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Anais Vionet Jul 2022
no
Most of the girls (Anna, Sophy, Sunny, Bili, Leong and Lisa) are in the kitchen eating breakfast. “Where’s Anais?” Sunny asks, spooning some eggs onto her plate and taking 4 strips of bacon.

“She’s out by the pool, feeling sorry for herself.” Leong whispers, distractedly, reading the “Fruity Pebbles” box and poking the multicolored flakes with her spoon. “These are good.”

“She was cantankerous.” Sophy adds.
“Aungery.” Anna adds.
“Stevening.” Lisa contributes, competitively.

The front door causes the alarm system to chirp as it opens and Kim calls out, “Morning!” from the foyer.

“What’s going on?” Sunny asks, frustratedly and looking around in concern.

“Charles told her she couldn’t invite Peter this summer.” Lisa said, half whispering. Bili and Anna look up from their plates, like interested bystanders, to check Sunny’s reaction.

Sunny looks shocked, “Really - he can do that? Why?” she asks, almost confused. “He’s usually such an invisible figure.” she notes, quizzically.

Kim comes into the kitchen and hangs her purse on a white coat rack - out of habit - like she’s done for years. “Charles tells her what to do,” she says, giving Bili a hug. “and the girl obeys.”

“Yep,” Bili confirms, bobbing her head offhandedly, like it’s a done deal.

Sunny nods thoughtfully and putting a napkin under her plate, heads out the double-French doors toward the pool to find me. I’m sitting by the pool, watching the water, one leg crossed over the other, which is in the water, slowly kicking, making deliberate waves that ripple across the light blue surface.

“Hey,” Sunny said as she approached, “mind company?”
“Nah,” I reply, “I’m over it.”
“I heard,” Sunny reported, taking a seat next to me, “sorry.”
“Just a disappointment - and a little social embarrassment.” I said, chuckling self-consciously.
“Did he say why?’ Sunny ventured.
“He just said, “It’s a bad idea,” I repeated, shrugging.
After a moment of silence I added, “He’s probably right - I’m glad I hadn’t asked Peter yet - THAT would have been lethiferous,” I cringe physically at the thought.

“Besides,” I disclose, “that might have been weird, me with someone and no one else??”
Sunny gives a “maybe” nod.

“Like when one of us brings someone into our dorm room for the night,” I continue, “and you have to walk through the common room - where everyone’s studying - and they know what you’re doing, and you know, they know, what you’re going to do. It’s SUPER awkward.” We both chuckle in agreement.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Cantankerous: angry and annoyed.

Slang:
aungery = annoyed and angry
stevening = a tantrum directed at the world conspiracy
lethiferous = lethal, fatal, deadly
If Wishes Had Wings, I’d be idolized by millions
saving & impacting the lives of many scarred children
If Wishes Had Wings, the world would be free from pain
no more dark clouds surrounded by depressing rains
If Wishes Had Wings, the silent tears would be clearly heard
life would be less horrific so we’d worry less of the overwhelming storms
If Wishes Had Wings, the act of happiness shall be of reappearance
provide my mental slaves with the proper deliverance
If Wishes Had Wings, Love wouldn’t be so scary to obtain
heart break would be a stranger while the kingdom we have will still reign
If Wishes Had Wings, there would no longer be Hell on Earth
take away all the evil from life to grant us the proper rebirth
If Wishes Had Wings, heartbreaks around the world would sing
the greatest melody performed by all the broken Kings & Queens
If Wishes Had Wings, God forgive us for the lives we’ve been sinning in
trapped in a cold evil world that we’re forced but isolatedly living in
never intending to be heartless but our hearts have turned cold
frustratedly feeling the shattering of love to which a false interest beholds
possessing a tale that’s very relating but only a few understand
how being lonely & disappointed can take a toll on more than man

☆ Poetic Venxm ☆
Anais Vionet May 2023
last winter break*

I woke up abruptly, my chest gripped and tight. My face felt hot but my arms stung as if frostbitten. I gasped for air that wouldn’t come, like I had a plastic bag over my head.

If I’d had a bad dream, in waking, it had become a collection of vague, menacing shadows, not memories.

I hadn’t had a panic attack in ages, but you never forget the feeling. I reached dizzily for my backpack, beside the bed, which contained an albuterol inhaler. I managed, between gasps, and a puff, to turn on a small bedside light.

