"magazine" poems
Late night car rides,
Empty pints of *****
A one-night ecstacy,
With a heartbreak dawn:
She shows her shallows,
As if they're great depths;
A cry of sorrow? Honey,
You ain't seen nothing yet.
She's not an open book,
She's just a bookmark type of personality.
Stuck between the pages of something more interesting,
Like a catalog or a Cosmo magazine.
Oh, she's always just caught between someone's pages,
With bits and pieces of their's stories rubbing off on her,
But them words don't look the same tattooed on her, oh no.
So stop pretending you're the deepest sea,
Your pretentious crap never fooled me.
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 12:45 PM UTC
Photography,
Photo journalistic,
Everyday, realistic.
Commercial, architecture, landscape, artistic,
Industrial, fashion, ethnographic, pornographic.
Big Brother, fallace, stealer of souls, vouyer.
News seller, instant gratifier, man pleaser, woman abuser.
Barthes, Sontag, Cindy Sherman,
Virginia Woolf, Warhol. Weegie, Francesca Woodman,
Leibovitz, Adams, Arbus, Tina Modotti,
Nan, Evans, Hoffer and even the Paparazzi.
Cheap ***** digital manipulator, image poser,
Center fold, coupons, Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe.
Where did they go:
Lifeless paper product, painter's picture mess,
C-type, digital archival,
Sepia, black and white, hard drive retrival.
Image addict,
Image taker,
Image maker,
image seller,
image buyer.
Newspaper, magazine, graphics and ads,
TV, dreams, even the trash.
Billboards, subways, phones and buses:
Utopia:
Surreal, crop, stretched and air brushes.
Modern ideal.
Surface manipulator.
Brain conditioner.
Consent manufacturer.
Oh Photography,
I got you in my eye.
A few thousand dollars,
A BFA, A critical scholar.
Or maybe a nerd,
Just boys with toys.
Telephoto genitals, with motor drive action.
Studio lights, umbrella traction.
Oh Photography,
You proprietor of obscene.
Detailed, de-sensitized.
Court ordered, jury analyzed.
Click, image, copy, edit, paste, print or post.
Myfacespace, twitter, flicker,
An internet media overdose.
Pry, spy, your friend's friend's acquaintances.
Parties, picnics, reunions and shows.
Visits, vacation, style, shoes and clothes.
Pics, photos, images, jpegs and giffs.
Snap shot, portrait, panoramic, Kodak kiss.
Exacerbate:
Divorce, break-ups, jealousy, envy, love and fears.
Devour and captivate society for years.
Slaves to Western and Capitalist desires,
Destruction of Earth with psychological, monetary empires.
Jan 11, 2010
Jan 11, 2010 at 7:05 AM UTC
the words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
the phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die.
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix
but the tree outside doesn't know:
I watch it moving with the wind
in the late afternoon sun.
there's nothing to declare here,
just a waiting.
each faces it alone.
Oh, I was once young,
Oh, I was once unbelievably
young!
from Transit magazine, 1994
16.7k
'Tryna get to sunny Californy' -
Boom. It's the awful raincoat
making me look like a selfdefeated self-murdering imaginary gangster, an idiot in a rueful coat, how can they understand my damp packs - my mud packs -
„Look John, a hitchhiker'
„He looks like he's got a gun underneath that I. R. A. coat'
'Look Fred, that man by the road' „Some sexfiend got in print in 1938 in *** Magazine' –
„You found his blue corpse in a greenshade edition, with axe blots'
10.6k
The Story
by Kamal Nasser
translation by Michael R. Burch
I will tell you a story ...
a story that lived in the dreams of my people,
a story that comes from the world of tents.
It is a story inspired by hunger and embellished by dark nights of terror.
It is the story of my country, a handful of refugees.
Every twenty of them have a pound of flour between them
and a few promises of relief ... gifts and parcels.
