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Dust Bowl Jan 2015
I carry my backpack, and the addition thirty pounds of stress that goes along with it.
I carry an MP3 player, filled with 1500 songs that make more sense to me than any math lesson ever has.
I carry a necklace from the 1800's that no one in my family cares enough about to remember who it originally belonged to. We both carry the feeling of being passed along.
I carry a notebook with letters I'll never have the nerve to send. I carry a pen that's been through more with me than any of my friends.
I carry my scraped knees and a tendency to fall to the waste side.
I carry my father's temper like a hot coal in the pit of my stomach. I carry his high expectations and my mother's victim complex. All three of which are, apparently, hereditary.
I carry Chapstick, Neosporin, and band-aids. Because things crack, and things break, and some things tend to cut.
I carry the same mindset as an Oxford comma and a worry of being replaced. We both carry the feeling of not really mattering.
I carry my uncle's divorce, & the way we buried him only a year after the papers were signed. I carry the way his ex wife's grudge is stronger than her children's love for their family.
I carry the dream catcher my dad keeps in his room, the one I got rid of years ago when I realized nothing would keep my nightmares away.
I carry the time my hero had his heart broken and spent the next year at the bottom of a bottle.
I carry the headstone that marks the beginning of my abandonment issues.
I carry a .037 fl oz tube of eyeliner in the hopes that no one will mess with a girl who always looks like she has two black eyes.
I carry a pre-med major that will never make me as happy as it will make my parents. I carry my family's hopes on my back & the way I feel like an emergency room with no more room left for patients.
I carry my best friend's name like an obituary I never got to read. I carry the way his head hit his windshield faster than it ever hit my lap, and the way I've hated sitting in the driver's seat ever since. I carry the way I never want to be invited to another funeral & the way each body they've buried makes me feel like I'm already 6 feet under.
I carry the mattress I slept on as a child. Pink flowers & blue satin & cold sweats detergent couldn't fade. The one I spent an entire afternoon scrubbing bloodstains out of, hoping my mother wouldn't notice when she changed the sheets. She never did, or at least she never asked, and sometimes I still wish she had.
I carry how my friend thinks her high school boyfriend breaking up with her is the worst that could happen, and the way I hope she always does.
A response to "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien (a book I HIGHLY recommend).
jennifer Jun 2015
He came.
Wielding Neosporin. & hot chocolate, Housed in a thermos, safe
Temperature keeping of course.
Snacks too, always
Sweet.
Honeybuns maybe, or a cake, itself
Housed in plastic, the cellphane type.
Undoubtedly he had read
Somewhere that we
Love sweets, they help us
Thru the absence of what we really
Crave.
So here he came, in a
Glorious naivety, an
Ignorant hope.  He
Found me while I was distracted, busy
Inhaling summertime on a
Paper plate.
Bland burgers,  burnt hot dogs, Watered-down soda, and
Soggy chips, these the
Staples of a barbecue.
I don't know whether it's the
Charcoal or the
Vitamin D, but somehow that
Flimsy plate full of food is the best Thing you've
Ever had,
Delicious,  tasting of smiles and
Tan lines,
Green grass and flip-flops,
Fun and relaxation.
As I took it in, he
Approached,  sidekick in tow,
Of course, carrying a book,
That book, the one none of us
Wanted to see or touch, much less
Read.
I thought about running, knew I could.  But, my
Blissful escape on paper had been
Provided by the neighborhood
Church.  My
Mother had instilled enough
Manners in me to know that in
Exchange for this happy memory Inducing
Food, the
Least I could do was listen to his
Spiel.
I did listen, then I
Excused myself. He,
One more person
Met and forgotten in moments.
Except he came
Back
Again and again,
Praying and talking
With all of us,
Bringing with him snacks:
Honeybuns frosted with an icing that left the aftertaste of
Hope, hot chocolate  
Accessorized with
Faith marshmallows. Neosporin to Heal
Scars, result of
Needles and of memories.
He kept coming,
Wouldn't give up; probably he
Couldn't.
Kept trying ,
Trying to penetrate the
Fog, we've all aquire. Fog of
Protection,
Fabulous fog keeping everything at a
Distance, slightly
Blurry, too
Distorted to
Hurt.
To get thru that fog, to make it
Dissapate, would be nothing short of a
Miracle. One that he
Wouldn't be able to
Produce.
We'd all sit
Politely, listen to him,
Wishing we could
Hear him,
Knowing we
Couldn't.  Because he
Wasn't human to us.
Too perfect,  too saintly,  too
Godly.
Unreal.
The equivalent of the
Mall Santa:
Visible, touchable sure, but that didn't make him any more
Real.
Until that day,
That day we talked
Hair.  
1 self-deprecating joke & I learned he
Wanted better hair,  the
Patrick Dempsey kind,
Thick, flowing. His
Desire for that meant he was
Vain,
Insecure,
Human.
Human meant I
Heard, meant the
Fog was still there, but he was
In it,
With me,
Willing to wait for it lift.
He willing to wait, I willing to
Hear.
He came,
Wielding neosporin, hot chocolate,  
Honeybuns. And
Glorious naivety with a side of
Ignorant hope, the
Best kind of hope, really the
Only kind.
Naivety and hope. That
I inhaled, like
Summertime on a
Paper plate.
R Apr 2013
Ah, bestfriend! You're back!
What a wise one!
I can't say I've missed you, but
I can tell it's been awhile.
Want a drink?
I'll gladly stay for awhile!
It's been several months
Since I last saw you.
You helped me heal my
Wounds.
And you helped me with my darkest fears.
I'm glad you're back,
Things might be easier now.
K Cash-Staley Oct 2013
Band-aids to prevent the social infections that could eventually
spread to the frontal lobe,
Diseases started on Fox News, spread to the living room,
circulate around the family dinner table
putting victims of ignorance on the coroner’s slab
Alleviate the pain.
Should we let the gapping wounds of intolerance fester, decay and grow maggots?
***** bigotry, vile illiteracy, primitive ideas coat the skins of society like a black goo.

Band-aids: self adhesive bandages
We aren’t teachers. We are medics.
covering the gapping wounds of life
lathering the lesions with Neosporin.
Healing the scars from parenting gone wrong
- scars from wounded self-esteems
-lacerations to the proverbial heart

Scars lasting longer than the body itself.  
No one knows where its impact will end.

Band-aids
temporary fix
heal the wound fast, heal the hurt faster
A Johnson and Johnson remedy for damaged organisms
Well-meaning ones hurling scriptures scald hands with tainted words
Healing is a matter of time.

Arm teachers to protect children from the crazies who loom?
What will protect them from their own inherited ignorance?
The damage is already done when they get here.
Equip us with Band-Aids, boxes and boxes.

Hello Kitty over their ears to block the infection from coming in
Spiderman for their mouths. Stop the seepage of any contamination from spreading to others.

