"drawstring" poems
I wear pajamas
when I go to bed,
one button-up shirt
and drawstring pants
both the color of
light blue sky
they're a gift
from my Mom.
I feel complete
wearing them,
I'm ready to
fall asleep.
It's rare in this world
to ever feel so confident.
When I put on these pajamas
I'm a gentleman practicing
the art of
a good night's sleep,
call me Aaron no more,
only Mr. Brown for now on.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 8:08 AM UTC
Drawstring linen pants,
Unisex from a women's catalogue.
Dark green shirt, tomboy approved.
Enough makeup to hide my faults.
Pink heart earrings, and a silver cross in the 3rd hole.
A silver cross, trans emblem and a silver heart engraved Laura, my true identity, together on a black bead chain.
Silver Lesbian insignia ring with my wedding band on top.
A black 1st finger ring etched with the Lord's prayer.
2 bracelets, one orange one turquoise to match a turquoise hat and dark glasses.
A couple of mists of Acqua di Gioia.
Women's turquoise/orange runners,
And a Victoria's secret backpack.
I didn't really think about the details until evening,
All I knew is I felt comfortable today.
I even went to Kohl's department store alone and browsed, and felt a confidence I'd rarely felt in the past.
Is this how some people feel every day I wonder?
I was so grateful for just today, just one day.
Today I was me
by Lj Mark 2015
Oct 31, 2015
Oct 31, 2015 at 12:54 AM UTC
Lake Michigan sand rests within my bones;
it slows the timing of my heart
and scratches the vowels
budding on my wet tongue.
I imagine waiting for you
on a bench of ghosts
with coffee and binoculars,
observing the rush of continuous
flutter as seagulls settle
and then unsettle, as indecisive
as the mottled lake.
The afternoon light is brisk,
pulls my breath like a buoy chain--
my heart sounds like it's underwater,
its beats drive the tide
that draws you, like an undertow, to me.
Jun 17, 2015
Jun 17, 2015 at 12:07 PM UTC
An old, frail woman sits in rocking chair.
Rocking slowly, gently, back and forth.
The floorboards beneath her creek softly.
She is dressed in black.
Hair held back with two hair clasps.
A pouch dangles from her arm.
A drawstring wrapped around her wrinkled wrist.
There is a rustle heard nearby.
A small girl appears.
Dress in white dress, with small imprints of daisies on it.
Hair tied into a braid.
Timidly she inches over to the woman.
The woman unravels the drawstring from her wrist.
She opens the pouch, and five small stone fall into her lap.
Each stone is unique in its own way.
Different sizes, shapes and textures.
The little girl is face to face with the woman.
She hands her each stone carefully, and with great care. She holds the stone and with each stone she tells her wish for the little girl
The first stone with the inscription STRENGHT.
My wish is that you have the strength to endure the past, the present, the future. To fight all the evil and conquer it in the name of good.
Next comes CREATE
My wish is for you to create memories. Some of them good and some of them bad. To even life out. And that each bad memory you create only equals more memories that are good.
Then DREAM
My wish is that your dreams come true in your life, as well as the people around you.
Next MAGIC
My wish is that your days been filled with magic, both unreal and real. Both created by you, and created by other people around you.
Finally WISH
My wish is that these wishes as well as many others to come your way. Also, that each wish is better then the last one.
The little girl admires the stones.
The woman opens the pouch and picks each stone one at a time, and places them in the pouch.
The woman hands the pouch to the little girl and says “For safe keeping”
The little girl smiles and runs out the door.
Giggles are heard.
The woman continues to rock.
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 4:01 PM UTC
Pain is beauty:
The thick, swollen red line
Runs jagged between my hip-bones
To right beneath my belly button:
Peeking out from under my
Drawstring pants
As my figure wavers
In the fogged bathroom mirror reflection:
Beauty masks pain.
I focus on a freckle above my midriff
While my stomach heaves in and out-
A testament that I'm still Here.
Life is concealment
Of all the run ins with death
That we are too humble to
Praise
With the same unabashed glory
That we attribute to the very
God- whose own son's hands
Were marred with the scars
Of a self righteousness
That isn't felt in hospital recovery rooms.
Sensations are transitory-
Leaving subtle marks upon our fragile
Bodies,
A reminder
That death can never be beaten;
I trace my fingers across
The rigged Scar- but I don't feel
Anything-
I don't feel the missing faulty pieces
Of my body,
Carefully extracted like a childhood
Game of Operation:
They didn't belong there, anymore.
Beauty has fallen
(Down from the right hand of god)
Into the arms of modern medicine,
Adorned with sickly sweet lilies
And medals of honor
Pinned upon the breast
Of anyone tragic enough
To experience
Life
Without the security
Of a timely exit.
I am whole because my experiences
Are hidden beneath a functioning
Exterior:
My marred flesh burns against
The heavy fabric draped over
Last summer.
Experience is merely a fallacy
For survival:
My raised skin outlines
A tragedy too human
To pray about over the dinner table.
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 2:56 AM UTC
Listen now, and listen well, Son.
Anything worth doing is difficult to get done.
