"mla" poems
battling demons
or suffering PTSD
with ADHD
and OCD
on TCH
looking for LSD –
need a little TLC
from the FDA
the EPA
just went MIA
and the UN
blames the FBI
while the CIA
and the NSA
seek the PLO –
brb
LOL, IDK
the shizzle is cray cray
****** be trippin
er’ry day
like Ross say
“don’t **** wit me” –
the USA
in betrothed to the NRA
and OSHA
just gave me a passing score
at the same time as the AMA
failed my blood
stylistically, this is MLA
and functionally it’s more WWE
TNT
CNN
t’n’a --
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 6:00 PM UTC
Sometimes I stare into the night sky and I realize how small we are.
I look into infinity and
It doesn’t look back because
I am a spec amongst bigger things and smaller things
And life and death are everywhere
And what am I to a universe that
We, humans, the smartest life we know to exist,
Cannot even wrap our brains around?
And then I think about homework.
But how am I supposed to even think about homework
When the sky is always present above our heads
Filled with limitless possibilities that I can get lost in for decades.
I could waste perfect days lying in the grass day dreaming up anything,
But you want me to memorize math equations?
During the day all seems so hopeful and bright.
I think of the way your hair would move in the breeze and
I imagine your big eyes filled with wonder and curiosity
As you stare into the clouds.
Clouds made of the ideas people dream up during class
While their teacher tells them how to cite sources in MLA format.
And at night my fascination with the sky becomes
Less excited and more scared.
I think not of the way your hair would move in the breeze,
But of how your hair would move
While someone else tucked it behind your ear.
And the noise you’d make as they kissed your neck
Crimson lips, swollen with lust.
Somehow the stars don’t give me dreams,
They give me nightmares.
Of you behind my back,
On your back with other women,
Or worse men.
But you’re always there to calm my fears of betrayal
And kiss me back to reality.
This life is one that,
As far as I know, we only live once.
And we can’t waste it getting caught up in the what ifs of the past,
But we can waste it getting caught up in the wonder of what else lies outside of our grasp.
And we should ponder the unanswered questions of the universe
Because when we can’t sleep at night and
We can’t focus in class and
When we are drowning in the stress that comes with the human life,
We can look up at the sky, and remember
That we are all small.
Specs to the universe and
If the ocean can rise and fall with the moon in perfect harmony
And the birds can fly thousands of miles to warmth
And our dogs can always know when it’s time to eat
Without the ability to read clocks,
Then we can always find our way out of these messes we inevitably fall in to.
I never know any of the answers,
But this life is one worth living,
And I’ll spend it trying to figure it all out.
And I’ll never do my homework.
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 12:06 AM UTC
What is the point in
Poignancy?
*Fragment,
you tell me.
Another one in paragraph three.*
What do words matter?
I have spelled love with Lilacs instead of an “L”
I have drawn the curve of my “O” with the chill of a
Sweeping breeze.
A “V” can only appear as the violet of a
sparkling sky, or I will be unable to read it,
and every “E” will amount to nothing more than
emptiness if the voice it has been given
does not epitomize song.
*Comma-splice,
Replace it with a semicolon.*
I am trying live freely.
I want to breathe in color,
to inhale an orange Savannah sky
And exhale green which
shows through the translucent dew
of grass.
*Unnecessary use of description.
Limit it, Lidiah. Limit it.*
My fingers itch with the ferocity of
A vengeful army.
They are waiting to trample pages with
The lead of my pencil, the bayonet
of a Revolutionary-War-era rifle.
The word limit sounds like tragedy.
A single word that can somehow act as
a precursor,
To the death of passion.
Your words have put you in a box.
People always say
“Actions speak louder than words.”
In a way that is true.
But I also know it to be
a tremendous piece of fiction.
*Lidiah,
Please watch your run-ons.*
Why can our words and our actions
not be the same thing?
Isn’t the act of speaking,
the act of raising your voice,
the act of being heard,
isn’t that an action?
