"middles" poems
What they don’t tell you in school,
while you’re trying to remember
the difference between prophase and metaphase
chromosomes and chromatin
is that really
biology isn’t science
biology is life
See, divorce
divorce is like mitosis
slow to start, but quick to finish
Begins at prophase
when conflicts arise as your family’s nucleolus,
your family’s unity
disappears
Your carefree life, your chromatin,
coil and change
become tight, tense chromosomes
Outside forces, mitotic spindles,
residing in the cytoplasm
start creeping towards your parents
to separate their souls
Metaphase:
you’re all lined up
single file
ready for battle
Centrosomes, middles of each new life,
poised opposing each other
with their spindles latched onto you kinetochore, your middle,
like a dog with it’s leash
Anaphase:
everything separates,
your world’s torn apart
and you’re left silently
watching
alone
as your sister is torn from your life
Telophase:
the pain starts to lessen
as you uncoil
and your broken family’s nuclear membrane
begins to reform
Once the paper’s are signed
once the cell’s wall’s rebuilt
your old life is over
and the process
it’s finished
See, they don’t tell you
don’t think you need to know
that
divorce is simply biology
and
mitosis
well, it’s life
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 12:21 AM UTC
I love to make you ***
Bodies beat like a drum
Nails sink into skin
Out of control adult fun
Shame not to taste you
Use you wont waste you
Eat you like a peach
Ultimate pleasure you will reach
On your knees I will teach
First step you must follow
Open mouth you may swallow
Filled with cream..What did ya think it was hollow?
Juicy like a berry
Pop went that Cherry
Stretch..bump..collide...middles marry
You will get messy
Which makes you more ****
Get you all wet next time you text me
Writhing from my venom begging to be stung
Scream more from every pore when I make you ***
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 6:30 PM UTC
Pinky promises
and praying to goddesses
a picture of your friends on the sagging shelf
and I know I love you
so much more than you could ever,
ever love yourself.
We plucked wild bluebells
and got sick in the winter-time breeze
I'll pick you up
when you fall down
I'll patch up the scrapes on your knees.
Sugar coated candy
turned into your mother's brandy
still overindulged
but I will be here
year after year
you'll always have someone to hold.
Takeout boxes,
a key in your locks and
always a place for me in your coral sheets
we roam the city in outfits too tight
we hold hands in the streets.
Only a fool
when I'm in your room, lose our cool
laughing as our middles concave
with your hand in mine
I've always felt so brave.
We were girls together
and that will never change.
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 12:29 AM UTC
It was considered expedient
To change the unit of measure
To change scale,
To make redundant all
That could be wasted,
Naturally.
Internal communications
Will contrive suitable verbs
To conceal the brutality of profit
To provide surety as required
To the senior management team
As for the rest:
To those whose insecurities
Are relied upon, whose
Middles have expanded, aged
Receded, human resources
Will issue notice of packages
And opportunities of relocation.
The restructure will require
The recruitment of some
Of the hungry young;
Fresh graduates on the newly
Introduced basic scales.
What of your work you enquire?
Those value added strategies
Of differentiation
Of corporate responsibilities,
Family friendly policies?
In this age of austerity
Such approaches, old man,
Are as relevant as a hard drive,
Or hard copy, this is a cloud
Sourced post-crunch
Twitterverse we inhabit,
This is a time for new prospects
This is cloud cuckoo land.
Mar 26, 2010
Mar 26, 2010 at 3:06 AM UTC
I first cried
where freshness itself struggled
to breathe. Outside
the Ganges,
asthmatic,
began to cower
back in fear, in
disgust, in
disease, browning
like the discarded banana peels
on the roadside below.
I first cried
in a dirt town
where kings and queens
drank to grass avenues
and swaying music in the realms
of history books.
I first cried
where those books
aged quietly
in forgotten rooms.
I first cried
where the streets bled
out crumpling homes and
cardboard stores with misspelt names,
spilling children in dust dresses
and hair matted
into rust pieces.
I first cried
where those children hung
babies on their arms
like my mother swung
her handbag, a flag
of Valentino, while stumbling on
crushed cans and dog ****
and foetid mud-water
on the way to the dentist.
And the children cried
out snot, their arms
perpetually reaching
for a rupee
from the traffic.
