"lunchbox" poems
in between my insecurities
I can’t be found sometimes,
dumbfounded by my surroundings.
hiding,
in between my
insecurities.
i’ve been captured in the moment,
scared to say another word,
caught ,
in between my
insecurities
I got lost within the essence,
talking nonsensical thoughts,
lying inside,
in between my
insecurities.
I learnt my lesson swiftly,
teenage years, lunchbox idioms ,
sandwiched,
in between my
insecurities.
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 10:05 AM UTC
I don't know since when.
This diet has began
and gone extreme.
There was once
a reasonable aim.
But a new one comes up
whenever the old was
claimed.
Crosses over the weekdays.
Tell me how far I have gone.
But the crosses goes on,
They linger far too long.
I was counting on my calories.
Eating portions from my lunchbox.
No more than
a quarter
I couldn't stop.
I'm sorry.
But I'm not.
Led by starvation
my ultimate downfall.
I was saving all the calories.
For a binge at a time.
Keeping in my desires.
Till it's time to dine.
No my throat is on fire.
It's getting tire and tire.
So I kept eating and
release as
I violently *****
This is all too
disgusting.
dreadful.
disgusted am I.
Nothing have I eaten for breakfast,
lunch, tea and dinner.
Spooning out from my
kiwifruit.
No one could save me.
From my one and only solitude.
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 4:45 PM UTC
The banana is an inside joke
from God
It is His calling card
And you can call home
if you would hold it to your ear
and speak directly to Him
Just kidding
Bananas are for the belly
He would have used perforated edges
but naysayers would be in an uproar
"How could your God think us so stupid!"
For they always imagine
that God reflects their own stupidity
And the atheist too
would have a fit
and a slew
of jokes about how the real evidence of God
has banana split
But just like little children know
mother puts the best food in the lunchbox
Humble believers can tell you
good loving means good grubbing
on the inside of the banana peel
And that's real
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
I have a perfect lunchbox mom
Crusts cut off
She leaves me love letters on my napkin
So that when the bathroom stall became my cafeteria
I wouldn't be so lonely
I have a perfect marathon mom
She runs to the beach and back just to show that she can.
And when she says she's all gross from her run, she somehow still smells like fresh air
My mom is fresh air,
She fills my sister's lungs with life
And every exhale is love
My mom is fresh air.
She is a sanctuary, she is a nest
She is rest
I have a perfect lunchbox mom,
A "Honey, what's wrong?" mom
An "If you're not here, the day's too long", mom
A "Wonder if God knew what He gave to Earth" mom
I thought God kept track of angels
She is everything
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 9:07 AM UTC
*Fried brinjal rolled in flatbread
Her magic recipe of love homemade
What treasure they hold what charm unlocks
When sharp at two opens up lunchbox!
A sweet candy from the finest cheese
Made from cow milk a salivary bliss
I feel helpless and little can do
My belly when growls sharp at two!
I feel entranced in that magic hour
When smell green peas and cauliflower
She makes them fine rich butter spread
The toasted breads her love homemade!
She knows my bowel not makes it rich
Fine cut cucumber in soft sandwich
In all them I find her special brew
Of love homemade to be opened at two!
Though it’s never that I made her known
How sweetly relish her love homegrown
But when I open lunchbox at two
Wonder without her what I would do!*
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 6:18 AM UTC
White shoelaces tied carefully,
clothes ironed straight,
not a strand of hair in his face,
private school and Christian home.
His momma packed him PB&J.;
She said, "Son, don't hang with the wrong kind of kids,
the ones sitting in the back of the classroom
who wear words on their necks and
black every Sunday."
And she puts a napkin in his lunchbox and reminds him
to wash his hands.
And she prays for him to find cleanliness,
and she checks the internet history every day
while he finishes homework and practices piano.
She tells him, "Son, don't let those celebrities
with their drugs and their ***** words
influence you."
And she emphasizes "man shall not lie with man"
and not "God loves all His children"
and tells him not to let any mud get on his new socks.
He sits on the couch and
he sits in the audience and
he's told what isn't okay.
He is raised following predjudices he doesn't agree to,
stereotypes engraved deep in his brain to the core.
He was never taught any different,
he was never educated on differences.
He knows a million shades of white but God forbid he touch a blade of glass.
He was taught to keep his window locked,
head down,
eyes shut,
mouth closed,
hands folded,
back straight,
shoelaces tied.
