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Nick Strong Nov 2013
One Word

I have been searching all my life,
For one beautiful word;
Just one, through the corners of my mind,
Through the paperback acres,
To hardback libraries and now
That I’ve found it…
I realise it was there all along,
Simple and unassuming,
You.

    ©  Nick Strong 2014
Sara Jun 2018
I'm anti-attachment
and I cant help that
I'm a hardback book bound tight-
Always on the rewrite
every word placed right
because it's so important;
that you read me right;
that you see things right;
undress your mind for me
under the right light
because
God above
I don't want tears tonight
if I tell you it's not serious
or when I make you work or wait
it's obviously worth the work
and even more than worth your wait.
I don't like games
I play it straight;
you're either with it
or you ain't.
So if you do not like the blurb
don't bother reading my first page.
something other than love poetry for the lady in the back please
Nico Reznick Feb 2017
The grapes haven't spoiled yet, but
will now never be tasted.
The cut flowers
still have some perplexing
life in them.
Hanging from a
tree branch, I find a message
written by a dead woman.
There's a bookmark
embedded between the
pages of a hardback, like
Excalibur lodged in
stone, and I
cannot pull it out.
It hurts to walk along
certain corridors,
past certain doors, with
no one behind them
calling to me.  
The radio is tuned to Ghost FM,
and nobody with a pulse
gets airtime.  
Digital photographs of
fading analogue memories.

Yet still small shoots persist
in breaking through this dark, cold dirt, and
inexplicably blossoming.
In ten days, six people I know and care about have died.  Guess this is my way of processing that.
Sarina Apr 2013
I was told not to love another woman
I was told not to **** any man
so I thought about books when I laid in my hammock with lemonade
how I wanted one with a spine as long as mine
to finger in the dark of a moonless night, rather than myself
or any mermaid-girl who dripped with water like loose gemstones.

Her stories were what I would read and her body
I would imagine swimming to the harpsichord of a fantasy film song
effervescent, but never touched by anyone
even a fellow without blowfish thorns for fingernails
as smooth as hardback covers, as permanent as paperback pages.

And I grew up, and I did love another woman
and I did **** a man
but I still remember the mermaid-girl who had paper fins
and an all-consuming love for splashing ink like an ocean’s brine.
John Stevens Sep 2010
Author:  Kristen Stevens
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Words are wonderful
Current mood:  amused

So last year for Christmas I bought myself a dictionary. The Oxford American Dictionary to be exact. (psst it won out over the others because it maintains that "irregardless" is NOT a word and thus remains improper...hooray!) Anyway back to business. I was going to buy myself a thesaurus this year but didn't find one I liked. Oh, there was a pocket version that was entirely suitable but I didn't find a hardback one that really worked.

I really think people should have to read the dictionary then they might speak with more precision. One of my favorite sayings, and I am being facetious (sarcastic for those who don't know what "facetious" means), is "I think I unconsciously knew that." NO YOU DIDN'T! You can't unconsciously know anything; you can subconsciously know it. if you are unconscious you aren't thinking anything. It is your subconscious that prods you. sigh

On a semi-related topic, etymology is fascinating. I would be willing to bet most people don't know the roots of the word "unanimous". Un (one) and animus/anima (heart, soul, mind)  So it's not just about people simply agreeing about something but putting their soul into it as well. Handedness is very prejudicial. Grrr you rights!! All words dealing with being right-handed are good skilled (droit, derecho, recht, etc), but lefties all seem to derive from the Latin siniestra (sinister)  or a imply "clumsy". Just look at "ambidextrous" ~ right-handed on both sides. 'ambi'-both + 'dexter'-right (side note: no wonder Dexter is a serial killer) It's opposite word is "ambivalent" that means 'left handed on both sides'  I love learning new things.
So as a left handed-American I feel constantly belittled by the daily assault on the way I was born. I can't help it. Hahahaha. No, just kidding I'm tougher than that. I've learned to cope and no longer fear the right handed scissors.


Last interesting thing:
The French mer, Italian mar, Spanish mer, etc all derived from the Latin word mare ("sea"). Latin derived it from the Sanskrit MARU, which meant desert, sterile element where no vegetation grows. I am going to find out how lifeless desert became an ocean teeming with a plethora of life.
MARU would be also the origin of the latin morire (to die).


