"normalize" poems
Sleeplessness
Brought to you by sparkling espresso in a can
I have underestimated you yet again, oh humble coffee bean
But back to work
Eight tabs open, going back and forth
It's nothing short of a miracle if any given task is given more than a minute of attention at a time
Muscle spasms, trembling, fascinating
Overwhelming urge to mindlessly flex the muscles I don't have
Fake machissimo brought about by exhauation?
Or the exhileration of having to complete 8 projects in a day
While simultaneously trying to grasp a breaking down of my mind which hasn't happened since...forever
Hmm
These are the prime conditions to breed a taxing marathon of productivity
Or a chain of costly impulsive decisions to perpetuate procrastination.
Signs that someone is going crazy range from ****** to inability to stick to a single topic to excessive use of run on sentences
"How meta, acknowledging your insanity deconstructs the very notion of it if you normalize it within yourself and just look as everyone else as crazy! Ha.ha."
That made no sense, i don't think.
I like using big words to make myself sound smart you can make anyone believe anything if you use big words also it scares those
Hippopotomonstroesquipedaliophobixlcs
Grumble grumble
Good night/morning/whatever
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 11:55 PM UTC
flower whose well fed,
which love and happiness was led
to dance with the wind
with the free mind
are either lucky, or unfortunate,
as the joy feed by their love ones,
could affect them nor normalize
it's their choice not to value things,
and to accept things as it is
you're either a rose or a sunflower,
you may be an azalea, but you're still a flower,
and it's your choice to be a vigorous flower,
or to be a wilted flower
Aug 26, 2017
Aug 26, 2017 at 11:11 AM UTC
therapy and resistance
how is it that therapy becomes the excess of class war or the oppression thereof?
When the struggle of the individual is made to seem self induced when it is easily and clearly directly a result of the failures and complacence afforded by the majority of the group.
When in a therapeutic environment it is important to distinguish the opportunities of resistance from the experience of trauma.
there has always been individuals who establish groups that are in a realm of desperation.
Understanding how this process has unfolded institutionally is just as valid as treating the individual.
This gives the individual the choice and resources needed to heal.
The healing could look like resistance rather than assuming aspects of class war or oppressive culture to be normal.
Otherwise therapy is nothing but the means to normalize the process of oppression.
The traumatic state needs to be able to decipher its organic existence from that of organized oppression and its institutional cooperation.
the neglect of deciphering or distinguishing these differences causes individuals to make a competition out of trauma. This minimizes certain trauma of individuals and causes the group to have less of an opportunity to resist organized oppression of the institution.
Those that are in the realm of desperation or traumatic state are given no choice but to repress in order to continue being social or a member of the group.
in excess the hierarchies of gender, race and class are reinforced to an almost superhuman level.
To the desperate or traumatic state…
what needs reinforcement is that there are humans just like us who have resisted oppression and caused the normalcy of the group to be more inclusive and aware of the processes associated with organized oppression.
Apr 20, 2017
Apr 20, 2017 at 7:30 PM UTC
A feather floating,
this feather is me and it was a pound heavier.
This once heavy feather merely floated.
I found solace in weighted thoughts,
my heart was born a feather
and it personified me
but it felt too special in all the wrong ways
when this feather aged and changed
many felt pain and this poor feather floated
but it added a few ounces to normalize itself
this heart of mine added weight by the day to
identify myself with other with ease.
I tried to float in this new chapter of my life,
but the feather floated ungracefully,
the feather lost its fluffy bits, bit by bit.
Crunch time and I dropped a pound of weight from my heart,
it was sudden, almost like losing baggage in an air plane terminal.
I use this feather as a saber,
it floats gently around conflicts that are blinded by shallow intents
and cuts the air.
It dances and spins,
this feather truly floats.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 11:26 PM UTC
Mood stabilizers, they call them, but in some ways, they're more like painkillers for your heart. They numb the feelings so that you don't have the extreme moods you are accustomed to.
When you have a mood disorder, everything you feel is so much more intense, and so much more certainly snowballs out of control. That's most of the problem; the complete lack of control you have over your chaotic emotions.
