Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Dina?
Deanna?
Deena?

What was her name?
A diminutive of something
Or a shortening.
And I don’t even think that I am close

I miss you.

a small concrete table
white
a group of girls
Smoking and smoking and smoking
Trading lipgloss
I don’t remember what we talked about

But I do remember that the meds made you so
Hungry
“Are you gonna eat that?”

That’s how it begins in such places
Passing off a cig
Or trading processed food
Or just giving it away.

Have a lie down
or hand over the pill stored in your cheek
for someone
needier.

You said after your second plateful of anything
Make sure you let me know if I start getting fat

I tried not to follow you around
We had breakfast
Cigarette breaks
lunch and dinner
I could have sat with you all day and night

But I let you roam like a yearling
talking too much to too many people
Spinning around in the hallways
The skinny girl
on the floor doing a striptease on her back
in the streaming sunlight
I could tell
That you got paid for this at some point
Even the imaginary boa scared these boys

You loved to talk about God
I, however, do not

You loved a ****** ******
They were your favorite
and would reminisce with the junkies
Always sitting close-by
You claimed that you could make a man cry
By what you could do to his body
I can only imagine
what you’ve done so far
At your age
and you have a kid

I know
that you’re frightened
to be alone
with your mother
She’s so small
You wouldn’t want to hurt her

And I see her
that one time
with candies and soda
that you made her bring from
the 99 cent store to share
with all these people that don’t like you
that she is
a tiny thing
Yes
anyone could crush her
I see your point.

Deena
Dina
Deana

I can’t remember your name

You’d wake me for breakfast
Or, I you
You said the voices never stop in your head
Not just voices but other strange noises too
You acted like it was
a drag
But in fact you were **** scared

I can hear sounds too I offered
Bells
And Strings
Faint Voices calling my name
Offering succinct advice
Can’t everyone?
Leaning against a wall
with you at my feet
I saw your head snap
To the right
I said
Don’t worry
I heard that too
And you were so relieved
You grasped my feet in gratitude

You said that you are three.
Dread is the bad one
a male
And another
a ****** female who’s name
I can’t remember either
I suggested that there were more
Perhaps.
I met the ***** and I did not like her
at all
In anger I returned your sweatshirt
And you said
You know she’s terrible
I told you that
Take back the shirt
It’s cold

The men here don’t understand
our
Relationship
They assume that it’s lovey
Their minds are blown by
Companionship in difficult circumstances
Holding hands might help you through
You never know until you try

You loved to have arguments over the Bible
I would make a lot of noise to shut it down
I cannot listen to that
You would talk on that phone on the wall
With the father of your child
About god
You missed your boy’s
first day
of kindergarten
You called him on that phone to make sure that he got the plastic truck
or some such toy in your absence

I wonder when you gave up your life
When an injection of Ativan in your ***
and a night
In an darkened empty room
Bound
became an ideal resolution.
You couldn’t figure out
why you had a lump on your head
And I explained that
it was the result of
banging it repeatedly
against the wall.
Side effects of Lorazepam include:
Little recall

You seemed to have a plan.
Visiting and writing up the coast
The Dean Moriarty of Hospitals
But what about your kid?
The doctors say you can’t leave until you’re well
I couldn’t even tell what’s wrong exactly
Or what he’s really trying to tell you
Other than too much too soon
But that’s every girl in LA
Isn’t it?
You said that
It
Emerged at age 24.

I think about your son.
I can’t believe that you have one.
And your mother
Who adopted you.
What did she in fact bring home?

Deanna.
Dina.

When they called to say that my car was here
That I could go
You covered my neck
With kisses
And said Thank You Thank You
I Don’t Know
What I Would Have Done Without You

What is your name?

