"nothing" poems
Ladies and gentleman skinny and scout
I'll tell you a tale I know nothing about
The admission is free so pay at the door
Now pull out a chair and sit on the floor
On one bright day in the middle of the night
Two dead boys got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other
The blind man came to see fair play
The mute man came to shout hooray
The deaf policeman heard the noise
And came to stop those two dead boys
He lived on the corner in the middle of the block
In a two story house on a vacant lot
A man with no legs came walking by
And kicked the lawman in his thigh
He crashed through a wall without making a sound
Into a dry creek bed and suddenly drowned
A long black hearse came to cart him away
But he ran for his life and is still gone today
I watched from the corner of the table
The only eyewitness to facts of my fable
If you doubt my lies are true
Just ask the blind man, he saw it too
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 1:31 PM UTC
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine
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Sometimes you open yourself up to a person because you feel and believe that they're different and maybe this time they won't break your heart and that your love will be requitted. So you go out on a limb and open up so much of yourself to this person. Things that you're afraid to tell others about because of fear of being judged or rejected. But there's just something about this person that allows you to tell them everything. You become so comfortable in the presence of that person that you openly admit your flaws, you don't hide it. You just completely lose yourself in love and in the thought and concept of being loved, of being in a relationship and of being with someone that you can be yourself with. The idea of that person just completely excites you and everything about them makes you happy. Seeing them and hearing their voice just helps you in an inexplicable manner and being with them is an emotion of complete comfortability on its own. You learn to love this person and you accept their flaws and differences. You accept how they might not necessarily love eating McDonalds as much as you do or they are crazy about sci-fi movies where you can't even get yourself past watching a chick flick.
But that's just it, you don't mind.
You don't mind because love is about sacrifices.
Its about sacrificing your weekly episode of The Vampire Diaries to watch the most recent sports updates.
Because you'd rather lose the argument than to lose the person. You'd sacrifice a part of your daily routine all for love. The worst part is that nothing is guaranteed. You're not guaranteed how long you will be in a relationship with this person. You're not guaranteed complete happiness and you're not guaranteed that things are going to be perfect. You just have to trust this person and have faith. Believe the best and hope that everything will work out for the. Best. Believe that even if you break up with this person, that you're going to be ok. Everything is going to be ok, and that new beginnings are perfectly acceptable. Believe that you're going to overcome heartbreak of any kind. You just have to believe that someone out there is looking for someone like you.
What others see Wrong in you just might be the exact thing that will make someone else fall in love with you. And you need to be realistic. Not all relationships last forever. Some relationships are there for lessons and experiences. So that very person that you completely open yourself up to, can break your heart. It could be during or even after the relationship.
But its all part of life I guess. You'll never know how to love someone wholeheartedly if you haven't been hurt before. You just have to turn your heartbreak in to something positive, make the most out of your situation. See the light in the darkness. But learn to deal with things too. Find closure in what happened to you and don't leave a relationship with unfinished business. Because unfinished business will have to be finished sooner or later, and I think sooner is better. Allow yourself time to heal too. Opening yourself up to someone that much can hurt you a lot, and everything you had with that person will be completely lost in an instant. And you're gonna need to come to terms with that. Remember that what's meant to be , will be.
Love, is a complicated thing, and you're never quite sure how things could possibly turn out to be. You're just gonna go out on a limb each time hoping for the best and patiently waiting for your happily ever after with a special person.
Oct 25, 2013
Oct 25, 2013 at 1:00 AM UTC
The weak breeze whispers nothing
The water screams sublime
His feet shift, teeter-totter
Deep breath, stand back, it’s time
Toes untouch the overpass
Soon he’s water bound
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
The view from halfway down
A little wind, a summer sun
A river rich and regal
A flood of fond endorphins
Brings a calm that knows no equal
You’re flying now
You see things much more clear than from the ground
It’s all okay, it would be
Were you not now halfway down
Thrash to break from gravity
What now could slow the drop
All I’d give for toes to touch
The safety back at top
But this is it, the deed is done
Silence drowns the sound
Before I leaped I should’ve seen
The view from halfway down
I really should’ve thought about
The view from halfway down
I wish I could’ve known about
The view from halfway down
Feb 11, 2020
Feb 11, 2020 at 9:53 AM UTC
You laugh
Angels weep out of jealousy
Devils have no single conspiracy
Demons dancing in harmony
Men hearts go broken with no remedy
Women eyes tearing continuously
Violins break out of envy terribly
Composers have no more creativity
Music plays with no melody
Silence starts listening joyfully
Happiness laughters left in agony
Beautiful words describe nothing but misery
Tulip flowers become colorless shamefully
Believers lose their faith immediately
Infidels drop their convictions instantly
Hearts start beating rapidly
Lungs oxygenating quickly
Living ones laying listening carefully
The dead come back miraculously
--Hisham Alshaikh
Jul 13, 2018
Jul 13, 2018 at 10:24 AM UTC
there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day
and the best at ****** are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace
those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love
beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to **** you
to **** anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect
like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock
their finest art
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somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
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I am loud,
Demanding attention.