Momma says, "Son, better keep yourself clean,"
but she touches him with ***** hands
and ties a rope
he never wanted
around his neck.
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 8:34 PM UTC
Mom always walks her child to school,
Her little girl's lunchbox in hand.
Every day she cares for her,
Teaching her how to walk and stand.
She held her close that fateful day,
Against her breast while nose to nose,
"Mommy, why is this lump right here?"
Now only whitewashed halls she knows.
Mom always waves her child to school,
From the porch with a trembling hand.
The poison did not work this time,
And there was not more she could stand.
She pays the bills day in, day out.
The insurance has long run dry.
She coughs up blood, cleans it quickly,
And makes sure her daughter won't cry.
Mom calls her child at school sometimes,
A red phone in her bony hand.
"The doctors say I'm doing great!"
At nine months since she last could stand.
The blade has cut the flesh demon,
Yet even faster back it grew.
Waves of power rolled over it,
Yet there was no cure that we knew.
Her child now walks alone to school,
Mom's old tin lunchbox in her hand.
The grief within her swells sometimes,
Making it hard to talk and stand.
She visited her that cold day,
By the old brick church down the lane.
"Mommy, why did it take you now?"
She whispered through soft tears of pain.
Jun 2, 2014
Jun 2, 2014 at 7:53 AM UTC
The wind escapes
Through a forgotten lunchbox
Like a child
Leaving their toys in the grass
But I looked closer
They were two dying baby rats
One was still quivering
it pierced my chest
To breathe a rat’s last breath
what did he speak of?
Nothing
Because now he is gone
Like my childhood
Swimming through memories
Of long forgotten promises
Of rotting baby rats
Sep 2, 2010
Sep 2, 2010 at 10:03 AM UTC
Kiss my cheek,
Again. Tell me
I’m pretty. Whisper
to me, again
the parting of
your lips
they crack
so wicked ****
Move my hips
they stand still
for most of the day
Let them know
Its o.k to hulahoop
A love tale. Go Ahead,
wisk by me,
Temptation works best
In brushstrokes
And dial tones.
Just don’t shun
falling tears,
they soak your face
and make it brighter
before morning coffee.
Jan 17, 2012
Jan 17, 2012 at 2:40 PM UTC
I was surprised it felt heavier
Uneasiness too pinched me
Haven’t carried a weightier ever
What could fill a family!
Did I see a red heart there
Did I see a silver line
Did I carry the weight of care
Sealed with the hands of valentine!
It was heavier but I felt so light
And free as my dreams set free
Scaled the hillocks reached mountain height
When remembered what she heard from me!
*There’s no time I must haste
A load of work at office knocks
Would come home late it would be best
If you forget for today the lunchbox!*
Now I’m smiling as I eat the meal
More than daily quota manifold
The lunchbox lends me the much needed fill
Sealed with a heart of gold!
Feb 14, 2014
Feb 14, 2014 at 5:45 AM UTC
Two Children fell in love
After they colored the squares
And shaped the circles
And fit their hands around the lunchbox
Firm and slipped out the plastic
Ziplock bags
An fought over what was inside
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 11:08 PM UTC
Into his plastic lunchbox
He did, an Orange and biscuit, shove
And said the biscuit to the orange
“Come sit by me, my love”
And the orange, taken by surprise
Gave him a sheepish grin
And flashed her pips and dimples
So he knew they might begin
She was smooth and round and juicy
He was crunchy, brown and fat
She introduced herself as Lucy,
And he said his name was Zak
And throughout the sunny morning
They did laugh and love and tease
When suddenly with no warning
Their lives were torn apart with ease
The sky ripped from their little world
Their peccadilloes for all to view
First Zak, then Lucy disappeared
With a bite, a crunch, a chew.
So dear reader, please take heed
Don’t shy away from love
For we never really know quite when
It’s lunchtime up above.
