The Girl who spent heartbeats

Her currency was heartbeats
She only shopped with time.
She paid for things with seconds
As she waited in a line.

You cannot put heartbeats in a money box.
To save for a rainy day.
You either use them or you lose them
Heartbeat’s are made that way

She would spend heartbeats on strangers
As they shared their troubles and woes
Because kind hearts are worth more than riches
And go much further than money goes.

She would spend a heap of heartbeats on moments
Visiting old and precious friends.
Who wondered how she was so happy
With so little money to spend.

But money only buys possessions
While heartbeats buy much more.
They buy  you friends and love and laughter
And a warm  smile at every door.

It a fact you can’t buy heartbeats
When you have used them they are gone
So spend your heartbeats wisely
For one day you will have none

The Girl who spent heartbeats
By
Jude  Kyrie.

Her currency was heartbeats
She only shopped with time.
She paid for things with seconds
As she waited in a line.

You cannot put heartbeats in a bank.
To save for a rainy day.
You either use them or you lose them.
I guess heartbeat’s are made that way.

She would spend her heartbeats on strangers
As they shared all their troubles and woes.
Because kind hearts are worth more than gold.
And go much further than money goes.

She spent a heap of heartbeats on moments
Visiting old and precious friends.
Who wondered how she was always happy.
With so little money to spend.

But money only buys possessions
While heartbeats buy much more.
They buy  you friends and love and laughter.
And a warm  smile at every door.

It a fact you can’t buy heartbeats
When you have used them they are gone
So spend your heartbeats wisely
For one day you will have none.

By: Cedric McClester

How many heartbeats are left?
For someone who created
The nation’s greatest theft
By stealing a national election
Leaving others bereft
How many heartbeats ‘til death?

How many heartbeats are left?
For someone who is heartless
Or lacks empathy at best
Just how many would you
Venture to guess
How many heartbeats ‘til death?

How many heartbeats are left?
I’m not just asking in jest
How long will his heart
Continue to compress
Before it stops beating in his chest
How many heartbeats ‘til death?

How many heartbeats are left?
I pose this strange question
Just merely to suggest
That the exact number
Can’t be assessed
How many heartbeats ‘til death?















Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2017.  All rights reserved.

Her currency was heartbeats
She only shopped with time.
She paid for things with seconds
As she waited in a line.

You cannot put heartbeats in a money box.
To save for a rainy day.
You either use them or you lose them
Heartbeat’s are made that way

She would spend heartbeats on strangers
As they shared their troubles and woes
Because kind hearts are worth more than riches
And go much further than money goes.

She would spend a heap of heartbeats on moments
Visiting old and precious friends.
Who wondered how she was so happy
With so little money to spend.

But money only buys possessions
While heartbeats buy much more.
They buy  you friends and love and laughter
And a warm  smile at every door.

It a fact you can’t buy heartbeats
When you have used them they are gone
So spend your heartbeats wisely
For one day you will have none.

I don't remember, any more,
The exact shape of your hands
As I held them in mine,
Caressed them,
Memorized the length of your fingers,
The depth of your calluses.

I don't remember, any more,
Exactly your height, how much
Taller than me
You were, where
My head rested on your chest
When you held me tightly close.

I don't remember, any more,
Your scent, when we lay together
Creating our own
Magic rhythm,
Matching our heartbeats as we
Touched the sky, together.

I don't remember, any more,
The sound of your voice, calling
My name as though
It were a song
Within itself, a precious treasure
You valued with all your being.

And I don't remember, any more,
The color of your eyes, the shape
Of your lips,
Only...
How your eyes crinkled at the corners
And your laugh, as you told me,

"I love you."

Chirping crickets, unheard whispers and a lonely street light.
For a small town, it is such a typical night.
A sweet aroma blows with the breeze,
Perhaps, coming from one of the flowers or the trees.

Red flares and moonflowers blooming under the moonlight.
Adding more grace to this beautiful night.
Peace and serenity rule in this silence,
There is no noise, there is no violence.

