"excoriation" poems
it won't stop.
nothing will slow down
i ask for everything to just hang on, hold on a moment
please can you wait
just for a second
nothing ever does
so i pick
pick pick pick
pick pick pick pick pick pick
constantly
over and over and over over and over and over
and over
when that no longer satisfies the compulsion i bite down
longer, harder
until i taste blood
until it's over
at least, for now.
the blood pools at my fingertips
little red wells of humiliation
the pieces of skin collect at my feet
like a scattering of shame
a signpost of the turmoil i cannot contain
the girls around me look me up and down
whisper words of contempt and disgust
"freak"
torn and bitten, i curl into fists
the teachers stare quietly
unable to pass judgement, but the pity smothers me
"disturbed"
the urges are quiet
sated, satisfied
it's done
at least, for now
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 4:39 PM UTC
“You should write about it.”
or
I Learned to Smile at Mirrors: A Demonstration
The city was oddly near barren.
Strides hit the dimming sidewalk in two-to-one ratio.
Money looming tall above our covered heads.
When cornered into the shade
humans are unable to cast shadows.
Our path was laid clear by store closings,
locked doors ushering us down toward neon outlined water
to stare across gleaming black
while the shadowed lions bray.
Cloth turns to quarters turns
to pink fortune turns
to bright reflections across irises
while years of the same story vibrate
across our fingers.
Gears paid in hope spin warm with the smiles of
those come before.
Lamps once bright now flicker and crack,
and the ballroom dancers
don’t quite turn with the fervor of before.
Sometimes what seems a flaw is what makes the object most itself;
inconsistencies or strange logics
from somewhere different than where you wanted.
Certain hands grasped against throats are
comfort blankets to soothe the burning,
forcing skin and bones to remember that with selflessness
and love
the past will no longer obfuscate
paths where feet need to fall most.
No sparing rejoinders for improvements,
or constant encouragement in what is already done well.
Every mile and hour leading to those sea salted boards totally rearranged me.
Fought 11 hours and 771 miles of asphalt
to press my face in where I was worst.
The greatest gift one can receive:
not encouragement,
but total excoriation of the places
where I was once only limping.
Let the train cars tilt with our backs due West,
shoulders sagging with knowledge half-learned,
thrice remembered.
Two deer stand in the rearview
as my tires turn heatward.
Smiling as I realize your Country
grew to reflect your worth.
Not the other way around.
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
Skin tingling.
Scratch.
Pick.
Claw marks
a bright burgundy against fair skin.
It’s happening again.
It’s a violent urge.
An uncontrollable compulsion.
It’s bleeding skin and
it’s I want to stop but
it’s I can’t
and I won’t.
My hands are the
enemy
but it’s hard to win a
battle
against something
attached
to your own body.
Taped fingers do
nothing but
irritate.
A temporary fix for
a permanent problem.
Nowhere is safe.
Every piece of skin is
equal opportunity.
Distractions
don’t exist
in this world.
Nothing can stop these
hands and
it hurts to try.
A compulsion ignored
is like
pins and needles
across your
whole body.
It’s sitting still
shaking
unable to think of
anything else.
And so I–pick.
Scratch.
Run sharp claws
across soft skin.
Oct 24, 2019
Oct 24, 2019 at 12:29 PM UTC
“***I read to find inspiration.
I write to restore candor to the mind.***”
N. Scott Momaday
<<<<<>>>>>>>>>
Find Inspiration:
a phrase that diodes light, a one-way current within,
making me a selectman, “of thee I sing, of thee I write,
of thee am I composed and fodder for thy dissection &
”my decomposition.”
a phrase that reads me more than I read it,
jumps onto my ontological eyeballs, a great leap
forward, and I suppose humdrum you could call it,
inserted inspiration
Restoring Candor:
thus begins expiation+ excoriation+ exhumation;
a longish road to candor restoration, where plausible
deniability is denied, Jedi verbal mind tricks are
just in movies, and candor is really “can-do(r)!”
but
no one dare say that
for fear of being laughed at,
a cancelled jingo-lingo-patriot.
Oct 24, 2021
Oct 24, 2021 at 10:47 AM UTC
Former CIA Director
John Brennan scathing headlines
Washington Post op-ed sharply
published critical accusations
muted excoriation slams
Commander in Chief
volcanic blatant pathological lying
spews like lava his American
foreign policy boilerplate brazenly
bastardizes by banditry blueprint,
balefully balkanizing beautiful bracketed
booming brady bunch brand,
bests best-buy buffer braking balanced
bastion, bolstered beloved benighted
bequeathed bicameral bipartisan bliss,
Baptizing bacchanalian buffoonish bombast,
betokening bobble-headed Bumstead,
barmy bartered bride bravado, bizarrely
brash brassiness, blindsiding behavior,
beetlebrowed bonehead, bafflingly baldfaced,
bankrupting, blithely bollixing,
bombastically belittling, badmouthing,
banally blasting, banana-boat baseless,
bearish blandishments, beastly boastful
boosterism, bellicosely boorish, bug-eyed,
bighearted, bigoted blathering breeding
blunderbuss bloopers, bewildering
bloodletting bellyache blight,
brazenly being bandying bellwether,
blitzing bourgeoisie balderdash,
balking but beaming barbaric
berserk ballyhoo backbiting,
backslapping backstabbing
blacklisting bromides,
besetting basic bestowed blooming,
Bobbitizing bedeviling beneficial
bulwark bereft badinage, ballistically ballooning
betrayal birthing bedlam.
Jun 2, 2018
Jun 2, 2018 at 6:06 PM UTC
After about fifty years as married wife
the last three fraught with strife
obvious telltale signs of terminal illness rife
hysterectomy irrevocably didst jackknife
at the least severely incapacitated
think pitted, riddled,
and rounced her tortured life.
Ovarian cancer affliction
on par with megadeath
bald pate (color of bleached skull),
and crossbones characterized mortal death
oxygen tank to sustain each measured breath.
Nonetheless her angry spirited accursed
ferocity, ejaculatory, denunciatory burst
expletive and epithet
peppered preponderant rant,
(no kidney you) laced
and dull livered worst
fulmination, exasperation,
(albeit feebly faint)
damnation well versed
lips mouthing implacable thirst
to defy grim reaper uber
lyft driver analogous hearst
jubilation immune to
interrogation and/or humiliation
diatribes interpreted glorification,
remained scythe lent bore
scathing rebukes hurled regarding
her sole son (courtesy
miraculous biological reproduction)
dogged with financial perdition
eased series of unfortunate events narration
blessed nonagenarian widower husband
generous father gave male progeny
eased (his/mine) absolution
availed immense monetary boost,
she (envision banshee)
voiced abhorrent objection
regarding liberal outpouring
triggered her vitriolic remenstration.
Similar with pointed gesticulation,
excoriation, cannibalization, abomination...
against reducing his albatross
yoking penurious defeat
her livid hostility displayed, decried,
****** how Matthew Scott,
(I shoal mussel metaphor
without clamming up, how
said offspring coasts) along easy street,
while she sorely protested (thankfully in vain)
even after succumbing to painful demise,
she vehemently, obstreperously and helplessly
loathes handsome handout
to yours truly forsakes Pete.
Jan 16, 2020
Jan 16, 2020 at 5:55 PM UTC