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Anthony Esposito Oct 2021
Flatlining on an incline
A car rolling, in a car crash
Rain pouring, storm overhead
This stories not my own
I am not the one to whom this pain belongs

It’s a sick joke
And this time I’m not the punchline
I’m just here
Flatlining on an incline

I’m alive but I feel dead inside
Like a ghost walking from room to room
I wonder if it’s to soon to assume
That anyone misses me

And just like that
I awake from a dream
Flatlining on an incline
In a hospital bed In New Jersey
Scar Feb 2017
Glances in passing and nothingness,
I'll drop out and take up gardening.
And you are so cool, all German bred,
and sometimes braided. I see you, so
well-read and rather regal. ***** blonde
nuclear, alabaster, aluminum rods -
electricity dripping from the soles of
your shoes. This classroom, my own
ink blotted incubator, the radiator sits,
flatlining. Your jaw as two razor blades,
your shoulder blades, broad, gentle.

I wonder how you look in the morning,
How you look at yourself in the mirror.
Do you practice smiling, and
how often do you wash your hair? Oh,
you exist in glass, and I will not try to
know you. Leaving this poem limited,
and yet. Your jam drop mouth houses all
well-spoken soliloquies, radical requiems.

So, what would happen if we brushed
shoulders in passing? Your little accent.
Accident, we appeared in the same
huddled mass. Literary plugs in the
drain, and your new American. So,
why don't we just go walking on
airplane wings? Some transcontinental
affair. Frequent flyer *******, stranger.
Beth Taylor Oct 2014
you should’ve never unpacked your bags,
because it gave me this expectation that you were in this for the long run. i’m still running. i have swallowed so much blood that tastes like your regret from biting down my tongue to cage it behind my teeth from screaming about you to a world that wants my blood for ink.
i am more than a number, but 24 makes me feel better than 26, so i sit in jeans that leave red marks on my hips and make it hard to breathe, but see it’s two inches and
i am more than a number, but i know every test score i ever got and still remember fourth grade and question three and crying because suddenly my mistakes had weight and i couldn’t fix things by saying sorry and
i am more than a number, but i was always the middle child, always the not-quite one, not the best friend to anyone, just a girl with kind eyes and jeans that are a little bit too tight and
i am more than a number but to you i am seventeen, ten and three. and lets be clear; it’s the three that haunts me, because *** doesn’t matter and ‘girlfriend’ is just a label, but i wish i was the first girl you truly loved, and sometimes i still wish i was the last, but with you i fear i’ll forever be just another number.
i drove over 17 bridges the other day and next week i'll do it again and i think nobody gets what that means except maybe you.
i just tell them i love the scenery, that somebody must've made these trees blush just for me.
you know how i love to change the subject?
i bet they'd love the view. i bet you would too.
and all these metaphors for other things are beside the point.
this is a metaphor for why i don't wear my seatbelt, a metaphor for why whiskey knows me better than you could ever try to.
all the buildings seemed to sag yesterday and all the stars are doing that cliche thing where they talk quiet jet noise and some lumbering giant made everything shake.
not those hand metaphors, not another one of those & keep the sea to yourself,
i think it was a train, it's sound hugged the embankment for a moment and then trailed off into nowhere,
and that's kind of like me
how there's a town called 'rescue' close to my home and it's no coincidence that i've never been there.
i’m just flatlining now and hoping that you can look at the next girl the way i looked at you.
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
Cusp

Once I wrote these words:

Place your ****** hands upon thy chest.
Let them melt thru and come to rest,
Inside, the battle ongoing, under thy breast.
Watch, eyes open, knowing, fearful.
Swiftly, with no hesitation, from within,
Rip open your body, exhaling the best,
And the worst of what you got.

The cool air rushes in,
Stirring the inside stew of:
Infected grime, shameful desires,
Secrets that should not have been exposed,
The ***** stuff of about your life
that you alone know exists.

Contact with the atmosphere makes
Self-pity dies, blue blood turn red,
The TNT tightness explodes,
Ashamed, you have only one escape hatch.

Now, you are ready to write.

(http://hellopoetry.com/poem/now-you-are-ready-to-write/)

so here I am, hands on my chest,
so unready, incapable of writing,

the battle site changed,
sledding to the top of my head,
moved northwards, mush, mush.

just don't have what's required
to melt that mush open,
just don't have the anymore
to finish this Iditarod race
called my Idiot life.

nobody knows the silences
kept in my treasure box.
nobody knows the nail-beds
slept, bloodied, by this
mthrfking depression,
unexpectedly returned to sender,
unable now,
to write, free and clear.

suffused, this words reappears,
you don't get it, the twilight twinkies
below laughing, twinkling,
middle ******* me,
so not suffused,
nah nah nah nah
you don't got it,
you got nothing.

the words supply, torn and  tired
reappears, now escapee prisoners
before flatlining, crashing
as I am currently 20,000 feet over
somewhere above the Eastern Seaboard;

we may land smooth,
but not in any groove
that fits me anymore.

