"glowsticks" poems
Lights flash.
Glowsticks twirl.
rip snap glow
rip snap glow
ripssnapglow
ripsnapglow
rispnapskgoa
thelkaljth
the words blend
the sounds smear
the colors undulate
and suddenly
i heave
i hurl
i ****
i puke
my stomach caves
my body shivers
my brow sweats
my knees quiver
i lurch to the ground
splashing in my warm milky surprise.
and expectedly
i puke
i ****
i hurl
i heave
the world twists
the technicolor dream-coat of Donny Osmond happiness swells.
it rips
it pulls
it tears
it *****
and I'm a hostage to its psychedelic screams.
Faces twist into positions they aren't meant to hold.
gasps wheeze into my pores, burrowing like soft, comforting mole rats into my being.
I'm dissected.
Aug 7, 2012
Aug 7, 2012 at 12:30 AM UTC
In the summer we mixed glow stick liquid in bubble solution and had glow in the dark bubbles.. it was mesmerizing..
As I watched the colors float all around me I begin to remember dreams I had not to long ago..
In the dream they were not bubbles floating.. They were glowing jellyfish that would flutter to the stars.. they were so ghostly and beautiful..
A strange yet welcomed deja vu filled my soul.. Its as if my dreams told me that this night would one day come.. a color filled night where the bubbles that glow bring me back all my dream memories..
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
THIS is what love is.
banana bubblegum and magnetic poetry
the crickets on my front porch at three in the morning
making origami cranes out of butcher paper
even when I forget whether it's mountain fold or
valley fold and my crane turns out looking like a
seamonkey in a blender
wildflowers!
striped button-down shirts and plastic dinosaurs
singing Juanes at the top of our lungs
(Gah, you know
I can't speak Spanish.)
laughing at the serious parts in movies
having the patience for when
the words don't come out
and I have to stop
and think
(for a very long time)
and half the time it doesn't make sense anyway.
impromptu dance sessions on the side of the road
doors flung open, radio up
chocolate chip pancakes
out-of-town adventures
mailboxes. LOTS.
balcony raves with lots of glowsticks
and let me borrow that top!
just letting me sleeeeeeep
the smell of new pointe shoes
of New Orleans
of bluebonnets
telling me when I look awful (please)
making me eat things that I don't like
SNUGGLEBUNNY TIME
drive-thru people who hate our guts
That's What She Said's.
praising Buddha naked
dysfunctional kites
paying in change at Chicken Express
late night phone conversations
when I sound drunk
(but I'm not,
I'm tired. I just would rather
talk to you
than sleep.)
silence.
cupcakes, uniform closets
not shaving our legs in the winter
shadow puppets, rap songs,
Slumdog Millionaire
making once-in-a-lifetime faces
looks that speak oceans
pecan pralines and symphony orchestras you'll
never play with again but for that night
you're family
and you'll never forget it.
matches (aren't always for candles)
thousands upon thousands of candids
and the not-so-candids
saving kisses in your pocket for later
Neverland, Disneyland, cats
yellow dresses and stage make-up
watermelon Jolly Ranchers
saying my name like it's wrapped in blankets
and knowing that
even though I don't say it
as much as I should:
I do.
Apr 27, 2010
Apr 27, 2010 at 1:51 PM UTC
I wrote you love letters out of the syrupy innocence of my childish heart,
Mawkish hopes for a future of sweaty handholding and feather-lipped kisses.
More mother than lover, I lived to shield you from the bigger laughing kids,
Because I thought that love was one short ride on the pegs of your homemade bike,
And one dance under purple glowsticks hanging from the cheap drop ceiling,
And, in the stairwell that smelled like paint and old socks, I told you so.
Turned out I wasted my one second wish on the bunny in the moon:
You woke me up with the hollow chill of sudden mere acquaintanceship,
And now you're chasing some blond girl while I'm standing in a corner, busy growing up.
Dec 5, 2012
Dec 5, 2012 at 12:07 AM UTC
A script for birth - an new revival,
libelled breaks, swollen structure,
a cupboard full of accidentals,
daubs this paragon with stucco:
Glowsticks prance on leveled stair,
canvas origami pads Negeb:
Counterculture's been declared!
'Metropolis' left in riverbed.
