"knuckling" poems
I'm fatally dancing advancing with and toward
a slow zoom through hallways to the dark room
trying to shorten my strides or grip the walls at my sides gouging
a fingernail fear of mortality that makes out the shape
of the cursive-signed names of everyone or thing ever in a
not-so clever attempt to accept the thief that's in and is the night
I breathe heavily and wide to prove that I'm alive until my ribs
touch the white-walls rubbing along in a washboard song
that peels paint like turpentine with a rank smell wafting
from the room at the end of the line and time knuckling under
the backs of my knees scraping off of the floorboards slouching across
the adjacent door frames where exit signs should read thee
forehead pulsating expelling sweat to absolve me and for moments
the room might shine and I am still
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 11:02 PM UTC
>Want a thing? Relax
>into a script to get a taste.
>Fetishes? or repressed natural inclination?
>Roll a D20 to feel better, take fun and make it killing,
>with just enough free will to make it interesting.
>Nothing else can become reality so in the universe we got
>in the cosmic lottery, calm down
>and have fun.
>Find the most effective deformation — BAM BAM
>SHOOT EM UP — and life is real. Over the top?
>Or so aware that art is less than or equal
>to life, so why settle for realism?
>Say something the way that no one else can say
>it. Maintain a state
>of relaxation by white knuckling your partner until you forget to breathe.
>Fetishize white men not being racists.
>Lay it all out for your audience
>whose uneducation cries out to be fixed
>by you
>and you alone.
>Reassure them
>you get it:
>art is hard,
>so I’m going
>to speak my subtext
>and spice things up
>with some choreography
>just to make sure
>you get what it is
>exactly
>that I’m trying
>to say,
>because god knows you wouldn’t get it otherwise.
>(And this way, people will finally understand you, and you will be complete, and you will be satisfied, and you will get everything you ever wanted, and you will ride fulfilled into the bright new day of artistic enlightenment you lucky sonuvabitch.)
Mar 1, 2016
Mar 1, 2016 at 8:39 PM UTC
Thick, metal chains wrap around her neck and lungs
Grip tighter and tighter with every day she's forced to put on a front
She is sweating
And breathing hard
Her breaths feel short and quick
White knuckling the chains and pulling as hard as she can
With all her mind power, demanding to break free
But nothing happens
She remains stuck
It is pitch black
And ice cold
And though she is suffering worse than ever before
Her mind stays pure and divine
Strong willed and unbreakable
Buddhism has saved her mind and soul
She is aware of her mental strength
And grateful for her beautiful fate
But the somber reality of her current state is hell
Frustration is her motivation and her gift of self love is immaculate
Soon the chains will disintegrate
And she will run wildly into the land of balance and harmony that she's already created for her soul
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 12:16 PM UTC
On a bed in fair mid-May,
Away from school, work, and play,
Lie a young boy devoid of joy,
Trying to break away.
It wrestled, fought, and struggled,
But fatal aims redoubled,
His iron will held them stock-still,
Neither could break away.
Motions were slow and fleeting,
Instinct and Will competing,
To end two pains in different veins,
Crumble and break away.
Strangling a blind reflection,
White-knuckling throats mid-section,
With fratricide, a part had died,
What's left to break away.
Downtown a young man stood tall,
Behind eyes, perturbing pall,
Lie a young boy devoid of joy,
Trying to break away.
Sep 29, 2021
Sep 29, 2021 at 5:42 AM UTC
She whispers lowly to me. This mind of mine is filled with Bipolar thru and thru.
Not one person I have let have a peek of it wide openedly before you now on this very day.
All see me smile at them normally yet in this mind of mine she is stirring.
I'm frantically holding, clutching, white knuckling her down as she tries to climb out the eyes of me.
She screams at me constantly piercing my ears I fear they will began to bleed.
I barely can keep her inside down me, this evil twin in me is wicked bone deep.
She rules over the demons that breath heavy on me as they are ordered to claw the skin from me to try to get her free.
This is Bipolar this is me. Welcome to my world.
Please don't stay very long she might claw at you all the while smiling at you. Unleashing her demons down into you.
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 8:45 AM UTC
The grip on my disposable razor
Is tighter than the grip of my own reality.
Reflection distorted by the humid condensation,
I still see my hands trembling as I shave.
I still see the designer bags under my eyes.
