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Just Grace Jul 2020
The texture of
My lips

Slur the notes
That drape my hips

Staccato
Across my midline

Crescendo
Look for us
A G Billington Jun 2015
Knock me out and lay me down on the table
Cut along the dashes that
Have been growing beside the contours of
My collarbones and down my midline
Since we first met

Peel away my armored membrane
And pin it down with dinner knives
Unsure of what the future will bring
Clear out the scar tissue
And put it in a jar for later

Wring out my organs one by one
Into a series of measuring cups
And assess their net worth with a scale
You obtained from a magazine
Where you read about true love once

Evaluate the products collected
Noting those of my lungs and liver
Are a few shades darker
Calculate a figure and become excited
At the idea of a fixer-upper

Save my heart for last
It takes you both hands to lift it from my chest
Thinking it must be full of riches
You crack it open with a pair of bolt cutters
Only to find not treasure but

A collection of mundane things
Loose change, used tissues
Tickets and receipts
And a piece of paper that reads:
IOU
Preston Aug 2015
Hair in sun
I wove my red bike
Inbetween the road's midline
Crying and screaming
"Please, hit me"
Dave Hardin Nov 2016
We Implore

How in Your name do you do it?  
Night and day, day and night,
a whiteout of words,

scribble of mother tongue
uttered beneath the breath,
those rending howls

packing power enough to jolt
the odd celestial cat nap,
find You holed up under alias

disguised at the wispy tip
of some far flung finger of cloud,
or sitting at the light

in a pearlescent Lincoln MKZ
with tinted windows, leaning
slightly to midline tracking

the approach of a woman brandishing
a hand lettered sign like the relic of a martyr,
praying for the light to change.
SassyJ Oct 2020
Foot steps upon the height of a hill
a mole down a lane in just a mile
as I escape in the dense of the night
with each step traced close to yours

If the midline was a graced venture
would the sparkle fade and frown?
would the lonely rainy day awash?
would the wonder grow in thunder?

As the shadow get displaced in hues
supposedly trapped inside neat seams each a fixture of unknown secrets
set in unfounded, yet searchable folds

If such a time comes, my dearest
My embrace will be coat you wear
all the words of this love will live
and carry us home to our bed
Emmennarr Apr 2017
Maybe your answer isn't clear
Cause you're not in the equation
Or the problem at hand
Puts your pencil into frustration
So your brain takes a break
And you go inside your mind
To try to divide the lies
That you think that you can hide
When in reality your time
Is slipping through your midline
It starts a rapid decline
Then tries to make a 'v' line
To bounce back to the high life
That you wish you'd have once met.
So next time don't forget
There's something you need to clear,
The thoughts that try to enter
Your broken heart's interior.
A Simillacrum May 2018
I just stopped smoking cigarettes half a year ago. I got metal arms and metal legs, but my torso is still half squish. Dr. Mixi told me that I had to quit, because that one half would've finished cooking pretty **** quick. Then you know how it is, they get your signature ten times, split you open vertically right at the midline, it's a mess. Before The War, medical robots could have done a cleaner job, but you take what you can get. Now, I'd be lucky to find a VHS bootleg copy of Mannequin to watch back on the 10" screen in my humble trash heap of a home.
tentatively took page from playbook of devout believers...

Allowing, enabling, and providing
cautious optimism to abound
thus easing grief instead
reason to rejoice found
once corpse cremated
or buried underground.

Whereby reincarnation will eventually...
mitigate grief otherwise...
mind numbing skull will experience
shell shock twill forever stun

unable to square circle
defying reality analogous to accept flying nun
(matter of fact) reunite each loved one,
thus resisting automatic reflex against secularism
just for fun.

Bidding thy nonagenarian
papa permanently farewell...
tis no rhyme nor reason
for me to cry inconsolably
versus ruminating diametrically
opposed outlook pray tell.

How bittersweet mortality doth taste
grievance especially unpalatable,
when existence of
Boyce Brandon Harris erased,
whereby fading memories
offer small consolation baste
within the noggin of his sole sun
twice orthodontically braced.

I still remember, when ye shlepped me
to Lancaster Cleft palate clinic
(mother came along for the ride;
plus she enjoyed stopping at Entenmann's
Exton, Pennsylvania location)
splurging for sweet tooth.

Doctor Mazaheri (small statured)
(a renown prosthodontist)
fitted yours truly for speech appliance
to rectify submucous cleft palate -
a bony defect in the midline
or center of the bony palate

imparted nasal twang
pronouncedly noticeably distinct
mutation genetically bequeathed
middle offspring born this way
offering yet another defect
whereupon token scapegoat
opportunistically targeted by bullies.

