"lunchboxes" poems
The truth about being a superhero, is that only certain people know when to call us at exactly the right time. When the world is about to break into chaos and when the cities need us to be there.
But this isn’t exactly the job I thought it was going to be. I have devoted myself to being the best I can be for the people of my city, for freedom and justice, and for you. And for the first few months of my job, I was everywhere.
People knew my name, I was in every newspaper, children looked up to me, put me on their lunchboxes, they wanted to be me…
They say heroes aren’t born, they’re made. But I was born! Of the kindness of my mother, and the bravery of my father to create this image of strength. I am a superhero! I can fly, can you fly? Can you wear this suit? Can you handle the responsibility?
Not all of my city wanted a superhero. Some of them became the villains. And it’s not like I can’t handle a few bad guys, but sometimes, the citizens are my kryptonite.
Sometimes they don’t want me, one day they praise me and the work that I’ve done, the next day, they say they don’t need another hero, I’m just another problem, they say “Leave us the way that you found us: broken. And not needing anybody around to fix it.”
But I’m not perfect either. I can fly, but gravity still brings me back to earth, I can run, but not from my problems, I can carry cars with my two hands. But the weight of the world still sits on my shoulders.
The day they told me to leave the city, I reminded myself that if I harmed any one person, broke my promise to be the sole keeper of freedom and justice for all. That I would hang up my cape and quit.
And I did. I became human again, I am not as strong as you made me out to be. You told me I wasn’t needed. And soon after the villains had returned and they were shouting for me to save them again.
I thought you didn’t want me, stop it, I’m no hero, I’m just a person. Please, my powers only do so much. Do you still need me to save you? I’m just an alien, a science experiment, a mutant, a drawing in a comic book.
I am not your superhero! I can’t do this anymore! It was you who pushed me away, you fear my powers, you fear me. But I didn’t do anything wrong.
Please… Just let me go. You are the heroes now. Just let me go.
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 10:10 PM UTC
I get the hunch that the ashes of kindergarten,
Lunchboxes, the national anthem
Are floating from the edge of us
So many sophomore stars from a cigarette’s tip,
Somewhere down the mountain we lost our winter coats
And bicycle summers, and plastic sailboats,
No puddles and rainboots, or slick soft dogs
And paper flowers, captured fish and frogs
We try to jump in puddles, and we float
Deep-bright and hissing in the city chill
Childhood traded for strange soft skin
Grumpy cats and boardgames for mixed drinks and casual ***
And the cicadas gaily chirping fall away like
Fishbowl-helmet astronauts, lost without gravity
Mercury, Venus, Youth,
Maturity, Jupiter, Saturn
We are never kids again,
Nor adults until we die
wait until the phone rings
and the teacher goes inside,
under the slide at Recess:
you can put your lips on mine
Mar 5, 2010
Mar 5, 2010 at 11:28 AM UTC
Funny, how sometimes butterflies
skip over your skin without ever landing,
how basketballs spin
around the rim without swishing,
or how things never seem to work out.
I’ve been wishing
for moments of high tide, gravitational
moons that would draw me to you,
in the middle of May on Coney Island.
I want you to pull my pigtails like it’s preschool.
I want to bleed neon, shout pop tunes
to accompany my words that sound like
a poem we all had to learn
to recite from memory.
Funny, how we store meat behind our popsicles
in the freezer, how we tear up things
before we throw them away,
or how defeated we feel when we wake up
to zero new messages.
I’ve been reaching
for the plug in the drain,
sipping champagne,
hearing your name,
when all I really want is lunchboxes,
the kind your mom leaves notes in.
I want to beat you in four square,
color on my Converse, catch crayfish
in the creek behind your house.
Funny, how we tone down our souls
to fit the mold, or interview each other
based on pieces of paper when we are
alive, and breathing, and it’s funny
how we save money for next time,
plan for tomorrow before we’re done with today,
count our accomplishments before our scars.
Funny, how all we ever wanted
was to finally be exactly where we are.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 3:32 PM UTC
Turns out,
I’m an idiot
who knows nothing and does no good.
I watch the moon go down
every couple months
to readjust my calendar
and pour my non-organic coffee from
glass pots made in emerging markets.
You may say we’re losing the world
or that the Earth should be preserved—
Fine.
I **** at the feet of your bourgeois children and their plastic, antibacterial lunchboxes.
For me there is no world to lose.
Apr 19, 2011
Apr 19, 2011 at 9:41 PM UTC
Truth be told it's similar to those little notes out mothers left in our lunchboxes.
We never notice them until they're gone.
