"instability" poems
Published in The Quill on November 19, 2014:
http://www.amazon.com/Quill-Fall-2014-ebook/dp/B00PNVT6PG
...
On being overweight (whatever that means)
Even if you were the moon, they would complain about how much space you took up in the sky, how you were too bright, wanted too much from the stars, demanded more light than the others.
And when you shifted, from waning to full to waxing to waning, they would remind you of how instable you were, how much of a hassle it was to keep track of your instability, your need for attention. Have you tried to be a vegan yet? All the stars are doing it.
You have tried. In fact, last week was your third try – an attempt, they call it – not enough, they emphasize, try again, they say this as if it is encouragement.
That’s when you found them - the celestial crescent, the earthshine, the perilune, how the lacus are lakes without lakes, why the Gibbous is brighter either way, especially during conjunction – all strung together in pearls.
You are a full the night you return.
As you reflect off the lake, you see Selene, Hecate, Mani, Tsukuyomi, Iah, and Thoth. You tell the stars to look, to breathe your reflection, to succumb to the glow and the beauty of it all, that you are not alone—
They laugh.
Say how historical that is, how out-of-touch you are, how myths aren’t mirrors, how you - you are not a mystery at all.
But when you died – if you died – (we still do not know) - they do not wonder where you went. They spin, spin, spin the entire night home, only once confessing to how empty the sky is without your shine.
But every night they burn.
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 4:03 PM UTC
Where goes the time when it flies?
Simplified by expression, and stained by clarity.
Smudge by lucidity
smeared by simplicity
tainted by intelligibility.
Tempus fugit as in time flies.
Sharply distressing with painful feelings
to the point of mental instability
morning or night
we become possessed with its mystic dealings.
Where goes the time when it runs?
Not a solitary explanation is found.
It happens and it won’t stop
until life terminates as well
without cause.
Derived of rationalisation
lacking understanding
short of justification
bursting with vindication
persistently and with conviction.
Where goes the time when it sails?
From the second that we’re born.
Where were we existing?
We cannot be so sure
Cannot recollect the past
Not for the first five of our years
Memory so blur, so shadowy
Hazy with distortions
obscure and confusing
Unit our mind starts slowly to recollect.
Where goes the time when it escapes?
The chronology of life so mysterious.
Nothing can solve its ambiguity
for time is a complex case
with an infinity of secrets.
What’s the obsession when we have so many setbacks
drawbacks and obstacles
obstructions and conundrums
to take care of before time perishes away
and leaves us stranded in oblivion.
Oh time, you magnificent of all mysteries,
the high and mighty of ambiguities.
Show us mercy and explain
we are not detectives of secrecies
your spell with us reflects on the whodunits.
Oh time of things past and yet to come
give us a clue as to what is to derive!
“Remember”
it softly replies “Make most of your lives”
“Once I fly away no one can have a replay”.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 6:11 AM UTC
The world's on fire, peace is extinct
Look how fragile peaceful minds can get
All hostile minds are having a ball right now.
It's like peace got embellished in chaos.
Where's peace at, what happened to her?
Regional, global local, peace is in short supply.
This is the renaissance of a new world order
Where partial peace coexists with total chaos
People only search Google for mostly facts
Not for solutions to some distorted peace
What is peace then, how can it be?
Just a routine rhetorical question
Coming from the disturbed mind in me
Listen, One-minute partial peace
Bang, another minute total chaos!
Nowadays, Instability everywhere is commonplace
As unscripted hate rhetoric freely echos,
From jihadic podiums to confused minds.
The conspicuous birthplace of premeditated evil.
The mind, soft spots of those totally confused
Call it the hotspots and playground for the devil.
I, the skeptic, to say the very least,
See this quiet storm as a distorted peace!
twitter @ivaclappers
Jan 15, 2018
Jan 15, 2018 at 12:44 PM UTC
I am the barbed thorn
the serrated reward
facing savage cruel winter;
sedition in transmission.
I am the only pawn
on your chequered board
facing a feisty queen;
of restricting submission.
I am the demonic exon
a heraldic discord
facing bleak futures;
an inherent disposition.
I am the stillborn reborn
the aberration restored
facing anomalies instability;
violation on a mission.