The remaining scars will fade, but not disappear.
even with a band-aid.
I had never felt so whole before in my life. Not that my life had been particularly interesting or wholesome or rewarding or even long, for that matter. In fact, I was relatively an infant. The great mystery of life was something I promised myself I would solve. But somehow, for that one specific moment in my brief existence, I found myself feeling quite content. It was a moment unlike any I had witnessed before, that I could remember, at least.
I have no recollection of my childhood.  I have two memories. Only two. Two faded, crumbled, sketchy, detached, painful memories. And to my dismay, the first memory is of a moment where I was being chased by my cousin’s dog, and then: falling, and sliding, and wailing; the stucco cement erasing the skin on my legs, leaving shreds of flesh on the heather grey sidewalk. I heaved myself up and ran to my aunt, wobbling and wailing and whining all the way.
She sat me down on the edge of the table, and picked the gravel and dirt and stones out of my shredded skin. Or, what remained of my skin. After that, she found a tube of Neosporin +Pain Relief ointment, and slathered it generously from my thighs down the front of my legs, to my knees, and down my shins to my ankles. And since the damage down was so widespread, there was no single bandage to cover the new landscape of my legs.
My aunt came up with the most reasonable solution, I suppose, and took a box of Band-Aids, and emptied it onto the table, and began unwrapping them one at a time, and placing them, one at a time, onto my legs, in the most strategic way possible, covering the most ragged, tattered, ****** shreds of flesh first, and then, with the remaining Band-Aids, she covered the less pulverized areas, until there were no more Band-Aids.  And then the box was empty, and so a second box she brought to me.
She handed me a cluster of tissues to wipe away the tears that were slithering down my face and dripping off my chin. And so incessant were the tears slithering down my face that my reddened cheeks began to burn. They began to sting and itch, and so my eyes began to dry out of pure sympathy for my cheeks, and so the box of tissues was saved from the same fate as the box of Band-Aids.
No wonder I am deathly afraid of dogs. And luckily, allergic. But I digress. My second memory, of my childhood, escapes me at this moment. They tend to come and go, and only when I truly focus on them often, and bring them to the front of my mind nearly ever day. But in the interest of my story, my second memory isn’t that important at all. Or perhaps it is, but I cannot remember.
Now back to the moment of wholeness. I had spent an exorbitant amount of time, focusing on a rising darkness welling up deep inside me, somewhere in my chest, behind my lungs, deep in my very soul. In that moment, I was sitting on my bed, with my knees tucked up under my chin, hugging my legs against my chest. I was searching for some amount of comfort or release from myself. But I could not find any.
Since I couldn’t find anything remotely helpful inside myself, I climbed out through the window onto the roof. And I sat on the sharp rough shingles. I felt the stucco texture under my skin. And I traced the scar on my right knee. And I unconsciously held my breath, remembering the pain of one of only two memories. Then I exhaled and blew away the stale breath in my mouth, and let my shoulders drop down and my eyes closed.
And I realized, on the inhalation of my next breath, that when I had stopped searching, for just a fraction of a moment, I was content. I got quite nervous, for a second, and became frantic, for I feared that once the moment was gone, the darkness would once again rise.  But I found in several seconds, that the moment wasn’t gone, and the darkness hadn’t reared its head. I found that the simple unconscious reminiscing of a moment from years gone by, the simple pausing in my racing thought, opened me to a world of contentment. In that moment, I ceased to strive.
I see so many ads now
they feed into my insecurities
and help me to notice everything that is wrong with me.

"Got stretch marks?"
they ask, and my eyes shamefully
trace down my chest to my inner thighs and I learn to hate what I see.

So I read on, hoping to learn
how to get rid of the natural signs of an ageing vessel
"Neosporin, coconut oil, and olive, and they'll be gone in a week."

The ads proclaim, and so I do as they say
because how can I be pretty
if no one else thinks me so?

"10 Tips on How to Get the Relationship of Your Dreams"
"5 Signs that You're Not as Pretty as You Think You Are"
"4 Things to Try to Spice Up Your *** Life"

"1 Way to Tell Whether the Creepy Old Man on the Corner Thinks You're Worthy of Being Catcalled by Him"

I read on, trying to understand what it is to be pretty
but the more I see,
the more hopeless I become

Men will only ever see me as a piece of meat,
just a pair of **** and an ***,
only there for their enjoyment or pleasure.

but I am not here to make things easy,
I am more than the sum of my parts,
more than my cellulite and hip dips

I revel in my stretch marks
I have grown into the woman I am today,
and I refuse to erase the proof of that.
I am not here to be a ******* incubator. I am not here for man's pleasure.
Murphy Lynne Sep 2014
Numbing from the sting of life
Neosporin is the razor
The band aid is blood
Anesthesia is working
Numbing from the loneliness of life
He says "Geek Poet!
Leave the politics alone
Stick to Pop culture"

Cousin.
Politics ARE Pop culture.
don't you see?

in a world where businesses
buy natural disaster insurance
In fear of presidential tweets
McDonald's burger vending machines
You think this isn't dystopia?

We play games to escape.
where can we go
when the "real world"
is just as scary
upside down?

Tell me, Cousin.
Where do you write your poetry?
is it safe?

Do you surround yourself with muses?
back turned to a naked woman?
is there whiskey on the bar,
A journal,
your favorite pen?
Your cell phone,
clentching in the public restroom?

because no matter where you are.
that sanctuary
is a ******* pillow fort
compared to the Fort Knox
of an artists imagination

politics ARE pop culture
China is throwing unfathomable
amounts of money into Propaganda
targeting millennials though memes.
Fish don't see water, remember?

You are telling me
I can't write about politics.
There are Americans
who have never voted,
Radical left and right facebook profiles
protecting and attacking A Racist,
selfish, blemish on our history.
you wonder why we are scared, Cousin?

You want to know why I am so loud?

I watch Men step alligator shoe
out of Boston limousines
Slicked back hair straight
from wolf of wallstreet
belligerent screaming
"I do what I Waaaaaaant!"
"She does what she waaaaaaaaaaaaants!"
"We do what we waaaaant!"

This is the world
we're escaping from.
Excuse me if I break
from the zombie jokes
The vampire romances
Focus on the dead bodies
in our own city, Cousin.

Our demons are real now.

dystopian literature
called for the 2017 election
as far back as the 1930s'

Senator Buzz Windrip
from "It can't happen here"
by Sinclair Lewis
makes promises
to "return America to a better time".
back in 1935

buying validity for his ideas
in airtime on the radio,
tarring those who disagree,
as tools of mother russia,

dismissing woman,
as silly socialists.
naming the press
"a lot of irresponsible wind bags."

