"lightswitch" poems
Jump.
Well, no, actually.
I don't want to jump.
I want to leap
and skip
and dance into a new sunrise.
It's time to turn off the light
and close the door,
Because it's really getting dark in here.
Close your mouth,
mute the babel,
bare your ears.
****** I'm speaking to you.
Not with my mouth,
with my heart
and my soul
not my brain.
These aren't feathered words.
This is my distress.
I'm sorry,
I'm going to turn off the light,
close the door
and dance.
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 5:01 AM UTC
Sometimes I sit, 18 and overheated
in the front room of the men's heritage house, where I
play someone else's guitar and twist my hair in my
palms like
yellow bundles of uncooked pasta I might
break or
bend or
eat out of restlessness.
Tonight my sandal worked idly, pressing
its shadow into my leg when your electric
warm gaze flipped on
my lightswitch
and clicked. Out of my beige office boredom
came you - toothy.
But in high school you hit on my
best mate's sister, so, perched next to me on the
only plastic chair at the loudest bar in town, I crouched
down in a puddle of beer onto
raised toes and mentioned your name and he,
being British and emotionally constipated, muttered
something about you between football shrieks and cigarette drags,
sipped his Guiness and saw.
Oct 16, 2011
Oct 16, 2011 at 5:22 AM UTC
YOU ONLY EVER KISS HIM WITH THE LIGHTS OFF. YOU RUN YOUR HANDS THROUGH YOUR HAIR; IT WAS CUT A FEW DAYS AGO AND YOU'RE NOT SURE IF YOU LIKE IT. YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE JUST KEEPING UP THE PRETENSE OF THE PERSON YOU USED TO BE. YOU'RE NOT SURE IF YOU'LL EVER FEEL LIKE HIM AGAIN.
HE, AS USUAL, LOVES YOU AND SOMETIMES YOU WANT TO RIP OFF HIS ******* CLOTHES AND TAKE HIM AND SOMETIMES YOU JUST WANT TO SCREAM AND RUN AWAY AND NEVER LOOK HIM IN THE EYES AGAIN (AND SOMETIMES YOU WANT TO RIP OFF YOUR ******* SKIN AND HOPE YOU NEVER BREATHE AGAIN). YOU NEVER TELL HIM THIS. YOU ADD IT TO THE PILE OF SECRETS. RINSE AND REPEAT;;;
AS THE DAYS GO BY THE BLUE EYES START MIXING WITH THE KIND OF REDNESS YOU CAN'T SCRUB AWAY. YOU TRY TO LAUGH BECAUSE YOU'RE LIKE HIM NOW (RED WHITE AND BLUE YOU'RE A ******* BANNER AND HE'S AN ICON). IT COMES OUT BROKEN. YOU DON'T TELL HIM WHY.
YOU STOP SMILING AND THE CIGARETTES PILE UP AND THE BOTTLES PILE UP AND THE SECRETS PILE UP. HE'S STOPPED LOOKING YOU IN THE EYES AND YOU'VE STOPPED PRETENDING NOT TO NOTICE. HE DRAGS YOU OUT OF BED AT TWO IN THE MORNING TO YELL AT YOU AND IT TAKES ALL THE ENERGY YOU CAN MUSTER TO LOOK AT HIM.
HE STOPS SMILING.
WHEN HE SAYS HE LOVES YOU HE DOESN'T MEAN IT. THIS IS OKAY; YOU HAVEN'T SAID IT BACK SINCE HE SAVED YOU. WHEN YOU SAY IT BACK ANYWAY YOU MEAN IT. HE LAUGHS AT YOU.
YOU TRY TO STOP BREATHING ONETWOTHREEFOUR TIMES. YOU STOP RETURNING HIS PHONE CALLS. YOU DON'T BELONG HERE THIS BODY HASN'T FELT LIKE YOURS IN SEVENTY YEARS BUT YOU STILL WISH YOU COULD CRAWL INSIDE YOUR OWN SKIN.
HE SHOWS UP AT YOUR HOUSE AT TWO IN THE MORNING AND ******* SCREAMS AT YOU. THIS IS THE MOST ALIVE YOU'VE FELT IN AN AGE. YOU TELL HIM THIS AND YOU LOOK AWAY WHEN HIS FACE CRUMPLES.
