"gashes" poems
Mythical Bird, show me your secret
Hatch forth from your shell
Plumage of orange and scarlet
Emerge glorious from whence you dwell
Fiery Bird, you must reveal
Your astounding, magical ways
Where from these lives you steal
Forever reincarnating well into your days
Aflamed Bird, you must teach
How you reinvent yourself anew
With no help within reach
Without aid, effortlessly you flew
Majestic Bird, take me in
Blanket me with your wing
Listen and acknowledge my sins
With all your wisdom and heart could bring
Magical Bird, will you impart?
What knowledge you keep
Only then, I may start
To make my way out from the deep
Enchanted Bird, you have to help
I'm desperate to rise like you
**** your head and hear my yelps
Of all the things I'm trying to undo
Celestial Bird, if only you could know
Intricate workings of this unfounded fixation
Why I seem to always wallow
An eternal target of sorrow's attention
Imaginary Bird, will you demonstrate
Your amazing fantastical flight
Dipping, gliding, in the air you gyrate
Aggressive dance with gravity you fight
Mystical Bird, won't you display
For unworthy eyes, would you give?
Seemingly easy, aloft you stay
Even when you know you'd die before you'd live
Wondrous Bird, oh how perfect you are
I am in awe, I am swooning
How you become one with the stars
Making the best of the short time you're living
Secretive Bird, is it time?
Reducing yourself down to ashes
Ready to absolve your stint of crimes
Reborn perfect, free from previous gashes
Ensorcelled Bird, please don't retreat
Back into your familiar cocoon
I'm uncertain if again we'd meet
Just afraid I might be gone too soon
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 8:50 AM UTC
My scars don't look like
Anyone else's-
They're more careful,
Organized, precise and
Exact.
Not light, but
Never deep enough
Never deep enough
Never deep enough
Never deep enough.
People always ask why
I do such pretty patterns:
Because this is the only thing in life
That I can really control
Control
Control,
And I find it so beautiful-
Though, not so much tragic.
My scars are not chaotic like a
Car-wreck,
They are consistent like a
Coma-
Proof that I was awake
The whole time I was sleeping,
And I could feel everything
Even though I could tell no one.
No one.
That this
Unconscious obsessive compulsion
Demands order
**Order
Order,** it
Insists by instinct,
An intricate simplicity.
Still, I will 'ever envy
Those stitched gashes, once
Gushing
Gushing
Gushing with surrender and
Serenity...
Each raised and rough coarse collagen fiber
To form a white flag
Forever etched in flesh;
To tell the world
They, were a slave to freedom-
I am only a slave
To myself.
Dec 9, 2014
Dec 9, 2014 at 2:52 AM UTC
Paper thin top soil
Cracks seep through
Red dirt.
Bloodless gashes
Simmering summer soil
Baked turf.
Rolled gold haze
Aches as the
Country stretches its skin-
Near breaks
******** teeth
Tight white itches
Red earth fit-
To burst in a
Dark cloud of dust,
Choking soft as to soak
The moisture fresh
From your lungs.
Blinding blue sky
Set for worship
On a tall horizon
Too far, too high
For common souls-
To float on a
Breath of sweet dry air,
Eternal journey to sunset
Small piece of a dream
To chase a grey cloud
From sky to west.
Where subterranean
Creeks used to slip by
Rise in a slope of land
Where water once carved
Its roam
Now the winds sweep
All traces away
Back toward the sea,
And fair beyond
The aching dry eyes
Of the sons of
This red earth,
A mist lies awake
And prays for rain.