I am broken and worn
a fallen sword
facing a grim battle;
outnumbered by division.
I am the brass horn
the out of tune chord
facing orchestral expulsion;
a musician in remission.
I am history's forewarn
the contrite accord ignored
facing penitent absolution;
clemency in transition.
Jun 22, 2014
Jun 22, 2014 at 10:32 PM UTC
Never tell the girl with messy hair and wide eyes that when her father sexually abused her they were, "fooling around." Fooling around is a consensual act between two lovers, friends, or strangers in which both gain pleasure and to make her feel as though that is something she did is degrading and destructive. She's already been through that once.
When I got that anonymous question asking me "why is it when you fool around with your dad, no one gets in trouble, but when I do it I'm a ****** I almost snapped. The smell of cheap beer formed under my nose and the entire contents of my stomach almost fell to the side of my bed, however, I had not eaten enough to push all of my mental instability out of my mouth. I could feel my father's hands around my wrist, pulling, pinning, calloused hands scratching my nine year old skin. I could hear my young cries for help, and the tears staining my cheeks. I could feel the air on my ear as he whispered. "Tell anyone and it'll be worse next time." I remembered cleaning my own blood from the carpet that afternoon.
And I almost replied with a defensive remark, but I stopped. There was no need for this private matter to be put on display on a social media forum, because then who's the girl that "fooled around" with her father?
But then the question, it irks me to my very core, the reason my hands are so swiftly typing this poem between waves of hurricanes in my eyes. It's as if my dignity has been stripped from me again, no more layer of scar tissue to protect even the deepest layers of my darkest secrets. Nothing was safe anymore.
And when I showed it to my boyfriend, the look in his eyes terrified me. It was as if someone had just dropped a match on a mile long pile of bone dry trees doused in gasoline. But someone had. Someone had dropped a match on me, just as fragile and capable of burning up completely.
Never tell the girl with messy hair and wide eyes that when her father sexually abused her they were, "fooling around." Fooling around is a consensual act between two lovers, friends, or strangers in which both gain pleasure and to make her feel as though that is something she did is degrading and destructive. She's already been through that once.
Feb 5, 2016
Feb 5, 2016 at 8:59 AM UTC
Stressed out to the max
Head uncontrollably whirring
My patience being taxed
My stomach is stirring
Blood rushing, veins bulge
Muscles tensed, tearing apart
In this instability I do not indulge
This madness, lost in dark thought
I need to be alone
Prevent any harm
Lay like a cold stone
To return to calm
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 7:42 AM UTC
The darkness that consumed me made me feel like wanting
to die, even before the age of nine.
However, let's count our blessings that none of the individuals
in the house owned a nine. I find myself engulfed in these thoughts,
I make a desperate plea to hold on, just like hanging
clothes on a line.
The voices inside my head ring relentlessly, like an
ominous chorus on this figurative suicidal line.
__1-800-273-8255__
Please could you pick up, it's feeling serious this time.
My heart remains motionless, resembling a lifeless mannequin, and if you look closely, you may witness the damages.
I cautiously open the door to my own insanity, but the idea of grappling with its dark influence feels overwhelmingly intimidating,— I can't handle this.
Fear grips me as I contemplate unveiling my eyes, for I
dread the somber reality that they will behold.
Once again, I urge my thoughts to remain steadfast, like
clothing hung on a line, as the echoes of the voices -
The voices inside my head ring relentlessly, like an
ominous chorus on this figurative suicidal line.
__1-800-273-8255__
Please could you pick up, it's feeling serious this time.
A peculiar itch consumes my lips, almost as if I long for
the Death's kisses. Within the depths of my depression, I struggle to maintain a sense of identity, for this overwhelming sadness has become my greatest weakness. I endeavor to traverse the arduous path of mental instability, navigating the metaphorical distance of a "crazy mile".
However, I feel invisible, unnoticed by the world as I bear witness to my own pain. The allure of escapism entices me, enticing me to run towards the temporary relief that a blade may bring,— cutting myself more this time.
Once again, I beseech my thoughts to cling tightly, like
clothes delicately draped on a line.
The voices inside my head ring relentlessly, like an
ominous chorus on this figurative suicidal line.