The familiar aroma of shaving cream,
Paired with the sobering twinge
Of the nicks from my razor.
The haphazardly spilled pills,
Horizontal bottles in the medicine cabinet.
White-knuckling the porcelain sink,
Decorated with dried toothpaste and the blood of my gums.
I reflect to my reflection
Distorted by drip drops of tap water,
“Am I still myself?
Or simply a prospect of my own delusion?”
Mar 24, 2017
Mar 24, 2017 at 2:20 PM UTC
sits in the dusty room and slowly turns the
hand crank on the wretched machine
unfolding a hundred sinister faces grinning
unleashing a thousand bare feet knuckling the
threadbare carpet leading out to sunshine
dawn is almost upon us
and the truth i must face up to
is merciless
and it eats at the scarred surface of my soul
this factory of madness i must abandon
this pleasure palace of the sinister i must leave
this small world that i at least understood
i stand on the threshold and peer uncertain
out to the world that shocks me
how will i contain it
how will i master this vast place
i cannot even silence the fearful beating of my heart
i am alone in this world
i feel what it is to be crushed benith the weight of indifference
the paper with the hundred sinister faces and thousand bare feet
gathers raindrops on the bus stops floor
no longer able to unleash a power to sustain me
the paper is but a rancid cartoon
and weak reminder of worlds left behind
i shrink ever further into the shadows
hoping not to be seen
by the real sinister faces
not to be benith the thousand real bare feet
knuckling threadbare lives they rule
i am alone and afraid in the real world
Apr 27, 2013
Apr 27, 2013 at 7:51 PM UTC
second chances
third chances
fourth chances
renewed trusts
replenished damaged belief
pride and prejudice
hurt and sadness
fifth chances...
making up
making out
waking up half ashamed
walking out half naked
walking off the emptiest night of your lives
forcing a smile
pretending to be fine
pretending to be fine
pretending to be fine
pretending to be fine
lying
knuckling under
lying
falling behind
pretending to believe each other
trustfalls
with
a
harness
trust
falling
apart
trust broken forever.
sixth chances...
tears-----
weeping-----
sobbing-----
gnashing of teeth-----
staring into the mirror blankly at 3am
crying yourself up until 9
glass shard pressed smoothly
against your wrist
total darkness...
undoable sadness...
uncurable brokenness...
unsatiable...
irrevocable...
irreversible...
-------seventh chances
pain.
------eighth chances
cries.
------ninth chances
lies.
-------tenth chances
more 'last' goodbyes.
et cetera
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 6:31 PM UTC
Hear the motions of the engines,
Speed South to North,
As well North to South,
Care not they, the sounds they make.
It is a confession.
They speed in the land of ****
It increases, then decreases,
As they travel past, the open window,
Winterless blast, a confession,
It feels close to spring.
Care not a bit that sounds, rude, to those who tomorrow,
Will wake up to snow, while the blizzard sounds here,
Are the rush of thoughtless trucks and cars,
Which are driven at speeds above the posted limit,
Even if they don't have to travel so far,
To get home in the drizzle, to their green grass.
Maybe snow would slow them down,
Or keep them off the road entirely,
No, no, not them, they are rude,
They have this attitude,
Drive like this, no matter what the weather,
They are better than the conditions, they drive in.
Another confession, they are in it to win, and no one
else knows there is a contest and contestants.
What a surPrize!
Hand him a sextant as he drives at night, after all he has to navigate,
Through Facebook and Likes and texts and bytes of downloads from
YouTube...would not want to be fashionably late in reply otherwise
Your social life, and status,
may die.
Trafficking bad habits,
Instead of "look out for the other guy or gal"
The phone and the life it holds,
can be dropped,
"worse than a dropped call",
is all the sirens wail as they go by,
Life in the balance, ghosts
White knuckling it with one hand,
While eyes are fixed, to a deathly white screen
And fingers dance solo in some sexless act,
The result is the same a distracted fact,
The mind is no longer in the car,
It has left the body already,
Waiting for it to die,
Watching from above and reaching to all
Who have fingers and a phone
Wanting to be ghosts and sticking to the life,
Which will make it happen.....by accident.