It is the story of the suffering ones
who stood waiting in line ten years,
in hunger,
in tears and agony,
in hardship and yearning.
It is a story of a people who were misled,
who were thrown into the mazes of the years.
And yet they stood defiant,
disrobed yet united
as they trudged from the light to their tents:
the revolution of return
into the world of darkness.
Kamal Nasser was a much-admired Palestinian poet and Palestinian Christian, who due to his renowned integrity was known as "The Conscience." He was a member of Jordan's parliament in 1956. He was murdered in 1973 by an Israeli death squad whose most notorious member was future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak (born Ehud Brog) later ruled as Israel’s tenth Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. His adopted Hebrew name Barak means "lightning." As a younger man, Brog/Barak was a member of a secret assassination unit that liquidated Palestinians in Lebanon and the occupied territories. In the 1973 covert mission Operation Spring of Youth in Beirut, which was part of the larger Operation Wrath of God, he disguised himself as a woman in order to assassinate Palestinians. The raid resulted in the deaths of two women, one of them an elderly Italian. Two Lebanese policemen were also killed, along with the poet Kamal Nasser.
Nasser was the PLO's most prominent Christian and he enjoyed "great appeal" in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq "both as a distinguished poet and likeable personality." He was the “conscience of the Palestinian revolution,” according to Nazih Abul-Nidal, who worked with him on the magazine Filastin al-Thawra. Nasser “had the most democratic outlook of all Palestinian leaders at the time,” he recalls. He respected opposing views, admired the commitment of young people, and was a major recruitment asset for the Palestinian revolution. “That is why he was put high on the hit-list.” The previous year, the Israelis had murdered another renowned Palestinian writer and activist in Beirut, Ghassan Kanafani, by booby-trapping his car. Nasser’s successor, Majed Abu Sharar, was also assassinated by Israelis, in Rome in 1981 while attending a conference in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Keywords/Tags: Kamal Nasser, Palestinian, Palestine, PLO, Conscience, Ramallah, Christian, religion, poet, Arab, Arabic, Arab Spring, betrayal, conflict, courage, devotion
Dec 9, 2021
Dec 9, 2021 at 7:55 AM UTC
I search for some decor
to pretty up my house
A headboard, some dead boards
or maybe a couch?
The said so to do it
on public TV
my kitchens not pretty
as pretty as can be
But what will the neighbors
think of my design?
they'll report to the magazine
that it's beautiful and sublime!
Some ship lap, some sconces
all wrapped in a bow
i will trend till tomorrow
then die all alone
Rip it all down
Says Chip and Joanna
They are more popular
Than Hanna Montanna
They live on a ranch
an take millions to make
a spectacular suprise
for a couple to take
We all laugh an cheer
at Chip's child like antics
Which makes great TV
as Joanna gets Frantic!
Do Chip and Joanna really
care about you?
As long as the station
gets ten million views
They tell us to fix it
even though it's not broken
go shop till you drop
and spend every token
Buy that cool sign
made from cheap yellow plastic
The richer get richer
but, our wall looks fantastic!
Do not give in
to the big corporate greed
there are sick, hungry people
and starving mouths to feed
so every cent spent
on the corporate wealth
helps the richer get richer
and we go to stealth
Wake up and see vanity
is causing distress
don't give in to pressure
of this corporate mess!
Aug 25, 2018
Aug 25, 2018 at 10:44 PM UTC
Paved thoughts
They lay
In naivity
Youth
Born into homogeny
Told
"Different is beautiful"
But taught
To fall in line
With the swaying ways
Society's norms form
Pin-up billboard smiles
Flash magazine swagger
On surgeon made bodies
Guide retinas of wide eyed
Youth
To mirrors
With disgust
"Different is beautiful"
We'll say
Yielding our whitened smiles
"Different is beautiful"
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 11:28 PM UTC
Where are the role models?
Who do I admire?
The *** and drug obsessed rapper?
The naked model in the magazine?