I first cried
where white-lit department stores
sprouted in defiant sanitation
between eczema-covered apartment blocks
in which washing lines drooped
and parking was always a problem.
I first cried
where many gods and goddesses
resided on the footpaths
decked in glitter
and cloths of rouge
as old men with
skin weathered into mottled
leather shook
beneath sheets of jute
on the roadside below
and offered tiny flames
to their gods
as morning bellowed and their coughs
grew worse.
I first cried
where stareless men burnt
their fingers
on the Chinese noodles with too much
chilli powder
they cooked and fried and cooked
for those who never saw them
but to haggle over a ten
rupee note,
on the roadside,
on every corner.
I first cried
as thread-blanketed teenage girls
with wrinkled faces
squatted amongst cows
in the middles of roads,
chanting prices, in voices
full of tar,
of the mound of peas
they were selling for that week.
I come every year.
And I'm ashamed to say
I'll never live here
but in my verses
because I can't stand the smell
of the place where I was born.
I first cried
here.
I first cried here.
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 2:55 AM UTC
porcupine, devil's receptionist,
your splinters are aching again.
manifested figure, you are alien.
more so are your actions.
I am thoroughly impressed
by the displays of your affections
boldly handing them to me,
so rudely beautiful, and my limbs
are too shocked for movement.
each layer within me shifts,
black goes grey, blue goes green,
brown goes red and gold, weeds
become sunflowers, the ground below
us begins to heave, volcanoes splinter
and split down their middles, ridges
of lava gasping for air, bubbling, black to grey to white
to blue and purple fire. sweat, we sweat but we don't catch flame.
sweat, and I am liquid at last.
sweet,
considering possibilities,
shuffling my vocabulary like cards in a deck,
preparing myself for the most difficult game life could offer,
preparing myself in tender fragments of flaky crystal.
words become thin glass in my mind, and I
begin to feel the cuts in my throat,
climbing up my tongue trying to create some movement,
even if that movement is pain.
movement has suddenly shook my bones out of their choke hold.
I gasp for air, grasp on to what you hold out.
your outline against my insides at last, your third eye cracked open
and I see behind and through the meshing that takes place. I see so
much that I am blind, torn with black and white.
I close my eyes with good intention:
I am black.
more dark than thorn roofed ships,
smashing against waves made of shadow.
I open my eyes with impression and find you white.
more white than the ghosts in my bones,
winter shivers back with thoughts of you.
I close my eyes with good intention.
I tire more and more
my head weighs down
with all the color.
I want no more black or white.
you tire more and more
your head weighed down
by holding your colors in.
we become tectonic
and all goes grey.
ashes of what we felt that day
aches of what we did
morning reaches my empty lids,
you've taken all I could say with
your silence. a plague. a bartenders keep.
I saw you again before the moon,
I even saw you standing beneath it's reflection,
staring.
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 10:45 AM UTC
It's a bad day when you can't get Celene Dion out of your head
Titanic was good
It was not that good
I found a dried flower
Buried in Leviticus of my sort of grandma's bible
She must have liked that part
The only quote about Leviticus I've read on the internet is about stoning gay people
I hope she didn't like it that much
I saw a bagel get made
No one has the job of eating the middles out
I'm 23, this was a let down
I still like bagels a lot
I tacked the dry flower on my wall
Above the reminder that it's $3 a day to swim at the public pool in the mornings
I hope it's not a homophobic flower
I hid the bible behind Lauren Conrad's book
Lauren Conrad's book embarrasses me less
My sort of grandma
Is only sort of alive
I often feel that way
I feel most alive while dreaming of the impossible
Realistic dreams lead to disappointment
Outlandish dreams leave little 'remember when’s’'
No one hates themselves for not becoming an astronaut
A lot of people hate themselves for not losing 20lbs
Friendships are often measured in favors
That is all
That was not all
Favors are measured in sacrifices
Favors are not measured in reward
Today is a reflection of not dying yesterday
There is a one in seven chance that today is Friday
And it is imperative that we get down on Friday
Because the anticipation for this weekend is very high
If today is Monday all of that is no longer relevant to our conversation
I am losing weight
As I lose weight more and more fat girls hit on me
I do not like this as much as what I was imagining would happen
I have learned that being funny **** cool
Like I am becoming
Does not mean hot girls will hit on me
It means they will actually think about it before saying no
To supplement my soon to be chiseled physic
I am learning a Jack Johnson song on guitar
This worked for an acquaintance in 2006
Maybe I should learn Colbie Callait instead
The world would be better if schools had better teachers
The world would also be better if high school seniors paid attention to the teachers they already have
I don't know which one is easier to fix
My past seems rosier than my future
Except in the case of February 16th 2007
And now February 16th 2012
Corner buildings and modern light fixtures are my favorite aesthetics
My favorite building has neither of those features
Those features are not that awesome
Dead flowers smell like dead things
To combat this I spray cologne on my grandma's flower
I have never been to a funeral
I wonder if they febreeze the dead people
Or maybe they use Chanel No. 5
This is something I would like to learn more about
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 3:38 AM UTC
the sky reflects its hopes and dreams upon the oceans, turning it into a deep blue like the color of his eyes.