Drive defensively,
Leave your phone in the trunk.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 1:47 AM UTC
bobby's mind wanders
his momma said hes a good boy
but he has grown to be an old man now
and there is nobody left to gauge if hes still good or not
he gathers himself in the bus stop corner
out of the rain
he scans the ground for dropped coins
and his gaze falls
on a crumpled bright paper
one corner shows a crinkled face
its a sinister face
he unfolds it
and unfolds the paper too
all the years fall away from his eyes
troubles slip away into the darkness
all the things that
he should have, could have, disappear
the paper leads him to the tower
and the wretched machine spins slowly back to life
he takes his place
in the dusty room slowly turning the hand crank
unfolding two hundred sinister faces
unleashing two thousand bare feet knuckling
the threadbare carpet leading to sunshine
it isnt what you think that traps you
its what you feel
its the past you have not faced and defeated
its the things you fear
its what they make you feel
unfolding two hundred sinister faces
and they feed on his weakness
by making him feel strong
eats at the scarred surface of his soul
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 7:15 AM UTC
My pain chips away at life
With no precision, it isn't nice
White knuckling a standard butter knife
When it's time to go all the way, it won't think twice
©2025
May 21, 2024
May 21, 2024 at 5:36 PM UTC
Our sweaty hands grasped tightly,
white-knuckling, bracing for impact.
My paint-and-peel green nail polish
ruined by the last round.
"It matches the grass stain
on your white tights!" Cody yells
from across the yard.
I'll get you for that, traitor.
We call him over--
Time slows, cheeks redden, teeth clenched.
Our bodies bend with the sudden contact.
Too strong for Cody, we stand tall,
Grass stains and tears follow him home.
Jun 26, 2010
Jun 26, 2010 at 6:04 PM UTC
she rambled through midnight,
shoes more white-tar *****
than black leather,
avoiding destinations,
washed palms
not unfamiliar with
stakes being grounded
near the wrong type of hearth.
standing half-drunk,
on scorched oxygen epilogues,
her cheeks deserted,
feet knuckling homeward,
wrists unveiled by calamities,
she’d pour shrapnel
into her scrapes,
wrongs cast in iron,
and
he would trace
her scars like
a roadmap,
but always left
by morning—
twilight strangers
in a cold, perfect sunset.
freckles holy,
lights heady,
moon painfully
indifferent.
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 10:20 PM UTC
Life is good
Life is swell
Looking at you
from the bottom of my well
You say relax, sit back and smile
I say I would if I didn't have to shovel this pile
Razor blades outside my skin
repel your love cutting me within
My tortured mind takes over reason
I try to hold on white knuckling the season
I didn't invite this darkness to enter
It barges on in, knocking me off of my center
I pull from my bag of miraculous tricks
Meditation, Deep Breathing, but nothing sticks
The hardest part is what this does to you and me
I cry I'm sorry Babe, here is my apology
*I'm awful to be around, to talk to, to love
I pray for your patience
and strength from above*
*I've lost the real me it seems to be
My sadness and nerves are my identity*
*I know I'm still here, plugging along
Playing Mommy, cleaning house, but without any song*
*Please reach closer when I push you away
Not easy I know, especially some days
Your love and tenderness ground me to home
You by my side shows me I'm not alone*
*Scrunched in my darkness
Squinting for light
Reach your hand out to me; say "It'll be alright"*
*My distance is really a huge shield of shame
I hate myself, loathe myself and take all the blame*
*This is not really me; messed up thoughts inside
I want to purge it all leaving my heart open wide*
*I love you, I need you, I want you near
It's so hard to ask you to wipe up my tears*
*Today's reality, skewed and blue
Tomorrow may bring sunshine
And Me back to You.*
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 11:26 AM UTC
Knuckling under weatherworn predictions, the salt is down. There is a limit to preparedness and at some point, faith that the break shall come to a blizzard's infamy, must supersede. It's just fluff and slush after all. Barely, this white blanketing is made, before the brine trucks are revving, ready to tear up the sheets. Shall I slumber too long, I may miss the hush of placidity. Who will be the first to break silence? That inevitable metal scrape against cement, I dread its' brashness. Can the missies' ice morning not roll by without delusions that these snow damsels must be shoveled off? Let the winter lassies lie for briefness of their coolness brings me to a dream scene. Colleens of a cold front, you blew upon me so softly this way, how dare I snow blow you, away?
