A pair of phantoms hands
clasped and held to center
Symmetrical as Hell.
They pull apart and in their wake drift embers sparks and calcite.
Colors where these hands just were make-out and roll around; they leave their imprints and their stains when they are done.
Out of the unwashed we arrived
A symptom of passionate cries.
None comes from creation besides the thing that we made, just pray that it is ugly in all the right places—we pray, but not I, me, I make eyes at the mirror and punish myself until Hell's tides become shallow ends against mine—then frivolous, yank myself from sinking lifeboat to cloud-nine,
Let helping hand erase my demons, baby, I must be omniscient because I just personally faced damnation and swift rapture all within one bathroom trip.        
I am my own savior
You are the deity I suffer for.
For whom I could create under conditions of such self destruction and from you only disassurances to fuel my flame; watch it ignite
then go out,
Me in a panic,
Rolling newspaper together, heaving in the embers—making winds to toss that heat around, frantic cause I feel the maelstrom tossing inside me and it is quiet, nervous, commonly occurring. You can avoid all of that if you just GO.
No destruction required.
No promises of plans gone unmet if you never promised.
I only exist if you see me
Now shut your eyes: this is the remedy for lame creations.
I will still see you, Deity
You will still make fun of me if I am visible; I will sell fragments of my truth to the same machine that I loathe, and it will churn that truth to muck, my spirit to a discard pile, while my heart and the entirety of my body will belong to you.
Watch dust gather on my lashes as my eyes wait for a clever opening.
Aren't my thoughts eerily possessive?
I think I want to be one of your things so I can watch all of your successes from the shelf, and cover my eyes when you have visitors
Pretend I am a man to you
Not just something that your curiosity alone birthed. What is this blind responsibility I throw at you?
Myself I do not fully recognize, but I won't censor what seems logical to me, though visibly unhealthy.
I'm just trying to explain because avoiding didn't work: you are all that I think about. So much for NEW, maybe improved is still within me.

Ok.
I'm sorry for all of that. Believe it or not I have been trying to be less dramatic lately. Honestly it has been a very long time since feeling comfortable in here. You raided my thoughts long before I ever considered finishing the ******* thought
And then you left, so everything I ever/never said (or read or showed or wrote) to you was wrong and I had to change myself accordingly.
According to every flaw that I could find in myself. Income trouble.
Kids my age aren't supposed to go inward, they are programmed to ****, **** up, and forget. Success is just around the corner!
Don't worry, I'll go back to poetry format soon because this reality **** as it turns out is pretty depressing.
I think we need the
many moany broodings of a teenager who is white and straight—can't even write straight with this inky, ****** pen. That joke works better if you can physically see my notebook and the smudgy black Hell that it embodies. Seriously, it looks like some grabby octopus with parkinson's and seasonal mood swings tried to write the word "parkinsons" in here and then spent four to five hours sobbing about their meaningless existence and self-harming—just deep enough to make the ink drip out and fall into a pattern, maybe good enough to read aloud in public spaces which I would consider an honor in and of its
wobble and of the nerves that fire in like some unsteady chorus.
Still not good enough to sell. So bruised, so heady, Please Howard almighty I am ready
To be shot down in wave after wave of this stupidity. Oh how embarrassing it would be to face a firing squad if she could see; how could I ever imitate your immortality or even just your shine...
Here! More Pretty Words!
Pressure builds and compresses the body performs more or less—a little shaky.
The DANGER is in the mind right next to the safety.
Beneath the skull there is a small office-room plastered with disheveled documents, maybe important, the ones that I hired to clean up in there are actually four well fed cats, using the pages for their waste and spending their days pledging to untangle an endless, brain-sized ball of thread but—you know. at some point.
Right?
Like once they figure out that their cheap new carpeting is getting redder and redder the more that they tug on it. And—also they need to learn the color RED right after we have a professional explain to them what colors are.
Oh! Also. That they are ******* CATS!
Wait—don't leave. Please don't leave!
Wait.
I'll be relatable.                     Wait.
I will only say handsome things.        Wait.
I'll pretend that I am not thinking about you even when your breath is pumping somewhere within the same enclosed facility as mine is.        Wait—
I will shorten my sentences significantly.
You won't even know it's me
Or that my lips could be so sure of anything
While my tongue so eager to betray.

