"nightstand" poems
Did you see the bliss
Shoot across the night sky?
Here then there so quickly
Like a blink could project its moment
Yet when crumbling
Into the quake of memory
It is the window's remaining rain
Trickling down so slowly after the storm
Until all that is left is its drying trail
Clear to see the tired clouds sink behind
A heart so weathered
Never truly sleeps. Never rests
The hallow beats manifest
Into the crippling visions of the night
Blanketed by such distress
Until the rising light does nothing
But awaken the regrets that were left on the nightstand
Like a book with one chapter
No where left to turn
Do you see the ache
Shining dim in the night sky?
Like a footprint in the moon's dust
As alone as one could ever walk
Do you see the shame?
Like forty dying stars
Their fiery, blazing eyes
Watching every paranoid jitter
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 5:54 PM UTC
As the smoke lingers off of her tongue,
you can see the smirk so evident on her face.
She traces the outline of her lips with her tongue
and gently inhales the cigarette smoke.
You can see the tiny glint of a ***** bottle on her nightstand
and the ashtray that is overwhelmed with burnt out cigarettes.
She is staring at the ceiling
and you have no idea what in the world she is thinking so hard about.
All you know is that you want to know.
And you want to know the way
her lips curve around the tempting neck of the ***** bottle,
or the way her tongue moves as she blows off smoke
from that cataclysmic cigarette she’s holding.
Alcohol and cigarettes,
that’s what everyone thinks ruins your life.
But those two things
are what saves hers.
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 2:15 PM UTC
First glance, I’m a good Christian girl. But dark purple flecks decorate my neck.
In leather and lace I forget to pray and let you do what you want with me
because pain is complex and melded with pleasure.
Do you know what they say about girls that enjoy ***
They never dare to say it to my face but I can feel them staring from the pew
at the dark purple flecks that decorate my neck.
Your hands, more powerful than God, make the earth of my body quake
while I draw fault lines down your back with my nails under the broken
crucifix above your bed. The pain is complex and melded with pleasure.
Deep, growling voice shakes the dusty rosary on your nightstand when we ****
Your handprints are left on my flesh and the hand around my throat
leaves the dark purple flecks decorating my neck.
Coffee in the narthex and I’m labeled a harlot. Sinner. Sacrilegious. Branded as freaks…
Brush it off. I know what you like and how you like me. God will have mercy.
Sensations blend because pain is complex and melded with pleasure
and I can’t have one without the other. To reach our peak
you leave me red, marked and breathless, gasping, “Oh my God.”
Questioning my beliefs with dark purple flecks to decorate my neck,
I know pain will always be complex and melded with pleasure.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
I rest my head in the dusky hours
early in the hope I'll awaken refreshed
instead in the lonely hours
at 2am, 3am and 4am
my body rests
while my mind races with complex thought
caught somewhere between sadness and complacency
the past present and future merging into one
clashing and colliding
confusing
working hard into the night
sending my heart to palpitations.
I close my eyes and the words I see written on my ceiling
are engrained on the insides of my eyelids
crawling with the spiders
I overthink instead of sleep
I dream in my conscious state
of what could've been
what is
and what might be
restless in a state of exhaustion
lucid in a state of total consciousness
hopeless to stop the relentless tide of my imagination
from rotting my brain inside and out
ruining any faith I have in a night of sleep
or a day of clarity and competence.
The thoughts leave when I rise again at 7am
as planned
with the chiming of the bells on the nightstand
my head snaps into reality again
focus returns in the form of routine
get up, go
move on, mend.
Distracted and oblivious
my lack of sleep haunts me
until I repeat this dull cycle again tonight
I live my nightmares in the lonely hours
at 2am, 3am and 4am.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 9:08 AM UTC
I've got a grasp on my black telephone
Holding it tight to my ear
No fear. He'll pick up
It's like 3AM or later
I'm ****** up
Dropped my wallet in the elevator
Now I've stumbled into bed
Living dead and seeing red
Ring
Ring
Ring
"We're sorry..."
Thoughts swarm like locusts
Bug-buzzing in the phone
Sweating my spray tan on the bed sheets
Left alone with a dial tone.