It was an indecent hour but between jerky breaths, and a second puff, I performed the series of flicks and touches that initiated a FaceTime call. My brother Brice is in med-school at Johns Hopkins University. He studies a thousand hours a week, I doubt he actually sleeps at all.

Brice answered on the second ring, his gnarled, blonde, wheatfield of hair was unmistakable, even in the dim street light. One glance at me was all he needed. “Breathe,” he said, “just breathe,” his deep, warm voice was as reassuring now as it had been when I was a child.

He made a dismissive motion to whomever he was with, indicating he was leaving and they should go on. “Ok,” a guy said, “Sure.” A  girl's voice said, “tomorrow,” but those voices faded as they were left behind.

“Did you use your inhaler?” He asked, when I nodded yes, he began our old routine, “Alright,” he said, “name things you can see.”
“My.. phone,” I said, haltingly. A moment later I added, “my iPad,” I gasped, “my purse.”
“Oh, your favorite things,” he whispered and when I honked a coughing laugh he said, “sorry.”

After some brisk walking, on his end, I heard the distinct beep of an access-point card-reader.

“The sky,” I added. The sky looked dark, jam-like and starless from Lisa’s 50th floor windows but there was a blurry line of blinking lights - jets queued for landing at Newark Liberty, or Teterboro airports. Life was going to go on, it seemed, even if I couldn’t breathe.

“Uh huh,” he said, in affirmation. His camera went dark and I could tell he was climbing stairs.
My body wanted a full breath, or three and was in a full water-boarding like panic.

I continued with my herky-jerky naming, “my suitcase, a ceiling fan.” He was in his room now.

“Good,” he murmured. “Now focus on 4 things you can touch.” I slowly and purposefully touched my backpack, water bottle, phone and bedside table as Brice quietly watched and waited. I’d stopped hyperventilating and I could feel my eyes relaxing and the room coming into focus (a symptom of anxiety is tunnel vision).

Brice knows me, maybe better than anyone. We finish each other’s sentences, we’re steeped in intimacy and knowing. We watched each other silently for a minute or two as my breathing became normal. His stupid, brotherly face was reassuring. He seemed in no rush, and finally asked, “What brought this on?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, hesitantly, but I had my suspicions. I was on vacation, having a terrific  time with Lisa and her family, and I’d made the honor roll, so my anxiety wasn’t school related.

“Mom left me a Christmas message,” I began, “and there was an explosion in the background, I think. I played it over and over,” I said, frustratedly, “was it thunder - or something else? I played it for Lisa - over and over. She said she thought it was thunder, but Lisa’s not a good liar.”

Feelings are never simple, they're multilayered, strip some off the top and they’re others underneath. If my parents' (Doctors without Borders) Ukraine war work was the stressor, there was little we could do about it.

Brice reminded me that the background noise was equivocal - it could have been thunder - and since this panic was an isolated event, we decided to keep it to ourselves.

As the call wrapped up, he made me promise to stop playing that message and avoid war news. We agreed to stay in closer touch (knowing that, with our schedules, it probably wasn’t going to happen.)
Still, I like knowing he’s out there - like a rescue inhaler - just a few button clicks away.
The wreaths of requiem ,
rest like the flocks of pigeons
in the delapidated buildings
where we house the words of
a frustratedly forgotten God

Our thoughts are marbled
Sculptured by surely ways
that leave their mark upon
the soft white limestone
we once held for granite

So we take "noes" for hostage
"Yes" in all it's uncertainty
and doubts and fears
we leave to professionals

Mass en Mass . . .
the silence shouts for redemption
as Altar boys stare straight ahead
and mouth unholy words
they could not swallow

Nay Nay !
The robes of iniquity
girdles more than the truth
of daybreaks after nights
of shadowed sin , brutal lusts
and innocent blood stained floors
It is what it is .
They say each cigarette takes eleven minutes off your life.
But Heaven know's that that's alright.
What can you do in eleven minutes anyway?
I lived through a lifetime of your abuse and you still didn't stay.
There's a lot that could be done in eleven minutes, one may say.
and I have to agree. It took less than eleven minutes for you to destroy me.
less than eleven minutes to say a prayer, to take a picture, to sit and stare.
But it takes less than eleven minutes to get high to be humiliated to frustratedly try not to cry. for your truths to be spilled, to swallow too many pills, it takes less than eleven minutes to be killed.
and maybe I'm happy to rid or eleven minutes more.
you have a door **** for a heart and your love's a trap door.
You said I "felt like home"
so I know why you ran away.
at least for me "home" isn't a place you'd want to stay.
And if i'm left with only eleven minutes more perhaps I have regrets.
But If my lungs are filled with smoke
I can't feel your essence in my breath.
I'll just keep my fingers crossed you have no presence in my death.