I’ve spent a thousand hours
floating in your silent sea
filling your ocean with words I swallowed to keep afloat
waiting patiently for you to send me a raft
or a lifeboat
anything to let me know you remembered
I was out there all alone

Somewhere along the way
I managed to convince you that I basked
in your quiet waters, felt warm
in the dark waves which wrapped their arms around my torso
All the while I waited for you to wake
from your tidal slumber and see me gasping for air
beneath the lonely waves

I Love You.
I still do.

I remember the feeling of love

like a blanket.

Wrapped warm round my heart,

shielding it from the

frigid cold of anxiety,

keeping me sane from the

wallows of depression.
Waking up to you,

sun caressing your face.

When your eyes fluttered open

they shimmered gold

the prize of kings

yet in reach

of my trepid hands,

confident in the glow of your love.
As my towers crumbled down,

castles torn by the

catapults of panic.

Swinging strong,

crashing into my masks,

cracking walls of my heart,

you could not save me.

I never needed a hero.

Just a healing song,

wrapping wounds

after war torn battlefields

lilies growing hope in the wreckage.
Yet your heartstring clung to mine,

crimson as my blood.

Tugged to tightly,

struggling to hold me

as you held yourself.

Shadows nicking your heals,

as they crawled up my body to reach yours.

Some sacrifices are not worth making.

Some people must be left to the aftermath.

Some hearts cannot be salvaged from shadow.

You couldn’t bare the weight of me forever.

So you let go,

You saved yourself.
For that,

I am thankful.

I could never stand to see you drown

in my ocean.

Not when you are still attempting to
tread through yours.
But your lighthouse,

still a sight for my eyes.

I believe in the light,

I love your light,

I struggle to the surface of

the pitching waves.

Crashing on my face,

salt sticking to red flash eyes,

strangling my throat.

I crawl to the top just to

catch a glimpse of you.
Wishing for the days

where you would

sail out on your lifeboat

and hold me in the storm.

Just making sure i could still swim.

Just to see if I was okay.

To answer your question.


It is still hard to breathe underwater.
I swim through waves

steadfast, as they churn

mockingly. They can see my weakness.

But I love you,

that is enough.

I will keep paddling,

listening to my heart,

the beat of my hands and feet.

Slashing through the violet tides,

I will reach shore.

You will never have to sacrifice yourself

again.

I will reach the shore.

I will reach for you.

She said to me I tasted like a overripe cherry,
I told her she tasted like dust.
I told her she tasted like a storm, an electrical one,
I told her it wasn't good weather for setting off,
But she still smiled and unfurled a sail.
She told me I didn't listen and I sounded like the ocean,
I told her, her words were like a black hole
And I didn't have an airlock,
I told her she was the tears after a hurricane,
And her words were like dead leaves on the ground,
But still she talked like she was the universe.
She told me I loved like i like always letting go,
I told her I'm not a lifeboat,
I told her I'm an anchor that hasn't be winched up,
And I dragged along the murky bottom of her love,
And I was too strong to keep going,
And still she said she loved me when I'm weak.
She said I ****** like it was going out of style,
I told her that this wasn't the trend,
That I was old-fashioned and sonnets cried in bed,
Are worthless as the air they're written on,
I told her that ******* wasn't the problem,
And still she laid there bare and pen in mouth.
I said I am not a conditional type of person,
And she said I'm not a red pen waiting to mark your wrongs,
She said I wasn't good enough to waste the time on,
Trying to put together in her mind,
Because love should be easy.
So I said no, but it shouldn't be this hard.

Do you know how it feels like to have a stomach that can only survive on intimacy and nothing else?
To be prodded to love all the things that touch your skin whilst simultaneously not being
allowed or able to tell the difference between the things that love you and the things that want to leave you barren?
How it feels like to see the solemnity and grandeur of an omnipotence within all the sinless intentions of the skin cells that you'll never be allowed to hold?
Well...
It feels a lot like the romanticization of an eating disorder.