OK wow lot to read, congratulations if you stuck with it. reading skill has increased +5 Ah-hahahaha I couldn't resist. If your game you get it; if you don't, how sad. Oh wow look at the time why am I still awake? sighstupid insomnia
Portland Grace May 2013
In the way that samwise followed,
to the tower of cerith ungol
knowing that darkness awaited him
because of the love in his heart
I found my way
through a lighter journey
and a different kind of darkness,
And the way that merry decorated himself in heavy armor
to fight and defend those he loved
despite his size and lack of experience,
I found the strength to stand up,
for a less important cause,
for those that I loved as well.
I can find wisdom when I think to gandalfs struggle of truth,
and things that are worth sacrificing to find it
And when I am sad or scared,
I soothe my heart with thoughts of the peaceful shire
with it's shallow rivers and grassy hills
I love this place I have never seen.
Pieces of my heart were left between the pages of a dusty hardback trilogy,
I have always belonged to middle earth
JL Jan 2016
The girl in school
Who I think on
            often
    I write her poems
                 hardback textbook
        In between paragraphs
                     I lick my finger
turning the page
If I could only tell you
How the secret pencil marks I leave
                   Make me want to scream
She smells so boss
           Like grape bubblegum
                  
I Wrote her tonight
              Slipped the folded note   into her  pocket
        
My heart skips
         As she sits in Economics
Paper cut red
When she found and read
                   The wide rule page
Terry Collett Jan 2013
In your granddad’s bookcase
was a book you liked
with a blue hardback cover
with German warplane

pictures in it
and you loved to study
the photographs
even though

the words
were too big
or long
for you to read

and on that Sunday
you sat
while the parents talked
and studied

the bookcase
hoping your granddad
would get it out for you
if he saw you

looking that way
long enough
but the parents talked
and the grandparents

listened or talked too
and the book stayed put
in the bookcase
and you stared

and counted the books
on either side
taking in
the various colours

and sizes
on the shelves above
and below
and how neat

they were placed
and tidy
and well polished
it all was

but the book
kind of attracted you
with its German warplanes
with the Swastikas

on the wings and sides
and some pictures
had Spitfires
and Lancaster bombers

with red white and blue
on the sides and wings
but that Sunday
Granddad didn’t

get out the book
and hand it to you.
mark john junor Jan 2014
the lights from the street below
shine weakly into the silent room
she lay in the tangled sheets
staring off into the night
a television set oddly turned to face the wall flickers while
its low volume garbles its incessant whispered babbling
like some deranged man talking to himself
the scents of ******* thick in the air
there is a tray of food gathering dust
a bottle of wine untouched
she is motionless
the **** skin of her face glistens in the
shifting shadows of her silent thoughts

i sit in the hardback chair
with difficult breathing apparatus trailing my mental footsteps
i tread carefully through the narrow dark wood
of her languid eye with small talk
laying out a feast of interesting topics
she is not hungry

a storm flashes lightening far out to sea
images come to the mind of a ship chasing the dawn
desperate to break free of the natures fury
and the captain at the helm
heroic figure standing fast against the odds
holding to the wheel and shouting to all hands
the rain falling in tangled sheets
focus returns to the room
she is falling motionless entangled in the beds sheets
i am the brave helmsman standing fast
this ship has already sunk

daylight appeases the minds of the
littered minefield of broken and bent on the bedroom floor
so they now allow begrudging paths safely to be seen
her eyes have closed
sleep
the dust encrusted food and the stale wine
make a feast for the birds who's small wing fluttering
are the only sound
the sun's heavy light falls in a narrow shaft
that glows against the dark wood background
i slowly ease my hand into its warmth
like a swimmer testing the waters
i dive in
and my soul swims the shaft of light
up to the bright world
leaving this place of shadows
and this woman of darker dreams

she awakens hours later
to find me laying on the floor with one hand extended out to
where the sun once held sway
laying there wrapped in my dreams of liquid light
dreaming of the day just past
and the days to come
she lay next to me
and cups me in her arms
while weak lights from the street below
shine up into our quiet room
Richard Riddle Jul 2016
Took a trip to the private storage facility to "**** out" unnecessary and useless "stuff" in order to replace it with newer unnecessary and useless stuff.The problem I ran into was I couldn't find that "box of unnecessary and useless stuff!"
"Oh, there were items I hadn't looked at in a long time, but the instant visions of times past that was presented to me with memories forever embedded, made me realize the importance, and impact, of keeping them. Like that mobile, that contraption of various dangling items attached to the side of our sons crib (who is now 47 by the way)  in a losing battle to keep him quiet.
There is an "Etch-a-Sketch", a favorite item of parents everywhere, especially when going on  a motor trip, first pair of shoes, not 'bronzed', but kept in good condition, for he grew so fast, there wasn't enough time to wear them out before outgrowing them(this went on forever). You get the idea. Essays, written by my wife, Karen, during her high school and college years, along with items she purchased at various truck stops during our travels. Greeting cards from various people, now deceased, hardback and paperback books, long out of print, but reminders of times past.
I realized I was sitting among items of an old, dusty museum. "Priceless" artifacts they are, and hopefully, some day, I will look down, not up, and see my grandchidren rustling through these same boxes, guarding those "relics of ancient days."

