"matches" poems
An early evening gust
broke the back of the day's blaze
Still 90 degrees at eight
in orange haze
Sweat runs down my neck
Through the gorge between my *******
The wind lifts my linen shirt
runs its hands along my sides
reviving memory
of Forest Park
of a blanket in the grass
Where the pines trace
so many faces
Crackling popping kids
stolen matches, running
screaming victorious!
Blowing tin cans up with fire crackers
Bicycles, sparklers, fireworks at dusk
That whole afternoon
I spent hammering caps
Noise really makes us kids
really
especially
annoying
Mom wants us out!
Gone! All of us!
No needs. No excuses!
No cookies! No slices of bologna!
“No more Kool Aid!
Out now!
Out!”
That evening I tried
to dismiss the itchy sweat
of stupid-sister-Suzy-matching-sun-suits
at Gino's family picnic
When some kid
(I don't know?)
between the rigatoni and the sweet corn
Some kid
tosses a sparkler
into box of fireworks
I don't know?
whether to cry or laugh
I was pretty scared
Rockets going off across the lawn
and onto porch
Craze of colors through the trees
Some at eye-level horror!
But the sight of Aunt Nedda
diving under picnic table
Stockings, garter belt upended
Capsized beyond her caring
of uplifted dress
Some images just stay with you, ya know?
July 4th always lands for me
on a firework's ***
Jul 3, 2018
Jul 3, 2018 at 1:34 AM UTC
You are liquid fire
Come, sit down
let me have a sip
I do am parched
Come, lay down
next to me
Let me explore
your body made of matches
I am made of pure
burning
golden desire
Come, take me down
We do burn so beautifully
after 2 am
in the morning light
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 2:27 PM UTC
Anxiety is not stress.
Anxiety is not some umbrella term you can use to describe how you feel when your favorite character in a book is in an intense battle unless you can somehow feel how fast their heart is beating until you can feel how hot their blood is until you can feel what it’s like to be that character in that situation the weight of the world on your shoulders
Anxiety is not finding lighting candles to be the only solution, candles are another problem. Another long paragraph to your list of “Things That Can Easily **** Me” example: “I didn’t leave any matches out, did I? I blew out the candle right? I need to check. Do I smell burning?? PUT THE CAP WHEN IT’S DONE! Will set off my fire alarm? Does my fire alarm work? Where’s my fire alarm??? Where’s somewhere I can put it so it doesn’t hurt me. THIS IS OK THIS IS NORMAL THIS IS RELAXATION.”
Anxiety is not stress.
Anxiety is horrible flashing images, constant reminders, the most negative form of “what if” imaginable.
Anxiety is wasting all your time thinking about an 8 page paper due for class in a week but instead of bringing yourself to writing it you are sobbing on the floor thinking of how bad for your grade this will be.
Anxiety is having a crush on a girl and trying out makeup for the first time.
Anxiety is having a crush on a guy and wondering if your sense of humor is funny enough.
Anxiety is not stress.
Anxiety is downloading an app that checks on your health and leaves you wondering how long this has been going on for.
Anxiety is wondering how to fix your eating disorder instead of actually fixing it
Anxiety is outing yourself to fit in
Anxiety is always wearing pants because you’re too afraid of your own scars
Anxiety is staying up countless nights crying crying crying you cannot yell your thoughts are no longer your own
Anxiety is writing a list of pros and cons to killing yourself
Anxiety is lighting a candle so you can slowly burn the list because
Anxiety is telling you if someone finds out, you will die.
Anxiety is not stress.
Anxiety is having making a friend and losing them in less than a year
Anxiety is wondering if all this help is helping or do I need to help myself
Anxiety is your friends questioning you non-stop are they really questioning you or do you question yourself?
Anxiety is memorizing the suicide prevention hotline
Anxiety is beating yourself up countless times “How could you forget something as simple as a Birthday?!”
Anxiety is “I only have three friends and one hates me, one I’m trying not to lose, and the other I love too much to tell the truth”
Anxiety is “It’s only a matter of time before we all die!”
Anxiety is “Congratulations! Two of your friends have died this year alone! One ******* hates you! Oh! HAHA! Wait! They all ******* hate you!”
Anxiety can turn you from “Wow. I look kinda good today.” to ”DYSPHORIA! DYSPHORIA! DYSPHORIA!”
JUST ******* KIDDING!
ANXIETY IS STRESS!
AND MUCH
MUCH
MORE!!!!!!!!
Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 3:50 PM UTC
melanin molasses, the sweetest courtship attracts the ones who have never glittered
white bullets love to kiss black skin
black on black crucificton, a gospel orchestrated by the higher powers
****** puddles lay with the concrete during the darkest hours
night bullets play white doves during the matrimony of the bottom barrels life and its fast stint.
honeymoon candles lit by the masters matches, africans seek this artificial light in times where heavens white lights could greet them with a smile and roses that are wilted.
- t.m
Dec 11, 2016
Dec 11, 2016 at 1:06 PM UTC
Tomorrow i will be brave.
I am going to march up to you in all your dark and mysterious glory and i am going to say everything i have kept locked away never to see the light of day.
I will tell you i still feel giddy in your presence and hope you feel the same, I will tell you your eyes and sly smile change me until i feel high above all the worries of the day, and I will tell you if you do not have a heart that matches the eradic beating of my own that it is okay. I understand.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 10:33 PM UTC
It’s been three and a half months since we last spoke,
really spoke, not just guilty hellos
and scattered half-hearted pleas
And it’s not you, it’s never you
it’s me it’s me it’s me,
but you love
me
you love
me
you love
me
And my head has forgotten what it feels like,
but I know my heart is safe with you
Because you’ve never stopped chasing after me
and I’m tired of looking at my feet, telling myself
I’ll be okay without you, trying to navigate
through a thick forest at night,
pretending I don’t have matches at
my fingertips
You are the only thing
that has ever made me feel truly whole
I’m sorry I’ve kept my eyes shut so tight,
but I’m here now and I love you and I miss you
And I don’t want to keep living
like fragments of a person anymore
I’m Yours.
Dec 4, 2014
Dec 4, 2014 at 11:43 AM UTC
It follows me around you know
Maybe it never really left
It hangs around the air, light as a feather
But it´s presence, heavy as a weight.
As I sit on the bus, an empty seat at my side
It sits, it looks at me, and it stares...
And my mind is flooded with thing we used to do
Things of lovers: to kiss, to hug, to lose myself in you
To show you my affection, to show you I cared.
As I go out to take a walk, it walks by my side
It matches my speed, no matter how slow or fast
And my heart weighs heavy with things I could have done
Tell you I love you, being there for comfort
So much time wasted, never to return.
As I lay in my bed, it lays by my side
Perfectly still, just outside of my grasp
And our future banishes in front of my eyes
Our home, our family, our lives intertwined
It tears me apart, as I begin to cry.
It follows me around, but I can´t leave it behind
The ghost of you, it haunts me day and night
The mistakes I made… The errors of my ways…
I pay for dearly, every single day
Loneliness follows me, and it has your shape…
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 11:52 PM UTC
Zero is enduring
zero is deathless.
Nothing is up to it
none can mirror it
though forever
it's an open case.
The eyes are yet to
see an open face!
Because like it's
nothing is in perfect shape
purely a perfect circle!
Nothing matches it
as like Fathima is none else!
Ever more sprawling pi decimals
never go unnoticed propelling
to the end surge before her.
Before the original one
Fathima is yet to be mirrored.
All the planets turn circular
before the unseen perfect circle.
Fathima nails it snapped it up
circled it with her hair!
Before the furthest sighted eyes,
the dot at the earth's centre
at its pool of primitive water.
Fathima embeds in a loop of her hair
thus supercharges the water!
It finds the cut, the golden ratio,
constant continuity in her hair's inner flow.
And the Big Bang happened
there, their breakthrough!
The potential worlds to be
from the first drop of water
she gets them all buzzed out.
From down the rock bottom,
from the zero null
Fathima finds and raises the sun!
Nothing is comparable to it on the ground
nor up on the high, we only see the fire
of a heavenly phenomenon is beyond the sight!
Jan 27, 2019
Jan 27, 2019 at 12:06 AM UTC
Down the back alley
on the cold winter evenings
your eyes stared only at me
I didn't smoke
as my father gave up
yet i didn't dare disagree
you parted your lips
you drew in a breath
and your body relaxed in turn
exhaling slowly,
you grin and you show me
how much your body did yearn
for the taste of a cigarette
the embers and ashes
matches and lighters, causing flickering flashes
you said I didn't have to
but I said I didn't mind
that the smoke in your mouth would soon be in mine
I did not draw back
my mouth- under attack
I just had to last the duration
because I didn't smoke
the taste scorched my throat
and gave off a burning sensation
It must have felt different
as just in an insant
You stub out the cigarette with a hiss
silently relieved
and now more at ease
oh, the things that you do for a kiss
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 4:41 AM UTC
A designer ******
A nip and a tuck
A trim of the curtains
A tightening up
A complementary adjustment
A tidying of bits
Matches the uplift
You had on your ****
So 6 months it took
To create the perfect ******
Only to find he's left you tonight
Apr 4, 2013
Apr 4, 2013 at 7:35 PM UTC
In 2005 The Piano Man was found wandering the streets of Sheerness in a soaking wet suit and tie
he didn't say a word.