*Lidiah,
how many times do I have to remind you?
Clarification throughout.*
Why have we decided that our words
Mean nothing more than
stepping stones on the road to action?
When did we decide that our voices
which rise like clarion calls,
forever instilling our promises,
are to be left on silent?
Precious jewels set into rings.
Poison in a water tank.
*Lidiah,
what you say is irrelevant
if your MLA bibliography isn’t in
alphabetical order.*
Our words are our actions.
They mean the same.
Words are the distinctions of our beliefs
Illustrations of our personas
They are not mosquitos to be slapped away
and forgotten.
*Lidiah,
paragraph five is too long.
Stop rambling.
Be concise.*
Please tell me,
what is the point of being concise?
*Lidiah,
stop rambling.*
Why do we let justification
equate to useless rambling?
*Lidiah,
you have to detach yourself from the narrative.*
Feelings mean more
than a couple of sentences.
More than a good or a bad.
A mad or a sad.
Comma-splice
What about ferocity?
Never end with a preposition.
What about passion?
Replace this with a conjunctive adverb.
What about the discernable strife
that follows even indifference?
What about that?
*Lidiah,
what is the point of
Poignancy?*
What are we without it?
What does the human soul matter
if we have forsaken the parts of ourselves that
remind us of what a soul is for?
*Lidiah,
you will never be heard
if you do not learn to follow the rules*.
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 1:04 AM UTC
Cheaply manufactured in India
Its fake marbled cover fakier than ever
But not as fakey as this assignment
“Grendl symbolizes existential…”
Cross out cross out crossoutcrossoutcrossout
“Grendl symbolizes…” my senior year
Nobody understands why I don’t want
To go to college, why I quit the band -
Grendl and I are both exiles, okay…?
Cross out cross out crossoutcrossoutcrossout
I love my fountain pen; its deep, dark lines
Just like me
Refuse to be MLA marginalized
“Grendl symbolizes…”
Aug 13, 2018
Aug 13, 2018 at 4:12 PM UTC
The subtle cross between intersections, a life of blurriness, through crossed t’s and neatly dotted i’s I removed from the phrase Poetic Form, (trying to spell it without crossing myself back into it).
From lesbianism to manhood,
to cross what being a man means,
I wonder if my own identity is written in pen and everyone wants it typed and edited,
Yet I’ve taken the plastic keys off my computer board and made them into magnets last week,
Setting myself up with stolen magnets stolen blocks,
Putting them in order on my own fridge,
Scrambling them back because there is no order,
They only told you there was so that way you’d sing a song,
But I know now that I can write words, there’s no need for a pre-prescribed song when I’ve written my own,
In my own words.
When I look back and have pages of songs nobody else asked for or decided to write,
When I’m in class and I pocket my songs into stories and my stories under my low grades,
Under my teachers’ requests for MLA format,
I think of that caterpillar I played with in my room when I was six,
And how i thought about how people only wrote about butterflies
And how the caterpillars felt about that,
So when I asked my mother to ask her friend, an author,
If she’d write me into a novel,
Would she ignore me because I was a caterpillar,
Only choosing to open her mouth and write when my story became beautiful and socially acceptable,
When it grew out from the pubescent disliking of itself and stained the sinks of society,
Out of a hot *** of queer and quarantine,
Till the broth of the fluidity of my own being was was down the rabbit hole
Till all that was left was whitewashed spaghetti?
If these songs were anything I could write down again and again,
In pen, ignoring the requests to write neater,
To type faster,
If I put all my work into an envelope I already broke,
Shove it into a mailbox decorated with things people disagree with,
My pages bleeding ink few people can touch without being soaked,
When they ask me what to file me under
I don’t say “minority fiction” anymore
I say file me under “road signs”
At the intersections.
File me under that caterpillar,
In the wheat field,
Next to hydrangeas on the dinner table
A Sunflower in the spring
The harvested Brown Rice,
So when you make me into a meal I didn’t ask for,
I can be at least eaten by the vegans.
