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TC Jun 2013
freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.

smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey,

if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,

that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.
Craig Verlin Dec 2013
you can jump from
swing to swing
when you know the
safety net is there
all bottled up
in highways and
happy hours
long drives through
painted lines
and exit signs
long nights spent
swinging out
as far as you can
above that safety net
picking poison
from a stainless
steel spoon
and long mornings
spent picking up the
shards of a life
that longed to be
left behind
on the road
mile markers like handholds
climbing you farther and
farther up the mountain
closed eyes keep you far from home
rolled back in escape
those painted lines
those six lanes
seventy five miles
an hour toward everything
another spoonful
another baggie
another mile
keep me from thinking
keep me from feeling
keep me from the truth
all these safety nets
saving me from myself
another night
another fight
working futiliy to
keep that hand
tighter and tighter
around my throat
Holly Salvatore Dec 2012
Molasses is
The most red
The most gold
The most vibrant
Least cold
Fall of my life
And it’s a new ****
Maybe he wears a trucker hat
Or maybe he wears bibs
Maybe he’ll be some dark horse
New candidate
I don’t know yet
He could be one of these
Over mountain men
Filtering through the woods
Appearing in the hills
Ghosts of Hatfields past
Fur on their faces
Instead of skin
Strong and sturdy
Growing up from the ground
Like the cane we’re cutting
Down
And it ain’t about money
Out here in God’s country
We’re just willing and
Able
Enjoying the rich soil
And machetes
Carving calluses
While the sugar’s pressing
Staining, straining
Green and sweet
Skimming, boiling, browning
Finally draining
Into glistening mason jars
The day is going dark
Sail away ladies
Sail away
And say darling say
Playing banjo
In a moonshine-induced
Hallucination
Till all the bread is gone
The molasses gets carted off
And now it’s full dark
The spooks come out
All the wicked witches
Spitting hairballs
At their victims
That thing making noise
Moving in the bushes
Might be Matt Kinneman
Tells me I’m a good woman
I’m a human wall
And my pigtails make good handholds
When someone needs to reach his knife
The mountains grow
Apart at night
And the hollers pull us in
Molasses tastes like being
Home again
For Lou
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2014
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




a little straight slip of a thing,
red, a quartier inch wide,
red, a quartier inch thin,
suggestive, inquisitive,
a political and philosophical,
lovely provocation to conjecture

as if it were a colored arrow,
pointing strangely down,
instead of up,
to the next handhold
on a rock climbing wall,
in this case,
handholds on a
woman's body

this way,
follow me,
to the barricades!
a tourist mapped-path to follow,
visit the glories of the republic,^
and the charming Quartier Latin!

entrap and entice,
the eyes willful blinded,
taken away to thoughtful solitary,
on-one-side-only,
does the
bra strap
conveniently,
consciously,
haphazardly,
(yes, that's it,
a hazard,)
invitingly, speaks to,
looks to me,
inquiring will you vote,
RSVP to red?

as if a line of lipstick on the body drawn,
the directive points,
this way, perhaps,
always, just perhaps,
this way tourist,
to the dome of the pantheon,
where the statutes
are the course,
or perhaps
disguised, well-placed, statuesque, (ha!),
improvised explosive devices,
purposely presented,
needy for a desired
psychological high impact detonation

If
that is its purpose
under heaven,
under sweater,
under halter,
under cutoff gym top,
under liberty,
to tempt and remove
the blindfold from the womanly scales of
under justice
to tilt him favorably one way

If
it, is theater,
I, the audience

then whatever is on stage,
(Ibsen's Doll House, ironie délicieuse)
is a failed distraction, naught to naughty,
to no avail,
his eyes fastened, stapled wide
to the quarter inch thin
red path
from her slender shoulder,
leading, stepping him ****** down to
his I-magination,
for which unknowingly,
he, ticket purchased,
months ago for
two hours and one intermission

He must go again,
the show was
superbly acted,
for so the reviews said,
Ibsen's play,
"an unremitting portrayal of the suffering of a women"





^republic ~ a state in which the power rests in the body,
of those entitled to vote, exercised by their representatives, their eyes, chosen directly by and for them.
A synthesis, a hybrid of recent actual adventures and thoughts in, on and about Ibsen's Doll House, rock climbing, Paris, and the exposed solitary bra strap, not in that order.
Thera Lance Jun 2020
It’s a tall order
Sloping miles above my head in loose handholds
That crumble to gravel at my touch,
Rolling under my feet sliding back
Further than I can crawl forward.
It hurts in scraped palms
And hearts of my own both beating
In and out of my chest.
My knees tremble at the eternity above my head.
But the view,
The sun unhindered by Earthly clouds,
The stars that I had lost sight of
Make this treacherous climb worth all the pain
Of one foolish enough to fall off the mountain the first time.
TC Mar 2014
(I. Summer ‘ 13)

Freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.

Smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey—

if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,

that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.

(II. Fall ’13)

Spines and ribs
don’t do it justice
you raptured me
both ways to Sunday,
built me up to shatter jaws,
car windows—me
bar stool battered,
you my perfect carpenter,
smile with wooden teeth
(you made them yourself)
so stain me the color of
cherry trees
and unbliss my empty spine.

(III. Winter ’13)

Mildew clutched tight,
hollow-*****, manic thrusting,
marionette-faced, barrow-lunged,
nails to the bone-gristle,
lips raw with spit-polish,
redacted eyes, redacted eyes--
we are palpable creatures,
transient drifters of soulspeck,
one unraveling the other constructing,
sallow truth would dissolve skin.
founder a self, rusty copper
with adamantine eyes,
steel core unbroken by absence,
drown in opposite directions,
oceanwater salve, yes
calloused tongues jostle,
ribbed in salt and rust.

Unlaced corset,
striped sweater,
grunged trainline veins
run on endlessly,
a clock,
abandoned in the middle,
I think once
it very much mattered.
Jamie Oct 2017
And it's moments like these
where you stop moving and the world
spins
And your body feels so heavy
like rocks, like mountains,
like the whole world is pushing down
like you're drowning
in gravity
like none of the rules of physics apply
And it's like quicksand
there's no bottom to the pit
you've dug
and no ladder, no stairway, no handholds
you're falling
And you feel like you can barely breathe
barely blink
barely live
Depression isn't something cool
not a fad
or a trend
it's a sentence
a death sentence
and I don't know whether or not I can lift it
because somedays,
like today,
it's just too heavy
david badgerow Oct 2011
I've suffered in the throes
of writer's block for seven sordid days
I've spent the wordless week wandering in a silent daze
I tried to pick the lock to lift the fog and haze
But the words were stacked against me backed into their dark caves
They never left me entirely they were cold and huddled together
in the sticky-damp attic of my mind mumbling themselves chanting in time
I thought the ***** would loosen their fearful grip on reality
but the words proved to be a stubborn people
singing We Shall Overcome while hovering
behind my whiskey-drenched eyes
I tried jumping up and down up and down
nightly to rattle one word loose
Just a lonely word a sick child of a word
the one with the least hand strength and the most fierce imagination
but even this word proved thick with endurance
vitality perserverance and clung tightly to his handholds
Any attempt to moisten my palate with the
smooth syrupy texture of a word
was met with bitter reluctance by my parasitic tongue
as if a mountain man were holding a red-hot iron
inches away from my bread hole
There they clung with surpirising tenacity
on the steep cliffs of my inner skull
Some of them proved hungry to be spoken
but the sacred few I managed to twist into an
audible figurine balloon were useless and elastic
Words like **** and **** were flowing like ichorous
from the aperture in the front of my face
They dangled and then I broke free.
Amelia Jo Anne Jan 2014
If there is anything I need from you, it is waking me up with a kiss & a cup of black coffee, offering your arms so I can hide my face when I blush, to think my eccentricities are endearing, to simply hold me when I shudder often, to know I don't always need you to have the right thing to say: I just need you. My kiss is wild abandonment; my mind turns off & all I know is what your lips want from mine & how your body demands & will receive my own. I hope  you won't turn away when you see I'll easily become any color you hint I should be. I'm at a loss that something so moldable could have any handholds to grasp.

hair like singed chestnuts, embers still alight. eyes full of moss & earth. skin as speckled sand. your nose is crooked & you remind me of a bird, flighty yet focused. I have never seen a bird out of touch with the moment; whatever is in front of him is his attention's duty, & you are no exception. if you only knew how I felt to be the duty of your attention.

the way you dug through your handbag, set on your lap... I smiled because it looked like you were peering into wonderland's entrance, contained inside your purse. your navy stilettos made you an auburn giant, tall & wafer thin. I want to take a bite. xo. Sophia.
reply to earlier poem "Josephine"

http://imma-duck.deviantart.com/
Ella Gwen Jul 2015
I am sandpaper
longing frictions heat.