HE KISSES YOU WITH THE LIGHTS ON.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 4:26 PM UTC
There's something to the thoughts in my head that build a wall
right in front of
me, it screams
love love love love love
love love love love love
love love love love love
love love love love love
and seems to pulse with all that time has said
my hands reach out to touch it but I'm already on the other side
through apparition or self contradiction?
what did I feel at that time.
I turn to look back but all I see is darkness
there is a lightswitch in my eyes but a voice in my head says it's not yet the right moment
I turn back to look in front and there's more darkness ahead
there's a lightswitch in my eyes but my heart says
" let's rest instead "
so I sit down and look around,
there's wind but I feel nothing.
All there is that's burned into my mind is the wall that could've made me feel something
where I shut off the recorder in my brain and refused to let myself feel
maybe because if I had, I'd be sitting here with pain bleeding from my brain
I make out to be strong, but I know I'm the weakest, that's why the fight never stops and I'm always left lying in stills
A light comes on and I look back at the wall and it's not there.
What is reality and what is fantasy when both ceases to exist when I'm the most in despair
Where the emotions are the realest and it's hard to even take in some air
Where the world is the brightest with flashing colors of reality mixing with messed hair
everything is broken and needs to be repaired
but I turn my head to what's in front of me
light switch still turned on
It's still dark, there's not much of anything.
it's time to get up on that stage and sing
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 3:37 AM UTC
I don't quite know where the lightswitch is, but I know that the dark is much more friendly.
Sometimes I dance with a ribbon lacing my body, and it feels like the last day. The string gets tighter and tighter,
and I am cut into a million pieces, but it's so dark. So have I really fallen apart?
In the dark, all sounds the same, and the whispers. Yes, the whispers. They're hushed and urgent. Like water rushing into my lungs, they take root, and evaporate.
I've been going up, up, up
and I still haven't see light.
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 3:37 PM UTC
if I was a light switch
would you leave me on
to always feel this way
to always feel as if I do not matter
because the sun is wandering and that is leaving me alone
with nothing but windchill to keep my company
and that is okay
I am okay with that
because it means
I can get closer
to the rain.
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 6:09 PM UTC
This aching churns within me where happiness will bubble
T-minus 5...4...
My writing is **** There's no art here anymore.
Sob
********** onto paper.
Everyone relates to interpretation, but inkblots have no soul.
Stains, waiting.
Sunlight cannot creep where darkness cannot grow.
Coin-flip. Mind-trip. Sad rag-time beat out, off beating
beat poet beats drums no one can hear.
There's nothing here.
Jeckyl wishes Hyde would hide, run away
never come back--
I'll never forget how much I lack
I've cracked, back fractures breaking
too much ecstasy--not enough--You're shaking
is that me?
can't be.
This desperation
this need to cling to SOMETHING
it's worse every time--it's cheap when I rhyme
I can't ride out these mistakes, can't fake that I'm ok
I seem to be doing fine.
but its one
or the other in my mind
-NOT SO YOU COULD THROW LIGHTSWITCH RAVES-
can't be saved
keep repeating
I wish I could be saved but
they never let me have my pony.
No white horses
No dreaming
So obsessed with this wheel I keep spinning
the only thing I seem to be able to do is change direction.
tedious, no?
It's what we're working with.
All I ever wanted was somebody to love me
now...when it comes to be
it just makes me more crazy
how can someone love me?
it doesn't make sense.
I go to rip off your mask and I take off your face--
surrounded by rotting skin
searching for a way to end
so how can I begin?
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 2:09 AM UTC
Silence.
The typing of a computer.
A piano next door.
The clicking of a mouse.
The tap running, the toilet flushing.
Distant chatter from the house across the street.
A car on the road.
Footsteps.
The slow ceasing of a motor engine.
A dog barking.
The setting down of a briefcase.
The removing of shoes.
A chair being dragged across the floor.
A hand, patting another hand.
A man, singing in the night time.
Bare feet against a staircase.
The door opening.
The lightswitch.
The door closing.
Silence.
Jan 9, 2012
Jan 9, 2012 at 8:07 AM UTC
I walk on eggshells to not upset you,
but it's hard to tell if it is working,
because my feet have gone numb.
