"ibuprofen" poems
Submissive my body tender and weak.
Closer to death my body must be.
If I must attest then it's fluids at best.
Submissive my body the pain and the rest.
I should have known from the jump, for I had not been foretold.
Steer clear of its wrath, it's no common cold.
The fight continues, the world on a spin. God speed to you and this ibuprofen.
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 3:01 AM UTC
when i was a freshman one of my friends told me that there was a girl who was talking about me
asking why i was pretending to be straight and that everyone could tell that i was gay
my friends and i laughed it off like children and i quipped “i’m not pretending anything, just ask anyone and they’ll know”
now, i think of the rainbow socks, the only thing i own with a rainbow on it, being shoved down to the bottom of my sock drawer as if it would pop out at any minute and proclaim it’s existence if it were any higher. now, i think of the rainbow highlight that i applies in the bathroom at midnight, pausing every now and again to make sure i was alone. Now, i think of the pride nail art that i scrubbed off my nails minutes after i painted it on. now, i think of the last word in a poem that i wrote and turned in, scared i was being too obvious with the word they.
now, i think of the horrible creature sitting in my chest that simultaneously begs to never tell my secrets and to also scream them from the roof tops. i think of the sludge that lives in me and climbs up my throat, whispering safety into my ear while also ripping apart everything it touches. i think of the pain i feel whenever i say that i’m gay, because it makes things easier if the works sees me as a girl who loves other girls.
before thinking of this poem i had sat back and wondered how many bottles it would take of the various prescription medicines that my parents kept in the kitchen cabinet to **** me. when i remembered the name they would put on the tombstone i stopped and walked away. i remember the time where i couldn’t walk away and i had reached in and grabbed a full bottle of ibuprofen and i took a single one, hoping that my screaming head could be sated by the feeling of a single pill crawling down my throat.
i had a dream last night about someone called addison.
they looked me in the eyes and before i even knew what they looked like their physical form flickered until they were a bright shining star in a vaguely human form.
they sat next to me as we floated in a void on a picnic blanket and they put their arm around my shoulder which felt like a hug from someone i used to know but had forgotten
i stared at their glasses that looked too much like mine as they flickered in and out of existence and they told me i was not where i was supposed to be.
i didnt ask them where but they heard it anyways as if breaking into my thoughts. they answered that they could not tell me and when i thought why they said they didn’t want to spoil the fun of a brighter future for them and me.
i woke up with the taste of lavender on my tongue and the desire to change my name.
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 1:11 AM UTC
Hey kid, you've been dead a few weeks and I'd just like to say hello. The ground has its first December coat of fragile snow over your dead body and I know you can't feel the cold but I'll tell you right now, I can see my frozen toes, just barely move them, breathe up into the sky, Id be lying if I said I still cry every day. But, I'm lying to myself if I said that I'm not trying to take back your pain every day in a way that won't make your heart start beating again.
I wonder if those butterflies ever drank up the nectar from your blood, probed their soft tongues into the velvet of your cuts, those razor blade ribbons, oh holy romantic, how you bleed like Mozart and bleed like ballads of classic rock stars, how they whip your face with sour sweat and drugs and drugs and drugs until you find yourself half asleep, brain swept under the rug.
Did you know only 1.5% of drug overdose related suicide attempts are successful? Beautiful blonde martyr for an ugly catholic high school in an ugly state in the ugliest of its hearts, how does it feel to be 1 in 100? How does it feel to be a rarity, carbon pressed into diamond? How does it feel to be cry for a week, left in the grass to roll like waves, buried without a name and a face and a grave?
In the latest of solemn sleep deprived nights I press my ear to the chest of the 100th depressed boy I come across and don't feel Vicodin climbing up his arteries, don't feel Klonopin, OxyContin, Ibuprofen. I can't seem to find the one, who knows, maybe you were it and all my efforts really were wasted. All those nights I've stayed up late did nothing. All those knives I stole, all that blood I wiped away with t-shirt sleeves, all the blankets I've put around stupid shaking shoulders, all the bittersweet will this be the last time your skin is this warm hugs, God did they mean nothing at all?
