i apologise to the girlfriends of the boys who visit me for coffee? do i drink coke light with my whiskey? do i start writing poetry?
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 6:44 PM UTC
Should it be disconcerting that
Your words
Drip and droop
Oozing unintelligible lumps
Starchy and dry
Running through
My fingers
I rearrange to make sense of it
Distracted
Your nose over here
Your **** up here
Your intellect on the
board
bored
******* bored
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 7:41 PM UTC
Enigmatic wanderings
Amid a field of plenty
Just can't explain the voiding
In the middle of the crowd.
Vaccuous emmissions
from a phrase of promiscuity
defy a wealth of knowledge,
harboured inwardly, out loud.
Enigmatic wanderings
Amid this field of plenty
Expressing dissillusionment
In uttterance unsaid,
Profoundly disconcerting
With banality's omission
In the way it lets suspension hang,
Precariously, till dead.
Marshalg
22 March 2014
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 7:33 PM UTC
Working while COVID is lurking,
You are selflessly nursing and returning,
Those that were hurting,
Sometimes it can be disconcerting
But remember, we are chirping because of you,
Thank you for serving.
Apr 22, 2020
Apr 22, 2020 at 4:21 PM UTC
When I saw
the look on your face
talking about the past
the hurt, the last humiliation
your anger and disgust
suppressed by layers
of years and self-aggretion
I felt it in me
the absolute, disconcerting need
to keep you
in my arms
to keep you
safe
to keep you
warm and kind
Because I can't stop picturing
the look on your face
when I keep you
embraced
Apr 1, 2021
Apr 1, 2021 at 5:05 AM UTC
5/29/20
He had a disconcerting posture, one that
makes people feel uneasy about themselves.
And the days seemed to roll over— obedience to the
incessant pounding of violence and tumults.
Makes the people feel uneasy about themselves
when they lie down instead of uproar. When silence is
the incessant pounding of violence and tumults.
When the hush of a mouth becomes asphyxiation.
When they lie down instead of uproar. When silence
becomes weapons. Days roll over— obedience to the
hush of a mouth— becoming asphyxiation. When the word “breathe” becomes the last one.
Sep 28, 2020
Sep 28, 2020 at 11:28 AM UTC
i see a fire in the sky above the pines
on the side of the house
this early morning
and on the front
the water is burning -
burning
i used to go to work in the dark
before the time changed - affirming
and conforming
the radio man recites last night's results -
a new day has dawned
- it will be long and disconcerting
there is a fire in the sky above the pines -
and on the front
the water is burning
- burning.
r ~ 11/5/14
Nov 5, 2014
Nov 5, 2014 at 8:02 AM UTC
I
“I didn’t know anything”
Astrapia,
the beautiful arcs of plum and golden
wrap in you a security.
It is disconcerting to see you know
so little--
to not see such daunting arcs
for rhetoric.
Hold steady.
II
“about the facts of life and that I didn’t know that I would conceive or so on.”
Misconceptions most fed,
generational ignorance liberating
throb and leisure and pleasure and…
Seemingly perfectly perched.
Feathery flow and bend
swoons over the exotic excitement
naturally--
unknowingly.
The color flushes,
flashing bright, a melting beauty.
To know of this must be to know serenity…
III
“I stayed with him and he said he loved me.”
Every
prismatic fiber
is yours.
IV
“He said this was the only true way to show that you loved somebody.”
Paradise, what alluring shades you show.
The better to attract you, my love.
Oh, what mysterious gaze you hold.
The better to captivate you, my love.
Oh, what sturdy frame you stand.
The better to surround you, my love.
Oh, what fierce talons you stretch.
The better to clutch you, my dearest love.
V
“And I met him again then, and he said, Well you did it before; why can’t you do it now?”
He reaches for her once more,
as if for lifetimes
this had been the norm.
She settles in the familiarity and
loveliness that is,
or so would seem.
Neither flushed
nor melting,
with one door another opens.
“And that was the time I got pregnant.”
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 11:09 AM UTC
Lately I've been feeling as if everything I'm writing belongs
under the kitchen sink with all the Comet and various brands of bleach and the
rest of the junk cleaning supplies that haven't been used since
the early nineties.
Ideas are scarce,
thoughts aren't making the cut,
and I feel like I'm in a more disconcerting version of ***** Wonka's glass elevator
riding robotically in this box,
puncturing others' moments with its corners like they're
gigantic, ecstasy-encompassed balloons
capable of doing nothing more than
launching weak waves of laughter
that languidly dissipate when they reach the
hard exterior of my cage
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 2:59 PM UTC
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
Thats what she tattooed just above her *****
Seems at least a little disconcerting....
Eh **** it.
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 4:05 PM UTC
a contradiction contracted in
lowest terms are
you.
[it’s metal edges]
your beauty is
of
a
garden
(suspended at mid-
clouds), to enter
and
to say
that in such a
variety of
flowers
there
can not
be
one that
attracts
you
to pick it
to dismantle it
and
to
neglect
the
rest.
[it’s plasticized segments]
you know how to
quickly imprint
yourself
on me
when
you laugh
at times
and
conversely
you weep
and
you are like
those skies
that shake me
to my core
when
they are
blinding
on one hand
and
violently bleak
on the other
so
clearly
fractured
they shake
me pierce
me
pierced
i am
by
you.
[it’s just thinned points]
imagine if
a chameleon
started
to
acquire
each
gradation
of
another
creature
in the form
already
similar
to
it:
where
could
he
ever
escape?
[it’s inconstant semicircles]
(i can not
delineate
you
it is like
sketching
a tidal
wave
nobody
can:
painters
invent them)
[and it’s shoved arches]
i’ll tell you
of
a
woman
her soul
shattered
and
subsequently
imprisoned
splinter by
splinter
in hail
stones
she
fell
and
she felt
herself
crashing
at the same
instant
millions
of times
however
she
never
went
insane.
[it’s torn curves]
(and I know well
how a continuity
interrupted
succeeds
to make
you
fumble
convulsively
but it’s not
enough
for me to
restrain
myself
don’t
ask
me
to)
[it’s petrified vertical axes]
what i see
is
a cross
section of
enclosure
handfuls with
disconcerting
efficiency
consisting
of prisms
and
you know how to decompose
yourself inside
an innocence
delimited
you proceed
by inconstancies
you lacerate
metabolizing
you struggle
silencing
and
i could
only
teach you
one thing:
gray is not
a faded
version
of
black.
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 9:04 PM UTC