You terrify me to my very core.
I never know if today will be a day that you love me
or love me not.
I'm like a daisy and you pick my petals whenever you want to,
but those days that you don't,
I miss your hands on me.
Because it lets me know you still want me.
People say you're abusing my mind,
but I can't tell what is real and what is not anymore..
I don't know if I want to tell.
What if everything becomes clear
and I lose you.
What if everything becomes clear
and you don't think I'm worth it.
What if everything becomes clear
and I'm
all
alone.
My friends say I'll never be alone because I have them.
But will they kiss my nose when I'm being stubborn?
Will they put my on their shoulders and parade me around their house?
Will they kiss me softly when I just want to be close?
No.
Because they can't.
He's my lightswitch.
He brings my life light and joy,
but he controls when the darkness rains.
It terrifies me how in love I am with you.
It terrifies me how you could not love me at anytime.
It terrifies me how this could all be over tomorrow morning.
You terrify me.
But I let you, because you're my favorite nightmare.
Apr 27, 2018
Apr 27, 2018 at 9:46 AM UTC
And just like a lightswitch
Im over it. Over you.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 3:15 PM UTC
A loving relationship
doesn't just happen
It's not like flipping on a lightswitch
Commitment is a process
a wedding ceremony
A promise
Emotions may lead us
Though understanding, sharing our lives
Is hard work & compromise
Communication in dialogue
Is the key
Experiencing true love
Is our own
Love should start romantic
A gust of exitement sweeps us off our feet!
Naturally
The truest test of love
Will come from willingness
To share in the delights of life;
negotiating the bumps in the road
A mutual exchange of ideas,
any relationship
is the needs and experiences
of two people
Face misunderstanding
open and receptive with respect!
Navigate even the most difficult situations.
Take a deep breath, hold them
in a space of love,
Listen fully with all of your heart
A greater level
of personal transformation begins,
Learning powerful lessons
about ourselves.
Feb 20, 2017
Feb 20, 2017 at 12:09 PM UTC
think of the earth after the fall of man
or some other cliché about desolate landscapes
stark and clean and sad and alone
piles waist deep
standing in your driveway
the rubber in my chucks is frozen
and we can’t figure out how your broken-down truck is what’s blocking me in
it’s 3:42AM
(I made that time up)
the one light is from your neighbor’s porch
only on the way down
can we see how the ice expands the cracks in the pavement
the sky is falling
but not really
because up there it is empty, unlit closet, soul-crushing, run for the lightswitch black
and down here it is packed full, bare lightbulb, fresh coat of paint white
and it fills me up the way the ocean or the sun does
for people who don’t spend half their years covered in ice
Nov 17, 2012
Nov 17, 2012 at 8:58 PM UTC
1
the door clasps
dry whispers
echo down
the dusty dark
2
the moon
has a fingernail's edge
my neighbor sings a song
to his wife
mouth full of cotton
3
the lightswitch
clicks upwards
the light above hesitates
4
i've forgotten
how lovely
my cats are
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 7:09 PM UTC
I don't think there's something like life after death.
Isn't life and death just a lightswitch? It'll take a little time to install the lightswitch and then your body is here. When you turn on the light your soul is here and when you die the lightswitch goes off. And Only your body is left, the extinguished lightbulb.
-
_It's 2AM, get some sleep.
~ Note to self_
May 21, 2019
May 21, 2019 at 5:09 AM UTC
Hospitable welcome exploited.
There's a colonial scent in the hotel
And they say Islamists are peadophiles
The mirror on the borderline dictates fate:
Err we’re not letting them in!
Meanwhile
Our guys are innocent its fake news.
Meanwhile
Faces harden into hurting for a life
Time wastes away any life they might’ve met,
The shining bill that got them into bed
Perpetually puts it all to bed.
The Naked Emperor
Switches the lightswitch:
Dark abyss dark abyss
Float into the sky
Submerge in a cloud
Watch Judith merrily
Chat to Aristotle
About the beauty of flies
That ripened your summer street air.
Ignore the clog of your throat.