Who?
Where is the father figure in that single mother home?
Or the concerned and responsible mother of two?
Where is the morals in society?
Tell me
Where can I find them?
Everyone seems absorbed by popularity
Acceptance
Is this the reason we expose our bodies?
Disregard our morals?
Sully our name?
Where are the role models?
The positive influence?
The man holding the door for the young lady?
The mother struggling to put her children through college?
I'm in despair
Will I succumb to the warped society?
Will I trade my personal respect,
for a robe knitted of shameful glory?
I'm afraid
Where did all the good people go?
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 6:01 PM UTC
I moved a few years ago
To the upper state of Vermont
Although the place is beautiful
At times it can be one great big yawn
That's when we put our heads together
Me and my best friend Shawn
And came up with the great idea
To start a Hippie Farm
Our noggins were a knocking
Not sure how this could be done
Do Hippies come from packs of seeds
Or like flowers, in a bunch
And can you start them off by grafting
Like they do on Apple Farms
Where you get rows and rows of Hippies
From just a single one
That's when Shawn remembered this mail order magazine
That we took out and took a look inside
It came with an assortment of Hippies
From Raw to Roasted to Highly Deep Fried
So we sat and weighed all of our options
And ordered a bushel of Hippies alive
Then we set out cultivating the fields
Till the day our Hippies arrived
The package arrived a few days later
In an old beat up VW Bus
With psychedelic smoke pouring from the windows
Pretty sure they all came buzzed
Of course Hippies don't come with instructions
Only bell bottom jeans and old Jefferson Airplane tapes
Can't tell you how many Hippies we went through
Before we learned from our mistakes
Like don't plant a Hippie face first in the dirt
They need a bit of air to breath
And they don't like to be over watered
Just dust them off when you feel the need
Now that the farm is up and running
We seem to have come into our own
We've even come up with a way of branding
Some of the Hippies that we've grown
We started selling them in flavors
Like Ben and Jerry's down the street
From our Abbie Hoffman Radical Cherry
To our Hendrix Hazy Purple Berry Treat
But it's our Groovy Rainbow Roundup Hippie
Whose sales have never let us down
In fact I'd put that Hippie up against
Anybody else's Hippie in town
I've never been much of one to brag
But we're known on the East coast, up and down
We've had people as far away as Florida
Come and buy our Hippies by the pound
So next time your up in Vermont
Stop in and take a tour and watch us grow
Don't forget to stop by our gift shop
And purchase your very own Hippie to take home
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 9:57 AM UTC
at the track today,
Father's Day,
each paid admission was
entitled to a wallet
and each contained a
little surprise.
most of the men seemed
between 30 and 55,
going to fat,
many of them in walking
shorts,
they had gone stale in
life,
flattened out....
in fact, **** it, they
aren't even worth writing
about!
why am I doing
this?
these don't even
deserve a death bed,
these little walking
whales,
only there are so
many of
them,
in the urinals,
in the food lines,
they have managed to
survive
in a most limited
sense
but when you see
so many of them
like that,
there and not there,
breathing, farting,
commenting,
waiting for a thunder
that will not arrive,
waiting for the charging
white horse of
Glory,
waiting for the lovely
female that is not
there,
waiting to WIN,
waiting for the great
dream to
engulf them
but they do nothing,
they clomp in their
sandals,
gnaw at hot dogs
dog style,
gulping at the
meat,
they complain about
losing,
blame the jocks,
drink green
beer,
the parking lot is
jammed with their
unpaid for
cars,
the jocks mount
again for another
race,
the men press
toward the betting
windows
mesmerized,
fathers and non-fathers
Monday is waiting
for them,
this is the last
big lark.
and the horses are
totally
beautiful.
it is shocking how
beautiful they
are
at that time,
at that place,
their life shines
through;
miracles happen,
even in
hell.