copyright: r riddle 07-11-2016
Accidentally deleted this a few weeks ago and then forgot about it, until this morning.
mEb Jun 2010
In a quasimodo feat of not only myself but my inner sanctums. I’m in a shelter. A secluded shelter far from mankind. The bells rich **** spreads across a cold Philidelphia. I hide from the tourniquets of our kingdom. Hordes of documented secrets filibustering the excutivies of a blood famished nation. Where could a turning point conspire? Not here. Not there. No where vast of what only we know. How many times have you performed German heischen styles upon what has happened? Dialect informative, all lauguages and ethinicities could tell you. Corruption. Progestational hormones of all man and woman get the gist of secrecy, but why inquire it onworth still. Atomic bombs whiping out ten times the population of our fragile pathetic planet.

An ice rendered telescope at zero gravity with the script filled micro chips of new findings amongst our universe. This was an immediate spawn of hope towards who we are. At least for the sake of another life form, they would configure an easier derogatory and denigrating outlook of a human lifestyle. Maybe they could relate, maybe they would have emmerged in trade as our ancestors of the past 1,000 years and before had. With us, it would have been magnificent for the future to come. This era though, the only significance we know collides with a destruction of a super-catastrophic function that has been reformed thus grouwan. Grouwan, the origin of grow, growing or to increase in size, building up just as the magmata composes its liquid matter within the Earth’s crust into lava. Igneous rocks now form. Reaching the Alps. Frozen, a complete opposite of what they were once spawned from.

Still intact, an ice rendered telescope photographing galaxies not seen by a naked eye. They called it, “The Orbiting Gaurdian”, while we remained demonic and caught in ignorant reality conflicts. In small groups spread across the lands, combined as one, we are still undeniably small. I built this shelter with my own two hands knowing what would come, I wanted to overcome. Philidelpia was still so cold, very odd, quite eerie for a patriot New England city. Rot, Weib, und Blau. Rodt, Hvitt, og blatt. Shiro aka to ao. From Germany, to Norway, to the super advanced technologic Japan, they all recognize red, white, and blue. Maybe we are a leading nation, but who honestly gives a ****. All nation’s combined, worlds away, a lone planet of democracy. Darkness. The abcense of light above me, directly. No two-dimensional representation of an outline of any body form. No cutout or configurational drawing with a sun glimmering backrounded setting. We are inkligs with no hint of suggestion in the sea of blackness above. If you could have gone so far back in time though, you would have found a blackned quality on the most transparent and pellucid of days.

I race through my brain waves wondering if this concealment was completely ignorant. Was it full of extreme folly? Asininity? Ineptitude? I pondered the synonyms of stupidity. I was ravished to wonder if my last thoughts would be a mind race of the lacking self-esteem I hold. Sudden deaf struck. I no longer heard shrills of humanity above. I was deprived of my sense of hearing. Intimidated to look upward, I could not manage being deprived of sight as well.

What were those dangling seconds that I could not hear?

Were they little fragments of time that I could not notice near?

They stabbed at the back of my skull to leave this sheltered hole.

I find humor in how my poetry is merely past time entries that mean nothing. They once had been published, but now at the least, they did not mean a thing. I wish them to burn long and hard, fighting. Hardback covers and dusty library shelves vanishing in this dark mess of a world.

Pain, sharp municiple pain casted into my skin. Into my lungs, my contaminated, sickened lungs that had ciggarettes by the thousands over the years. I had started as a child. A stubborn twelve year old child wanting to experience any drug my hands could get a hold of. I did too, I don’t regret it, and I dont feel remorse from my actions and those many high nights when I could not walk or stand. I felt weary, weak, helpless and finished. My eyes, my mind, my pulse, my body, my so called soul, asleep or dead?
Tim Knight Feb 2014
You're a hardback book:
the coffee table photography type that
sits awaiting the agreeable eyes
of someone who likes what is inside.

Can I fall through into your black and white world
and stay there warm until the history books
catch up with me?

