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Mike Hauser Mar 2013
I thought about this long and hard
In fact I thought about it all the time
What would happen to belly button lint
If you set the stuff on fire

I collected more than enough
Over the years to see this through
So I went and invited a few friends along
The word it spread and the crowd it grew

All the folk from the town came out
They'd been collecting belly button lint just like I had
Not quite as impressive a pile as mine
I guess I'm the biggest belly button lint dust collecting man
That's (B.B.B.L.D.C.M.) if you want to simplify who it is I am

You might think that's something to be proud of
And believe me when I say that I am
After I got through signing autographs
We proceeded with my grand plan

The crowd stepped up one by one
To toss their lint onto the pile
Coming close to blocking out the moon
As the pile grew ever higher

(Finally the time had come to light up
the famed belly button lint dust fire)

It was Frankie who spoke up first
And said he'd be honored to flick his bic
That was the very last time we saw any of him
Frankie and the lint lit up like a rocket ship

When the shock wore off I turned around
And saw the whole town up in flames
I've had a lot of great ideas before
I'm not quite sure this was one of them

I now live in a hippie commune in the woods
Since my towns no longer there
It's kind of lonely without Frankie around
Although there's still that lingering hint of burning hair

I no longer collect belly button lint these days
I sure learned my lesson with that
Haven't worked out the details of my next grand idea
But I can tell you it involves a big ball of my ear wax
Mike Hauser Feb 2015
Have you ever stopped to wonder
Where pocket lint comes from
Is it mass produced, does it just run loose
Or is it grown on a pocket lint farm

And are there tiny little farmers
With tiny little hoes
Who's time is spent planting pocket seed lint
In tiny little rows

Is that why so many pockets
Are lined in cloth of white
For the best in growing conditions
Letting in the perfect amount of light

But then you have to wonder
What the farmers do for rain
And if your always wet in the front of your pants
What would people have to say

And why go through all the trouble
Since apparently it has no use
Unless we hire tiny little tailors
In the making of pocket lint Leisure Suits

And if we do I'd like mine in baby blue
To wear at all the Bar Mitzvahs, Proms, and Wakes
I'm sure that once it catches on
It'll be the latest craze

There really must be some sort of purpose
In pocket lints grand design
Don't you ever wonder where it comes from
I myself think about it all the time
Pocket Lint? 40 days on a Spiritual journey and THIS is what you come up with?! I suppose next your going to tell me you have a poem on an Eskimo moving South and buying a Pecan farm! Well now that you mention it....
the world is a dryer.


if there is a washing machine section within our universe, I am unaware of it.

I don't work that rotation. I work the dry shift.

tumble low heat, fluff, repeat.

repeat.

in almost every dryer known to mankind, some contraption serves as the lint trap. collect all of the lint and excess laundry fluff as it goes through the dry cycle.

in this world, in this universe; if the human race consists of the articles of clothing in the dryer, I am the lint trap.

it sounds almost cutesy when phrased like that. dryer lint is fluffy and soft and the combination of all the different fibers of the various clothing.

I'm the trap, though. the filter.

I must absorb and filter the excess fiber from every article of clothing. if the entire human race is in this dry cycle; I absorb and filter their raveling ends.

it's ******* exhausting.



here's a better analogy. have you ever had your stomach pumped?

they handle this differently now, but when the doctors, nurses, and staff working in the ER would get a patient who swallowed an entire bottle of ****** with a ***** chaser; or a new mother's young son swallowing her bottle of sertaline, they would get to work. one hand activated charcoal, the other hand with a large suction tube.

activated charcoal is what neutralizes the bottle of ****** or the bottle of Zoloft. the charcoal can absorb **** near anything. it pulls out stains and poisons, neutralizing and absorbing.

this is where the tube comes in. the charcoal is harmless on its own, but the ER staff is in a hurry to console (get rid of) the screaming mother; to move the seventeen year old girl with the ****** ***** chaser to the psychiatric unit, and continue their night.

insert the long tube to suction the charcoal out of the stomachs of the two children. this is often haphazardly shoved down the back of the throat, down the esophagus, reaching the stomach. flip the switch, undo what peristalsis cannot. it's not pleasant. gagging, rough, foul, I've been told.

the body is working in reverse order. vomiting may be easier. the suction tube is fighting the natural flow of the body. the esophagus is attempting to push everything down down down, and the tube is fighting back.

I am the activated charcoal found in every ER across the globe. I absorb the poisons that human beings put intoā€‹ their bodies.

I can pass someone on the street, and my activated charcoal soul absorbs the negativity, the poison, the hatred, the emotional chaos from that individual.

I often wonder if the person feels lighter, noting the absence of the venom that once crippled them. I never ask. I just keep my gaze down and ignore the tempest ensnared within my activated charcoal lint trap.

there are others like me. activated charcoal hearts, lint trap souls.
an ode to activated charcoal hearts and lint trap souls.

Februaryā€‹ 8th 2017
Seher Seven Sep 2016
tiny piece of lint
was my imprint at birth.
She named me
the most insignificant piece
of it... the lint in the corner of your pocket.

held close, near the warmth of the thigh.
secure, protected.
little piece of lint.

the challenge with it
is that I have always felt it.
insignificant.
humility has been my blanket.
it has protected me from the
fingers reaching in to grab hold
of coins and other pocket stuff.
that dark corner down there,
where the blue piece of lint rests.
wash after wash, the water only
beats it.
forms a perfect ball. the sides never
stop. the cycles maintain.

the challenge is I still feel this.
insignificant.
I always will.
I see what I am a part of.
I feel the magic of it.
that background buzz, humming...
yes..... I hear it.
my perspective just one tiny
bit of it. little pocket lint.

significance rests there.
in each piece of it.
the wind only exists
because of the other tiny bits.
this is the delicate bliss.
the kiss.
this awareness.
feeding from its passion to be
because it is.
it is repetitive in nature, though
what I see is. It just is.
and it creates. it extends.

I expand into your hand
and you free me.
you release me from the dark corners
and set me free. to be la nita.
to grow by attracting energy.
with the right charge, a lint ball
can exchange electricity!

my tears burn some nights,
they purge the energy of the day.
though I was built this way,
molded and shaped for it.
flexibility to change is key,
until that day. and in between
I've now seen,
my responsibility is to just be me, my imprint.
Mike Hauser May 2013
I've been collecting ear wax
Since the belly button lint dust fire went bad
I lost all my dignity in that fiasco
So ear wax is all that I have left

Believe you me, it's not easy
Coming up with another scheme
After burning the whole town down to the ground
To get a single soul to look or even listen to me

But that fateful day that I dug deep
And pulled a replica of the Eiffel Tower out of my ear
I knew that fame and fortune lay before me
My time had arrived, my time was here

Who should I call first over my artful discovery
The Post?Ā Ā The Enquirer?Ā Ā The Times?
No I would call The Museum Of Modern Art in NYC
For the Art World would soon be mine

I knew I had to ratchet it up a notch
One piece of ear wax art might be a fluke
So I got out my brush...the Q-tip
And removed a portrait of John Wayne AKA The Duke

Since I live in a hippie commune in the woods
Little furry creatures would always stop by
To gaze upon the artful process
Squirrels can be the best of critics...no lie!