Sep 16, 2011
Sep 16, 2011 at 5:11 PM UTC
I'm from Sister Shubert's rolls and homemade chicken and dumplings
From bowling late on Thanksgiving night to trying to be the first one to find the pickle in the Christmas tree
I'm from the smell of my mom's famous pies (pecan, chocolate peanut butter and Kentucky derby fresh from the oven)
From "Sweet Caroline" and "Oh Happy Day"
I'm from the macaroni and cheese I never realized was good
From "Dance with the cow in a patch of clover" and puzzles on Nana's steps
I'm from Rook parallel to the bathtub
From my three favorite windows in the whole house and crazy surprises in my lunchbox
I'm from reading dad's sermons over his shoulder early on Sunday mornings
From lightning bugs and fried okra to the quote board and pickle pancakes
I'm from biscuits with honey for breakfast every Saturday
From McDonald's delicious chocolate birthday cakes
I'm from ***** feet and a pitch black washcloth
And that's the only way I'd want it
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 4:47 PM UTC
Two Children fell in love
After they colored the squares
And shaped the circles
And fit their hands around the lunchbox
Firm and slipped out the plastic
Ziplock bags
And fought over what was inside
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 11:08 PM UTC
The thick formaldehyde air keeps me awake.
Eight hours on fluorescent lights and lemon water
pins me to this stiff, rigor mortis chair.
Her stifled screams a ward away distract me from
counting the ceiling tiles
again.
Clocks ooze down the wall, time melting in sync
with EKGs and IV drips.
and I, alone with my blanket and Harry
turn to ask him how long we’ve been here
why the sky is blue
how much a soda from the cart might cost
if she’ll be okay.
But he just stares blankly with his cold gorilla eyes
omniscient in his eternal silence.
So I hug him closer to my chest, plastic fur
scratching at the soft spot under my chin.
Dad paces back and forth along the linoleum,
crushing grandmother’s pearls between his teeth
like candy mints.
and I, alone with my blanket and Harry
idly wonder what he’ll pack in my lunchbox tomorrow.
It takes me back -
this dilapidated Christmas card from ’99,
tucked neatly away in a drawer
of condoms and last year’s candy corn.
A family photo from OR #12 wasn’t
“appropriate”,
So we chose one from the year before.
Three faces plastered on the blood red backing,
Season’s greetings through gritted teeth.
I throw it back into the box
with other useless paraphernalia
I should have never kept.
Reaching deeper, digging through years
like bare fingers through stale grave dirt,
I find her hospital bracelet.
Twist it between my fingers.
Wrap it tight around my wrist,
breathe in the familiar formaldehyde scent.
and I, alone with my blanket and Harry
idly throw it away.
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 10:55 AM UTC
I live inside these walls.
I know no other way.
They are as cold as steel,
And keep the light at bay.
I’m not alone however,
There’s tens of us in here.
Locked in solitude,
But never lost to fear.
Then one day a wall did open,
And we scattered to the winds.
Flapping wings of amber glass.
Free of the walls, but lost of friends.
In that instance I gained such freedom,
But we lost our power.
The world for our togetherness.
Oh look a flower.
Oct 10, 2011
Oct 10, 2011 at 1:28 PM UTC
We never ****** on anybody’s ticking bed.
We didn’t even **** up, although we did. Who gives a **** about romance?
These days I am letting my mouth slide right off my face. Letting my fingers bleed
onto bathroom walls. Peeling my skin into the bathroom sink. My
brother complains about it. Tells me I need to be cleaner. I shower
everyday for two hours. You’re still sleeping in my hair, my
flesh is still crawling with your sweat. Please don’t think that I
ever held a door open for you. “Write about me.” Well, ok, **** you,
I’m not crying. I’ve never cried, except for that one time when my mother
threw my lunchbox at the wall. The lunchbox was shaped like a spaceship.
Now I know that she wasn’t mad at me, just at the sky
and how quickly it could change and how she wasn’t ready for it to change,
wasn’t ever ready for it to change. But I still liked that lunchbox. I don’t
eat much these days maybe because she broke it. I mean I no longer
have a home for my food, so what’s the point? Two weeks ago
the kitchen was dark and my feet were undressed and I was scooping
peanut butter out of the jar like a nightlight. It’s one of my top five
embarrassing moments even though nobody was there to watch me.
I watch myself so well. Also not well enough. Please tell me what I
look like. I want details, sometimes I think I want your face but
then I remember you’re still climbing the stairs like a ghost. I
almost let you be my ghost.
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 10:29 PM UTC
I miss when Jane didn’t smoke.
She sneaks under morning’s cloak
Goes to class and laughs
With an empty head
At my empty joke.
Empty is the ***** flask
I pretend not to notice
Tucked into her lunchbox
So I stare at her sandwich instead
No crusts
A housewife’s handiwork
There's no use pretending anymore.