Saying you are Brave is a fine thing to say,
But Courage can't wait for tomorrow, it starts today!
I know your scared, it's easy to tell
From the way you cry and way that you yell.
Control your fear, don't ignore it, and it may serve you well.
Wait. Let's slow down. Walk toward the deep again.
At three feet deep the water is up to your chin.
So, more shallow than that is a safe place to play
Enjoy the water, the cool chlorinated spray
And if you get in trouble I'll be there in a flash
To fish you right out and rescue your ...
...Your shorts are slipping down.
Let me retie your drawstring. There. That's better...
Face your fear. Learn to swim, and you'll be having fun.
Just remember your sunscreen 'cause you roast in the sun.
Now, let's play a game. There. What do you think?
I'm glad you're finally having fun, but it's time to go. You're turning pink.
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 1:00 AM UTC
I had my happy coloured marbles,
All in a drawstring bag
I even had my wits about me
When they all said I was mad
I've since lost my marbles,
My wit's been licked it seems
I'm still searching for them
While you analyze my dreams
Now they call me mellow yellow
Since that slick spark has dimmed
No longer a manic madman
Calmed by my tonic and gin
Why does there always seem to be
An exchange, creativity for conformity
A need for insanity to be confined to brevity
And quickly quelled by righteous authority?
May 10, 2021
May 10, 2021 at 7:19 PM UTC
Sometimes I think maybe the world needs more empathy. So I buy some
ice cream, try to imagine what it’d be like to be so cool
I’m dripping sweet, so sugary that I make people’s teeth hurt when they smile.
At first I want to be a big sundae with hot fudge
arteries and the candied-cherry heart no one really chews up.
Then I decide I’d better get two scoops of fat-free bubblegum,
because nobody likes that junk and it must get awful freezer burnt
waiting for someone to notice it behind the chocolate chip. I dress it up nice
in a waffle-cone exoskeleton so I can get a good hold on it, but it looks strange:
two violent colored plops like a flamingo and a blue parrot are mushed
in a khaki tuxedo, snazzed with ice crystals and sprinkle bling. Tastes weird
too, fluorescent and sour because someone made it that way
by using artificial sweetener instead of the real stuff. My lips pucker
like a drawstring bag tugging shut: I've had a taste
but it's too hard to swallow. Just as I begin my bubblegum death
march to the garbage some kid whizzes by, abstract blob
of bone-dry hands and sharp teeth glinting: whiter than a deep freezer frost and dentist-approved, spiraling my cone into a lethal nose dive.
Wafer tip fractures on asphalt and splatters: open-cone
surgery. I watch sidewalk cracks ooze neon blood
as I try to wipe my fingers clean on denim pockets.
But even when the ice cream is gone my hands are still sticky.
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 8:13 PM UTC
The children of inconsequence
Ah to be so carefree
Spontaneity running through their blood
as quickly as the dollar and dime alcohol
that they consume nightly.
The children of inconsequence
They do not run from their shadows –
Their shadows run from them
Delighting in the light
Of their fluorescent, radioactive spirit.
The children
Breathing in the thick vanilla air
Running to who knows where
With two feet on the ground
They never stop moving.
Inconsequence
They need no belts
They will wear dresses
And drawstring flannel pants
They know they will not fall.
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 1:21 PM UTC
When she found him,
he was a brittle bag of broken.
Drawstring taut.
Tight.
Holding thoughts that went unspoken.
Opening up isn't easy,
though they say it is in theory.
When putting it in practice,
words slowly flow uneasy.
But she found her way to his heart,
started to slowly pull it's strings.
Looser and looser.
And now his words he sings.
His spine was cracked,
so she blu-tacked it back together.
His mind, a map they scrawled
on scraps of black leather.
Bandaged his ego and plastered his past.
A perfect example of a person well matched.
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 9:01 PM UTC
me,
opening a brown drawstring bag and emptying
what looks like my mail onto the table
you sit and quietly examine the addresses, the contents
the stamps
as for sounds, the quiet rustle of paper
then of course
you put your reading glasses on
they're a soft brown
never intimidating, unlike you
you are an experience
you take a look at the contents of my head right now
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 9:25 PM UTC
I tore a small piece of star-lit sky,
right from a summers night.
I turned it into a drawstring bag
to hold these last things tight.
I gathered up sunlit memories
of much more happy times,
colored with both our smiles,
They were from the time when you were mine.
I placed the memories in the bag,
and thought for just a moment.
Of silent cuddles and forehead kisses,
and all the days when we weren't broken.
I placed those thoughts next to the memories,
in my stary bag.
As I sang the song you'd sung to me,
whenever I was sad.
As my voice carried out the words,
Of "you'll be in my heart".
I dropped them a little bit recklessly,
and they almost fell apart.
I took those precious moments of love,
And with them added one last thing in there.
A little piece of notebook paper,
marked with the promises we'd shared.
Our life, our plans, and dreams of family.
The future that we had planned.
All gathered up together now
in that stary bag.
I took it to the beach last night.
just before sunrise,
I prepared to do what I'd never done,
Tears began to fill my eyes.