I lock my jaw into a permanent silence, buy back time by putting my money where your knife is. I take bets on when someone will die next. I read the label on every bottle of Xanax. I roll over in my bed again and again, and try to put you to rest again.
Amen.
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 10:52 PM UTC
Not eating chocolate covered cherries and strawberries and lychees and onions and chillies and grapes and marshmallows and turtle meat and cake and shark bones and oysters and camel and beef and beef with dog food and rabbit fur and smarties and skittles and twine and rope and yak and buses and buffalo and authors and novels and chipping containers and bicylces and emus and penguins and polar bear slippers and darned socks and stewed lobster and Darwin Deez and get well cards and ibuprofen tablets is fine with me.
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 9:53 PM UTC
"Everyone knows you wake up at 5, drink some water and take some ibuprofen"
Dec 30, 2013
Dec 30, 2013 at 11:03 AM UTC
Not since the days
of shooting ******
into the artery in my armpit
(too many blown out veins
in my arms and feet),
have I spent multiple nights
pacing and sweating…..
**** you simple carbohydrates. –
In the first months
of being a non-cigarette smoker
I would see folks light up
and near instantly collect
a chilled film on my back
and fingernails…
forget about it;
but the other day I drove
by a pizzeria
and had thoughts of ski masks
and 45 caliber pistols…
**** you simple carbohydrates. –
Once upon a time
I drank near 200 ounces of
Mountain Dew
each and every day.
If I missed a day,
I would have massive headaches
combined with serious irritation;
while it has been more than 5 years
since this body ingested caffeine,
last night I could not fall asleep for anything
and no amount of cannabis oil
or ibuprofen
had the ability to curb
my aching noggin….
**** you simple carbohydrates –
change is the only constant
and humanity has evolved
amazing adaptability
while I know I will be fine
at this moment only one thing
really runs through my head:
**** you simple carbohydrates! –
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 3:30 PM UTC
there's a Heart of Virginia Festival magnet bleeding out onto the
countertop. it's been like this for weeks, i think. i've
been sitting here for weeks. letting the phone ring and
not picking up. a couple of old strawberries molding in
my palm. two ibuprofen waiting to be swallowed resting
pretty on my tongue, melted down to sulfur and acid.
i'm not the right kind of sick for you. bees buzzing inside my
skull, lazy and
sticky sweet. blood dripping from your face to the tiles.
gutted and fresh and stinking, and
you won't stop carving dead languages
into the meat of your thighs, muscle gaping red and raw
you sit in the bathroom of a Macy's and howl,
like youre wild,
like you're hoping someone will round the corner, fists flashing
and ******* stop you.
youre not a Real Boy, you say, spit it out quick and harsh.
thats what momma said- you'renotarealboy.
faster than before. like you're scared. (i know you are.)
my shoulders go up once, twice. what the **** is a real boy?
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 1:26 PM UTC
Damaged Goods
Broken not accepted
Lost in deception
You eat my words and step on it
**** You and my lesson
I’m 17 and you left me
You eat my words and stepped on it
Mindset ****** with the darkest cuts
I tried to open up but you tied me shut
Through me on the ground
exposed my cuts
throuh all the evidence out
With my eyes closed
I started to swallow those infections that ate me up in side that makes my hands shake and my stomach ache
Doors closed my mental state
Ibuprofen how much should I take **** this **** my heart won’t break
knock me up I’ll get what I can take
beat me down shut me out give me worthless knowledge and doubt
how dare you say you love me when you just broke me
**** You
Sep 6, 2018
Sep 6, 2018 at 12:32 AM UTC
Step 1: Be as anxiety ridden as possible.
Get a bladder infection because you are too scared to ask the teacher to use the restroom.
