"grimaces" poems
lines cut heavy
on a button stretched brow
thick rubber shoes
and dragon canes
fill out the closet floor
gospel sounds
and narratives (drowned)
apparitions set sullenly
amid voices from the past
finger pins
and crosswords
find the favor list
point men and preachers
tip up their tuscany caps
twitching and sign gazing
with spectacles held firm
recurring evening news
and beadledom views
clappers and caregivers
raise a crooked foot
grips and rockers
settle in on the front porch
gertrude grimaces
at an untimely turn
as the gooseberry pie
(with a smidgen of cloves)
chills by the night watch
Feb 11, 2018
Feb 11, 2018 at 12:07 PM UTC
The engine is killing the track, the track is silver,
It stretches into the distance. It will be eaten nevertheless.
Its running is useless.
At nightfall there is the beauty of drowned fields,
Dawn gilds the farmers like pigs,
Swaying slightly in their thick suits,
White towers of Smithfield ahead,
Fat haunches and blood on their minds.
There is no mercy in the glitter of cleavers,
The butcher's guillotine that whispers: 'How's this, how's this?'
In the bowl the hare is aborted,
Its baby head out of the way, embalmed in spice,
Flayed of fur and humanity.
Let us eat it like Plato's afterbirth,
Let us eat it like Christ.
These are the people that were important ----
Their round eyes, their teeth, their grimaces
On a stick that rattles and clicks, a counterfeit snake.
Shall the hood of the cobra appall me ----
The loneliness of its eye, the eye of the mountains
Through which the sky eternally threads itself?
The world is blood-hot and personal
Dawn says, with its blood-flush.
There is no terminus, only suitcases
Out of which the same self unfolds like a suit
Bald and shiny, with pockets of wishes,
Notions and tickets, short circuits and folding mirrors.
I am mad, calls the spider, waving its many arms.
And in truth it is terrible,
Multiplied in the eyes of the flies.
They buzz like blue children
In nets of the infinite,
Roped in at the end by the one
Death with its many sticks.
6.2k
I'm starting to dream in color
swimming in Silvia red night gowns
and dancing into silhouettes of purple and crimson.
psychedelic actually,
if you take the time to think within that perspective.
it's like a toned-down rave set in slow motion by overdose.
and where are you?
are you passed out on the lawn in front of some closed down swapmeet?
did the flicker of insomnia turn you off like a light switch you hadn't paid the bill for?
who now, will answer your phone or pay homage to your quips
or late night phone calls to God?
I wish I could say that I relayed the message
but my nerves never were enough.
I wonder if the angels ever picked up on the twisted games you played on their names.
Many people never bothered to decipher it all.
But on occasion I did.
When the time was convenient,
when the moments were dull.
I delved into it.
I tried anyhow.
Forgive me for never letting you pass.
For standing arms and legs wide apart to halt the inevitable.
I wish for so many seconds
that I was there to do something,
to show something,
some inkling of understanding through sarcastic grimaces.
To you, who will read this and play dead for flair,
may you call upon me from the imaginary casket when you get this.
Fore I do see that you could never leave like that.
Dec 3, 2010
Dec 3, 2010 at 9:56 PM UTC
The way he touched me
when we first got serious
was much different from how
he touched me at the end
of it all.
His hands used to be soft
and his eyes drank in
every curve of my body,
every freckle of my skin.
He would look up at me like
I was a new adventure,
and I knew that this whole
night of romance was for me-
he wanted me to really feel
how much he cherished me.
I miss those days
immensely.
At the end his hands were
much more rough,
his eyes averted mine.
He couldn't see me as a treasure-
I was just flesh under his own.
It became all about his lust,
his desperateness to feel something real.
And that night that held
a surprise showing of
grins and grimaces and
a couple almost-kisses,
it felt like home.
I am terrified to remember
that night because
I realized something:
His fingers grazed my skin
like they did
in the beginning,
he looked at me like I was new.