Struggle struggle struggle for breath
Breathless sound whispers
That word:
May 16, 2019
May 16, 2019 at 5:22 PM UTC
There is something powerful about the night
There is something terrorizing about the dark
No matter how much history and knowledge we gather
We are still terrified if we are to small to reach the lightswitch
Jun 15, 2015
Jun 15, 2015 at 12:44 PM UTC
the blood on the lightswitch causes me to shudder.
you never learn, do you?
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 4:59 AM UTC
flicked down and dark
lightswitch
up
up
away
head in the clouds
straining to crane my neck
around
back to you
checking
to see if you're there
but when I see you
I'm a burning sun
although I'm only the moon
inconstant and dark and dull
but you light me up
you flick me on and up
I imagine you touching me
touching you, touching me
I know I'd only quiver
I'd shake
an earthquake
my thighs are vibrating
as I'm waiting
waiting
waiting
how can I miss something I've never had
somehow I already want more
more of you and more of me
but mostly more of you and me
Oct 12, 2019
Oct 12, 2019 at 2:08 AM UTC
his dignity went missing in action
turned out to be
a prisoner of war
to hoax a virtue, she fed him champagne from her palms
there on the rose garden battleground
then chained him with her finger
strangled him with affections
aphrodisiacs laced with venom
that girl spun epic tales
everything a knight could dream to
wail drunk from
a lightswitch, is how she played
damsel to tyrant
and my brother, built of sheer trust
tripped for every bit of it
threw his heart her way
she ducked, unbeknownst to him
and love was all they spoke of
her's flat, his mountainous
and he glowed for a while
open arms and skies and woes
let pride fledge from the windows to his soul
of course, she sported pomposity
as if it were a twee, fluffy keychain
brassily bouncing against her candy apple carriage
modeled impudence like another bangle on her bronze wrist
what a mess of smacking lips and pursing pouts
batting caterpillar lashes, same as cracking whips
twirling obsidian curls with magenta claws
because everyone knows straw spins itself to gold
then alas, to black
mercy, he rooted for her
and boy, she ran with that
sprayed spite like perfume
spewed crooked olive branches and lucky clovers
elixirs of brown sugar and sweet pea until she was a dead ringer for
the cover of vogue magazine
glossy, bold, paper-thin and ****
then gone
or that gaudy billboard near exit ten
she posed like a lady of the night
but all he noticed was a princess
what a witch
what a sweet, stupid prince
nonetheless, my baby brother loves her
even after she's whittled him down
to a welcome mat for high heels to flounce over
'cause she can't have that trail of filth catch up to her
so in her wake
my best friend, my closest kin
sacrifices half his sanity
to cover her tracks
as he waits for
whichever comes first
his dignity, or her
to come crawling back
Mar 5, 2018
Mar 5, 2018 at 2:05 AM UTC
She was a girl who listened to music boxes and dreamed of ships, stars, old country lanes. A girl who kissed gin and twisted ponytails in and out while studying her pupils with the lightswitch up, down, up, just as erratically as with her hair as her teeth set on edge trying to think of unfathomable words. Melodies whose names simply did not exist no matter how she tried to pin them down and press them for perfume.
She didn’t belong to the recently cleaned room she called hers, the term home not resonating. The house in Canada, not home. The house in Duncanville, TX, not home. Not the estate in her favorite book, no house belonging to a friend, no dream limbo, no college. Tormented by the feeling there was something there, in her reach but slipping out like oil. It felt like having a long distance affair with someone who, through lack of proper documentation in any census, simply did not exist. The pained, intimate knowledge of the characters in her head, of the places she’d only researched. If she opened her eyes a little wider, turned her head to a shadow quicker, took a side road, they’d be there. She’d forget why she ever doubted, and then, accompanied by the slow setting relief that she belonged somewhere, she’d smile easy and drop the stitch in her forehead. Somehow she supposed it was the same for everyone.
Everyone must be incredibly lonely, she thought. Driving the slow, dingy roads home. The balance between dry painful eyes and the darkness folded around the coarse street lamps found comfort contingent on perception. The familiar 40-minute crawl from town to town to home was wearing her gentleness thin.
So she lifted the newly washed sheets and took one last gaze out at the street lamps and glass for the day. Her heart had no place in it.
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 3:32 PM UTC