Which gave me the idea with all the left over ear wax
I sculptured a mini-amusement park with mini-arcades
And charged the woodland creatures nuts and berries
Which helped feed the hippies with whom I stay

It wasn't long after that I received the letter
Stating that art had a need for me
I've become known as The Andy Warhol of The Art World
With abstract ear wax being my specialty

Now I go to all the major "Who Does"
Where everybody knows my name
As I create masterpieces right before their eyes
Just don't hold it to close to the flame

Who would have ever thought that ear wax
Would be the perfect medium
To jet propel this Simpleton
To Art World stardom and beyond
If you need to catch up on this insanity....
The Great Belly Button Lint Fire of 93' is down deep in my pile of craziness.
Good Luck!
I stared at the hollow plastic black handles,
disgusted.
my blood shot eyes burn within the cheap
yellow tape
used to keep the covers on so they
stay sticky.
red print, black letters, yellow tape
so ugly
I looked at their cold metal tan shelf with a
sticky stain
then up at the gas station attendant, a fat
greasy man
in an unwashed t-shirt stained with
armpit sweat
who stared at nothing, mouth agape
and useless.

I thought how little care went into the
lint roller,
one purpose with no need to be pretty
or perfect.
how little care his mother put into
raising him,
how little care he put into himself,
sickening.
disgusted I lifted my gun with ecstasy
and fired.
a smatter of red decorates the bland
station walls
that shines with rapture in the florescent,
dimly lit lights.
lint rollers only have one purpose, so
I leave them.
Second "American ******" attempt. (See "Just to Let you Know" for the first, although youĀ Ā may not want to because it's ****** ;-))
CK Baker Jan 2017
They brought them
from the hollar
to the barge
to the field ~
into the wallows
in prayer
skinny little pinkers
cropped by ivory gates
buzzed with hot wire
hooked on bug worm
whistling dixie
around scrummers
and **** pen

peckers squawk
down eden lane
(nipping at jean lint
and fraystring)
deep in the hollows
a mad crow
(with steady tap)
the snouts high
on grunters
and squealers
stomping past
the feather pack

folded fingers
on the gatekeeper
(an engineer by
trade they'd say)
pigtails and
slack line
down the dusty lane
a snap of the jawbone
and lawn chairs settle
(facing north)
the bold script
and chimes
uneasy
Miles Oct 2017
I heard a whisper of your
voice
in the empathy of
another

I excavated her
soul
for a thread of your
spirit

to hem the frayed
edges
of our torn
fabric

only to recover
lint
in the corner of my
eye
Third Eye Candy Oct 2011
bathe your slow gin smile in gossamer moss
an epiphyte
of long miles above thought !
your germ sings !

this love
dilutes proof of plain facts.
the obvious; obscured by the harsh aye of No !
a black white
fiendingĀ Ā for gray
and
Oatmeal paint
and
lint.

peeling from theĀ Ā seam of lost moments.
Cody Edwards Mar 2010
I reserved a table for the two of us
at the only restaurant in the world
that not only offers atmosphere and setting
but tone and syntax as well.

First some articles for appetizers. They're
easiest on my pocket you know.

An an, a the, and an a.
Let's not even start on the punctuation,
I'm treating you to a rather large meal.
As large as the entire English language,
now back to the articles.
Sure these taste like lint but they still
taste. Petit fours but there you are.
Try to be disinterested or you'll
put me off my food.

Nouns now. My, what a variety.
Bit meaty, eh? These have staying power.
They taste like a bit of everywhere,
and everyone, and everything.
What's that? Surely they're not that bland.
Maybe you need some seasoning.

"Adjective" comes from the
French for "to the word."
So exotic aren't they? These
really are fantastic.
Exquisite, unique, zesty to say the least.
You must admit, they
make the meal worth it.
I hope you're not allergic,
I could have sworn I just
had something "nutty."
Oh, it had nuts "in it"?
There must be some prepositions
mixed in here.

(I'm glad we're getting through
these now, I've never been a big fan of them.
When I was a kid, I would always push my prepositions to the end
of my sentences. You just can't do
that in a joint like this, it seems.)

Ah finally. The verbs are served.
Well-prepared it would seem.
Yes, anything you can do to a verb
they've done to these.
Infinitives (too good to realistically be believed!),
gerunds, and participles (No, not particles. But we
did have some of those at the Japanese restaurant.)
Fairly lean too, as I can't see
any auxiliary fat.

For some reason
those adverbs (just to your left, under that
thesaurus) really go well with this.
Plus those adjectives from earlier, rather pleasantly.

Now a brief selection
of conjunctions, but don't ruin
yourself. They're not a meal of themselves,
just a link to...

Oh! Look at those interjections.
So delicate, so (Wow!) incisive.
I told you to keep your appetite.
Well, just try a little of this. Goodness, me!

And then everyone proceeds to
die  
from a split infinitive.
Ā© Cody Edwards 2010
Helen Mar 2014
it's a favourite pastime
of mine

head down
concentrating

mining for fools gold
listening to whispers
of stories untold

just waiting

to have enough
fluff
to weave a tapestry

the story of you
and me, and her, and him
and the children

no one remembers the children

the background music
is irritating
the slack jaw stare
from you
is grating

but I chose to continue
to pick belly lint
because nothing is worth
lifting my head
not words, not actions
not even your guilty flinch
She slides over
the hot upholstery
of her mother's car,
this schoolgirl of fifteen
who loves humming & swaying
with the radio.
Her entry into womanhood
will be like all the other girls'ā€”
a cigarette and a joke,
as she strides up with the rest
to a brick factory
where she'll sew rag rugs
from textile strips of kelly green,
bright red, aqua.

When she enters,
and the millgate closes,
final as a slap,
there'll be silence.
She'll see fifteen high windows
cemented over to cut out light.
Inside, a constant, deafening noise
and warm air smelling of oil,
the shifts continuing on ...
All day she'll guide cloth along a line
of whirring needles, her arms & shoulders
rocking back & forth
with the machinesā€”
200 porch size rugs behind her
before she can stop
to reach up, like her mother,
and pick the lint
out of her hair.
Iz Aug 2019
I sit and watch
As an elderly man eats a 79 cent ice cream
From the local gas station that resides at the end of my neighborhood
Itā€™s 10:02 P.M. and my head hurts
Itā€™s hurt for two weeks
everyday the same pain greets me
with the piercing sensation of someone pressing their thumbs so deeply into my eyes then wiggling them around in the ajar sockets like a bowling ball too big to grasp
Iā€™m tired of breathing this insatiable need for oxygen burdens me to no end
I canā€™t feel my toes Iā€™ve stood too long
Blood pools in my feet as my chest half heartedly pumps blood wearily through this haunted frame
I canā€™t close my eyes all I see is what Iā€™ve lived
This worn down shabby life worth two paper clips and some pocket lint at best
Mike Essig Apr 2015
This was just published so it is copyright 2015 by Holy Cow Press ~ mce**