I know when I am being charming
Because I try.
I put on my impressing face
And do my impressing hair
And speak my impressing words.
I tell you my embarrassing drinking stories
And everything else about me
That you probably shouldn’t know.
I am not good at being quiet
Because that’s not who I am.
I am not the sweet girl
Who will leave you with a smile
And a touch
And a glance
Or a single word.
There is nothing of this fashion of romance
About me.
I am the girl who will point out your flaws,
And take you outside to see the stars,
And remind you how human you are,
And what a wonderful thing that is.
I am the girl who will talk about science,
And music and theology and history,
And point out constellations, laughing,
When you don’t know the big dipper’s name.
I am the girl who will make witty references,
To classic literature and science fiction,
And will tell you stories of how I once,
Made a gingerbread replica of a lighthouse.
I am the girl who will stand on a table,
And sing at the top of my lungs on the highway,
And act like a chicken or quail or velociraptor,
Or nuzzle your face like a lion to make a point.
I am the girl who takes too many shots
And then coaxes you to bed on a Russian liver,
And knows all the right places to bite, and tease,
And follows with exceptionally coherent pillow-talk.
I am not a thin silk scarf on the wind.
I am not a thing hard to capture.
You would not spend a perilous journey
Through a wild, perfumed jungle,
Searching for my slender garments
Hung beside a pool
As I wail to the breeze.
Rather, I am the bird who flies overhead
Making too much noise
Distracting from the trail ahead.
A bird whose plumage proves
What an interesting life it must be…
What a colorful life for me…
Perpetually strange
The lone comic relief.
I am many things.
But I am not quiet.
Of this I am sure.
Sep 7, 2012
Sep 7, 2012 at 6:27 AM UTC
You fade...
Like a bruise.
Like the ones your mouth left on my neck and shoulders with its lustful pressure.
Your teeth, which brought moments of bright pain/pleasure,
Are now bared in an artificial, animal smile.
Your lips, which parted to taste my skin like it was salvation,
Barely part now to speak to me.
You whispered my name like a prayer.
You screamed it like a curse.
You sighed it in contentment,
And now you won't even speak it in passing.
Your hands, which half-playfully pulled my hair...
Now won't pause to brush it from my face.
All these parts of you,
None more telling than your eyes.
Those new windows, which once let me pry...
Now have blinds drawn tight behind them,
Leaving only a pretty, shiny reflection-
A passing, glancing imitation-
Of the passion they once held
When they beheld
Me.
No color left to them but the muddy colors of
Boredom,
And possibly mistrust.
You fade...
Like a bruise.
Like the one you left on my mind with your brilliant conversation
And beautiful, rusty prose.
Like the many you left on my tongue...
Which now can speak nothing but trite and meaningless words,
Which now can barely remember the shapes
Of all the shimmering, liquid phrases it spoke to you
That seemed so important at the time.
You fade...
Like a bruise.
Once lover and friend,
Now barely one
And never the other again.
May 3, 2012
May 3, 2012 at 2:23 PM UTC
I LOVE MYSELF
With all my flaws
In my Beautifulness,
In my mistakes,
In my weakness,
In my darkness.
I love myself, because I am worth it.
I am a high power person who can move mountains with my love, thoughts and dreams
I am good, kind, funny, full of life and love, contagious with my explosive energy
Some things may be equally essential but nothing is more important than loving oneself
And at this moment the love I have for myself goes above and beyond.
It could reach the end of the universe if I just unwrap it
I love me in my inane, craziest, sanest, beautiful twisted, darkest and funniest way
I love me in a way that no one does
I love me in my fullest woes
I am everything that I can and will be
I am frightfully proud of my flaws and proudly wearing them as no one is perfect
This is the start of a new journey to me
The journey of love and self acceptance
The journey to fully embrace and value my own self
I allow myself to fall in my stupidest and biggest way, just to get back up and catch my breath again
Failure will not stop me but make me stronger
I am fully seeing me and smiling at my imperfected and distorted reflection
Hugging myself so tightly, refusing to let go
The more I am spending time with me,
The more and more my love grows
Is it bad for my health ? I do not think so.