Here's the sorest, sorriest laugh,
what you are about to read
was eons ago born, and today
birthed.

Happy M.F'ing  Birthday #0
don't even, can't complain fresh,
reusing unused words that never got
devoured, so now, used up too,
like me.

cut by thicket's branches
(that in their defense, maim only to self-protect)
calluses of experience
not enough to survive
what is now needed,
new chapters required.

choruses of repetitive choirs fresh,
inspire but land on surfaces
heart-hardened by fear contagion.

who will know and
who will care and who
will make them all go away,
but me...

so touch my self,  
reminder to self is emailed,
beat the odds so man-many times,
one more time, what's the big deal?


fresh differences,
maybe,

words that are new
not in my vocabulary,
maybe.

Struggle, long lived,
is the status quo,
** **, don't you know,
nobody tole ya?

world's axis is tilted
you can fall off
a familiar horse,
get off course,
so east easy
a gravitational force so subtle,
clueless you're drowning
till the riptide
has liberated your
pockets possessions,
pathetic borrowings
of unoriginal thoughts
you thought you actually owned!
now you realize
new inspirational how to books
keep getting writ,
published for experienced suckers
like you.

so here at the pointed cusp
a crescent shaped tangent,
lines crossed, intersection of a curveball
turning inwards, retracing prior paths,
familiar but tho the forecasts predict
being on the cusp of something,
crystal ball reveals nothing at all.

I fold the little have learned
into a handkerchief
folded three times over,
tied cusp to cusp
with a trefoil knot,
which while
mathematically correct,  
is too easy as my hanky is almost empty
and hobo heart journey scary is thinking
done.
Cusp:

point, apex: as
a :  a point of transition (as from one historical period to the next) :  
turning point; also :  edge, verge
b :  either horn of a crescent moon
c :  a fixed point on a mathematical curve at which a point tracing the curve would exactly reverse its direction of motion
d :  an ornamental pointed projection formed by or arising from the intersection of two arcs or foils
e (1) :  a point on the grinding surface of a tooth (2) :  a fold or flap of a cardiac valve
MsAmendable Oct 2015
Roads,
Dark tar pathways
Winding in infinite lines,
And going nowhere in particular
And everywhere else,
With tell-tale markers
When you stray.

Endless routes
To nowhere
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2014
a story, a long strange poem, and a thank-you note of a sort
~~~~~~

swords and verbs,
subjects and nouns,
participles and particles,
participants of past and futures
transitive and intransitive,
none can get pen-rooted,
sic transit gloria verborum eius
(fleetingly passes the glory of his words)

slow or swift, overhead, all unobtainable,
from the atmosphere unpluckable,
no deposit, no return, no po-ahem,
only a sad sonata denominated,
Air on the E(mpty) String continuous playing

likely something is a brewing,
clock internal clocking,
but no talking, just tic tocking,
ideas stumblebum in and out,
inebriated, fuzzy speeches,
don't reach out to touch or savor 'em,
those weird words were made for walking,
not for retrieval, sorting, storing, and
subsequent lots of
some assembly needed...
poetic conceiving...not

perhaps they are disfigured?
important but disguised?
definitely not credos and codas,
mission statements, definitions,
nah...not me, unimportant amateur passerby,
my only "laurels" come to
die at holiday time,
lariats to lasso, tether and then brownout,
a wintry green,
gone to nether garbage cans, timely and expediently,
per a calendar deadline

but an overheard conversation
on Eighth Avenue,
a ******-onto latched-onto,
undid this parlous state of
an evenhanded hypnotic flatlining,
a perilous mind,
infected with no-inspiration

"Why I do not share,  
or publish on the Internet," she said,
"what I write is so
precious to me that
the thought of it,
orphaned and drowned
amidst the unending pixels,
water-falling words
into ocean trenches,
unborn, yet ignominiously dead
just the same,
at the same instant,
an unbearable pain,
childbirth and death,
all in one, unthinkable!"


"Publish" he begged her,
"too good are you
to deny this world of this,
the world needs it proofs,
you are a proof!"


stunned by an emotive slap,
I knew kinetically,
I too must have,
proofs,
of me,
worthy of presentation,
if only,
to prove worthy of
your time and thus
prove to myself
my very own existence,
even derision decisive,
is an extant proof of sorts...
~~~~~~~

My Proofs

having come so far,
task so vast,
bedeviled and bewildered,
I am the face I have seen
in photos and mirrors,
but how can I stake my claim
to be more than just a
passing fancy virtual reality?