It's terrifying because
the only thing holding me together
is knowing that the boy I love
is nothing like the boy I left.
And now that I caught that glimpse,
and now that I know he's
exactly the same as he used to be,
my head is spinning and
my heart spasms in pain.
I was wrong and there are no words
to describe how sad that makes me.
But I made the choice
to walk away from the confusion
for enough time to realize
that I'm okay with being alone.
And even if I were to find someone new,
I would always feel like I was cheating,
like anything I could ever feel
for someone else
would be a lie.
And even if I were to be with him again,
I would feel like I was doing him
a disservice,
like even if I was loving him,
I still wouldn't be genuine enough
to make him feel loved.
I will always and forever feel like
I am cheating on the man I love.
And that's the price I will pay
for the immense disservice
I have already paid him.
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 5:45 PM UTC
The two brothers wait for me arrive home,
They call themselves Anxiety and Fear,
Fear with his grimace smile,
Welcomes me in with his rigid glare,
He takes one look at me,
Reminds me I am vulnerable and fragile,
Anxiety plays along,
With his insolent tone,
Tells me I am an ignorant fool,
Mocking me of my wisdom,
Fear reminds me I am blind,
I know deep down they are right,
Fear is talking with a big smile to Anxiety,
The two brothers begin to laugh as I sit and calculate,
My heart begins to ache,
Anxiety points out the truth,
I can’t deny how I went wrong,
Fear places his hands on my shoulders,
I start to cry as I am unable to conceal these thoughts,
He whispers in my ear he will always be there,
Anxiety places his hands in mine
He always said one day I will suffer
No one to save you,
Like vultures they begin to circulate,
I must stay calm,
I rise firm to my feet,
So you want to mess with me?
Fear retreats to the corner and hisses,
It doesn’t matter what you have to say,
How long you keep these thoughts at bay,
Anxiety continues to linger around,
Analysing every inch and sound,
I was naïve and innocent to follow to your dark psyche,
Fear attempts to shut me up,
Yelling nonsense in my ear,
Anxiety joins in playfully,
Twisting and turning my stomach,
I take a deep breathe,
I will not follow blindly to the devil in disguise,
I will not tolerate these fears and let them ride me,
I will not let anxiety take over my strive,
My devotion will be dedicated to creativity and insanity,
You are just made believed.
The two brothers wince at my capability to be brave,
Anxiety recoils and hallows a piercing shriek,
Fear grimaces and spits venom at me,
I catch the venom and throw it back at Fear,
I owe you nothing
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 8:19 AM UTC
she whispers. "hey."
"hm?"
"you're my boulder."
he chuckles. "what?"
"you're my boulder. you're
stronger than a rock. you're
the one who keeps me
from losing myself. you're
the one who keeps me
grounded. you are my boulder."
he grimaces. "but if i'm a boulder
then i'd crush you...i would
hurt you."
she laughs quietly. "well then, you're
a gentle boulder. soft and fluffy and
all that stuff."
he stifles a laugh. "so do i just have
a bunch of fluffy green moss
growing on me?"
she nods. "you're
my big, gentle, sweet, moss-covered
boulder."
he smirks. "well...
then i guess you're
my pebble."
she looks into his eyes. "how so?"
"you're my pebble. you're
small but not easy to break. you're
seemingly fragile but you're
stronger than you look. you're
part of me and you're
the one who can either break me
or make me whole. you are my pebble."
she smiles
and he wraps his soft green sweatshirt
that he's wearing
around her
shoulders. "mine."
she murmurs. "my boulder."
he whispers. "my pebble."
and finally,
both of them
are found
as they gaze at the stars
and into each other's eyes.
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 10:53 AM UTC
With Body pretzled up, skins converged to form
branches of rivers, mouth slack and frozen to
a permanent scowl of delirium and manners-gone,
as many swears dripped from those dry, cracked lips.
One of my mothers – gumshoed from the alley’s way of family.