© copyrighted Nicole Ann Osborn
Donall Dempsey Aug 2015
The rain began
to fall behind me

as I crossed
the border

I expected it
to chase after me

and talk excitedly
to me in raindrops

about this & that
that & this

- but, it didn't.

It fell in one country
and not the other.

It was as if the rain
had mislaid its passport

or hadn't received
a visa to rain here.

I cycled off
into the Ardennes

looking back
at the Dutch rain

falling frustratedly

unable to understand
the sun

talking in Belgian.
Run
As I frustratedly write this poem
I cannot find the right words to rhyme
All I'm asking is,who am I?
I do not mean to ask you that really
But its a question for myself
I could not clearly see what I'm here for
I sometimes barely stand on my own
For I shed a tear last night
On my pillow who I hugged tight
I'm lost in these valleys and plains
I run towards the hills,
Climb the impossible mountain
Swim the impossible sea
Reach for the stars
Very very far as I can see.
I lie down on my bed tonight
Slowly flashing every memory.
Oh so vivid!
Everytime it crosses my line
I draw it shorter in time
And find myself
Having the beginning and the end
At the same time.
How wrong of me to shorten my own race
I could not see my end nor my beginning
I stand infront slowly taking in every moment of a second
Minute by the clock
Blood running through my own vivid veins
Tears holding back
Fear tucked inside
And the clock yells GO!
And i run and run and run
Never to be seen again.
my thought is random and i feel so high.
Kida Price Aug 2016
We were sitting in his car
Going everywhere and nowhere
Such were the destinations of our lives
No longer in our teens
But too reluctant to be adults
We clung to our childhood fling
But only for the sake of safety
And as we drove
We'd reminisce
Of the flames that burnt us good
The one we loved to be crippled by
The ones who stole our spark
The ones that changed the definition of love
Into a sarcastic and morbid thought
And one evening
No more interesting than any other
The memory of this destroying love
He got caught in the feeling again
And frustratedly began to yell
"Why did I allow it? I knew she was ******* insane! Why did I let it go on for so long? I wasted that time all just to hate her in the end. Why did I do it?"
To which I replied as I passed him the bowl
And exhaled some memories of my own
"You did it cause you loved her. There's no grander explanation as to why we died by these people just to wake back up but now as not ourselves."
"That's not a good enough excuse"
He coughed
"That's not a good enough reason to go through that ****"
And I laughed at the reasoning
"It never is...but here we are, talking about them as if they're still around. We give pieces of ourselves to these strangers. They fill up our time so we have no idea how fast it's passing. And when they walk away, they never intended on giving all of it back. They keep it as trophies and we have to start from scratch with being a person who is alone now. And loving them still is what makes that loneliness worse."  
Then in silence we drove
Going everywhere and nowhere
Edward Jan 2019
Emotion is not us,
You said frustratedly, but I,
As I was to die,
You wanted to save my shell,
The human part of you was why
ebonymarie93 Jun 19
I'm born
Only child
Happy normal childhood
Or so it seems for now..
Dad loves music
Mum loves music, gardening, art and writing
Among other things  
We have a piano
Dad has a car
We have Smokey the cat
Happy normal childhood
But not for long
I'm 5 now
Mum pregnant
I'm gonna have a baby brother
I'm excited to not be alone
Dad having an affair across the street while Mum giving birth
Mum wondering where Dad is
Mum loses it
I don't blame her
I would too
Social workers
Custody battles
Mum's house, Dad's house and back again
I just want one home
Is that too much to ask for?
I wish I was never born
More strangers
Home wreckers kids
I'll forever hate the name Bridgette
Sleeping in the same bed as one of her kids
Sarah wets the bed
Why do I have to sleep in bed with her?
Put me with one of the other kids
She has 6 others
Mum's mental health triggered from Dad's actions
Mum and Dad break up
Dad moves away
Mum's mental health deteriorating rapidly
So many medications  
Endless doctors appointments
Explaining mental health to me
I'm only a young kid
Telling me it's not your Mum saying and doing these things
It's her mental illness
But I'm just a kid, so to me, it is her doing these things...
I'm so confused and sad
I wish I was never born
I realise I've been forced to grow up well beyond my years
I just want to be a ******* kid
I am a ******* kid
Luckily my brother is too young to understand