Jan 22, 2016
Jan 22, 2016 at 9:05 PM UTC
Bringing tears of pain
Full redness and burning
Campfires of the Earth
Volcanos, ripping investments
Planning of all the ants
"It'll destroy the world,"
Views of eco freaks
On the wrench
Only seeing the bolt
On, not the pureness of the engine
Revving of all the gear heads
White knuckling all those who don't;
Pure daily drivers, all
Specializing in their niches
Preyed upon by statisticians
Numbers, by day
Astrologists by night
Spinning above our heads
Lain east to west, chi
Without regard
For silly things
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 1:50 PM UTC
Knuckling under weatherworn predictions, the salt is down. There is a limit to preparedness and at some point, faith that the break shall come to a blizzard's infamy, must supersede. It's just fluff and slush after all. Barely, this white blanketing is made, before the brine trucks are revving, ready to tear up the sheets. Shall I slumber too long, I may miss the hush of placidity. Who will be the first to break silence? That inevitable metal scrape against cement, I dread its brashness. Can the missies' ice morning not roll by without delusions that these snow damsels must be shoveled off? Let the winter lassies lie for briefness of their coolness brings me to a dream scene. Colleens of a cold front, you blew upon me so softly this way, how dare I snow blow you, away?
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 12:34 PM UTC
I admit.
I am your utterly
disillusioned waste of space.
I play the prominent part
in a lavish masquerade
of all the world's lowly taste.
A fiasco
in my past state.
A ruin
in progress.
A vision of demise
when tomorrow commences.
Sheer disappointment,
I caused to thee.
Holds back from life,
my destiny.
Knuckling under
the dull moonlight
all of my dreams
as they lose from sight.
It's true,
I've been a fool,
making lots of awful tunes.
Wrapping up mem'ries
with shabby rhymes.
Hiding under the rubble
of my shattered life.
I then concede.
I ask you all to plead
from your many gods
forgiveness for a soul
who had lost all control.
Truly,
it was nice
to hear a plentiful
sorrowful
terrible cries.
But no matter what goes on
in the head of the overthrown,
I had to slowly surrender
and give up my own disguise;
it's a new lease on life.
But I hale you all to listen.
For my words are sacred til I die.
But not when I tell you
not to believe when I try to guile.
'Cause while I'm your silver-tongued girl,
I am willing to tell more lies.
*But words aren't much sacred;
never, until you die.*
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 5:34 AM UTC
Not exactly that swan
lifting white grace
to the heavens
Nope
but thud and tug and ping
and whipping thud again
taking flight out across the highway
in my rear-view
Scuttled dust
fiberglass flattened
by the truck behind
White-knuckling wheel while
mentally compute
split-second sounds and feels for damage...
I guess?
everything's
okay...?
First it was that blowout
Then one by one
the hubcaps lost their grips, their minds
and went their ways
to join the trash
of butts and chunks of mattress
fast-food wrappers, road-kill
by the guardrail
of another day
Most recent--
Antenna disconnect
Fixed with tape 'cause
Gotta have that music
heat, AC, tires, breaks
Ya know-- important things
like that steady humming engine
Destined to be--
buckboard to the beach or heaven
whichever's first
by the time its twenty
Much nearer than I'd care to say
Ode to Car and Driver
who get there--
in all good hope, together
:)
Apr 27, 2019
Apr 27, 2019 at 1:37 PM UTC
I wish I’d met you in a different lifetime
further down the line.
In this hypothetical lifetime,
we’re stronger and smarter, quicker on our feet,
Full of grace and thought, ready for anything.
a life quite close the end of it all, perhaps,
When we’ve learned just about all the lessons
Conquered almost all the demons
When we’ve found ourselves **** near the best that souls can be,
So close to eternal bliss we can almost wrap ourselves in it.
I wish you had found me a bit more evolved,
A life in which we’ve found a perfect niche for our respective selves,
We could spend these long days on our own cosmic plane,
Sipping herbal tea and
contemplating the complexities
Or the simplicities
Of it all
where we go from here,
And how it could be possible that we fit so nicely into one another's
Grand schemes,
How lucky it is that we found each other just in time
For the end of our journeys, whole and full.
I wish we could spend these moments in peace,
Where we can count our combined spirals and
questionable decisions
And painful memories on one steady hand,
Where we don’t have to weigh
Who needs more in the moment,
Where we don’t have to fight so hard for happy,
And we wouldn’t have to white-knuckle it when we have finally get a momentary taste.
It’d be nice,
Wouldn’t it?
