"faucet" poems
I'M MAKING nachos in your toaster oven. The chips fall in the pan without a problem. Beans, evenly distributed (if I do say so myself.) Salsa- good to go. Then the cheese. Generic brand shredded cheese blend. I dangle my (washed) fingers into the zip-lock bag, grab a generous pinch and rain mild cheddar down on my gourmet meal. And I feel the tears building. "No," my conscious scolds, "you will not cry over shredded cheese." I add another pinch for flavor, then another to assert dominance. I slide the pan into the tiny oven- triumphant! But the next task breaks me. I freeze when I try to adjust the heat setting. I hear your voice so clearly, like you're still calling from the next room: "you have to press the TOAST button, it cooks much faster." The tears start to roll. I think about how excited you were when cheese bubbled perfectly- "just a little brown, ever so slightly crispy." We would joke about your persnickety preferences, likely a product of your superior taste. Of course, you would have appreciated anything I made for you, but it was always better when the dish matched the idea in your head...when I made it like you would have made it (if you were only well enough to cook for yourself again.) In the present, I poke the TOAST button and flee the kitchen as to not cry in front of the smothered chips. I sit on the sofa and break down, gasping in childish sobs. "I miss her," I wail to an empty house. Warm tears coat my cheeks in the air-conditioned room. I feel so small. I feel so foolish for crying over stupid, little things. I feel so... so... A bell dings in the kitchen. I wipe my sleeve across my face and traipse back to the toaster. Hand into oven mitt, mitt onto pan, pan onto table. I grab the plastic tubs of sour cream and guacamole from the fridge and a spoon from the drawer that sticks a little when you try to open it. I pick the non-wilted bits off the head of lettuce and rinse them under the faucet. I finish the recipe. I pull out a chair. I sit down to nachos for one.
Jun 4, 2018
Jun 4, 2018 at 9:57 PM UTC
Delicious,
fill me with your flavor
let your sweetness
take residence in my mouth
treat your essence
like a fragrance
and wear you out
make you my delicacy
and bare your fruits
delicately until our pleasures amount
releasing your pure juices
like a faucet they
spew out
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 5:11 PM UTC
Such luscious lips, with pinkish glow!
She's beautiful.
Her chapped lips, faucet like,
cascade only words of kindness..
She's beautiful.
Such pretty,alluring eyes!
She's beautiful.
Her heavy-lidded eyes : a pair of lenses
capturing only great sharp shots,
they see clearly only the good in people..
They never despise.
She's beautiful.
Such a lovely, curvaceous figure!
She's beautiful.
Within the slim figure, is a soul
who'll share her food with the hungry,
even if it means she'll be left with nothing
for dinner.
She's beautiful.
Beauty is only skin deep..
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 3:06 PM UTC
someone's in the next room over
having *** while we
are weeping
what a way to mark the occasion
the day my fingers found a wound
you let someone else doctor
it's upsetting see
the bible in drawer next to us
the way our hands still
fit together
like the torn halves
of a love letter
the way you got
all dressed up like the rain
and how we couldn't tell
the difference in the shower
it was the longest hour and a half
spent crying
the hot water wouldn't give up
so why should we
right?
even though it was scalding
neither of us touched the ****
we knew this was supposed to hurt
your hair
a black mess against my shoulder
my fingers
oil in the vinegar of your hands
our bodies
the great divide
all the sobbing
a river runs through it
without the courage
to carry or **** us
so we step out
and drip dry
down to a mute breakfast
composed of quiet
and last nights liquor
as we came back in
there were people in our room
at first i thought them detectives
dissecting things
to see who had died here
i had forgotten this
was a hotel
and they were only
cleaning up after us
i wanted to stop them
plead
that the sheets were still perfect
that if they clean the bathroom
no one will know
what happened here
someone has to remember
*"please
i know
these cigarette burns
by name
i will bury the faucet
let me take the tub
i don't care how
if i have to
i will drag it home by hand*"
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 10:50 PM UTC
I lay in the bathtub soaking
wet with water running
around my silhouette. Shaking
as the washcloth smeared regrets
over my skin. The bubbles
give my sins a scent.
As I vent I leave the shower
running so my sobs
are the only thing drowning.
The constant tapping on my face
keeps me awake as I sink into
the various stews my mind creates.