Fail your Algebra class because you fear that if you tell her you are confused, she will laugh at you.
Everyone will laugh at you.
Wear dresses and frilly skirts because you are scared to come out as transgender.
Your mind will mock you with thoughts along the lines of,
“ You dont deserve to be a boy.”
Just go along with it.
Let the words bounce in your head like children in a bouncy house.
Do not reach for the ibuprofen bottle.
You see your mind will need to be as messy as your heart.
Therefor your heart will have to crumble into an avalanche.
DO NOT PICK UP THE PIECES.
You will need to be addicted to starbucks and body modifications.
Do not get anything less than a Venti because if you do not get your daily dose of caffeine you will go into withdrawls.
You need to modify your body because it is the only thing you can control.
Step 2: Make your hair as colorful and bright as possible because then maybe your mom will understand the fact that you are gay.
Maybe if you turn your head into a walking pride flag you will not have to see the look of disappointment coat her face when you step out of the closet.
I know what youre thinking because I have been told this before.
“But honey, the closet is made for clothes.”
Yeah youre **** right but the closet is also the only place you can hide your chest binder and boxers,
They will sit right next to your pushup bras.
Step 3: Feel everything.
Feel every single thing as deeply as you can because if you do not,
Then how will you get a messy heart?
And to have a messy mind your heart must match like the couple shirts he bought you on your one year anniversery.
Do not love him.
He will break your heart two years in and cram the words
“I simply dont want you” down your throat
And you may not cry.
You may not show him you are hurting because then he will know you care.
Then he will know you are wrapped around his finger as tightly as you can.
Step 4: Do not fall in love.
Even if it is simply with the brush strokes on a canvas.
Do not fall in love with anyone before you fall in love with yourself because for the past two years, toxic waste has filled your veins.
Do you know how much it hurt to bleach him out of your mind?
You have to scrub his fingerprints off of your body.
You will become raw.
It is okay to be raw,
You just have to learn to heal yourself.
No more coating the burn wounds with promises of forever.
No more temporary treatments.
For the sake of your sanity,
You must fall in love with yourself,
Before you can learn to not love him.
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 12:00 PM UTC
Whining about slushie stains, broken shoe strings, a cloudy tan date, a blender of crushed molding fruit and a couple of misplaced coupons dusty under the bookcase
I listen, I stay. I know I know-so awful, so unfair
Tuesday the tongue red Toms squished into the slip n' slide of a slow-paced coat on the run, splashing in the surprise and disgust but mostly drowning in the wrong point
I listen, I stay. I know I know-so foul, so raw
The pipes ooze liquid, weeping for a fix but the handyman's calloused fingertips were fired for not fitting the bill, mending the rip or driving the speed limit
I listen, I stay. I know I know-so frustrating, so disappointing
Saturday's overlap into Sunday was cramming lyrics and auto corrected notes into the bloated edge of a clicking lens snapping away, capturing a frenzy of wild memories and ibuprofen pills
I listen, I stay. I know I know- so entertaining, so amusing
Begging for top shelf truth, knee stretching for flexibility, pen scratching for a road deeper inland, holding, yearning for a meaningful entry to meaningfully look back on
I listen, I stay. I know I know- so vanished, so fragmented
Each night, the muffled light bulb all tucked into bed shamelessly stares crooked at the nightmares of an exhausted headboard wishing only to shed comfort instead of light
I listen, I stay. I know I know- so sorry, so sorry, so sorry I can't be more for you
May 27, 2012
May 27, 2012 at 7:32 PM UTC
It was all a blur...the day I met you
A headache of which 200 MG of Ibuprofen would not satisfy
You might as well have cut my forehead open and questioned if its contents were love or lust
I didn’t know
I had a headache
Oh it was a doozy
Whew Whew Whew
Thoughts whizzed around my head in zip a dee doo das
Fugazi's of Love or Lust
I don’t know
I have a headache
Oct 7, 2016
Oct 7, 2016 at 3:39 PM UTC
If I think harder do I burn more calories
Does being hot or cold burn more calories
Silent night time exercise
how many calories in
lexapro
ibuprofen
air
saliva
how many calories did Auschwitz prisoners eat
is diy liposuction possible
what body parts can you live without
could they have poured calories in this water
how to give myself the flu
can thinking about food make you fat
how much does a finger weigh
Dec 8, 2019
Dec 8, 2019 at 3:12 PM UTC
I spent my last eleven dollars on a plastic bottle of ***** sitting on the refrigerator.