Poverty is the fence around your life. Poverty wakes you up at 4 AM only to whisper meaningless slogans in your ear. It is the school of Piranha nibbling at the back of your brain. It is two hours waiting in the anteroom of despair for $22 worth of food stamps and being glad to be there. It is changing your phone number frequently because bill collectors are such boring conversationalists. It is the empty space your heels used to fill. It is letting your hair grow long and scraggly and your grizzled beard sprout because you know that although you sleep in rented rooms tonight, the street is not far off, and you want to fit in when you arrive. Poverty scalds the lint from your pockets. It is your private Treblinka within which you rage but are crushed. It is desperate prayers against dental catastrophes, blown tires, surprises of any sort. Poverty is when everything you own is frayed including your nerves from sleepless moments spent trying to solve the equation that will make X number of dollars cover X + ? number of bills, knowing that such math would defeat Newton or Einstein. Poverty is eying the cat's kibble imagining that with a bit of sugar and a splash of milk it might be fine and then eyeballing the cat himself thinking of protein of last resort and trying not to measure him against the microwave door. You ration your cigarettes; whiskey is a fading memory. Passing a diner on the street, you catch a whiff  of burgers too expensive to consider and experience a Pavlovian  moment. Poverty is trying to keep your head up and then remembering you pawned your neck. Poverty is watching the needle eat your last few gallons of gas. Poverty is the archeology of despair. It portends the death of irony. There is nothing ironic about a car with 217,000 miles and no insurance on it. Facts are facts in the world of poverty. Poverty is the last quarter reclaimed from beneath the cushions. It is too much time and not enough quarters. It is the specious logic of the self-righteous proclaiming that you deserve to be poor because you are, which in Amerika passes for wisdom. Poverty makes each day like the next because nothing does not vary. It is who you are and where you are going, although you won't get far. It is the life you lead inside the fence. It is the sum of what you lack. It just is.
   - mce
My most recently published work, by the folks who pronounced me dead.
Jordan Apr 2013
Itā€™s kind of funny how you can go from walking around with nothing but lint in you pocket and being totally stoked, to walking around with a pocket full of keys and being totally bummed.
It starts out simply and seductively. Iā€™ll just get this car so I can snowboard more. Wrong. Anything that letā€™s you snowboard more is a scam. It wonā€™t let you snowboard more because you ride every day and a car canā€™t add days to the week.
ā€œIā€™ll just get this little night job so I can buy gas,ā€ you hear yourself saying. Thereā€™s another key. Then your job starts making you miss sleep, so you canā€™t snowboard as hard or as long as you used to. And you need stuff to wear to work. You need a place to change and store your stuff. Now you have an address, thatā€™s another key. Soon you have to get a day job because youā€™re not making enough money at night. The keys start adding up.
Now that you have a job, girls know youā€™re not a total loss and you end up with a girlfriend. She wants you to hang with her once in a while instead of going boarding all the time. First, she gives you the key to her heart, and then the key to her apartment. Thatā€™s two more. You canā€™t give her the key to your heart because snowboarding put a combination lock on it and only your snowboard knows the number.
Now you have a bunch of keys in your pocket. Theyā€™re high-maintenance items. You have to take care of them. Theyā€™re weighing you down. Snowboarding is slowly slipping away, and you donā€™t even notice.
One day, cruising to your full-time office job that you had to get a few years back to make payments on all your keys, you drive past a guy on the corner with his thumb out and a snowboard under his arm. While speeding by you start thinking about the guy you just passed. He looked like you used toā€”snowboard and nothing else. As you pull into the parking lot at work, you canā€™t get the hitchhiker out of your head. Your mind keeps wandering back. Pulling all the keys out of you pocket and jingling them, you think about what you really want from life.
Running back to your car, you reverse out of the parking lot and squeal a Rockford in the middle of the four-lane highway. Youā€™ve got to get away from your keys. You begin throwing them out the window as you blow down the highway. First to go is the key to the door at work. Then you backhand your girlfriendā€™s apartment key out the passenger window. Flick, there goes the key to the storage unit, then the key to her car. Flick, flick, flick. You feel better each time a key flies out the window and goes bouncing down the pavement at 100 mph. You donā€™t even slow down for the tollbooth, paying instead with the tossed key to your office and the executive washroom.
You only have two keys left. You unlock your house, run in, grab your snowboard, and dash out of the house. You leave the key to your house sitting in the lock to the front door. Whoever finds the house open can take it, and all your stuff. You donā€™t need it anymore. You jump back into the car and start burning rubber through all four gears back to the highway where you saw the hitcher.
Heā€™s still there. You slam on the brakes. When he opens the car door, you look into his eyes. Itā€™s you. Itā€™s the life you left behind when you sold out.
Andrew T Jul 2016
Backstory: A Memoir

For Vicki

By AT

5

While I was downstairs, folding laundry in the basement, I heard my sister Vicki stomping upstairs to the room that used to be mine, slamming the door, and locking it shut.

I was a ****** older brother. And Vicki learned that action from me.
Then, I heard more footsteps. Louder stomping. And I knew, with certainty, it was Mom coming after her.

I'm not an omniscient narrator, so I don't know what Vicki does when the door is locked.

But I do imagine she is reading. Vickiā€™s been using her Kindle that Mom got her for Christmas. She adores Gillian Flynn and Suzanne Collins. She's starting to get into Philip Pullman which is swagger. I remember reading His Dark Materials when I was in elementary school.

The Golden Compass ***** you into that world, like during June when you're hitting a bowl for the first time and you're 17, late at night on Bethany beach with your childhood best friend, and the surf is curling against your toes, and the smoke is trailing away from the cherry, and you begin to realize that life isn't all about living in NOVA forever, because the world is more than NOVA, because life is bigger than this hole, that to some people believe is whole, and that's fine, that's fine because many of our parents came here from other small towns, and they wanted to do what we wanted to do, which is to pack up our stuff into the trunk of our presumably Asian branded car, and drive, drive, until they reach a destination that doesn't remind them of the good memories and the bad memories, until memory is mixed in with nostalgia, and nostalgia is mixed in with the past.

Maybe I'm dwelling on backstory, maybe you don't need to hear the backstory.

But I think you do.

Life isn't an eternity,
what I'm telling you is already known, known since there was a spider crawling up the staircase and your dad took the heel of his black dress shoe and dug his heel into that bug. And maybe I'm bugginā€™, but that bugged me, and now I'm trying to be healthier eating carrots like Bugs. Kale, red onions, and quinoa, as well. Because I want to be there for my sister, Vicki my sister. All we got is a wrapped up box made from God, Mohammad, and Buddha.

Soon, I heard Vickiā€™s door handle being cranked down and up, up and down.

Mom raised her voice from a quiet storm to a deafening concerto.  
Then, there was silence, followed by a door slamming shut.

Welcome to our life.
Later on that night, Vicki sped out of our cul-de-sac in her silver Honda Accordā€”a gift from Mom to keep her rooted in Novaā€”and even from the front porch of my house, I felt a distance from her that was deep and immovable.

I sank deeper into my lawn chair and lit a jack, but instead of inhaling like I usually did, I held it out in front of me and watched the smoke billow out from the cherry.

I always smoked jacks when she was not there, because I didnā€™t want her to see me knowingly do this to myself, even as I was making huge changes to my life. Itā€™s the one vice I have left, and itā€™s terrible for me, but I donā€™t know if she understands that I know both things. Maybe instead of caring about what jacks do to my body, I should care about what she thinks about what Iā€™m doing to myself. This should be obvious to me, but sometimes things arenā€™t that obvious.