In the book "Parable of the talents",
Octavia butler Predicts a "Pox" In 2015
Wiping most of the population.
President Andrew Steele Jarret
promising to return the country
to an "Older Simpler time".
She wrote this book in 1998

Want to learn how to defeat Trump?
Read "Our Twisted Hero,"
by Yi Munyol

Read "In the Heart of the Valley of Love, "
by Cynthia Kadohata

All of these Dystopian fantasies
Prepare the Geeks
to rise up and fight.
Pop culture is the only thing saving us
Knowledge is the only thing saving us
Standing up,
Making art,
Being loud
is the only thing saving us
from the red button
in the orange hands
of the man who NEVER Had
the best words,

Because we do.

Repeat After me:

We The Artists
The Geeks who shall inherit
Swear to protect our words.
We will not bow,
bend,
or break.
Ink is the blood of prophets
The voice is a weapon

Excuse me if I fight
For education over distractraction.
Forgive me for preaching
Art as our gospel.

you can't Incite Revolution
by throwing dice at ghosts.

I am sick of being tall
because my friends
are too busy crawling
I'm putting all my stat points into
inspire

Let me incite placebo healing
for a small fraction
of the tortured
anxiety pretzels I walk along
each day.

I will spit
on anxiety paper-cuts
from this paperback of bigotry
in our future history
labeling myself neosporin prayin'
God,
PLEASE
let me be charismatic enough.
i wish i stayed inside my mother, never to come out:

i. i have never cried over spilt milk but have shed tears for the broken teacup, mug, glass, whatever receptacle was forsaken of its usefulness out of my carelessness.

ii. i'd be lying if i said i could walk on eggshells. i used to walk on tiptoe, in fact, until my mom flagged it as a mark of low self-confidence, along with the way my eyes wandered when i spoke with someone, the subtle hunching of my spine, the supposedly feminine instinctual crossing of my legs. i thought it quirkiness: heels and eyes to the skies, always eager for new, new people, new things, new stories. something uniquely mine. how many of these little badges we once wore with pride have become our downfalls, our faults?

iii. multiple times a year, my gut blisters and tears itself apart. the first image that comes to mind is the fizzy alka-seltzer tablets my grandparents used to consume daily, wreaking their minute devastation upon a tepid glass of water. the scar tissue forming over the unseen ulcers are reason enough for my body to score the natural seam once again. it’s a fire i have inherited from my father, who in turn inherited it from his mother. has my own flesh become so infatuated with pain that it has forgotten what it means to heal?

iv. i am starved of light. there is a switch within me, that when on, illuminates the night sky to oblivion, olber’s paradox impossibly fulfilled. because when the sky goes dim, when the temple curtain is torn in half, i will burn so that you may see, so that you may live. like amniotic fluid, i will envelop you, encase you, sustain you: my breaths shall be yours, my blood shall be yours, my words shall be spoken from your lips, so you will never know that starvation like i did. constellations be ******, i will always be here for you whether you like it or not. there is a switch within me, and it is at once exhilarating and terrifying that you can flip it with a single word. why do i let you have that power over me?

v. i often wonder why this body, why this time. i have loved you so long i am not sure who i am exalting anymore, whose clay feet i am choosing to be oblivious to. you are my first musing in the early morning and final contemplation at night. i always forgot than we only ever reached almost heaven. the subtle understanding that what i can give you will always be too little, too much, too late, haunts me.

vi. i could never do earbuds, the sound waves ever-close to my cochlea, rattling the fluid inside its whelk-like cavity. no, i always needed distance: over-ear aux audio jack headphones distance. and when i couldn't afford distance, i made it, making do by cupping the speaker of my phone by my ears. like a smoker setting their cigarette alight, i knew to relish this small ritual of procrastination and retribution, quietly wishing for someone to share this feeling of lungs and heart dilating and contracting with me. music is my vice and my medicine, and it hurts me that others will never know the sublimity of the way a song makes me feel.

vii. i was once told by an almost-lover that walking barefoot in hotel rooms in disgusting. as a self-proclaimed germaphobe who (rather shamefully) does this, how could i have overlooked the reality? it only occurs to me now what ****, *****, sweat, ***** has seeped into the nondescript dark carpets, trace particles clinging to my heels. but i am no stranger to disgusting things, am i? no amount of handwashing, disinfecting, abstaining, good eating, or prayer could atone for my sins, could make me feel cleanly again. you are filthy, an animal among men: for what is hedonism but survival in the crude wild? i believe in a god who will pass judgement where and when it's due. was it so wrong of me to want to make a temporary home feel permanent? to forget about the dirt and grime that has settled upon this body over the years and yearn for the innocence i've so mercilessly slaughtered?

viii. once, a woman who was jogging tripped and fell on the sloped pavement in front of our old home. many passersby came to her aid immediately, offering hands and emergency phone calls. i couldn't have been more than eight, but i saw from the office room window and knew what i had to do. i grabbed a singular tube of neosporin and a handful of band-aids, running out the side door without letting my parents know. as i came closer, i saw blood peeking behind thin tattered veils of torn skin, like the sun through woven drapery. the sight was dizzying, and empathy pain shot up my arms and legs, mirroring the crumpled woman on the ground before me. i gingerly proffered the neosporin and much-too-small bandages, hands shaking. she managed a laugh, causing the small crowd that had accumulated to laugh as well, and said she'd be okay. my parents later chastised me for approaching the stranger but commended my "heroism", also stifling laughter. i've learned now that the thought is not the only thing that matters, and while i miss that sense of resourcefulness and utility, i pity the children that are taught otherwise.

ix. the soul of a stranger i hold dear knows not its limits. the sand continues slipping through my fingers, the people run their daily races. i am estranged from being, and it prickles at the nape of my neck like embarrassment upon answering the question wrong.

x. what you see as my weakness is not my weakness. wearing my heart on my sleeve may not be my strength but it is not a ******* weakness. i will give second chances, third chances, fourth chances, hell…i will give people all the time they need to grow because i know that, one way or another, they will. real people are not book characters. there will never be a tidy box to neatly file them away like one of the peter pan collar blouses in your closet, no definitive label either of us can ever bestow upon them. i love. i get hurt. platonic, romantic, it is all the same for me. but i will return to places i’m unwanted, the forlorn puppy, mangled and bruised, i will try time and time again to work on people and help them. this is my obligation, my prerogative. for every one of your hands retracted, i will extend mine in fellowship and camaraderie, taking keepsakes of thorns or roses. i will try because people like you will not.

xi. there are so many things that i want to scream with all my soul, but i fear being written off as mediocre, crazy, or worse yet, incoherent. i fear that people will not understand my messy prose and ramblings, that i will not be seen for who i am. you are nothing. you exist on a contingency, a technicality. you think you earned your way in? you are pathetic. there is no amount of catch-up you could play that would indemnify your pitiful existence. the stars were your playground until it all came crashing down....now, there is nothing left out there for you. i'm sorry to those whose boundaries i violated, whose weary faces i smothered with what i mistook to be affection. the world did not deserve to be burdened by me.