But then you go to a doctor, and they give you happy little pills called stabilizers to do just as they're told to. Stabilize you. Normalize you.
Funny thing is, even with the little heart painkillers, you'll never be normal. Even if you keep up a fantastically ordinary facade, you will never be ordinary. You will always have those little pills in your pocket telling you that you are not good enough the way you are, that you must change.
Its a double-edged sword, these pills. Because some days you wonder why you can't just be you, why do you need these drugs in your veins, but then you remember the cuts on your arms and the painful nights where you drowned in your own tears and you remember why even you don't think the person you are is acceptable. Get better, Grace, be better, Grace. The words pound in your ears until you forget who you used to be and you are always striving to be something more, something better. You strive until it kills you.
You are stronger, you can beat it, they say.
What if I don't want to beat it, though, just want to have control of it? I never want to feel less than everything, I never want to feel so dull and numb that it kills me more than the pain ever did, I never want to beat myself, I simply want to be me but controllable.
Because right now I'm uncontrollable and that's terrifying.
Painkillers for your heart, numbing you until you can't feel anymore. But sometimes I wonder if I really want to feel numb.
Do I want to be me, or who everyone wants me to be?
One is safer than the other, but which one is really living?
Because all I want is to feel alive, but I don't know whether surviving will entail that.
Painkillers or killer pain.
That is my decision, one I'm not ready to make. Maybe tomorrow, when mania is not so close to my throat.
Maybe tomorrow, because I am far too afraid of today.
Dec 13, 2014
Dec 13, 2014 at 1:39 PM UTC
Months burst with potential understanding
Thyroid, Childhood Cancer, Breast Cancer
And Autism - a landscape of perception
I knew little once
Before lived experiences carved pathways
Of comprehension
Hand flapping, repeated movie scenes
Specific sensory needs
Neurological landscapes diverse as humanity itself
From verbal to non-verbal
From sibling to parent
From self-discovery at 34
My perspective widens like a lens
Societal Echoes
The world whispers harsh narratives
"Discipline them"
"Fix them"
"Normalize"
But we are not broken
We are different
Intricate neural networks
Misunderstood symphonies
Digital age amplifies cruelty
Marginalization becomes performance
Awareness transforms to spectacle,
Unfolding Truth
Intricate neural pathways
Misread as discordant tunes
The digital age sharpens cruelty's edge
Marginalization dressed as entertainment
Awareness turned into spectacle,
A truth slowly unraveling
Hatred cloaked in the guise of compassion
Bigotry masquerading as care
April - a month of performative understanding
We see what others refuse to witness
Complexity beyond simple categorization
Humanity in all its beautiful, challenging variations
Spectrum wide as consciousness
Unbound by neurotypical constraints
Nov 18, 2024
Nov 18, 2024 at 9:06 PM UTC
Welcome to America, in 2016.
Where "all lives matter"
Except Syrian refugees
Where you can't even breathe
Without offending somebody.
Where parents are taken from their children,
Because of the color of their skin.
Where we normalize police brutality.
Where you can be a racist,
And still run for president.
Where injustice is served, with a side of GMOs.
Where the citizens of Flint have been without clean water for how long?
Who knows.
Our minds are diluted by capitalism and celebrities.
Where people will look at you crazy for saying,
"Save the bees"
Meanwhile they're out there, planning WWIII.
When you're told "your vote counts!"
But we're stuck with Trump & Hillary.
Where women on the red carpet are glamorous and sexualized,
But if you're ***** they'll ask,
"Well what were you wearing that night?"
A guy selling marijuana will serve his whole life.
Whereas Brock Turner was released in what felt like overnight.
Where white privilege has never been more real.
And our generation is learning that
"You're weak if you feel."
People being told we have nothing to fear,
Meanwhile the media is controlling what we hear.
People fighting for clean water, as if that wasn't our God-given right.
Our women are afraid to walk home alone at night.
You can work 40 hours a week, and still not make enough to live.
But if you ask for government assistance, you're a "lazy son of a *****
When in reality, it's just enough to feed your kids.
The Elite have created this illusion of seperation.