“Get gumption, girlie, because everybody is full of ****
I remember that lullaby, “A tiny turned-up nose, two lips just like a rose. She sits upon my knee, she means to the world to me.”
I spy the scar on my pinky finger from her cigarette.
Could the King be witness in the Room?
Were those buttons of hollow wood over her eyelids?
Wrung of cries – we didn’t see that coming,
though we heard the flies.
And Age’s stumbling rattle through the hallway.
Do you know who I am?
Do you remember me?
Should the window washer come another day?
This stubborn sovereignty over what is reality – the root beneath the porch, the fog on the windshield.
Loosen the grip on this natural plane,
Please --
Woman of my Childhood, harvester of my manners.
Stand until the grown-ups sit.
Look away and bow your neck.
This was called the boxing match between Industry verses Inferiority.
Not child through birth – no –
but life spawned by those
strung-high fists.
There’s finality in this phone-call.
I heard it happened an hour ago.
Treading grievances and grimaces, picking through a flowerbed only to stroke the weeds.
Lifting boxes of Lead from reality to the Bridge of Dreams.
Frankly, I stole the gumption from your knotted mouth and
still cannot cry.
In a splinter of reason – I cast out the fundamental jibes of sacred hope.
That promise held between dog and owner during business hours.
Except there can be no homecoming.
The sickest liquor on the alleyway fence.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 7:08 PM UTC
*if only I knew how to love...
for my Victoria
winces-grimaces, that these words even leave my fingertips,
reminiscences, a chrome bookmark tab full of decades of near misses,
instances, subway sideway stolen daily glances of she who would be the only, the one, but one day failed to appear, left to dream peer,
and/or
decades long of romanced lasses, flying spectacular super crashes, when my heart-blanched, lanced, and the lawyers danced, poems shriveled as dried ink crack'd and words rusted shut,
cut by so many p'raps, and ugly motives, beautiful covered up, disguised as synapses of sin and insincerity, and I,
the sad man,
both the sinner and the sinned against,
totalities, of shoulda-woulda-asked/kissed-her-gallantly,
activities, when kisses were doorways to trap door rooms
and an over decorated monte cristo prison cell
ah well
the 'and yet,' the 'but for,' a single finger, sealing silenced lips,
passions mourned and irrevocable sensations, frittered, fractured,
all that I calmly called love was sprigs and broken branches,
cut flowers destined to shrivel,
not of what I believed in, something akin to a tree rooted, an oaken strong unbreakable love
of this certain, all approximations, all failed incantations,
for surely, if but only one escaped, could have been saved,
and if truthful love it was,
I would have known it,
for would I have dared to let slip away?
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 6:05 PM UTC
Gluteus Maximus
That Gladiator of Rome
Got into such a rage
That his mouth did foam,
He cursed and snarled
And snarled and cursed,
Yet things didn’t improve
They got much worse;
His fists beat the ground
And he spat into the air,
No one dare come close
When his temper did flare.
Furiously struggling
To undo a knot so big
It wasn’t his strong point,
He couldn’t give a fig!
Unable to get to grips
With his **** leather laces
Those sandals caused such scowls
And grotesque grimaces...
So, aren’t you grateful
That he isn’t alive today?
That bad tempered warrior
Your life he would slay
Just with one of his black looks
Or a growl at your face,
You’d probably explode
With only a trace
Of smoke and shoes
Left where you did stand,
Nothing but grey ashes
On the Coliseum’s red sand!
Jan 19, 2012
Jan 19, 2012 at 1:42 AM UTC
Drinking bottles of Guinness
"Only socially, I can't stand the stuff"
Fatality in the finesse
Of 'classiness' and *****
Smoky rooms and jazzy tunes
A cigar hanging from the lips
Fatality in the finesse
Of small talk and swaying hips.
Winehouse's drawl pours from the speakers
That are modern in their vintage style
Fatality in the finesse
Of hidden grimaces and fake smiles.