I decide to stay for
one more
race.
from Transit magazine, 1994
6.9k
They enter the café just as some sappy pop song is playing
They order then immediately hug
Embrace
Swaying to one side, together, like the wind
Encircling the leaning tower of Pisa
Then teetering to the other solstice
Foot to foot, smile to smile, hand round skirted waist
Forearm resting on his tall blazered shoulders
This is forgivable in the young
Those teeny-boppers with defiant hair-cuts and posters
However, he has peppered hair
She, though voluptuous and tanned,
Must be in her 30s.
“Affair.”
My cynical devil snickers, between sips
But I sit mesmerized, and for the first time ever
Envious.
The chairs and the tables somehow seem more distant
The song now sounds as if it’s funneled through some crackling phonograph
The very light disentangles itself from stones
It’s as if a sky has opened up in my chest
Flying high overhead, one lone raven,
Its slow shadow
Gliding across my heart
Oh, how I miss you
5 states away
I see your smile on magazine covers
I vaguely sniff your scent on passing women
Yet you remain elusive - immaterial, haunting,
While this visceral assault
Leaves me bewildered - empty
An echo in a chiaroscuro cavern
Fading for thee
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
(After Lorca)
Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.
I want you, I want you, I want you
on a chair with a dead magazine.
In the cave at the tip of the lily,
in some hallway where love's never been.
On a bed where the moon has been sweating,
in a cry filled with footsteps and sand—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take its broken waist in your hand.
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
with its very own breath
of brandy and death,
dragging its tail in the sea.
There's a concert hall in Vienna
where your mouth had a thousand reviews.
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking,
they've been sentenced to death by the blues.
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
with a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz, it's been dying for years.
There's an attic where children are playing,
where I've got to lie down with you soon,
in a dream of Hungarian lanterns,
in the mist of some sweet afternoon.
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow,
all your sheep and your lilies of snow—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
with its "I'll never forget you, you know!"
And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
to the pools that you lift on your wrist—
O my love, O my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
it's yours now. It's all that there is.
6.3k
There are moments in life.
Then there are moments, in life.
It's a gift to know exactly when
you discovered what love really is.
It was laying ear to ear with you,
So quiet I can almost hear your thoughts.
Cheeks pressed together,
yours so much softer than mine.
Laying, our backs on the cooled pavement
watching the sky spread out,
and the world roll over.
It's knowing I see you in a way few if any will.
A beauty that stretches past words.
Unfindable in any magazine or movie.
A living breathing diamond.
Intangible and unequaled.
It was the late night rides with the windows down.
The heat of the day dying on the breath of the wind.
The entire air charged with nostalgia.
Full of thoughts of friends and memories and feelings.
Watching the headlights cut the darkest parts of the night.
Thinking I'd die before I could find a way
to explain exactly what you mean to me,
but knowing I'd never be so happy to try for the rest of life itself.