Nightstand pill bottle Jesus
I'm reaching out for you
It's been ringing for a few minutes now
I've rolled up in the coiled phone cord
'I think the room is spinning'
Tilt-a-whirl bed taunts my stomach
'I'm home at least'
'I need to tell him how I feel'
Ring
Ring -
"We're sorry, the number you have called
Is not in service at this time
Please check the number
Or try your call again."
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 2:24 AM UTC
Naked pictures of God on my nightstand,
Dry bones of Moses painted on my button down shirt screaming,
“to be or not to be” is not an English word.
In the daze of the thoughts of Neurology, I saw a man kick a bucket full of Starbucks giftcards down the avenue street. He screamed in pain as he watched the bucket tumble and roll down the street, blessing every Bohemian with a slight cold.
Naked pictures of God on my nightstand,
I dreamt about a land before man where the Oxygen that sprang from the pores of flowers
sang a sweet death. Where dishwashers are saints, for afterall, man will not be if not for food.
Where books are written not to be read, but for the sake of Orange trees that will grow in the future.
I once wore a poker face to a funeral and laughed at the man in the casket because the souls he had underneath him were two left feet.
*We all once had naked pictures of God on our nightstands but lost it after Einstein
Lost the fried chicken war of 1812 to Isaac Newton.*
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 9:30 PM UTC
Empty bottles of coke
faithfully littering the floor around my
desk, bed, anything they can lay their hands on.
A naive combination of sleeping pills and energy drinks
On my nightstand,
patiently waiting in anticipation,
for their next chance at tempting me into submission,
the poor man's deviled eggs with a side of Hennessy.
Ah, how great it would be,
if the lonely bottles of water by my television
could possibly purge me
Or, maybe, offer a Depression-era baptismal service
So I can find my peace of mind,
as another bottle hits the floor.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 1:43 AM UTC
Roaches litter my ashtray
and empty bottles litter my room
and burnt out incense litters my nightstand
and hollow memories litter my barren landscape of a mind.
Jan 5, 2013
Jan 5, 2013 at 3:28 AM UTC
The Physics of Love: The Equivalency Fallacy
the poet places his Sunday porcelain coffee mug
upon his bare chest, purposed to heat the heart to a
higher degree, equal to hers, next door, three feet away,
in their communal bed
two identical alarm clocks, one on each nightstand,
confirms the degree differential, for far beyond time-telling,
it informs on me, providing the room temperature,
and her side of the bed, 5 degrees warmer
the collegial scientists posit theoretical excuses,
the rooms wind currents, proximity to the A/C, body mass,
all refuted after visual and mechanical inspection,
all indelible proofs of the Equivalency Fallacy
despite the visual evidence abounding all around,
despite the surrounding starlike quantity of busted,
love songs, poems and the other artistic churn,
depicting the principle, one requires love physics to validate the
living principle for the living, that love is rarely identical
in quantitative quality, typology, representation and
manifestations measurable
each greets the other with morning declarations of
mutuality, trying to find those hundred different ways
to love her/him today, employing imaginative artifice to proof
the impossibility, that in every aspect your living love ability
is precious capital precision equal
and ha! each love is the greater...
you knew this?
then you knew, his coffee spills (intentionally?) and the
Fighting Fallacy rules,
every thing is fair in love and war, for they too, are
identical and equal, in so many ways,
but never quantifiable exactly
8:33am, 73 degrees, on my side
11/12/17
Nov 12, 2017
Nov 12, 2017 at 8:45 AM UTC
Time travel to Dallas days. We were sitting in your Acura Legend. Your face veiled, my eyes watery from the smoke, I know I hate tobacco now.
"Tom, teach me how to write poems, like yours."
"Okay but tell me first, Katie.
What are you running away from?"
We were close to home,
just sound without meaning,
a kid’s drawing on the refrigerator.
So the answer never differs:
I’m not running away, I’m running towards.
I don't remember, do you,
when poetry turned into dictionaries of devotion.
It was the language of tenderness you taught me,
my extinct mother tongue.
To love the ordinary was suddenly easy.
Those memories
the warmth of you
make it hard to imagine
that you are buried
somewhere in Iowa.
Here, read my dictionaries now:
page after page,
in hundred variations:
„Please come back to me“
and
„I will always long to bargain your soul for mine.“
That little toy airplane, the one you gave me
when we were kids,
still stands on my nightstand.