Dee.
D.
Just the letter.
I remember
Thank you.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2023
met my maker

not for the first time,
two acquaintances periodical,
two boon craftsmen, artisansals,
bs-gab-talking about who is surely
the better poet, glinting, side-splitting,
raucous laughter in our dueling self-mockery


neither takes the other too serious,
but of each other, we take endless,
never satisfied, insufficient, each needier
for the rapper inside and repartee, adoring
our jiving unique camaraderie, all-the-while,
knowing our balance unequal, but not caring


for as equals we meet, to revel and reflect,
revealing things of each other that only we
know, meant not for sharing ever, for these
webbed strands binding, at same time, release,
permitting a tough honesty tally, truth not a concept,
unnecessary, for how could we ever hide our love mutuel


we sitting bestride and beside, in ye old, weather-beat-down
chairs Adirondack, having come hewn from trees centuries old,
now overlooking the Bay, we eyeing a solitary fisherman whom,
we both knowingly aware, metaphor for that day that will come
to collect me away to a new locale, where we will yet still needle
each other, with mercy unforgiving, not for our misdeeds, for never


is forgivenessasked for or given, not taboo, but
holy unnecessary for such is the way the between the
designer and the artifact, the poet and the poem, the craft
and the object, gardener and her fruits, a cellular understanding
that comprehends the interlocking necessity of our natures, that our
shared endings, are a duelity, both finale and gateway to our next poem!





https://hellopoetry.com/poem/462537/how-i-observed-the-day-of-atonement/
10:57 AM THU JUN 29
@you-know-where

the bay has an Algonquin name, and Adirondack  is derived from an Iroquois word meaning “eater of tree bark,” a derisive term bestowed by them upon a neighboring Algonquin tribe.
David Hilburn Feb 2023
Taint, a tender trap?
Blue of the sky, remembered by a cloud:
Faintly, the poetry of life, and its hap
Has the voice to step forward, and remind the season of the proud:

A hatful of poor decision's, has its merit...
But the cool eye of embarrassment
Has come and gone, with meet to understand, limited...
To ours, the count of couth, is one more irony's lament?

Hate me when you see the dragon...
Ought fix and fit enough futures
The life of a needier first, is always a sorrow last, a harrowed tongue?
Has said the obvious, a role in the heinous is a fools curiosity...

Throwing tenderness at you, like one of thumbs even is...
Reasons may give you onus, a variety to concede a gift
Coming for beauty, and its rosy inclination, a truer wisdom
That has survived the heed, the beating wings of condition to lift:

Hate me one more time, a reality of pain has become a champion:
To the fate, the hardened courage of youth, with a challenged whisper?
May a knowing hurt, be the fascinated letter of providence
Seeing the obvious, a bird of purer colors, will finish the kiss?

Guns with an imagination...?
Salt in a brutish court, of angers more, to swear in romantic language
Still the burden of squalor, with a slighter lip of intimation?
Your fruit is sweeter by the secrecy, as if, a cold shoulder ever is a place for rage...
A garden for notorious Rock and Roll, tattoos that made the difference...?
He said I would never forget
the taste of his name
on my lips,

the soft sound of his breath
against my irregular heart
beat

he told me, the first thing
about love was to find the
right cadence of their name
in your mouth,

it was more important than
the brush of fingertips on
naked skin,

hungrier than
the touch of lips on lips,

needier than a thousand goodnights.

My tongue fitted the shape of it,
somehow, and I know a name
by any other rose would taste
bitter, like unsweetened lemonade

and our goodbyes would be the same, passionless, less urgent,
asserting that I would never
forget the taste of my first
love's name on my lips
Ken Pepiton Feb 2023
You can say that again, later, it is -time
lace up the daily bag and pass it
for all private interpretation
removal, from the rumen, to the next
- gaseous we, Huxley called us, 1957

No, this ain't show business, this
is living, made in a made up mind,
being finished doing, just
living.

Making up reasons to dispute liars.

Maybe not a good living, but it's free.
Or paid for, any way.
Bought with a price
my grands won't be forced to pay.
- divided attention makes
- ads obliviate into the mercantile
- classification, in attention econ 101
It's free - this living
in the way well fed children do,
in America, outside the cities;

Joy pursued and grabbed in happy
fistfuls that fill laughing memory bubbles
to store for when these become
the olden days.