Because if I don't I fear I'll forget your face
and if you're ever on a shelf, with a Waterstones
recommendation below, and I fail to notice you
how can I ever learn again?
from >>> coffeeshoppoems.com
It was a Wednesday, the most uninteresting of days. You had decided to go out for a walk to the local downtown thrift store. It was hot like the womb, and you needed something to do. When a arrived you see a bin, "ten cent books" it reads. Looking in it you are immediately drawn to the newest hardback book in the bin. It seems to be an autobiography. "You wouldn't want that," the cashier says, "no one seems to understand it." You are intrigued as to why. The page turns to 127 and you see something unexpected. Letters so far apart and strung together in the absent white sheet. You wonder if this is some kind of abstract/alt literature garbage those younger are into these days. Turning back over to the cover you see clearly, "myself and no one else" written in a child like sprawl. The authors name is simply bannered across the bottom in the same fashion. The book is dark blue and heavy- even though it looks the opposite. You are drawn into this book immediately, throw ten cents on the counter- and leave. Scanning pages on the way home, interpreting and decoding, like it was your first Nancy Drew novel all over again. The book whispers to you it's secrets. By the time you have arrived at your home you seem to begin to understand, yet you begin to deconstruct. Beyond page 127 was page 128 and page 129, and on and on they went. No real content or words were written, only ideas. The mystery of page 127 and all the other 127s had not seem to unfold itself to you. Maybe beginning at page one would help, you say as you flip again to the cover page. The book exhaled into you as the pages creaked. The first pages only had pictures of the universe and galaxies in black and white. This continued for many pages and stopped when the spaces began. the words began to unfold as you read closely, a few read "ideas" by page 80. There were a few key words, "universe" "idea" "self" "myself" "womb" "embryo." You felt a silent agreement with the book. Could one simply sum up their life into a few measly pages? People do not even develop a sense of self until they are a few months old. Time is but a concept, people think it moves so quickly because they simply become accustomed to it. As they develop and grow this becomes apparent, "life is short," but that is never the case. People start out as ideas, is that when the concept of life starts? You are not alive but you are living as an idea. This is as  opposed to conception as a beginning point. Or is it that you are always simply living, because matter cannot be created nor destroyed. You were simply rearranged to create a breathing body. The author and many authors were forever existing, their page 127 was all the same. Ideas within a universe. Ideas within an omnivores. Ever expanding. Their stories never end, because people will simply rearrange and expand as something new. The book had caused you to think, maybe it was all pretentious nonsense- or maybe something else. Suddenly it was midnight. You were so enthralled and intrigued by the half empty pages time had beaten you in it's own game. You placed the book down and decided to simply think about it later.  Because there is always more time.
brandon nagley Jun 2015
As i layed down on the old shoe polish porch
At the bottom
Where the river rests

I felt armistice
The slight whisp of Chinook camphene...

Loaded with caffeine
Lost in a dream
Of what could be?

A camphor smooch I seeketh to wake to,
Camomile drunkenness,
A bagged ducat, that I can keep safe and unseen!!!

As she shalt fadge me
To badge me
As I grab her in a romanticism novel hardback!!!

Ourn bodies tightened
Secretion smacks
Deeply to be immersed!!!

A temple
A ladder to god
A church!!!

To serve another as angels
As ourn creator to fasten ourn spirits as knitted sweaters!!

The worse goes away
For with one all things to get better!!!

Homely in ourn mansion
Though not made of brick and dust
Created by will,fate, and trust

Consumed by ourn hacer el amor!!!(love-making)

A knight hood
Of stories
Thou wouldst tell thy children before bed!!!

Tis,
We are them!!!
Tis,
They are us!!!
Zoe Irvine Nov 2012
"Write?
Why would anyone read what I have to say?
What do I have to say?
Right?"

Wrong.

Write.

Write now.
Write long and hard
Think less about the effects
Talk less, walk more
Think more while you walk
Write more than you might
Talk only once it's written
And in the end
You may have penned
A book.

Look, it's not so much more difficult than that
And yes, there could then follow the drawn out process
Of approaching and preparing
Of reproaches and the potential for disparaging comments
No-one will understand you
Or your highly sensitive self.
It will all feel so much like too much
Until you're suddenly quite sure
Authordom is not for you
And you'll turn to leave
By the door which you hesitated to come in by

Shy and disbelieving
Except in your failings and faults
It's a shame you hadn't realised sooner, you think,
That your future as a checkout assistant
Was much more in-line with your ability
And in actual fact you could be
Much more happy
With a simple life -
Why! You'll be a wife!
And have kids and do dishes
And there'll be no more wishes
For fulfilling dreams and desires
At last, you will sigh with relief,
The future's set out
You can hang up your hat
Without too many hang-ups.

You're smiling inside at the thought
Of the life you'll lead almost entirely
In a cottage by the sea
Apron on, looking out of the window
At chickens and hills and the sky;
You'll be happiest baking a cake
Kids roaming free
Dogs by the fire
Husband a farmer (or maybe an artist?)
You'll start making a plan of your kitchen

When....
Mid-turn from the door
The miracle you wanted will occur
And you'll find yourself
3 months down the line
Feeling fine and confident
Hardback in hand
Almost unable to understand
What you were so worried about
Not a doubt in your mind any more
Sure you're sure!
What could be any clearer?
It's obvious all will be well
Can't you tell?