This time it is my turn to teach,
teach you about the cruelty of freedom.
Feb 12, 2019
Feb 12, 2019 at 5:49 PM UTC
when Today comes
with long legs and red lipstick
smack her on the ***
and buy her a drink.
let one thing
lead to another
and forget Yesterday
because no matter what-
she can never exist.
quit bankrupting life's currency
by squandering ticks on the clock
trying to figure how many
tomorrows remain
(i promise,
there's just the right amount).
rather, have your way with Today-
take her back to your place
ravage her body in search of asylum.
let your animal free
as you how at the moon
and let the bedsprings screech with strain,
as they sing the day's song.
when she finishes her cigarette
tell her to leave the money
on the nightstand
where Yesterday left hers.
Sep 4, 2012
Sep 4, 2012 at 9:19 PM UTC
This is not about you.
This is not about
the transmutation
of your jail celled mind
wrapped in self-help
and cellophane.
This is not about
your new found
discovery
discovering me
and my afflictions
according to the
white man’s diction
a dictation
of my past
extracted
and examined
under the microscopic
power of time.
This is not about
your self-defined
enlightenment
when you made
a deal to unearth
the truth of HeLa
coated in dust
covered particles
of HeLa
on your nightstand
and I laid
in a grave
unmarked.
This is not about
my big lips
and thick hips
under ***** covers
running a sweat
fever on my thighs
shaking feet in stirrups
and the pain was rich
after a tight pinch
and I didn’t know
what part of me
had been snipped
to grow cold
and never die.
No, this is not about you.
This is about me.
A historic legacy
left to thrive across the time
less chains of nucleic
tidal waves
Covalent bonds
could never rival
the strides of this soul
miles beyond
the distant
COLORED ENTRANCE
something brewing
inside dividing
inexplicable replication,
readying for harvest
behind a dried tobacco field
Jan 3, 2012
Jan 3, 2012 at 3:21 AM UTC
disappointment.
small. sad.
i was ready.
i came prepared.
but this isn’t what i wanted
I sighed. I giggled.
So you snapped.
and forced.
and held.
and choked.
“it won’t happen again”
meek. weak.
you gruffed, and grunted.
and moaned.
and i was still.
lifeless. on my back.
so i peered at the nightstand,
and your wilted flower.
Jun 14, 2013
Jun 14, 2013 at 3:06 PM UTC
If every button on your blouse and jeans
Were the knobs of the doors
Of the Budget Inn
I would wrap my hand around them forcefully
And twist and turn until
I finally gained entry.
And if the unwashed comforters
That cover the soiled beds
Were your eager lips
I would jump into them
Until the stains left by other lovers
Made their mark on my skin
In the form of broken blood vessels
And residual lipstick.
And if the thin pages of the
Dust-covered bible tucked into the nightstand
Were every word you whispered
Before sinking your teeth into my skin
I would rip out every page
And paste them over the peeling wallpaper
So that I would be able to read them
Again and again and again
Until I finally believed
That more than failed religion
Could bring me to my knees.
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 4:24 PM UTC
Jumanji was your favorite Robin Williams movie
Mine was Dead Poets Society
You didn’t think it was too interesting
And you fell asleep on my shoulder
When we watched it on a pixilated
2” by 5” screen
Moving at 1 ½ miles per hour
On a bus
Going 5000 frames per second
Over a burnt sandwich chips
We stopped near Michigan and State
To talk about our favourite books
Yours was As I Lay Dying
Mine was The Old Man And The Sea
We talked about the relationship
Between Faulkner
And Hemmingway
And if they ever kissed
Or shared coffee
Or at least thought about it
If Faulkner liked Jumanji
And Hemmingway was partial
To Dead Poets Society
If it turned out
They were chips of a fractured whole
Did Faulkner ever take Hemmingway home?
Does the Hemmingway house still have Faulkner’s toothbrush
On a splintered wooden nightstand?
Did they ever wake up with the wrong socks on the wrong feet
And laugh it off because it was so funny
Were they ever afraid?
Were they ever happy?
Did Faulkner write to Hemmingway
About the Post office?
Did Hemmingway write to Faulkner
About fishing?