Weights are lifted with pruning. Peeling
of dead skin keeps me from
reeling into depression. There is a harmonic
progression between the faucet and my face,
the scrubbing and my disgrace, the steam and
my own embrace.
I need this state. The decompression
from being bottled up, like a coke, with a smile
is worthwhile. It teaches me
that the expression of weakness
is key in the building of a better Timothy.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 6:48 AM UTC
a girlfriend came in
built me a bed
scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor
scrubbed the walls
vacuumed
cleaned the toilet
the bathtub
scrubbed the bathroom floor
and cut my toenails and
my hair.
then
all on the same day
the plumber came and fixed the kitchen faucet
and the toilet
and the gas man fixed the heater
and the phone man fixed the phone.
noe I sit in all this perfection.
it is quiet.
I have broken off with all 3 of my girlfriends.
I felt better when everything was in
disorder.
it will take me some months to get back to normal:
I can't even find a roach to commune with.
I have lost my rythm.
I can't sleep.
I can't eat.
I have been robbed of
my filth.
16.8k
Wildflower
I found you in the desert
And in the murky gulch
Through the trees
And in between
The mountains' ivory clutch
Wildflower
I've put you in my home
And my faucet is the draught
With which you drink
Like river stream
And early morning trout
Wildflower
I have made a mistake
You grow on hills
Where we don't stay
But in my house
What saves now kills
Wildflower
I let you go
Aug 9, 2016
Aug 9, 2016 at 7:09 PM UTC
i want to be able to see my heart in word-form, all of its callouses and scars spelled out in strings of the alphabet
i want words to flow off of my fingertips like the drippings of water droplets into a sink from a faucet closed only half way
yet i've found that the four-letter word i've been feeling
can only be expressed as it is
numb
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 8:44 AM UTC
My body spun
From one side of my garage
to the other.
In between the pillars of poles
creating space between the cars
parked in the two car garage
perfect family, right?
not even close
I unlaced my skates
tossing them in a case,
unorganized as my chaotic brain
I leaned down to pick up
a mess of what looked
like plastic
like a broken water container
crushed by the weight
of a basketball tossed without looking
being the good girl I was
I picked up the charred plastic
placing it in my hand to
throw it in the trash
I dropped it in the can
letting the pieces fall
one
by
one.
As I wiped my hands
I found a piece I had forgotten
it had the label of Prego on the side
I realized then
It was a broken spaghetti jar
I ran upstairs
to help with dinner.
I asked my mom
what I could do to
She said
"You can run that blood
under a cold water faucet"
I looked at her confused, saying
"Where am I bleeding?"
She turned my arm over
showing me the cut
glazed over my forearm
I hadn't even felt it
I didn't know
that was the moment
I would find an advantage
to not feeling pain
and an interest
in the impure
realization
that bleeding
wasn't scary...
that it couldn't hurt me
as much as the rest
of my life could.
Feb 17, 2018
Feb 17, 2018 at 11:07 PM UTC
Love feels like coming home
But I've found homes in many people
Every home I make is different, fit to hold the looks and laughs between us
Love is like taking a hot shower when the cold has seeped in from all of the cracks in your broken armor
After feeling like a dog licking at empty water dishes it's like realizing you have thumbs to turn on the faucet
It cannot be fit in a poem
People are not lists or metaphors but shelves of novels, walls full of paintings, flaws and idiosyncrasies.
Love is warm blood, messy mad hearts, and wild wolf loyalty.
It's faltering footsteps and tears after the moon has risen.
It's campfire pops and crackles, twisted bed sheets, and moments intertwined like fingers
Love isn't finding your way through a hurricane or boots stomping through a garden.
Love is like coming home.
Nov 18, 2017
Nov 18, 2017 at 10:27 PM UTC
i fight to peel each moment
of pure stagnation
off of me
a tinnitus cacophony whines in my ears
as my dilapidated fan
keeps slow rhythm to the faucet drip
minutes drag like molasses
handcuffed to the daily lag
groundhog day
i escape into the forest
running, the breeze caresses my face
wildlife pries open my desperate eyes
a spider’s web bends and sways in the wind
fine strands of silver silk flow
soaring they meld in crescent waves
a butterfly glides gently by
befriending gusts of air
softly breathing in another tomorrow
the conductor of the symphony
with sculptor’s hands i cannot see
whispers ever graciously
life is not your enemy
drink it in and let it seep
drop your sword i’m molding thee
©2016janetaylor
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 4:58 PM UTC
My pulse keeps time with the leaky rusted faucet of my bath tub.