4

As we grew older Vicki and I forged a dialogue, an understanding. She confided in me and I confided in her, sharing secrets, details about our lives that were personal and private, as if we were two CIA agents working together to defeat a totalitarian governmentā€”our tiger mom.

But seriously our mom was and still is swagger as ****ā€”rocks Michael Kors and flannel Pajama pants (If I told you that last article of clothing she'd probably pinch my cheek and call me a chipmunk. Don't worry I'm fine with a moderation of self-deprecation).

The other day Mom talked to me about Vicki and explained that she was upset and irritated with Vicki because of her attitude. I thought that was interesting, because I used to have the same exact attitude when I was my sisterā€™s age and I got away with a lot more ****, being that I'm a guy and the first-born. I understood why she would shut the front door, exit our red brick bungalow, and speed away in her Honda Accord, going towards Clarendon, or Adams Morgan, spending her time with her extensive circle of friends on the weekdays and weekends.

Because being inside our house, life could get suffocating and depressing.
Our Grandparents live with us. Grandpa had a stroke and is trying to recover. Grandma has Alzheimerā€™s and agitates my mom for rides to a Vietnamese Church. Besides the caretakers, Mom, Dad, Vicki, and I are the only ones taking care of my grandparents.

Mom told me that she believes that Vicki uses the house as a hotel. Mom didn't remind me of a landlord, and I believe that Vicki doesnā€™t see her as that either.

I didn't believe Vicki was doing anything necessarily wrong.

She had her own life.

I had my own life.

Dad had his own life.

Mom had her own life.

I understood why she wanted to go out and party and hang out with her friends. Maybe she was like me when I was 21 and perceived living at home as a prison, wanting to have autonomy and freedom from Mom because she was attempting to make me conform to her controlled system with restraints. But as Vicki and I both grow older I believe that we see Mom not as an authority figure; but, just as Mom.

Vicky and Mom clash and clash and clash with each other, more than the Archer Queens of The Hero Troops clash with the witches of the Dark Elixir Troops.

They act like they were from different clans, but they're both on the same side in reality.

The apple does not fall far from the tree. And in this case the tree wants to hang onto the apple on the tip of its rough, and yet leafy bough.
Because the tree is rooted in experience and has been around for much longer than the apple.

But the apple is looking for more water than the tree can give it. So the apple dreams about a summer rain-shower that will give it a chance to have its own experience. A similar, but different one, to the darker apple that hangs from a higher bough, an apple that has been spoiled from having too much sun and water.

3

During Winter Break, Vicki scored me tickets to a game between the Wizards and the Bucks. From court side to the nosebleeds, the audience at the Verizon Center was chanting in cacophony and in tempo. Wall was injured. But Gortat crashed the boards, Nene' drained mid-range shots, and Beal drove up the lane like Ginsberg reading Howl.

Vicki and I both tried to talk to each other as much as we could; unfortunately, Voldemortā€”my ex-gfā€”sat in between us and was gossiping about the latest scoop with the Kardashians.

Nevertheless, Vicki and I still managed to drink and have an outstanding time. But I should have given her more attention and spent less time on my smartphone. I was spending bread on Papa John's Pizza and chain-smoking jacks during half-time, and even when there were time outs. When I would come back and sink into my plastic chair, I'd feel bloated and dizzy.
And I'd look over at Vicki and either she was talking to Voldemort, or typing away on her smartphone. I didn't mind it at the time, but now I wished I had been less of a concessions barbarian/used-car salesman chain-smoker, and more of an older brother. I should have asked her about her day and her friends and her interests.

But I didn't.

Because I was so concerned about indulging in my vices like eating slices of pepperoni pizza and drinking overpriced beer. There's nothing wrong with pizza or beer. But as we all know the old saying goes, everything is about moderation.

Vicki scrunched her nose and squinted her eyes when I would lean forward and try to maneuver around Voldemort, trying to talk to her about the game and the players in it. I imagine that when she smelled the cigarette smoke leaking away from my lips, that she believed I was inconsiderate and not self-aware.

After the game, we went to a bar across the street from the Verizon Center, and bought mixed drinks. Voldemort was D.D., so Vicki and I drank until our Asian faces got redder than women and men who go up on stage for public speaking for the first time.

I remember this older Asian guy was trying to hit on her.
I took in short breaths. Inhaled. Exhaled. I cracked my shoulder blades to push my chest forward.  

And then, I patted him on the back and grinned. The Asian guy got the message. You donā€™t **** with the bodyguard.

Vicki had and still has a great boyfriend named Matt.

I guided Vicki back to our table and laughed about the awkward situation with her.

The Asian guy craned his head toward me and did a short wave. And then he bought us coronas. Either, youā€™re still hitting on my sister, or itā€™s a kind gesture. She and I better not get... Or am I overthinking it?

But seriously, I wished I had been the one to spend money on her firstā€”she had bought the first round of drinks. Because at the time, my job was challenging and low-paying. Or maybe I just wasn't being frugal enough and partying way too often.

I still remember the picture that a cool rando took of us, drinking the Coronas, and how I was happy to be a part of her life again. Our eyes were so Asian. I had my lanky arm around her small shoulders, like a proud Father. She had her cheek propped up by her fist, her smile, gigantic and beaming, as though she had just won Wimbledon for the first time.
I was wearing a white and blue Oxford shirt that she had gotten me for Christmas with a D.C. Rising hat. She had on a cotton scarf that resembles a tan striped tail of a powerful cat.

My face was chubby from the pizza. Her face was just right like the one house in Goldilocks. The limes in the Coronas were sitting just below the throat of the bottles, like old memories resurfacing the brain, to make the self recall, to make the self remember how to treat his family.
Or maybe this is just a brand new Corona ad geared towards the rising second-generation Asian American demographic? I'm playing around.
But end of commercial break.

Vicki pats me on the back and we clink bottles together. Voldemort is lurking in the background, as if she's about to photobomb the next picture. Sometimes I don't know if there's going to be a next picture.
Either we live in these moments, or make memories of them with our phones. And like sheep following an untrustworthy shepherd, we went back to our phones. She made emails and texts. I went on twitter in search of the latest news story.

2

Before Vicki and I opened each other's presents, I remember I blew up at Mom and Dad, and criticized everyone in the family room including Vicki. It was over something stupid and trivial, but it was also something that made me feel insecure and small. I was the black sheep and she was the sheep-dog.

I screamed. Vicki took in a deep breath and looked away from my glare, looked away to a spot on the hardwood floor that was filled with a fine blanket of dust and lint. I chattered. She rubbed her fingers around the lens of her black camera and shook her head in a manner that suggested annoyance and disappointment. I scoffed. She set the camera down on the coffee table and pressed the flat of her hand against her cheek, and glanced out the window into the backyard that was blanketed with slush and snow.
Drops of snow were plunging from the branches of the evergreen trees and plopping onto the patches of the ground, plunging, as though they were little toddlers cannonballing off of a high-dive.

She turned back and looked at me straight in the eye, so straight I thought she was searching for the answer to my own stupidity.

I cleared my throat and said, ā€œI need a breath of fresh air.ā€

Vicki bit her bottom lip, sat down, and put her arms on her knees, a deep, contemplative look appearing on her face.

