"nosebleeds" poems
you hurt like ache
and adderall
and arnica
you hurt like bruises
and battle scars
and broken bones
you hurt like cuts
and *******
and countryside
you hurt like death
and destruction
and die-hard
you hurt like electricity
and emergency rooms
and edit-undo
you hurt like **** you's
and fire
and fallen trees
you hurt like garbage cans
and gonorrhea
and gang ****
you hurt like hell
and holes in the road
and heartache
you hurt like israel
and illness
and ignition fumes
you hurt like jaundice
and jugular veins
and jack in the box
you hurt like karma
and kissing
and kerosine lamps
you hurt like lightning
and love
and literary terms
you hurt like mother
and mary
and moses
you hurt like nakedness
and nosebleeds
and nervous breakdowns
you hurt like oil spills
and old yeller
and oral quizzes
you hurt like parkinson's
and parties
and panic
you hurt like queens
and questions
and quantum physics
you hurt like rogaine
and roses
and rope burn
you hurt like solar power
and stomach aches
and ***
you hurt like teeth cleanings
and tar
and tobacco
you hurt like ulcers
and underwear
and unrequited love
you hurt like viruses
and venus fly traps
and vapor rub
you hurt like warning signs
and weight gain
and war
you hurt like x-rays
and x marks the spot
and xoxo
you hurt like your mom
and your dad
and you
you hurt like zig zags
and zero
and zip ties
(a.m.c.)
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 2:05 PM UTC
Let 'em hear ya in the cheap seats
In the nosebleeds
Trashed and thrashed
The stove heats up the whole house
The beauty pageant is being judged by those who have been bribed and the biased
There's no room at the inn
To the barn, I guess
Ring in the morning
As today's hectic schedule chimes in
The chimney sweep preforms rhinoplasty on a bobcat
And sends windup toys to Goodwill
I christen thee, Backwards!
Here, take this seven leaf clover for good luck
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 2:35 PM UTC
Trapped inside this box of your brain
Just one way out ; crystal's key
Crush purest, whitest rock.
won't feel so foul
though careful now!
you'll waste your go
theres only bout a gram you know
translucent Blue cases and razor blades,
an assortment of bank cards and notes far and wide,
torn up notebook scrap dyed red - a meaningful sign
from the brutal nosebleeds marking the straws
The purest indication
of our devout dedication;
my love,
complete devotion to such godless acts
Hear cheers of charlie
speaking salacious acts
Sniff some magic snow for silence
the hankering soon be back
One in the kitchen starting his war,
One in the spre room - dead on the floor,
Two in the bed lost to their head,
And myself on the hunt
for half ins for more
Aug 5, 2018
Aug 5, 2018 at 10:32 PM UTC
She had a frazzled sort of look about her. Wispy hair fell into her eyes which were watering from the allergies she often complained about, the ones that caused her nosebleeds so heavy, she'd nearly faint from blood loss. But beneath her red eyes and curly hair was this pale, pink cheeked girl who listened to punk and wrinkled her nose. She was like an antique. Something worn down, beautiful and full of secrets and memories, that you'd find under a pile of books in a dark corner. She was sarcastic, flighty and judgmental, constantly angry with the world and culture that she'd been ****** into. She spent all her time forcing beauty and laughter into people's lives so they wouldn't see the shattered pieces of the world and subsequently herself that she tried to hide behind her back. Others might see this as sly or deceitful but it wasn't. Her lies were the selfless kind, if such exist. She wanted to protect people from the world that wore her down so cruelly and quickly, she became an antique person by the age of fifteen. This frazzled, determined, lovely girl may not change the world, but she changed my life.
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 12:01 AM UTC
i press the buttons, i carve out the map.
i water the flowers, i mix the soil.
the buttons don’t work, the map doesn’t show me the direction.
the flowers haven’t bloomed this season, the plant is still not humid.
we have becomes a voiceless society.
the most manpower and the most technology,
the loss of energy, creativity and spirit.
the voice has faded like a semi permanent tattoo etched in the previous edicts of time.
the stones of civilisation had been laid, but the water tests our depth.
the reef of originality used to tease us,
oxygen; a valuable life currency.
even more valuable than time.
because without it, you cannot experience time.
now it’s one foot in, and you’ve reached the depth.
shallow shadows, clear paths.
this machine patented clarity is a loss for all.
clarity that has brushed away the wild ways of tracing fingers across life’s board.
we have all the power in the world.
and yet, we do not have a voice anymore.
we have all the resources in the world.
and yet we do not have any purpose to use these resources.
life has becomes a dead garden,
where everything does bloom with fifteen fertilisers,
but what role do we assume,
when all we do is just manufacture them?
when will the sunrise and the sunsets
ever be human again?
what does it even mean to be human anymore?
does this poem even have its own voice,
in the galaxy of big data, machines and algorithmic nosebleeds?
that is for you, the reader to decide.
the poet’s job is over.
