"flinched" poems
*Wondering,
if the universe flinched,
when God took you away.*
- dakota
Will I grace your thoughts when the moment comes?
Will your universe come to a complete standstill?
Will you choke back your tears...
Or by the buckets would they fill?
This pain in my heart
What is it?
I know now it's love
I know now I was bit...
I clutch my chest and begin to think...
Of the splintered shard I had failed to extract
I feel subdued and ultimately shattered
By the crushing bitter ripples of a broken pact
I'm hurting much
But strangely so...
I'm beginning to savour it
More than you know...
Jan 5, 2015
Jan 5, 2015 at 5:25 AM UTC
From padded window seat inside café
cup of tea warms my hands
cold winds shuffle sidewalk leaves
Two tables away sit two men
one in October years
the other May
Soiled clothes, old scuffed shoes, beat up weathered
faces, bloodshot eyes, ***** hair disheveled
The older begins reading to the younger
from newspaper wrinkled by other hands
“Rain and wind coming in tonight from the west,
tomorrow - clearing, with temps in high 30s
toward evening - dropping to low 30s
Saturday, sunny, high 30s”
The young man’s grizzled chiseled face
seemingly stoic
flinched stiff with the words
“Sunday, low 20s, snow mixed with sleet”
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 5:21 AM UTC
Electromagnetic Motion Ocean Of Pure Focal Emo-tion.
The Very Sound Of The Creators Verse And Rhythm In Loving Notion Pouring Through The Crystalline Endocrine Indoctrinated Shock Ra Of Shocking Unblocking Colorful Tones In Unmolested Focus And Definition.
To Flow Your Emo-tions Through Your Core And Manifest In Your Intended Notion All Without The Misidentified Horror Of The Wrongfully And Negatively Defined Emotions, One Finds That The Mere Act Of William Tell And That Apple Upon The Head Must Have Been One Hell Of An Interesting Interaction, Yet Instead Of The Reassuring Smiles And Calm Demeanor Of The Archer As They Lock Eyes, What Pray Tell You Think The Eyes Of The Archer Looked Like On That Very Frozen In Time Moment As He Released The Arrow To Guided Love Of Perfected Intent And Delivery Of Safe And Demanding Fortitude Of Action To Defeat All Possible Variable , As If To Need To Bend The Very Laws Of Nature If They Were To Cause An Number Of Odd And Unpredictable Events To Derail The Intent Of The Man Shooting The Apple Off The Head Of His Dear Child's Head, For Not A Bird May Pass Between, Not A Gust Of Wind Be Seen, Not An Earthquake Be Fabled To Accrue, Not A Single Action But The Undeterred Focus Of Absolute Might In Will, His Fee Will In Flight. What Might His Eyes Be Relaying In That Frozen Moment? Reassurance, Pity, Fear, Confidence, Or The Electric Fire Of Electromagnetic Motion Ocean Of Pure Focal Emo-tion To Get The **** Thing Done And Without Foolish ******** Reactions To The Real And True Focus Of Emotion, And Pray Tell, What If The Child Mistook This Look In A Moments Notice And Flinched Out Of Concern That The Father Was Angry With Him? Or Is It Best To Realize The Real Importance Of This Story As It Is The Trust In The Definitions Of Intended Focus And Not Of Simple Trust.? ,... Yes, Intended Focus Of Emotions Being Trusted As True And Not Negative In Nature, Dear Friend, Yes. So Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot, Let The Flow Of Emotion Be Free And Not Dictated By The Restraints Of Control And Be Seen And Used In Negative Ways, For These Are The Crimes Against All Mankind And The Bigger Part Of Why Spoken Word Is The Very Spell That Binds The Psyche, For The Focus Of Or The Lack Of Focus Of Emotions True Meaning And Purpose Is The Crime Against All Life Indeed. Live Free And Pilot This Love Ship Successfully By No Longer Defining Self By The Ways And Means That Have Caused Us To Fear Our Own Power To Move Mountains, And Kept Us All Mustard Seeds When We Are Truly Far More Than You Can Believe. Feel Free, Yes, By All Means Feel Free.
Nov 7, 2015
Nov 7, 2015 at 2:37 PM UTC
It was hard to miss Jerry
in the corner
holding court
over the bran muffin.