Sometimes you fall in love and then begin to forget how your organs are supposed to behave.
You look in the mirror and realize that you're still thinking about someone else when you're
Analyzing your own body.
You clutch at your own skin,
your arms,
your hair,
your throat,
and begin to try and disassemble a mind that does not want to be associated with the body that it is working in.
Before you know it,
Every time you cross the mirror you clutch more and more parts of yourself and wish that they would not feel better in somebody else's hands besides your own.
You're getting thinner everyday,
you're losing sleep
you're forgetting how to breathe,
And somewhere,
out there,
There is a boy in a place far away,
giving to someone else what you are about to be killed
without.

You realize that you turn your own bed into an ocean everytime you think about his face.
You feel the hydration of the salt water from everywhere around you,
tickling into your senses and diffusing into your nose,
but you do not taste it.
Only sense it.
You're grabbing the sheets desperately.
Holding them onto your chest, covering up your shaking body, and
almost certainly forgetting the difference between imagining the embrace of somebody who does not love you and drowning alone inside of your own bed.
You look for a lifeboat in the form of a thought that has no relation to love or association to the idea of affection.
You're hoping to find a distraction that will either save you from your peril or help you breathe in a way where you can still be conscious when there is water inside of your lungs.
You're beginning to see dark shapes and figures and all of them are sprouted by the idea
of just having a little taste of the very thing that's about to drown you.
All of the dark figures are in the shape of your face,
And nobody is here to save you.
You begin to sink,
And sink,
And sink,
and sink
and...

You are empty when you wake up.
Your chest is not an *****,
but you find it funny that when it feels empty,
your stomach also wishes to feel the same way.

So you make sure it does,
Whilst yearning for a meal that does not wish to be consumed by you.

That is the only meal,
that you will never stop craving for.

The smell of rockets, all burned out,
lingers in the chill night air.
A thousand voices scream and shout
And slowly dwindle in despair.
I’m clinging to this upturned lifeboat-
Strong hands reached out and I was spared.
I turn to look upon Titanic
But there is only flotsam there.

My friend and I had jumped together.
He went first when I declined.
He was ****** down by Titanic;
a victim of the White Star line.
Somehow I was spared his fate.
I’m dripping wet and freezing cold.
If only I survive this night-
I’ll stay on land till I grow old.

Groping for a lifeboat
In this turbulent tear-filled sea
I snatched the brown Aspirin bottle
Five hundred bitter
Small white pearl-sized wishes
Slide down my throat one by one

1. I wish I could forget you
19. I wish I wasn’t fat
37. I wish honeybees weren’t going extinct
113.  I wish my mom would accept that I am not her
174. I wish I never tried it
175. I wish I had some more
212. I wish I planted sunflowers last spring
227. I wish track marks weren’t so hard to hide
251. I wish my throat wasn’t so dry
288. I wish I told you the truth
289. I wish you didn’t believe me
301. I wish I had a cigarette
333. I wish I could stop crying
342. I wish my cat didn’t run away when I was 8
396. I wish I went to your funeral.
403. I wish I didn’t bite my nails
417. I wish this concrete floor was warmer
447. I wish it wasn’t my birthday
448. I wish anyone had called
498. I wish I were dead
499. I wish I were dead
500. I WISH I WERE ******* DEAD

He plunged his hand in the half-fitted
electrical socket, absorbing electrons
and sluicing them through to his core.
A recreation fit for a man of no station.

The nightmare of homelessness’ prospect,
the jarring from entrepreneur to beggar
was not a loosely whispered theme
but the pocket-guarding we recognize,
whose opening threatens to spill
more than simple vanity.

His watched as his insides tumbled
into the street, broken beans of pride
nestled between the acid
and the hernia he gave himself
coughing out the last of his security
amongst the well-wishers
attempting to shield themselves from his need.

Discomfiture had not yet defecated itself
through his seams and the letters and links
he sent out as a man trying to hold a lifeboat
without the fervor of clinging hands.
The ache to survive not a desperate one,
desperation having kicked itself out
over the politeness of circumstances
that called for something else.

Turning back into himself, he *****
his fingers as he pulls himself out
of the electrical socket, and walks to pick up
his innards on the street where they lay,
his pride now a forgotten thing
like the pocket-guarded slacks
with the loose seams.