Sep 8, 2025
Sep 8, 2025 at 10:14 PM UTC
Be my constant
like Desmond
and the Island
When you and me
met between nosebleeds
and seizures of consciousness
We looked to the sky
and watched
electromagnetic
explosions
That held our hearts
pumping out supernovas
In their hands
we were Gods
respectively
blowing
Buddha minds
out of proportion
re-enacting
some center stage production
of how we shift our own reality
Subtly
unspoken
devoid of emotions
lost like a lighter
in a smoke circle
Offsetting
the light and darkness
But You were always my constant
again and again
in
flash-backs
flash-forwards
flash-sideways
We could never escape the timeline
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 7:56 PM UTC
I can't be your first love
The one who's name waits on your tongue
To lash out and remind me
I am small within her shadow
I can't be your first love
With mocha skin
Red wine dripped lips
And the touch that may still creep into your dreams
I can't be the first love
You waited months to kiss
In a firework glow
(I wanted you more, God only knows)
I can't be the first love
Who captured you
With artemis' grace
And her goddess confidence
(Rather, I'm the stumbling deer in your headlights)
I can't be the one
Who coiled around you
Demanded princess treatments
No, I never fit right on a pedestal
I can't be her
Though I've wished I could
When the way you say her name
Holds more than just nostalgia
Now I know she's got the front row seats
Serial effect on her side
But don't put me in the nosebleeds
Cause the previews always come
Before the main event
Yes, I can't be your first love
But I'd love to be second
Nov 8, 2016
Nov 8, 2016 at 1:05 AM UTC
A marinate was played
Full of granite and fine rings
A bathtub of nosebleeds Danny and a bathtub of kings
All the cards that were dealt all the hands that we played pulled the curtain bell
Of my sleeve up to delay what I'd say and
All the cards we swept under the rug Danny all the music we screamed
From my sore throat and broken hands came the sound of suffering on a silent note in an empty room a bell jar and a piano and a single key being pressed in time to the sound of my weeping Danny
My friends ignored my cries
But here we are now with a new drum set and two sets of sticks for hands and we break everything we try to touch Danny thinking it can be played like the single key in that lonely room
Listen there are vultures in my throat in all my baby teeth and landlocked blues
I know that's the name of the song but I wanted to play it for you
Just in case you forgot I could sing out my suffering
And it doesn't sound so horrible now does it Danny
Because you don't know the story it tells
The blood diamond behind the curtain
Well it glimmers just as well
And I'm sure we can find a way to forgive ourselves for everything that was done
But I'm in a two step programme
Where everything gets reversed
And no I haven't slept in weeks Danny you're right I know I look like ****
I just haven't had time to think about what I'm putting in me
When I try to scream and I come up on a single static piano key
Listen there are ways we broke each-other and I'm sorry I tried
But the sound of my suffering
Doesn't mean waving goodbye
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 4:20 PM UTC
we find ourselves crumpled like paper
my nosebleed acts like glue
you smell and taste like pixie dust
my eyes roll around the room
ascending towards heaven
i grip your ribs like handrails
you stop me short -
'i'm going to...'
and like a napkin under the dinner table
i’m falling off your lap
you'll remember me when you need to clean up
when you need to wipe your hands
May 5, 2016
May 5, 2016 at 11:55 AM UTC
a young couple in love turned into a disaster neither of you wanted, a weakened man cut down by life reaches out for just a taste of the dragon, and life spirals down from there, utter depression, daily beatings, tons of lies and painful cries, and somehow she managed to keep her hope alive.
she held her hands out like a life ring, just begging you to grab on, her only desire was to save you.
her heart stopped beating after years of loving you and praying you'd get over your self destructive habit.
she begged you to love her the way you used to, although she accepted it when you couldn't.
and when your heart turned cold and icy, hers was still warm enough to heat up a room. it's too bad you'd rather be stuck in your lonely ice box that you call a soul.
battered and bruised, you're twisted and she's confused, she can't escape this place. she's too invested and in love, she prays from help from above.
all she wants is her old life back, where you loved her more than misery and smack.
blood shot eyes, one too many lies, and ******* broke her spirits and for some reason that came to your surprise,
but you only cared went you weren't high.
the stale smell of blood, constantly finds it way into her nose and drives her crazy, and when she craves a line or two of sugar her nails dig holes and lines into her skin.
she's lost all hope, all love of life, she's given up on God, and you know it ain't right.
she wakes up screaming from her dreams,
to sooth your soul to go back to sleep, you go into the bathroom in the dark, take out the band, and jab another needle through your so called heart, then collapse in comatose beside her cold body.