__1-800-273-8255__
Please could you pick up, it's feeling serious this time.
Dec 25, 2023
Dec 25, 2023 at 9:37 PM UTC
Your eyes are
my weakness
Your scent is
my proneness
Your lips are
my vulnerability
Your hair is
my susceptibility
Your voice is
my instability
Your touch is
my humility
Your lust is
my inferiority
Your love is
my superiority
©
Jan 23, 2015
Jan 23, 2015 at 2:49 PM UTC
When the emergency room
is at maximum occupancy,
the nurses will lay down
their clipboards and utensils,
clear their throats, and ask for
women and children
to approach the desk first.
To ensure proper care,
forms still must be completed promptly,
and as patiently as possible for the
patient to be processed.
There's the occasional backwards R.
But all is acceptable with a
signature by the X.
Adrenaline coursing
through veins may perhaps lead
the cause of instability,
some instances coarse skin.
A child with the heart of a lion,
shell of a turtle, will always overcome;
rest assured, an insured child,
prints their name with the
unmistakable yet
innocent backwards R still
knows that words are as powerful
as excruciating pain.
Sticks and stones and words alone
have been known to break through bone.
With the twitch of a finger
even Danny Torrance made
the word "Redrum" seem
like a word to reflect on,
if not only a feeling
of constant déjà vu.
Intensive care is a surgeon
not leaving a wristwatch
inside of a patient,
if not a cadaver
whose time ran out.
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 19, 2013 at 8:31 PM UTC
nineteen
the age of uncertainty
underdeveloped prefrontal cortex
development of morality
nineteen
inside, still a child
outside fully pubescent
on your own
nineteen
too young for the real thing
but slowly learning the landscape
to the world of adulthood
nineteen
the age of beauty
blossoming realizations
living
nineteen
the worlds not what it seems
experience things in a new way
that you never though existed
nineteen
the peak of psychological disorders
anxiety and depression
heartache
fear, instability
and restlessness
nineteen
last year as a teen
a year filled with mystery
and hope
life
love
not a breath wasted
if you know how,
keep breathing
Dec 26, 2010
Dec 26, 2010 at 7:42 PM UTC
I treated my skin like a goddess
Legs shaved, hands moisturized,
Any spot of acne scrubbed away and covered over with pale sheets
But I hid from my spine, like a snake always a few inches behind me, waiting to strike
This skin there was a poorly applied veneer,
Exaggerating the flaws it was meant to hide
The snake is in constant motion, waving an S up the core of my being,
Displaying my instability
It's curved, like the ridges of the Grand Canyon
Only more unnatural,
Un beautiful,
More like a line you tried to draw straight
Only when it wavered just a little too much, you threw it away and started over
I cannot start over
My snake drags venom along its body, instead of drooling it into a bite
And he is always biting,
So the skin on my back has never been touched
Never been pampered, or savored.
Jan 7, 2018
Jan 7, 2018 at 10:48 PM UTC
Manitoban Skies
Clouds are the mountains of the prairies
Towering cumulonimbus masses
Incredible backdrops across an otherwise plain blue sky
Warning call that rainstorms may approach
Vertical reminders of atmospheric instability
Jetted upwards into vast formations stretching miles and miles
Promises of unrelenting lighting and thunder
Cinematic sequences is country folk are lucky to view
Humidity in the summer, ah
What would we do without you?
Rolling clouds are a fair trade for the lack of rolling hills
Clouds are the mountains of the prairies.
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 4:56 PM UTC
You're a tornado-
You spin madly around and sometimes carry things off with you. People and objects fall into your vortex and spin around madly with you.
You spin yourself dizzy, to the point where standing still sometimes isn't possible because you might have forgotten how.
You hit the earth below you and blaze a trail ahead, leaving your mark wherever you go.
You rustle leaves 100 miles away and send some flying just as far.
Sometimes you feel like a tornado-
You jumble things up and feel like when things hit your path, you run through them and scatter them around.
You spin so fast that no one can slow you down, that you're always spinning on your own and finding someone that could adjust to your spin is one in a million.
You never stop spinning because that how your mind works; it spins day and night, endlessly. You're always spinning new scenarios and thoughts in your turbulent mind.