xii: can you not be happy that i can breathe now? do you have to bleed me dry of what precious remaining energy i hoard for myself? let me be selfish, let me be vain, let me indulge the machiavellian predilections i repress. how nice, how lovely must it be to have someone to be there to give you instant attention, constant gratification, always a shoulder to lean on but never one to cherish.

xiii. it's okay, no really, it is! i understand! you don't have to acknowledge me. i know sometimes i get a little caught up in the irony, the asyndeton, the metaphors and similes and aphorisms i wear religiously, seborrheic and unnecessary. know that i am nothing without my -isms and -izations and holier-art-thou judgement. i don't think my friends understand that i feel less than human in their presence, because since childhood, i knew if nothing else, i was endowed with mediocrity as my birthright. i implore those i love to leave, stop reaching out if conversing with me ever becomes a chore. i ask in earnest because the last thing i want to be is a burden, an outstanding box to tick on a checklist...i ask but i fear their response.

xiv. ergo decedo. therefore, leave, or so the fallacy goes. i have no mind for rhetoric or satire. i had the nicest plans, but dear god does not want it that way. this is goodbye.
inspired by doc luben's 14 lines from love letters or suicide notes.
He says "Geek Poet!
Leave the politics alone
Stick to Pop culture"

Cousin.
Politics ARE Pop culture.
don't you see?

in a world where businesses
buy natural disaster insurance
In fear of presidential tweets
McDonald's burger vending machines
You think this isn't dystopia?

We play games to escape.
where can we go when the real world is
scary as the upside down?

Tell me, Cousin.
Where do you write your poetry?
is it safe?

Do you surround yourself with coffee?
Turn your back to a naked woman?
is there whiskey on the bar,
A journal,
your favorite pen?
Your cell phone,
clentching in the public restroom?

because no matter where you are.
that sanctuary
is a ******* pillow fort compared to the
Fort Knox of an artists imagination

politics ARE pop culture
China is throwing unfathomable
amounts of money into Propaganda
targeting millennials though memes.
Fish don't see water, remember?

You are telling me
I can't write about politics.
There are Americans
who have never voted,
posting radical left and right facebook posts.
protecting and attacking A Racist,
selfish, blemish on our history.
you wonder why we are scared, Cousin?

You want to know why I am so loud?

I watch Men step alligator shoe
out of Boston limousines
Slicked back hair straight
from wolf of wallstreet
belligerent screaming
"I do what I Waaaaaaant!"
"She does what she waaaaaaaaaaaaants!"
"We do what we waaaaant!"

This is the world
we're escaping from.
Excuse me if I break
from the zombie jokes
The vampire romances
Focus on the dead bodies
in our own city, Cousin.

Our demons are real now.

dystopian literature
called for the 2017 election
as far back as the 1930s'

Senator Buzz Windrip
from "It can't happen here"
by Sinclair Lewis
makes promises
to "return America to a better time".
back in 1935

buying validity for his ideas
in airtime on the radio,
tarring those who disagree,
as tools of mother russia,
dismissing woman,
as silly socialists.
naming the press
"a lot of irresponsible wind bags."

In the book "Parable of the talents",
Octavia butler Predicts a "Pox" In 2015
Wiping most of the population.
She wrote this book in 1998

Andrew Steele Jarret
becomes president
promising to return the country
to an "Older Simpler time"

Want to learn how to defeat Trump?
Read "Our Twisted Hero,"
by Yi Munyol

Read
"In the Heart of the Valley of Love, "
by Cynthia Kadohata

All of these Dystopian fantasies
Prepare the Geeks to rise up
and fight.
Pop culture is the only thing saving us
Knowledge is the only thing saving us
Standing up.
Making art.
Being loud
Is the only thing saving us
from the red button
in the orange hands
of the man who NEVER Had
the best words.

We The Artists
The Geeks who will inherit the earth
Swear to protect our words.
We will not bow, bend, or break.
Ink is the blood of prophets
The voice is a weapon

excuse me if I use Mine to educate
rather than distract.
Forgive me for spitting on anxiety paper-cuts
from our government
paperback of bigotry
labeling myself neosporin
praying God, PLEASE
let me be charismatic enough.
Let me incite placebo healing for a small fraction
of the tortured anxiety pretzels
I walk along each day.
I am sick of being tall because
my friends are too busy crawling.

I will preach Art as our gospel, Cousin.
You can't Incite Revolution
by throwing dice at ghosts
Our Pop Culture IS Politics.
I'm putting all my stat points into inspire
Watch how high I roll.
Watch it Live here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9SKRpLx4LyE&feature;=youtu.be
Shay Ruth May 2014
I am missing the spoon for the sugar bowl.
Rippled like rocks licked by the Pacific in the 60s
It is somewhere away, shining like tails of Peter Pan’s Pixies.
Looking down into the glass opening, the hole
Is now occupied by a plastic fork I kept from a bagged lunch Wednesday.

I used to scoop a mountain of crystals onto a perforated
Paper napkin, the sugar camouflaged above its blank stare.
Grandma would grace strawberry fields before my chair.
The scarlet berries plucked by her arthritic fingers, dated
And bursting with memories of great-grandpa’s farm in Cokato, Minnesota.

I will never drift away from that healing kitchen counter,
Not away from the times gingerbread dough, spread
All around it or the Neosporin smeared across the thread
Of seams of cropped shorts as I ran out to bike more, even louder.
Never could I forget Minnesota summers when she wasn’t so frail.

After all, I need a sugar spoon, so I can’t break away
So easily. I have to attach and remember popping cans of Coca-Cola
And live between those memories, not perceive them as fables and tales.
Lauren R Aug 2016
A locked box has the bodies of three different birds, all blue, all lyricists, all beautiful and stuffed with Xanax and newspaper. I paid my childhood best friend's brother to taxidermy them, stitch up their stomachs once and for all.

My closet only has memories. A bracelet with a feather on it that smells like fear, looks like betrayal, **** dealer, track pants, self-proclaimed whiny *****. A painting I made when I was six. All the pills I stole from my boyfriend, thirty-seven. All the pills that would've knocked my world out cold, skin cold, heart still, pulse still, veins finally at rest. A knife a psychopath gave me. Yes, he was a romantic, and yes, he did ruin my life, so in essence, still just a romantic. A fox hat I bought standing next to one of my under appreciated best friends, recovered anorexic. He's at college right now, falling in something close to love, probably another early grave. A too big teddy bear from someone I thought was the formula for the speed of light once. He's trying to force feed pills and slip **** into all my friend turned surrogate son's sentences. I am wishing I could lay a curse on his name. His mother already did it for me.

A drawer beside my bed, packed full of ****. Candy wrappers, gum, crumbs, marks of my self-proclaimed obesity, all 120 pounds of me feeling like the weight of the world and everyone's eyes. My inhaler, because these lungs don't want me to run. Pictures and letters from the ones I love, because I'm a romantic. Plastic dinosaurs, dried flowers, pennies, dimes, lotion, Neosporin, a deck of Tarot cards.

