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I’ve been worrying about my laugh lately
It sounds different than it used to
Different than when I was a child
Or even a teenager
I worry because I don’t know what’s causing it
I worry it’s a bad thing
Maybe my emotions’ sounds
That is
The sounds they send out of me
From brain to nerve to muscle to lung
Maybe they’ve become dampened and filtered
Echoing down halls
Grown dark and narrow
Crooked and turning this way and that
Maybe a twist in my heart
Collapses the sound trying to squeeze through
Maybe you’re just hearing a prerecorded voicemail
Sent by automatic, polite sectors of my brain
To field what it recognized as a joke
Because the guy who normally handles that
Is holed up in a bed somewhere, sick and asleep
Or maybe
Just maybe
It’s the other way around
You’ve come running through my halls
Mapping out the twists and turns
Knocking down walls
Sweeping up clutter
And shaking me awake
To show me a world
Where I can laugh so hard
That tears come to my eyes
And people turn and stare
Sam Temple Nov 2015
rapping with rappers on the radio
filling the gaps with extra lyric
mapping the sappy way they pretend
and offering 16 beats a breath like a boss
rick ross looks lost when handed floss
and jay z is crazy lazy in May, maybe cause Beyoncé’s
bounce house lacks compressed air
and the weave in her hair ads to the growing despair
like Dr. Dre cares about flared out khakis while Rakeem’s
grill gleams like flava flavs time piece –
b-boy stylin while in the dance hall
and balla’s with creased collars
throw dolla’s at bithces locked in the twerk
jerkin off in the corner lil kim seems thin
since aids came to play
and fat joe and heavy d sit with harps
lookin down at the crowd jumpin around
they floatin on **** clouds proudly
snoop’s pound frowns at clowns
tryin to be down
but really just hangin around
like the Mississippi mounds
poundin ***** like Tupac on acid
and that lil goblin from hotlanta
actin like he steady mobbing
they robbin the hood for goods and services
while talking **** to easily impressed suburb kids
acting like they got a message
but only KRS got anything to say
and that was just the one time
chuck d and that insane griff
talkin mad crap about gay rappers
and casting couch happenings
has me reacting like maybe I need to a new faction
cause I ain’t into none of eminem’s new action
and poor ole busta
nuts bein busted
in those funky *** dreads –
Bowedbranches Apr 2019
Each decision were given
every sentence we spit
has been mapping pathways
and to be honest...I'm afraid

I couldnt handle losing
Something so beautiful
Locked
behind our thot chakras
Pupils loosen to
Go all optical
Ilusions
project on screen


and how likely it could be
IT leaves me paranoid
I refuse to be the lepper led
to the poison pit
by somee lovely deceiving mirage

watch it bomb
get up and trek on
can't just let them watch
me rot
Cam, come on,
can't keep stopping

Wake up daily and thank god
I'll always pay homage
to the lot
that taught me this

perpetually in debt
to these lessons
I can't seem to get
cuz I guess Im thick headed

Not all is lost
I know it seems
****** off but there is still
plenty of pretty moments