Then they'll ask you the question you'd love to avoid
'Any plans for another?'
And your stomach will leap through your mouth
Land on their paper-backed table
Leave you unable to breathe
Let alone speak
Weakly you'll smile
Wondering
While eyes search your face for an answer
How to place yourself back at the start
Of this endless adventure
With linguistic art

It will always begin again
Every success is impending return
To an uncertain situ
That will sit you back down
With a full head of nothing
And a full empty page
Of promises wishing to be filled
With the words that you feel
You've been told to say
That won’t go away
Tim Knight Feb 2016
One day our spines’ll tesselate under sage soft duvets as storms sweep across us and no one will cry;
not one noise shall slip from tongues
‘cos strength comes from keeping quiet
or carrying on.

You’re a now realised kindness that doesn’t know what breath is
or how the north circular works in festive rush hours home,
but I’ll kiss the answers upon your tender carbon tapered chest and hope the toner never runs low
(your dad would’ve handcrafted every thing he knew in semaphore if he’d have pulled through,
but you’ll learn in time, too, that time does not ruin fewer experiences than being).

I lean in. Whisper this (above) across your one body,
three eighths the size of a coffee table hardback book:
the result of patience pined for
that I mimed along to motherhood the best I could for nine months
and now, here, I lift the hood and work out what to do next       in this rush to settle down and sit,
sip until you snooze off into silence.
Here I carry you and do not notice the weight,
stare at the gape of you, my newly framed little one held in the palm of my hand,
squat full four pinter named after someone we knew.
You landed lunar surface side up,
smoothed new to the toes
and I wonder how I’ll meet you
I wonder how this goes.
from coffeeshoppoems.com
Steve D'Beard Jan 2013
I should've guessed
by the nondescript response
teenagers glazed
by 'proper' use of language;
'old-speak' as some would see it
yet to be blessed by a words prowess
fazed by more than 1 syllable
seems inconceivable
and yet text-speak sits,
or rather, should be, languish,
as a hybrid of our languages
prompts me to write this
out of plain literary anguish.

each year on birthdays
write a small poem or limerick
the momentary excitement of opening the card
is lapsed by reason
(it does not contain a £20 note)
the thought bubble denotes
they express some disdain
the speech bubble that follows
the spark in the brain
just another of Uncles gimmicks
lacking the imagination to invoke
something more personal
than a hardback book:
another 200 recipes
for the aspiring young cook

they implied they enjoyed lunchtimes at school
instead wanted an iPad or something
equally expensive and cool

So I try to embrace it
this thing they call urban
write something poetic in text-speak
the very premise of it
is somewhat disturbing
the infinite curve of learning
LOLs from actual LOLS;
the mobile language equivalent
of online voyeurs,
the posters of nonsense,
noobs and trolls

apparently a ROFL
is more-or-less as potent as ****
I scratch my head in wonder
text-speak is used by millions
to converse on a global scale
some how

Q: does SUM exist
(as in 'shut ur mouth' )
is that acceptable?

A: not yet cordially invited on the list
(its an actual word
doesn't count as an acronym)
Im told

the coal face of the lexicon:
indigestible
the steep learning curve:
unpredictable

by your 30s its automatically
re-classified:
Congratulations
You are now officially 'Old'

we are merely wordsmith pedestrians
lost in the tide of text-speak equestrians
jumping and leaping and rolling in SETE and S2R's
are we binned as an S4L, the Spam For Life?
(perhaps I haven't got that abbreviation quite right)

in the context of text-speak
they are suitably troll-like in their essence
forgive me dear teenager
I am but a
SNAG in your presence:

'Sensitive'
(on occasion)
'New
Age' and
'Grown-up'
(given the right persuasion)

the riposte would be SUYF!!
('Shut Up You Fool' - said like MR. T in A-Team)
STM and Spank The Monkey
apologise, SOZ, SRY and Apls
or something equally short,
snappy and funky

at this juncture
before the brain has a puncture
simply BBFN, lest I
BBS or BBIAB or BBIAF
[thankfully this isn't a test]

like WCA
(Who Cares Anyway)
but you'd remark WAI
(and thats I for Idiot)
let out a long distance sigh
wave the imaginary fist
at the youth of yesteryear

all you'd get back was
Wicked Evil Grin
(WEG) for a
Wild *** Guess
(WAG);
a WEG for a WAG
and a PDQ x 2

would be the sum parts of the conversation
between me and you

if language and words and meaning was lost
if acronyms and abbrieviations
in CAPS
was all that there was