those hopeful dreams you'll never see, not really, you glaze elsewhere towards endings and beginning flicking through the pages
because middles are full of too much - too much emotion, too much love, and hate and everything in between.
you place the book back on a dusty shelf, but you never really forget it. you try your hardest to pretend your fingertips never brushed against the yellowing pages that would've crumbled if not for the fact that you're the most gentle person I know, soft like snow against dying leaves in the winter, caressing them until spring kisses them back to life.
seasons change but my ocean will always be blue, even when the sun drowns itself in the horizon and bleeds vermilion into the water.
you are brighter than every sunken sunset that caresses the shipwrecks you wish you were abroad some nights and some days; the epitome of warmth, calming like a lake's tranquility but always so distant like the depths of jewels buried long ago sleeping in river beds.
maybe i write about bodies of water too often because i want to drown and have someone to hold me but you're one of the few people that pulls me above the waters surface and onto a boat which floats away from regret to somewhere with more color than simply blue even though simply blue is enough;
blue will always be enough.
it will be enough to fill in the gaps between stars on this endless canvas of existence and never mind the paint stains on my hands, they're just another reminder that your existence touched mine,
and despite everything, and no matter what, i will never attempt to wash them off in those blue oceans we are all drifting away in.
my words begin to run dry as the paint on my body.
even in silence, nothing feels like it's about to end, you are the cusp of existence and you're taking me with you off into a horizon of better days;
but anything where you exist will always be what people call 'better days'.
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 7:18 AM UTC
The scent of metal, a metallic vibration, a slam
A cushion, disturbed by many tragedies, this cushion, I know has stories
A circle that steers these stories’ beginnings, middles and ends
Oh, the ends are the best from the narrator’s view
The narrator who has control of the steering of the stories
Who knows all the tragedies the cushions have seen,
Has even been the one to orchestrate such a beautiful scene
An unwilling but manipulated snapshot of a wrinkle in life
There’s no point in trying to see out, the glass is too foggy
Symbolic- the characters can’t see what is waiting for them, the other option
It has been steamed up by the narrator who used his circle to steer them to a parking lot
A metallic vibration felt buzzing through their bodies on the cushion
A pang of uncertainty, but manipulation wins…
A slam as the narrator progresses the plot and the glass windows begin to fog
The metal machine, seemingly unmovable and monstrous becomes victim to his heat
To his desire to have the plot progress as he wants it to- every tragedy is the same
Used, and disposed in the most brutal manner
He is serial, predictable
Once the car stops rocking and the cushion has gained another tale
The scent of metal fills the vehicle
But it’s not the smell of the vehicle, just the metal
Apr 15, 2011
Apr 15, 2011 at 9:21 AM UTC
there are seven billion puzzles
on this third rotating planet
each one has their troubles
in this world that we inhabit
these seven billion mysteries
hold secrets left unshared
they all have their histories
but their futures make them scared
and these seven billion riddles
leave you speechless, without answers
with pieces missing from their middles
we're unconscious of their cancer
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 12:21 AM UTC
I pressed the red button
Your smile the last thing I saw
I bid you good night
And was left alone with my thoughts
I told you I would write something happy
and you I wish to impress
but what if the only thing I can write about
are the thoughts that run obsessively through my head
I can only write about dreams
that I wish I had
about charming scenarios
where the ending is never sad
about others’s love life
their feelings and pains
I try to get in their head to decipher
what it contains
is it love or lust
that keeps him going
does he really love her
Or it’s fake love that’s showing
my dear sweet sister
says my poems are too gloomy
she asks why can’t i write