We are empty
We are fading
And she is faded
And I am waiting
In the food court of a failing mall
While she is debating
Whether or not to give it all
To another blue-eyed boy
Because he made her feeling something
Her father didn’t
After his deployment.
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 1:41 PM UTC
*I wish I could feel emotion as a singularity.
just one, intense emotion,
one engulfing thought devouring all of my being.
one singular, unitary, simple drive.
powerful.
as a black hole devours all particles of any existence,
even light itself.
they say that if you stood on the edge of one,
hovering at the point of no return,
time becomes as simple as space.
the universe is no longer a mystery.
the Big Bang as quiet as
that abandoned swing on the playground.
space and time are but children,
gravity that kid who
forgot his lunchbox.
no subjective meanings,
no in-betweens,
no emotions.
sometimes I wish I could see
my thoughts as binary,
or my memories as morse.
sometimes I wish I could understand
that we are nothing but the sum of our parts,
the outcome of a spectacular binding
of cell to cell:
a container of molecules.
that sadness is a school brawl between chemicals,
happiness an accidental firework
set off by a wayward alchemist.
all irregularities, as explained by
human error.
but the only thing human about an error
is the error itself;
the most fragile thing about a human
is his humanity;
**the closest we can ever be to God
is on the verge of our own ruin.**
weightlessness is only felt
halfway off a building,
freedom only gained
halfway away from home,
love only experienced
as one half of a broken heart.
there is no light without darkness,
no warmth without the cold,
no way to experience things
two at a time.
we will always exist in paradoxes,
as one or the other.
as a singularity.
the only place we can be God is
right here -- on the event horizon,
the point of no return.*
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 11:51 AM UTC
A box entitled Lost and Found.
Inside-
a ball,
a silver slinky.
A pink backpack with unicorns,
a ratty teddy bear with love in it's eyes.
A math notebook that holds all the secrets of a girl named Alicia.
A cootie-catcher that has been ripped in several places.
A metal tin lunchbox with Spiderman on it and the name William on a piece of masking tape on the handle.
A barbie doll, looking as thought it has been given an amateur haircut, and wearing a yellow dress and one pink high heel, but still smiling.
A green hairband with several purple flowers on it.
A diary with a lock, and butterflies on the cover.
A stuffed puppy dog, with a red nose.
A key, probably to a lost diary.
One black shoe,
in the Lost and Found.
Apr 28, 2010
Apr 28, 2010 at 12:08 PM UTC
person feels a wave of heat through their neck and face when struck with a thought of their ex boyfriend. a ninth grader gives them a ***** look. person leans against a cold cinderblock wall and relaxes their face. focus on the empty space between the eyeballs and the brain. feel the limp arms and identify the beat of a pulse running through them. repeat after me: self care is boring.
paul laurence dunbar knows why the caged bird sings. he never wanted to be an elevator operator. it's a point of privilege. person asks a ninth grader if a bird could see the wind, the river, the sun. "oh... no..."
one thing person notices time and again is that when these students drop something they do not pick it up. they let someone else do it. where person is from it is not like that. students would not help person like that, they think.
person remembers one time, when they themselves were in the ninth grade, dropping their lunchbox in a crowded hallway and picking it up swiftly in the next step without slowing down. a tall boy behind them said "smooth". person felt proud at the time. person feels good remembering this.
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 7:44 PM UTC
Forgive me for the ink that strains your innocent purity with words I don't even understand.
Pick up your rubber and erase my right hand with swift flick of the wrist
and a gentle caress for you cannot forgive me for what I have done,
but I can.
Stone me. Cut off my hand and stone me.
Let the blood drip like my wasted children that come and go with each
waning moon,
as the only thing that grows within me is love.
Open up the gates of hell and toss me like Mary Madeline tossed him,
and let me burn; but God, you play with fire
as I will only burn for her so nail me to the cross with my convent robe
and watch her kiss my feet and continue up to the heavens.
You can forgive me for opening my legs but you cannot nail them
shut, and you cannot cleanse my **** with salt from your narcissistic
***** that seeps between thighs in an unconsented **** of fertility.
Eve may have eaten the fruit of they womb but you cannot throw me out
the garden of Eden and you cannot tell me not to love when my heart
smells her sweet flower.
Nor can you curse our open mouths for taking a taste.
Forgive me Lord,
for I do not know what I am saying, and only say the words and I shall be
healed.
Malevolent God, this finger is for you.