To grow both fat and
weary, sloughing
away your skin.

See what is strength
suckered and sickly
is set
to diminish.

But paper handholds,
why so dusty?

You aim for ignorance,
blooded hands to tease
simply tremor.

Yes, each whisper
charms so sweetly,

sweetly rough
against your grain.
Juliana Jun 2012
Aluminum tigers prowl on power line borders
Freudian slips melt,
eating at handholds
Borrowed garbage is sun washed to the shell.
These pretty monsters make their way across the city,
weaving through wet newspapers from last Sunday,
rolling over the urban flowers with seconds to spare.
They are confined to streetlights by night,
trapped with us during the day.
When it rains, water drips inside and out
the windows fog,
an attempt to keep the rain out.
They pass with a mechanical melody,
the sigh of the sun on their backs.
They are the eyes and the ears of the city,
echoes of rumors.
Everything is carefully worked out,
like a poorly played game of Tetris.
They are the lines that connect me to you.
Aiden Williams Aug 2013
Miyagi

Deep inside the recesses of my mind,
My many thoughts lay dormant  --
Unwilling to be heard;
My precious thoughts, they're blurred.
Numb to reality,
Gums hit with a needle.
My feelings I cannot express,
My words they find no footing,
A limitless climb of rhythm and rhyme,
Where a handhold at one means to elevate my purpose,
And a handhold at two means to obscure my view,
Of not just the handholds, shrouded by fog
But of the view of the mountain, hidden by the gods.

Self protected thoughts within a shrine, within a castle, never to be revered, never to be revealed.
kaija eighty Feb 2010
dynamic movement

collar bones acting as natural handholds
i read my names from your lips--- agiocochook

lumps of red ochre stain marble boulders
text is only fifteen feet from the ground
Kendall Seers Jun 2017
Hello cousin
Do you remember me?
I held you
and played peek-a-boo
then let you walk around the room
grabbing at ham that was placed strategically.
Sticky fingers would reach for stickier handholds
you would balance eating with one hand
and staying upright with the other.
Eyes wide and mouth wider,
as fistful following fistful of your favourite food would fold
and be consumed with delight and achievement.
Your eyes had stars in them.
Dear cousin,
Don’t lose those stars.
Angel Monroe Feb 2013
I want to make love to your 3 am self
Smother your doubts with kisses
Caress the memories of your high school embarrassments
(You can be certain I wouldn’t
Tease at your insecurities)
But I’d pull on the place in your mind
That holds your half-remembered drunken nights
Gently hold the time you scraped your knees
In third grade
When nobody helped you up
I’d breathe over the cracks in your
Broken sense of belonging
Cover myself with your loneliness
And hitch a ride to
The first time a girl put her tongue in your mouth
(You said she tasted like hot chocolate
And sweat that was probably yours)
I’d carve us a hole in between your ribs
Where we could hide with
Our impending senses of doom
And I’d scale your mountains
Till I have left handholds
Etched into the side of your peaks
(I’d let you see my scary thoughts, too
Only if you promised me you’d check under the bed
Before we turned out the lights)
What happens when there's too  much?
Too much for your mind to handle?
It's all a mess up there,
Everything running faster than they should...

And you, yes you...
Trying to grip the handholds of the slick walls...
Of the well that is your mind...
Of your very consciousness.

Falling, drowning in your overpowering,
Overwhelming,
Irrepressible
Abstractness of your own human mind....

I'll tell you what happens....

*Art
JC Lucas Oct 2013
A chasm stretches itself before me.
And I will cross it
But it is not so simple as that even
I will make it so that no-one will have to cross it ever again.
Casting a chain from my side, I find a hold on the other
I swing to it
Then I begin to dig
Digging deep into the earth I pull the chain behind me
Together, we emerge from the side of the cliff I just clambered across
I pull at the knots I have tied for handholds
I pull with all the force I can bear
The ground shakes and I have slack
I toss the remainder of what I have to the top of the opposing cliff
And shimmy across it.
Reaching the fallen end, I begin digging anew
I emerge after tunneling once again
And
Heave
With everything I was born with
With all of the matter that comprises my feeble,
Fragile
Human
Frame;
Nay, with
All
That I am.
The opposing side of the chasm shakes
It groans in the protest of a thousand-year sleep
It presses even against me
But I pull it all the same
Inches
Closer
And with it a length of chain
Which I use to throw to the opposing side
Which I use to climb
Which I use to pull
Which I use to throw
Which I use to climb
Which I use to pull
Which I use to stitch this colossal divide back together
With all that I am I am pulling these two opposing forces
And there is
NOTHING
That will stop me
From burrowing into the ground
And pulling these earthen demons
This great sleeping wound
Together
I will mend this
Or I will
die
trying.
James Jarrett Apr 2014
I stood upon a mountain top and breathed the