of things that are sunny
she asks for joy,
excitement and fun
but how can I write of feelings
I can’t out run
I do feel happiness
I try to explain
but what can I do when
it’s much easier to write about the pain
about heart breaks and sleepless nights
Crying and feeling alone inside
conflicting emotions when I’m feeling low
I just let my tears guide the way in how they flow
but my dear sister and friend of mine
maybe it’s time to have a change of heart
I should think when I feel and seek the good
for its inside me and I only have to find that page in the book
look deeper
than what I thought I knew
and write about how
my dreams come true
Write about friendships family and cake
smiles and laughter road trips and games
find what really drives me the motivation of my heart
and finally write a story that includes every part
Add my smiles,
the way I get up in the mornings,
my love for reading
and a steaming cup of coffee
The pain in my legs,
after a long night cooking
and how sleepless nights are worth it
when you see how big their smiles are looking
Find within myself
stories that are blended
and change the narrative to include
beginnings, middles and endings.
Oct 4, 2021
Oct 4, 2021 at 2:13 AM UTC
You can't stop the world from turning
If you feel like jumping off
You can't double up your earnings
If your middles gotten soft
You can dream of the solution
But you must act on it as well
Just make sure of what your doing
Cause you can't unring a bell
You can't stop a word that's hateful
Once it's flying through mid air
You can't make a person grateful
If they've never really cared
You can't change the image in the looking glass
Or halt a wave mid swell
A churning ocean is never clear
And you can't unring a bell
You can't start a new beginning
If your at the very end
Nor untie a knot cinched tight
With only thoughts blown on the wind
You can't promise the world in wonder
And the stars above as well
Then decide at last to take it back
Cause you can't unring a bell
You can't change the law of physics
Or add words to a dried up pen
There's no fourth to your three wishes
And you can't hide behind your name
It's hard to see light if you're too far down
In the digging of your well
Breathing does not mean you're living
And you can't unring a bell
Jul 28, 2014
Jul 28, 2014 at 11:12 AM UTC
Does a sociopath love?
does the child who pinches the girl sitting next to him in kindergarten?
The tongue tied middles schooler
hey.. uh.. um.. I was like... well.. just wondering... You wanna like maybe... dance or something
the text recipient writing four drafts of his response reading:
what are you doing this Friday night?
The jolt of lightning which rips through his body
a current sent from her through their clutched hands
or the girl who blushes when Prince tall, dark, handsome, and charming
looks her in the eye and smiles
we all stand on the edge of the cliff
waiting to be pushed
praying that they are there when we hit the ground
with a hug, a coffee, and a thick blanket
we all want somebody to love us in the ways we could never love ourselves
so we might be complete
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 11:20 AM UTC
He is man
Sometimes soft
Sometimes hard
But always a man who walks like a lion
With generosity of Spirit, lust of body and fire in his heart.
He hunts with a clever and ambitious mind
For his seed and dreams demand to be sown
So many curious parts, that make up the fullness of a man
Beginnings. Middles. Endings.
Intricate
Fascinating
Perplexing
Sometimes Vexing
But he is made in the image of creation
And there is always beauty in his order and in his chaos
He is man
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 12:33 PM UTC
I returned to where i fit like a puzzle piece into the transparent rock and the crystalline water,
where the trees grew prehistoric palm fronds, wild grass with a view over islands and shades of blue
where the sand felt like silk
birds flashed by the water, visions of grey bodies, yellow legs and wings shaped like pterodactyls,
the waters reflective surface barely alludes to the cosmos beneath
a teeming reef with blue starfish, red starfish, all manners of little fish, parrot fish, shiny squid in hues of blue purple iridescent as I snorkel I see eye to eye with fishies
the coral how they move or don’t ,
their shapely curves in brain wave formations or flowers in perpetual bloom, perhaps akin to a large mushroom
So I breathe and let my fear go.