Feb 26, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 at 1:44 AM UTC
I'm sick and the cure is somewhere by your thighs
Or what lies in your eyes
When I get stricken by your pupils
My eyes don't lie
I'm gazing in a area where I know it's amazing
The imprint
Makes my jaws clinch
That tingling feeling penetrates my mouth
There's a puddle underneath my tongue
Hold up let me take care of that
(Gulp)
Yeah the imprint
And the tight denim that fit it
Shorts that's well lifted
Thighs are real gifted
Glazed and smooth
(Oops a drool)
Back to the thighs
The tender side
Right in the middle
Right before the gristle
Can you see the imprint of my missile?
Not all the way stiffened , but the pre still sort of drizzle
I try my best to hide it
As I think of how you can ride it
Ride it
Ride it
Ride it
Rising
Rising
Rising
OH I CAN'T NEVERMIND IT
Let me think of sports
Instead of ***********
(Ok ima try it again)
Ok that space I don't know if it's declared as your waist
But under your navel above your laced
Spell my name with my tongue, scribble over it , erase
Indent a few times
And skip to the next line
Extra credit a perfect heading
I can give it to you just right
What? MLA or APA format?
I can turn the page
The page
Your back page tacked upwards in the air
Takes my breath away
It's a work of art
A mural so well put together and separated at the same time
With a dark tunnel of sensation smack dab in the middle
The best part of that collage is how you're looking back at me for confirmation
And I just draw your attention to the opening of your tunnel
Kind of crafty how you shake while I'm in place
You have more definition than the 3rd
Your silhouette makes me figure that you shape my life
Your sketch draw the line between real and fake
Your art is too curvaceous for any 'ol man hand's to trace
Your art is just so fine and liberal
Your touch is just so sensual and Midas
Your feeling is more like warm apple cider breaking through my cold body
Your taste reminds me of cinnamon or fudge
And when your milk drips I hate for it to miss my lips
I miss those lips
I wish that it was a button that I can click that don't stiffen my wrist to stimulate that ********
I don't need a GPS to locate my CVS
Give it to me
I'm in symphony
Them old fashion home remedies
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 4:22 AM UTC
it might've meant more
if any of the words we used
had actually been ours
though I guess that explains
why when you left
and I looked to see if my heart was okay
there was just an empty space
the veins tied up in MLA-formatted knots
like citations
for all your stolen speeches
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 5:19 PM UTC
this is a reminder of your right to riot
of your right to assemble and not be quiet
this is a reminder of your right to remain violent
and that the only real enemy is your silence
this
is a reminder.
they say a picture is worth a thousand words
but i think i'd rather have my voice be heard
i'd rather write essays formatted perfectly in MLA
fifteen pages due in two days
i know you'll hear me
might not be listening but when someone's shouting
like this, it's hard to ignore
upright uptight baby don't be a bore
(too short, too tight, baby don't be a *****
live life loud,
that's why you've got a mouth
if the pen is mightier than the sword
why do actions speak louder than words?
why is it that by faith i have been saved
but faith without good works is dead
according to the voices in my head
everything i want to say has already been said
i'm a mimicker not a poet
i spit back words fed to me on the internet
i spit back facts from media
i spit back spit that hit my face
regurgitation of information is all part of the game
no one can hear you in space
i could press my face to airtight windows
cross my heart and my fingers
spit my screams into dark matter
what really matters
what even matters
evening out the odds of lasting that long
i thought about writing a list of things that make me happy
but then i decided i'd rather write spoken-word poetry
and i think that probably says something about me
spit it back at me, now
spit it back at me
spit it back at me
i know you can hear me
you're probably not listening but now i'm shouting
so loud you can't ignore
upright uptight baby don't be a bore
(too short too tight baby don't be a *****
upright uptight baby don't be a bore
don't be a bore
don't be a bore
baby baby baby don't let them call you a *****
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 12:46 AM UTC
Learned more from this pain than i ever did from a church.