Tiny ripples, like cold shockwaves through my body,
wake me
from deadly trances.
My streamofthoughts race the fan blades on my ceiling.
Eyes chasing like mice on wheels,
retreating to
nowhere fast.
Pebbles thrown, bouncing off well walls like your voice.
Gently it screams, like whispers in silence, “These things take time”.
Never reaching
the bottomless black.
Just white noise,
a sea foam screen.
Apr 18, 2012
Apr 18, 2012 at 1:54 PM UTC
boo croon the sunflowers
and **** squeaks the jay
this garden was not tended to
and when it was, it was done with bitter blisterless hands
the weeds are creeping out now and thickening stalks
and they move out
out out
goes any sense trust we grew in this garden.
and out
out out
goes my frothy yellow blood into the humid grounds of the garden
and you mop it up and glaze over my barkless parts
boo croon the sunflowers
and **** squeaks the jay
the hose to feed me
was bent at angled corners
and the water shrieked its way through
to come out a subtle flaccid
drop by
drop by
drop
on my parched cracked tan sun slapped skins
and i was angry
that you never felt the need to untangle the hose
because you turned the faucet to full volume
so you assumed that was all the water you could give
and i needed
boo croons the sunflowers
and **** squeaks the jay
the garden is all sand colored and tired
and you don’t feel guilty
you looked at it every day
and squirted what you could on it
and picked whatever weeds you saw
but you never went beyond what looked pretty to visitors
and you let the roots rot across the summer
and now that the winter’s fallen in
there’s not enough water to keep the garden beating
and all the melted snow in the world won’t make up for it
Jul 12, 2010
Jul 12, 2010 at 11:21 PM UTC
~explaining light to the blind~
~for Suzy~
the insanity of even attempting
who among us, the sighted,
has the capability to clarify
an animate inanimate,
an untouchable invisible,
that can be folded, bent,
travel universes unseen
at its own chosen speed,
even to another sighted
and to the blind...
imagine then light
as something that
be recognized from the inside only with
in- sight
~***think of the continuum from
warmth to steel furnaced heat,
that is an element of what is light,
the sun cheek kissing, the furnace of chests
when you grasp another’s body first time
think of light as water,
the faucet spigot a measured pouring,
that can overshoot, the stream behind the house,
a toe tickling masseuse caress,
a dam’s waterfall endless crashing,
a sea, wave licking sudden raging dangerous
blend these sensations that belong to all,
and you’ll know light better than most,
indeed, light is for those who cannot vision
except from the inside with a sight that can be
touched, felt, imagined, and which the sightless
command better than us ordinary thoughtless
indeed light is as simple to understand as
abc,
which you have never seen, but creates the words
that we all
use
even share***~
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 6:34 AM UTC
I think I started writing you away before you were gone
I wanted to make sure I could let you go before I did
I wanted to feel numb when I pushed you away
so I wrote
I put you on pages,
typed chapter titles for every single time you looked at me
I wrote until you were a novel,
read you until you were no longer novel,
and put you on a shelf so I could start waiting to forget about you,
a memory trapped in unused synapses
and after I shut your final chapter
but before your pages had started to collect dust,
I realized what I had done
See, I had taken each word from within me,
harvested my heartstrings, plucking them and mixing them to make ink,
The pieces of you I kept in my heart
sat as words on a page, aging
while my heart, once strong, felt too empty
and cavernous to beat under the weight of the sigh pinning down my chest
In all of my preparing
I had forgotten that I am human
I forgot feelings aren't like a fountain
there's no faucet you can turn off to keep them from
running through your mind
no way to stop them from flowing
back through your mouth when you try to
swallow them, mixed with *** in your best friend's basement,
days after you forgot that you can't turn off a rainstorm
you can try to catch the raindrops in a bucket
but the bucket you'll need is big enough to drown in
you can try to hold out an umbrella
but if the wind is hard enough
you're still going to end up cold and dripping,
tearstained and shivering
waiting until the sun comes out
I forgot that I can't control the weather,