closing in
freakin focus
or before you lose them
Michael W Noland Apr 2013
I freed
A sea urchin
Lurching
Over my *******
In aversion
To my excursion
From the hurting
Sleep
Unearthing
The trees
Of a life
Dangling
From the branches
Shaking
With the cannons
Blasting
In the distance
Of my resistance
To the betterment
Of my belligerence
Toward the kids
To unnerve them
From the bliss
Of ignorance
Into servants
Of science
Deferring
The gods
To appliances
And silencing
The violent
Tendencies
Of stupidity
Into ridiculously
Clever things
That inspire
Laughing
All while
Mapping out
The world
Anew
Johnny Noiπ Nov 2018
Winston William William, Thomas, Jason Thomas, Lamas Iklan,
Germany, France, Italy, World Music, System Support.
Let a Christian in a box in a box and find them,
George and Thomas Volk Thomas, a Muslim in your family,
I think I want to, is it? The Seven Birds              The Star provides insightful building constructions that provide functions
              and services to users and to the stars.
Star starred. Star Star
Card Mapping Schematic Card (MMC)
Card Grade Mapping Unit. Bank card accounts.
Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars
Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars
Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars
Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars
Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars
Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars
Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars
Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars was born, Thomas, Jesus died,
The beautiful songs of the dead in July Germany, Art,
Lois' Voice is Music, Number, future, statue, hair, white
people, mind, golden, years, man,
year Keywords: Peace Peacemaker: Religiousism
produces fire in a tree
Easter Chalk; The Garden of Heaven
A Summer Break Line North Nose Speaker
Text Message And you think that the complete
spirit of Crystal is like a dog that will help
the Australian Museum in an unkempt fashion
The cruel church computer first remembers
the earth's vegetation fields, the Chinese Mountains;
The Peoples of the Peoples of the Peoples
of the Peoples
of the Peoples of the Peoples of the Peoples
of the Peoples of the Peoples of Ethiopia (OHNF),
and their saddles, their saddles, their saddles,
their saddles, their saddles, their saddles,
their saddles, their saddles, their saddles,
their glove, their eyes, their cats, and the paradise.
Martyr's Sandy Keywords: Dead, Dead, Dead,
Dead, Dead, Ultimate, Black Background,
Fighting, City's Cities in the ****** Witches,
Witches, End of Drums, Emptying Dead Frontiers,
Wide Bar, William's Planet, Friends,
Flaming Flames,
Meat, Widow, Grooming a Child's Reality,
pa He was so cute,
To eat the nits, City of Amusement Parks, ||
[Ivan, Hairdressing]
List A Great Universal Healthy Star |
A Stunning Lover Who Loves Stunning Motivated
As They Speak When They Touch Her Back
SH Jan 2012
some sit silently.
soaking in the sounds of bells.
acknowledging it.

others, teary-eyed,
watching a bad year subside
into better years.

another, smiling
eyes ablaze with fireworks
of the bright past year.

ev'ryone with pens
and smudgy resolutions,
mapping their future.

buildings shed clothings.
sheets, curtains change like seasons.
posters, promotions.

and it seems:

flipping calendars
unfathomably transform
us happy creatures.

me? if ev'ry day
can be seen as a new year:
oh, happy planet!
A haiku for the new year. Many people look towards the new year as if it should herald in some change - hence they pen resolutions, set new goals, get new looks. If everyone could be so suddenly energised and hopeful for each and every day!
Stephanie Hayden Mar 2010
I don’t know you yet,
But I’m scared I won’t ever get the chance
And there is still so much I want to tell you.
So I hope tonight you’re listening to
The sun whispering secrets and promises to the earth
While the stars play sonatas and symphonies
with a crescendo that Shakes beliefs
and crystallizes my voice in the wind
I hope it’s carried to you, wherever you are.
I hope you feel what I’m feeling right now
And know you’re not alone
And wherever you are
Whoever you are
I love you
So put down your blade
For you should only bleed with the moon
Life’s the gift in your veins and
Your wrist was meant to be kissed by lips
Untie your noose,
Use the rope to tie the backyard swing
Someone someday
Will pump their legs so they can
Fly and kiss the universe
But that’s not the only thing I want to tell you

Like the mother that gives up her unborn
Tears in her eyes for the
Countless nights she won’t be able to
Tuck her daughter into bed
And tell secrets of the strength she possesses
That she’s so much more than beautiful
her legs are strong enough to carve her own path
And someday she’ll find success buried
Inside her own bones
Read her son fairytales
Of how to love gently
Break the stereotypes
Because It’s okay if he cries
There’s strength in tears
She has so many lessons and stories to
Share but
She’s only 16 and she’s still a child herself
this is the second time
Her mistakes will burn scars in the empty space
Between her arms as she cradles regrets and
Kisses the soft skin of an imaginary cheek
right below the should-be reflection
Of herself
There’s still so much she wants to tell them