I'm just a vessel for all the things I can't fit inside my mouth. I can't tell into you what I've seen, I can only pull out the receipts. I can give you the ****** tissues my boyfriend handed me. Tell me how your stomach retches. I can give you the poem a crazy person wrote me. Tell me how you feel his void. I can give you my heart. Tell me how heavy it all is.
Pack rat
B Jul 2013
I'm gonna make it
I told you now
I'm gonna make it
told you before
I'm gonna make it
They can try to stop me
patience
I'm gonna save it
success
I'm gonna crave it
Haircut
gonna fade it
My soul
won't have to trade it
gonna get it
how I want it
Gonna prove to everyone
who left me
doubted me
thought I was boring
left me in the rain
cut me deep
with no neosporin
They're gonna see it
what they left
gave away
I'll make pain my slave
I forgive
but never forget
who I am
and what they made me became
I have come so far
keep going
see the hope
A smile
I'm not gonna fake it
Take the hits
keep going
I'm gonna make it
JCkilledme Nov 2013
you miss childhood so much you try dressing like you would if you were seven again.
sneakers and frilly socks.
big t-shirts and messy hair, because you’ve stopped caring about perfect hair.
you don’t mind getting your knees ***** or scabs on your shins.
those pains don’t make you flinch.
those pains don’t talk to you at night.
those pains don’t hurt like the hurt you’ve really felt.
the type of hurt that can’t be pin pointed or fixed with copious amounts of Neosporin.
you don’t worry about how you’ll feel in the morning until the morning comes.
you bite the skin off the tips of your fingers like your aiming for the bone.
because the stress and pain hits you bone deep.
bone deep.
its almost romantic sounding.
but isn’t being so broken such a romantic thing anymore?
sad music doesn’t even phase you.
its all you know. instrumentals lined with tiny violins and crying cellos.
you lay back in the grass and close your eyes. you try forgetting about the city surrounding you. the heat rises from the pavement and grips your lungs like my hands grip the small of your neck. the sun beats down on you like you owe it money.
but you don’t sweat.
this is the small stuff.
ice coffee and a bagel with cream cheese.
start your day happy.
fall apart at the end.
repeat. things get better.
then they get worse.
three months of total bliss for three months of total ****.
thats the way life works right?
it always gets better though.
be still.
01:39 on a Wednesday and I realised no, it's not like the way water effortlessly flows down the window shield just to get swept away by the wiper

my love isn't elegant, and there's no point in me pretending to reshape it; think a hurricane, a tsunami, a natural disaster; think beds collapsed under the weight of too much love, think lips so raw blistex wouldn't stand a chance to heal them, think new memories being made everyday so that eventually you stop living in the past because your brain tells you this is it - this is what it was and what it will be [even if just for an hour]

put into context a shade of red somewhere between maroon and magenta and then throw it on a white canvas, see how beautiful it becomes only when it encompasses everything, when it becomes one with that paper holding it up; do not fear my love, please; let me spread around and let me be the one to give you colour, let the bleak melt away

don't let your mind wander to tape because i won't tape any holes I see or scars I run across; I'm not a doctor and never learned to be one

BUT, I will help: I'll be there with your favourite beer, there with neosporin in handy just because I've learned a little sting in the beginning is worth a lifetime of infection, standing there in your favourite shirt and purposefully letting you see that height is just a number and bruises are just colours of memories once lived

01:40 and I think I realised that somewhere in between being a hopeless romantic and being numb I've lost myself, bits scattered in blankets and sheets long laundered after me; I've realised that I don't know what I can and can't give, and I've realised neither does he

here it is: think. think the earth and the moon. think gravitational pull and how the moon is pulled back to the earth if for nothing else because there's some kind of connection it can't control. now think us, and tell me: is it not we're the Galaxy?
KD Jan 2014
Yesterday. The idea of the past. The belief that what we do can become what we have done; what we say, what we have said; who we love, who we have loved. To have the audacity to believe that our shadows can no longer follow us once we step away from them. Growing up, we've all heard the saying at least once. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." But they do. And they leave the deepest scars that we hide deep in our heart, locked up like a child that wants to go outside and play but his mother doesn't want him to come home with a scraped knee. But that's all it is. A minuscule wound that can be healed with time, and maybe a little Neosporin. By no means does that mean we should hide from the pavement because we fell off of our bike one day. We must remember that yesterday was once tomorrow, and tomorrow will soon become yesterday.

-k.d.
Taylor Evans Apr 2013
I am from band-aids
    From scraped knees and Neosporin.
I am from the gravel
    That seperated my feet from the hard ground.
    (Covered with the color of gray,
    But felt red hot under the sun's rays)
I am from the backyard,
    From the lilac bush,
    Whose roots are still buried deep
    in the earth.

I am from the Hundred Acre Woods,
    From Pooh Bear and Christopher Robin.
I am from knock-knock jokes,
    And non-stop giggles,
    From water colors, markers, and cayons.
I am from Cherios
    With sugar,
    And early fall mornings.

I am from my grandmother's embrace,
    With watered down coffee
    And the Sunday newspaper.
I am from my mother's eyes,
    Who's deep brown pigment matches mine.

At 6512 Orbit Way, you will find a house,
a home. A capsule of memories,
Laughs and giggles,
moments of peace and heated debates.
I am from that capsule.
Where I'm from is woven into
every thread and fiber that is me.
Written in 2009 as a high school freshman assignment. Using the structure of the well know "where I'm from" peom. Who by? I cant remember. Sorry
Hank Roberts Mar 2014
My alphabet has grown
and torn grown and torn and grown
into a celestial vortex of melting letters,
words, phrases, and lame
euphemisms that sputter out
and capture the essence
of America the Blue, America the black
and blue, with band-aids on her
knees and elbows. Her porcelain
body is chipped and her hair is
the wig in the hat she wears.
Her natural fingernails are
now  plastic with worn paint
while her hands are wrinkled
and dry from neglect. Where the
measurements of data are scoffed by
the word of God and stories of
fear, retribution, and revenge travel
with the breeze no matter how  
many think the old winds are gone.
Where engaging is done in the
far reaches of cyberspace and
face to face is day by day.
Where the focus is on old highways
to old solutions instead of how  
the new problems allow us to roam.
Where there's no Neosporin behind
the band-aids only making
them so capable.
Willow Branche Jul 2014
Nothing can heal a broken heart.
Not a bandaid,
Not pulling it farther apart.
From the mended pieces,
Stitched up already,
10, 20, when did I lose count?
Neosporin, Solarcane,
I only wish it were the same.
Abby Mar 2014
Satisfy
my morbid desire
to know
just how you are this morning.
You wish you were dead
and I don't blame you.
Your hand-written note
and Aspirin bottle
loom large in my imagination.
I think of you
falling asleep to ask Death,
"May I go now?"
and his response
of rocking you in his arms just one more night.
In my mind's eye
your cat (the little black one) watches you
take your phone in hand,
the clock readout "9:10 pm" in its green lettering,
and calmly type your confession.
You are not dead,
but you want to be,
and I grab a wire and some neosporin
because I can just picture
what I plan to do next.
Empire Aug 2020
tw self harm