you cannot bite me,
though willing do I tender
my body for your impression
upon my body permanent

you cannot caress my lips,
though oft imagined it,
the multiplicity tender of that dream,
makes the would-be reality of it,
pale with a shame of insufficiency

bleed and wept poetry for the unity us,
so hard, so oft, so free,
my tablet machine
human tear-tracked and deep red scarred,
the Apple Geniuses,
when they see me coming,
whisper it's him, Poet-man,
who made an
iPad into a tissue
that cannot be repaired/replaced,
and run away and hide

have I not confessed enough my colorful sins,
but alas, all you can see is blackened dots of crimes
hosted upon a white background
of pleadings for forgiveness,
i's dotted with rejection slips,
t's crossed with painful slivers
of writings crucified by me,
therefore, for the grace of god in man,
they died unnamed and lived only briefly

perhaps if you saw a man by my name
on your television, you would say
"****, that is/was him, it cannot be denied,"
but you cannot be sure, imposter,
what must I do, to make the evening news,
and claim existence, therefore I am!

I cannot say with certainty,
am more then a running-around,
neurons and electrons colliding,
a mess of sub-atomic particles
invisible and in periodic possession of a flavor
of the god factor or Einstein's hanky

but if you come to my city,
I can give you a location,
a centralized park, a wooden fruit-box stand,
at an end corner,
(cause corners end well)
where a man stands and recites
and sorta sounds like what's his name

if you want to be sure it is that one,
look for teeth marks on his body,
reading out loud from a tablet unique,
alternating stanzas with Siri
his spiteful spitfire editor and sometime fan,
the box upon he stands transported
grapes from California, oranges from Florida,
can't be sure, the stickers rain washed away,
and if he weeping as he chants,
odds are it could be me,
I mean him...

to be sure you must place gentle a finger
or your lips across, upon his,
if electrons you sense and taste,
and yours they embrace
as naturally as if they were waiting

just for you,
you can almost be sure,
don't ask his name, unnecessary,
for he will face you with these words:


*"Thank you, Thank you!
you are my proof..."
a story, a long poem, and a thank-you note
to one who is known as
Jara Fan,
from Saskatchewan,
writ as an attempted proof of our actualized mutual existence
beyond
mere pixelation
nebula Sep 2014
i was never quite sure as to why you left, but the only answer i can come up with is that you found someone better.

you were the air i breathed, everything i ever felt, my sky and my earth and everything in between.

you were my lifeline.

and it seems like now i'm just flatlining, flatlining.

people don't need someone who can't fuction properly, can't be fixed with a simple "it gets better".

you walked away and i tried to follow you, hoping you would lead me to live amongst the stars.

most nights i can't even look out the window knowing i might see you again.

i'm not sure where you are, if you're watching me, if you remember all the promises you made me.

i hope you look at the next person the way i looked at you.
st64 Jul 2013
1.
immortal stone
rolled away.

2.
..........pinwheels rolling on
O O O O O O O O O O O O

then just
flatlining  ---^-^---^------^--------------------^----------------------­------^--------------------





S T, 8 July 2013
If money were no issue, would you be doing what you’re doing....and how?
Or ...are we just wasting.....time.....?





sub-entry: ---^-------^------------------------------  ‘sub-(s)crawl’

flat earth should be easier to walk on
you can always crawl underneath....
to escape the noise.
Aurora Feb 2020
R.J Calzonetti


Screaming cross the skyscraper’s windbreaker tapering

Aether vapour- trailblazing ****-sapien wafers

Of machinations psychotropic doppelgängers

Aristotle throttling menagerie’s philosophically hypnotic obelisks

Mind-boggling astronomical chronological esophagus

Antioxidants phosphorus catastrophic mitochondria

Beyond anaconda onomatopoeia

Of hallucinogenic Armageddon biblical umbilical cords

Swarming northern lights of aurora borealis

The chalice a battleground of Evangelion belladonna

Metalica candelabra swallowing the monochrome Hanukkah

Of a cold winter’s eldritch disintegration photosynthesis

Of innocent infinity stretching wretched beckoning requiem

The words that fall upon my page, are really just a shallow grave

Of the dawn of nighttime in my eyes, calm upon the twilight sun

Wrong is done draped on the blood moon wraiths

Skyscraped fields dusk a hollow thud below the dunes

That thumps the consumption of our fate, fumes to glow in darkness loom

Left blind in light of day you cannot see, the little pieces silver sheen

For blinding light may fade to grey, and I will never have my way

Nightfalls on another daybreak, dawning darkness, sundown on another day

Twilight plays with sparkling haze, the sky a wildfire made ablaze in patchwork scarecrows

Who etch rainbows black as a heart of coal, sold flatlining railroads

Gold wraithlike halos of stained-glass cathedrals unreal in the fever-dream of human beings

Bleeding Elysium from the seabed of dead worlds, gourds of incorporeal cornucopias

Born orchestra morsels of sorrowful oracles predicting crucifixion of ellipsis’ antithesis


(MC) Aurora


Absonant  as my pen writes the twilight, the red swallowed on horizon and bright

As through a sea of blood under my feet and shrinking mast of my mighty ship

A shadow I make on that red snow and peep into my heart’s hollow

It’s deep as much as my pen spake of grief.