There are just sounds of heartbeats, deep breaths and whispers.
Just sounds of heartbeats, deep breaths and whispers.

We watched stars shine bright, searching for any that shot,
and we witnessed none that night so we wished on the ones we got.
I confessed with a laugh that if my brain was split in two,
they could observe each half and each stem would lead to you.

We stood in dark parking lots, feet treading on glass long broken,
my head was drowning in thoughts; every one unspoken.
I stumbled on a confession each and every single time,
that you were a drug and an obsession; a favourite of mine.

And she talks to me in dreams,
whispering words of true love.
It tells of beautiful melodic themes,
a voice that comes from above.
Two souls forever bound, two bodies wrapped in sheets,
listening to the sound of our joined heartbeats.

We laughed together in dim light to jokes only we would get,
and you were the only thing in sight, my sunrise and my sunset.
I traced the outlines of your form, with both hands and my eyes,
and together we'll keep warm; arms on shoulders, legs on thighs.

And she kisses me awake,
her lips greet me like the sun.
But my dream world doesn't break,
'cause her presence tends to stun.
I have finally been found, once I was lost in the dark streets,
now we're listening to the sound of our joined heartbeats.

Caress my skin and whisper my name in my ear,
I'll let your voice in 'cause it's all I want to hear.
Fingertips can scratch, but now they feel so smooth,
the last mark I didn't catch but now I think I got the groove.
Candlelight will show me all I need to see,
and my hands will guide to where they need to be.
Our voices mesh into one, our souls and mind link,
and our hearts beat together; perfectly in sync.

And she blows air into my chest,
giving me oxygen to breathe.
With her hand resting upon my breast,
I promise her that I'll never leave.
Side by side on the ground, same song just repeats,
and we're listening to the sound of our joined heartbeats.

I am no longer the
Steady thrum of heartbeats
When issues against women are
Comically displayed on televisions.
Like there's something to
Laugh, guffaw, snicker, snort--
Tell you what, I can name a little
Too many synonymous words
And I can slap them all to your face, too.

I am no longer a suppressed voice,
Unable to tell you and all the other people
That as a girl (and a woman, later),
I have the right to be here.
I have the same rights to life,
To be alive, to be secure,
To have a good life!
And yet, you, who calls yourself a
Man of power, tells me,
"You are nothing."

I am angry with the absurdity
Of it all. Men continuing to abuse,
Women constantly cowering down--
Why are you so intent on showing power
When you are not God?
Why are you so afraid of fighting
For yourself?

I am seething with rage
For those who refuse to accept
Feminism just for the reason
That they do not want to be labeled--
Well, guess what? They have already
Shoved you underneath Weak and Submissive.
Who taught you that you are born
To impress men?
Who taught you that you only exist
To please them?

I will not have any of that ****.
I am a person of my own.
I am a human being, with rights.
And I AM FIGHTING to have
The same rights as you do.
Whoever told you that that's
Never gonna happen, can shove it up
Their *****.

I will not sit still on my chair while
The next police officer
Asks "Well, what were you wearing?"
To the next **** victim.
You and I both know that is not
The issue here.
No girl should hung their head in shame
That they got touched without consent.
It's not their fault! No one
Deserves to be *****.
And no, it's not snuggling, for you who
Even thought **** jokes on t-shirts
Are funny. It's not.

I am for Gender Equality.
For both men and women,
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender,
To be treated with equal respect.
With equal opportunities.
With equality.
With no judgment.
Why must you counter that?

Look, I've been sitting in that same chair
For too long while issues spread and get
Larger like the plague.
I thought, let them handle it.
I thought, a small voice would be of no help.
But when did sitting down and staring
Get people somewhere?
When did any of passivity help us?