No, this ain't show business,
its sacred duty,
work of a thing,
made from a boy who looks
into flies eyes, gazing up
from the bottom of the cup,
a little glazed, perhaps,

owing the fly an easy escape, look away

Tricae,
tricae
"perplexities, hindrances, toys, tricks,"

The collections of thoughts,
the access to held thoughts, knotted
messages
to you
private moments,
time alone, as a mortal human being,
humus built, auto-repairing thing being

being, eh?
One-like, only, or
on-like, only going on and on and on,

becoming fruitful
becoming useful
becoming less and less useful, but
becoming more and more curious
becoming full enough to become superfluous.

Lay preachers can create cushions
for lazy wishers wishing to be comforted,
but the weighing of the worth of comfort,

lay preachers seldom do, to my knowledge.

Terminus gnosis, all I know, my bubble of knowns;
this is it…
a thousand stacks of sensible lines, atop precepts,

strewn beside the trail.
Heavy
heuristic heretical how-to do as I dones,
published by faith in the thousands, litter
the little hills the psalmist asked,
why they writhed and twisted,
as in a dance of anger wishing,

clear channel, me and the truth, today,
just/instance, this/ now.

Free am I, by the faith in me, but you
already
knew that,

don't you?
Don't you know, there is a musing mind,
we wear to bed, some nights,
we lay on memory foam, some nights.

Thinking sorted thoughts, untying lying links,
links to educated guesses fed you as new reasons

to be ever vigilant, ever ready to defend the faith,
the laughing faith of a child, leaping
into the sky

- my grandson, I just learned,
- asked for more math.

No class common man, that is what I am,
on the cusp of next, looking back,
at the mess I left, like a cyclone,
randomly distributing seeds of kindness, specs
by which an idle word can activate troves
of ancient autoresponders, each guessing
what if, what if not,
what if, what if not,
what if, what
if
not now, when. Pop.
Bubbles of been, leave go, go on, think it

through, and passed through, into
the now
where we formed, letters, letting words wait,
sit still, ready
for the reader, ready
to steady the quivering fearful thing,
lost in thought,
stuck in stacks of holy orders, hearer only,
only ordainded doers do the trick,
intricate, folding to make not a paper swan,

too, easy. Make a protein. With no model,
just the idea in the word applied to science,
proper pose, super knowing, proto-life-ish thing,
that is digestible using an infantile nourishing node.

What tricks do you know?, the magi aske Moshe.
Snake from a staff.

From the crozier of goatherd, sure,
we can all do that. What else?
---
Allusions to ever knowing, knowing as old
as knowledge given girls at their flowering,
as old a mystery as any orphaned mother may tell
her great grand daughters,
nobody told me any thing,

but I took it as normal,

As the patient potency prefecting
effectual
fervent
prayer, dramatized, made big as all
art
any
bubbled artifice holding essences,

essential bits of the daily grind to gloss
the leading intellect's reason for being
so shiny,
Klimt golden, as that one kiss I recall,

yes, a facsimile, a memory evocation,

a kiss, golden in that moment, infected
with a feeling
dramatized to be offered to all who see,
intricacies,
khipu twists and loops and bundles and beads,

accounting for dues,
instructing kaballah, pass it on

Excuse me, are you in the right realm,
we feel pluralized,
but you don't fit,
we are uniform,
uninformed,

excathedra, listen up, all eight billion now living, are destined
for certain death,
it is a matter of time, dying once,
can happen anytime,

and if there is a second death, so far,
I never saw any body do it twice,
once truth makes what I am free,
we stay free,
amen,
reception accepted kaballah, et al,
take that greasy grace, feel it,
as the oil ran down Aaron's beard,

and there were no poor denied
starship rations,
until the comet hit and all
but a single mind
blew, into this
a complete fiction,
or another compleat guide to fishing

Imagine the magic of the sailor's accounting book,
envision the magic of levers, and pulleys and cogged
wheels feeling the weight

ping
2023 Gravity driven or gravity powered, is it
one
or the other, when it come be to inspire
first fears
to frame wisdom pools,
at depths we learn
to believe,
prove each participant,
worthy of keeping,
the secret.
Salt of the earth, deep down dehr dat
Caribbean Sea,
shore line fracture,
follow the riverwise road,
any thing you think you must bear,
don't blame,
sometimes it pays, to bend.
Grasshopper Locust practice, for the mind
of an ant.