or anything other than myself for that matter
The end of a storm doesn't equate to the appearance of a rainbow
I realized that just because my fingers twisted around yours until
they melted together doesn't mean you'll forgive me
and that you left tattoos on me that only time will fade
and we're both going to be mad
I found out that
every song that ever reminded me of you doesn't cease to exist
I have to re-watch movies because they're different now, somehow,
and just because my hair is probably still all over your clothes
and I talked to you every day
and you gave me months of memories
and thinking about you is gut-wrenching
doesn't mean that I won't spend days praying for patience
and hoping for healing because
**** it, letting you go doesn't mean I don't miss you*
Mar 16, 2014
Mar 16, 2014 at 10:02 PM UTC
The write was written
red ice
twice bitten
his soul a black clot
a faucet for a neck
she fell in a crepuscular fold
odor of tincture fuckubus
red mouth
a snarling kiss
a hot hiss chariot
a black bite
her womb spread wide
for a tongue that didn't end
nail polished *******
like torn cherries
soft gauze tourniquet
a slow yield
milk petals and rivulets
a ghastly confection
leaning over like a spilled ***
her gullet a metropolis of jewels
forced throat bound
on a black cross
she sailed on a magic carpet
like a vampires fizz cocktail
a red ice float
of starvation
his mind a dead sky
a pageant of coiled clouds
he held her down
she levitated
they were in love
Nov 26, 2018
Nov 26, 2018 at 4:29 PM UTC
Orange capsules of condensed vitamin C
Tumble out onto my cracked,
Outstretched palm,
As I arch my spine towards the bathroom sink,
Scooping lukewarm water from the faucet
Into my half closed mouth-
The tiny pills clog my upturned throat:
Just two of the numerous solutions
To a world too numb
To contest.
I've never felt more alive,
Than when I'm drowning my body
With handfuls of tap water
And magic remedies bottled up and
Marketed to a world
Afraid of growing old.
Lining the wall of local drug stores,
One isle over from office supplies
And scented laundry detergent.
Multicolored, multipurpose-
Labels proclaim the fountain of youth
To anyone alive enough to fear it.
There's never enough of reality
To reach our depleted veins
Through the ever present forms
Of the world. Enough isn't
Enough, until we've convoluted it into a tiny
Plastic oval, and forced it down the throats
Of those well enough to swallow it.
Pharmaceutical companies proclaim their
Daily gospel in the linoleum streets
Of hospital waiting rooms
And local grocery stores,
As I cross my heart and count the
Hours until my next prescribed dose
Of complacency. Who knew happiness
Could have the bitter after taste of
Vitamin B or
The credibility of Zoloft.
The sandman has been replaced by Benadryl,
While creativity lies stagnant
Beneath adderall's indifferent thumb.
Obsession is a 26 letter alphabet,
Strung together by a bunch of deficiencies,
Incoherently droning on
To the burden of Man,
And flickering neon light
Of a drive-thru pharmacy.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 1:41 AM UTC
The water drips from the faucet
As the worries fade from my mind
I rest my head on the back of the tub.
My heart sooths down to a murmur,
Not heard above the humming of the radiator.
This is wonderful,
Pure bliss without a worry on my mind.
The water stings against my body
As the heat turns my skin scarlet,
But it doesn't concern me.
I sink further under water.
This is relaxatio-
"Hurry up in there!
I need to take a shower.
And don't use all the hot water."
Well, ****
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 10:37 AM UTC
I swear I could visualize my skeleton
With so much more clarity than before
I could see how whole it was
Despite all my missing parts
My skeleton keeps on flowing through the motions,
The same bones groove together with purpose.
I owe my surprisingly healthy bones more than I give
I feel more whole as a skeleton
Please remove the rest
My motions will be smooth and conscious
Like water dripping from the faucet,
my fingers will tap with impatience.
Like a wheel tumbling down a hill,
My old bones will follow
They are the key to freedom
No wonder.
The key that opens every door
Is called the skeleton key.
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 9:45 PM UTC
Plip, plip, plop
I wonder when will it all stop
Every drop turns a darker red
As all hope are replaced with dread.
Plip, plip, plop
We need to fix this faucet
For soon we'll all drown
And sadly we are too poor for a casket.