Haha... I’m drowning in Neosporin
Finally my leg decides to sting
Rhythmic pain
From the line after line after line after line after line after line after line after line after line after line after line after line after line after line and line and line and line line line line line line line line line line line line....    .       .           .             .
That I drew in
Desperate for feeling
An awakening of my heart
Instead... with each line the realization set in
I’m too far gone
Too disconnected to feel anything
I practically laughed at the wounds...
Wondering what purpose they might possibly serve
When nothing within even feels alive
What began as a resuscitation attempt
Turned swiftly into an autopsy

And ****... I don’t even care that I’m out of gauze
I’ve done this before
It’ll heal eventually
Not like it matters anyway....
thetimeisnow Nov 2015
if life is made up of tiny little moments
I wanna be a master of small tricks
A jack of all trades in the smallest exchanges
As an organism, micro to stars and macro to ants
I want to take up just enough space that breath allows
And moments can grasp
I want to live a life on the edge of sanity on the edge of limitations
Crossing boundaries and blocked bridges
We should always remember though that our fingerprints are small, yet heavy
With responsibility we should be careful not to press too ******* the world
But to leave a fingerprint of peace, love, and kindness
Not even for me, not for you, but for us- for the world we share together
So let’s share in the tiny moments
In the you and me laughing over a cup of tea
In the little pockets of sunshine
I want to find happiness
And goodness in that

I want to know that there is depth to even the smallest flower
And like Horton hears a who, a person is a person no matter how small
So much time I spent trying to be visible
That when my heart broke into shattered pieces
I was scattered across the universe
Lost between bits of myself like a dusty tornado whirling around in my mind
Constantly plaguing me to negative thoughts
Succeptable to anger
And quick to see the pain of the world
And instead of being Neosporin
Or trying to be peroxide
I was prepared to let that good die inside


the present is a mary poppins pocket
filled to the brim with possibilities of infinite nature
possibilities reaching towards both the east end of the world and the west
from the most northern point
and the most southern
which is constantly changing
there is a circling orb
that floats around planet earth
catching all hopes and dreams and wishes
and then sprinkling them like fairy dust throughout the entire universe
for the realm of possibilities is not limited by the sky
although some of us prefer the feel of the ground
the sky extends out farther than all human life
to a universe of quiet space and darkness
planets and black holes and infinite mystery
and we try to make sense of, try to understand
and we love
this planet and this universe
this is our power
our curse
our beauty
and our obstacle

for emotions are a beautiful thing
and we wish to live beautiful lives
life itself is beautiful to all who can see it
all who have been given trust and love
and took it  
kept it
jeanette korbel Mar 2015
Life comes quickly,memories pass fast,and i sit here today thinking of the past.No more toys and know more piggy tails.No more story's and no more veggie tales.No more fireflies and no more slow goodbyes.No more playing in the rain and no more neosporin for the pain.No more tea party's and no more games.No more taking the blame.This is the start of a different way of life.This is the time a boy finds his wife.A girl falls in love and the toys get thrown away.This is the time to listen to what others have to say
lavender Jan 2018
remember when a simple dandelion was the most beautiful and rare flower.

and when if you fell you didn't go to the hospital for a broken bone, your mom just put some Neosporin and a bandage on your knee.

and when you could pluck the petals of a daisy to determine if your crush liked you back.

now it's more like utility bills piling up on the counter and bouquets of dead roses sitting on a kitchen table long forgotten by the moved on couple.

it's wars televised for all to see and pills to help you sleep and alcohol for when that doesn't help.

it's more like drowning your sorrow in the whole carton of chocolate ice cream and Friends reruns on tv interrupted only by the occasional commercial and your tears

it's competing for likes on an app that only exists on your phone and being **** when it comes to real life conversations.


        in these times it's not about who you are, it's about who you pretend to be on the internet.
man listen,,,,,, i hate this
gmb Apr 2018
i press my fingers into peony petals,
feeling their density,
cold, even in summer.

you talk like you mean everything you say.
you feel like the sun, you feel like
warm water in kiddie pools and

grass on bare feet, messy,
muddy, just like the color of your
eyes and

nostalgia tastes sweet but
its hard to wash off of your hands.
summer is just around the corner and

i feel it like ive felt it every year since i was nine.
i allow myself to say that this is more than just a scrape.
i allow myself to realize this hurts so much worse than

falling off my bike.
(gravel in my palms, my mother kissed my bleeding hands and smiled.
this is something she cant heal with neosporin and a kiss on the forehead; the only person who can help me is myself.)

i take baths in peroxide and still dont feel clean,
i wake up in the morning like ive just been reborn,
i think about how everything is so beautiful.

i lay under the peony bush. i let the falling petals baptize me.
i promise my mother that i'll be okay and
for once, i believe it.
this is messy but i never write about anything happy even though im so in love with the world
Pippi Apr 2017
I write about my ex a lot,
we didn't talk much, but our tongues touched,
we used to have *** a lot and
it was so hot that it set my soul ablaze,
and no, it wasn't my first time, but ****,
he sparked something in me, I was ready to tell
my mother I am in love now and I am a woman
in ways I never was before, I hoped that these
flames never go out, I'd proudly show off these
burn marks and these scars, I'd leave my
Neosporin at home.

I said that I needed someone to come along and
break my heart, but no, it was only a joke, I just
needed that spark to write, something to get me
fired up, something to get my pen scalding ink
into the page, but why did it have to be pain?
You were never good at detecting sarcasm,
you were never good at reading my text
messages, responding to my love, my love
this burns, I have reached my boiling point
everything of yours must go now.

Take back those texts which were more like
I was conversing with myself, the phone calls
that were always convenient for you, the "baby,
I really want to see" when you felt like being bothered,
the "I miss you" when you wanted to slide inside me,
because remember, we didn't talk much, our bodies
touched, we used to have *** a lot, naive of me to think
that lust could convert to love so easily, you quickly
reminded me that I am was playing with fire.

Take back those shirts and hoodies that used to smell
like you, the ones that I would breathe in deeply when
you weren't in my presence, take those good days back,
they cloud my judgement and make me forget that the
bad times outweighed the good like a fat kid on a seesaw,
take back those words, you didn't mean any of them, those
lies that stuck to my thighs, this body tagged with your graffiti,
this love that was never reciprocal, never equal, I love math
but I have always had a personal beef with improper fractions,
take this body, this ******-WAIT. Actually, just bubble wrap that
and put it in a box and send it back to me, I will be sure to give it
to someone more deserving than you next time.