Every conversations the same
In it's lack of personality
Fatality in the finesse
Of sociability.
Jun 3, 2014
Jun 3, 2014 at 8:47 AM UTC
I arrived--
though I needn't a formal invite,
for you and I, we are two old friends.
Companions walking along
a similar trail.
The leaves distort and distress the
yellow and gleaming light of the
victorious Sun, who has once again
conquered Night and all
her iniquities.
Scents and colors fill the air,
pinks and reds and greens mix and match
and blend together, forming
a rich atmosphere of synesthetic remarkableness.
Each atom and molecule
of the wind
shivers and shakes atop their
invisible chariots,
perhaps the true location of Atlas
and those great, big hunks of
shoulders;
"Man, what a man."
Take it because you know you like it--
we are social creatures,
creatures of logic
of habit
creatures of horribly idiosyncratic and idle instinct,
rulers of fleshy bodies
which we hardly understand.
The Sun grimaces as it
retreats back to the negative air,
once again,
not to poke its radiant face out until
the next morning.
The Moon came shimmering out,
smiling furtively and compactly,
looking down like
my oldest confidante.
After all,
who else but our fair
Luna atop the stars
is the keeper of all our deepest
and most primal
secrets?
In the cover of her noxy cloak
we sin and hide,
pushing every secret under and between
the cracks in her space,
patching up time and
keeping dark and brooding Atlas
good company.
"You're one of the few great guys."
Oh, my fat and failing Atlas,
lover for the Night and
of my night,
you are a temporary stop on
my trail,
a brief twilight in my
life's journey.
The Sun creeps its
spindly, golden fingers under
the cloak of the Moon,
Night: the stitchings and
sewings of the sins of mortal men.
Playfully, the light stretches out,
first dancing along the stage of the horizon,
then inching closer,
desperate for living contact,
for the greatest warmth of
over 2 billion hearts
all beating at once--
perfectly,
in time.
Our world is a note on
this Cosmic sheet music;
you are barely a splotch on the sheet.
Our existence is the single beat
out of infinite others,
without a beginning but
possibly and end.
I know that
there will be twists in my path,
bending and curving to avoid the
stars' wrath and the Suns'
might,
but,
might it be
that our two trails
are simply
not meant to meet?
Jun 16, 2012
Jun 16, 2012 at 3:55 AM UTC
I hurriedly pull my street dusted , golden brown Toyota into the middle of a gas station war zone. The kind that turns neighbors into enemies, fighting to gain the only valuable piece of real estate around – the gas tanks. The drivers collectively sport the exact same exhausted and frustrated grimaces. A rusty and dated “ Exon Mobile” sign stands tall and strong against the sundrenched sky. The day is coming to a close, and the sun seems hurried to set as if it is exhausted from the day’s labors and expectations that it must rise again tomorrow, just like the gas station’s patrons. This station, to most, is just another stop. Another errand that puts itself between you and the warmth of home. This station, is just another stop. Another errand at the end of an endless day. But to me, this place is full of promise. This is the one place on earth that gives us life. It gives us the chance to see the world and to explore uncharted grounds. This place brings us closer to adventure and myseries, to happiness, to heartbreak, to feeling. This is the fuel and the energy that is waiting to help you make it to the hospital at 4 am to see the birth of a child. This old and worn pitstop let’s us fall in love with the world, with what we can see, with eachother.
But there is this silver truck with tires too big and a man two sizes to small in the passenger seat. There is a prominent dent in the left side door that has remained unchanged, unhelped, in weeks. As this silver, dented piece of metal sits in the way between me and my pajamas, I have the chance to stop. Not to stop because I’ve finally got to where I’ve been trying to go. Not to stop to pay the McDonald’s cashier in shameful regret of another broken new year’s promise. But to really stop. For an unexpectedly and disappointingly long time. To stop with no expectations. To be forced to just stop. And to wait. And to look around.