This is where showers are outside and doors open all night for the breeze to wash me as I sleep.
Where the sky is shifting all in sight,
miles away rain falls and I delight in the visual ecstasy
of the creative flow
the ease of the wind and the lap lap lap of waves
at tidal flows bubbling in, sloshing out -
No skyline disturbing “skyscrapers” but horizons are in vision and further further
inside and out as
I watched a stacked Cumulus mediocris cloud rain onto the ocean, progressively getting smaller and smaller top down,
I saw a lightning storm illuminate the rising sun behind as moon slice smiles
I saw the reason why the heavens are called heavens
the stars almost close enough to touch, an expansiveness of space
when I breathed
it came inside me and filled me
with the vibrancy of billions upon billions of alchemical workshops, working in conjunction with each other, some element created here, some element come together there.
I paused at the highest point of the rock hill a shooter slings on by
past condensed galaxy middles.
When I breathed the expansiveness of ocean and rocks, reefs and prehistoric vegetation I was filled with expansiveness
It was there that I felt the shadows held friends too
my heart beat slowly , quickly, round up down
until one morning I woke up, transparent too
vibrating so highly becoming nothing
even just for a moment
I felt in unison with the rocks and the waves and the sand
the being I currently am
made up of the same stuff and in there
Oneness
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 5:51 AM UTC
i no longer justify
my decisions with
self, and I find myself
murmuring reason
on the way home,
working through
thoughts like thick
nets of string, always
finding the end, never
cutting corners, snipping
middles, I'm not
cheating
anymore.
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 6:03 PM UTC
Late night scribbles
with late night riddles
maybe morning made dribbles
with half thought out middles
whether it's wood you whittle
or a cello you fiddle
it's never too late to jot down those scribbles.
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 5:59 AM UTC
And on the stairs leading up
your foot catches
and once extricated
catches again. Every stair
the same, every step
an effort to lift
your feet, every inch
of the way a journey.
Every stair
indented, marked
the middles pressed down
by thousands of feet
that once were here
and are no more.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 2:37 AM UTC
blankets laid
like pastry
twirled and
crinkled
made to nestle
precious
heads
in bed of
curled and
covered comfort
buttered
wrapped up
little packages
alive and
breathing
heaving breaths
of depths
unknown to
waking worlds
through softened
lungs and throats
and mouths
and gooey
molten middles
with shield of
fragile sleep
held up
to barricade in
and barricade out
as steam floats
gentle warm
and wistful
blissful up
from tender
scalps
from dreams
in gold and
chocolate
© 2017 Adelaide Heathfield
Feb 19, 2018
Feb 19, 2018 at 9:11 AM UTC
a dog can still breathe steadily
as I hold a basketball and wait
for my ears.
I am someone I am. a meditation
on a father. an intro.
a mother can still claim
her belly is an air bubble
kept for the mouth of her oldest
who swims to middles
of ponds
in jeans
on the same
dare.
I am the alarm that is later
not
a heart attack. just a sharp pain
the size of your son
blinded again
by the ache
in god’s
toe.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 1:56 PM UTC
One more wee pinger
Oh just one more before bed
The chat starts up
Feeling floaty and a wee bit bloaty
Forgetting my threads
Conversations middles and ends
Time for bed
No ,just one more
Wee pinger before bed
Chats are now more askew
Birds are chanting
Flushes made
Heads are in beds
Dec 19, 2016
Dec 19, 2016 at 1:47 PM UTC
Let's go out tonight and in the cold, we'll
Spirit ourselves away until
The sun appears, in little
Nooks and hollowed tree middles.
Let's go out in the dark moonlight
And take these clothes off right
As soon as we step off the edge
Into cold wetness and nearly freeze to death.
The precipice will smudge
When we walk down the sloping blur
To where the water is photoshopped so nicely.
Our throats will no longer be sore
So we will shout some more,
So we will shout some more.
Hopping spritely across the river on rocks
With our hoods on and our knee high socks
We shall transmute into the smallest flock
Of Canada geese.
Dec 25, 2010
Dec 25, 2010 at 7:28 PM UTC
Between
“Once upon a time”
And
“Happily ever after”
There’s a perfect adventure
You took for granted
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 4:55 AM UTC