"fainting" poems
I wonder if you’d want to know
I named all of my demons after you and
they haunt me in my sleep
when I was 14 I fell asleep in April and dreamed of bones and
I’m not sure I’ve really ever woken up since
when I lost 5 pounds I never saw a difference
when I lost 10 my mother said I was looking good
when I lost 20 she told me to stop and handed me food
and I became anemic
when I lost 25 I stopped drinking anything because
I felt water had calories
when I lost 30 my mother held me on her lap
and held my bones together for me
when I lost 35 I started fainting every morning and
the doctors could no longer easily find my blood pressure
when I lost 40 people started to stare and food made me cry
when I lost 45 it hurt to walk and to lay down
it hurt to eat
it hurt to breathe and
I started throwing up my empty stomach
the mind plays tricks on those that decide
nourishment is not needed
Eat.
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 10:07 AM UTC
who’s most afraid of death?thou
art of him
utterly afraid,i love of thee
(beloved)this
and truly i would be
near when his scythe takes crisply the whim
of thy smoothness. and mark the fainting
murdered petals. with caving stem.
But of all most would i be one of them
round the hurt heart which do so frailly cling….)
i who am but imperfect in my fear
Or with thy mind against my mind,to hear
nearing our hearts’ irrevocable play—
through the mysterious high futile day
an enormous stride
(and drawing thy mouth toward
my mouth,steer our lost bodies carefully downward.
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From depths of woe I raise to Thee
The voice of lamentation;
Lord, turn a gracious ear to me
And hear my supplication;
If Thou iniquities dost mark,
Our secret sins and misdeeds dark,
O who shall stand before Thee?
To wash away the crimson stain,
Grace, grace alone availeth;
Our works, alas! are all in vain;
In much the best life faileth:
No man can glory in Thy sight,
All must alike confess Thy might,
And live alone by mercy.
Therefore my trust is in the Lord,
And not in mine own merit;
On Him my soul shall rest, His Word
Upholds my fainting spirit:
His promised mercy is my fort,
My comfort, and my sweet support;
I wait for it with patience.
What though I wait the livelong night,
And till the dawn appeareth,
My heart still trusteth in His might;
It doubteth not nor feareth:
Do thus, O ye of Israel’s seed,
Ye of the Spirit born indeed;
And wait till God appeareth.
Though great our sins and sore our woes,
His grace much more aboundeth;
His helping love no limit knows,
Our utmost need it soundeth.
Our Shepherd good and true is He,
Who will at last His Israel free.
From all their sin and sorrow.
~ Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 1:20 PM UTC
////March 20 2014 /////
Fainting spells
are more common
when I'm trying
to memorize how
****** got into power
Sighing is more
common
when I'm trying
to learn the
art of polynomials
crying is more
common when I have
two tests tomorrow
and I still need
to start that essay
that was given
yesterday
madness is when
I have to understand
that my sadness
is a genetic disposition
I could never control
Disappointment is more
common when I have
to yet again cancel
the plans I made
with my friends
But still
even
after a week of doing
this ****
the only thing
I learned
is that knowledge
isn't found in
a textbook
and a power point
presentation
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 8:05 PM UTC
Never on this side of the grave again,
On this side of the river,
On this side of the garner of the grain,
Never,--
Ever while time flows on and on and on,
That narrow noiseless river,
Ever while corn bows heavy-headed, wan,
Ever,--
Never despairing, often fainting, ruing,
But looking back, ah never!
Faint yet pursuing, faint yet still pursuing
Ever.
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glass spits stupidity in my face
until my identity dissociates
old habits rendezvous with my senses
dancing with my lost soul
casting fainting spells
the bathroom floor is cold
on my cheek
my body and memory
feel weak
black clouds
all i see
until all i know
is not me.
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 11:52 PM UTC
What is our generation but a burning out cigarette
Half lit in the dark
our only lighter is the fainting spark in our hearts
Parts of our body degrading
Yet some how, something is preventing us from fading away
No matter how many times I plead
The notion of love wouldnt stay
A pastor from a foreign religion told me to pray
I couldn't say that the holiness has long left me
The sweet sensations of sin now caress me
I travelled through the twisted land of my own cravings
seeing painting of others
Brothers who died fighting, Mothers who tried to raise their kids
and here I am staring straight into the abyss of my own mind
trying to find some sort of bliss that will bring peace
Yet I have no shrine to kneel down to
No prophet to follow
I feel hollow, As I light my cigarette
With the fading spark of hope in my heart.