ethereal air and watched the lofty dreams of

men, a shimmering misty veil. And upon the

the cold uncaring winds I heard their rising

prayers. Cries of mourning, admonishment, , joy

and fear, sailing upwards into the heavens

to be swallowed up by the billowing clouds.

Again I listened and 'lo came the voices of

insanity, a multitude of babble, swirling and

flickering like a grey pallor of smoke on

fire driven wings.And here in this place

gathered all the hopes and dreams and

despairs of men.Cold and bitter but with the

radiant sun shining brightly on them.And I

knew surely that upon these immortal granite

peaks, that men struggled upwards, gasping,

grasping for handholds, sweating, swearing,

falling, groping, rising, packed with all their

livelihood upon their backs, reaching ever

for the snow covered summit.
Heather Butler Oct 2010
Handholds placed at random
and footholds where my hands should go.
Down below, the bored crowd waiting its turn
and above, a spinning red light awaiting the bell.
Halfway up and I've realized
I never learned how to rock climb anyway.
Heather Butler; 2010
Jane Doe Jul 2014
he said to me,
and I put my head on his sternum.

A tight skin drum,
crepe over bones.
He had a man's hands but a boy's chest.

To say I only loved him anyway is an injustice.

He had a boy's chest with notches,
a ladder of rib and shoulder blades.
Divots and handholds,
He could be climbed.

And so I did.

I spend most of my time alone
he said to me,
and I slid my hand under his shirt.

You're a great man, I whispered onto his stomach,
a mighty oak,

my wisp of grass.
Jake Conner Dec 2013
Humans are eighty percent water, we are

fluid.

Our thoughts and behaviors can only be expected to be equally so, we can’t be expected to know who we are if it changes in every heartbeat. And we can fight the current with all our might, and act like we always know wrong from right but we are fluid, and our virtues are like liquid, slipping through our firmly grasped handholds like the tears of an immoral god.
Zane Gorham Oct 2017
The cohesive forces that keep my heart afloat are stretched to their limit.
The blood in my veins is so thin the cells separate and I phase through into the cracks of a broken sidewalk.
So tall and sharp are the walls of this crevice.  
No matter how jagged the surface the handholds loosen and crumble to dust in my clenched fists.

They say rock bottom makes for a good foundation upon which to grow.
But the rain that beats down on my head erodes the stone and I fall further than ever before.
I swim to the surface for breath but its late in the year and the rain is cold.
Floating there shivering and shaking, my blood thins again and I slide down into the darkness.
Arms spread sinking deeper and deeper, the air bubbles trapped in the stone release and brush my skin as they speed around the contours of my flesh finding the quickest path to freedom, to happiness.

A few outstretched arms reach down to pull me back into the sun.
My skin is so cold their palms freeze to my body and I pull them down with me a distance.
Eventually they cut themselves free but I took their hands.
I kept a part of them with me on my great descent, it was not my intent.
As I lay on the hard seafloor I can see their feint scorned faces staring at me through the warped wavy surface, grasping their severed limbs.
I'm sorry.
For me feelings are things best buried lest I bring someone down with me. Avoid the plague of emotion.
I hate that I still think of you-

My brain still lingers onto
yesterdays
and handholds
that never existed.

I hate that I still look for you
in the crowds of people,
and empty hallways
hoping that maybe
when our eyes meet
your heart would remember me
and skip a beat

I hate that my words still
get tangled in my mouth
because
even though I've tried to convince myself
that I am so very angry with you,
the tiniest bits of me still wish that you
cared enough about me
to be mad at me too...

I hate that every time I hear your name,
the little hairs on my arms shoot up
all alert and angsty
in the the hopes
that maybe one day you will appear
from your hiding spot

unless its me that you are hiding from?