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 2:48 AM UTC
The Banker's Fate
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
And the Banker, inspired with a courage so new
It was matter for general remark,
Rushed madly ahead and was lost to their view
In his zeal to discover the Snark.
But while he was seeking with thimbles and care,
A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh
And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,
For he knew it was useless to fly.
He offered large discount--he offered a cheque
(Drawn "to bearer") for seven-pounds-ten:
But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck
And grabbed at the Banker again.
Without rest or pause--while those frumious jaws
Went savagely snapping around--
He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,
Till fainting he fell to the ground.
The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared
Led on by that fear-stricken yell:
And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared!"
And solemnly tolled on his bell.
He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace
The least likeness to what he had been:
While so great was the fright that his waistcoat turned white--
A wonderful thing to be seen!
To the horror of all who were present that day,
He uprose in full evening dress,
And with senseless grimaces endeavoured to say
What his tongue could no longer express.
Down he sank in a chair--ran his hands through his hair--
And chanted in mimsiest tones
Words whose utter inanity proved his insanity,
While he rattled a couple of bones.
"Leave him here to his fate--it is getting so late!"
The Bellman exclaimed in a fright.
"We have lost half a day. Any further delay,
And we sha'n't catch a Snark before night!"
2.1k
*"You're too young
to be this tired."*
They say this around
grimaces that are
supposed to be smiles,
and eyes that are
silently screaming
because they know that
they have effectively
and efficiently ruined our lives.
******* millennials
are ruining this country."*
They say this around
clenched fists that are
holding on to things like
prejudice and injustice
that they refuse to acknowledge
is their own doing.
*"It's not our faults;
we're suffering, too."*
We're not saying this;
we're screaming it
at the top of our lungs,
but it's falling to deaf ears.
No matter how many statistics,
no matter how many news stories,
no matter how many debts,
no matter how many deaths,
no matter how many accounts of pain
we try and try and try to show them,
they refuse to acknowledge it.
*"We've messed up,
but so have you."*
Jun 6, 2016
Jun 6, 2016 at 11:12 PM UTC
They were broken children
Their scissored minds ran them
In spirals
Until they sat with crossed legs
And crossed lips
To press themselves flatter
They were cut-strings marionettes
Who danced
In an attempt to wring calories
From their balsa-wood bones
Which refused to give
And who pinned their painted smiles
A little tighter each morning
They were snapped-spines picture books
Who’d been warped too far by society
And had had their pages torn from the crease
So that words hung like razor blades
And spliced from each vertebrae
They took them to the circus
Where they were the **** of every joke
But when the clowns speared them with dripping eyes
And artificial mouths that were stretched over grimaces
Like the dust-jackets from different stories
They stared back glassily
Because how can you be afraid
Of the broken clockwork of your reflection?
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 2:28 AM UTC
Ashamed, she slinks back
to her decrepit warehouse.
Even
the optimistic sun
could not bear seeing her, and so
disappeared,
blanketing her in sympathetic
darkness. Her diminished soul
yearns only for a love
she cannot reach,
and she grimaces
in a limping mental pain.
As an orphan, and now
still as a homeless woman,
she’d always been an outcast,
not fit for
the colorful quilt
God had sewn.
She had never contemplated
suicide, but had mastered
the blissful release of physical pain,
saving herself from drowning
in a personal
stygian pool of melancholy.
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 11:10 PM UTC
Like a leaf falling unknowingly towards a blade of grass…
I impacted at dawn with the sound of a faded smash…
Invaded by reality, my brain whipped up a list of tasks..
But I quickly yawned it off in favor of dreams from the past…
How nice is it to retire to a place of wonder and passion…
When your days are filled with pondering your squandered rations…
A place away from heartache in a land of exotic fashions…
Strange tales of horror mixed with ****** interactions..
What a world it is that our dreams create…
Even giving glimpses of a future face..
Or maybe a real story from a future place..