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 2:49 PM UTC
Fat was the first word people used
to describe me when I was a kid
And that didn't bother me much
until I found out it was supposed to
By the time I was fifteen
I knew what it was like to be clinically
overweight, underweight and obese
It was the year of menthol cigarettes
and baggy clothes
Hunching naked over a scale shrine
Mixing ***** with vitamin water,
complimenting each others thigh gaps
*The year breakfast tastes like giving up
and the only time you feel pretty
is when you're hungry*
Not obsessed with being empty
but afraid of being full
Replacing meals with more practical hobbies
like planting flowers or fainting
And ever since I started evaporating,
girls that never spoke to me,
stopped in the hallway
and had the audacity to ask how
And when I told them I was sick,
they told me I was an inspiration
How could I not be in love with my illness?
My eating disorder was the most
interesting thing about me
But how lucky I am now to be boring
To look at a sandwich
and see just a sandwich
Not half an hour of sit ups
or two spent hugging the toilet
This is the year I find more productive
things to do than googling the amount
of sugar on the back of a
lick and stick postage stamp
The year the calculator in my head finally stops
The year that I eat when I'm hungry
without punishing myself
And I know that sounds stupid
**but that **** is hard**
If you're not recovering, you're dying
When people asked me what I wanted to be
when I grew up,
I said skinny
Jan 24, 2016
Jan 24, 2016 at 12:30 PM UTC
Everything is a moment
Of silence in design,
Of rage that is burning
With passion behind.
Everything is a feeling
Of sorrow when it rains,
Of letting go the tears
That hold you in your cage.
Everything is a touch
Of the hand upon your cheeks,
Of love that is fainting
But not failing to persist.
Everywhere is a space
Of solitude in form,
Of where you would be
If everything is yours.
Everywhere is a pursuit
Of wanting to be seen,
Of all being for nothing
If everything would cease.
When everything is something,
And everywhere is there,
You’ve found it all at once,
Which you’ll wholly embrace.
Jun 13, 2022
Jun 13, 2022 at 5:21 AM UTC
Tough
A poem.
—————
I can’t deal with anyone’s crap.
I got to much blood and boulders,
On my back.
Fighting back the past,
Never been able to relax.
I don’t know if anyone can tell,
—Or if anyone cares,
But I'm about to crack.
they creep up,
Bruises cover much.
Random hallucinations—
Severe pain.
No one's understanding,
—or listening.
My brain is in such a bad headache,
I feel like my insides are blistering.
Fidgeting.
Numbness.
Pain.
Fainting.
Brain making—
Random movements.
All a loss of control.
Appointments got canceled,
“WHY!!!— HOW MANY MORE!?”
When does someone call it-
“Enough!?”
I’m NOT….THIS tough.
Aug 8, 2025
Aug 8, 2025 at 11:18 PM UTC
I wonder if you'd want to know
I named all of my demons after you
And
They haunt me in my sleep
When I was 14 I fell asleep in April
And dreamed of bones and
I'm not sure I've really ever woken up
Since
When I lost 5 pounds I never saw a
difference
When I lost 10 pounds my mother said I was
looking good
When I lost 20 pounds I stopped drinking anything because
I felt water had calories
When I lost 30 my mother held me on her lap
And held my bones together for me
When I lost 35 started fainting every morning
And
The doctors could no longer easily find my
Blood pressure
When I lost 40 people started to stare
And food made me cry
When I lost 45 it hurt to walk and to
lay down
It hurt to eat
It hurt to breathe and
I started throwing up my empty
Stomach
The mind plays tricks on those that
decide
nourishment is not needed
Eat.
Oct 28, 2014
Oct 28, 2014 at 12:32 PM UTC
Swift swallows sailing from the Spanish main,
O rain-birds racing merrily away
From hill-tops parched with heat and sultry plain
Of wilting plants and fainting flowers, say--
When at the noon-hour from the chapel school
The children dash and scamper down the dale,
Scornful of teacher's rod and binding rule
Forever broken and without avail,
Do they still stop beneath the giant tree
To gather locusts in their childish greed,
And chuckle when they break the pods to see
The golden powder clustered round the seed?
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Men of the Twenty-first
Up by the Chalk Pit Wood,
Weak with our wounds and our thirst,
Wanting our sleep and our food,
After a day and a night --
God, shall we ever forget!