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 8:32 PM UTC
Fatima Latima
I had wished I had no gift of sight
That the worst I could endure is hear you speak
And not snapshot the footfall of your gradation
You may not be a thief
Nor **** daughter of the dayspring
But definitely my heart you stole
I speak of the daughter of Arabia
Aesthetically, she rocks
The queen of the pilgrim sands
And aeonian desert stones
Beyond the hijab
Artistically knead with consummate craft
Like the relics of Mecca
Blest by the prophet’s bones
The blessed
I see torches
Beaming with intelligence
Within those mascaras
Exquisitely trimmed and vibrant
A lulu class botany
She fixes a searching gaze
As she saunters close
And the stride and tread
Beats a drum entrancing
Soothed in her solacing spell
I give in, to her lullaby
She halts her perambulation
Stands magniloquent and stupefy
Like some pop diva magazine pose
Or Victorian secret shot
A tactical derangement of her gluteals
As she rests her palm in its cleft
I feel contractions, my dartos muscles
The blew of summertime
Gently beats her exceptional form
Her belt submerge her thigh crevice
Cleft by the sundered rift of fleshy fat
Built by the dainties and delicacies
Seasoned by the finest Arabian chef
As her silken dress slithers and gowns
Under the breeze bulging and blooming
Like a rose blossom or sunflower fore
As she bends down
To assuage the burlesque
The sun specula lilts her sensational
Her smile apologetic bids me stillness
I am caught staring
Guzzling down her scent and
Feasting on empty imaginations
Of What If that accentuate the mind and
Speed a hormone
And I pray I sin no more
Next time we meet and I see her again
For I am but a writer
Learning to use my pen and paper
And hope you but forgive
My linguistic impotence
When I make my confession
Employing too plain a language
When I say thus;
Her smile is classical
Her walk magical
Her beauty celestial
Her stride sensational
Her religion ethical
Her character spotless
And that leaves me breathless
And forgive if I step on broken toe
And try speak of the unspoken
Her ****** is sacred
Her being a type that dresses up
In the milliards of brutes dressing down
And shamelessly style it fashion
I must see a priest
One confession I ought to utter
And even vociferate abroad
For once I had fallen in love
With an Arabian Beautie
A ****** of Mecca.
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 9:12 AM UTC
The art of hating yourself
Is not easily achieved.
It takes motavation,
Words whispered across lunch rooms,
"Ugly, fat, stupid, freak"
It takes observation,
Hours staring at the pretty faces in the magazine,
Hours of trying hard to be something else
Hours feeling more lost then when you started.
It takes practice,
Feeling insecure as you walk down the hallway
Refusing food during the day,
doing crunches by night.
And of course it takes a certain type of person
For it to really take over the mind
A perfectionist
A person with a bad past or a uncertain future
A girl who blames herself
A girl who knows its her fault
If you are truly serious
about embarking on this journey,
This journey of unsatisfaction and secrecy,
Pushing people away and always, always
Craving,
Striving,
Searching,
Starving,
Needing,
That promise of perfection,
Take a class from the master
Or two
Or three
She's right here in town
The most dedicated and driven
The best of the best
She has cultivated
The Art of Hating herself
And she's the person I see in the mirror
Staring right back at me
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 5:18 PM UTC
I need to try and stop saying discouraging words when I look in the mirror
I need to stop wincing at reflections in the buildings windows
I need to purposely not look at my reflections to spare the pain anymore
People can't believe I hate myself when it comes to physical appearance
But the small jokes I make are as serious as my outlook on myself
And walking down the hallways is an effort to mask my face and body
And I'm desperately trying to patch the holes in myself
The holes that allowed my self confidence to leak from me in the first place
The holes drilled over and over by the repeated words that weren't meant to hurt
But I knew the hidden meaning, I knew the real thoughts underneath
And as people constantly hammer in to me you are beautiful
It becomes a familiar sound, a phrase more cliché to me than yolo
And as the dark cloud of self hatred looms ominously overhead,
It is only visible to those who truly know me, those who see the thunderstorm
It's funny how the people who try and lift you up end up slamming you to the ground
And when you hit rock bottom you stop trying to disguise the rocks that are ugly
You stop trying to cover them with make up, you stop trying
Because a rock is a rock no matter the cover up, and it'll be ugly no matter what
And if I'm a rock someone hand me a chisel so I can carve myself down
And shape myself into the girl in the ******* magazine,
Because who could ever be a attracted to a girl who wouldn't date herself
Who would love someone trying to make up for their lack of love for themselves
By loving everyone else, and patching their holes leaving myself empty
It's funny how the people who say I'm beautiful would never date me
It's funny how my mother will not utter the words that would save her drowning child
Yes honey, you are beautiful
But instead I have sunk to the pit of the ocean, who cares about trying to hold my breath
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 11:11 AM UTC
Ribbons in you hair.
Diamonds in your ears.
Magazine clippings line the floor.
Pictures clutter the desk.
Friends, lovers, family.