I stormed into the narrow hallway, slammed the front door back against its rusty hinges, and trundled down my front driveway, the cold from the ice and the snow dampening the soles of my tarnished boots. I lit a jack at the far end of the cul-de-sac and counted to ten. I watched the cigarette smoke rise, as the ashes fell on the snow, blemishing its purity and calmness. I inhaled. I exhaled.Ā I could feel it in the pit of my stomach that Vicki knew I was having a jack to reduce my stress, stress that I had cause all by myself. I ground the jack against the snowy concrete, feeling the cold begin to numb my fingers that were shaking from the nicotine, shaking from the winter that had wrapped itself around me and my sister.

When I came back inside of the house, I told Mom and Dad I was being an idiot and that I didnā€™t mean to be such an *******. I turned to Vicki and put my hand on her shoulder, squeezed it, and smiled weakly, telling her that I didnā€™t mean to upset her.

She nodded and said, ā€œItā€™s okay bro.ā€

But her soft and icy tone made me feel skeptical; she didnā€™t believe me. I didnā€™t know if I believed my apology. Minutes later, I gave my present to her.

Her face brightened up with a smile. It was a gradual and cautious smile, a little too gradual and a little too cautious. She hugged me tightly, as though my earlier outburst hadnā€™t happened.

She opened the bank envelope and inside was a fat stack of cleanly, pressed bills that totaled a hundred. Being an arrogant, noob car salesman at the time, I thought it was going to be a pretty clever present. I could have given her a Benjamin, but I thought this would make her happier, because it showed my creative side in a different form.

I remember seeing her spread the dollar bills out, as if the bills were a Japanese Paper fan. Vicki told me not to post the picture I had taken on insta or Facebook. I smiled faintly and nodded, stuffing my smartphone back into my sweatpants pocket. I understood what she wanted, and I listened to her, respecting her wishes. But I also wasn't sure if she was embarrassed and ashamed of me. And maybe I was overthinking it. But again, maybe I wasnā€™t overthinking it. Social Media, whether we like it or not, is a part of life. And in that moment, I actually wanted social media to display this a single story in our lives. I wanted to show people that Vicki was the most important personā€”besides my parentsā€”in my life. Because I was so concerned with how people viewed me and because I lacked confidence, lacked security, and lacked respect for myself

Vicki's present to me was a sleek and blue tie, a box set of mini colognes, and refreezable-ice-cubes. I think she called it the car salesperson kit. But I knew and still know she was trying to turn me into an honest and non-sketchy car salesman. And you know what, I was genuine, but I also couldn't retain any information about the cars featuresā€”to reiterate my Grandma has Alzheimer's, my mom writes down constant notes to remember everything, and I forget my journal almost every time I leave the house.

After Christmas I wore the tie to work a few times, but the mini colognes and ice-cubes never got used by me. They stayed in the trunk of my Toyota Avalon. I should have used the colognes and the ice-cubes, but I was too careless, too self-involved, and too ungrateful.

1

Back in the 90ā€™s, when we were around 3 and 6 years old, Vicki and I shared the same room on the far left end of the hallway in our house. She had a small bed, and I had a bigger bed, obviously, because at 6 foot 1, I was a genetic freak for a Vietnamese guy. I read Harry Potter and Redwall like crazy growing up, and I would try to invent my own stories to entertain her. Every night she would listen to me tell my yarn, and it made me feel that my voice was significant and strong, even though many times I felt my voice was weak and soft, lacking in inflection, or intonation.

I had a speech impediment and I had to take classes at Canterbury Woods to fix my perceived problem. I wanted to fit in, blend in, and have friends.
Back then Vicki was not only my sister, but my best friend. She used to have short, black bangs; chubby cheeks, and a dot-sized noseā€”don't worry she didn't get ****** into the grocery tabloids and get rhinoplasty. She wore her red pajamas with a tank top over it, so she looked like a mini-red ranger, and her slippers
Dedicated to my baby sister, love you kid!
Lydia Cooper Jan 2013
I canā€™t help but cling to you like

Lint on your favorite sweater

Iā€™m stuck.

Pick me off one by one

Itā€™s never enough

Iā€™d hide in every fiber just to see your smile.
Jo Peta Jan 2013
Entwined
I must of took a wrong turn,
I think I missed my exit.
unsure of my guiding force i must have no sane creator
what's this? I wonder...
a folded paper.
for fear of whats inside i keep it folded
neatly slide it in a pocket already containing some stray lint.
i carry on suspiciously, unsure of where i am.
i find myself in jail,
on my bunk behind cold bars.
i find no use in screaming
my voice is no louder than these scars.
instead i hold my breath and count the cuts on my arms
my heart beats slower now, i just want to be alone
where no one can ever find me, where the sea can't be moved by the breeze
where my emotions can find peace at last with no unsettling tides.
I wake to a darkness, a void that cradles me in it's absence,
with no light because there is no way out.
betterdays Jun 2014
Here I am,
picking tissue lint,
off my favourite linen pant's ( I hate it when you leave a tissue in the wash.)
thinking small thoughts.

My mind,
dawdling along,
as my hands pluck tissue.
A bit like a magpie hunting worms.
It is hypnotising, in it's own way.

My dip, into the shallow end, of realities swimming pool. Now, I know,
there are those out there,
who are drowning,
in the deep end
and those who,
swim laps endlesslly.
And I will tell you,
honestly.
I know well, both those states of mind.