*** smeared in ***
with APLS for the PMJI
TXT SPK has got me PML
when MHBFY and
M8s on a MOB crusade
AWOL and dizzy for the next API
MGB for your MF device
throw in some GALGAL logic
where GIGO will simply suffice
Warning: PAW and GJIAGDV
(where the latter is Volcano)
include your GF for some cuddly GBH
and some GHP if she says so

its T2Go
be positive with the T+
and all of that Text-Speak CUZ
I'll T2UL and T for your time,
I'll TAH on the whole TBC

next year i'll just slip in a £20 note
and simply write:
Happy Birthday
with LV
from me
I have a disdain for text-speak as a replacement for language but it seems the only way to converse with teenage cousins on mobile, so I wrote this in response to that.
Lizabeth Apr 2013
Hardback books, with spines that crack.
Something to hold on to.

New socks fresh from packaging,
that make the carpet feel like cloud.

Laughing by myself,
or with you.

Weak coffee that tastes like water,
but brings me to life.

Umbrellas because you never know,
you might need one.

Clean sheets against bare legs,
and damp hair on the pillowcase.

Mason jars with lemonade,
and headaches.
this one is going to be added to.
Dolly Partings Sep 2014
When I walk into a clothing store, i'm told I am a medium size
When I walk into a boutique, I am told I am fair, and sensitive skinned
When I walk into the salon, I'm told my hair needs a little extra strength

When I look in the mirror at my bare body, the beauty felt inside of me does not harmonize with my outside.
If books could talk, they would say the same.
Paperback, hardback, French fold, perfect bound, saddle stitch, case wrap, dust jacket.
I know because i've asked them.
They'd say; "I didn't come here to write my heart out, I came here to write it in",

I stand naked in the bathroom, counting the tiles on my body until the plug is blocked with everything I wish I could wash away.
My pores may be open, darling, but they are as wide as the valves in my tenacious heart, because they're breathing.
I can only apologise, the porcelian cracked as his blimp of a hand grabbed my impressionable face and told me no one would ever love me like he did, and how beautiful I looked when I cried.
My medium, tired hips will bare a child one day, and her medium, ripened hips will do the same.
I was poor the last time someone stole my heart, I haven't flown enough to lose all of my baggage yet, my insurance never covered those losses, but I won't pander to your altitude, because I am as worthy of love as any other woman.
I can fall into another's arms in a million pieces and still be seen as whole, after all, the universe only became the universe when it shattered into dust.
I wonder if i've spent most of my life as a welcome mat, and I often wonder how muddy my own feet are.
Sisterhood is far from suffrage.
My heart feels like a Macaw in a canary cage,
I can feel her words needling between my shoulder blades as she whispers of my failed marriage and how she heard he now lies with a younger model.
And now, I lay alone.
I'm wading through molasses,
Social events these days require the brace position, your words are electrical sockets and I am seventy percent water.
I line up sugar packets across the table like trenches as you become increasingly bitter with every sip of your black coffee.
My ribcage became monkey bars for your every word to hang on to for a second there, but your sound became muffled as I dreamt of a world where women sang together.
To the moon, to the stars, to mother earth, to each other, creating a united galaxy of warrior women equipped with hardened feet, joined at their callouses, but with honied hearts that would melt through their sisters fingers.
I dreamt of a world where women tell each other they are beautiful every day, due to one single feature we all obtain. Spirit.
I dreamt of a world where our medium waist bands meet the tips of our  brittle, fair hair and our sensitive skin is more than enough to touch the souls of every female ghost that ever felt lost in this world our gentle mother made.
Calling all warriors, there's a boat named Serenity leaving the shore in five minutes,
I hope to God they brought enough life rafts for us all on this ship.
I see you hiding beneath
Old shirts and memories
***** jeans and worn-out shoes
That have walked a saddening mile
Weakest armour of cloth
Ripped and torn by cruel adolescence
Cursed with hate or blessed with indifference
I see you in there

Surrounded by toys
Some broken, unneeded
I see you and I know that you want to play with them
But time seems to have withdrawn permission
Or maybe you're frightened
Of how happy they once made you
Reluctantly believing they will never again make you smile or laugh
For they have become little more than fodder for the garbage heap
You find yourself beneath

On the other side of the locked door
I bend to peek through the keyhole
Expecting no more than shadows on the wall
But I see you

I've watched you walk in...
(you didn't know I was there...sorry)
...and it broke my heart
To see how swiftly you ran to the door
To behold the look of relief on your face
That broke up and melted the death mask of grief
Saved by grace
When you stepped in and turned the lock
A beaten veteran getting off a plane, whose salvation is the tarmac beneath him
You kiss the ***** carpet and call this place "home"