They have torn us apart as a world, and as a nation.
The color of our skin doesn't make us any different.
I promise you can love someone who practices a clashing religion.
Underneath it all, we're all the same.
All this person on person violence just makes us pawns in their game.
We should be coming together as humans, who have lost their humanity.
Maybe this all makes my "liberal."
But in all honesty, the current state of the world has me questioning my sanity.
Love thy neighbor, respect their spirit.
Or we won't be around much longer to experience it.
Welcome to America in 2017.
We forgot how to love one another so we were wiped out, mercilessly.
If only we had come together before we tore ourselves apart.
If we remember who we are,
We can be our own light in the dark.
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 2:17 PM UTC
They call you "woman"
Though you probably are just shy
You are only about fourteen
When a nation is sewn into your womb
The white men, they will call you exotic
Call your brothers savages
As they pin you to a tree
And colonize the nest below your belly
They will imperialize your body
Annex your ******
Because they can
They are above you, after all
Yet you are still looking ahead
So eloquent while under attack
Why is **** suddenly beautiful
When it is a weapon of war?
Why do we normalize
The abuse of women with brown skin?
Not pain, just literature
So darling, I am so sorry
For what my brothers, for what my ancestors
Did to you
I am so sorry that the war on your body
Is why I am standing on your homeland
Though the skin of my relatives was not on American soil
Until two hundred years later
My blood was never shed on that dirt
Anyone who came here after you
Has hands covered in red
Flash forward three hundred years
These white men whose forefathers
Made a throne for their heirs inside of you
Are accusing other brown-skinned people
Of being terrorists
Of being rapists
Did we really forget that quickly?
They will wage war for my body
Because it lacks pigment
But they will ignore
That they are the ones committing the crime.
Every time a brown person is deported
Every time we vote for someone
Who spews bile when they speak
Every time we accuse immigrants
Of advancing our **** problem
We are slicing your children from your insides
Marvelous woman
Each nation you birthed is under attack
Every time we attack another nation
Our hands are covered in red.
Feb 27, 2016
Feb 27, 2016 at 10:09 PM UTC
I was ten years old when I had my first crush.
I didn't think much of it. I just sort of assumed
That you should care for your best friend enough
That they were the person you wanted to reach for
When no one else was there.
I assumed that love was the type of thing
That you give freely and kindly.
But when he was lost to me,
Due to moves and my own issues,
I held on tight to those feelings,
And attempted time and time again to let go.
But I never felt anything
Since then.
No spark of affection,
No desire to get to know another
In that sense
And I faked a lot of things I shouldn't have.
I faked affection and I faked caring.
I faked being a normal teenager,
Because normal teenagers have crushes and think people are cute,
And recognize attraction and flirtation and actually want to go to dances
And hope that the cute boy will kiss them.
I faked it all.
Because I never felt a "crush", nor did I find anyone cute,
I didn't recognize attraction or flirtation, and I would have rather died than go to a dance.
And kissing I found to be disgusting, I would have rather chewed on rocks.
I thought I was broken. That I wasn't quite normal.
That there was something wrong with me for being so utterly repulsed
By *** and the like.
And in a vulnerable, broken state,
I mistook a bravado of kindness that hid selfish intentions,
For a chance to normalize myself again.
And I broke further,
Through every time I was yelled at,
Berated,
Controlled.
Told not to feel,
Not to react
Not to respond.
For so long, I thought I was broken
Because I cannot look at someone and find them anything more than
Somewhat aesthetically pleasing (if even that).
I cannot look at someone and see any potential
Sexually.
And upon being with you,
And clicking with the conversation,
And that first hug,
I realized I was not broken.
Rather I was a lock,
That needed the correct key,
But the key had been there
All along.
Oct 30, 2016
Oct 30, 2016 at 11:58 AM UTC
It’s December, it’s foggy and rainy, but that fits. Of course, a rainy Saturday means gathering in the common room with my roommates and watching either “The Hunger Games” or “Twilight.” Leong’s never seen Twilight, believe it or not, what are they DOing in China? We were explaining that It’s ok to talk through Twilight because it’s completely senseless. Yeah, good times.