Wisdom harnessed the fear of God,
put it down,
in other words,
when there was nothing
but E, mass and time being assent
esse, sentient, in sentient and ex
insentience, sapient over lay,
- honeycomb tripe pattern, say
- why not ruminate enclosed
- in a beauteous inner digestive
- recluse-exclusive-sub-science con
ified, tied ligously, fi,
to witty means, and ways we prove
gravity is our friend, driven power for all life,
strong as earth itself, but, we are

in the burning phase,
let me bring you down,
cause being accused, does that
to a stranger
being
entertained, or entertaining, on an aitia
let me
reason,

have you come for more, or do we have
too much
of too many things
to make too much
sense
of any particular reader/writer ifery algorithm,
if then,
else is this, current, slow, nodding, flux,
capacitance
loading axially,
if each mind thinks right once,
today, we have enough,
let's save the world.
- that easy, eh?
global restoration, Christ, yes,
that is the plan.
As the planet was.
Prior to Peleg's days.
Intended to have a single
dry land mass,
Wisdom pushed
for plates meeting
and using ice
at the top
of the world, as seen polaris up,
spinning
in a slow wobble
through four
seasonal positional hot-cool-cold-warm
gyre drivers, saline liquid epicycles, sisters
of the four winds
as a flywheel effect
in the telling times… a little imbalence leaning helps
with the wobble,
in the event,
slim to none,
the odds, but,
Don't Look Up. It could
reoccur, and shall, if
Nietzsche's epicycle

has wheels. Graham Hancock, on clocks…cosmic

Mindspacetime, the elite flight,
secretshitistic, it is, most certain, it is
fantasmic imagining
E not equal any thing, mere words
-jello-timingoooisht
between me and thee,
no point, not one, between the we
we become,
in the final analysis, if you wish,

might
you wish,
long, lazy river readers, re-mind
their lost selves, how innocense felt.

The worth of an unsold story, given
as a gift, as a poor artist might
attempt
a portrait
of their daughter's children

- "that little thing"
Done. As best he could, he believed,
at the time,
as it is
with
everything being as is when we arrive,
we adapt
or become the insane opposition,
to anything,
just
be the counter weight on the pendulum,

keep things swingin'

feel time slide
into the real deal,
at the crossroads
in the wayback seat,
sayin' honey, you ain't here
after what I'm here after,
y'gonna be there, after I'm gone, as  asong
that was
once a joke ended you gonnabe here
after I'm gone, but

seemsayin' eye
squint, see,
way back
when,
we were otherwise involved, affirming
sacred oathes, we swore as children learn
IT being life, whatever,
it don't mean
nothin'
is not a joke, it's ahint, to readers, ready
writing is key to reading,
vertical eyed
qwerty keying is learned,
phone wide,
natural, feels familiar
style adaptation
as cuneiform once was,
years of hearing the same words,
said and resaid, story after story stacked
in
time, measured by stargazers, called, by god,
eyes like eagles, these minds expand, and see
the order of the cosmos,
and the chaos of the collective sub-science

locked by a generational curse on oathes
under the God those kids had in mind,
September, 1954, first day of school,
all across the Wyatt Earp of Nations,
each child not religiously exempted,
stood, right
hand on heart and repeated, as a national
student body, K through 12, a pledge,
local time 9 a.m. nationwide,
not unlike
a true Tenant's pledge of fealty,
as recorded in
The Compleat English Copyholder:
Common and Statute LAW of
England, relating to Manors
and Lords of Manors Et c.
- buzz nod what instance… seven seconds
Sorry, Under God, was added to the pledge
that year, that affectionizes those exposed,
we meander under god, think it not strange.
It’s a legendary trait, we'll all be remembered a bit.
- default modemod is always beguiling temptation
- for temptation sake, win a game, get the rush.
of chasing hares
to where the conies hide,
feeble folk, but they live among big rocks,
reason enough,
use what you know is right,
hide from things that eat you,
that evolves
in nations
with no elders, constant defence mode
peace makers seem
feeble folk,
who knew,
and fell away, impossible to renew,