It is right next to the ibuprofen and the giant salad bowl.
Last night we drank our plastic bottle of ***** in glasses.
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 2:28 PM UTC
in my sweaty palm, melting
is medical-pink candy coating.
the pieces click, clack, roll around,
and the generic sugar tastes sweeter
than ever, sweet like a fever, sweet
like smiles under the concrete bridge.
tastes like sweet'n'low piled high in one-
dollar coffee drained in two seconds,
like buttercream frosting smeared
across your arm. tastes of the indoors,
of doors shut, of stale snicker-doodles.
it is sugar that tastes like promises gone far.
when i swallow (that is three, four, twenty more)
i can taste it in the pit of my stomach:
sweet, sweet candy coating masking
the poison, the anodyne, the analgesic—
candy coating to cover all the little scars.
Sep 6, 2016
Sep 6, 2016 at 2:33 PM UTC
I remember the day you realized you always write about water
and I always write about fire
I also the remember the week I took too much ibuprofen and
slept with my eyes open in the back of your car while
allison stole from the salad bar at whole foods and
here we are on two different continents
writing poems for men on circled corners of maps
you ripple, me ash
Jun 12, 2011
Jun 12, 2011 at 7:02 AM UTC
I keep my ibuprofen in a Marlboro box
hidden deep beneath the pages of books that ever so kindly let the time pass by.
I take my ibuprofen two at a time
because they always used to tell me “good things come in twos..”
I guess that was true before I met you.
I swallow my ibuprofen with anything I can find because substances like this are highly divine, one of a kind.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 2:04 AM UTC
Sun dust haze
an old wooden door
I reach, locked
handles, hands
pressed splintering
knock,
The newspaper reads EVACUATION NECCESARRY
Exasperation of the lilting seed of sanity;
the clocks unaligned to my watch
the fridge has been off for days
milk curdled, cheese hardened
this Panadol, IbuProfen parachute me
down, codeine
hits me hard upon the ground
the fireplace surrounds
a dragon breathing flames out of our mouths
and the room is no longer hot;
it is supernova.
Stars sound like songbirds outside, shooting,
gargled gin smells like grace,
erase
the drone of Arab spring
the scent of comradery
for a security station
computational bastion;
calculus of reason,
reputation, family, existential crisis
lets circumnavigate
to the window ,
reality split by liquid,
a rainbow in the sea,
children dancing beneath the Pohutakawa tree
“Hello?”
“Hello, were you here all along?”
“Long enough to see
those purple hues of your dressing gown, you
standing aimless across the room,
you came here today too?”
“I didn’t really choose” balloons, still tied to the ceiling
pop
“I must go”
“Stop”
ground dissolves, glass
mirrors, present, past
pop
“take my hand
lets watch the angels carry the sun away”
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 2:57 PM UTC
I walk in
and throw my faded, ripped, three year old, coca cola pajama pants
toward the tub
just soft enough to miss the shower curtain.
I close the door and take off my shirt,
undo my belt, step out of my pants
and just stand there and look at myself:
my hair is a dull brown, and messed up, but I don't care tonight.