I blinded in that last light and hurled like a beast dreading the songs of holy lies

That have just pained in bright and made me grieve.

They dragged me on my wings and deplumate  me as so fallen humans

They wrenched my limbs and rive my heart out and flinger me in air and I laid forever

On the stones that dank my blood.

I wait for the troth  of  demise but betrayed as it didn’t come to detract,

I laid when the horizon grinned red on my face and poured the last ale

And brutally drank the last sip of me.



R.J Calzonetti


People are sleeping under the blankets of a tranquil streetlamp

A sunflower in the damp bed of concrete

Soon they’ll be pushing up daisies

Underneath the foundation of what I stand for

Nip the bud of the flower pedalling the root of all evil like fallen leaves

Breeding paraplegic freedom from the pollen melancholic

Anarchistic polycrystalline shapeshifters drifting vilified

Buried alive like asphalt constellations crowning metallic gallows alcoholic in my solitude

See the clouds bury the ground in half a heaven’s heartbeat

Limbo’s limitless abyss the photosynthesis of the sepulchral diablo

Revenants of redemption dancing with death

Evanescent in its bioluminescent crescent moon spooning illuminated illustrations

Of Himalayan mayhem cremated avarice of ethereal onomatopoeia unravelling catacombs in God’s palindromes

Homeopathic saplings decapitated in the dismembered September wastelands defibrillator

Invigorating the nightshade white wraiths plane-walkers of Apocrypha documenting entropy

Pent up sentience avenging the endless demigods of discombobulated proclamations nocturne graceless, octaves eldritch, evangelic

Elegant elevators to flights of staircases where the air is fragrant with the fragments of stagnant stained glass asterisks

Written gospels to masquerade hostage to the faith the man misplaced the sacred hate, the passageways of apathy apostrophe

Apartheid of serpentine survivors carving smiles on the sidewalks

Farming diamonds and their detox

Arming giants like a phoenix

Carnal nihilists with their secrets

Stardust quiet as the bleachers

Start defiant still a reject

Art discipled to our freedom

Shattered hearts pick up the pieces

Jigsaw puzzles, smothered treasons

Sow the seeds and **** the reaper

Even legions rhyme and reason

Tattered flags without a penance

Good men do not go to heaven

Buy your burden at 7-11

Your exit is the only the next entrance

Resurrection prepubescent

Asymmetric biomechanics

Anguish to be reprimanded

Megalomaniac in our sabbath

Living life is just a sentence

Psalms of seance death’s senescence

Baptize vengeance lest it ventures into heaven

Ventriloquist omniscience of rhythmic equilibrium

Earthly hurricanes reemerging insurgent as the sugarcane purgatory

Primordials metamorphosis contorting rigour Mortis oracles horoscope cloaked in cloaca hallucinations

Induced irradiated amalgamated retaliatory incorporeal chlorophyll

Born from the sorcerers' spell, the cathedral of doubt

The only darkness is within oneself, light shed within a holy shell

Isolation is a lonely hell, scythes of moonlight blight of bells

Nightingales fail to halo word of mouth

Enveloped in the clouds cast shadows hex

But resurrection cannot hide from the eyes of death

Fresh as babies breath

Rank as the body festers effigies

Bless the Nephilim the questions beck

And call for some god to collect the rest

Is there any answer?

Even growth can be a cancer

Lifeless corpses once were dancers

Devils waltz on top of canopies

Heaven’s hands have touched serenity

****** brands that crushed His enemies

Stained glass sanguine dismantled entropy

Calamity ran dry insanity dabbling in humanity

Unravelling the candy wrapper saplings of happiness

Pitch black irradiant dull edges sharpening archangels, darkness reincarnating

Blinding bioluminescent glistening abyssal rakshasa sarcophagus parting monarchies

Metamorphosis coruscating fornication immortalization Tartarean

Reverberating ****-sapien scintillating hurricanes palpitation circulating ricocheting oblivion

Shining crepuscular homunculus dully illustrious

Sunless avatars, mannequins of Abaddon stygian as fallen leaves on the breeze of Avalon Evangelion

Incarceration breeding Elysium’s jailors in the cathedral of double helixes

Bethlehem's’ new genesis of Lucifer’s crucifixion

Brighter than a fallen star

Mourning in the dark

Doppelganger apostles night stalkers of phosphorous

Pockmarked arcanum bloodstained in gravestone Salem

Where the braves’ halos dined on maelstroms alone

Heirs succeeding failures of the empty throne

Filled with nothings’ own

Brimming bound by Babylonian poems

Deus ex Machina's apocalypse coughing prophets of Samsara blossoming diabolic

Life is but a Holocaust

Death the moment God forgot

Breath the only psalm we sought

Kept within a hollow box

Shedding devils, angelic, lost

Finding metamorphosis


(MC) Aurora


A world often synonymous with beauty on the horizon,

Meet my eyes you mourned demon load the strength on thee.