whoah, zeke play me that riddle,
'bout scrublands being humbly blissed
so long- wayback, anchoring the authority
17
that's me, I
fiddled around
and blew the clearwater revival
to kingdom come, Muddy Waters, aight
and there was hippies, ever whar, swanee,
so I do, I swan no no no no mo
lie like the devil for the sake of church heritage,
holy warrior sworn, heart torn, tears shed, tongues
spoken.
You know, when gravity is taken
in, your weight, sunk
into the reasoning
swung wide
in progress, no aim, past the cloud,
for crying out loud, this is louder than ever,
listen, no
silence
all that
noise, is natural
to persons genitivally, ok, cross
shadowed animus anima imitation,
in your cultural genes, cowgirl
seeing the world a yingyang thang,
with gravity and the E-magnetic shields
allowing systems to com-uni-cate locally,

scarey
indeed

too much,
the scope
of any thing one might think
or ask,
as in what was that rule
of LAW once?
I read
Compleat Fisherman's Guide U recall led
to , yes, The Compleat English Copyholder:
Common and Statute LAW of
England, relating to Manors
and Lords of Manors Et c.
is on Google books, masterfully typeset

Feel free to learn all you will, 'tis all in the Common.

as, by now is much that may have been, otherwise,
in needier times,
less riches, more sorrow,
less sorrows, more riches, peace.

Made that my after all battlefield task,
no mas win or lose.

My side, on the scalar models is gravity empowered,
heavyweight, ancient concept,
gradient slopes
with long lazy loops
on the downhill side,
listening
to kids make all the noise they wish,
two chalk walls away,
in the bubble we all breathe.

To this day, whatever it took, it worked.
Life gets as good as you can make up a mind

to accept, as
this is it,
this is my bit. My close up. To the exact point
where I breathed that bubblierised wedom-opinion

opinion opinion opinion okeh, settle years ago, okay
we all say okeh here, holy ground,
entire collection of recollection on that victory alone.

Okeh, is still the proto voice model, ok.
If you like it, I'd love if you shared it in whole or in part, it is a whole chapter in a novel form of literature, native to the internet age,
type set for vertical receivers
===================
O my most unforgettable poem,
You are the strongest aphrodisiac
Thrilling me softly
Like wild butterflies
Believing in the goodness

Your lascivious words
Imbue high and low intoxication
Champagne kiss captured in mind maze
Enjoying the organized upheaval
I stumble and fall in love
With your silken intimacy

You are just like
My photograph in the frame
Brave half angel
Singing a song without a music

Words I need to express you
Come to me as a flash so easily
As they are needier to fit in you, my poem

Your silken intimacy made me weightless
To fall upon you and
I become your ultimate partner