We already have everything to lose
So why not fight?
Bruce Banner told the other avengers
The secret of Hulk.
And I tell you the same:
Get angry.
Smash inequality.
I will always be right behind you.

an average human creature should such a mythical exist
in a lifetime will celebrate about 2,200,000,000 heartbeats,
billions of heartbeats per minute (I prefer moment)
but like everything so essence human there are
those very few heartbeat moments,
the ten or twenty maybe forty total in a lifetime
that you total truly remember,
recalling the cream and sauce,
swell and the hell,
of the pounding so slow so hard,
each one a volcano of
a moment until that day
you don't remember-anything

when she said yes and you're shaking and beating in a
*****-tonk rhythm cause you were heart undressed unsure
and truly afraid of a rejection that makes a heart stoppage
disallowing visions, to be exponentially happy future imagined

you're feeling your heartbeat
in your knees going weak,
when the doctor says:

congratulations healthy swell
and/or
some years later,
I'm so so truly sorry, hell

when they hand you a long handle shovel no instructions needed and that scoop of earth weighs two tons and the sound of slow reverb in your head hurts like hell and you lack the strength to move and they move you aside quiet gentle like
but inside the temple of the two headed hydra-heart,
it's the rock and roll of slo mo, the violin crying, the drumming of
heavy metal chords plucked so slowly, it's you froze screaming

a billionaire of heartbeats you are,
but only ten or twenty maybe forty total in a lifetime
you total truly remember with the perfect clarity and
forever renders into your own unique orchestral symphony,
your true net worth, the stripes you wear
upon your shoulders skin,  
the tune when you hear it and melts you into rigidity

you fall to your knees wherever you are,
that is where you will find me,
just listen for the cars horns blaring
cursing the man lying in the street, re-listening to
ten or twenty maybe forty heartbeats total in a lifetime

you alone total truly that concert set recall and
the win-loss record inherent, inhiment,
in both of them, tears and the rents, all there in the tunes,
of forty beatings you took,
somehow it feels like here is, there was,
the answers to
where is shelter for the heart,
the answers that have gone and come and gone and someone says,

I don't feel a pulse

I am a thing of many heartbeats

many walls, many minds.

and some men mark out the ways

ten by ten

by twenty-five

that I can be laid out on a plate

losing count at organelles and

organelles in the tight dry skins of

the mothership organelles.

I’m not in these pages, dearest,

flattened, candied red and blue.

but still you reach, tweeze apart bones

for tiny minds, for glowing truth in lives

crushed flat on a slide of glass

trickle acid on my cuts just to burn me more

and dearest

I thought you said you loved me before.

Heartbeats, sounds echo
Underground, mists of steam allure
Breathe in,- a forgotten memory
Enigmas allure, steam pipes endure

Parched from the earth, echoing embraces,
Life's echoing, fantasy embraced, - hidden in time
Ressurection, times past now embues

Listen, to the beat, hear the heart beat
Listen, listen to the music
psst, psst, hear the echo, - beat;
Gears chime,- heartbeats of the underground

Leading astray into the labyrinth
Time, now recalled
Water works, steam, lifes intimate connection
Lost within the depths of time

Heartbeats, sounds echo
Underground, mists of steam allure
Breathe in,- a forgotten memory
Enigmas allure, steam pipes endure

Parched from the earth, echoing embraces,
Life's echoing, fantasy embraced, - hidden in time

Broken heartbeats feel like broken bones.
This soul stripped bare, so naked and alone.
High hopes turned into severed ropes...
Severed ties, bad excuses, and alibis.
Massive contusions and mass confusion...
You're a walking weapon of mass destruction...
A master of illusion.
Intrusion.
Delusion.
Deception.

And so this soul stripped bare,
so naked and alone still sleeps solo.

And for now, I'm ok with that.

Because sometimes broken heartbeats feel like broken bones.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
I lie my head there on your chest
and find my absolute favorite place to rest.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
And I've been tested many times over in my quest for peace, but I never would have guessed I'd find it so quickly with you.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
Your heartbeat is the rhythm of my universe.

Beware of those monsters with heartbeats my child. The one's with charm and a light smile within the eyes.

Beware of them...they will infest your soul, they will have a feast have you struggling fighting for air to breath.

Beware of the softness, pretty teeth...

They are the monsters with heartbeats.