Bu, for here and this moment.
Dipping in a toe, is just fine.
berry Sep 2015
i'm laying on the floor watching YouTube videos
of veterans coming home to their pets
and i imagine you as a veteran
and me as the dog crying in your lap.
but if i'm honest with myself,
i'm the veteran coming home,
my heart is a dog,
and you're a cat in the corner who doesn't give a ****.
i don't even need to tell you that love was the war.
love is always the war.
i just want to lick your face.
i want to paw at your chest after a long day.
i want to stretch and have you scratch the places i can't reach.
i don't understand the command "stay".
i am casting tiny spells where i pick lint off of your sweatshirt
and chew on my bottom lip while i look you in the eye.
but you are disenchanted.
Nat Lipstadt Jan 2014
Dreams of a Child
Created: Jan 23, 2011 5:44 AM
Finished: Jan 30, 2011 4:23 AM
Posted here  Jan 2014
Warning:
a very, very long poem, but within , I promise,
there is a precise stanza about, for you.Ā Ā 
Take it as my gift.
Let me know which you took home to play.

~~~~~~~


Some poets care not
for the
discipline of rules,
laws of punctuation.

Why bother brother,
with putting poems
in antiquated jailhouses,
prisons of vertical bars,
or afford the reader,
the courtesy of horizontal lines?

Question and quotations marks
these day refuted,
as a Catcher In The Rye
conspiracy symbology of big lies,,
political interventionism,
to the creative, most natural
right to be crude.Ā Ā 

Inconvenient impositions,
symbolic flailings, of an
over regulated civilization
in the throes of declination

Punkuation is but a
societal annoyance to
today's creative geniuses,
periods, commas,
nothing more than
a pause to think -
who needs 'em?
when we want to stink
up the atmosphere with vitriols
of half truths and inhuman
but oh so gleeful,
concentrated disparagement
of any person worthy of
nationwide late night mocking merriment.

Such free spirits, vivid animations,
within me do not reign,
though upon occasion,
boy got permission slipsĀ Ā 
for breaking bad by invention
of an occasional new word.

New words, white truffles
vocabulic incantations,
my own cupcake creations,
meant to burr, or purr,
their tasty meanings, always,
were readily apparent.

Sometimes we rhyme,
sometimesĀ Ā we can't;
doth not a reading of a
poetic periodic table
of rants, chants
love poems, and paeans
to a shhhh! pretend,
overarching, poesy ego
require some minimalist format?

How I envy you,
kind observer,
possessor of literary powers
untoward and untold,
delicate touches of a fingertip
rule and rue
poetic invention.

You can zoom away or in
for a closer examination
of unscripted revelations,
incinerate them like an
yesterday's newspaper,
thus demonstrate contempt for
less-than-historic ruminations,
as time has done before.

Witness the crumbled ruins of Ozymandias,
king of kings,
and how the critic's machinations
with a dash of tabasco time,
his works, now museum pieces,
in the Tate Modern's room of
Laughable Human Aspirations.

Don't panic, sigh or groan,
kind observer,
infection inflictions,
content of discontentment,Ā Ā 
ancient whinings that the publisher
long ago listed as discontinued,
will not herein unfold.

What has all these mumbled asides
to do with the Dreams of a Child?

Apologies prolific I distribute
for this long winded profligate prologue;
and even for prior invasions
of your contemplative fantasias,
but my intention certain:
**** out the weak chaff eaters,
feigners of faux interest,
who stanzas ago deserted us,
this confessional lore.

These prior lines conceived
to mislead and deceive,
to refer and deter
send away, the hangers-on
who litter our lives,
with whimpered falsehoods.


So, we begin anew:

Today's lecture entitled
Dreams of a Child
were formatted on a silver disc;
this communication's originations,
seedlings of block
roman black letters
on background of cleansing white,
re things that jar me in the night.

Easy slights that waken
from a fitful, pitted rest,
mental paintings
natured in gem colors,
tourmaline auras,
and vibratto hues
of blue zircons.Ā Ā .Ā Ā 

I have never lain upon the couch,
in the inner holy of holies,
where one whispers
to the Father Confessor
an original composition,
subject, title and inspiration
of said unique origination,
decidedly of one's own choosing,
roots of the essay's telling,
harvested in the root garden
of one's dreams,
where grow herbs,
spicy ones,
flavors of childhood.

The lush and wooded smells
of a forest of childhood scars,
and it's concomitant
putrefying, fruited rot,
awoke and brokered
a stilted, tremulous sleep.

Went to bed a a man
of modest success,
of modest scenes,
a bond trader, who trades
exactly that:
his word, his bond,
his blessing to his
deal constructions,
all of which, ended with an
irrevocable cri of "Done!"

Yet like you,
I am oft undone.

Dreams.

In truth, not dreams, but
spectral moments of
our lives relived,
a melange of ancient lyrics,
taunts of childhood abusers and
peer humilators
who could
teach the CIA
torture techniques
of WORD boarding, par excellent.

Angelic faces of human ****
that birthed in me a holy duality,
anger and a,
love of words,
my vaccination serum.

Granted a love of
human kindness
from teachers who cherished their
high and mighty tight
to publicly humiliate,
knowing full well
that human laws could not
attempt to have them
justly incarcerated.

Where, where were
the supervisors
who let me be spit upon
in the back seat of a
Fifty's station wagon,
by the brothers of
a sainted dead shepherd?

I am still eight,
sitting on a stoop in the
modest side of town,
towel in hand, so handy,
to wipe the tears shed
for cause,
for the car-pool of suburban boys
who "forgot" to pick me up for
Sunday swim night.Ā Ā 

In high school,
in the back row,
I silently ******
the juice of a Sarte lemon and
essayed a term paper,
upon multiple mirrored
reflections of a man
called Camus.

As another self styled, only living
teenage expert
on "alien nations"
received with pride and trepidation,
a sentence of Ninety Eight,
on my term paper,
but the pedantic predators
deemed it an accident
for I, wasĀ Ā inscribed in their
Upper East Side
Coda of Prejudice,
as merely,
"just" a
man of USDA,
B grade quality intellect.Ā Ā 

Hand me downs
I did not get
as I was the
younger, sole brother,
but worn lint lines
of humiliation
when and where my pants
were "let down"
to accommodate growth spurts
were my growing marks of Cain.

Those growth lines
were economic reality signs,
and were rich fodder for
childhood monsters,
Scions of Income Superiority
who lived in ranch homes in
two car, color tv garage slums,
wearing band new Levis.

In the Sixties,
time of my unsilent spring
wore a cross of
teenage hood,
my hair,
worn long,
Jesus style

Worn with labor pride,
for it was
Made in the USA,
I was a most conventional
revolutionary.

In the parochial jail
of educated guesses,
where society's lesson plans
of all that was bad
were O so well taught,
I was apart, ahead,
of Our Crowd,
but not too, radically.Ā Ā 

But a spiteful
Principal of No Principle,
deemed my locks a
disruptive influence,
so to exorcise my rebel streak,
so to crucify his "Jesus Freak,"
so to exercise his diminutive spirit
a pompous uber man,
he had me shorn
like a sheep,
thrice
in just one day,

He loved his full employment
of his pharoic entitlement,
The Educator's Power of Abuse,

I was so denuded
of human strength,
the Italian barbers of the
East 86th Street subway station,
wept for me,
their cri du coeur,
Angels in Heaven did hear
and from God
did dare demand
an explanation!

He roared in manner celestial,
"Is he not my child too,
and if he be treated
in style *******,
it is purposed and willful."

Pornographic compilations of
slaps across a child's face,
I've got plenty
of and in My Space,
should you care to
add your own,
down under,
got plenty of room
for all comersĀ Ā Ā Ā 

In a Facebook world,
I pride, not pretend,
that having fewer "friends"Ā Ā 
is my honest and true
reflection of who I am, and,
life lessons learned -
quality, not quantity.Ā Ā 

Victims of discrimination
can be most discriminating
in matters of
human games, associations.Ā Ā 
****** or word,
lack of taking care
is not heart healthy.

Tried to forgive
the despotic progenitors,
of some of that which
is good within me
that, irony of ironies,
they can claim the title,
creator;

Tried to give them
what I had gotten -
from the happy malcontentedĀ Ā 
evil spreaders,

That grace, grace is
the only methodology,
an inestimable but
valuable lost leader,
the only way
to survive on