Flurries of judgement and wisdom
flying across coffee dappled pages
as he sentenced a large cup of
Paruvian Dark Roast
to be ******
7 am Dan never flinched
steeling his tenured chair at
a spot one section of stir sticks away
calculably just out of reach
of the regularly scheduled tantrum.
An auburn-haired newbie
fanes camoflage
peeking over two pages of Obituaries
she never intended to read.
Her raised and nearly detached eyebrows
hover above the dateline like a magic trick.
And on every table fall
scattered leaves
of press print trees
unsorted and littered with intent
by careless absorbers of trivia.
Disconnected
ear-budded
footnotes of humanity
see nothing
hear nothing
using the disarrayed World News as
enormous coasters
unmoved by hyper-ventilating compulsives
pushing panic buttons through
desperate quests to uncover
one alphabetically organized set
of local news.
Of the papers not strewn
the remnant holds anxious
on a distant wall
a throng of flopping
rabbit-eared
step children
dangling precariously
from unaccomodating magazine racks
like smoky orphans from
windows in a fiery building.
Disordered.
Disrespected.
Discarded...words are
Jews in the holocaust.
Death of a voice.
We are irreverent in our silence
diminishing genius through apathy
put off by the imposition to be challenged
choosing disposable principles
above responsible knowledge.
Everything is disposable - cameras, cars,
relationships, loyalty, babies...and wisdom -
crumpling Pulitzer prize authors
and discarding WW2 veterans
just to get to the cartoons.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 11:15 PM UTC
HE was the one to glue her back together when she had broken apart. She was left by Another.
A heap.
A mess.
And HE came along, a homemade superhero, to bandage her cuts and ice her sores and nurse her back to health.
At her every word, HE bent a listening ear. If she had talked for years, HE wouldn't have flinched.
Another came back.
She grabbed her things and dashed off, into Another's arms again, the same arms capable of crushing.
Ok
HE said
That's fine
HE said
Lucky for her, HE packed her some glue just in case
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 12:18 AM UTC
You lied about my sweet weight,
And you lied about my arches,
You lied about your love for the depressions in my skin,
You faked that sincerity
Of course you lied, because how else
Could you make love to my demise?
You lied about your moon and my tides,
But you tread upon on my land,
Cheer as my salt beats my rocks into sand, I never flinched at your hand,
I never quaked at your voice,
But I should’ve,
I would’ve if I had known that you would run my rivers dry,
That you would lick your lips and sigh
You’re sick in that the only thing I hold dear,
You craved to hunt.
You rip into the throat of my wild and reckless stag,
Watch it bleed as it cranes to see by whose hand it falls,
As it breathes its last breath it catches sight of your thumb,
It knows, but consciously it forgets, because
It is with this abandon that I die for you daily,
And you **** me anyway.
I should’ve quaked at your voice,
Hearkened to the screaming that ripped away my choice,
You never loved my mountains, fountains of lies I threw back and back,
You lied about my ocean that you don’t care to explore,
It was critical and fatal,
You lied about my sweet weight and that I cannot forgive.
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 10:27 PM UTC
The truth is, I’m not really sure who I am. She told us to draw ourselves and then to draw our souls; so I drew my face scratched and uneven, just as I’ve always seen it, and frowned at the result both in the mirror and on the paper. The only soul I’ve ever really known was the one that shone through the strokes of the keys I punched, the scrawling of ink on paper in mismatched arrays of awkward thoughts, disorientated and unorganized, shaded different spews of emotion and rearranged through the lens of ever last viewer’s eye. Even so, this soul that is composed of words that defined me painted a picture vivid in its contrast, though blurry from both afar and close enough to squint, no details able to be made out. These words that have wrapped around my soul rubbed raw from the time my skin first flinched at the cool March air cannot be deciphered by their author, though I know somehow that their letters flowing into one another say more than any curve of my face ever could. These words are black and white, two extremes crafted in the pallet of the Universe’s toolshed, and perhaps that’s exactly what I am. Black or white. I’m dark and lost and scrounging for some rusting wall or tree branch to cling to as to ensure the shimmering waves, onyx and charcoal in their nature with the flow of blood in its spine, do not flood into my mouth at a rate in which is too quick to balance myself upon them, or, I’m white, drifting snow from a cloud scraping the vast expanse of brilliant blue gazing as a sky above all the world, pure, innocent, unscathed with the potential for creation in vibrancies yet unknown, or to be ripped to bits, scattered amongst piles of cream and autumn leaves drained of their color beneath months of shivering frost. And so, perhaps any physical representation of my being would be all wrong, because that’s not what I am. Myself, my soul, it resides in the murky depths of heights I’ve yet to discover, tethered endlessly and uncertain among the caverns of my inners, pink and mushy, stirred and ****** untouched from the harsh light of a world encased in brevity.