Written by
~~~Jawahar Gupta~~~
Cheyenne Najee Mar 2014
the boy is at my house again
and he is excited to be away from
a house full of needy children
and needier father

the boy has been hurt in a different 
way every single time he has come over here
I am beggining to worry about him
is it all an accident?

he still hasn't mentioned blue eyes and brown hair
Garland Baldwin Oct 2014
#2
it's awkward and tense. it often is when
every word is read and not heard.
but this is different somehow. it's
forced.
maybe you're busy or i
am needier than i would ever admit.
maybe i have done wrong
again.
i'm getting anxious.
primal instincts kick in. fight or
flight.
i'm getting weaker.
i'm pushing you away with hands that shake
flight.
every time it goes off it isn't you. so
i just stop checking.
flight.
S Bonney Jun 2014
The needier
you are
the
more attractive
the other
becomes.
it's always gonna be something with me
at least that's how it feels
why can't i get over myself
it can't possibly be that hard to heal
first i want loyalty
but that's asking too much
how dare i have expectations
who even gives a ****
then i want patience
and love and support
it's silly to think
i want for even more
i am dying to be consoled
and to look into someone's eyes
and believe them when they say i'm not horrid
rather than expecting it all to be a lie

so the world says ******* to me
for wishing with all my heart
it took a bond i cherished
and shredded it apart

now i'm even needier
i barely even function
every memory stings
it takes an ocean of tears to numb them
the act of betrayal is so severe
i shut down on sight
i need you to be who i thought you were
i need it to be a lie
i need i need i need i need
i need to come to terms
it's all wrong, change it back
but that's just not how it works

i need an explanation
what did i do wrong
tell me what i can fix
show me how to move on
you seem fine
you dont look back
you're happy without me
you never crack
that positivity of yours
is omnipresent
i thought you would miss me
or at least regret it

i need to yell at you
i need to make you understand
how this all boils down
to me questioning who i am
am i a friend
am i the enemy
will i lash out
will i show sympathy
i don't know
i never thought it'd come to this
i trusted you
so i guess it's what i get

i need a sorry
i need to hear the catch in your voice
i need to know you didn't mean it
hear you acknowledge that you made the wrong choice
but i'm afraid i'll disclose
and you won't even blink
what if you never cared
and you never needed me
the way i need you
even in this moment
i'm attached
and everybody knows it

i got my sorry
i felt it in the way you spoke
you never meant to hurt me
you never intended to ghost
but you didn't know what to say
or how to not make it worse
you look back at what you did
and you're disgusted by your words
i know you have learned better
and that gives me peace of mind
but as relieving as this is
something still doesn't feel right

i stay up the whole night
rereading what you said
i cant believe it happened
i'm paralyzed in my bed
laying in a crumple
in a drying puddle of tears
the apology echoes off the walls of my mind
as i go back a couple years
and remember when we  first met
to when i thought you were perfect
then realizing you weren't
****** into the current
of recalling the old us
and comparing them to the new
i have changed tremendously
and i needed to learn you did too

but still when i close my eyes
i feel unstable and ugly
every little thing haunts me
i thought you could trust me
i thought i could trust you
and it's not that i don't now
i just can't shake the feeling
of self-doubt when you're around

i need a sorry
and i got it
forgiven
but not forgotten
in fact i've been haunted
by that stupid conversation
i tried to rush the process of healing
i thought i was being patient
i thought i could just go back to normal
just hug you and say hi in the halls
but i feel so ugly in my skin still
and i hate to admit i think it's your fault
i thought i could trust you
i think one day i might
for now i'm gonna try
but its gonna take some time
and i know it's just a saying
and i'm not trying to burden you with guilt
but i think i'm realizing once the trust is gone
it takes a life time to rebuild
David Hilburn Aug 2022
Pout, Johnny, pout
Since a dare, a driven love...
Sakes alive, the corner of charity we allowed
Is a taste of yesterday, with a tomorrow just because...

A taste of today, with its counter:
And retried misery, with a name to follow?
Reasons in frozen steps, a lip for the founder
That knew the cares of steadfast runs to a little soul...

More than a charisma in worth's timid embrace?
The truth of a voice so enamored, so vanity...
Is a language to confirm nothing, but the place
Of sensibility, the fact we dote is this part of sanity?

Witness me...
Running at the lengths of the notorious land
Success and distances avowed, for a lip that see's
You cry like a child before the world's needier hand

Sands of wishes we never made, without each other
Particular to inner most, if not the hosting, of desire
Last's treasures and finer features, of calling sin a kept bother
Just to show a levity of keep and now, the irony of a liar?

Pennys that dance when kissed, live on the noxious moon?
Stoic jewels of couth, where has an invisible kiss, begun or been?
Looking now in the eye, will we save justice, from all too soon?
The rage of simplicity to quell, the notion we know means...

Yes Johnny, the door swings both ways
The tale of youth and its demeanor, to remember a serious ilk...
Is but a beauty in motion, the turn of sincerity to what has
A paradise in long liberty's, the earning of guidance, for a heard decency's silk...

Long to view, the terror in a praise, we see the cunning...
Of insincerity that will, the around and deserved voice
Of minds adage, minds ability, to question a face still running...
What has a cope become, will a day's lament, become our only choice?
paschelaco Mar 2022
-
and "just like that"
I was back where it all started
I could feel their hands engulf me
the pulling getting needier and harder

"****"

I am not satisfied often but-
with their hands around my neck
to me, there is a constant craving
one that I will be a **** for
I grasped
I could feel my vision going out
there is something invigorating-
I could feel everything slipping away
but all I could say was-

"harder"

closer and closer to the line
that I hope you would cross

I want the pain to match the kind I have in my head

the kind with-
swollen eyes
bruised faces
****** lips
and sore hands

please,

harder

— The End —