©
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 10:14 AM UTC
I write your name
in red
sunlight
seeps through bottles
on a windowsill
margarine kaleidoscopes
on legs
naked for a change
(early summer risky business)
Floorboards yawn
under the weight of our stories
I take showers
as well as baths now
Can't be twenty-one here
older shush you couldn't tell
Roll my finger
make your piano tingle
like when our wrists
bump together
when spines crackle
on books bought yesterday
this city bubbles
all fiction
You think
monochrome
makes you look better
camera snap done
jazz sashays around the room
head out a window
hear people as nosebleeds
scrabble about
You flirt
(what a discovery)
like flowers in a vase
orange juice bagels
ten-plus-ten toes
(A moment
where your eyes ache
into mine)
I hop
stepped jumped
into this mess
you know as well as I do
what a delectable
mess we are in
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 5:29 PM UTC
*Hey, Mr. Rager! Mr. Rager!
Tell me where you're going!
Tell us where you're headed!*
This is an ode to all the lungs you've burnt, all the times you knew how hurt I was and am and how my heart bruises the inside of my chest, beating the **** out of me, trying to burst from my body, frantic, afraid. Oh- credit card fingers, syringe tongue, bloodiest of Sunday's, show me how to roll it, show me how to make origami of my bones.
I'm off on a adventure.
To the fickle space between the folds of your brain, to the indecision, to the gentle curve of your shoulders that I trace with my palm, to the gaps in your happiness.
*Mr. Rager!
Tell me some of your stories
Tell us of your travels
Hey, Mr. Rager! Mr. Rager!
Tell me where you're going!
Tell us where you're headed!*
To the untouched spots on your cheeks, to all the noises that frighten you, to all the things that go bump in the night, to starving, to all the stucco paint, to acid flashbacks, to paranoia, to my knuckles, ****** from beating myself up.
I'm on my way to Heaven.
To the rolling back of your eyes, to ******* nosebleeds, to drunk driving, to the ***** all across your chest, to your mother's mother, to the way your eyes soften when you look at me.
*Mr. Rager!
Can we tag along? Can we take a journey?*
You're asleep in my arms, my hand in your hair. The world is turning a little slower.
When will the fantasy end? When will the heaven begin?
Oct 23, 2016
Oct 23, 2016 at 11:57 PM UTC
I can see you smiling through the pain
You've been through storms of hurt and rain
Your heart is big, but your eyes weak
But you still act strong, oh so sweet
Although you say you're quite alright
Saying that phrase takes all your might
Such a weak soul, you think to yourself
And begin doing things not good for your health
You'll walk out of bathrooms with nosebleeds
Hiding your face so no one sees
No one knows anything
Just the way you want it to be
Years after rehab, you begin again
But to stop, all you needed was a friend
Someone who cared about you so
And take care of you in times of woe
A friend who loved you endlessly
And to make sure you fell sound asleep
A friend at heart is all you need
To cope with this world full of greed
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 2:44 AM UTC
They say young girls are the best at keeping secrets
1. I have to pretend I have nosebleeds to excuse myself from having to sit further into the cinema because at some point there is the possibility that I will need to escape these social situations I can’t deal with. Anxiety is taking over my entire life.
2. I want to try ecstasy just to see if the colours really are as vibrant as they say they are. Can the browns really be more beautiful than his eyes?
3. I often think about killing myself because breathing is getting too hard. It’s been too hard for years but I stopped telling my therapist because I don’t want her to feel bad. I don’t want her to feel like she’s not good at her job.
4. I wake up every day terrified that really I should be in Art school because when I talk here, it still feels like no-one is listening. If I drew my words would they see them any clearer?
5. I call God on the landline phone because my mobile has bad signal. It keeps on telling me it’s trying to connect, connect... I think I forgot to pay my bills.
6. I lose potential future best friends because I refuse to be a sob story and therefore I don’t tell them much. The very idea of being one leaves an uneasy feeling in my body. Like pills too large for my throat or pins and needles.
7. I can’t pin this down. I’m not sure I ever did.
8. I’m still in love with a boy who spells my surname incorrectly. He doesn’t care.
9. I’m not sure I will ever be happy. And that scares the **** out of me. Because if I can’t be happy, then what is the point of smiling?
10. Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve my voice box. Most nights I wonder if it’s still there.