They were just an ordinary piece of paper with swirly writing that was difficult to decipher.
Almost as if they're the full stops at the end of sentences we only notice once we read back over and they're not there
That's how I only noticed that you're not here now when you once were everywhere.
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 3:05 AM UTC
This moment in time, about twelve
Years ago; a memory that keeps
Resurfacing these days.
I tell it over beers -not at all to brag-
To new friends and old
Aquaintances.
Self-employed, young and working
My hands to shreds to get by.
I had not eaten for days.
I'd drink litres of water
And bite my proud tongue every
Time I thought to ask my parents.
Again.
Already losing friends over debt,
I had exhausted all channels.
I'd keep my eyes on the street
Dreaming of coins.
Monday, nauseous with nothing
But myself to throw up.
In the barracks. Not a soul.
Fridge. I open it.
Boxes with lunches for thirty
Honest men. Wifemade leftovers.
Smell of homes.
I shut the fridge door.
On a shelf to my right,
A bag of buns long forgotten.
The mould only superficial.
Heaven underneath.
My eyes welled up as I ate.
I take no pride in managing to
Become that hungry
In a rich country during rich times.
But I will always remember
That I never touched
The boys' lunchboxes.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 11:11 AM UTC
My brain atrophies
And still I wait
As if someone will
Come carriage me off
The curvature of the planet
And bestow upon me gifts
I have no title to.
I walk between the aisles
Quietly admiring the mass of produce
Bared fruits eagerly poised
Waiting to drive home in the back seat
To be manipulated and munched
And hastily shoved into lunchboxes
While the coffee smugly percolates
But the engrossed bins prove
Too bountiful to harvest—
My appetite no longer yearns
For the gifts at its feet.
I swear not only did the price go up
But the loaf got smaller
That’s all dreams turn out to be
An amalgam of juxtapositions
So we stand on both sides of the river
While trying to swim against the current
And we know
It’s much too late to still be awake
Jun 17, 2010
Jun 17, 2010 at 8:51 PM UTC
There is nothing below us that has not once been on level ground.
At some point or another, we will be below, and the things on top will just look down and think about
the Underneath,
just as we do;
just as we are.
And maybe the Underneath is not just dirt and grime and lost socks and extra buttons,
but the voices living Under your skin and the words that are sitting in the pit of your stomach right now. Maybe the Underneath is the butterfly that you accidentally stepped on and the tears you shed for it.
Or maybe, the Underneath is the only thing that is holding your surface in place.
Buildings are just cement over metal.
Humans are just flesh over bones; sinew over joints and glue.
But more than that, people are swirling nebulas of ideas, and sticky notes on lunchboxes, and of things that always seem to be just
On the tip of your tongue.
(Underneath it I suppose, if the mouth is to be blamed for a lack of noise.)
So, if skeletons are integral to our construction, and bodies but a tarp over a cage holding being, why are we so hesitant to peel our shells back and reveal our
Underneaths?
Under my bed, I have letters that I have written to you, bundled in twine and tape,
and I leave them under my bed so that the monsters there may have something new to read.
Who needs a magazine when you have blue ink from veins, spilling on page after page of i-love-yous,
spelling out promises and bribes and the worst bits of myself and of you.
these are the things that sit just
Underneath.
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 2:22 AM UTC
I arrive and the scents of morning dew and fresh flowers gush into my nostrils. Breathing in nature as I start on the day. Just 5 minutes ’til the bells go ring ring ring and the peace moment song echoes through the hallways.
I continue on with the loud chatters from left and right. Papers ripping, ball pens tapping, and feet pacing. At lunch, we munch on lunchboxes being passed from one another. Three hours more but eyelids feel heavy from all the eating and talking.
I depart by walking down a trail of tranquil green trees towering over one another. On warm days, the flower petals fall gracefully and I follow along the path like a scene in a movie. Sometimes, I take on another path, and the smoke of the grilling of barbecues envelopes, and I finish off with my white uniform smelling with a satisfied appetite.
Nov 23, 2020
Nov 23, 2020 at 12:06 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Gearing Up for School Which is Just Around the Corner
School is forever gearing up or winding down
And if school is not around the corner
Then summer takes that very same turn instead
With back-to-school sales beginning in June
Children wheedle their moms for the coolest sneaks
And shopping carts are heavy with pens in packs
Yellow pencils, notebooks, scissors, and glue
Construction paper, adhesive tape, tissues
Lunchboxes, paper sacks, term calendars -
While in a lonely room
A pathetic little man fondles his Glock
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 at 11:09 PM UTC