Everybody says that you are no good for me
That I deserve someone who sees me:

I hate that I know that
But I chose to ignore it
And now I have to
pretend to hold it together
while you get to walk around
unscathed
by the touch of our hands

You would think that
I would have stopped waiting by now,
for invitations I know will never arrive
and conversations that won’t ever start up again,
but I haven’t
and I hate that I haven’t,
I really do.

So go on leave then,
walk out the door for the last time-

But I won’t be here when you come again
because I can’t keep apologising
for mistakes that I haven’t made yet.

By: Lulwama K. Mulalu
This is not a poem. It is as an attempt to decipher all of my emotions and evaluate on the haphazardness of life events.
Sombro Jan 2015
I stood on the shore
Feeling the grainy pebbles in my shoes
Watching the Towers of Industry roll in the waves.
Great they were, the waters, not the towers,
For they blocked the sun and it was only seen
Through its glassy body, stabbed with the silhouette
Of those mighty towers.
We walked on together.

I climbed the cliffside
And met the Metal Birds
Crashed on their nests in the rock
Their thin skin dull and
Crumbled away making poor handholds.
Climbing up together, we saw the river.

We watched the sweet scent
Float away in palpable colour,
Leaving my head heavy and yellow
Like the flowers it carried with it.
Upland calls,
Upriver there is more to see.
We walk on together, always.
I dreamt this a long time ago, I was sad to wake up.
Michael Humbert Jun 2016
They're hidden away,
Forbidden sunsets, handholds
These pictures still hurt
Looked at a few photos I haven't seen in a year or two
R J Coman Dec 2018
It’s just a book. Nothing more.
A combination of translated words,
written upon tan paper
and bound in black leather.
It’s just a book, and yet somehow
it infects the minds of the readers,
twisting them until
there is nothing left inside their skulls,
nothing but its insidious whisperings.

“The Book of Dead Names”
is the title’s translation, as if to say
those whose times are recorded within
are among us no more.
Or perhaps the author,
so distraught by what he had learned,
sealed their existence away
in the shrine of forgetfulness
so that no others would suffer like him.

Just a book.
Just words.
Harmless, comforting letters, arranged
into patterns.

Yet, using only these written words,
the mad Arab has conveyed
our smallness in the immensity
of this our universe,
our insignificance alongside
the insatiable hunger of the stars.
He paid dearly for his prehension,
crumbling away like an ancient ruin
before the endless, shifting desert
that is the merciless chaos.

He is gone.
But his lexicon remains.
Just a book.

But such knowledge is not meant
for the fragile, breakable forms
of our species. To understand
our place in the universe,
and the immeasurable horrors
from which aegis of Ignorance
shields us, is to let go
of the handholds of sanity and drift
silently off into the void of enlightenment.

Yet still the book is read. Still humanity
turns its gaze to the stars,
and deep beneath the earth, searching
for confirmation of what we already know,
though our psyche may forbid
us to conceive of it.
Knowledge is not power. It is not freeing.
It is death. Death and ruin to all
who grasp the truth of this dark world.

It’s just a book.
A book penned by a man insane.
Rows of indecipherable words upon
innumerable pages, worn away by time.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die".
-H P Lovecraft
Robin Carretti Jun 2018
Two I apple they split not to sit ***-light lit
              Ms.Viviette by-set
              Her heart age-set
              A whole sip mug-wet

She is working on her salvation the whole-love
ready -set
The mission right body flow 2 beat-heat
the heart fit
Smiles a bit a mysterious ((AppleJack))
Wholeheartedly--------*
Comeback playing the Violin teacher's pet
The apple a day he was not amused
Didn't light my heart fuse

That weak heart 1/2 the right spot,
the heart love cure another shot
My whole life he deserted me red-tangy tea
That Madame Curie how she pleads
My heart stopped the Island he was falling
out of my coconut hands

How I smothered his love hands
On the Bali Hut, I felt smashed by his lips
of Applesauce scrumptious pork roast on
the internet hearts was the post
Hearts of the earthquake trembler

Biting the Apple
but what is____?
Inside the heart Sobriquet
The flower floret evergreen apple
Made her heart  selling her soul out
The intenseness of drinking
Cabernet Sauvignon In France
Mediterranian tropics
Louis Vuitton
Heart tripping sandals
In Italy, he read her heart waist handles
poem sonnet but his heart was
stronger and more of a fret

The heart of soul came with his challenge
The whole in his head like bullhorns
My hill-halfway their body
was torn my heart was spinning
my whole right side felt like a baby born
Nonstop crying she felt so high like a
banana split no timeshare
Not to share my heart
New York token of love fair