Listening to your gut but make sure you detox it first.
**** be killin me softly, leave me in a Hearse,
Never a good thing when i hear from you first.
Be careful what you see,
even salt look like sugar,
Maturity is not throwing salt when you know you could've,
And not smackin ******* when you know you should've.
People Be like "oh i miss you"
**** i miss me too.
Had to use these teflon tissues to get me thru,
You not alone, **** i wanna be with me too,
Deadass On some days , smiles were too good to be true.
I be business minded when i be minding my business.
And ****** be ******* and ******* be on some ***** ****
Overcame this novocain,
Recasted the impression of depression,
Ring around the rosary,
Never relying on religion.
Im from a home of funny bones
And My elbows been ashy,
I knew It would take more than macaroni art to kraft me,
And i been itching for this platform
If you ask me,
I used to wonder if i was a real person.
I used to wonder like what's my real purpose?
When i was young ,I taught my shadow to stick to my toes,
When lifes a battle, I fought to stick to mottos.
As a poet i never looked at it this way,
I never booked myself for this reading.
I was overbooked.
I bookmarked my favorite moments ,
I been forever overlooked.
And never understood what "more" ment,
I been overcooked.
The preheating of this season left me bleeding.
This farenheit left me heavy breathin
No fear of heights but Excuse me while I fall from
- grace -
me with your presence and
These broken promises,
Never been transparent to this degree,
Had to leave that monster house.
That was my American horror story.
I used to be couped up,
Had to tell double d to get outta my laboratory,
See mfs want my jazz but not my blues,
They Wanna be in my class but aint payed they dues,
Yall be Morally incorrect,
....More or less...
Lately i been Moralless,
Need to get saved no church bells ,
Put me on the zach Morris list,
These rhymes be like my confessions,
Front row seat to my ascension,
Carry out this life to which we've been sentenced,
Delivery me from evil - with even more incentives,
I dream in MLA format.
Double spaced a letter to my younger self,
Just some **** I wish i told the older me
A ***** laundry list of things I thought ought to be owed to me,
My OCD be blowin me,
Need all my ducks in a row,
My prolonged silence been leading this Crescendo,
Im not playing NO GAMES, fuxk you and your Nintendo.
Mar 10, 2021
Mar 10, 2021 at 10:00 PM UTC
Today we learned the alphabet.
We learned all about consonants,
And vowels, and about how you get
Different words with different sounds
When you compound them.
We learned all about how to end our sentences
With periods,
Except when we intend to indicate a pause
Or a breath, a second to emphasize
The next words,
For that you want a comma.
Next we learned about persuasive writing,
And about how citing is imperative to MLA,
And that Emily has to sign her life away
To the Navy, because there’s no space
For those whose grades fluctuate.
Then we walked a stage
And graduated and got new caps,
The kind that are flat with a tassel.
And then we worked so that we could
Afford the Trazodone to help us
Cope with the sadness.
Finally we were taught how to
Press the red button if we need
The nurse and she’s out of our sight,
And how to lean against the frame
So there’s space for our sheets
To be changed,
And how this machine keeps beeping
Faster and faster and how
Everyone’s seeming uneasy
And how their voices keep getting farther away
As if they’re aboard a ship on the easterlies
And how easy it is to fall asleep
After the beeping ceases.
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 11:06 PM UTC
somewhere, stars hidden by light pollution.
below, girls huddle. in corners, under couches, behind
headboards of cheap bunk beds. girls become gasoline, votaile
and ready to be ignated with a single flame. at least burn down
the house, at least spit out their lithium into an empty water bottle.
okay. i won't get started on the honda civic. it knows what it did.
bad man. bad desire. bad day to be sadgirl. but here, not hell,
not purgatory. girls can't recall anything, for threat
of severance. here, there is no language for joy,
only cheap rewards and the occasional Sour Patch Kid.
when snow falls we play in it and cry. please, don't
call us imprisoned, call it a next step.
i say my own name when i write.
i go out for pizza and sadly, come back.