Crestfallen light on your wrist burns down your girth

And you can plead, just plead your twilight sun.

Watch the dead sea swallow you in the salts of agony

And drown in the anguish, hundreds of angelic bloodsheds,

Press hold of the thumbprints on your throat, you can't roar.

Sore lugubrious melancholy aired atmosphere,

And downhearted souls dispirited dragons dragged along.

The sob grim hiding in a blue funk rusty smog choking wind,

The nyctophilliac animals howl long the cold-blooded love song

In your lungs and burn.

It's the twilight sun,

Just that twilight sun.
By Aurora & R.J.Calzonetti
M Harris Apr 2017
Psychic Trance & ****** Dance,
Emitting Chemical Solace Dipped In Her Capital Romance,

Feral Atmosphere Written In Her Carnal Elegies,
Rapturous Serenades Forming Phantasmal Effigies,

Magnetized Synchronicity & Metamorphized Reciprocity,
Animating Foreplays Dazzling Her Astral Virtuosity,

Phantasmal Lips Illuminating Cherub Faces In Draped Compositions,
Painting Supernatural Visions Forged In Her Vocal Inhibitions,

Prototype Voids & Spiraling Realms,
Religious Frenzies In Her Temporal Screams,

Autumn Sun Reincarnating The Light Of The Spring,
Glass House Perspectives Blooming In Her Prismatic Bling,

Rhapsody Confessions Of Her Divine Obsessions,
Rainbow Skies Dressed In Her Spiritual Progression,

Coral Spells & Synthetic Desires,
Floral Pastels Engineering Her Romantic Fires,

Nightlife Flatlining Through Her Lonely Avenues In LSD High,
A Congenital Sinner She Respires ****** Hues With A Luminescent Sigh!

– 05:13 AM –
Michael Marchese Mar 2017
Pull the plug, return the feeling  
Resurrect its deeper meaning
Eternally internal bleeding
Out the suicidal beating
Of a barely living being
Worth less than the air I'm breathing
Further in the dark receding
Nothing real to keep believing
Blinded by a faith misleading
Echoes torture chamber screaming
Silently I wither, grieving
Elegizing starless evenings
Mourning joyous moments fleeting
Buried by the grimmest reaping
Rotting slowly, maggots feeding
On whatever's left of needing
Flesh to form my muse appeasing
Where I find myself exceeding
Astral plane existence seeing
In a world of lucid dreaming
calm Mar 2018
my old heart is failing, oh it's beats are fading,
no, my blood, it won't flow.

the whole world is edging, off the page, I'm dreading
what comes next, I don't know.

jagged pieces finely cut, into this poem, but
it's lines do turn faint.

God knows I'm not ready, for this test, mind heavy
with the thought of your pain.
robin Jun 2013
bzd
if you were comatose i wouldn't worry so much**