You may never know the intentions they hold, just waiting for the perfect time to take away everything that is of you. You wondered when this had happen, how could I've known...

Be aware, never fall as they speak. Look out for these monsters with heartbeats.

S.B

I love the sound of your heart.
Thud-dub-thud-dub-thud-dub-thud-dub
So strong and steady.
It makes me feel homesick
for a place I’m not sure even exists.

I no longer know who I am, who I was, or who I wanted to be.
I just want to lay here and listen to the sound
Of your heartbeats until
I die.

How sad it is to know that this
Steady beatings
will come to an end,
And there will no longer be you.

You, my love. My life. My hero.
I live for you, my love. I lived for you.

Please don’t leave me.
Just stay here, next to me, in this place, you and I.
We’ll go look for a place for us to hide.
Or we could just hide here,
Here in our shelter.

Please, please, please. Don’t let me go. How can I,
how can I ever live without you?
But for now, I’ll close my eyes
Pretend I’m asleep, next to the sound
Of your dying heartbeat.

We either become sadder
Or our heart beats become louder
My heart,
My heart is eating so fast my bones are tingling
Vibrating through my veins
My blood stream is failing
I think too much
I don’t pray enough
Lost touch with the angels
The angels lost me
Forgetting this
Words are words by choice
Awkwardly complicated
Passionate souls intertwined in chaos
Beautiful chaos
My hands are shaking, they can’t stand still
I overdo it with coffee, I over did it.
Can’t handle my life sober
So much ****** up **** in the world
Smart people seem like crazy people to dumb people
And if you believe you can change the world
You’re one of a kind.

This smile that makes your day...
This undaunted smile that seem to say.
Show me yours too so we both could play,
On a plane where everything is fine...
Everything's okay...

This smile that reaches out to you...
With nothing but invisible arms.
Caresses your eyes and draws you in.
Entices you with the sweetest charms.

Whispers you tales of a brightly lit future;
Where we're trapped in dance with each other...
Supporting...
Leading...
Lifting and,
Seducing one another...

Let the music ring clear,.
Over the thumping of our heartbeats...
Aggressively segmenting, framing the dance into seconds that would elapse.
Like two duelists entranced into committing tender jousts and retreats.

But know that...
This smile screams only lies.
For it is but a routine mask.
So well worn and adequately rehearsed...
You'd never see the need to ask.

Instead you'd just allow yourself be taken,
To a place where the tide gently beats...
Upon the shore our two ailing hearts.
A place where earth and sky would meet.

When in fact,
It hides the turmoil and agitation.
Guarding the storm that brews incessantly.
Continuously threatening
To breach this shared sanctity with me.

A haven would've then be erected.
That very instant we allowed...
This dance of smiles
From time of first contact to the time we bowed.

This smile... Only took a second
To paint a peaceful picture upon my face.
Free from the pressures building behind my pursed lips.
Just take this smile so that in that second,
We could get lost in the promise of a heavenly place...

You are that book I love to read...
the one that is unreadable-
no matter how hard I try...
I cant get my head wrapped around you

you are unreadable...

and it's driving me crazy,
because I m sure I am falling for someone
who has no interest in ever catching me...

but I'm not stopping now
id rather fall and get hurt by you...
to take the chance...
than to maybe someday live with the what-if's

and we cant hold hands...
we cant embrace...
there is no physicality involved...
it's lost somewhere in the thousands of miles that separate our hearts
but that doesn't stop me from listening to the saved voice-notes
and saving your photo as my wallpaper

because every time I look into those mystifying
,yet somewhat mocking brown eyes...
my heart skips a few thousand beats
Those bushy black eyebrow's ...
that cute button nose!!
it all makes me hope that someday...
all the goodbye's we text,
will turn into the goodnight's we whisper in each others ears...

but for now I'm fine with smiling at the screen....
for now I'm  fine with crying when I play your voice-notes...
blushing when you flirt with me...
because...
for now...
I'm okay with listening to the harmony...
of two heartbeats in the distance

you make my legs

                             fill with lust

                                                         and some sundance

                                     chemical I cannot

                                                               ­           explain. you make

                                                   me feel like your

        pupils are the sun

                               and the sun has

                                                               ­                       little in respect

                                          to you aside from

                    attribution to the

                                                               ­  very existence of

                                                               ­                                         the girl I love.