IV**

Ma boys, ma boys
I hold them close in this canvas
Lifeboat
They look me in the eyes and say,
“Papa, where is Mama?”
How is it answered?
How do I answer sweet boys
Who question me in this canvas
Lifeboat?
How can it be said:
‘Boys, Papa take you away from
Mama
To Liberty Land
Where streets are gold?’
So I
I say nothing to quiet boys
In lifeboat rocking on the sea
Dark water is like truffle blood
I cannot see.
Away go we
On dark sea.
Small boys stop asking
Where Mama go
When they know
How I take them away.
I hold them tight
And look for dawn.

On this, the last night of our world,
As rockets flare and people scream,
A floating mount of arctic ice
has made a nightmare of our dream.
Dear Charlotte, get into the boat.
Don't make an orphan of our child.
I smile and lie and say that I
will be along in just a while.
She nods, and we share a final kiss,
a kiss redolent of goodbye.
It is my hope that they will live,
while I prepare myself to die.
Doomed gentlemen upon the deck;
noble, wealthy or in trade.
I play as brave as any there
In this, our final masquerade.
Their little lifeboat floats away
adrift upon a sea of glass.
I pray, for the first time in years,
full knowing that this cup won't pass.
Should I go down with the ship?
That is the Captain's choice, I hear.
Or put a gun into my mouth
And firing, put an end to fear?
No. I will stand with these brave men,
Who made the choice that I have made.
We'll leap before Titanic sinks
And in these depths find honorable graves.

Men of Reason: bold, progressive
hammer wielders, depth resounders –
shout from the helm your Godless missive
as our Bible-lifeboat flounders.

Send that Flying Spaghetti Monster,
our imaginary friend,
to the myth-conception dumpster:
let the Bronze Age folktales end.

Make the idols bow to Science.
Your progressive task: to mock –
seek that end in brave defiance.
Down with the shepherd’s useless flock !

Laser-focused human reason
serves to clarify the matter,
strips the symbols from the season,
superstitious tales to shatter.

We, mere rubes in need of crutches,
simple children, willing tools –
must be rescued from the clutches
of the fables preached to fools.

Seamless garments, bushes burning:
are but schemes for fleecing sheep…
We are plebes devoid of learning;
rouse our silly souls from sleep!

Flood us with your noontide wisdom
decimate the weaker link.
Blow away our card-house kingdom
show us Christards how to think.

Then, like you, we shall no longer
cling to ignorance and lies.
Missing links make chains yet stronger,
dragging fairies from the skies.

We shall join you in assurance
that there is no great beyond
thus no need for fire insurance
clergy, staff or magic wand.

We shall celebrate together
joyful, freed from superstition
endless, godless sunny weather:
non-existent non-perdition.

Having thus improved the light
and magnified Man’s modern day,
God’s angels will expire in fright;
the Lord shall meekly fade away.

The purser can still hear the cries
on that night, on the cold seas
the haunting shouts in the darkness
muffled shouts of help the helpless

That terrible night that the lady sank
when the lights went out replaced by stars
waiting and praying in the darkness
waiting for rescuers some just for release

In a distant lifeboat a child was sobbing
Mummy please wake up Please
and they turned her over the side
giving a hand to the next in the water to survive

The ship unsinkable
was a ship sinkable
made to the depths of the sea
with chilled patrons liken to you and me

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

I'm not so active
I may not know how to live
and I don't exercise but I exercise my right
to keep this in my line of sight
at all times
and somehow my muscles are as sore as when they tear away
but only from the shivering
I've gotten done these past few days
I shake and shake
and my racing heart keeps pace
with the chattering of my teeth
as my entire being vibrates
from the inside out all except for my vocal chords
whom long to move with the rest of me
to let you know that you could leave here with the best of me
build your lifeboat and life vest in me
and we can sail together to the east
ignore reason
commit treason
while they're sinking,
we hold on tighter to this fleeting feeling
run around
until I burn myself to the ground
because it feels so good to burn
when you're always left this cold
and no exercise
can repair these severed ties
or even make me want to try
to find a stillness in my soul
to find my niche
to find a home
to focus on a mastery
when being fluent in one language
won't ever land you on the front page
no matter what it is you have to say
but I only know the language of the sleepless nights
in the dialect of "the fear of another wasted day"
and when I overhear comments
on my "newfound" accent
all I really hear is
"her words never mattered anyway"
but they'll remember with the Frost
that "Nothing gold can stay"
and misquote me
on my final day.