everything i write i write for you so when you read this please stop and
close your eyes and
notice me leaning against your back and reading over your shoulder sometimes i
reread my words and try to imagine how you feel when you
read them
but i read them and i feel so empty i hope you don't feel the same because
people have told me i made them cry but
i find that hard to believe when i just make myself
bored
just know i'm curling around your feet i'm hoping my words will help you when you want to hurt
i'm hoping you know i wrote this for you because
i know you read this in the dark in your room in solitude with
the light of your screen turning you
pallid and blue but
you know
blue is better than red
black words on a white screen i read once that monotony is ataractic but it
just makes me itch and
i hope i'm an anomaly and you're part of the norm because i don't know how to make you feel
something i don't know but
i'm trying everything i can
i want you calm i hope my words can be
a soporific for you they say
that you're not alive unless you hurt unless you never stop moving but
in that case maybe i want you in a coma because
i saw what
being alive
did to you
please sleep they say it isn't art if it doesn't make you
uncomfortable if it doesn't make you itch but
artistry was never in my future anyway i just want you to have my words when
you want to test your nerves to see if they're
picking up any signal at all because
your emotions are flatlining but maybe the physical sensation's still there and
you are so ragged and i hope i smooth your edges at night when you can't sleep and you seek out
the light that makes you pallid and words
written just for you and
maybe that night you won't
itch so bad
i wrote this for you because i know when you're alone with pallid light and music you
want to hurt but please
close your eyes i'm right behind you i'm
leaning over your shoulder and trying not to cry because
you don't need another burden cause
all your thoughts are
the heaviest material on earth but i can make it better
i can make my words meaningless enough that they can lift you up just
a little more you
don't have to stand on your own my words can hold some of the weight because
maybe you grew up too fast or maybe not at all cause
i can tell your body is far too heavy for your heart to support and
sometimes your hands are too far away for blood to reach them
cause a pulse can only do so much and
sometimes it feels like simply living is another type of malaise but
maybe i can ease that just for the minute it takes for you  to read this and
close your eyes and
feel me against your back i
just make myself bored but maybe i can help you
i hope my words are so monochrome they help you sleep
i hope my words are so empty they're like
air sacs to help you stay upright  i
hope nothing i say resonates with you because
the world gives you enough to swallow you don't need one thing more
my words can be your sleeping pills
i wrote this for you so you could sleep easy tonight
and i'll hold your hand and hope you don't dream
Del Maximo Sep 2010
time moves forward
winding through galaxies
coursing through milkyways
pulsing through universes
hanging on heartbeats
yesterday, today and tomorrow
happening concurrently
burned onto disks stacked on top of each other
lifetimes skipping tier to tier
peeking through veils of reality
scoping inward to Brownian motion
zooming outward to life’s whole
energy flowing freely through meridians
navigating congestion and voids
finding balance in life’s peaks and valleys
like electrocardiograms
my lifereadings on paper
lately I’ve been flatlining
routines can be boring
drudgery stagnates
maybe I’m just physically tired
maybe I’m tired of life
caught behind a rock in a river
awaiting a cataract to break me free
and restore the song of life’s flow
maybe I’m an insignificant speck of dust
a blip off life’s radar
or maybe the smallest piece of jigsaw
is an equal part of the whole
© September 13, 2010
Sam Dec 2014
My body is a roadmap
Dotted with state lines and stretch marks and red arrows pointing to You Are Here.
There are scars like flags crossing my arms claiming gripping holding fast to this
Earth this life
Highways that lead nowhere
Train tracks that click clack against my ribcage
Cars that rumble in my brain.
Exhaust fumes fogging thoughts.
My body wears these hills on my chest like rugged territory unstaked unstated these weight plateaus like failure flatlining against the horizon.
My body is untraveled unfolded uncreased
These eyes like lakes see depth from new perspective dipping fresh into cool clear vision.
These legs like rivers cut through worlds rushing hard and fast
This head like boulder
steady and stoic even with anxiety
quaking through my core.
My body is a roadmap.
I seek only adventures within.
Cant sleep. Surprise. Body comparison. WIP: not sure about ending
Ayaba Babe Dec 2012
Two hands wrapped around my heart,
It's a death grip.
Two hands lunging for your throat
It's blood for blood, love for love.
911
What's the emergency.
I have an urgency
I need a needle sharp enough to slice
And the strongest rope that will suffice
To get these stitches in.
Gasping for breath but still breathing
My hearts still beating
From the bottom of my heart I can tell you
the pools of my love still ripple waves
The richest shades of red
Call it cardiac arrest.
If you really broke my heart; I'd be flatlining
Anatomically incapable of life; I'd be dead.
Darkly Sep 2016
I am flatlining.

I can see my life projected out and witness all of my goals achieved. So many accomplishments. Everything I've ever wanted to do. And yet...

I feel empty.

As I feel now, sitting here with an empty head filled with light from the computer screen. It's so late that it's early.

We all arrive here, sometimes.


When was the last time your hand touched someone else's?
I'm not even a long distance runner.
Jillian Jesser Oct 2018
I perch here
idle hands,
administer the dregs
of my coffee, to
a flagging, dull head
agonizing over
every flimsy word
I might utter
to make my dull life
bright

grasping at a flatlining pulse
a woody smile
     from the wreckage of my past.

Look!
          Look at this earnest celebration of chaos
                                                 that drives away oblivion.
Chris Thomas Sep 2016
I raise the blinds to let the world in
Fix your coffee just to see you smile
Footfalls echo throughout the hallway
And I want to stay here for a while
I hear the shower running
Knowing how hot you like the water
I reflect on the evolution of us
And how our love burned even hotter
Simple complexity is our principle
Our imbalance is a shortened fuse
I dream of different happy endings
You dream of life as a muse
I hear the hum of Adele through walls
Amazing all that a heart can distort
This love born in a summer haze
Is flatlining on fall's life support
I grab my keys and wallet
Yet leave my prudence on the table
Goodbye is never uttered
Because tomorrow is always unstable
Khoisan Oct 2018
Up on a limb
I found the stars and the moon
Together
Flatlining
daniela May 2016
some people only see the sun
as something that gets in their eyes when they’re driving
and i don’t wanna be one of them.
i wear sunglasses a lot so i can pretend i’m not bad at eye contact;
maybe it’s the same idea if you think about it like that.
god is still playing on the radio and all i can hear is static.
i don’t have a car, but if i did i think that it would still stall.