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 8:20 PM UTC
Tonight i sat in the dark for a bit.
(A moment of silence if you will.)
Holding a taper candle, staring into its flame.
At first, for a bit, i was worried about candle wax dripping down and spilling over my hands and onto either my bedsheets or the carpet.
(Can hot candlewax start a fire?
Surely not.
Right?)
And then i thought to myself,
**** it."
If something happens ill catch it before it gets too bad. Ill feel the pain and it will remind me that i am alive.
That i am lucky.
That i can still feel things.
The candlewax did not spill or drip at all.
(Did you know they make candles like that??
Magic.)
Now, a bit disappointed, i thought,
"What a sediment"
I took the candle into my right hand.
Oh, so carefully,
I tilted the candle holding the flame over my right wrist.
One drop.
I flinched.
The pain stopped as soon as it came.
One for me.
I thought,
As i shifted the candle to my left hand,
"This is for you.
And all the pain you felt.
And that i didnt know about."
"This is my proof that i would have tried if i had known."
One for you.
I didnt even ******* know you very well.
We werent really even friends.
I dont know how to spell your name.
And still
Its too bad.
Its so sad.
Way too ******* sad.
Jan 3, 2019
Jan 3, 2019 at 3:42 AM UTC
she waited for him to erase her
as he put his pencil to paper
and created her
he traced the upturn of her smile
precisely picturing the laugh that proceeded
he sketched out the smoothness of her legs
intentionally illustrating the eagerness inside
he outlined the curve of her shoulders
carefully capturing the sadness contained
he shaded in the color of her hair
deliberately detailing her fallen darkness
in his eyes
she was more beautiful
than she could ever see herself
but with every stroke
she flinched
fearing that only inches away
from his creation
was her demise
Nov 3, 2018
Nov 3, 2018 at 9:05 PM UTC
What must you think of me?
Dark
Hungry eyes
Full of hurt and hope,
And
All
That love,
So sudden.
I've never met someone like you.
I know you see it,
And yet somehow I think you believe it,
Receive it,
Understand.
And I don't know what to do,
Because
Nobody's ever known that
And not flinched from me
The way you recoil when your hand rests accidentally on a hot stove.
In your eyes I saw...
Joy.
I saw that you wanted
What was in
Mine.
And god,
I've been trying to recover from that ever since.
It makes no sense to me.
No sense.
You saw
You saw the secret.
It spilled out at your feet
And I wanted to fall to my knees there
And beg you to forgive it.
But your eyes never shamed me-
They glowed
(god I cannot unsee them)
With excitement,
As if maybe my touch shocked you
The way yours shocked me.
In that moment
You must understand,
And every other moment since
When your eyes have found mine
And burned my disguises to dust within seconds,
Every single thing I ever knew about myself
Was overturned.
That's why I can't get you out of my head.
Why I'm scared,
Why everything I do now is a little shaky and uncertain in my mind,
Because everything
Is new.
I based my life on the knowledge that I had to hide.
Everything I was sure of, everything that had been
Proven
Time and again to me
By never being disproved
Dissolved in that moment.
You razed it to ash.
When you touched me with tenderness,
I fell apart.
When you kissed me,
I lost everything
I've been wanting to shed
For my entire life.
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 2:58 PM UTC
He stared at the cuts on his wrist
Reprimanding himself for his cowardice
To not finish the job
Melissa had seen those cuts
Dug deep into his wrist; angry red
Knowing full well the reason for them
But choosing to ignore them
He flinched letting out a sharp gasp
As slaps and punches hit him
Opening old wounds and bruises
His body a palette of suffering and pain
Bleeding tears down his skeletal frame
Melissa watched these attacks
Her boyfriend inflicted upon him
But chose to ignore them
His eyes were dry from shedding tears
His heart was torn from the constant crushing
His body wracked and tired from the frequent beatings
And his brain weary and ready to shut down forever
That morning Melissa couldn't ignore the body
Hung in her front garden
Holding a bouquet of wilting roses;
With a heart saying I love you
Sep 17, 2015
Sep 17, 2015 at 4:03 AM UTC
When I discovered I had cancer,
I was told that I would learn a lot
About Life and Death and Time,
But I never thought that I would
Discover what it means
To be intimate
With strangers,
Or anyone, for that matter.