And there’s a girl wandering the street alone
who’s given up believing in anything
Except empty promises and lies
The same night her god died in
The arms of a stranger who
had too much to drink
Bruises on her thighs
And stale breath burned into her neck
Knowing no amounts of soap could wash
The filth away, not even the sun is bright enough to guide her
When her eyes are stained with black cigarette ash
Not knowing there’s someone out there that
Has the stars to bring her safely home
that there are empty hands aching
To hold her
show her there is so much more
Than wrists and razors
That Heaven can be found
In hot chocolate and mini-marshmallows
a safe arm around her shoulders as they toast
One another by the fireplace
But she’s already given up
With the barrel to her chest,
She takes a deep breath
and pulls the trigger
While miles away in foster care
In a run-down room with
three beds and tear stained sheets
is the lonely other half with stars in his pupils
A smile for the hope of making a home
Despite the promises of homes that’s been constantly broken
He keeps his strength in ink
so he keeps on writing
And even without dinner for a week
He’s full with dreams of
A home he would’ve shared with her but
he’ll never know that except for the pain in his chest
From never hearing the voice that
Could sing back his heartbeats, a muse
with hands that mirror his lifelines
But tonight with no realization of the could-be family
He’ll press his pen to paper;
Writing poetry for the girl he’ll never meet,
folding his words into a paper airplane
That he can release to the atmosphere
And pray it finds her, wherever she is.
There’s still so much he wants to tell her


And
I want to whisper secrets in your ear
Of every nightmare I’ve ever had
And how I believe you can turn the falling sand
Into dreams
Give bodies to the ghosts
Of those who haven’t died yet
I want to tell you stories of
My grandmother under the Tuscan sun,
Losing everything but still believing in her dreams
And how with shaky hands from world war II bombs
She signs her name on the Ellis Island wall
An Italian accent tinging her tongue
As she learns how to dream in English
Of how she joins the American war so she can
Shakily hold a diploma and finally
Teeter on the edge of the precipice
Singing songs of triumph and kissing
The things she dreamt of as a child
And with those same shaky hands
She’ll hold my mother and kiss her eyelids
Not once resenting those explosions
Because fate has a funny way of
Bringing you to where you were meant to be
And she was meant to love the American man
Who stares down at his new born child with
A new kind of gentleness in his smile
And these are the things I admire the most

But I also want to tell you how I’m terrified
Of how I’ll inherit my grandfathers disease
(the same man with a gentle smile)
Of mania in iridescent white
And depression so deep you drown in blue
With his OCD mannerisms and bi-polar Medication
he shakes too.
And sometimes I’m convinced
That this shame will be repaid
With my own set of pill boxes
Mapping out every white and brown tablet
That I’ll take day after day
To control the chaos
To control the hysteria
To bottle myself up in chains
So I can say no to the shining razorblade that
Beckons to release the pressure of
Red (blood)
White (highs)
And blue. Deep deep blue.
He has chocolate brown eyes just like mine
So maybe that’s not the only thing
I’ve inherited

I want you to be someone I hold
Under sheets kissing your forehead as you fall asleep
Both feeling holy as Jesus as we finally let go and cry
Knowing that our tears will reach their hands into the sky
To pick out the brightest stars
and light up one another’s face in the dark.
Invincible but not invisible in your embrace.
I want to tell you of all my dreams and how I used to
Pretend I had superpowers
Pretend I could fly with a red cape
i want to tell you
Of how I still sleep with the moon as my night light
Because I’ve always been scared of what lurks in the dark
And
When I look in the mirror
I don’t really know who looks back
but I still think life is beautiful
When you’re looking for pictures in clouds.
Most importantly I want to tell you
I love you.
I don’t know you yet,
but I love you
And I hope when I pass you on the street
Not yet knowing your name
I will dream of you.
And someday when I come across you again
In some coffee shop on the corner of
Reality and make believe
I’ll have the courage to ask you to
Stay and talk a while
The steam from your Chai washing away
The stress from your face
As we both realize this is it
So let‘s start with our names and explain
there is so much we need to tell each other.
JW Harvey Mar 2014
I don't calculate, I experience,
Mapping a constant circle
Of endless enlightenment;
Your line of logic runs tangent
And I need no proof that
My limit does not exist.
Megan Jan 2014
You ask me, “What is the point of all of this?”