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 5:19 AM UTC
This addiction is bad
These injections will change your life
It is everything, it is nothing, it is unexplainable
Like being stabbed a million times with a knife
It burns my whole body
Inside and out
I want to stop so bad
But it fills my mind with doubt
I become obsessive,
Sometimes I'm in rage
Even saying something simple
Will put me on a rampage
There are bugs in my skin
I get constant heat flashes
I can't stop itching
It leaves me with gashes
Your friends become enemies
Every family member is now a stranger
No one can be around you
Everyone is in danger
I'm loosing my body
I'm loosing mind
This specific drug,
It's the worst kind
I can't feel my body
Now it's all down hill
I no longer shake
I am completely still
My vision is impaired
Feels like it was injected into my eyes
I lay here stiff as a board
As my body slowly dies
Nov 13, 2011
Nov 13, 2011 at 9:21 PM UTC
Hey
I’m sorry if I interrupted your class with text messages
because you hate putting your phone on silent
it’s just that I should be there with you
laughing at your confused faces during Calculus I and
staring at your look of sheer concentration during Creative Writing
You were always the poet, not me
But it’s 1pm and I’m stuck in Calculus with someone else as my partner
who doesn't get nearly as confused as you and puts me to shame
which ****** me off because you would never correct me in Calculus
and so I can’t help but wonder who your new partner is
Is she smarter
Is she funnier
Do you quote Shakespeare to her like you did to me?
Is she better than me?
There’s no doubt that a. I ******* it all up and that b. you’ll move on from me
because you were always the popular one, I was the antisocial outcast that most people barely
tolerated
For some unknown reason you decided to become my friend that faithful day in
Calculus I
and ever since then you became my 3am conversations and midnight laugh
I depended on you much more than you did on me
I cared so much more
and maybe that was my fatal flaw
because if I hadn't cared so much
then maybe I wouldn't feel like screaming and throwing my partner’s textbook
at the teacher
but I did
I cared too much; against all warnings not to and now I’m wrecked
then again, I always was in a way
I just didn't know it
You told me that it didn't matter
that they couldn't separate us; no matter what
that you would never let me go
and you kept your promise
but I can’t keep mine
The words “I’m sorry”
come to my head
but those aren't the right words
because I’m more than sorry
I’m bleeding
I’m crying
I’m devastated
I’m torn
I’m broken
and perhaps that’s why I can’t keep my
Okay?Okay promise to you
because no, I am not okay
and you deserve so much more
and this is not okay
me lying to you through a computer screen is
not okay
me putting my gashes of regret on my arm is
not okay
me making you wait only for you to find a fraction of the girl I was is
not okay
and that is why
today during Calculus I
I will finish this ****** poem
and excuse myself and go to the girls’ bathroom
and cry my eyes out after sending this to you
I should end this with a ‘goodbye’
because there’s no use giving you false hope
but I can’t bring myself to end there
so I’ll just say something
and hope that you still remember what it means
P.S. I’ll always love you
(h.l.)
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 6:52 PM UTC
THERE is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood-I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me ... a silver-gray fox ... I sniff and guess ... I pick things out of the wind and air ... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers ... I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me ... a snout and a belly ... a machinery for eating and grunting ... a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun-I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me ... I know I came from saltblue water-gates ... I scurried with shoals of herring ... I blew waterspouts with porpoises ... before land was ... before the water went down ... before Noah ... before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me ... clambering-clawed ... dog-faced ... yawping a galoot's hunger ... hairy under the armpits ... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men ... here are the blond and blue-eyed women ... here they hide curled asleep waiting ... ready to snarl and **** ... ready to sing and give milk ... waiting-I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes-And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.
O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart-and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where-For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and **** and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.
7k
he spends his time
rowing through the
rugged, blockaded channels
of my catharsis,
the bitter staccato
of ****** habit.
his love
can be as jagged
as gashes in an
Elvis Costello record
thrown against the wall--
the frayed words of the last love song
Billie Holiday ever uttered.
he is two
exclamation points lit on
fire, kerosene pumping through
tautly wound muscles and
caressing our funny bones with
sandpaper.
he is
dulcit woodwind melodies
and jilted viola strings,
epic poetry and grindhouse theaters,
McQueen gowns and thrift store bargains,
the kiss on the forehead
and the nudge for a *******
he is a double helix.
he is the beginning
and end of every sentence.
Sep 4, 2010
Sep 4, 2010 at 3:45 AM UTC
i spent a lot of time
searching for affection
in shallow spaces
i gave people bits of me
they didn’t deserve
and i let myself be hurt,
because i thought
that’s what i deserved
but once i let go
of trying to shove puzzle pieces
in places that did not fit,
once i let go of all the hate
i secretly had stored in the
gashes that decorate my heart
i met you
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 11:41 AM UTC
America, rollin’ its dice,
hurlin’ ‘nades on the ice.
what're we lookin’ for?