i've been sitting in the rooms where love, hate, hope, and fear dwell
swirling about in a cosmic tornadoe
is it all too much for a fragile being to not get ****** into the **** storm
i feel the love, i see the love, like a tiny flower sprouting from the earth
please do not step on it
my heart hears the hope, plenty of room for all on the lifeboat  
please don't rock the boat
it can't be done alone - pick up the phone
we are greater than the sum of all our parts
one plus one equals infinite
check my math
check my ego
check priorities
checkmate

My heart is a vessel on waves of feelings,
that are turbulent beyond comprehension.

Swells encompass my being, sometimes I think
to release the lifeboat of emptiness.

But when all seems lost and unforgivable,
A gentle surge lifts upon my emotions.

I am a vessel on a ocean of conative affection
sailing upon the rough as well as the love.

So close but yet so far
Now I wonder where you are

Gone from sight, you fade into the night
what seemed right has taken flight

With all my might, I resist and fight
chasing my demons into the night

The glowing dawn, now seems gone
must dig down deep to carry on

The path is dark the road is long
what filled my heart I guess was wrong

Its hard to swallow, torso is hollow
lump in my throat, no lifeboat

Not knowing is slowing my capacity for growing

Not loving is shoving my heart and soul into a big dark hole

My mind is unclear, clouded with fear
Abandonment and loss is the cause of my delusional mirage

Home alone, yet lost in a sea
of emotion that overwhelms me

To read or watch movies, that is the question.
When tired at workday's end, depressed about death's
certainty and my recent surgery
unable to contribute purpose
i.e., figure out whether to bomb Iran
or worship Krshna
and other gods such as Homer gives us in the Iliad
I lack vision therefore I choose television.
Chemistry text, bifurcated plant key
esp. grasses, intro to calculus, physics
unopened time slides by inexorably.
That's the dilemma with no resolution,
drooping rachis, striations on the lemma.
Dying chooses you. You don't choose dying.
So go slow as the day will allow.
The cancer patient's real work is facing
harsh realities and making adjustments:
getting the most out of life, considering
what his children will need after he's gone,
preparing his wife, parents, colleagues and friends,
and completing important professional tasks.
Get the most out of life. That's all God asks.
In Life of Pi the tiger is tiresome, short-sighted
eating everything in sight today, no plan for tomorrow.
The boy, however, is beautiful, reading
the lifeboat manual, building a resting place on the ocean
from oars and life vests, writing about his emotions,
loneliness and observations. The tiger's obsession
with killing keeps our boy alive with fear,
an aphrodisiac, a distraction from any hint
of hopelessness. And then there is the ultimate unknown,
the boy's conversations with Krshna which explain
the innumerable stars and their gentle glow.

.
Kimberly Alynn.
born too late, still
after only one breath too soon
the end of May 31, 1986.
I had been the only one who knew when you stirred
when you felt/heard Beethoven and Vivaldi.
I sensed you yearning for harmony,
our futures uncertain in that maternity home,
but could offer you only me.
The world told me I had nothing to give
not good enough, choose adoption
So I entrusted my treasure to a lifeboat without me.
.
But maybe you were here for us;
because the music of the Heavens pulled you back.
Gone, but not yet born.
The clock stopped,
and the minutes would not relent the suffering.
A time of hope, vanished...
a hope of beauty, soundless
and still, Memorial Day
is would-have-been 5, 16, 27 years old.
Your life I carried, your future was my young life.
now always without you in this incomplete world
where I am your broken heart
and you are my empty arms.
.
I am not allowed to say it wasn't-supposed-to-be-this-way
since I don't know what you knew
and your future was only my dream.
.
This one night returns every year
and this house becomes too small.
I ride my motorcycle just to ride,
leaning through the curves up the mountain,
if I could only keep going
the midnight road pure black.
until hands too cold, I stop.
Silence punctuated by the cooling engine, it gently
tinks
and I breathe in sacred cool air.
.
The Big Dipper spills colorful twinkling gems across the valley below.
The mountain curves away above my shoulder,
her massive peak leaning back fascinated only toward heaven's brilliance,
the infinite distance palpable, tangible.
The Milky Way tipped sideways,
starlight pours down, eternally washing over.
Or am I spinning sideways on this small planet
in vertigo of re-awakened grief.
Galaxies so numerous I count them rise,
sparkling as they appear.
Even the mountain is so tiny, telling me,
see?   we are so tiny...
.
pure volcanic rocks, road, and I are bathed in soft light
yet in still perfect cold dark solitude.
Only the road's straight white lines glow.
my road,
yearns up in reflection...  
Tonight I give you memory,
all that I have to give.
My baby girl, you are not forgotten.
A small wind finds my hands,
and my cheek, with its one tear.
.