And I lean in close, stare into your messy eyes, and tell you, “Darling, there has never been a point and there never will be. You can spend your precious time searching, and mapping out the rules and trades, and protesting the rights you will never obtain, and devoting your actions to their counteractions, but at the end of the day nothing will have changed. You see, I believe everything is better in dimmer light. Lower the shades, flick the switch, fall asleep to the humming of your computer in your pitch-black bedroom. Live in the shadows of the people; watch from the outside; since when has darkness become something to be feared? Breathe in the negative space; exhale the wind you’ve been storing in your chest since the day you set foot on these rocky grounds. Stop believing in the ‘point’ and start believing in the ‘less’. Regardless of where in the world you go, the distance you choose to stretch, there will always be the same things in different ***** environments. And by this, I mean, there will always be a blushing teenage girl in the whims of her own disasters. There will always be the lost people, the found people, the people right there in the in-between bits of the cracks your feet always seem to step on. There will always be the luck lost on the boy without a father, on the artist with crippling hands, on the old woman dying half awake. You will find this time after time, winter after winter. You can try your best to plaster on that dazzling smile, but who said that they needed to see it to love you? You can try to stop those precious hands of yours from shaking, but who said a little thunder isn’t exactly what they need? You can try to find a point to these lives we lead, love, but who said there was one to be found?”
Poetry is the voice chattering in my head...
Never lets up... It is the voice for when I'm afraid...
Conjured up from deep looping thoughts...
Vented out through written words when the voice could not.
Necessity forged by the mind and heart.
Feelings and emotions that the core wouldn't carelessly discard.
Poetry is an outlet of sorts, tentatively I can afford.
In this realm, the pen be my sword.
Poetry is everything... Beauty spanning multiple universes...
All we do is try to have it harnessed and channelled into individual artful verses...


An outlet, escape, my hole in the wall,
where I can hide from the Hell in my heart.
You're learning to walk, I'm just trying to crawl
beneath the flak; as it once tore me apart.
I've got my demons, how about you?
Faceless legions strung through my soul;
with ink and paper, they often bleed through
From lines and verses, I regain some control.
So, if you're asking me what poetry means
I won't say much, but I'll show you my scars.
Words and rhymes slash stitches and seams,
but in my unraveling, I see shooting stars.


My escape from the world
A distraction from myself
Instead of a mark on my body
I place a mark upon paper
I watch the ink flow from the pen
Happy that it's black
And not red
It bleeds into the crinkled paper
Mapping out the story
The story of my life so far
I don't think
I just write
Emptying my mind
My messed up mind
But the mess will never truly be gone
Just temporary relief
This is my relief


Poetry doesn't mean something,
Poetry is telling somebody who knows the truth, a lie and making them believe you anyways.


The air I breathe, the life I lead, everything I believe, poetry
The truest, permanent written form, at its finest
Even if it doesn't rhyme, every word is still the dearest
It's my relief from anxiety, my calm when I'm panicking
It's a sight for sore eyes when I wake up with a hangover and a headache
The only way I can express myself, show my deepest heartache
The only happiness I have when I'm depressed, my only friend when I'm lonely
My poetry and yours, day in and day out, is like oxygen to me
I can't breathe without poetry


A poet sees rivers where veins
run, caged birds where hearts
beat against ribs, stellar explo-
sions in place of emotion.
To be a poet means to breathe
through your eyes, to find life
in the weeds suffocating your
lungs, to build an ocean
of metaphors and memories,
never knowing which is which.