"How can a man be born when he is old?
can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb, and be born?"
Behind a locked door
You found the answer
Discerning flesh from flesh and spirit from Spirit
From the crowded confines of  your mother's womb

I wanted so badly to see the look on your face when you emerged
Refreshed and ready to battle demons
Or downcast, crestfallen for another day
It would have been worth the waiting hours to bear witness
To the power of this basement haven
Alas, sleep was not as curious
I could not risk your discovering me
Where I was not meant to be
Fallen from my hands and knees
Best to settle for forbidden glimpses through a keyhole
Best you didn't know I'd stolen a tiny part of your soul

I see you there, hiding from the light
Books on shelves half read or dog-eared to the very ends
A hardback Bible, the binding cracked, it's pages would spill out on the floor if not for your curiosity
66 books held tightly in your grasp to hold them together
In order
Camus, King...Baldwin, Irving...tattered paperback
Koran, Augustine...Srimad Bhagavatam, L. Ron Hubbard...sturdy hardback, spines still cracking
Barnes & Noble books unnaturally pinched between mold smelling garage sale bargains and bulky Salvation Army bookends (Webster's Dictionary, Complete Works of Shakespeare, Bullfinch's Mythology, Asimov's Chronology of Science & Technology...anything thick and sturdy enough to squeeze in a row of lesser volumes)
I see all those books but I don't see you reading them
Still, I don't wonder why they are there

I only wonder of you
Why you lie like a skeleton
Beneath piles of junk

I only wonder how
You find comfort there
And not in the arms of the ones who love you
Syd Jul 2015
it's june.
your ninety-six year old grandmother wraps her shaking fingers around your hand.
she's dying.
the doctors say she won't make it through the day.
you and your family gather around her bed like crows anxiously circling something from above.
waiting.
your grandmother reaches for your high school year book: ninth grade.
your stomach knots up, and you're not sure why.
silently she flips through the pages with her free hand,
the only sound being that from the oxygen flowing through her cannula.
suddenly she gasps,
and it scares you half to death because you know that she's already far more than halfway there herself,
her clammy fingers clench tighter around yours as she points to a picture on page 57.
everyone in the room looks down at the floor,
as if it is suddenly fascinating,
but you stare at her photo as your grandmother cries and says
"she was the one I was hoping you'd end up with"

it's july.
your grandmother has been gone for one month but you can't get the words she last spoke to you out of your mind.
ninth grade.
high school seems like an eternity ago -
homecoming and prom and then graduation -
you did all of these incredible things together.
but it wasn't enough for you.

it's august.
most people your age will soon be returning to school,
nearing the end of their masters by now.
you can't help but to picture her, smiling for her student ID photo and shuffling through the narrow aisles of an enormous school's book store,
piling her arms full of anything with a hardback and a spine that she can get her little hands on,
books, books, so many **** books -
who the hell's going to hold all of those **** books for her? -
she loved to read.
she loved to write.
you remember the day her first book was published, how she cried for hours and smiled for days,
enthralled with the knowledge that she was now an author.
you watched her sign books, you watched them sign checks,
but you knew she couldn't have cared less about their money. she didn't want it.
you remember all she wanted was for people to read her book. you remember her hunched over her laptop,
constantly updating the website that kept track of how many copies she'd sold.
you remember her signing your book.
all she wanted was for you to read it.
you remember that you never did.

it's september.
you never went back to college.
without her, it just wasn't right for you.
but still, you find yourself camped outside of the university you know she now attends,
looking at every face that exists the building and hoping to god that this one is her.
you wait for an hour,
picturing with giddy excitement the moment your eyes will meet. although there's a crowd of a hundred other bumbling college students you are positive
her eyes will instantly be drawn to yours.
you wait two hours.
and suddenly,
she's there, you see her,
god, after all this time you see her;
and she's still so **** beautiful it nearly blows your mind. you never knew one person could contain so much beauty.
just as you're about to sprint and sweep her off her feet,
you stop dead in your tracks.
the fellow who politely held the door open for the girl
who you realize is in fact no longer a girl
but a woman,
the woman who you used to love,
he takes the books from her hands and wraps his free arm tightly around her waist -
you remember her waist, her hips, her belly button, all the skin you touched and kissed a million times over,
he's touching her now as if
there was never anyone else
before.
you watch although it kills you
because it's simply impossible to turn and look away.
he pushes her bangs - had she always had bangs? - behind her ears and kisses her for what feels like a forever of its own,
and she smiles.
she never takes her eyes away from him.
she doesn't even see you standing there.

it's october.
you drink now, because it's the only way to forget.
you drive yourself near insane wondering how you ever let the love of your life slip right through your undeserving fingers.
you always knew you didn't deserve her.
you just never thought she would ever think the same.