When presented with pad and pen he simply drew a grand piano.
His nurses sat him in front of a beat up old upright
he played for four hours straight;
for four months his hands were the only things to break his silence.
Alexandre Dumas said "man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy."
Do you ever think about how Beethoven hacked the legs off his piano so he could feel the sounds he couldn't hear in his head, through his chest?
And Van Gogh heard the sounds his paintings made but kept going until his sanity
was just a memory floating on a distant river under a tired Milky Way.
And you see, like a Gaelic folk song blindness runs red through my family,
so I know it's not much but I'm here, still trying to mould my hands to say the right form of 'I love you'.
And did you know that the human heart beats over 30 million times a year, but we still have a hard time keeping our feet on the ground?
And did you know that the act of breaking in a horse is actually the act of breaking it's back?
Like we can't sit without sitting on broken things.
And did you know that every time a mobile phone sends out a GPS signal a bee loses it's way home, and every bee that doesn't reach it's hive dies?
So on nights when your pulse matches the beat of my favourite song
you don't have to wonder if it's me matching the syncopation of your silence --
and I wonder if you ever found what you were looking for.
And I wonder if you realise that on days you're not here I roll up my sleeves,
count the beats without you,
sit on the backseat and miss you.
And somewhere The Piano Man rolls up his sleeves
creates the Big Bang under his fingertips.
And in 2005 on an April morning in Sheerness, a suited piano man walks straight into the ocean,
begs the current to take him.
I send you a message
a bee loses it's way home.
I send you another
another bee dies.
My chest cavity is a bumble bee crypt,
my tongue a honeyed graveyard.
Another message.
The Big Bang.
The hive.
A suit.
That ocean.
Another back is broken.
Another message is sent.
I fear I am more honeycomb than heart.
To create is to destroy. To destroy is to succeed.
And would you just look at what these piano hands have finally done.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 1:28 PM UTC
it's so different now
it's as if that love I had for you was a candle trying to stay lit in a storm
and it was finally blown out
but I haven't any matches to light it again
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 2:33 AM UTC
I always thought we were the perfect match.
But matches are meant
to ignite
and burn out.
Nov 1, 2018
Nov 1, 2018 at 11:58 PM UTC
Everything is so tight.
Jeans, leggings, dresses, shirts, skirts, jackets
and summer wear is even worse and more revealing with
crop tops, shorts, and even shorter skirts and dresses.
How are we all able to breathe?
Victorian fashion had corsets
and those made them faint!
So why does the fashion have to be tight?
Don't get me wrong,
I do like skinny jeans, and tight shirts and dresses
I am a girl after all,
we all give in to the status quo of fashion at times.
But, sizes are even smaller now than they were before.
I haven't gained or lost weight,
my waist size hasn't changed,
nothing has.
Except for the clothes.
Are we trying to make women smaller and thinner
by just shrinking the clothes?
It should not be ¨Survival of the fittest¨
in the dressing rooms.
That isn't cool.
Also, why are the pants so short?
I have long legs, okay,
and because my waist size matches someone who is smaller than me
then that must mean that I am short
according to clothes.
Therefore I have difficulty finding pants
that fit my waist
and my legs.
I am not blind to my surroundings.
Every single girl
Goes. Through. This.
We all have shopping woes,
some worse than others.
We all gain uncomfortable experiences
whether it be from something not fitting,
or from the attention on the streets
that we get for wearing it.
Then of course, don't forget the media!
Remember all those pictures of perfect people
being shoved down our throats
strangling us until we accept the fact
that we should be just like them.
Suffocation is the latest fashion,
and we are expected to wear it well.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 6:46 PM UTC
lustful and untrustful
screaming matches and rebuttals
worn out muscles and tear puddles
but what did we win, cards caving in
whichever way you try to spin
swan song on the violin
whichever play you do
your eyes get under my skin
I can see the hurt, the guilt, the shame
I tried to heal, build, and begin
again and again
return to my zen listening to Gwen
escape to my four white walls and write songs
each melody washes away the pain of yesterday
each harmony bringing back the colour to the gray
lifeless self I let my body become
dancing to the beat of my own drum
Feb 7, 2022
Feb 7, 2022 at 12:58 PM UTC
I fear my sense
Of right and wrong
Are skewed beyond
Repair.