Poetry is art in itself
It is our passion that is slowly dying out throughout humanity
Because humanity is slowly forgetting what makes us human
What we survive on and die for everyday
But not us poets...
Our poetry is the chain to what we are
What we fought for all these years
What we die for trying to protect
For poetry is our mortality
Poetry is our life.
This is our first attempt at a "family" collaboration. I'm the only one who knows who wrote each part, maybe you all can have fun guessing, i know they all will.  :)
Helen Jan 2014
marking time
watching beauty
fade
look at the back
of the hands
mapping journeys
look at feet
walking softly
following a path
unmade
look at the words
falling
from unmoving
lips
Silence is a clock
stopped precisely
at a time
when it was
decided
the Earth moved
under flowing
fingertips

Practice...
         become
                 Perfect!

when day
becomes night
followed by day

*it fits
alwaystrying Nov 2015
That itch, a flea beneath my skin
one scratch here
and zoom! I'm mapping out new continents
on my back
with red marks on blades
and on the valleys over my ribs.

The tall gentleman says he could see
a face from long ago (old gallows)
in the face of a stranger. One who now
has a hand in progeny's songs.

A piece of dried seaweed and two shells.
Beautiful music, salt balm for the soul.
Michael Humbert Sep 2014
I want to explore the sensual map that is your body,
My hands and mouth the tools of discovery,
Caressing, licking your precious land,
Until your sighs become moans

A network of nerve endings,
Electrified
Mapping your ecstasy
Until you're aglow

A body erupting with passion,
A land erupting volcanically,
Molten magma flowing,
Scorching euphoria
Zack Feb 2014
Liberation looks like teenagers mapping their voices in 10 minutes of silence
Liberation is being free from the day’s struggles and tying them down to paper
I’ve seen liberation happen
Ink flowing on paper like they were flowing blood from their fingertips

If you’re so angry
Write a poem
If you’ve ever been cheated out
Write a poem
If you’ve ever been lied to without the courtesy of it being done behind your back
Write a poem
Write every gut wrenching, self-deprecating, thought on paper
Perform self-surgery to remove the weight of world from the bones in your shoulders

By writing a poem

If they’ve never understood what is was like to go to school every day lacking self-worth
If they’ve never understood what it was like to go to school
Where adults didn’t trust you, officers looked down on you
“Get to class” – My only purpose in life was to get to class
“Sorry teacher.  I didn’t do my homework because being at home was too much work already.”
Then write a poem

For the broken desks and spirits
Crumbling ceilings and facades
Holes in the floor and education system
That our school forgets to brag about
Write a poem.

To correct every materialistic, tech savvy, online, suit and tie, next big thing,
Kind of ******* lie our school feeds us
Liberate yourself by writing a poem

For the principal that has no idea what happens in the classroom
Liberate him
For the students who don't know what doesn’t happen with administration
Liberate them

Write a poem
Because if you fail, then will anybody notice
Your silent shouts knocking on deaf ears




Write a (love) poem
About how this school became your four year long affair
Five days a week. Even though you had your battles
You’re going to miss this kind of relationship when it’s gone
Liberate this kind of community

Write a poem for the soles of the feet of boys and girls
Who dance on broken bottles
Copper glass shards
Exoskeletons of alcoholics
Scattered in a playground like tombstones in a graveyard
Write a poem for the broken bottles your community got used to
Liberate your community

If you’ve ever been inspired here then write a poem
To inspire others to loosen the wrinkles in the joints in their fingers
Crinkle out the cracks in their wrist
Get those palms to tell their own stories

Write a poem
That will make them raise their arms and shake
Chains of oppression off their lungs to get them o
Breathe
Liberate them

Write a poem that would make the roots of you ancestry shake their leaves
Liberate your roots

Liberate yourself – make them listen
Liberate them – make yourself listen

Liberate the 9th grade wannabe’s, drop out clichés, teenage mothers,
Clueless administrators, kids feeling tied down to Tucson,
Teachers lacking faith in change
Boys and girls thinking they are forever
Silenced
Liberate those you are forever
Silent

Liberate yourself
Write a poem
this poem is almost a year old lol
Eleanor Apr 2021
Two
Two blue birds
singing a different song throughout the night,

Two trains
mapping the locations and destinations of the other with whistling chants,

Two cunning spirits
colliding messages over and over,

Him and I are two hearts,
paralyzed in fear of losing

When, all the time, each of us just want to know love and trust

And most fervently: deeply know the other.
He read my anniversary card and smiled. He held the gift- a locket of us with a message saying "I love you, -El" He touched my desperate lips with his, and suddenly, we were the only people in the world. He handed me all the love he had, and I returned it, doubly over.
I long for you…however distant our meeting may be…

Can you feel my presence even now…embracing your existence?