“The old man lay dying in the sea”
We wondered if they ever wrote together
Held hands
Traded coffee cups
But you fell asleep
And I kept writing
And watching Dead Poets Society
Wondering if Hemmingway ever would have
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 12:41 AM UTC
I've been watching you from the nightstand,
Eyes closed,
But hearing, feeling
Each rat tremor on top of cheap carpet
Covered in cat **** and ***** stains.
You have been sleeping too long,
Eyelids turning to flakes of skin,
Feeding your floorboard friends.
I have seen your fingers curl into messy knots of
Purple thumbprints and veins reaching
For the ceiling and roof.
You left me plugged into the wall,
And I have inched closer to my own death
With each misses phone call and text,
My predisposed convulsions.
I just wanted you to know
Your mother called today
To ask for the new street address,
The landlord says the rent is 8 days late,
But your boyfriend is ill concerned with your state of health,
In fact,
He left the state
And bought a new haircut and identity.
Jan 24, 2016
Jan 24, 2016 at 11:07 PM UTC
Not a day goes by that you don’t see me,
Sitting in my bed, alone.
I waste away.
You ignore my screams.
How apathetic can a caretaker be?
Water teeters on the edge of my nightstand,
Just outside my reach.
All I ask is one drop to wet my cracking lips.
Do you even care to end my pain?
You know that my weakness cannot last forever;
I will rise and strike you down,
Ridiculing, beating, forgetting you.
One day, you will be in that bed,
Crying,
Dying.
And I will be
Your apathetic caretaker.
Jun 19, 2012
Jun 19, 2012 at 6:40 PM UTC
Eyes open
Mild panic
Look around
(Quiet)
Realize
Pause
Process
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
Glow-in-the-dark stars
None to speak of
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
Conclude
Roll out of bed
Careful not to wake you
(Quiet)
Locate shirt
Pull on jeans
(Quiet)
Still dark
You like dark
(Quiet)
Phone
Keys
Wallet
Headphones
(Quiet)
Stand
Hand on door
Wait
Look
Still asleep
(Quiet)
Paper from your notebook
Pen from nightstand
Calligraphy pen
Didn't know that
(Quiet)
You wrote down a dream last night
"Dreamed I was safe, happy, in love"
Says sleepy cursive
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
Write below
"So did I"
(Quiet)
Back to door
Don't look back
Don't look back
Don't look back
(Quiet)
Look back
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
Open door
Escape
(Quiet)
Through your hall
(Quiet)
Messy kitchen
Don't remember seeing this
Must have been dark
(Quiet)
Shoes must have been kicked off
Found them
Close front door
Still dark outside
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
Too early for train
Too far to walk
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
Smile guiltily
(Quiet)
(Quiet)
(Quiet).
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 11:09 AM UTC
But at the end of the day, I don't want the one who will spin my head round, who will make my blood boil, whose kisses will feel like I'm on fire, whose touch will make the universe explode. No. I want the one who will be okay seeing me throw up after we've had a bit too much to drink; who will hold my hair and call me a loser the next morning, but will, nonetheless, leave two Tylenol on the nightstand. I want the one who won't mind taking care of me when I'm sick, who won't mind my coughing fits and my runny nose. I want the one who will be perfectly fine with running home in the rain after we've missed our bus; who will be content with wearing ugly sweaters in front of the telly, drinking hot chocolate and watching silly movies. I want the one who will cook for me and who won't mind my cooking. I want the one who will be perfectly comfortable with us walking around in our underwear and who will drink as much coffee as I do. I want the one who will lie in bed with our laptop while I'm reading a book and won't mind the silence. I want the one who will buy my parents silly Christmas gifts and someone whose mother I'll be friends with. I want the one who will laugh at my jokes when they're funny and will call me an idiot when they **** I want the one who will beat me at computer games and who won't mind that I sing even though I **** at singing. I want the one who will open up to me and let me help them; who will listen to my worries but who will respect my personal space. I want the one who will call me silly nicknames and who will tell me they love me everyday. I want the one who will take pictures with me and will pin them on the fridge. All I crave is comfort and stability. Don't romanticise love: the only thing you'll ever need is a best friend who wants to sleep with you and spend the rest of your life with you.
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 11:12 AM UTC
I don't know what it is
about bringing god into the most intimate times of your life,
but I couldn't ignore the bible that was spread open
on your nightstand that night.