When my insides were cut open like a game of operation,
I told myself:
Be detached.
When visitors came,
We talked about the weather.
When I arrived home, I spent my time
Trying to forget
The experience
Of impermanence
And shared emotions
That I couldn't even grapple with
Myself.
When the person I loved
Left me
I flinched
And then sunk back into an abyss of
Emotionless functioning,
Cutting myself further and further
Off from my narrative
Of pain.
When it was time to go back to school,
I flinched
And signed up for a workload
Heavy enough
To push out the fading reality
Of my condition.
It wasn't until I was sitting on the steps
Outside of a bar that was slowly beginning
To empty out,
As intoxicated shadows gained substance and lit cigarettes against the brick wall.
I sunk down next to friend I had recently met-
My big t shirt inched up above my abdomen
And the lower jagged mark of my scar
Peeked out-
I didn't choose to tell him my story
Until he asked me about the obvious
Stale incison mark that had a presence
Of its own.
Piece by piece, it peeled itself from off my stomach
And liquified into a sequence of events
And feelings
That poured from me
Like a stream of bubbling bath water
Overflowing from the rim
Of a porcelain tub.
That's when I realized that there is something shared and intimate about scars:
Marred reminders of the flesh
That speak to our upmost human
Encounters with our own mortality.
An indecipherable label of sorts:
An unsigned invitation into the taboo.
In a moment of unintentional word *****
At 2am to a stranger,
I regained my intimacy with myself
And my journey.
I learned that while Life and Death and Time
Will always plague our existence,
They distance us from the human experience that is
To feel:
To feel everything in this God forsaken world.
To feel angry at people for leaving when they should have stayed.
To feel compassion at the same time.
To feel intimacy with others.
To feel intimacy with yourself.
To feel love.
To feel pain.
To feel the cold creases in the wooden floor as you make your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
To feel alone.
To feel surrounded.
To feel the trembling echoes of the past and be able to grab its elusive coattails and shake away the dusty remnants of time and shout that you are present.
To feel nothing.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 1:07 AM UTC
each of these scars on my skin (paper)
tell stories and my fingers touch them to hold my memories
because i remember opening up and i hated telling anyone
how i felt
and what it was like to see my insides pour out
and that i still wanted to do it,
i still wanted to decorate my arms, thighs, stomach, hips, heart
with little pink red purple red lines
i remember when he grabbed my arm and i cringed and flinched and ****** air in through my teeth and my chapped lips
and you knew
through all that blue fabric you could see
my scars
r.c.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 3:13 PM UTC
She showed up limping and my hackles were raised.
I know that limp.
I know that gaze; 1000 yards away.
...(what happened?)...
She could hardly sit down, kept shifting her weight side to side, unable to find comfort, even on a padded bar stool.
"He's a good guy," she said.
"I don't know why...where it came from...I tried to do everything right."
"Trick-ass-ho-bitch!! Lucky I don't **** you."
"At least I've still got my teeth," she offered.
I listen with an open heart to her,
say it's not her fault.
She knows, but why does this keep happening?
I wish I had an answer.
She flinched as I touched her shoulder.
I see now that this, too, was violence. Physical invasion.
Blurred lines of cruelty and concern, warmth and wickedness.
"No one will believe me...cause he's a good guy..."
I hear you and I believe.
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 11:23 PM UTC
new from sat 24th april back to Sandman
into a Lycan,a Viking-a Bearsark warrior beast,
to rip the hearts from my enemies and then just feast,
run through the forest with the rest of my pack,
Howling at the moon,rolling on the snow on my back(pack,back,Pack,in the back,pack in the back ..gradually louder then quiet)...
but in the back of the red mist was a small voice,
at first I ignored this little pup by choice,
but he nipped at my hindbrain pulled on my tail,
until I listened to his reason WE CAME FOR THE FEMALE
Suddenly the bloodlust left with a bang,
no longer a Beast I felt less than a Man,
the scene before my eyes is hard to put to words,
I was blood drenched the dismembered pieces of the herd(no! GANG-you're a man)I had just been among,
lay around the damp dungeon from whence they had come
even the most hardened warrior would have flinched at the sight
of the remains,the brains,the silent ones who didn't fight,
but one body was missing from the pile of the dead,
one beautiful corpse white afflicted already dead
***** with an itch had escaped by a trap door,
now my destiny is War,and it was trapped in the floor
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 11:49 AM UTC
I remember a story, it starts at fourteen.