I sing over you…undecipherable lyrics that speak clearly to your heart alone…

I rock you gently…within the valley of my ******* I embrace you…pull you into Me…the warmth of my breath falling onto your skin…

I devour you…exploring the hidden secrets of you…my mouth mapping your slopes, valleys…each crevice …my tongues delight…you are delectable to me…

A blind surveyor…my hands roam over you…fingertips lost in your wonder…

My heart is frozen by your beauty…taken back by your splendor…enraptured by your presence…I know you as if myself…searching the layers of your soul…your identity…as if my own...

I long for you…however distant our meeting may be…
© Nancy McGinnis - Roberts 2013
Brad Lambert Mar 2012
In a steady, illiterate static
this room is my study.
And you are my book.

Legs spread 'cross my lap
hands firmly upon my frame.
I lean in to see the words.

Your soft lips graze mine
like branded cattle in a glen.
Wet and cold we sit there.

Then your tongue begins flickering
beguiling like the serpent of Eden.
How could I resist but to bite?

I kiss you sweetly
and you kiss me back.
Minutes pass in the study.

My tongue examines your mouth
like a cartographer mapping a new world.
Each slick and ***** is wholly new to me.

Teeth clink like crystal glasses
during a wedding day toast.
Eyes shut tight make the black of mourning.

The noises dribbling from our mouths sound akin
to a murderer tromping through the forest mud.
Shovel dragging hard. ...Plop...Plop...Plop...

Our hands run over each other's bodies
open-palmed like a child examining the globe.
I want to feel you from pole to pole.

I pull back and run my fingers through your hair.
Your color is rushed with red and you wipe saliva from your lips.
Your smile is without flaws, and you taste like ambrosia.

I love being literate.
Wanted to work on my metaphor skills. Plus, I am ***** and needed to mac on paper.
Grace Spalding Apr 2014
There’s something about the lonely hours,
Just you and me, our space overlapping.
The sky a meadow, constellations, flowers.

No passion-filled debate, no vying powers,
Lazy destiny dreams, eschewing plans or mapping.
There’s something about the lonely hours.

Past today, the future glowers,
But reserve this sacred instant for reflection, recapping.
The sky a meadow, constellations, flowers.

The earth is straining, injustice towers,
Insidious corruption, pain and deceit chafing, chapping.
There’s something about the lonely hours.

The darkness consumes, seconds become hours,
Sorrow lurks at hand, irksome insecurities tapping.
The sky a meadow, constellations, flowers.

Yet, peace resounds, the evil cowers.
Hope, the thing with feathers, quietly, resiliently flapping.
There’s something about the lonely hours,
The sky a meadow, constellations, flowers.
JRS Dec 2012
My mind skips from tree top to tree top,
Skimming over rivers, lakes and streams.
And as I wonder of pasts and futures,
My thoughts flow smoothly through kaleidoscope dreams.

I watch the world fly past the window,
No time to see specific things,
Houses blur into fields and meadows,
A flock of birds into a flurry of wings.

Cities’ streetlamps blink into stars,
A join-the-dot puzzle, mapping the ground.
Headlamps and headlamps merging the masses,
Lost individuals into the sound.

Glance through the glass, look out the window,
Catching the eye of a stranger’s stare.
A moment held, a second, a freeze-frame,
Suddenly it seems that there’s no one else there.

Before I can blink, or think, or wonder,
The face is replaced by a patchwork floor,
And all I can see for miles and miles,
Are fields and heath land and woodland and moor.