It’s true, I am better, happier, more free, powerful, at peace
The sun is shining on me
I don’t need no help to be beautiful, ‘cause I’ve got me
I’ve got that uncontainable light from within me
I am smoldering a treasure, sharing laughter, joy and sadness with myself
I have learnt the phases of myself
So distant from that little insecure girl I used to know
As I allow her opinions to matter
I have accepted her difference
Her different kind of beauty, I have learned to love
This feeling of wholeness, self acceptance, comfort and love, is liberating
I wrap myself around my contorted and beautiful else to form a ME
As I am, Raw and Real
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 6:34 AM UTC
The throbbing headache and nausea
I can endure; I've had worse.
Right now I could cry,
such a raw hope consumed me
as I thought about you, desperate.
It was still dark for me then,
when I needed you. Now it's day.
It brings a true smirk to my face
to know you are nothing more
than a night of binge drinking:
a foolish part of my youth,
a consequence of boredom.
I could not hold your liquor,
I vomited all that bile you said to me
in the hedges outside. Don't fret,
this is not a bad memory, in fact
you might never be a memory at all.
I am well. I will drink better and
far more dangerous poisons.
I am today, you are only last night.
Mar 13, 2012
Mar 13, 2012 at 9:55 PM UTC
It finally stopped raining,
after endless hours of trying to fall
into the deep rhythms of sleep.
But the rain just kept tapping on the windows
while the wind blew like the Big Bad Wolf,
those **** plastic window frames
groaning.
I lay flat on my back
while you were there by my side.
We watched as the stars slowly reappear into
the night sky,
the moon waxing.
We had our sweaters on
to keep the nasty cold bite out,
yet I was comfortable where I was,
the warmth between us enough.
Our bond, stronger than ever.
CRACK
went the lightning,
and I awoke with a startle.
The wind was heaving pellets of rain
to my window
as the frame bent and swayed
in response to the wind's force.
I got up to look outside
and I saw: nothing;
It was dark, empty,
and very cold
chilled to the bone.
*not again
is it really difficult
to want something that tastes so sweet
yet feels so painful*
Jul 22, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 at 2:41 PM UTC
The billowing sea
bows down dancing,
the cool one comes—
with love,
as if with a flute on the lips,
rising from the deep.
Listen to the flute.
Chorus clouds sing,
drifting down the blue river—
so mellifluous, into the sky they soar!
From the secret valley,
the punter sun ambles in,
carrying wonderlight,
as if it knows the flutist’s art—
knows the rise from the sea’s bedrock.
Every planet spins—
a flying bee drawn to the inner music.
Nothing pauses in the solar ring.
The Moon, waning and waxing,
in silhouette and half-light,
sways above the sea full of life.
It all began on this Earth, from our sea—
Him, the Sweet Creative Maestro rose from the midst,
and lifted the sun, the bumblebee.
All the stars in the galaxy
follow still—
they can't forget the ancient story.
Since then,
the sun, brightest in the band,
leads the mindful dance
enduring, homeward—
still following
the haunting, eternal tune, pure mighty
the one command: Qun. Be.
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 1:26 PM UTC
I walk the world with thoughts of you
In every place I go
Your voice is on the winter wind
Your footprints in the snow
And every tool I try to use to scrape you from my mind
Cuts your name onto my tongue
And beats me till I'm blind
I layed my head upon your knees and breathed the air you breathed
I cut myself when you were cut to know just how you bleed
Now as I walk this empty earth with nothing but a face
To breathe me and to bleed me
Until I leave this place
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 2:32 AM UTC
Words are hollow.
Eyes are deceiving.
Thoughts are far fetched.
Illusions are broken.
Looks mean nothing.
Expressions can be fake.
Emotions are assassins.
Senses don't work.
Heart stops beating.
Light turns into darkness.
Does this mean I am dead?
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 16, 2012 at 5:06 PM UTC
I want to sleep forever and reside in my dreams
To frolic through a collage of different spectacles and scenes
An escape from the insufferable, cruel world at large
I want to sleep forever
I want to sleep forever so I can live in my dreams
The ruler of the lands, the queen of all kings
With nothing to fear but the darkside of the conscience
I want to sleep forever
I want to sleep forever and fight my inner demons
Provide peace of mind for all bothered and exhausted
Float on utter bliss; those monsters, I'll never miss
I want to sleep forever
I want to sleep forever and never show sadness again
Bright, long-lasting smiles on weekly sullen days
Created and maintained in a variety of ways
I want to sleep forever
I want to sleep forever to erase everything
I want to sleep forever and feel warmth again
To bathe myself in content that won't ever end
Let me sleep forever
Oct 21, 2011
Oct 21, 2011 at 3:00 AM UTC
let’s live suddenly without thinking
under honest trees,
a stream
does.the brain of cleverly-crinkling
-water pursues the angry dream
of the shore. By midnight,
a moon
scratches the skin of the organised hills
an edged nothing begins to prune
let’s live like the light that kills
and let’s as silence,
because Whirl’s after all:
(after me)love,and after you.