sometimes life tries to sucker punch me in face
and i’m really bad at ducking, i spend a few too many minutes
in front of the mirror wondering
if i’m going to grow into this version of hating myself
and ******* in.
not my stomach, but my lungs.
because whenever i panic, it feels like they’re caving in.
it feels like i'm new orleans after the levees broke.
every hurricane has a name and, sometimes, i’m trying to forget yours.
and i’m still trying to stay ahead of the curve,
i’m still obsessing over the curve in your neck.
i’m bad at details
but i could be good at the big picture.
i could be good at you.
which is a ****** way to say that
i wanna get drunk and tell you about my insides.
i want to tell you everything about me and still hear you say “i love you”
and not mean it in spite of anything
like if a tree falls in the forest,
it might not make a sound but it leaves a mark.
all these poems scrawled in my margins make their marks.
poetry doesn’t exist until someone hears it,
i do not exist until someone listens to me.
i used to think i didn’t really exist until i knew you.

and i know i try too hard sometimes,
but i figured it’s better than not trying at all.

yeah, i’m a few years behind, but i still listen to isabel and evan.
i don’t know about god and i can’t seem to believe in heaven.
i don’t know much about milk and honey,
but i know about rice and black beans.
broken hearts and bad dreams.
***** hands and rhyme schemes.
those kind of things.
because growing up is a whole lot of growing into yourself
and whenever i’ve got big shoes to fill i just stuff socks into the toes.
there’s a not a single “grown-up” that i know
that doesn’t wake up feeling 13 years old sometimes.
so i stopped waiting on a miracle.
i packed up all my ambition in my backpack;
the zipper got stuck but that’s okay.
i stuck my thumbs in my pockets, i’m walking.
there’s more time that way
and i think we all need a little  time in some kind of way.  
i’m a homebound hitchhiker who doesn’t know what direction to head in,
how do you get home when all the lights are turned off?
what does it mean when the place you call home
is somewhere you have not been in years?
i’d ask my dad, but i’m trying not be cruel on purpose these days.
my father protested in the streets,
young revolutionary trying to change the fabric of his country
into something more breathable.
do you have any idea how much of my life i have spent silent?
silence is the biggest privilege that i have ever had.
silence is the loudest thing that i have heard
silence is the sound of police sirens and fists,
of flatlining heart monitors and pretending you didn’t see that.

but if heaven exists, i still hope it’s quiet.
i want it to be quiet.
because there has to be a halfway point
between chaos and silence somewhere.
no offense but listen to "coloring book" by chance the rapper, it's got the creative vibes flowing for me. PS sorry i write about my dad so much but like if you knew him you would too
Give them guns , have them come back
tortured , depressed and disabled
Label them heroes , pay no regard to their
high suicide rates , give them hometown
parades and let them fend for themselves
in the American rat race
Vietnam Part II is being played out for all to see                                                    
via the internet , laptops have replaced Walter Cronkite ,
Arlington is slowly being filled week after week
Color guards bring cheers at sporting events , our
young people are flatlining on our countries streets
A painful Presidential election is coming our way ,
tear gas and rubber bullets on Cleveland's streets ,
The violence will spread from city to city
Watch with fear as 1969 plays out once again
Copyright May 8 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
just live Apr 2016
As my hands comb through my hair,
I stare between my knees
looking into the depths of this
unfamiliar wooden floor.
The foundation creaking
from the wind howling outside,
its feral cry
full of pent up emotions,
filling the night with chaos,
mirroring the landscape of my emotions.
Pictures so lovingly framed,
propelled by chaotic winds,
splash
into an unbroken lake
sending ripples scrambling away
as they try and escape the touch
of these cherished memories.
The golden light of a sunny day
spent laughing and crying
under pine trees,
shines from the depths.
The cold grey light of a rainy day
spent looking out the tear stained window
trying to make sense of this hurricane of emotions,
cuts through the inky black water.
The constellations of so many memories
seems just in reach
as I syphon this inky black water
through my pen,
drawing from the depths of my soul,
a straight IV
into these flatlining lines
of this black notebook
that holds my soul.
Kelly McManus Jun 2021
Funding assassins
stockpiling our destruction
lack of brain function

                   Kelly McManus
David Mar 2016
I see it like the lines on a monitor,
spiking with each beat of my heart,
crossing from one point on the map to the next.
It was rather uneventful at first, flatlining, if you will,
but I can see the increase in frequency and amplitude as my heart beats faster
each second,
third,
fourth time he messages me
and I am not so slowly falling for some beautiful boy on the other side of this, one of the largest countries on the Earth, whom I barely even know.
Thomas Goss Jun 2020
1.