To love and let love
To know the answers and let the questions
Roll over us without a care,
Without getting stuck there?
To just enjoy what the universe has made of us?
But then again,
on second thought,
I think I’m quite glad you’re here, now,
Somehow,
Maybe this is lucky.
Maybe lost and hurt
and ages away from where we’re meant to be,
Unsure and certain that we must missing some essential thing,
Something everyone we admire seems to have found,
Something they keep tucked away for only the elite to know,
Some compass or map
Or fountain of youth
Or maybe we just haven’t read the right books
Heard the right songs
Gotten the right diagnoses
Had the right conversations
Visited the right places.
Regardless, I think,
This lifetime must have been meant for us.
Maybe,
I think,
I don’t so much mind the white-knuckling and
Trying to understand and
Asking too many questions
And tallying up the ones that are ever-unanswered
As long as you’re doing it next to me.
The getting there, i’m beginning to think,
might be when we need one another most.
a.m.
Jan 12, 2021
Jan 12, 2021 at 6:33 PM UTC
They eye me the way I once
did you, reminders of red wines paired
with seared cuts,
sugared plums, spiced ***
and saccharine frosting
whipped to delicate peaks.
They are stringy and shiny
with bulging green bellies and
for a moment I imagine them
bursting free from their pods and
spilling into the aisle—shining like
wet eggs under the fluorescent lights.
White-knuckling the cart and chin just
high enough to gaze at the produce
from the corner of my eye, I push
past, I push on, I push away from
You know I can see you watching me,
you’d said that night when I tried the same
move on you, voice like a snake
and mouth red with merlot
you moved to me and you whispered
your song; eyelids flitting like moon
dusted moth wings, and guilty, wet
heartbeats blooming across our faces—
In another aisle now I release
my breath. Ribs unfurl like sails and
nothing ever happened.
I never called you back.
Symphonic excursions and gourmet
paranoia ceased, and as time moved on,
so did I.
But I will never cook with fava beans again.
Feb 21, 2022
Feb 21, 2022 at 1:10 PM UTC
He doesn't say my name anymore; not since the first time around. I am baby girl, angel, gorgeous. He hasn't said my name since that day.
"Well, ---, I don't think this is going to work."
That was the day I drove to the boat ramp at my lake, cut the brakes in my car, and waited.
The day I quit my job, dropped out of school, and deleted all of my social media account.
The time I dedicated all my free time - and time was all I had anymore - to researching how to recreate that fire in me and then how to treat third-degree burns.
The day I learned that time melts like chocolate when you hold it long enough, and it looks a lot like blood on my hands.
The day I learned white knuckling memories doesn't mean they seal the fractures between my fingers.
The day I learned some things just aren't mine to keep.
I've been touchier since that day; just one poke and I'm black and blue - yellow is rare, but it happens sometimes.
The doctor gave me some pills to help with the ache, and they keep me pretty full, so I don't know why I still have that gurgle in my stomach almost all the time, why I still have that itch in my veins when something is almost but not quite.
I tell myself constantly that a substitute can only hold off the craving for a little, but I need it now, and I never learn.
Jun 22, 2019
Jun 22, 2019 at 5:09 PM UTC
I didn’t fall in love with you.
I was falling in love with myself again, and you supported me as I patched these broken things.
And you loved me, and reminded me that I am worthy. You were the first to treat me the way I was deserving.
But I held you at bay, consistently afraid. Even when I began to let you in I dug my heels in, resisting change.
Until I started breathing and began releasing. I stopped white knuckling, and resisting.
And, remember. I didn’t fall. I made the choice to risk it all.
I leapt over the cliff, where my earth cracked and crumbled to bits by the last. And I chose to love you even after all of that.
I choose to love you every day, getting know you as the seasons change. And through it all I plan to stay.
Oct 8, 2019
Oct 8, 2019 at 6:02 AM UTC
or just read the whole thing straight through to the end
or don't read this at all or get bored and go read four stanza rhyming poetry just take a minute to pause when you get tired my fingers say what they want to at times and go knuckling off on a tangent into my palm requiring very little thought or resting periods the ends of lines not the end of thoughts that come right out without urging or needing feedback
they my fingers digitally impress key after key in a line the implement I am using hits automatically the carriage return I have little control over it this time of night really so it tends to just go on and on until I run low of fingerprints .
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 3:24 AM UTC