                                                          you make me feel

                                like free chai tea

                                                   lattes, even if this

                                                               ­        analogy was used by

                                                               ­                           an ex of mine to

                                                               ­                                           describe how she

                                                               ­                                                           felt about me I

                                                               ­                                                                 ­        feel it's still

                                                               ­                                                                 ­                     valid in context.

                                   you make me dance

                        like thunder in a

                                          snowstorm and link

                          arms with my lack

                                                      of a bedside table

                and ring as true as

                                           my ears to the ashen

                                                               ­        corner-lounge love-drug-all-this-please.

                                      

                       ­             I love you,
                                    I love you,
                                    
                           ­         I love you,


                                    I love you.



                                                         ­          holy sweet good *******,


                                                   you sweet,

                                                   sweet soul,
                                                    

          ­                                         not even

                                                          novel­s
                                                  
                                                                ­  could properly explain

                                                       how my universe swells into serotonin heartbeats
                                                      ­                    whenever
                                    ­                                       you're
                                                          ­                wherever
                                        ­                                    with

                                                               ­              me.

everyone keeps saying "we made it"
and it's actually a little confusing
because it's almost like they thought we couldn't
five teenagers on lockdown have never caused so much panic but I guess we're just
the deadbeat generation
(knock once for failure, twice for rebirth, three times to see your life in twenty years-
who knows, maybe you'll have a life in twenty years)
we pick locks on bad days turn back the clocks on good days
if we try hard enough maybe we'll go back to the glory days I wanna blast music from the busted up speakers
in the back of my car I wanna live like I used to
we're anthems and parades and kids crying out in the middle of the night when the hole in their stomach opens up
or closes
we're caught up in a whirlwind of scientific facts and figures and sometimes I want to scream at the top of my lungs
as if that'll help me escape the noise in my head
punk isn't about living through the fall of something it's about living through the rise of me
I am real I am here I will scream it from the ******* rooftops if I have to
I will tap my fingertips on tables even when I'm told not to
I will tattoo myself a thousand times over, an endless mantra of existence
i exist i exist i exist
this isn't a happy ending, or at least it isn't the one I was promised
but it's something
it's okay
and that's good enough because okay is ******* wonderful
lace my fingers with yours call me a queen tell me you'll never let me go because I will never let you go
we are the kids who will never stop living
even when they tell us that we are impossible we are heartbeats pounding on cracked pavement,
leather and cheap beer, lather me in love lay me down to sleep
with the promise of tomorrow
promise me that tomorrow will still be there when I wake up
you can have a house but not a home
I was a house but not a home until I met you
deadbeat degenerates make a better family than most.

It’s the morning after the last heart session
Eyes open but brain still crackling with static and white noise
When I try it again
Hoping to get pen to paper
Before consciousness can recover sufficiently to intervene
And proffer pretty syntax to the poem
Hold the mind blank
And stack the words in rows of green growth
Like garden beds
That only need time and attention to bear fruit
Let truth come from some other place
Than reason or left brain
Or the extensive vocabulary
Meticulously indexed in the cranial cavity
Somewhere near the brain stem
Or maybe in the DNA
As C, T, G, and A
Storing data like binary only twice as complex
The recall mechanism operating in the darkness of our comprehension
Apprehension of its failure threatening to leave the poem unfinished
Unillustrated
Uncalibrated
Un-fact checked
Like that matters somehow
Like the facts are important in art
Like the right brain has no sense of propriety
Just as surely as the heart tells lies in gibberish
A chattering maelstrom of syllables in a cyclonic vacuum
And yet somehow the heart speaks with perfect clarity
Uncluttered rhythm
Timing and flow
So you know there is more going on here than we fully understand
Lend a hand to help decipher the intentions of a part of yourself wayward from the rest of you
Leading to a collapse of the ego
And a blurring of the lines between you and I
Turning discrete data into continuous
On the fly
On the run
Under sun and and moon and sky
Until the day that even death fails to be discrete
Or even an event any more important than a fire
Converting energy from one form to another