My friend warned me after our second break-up that this is
dangerous, but I said no, I waved her off, that because you,
an arsonist and me, a pyromaniac, that this is just the way our
love goes, I turned off the sprinklers, ignored the beeping of the
detectors, I snatched the batteries out after a while, I told my
friend no matter what do not call 911, do not extinguish this,
there is no point, this forest fire destroys everything in its path,
this love is a slow burn.

There are things that you can't take back, things that you want
to give back, or throw away, they still find a way back into your attic,
or back in your bed, or lodged into your brain, I remember scrolling
Twitter once, and landed on one of your tweets, you said that you
was just dating but it was nothing special, and that caused my heart
to combust, as if implying that I was nothing special, like I didn't concave
my body in the ways you wanted me to, like I didn't engulf myself in
submission, like I didn't become the woman that you wanted, nothing
special and that burned like spraying perfume into my eyes, and that
singed like rubbing alcohol into a fresh wound, hurtful pits of rage, I
felt flames coming from my ears, I spat venom, I became a Komodo
dragon, I became dead set on ruining everything you owned, my blood
simmered, it reeked of the smell of my bubbling flesh, I have reached my
melting point, everything of yours is gone now.

At least I can say I tried even when it went up in smoke, I coughed and
choked and my eyes ran tears, I am the last thing to go, and though this
pains me, I must leap from this burning building even if it means I'll break
my legs, at least I know about sacrifice, at least I know about love though not
much to show for it but at least I tried; I am the one who flew too close to the
sun, I am the one who couldn't control the chariot and Zeus had to strike me
down, I came back alive as a firefly, pray you get to catch me next time, I arose
from the debris blemish free, my friends will say look how you glow now, and I
will say yes and I now have tons of material, but why did it have to come from
pain? I hope you are scrolling on Twitter or Instagram or see me in person and I am
smiling, and you think wow what happened to all of her scars, isn't she something
special, she looks so beautiful, she is so happy, without me...without me? And I hope
it burns your hearts to ashes.
Alex Dec 2015
Burning gas and my lungs is better than sitting alone with all the empty time to think
Think about the tears and layers of neosporin that you went through trying desperately to make the lines heal without a trace
Trace the lines of her face on the cold screen because it makes you feel closer to her somehow
Somehow you're carrying on, you feel weight of the universe on your shoulders and you're too dizzy to stand much longer
Longer than the miles between seems to be the time until you next have her in your arms
Arms that are weary and sore and cut up, but they still pull and reach and grab and push
Push everyone away until you're alone again, bridges are what you're best at burning.
wordvango Jul 2015
where I just don't feel anymore.

I have this natural urge to strip bare naked
and run wild through the woods to feel, again.

Feel, anything at all.

So, I did one time.
The next three days,
covered in cortizone and neosporin,


I promised, when I get that urge again,
I will tie myself down
and let someone hit my head with a bat.
Pippi Jan 2020
One.
I used to write about my ex a lot. *** so hot I was surprised when our lust ran out of steam.
Then you came, *** could not compare to the explosives of two fire signs detonating, but it was good enough to warm me up, to work up a sweat, to quench my thirst, make me think maybe not the best but **** I’ve had worse. Interestingly the compatibility and probability of a Capricorn man and Leo woman working was extremely low but I was determined to make this work if anything just as a big ******* to astrology. Always the pyromaniac, I was relieved and excited to feel flames again. To feel those sparks to get my ink pen flowing hot lava across the page, but why does it have to derive from pain? My love, I was happy to love you. Oblige you.
Keep you. Bask you in the depths of my love and hoped you came out clean. Every time I love,
I love a little deeper, a little bit more womanly, a little bit more openly, flowing - my love I did not mean to drown you. I should have let you.

Two.
April 28th. I wasn’t going to go on that first date with you. It was personally too late into the night for my liking but it fit into your schedule perfectly. I should have taken this as a sign that I would be doing most of the sacrifices and compromises. You wanted to impress me so you agreed to play pool, a game you would lose and afterwards we sat in your car and had a fire conversation. As you poured a little of yourself onto me, I could not help but notice the street lights illuminate your brown sugar face and the stars ***** dance at the vibrations of your laughter. The night was chilly but in the car our dialogue kept me warm and cozy. For a date that I wasn’t about to show up for, I didn’t want to leave. I just wanted to commemorate the anniversary of our first date with you. To celebrate the love that you said singed for me, for it to be a testament that we made it through this year barely unscathed. Most of the scars were mine.

Three.
The Bluetooth speaker that you got me for my birthday.The yellow and black checkered Vans that I wore to the Eagles and Steelers preseason game, though I have deleted the pictures with you off of Instagram. It was during that game when you got mad at me for jokingly agreeing with the girl sitting beside you that the Steelers rookie QB was hot, that I saw the honeymoon phase smear right off of your face. Who you pretended to be and who I tried to compromise myself to become began to smolder underneath the heat of the August sun, our incompatibilities started to ring volumes; we didn’t have *** enough, we argued too much and it never resulted with our clothes off and our bodies touching, just me driving home angrily and sleeping alone, this camp fire blazed brightly and blew out quickly. Every time we tried to reignite it, it would blow out just as fast, frustratingly, it is my fault for ignoring such a weak connection.

Four.
The iPad that you got me for Christmas. After you opened up the gifts that I bought you, real round and heavy tears ran down your face and caressed my shoulder. We embraced so tightly, so lovingly, it was the most intimate and honest moment we shared. In that moment I knew that you never was really loved, really cared for by many women so I was determined to be that woman for you. I was so dead set on not breaking your heart like your ex girlfriend that I paid no regard to what was happening to mine. Over time, I could empathize why your ex girlfriend cheated on you. She decided on the things that she wasn’t going to let you take, she knew when to let that go, when to release if it was only for a quick relief, a guilty reprieve, so yeah maybe it’s you and has always been you.


Five.
The Nintendo Switch that you got me for Valentines Day. Maybe I can give it back if that was supposed to be some type of foreshadowing for how you would switch up on me, the painting with a twist painting turned facing the corner in my bedroom and I’m not sure why I haven’t thrown it out yet. It pains me to admit but sometimes I was wrong but I tried so hard to do everything right from the bottom of my heart. The South Park shirt that I took one morning from your apartment, it no longer smells like the cologne I gifted to you after being washed too many times. Every so often I’ll pull it from my drawer, a gentle reminder that we had some good moments, that we let our love kindle like incense and let the aroma fill the room, but those good times just could not outweigh the bad.

Six.  
The first time that I admitted that I loved you was after you texted me on a Monday morning that you didn’t think we were meant to be, and I knew that because remember we didn’t have *** enough, we argued too much, but for some reason we both refused to stop wasting matches to relight this love that we knew was going to fan out eventually. Call that insanity or pyromania and **** aren’t Mondays insufferable enough? Haven’t I suffered through enough?
That first time those words escaped my mouth, it was like extinguishing a living room already ravaged by flames and all that you have enough time to grab is the dog and your favorite photo, and I meant it genuinely I loved you for the broken man that you was and for the man you had potential to be but just not for me. It was putting ointment on an obvious gaping wound. It healed nothing, just prolonged the suffering.