For all I do
Is think of you
Regardless of if you're
There.
The way your body
Knows my own and
Matches it with
Heat.
Is quite enough
To make it tough
To focus or to
Speak.
Jul 16, 2010
Jul 16, 2010 at 7:09 AM UTC
A ball player and a thief
Will likely be pregnant by age 16.
Lives in the ghetto and is poor,
Often identified as a *****
Runs fast and does drugs,
Hangs around with gangsters and thugs.
Has a gun or a friend with one.
Speaks in slang, must be part of a gang.
Mess with her, she'll pull a Sharkeisha on you.
If you were to picture a person of any race,
That fits the description that just took place.
A baller and **** hmm... what race matches that?
Yeah you're right, that person is probably black.
Is fast, does drugs, and speaks with slang?
Lemme guess, is he also in a gang?
A young mother who is also poor?
Bet she doesn't know who the dad is, what a *****
All these negative stereotypes associated with being black.
Its disheartening, sicking and its really sad.
And whats sadder is that if you are the opposite of all of that,
You are often told that you're not really black.
Does your skin colour change for going to Harvard?
Will it change for speaking like an English scholar?
Because I play hockey and not ball, does that make me white?
So what if I'm the type of person to run away from a fight?
You don't have to be irresponsible and rude to be considered black.
It's your ethnic background that determines that.
And to some people, all we are is the complexion of our face.
Light, dark, somewhere in the middle, to some, the bad of a few defines
our whole race.
Does running away from a cop, and being black give someone grounds to shoot?
Why is it that my skin color is what is most important to you?
Is asking a question when getting arrested for no visible reason really resisting arrest?
Does struggling to break free from restraints to catch my breath, give someone a reason to grab on tighter to strangle me to death?
The actions of a few don't define the actions of a whole group.
And this assumption that all black are thugs, thieves and liars has done clear damage to,
Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and so many more.
They didn't know it, but just by being black, they put their lives at risk when they stepped out their door.
Don't you think it's gotten too far when we have to prove Black Lives Matter, or when we the saying of a movement is Hands Up, Don't Shoot.
Should people have to be reminded that blacks are real people and that our lives matter too?
We are athletes and musicians.
Lawyers and physicians.
The leader of a nation.
An anchorman of a news station.
We don't all fit into that mold that is preset for us.
You can and should expect great things of us.
Because we don't have to be a **** or a baller to be considered black.
We define what type of black person we are, we determine that.
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 2:04 PM UTC
The brush is still in the garage
on the cold, cement floor
beside the empty tin of paint,
its sides eternally dripping
with a dried, buttercup hue.
The walls which we smothered with color
are faded, now riddled with children’s earthy hand-prints
after a day in the mud. A mess to us,
the results of battles, safaris,
and space travels to them.
I could paint over the marks,
start over fresh and show off to friends.
But I think I’ll let it be.
No longer the bright yellow of a sun trapped in a painting,
these four walls have still brightened many days.
There has been roaring laughter,
divided by a few screaming matches
that have made the dog whimper.
This room has seen much of our lives,
and life cannot be painted over so easily.
So it stays. The color will always be buttercup to me.
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 1:21 PM UTC
two people, two worlds, two souls.
living as two; breathing as two.
Wasted time no longer wasted.
One sweet love finally tasted.
My soul is here for you to take.
My heart is here for you to break.
Vulnerable is not just a word, but a way of life.
Through the strife, you were there.
Through the wears the tears, you were there.
In the time where i was barely hanging on.
My heart, it's singing a new song.
For you, for you, only you.
Baby, you amaze me.
listen to my heart beat for you.
Every
Single
Beat
For you.
Pain is ordinary.
love is extraordinary.
You are my world.
The universe can't hold what we have.
From the very depths of the soul.
From ever fiber in my being.
I breathe you, i feel you, i need you.
My dreams came true in you.
Love is no longer imaginary.
It's in my reach, it's in my arms.
The touch of love, the smell of love.
it's familar to me now.
what people say is true, love is blind.
and deaf
and mute.