I am hungry
and it is reflected
in the contours
of every inch
                  of skin
every cell a-flutter
tiny wings and heartbeats
activated within
right down to
the ribosomes and
kidney-shaped
mitochondria
right up through epidermis
woven as threads
of softness penetrating
your inner hard, dark parts
causing them
to melt into
                my light
I am craving
to feel your
absolute heart's
raging core
my aching flesh burning,
my heart, wrapped in
a love
              so pure
My need to be
devoured surfaces
in smoothness,
at a glance
You feel it acutely,
no room for doubt
or subtle chance
               I am ravenous
for muscle-worked arms
(arms that could easily
try to break)
to be supremely
gentle as you part
my thighs like the ocean
and sacredly partake
the slickness of your tongue
in my feminine grace
the stains of my love
drenching
                your noble face
your eyes on mine
as I sharply breathe
         need to hold your
head stroke your
           hair know that for me              
the king takes off that
garland of gold
breaking free of
all symbols of status
the only real treasure
the queen who
gives to him,
and who he now pleasures
     and I let myself be consumed
with the reverence
of a psalm
my love pouring into you
healing your hurts,
               like a balm
in this private landscape
we are the most
ferocious of tender
estuaries
in an eternal vista
in this hour of somewhere,
the sea hauls us in
like ancient creatures,
     bringing the fossils
back to life
in lustrous foam
as they
         inch their way
into the spirals
    that we
feel we could
call
     home‎

Cold, blue, wet, fragile, brittle, hard, steam solidified, water hardened, anger, fear, white, tensile,

steam solidified,
water hardened; you lie
in her wintered veins.

why?

"If she's awake, I'll **** you."
staccato words spoken
like a knife blade thrown...
...with malice and intent.

Her father's voice
from the bedroom next door
no sound of her mother.

The female child cowered
under her candy-striped sheets
their usual soft comfort
unnoticed

footsteps
door handle moving
light seeping into her sanctuary

her heart thudded
trying to escape her chest
as she held her breath.

"Please, please don't hear me."
a silent plea as
fear snatched her in its icy grip.

She could smell him
smell the cigarettes
smell his power.

She waited.

He backed out
returned to her mother
between her heartbeats
she heard the slap

"You are lucky this time,
*****. She sleeps."
Heavy footsteps down the stairs
punctuated by her mother's tears.

                            ~~~~~~~~~~~

The girl child had only ever blamed her mother
decades of anger and bitterness
the memory of this night buried deep.
Crazed hard ice beneath the tundra of her life.

In the third decade of the girl child's life
her mother died
alone
never forgiven for what she hadn't done
nor for what she had.

The ice remained in the girl child's veins
If anything, thicker...harder.

Then in her fifth decade this ice became water
as with the passage of life the tundra thawed
and rising with it to the surface
the truth.

Then what?

The girl child worked hard at staying warm
at keeping the ice at bay.
Not easy.

Nothing was ever said to her father.

In her sixth decade the girl child's father died
embraced in his daughter's arms
forgiven for what he had done
and for what he hadn't.

The woman had finally thawed
she was properly warm
her own love
finally able to flow

When words were in slumber
I tried listening to the silence
Heartbeats reminded me of life
Calmness of the soul, of peace
It is now, I woke up to silence

Kiss me asleep
with your obsidian lips.

Protect my ears
from the cacophony nights would bring.

Fill the void
between heartbeats that skip.

Take me into the lull,
and into the siren song that you sing.

u used to like the way i listen u liked it more when i'd speak
i'd fall asleep to ur voice and find heaven in ur heartbeats
missing u hurts my core, makes me think feel and cry
tell me if my hands didn't still shake when i see u would u allow urs in mine