in the velvet distance

a sequence of yearnings

emerges from the zig-zagging bees

of frantic motion



2.

wherever the green grenade of spring

explodes into bounty

is where I want to be



feeling the exhaling light

of a mile-high rainforest

welling up inside my heart



but the path to love

is strewn with mines

and each reckless step

calls down lightning from the sky

calls down thunderclouds

soaked with the gasoline rags

of cursed wisdom



3.

yet

a kiss

planted in

a weeping eye



releases the soothing breath



of rainforests

opens this clenched fist

stuffed full with mossy heart clumps



resuscitates

this flatlining humanity



for the mirrored burning

of stars and minds

continues to light

our way forward



4.

if we gather the sands of synchronicity

from the corners of our eyes



then adorn them onto

these diamond wheels

of hurt and kindness



maybe the shimmer and the shame

of emotion will cause the disintegration

of this destructive machine

of sporadic tenderness



5.

though

the billion needles of regret

leave their mark,

I dream of being paved over

with kaleidoscopic scars of the present



of strutting

with painted feet



of being

perfectly at home

like the eyes of dolphins

captured in mid-air



6.

so let’s lay waste

to the false equilibrium

that streams down

from star-bright nights



yes

harmony resides

in the swoosh and twirl

of our love-hungry eyes



yet it is a false

stay of execution

between her thighs



where the last meal

of her dark almond eyes

presses back the winds of volatility

for you are still alone



though each caress

still presses back

the winds of volatility



and although all the reaching out

seems to be a flag of surrender

it doesn’t matter



for who we are tends to get

splattered against the canvas

anyway



and what we have

is time’s shifting hourglass

leaving choking imprints



around our necks

so let’s lay waste

to the false equilibrium

that streams down

from every star-bright night



let’s ride this heart-shackling beast

into the wild violet expanse

while gripping the reigns

with wind-scorched fingertips



we’ll smother fear itself

with the gristle of our hate

which cuts carbon sharp

like the razor-hard eyes of orphans



7.

in the velvet distance

a sequence of yearnings

emerges from the zig-zagging bees

of frantic motion



wherever the green grenade of spring

explodes into bounty

is where we will be



kisses

planted in

weeping eyes



shall resuscitate

our flatlining humanity



for the mirrored burning

of stars and minds

continues to light

our way forward



and who we are tends to get

splattered against the canvas

anyway



and if you look

from far enough away

you see that each wildly meandering streak

eventually becomes reminiscent

of being perfectly at home



like the eyes of dolphins

captured in mid-air



like the eyes of dolphins

captured in mid-air
From my book, and the .pdf version available for free:
https://holdingbruisedroseblossoms.wordpress.com/about/
Celso Moskowitz May 2017
And the days were full enough
and the nights were full enough
and life did not seem to move
and was like death in that regard.

Before the spikes,
flatlining snapshots
of the unattainable.
Poetic T Jun 2020
Delirium taints the every
                     effort to motivate

All was elation, before it faded to
                a collection of false

                                               effigies...

My ecstasy is an overdose,
          and I'm flatlining with

every smile...
Madi Apr 2019
all my calls are going to voicemail
you don’t pick up the phone, you don’t show up where you’re supposed to be
I have flashbacks of train tracks and flatlining machines

want to run my hands through your hair
let my lips tell you that I’m here, I’m right here as they’re pressed against yours

The monster in my head is whispering
The same one that lives under my bed

it’s asking me why you didn’t trust me enough to let me be there

it’s reminding me that I’ve been close to having blood on my hands before

it’s running memories in my head like home movies

im pushing past the crowd, I’m reaching for you

There’s never going to be a world where my light is off, my phone is on silent, and my doors locked

I’m here whenever you need it darling

the porch light is on if you find your way to this part of town, I’m here if you remember for long enough that that used to mean something to us
Britney Lyn Oct 2018
I was born for extraordinary love,
A prisoner to a heartbeat,
Seductive, captivating, mine.
Never flatlining in the outline of us,
A hidden agenda filled with time stamps of you.
Two stars never falling away from each other.
Powerful, guiding, free.
kain Aug 2019
The rhythmic tapping
Of children's feet
A heart monitor
Flatlining
Pale broken fingers
On deadened keys
A muted buzz
Mosquitoes hum
The bated ticking
Of a car engine sitting
A haunted melody
Of gasping breath
A heart against a ribcage
The crunching of gravel
Cool water trickling
Leaves whispering
A lone voice singing
Blistering wind

More than just sounds
I feel them now
After darkness
Light is more than colour
Life is different afterwards.

— The End —