Plip, plip, plop
Please don't pretend you don't hear
All the innocent's yawps
Pleading from the faith of your ruthless spear.
Plip, plip, plop
Alas! the streets are clean
Yet every house seems to pray
For their child to come home today.
Plip, plip, plop
I wish to live a day without fear
That the faucet won't wreck my home
Coating it with an awful besmear.
Plip, plip, plop
I just want it to stop
Pray, I do not want the past nor the present,
I just want a life that has future in it.
-a.m.
Sep 7, 2017
Sep 7, 2017 at 11:15 AM UTC
Alone
That's how I feel very often
Sitting here on my own
Til the day I'm in my coffin
Double crossers run they mouth more than water in a faucet
And these ratchet *** hoes only want what's in my pocket
Foreal
All these fake *** ****** claiming they yo friend
But in the end everybody know its just pretend
Unlike the demons that I see in every empty room
And the reasons why the world is stressed from work and shrooms
Every season 50 people on Milwaukee news
Dying cuz they tryna find a way to get around the rules
And it's funny
Well it's really kinda stunning
Cuz they tryna make that money
To see they kids make it out of school
Now ig they'll never see that day.
Why ?
Cuz they died tryna get paid.
Wow.
They lived for the same thing they died for.
Blood drips and now they the one that millions cry for.
But last week he was knocking on every single door
Asking for donations for his child and nothing more
But they snickered and lied on they doorstand
And now they sniffle and cry for this poor man
The three types of people that I mentioned before
Are the same people behind all those knocked doors
The double crossers were friends that wanted new friends
The ratchet *** was his unsupportive girlfriend
The fake guy
Was every person that cried
When they found out that he died
But mocked him while he was alive
I don't want those kind of people around me
That's why I claim my loneliness so proudly
That's why I'm lonely in this world with no poise
Yes I'm alone. But loneliness is my choice.
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 10:10 AM UTC
I like slandering your makeshift forceps.
I hammer you down with watery *** and then spill
the remainder on the couch. Yarg! A diamond’s
worth at least a small intestine, and you
are worth whatever’s left over after night
has upended itself, poured sideways out of its
shellacked crawlspace, and turned the basement sour.
There are remnants of you in the park,
some red stain by the baseball field where,
if you’ll remember, you watched little leaguers
build teamwork, and faint splotches on tree bark
from your lactations which, if you’ll remember, happened
every morning. I whisper your godforsaken name
and am slapped in the head. The children cry
when I smile. I cry when the children smile. Good
heavens. I forbid you from not entering my corridor,
even as I set up a barricade. I like my water scalding,
my passion chilled, and I like you in easy-to-
swallow doses. I like you in my eggs.
Ditto the faucet, keyboard, the occasional lily,
but do not mess with my pearls. I mumble of apodictic
meadows while I sleep. What can I say?
I do not mumble of unclogging your bathtub,
which has a certain foul repute, and has grown
heavy and ugly with your hair, which is everywhere,
just as you are everywhere, and wherever, and so
********* hidden it’s not funny anymore, we stopped
looking some millennia ago, after scouring the drainpipes,
kicking down your doors, dissecting your mattress,
speculating about your burial site, etcetera, and even so
we have not been really looking all this time, have we,
just blaring your name through the speakers,
putting wrong numbers on our calling cards, leaving
uncooked meat out on the back porch as if you were
a raccoon, oh, or a lion, which you are not, or not
quite, though, as the books say, you have honey
in your stomach, and if you could but be
ripped open we would taste and see.
May 25, 2010
May 25, 2010 at 8:21 PM UTC
Last drop of water,
Quivers"Sorry"at the faucet,
It's my turn to fret.
Apr 9, 2017
Apr 9, 2017 at 7:05 AM UTC
Tears fall from my eyes
Like water from a faucet
That's missing a washer
I cannot help but cry
Tears fall from my eyes
My clothes are soaking wet
As a lament over
A love that has died
Take this last piece of me
Please take this wilted flower
Doesn't really matter
'Cause you've already devoured
My Heart entirely
360 days have passed
Since my love for died
But the pain just seems to last
Even if the sink has dried
Take this last piece of me
Please take this wilted flower
Doesn't really matter
'Cause you've already devoured
My soul entirely
May 10, 2011
May 10, 2011 at 11:12 PM UTC