During the space between
whenever you rolled off of me
and rolled back on,
I was granted time to think about how I ended up
in this dreadfully exposed position
(literally, you told me not to put my clothes back on).
So I thought about how I had convinced myself
that you were as religious as you claimed to be,
and that this would be nothing more than
a simple movie date with a little cuddling.
But whenever you removed your arm from around me
and stood from the couch beside me,
I knew this was going to be far from it.
So I crawled into bed beside you
and felt your hands search my body in the dark
as though you were in a temple on a quest to find a golden cross.
And you found it,
radiating warmth between two stone pillars
that you couldn't resist digging your nails into.
And soon enough,
the walls came crumbling down
and you begged me not to make a sound
as you sank your teeth into my neck
as though you were taking a bite of the forbidden fruit
for the very first time.
And I must have tasted sweet
because your tongue shortly followed
to lap up all the salty juices.
But you were determined to tear the temple down
because you knew how sacrilegious it would be to leave it standing,
so you asserted your strength to the already crumbling pillars
and walls and heard and watched them fall around you
in all their holy glory.
But it wasn't until I was lying beneath you
in a pile of dust
that the bible beside me spoke.
The pages parted like the red sea
and the letters lept from the page like the egyptians
and I was shaking as though Moses himself
was standing before me.
But you didn't notice when you returned,
because your goal wasn't to build the temple walls.
So you climbed back on top of me,
rolled over,
and went to sleep.
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 12:23 AM UTC
i remember it like it was yesterday, which i have to say is strange, because i have trouble remembering everything else. i remember you were sitting in front of me and i was terrified, palms sweating, eyes watering. i was truly scared if you, or rather of myself. a little part of me hated you too. you looked so, self-righteous sitting in your rolling chair, with you perfect posture and your clicky pen. when you started to ask me question i ignored you. id been shacked up in my head for so long i forgot how to talk to people. anyways, my head was comfortable, familiar. i had a bed full of memories and a closet full of monsters. i had drawers full of hopes (i never opened them of course), but they were there, it was nice to know they were there.
my favourite possession in my mind however, was a little glass jar on my nightstand. it looks empty at first glance, but the harder you look the more you see. there are colours, like rays of light, they swirl around and hit each other, a vibrant crimson color. theres a green in there to, if you saw it you'd swear mother nature put it there herself. theres also a blue, its the largest of all the swirls. it looks royal and dark, beautiful.
theres also a yellow. but its different, not in its beauty or vibrance, but in its location . it isn't in the jar. the yellow swirls around the edge of the glass. occasionally bumping into it almost as if it wants in, but theres no way for it.
i remember holding back, never telling you that because i thought you'd think i was crazy. so i didn't say a thing. but man do i remember that jar. that room. i remember the colours, their saturation, how they moved. i remember the monsters beating on the closet door looking for a way out. i remember the bed of sweet memories. but im sorry, i don't remember more important thing, like how to feel. i truly am.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 11:22 AM UTC
Tonight I feel as empty as the prescription bottles on my nightstand.
- Antidepressants
Jul 20, 2022
Jul 20, 2022 at 3:11 AM UTC
Don't tell me to smile
Exhortations to "cheer up" will be ignored
You don't know how far you're stretching me, do you?
Your head still in the clouds of safety where imbeciles call out to each other
Listen. Listen, do
We're exploring the heaviest things in the world
Too heavy for Sysyphyus to haul
I'm that kid you can kind of see through
The one on the left corner
With the cool bootleg Pink Floyd t shirt wrapping his thin torso
He's got a box of Playboys beneath his nightstand and he's barely 14 years old
He reads and incorporates that garbage into his pre-adolescence behavior
With dreams of visiting Plato's
Retreat
Picking up some bunnies using some of the better Party Jokes
His expertise at 'lingus and 'latio are as well perfected as can be without having actually performed them
But he could sure bust out the ******* Philosophy and would have held his own with the old geezer who wrote it
But he was only 14 and nobody seemed impressed with the amount of ******* culture he'd consumed
They weren't letting him in the cluuuub
Your ****** right he didn't feel like smiling
But he wasn't bored
And he didn't feel too serious
He'd let it slide this time
*to be continued
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 12:41 AM UTC