it's november,
but the days seem to run together now.
weeks go by without any attention from you,
and this doesn't matter.
nothing matters.
you lost her.
you remember the first time you ever saw her,
you were fourteen years old.
it was january, but you were wearing shorts. the first thing she ever said to you was "why are you wearing shorts? don't you know it's winter?"
and suddenly, you didnt know.
you didn't know anything,
you didnt know it was winter or monday or 2:52 p.m,
you couldn't tell the sun from the moon or red from blue or anything that didn't have to do with her.
you stood there and you didn't say a word, because you didn't know how to do that either.
but she smiled, and she laughed,
and the sound was enough
to carry you all the way to this day
where you stand drunk,
alone,
without her.
Patrick H Aug 2014
I.
Take a plane to San Francisco.
Drive north on 101 across the Bay Bridge,
Through the tunnel on Yerba Buena Island
past the frame houses of Oakland,
past the oil refinery that ignites the sky
past the dry, brown coastal hills,
which were emerald green just a month ago,
that unfold like a hardback novel
and flatten out into the valley.
Drive north on 80 until you get to 99
and keep driving north,
past orchards that line the road like soldiers bearing fruit
past vast fields filled with soy and sorghum
and the ancient dead volcano which breaks through
the flat earth without explanation or warning
and keep driving north,
Until you reach Chico.  

II.
You can get off at E. 1st Ave, but you’ll have to
double-back to Vallambrosa to get to the park.
Stop the car and walk across the foot bridge.
Over the creek, over the dam that creates the pool
named for the towering trees all around you.
There you will see a boy about to jump
into the cool creek water.
He is about 11 or 12 years old.
He will not see you.
He will not know how far you have traveled.
He is too absorbed by the sounds of the other children
Shouting and playing and the reassuring touch
of the warm sun
gently drying his wet skin.
He does not know
that this moment,
Exquisite and feather light,
Like a glass orb lit from beneath,
Will be locked inside a precious box,
and that precious box will be buried
deep within your gut,
And carried by you both,
For the rest of your lives.
Tim Knight Dec 2013
Then there's the the nurses in blue
who always knew that we knew
that the news wasn't good.

Then there's the patient, whom jaundice
is rolling the dice for them,
sat still, long and thin
in a bed pinned to the ward
like a to do list on a cork board,
but the only job for it to do
is wait to fill out the paper work.

Then there's the family in black
who always sat back when
the funeral guidance guy visited with his hardback leather-bound funeral pack.

Then there's the sight of my father's eyes so red,
my sister's cheeks swelling up like that and
witnessing my mother bind a broken book back together again.
from coffeeshoppoems.com
Kate May 2014
One roll of quarters on my desk
hoarded for a rainy day
two books with pages cut out
my failed attempt at art
three textbooks staring accusingly at me
you should be studying, they chant
four nail trimmers because its a compulsive habit
to stop my nails from cutting my hands when I make a fist
five vinyl figures of my favorite characters
giving my courage when I feel scared
Peter
Dean
Steve
Mike
Dany

six spoons
not sure about that one
seven bottles of paint
waiting until the urge hits
eight dvds
from lonely nights when the wifi doesn't work
nine half-filled notebooks
waiting for a finished story, or notes, or anything
ten hardback books
that I haven't read in years

my room
I don't know why I thought of this. Meh.
I sit in contemplation
trying to close my eyes
so I turn off the playstation
and drop my phone with a sigh.

Earlier, I tried to eat a pear
'cause fruit is healthy and stuff
but it was too hard for me not to care
it just wasn't ripe enough.

This show I've been obsessed with
and the manga after that
have busted that subconscious myth
that fiction has a lesser impact.

How long will I spend in the depths
of the fandom and content I find
accessible at my fingertips
and flooding through my mind?

When will I sense the ending
of this era of nights spent reading
headcanons, and content expanding
on the world on which I'm feeding?

Last night the latest chapter
was out on my mobile app
and I stumbled across it after
going to reread whatever was last.

It hit me like a ton of bricks
like the weight of hardback copies
of every scene the author depicts—
sent shock throughout my body.

A character who, before this day,
was invincible and proud
not unrivaled in his sway
but always drawing a crowd.

And then the last page caught me
and I could not look away
as tendrils from the enemy
cut through its raging prey

Too quick to be avoided
the hit was meant for another
but he knew he'd been appointed
as savior to his brother.

Taking a bullet for the one he abused
the one he had hated and cursed
before their fates were irrevocably fused
without either harsh role reversed—

All perceived slights against him
any contempt he thought he had shown
was forgotten as he jumped out to save him
His body just moved on its own.
I just can't get that image out of my head...
I refuse to believe Bakugo could be dead.

— The End —