Seven.  
Eventually I reached my boiling point, reached the point when I needed to let this dimly lit blaze fizzle out. I know that love isn’t always easy but it didn’t have to be this difficult or unhealthy. Not to exaggerate but I cried for three days straight. I had to mourn you and my fantasies, release your toxins and my own from my body, consume harsh realities and bitter truths, face the ways you triggered me, ask myself the seething question of if I knew I was the bomb, why wasn’t I being treated like it? Why didn’t I subconsciously think that I deserved better than you gave me and what I allowed and accepted? The last time, that lust masquerading as love, I let that wildfire destroy everything in its wake, including me. Even though I was dosed in disappointment and heart ache, I was determined to not let this time be like the past. This body, this heart, and this spirit is not a toxic landfill, or a burial ground, or Ground Zero. I am always a Phoenix rising anew, always the Leo shining, always a firefly. One day I woke up and realized it didn’t hurt as much, my heart still beat and pumped out red and orange currents of ferocious love.

Eight.
My biggest regret was holding on to this for far too long. Letting go took strength that I didn’t know I had, this fiasco taught me so much about myself and about love. I am (too) patient, compassionate, understanding and I am sometimes wrong but I always try to do everything with love. But I am not and will not be anyone’s emotional punching bag just so I can brag that I have a man who buys me gifts or to say that I have a boo for the holidays. Society has conditioned black women to think that we have to suffer in order to be deserving of love, that if you can’t stand the heat then you should stay out of those same kitchens where our black mothers used to drag a chair close to the stove, press that hot comb to our ***** curls, mad that we’re sweating halfway before she’s finished, wincing because she’s burned us but she’ll say that’s just the grease, so yeah maybe us black girls have had our attitudes brewing and been predisposed to the flames but we will not accept your torturing.

Nine.
If you would’ve asked me then what was the color of love, I would’ve said it was you and your cherry water ice colored lips leaving stains on the collars of my shirts that I have yet to wash, it’s us in our Sunday’s best as we went to your church and I prayed with you and for you. It’s the Polo shirt still neatly folded in the brown paper bag hanging on my closet door, I never got the opportunity to give it to you and now I have no idea if I should give it away, return it, or save it for the next man who my heart burns intensely for. It’s that flutter my heart felt once your name came across my screen; the second to last text you sent said that you felt our vibe was off and you have never been more right, I was so over wasting energy trying feed that spark. The last text that you sent you said that you suppose you missed me, and I mean duh of course you would, of course you should. I used to write about my ex a lot, have *** so hot, confuse love with everything it wasn’t, chase men who reminded me of my father until I was scorned and scarred. Now I get to write about you too, and I just needed new material, something to get me charged up, something to get hot ink scalding across the page until I felt the heat on my fingers and the paper disintegrates to ash. But make no mistake, this poem is not all about pain.

Ten.
If you ask me now what is the color of love, I’d say it’s the shine of my peace of mine. It’s the smile I have worn everyday since I actively decided to choose me and my happiness, and not a single tear has fallen over you since, no second guessing, no having my feelings invalidated, no gaslighting, no heat damage pressed on these black curls, I have let them grow out unruly and free, I have never experienced bliss like this after a breakup before. It’s the flash of my mom’s camera as she captures me walking down the aisle during my graduation, I was so proud to be there after several nervous breakdowns and telling myself I was going to quit at least five times. It’s my toes dipped in the warm waters in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, the sun glistening off my smooth chocolate skin that has taken me so many years to be proud to live in, it’s my wounds some old and some new on proud display, learning to leave my Neosporin at home, but I am here and healing and laughing and learning to loving myself better as I haven’t let depression eat alive. If you ask me now what is the color of love, I will tell you that it is me. It has always been me.
Similar to the poem, “Everything of yours just go, even if it burns,” I wrote a few years ago. It is cool to see how I have grown as a person and writer since then.
phoebe Apr 2020
our stomachs are filled with words that we are too afraid to tell each other
and i’ve pretended to go mad so i could tell you about the things lingering in my brain because apparently in the midst of chaos, you’re allowed to spare some honesty.

and i really hate to see you this way
depression and anger oozing from every pore while you rub neosporin on your self inflicted scars

you’re such a wreck, and people make sure you know that.

but i wonder why you never tell them that i was behind the steering wheel.

lately i’ve been spending my days sitting in the dark wondering if i was the one who pulled you under the tides, or if i was the lifeguard who brought you back to shore

i promised myself i wouldn’t turn you into another poem
but it seems lately that’s all i’ve been doing

i can’t help it.
you’re my muse.

you reminded me that even in our darkest times, there will always be light. and we shouldn’t fear what lurks behind the shadows

and maybe i should stop searching for you in every man i meet

and maybe you should stop searching for girls who resemble me in some way

whatever we choose to do with our lives

i will always love you the same.
Dawnstar Jul 2021
what am i to do
to win one fond kiss from my love

april
and the wind's turning down
at last

i got to go
but my mind
placates the past

voyage
to a darker feeling
when one thought
emerges

i sought
we bought
splurges

and the CRACK! of a combine stun baton
was felt at home in old hong kong
they pushed them down
they ****** them off
they know
what goes
they know, they know

mario andretti!
pronounce his name real steady
you've got a chance to emigrate
now's the time to seal your fate

you could be a moronic sculpture
could make neo-scotland rupture
corporations wanna buy you
judge and juries wanna try you

why
can't
i
why
can't
i
have superpowers
have superpowers

why, why
must i
cope, cope
c-c-c-c-c-caw!

copycat, copy cope
last one out, elect the pope
feral demons walk about
judge is in, the jury's out

one mistake, you snooze you lose
brush your teeth or get a bruise
hate is a six letter word
opposing voices can't be heard

why
can't
i
i
why
can't
i
i
be something better
and change my gender

why
why
must
i

cope, cope
c-c-c-c-caw

copycat, copy cope
hang yourself, i'll buy the rope
shut up about your mental illness
it's just a form of wish fulfillment

take a bath in hydrochlorin
if you don't use neosporin
if you're short and have a *******
you're the bottom of the totem

why
can't
i
aye

why
can't
i-aye

be innocent
be president

what am i to do?
what am i to do?

can't live in a daydream
can't shoot off a magazine
can't make stories perfect
can't learn how to work it

mother!
mother!
what am i to do-o-o?

can't write an editorial
can't play super mario
cannot file my taxes
and i don't know what a fax is

why
can't
i-aye

do anything
do anything

mother!
mother!
what am i to do-o-o?
what am i to do?
a song

— The End —