We got back from Thanksgiving break, and we had to hit it - grinding to squeeze half a semester into 18 days. It’s a cornucopia of pressure. Yes, we’ve hit the books, but we’re still us.
Here’s a question: What’s the first season in December? “Spotify wrapped” season! EVERYONE has Spotify and once a year you get a summary of your listening habits. The reports came out this week and it’s all people are talking about. Comparing their lists, artists, tastes. Those lists say a lot about someone and it’s ok to not have taste, we should normalize it.
My top artist was Taylor Swift (duh) my top song was Taylor Swift’s “Renegade,” Spotify says I listened to it 285 times but that’s biased because more than once, when writing a paper, I put that song on a loop for 6 hours. My second most listened to song was “Champagne Problems” By Taylor. That song is so Rory, Gilmore Girls coded - like Rory saying, “you're on your own.” My other top artists are TV Girl, the backseat lovers and hypo campus. Yeah, I roll big.
Taylor’s also been in the conversation because Sophie has an ex-fem-friend (a freshman) who started seeing a 45-year-old guy. Let me ask you, what does a 45-year-old man have in common with an 18-year-old girl? We have Yale friends in their early 20s who consider themselves still teenagers and children and THEY are horrified. It’s naked fracking ********** (Sorry, that one foamed over.)
The whole situation is ripped from Taylor’s 2010 masterpiece “Dear John,” which is about her dating John Mayer when she was 19 and he was 30-something. Her friends warned her, but she wouldn’t hear. Taylor Swift can be corny, and I love the corn, but she can be topical too and even though I was 7 when she released “Dear John” (2010), it’s a timeless lesson.
Dec 3, 2022
Dec 3, 2022 at 2:01 PM UTC
Tis sad
*To know or not the whys
What difference does it make
Looking back at all the unnecessities*
***To see and feel so clearly
And just cry***
For a true moment awake
*You believe so much it all matters
You can change the future with all your nows
Incrementally believing into every one
Whatever such is but a heart hard matter*
One where yes you do battle
***You do it right on
You do it in the face of obstinate ruses***
*Of any and every justification
of the little hells we normalize
and try to stay straight with our cultish*
***Philosophies
Cultural comforts
Reverenant misguidances***
*Why call this life
When, when clearly*
One can see our daily deathly ploys
*How fun twas musical chairs
Little children run in dancing circles
Till each is beset with the planned failures*
For one and one only
Shall be on top
*While the other
Shall be*
The bottom
Tis not so much the Wild Kingdom
Tis the Wilds of Civilized Being
May 26, 2013
May 26, 2013 at 11:18 AM UTC
Sleep is gentler when my olfaction is full of
smoke and spice and a hint of shampoo
(like Christmas with you in a log cabin)
And my ossicles still vibrate with variations of my name
and low tones of “I love you”s without the actual
three words.
I find peace in the way our knuckles inhibit that perfect fit
of our fingers, but we lace them regardless.
It seems your thumb on my cheekbone
and your strength blanketing my quivering being
are the only things that normalize my oxygen flow
and slow my racing heart after a ****
memory-mare
(nightmares are bad enough
memories are worse)
And most nights,
when your calloused fingertips paint circles between my shoulder blades,
I wake in the early morning
not with a scream
but with a welcoming sigh
to that crooked smile meeting mine.
A night with you is a night safe from ghosts.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 11:19 PM UTC
These greedy leviathans in ties, & business suits. Sitting behind fancy office tables & tinted windows, salivate over the noose they placed upon my neck.
& if I stay here any longer
I'll become an after image of the image they portray.
As I walk through these corridors
I can't help but feel asphyxiated
as the noose tightens around my neck.
Reminding me that I've normalize the idea of my humanity.
I belittled myself the day I signed up for slavery & a check that spells"battered soul" within minimum wage words. & through the mist of my frustrations
I've realized comfort was my only enemy.