Twilight (zone) of your life
metaphorical draws curtain call
concomitantly ushering
remembrance of things past.

Recapitulation of most salient sunny events
fondly recalled mostly boyhood circumstances
many incorporating Lilliputian Matthew Scott Harris
forever jinxed (think hoisted by his own petard)
thus **** of jokes and laughingstock
among madding crowd.

Alas, methinks how robust, intimidating
and indomitable dad appeared
when yours truly a wee lad
undersized even now as an elder statesman (ha)
still the runt of rat pack

(though this measly once upon a time miserly
mousy man no pack rat)
matter of fact downsizes personal trappings
when I eventually make trek
across River Styx.

During interim (between now and then)
hope springs eternal
that suspended animation courtesy cryogenics
will halt biological aging (particularly mine)
preserving till end of time

freeze frame where mise en scène
retaining vestigial said countenance
portraying boyish looking good (older) fella
until peace on Earth
and good will to all men/women prevails.

I thaw (ought) how grand
to donate and/or repurpose body
as science fiction becomes reality,
where mise en scene art becomes life
cessation of senescence held in check
once defunct corporeal edifices

gentrified to instill longevity
twerking, seeding, pollinating...
**** sapiens fostering civilization
to take root across solar system and beyond
sphere where sunlight doth bathe bedlam.
emily Mar 2022
i think i messed up. incomplete contentment, nothing’s the same but there’s nothing different. life’s becoming blurry again. emotion is lacking in situations that call for sympathy. a trachea not in midline and veins that pulsate, fractured patella and dislocated wrists. how do i explain my leaking, stapled wounds? you would only laugh if you saw how disheveled i was. how am i supposed to fix myself when everyone thinks i’m perfect except you? do i value their opinions over someone that doesn’t know me?  in reality, i am an artificial ghost. no one even sees me. i have no desire to be alongside a body other than my own, the one i lost when i was stupidly vulnerable (what did you expect for me to say?). once fearful of letting myself go, now i’m ridding this desolate place. how nostalgic.

you hit me and my knuckles feel sore. i’m on my knees when there’s a knot in your shoelace. missed me? your whimpers sound more desperate than before. didn’t think you could want me this badly. take this hand to serve yourself, take this leg as a cane, and take this rib to construct the instrument that plays the sound of my cries. maybe i do exist for others, but you exist for me. your venom only makes my cuts sting, not the bites.

it's complicated. i’d prefer the rusted fountain to the broken bird cage. arms are intertwined, but i wish they were someone else’s. backs splayed on the ground, feet planted on the side of the building. “it looks like an endless road,” but it’s finite to me. shortening the distance is as simple as pulling the trigger (who said it was easy?). i clean his skin out from under my nails. who does he even like? he doesn’t even know who i am. nonetheless, i hope you’re jealous knowing i look prettier for him. i’m chasing the sun on a treadmill, my teeth are grinding on glass; such an euphoric feeling. the what could’ve been never tasted so good. "let’s take advantage of everything in every way” (myself included but i don’t think he likes the thought of that as much as i do).
2/12 completed for my new year's resolution. this is february, enjoy. i'm not as boy crazy as it may seem.
Calli Kirra May 2021
He’s a hot crackle on my cold skin
Soft skin of lips on my cautious hand
A real pretty face
Something of my own soul to sink into
Robins egg eyes make a waterfall down my face
Rush across my body
Below the midline,
He finds the summer of me
Travis Green Aug 2021
When he placed his hands
Softly around my neck
Pulled me closer to his
Well-fortified body
And kissed me steamily
I felt astounding nouns
And pronouns forming
Brilliantly in the words
I uttered, in that intense minute
His fingers feeling everywhere
On my body, rubbing my chest
Pinching my *******, clutching
My fetching backside, crooning
Diction bursting beautifully
From my existence, so wowed
By the sleek shape of his limbs
His expressway of bliss
His appealing natural fragrance
Moist metaphors lewdly slewing
Down our abs, our midline
Our sublime V-line, our bare
Silky thighs, our thunder striking
Poles pressed together
ATL Jan 31
You are a lampshade,
a breast, and a trumpet-
OR
A reed,
and handkerchief.

Every candle is a rhapsody built of your breath.

NO, no- you are a body, with a midline, dispersed
and given function to move throughout and with intention.
You are an extended substance, where I, divisible, become
the cry of a boiled lobster.

I would love to count all of your eyelashes,
and sleep next to you.

— The End —