I occasionally feel vague how
vague idon’t know tenuous Now-
spears and The Then-arrows making do
our mouths something red,something tall
106.8k
The perception of
beauty is all opinion.
so nothing is not...
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 4:57 PM UTC
It was nothing like the movies
No cheesy pick up line
No accidental touch of hands
Not even and intense gazing.
Yet no movie or book can describe it
The moment when you notice things;
First, the tone of his voice
Second, the nonsensical gestures he makes.
These may be stupid and odd
But in that moment when “two” friends seriously talk
And suddenly look into each other’s eyes
Will you realize that shoot! You like him.
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 4:58 AM UTC
The first time I saw you it was in math class.
I didn't notice anything about you at first I just memorized the back of how your head was.
After all, I had an hour to ****
The second time I saw you were in English class.
You sat next to me but not by choice.
But I was happy about it.
It took me about four to five weeks to talk to you,
and I wasn't even the one to speak first.
You introduced yourself and then we worked together on an assignment.
It's been two weeks and I haven't said another word and I probably won't out of random.
My anxiety swallows me whole
and I'm sorry I can't even say hello.
But I have had time to notice you.
And let me just say
I'm in love with your taste in music
I'm in love with the way you hold your books
thinking that if you change the sound of your voice when the diagonal changes,
or if you struggle reading words you've never seen before and sit there for a few seconds trying to piece together what they mean.
I love how you can play the mandolin, you should show me sometime.
As I think about these things I also pick up how you would never even think of me.
I mean really,
you probably want some girl that's outgoing and can strum a guitar solo at midnight with you.
You probably want someone with long hair you can intertwine your fingers in,
or someone you can spend an afternoon together after church with.
I can't move mountains
and I can't even speak without looking like a fool,
but even if nothing will ever happen
It would be just as quite exciting being friends with you.
We could trade books and make each other mixtapes.
It hasn't even been a month yet and I'm already writing mediocre poetry about you.
I'm sorry about that by the way.
I'm not asking for a relationship but a friendship with someone like you would feel just the same.
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 6:46 PM UTC
"--you know, I've either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I've sold my house, I've found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I'm going to have a place and
the time to
create."
no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you're going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you're on
welfare,
you're going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you're going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don't create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.
89.6k
oh
lord
when
i
have
nothing left
he
shall
comfort
me
through
the
valley of death
and
i
shall
walk
with
him
into
the
kingdom of heaven
Oct 4, 2025
Oct 4, 2025 at 11:48 AM UTC
The Wild Iris
by Louise Gluck
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure sea water.
103.5k
except that you have
attached your parfumed,
par~col~odored exhalations
into our shared airs,
with uniqued fumes,
thy airy
essences
to thine own chosen words,
in combines never before
seen or heard,
but worn by you,
draped from chains abound your neck,
dripping from thy tongue,
dropping from thine eyes,
leaking from your pores,
from fingers in rose gold
adorning rings bright shining
so more, so unique,
impossible to misidentify
as anything anybody any anything,
but
yours, yours…yours,
but not belabor this
fact basic,
disguise your name,
hide your fame,
make your locale,
somewhere in the unreachable,
unreal,
multiverse,
none the less,
and allthemore,
cannot escape,
the ultimate reality,
when first you press that
keyed
SEND,
you have parted, done with,
an immeasurable
small but grandeured piece of
your unique self,
if that makes you anxious,
here my eyes crinkle sympathetically,
am please to blurt
this major alert:
u have nothing to fear,
too late, too late,
you are now made,
part and particle,
past participle
futured history in
the particulared,
longest continuum
on this tiny, tiny
planet
oh well,
just thought you'd
like to know,
despite your guises,
your are now
100 per cent,
immutable ^
10/5/25 staying alive
Oct 3, 2025
Oct 3, 2025 at 8:23 PM UTC
suppose
Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.
young death sits in a café
smiling,a piece of money held between
his thumb and first finger
(i say “will he buy flowers” to you
and “Death is young
life wears velour trousers
life totters,life has a beard” i
say to you who are silent.—”Do you see
Life?he is there and here,
or that, or this
or nothing or an old man 3 thirds
asleep,on his head
flowers,always crying
to nobody something about les
roses les bluets
yes,
will He buy?
Les belles bottes—oh hear
,pas chères”)
and my love slowly answered I think so. But
I think I see someone else
there is a lady,whose name is Afterwards
she is sitting beside young death,is slender;
likes flowers.
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