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 3:37 AM UTC
Tired, ironic and
Flatly stating
Jests about
Cyanide, suicide,
Joining laughter
To subside and
Normalize pain
Or rather,
Try to --
The joke’s on them
I still want to die
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 11:28 PM UTC
I am falling
Perpetual spirals into the dark
I feel my hands grasping
As air passes through my fingers
Something feels off and
I really can't tell
If the caution is real
Or a phantom of my fear
I'm in the land of ghosts and demons
Haunted by these oppressive memories
It's hard to know what's worse
The monsters or the claustrophobia
Flowers can't bloom in the darkness and
Humans cannot thrive in isolation
This place is lifeless, suffocating
Only tolerable through inebriation
Kindess is but a mask here
Trusting no one a necessity
Half these people want me dead
And a quarter could care less
Don't tell me I'm overreacting
When even family aim their guns
I've made my escape and now
I know what growth feels like
I've tasted the freshness of freedom
Witnessed the miracle of peace
It is not like this everywhere
So don't try to normalize this hate
I found celebration beyond tolerance
And I've built my home there
This place is a noxious poison and
I'm done trying to survive it
Aug 10, 2021
Aug 10, 2021 at 7:47 AM UTC
Suicidal, reclining on a sofa
Gazing at his partner’s photo,
A handsome friend of mine I got
He was by an
Overwhelming love smote.
To optimize hers
And his pleasure to trim
She opted
Suddenly to desert him.
Buddy, what weighs
So heavily on your mind?
Get it off your chest
A solution I may help you find!
“This picture-perfect girl
Sweet-talked me into love,
She playacted
As one sent from above.
But all of a sudden,
Before I had figured it out,
A mishap,
She dropped off the map.
You see, she was ready
To flee to
Her secret fiancé abroad
Simultaneously,
All the while grabbing
My hand
To lead me
Along love’s road.
With her fiancé
Stashed in
The back of her mind,
In a manner
A lead to her secret
I may not find
She was aware
Our love
To a halt
Would soon grind
However absurd
Her act I might find!”
I recited to him
A poem from Debebe Seifu,
Ethiopia’s famous poet,
Cognizant a well prescribed
Poem is an antidote
"You served me
An asinine chalice
Concocted of
Honey and gall,
Which at one shot
I gurgled down my throat.
Your fingers caressed me
To make me forget my pain
To lullaby me in to a sleep
Upon awakening from
My hallucination to get myself
In a thorny bed again."
Reading, re-reading the poem
Laughing out loud,
His anguish he soon forgot.
So make note,
To normalize a mood swing
Reading poems is a nice thing.
Jun 16, 2020
Jun 16, 2020 at 8:27 AM UTC
Troubled eyes in disguise
lips spilling lies
long nights , silent cries
only living for the highs
all we do is categorize
left to agonize
in the mirror, you criticize
slowly to dehumanize
trying to normalize
dreams of going past those starry skies
oh those starry skies, oh those starry skies
it's okay because eventually
everything ... everything dies
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 12:17 AM UTC
love is not serious. it is but a way of nature that exists in all "higher" beings. it is not important nor is it useful. we as a culture put our emotional stock in this idea without thinking of its repercussions. life is not a movie. we who love are fools of the highest caliber. chemicals, hormones, the world tells us to appreciate one another and for what? to make babies? why? why, would anybody want to do that? if there was a button i could push to end humans entirely, i honestly believe i would think about it only for about 45 seconds. just long enough to think about what i felt as a man in love and then how i feel now as a human without and then BOOM! the world would fix the ecological damage we've dealt it within 250 years, the polar ice caps would normalize and true idea of nature would continue as it should.
undisturbed by love.