***** we huntin’ for?
whether it’s a score to settle
or another lie to peddle
where do we go from here?
how ‘bout that future we held dear?
gone, done, buried, shunned.
eat crow, ***** retch, and—
run?
don’t run. can’t run.
these colors don’t run, I’ve heard.
though maybe they flow against
each other like water and
oil in a grating chemical fash-
ion that can’t be calculated
or be sufficiently integrated
like we dreamed they would.
and dream we do, for America
and her future, or so I hope,
given that each year that passes
leaves bruises and gashes
in that fabric, so fragile, I hear.
sad, wrong, and crooked;
Trump’s America.
Nov 11, 2016
Nov 11, 2016 at 5:34 AM UTC
Vivacious, atrocious
Super capricious
Precocious and ferocious
Precious and gracious
Malicious and facetious
Long lashes
Gory gashes
Fiery slashes
Tunic mashes
Souls igneous
In the end, it’s all ashes, just ashes...
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 2:26 AM UTC
Oh ****
Oh ****
Oh ****
This is the deepest wound that I've cut
My skin split apart and the blood's dripping out
And everything's starting to turn dark
I'm scared.
But I guess that's what razor blades do
The imprint you,
They scar you of every battle that has formed you
Broken you.
They burn remembrance into your blood
And it just pools up and it floods
Exiting through the gashes you've made
Actions reflected from sorrow and self hate
The cuts were just a twisted form of fate
And they are and they will be
Just an escape from the world for a second.
But only a second.
Because once the blood flow ends,
The flow of thoughts take it's place.
Even while its bleeding your mind is there thinking.
The words come from events
The inspiration comes from the cuts
The blood
The bandages.
And then there's the pain.
But I guess that's what razor blades do
The imprint you,
They scar you of every battle that has formed you
So you can never ignore them
The memories are scared into your skin.
But scars must come from healed wounds
And healed wounds must come from self injury
And self injury must come from self hatred
And self hatred can end your life.
I hate myself.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 9:38 PM UTC
Oh, dear girl
How beautiful you are
How kind and colorful
I see your pain
I see the gashes underneath your clothes
The angry lines on your precious flesh
You burn your pain
Away into smoke
Crimson eyes
Not just from the tears
But from the blunt between your fingers
How I wish
To take your hurt
So you don’t grow up with faint white crosses
On your pretty limbs
You deserve to have your lovely smile
Displayed for all to see
Aug 25, 2022
Aug 25, 2022 at 4:42 PM UTC
Mirroring what's bright
With dead unassuming eyes,
Its life dwells only out of sight.
Swallowing the blackness of the room
It appears to writhe, silently shifting,
A child's gaze on a rotting face
Waits patiently for something
It doesn't know, and absently scratches
Deep gashes into its cheek.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 5:14 PM UTC
humans leave behind scars
as often as they leave behind
old skin cells and yesterdays
oblivious to the fact
that their words carry knives
and that the fleeting hearts of others
remain tragically vulnerable
you have left me with nothing
but a dozen gashes on my heart,
and i've been bandaged a thousand times
from the shattered hopes
that have wounded me
when i tried to stand up again
you took all that was left of me
and now i am just
a hollow ribcage, a fragile soul,
slapped in the face by our lost love
and the sudden realization
that it could not be found
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 2:31 PM UTC
warm, bright words don't reside in your heart.
an ice wall blocks the way as they depart.
a shy, humble smile, "oh, it's no big deal,"
and those words are suddenly forced to kneel.
the icicles ***** your weary shoulders,
forming gashes, leaving you so much colder.
too much warmth? you burst into flames.
too little? you're frozen and maimed.
your hands, scarred and worn,
rub in vain, ready to mourn
as you look over the wall
to stare at the glow that enthralls.
Aug 13, 2021
Aug 13, 2021 at 8:46 PM UTC
You slam the door in anger, in frustration you mutter my name.
You pound your fist against the wall, I cringe and feel your pain.