Jan 15, 2019
Jan 15, 2019 at 10:02 PM UTC
I haven't written about anything serious lately. My mind is pretty occupied these days. I really don't know the reason behind MLA format, why deduct points because I didn't double space. I don't know, it's not so important. Everything is blurry sometimes, reality is pretty awesome once you get the hang of it. Winter is coming, I haven't really bought anything warm in a long time. I don't really regret diving into the ocean of psychedelics, I just think it was really stupid of me to get caught up in them. I'm walking by a group of adults smoking cigarettes, I love the smell. I don't really know why, but it reminds me of a lonely winter in a forest. Maybe one day I'll fully understand why I can never write about one subject at once. Until then, the art of life will be in the same paragraph with the art of death. I was reading this artical on the internet, and it said that the most natural way to die is to die the same way you came out from your moms wound; crying and covered with blood. I've thought of the many ways that could possibly happen, it wasn't that heroic. I'm remembering so much at the moment. I never want to feel any doubt, I've had enough of that. I just want to make people laugh with my stupidity, and have a lot of *** I love sharing thoughts with people, but sometimes I love the satisfaction of being the only one that has access to them. I stopped relying on people this year, I feel different. My priorities are starting to get together throughout time. Keep my heart baby, keep my heart. I found love finally. I used to be buried in whatever feeling that was when we stared at eachother. Although I will never face it, everything I love is going to leave me one day, and that's just real **** I'll say with no doubt, but what's the point? I will always feel for eveything.
Nov 30, 2014
Nov 30, 2014 at 3:13 AM UTC
Surrounded by fire,
we are the gate keepers of this living hell.
Alluded to think we swindled the universe,
yet drowning just the same.
He's never wrote before,
sweet words melted into verses was a world he had yet to touch.
His hands only reached for a bottle, a pack of cigarettes, another mistake.
Lethargy comforted him when others could not.
Constantly labeled, every characteristic has a medication.
Phizer strives to one day cure our personalities.
Bending to fit the mold our parents left on wax paper near the oven,
we scream in the face of society.
Beauty hidden behind half closed lids,
comfort is a brown couch and black coffee with two splenda.
A warrior, fighting for her life in a world that keeps swallowing and spitting her out.
Every day is war and she is both armies.
They ask why we are suffocating,
to be explained in a 5 paragraph essay.
Times New Roman, size 12, double spaced.
Tragedy formatted by MLA 7th edition.
Lost in the chaos,
there are no winners but only survivors.
Eyes filled with doubt we face the world,
exit plan crushed in bags in wrinkled wallets.
She's afraid of his past, his future, his inability to control himself.
My inability to control myself.
We are flight risks, broken souls with misguided dreams.
A lost breed dying by our own hands.
This is our disclaimer
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 2:00 PM UTC
Writing for social change
is strange,
as it seems words can do so little,
write the right message of peace, or accountability
from a place of humility.
You have to actively see and believe,
educate yourself and receive,
knowledge like a digested victual,
you have so much freedom, a gift and not a wish,
share yours on an others' dish!
Find a topic near your heart and soul,
staying silent takes a toll,
the masses can read and won't stay noncommittal,
write an editor or an MLA, MP, the UN and wait and see,
or put it on Hello Poetry.
We may read, we may like, we may make a note,
you may not know the fruit of your planted seed,
until someone, somewhere succeeds
or is freed.