I had a crooked back and low self esteem.
I was afraid I was gonna end up in a ditch somewhere.
I had to devise myself a plan
of which direction to go if **** hit the fan
and I knew my mother wanted a prodigy child
So I figured I could sing or get really smart,
but my voice would crack and my mind was dark,
so I decided, in this crazy world,
that I could rob graves.
So I left home when I was sixteen
my boredom peaked and my senses keened
I grew with a morbid fascination with the dead
It started out
me figuring that
they wouldn’t miss their dimes, their shoes or their hats
I tramped on the dusty trail with an evil eye
As I ended up along the borderline
I met another young man who had gone insane.
He just got back from the war.
Like he said: “I’ve seen some things.”
So we rode together for quite a while
in the dust on the trail for a thousand miles
until one night, we came upon an unmarked grave.
My partner fumbled around in his pockets
evading worms and maggots from his sockets.
He turned around and looked at me with his crazy smile
It turned out what he found was a letter
and with this smile he said: “The dead have it better.”
So i reached out to grab it while the stench arose.
He handed it to me and on front and back
I read about this lonely, old, sad sack
who, being sick of life, ended up hanging himself.
This really put things into perspective for me
for the attention me and my partner was giving, you see,
was often more than these people received in life.
But one windy day the law caught on our path
and with a holstered gun me and my partner had
we stopped by a local tavern to wet our throats.
The law had converged in the front door
my partner flinched before I could do more.
And before I knew it he had bolted down for the gun.
Before I could say another word
he dropped to the floor and his fingers curled.
He rattled and faded away while I was restrained.
As I was lying on my stomach on the ground
I looked over and I heard a sound
It was my partner whispering his final words.
“The dead have it better.”
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 7:12 PM UTC
He was sitting on the stone cold step outside the Co-op
A thin blanket around his thin shoulders
His outstretched hand reached out to me
And touched my heart.
I gave him the cup of coffee I had been drinking
He seemed pleased, I felt good.
I saw him again on Saturday night, he looked thinner
His face hidden beneath a ***** grey hoodie.
Once more the outstretched hand reached out to me
I gave him a warm blanket, made of wool.
He grunted thanks, I felt good.
One week later I went looking for him on the stone cold step
outside the Co-op
He was sitting on the woollen blanket,
his eyes shrunken into his skull
I gave him my coat.
He gave an almost imperceptible nod of his covered head
And stretched his hand towards me again.
I fumbled in my purse, and gave him all I had – he grunted “Huh”
I felt I’d let him down.
My friends said I was losing weight, my clothes no longer fitted me.
I gave my sweater made of cashmere
To the hooded skeletal figure on the doorstep
outside the Co-op
His jeans were frayed and ***** from the streets
I gave him mine, they no longer fitted me.
He looked up, his broken teeth bared in a forbidding, dangerous smile.
I flinched. His outstretched hand pulled at my wrist,
I backed away, he held me.
I tried to run but his fingers tightened their grip, digging into my flesh
He pulled me in the direction of my home.
His grip on my wrist burning hot
I turned at my door to see him, he grinned, his eyes seeking my soul.
His face now no longer thin, his bony fingers now fleshy,
his rotted teeth Improved.
I looked at my hand. I saw my reflection in his eyes. My face skeletal
with shrunken cheeks,
My shadowed deep set eyes
haunted.
He laughed a croaking triumphant laugh as he entered my house
And pushed me out.
I turned and my feet took me back to the stone cold step
Where I crouched down outside the Co-op
A thin blanket appeared on my thin shoulders
I held my outstretched hand towards an approaching stranger
Who walked on by.