You feel like you may destroy people you run through, and sometimes they try to tell you to spin a different way or cease to spin at all, and that hurts. They don't understand that if you don't stop spinning, you may just cease to be who you are all together.
When I say you are a tornado, I mean well-
Not everyone looks at a tornado and sees what I see.
People see chaos, destruction, instability.
Sometimes I know you see that in yourself.
Sometimes I see it in you too.
But as a tornado, you have what others don't-
Someday, someone will step into your storm and be your calm.
They won't be afraid of who you are, like you are sometimes of yourself.
They'll see what the luckiest people in your life see in your storm;
Absolute beauty, uniqueness, individuality, empathy.
Not everyone can see the beauty in a storm-
It takes a special eye, and a special kind of person to love you.
Not because you're undeserving, but because you're different than the rest.
You're one of a kind, that's why no storm has the same name.
It's why no storm hits the same ground. Every storm differs, but there are only so many.
So when I say you're a tornado, this is what I imply-
You're scary to some people you're powerful and provoking and interesting.
You will sweep someone away someday.
Someone will look at you like you're the best thing to have hit his life, literally.
Someday, a man will be able to see the beauty in your storm and spin with you, always by your side.
You're a tornado-
You're one hell of a sight,
Unmistakably one of a kind,
Wild, crazy, enticing and beautiful all in your own,
With a storm inside of you that someone is going to find someday, and that person will be dizzy with how different you are, and will ultimately get swept away by you.
I promise.
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 2:33 PM UTC
It’s okay, I only cry sometimes, I lie,
Because being honest and admitting to
Days filled with endless tears is
Unattractive
And nobody likes a weak girl with wet eyes
Tears mean
Instability
In the eyes of stones who masquerade
As human beings.
It’s okay, I only cry sometimes, I say,
Like when reading a book and it hits me
Harder than expected
Like on drunken nights when I’m lonely and
My past haunts me
Like the times when I’m really, truly, kind of
Very happy
Or when I’m numb to everything
And sometimes when nothing at all
has happened but I’m still moody
But it’s okay,
because honestly,
I only cry sometimes.
Aug 19, 2016
Aug 19, 2016 at 9:03 AM UTC
I'm learning
Learning to be human
To color in the lines
To not be my emotional centered self
To be like the rest
No multy colored leggings
No braids in the middle of my head
No me
No you
Plain blue jeans
To bad...
I'm failing.....
No one seems to be able to change my crazy
I sit still in anticipation of another try
Still....
I sit with a satisfied mind of who I am meant to be
Instability
It helps me sleep at night
I am a mess
It will be my accomplishment if today ends
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 10:09 PM UTC
i wonder if my suicide attempt did in fact **** me
and this is hell.
with each one, it seems to get worse.
time always moves backwards and then suddenly it’s forward.
i live in my memories. flashbacks. nightmares.
nightmares if i sleep at all.
and when i don’t, the friends behind my ear
keep me company.
the roommates in my head drown me
and blur my vision.
i feel red in my eyes when i get this way.
the stars fall like the burning fireballs they are
and the screams are unbearable
and the cries are aching
and my heart is being pulled out of my chest
like flowers off its root.
when i’m this way, i’d rather die.
parties isolate me.
loneliness swallows me in screaming and begging.
how did i get this way?
i don’t want it.
take it from me.
maybe then i’ll be able to live happy.
Jul 18, 2022
Jul 18, 2022 at 10:08 PM UTC
1437
A Dew sufficed itself—
And satisfied a Leaf
And felt “how vast a destiny”—
“How trivial is Life!”
The Sun went out to work—
The Day went out to play
And not again that Dew be seen
By Physiognomy
Whether by Day Abducted
Or emptied by the Sun
Into the Sea in passing
Eternally unknown
Attested to this Day
That awful Tragedy
By Transport’s instability
And Doom’s celerity.