You feel like a faked ****** unwanted.
Clinging to what you know is right
and bordering what you know is wrong.
Playing Russian roulette with fate.
Rolling the dice and raising the stakes.
Neither will save you now.
But don't forget to smile and
Bat your lashes.
For when we leave you to rest in peace.
Jan 25, 2010
Jan 25, 2010 at 9:54 AM UTC
I
pant at your sheer beauty
after the first sighting
in silence
I
crave and cradle your innocence
unnoticed
I
thirst to drink
from the source of your well
reluctantly
I
quiver a cowardice illusion
of the first move
from an awry smile of ignorance
I
steal your beauty and shred
Your body to pieces
unreachable you are torn from
a
silhouette desire
in
a damaged Magazine
Jul 30, 2018
Jul 30, 2018 at 3:14 PM UTC
Is moeilik om te begryp,
en nie rerig mooi nie.
Dis 'n spoegspat soos 'n herrie-
'n gemmors wat langs die kar staan en bedel.
Dis 'n gemoedsbekakking... ag verskoon tog
verswakking soos die breakdowns innie gossip magazine.
Ag shame , hulle dra ook maar swaar aan society se crimes
en al dai drugs is maar ommie pyn te verlig.
Kyk nounet daar , sterre wat pyn , is seker maar
'n metafoor. Vir wat? Se jy my!
Jy wat my analiseer en dissekteer...
want daar is geen meer sterre wat pyn nie,
die woorde wat rym ennie
ander goeie goed is lankal van alle kleur bevry
in my agterkop waar dit donker is soos
'n land waar hoop 'n feeverhaal is.
Dis te donker om nou te rym,
maar te donker om in te hou...
so ek sny maar die kanker stuk vir stuk uit
en bloei nonsens-ink op die blaai.
Aan die einde is dit nie net die gedig nie.
Dis die ganse wereld wat rym.
Elke herrie en spoegspatter
elke gerookte ster en hartseer kokkedoor
ek , jy - ons almal is 'n gedig.
Ons almal rym...
ons is net te moeilik om te verstaan
en nie altyd mooi nie.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 5:07 PM UTC
Girls my height are supposed to be petite
Skinny and proportional
When I would read seventeen magazine and they would show the best outfits for your body type
Mine was never on there
Not big enough to be curvy
Curvy girls in magazines were curvy all over
and average height
The petite girl wasn't supposed to have curves at all
The petite girl was thin
The petite girl could wear anything
Why can't short girls have *******
Because when we do, we're a fetish
And for some reason, when you fit a fetish people assume you're there for them.
"I like short girls because you can pick them up when you ****
"Short girls don't have to get on their knees."
"Can you **** my **** standing up?"
"A C cup on a short girl is like a DD on a normal girl.”
“I like ******* short girls because I can really take control.”
My mom always criticized me for wanting to dress slutty
And it broke my heart because I never wanted to look slutty
I just wanted to wear what my skinny friends could wear
*And sometimes it's hard when you can't find high waisted shorts that cover your *** all the time, even right after you stand up from sitting in the car for 30 minutes and they rode up a little, but a little on you is a lot because you don't have a flat *** like all of your friends do, but you can't go a size up because then they're too big and they still don't give you the coverage that at first your mom wanted for you but that you now want yourself because you can feel the heat of people staring because girls like you shouldn't wear those kinds of shorts, and at parties they think it's okay to touch if it's not covered, and you've been in this H&M for 3 hours and nothing fits you like it does that tall, pretty girl with the A cups in the fitting room next to yours,*
But how could my mom know that
At 5 ft 4, she weighed 98 lbs on her wedding day
You can wear anything when you look like that
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 3:50 PM UTC
i like to turn into a girl once in a fortnight
after i just washed my hair...
and take a selfie!
then i read the fashion magazine alongside marquis de sade...
and it makes perfect sense to **** beauty like that...
well according to the marquis it does.
how's my hair? styled properly brushed to the side
long against anti-clockwise curtains of lock
that was propaganda with ****** adopting the charlie chaplin
moustache and people after ****** ensured confusion
whether to split it to the right rather than the left?
i’m right-handed, i need the power base of keratin on my cranium
hanging to the left!