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 12:23 AM UTC
My english teacher told me to write what I really meant to say, so I decided to go about my writing more honestly. I tried to write like a lover would instead of how a poet would. I wrote about how your eyes are cerulean, and that when you laugh, your corneas burst. And I wrote about how you lose track of what you're doing very easily and how I still feel your touch on me hours after you're gone. And I wrote about how you walk like you're on a tightrope which always throws me off because in many ways you're clumsy. I wrote about how it's almost impossible to describe how I feel about you without using caps and how you're so much more than an MLA formatted essay. And you're more than a stamped apology letter, and you're more than a poem to add to my collection. You're more like a novel, you fill the margins with footnotes and I never want to put you down. I want to re-read you until the pages start to fall out and most of them will be dog eared and highlighted, I'm sorry I just love everything about you and I'm also sorry that I've never been exactly what you wanted but please remember that I breathe you in every single day. I fall asleep to the sound of your voice even if I haven't heard it in days and I hear a song and want to show you it. I can feel how good of a person you are because you haven't stopped knocking the wind out of me since we first met. I've always been told that it takes just a spark to light a wildfire. Is that true? I hope so. If it is, then we're going to be set ablaze. Tsunamis roar in your eyes and nobody's dared to tell you to calm yourself. I think it'd be a privilege to drown in your eyes and feel the weight of your insecurites. Have you ever kissed somebody that made you taste colors? Have you ever hugged the sun or told the moon all your secrets? I look at you and I've done all three. But I want to know what the sunset looks like when you're in love with me. Are you in love with me? Is that even possible? I've found the valleys of your spine and studied your cheekbones to make sure they weren't porcelain. I want to hear your voice crack when you speak to me but only because when your voice is cracked I can fill the cracks with mine and that's my definition of a conversation. Everything points towards you and I can't help but love you. I think this is my definition of love. I chose you out of everybody, that's love, right? No, I didn't choose you. I didn't get to choose. You don't get to choose who you love. That's what I've always been told. Yes, this is love. I love you.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 11:57 PM UTC
fidgeting with fickle strings, twisting
pulling and breaking like eye contact
snapping, the sound of teeth cracking
out of the game, out of the ballpark
never hit a home run never had to run home
homeward bound is such a strange term
rooftops sheltering storm clouds
while it downpours outside the windowpanes
pained expressions painted with water
watering down words to find a format
MLA citations of a speeding ticket
slow down there, rockette,
you won’t get anywhere that fast
i’m going nowhere fast now
everything in slow motion now
space cadet, always spaced out
coloring pages with disregard for lines
patterns and patterns and patterns and
ripped out notebook pages covered
pages of equations of how to go
shooting out of this town like a star
burned out down to the core
aging exponentially to fight the decay
termites digging tunnels in the wood now
collapsing haunted houses
housing skeletons and coffins in the closets
closest person turn out the lights
lighting candles like a vigil
candied hearts with a sour aftertaste
tasting pieces of words as they form
syllables, stumbling and tumbling
rolling down grassy hills
bug bites, goosebumps, a chill
just play it cool in the depth of humidity
humility is a lesson to learn in the heat
heating up old left-overs for dinner
left-over bumblebees bumbling bumbling
where is that buzzing coming from now?
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 10:53 AM UTC
I seem to be the only one that knows how to cite my writings anymore (O'Donnell).
Nobody but I understands the difference between APA and MLA
(Which in reality sounds much scarier than it really is).
Yes, citation is more than plugging a URL into citemypaper.net and copying, pasting, repeating.
Don't you ever want to learn to do for yourself and not through asinine websites that get it wrong half the time anyways?
Nobody cares enough to work hard, learn good... Excuse me, learn well.
Nobody gives two ***** about good grades and class rankings.
Just less competition for me, I guess.
But no, this is something bigger than that.
Why am I the only person who cares about where their words come from?
Where are all the people who used to fact check and actually think about what they say?
I just seem to wonder more than others the vitality of truth in words,
Of validity in claims,
And of proof in ambiguous pudding eaten without prior knowledge of its upbringing.
Is it really pudding? Well you won't really know unless you care enough to find out...
And who ever knows if you're speaking words of Gandhi or of Grandma anymore.
Giving a **** used to be something of importance,
Now put to the side with adolescent legend lessons.
I wish I could make you give a **** about this "silly" school project,
But that's not what we're really talking about here anyways.
Works Cited
O'Donnell, E. The Basic Principles of English. Mt. Pleasant:
Elizabeth, September 15, 2014. Print.
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 12:29 PM UTC