©AEB 14.05.16
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 1:05 PM UTC
you had too many drinks that night,
and she was wearing a dress,
so you thought, "she's a **** right?
because you label women as:
what they wear is what they are, right?
you tried to woo her countless times,
but she still said no,
and you thought she was playing with you.
you thought, just because she was wasted,
that means she's ***** and wants to ****
she was an innocent girl.
all she wanted was to have fun,
but you ruined that for her.
even after she pushed you off,
and smacked you in the face,
and called you every swear word,
you thought she wanted you.
she cried for help,
but the music was too high,
and everyone was too drunk,
and they all thought she wanted it too.
and that makes me sick.
because she didn't want it,
she wanted a place to let loose.
she didn't want it,
she just wanted some fun.
a couple of beers,
a couple of cheers,
then she'd go off with her friends.
but you've formed her into a woman,
a woman who screams in her sleep,
who locks all the doors,
who jumps at every bump in the night.
you've done that to her,
and you don't even feel sorry.
you thought she was an animal,
just a play toy.
but she was so much more.
and after she stopped weeping,
you tried to kiss her again,
but she pushed you away,
you got angry with her.
you shook her and smacked her,
you beat her black and blue.
**don't lie to me, i know you want me.
i know you want me.
I KNOW YOU WANT ME.**
and she screamed,
even if you hurt her.
she screamed and screamed,
even when you broke her jaw.
she shrieked.
she cried.
she never wanted you.
a week later i was walking home,
and coincidentally i looked up,
and on top of the building was a figure.
there was a goddess up there,
black and blue from a beating,
but still beautiful.
her sobs floated from her mouth,
down to the streets,
but no one bothered to listen.
but i did.
and i went up there,
and brought her down,
and hugged her.
she flinched and squirmed,
because some **** had ruined her.
some ******* poisoned her thoughts,
making her believe every guy is the same.
every guy she has ever loved or trusted,
became another trespasser.
she couldn't even look her father in the eye.
but she broke down before me,
revealing herself in blood in tears,
painting me a story that made me sick.
she cried for hours on that roof,
curled up in front of me,
begging me to let her die,
but i refused.
i saved her life,
and i hope no one saves yours for when karma comes around.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 3:05 AM UTC
Knead your problems into dough
none of them can survive
at 375 degrees Fahrenheit
When you wake up late
add one chocolate chip
for every minute of morning you missed
take out one chocolate chip
for every time you are unkind
A teaspoon of sugar
for every crumb
that he left on your eggshell heart
a tablespoon of salt
for each time you’ve missed the way
his callused hands felt on your voice box
Drift away on clouds of flour
float down rivers of vanilla extract
a dozen cookies for every time you’ve flinched
at the sound of your own breath
On your knees
burn your throat
watch the cookies resurrect
flush to decompose.
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 10:47 PM UTC
the water lapped about my waist,
the coolness stung my skin.
I sat upright on the shore, eyes closed,
my body taking in the feeling.
I felt the sand seep around me,
stick to my limbs and cling to me.
I focused on my breathing and my heartbeat,
I listened closely to the noise that surrounded.
I heard the waves hit the bank,
I flinched at the occasional siren, and prayed for the safety of those it aided.
I counted car horns and footsteps.
I tuned out any voice in my head.
Becoming one with the river,
forming as one into the earth,
I sat still on the banks of the water,
in a city where the river ran through it.
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 12:42 AM UTC
that night we lit up on her roof and watched the smoke dance in the vibrant black sky. her eyes are blending into the pure absence of light and i’m hopelessly lost. there’s an ash resting on her pale hair and i keep thinking i want to blow it away but i can’t move or she might disappear. her small calloused hands are waving a flame too close to my face but i can’t leave those two spots of endless, endlessly infinite, swirling darkness and i feel my cheeks singe. my skin is bubbling and melting and she’s catching the drops in the curve of her left palm. my muscles have still forgotten how to stretch. my limbs are carved from ice but my face, my face is burning and the tongue of her lighter is lapping at my eyelashes. my forgotten cigarette is burned to the filter and i let the glowing tip fall to my thigh. i’ve torn my eyes away but they bleed because in those moments we had fused together. i’m fixed on her mouth now, and it’s the face of my sister, no, it’s the lips of my kindergarten teacher on the day she whispered that her cancer was consuming her and never she never came back, but no, her features are sliding and it’s her again. it was always her. it was her face all along but i’ve flinched and she’s a stain on the ground.
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 7:05 PM UTC
Standing in a room painted red, staring at a book on a table. There are no windows, there are no doors, a light swings from a rusty cable. Music plays through the walls, voices speak through the floor, a chill runs down my neck, I spun around, tripped, then landed on the floor.
The air was sweet, the sand was warm, the water splashed our feet. Walking on the beach the waves began to form, two became a beautiful three, then time brewed a terrible storm. Then she flinched with gritted teeth and in her eyes a look of scorn. Then she turned her back on me, her halo turned into horns. Then she vanished from the dream leaving the sky broken and torn.