A crypt where all is fairly loose;
—deepened, glottal, breathened, size—
Saddled with this torment, you!
—ugly glamour pangyrized—
There's a lot more to fashion,
and a lot more, to forge;
Nothing keeps me in *******
that would be too awkward.
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 11:32 PM UTC
I'm writing a love letter to all the stars I've never seen. Blowing sweet nothings into your windmill hearts. A sickness in the bones with the way some of you make me work for it. Rustic Blues in my toes. I want to be a list of further crossroads, because we're all chasing something glorious.You're no glowsticks or fireflies but the headlights of a speeding train and all I know is I am nothing without you.
I'll stand on the edge of the platform, and call you starlight.
The writer's paradox: We only exist when we are read and I think I've found my mobius strip. Twinkle me stupid, New Year feels like I could do this all over again.
Dec 25, 2018
Dec 25, 2018 at 11:58 AM UTC
All that you
Really need to know is:
Peggle Court.
Tough but fair.
I take care of
Little Peggle Court
Issues,
You can appeal
To Adam
But in the end,
**** is the
Chief Justice.
Steve is the
Grand Owl.
He has
No real power
In peggle court,
More of a
Figurehead position.
Kind of like the
Queen of England.
Our Constitution is
Two words:
Dog Law.
We leave all the
Children behind
Because
#it'sfair.
Scott,
He sued for
All the glowsticks,
And won!
It set precedent.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 9:27 PM UTC
10th month
October 2013:
I went to the cafe
with my best friend Becca
she ordered something to eat
i ordered a tea
i told my adventures with kirsten so far
to all of it she answered
" You two together yet?"
i replyed
" no not yet, i hope soon."
a couple of days after she told
me she just wanted to be friends
i was sad and all, but i was fine with it
She came over my house one morning
we watched a movie
"Love story"
after we went to my room i showed her my poetry
and climbed on the bed and held hands
We went outside
and biked around for awhile
it was like a movie.
the week to come
we had another night advenutre
it was cold that night
but we ran a lot
sat on a river bank
listened to music
and ran off into a golfcourse
near a pond
we threw our glowsticks in
and layed in the grass
ran through sprinklers
and laughed
Fall was starting to make more of an opening
more cold
more colors were breaking in
me and my friend janessa rode the train
one afternoon before thanksgiving
up and down the town we went
enjoying every moment
thanksgiving came
and kirsten came over my house
she kissed me
and we spent the night
in eacothers arms
We enjoyed it
so we did it a couple of more times
after that night
i remember waking ine morning
with her lip marks on my neck
the last week of october
came around the corner,
Kirsten once again told me
she did not want to be with me
just friends
i accepted it,though i did not want to
i could do nothing
my words were nothing
we spent five days together
i like to refer to them
" the last five days of friendship"
after those five days
something went wrong
and we barely spoke anymore
it snowed terribly
before Halloween
Otober advenures ended
and ****** november came
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 9:27 PM UTC
I know a girl or two.
There's the girl that will dance.
She will mend your withering bones,
and deduct the sticks from the stones
But the teal and black
will always bring memories back.
There's the girl that will lie.
Your adolescent hand
held tighter by a broken rubber band.
The queen of "would-be"
indifferently using your insecurity
as a blunt tool of jealousy.
There's a girl who will give you hope.
Indirectly teaching you everything
while transforming your dreams
into bits of meaningless string.
The apathy with every rainy night,
the cracked fingernails and
every hollowed-out fight.
There's a girl who will actually care.
She'll waltz and she'll swing
and her open wounds will sing.
A hand to help open the cocoon-
the glowsticks that lit up
the unyielding light of the moon.
There's a girl that will tease.
Opening her scabby heart,
taking a hit,
and a forgetting the broken part.
She won't care if you're there;
she'll show her bruises anywhere.
But most importantly,
there's a girl you haven't met yet.
She's tethered in between
your adolescent regret
and everything unseen.
Your journey towards finding her light
is only slightly out of sight.
I know a girl or two.
But the one I haven't meant yet
is the one who will give my life
it's dormant, yet effervescent hue.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 1:05 PM UTC
My first inclination
is to write about rifles and *** and ankle socks with frills
around the top, but I do not know
anything about that – much less all three at once.