On the flat, look into the distance,
See as far as the world is wide.
Sapphire sky and cumulus clouds,
The boasting Earth and his beautiful bride.
Mia Feb 2013
I want to know you
Like the back of my hand.
Trace the lines of your face
And etch them into my memory
Like an ink painting on canvass
mapping you perfectly
As curves and lines so fine.
I see you when I close my eyes
Kissing me
Touching me
Loving me.
There isn't anywhere
I would rather be
Than in your arms.
Vidya Oct 2011
perhaps *******
are unaware of themselves
until they blossom at the touch of
the cold
or
hungry hands
mapping
the topography of skin. perhaps
they wait
for lips and ivory teeth
to explain every pregnant
pause in your touch;
each time we undress our bodies
are new again.
we emerge
from the cocoon of bedlinens
coloured and crumpled and
left to dry in the sun.
Jack Nov 2013
Eleven :/ eleven


In a cavern long about the edge of time
dwells a sadness deep upon my heart,
where fragments of my imagination
cry out from a desolate vault,
iron clad and riveted
of a stone mason’s might
Welded shut, encrusted with fear
and loneliness in unsealed envelopes
addressed to someone other than me


Where neighbors retrieve and process,
regardless of names and stamped signatures,
unwilling to pay the postage now due
of an encased glass tube shoveled
away to linger on each odd figure
that falls from the reaches far above my head,
dropping square tears from round eyes,
mapping my cheeks
in solitary traces of dual vertical weeping


Self imposed some may say,
and they could be correct, though
when it comes to Forgotten, that heart of gold,
worth more than its weight in life,
pays more attention to the fate of others
than collecting breaths of this or any
next door, across the fence wisdom
For if they hurt…those who shouldn’t,
then what is the use


With heavy stone in hand I tap…
loudly on the reinforced tarnished structure
in a series of dots and dashes, eleven-eleven,
chaos on some calendar's clock, but patterned to the beat of my heart
saying…you are loved, you are missed,
you are needed and most importantly,
you are not alone…hoping the numbered echoes
land upon listening ears, (if even on my final breath)
and she can smile once more, and I can feel it...once again
jess p Feb 2016
so this is how we love
all goodbyes and apologies
and lips mapping freckle to freckle
like a cartographer pinpointing
places that deserve to be named
and remembered

so this is how we hurt
carving scars onto scars and
diving headfirst into every space
in the universe that would take us,
that would welcome our pain with
open arms and say, there is more of that
here, come get your fill


so this is how we heal
in the strangest of places, like unfamiliar
suns and mattresses made of feathery
limbs, we find rest and each other
and we learn to say *no, that is enough,
this is where our hurt ends
Pardeep Nov 2015
A long road ahead,
journey for me to decide.
Mapping as I go.
abigail j s Feb 2019
I've fallen to mapping
the deepest parts of my forehead
again. these days it feels like
I'm climbing the jungle gym of my mind,
clearing away cobwebs and
emptying
dust-covered boxes into my lap,
searching yellowed scrolls and broken crates
for diamonds.
it's not that I feel far from
the present, just as if
I'm swimming through it,
my head the only part of me
above the water.

it's been a little while but
I am still only climbing,
praying, and
scribbling words
on a familiar page.
written July 31, 2018.
Danielle Jones May 2011
i woke up to nothing but
your dog displayed beside the
length of my own body.
i still felt cold even though
her body temperature was above
average and it was like she
had a prophecy to share.
you were two hours late,
and your father had worry lines
mapping out his features,
i knew it when i tasted the heavy air
and the sky was the color of
shady shelves with the books
cemented to the wood.
my hands were in knots when
the phone slipped back into
the pocket and i realized why
you didn't soothe my curling
thoughts that were on catastrophes
and so i focused on my heart beating
through my stomach.

i stood by in shock,
paramedics and state police
lit words under tires and
metal casings down the ravine,
i wondered how you got out of
the twisted seat belts and air-
tight windows.

the blue man said you were
as high as a kite,
and your father's lungs couldn't
calculate and then formulate
the few words to tell them
of your heavy lifting and
bleeding tongued sorrows.
i wanted to *****.