My words dry in my mouth, a word against you I dare not speak.
My body shys away from you, I feel my knees getting weak.
You vent your fury in a whirling rage, leaving devastation in its wake.
Your words leaving gashes across my face, carrying on not realizing your mistakes.
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 2:31 AM UTC
Let’s talk of love,
Of sunsets,
And peace,
Let’s talk of roses
And romance,
And full glasses of champagne.
Let’s,
Talk of joy
And having a baby,
And windchimes,
And feasts,
And,
Well,
Anything.
But let’s not talk of hate,
Or war
Or crimson rivers;
Wounds crackling with pus,
Popping scabs,
The sizzling gashes on my face.
Don’t speak of lost soldiers with forgotten limbs.
Don’t think,
Of discrimination,
And sorrow,
And divided skin.
Don’t waste a single breath
On misfits,
Outcasts,
Or widows.
Ignore conversing about infants
Left in the gutter,
Or orphans without arms,
Or bombings,
Or fire in the streets.
Don’t mention parents
Who **** their children.
I don’t want to know
About ******
Trauma,
And ****
Don’t look at the spires
Constructed of bodies,
With insects crawling out holes,
And eating out frowns.
Absolutely never speak,
Of anger and sadness
And anything in between.
Why bother with illness
Of mind,
Body,
Spirit.
Forget about the times
When liberty bled.
That’s not on my conscience.
Why mention families,
Torn,
Apart.
Why speak of agony,
And brokenness,
And death?
Don’t speak,
Of suffering
At all.
But let’s talk,
About anything,
And everything,
Anything at all.
As long
As it’s not,
You.
Oct 6, 2018
Oct 6, 2018 at 11:14 AM UTC
Look in the mirror and what do you see?
The same gleaming girl, who anyone could be?
A boy with bruises, everyone fails to see?
Or a 'jock' who's home life is shrouded in secrecy?
How about a girl, with a painted on smile?
Who's silent cries for help could be heard for miles.
The scars on her wrist are all just a part,
Of healing the gashes all over her heart.
11/11 rolls around,
All she wishes for is one less pound
Picks at the food she was given for dinner,
Hoping one day she'll finally be thinner.
She cries over that guy she thinks about,
Who'd kiss her in private but never take her out.
She is manipulated day by day.
She knows this part but, of course, she stays.
Everything he says to her, makes her sore,
But somethings he says just make her heart warm
She'll never be good enough for that boy or her peers.
If she isn't good enough for that girl in the mirror.
Jul 24, 2012
Jul 24, 2012 at 2:07 AM UTC
Mama it happened again
He did those things to me
made me feel ashamed
shh, it’s our little secret
Mama, don’t leave me with him
What if he comes close
If I can feel his breath on my skin
Shh, It’s our little secret
Mama trenched gashes caress me
but I can’t feel it anymore
Come a little closer, can’t you see?
Shh, it’s our little secret
Mama, I cut a little too deep,
took too many pills
Please let me fall asleep
Shh, it’s our little secret
Mama, I see you crying
"Beloved daughter and friend"
I’m not sorry,
I was so tired of trying.
Shh, it’s our little secret, our little secret, our little secret.
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 1:57 AM UTC
Straying from the straightened path
Its as easy as it gets
The voice inside telling you no
But the enticing idea of leaving is too much
Like leaving the trail of the woods
Once you wander far enough
Only then do you realize your lost
The dark and cold of your soul
Matching the night sky above
The ones picking you up when you fall
Are back on the sunny and straight path
That you can no longer see
The only company you keep
Is your warped thoughts and your past
Your loneliness causes inner demons
It leaves you bitter and wounded
Cynical and dead inside
You have only you
To mend the permanent damage done
Because off the path are thorns
And those thorns cut little by little
But after a long time they leave gashes
And those gashes never fully heal
They only scar
I'm still wandering aimlessly
I no longer know the direction of that path
That I left long ago
So let this poem be a warning sign
With big bold red letters
To those leaving the path
That this isn't where you want to be
I could've been king of my path
Yet I ended up a pawn in an evil game
So to those of you out there
Rise up and become more
Because the woods are very dangerous
And its so dark and cold here
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 7:47 AM UTC
Explosions of blue and purple cover my skin;
like fireworks where raining punches have been,
and my scarlet gashes are dolorously healed;
harsh memories of my war on the battlefield.