"we are but dust and shadow in forever of time"
Jan 9, 2013
Jan 9, 2013 at 3:37 AM UTC
The war
The war
It’s always the war
Determines how the map
Gets redrawn
By the board
So reform it all
Storm the hall
Normalize gore
And procure its
Pervasive
Inflation’s
Reward
Mar 11, 2023
Mar 11, 2023 at 4:52 PM UTC
we drank and smiled
pull a card, see what you hit.
hesitation in my eyes, as is usual
because there's this risk, exposure, disclosure
the fatal flaw that will give them a tool
to see inside.
this little game is nothing new
and i've long been a mystery, unwilling
to shed my lizard skin
but to sit here, exposed in an open bar,
inside, no escape. what could i do?
pulling the card was easy, my method
tried and true; shuffle, break, shuffle, draw.
the coincidence of the draw, disarming.
a double-whammy, it's the same card
and
i am numbed.
well? they demand.
rumbling around inside
i reach, the meaning not lost.
the words become hot tears in my mouth
and i read. my apologies for the emotions
foretold and forgiven it's okay
but no it's not. strength does not come
when you cry from the bench.
when my knees bled, isn't that how it happened?
those experiences, did they not strengthen me, but maybe not-maybe just the opposite.
normalize it and we can move forward, but reach first
cover your eyes, while you demand this from others.
disarming and alarmed i struggle for composure.
quickly the moment is lost, unsure of how or who is to
thank, and even now i can't recall
silence maybe? or was it the arrival of the check?
my punishment, a realization
one that cannot be silenced;
it's in the weakness that the
strength forms, in the stone's willingness
to be tossed about with little direction
unknown where it is to land and just
getting polished and ready along the way.
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 5:06 AM UTC
Pessimism has led him nowhere in life,
Rather than succeeding in life, he finds himself stuck in demise,
Feelings of deprivation have not but shattered his pride,
Sheltering on his flaunts, he is far more distinct than delight,
Vandalism of his thoughts wipe away a lot but suffice,
Atrocious eyes replenish all his sight,
Darkness before his eyes, leading to suffocation, consequently paralyzed,
Rigid hold and strengthened heart just hold on tight,
Imprudence never lies in soul but lurks behind the night,
As daylight conquers the spacious roon making everything so ever bright,
That rage and devastation which once at its epitome and height,
Disappears fading slowly and gradually in white,
Memories a paradox, growing vexation, if I'm right,
Proceeds to grasp hold on with all might,
As again the sun sets, changing your true form alight,
Revenge can evade the divinity of a knight,
Bringing venganence and enmity in a catastrophic fight,
Obstinate expressions, recalcitrant furry full of fright,
So much to normalize and then fortunately enlight.
Oct 11, 2015
Oct 11, 2015 at 2:25 AM UTC
War is such a beautiful thought to the insane
A large scale asylum with all of us inside
Crazy, we sit quietly as they talk about war
World war lll is said to be upon us
Yet we normalize it, nothing is awkward
As if the toxic gas will recognize the nostrils of the good;
As if the nuclear bombs only burn the guilty and dodge the innocent
Black, white, yellow, red skin
Doesn't matter
All will be affected by the terror
Terror that was put into effect by few
Three score and ten years was promised to us
Yet the idea of some people in countries making it out their adolescenses is foreign
God save us all
War is such beautiful music to the greedy
They love the sound of the drumline
Whistling sweet beats into their ears
Snare and bass drums booming
Pap! pap! pap! Boom!
Can you invision it?
We are all now a part of a 'jumper' church
We can't help but dance to the sound of the music
The choir of the innocent
Sing to the sound of their demise
Hands lifted above head as they shout and run
Giving praise to the heavens
As God's children fall to the dirt
As the dirt rises to the heavens
God save us all
Why are the good going out to **** and be killed?
In the name of their country
While the bad cloak their deep desires with a vision of peace
All for personal gains
Not for the people
If it were for the people every life would matter
No one would be sent to die
And no bombs would be delivered
Because peace would be the only option
To save all lives and not just some at the expense of others
God save us all
Oct 15, 2018
Oct 15, 2018 at 11:25 PM UTC
when the ****
as a society
did we decide it was okay
to normalize and romanticize
being numb
i have done
more harm than good
by numbing my emotions
for the last 14 years
i have hurt friends and family
by numbing it all
but more importantly
i have hurt myself
by numbing it all
so as a society i say
we start saying this
**** the numbness
feel it all
feel every last bit of pain
feel every last bit of hurt
feel every last bit of anger
feel every last bit of happiness
you will flourish now darling
Mar 30, 2018
Mar 30, 2018 at 2:41 AM UTC