in the hospital beds,
rows and rows of numbers
that held contorted body parts
and tears of anger and fear,
i found you,
ready to transfer for more
opinions and observations
that wouldn't tell anything
about how your mind
actually worked.
just the basics, the nuts
and bolts;
doctors couldn't tell us
why you were so
upset when visiting hours
were through,
yet i could.
you said you thought you
loved me.
and i believe it.
but things are now tangled
like a gold chain necklace,
and now we have
to ease it out to get
back to straight lines.

we have to let things heal,
like the stitching on your
face and the trauma
gathered in your
backbone.

let it be,
you'll stand up straight again.
© Danielle Jones 2011
kelia Jun 2014
hazy boy with eyelashes
crashing each time he touched the ground
(landing gear never works)
i would watch him untie his shoes, then
extend along my curves
mapping them with his signal hands
but the way he charted me
taking note of which route to take
i was nearly a temporary landscape to him
he was traveling
other mountains other countries
other bodies
collecting passport stamps
just below his ear
and a girl like me just couldn’t
fulfill a wander
or a lust
like his
love, heartbreak, hey, hi, *******, unfaithful, temporary, boy, girl, see ya,
Jack May 2014
~

In a cavern long about the edge of time
dwells a sadness deep upon my heart,
where fragments of my imagination
cry out from a desolate vault,
iron clad and riveted
of a stone mason’s might
Welded shut, encrusted with fear
and loneliness in unsealed envelopes
addressed to someone other than me


Where neighbors retrieve and process,
regardless of names and stamped signatures,
unwilling to pay the postage now due
of an encased glass tube shoveled
away to linger on each odd figure
that falls from the reaches far above my head,
dropping square tears from round eyes,
mapping my cheeks
in solitary traces of dual vertical weeping


Self imposed some may say,
and they could be correct, though
when it comes to Forgotten, that heart of gold,
worth more than its weight in life,
pays more attention to the fate of others
than collecting breaths of this or any
next door, across the fence wisdom
For if they hurt…those who shouldn’t,
then what is the use


With heavy stone in hand I tap…
loudly on the reinforced tarnished structure
in a series of dots and dashes, eleven-eleven,
chaos on some calendar's clock, but patterned to the beat of my heart
saying…you are loved, you are missed,
you are needed and most importantly,
you are not alone…hoping the numbered echoes
land upon listening ears, (if even on my final breath)
and she can smile once more, and I can feel it...once again
Have you ever asked yourself what your mind sounds like?
The cathedral of the orchestra?
When I first began,
I remember the end,
But in these forgotten hallways of our minds,
I embrace the trembling face of what was,
I'm talking about our future,
And your yesterday..
I'm talking about the shiplights on the horizon of those four-letter sounds,
Screaming, "what will be?"
But staring us in the face,
Day by day is this pounding answer of we.we.we.
When the drums rattling the shaking hands of the spirit-bound minister are trumpeting into the sky can we truly tell what tomorrow ever was meant to ask.
Excuse me mister and excuse me sister,
I stand here on a precipice of inspiration,
A fountainhead of thought.
In the morrow,
Less lives lived in sorrow,
More lives lived in the lights of days borrowed.
I gathered my shriveling hands under the meat of what was,
Only ever begging for the daybreak to come sooner,
I peer over the melting stretches of unbroken earth,
Screaming for a new day, I say, "who? Am I."
Bless me with your rotten future and plague me with your desperate heart for in the sunrise,
There are no questions.
Only ceaseless observation.
Bring me yesterday's whispers and whimper into the future with a dying heart,
The day is come.
And yes.. Sometimes I do ask myself,
Why was I born into this?
This dying fate of don't ask why.
Such naked sight and active fire,
Drumming out rhythms of my central chord,
Tapping and mapping,
The things keeping the man up in the darkness,
Is only the very echoes of his own mind,
Do you hear anyone else in that chamber?
This beat is dropped for your sound.
The rippling dribble of speech which I pull from the depths of canyon beaches forgotten,
I only ask to bow to the doors,
The hollowed-out floors,
Years passed of sleepless dreaming,
So in the morning light that I may squint out a new sight,
A new sound,
A new.. Touch.
For all we ever were,
And yes, all we ever will be,
Is everything.

— The End —