One time I had a dream, or nightmare, or fantasy
of getting ******
by the barrel of the gun.
Instead of bullets,
glowsticks entered me.
Guns are shooting stars, like ***** I have to steal cartons
of iced coffee to stay awake and
bend the caps
into heart-shapes to have any hope –
morning wood puts me in mourning, that is all I can
ever understand about myself.
Sep 16, 2013
Sep 16, 2013 at 6:17 PM UTC
Heart's burst into a thousand
brutal glowsticks.
The vase of the body
pulsates
with shoots of light
and in the night
You can be seen
from space
a head a thousand filaments wide.
when i put my hands
on my chest,
thinking of you
and lick my lips,
thinking of you,
I can taste
black,
I can feel
black,
I am blackened
and dark
in my bedroom.
Touch that orb inside me, or mercury,
that loneliest lover slipping
off the cuticle of the horizon.
Reach out with your hands
to that compilation of so many lights
that seems one.
Become the glove that traps
infinity and bridges gaps
that break bodies into particles.
Make love to an earth of oblivion
an earth of nonsense,
an earth of pointlessness,
make love to the years of youth,
the years we waste
not making love.
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 8:03 AM UTC
Poets are glowsticks,
snapped,
then they fluoresce.
Liquid light.
Blood of the lightning bug,
squashed and smeared.
Nearly extinct.
Bleed and glow.
The cuts of forever promised,
instead,
they’re siphoned.
Distilled into purple-red neon,
spelling out:
read me.
know I’ve lost.
Aug 7, 2025
Aug 7, 2025 at 9:02 AM UTC
im not outside anymore, and that makes me sad-
the smell of ginger doesn't hurt my nose, it actually reminds me of the bitter herbal store with drawers and drawers full of crickets and fungus and crushed things i can't name.
there's a moment before i fall asleep, the moment i wish for dreams again & the moment i put the glowsticks back underneath my bed. i guess it really works, because last night i talked to m and 77 for the first time since, what was it, ninth grade? or maybe fifth?
theres something really unnerving about the park next to my old school. there's something that's not quite opaque about it, like the dogs and the kids and the trees and the homeless men aren't real.
maybe it's a good thing i don't like hamburgers that much, maybe it's a good thing that most food sticks in my throat. that way i can focus on the important stuff, like drywall and plumbing
i really really miss you so much i think my heart might give up and lie down and sleep for millions of dinosaur years. i think my cells might stop and take deep breaths and i think they might explode simultaneously, it will be so beautiful like a fireworks show, i just know it
Jul 29, 2017
Jul 29, 2017 at 6:58 PM UTC
The words are gone, the parties cracked glowsticks spilling their blood on the sidewalk.
The minutes that felt all mine, personal, a glove around space-time that I dictated -
now they’re standardized to measure the effects of real disparities in theoretical constructs.
But my fingers twitch, my teeth find skin, the coffee keeps coming but the world doesn’t slow.
And someday I’ll LOSE IT and bike naked through my new streets and claim it all back, the dark spangled world I used to inhabit, that evaporated in the false lights of the city.
Give me back the yellowed bricks and the pensive dizzy walks home. Running through the forest with the vultures up ahead and the cracked pavement underfoot, woods rising like spectres, autumn crackling on all sides, loneliness lifting up my steps and fog curling around my neck. The songs all say the cities are exciting but the outskirts are alive, the outer places plead, they love you with a desperation those glutted urbanities won’t understand.
They’ll call us home someday. That dark earth, the gnarled tree. Empty fields and brick-husk-buildings will welcome us with fireflies and curving mist and the quiet dramatics lost to the souls beating their spreadsheet hearts, with space budgeted x for family and y for ******* and the bullet-to-the-heart z (complacence). They’ll call us home, remind us the world is made of ghosts, the bones of trees, the bodies of clay, and the dust of flowers. That bluebird chirping is the only true sound you’ll ever hear. The pine needles and the wind are saying something important, and I live in a world of windowpanes! The fog is lifting, the sun is rising, and all the ghosts are going home. The waterfalls keep falling, but they fade from memory. The rocks jut towards the heavens, just as always, but my appreciation fades. Now I’m left -
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 12:13 AM UTC
The boy’s hand slips into mine. The cave tunnel is dark, and wet. Not cold, or musty, or anything other than dark and wet, and still. I look down at him, and smile softly, then turn forward as we stepped into the water. Large pebbles underfoot crunch roundly over each other.