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 8:38 PM UTC
What is beauty?
Is is the piles and strokes of powder and paint we slick on our faces each morning, evening and night because we think it makes us look better?
Or is it our white, black, or yellow skin, maybe clear, covered in pimples or freckles, round, thin or a shape with no names?
Is beauty the so called 'perfect' women we see on the runway and on magazine covers, the women who starve themselves?
Maybe it's the women who weigh a ton or have to shop in the plus sizes, break a sweat when they climb a flight of stairs or order more than one main course at a restaurant?
Is beauty our skinny, chubby or obese faces, stomach or limbs, is weight merely just a number and what really matters is what we think of ourselves? What we see in the mirror every time we stare at our gorgeous bodies and faces no matter the appearance?
Is beauty the blue, green or brown in our eyes? The price of the clothes that we wear or the quality of our material possessions homes or cars?
No
For beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and if you let that beholder be someone that cannot really see what truly is inside of you...they don't matter
That beholder may be hard to find but someday you'll find someone that's kind and kind enough to say to you what everyone should hear once, twice, twenty times a day
They will say, baby you were born this way so stand up, be strong, smile that straight, crooked or brace-faced smile because it's the smile I dream of waking up to everyday
They will say, bat those beautiful lashes to show me those breath-taking eyes that I want to stare into for hours on end no matter the color
They will say give me a hug time and time again because I love having my arms around you no matter if I can feel your ribs or if my hands can't clasp together on the other side
You ask why?
Because you're beautiful
Oct 23, 2012
Oct 23, 2012 at 4:46 PM UTC
I TOLD THAT ************ TO SWING ON ME,
TAKE A CHANCE
MOTHEFUCKER,
TAKE A CHANCE,
I WANNA GET MY *** KICKED,
LET ME
CHILL HERE ON THE EARTH
WHILE YOU STAND OVER ME,
SPITTING
AND
DISSING.
BUT WHEN I GET UP
IMMA BE MAD
ENOUGH
TO SCREAM
AND ****
IMMA BE
A MANIAC
ON YOUR DOORSTEP,
IMMA BE
A ******
WITH NO CHANCES
WHEN I'VE GOT THREE.
SO WHEN YOU SWING ON ME ************
SWING ON ME
AS YOU TRY AN CALL ME A *****
JUST KNOW THAT IMMA COME AT
YOU
WITH A THOUSAND GRENADES
IN MY FINGERTIPS,
AND WHEN YOU DON'T SWING,
AND DON'T DO ****
I'LL KNOW HOW YOU'RE MADE,
IMMA KNOW THAT ALL THAT **** YOU TALK
IS JUST A MISNOMER.
MY FINGERS GRIP MY HEART
AS MUCH
AS THEY GRIP FISTS.
KNOW THAT IMMA CATCH YOU
WITH A RIGHT HOOK
FULL OF VEINS
AND A MAGAZINE
WITH YOUR NAME ON IT.
CHECK ME,
IMMA HIT UP SOMETHIN TONIGHT,
IMMA BRING MY FISTS
LIKE BURNERS,
MAKE YOU FEEL THE FIRE OF HELL,
CAUSE I'M ON THE EDGE,
AND THIS GIRL ****** UP MY HEART,
MY GRAMMA IS AT THE END OF HER ROPE,
MY MAMA IS STILL POOR,
MY SISTER STILL DOESN'T KNOW HERSELF,
AND MY HOMIES
ARE FAR AWAY,
FARTHER THAN YOU CAN SEE,
SO IMMA CHILL ON THIS PULSATING LEVEE.