Or at least that's my hope
Dad loses the custody battle
Now we live with Mum
Neighbours
Perverted neighbours
Concerning amount of near-**** situations for a kid
I learn at a young age that most men are pigs
Therapy sessions
The police end up moving us
Have to say goodbye to friends
I'm sad
No where ever really feels like home from then on
I continue to wish I was never born
New place
Mum's mental health ebbs and flows throughout the years
Resentment grows of people with normal childhoods
I realise this is so ******* far from normal
Mental hospital visits
Electric shock therapy rooms
It shouldn't be normal for a kid to know 3 mental hospitals off by heart
Child protective services
Foster care
Sometimes with my brother
Sometimes not
No where feels like home
I wish I was never born
Strangers telling me to call them Mum and ****
Infuriating and confusing comes to mind
Resentment towards Mum develops
She uses mental hospitals like a holiday house
We visit her often
Play pool, pingpong, the keyboard
We draw, we write and talk
It's the end of the session
We have to go now
We all cry
Mum cries says she's better can she go home with us
The nurses say no
Emotions escalate and get out of hand
Nurses semi restraining Mum in front of us
Other nurses scurrying us away
We cry in the car all the way home
In and out of foster care
No where feels like home
I wish I was never born
Telling my brother to brush his teeth
Grab a jacket
Things a Mum would say to their child
No longer his sister I realise
I have unwillingly become his Mum
He's just as confused as me
You're not my Mum - He says
To which I reply
Mum isn't here so someone has to be
This hurts my heart
I wish I was never born
Mum falls in love while in hospital
With a mental patient and a drug addict
Rick
Another name I'll hate forever
Mum gets better
Comes home
She allows him into our home
Alcohol
****
Heavy music
Smokes - The walls are thick and yellow
Cat ***, **** and fur - it's everywhere
Guitars playing unprofessionally
******
People shooting up
Track marks
More arts and crafts
Verbal fights
Emotional abuse
Domestic violence
Bruises
Suicidal thoughts
Suicidal threats
Puts a knife to her throat in front of me
Puts a heater cord around her throat
So tightly her veins and eyes are bulging
Welfare checks
Ambulances
This doesn't ******* feel like home
I wish I was never ******* born
Mum deteriorates again
Cycle repeats again
I'm a bit older now
In high school
Mum gets angry or sad in one of her episodes
I know that's what they are now
Blames me for her mental illness repeatedly
This makes me sad
When she's sad she tells me about her ****** up childhood
It makes me cry what she went through
Twin brother and Dad ****** her
Mum died at a young age
Pushed down the stairs
Dorothy
Or at least that's what she told me
I don't know what to believe anymore
I become skeptical
Somewhat cynical
I'm home but it doesn't feel like home
Nowhere ******* feels like home
I wish I was never born!
I remember Mum and Dad together
They were happy
Maybe they can be happy again
Then we will all be happy
I can fix this - I say to myself
I reach out to Dad
Dad comes down
It's good but it doesn't last long
Should've known better
Dad has a different car now - it's a white ute
He bought katana swords down for some reason
Confused and scared is kind of an understatement
Dad and I drive to get Maccas
He asks me to leave with him
All of us together again? - I ask desperately hopeful
He says nah just you
This hurts my heart
All I wanted was a happy family
I wish I was never born!
Home isn't perfect
But I love Mum
All throughout her ups and downs
Afterall, she gave me life
I cry while eating fries on the way home
But look out the window so Dad doesn't see
Dad leaves... again
For **** sake
Why can't life be ******* normal?!
Mum gets sick again she blames me for playing match maker
I'm trying to study - Mum is blasting music
I close the door
Mum opens them up again
It's my house I'll blast music and have the doors open if I want to!
The older I get the more we seem to clash
Her moods change so rapidly
It makes my head spin
I'm constantly walking on egg shells
Afraid I'll say or do something to set her off
I can't concentrate
I have school in the morning
Mum blasts music with the doors open
I get up frustratedly
Please turn it down a bit
I have school tomorrow
I get the same response
I go to school
Beyond tired
Feeling like a zombie
Endless visits to the councillors office
They notice the dark circles
My grades slipping
My care factor is zero  
This somehow feels familiar
But not in a good way
The bad seems to outweigh the good
I wish I was never ******* born!

To be continued...

— The End —