Not the whole heart of truth
Glory the half of the stick don't you
hate eating chocolate crunch muscles
Of the  barmen from  way out in Mars
All my heart stickers the best times
of my star was gone
Hearts Gym he wouldn't give one flicker
  The half timeout what a showdown
2- hearts almost shut down

Tasting his stick so woodsy
The trees were talking topsy-turvy
Please take some heart I'm curvier
My dreams have no demeanor
Putting 1/2 of an eyeliner I am not finished in
Angelic nymphs on my ceiling
   The bathroom hearts were dripping
My lips got separate like they
ran away walking I was curved
Last heart to play Atlantic City
We saw them again (Rodeway) fresh
**** wasn't so pretty the parade day
What an odd pair of card pitiful
Their bizarre smiles
21/2 heart shaped pills I'm home at last
My whole watermelon those black pits
she so lazy
always on her computer what a putz
He is the heartless man
of the felon, not the fancy hotel
of the Ritz Carlton
Having a girly blast

I phone lanes they won't last
Louis Lane Superhighway
Men met Evil Stan
The armory like the
American Band Stand
Singing hearts got a low hand
Burning fires surgery heart
The whole road hearts
were dripping coffee relapsing
But inseparable screws out,
Rocky road ice cream hugging
I see someone falling asleep
Hearts on the job line
You will get fired out ruled
There will be no time to be mine

Yummy body measurable
Love Doves*

Equally 2 planes,
meeting together
distance
Equal lush resistance
½ creature ******
Her better half is ****** pleasure
his be heart plate
Two loves hear pancakes syrup lightly
Seduced heart’s fit tightly
The other side needs, balance 2 guided

We're two loves, heart divided?
Gothic kiss darkens the doves
Two half’s of hearts, infinite flame
Red heart cheating, hot rod game
Uncertainty Guilty reassurance

Love handholds, heart allegiance
This is  all about people that have hearts so whoever doesn't you can go to another station  the love the pain something so heartless or be a heart and start over fresh we love the fresh smell of grass and champagne is waiting so please stay let us have fun our own way
Vindex Aug 2020
At first it was completely smooth
Absolutely without a groove
No holes, or nicks, or even dents
With just unscalable segments

This wall was large, sturdy, and strong
Keeping out half of everyone
It had been aged by all of time
Soon, it’s about to break the rhyme

Holes have begun to take form
Not by ice, water, wind, or storm
But by the people left outside
That have been locked away to hide

The brick is now crumbling
And the concrete blocks are tumbling
Handholds continue to show
The holes will continue to grow

Openings are more clear
Even to those on the wall’s rear
Soon, she will start to climb
And end the wall’s horrible crime

So with superhero strength
Along with her ranks
She is climbing up the brick wall
That will bring it to downfall

As she ascends
She starts to see the concrete ends
That have kept her family out
To seek life’s other route

As she reaches the top
The wall’s other people stop
Offer out a hand
So that she can stand

However, lots are still not up
They need to be brought up
They do not have her strength
They can not scale the wall’s length

So the wall must come down
And so everyone from town
Begins to chip away
So the wall won’t stay

It’s a lot of work
That continues to irk
But there are only boulders left
A good kind of theft

Of course there are some I didn’t talk about
That want the wall to continue to sprout
But they lack the power
They had on their tower

And so, the end is close
But there’s more work for those
Who try to make it small
So that she can climb the wall
Focus on the syllables in each line and stanza.
Juliana Aug 2021
I don’t know what I’m more terrified of:
Losing you or us never getting to meet.

Is it possible that after a hundred little memories,
the distracted handholds, and good morning kisses,
one day I won’t want to see your smile anymore?

Will the way I lose you be easy or hard?
Will I just walk away, a single tear swiped
from my cheek, the phantom feel of your fingers
flicking it away for me, or will it be a storm,
monstrous, will I recognize myself when we’re over?

Will it be my choice, or will fate pry us apart,
two pieces of plywood that should be glued,
not nailed. Is our loss a sacrifice
the world has to take to move on?

Or even worse, what if I never even learn your name.
I don’t want to be just two ships passing in the night.
I don’t want to touch your hand as you give me my coffee,
unaware that this hand belongs with mine.
I don’t want to meet your eyes in class,
pulling mine away without a second thought.

It’s one thing to be the person that was,
and another to be the people that never were.

— The End —