Of guts and glory from earth or space…
They open Pandora’s box of ideas and images..
But unlike life, the dream diminishes…
Like the feeling of love lost with sleepy grimaces..
And the attack on your foe that’s lost it’s viciousness..
The ability to be in one place then instantly in the next…
The thought of how you got there never leaves you perplexed…
It just is what it is like the characters in this text…
Images of prisoners that your subconscious collects…
Lined up next to each other, depicting events…
Comedies, dramas, love stories, and suspense…
The feeling of realism is just so intense…
The horror is horrifying and the fortunes are immense…
That’s why I love these stories my brain invents…
So now I’m off to catch tonight’s main events…
Aug 6, 2010
Aug 6, 2010 at 2:00 AM UTC
I grew up moon shining past glowing street lights
and I was invited to an underground ring by a man called Life.
I met him in the ring in the middle of the night;
I threw down my gloves for ill advised street fights.
He threw down grimaces, and spit disguised as tears.
Blood rushed through ringing ears,
Blood rushed into my head, suddenly hazy with fear
and then, suddenly, blood rushed out of punctured sides.
High on adulation, I brought boxing gloves, respectful nods, handshakes, and cheers.
Life brought me low with sucker punches, broken laws, and sharp rusty knives.
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC
He who came, on a weary road
saw little difference in life
of how it was before
and how it revolves in strife ,
but he couldn't perhaps be told
as for what he heard where whispers in his head
and things that were less lively, yet almost dead
He wasn't insane but sanity was absent
and it was winds that whispered to him in their
own soft accent
that in the language of life
but he couldn't hear it
he was deafened
His solitude was his prison
his dwelling, his vision
his presence in his own utopia
where he found himself alone
but to mess his expectations
came other souls
he wasn't there the only one
but there were others too along
who he shared his breath
there was compassion's warmth
and deceit's wrath
and he was disturbed
He wouldn't want to be a label
where one's eyes would tag him
and a free life is a fable
in this world he lives which in grim
is much a pain to his time
Time is so limited yet just to live
in himself he wanted much to believe
but it was exploited
at heart, and retorted
by his own grimaces
because of the judging face
so he became dumb
Not a word heard, not a word said
walking on his own, living or dead
he walks step by step
still judged by many and by some
He is deafened, disturbed and dumb
Aug 28, 2013
Aug 28, 2013 at 3:55 AM UTC
This season is
Memories of kids whipping past
blowing dead leaves on bikewheels
with hoodies hung upwards and
Horror fiend masks.
A ringing of doorbells and delighted
screams rushing forwards
and "Trick or Treat" plunging
like fallen bobbed apples
into concuspiscent ears.
With the Moon bearing high
its dominance of silver contrast
and sandsmoke grimaces
on a clandestine land, ***** for mischief.
All fairytales begin
with a break-up of the family
I'm convinced
All Horror stories
are a crying out
for old friendships to re-emerge
after the gist of mortality
begins to sink in.
And from when I was a teen
most of my friendships, for better or worse,
have centred around attaching my darker thoughts
to something concrete: like a list of favorite author's work
or a poster of Robert Smith on my bedroom wall
claiming knowledge to a world established around my own
The stirring fire to keep on going, after waking up on frostbitten mornings
is not a need to impress with the sense
of my own self-determined
trudging through rain and seeking
lofty self-reward
...But in finding people
to share the walk home with
bounce Cure lyrics back and forth with
and who'll simmer down to a horror film
(without insisting on my recommendation)
at Halloween.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 7:51 AM UTC
I no longer mind
the laughter of people,
leaves falling,
sun rising—
all is destitution,
squalor,
our dirt-clod--
Earth.
Moons snicker, too
at our moon, which,
sneering at me
becomes dizzy
from its hypocrite
cycle.
Pulling tides,
the way it has
a quarter-century,
my life.
I want you
to die;
I want you all
to die before I do.
Moons, stare on.