Take a breath and everything is green and clear and open. Underwater, all the even lines of an empty public school hallway hauntingly echo the muffled silence. The stairwell opens easily, and strangely so.
The landing at the top is far enough away that I nearly choke looking for it. But we make it and there’s a few feet of air and this door is harder to open. Much harder. We pour out through it, onto the matted carpeting of a library where many eyes swivel to find the disruption.
A crisp lady with cat-eye-glasses ushers the boy into a side office while barring me from entering further. She and a round, stationery man snap back and forth at each other in distress.
The boy and I are in the wrong time, it’s not the right time. **** **** They’re sending him back to 200 BC. And me to 2017. No. No.
No, I’m supposed to take care of him, he wasn’t even supposed to be in the cave with me. Neither of us were supposed to be that far away from the group. He isn’t old enough! This was supposed to be quick and distracting and ******* hell what do we do?
The people in the library push us back into the stairwell and it’s cold. Not the water, the color. The light fades out of it as ceiling glow-stars would, and he’s so calm HOW IS HE SO CALM?
His hand is so small in mine and I’m afraid we’ll run out of air before I figure out what to do, but we can’t do anything. We can’t. There’s nothing here. We have to go. It’s the only direction; back into the water and hope they were wrong. I don’t understand how he can trust me this much, why is he still looking up to me? We might drown.
I need to make a move, and he hands me some glowsticks. Somehow he’s found light. I’m sure my hand is unpleasant and clammy and can he feel my heartbeat through my palm? We need to go.
Big breath, into the watery shadows of stairs. There’s sand at the bottom. My hand’s on the door, pushing out. I can hear my blood. It’s open. Oh god, ***
I’m awake
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 12:11 PM UTC
two cans of blue moon
now i'm alone and drunk
two cigars on a porch
with churning stomachs
a life vest with no water
lemons and buckets of gin
sipping from rotten watermelon rinds
celebrating dogs and writing down lies
lighting a damp fire
he's slept in my dad's office
wine in mugs
Christmas hats
photos in tall grass
tickling laughs on a hammock
ears of corn
one year older
I was naked on the 4th of July
fake deer enduring endless bullets
glowsticks and roman candles
unlit wicks
root beer buzz
one sad night with the stripes
one flag in the park
blue hair and a blunt cut
one braid in the dust
one friendship but
never forget
the two broken hearts
from something that never was
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 8:10 PM UTC
Found a spare tire in the deep freezer,
and a poltergeist
that ***** on my pinky finger
while I'm watching the news.
There's a countdown to the end of days
in static pauses. I might
have known a man who thought
that statues have feelings too.
[bike basket holding a dog it sort of
looks like the wizard of oz
but the rider is wearing angel wings
and fringed chaps and is singing
loudly in a raspy voice about the
back drop bleeding blue
onto a flying saucer skimming the
tall grass where we hide with
radios, chewing on glowsticks]
Jul 17, 2015
Jul 17, 2015 at 10:57 AM UTC
Glowsticks
And Flashlights
Candles and
Nightlights
May 2, 2019
May 2, 2019 at 8:52 AM UTC
I scuff my sneakers on the sidewalks glancing sideways
at commuters and their habits
stock-still from rusted bench to the same speckled train seat to the same stained coffee cup
settled gently on tired laps
same crosswords to turn the gears then – look! the tired frayed split ends & split
jeans of the “wild crowd” – 3 of them huddled in the corner,
the remains of the dawn’s crack
and boom of mics and plastic beer pushed hastily into
cups and glowsticks into
back pockets, the poetry of the worker clashing with the night rave.
We are awash in threadbare floors
that thousands of footsteps caught and dragged the morning out into the ever-
repetitive path
we crave this
it is so old and tired and we crave it
even our glowticks are
fading
changing from neon green and pink
to traffic cone orange
gray pigeoned collars
and scuffed sneakers
seamless changes of building to street speed by
drinking it in blindly, getting our
fix of the day
from stop to seat to the same stained coffee cup
Jul 31, 2017
Jul 31, 2017 at 8:01 AM UTC