I’m not good at keeping secrets.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 5:24 PM UTC
Lemme set fire to your home.
Call the fuzz, I'll pick it out
my navel and run.
You'll never catch my intent
cuz it's way over the foul line
and into the nosebleeds.
Jul 9, 2013
Jul 9, 2013 at 12:04 PM UTC
father was visited one night by his terrible stomach long enough for it to mumble no one has to know I’m here. his brothers were all red sheep. his daughter from his first two marriages has since gone on to assess accident vehicles. when I was a boy I’d tell her one breast didn’t like the other. she’d cry. twirl a baton. her baby brother would call to her from the front lawn and I’d have to go under her bed for the window ladder because she was wearing a skirt. her mother was said to be able to floss with cobwebs. her mother entered my thoughts with video game controllers that had taken the brunt of nosebleeds. everyone was soft or painting books in an after hours library. afflicted with hush, my father ventures wholeheartedly into the phrase *it’s all ***** in a sandbox* while aware of the baton as anomaly. poems provide the mediocre privacy of poems.
Sep 15, 2013
Sep 15, 2013 at 12:27 PM UTC
the modern miracles of the modern messiah
- feeding the destitute with one chicken
- quenching their first with a litre of Coke
- modern mercies at the homeless shelter
- the young kids with gout and nosebleeds
all the odd numbers at the bingo hall
solar power fuelled anger
buy one get two free as the flies buzz around the discarded fruit out back of the supermarket
angels with ***** faces
angels in Nikes
May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017 at 3:26 PM UTC
That was the day your face seared onto the inside of my eyelids. That was the day a gentle hunger stroked my belly, and that was the day where we trekked the entire length of Manhattan with Gershwin bubbling from our mouths. And that was the day I discovered the city at night in broad strokes, that was the time where my steps grew a little bit larger, where we painted the soles of our feet and colored the sidewalks our footprints dripped where the colors blend you held my hand and held your breath as you walked against the red light.
That was the summer you began the nonchalance around me and that’s when I knew our friendship was over, sailed on when the vessels in my nose broke and blood started gushing out. I was bending over the sink to catch the droplets in the water fingers poised over the bridge of my nose to stem the flow and when I called out for you, called out your name, you replied with clinical directness completely impassive and proceeded to google how to stop nosebleeds all the while chanting “nose nose nose” in a singsongy breath and that’s when I knew that the ship has sailed onto muddy waters.
Which is the dream and which is reality? For there are some images that are so beautiful I find it hard to believe I was awake and yearning
That was the day where you reached to fix a leaf on a branch and I caught a pale sliver of flesh, that streak of white stomach, the glance down at me, the blush, the light tarnishing that yellow hair, setting my heart ablaze
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 5:17 AM UTC
No immediacy to what has escaped
It's run back down hill
Sisyphus so old he can't chase
They'll be no more pushing up
Except for daisies
So plant it here
Next to me, Big Rock
We've rolled enough
And never got up that great big hill
In any case, I get nosebleeds
When I'm that high
We might just as well be happy
With the ruts we've created
Perhaps we've made it easier
For the next guy
Nov 25, 2015
Nov 25, 2015 at 8:19 AM UTC
through open windows
hear screams at night
lay motionless
lone mattress
dark empty room
four walls closing in
a cold sweat
in a dry heat
growls and grunts
raise from outside
soft drum beats
the devil is owed his due
hands run through matted hair
breath long and staggered
tobacco stained teeth
******* induced nosebleeds
screams grow louder
grizzled voices rip free
broken hands pound
dead chest heaves
raises
raises
raises
one high pitched ring
it was always me screaming
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 10:55 PM UTC
Not much like this high.
Your brain about fifteen seconds in
advance of your body. Staring around
at your friends. Blood dripping
from your nose. They don't tell
you about the nosebleeds. They don't
tell you about the burn that guts you out
right behind the eyes. The ache in
your chest as your lips curl and your
eyes roll back. Not much like this
high, boys and girls, not much.
Chopped and cut; a one way ticket
to El Dorado. Your spine breaks as you
attempt to stand. Your legs buckle. Time passes.
You're on the porch, knee deep in the pool,
******* it feels good. Time passes.
You can't eat. You can't drink. You can't blink
Not much like this high. It don't last long though.
Here comes the tide rolling in. Here comes
the Downs. Down down down. Killing yourself
is too much to pass up on these days. Too much
going on not to take a trip. Get up. Get away.
Haven't eaten in days, just crank. Chop up.
***** up. Line up. Inhale. Don't forget to breathe.
Saved a hundred dollar bill for the occasion.