this planet of
hardtack and
caste striation.Ā Ā 

Though still quick to anger
at the cutters and denigrators
I am quick still to
confess my own failings, and forgive those
of plain and honest folk.

Unfortunately, kind observer,
you had to share my brunt,
syllabic Iwo Jima battles
of a decaying verbal moonscape
to reach the denouement,
for now we have,
mostly arrived

Most likely you too
have long ago
deserted me like
so many others,
no matter,
this modulated breath
was born and released
from my heaving chest and
as I knew it,
know this:

My Absaloms
where ever you be,
presumably and hopefully in hell,
I give you thanks
and a mini bar drink
of absolution.
a tin medal of appreciation,
for the
Marked Improvement
you inadvertently nurtured
in this restless,
voyagered soul.

My ancient enemies
till now, be advised,
forgive and forget
was and has notĀ Ā 
fully formed
in my penitential template,

Unlike your natural capacity
forĀ cruelty and mean
birthed unto you
in your third rate
genetic melange,
forgiveness is taught
in a Master Class
at a famous school of Ethical Drama,
that I did not attend

Though resident in
a better place,
my root garden,
the bitter herbs you planted
still grow but,
are welcome in sweet brotherhood,
until the selah days
of just one flavor.

Though the universe's expansion
is of a pace such that
time and space definitions
will stretch and warp
and need be
refined, replaced,
the governing principle here.
need not be rephrased.Ā Ā 

For goodness
from evil
doth come
and should your
evil spectres
once more try
for resurrection
in my benighted
dream world.
you will find the doors
locked and barred,
upon them a sign
not verbose,

**Done.
Whew.
Can I be
A nice mistake
You made once?
Not really looking
Just through a window
Saw something
That made you smile
And I was caught
In the tractor beam,
Opposing polarities
Couldn't separate us,
But you weren't exactly
An open embrace,
Burrs on a sock,
Lint in a pocket,
I wanted to be
But like one dusts off,
I was to be exiting
This bus ride,
Leave the taxi a tip,
Thanks for the trip,
Like free coffee
A sort of meh,
Nothing to like
Or not, I don't have
To be special to you,
Though you are to me,
If you remember;
Then address, if not
I'm postage for another letter...
Ā© okpoet
Robert Zanfad Aug 2012
ā€œthe nation needs new direction...ā€
a talking head on television
got me saved as he began
ā€œabandon investigations into global warming,
polar bears and orangutans,
other pseudo-scientific distractions
from proper resource extraction that could save us
from the mess we're in..ā€

proposing, instead, the latest in scientific experiments:
ascertaining the flavor of blue jelly beans,
or the true origin of belly button lint -
useful information for armchair navel-gazers

now I'm one of them

we want an installation of mirrors on the moon
so we can watch ghetto children clean toilets after class
as they repay their debts
for the free ketchup they get
from socialist school lunch programs
theyā€™ll learn valuable skills for eventual careers
as lifetime sanitary engineers

our right-minded scientists are poised soon
to upend the old myth that earth is round
because out in Texas, anyone can see that itā€™s flat;
and monkeys be ******
none of those letters are in us,
the old book says it in black and white

but weā€™ve since adopted the newer testament,
improved through Ayn Rand
(an atheist...imagine that!)
The Savior is an investment banker, job creator
who kept his accounts off-shore
out of reach of commies and single mothers, the ******

we still espouse good christian values
(charity for the poor, yaddayadda)
cooking pots of pasta in church kitchens
to feed them;
God helps when they need more -
like medicine for uncontrolled diabetes -
which is when we lay-on-hands and prescribe
heavy doses of prayer
(the approach doesn't cost a cent)

after all, poverty is the neo-cardinal sin
(greed, by conservative decree, is now good),
unforgiven within gates of the convention
but weā€™ll guarantee a spray of white carnations
on the pine box at the altar if all else fails,
complements of the congregation...

just not for gays or lesbians ...
or loose women who seek abortions
before we have a chance to peek inside them...

we aim to reclaim freedom
(from guilt and contemplation,
cerebral things like thinking...)
take our country back from
the legions of excess population
who, by some estimations, seem a lot like us
but aren't

weā€™ll be winners again
Amina Sibtain Dec 2011
Eat the fourth cookie.
Bring back that fuzzy green sweater with lint ***** so stubborn
that even the strongest lint roller couldnā€™t break the bond they have with the sweater.
I know you pick your nose in public.
You stutter every time I ask who lives on Mamaroneck Street.
You have burping contests with yourself while youā€™re on the toilet.
I donā€™t care how you clip your toenails on todayā€™s newspaper.
I still read it after youā€™re done.
I love that you paint each nail in a different neon color,
eat chocolate chips and green tea for breakfast,
and salt your apples.
You cry every time you watch Titanic.
I agree Rose shouldā€™ve moved to the side and shared the plank with Jack.
You rap to Baby Got Back fifty nine times in a row.
I wish we danced to it more often.
I wish you would tell me what you write in your red book.
I know you pretend youā€™re Beyonce in concert while working out,
and think Michael Buble wrote havenā€™t met you yet for you.
I love that you keep the ticket stubs from every single movie we see in the tea jar under your bed.
You smell of cologne every time you walk into the house.
You donā€™t know how to whisper. You never have.
You tell me youā€™ll be back by noon but donā€™t come back till 7 p.m.
You use your knitting needles as chopsticks when we order sushi,
And donā€™t stamp any of the letters you send your mom.
Even though you have seven wallets, you keep all your money loose in your bag
and throw away all the pennies in the trash.
You pretend your belly-fat is a puppet that can talk and sing,
And you flirt with the waiter for extra hot sauce.
You hate it when I use your cell-phone

And every night you kiss him goodnight at the train station.
Jacob Mar 2015
Wind and laziness


Dust and lint swept under rug


to be uncovered.
Icarus M Feb 2013
There's a tree over there
that waits for its dreamer.

I have survived many.
And lost much
but to tell all would encumber several human spans
because
I have lived and longed.
I have learned and yearned.
I have waited.
At the train station, where existence can only be fulfilled
via a spiritual connection.
Bounded by roots that twist and secure
Soon to be bonded with thoughts
Floating through the sky, riding the air waves, see-through till caught
in a spider's web, or something like it.
And imaginary gets real.
Take in the matter
Scrub the void with scrounged emotions and colors
Pour in materials of lint and string.
Mediums with no particular conductance,
but taught it tight
and strum till the vibrations reverberate
and bring your idea to life in my wings
Because you are my dreamer.
And I am your catcher.
Hung on a wooden peg,
in your study.
Waiting for the day you
pick me up
and all your dreams tumble out and
materialize
and you realize
**who you are.
Initial idea was to describe a surreal explanation of what a tree waits for in its life. Instead I ended up with this. Tips on improvement to this would be appreciated.
Ā© copy right protected
brandon nagley May 2015
A lint roller I use to roll off all thine loneliness that clings to me!!!
I come home after a long day and pull my head off to put back onto the rack. It takes with it all the skin down my back, and I have to shake it out for lint. There it sits among friends and there I sit with mine, Netflix, my phone, and a bottle of wine.
generation sad
JWolfeB Aug 2014
I try to change my socks everyday.

Otherwise i get all tripped up on my past.

Sometimes my life feels like lint between toes.

Rubbed off raw material from a malfunctioned owner.

Getting washed down a drain at the end of the day.

Taken away from a broken home.

Drowning without a chance to breathe anyway.
Thoughts about the way my mind has been working today
betterdays Jul 2014
there is a mote
of dust,
in my eye

it comes from
the dust bunny's ***.

i caught him, copulating
under the couch,
with two odd socks,
while the lego man watched.

he, in guilty panic,
shook and shed,
his lint everywhere....

and
i caught this bit
with my eye
the rest i collected
with my nose...
b e mccomb Jul 2016
Coffee stains and exploding pens