The book slammed shut and the room began to shake, then a cloaked figure stepped out of the shadows, and walked over to where I lay. Then a door appeared on the red wall, and the cloaked figure stepped outside. He was holding a sword in his left hand, and a list of names in his right. The cloaked figure smiled at me then vanished out of sight.
Standing in a room painted red, staring at a book on a table. There are no windows, there are no doors.
I must be dead.
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 5:26 AM UTC
She didn’t look awfully well that day
Though she never would make a fuss,
I said we should get to the hospital
That I’d travel with her on the bus.
The weather was terrible, snow on the road
And a seaborne yellow mist,
So I wrapped her well in a scarf and coat
And did my best to assist.
She leant on me, walked out to the stop
And we sat on the ice cold bench,
I thought for a moment she’d faint or drop
So taking the bus made sense.
The car would be hard to manage that night
For the roads were covered with ice,
I couldn’t hold her while driving the car,
But we needed a doctor’s advice.
The cough had got worse as the day went on
And her hanky was spattered with blood,
I prayed it was just a vessel that burst,
Not that I thought it should,
But consumption sat at the back of my mind
It was rare, but still around,
I was praying a lot, but still my head
Would cover the same old ground.
We watched as the lights of the bus rolled up
So dim in the mist to see,
A double-decker, we climbed aboard
It was number twenty-three.
The passengers all were grey and drab
And some of them seemed asleep,
A skeleton sat hunched up at the rear
And Kathie began to weep.
‘It’s only a medical student’s thing,’
I said, ‘there’s nothing to fear.’
But Kathie flinched as we walked on past,
‘Then why did he leave it here?’
She settled down in a window seat
While I sat next to the aisle,
And the bus rolled into the swirling mist
So we sat quite still for a while.
The lights in the bus were more than dim
And Kathie was looking grey,
While I got up at the hospital stop
Kathie was looking away.
Then suddenly I was out on the road
As the bus took off in the mist,
While Kathie stared through the window pane,
It was like she didn’t exist.
I ran and I ran, and chased the bus,
But I ran and ran in vain,
For the bus veered off, went over the cliffs
And vanished into the rain,
I found her there on the bus stop bench
Where we’d sat, all grey and still,
And I wept, and thought of the phantom bus
That had taken her over the hill.
I could swear we’d stood, and climbed on the bus,
My love, my Kathie and me,
But they said there never was such a bus
As a number twenty-three,
And I see her now in my dreams at night
As she stares through the window pane,
Of a phantom bus that takes her away,
Over the cliffs in the rain.
Over the cliffs on a freezing night
When she died, ice cold on the bench,
What was I thinking, I ask myself,
Where was my common sense?
Then I take some comfort to think that I
Had once been a part of us,
And travelled some of the way with her
Where she’d gone, on the phantom bus.
David Lewis Paget
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 11:56 PM UTC
**When I was in an abusive relationship, I told myself I deserved it. I told myself I should be more obedient, as if I was a dog. My leash was held so tight that I couldn’t muster any words out even if I wanted to.
When I was in an abusive relationship, I soaked in every insult and only ever released apologies.
When I was in an abusive relationship, some days I flinched when he raised his hand or began to speak and other days I just sat there waiting for it. When my mom would ask about the bruises I would be surprised because I didn’t know my body was still reacting to it when my mind wasn’t.
When I was in an abusive relationship, tying nooses was a nightly thing and nothing to even be alarmed about, blood stained sheets were the norm, and suicide notes were just normal letters.
When I was in an abusive relationship, I took many different kinds of drugs throughout the day and didn’t really know which combination would **** me. Would the coke, Xanax, and alcohol **** me? Or would it be the alcohol, ****** and oxy?
When I was in an abusive relationship, all concern for myself vanished. As my addictions to many different pills such as Xanax, ****** Hydro, Oxy and many more grew, I started to smile again.
When I was in an abusive relationship, being asked how many drugs I was on was not rude or unexpected.
When I was in an abusive relationship, leaving permanently just didn’t seem like an option.
When I was in an abusive relationship, I had unconditional love for my attacker and always made sure he was okay even after he hit me.
When I was in an abusive relationship, one day, I had a revelation and found my voice.
Now, I am no longer in an abusive relationship.**
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 1:32 AM UTC