Break it in. Go go go. Quick, before the
Downs come. Go go go. Screaming from
the inside out. What have we gotten
ourselves into? Vicious cycles and
bad habits that won't break.
Vicious war within ourselves; broken bones,
nosebleeds, and all of everything burnt out.
Our souls turn to ash as we lean in closer,
and laugh because we know we shouldn't.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 4:59 PM UTC
I miss her.
I miss how we used to be.
We sat on my bed
and wrote on my wall,
"We're 13.
People treat us like kids,
kids have fun.
When did we start making life
so ******* complicated?
We need to have fun again."
We need to have fun again.
We needed to have fun
so she took a bottle to her lips
and started crushing pills.
We needed to have fun,
but we took keys and razors to our wrists
under desks, in bathrooms, and under covers
to deal with the fights, the lies,
the whole world being against us.
(A tradition i recently continued
after 4 years
by taking a razor to my upper arm in
our school's art gallery.)
Those Nights that we spent together,
those nights kept me alive...
until they didn't.
Until I lost her.
Until she became nothing
but the smoke
of a burnt out candle
remnants of the blazing fire that she once was,
whispering,
"you're a liar...
you said you'd get better."
I sit back and see her wasting away
and i hate myself for not trying harder
to save her.
We needed to have fun
but as I watched her transform
from a girl to a ghost,
all gangly limbs and rotting teeth
and scars and nosebleeds
and missing conversations
and empty words,
I wonder what kind of fun
she could possibly be having.
I used to know her better than I knew myself
but as i watch her go from a sister
to a stranger,
I realise i barely know her name now.
i miss her.
I hope she knows this isn't what i meant
when i said,
"We need to have fun."
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 2:37 PM UTC
You are getting nosebleeds at all the wrong times
the tears welling up behind your eyes to track down your
pale, pockmarked cheek
and that bulging in your throat constricting the airflow
let’s you know that fast can be too fast
you thrive with the sunlight
but like flowers standing tall against the oncoming winter
you wilt with day’s last breath
what time did you get home this morning?
hair all matted and stood up
smelling like a sorority party massacre
glitter, wine, tequila, coke, and anonymous ****
take another adderall
******* for the bored children
feel the electrical signals pulse from your brain
to snap your pupils to attention
wash the ***** out of your hair sweet heart
the boys back home never talked to you the way these city boys do
“girl, ***** chick, **** ***** -”
“oh her? yeah she’s a sure ****
her legs are like seven eleven
they’re not always doing business, but they’re always open…”
So forget the night ever happened
each day brings new opportunities
but they all want you
they all want one thing from you
and you don’t want to say no
don’t want to make them mad,
be a tease, a ***** frigid
and you like the way they make you feel special and beautiful
until the next morning
with the nosebleeds and the dry heaving in strange toilets
and you are waiting for Prince Charming, huh?
as if he will jump out of cheesy romcoms and magazines to hold you steady
well Prince charming is dead weight slowly spinning beneath a frayed, twisted rope
in a dark closet next to the nameless stranger and the noble outlaw
so go ahead and smash those mirrors sweetheart
what’s seven years more bad luck?
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 12:57 PM UTC
losing love and feeling numb
she is strung through the trees
and i am at the bottom of a bottle
he will hold your hands
and i will brush your hair
when there is nothing good to say
we will weep with you
every night you need to
until numb is the new norm
august and everything after
will never be the same
because she died
and the leaves are racing to catch up
book bindings unwind
down all four of our spines
and dormitory air is only good for nosebleeds
if i could sleep around a fire
with my best friends
every night i would
because even if we cant see the stars
we each have faith that they are still there
Sep 6, 2015
Sep 6, 2015 at 9:21 PM UTC
It feels like wind whipping through the darkness
Looking up at trees without leaves, through branches
Right into the cold black of oblivion where the sea
Parts and cradles and sits waiting patiently
For all life there ever was to end, for just a break
It gets so busy when everything happens all at once
Dizzying, drawing attention back to street corners
And cars bustling past the stragglers at 3am
Who can't decide if they would rather be living or dead
And instead settle for the nothingness between the two
Lounging on couches, covered in nosebleeds and picking at scabs
Longing for a youth that has been replaced by bitterness
You had a teacher once who told you that life spoils you
There has to be great care taken you don't die before you rot
He waxed on about power lines and the role of money in politics
And promised he was the supreme specimen, rational
But he forgot to look up at the stars at night, to remember
To inhale the smoke that's never visible, to exhale white winter frost
He never left behind his body in the pursuit of understanding
I miss him and the legacy, the promise of materialism
Everything seems so pointless from this vantage
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 11:31 PM UTC