False pride  tracks you like a  hologram
across  smudges  of  imperfection
you have  neither  friend  or  foe,
loneliness turns  your timetable.
Deadlier if  you  found another
with your  semblance,
negative  contact charged
will outlast the eons
further still.

It will always be a mystery
An obvious heartache
A tug and pull, a desire
To have, and to run

It could be cliché
To the untrained eye
Or the boy on the other end
Of this line, a fragile string

But I have to be selfish
Just for a minute
I am my own lifeboat you know
And saving yourself is the hardest thing to do

This adoration, is far too much
Overwhelming me to ask for your everything
Wanting to see how far we can go,
On a single breath

Conflicting ideas set me apart
Fighting over the same thing
Running towards you, and away
Changing direction too fast, dizzy

I should be relieved
That I made my escape
Before you realized my flaws
So maybe when tonight fades, you’ll think I was good

I feel the weight of the stone I left behind
Heavier then ever
Hating that I want you to follow
That I could silently beg for it

So when I leave you, and I turn that corner
And feel the explosion
And see the fragile bits of my life
Flutter slowly down around me, like ash

I’ll wonder what I would feel like
If you were beside me
Would you help me pick it all up
Or would you see my destruction for what it really is

-Taylor

How can I possibly ask you to stay, when the only thing for you to do is watch guard over the wall I’ve put up- to keep you out

Life is but a river- ever flowing on its course,
Surging ever forward further from its humble source.

Hope is our great vessel- the best ship that we can sail,
Taking us along our quest to find our holy grail.

Faith is the horizon- ever just beyond our reach,
Promising a new world full of answers we beseech.

Luck is simply tidal- ever changing with the flow,
Rising up and falling back much sooner than we'd know.

Love is our last lifeboat- ever there when times are rough,
Saving us from drowning when at last we've fought enough.

She painted the void
within the chambers of my heart
with broken crayons.
She painted them
with the shades of effervescence.
She is white chocolate
in the abstraction of snow melting in my mouth.
Her eyes can swallow black holes
and I drowned in their infinitude.
She saved me, She was my lifeboat.
When i wear her smiley badge,
her words resonate inside my skull.
Every waking second of every minute
of every hour of the days seemed
like an everlasting lifetime with her:
Infinity.

She tasted like the sweetest cotton candy
dipped in the elixir of the most exquisite bitter fruit.
She was the unrelenting/interminable flame
zealously smoldering in the night sky.
She rekindled my dying ember
of lingering hope, in the existence of people like her.
Serendipity.

there's blood on my sheets
and blood on my arm
and nothing I can say
will bring you harm
you will never love me
you will never care enough
for me to stop all this pain
for me to be tough
it would be so easy
if I could yell at you
but you're untouchable
and so blinded with your view
everything looks great right now
but I don't think it will last
you just think about the moment
you ignore the past
you can't pretend it didn't happen
the pain you've caused isn't over
you have to pay for your actions
this won't hit you until you're sober
you have broken me in two
and you never stopped to check
if I had mended in any way
but I've just stayed a wreck
I'm lost without you
but I'm lost in my own mind
it's a vast ocean of terror
rough, stormy, and never kind
I'm done waiting on your lifeboat
I know it won't come
but sure go back to her
go back where you're from
make her so happy
enjoy the good times
because just you wait
things will not stay in line