Feb 23, 2012
Feb 23, 2012 at 11:30 PM UTC
It was hard to miss Jerry
in the corner
holding court
over the bran muffin.
Flurries of judgement and wisdom
flying across coffee dappled pages
as he sentenced a large cup of
Paruvian Dark Roast
to be ******
7 am Dan never flinched
steeling his tenured chair at
a spot one section of stir sticks away
calculably just out of reach
of the regularly scheduled tantrum.
An auburn-haired newbie
fanes camoflage
peeking over two pages of Obituaries
she never intended to read.
Her raised and nearly detached eyebrows
hover above the dateline like a magic trick.
And on every table fall
scattered leaves
of press print trees
unsorted and littered with intent
by careless absorbers of trivia.
Disconnected
ear-budded
footnotes of humanity
see nothing
hear nothing
using the disarrayed World News as
enormous coasters
unmoved by hyper-ventilating compulsives
pushing panic buttons through
desperate quests to uncover
one alphabetically organized set
of local news.
Of the papers not strewn
the remnant holds anxious
on a distant wall
a throng of flopping
rabbit-eared
step children
dangling precariously
from unaccomodating magazine racks
like smoky orphans from
windows in a fiery building.
Disordered.
Disrespected.
Discarded...words are
Jews in the holocaust.
Death of a voice.
We are irreverent in our silence
diminishing genius through apathy
put off by the imposition to be challenged
choosing disposable principles
above responsible knowledge.
Everything is disposable - cameras, cars,
relationships, loyalty, babies...and wisdom -
crumpling Pulitzer prize authors
and discarding WW2 veterans
just to get to the cartoons.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 11:15 PM UTC
I was about five years old when you came into my life.
I still remember the night you drove home with us and I was too scared to fall asleep in the car because I didn't want you to hear me snoring.
My mom was a statue fanatic, all over our house were statues she bought from the different countries she would visit - I was terrified of them. I remember the way you would carry me to bed at night and you would take me around the whole house to say goodnight to each statue in our house, they didn't seem that scary when I was in your arms.
I still remember the way you would walk me to preschool, you didn't mind that the 15 minute walk would take us over an hour, you didn't mind that I would want to stop and look at every single flower, every single bird, that I would want to know about every single type of tree. You held my hand and patiently told me all you knew.
I still remember the way it felt to finally have something constant in my life. Having a mother who is always travelling is difficult, not living with my dad was difficult, out of everything that was going on in my life, out of everyone who was always leaving me you continued to stay.
I still remember you being there for my first date, my mom was travelling but you were there. I was so nervous. I have super curly hair and I wanted to make it straight like the pretty girls in the magazine, I thought I knew what I was doing but I tangled my hair and a huge brush got caught in it. The only option was to cut it out - oh how I cried, it was my first date and I would arrive bald. But you held my hand, cut my hair and made me feel pretty regardless of my now uneven curls.
I still remember when my first boyfriend broke up with me, naturally my mother wasn't there and so the person who watched me cry was you.
And then my second boyfriend broke up with me, and you were the one who came running into my room and gave me advice. You were the one who I cried to.
I loved you so much that I would choose my mother over you.
I loved you so much that I wanted you on my one hand, and my dad on the other hand, walking me down the isle at my wedding.
I loved you so much and then you broke me.
I won't go into the details for both your sake and mine - but it kills me to know that you do not see this.
It kills me to know that you don't even know who I am anymore.
It kills me to know that whatever I say or do you cannot see the damage that has been caused.
It kills me to know that you probably do not even care.
It kills me to know that you blame me for my mothers absence.
You blame me for the love that you two no longer share.
You blame me for the way in which my mother was forced to work like a dog in order to support our entire family.
It kills me.
At the end of the day I can't shed anymore tears over this.
I can't tell you how much I hurt.
I can't describe the pain it feels to have a parent no longer want to be a part of your life for no particular reason other than ego.
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 6:33 AM UTC