And then right before I let it go
into the oceans rush,
I added one last simple kiss,
to the bag that held the
last
of
us.
May 30, 2024
May 30, 2024 at 5:15 AM UTC
a flutter of butterfly's wings,
of soft gray skies.
hours that mattered and
moments that didn't.
it was all a matter of time,
she said,
of swinging ropes and pain that cut too deep
(and empty calories that couldn't)
the way the words grazed my throat
in an empty cry for help
black lips and cold smiles and
the reminder that
this is your life, what are you still living for?
(if anything at all)
it was fear, night after night after
helpless night
unanswered worry that went unsaid
like a cry in the dark
i stumbled around, tugged at the ropes
holding the drawstring doors together and begged for a way in
a shot in the dark against a litany of
cruel words that taunted and burned hot
against already singed skin
night after night after
helpless night
like clockwork,
routine becomes necessary:
the way the farmers created
daylight savings to strengthen their
crop rotation and sow the fields the way they
pleased, i searched and looked and
waited for reason.
waited for the impending realization so i
wouldn't have to discover it myself
and god was i scared.
we always seemed to be scared back then,
afraid of the monsters we created
so we wouldnt have to run ourselves
up the walls.
afraid of parents and test scores and the
fruit guy on the corner
whose gaze always lingered too long.
a series of firsts upon
a foundation of lasts.
the secrets exchanged,
the mouths held wide open,
the pills on the bathroom floor that glowed
invitingly.
i was helpless to the power it held.
negatives balanced upon negatives and
torn in two, jagged along the seams.
both of us screaming in silent voices
from places that couldn't produce words.
the hug i gave you the day
after it happened
(for the first time
or the second
or maybe the third)
the nights i cried.
the nights you cried.
the nights you called me and i had to hold
the phone far enough from my ear that your
voice only held a range of tangible static.
the bitter
the hurt
the wounded
the way you were all of them and
none of them, both at once.
the screams.
the times i didn't pick up.
the times i should have.
the times you forgave me and
the times i forgave you even when there was
nothing to forgive.
the thanks you always bid to me.
the goodbyes i always said with silent hope
that another hello would live to see
the light of day.
night after night after
helpless night.
susceptible to the
power it held.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 2:01 AM UTC
*I am a bag filled with longing and regret
I want your fingers to reach
for my drawstring*
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 6:53 AM UTC
She is going.
I imagine her on the plane, mind brimming with possibilities and anxieties
She’s probably wearing those hippy pants with the beaded drawstring and the red elephant print
I know she’s typing away on her laptop, chronicling her unprecedented adventure
She is doing.
Everything we say we’ll do on late nights with that sense of invincible potential
She overcame the lingering doubt, the pessimistic thoughts that loiter in our minds
and trash our belief in possibility
She is being.
She is living.
She is trying to be more than just a name scrawled in the universe’s book, an afterthought.
She will be a page, a chapter.
She will do more, she will be more, she is more.
Jan 5, 2016
Jan 5, 2016 at 3:27 PM UTC
there's 3 varieties of rock
scouted from the hillside
at the foot of the launchpad.
I LOAD UP ANGER,
IN ALL OF ITS FROZEN AND FIERY SHARPNESS
WEIGHING DOWN THE MECHANISM
WITH ALL OF MY EXPECTATIONS
TO THROW AT THESE UNFEELING WALLS
to simmer and smoulder
before impact
like a whispered promise.
(i reach for silence)
(the underhandedness catching my fingers)
(drawing blood over the drawstring)
(sending another part of me in its flightpath)
it never reaches the sky
you can't fire a non-feeling
as much as we wish we could.
so-i-decide-to-settle-down-
in-this-trebuchet-
to-see-if-throwing-myself-headlong-
will-let-me-break-through-or-break-me-
The castle walls remain up, the remains of a young man were recently disposed of by the guards, cause of death?
Trying too hard.
Mar 19, 2019
Mar 19, 2019 at 7:53 PM UTC
around this time last year
i lost myself
somewhere in the snow outside
there are pieces of me, im sure
and my tears probably still lie
on that black fleece sweater
with the drawstring pulled out
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 9:50 PM UTC
I'm dressed for travel!
Tattered rags and
Drawstring leather saddlebags,
Home-made shoes and
Unkempt hair...
A woven sack? What's hiding there?
A folding knife, a
Length of string, a
Photograph, a mandolin,
A lumpen package bound in twine,
An apple and a draught of wine,
An empty space I've yet to fill--
Lord willing, though, I think I will.
Nov 7, 2016
Nov 7, 2016 at 5:48 AM UTC
i disappear
into drawstring pants
with the drawstrings cut out
and the tee shirt i wore
for two days
before i was brought more clothes
paper shirt paper pants
see through when tight
and bright yellow non-slip socks
if i try
i can easily return to that place
the white lights
the pills in dixie cups
the isolation room with chalkboard walls
i can return
anytime
to that post-attempt numbness
just shuffling along
destination a to destination b
"okay everyone,
it's time for group"
watch the yellow socks move along
forget you're controlling them
forget your feet are within
forget you exist
it's almost peaceful
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 12:00 AM UTC