Beaten and broke in the fight,
But sticking it -- sticking it yet.
Trying to hold the line,
Fainting and spent and done,
Always the thud and the whine,
Always the yell of the ***
Northumerland, Lancaster, York,
Durham and Somerset,
Fighting alone, worn to the bone,
But sticking it -- sticking it yet.
Never a message of hope!
Never a word of cheer!
Fronting Hill 70's shell-swept slope,
With the dull dead plain in our rear.
Always the whine of the shell,
Always the roar of its burst,
Always the tortures of hell,
As waiting and wincing we cursed
Our luck and the guns and the Boche,
When our Corporal shouted, "Stand to!"
And I heard some one cry, "Clear the front for the Guards!"
And the Guards came through.
Our throats they were parched and hot,
But Lord, if you'd heard the cheers!
Irish and Welsh and Scot,
Coldstream and Grenadiers.
Two brigades, if you please,
Dressing as straight as a hem,
We -- we were down on our knees,
Praying for us and for them!
Lord, I could speak for a week,
But how could you understand!
How should your cheeks be wet,
Such feelin's don't come to you.
But when can me or my mates forget,
When the Guards came through?
"Five yards left extend!"
It passed from rank to rank.
Line after line with never a bend,
And a touch of the London swank.
A trifle of swank and dash,
Cool as a home parade,
Twinkle and glitter and flash,
Flinching never a shade,
With the shrapnel right in their face
Doing their Hyde Park stunt,
Keeping their swing at an easy pace,
Arms at the trail, eyes front!
Man, it was great to see!
Man, it was fine to do!
It's a cot and a hospital ward for me,
But I'll tell'em in Blighty, whereever I be,
How the Guards came through.
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2 cups of insecurity
4 ounces of comparison
1 cup of dinner not eaten.
5 cups of a mind in shackles
6 tablespoons of incomprehension
2 ounces of oblivious peers
3 cups of dinner not eaten.
3 teaspoons of phantom numbers
2 cups of anxiety
4 cups of mirrors smashed to bits
1 pint of self-hatred
4 cups of dinner not eaten.
1 tablespoon of depression
6 ounces of anger
2 pints of hopelessness
3 cups of self-inflicted scars
4 teaspoons of ribs in the mirror
5 cups of fainting on the stairs
1 gallon of dinner not eaten.
6 cups of grieving families
4 tablespoons of words unspoken
3 teaspoons of tears unshed.
2 cups of dusty belongings
4 gallons of friends never made
3 teaspoons of kisses never stolen
a lifetime of words left unsaid.
Melt insecurity and comparison and mix thoroughly with dinner not eaten. Mix a mind in shackles, incomprehension, and oblivious peers and add three more cups of dinner not eaten. Crush phantom numbers and anxiety and sprinkle over batter. Take each piece of mirrors smashed to bits and poke them carefully through self-hatred. Mix with four more cups of dinner not eaten. Melt depression, anger, and hopelessness and spread them thoroughly throughout the batter. Meticulously place self-inflicted scars visibly on top of the mixture. Cover with ribs in the mirror and fainting on the stairs. Mix with one gallon of dinner not eaten. Haphazardly toss in grieving families, words unspoken, and tears unshed. Mix with dusty belongings, friends never made, and kisses never stolen. Gather a lifetime of words left unsaid in a separate container. Take it outside and bury it. Do not mark the grave site.
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 11:27 PM UTC
Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow:
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!
Nor I alone--a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,
Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!
Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,
Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse
The wide old wood from his majestic rest,
Summoning from the innumerable boughs
The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast:
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,
And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.
The faint old man shall lean his silver head
To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,
And dry the moistened curls that overspread
His temples, while his breathing grows more deep:
And they who stand about the sick man's bed,
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,
And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.
Go--but the circle of eternal change,
Which is the life of nature, shall restore,
With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range
Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;
Sweet odours in the sea-air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.
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If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.
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Once in a dream I saw the flowers
That bud and bloom in Paradise;
More fair they are than waking eyes
Have seen in all this world of ours.
And faint the perfume-bearing rose,
And faint the lily on its stem,
And faint the perfect violet
Compared with them.
I heard the songs of Paradise:
Each bird sat singing in his place;
A tender song so full of grace
It soared like incense to the skies.
Each bird sat singing to his mate
Soft-cooing notes among the trees:
The nightingale herself were cold
To such as these.