No distance traveled matches how far i would go for you.
the ends of the earth is too short of a journey.
the moon and back doesn't compare.
your voice is music to my ears.
surround me in your music.
life would be lost without you.
i could never find it.
no matter what to cost, i'd buy it.
even if it lasted for only a day.
A day no longer than a few hours.
Hours past, i miss you.
Tick
tock
tick tock tock tock.
you're not here, i'm not there.
wait for me, my love, wait.
soon we'll be together again.
soon we'll breathe together again.
as one person, one world, one soul.
Mar 28, 2010
Mar 28, 2010 at 3:59 PM UTC
A supine position
upon my bed
and a slow turning
of my head
I look out through my window
and by chance
LISTEN!!
Hearing the howling
and chilling desultory gusts
of wind
Noticing seemingly deceptive
immutable muffled
grey-white
low hanging clouds
enveloping everything
in its heavenly path
with coinciding
feelings
of being enclosed,
a slight hint,
the oncoming winter
A sunless sky also
matches the early November mood
as virtually motionless
elongated pearl-grey-clouds
having distinct
wind-kissed
topsy-turvy-wavy-ruffled bottoms
that travel and permeate
onward
across the heavens
These eerie vapors
s t r e t c h
from north to south
east to west
casting Buddism's
grey colored shadows
upon the earth below
while not permitting
any sky blue
to peek through
A distant howl and barking
of
a dog,
my inner volcano snuffed out,
the tranquilization of Hercules...
Time seemingly
stops altogether
and hangs...
... heated feelings
dissipate
into
cool nothingness...
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 4:27 PM UTC
Like a captive, I capture rapture wrapping around stakes that matter
Joan of Arc battered
Also tattered but, easily dismissive
Refracted from fractured prominent phrases people play with
Distinctly persuasive and evasive, dressed boyishly attractive, lax stature, dawning armor crafted by absence as if asked about it-
I’m drifted
Protection is principle prerequisite, when fire is lit
I sort of implore your aorta before it’s incinerated to ashes
Dethatched as a habit, with swords or hatchets crafted to singe heartstrings that attached it
While I slash slick Rick as a quick fix,
To fend for pretend pretenses or presumed tricks,
I can’t quit
Cause I hit lips against hash spliffs fashioned with dashes of passion all while rationing fireball cinnamon sips
Martyr to avoidance
I gaze at fabled dazed gossipers galvanizing grips on gritty grapevines while licking warning labels through smoke haze on blurred lines
Capably unstable
Other eyes attending scandal circles able to shout lies and rekindle handed arguments on tables with locked smiles stay boxed in
Avidly amiable
Searching for counterparts when combusted or branded
Toying with matches loses meaning when rules reseed
Those vagabonds claim love is some all end hard bent to mend what the same above can’t comprehend.
Breaking boredom, I pillage pillows with night terrors
And ardent arsonists yearn for flames that churn, turn, liquefy and learn learned thoughts and smoldered feelings
Completely complacent
Melting in one another they are completing each other like two candles tryst true at a wedding day
However later the blaze is severed, smoke sears, and charred black wick stands alone for them.
Aggressive and progressive.
As for me never pleading, fire forever fleets to streets between iron bars I built that cage in deep heat and seep dire dreams once desired
Suppose I’m a skeptic
Roasted or disconnected
Just jaded, just met you
Always over it too soon
Burnt but I’m amused.
I’m useful.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
If the good die young
Then I’ll die old
My stress is so high strung
And my heart is so cold
The sad song I sing
Has nothing on the pain I bring
Lively on the outside
But on the inside
Its genocide
Everything is dead
Sent to permanent bed
People walking around
But they have no heads
The land is vast, empty and depleted
My heart is everything but completed
The disease I have is so rare
One hand shake
It’s all down hill from there
Your life I'll break
My sorrow is everything but fake
Everyday my broken heart is at stake
My emotions flow
Like a placid lake
With water so deep
No one understands
So to my self I keep
When I fall
No one lends helping hands
Everyone just stands
In a circle around
As I lay helpless on the ground
They don’t care
They all just stare
My heart is empty
Nothing is there
My soul matches
It too is bare
Blessed with this curse
Man life isn't fair
I’ll die first
This disease is too rare
To claim anymore lives than my own
This is all set in stone
As I sit on that hill weeping alone
Jun 13, 2010
Jun 13, 2010 at 7:48 PM UTC
Today, a door was left ajar.
My thoughts have escaped me;
I wonder if they know not to play in traffic
or strike matches found in the tool shed.
I'll wait 'till dark before I worry.
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 7:56 PM UTC