I want to steal an abandoned air-
liner for you.
As far as possible,
I will climb toward
your towering grimaces
crashing, directly,
into the ground
without wonderment
or acknowledgment
on this Earth.
Trending topics
of the day
could not take stock of my
demise.
Shallow conversations
sit on barstools
put off
for eternity.
They showed me love
by suggesting
“change”.
I show them
love
is coming back
to earth
and lying with their putrid
bodies
against my will.
Sep 2, 2012
Sep 2, 2012 at 5:10 PM UTC
Is there something that can lift my bitterness away?
Can it free me of my lingering wrath?
Or help my throbbing heart to laugh?
Or empty my mind of loathsome?
Evaporating the wholesome grief I had swallowed in my hippocampus.
Yet,
God has granted this gift to our hearts.
So,
Why don't we perceive life as bliss?
Oh, Flourishing Forgiveness!
How I longed to taste your fragrance!
To obscure my grief-stricken heart with your warm radiance.
Enter the teary eyes, O Forgiveness, with your gleaming light!
Heal the grudges that make our lives tight.
Help us flip the decrepit pages.
And abandon our grimaces.
Apr 13, 2021
Apr 13, 2021 at 7:15 AM UTC
I sat there staring at her from across the table
as we shared yet another quiet meal together,
observations buzzing around in my already crowded mind.
Her face looked clean and resheshed,
her hair soft and coifed and freshly washed,
her white gloves unstained and clamped snuggly
around her slender arms.
Would she noticed my threadbare coat,
the circles underneath my tired eyes,
the cloth cap that used to sit upon my head?
Was I truly good enough for her?
Her smile said yes, but the condescending
grimaces on the faces of her parents upstairs said
no.
I didn’t need to see them to know that they were there.
I just knew it. I just knew.
How discouraging.
I looked at her, watching her silently from across the table,
eating with one hand
and fumbling the lump in my pocket,
running my fingers over it,
meditating whether or not I was foolish enough
to claim her,
whether or not I was selfish enough
to want her to be mine.
I was a narcissist to even think of it.
What would her parents say?
I bit my lip and pulled the parcel out,
summoning her attention toward my hand,
eyes glowing with curiosity and anticipation.
I stood up, but paused.
Just say “Will you marry me?”
It’s that easy. Only four words. Just say it!
As I opened the box with numb fingers,
I began to stutter the words,
like my humble tongue had been enchanted with some
kind of curse.
Cowardice.
I slid the parcel back into my pocket,
having been defeated without even having fought.
The look in her eyes shifted and it took me a moment
to fully process what was going through my
beloved’s head.
As she slowly returned to her meal,
I recognized it as disappointment.
Somehow, the feeling was mutual.
Jan 7, 2011
Jan 7, 2011 at 11:36 AM UTC
Here we lie, tangled in
Each other, yet apart
My eyes focus, I track across
Your face, this room, these clothes
So known and yet as blurred
As the graphics on your shirt
I count your eyelashes
As though they are rosary beads,
And try to find you hidden
In their shells
I see you, but don't know you.
Bittersweet memories
Crash and break around me;
I lose you in their depths
Two pairs of lips in a blind dance
I barely follow.
Disgust and want fight over me,
Love lost in waves of apathy
Hormonal needs are met by hands
Ill-conceived kisses greet them-
Breath is caught too quickly
And my desperate searching fails.
Your mask grimaces. You smile,
I’m blank, and pale and still.
My mind and soul are smothered
By dark polluted thoughts
And when it's over, it's not finished;
You study my face for clues
While I trace the etchings of my skin
And yearn for clean release
It's not you, it's me.
It's not you, and it's not me either,
This room is not your room.
I drift, unanchored, unresponsive
Too tired to understand
So I silently indulge
You in complicity
And although our bodies join
We both miss our connection
My mind has turned the one I love
Into a stranger.
Dec 4, 2016
Dec 4, 2016 at 3:28 PM UTC