But benevolent God, you gave me hands so I can make her tea
when she is dreaming,
and you gave me a heart that will not stop beating at the sight of her
sneakers on the floor.
Her eyes are like crumpets, God.
They make my mouth wet and my lips moist
and cover me in cotton blankets, just like 1993 when icicles clung to the
rooftops like I cling to her waist when she is sighing.
You made the ocean just so I can see her in a bikini.
It does't matter if she covers the curves of her thighs in shorts,
or her soft ******* in a shirt.
The point is you tried, and my God did you craft something magnificent.
Forgive me God, as I did not believe you existed till the day she said
I love you.
I smiled like second grade when I found a muffin in my lunchbox
and I ate it like my life depended on it, as if I don't have her
I fear I might explode.
But unlike 2nd grade each day I open my lunchbox and I find her
next to my sandwiches.
You made us like peanut butter and jelly.
So forgive me Lord, but I refuse to believe that you
condemn
something so perfect
as this love.
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 8:49 AM UTC
this ain't no art, man,
this is just a careless whisper
this is just George Michael
singing in your stereo
this is just your bourgeois-blues
this is merely a bewilderment
this is not the art, you know it,
you ******
you ****
you chronic masturbator
you who dare to write on the internet
dancing with yo papa' shoes
and in yo mama' lingerie
ah, look at yourself, a human miracle
Angel of a foreign Harlem,
you who wasted all away,
speaking in foreign tongues
inside the thighs of a british stripper,
you idiot
you *****
and when i'm done i'll come for you,
like a ****
like a dog
sniffin' and slidin' in your park
in your ***** trailer park
there with your fat-fuck-husband
stalkin' yo every move
you *****
you ****
and when i'm done i'll look for you,
simple as that
simple as an Einstein formula
served to you on exotic dishes
by Norma from Twin Peaks,
cars for the missus and furs for the mistress
and when you'll die you'll ****
between all your champagne wishes
and it'll be ******* ridiculous.
But that's life, babe.
Get down on thursday,
drains you in May.
You *****
so be-my-babe
i say be-my-babe
in black and white
like the Ramones
or the Ronettes or
the Rolling Stone
- i still want to know
how your insides look like,
- i still want to save
your capitalist nature
in my mother's fridge,
- i still want to fly
high on a jet plane with you,
alone,
with or without needs,
crashing on our bridge.
I love you-
love me!
I put my gun in your hands.
I push it. I shovel it.
My bones are broken
bound by all the words
i never dared to say
- and here, my love, right here,
i put IT in my mouth,
i feel the cold steel in my tongue,
-- how much blood from
such a tiny hole, Lizaveta!--
and this, and so much more.
but please, i say please,
would you feed me?
would you need me?
i'm a little angel drowning in candies
who's eating his heart out and ******** his candy
ah, would you say this? Would you?
Just because it ain't cool?
Well if i'm not cool i'll drive my kite all night
and take my lunchbox and
shoot Panama down and
shoot Mexico down and
shoot a *** smoker down
and shoot a crack dealer down
and shoot a beer dealer down and
shoot Mexico down
shoot Osaka down
Kabrula kaysay Brula Amal
amala senda Kumahn Brendhaa!
Kabrula kaysay Brula Amal
amala senda Kumahn Brendhaa!
my love will gun down all your school
Look at me - i say, look at me!
*Kabrula kaysay Brula Amal
amala senda Kumahn Brendhaa!
Kabrula kaysay Brula Amal
amala senda Kumahn Brendhaa!*
and don't you forget to say my name,
as i'll
****
YOUR
SKULL
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 11:34 AM UTC
~
*lost library books
and broken lunchbox thermos,
her childhood under a forgotten
leaf on a pond.
she's attracted to the sound
of the breeze through her hair,
inner-city birds recommending
she listen with her head underwater,
to experience it as a fish might.
this is inescapable.
blood roses in the snow,
her unemployed martyred
fingers in the factory.
the manufactured years go by
at a price too great to recover from.
for every flash of beauty,
there is a hint of anger; a dash of violence.
this is inescapable.
her sleep-flower recital
in a dew-swathed spring morning hospital,
some kind of faraway pink funeral for
dead trees and traffic lights.
treasure impaired clouds capture
an isolated moment in time.
perhaps several moments.
perhaps several parts of the same moment.
this is inescapable.*
~
Apr 30, 2023
Apr 30, 2023 at 1:29 AM UTC