Rumpled paper pages and combusting lipgloss
Love, hate, joy, anger, confusion
Running, skipping
Falling, tripping
Dashing down the sidewalk
Late running, running late?
Never mind my frazzled mind.

Sweater sleeves and spinning spirals
Starry eyes, broken melodies
Like glass that shatters when
You break a string, popping
Like popcorn, nestled in
The river's glaring
Night reflections of fate
The perfect metaphor.

Birds fly, headphones break
Words read, hearts ache
Rhymes never last longer than
A line or two before
They're lost to me forevermore
That scarf of captured rainbows
I miss like an old friend
Spots of glitter, blots of paint.

Blue jeans, ballgames, autumnal skies
Chipped china, it's on days
Like this I wish I simply
Had a lint roller for my brain.
Copyright 12/11/13 by B. E. McComb
michelle reicks Jun 2011
men write poems about ******* women
and vaginas and ****
and glorious juices and getting drunk after

and I canā€™t
because I have a ******
and ****
and I get uncomfortable if they want to drink after.

and if I wanna write about how I really like it
when he climbs on top of me
and puts his **** into my warm hot love-cave,

itā€™s just ****** poetry.
by a woman
and it doesnā€™t mean anything
but if I was a ā€œ****ā€
a ā€œ*****ā€
and I said ā€œnoā€
and wrote a poem about ā€œ****ā€
it would make women love me as a feminist

but Iā€™m not a feminist
I just like it when he ***** me
and his chest hair falls out
and covers my ******* and goes into my bellybutton


I donā€™t mind having to
lint roll
the sheets
Joshua Trevino May 2016
When I was five years old and first stepped into a classroom I had lint and skittles and hope stuffed into my pockets. My firsts clutched at them so hard that when they made us shake hands with one another I extended a rainbow palm to my partners. They gawked at it for a second and then took my hand and we were stuck together with a bond that only innocence and sugar can provide.

When we were kids we built our trust out of sticks and stones--a bond that would come to be stronger than sugar and innocence and hope--you would lead us through waters we were not sure we could wade yet.

In 7th grade the spaces between hallways and classrooms are where I learned that silence breeds intolerance and apathy. Our trust was no longer built on sticks and stones, but on those moments when we chose not to be silent--when we were thankful that someone said anything to us at all because life only ever matters when you know you exist.

And so I will write you letters so that you know that I see you.

Dear Girl In Class That Listens to Boys Making **** Jokes,

I see you. I see those boys too. And they will see me when I reach down their throats where the hate they spew lives tell them that I will not meet their intolerance with tolerance.

Iā€™ll probably get a phone call from mom.

Dear Boy In Class Who Changes All Of the Pronouns In His Poems Because Heā€™s Scared OfĀ Ā The Students Around Him,

I see you, I see those edits you make too. Youā€™re beautiful and so are your words. Stop making bad edits.

Dear Boy In Class Who Thinks Gay Is A Synonym For Stupid

I know that all hate is learned and that you learned that this was okay because no one ever told you it wasnā€™t. Iā€™m telling you now. Stop.

Dear Students In Class Who Are Afraid To Speak Up

Iā€™m writing this poem for you. I want you to take this poem with you when you leave. Turn it over in your mind like the cool side of a pillow when you lay down to sleep. Let it support your head and your dreams.

Repeat it like a prayer so that these words will stick in your mind, even when Iā€™m not there: Just because school is a weapon free zone does not mean that you leave your mind, your heart, your thoughts, your questions, your voice at home.

Take this poem and place it beneath your feet. Stand on it, use it to meet your adversaries at eye level every time they try to look down on you.

Let this poem catch you when they try to blast you back with backwards rhetoric.

Use this poem as a shield--hold the words around you so that when the world tries to drop bombs on you youā€™ll be able to appreciate the beat.

Keep it like a secret and when youā€™re alone and writing and the words are stuck in the ink of your pen remember that poetry doesnā€™t come from words, it comes from a willingness to love and to be loved. I know this because the first poem I ever heard was when my mother held my head in her lap and told me the only Spanish I would ever remember--todo para la familia--everything for the family.

And so Iā€™ll leave those words as a mantra for you and I hope that youā€™ll understand some day that you donā€™t need this poem and you can crumple it up and throw it away because your voice matters and even if itā€™s met with silence, nothing will change that.

To The Teachers That My Students Write Poems About,

Take this poem. Use it as a warning.

My students are better poets than me.
Spoken word piece performed as a sacrificial poem for my students.
Bucket full of coins and lint
From pockets of the passing
He sits there staring silently
His sign board does the asking

Truth be told he only wants
Money for his drink
His sign expresses honestly
What the passers by all think

Why Lie, Need *****
is written on his card
But, to look this man right in the eye
Is really something hard

He doesn't smile, is dressed for warmth
Even though it is quite warm
I don't think it's for the weather
It's for his own internal storm

That rips apart inside his soul
A storm that no one's seen
It knocked him on a wayward course
He lost who he might have been

We'll never know just who he was
We only know him at this hour
For those who pass him here each day
He's known as Whiskey Sour

He sits there with his plastic tub
Watching people on their way
Whiskey Sour thanks them kindly
No matter what they say

A victim of his own devices
Or a victim of all ours
No matter where you walk and look
You will all meet Whiskey Sours.
Joe Satkowski Sep 2013
chest cavities are easier to bathe in if you
crack the ribs in half first
one by one
count them on your fingers
I fell out of time
into wavery scarves of seconds
glittering of snowflake anticipation, and
minutes of quiet purring joy.
Tonguing thickening clouds of breathsteam
he has always been a familiar stranger;
every joint is a champagne cork, white
marble smile that bubbled

over wooden lips. Tell a story
in ten words or less, tap fingers pointed like guns
twice against her hot temple, smile
and half a tooth still ******. Tell a story with one
word, bang, and sock away the other nine.
Turn to a cat and say, Iā€™ve got your tongue.
We sat together on our heels in the smoke
and snowfall, the plumed weapon of breath

melting. Cars slide into the lot, ice over easy.
The alcohol tasted like soap. It is not enough
for maybes and not-know-hows---grating
cheepcheap common sense, fail me now.

Maybe you didnā€™t write LOVE on her
battered wrist but LIVE instead,
maybe you stole all the magnetic aā€™s
off the fridge, youā€™re not the one
who highlighted instructions on a macaroni
box, so you broke all the chalk and wrote
the name of your childhood dog above the sink.

Maybe ā€œhostileā€ is a fuzzed blue comforter
three months past laundry day, every lint
ball sharp as the word ā€œcutā€, the word ā€œ*****ā€,
the word ā€œscreamā€. Maybe Iā€™m naive, sentimental, but
I believe in a common kindness
like the common cold running thin
in threads of worn-out heart chambers.
Kate Lion Feb 2013
I want my poetry to collect dust on the shelves until the pain is covered in layers of felt and can't be felt anymore
Wouldn't that be wonderful
And you-
When I'm gone-
You could take your elbow and polish the covers with your sleeve, wondering why it's hard to breathe when the mushroom clouds explode prematurely into your eyes, making you blind for a moment and unable to peek through the blinds of my ribcage to see if my heart still beats between the pages
Would you want to know if my soul could breathe between all of those layers of letters and lint from your sweaters that clung to me like meat hooks when we parted
Perhaps I write about those things
Perhaps these are premature ponderings, these thoughts of my heart
For I am not one to go unheard
I will write this poetry and it will sit
Fresh and cured and seasoned
Waiting in a meat house for a season
Until either you or I have the sense to eat these words
And come to terms with the fact that we missed our chance to be savored and loved-
Darling, I'm waiting.
For you.

— The End —