Jul 10, 2016
Jul 10, 2016 at 9:25 AM UTC
The audacity
that you would write a ***** a love letter
That you would in so many words announce your affections for a **********
Thay you would pour out your heart
to a harlot
But here in hand i have it
written in blood turned tan from time travel
caligraphy cornerstones that mark the foundation for forgiveness
lithography laden with agony for the cause of love
It's as if even now, i can watch your quill
as it traipses across parchment
fabricated from your very own lamb's skin
still marred with scars
rough and red
tears at it's edges
and holes torn by gashes
the audacity of that "I love you"
scrawled in the crucifix cursive of the creator of the earth and its
universe
unfurled to cut the mundanity with meaning
The audacity...
I am wordless.
My soul is far from speechless.
Apr 30, 2012
Apr 30, 2012 at 2:02 PM UTC
wicked thorns on wicked wings
they fly and pierce the sky
the gashes open wide
the liquid life
pours
out
blessed words from blessed tongues
they soar and mend the wounds
the holes close up
the simple strife
floats
away
when we leak the color red
we feel alive although we’re quick to die
when the truth is spilled right
we know our pride and we’re ready to die
last meals, first truths
last loves in kissing booths
the world you need to get to is inside
godspeed and goodnight
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 5:55 PM UTC
ashes, ashes we all fall down.
i’ve come to take back my crown.
ashes, ashes, you shall fall down.
i will destroy this town.
ashes fall with us.
can’t you feel the rush?
the ashes fall.
it’s time for your call.
ashes, ashes we will fall down.
ashes, ashes, no more ground.
falling into ashes.
we all have our gashes.
now I breath in.
the sky grows dim.
ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
May 13, 2019
May 13, 2019 at 4:10 PM UTC
Flowers grow through cracks
Cracks in the wall
Where bare brick has been torn apart by bare storms
Or steel ripped apart by a hurricane of grief
Cracks in the pavement
Where some people refuse to step
In the fear of some supernatural supernova
Descending from the heavens and ripping their mind apart
Cracks grow in places where there is nobody to keep them from becoming brittle
Things snap when they're left for too long
Like sticks and bodies and minds
That have had enough of casual use
Of beatings and bricks and careful abuse
Pain is beautiful
Is that what they told you?
Be proud of those wounds and gashes you painted
Show them to the world because your pain is beautiful
Did it feel beautiful?
When it was four in the morning and you were staring at your ceiling
Wondering how everything had spiralled in iridescent lines
What a beautiful thing it is, to fall
To fall from that crumbling platform you built for yourself
How lovely it was when your fingernails ripped
As you scrambled and clutched at the edge
And your stomach wracked from your mouth as you fell
Did it feel beautiful, when you fell?
Did you ever really fall?
Everything ugly can become beautiful
A thousand poppies above a sea of rotting corpses
Turning to a graveyard of bones
Flower heads red like the blood spilt on the dark soil
Drip, drip, drip like a broken tap
Slash, slash, slash like a knife slicing through flesh
And that muffled, drawn-out scream mixed with gurgling of blood
Bubbling from lips and staining them, staining everything
That garish, bright shade of crimson
And then a thump
Because the end is always the softest part
Even if you cling on, kicking and screaming
The tide will sweep you away and your voice will not be heard
Unless you can find a rock out in the waves
And tear off those fingernails all over again to just
Hold on
Flowers grow through cracks
Cracks in bones and cracks in minds
Flowers of that garish, bright shade of crimson
With those seeds of madness
That wind you up like a little music box
And twist you around like a clockwork ballerina
And when you break those tiny screws
It's all your fault
The flowers that grow through the cracks
Are the flowers that drive the nail further
Until it hits soft flesh
Down through to bone
The bone of cracks and broken screws
But you did it all yourself
Why did you do this to yourself?
Oct 15, 2017
Oct 15, 2017 at 8:22 AM UTC