2.5k
what do i have to do to be noticed by you
would i catch your attention if i crashed a car
yesterday i climbed on the roof and did twenty jumping jacks
does my incredible emotional instability repel you
do you want to cuddle me until i never have those thoughts
please just answer my text
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 8:56 PM UTC
Brown eyed
God driven
Family matters
Devoted to art
Electric piano
Traditional
Off beat guitar
Mercedes Car
High humidity
Cut grass
Atmospheric
Instability
Technologic
Quarter rounds
Day dreaming
Sleeping soundly
Sep 30, 2015
Sep 30, 2015 at 2:09 PM UTC
Darkness came before the sun fell,
I never saw the eclipse in your heart
Fate turned you against me quietly,
Like the flattered fool I played my part
From the depths of surrender you resurrected grace,
My siren song, your heartbeat
Only I never understood exactly what I had become,
Just a convenient source of heat
Fire and light were born in the space between our eyes,
My soul the freely given fuel
But ice found purchase, in the abyss underneath lust,
Driving love into a frozen pool
Kicking furiously, driven by some Romeo complex,
I would have reached dry land
Yet as my eyes dropped below the surface I saw you.
And you never reached out a hand.
My eyes have betrayed me before though, love.
And I'm willing to assume they have again...
Our kiss is more important than our lips now,
A symbol of something that's never been.
My words are a never-ending ocean of instability,
Dark water like cursed wine
And at this Mass of souls I'll remain in sin gladly,
If only you are still truly mine
Because the words are something more than I am,
Clutching blindly at your sadness
They are the eternal record of your perfect beauty,
And a chronicle of my madness
I once believed that I could stop the world for you,
That such power would win you;
But my faith was never enough to break destiny,
And, in my heart, I always knew.
So when the first flowers of hope are finally dead,
And you have already forgotten my eyes;
I only hope one constant truth remains with you,
None of my promises were intentional lies.
Remember, when you feel thunder shake the world,
That something like this never truly dies.
Oct 23, 2012
Oct 23, 2012 at 6:46 PM UTC
There's a darkness in me
I mean, probably only figuratively
We'll have to wait and see
Seven masks of sin but one entity
All splitting a single fractured personality
Head spins wildly
I've searched quietly
I've asked loudly
I've had to cry and scream internally
Keeping it caged and locked inside has caused me to break down repeatedly
No outcome that I've found is a guarantee
So, I guess it's a guaranteed mystery
Of course it is, fuuck me...
Something that quite possibly will only make sense to me in a different plane of reality
...uh...that doesn't help at all actually
Hopeless is often a stand-in for the elusive positivity
It comes along so rarely one could hardly be blamed for questioning the authenticity
Then there's this two way brutality
It devours not because it's hungry but because it's so god daamn greedy
I'm not suppose to let it out of me
I'm told this as I feel it under my skin ripping up the already dilapidated basic human anatomy
This is a one man operation so it breaks out occasionally
But the goal though, if it were to ever be left up to me, my preferred destiny
The socially dreaded monotony
I embrace it knowing it will never be enough to right such a severe mental instability
Didn't think it was destined to be a doomed mission but maybe it was done vainly
It's not easily put into words but it feels like thievery
It's stolen chunks of life from me and didn't have the decency to even leave me a silver hair sliver of a memory
Turned me into a mockery of Jeremy
Right back to the old me
My own worst enemy
A part I've played so absolute I almost destroyed me
I've explained it to me slowly
Barley made it this far and the next 40,
They're looking to be just as iffy
Half devils reject, half whatever you see
Sprinkle in a little lie here and there as a preserve for longevity
Worry about it later, only if it bites me
100% broken but realistically only maybe half evil so, you know, 333
©2024
Feb 6, 2024
Feb 6, 2024 at 7:07 PM UTC
The music
Somehow
Managed to be
Manifested
By the duo
A deaf girl
And a blind boy
Worked
To create this work
Of art
One reads
The notes allowed
While the other strokes
The keysIn synch
They play together
Brail fails
To satisfy the imagination
And the
The hand signs
Signal
Your handicapped
Incapabilities
In case instability
Isn’t enough
To remind her
Reminders forgotten
By forging talents
Forming
As a Shaper of souls
The
Lost and found
They create a presence
Presented
As a musical performance
The conformants
Go with the flow
And accept their fate
Society tells
This peculiar pair’s
Tale
Is unlike any other
Fate begs for a chance
To show her powers
While the duo denies
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 12:36 AM UTC