I saw the fourfold River flow,
And deep it was, with golden sand;
It flowed between a mossy land
With murmured music grave and low.
It hath refreshment for all thirst,
For fainting spirits strength and rest;
Earth holds not such a draught as this
From east to west.
The Tree of Life stood budding there,
Abundant with its twelvefold fruits;
Eternal sap sustains its roots,
Its shadowing branches fill the air.
Its leaves are healing for the world,
Its fruit the hungry world can feed,
Sweeter than honey to the taste,
And balm indeed.
I saw the gate called Beautiful;
And looked, but scarce could look within;
I saw the golden streets begin,
And outskirts of the glassy pool.
Oh harps, oh crowns of plenteous stars,
O green palm branches many-leaved--
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor heart conceived!
I hope to see these things again,
But not as once in dreams by night;
To see them with my very sight,
And touch and handle and attain:
To have all Heaven beneath my feet
For narrow way that once they trod;
To have my part with all the saints,
And with my God.
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Wandering under
woodland leaves,
my mind confined
to winding suture lines.
Paths of pink nerve tissue
cherry blossom trees,
dendrite branches wave
in a heavy breeze.
Myline bark, an axon stump,
rooted contents of my skull
continuously growing,
a tangled plexus of
neural connections.
Twisting, turning,
a knotted blockage.
Pathways, rippled in roots,
a crossing synaptic stoppage.
A suffocating strangle,
choking corpus callosum
decaying mangle.
Branches atrophy,
shrivel and scar.
Root terminals suffer
hormonal harm.
Forest trails quick fainting
when lost in overthinking.
Feb 17, 2019
Feb 17, 2019 at 11:29 PM UTC
days crawl by
and humidity stills the air.
the black flies are late this season,
though around here, most things are.
below the gnat line, girls like me
seldom get to die easily,
perfumed powders
masking the scent of illness,
flushed cheeks and damp foreheads donned
as our feeble bodies recline on fainting couches
to delicately languish away. we know that
there’s a certain beauty to decomposition,
to fungus gnats invading potted soil,
to fruit flies nesting in sink drains. we know that
rotting is a clock that never stops,
tallying each unflinching, humid second while the
days crawl by.
Jun 22, 2023
Jun 22, 2023 at 8:04 PM UTC
Snow plows beeping
Reverse whine and scrape
Swirling blizzard of waking—Strange
in this place where
boredom banks both snow and cold
Are my eyes running?
After all
there's a stiff wind, and it’s 18 below....
Pictures and phone calls make up my family
Stray cats eat suet I leave for the birds
who make names for themselves in sunlit bushes
Love these more than...
my hearse of a job
where that ice cream vat—slipped
smashed
my sodden dish-doin’
fingers against sink
Pain mounts its insurrection!
Ambushed!
from every direction
Fainting in steam
Squeezing my eyes
till the blood shuts my brain-failing
Down my wrist
all over
the front of this rubber apron....
Someone hates me somewhere
Someone found me more tenacious
than a road-kill skunk!
I eat I drink I work I sleep
between these vicious icicles
-18F = -28 C
Feb 10, 2017
Feb 10, 2017 at 3:55 PM UTC
Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh, hard times come again no more.
Chorus:
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more,
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door,
Oh, hard times, come again no more.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh, hard times come again no more.
Chorus
There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
With a worn heart whose better days are o'er:
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
Oh, hard times come again no more.
Chorus
'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave,
Oh, hard times come again no more.
Chorus
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Ask me why I send you here
This sweet Infanta of the year?
Ask me why I send to you
This primrose, thus bepearl’d with dew?
I will whisper to your ears:—
The sweets of love are mix’d with tears.
Ask me why this flower does show
So yellow-green, and sickly too?
Ask me why the stalk is weak
And bending (yet it doth not break)?
I will answer:—These discover
What fainting hopes are in a lover.
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616
I rose—because He sank—
I thought it would be opposite—
But when his power dropped—
My Soul grew straight.
I cheered my fainting Prince—
I sang firm—even—Chants—
I helped his Film—with Hymn—
And when the Dews drew off
That held his Forehead stiff—
I met him—
Balm to Balm—
I told him Best—must pass
Through this low Arch of Flesh—
No Casque so brave
It spurn the Grave—
I told him Worlds I knew
Where Emperors grew—
Who recollected us
If we were true—
And so with Thews of Hymn—
And Sinew from within—
And ways I knew not that I knew—till then—
I lifted Him—
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