My pupils are dilated; a few too many ibuprofen.
my nose still looks half broken on the side opposite my scar.
my left eye has bags, as it always has,
as does my right- between the merging of two faint bruises;
one from a Nerf bullet impact turned sty I had removed,
the other from a zit which overtook my cheek a few weeks back.
my forehead is wrinkled prematurely
my unshaven chin and scalp both growing grays.
my collarbones stick out enough for me to fit my fist in when I lean forward.
my neck widens in the back in a way that looks unnatural.
my biceps, chest and stomach are all muscular, firm;
the result of two workouts every day.
But it is my leg that shows my pain,
shows the strength I still tell myself I have
or rather the strength of the weakness I sometimes let take over in it's place-
knee to ankle;
fresh cuts, all bleeding
each a quarter inch apart.
not the most I've ever had, but the longest stretch of my body I've ever covered completely.
and I don't even remember why.
Feb 15, 2013
Feb 15, 2013 at 3:50 AM UTC
I have a sore back today
It made me think of you
Today while I was skiing,
Actually, while I was crashing
There in the air inches from the ice I was destined to hit
I was thinking
I thought of you
And how I hate you for that
You ****
You make me love you like that
And then you tell me
"Oh yeah...I left you for that girl you kinda dated..."
*******
And I was supposed to be okay?
Unscathed?
Unbroken?
Tell me you never wanted this to die.
And you were the one who stabbed it in the heart
With your knife of stone
With frozen tears on your cheeks
With the blood on your hands
So please,
Take that to your own grave,
Not mine.
And now I am here
With a sore back
Thinking about you again
Thinking about how I hate you
And thinking about how I love you
And thinking about my stupid cramping stomach
And thinking about that ibuprofen that I took
And and wondering why it's not working
And wondering if I should take more
To end it all...
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 29, 2012 at 10:31 PM UTC
You know when you’re like
What the **** am I doing
But you still do it?
That’s me; doing stupid ****
My back building a wall to her
In bed when I just got TOLD
That *** again would have made the night
Perfect—so it wasn’t.
Me with a glass of wine like ibuprofen
And tortilla chips for xanax
At 171.8 which is unacceptable for a runner.
Doing stupid **** like echoing I love you
Because if you don’t say it back
You don’t mean it—which is bull.
Somehow becoming OK with
Saying things like I’ll get in trouble.
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 9:29 AM UTC
Washed out every morning
Curse the night before
Wallpaper alarming
Eyes are getting sore
Ibuprofen breakfast
Knock it back with tea
Messing with the contrast
Squinting just to see
Sharp november morning
Stinging on the cheek
Cracked lips from yawning
Feeling antique
Light up in a doorway
Cough the dust aside
Use a passing ashtray
Don't break stride
Everything's Picasso
Jaunty on the eye
Drowsy desperado
Mouth is growing dry
Too many left turns
That just can't be right
Check for directions
Late despite
**
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 12:10 PM UTC
i guess that after the rainfall
of september
i reached through october
to clear it all away, blue skies
and lies fading from my tongue
and yet, all through november
the headache persisted
and i listed the failure to forget
among my insecurites
left there to dangle from my fingers
and as i pressed my hand into your waist
i could feel them bleeding
bit by bit
into the fabric of your jacket
and i feel better now
and the headache?
well, suffice to say
that in december, i noticed
while kissing you
that you tasted faintly
of ibuprofen
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 12:53 AM UTC
Rust on the duvet, thick
and red and oxygenated
with disuse. Somewhere,
there’s a baby crying
for milk, yelling from all
the apartment walls;
domestic arguments,
pain painted over with a fresh
coat, cotton sheets closeted
with fire, something red (again).
Hands, gripping, arching
in isolated agony, the woman
in the bed is only
a woman in a bed. Tomorrow
the pain may subside
with ibuprofen and heat,
but tonight it boils over
like a cauldron, like a curse
between the legs. Rust
chips away at the milk
softness. A knife could slice
right through and nothing
would change. There’s no point
changing the sheets again.
Jul 17, 2021
Jul 17, 2021 at 8:45 PM UTC