"personhood" poems
do you remember the siren in my throat?
the howl of her, the empty vessel?
do you think of me sometimes,
think of how often my fingers
unmade the buttons at the
collar of your longing? how I
unlaced the cement that held
your damaged pieces together
into something resembling
personhood? how you painted
me with the blood of your amnesiac
sins, how I came to be the shrine
of all your broke and all your
bent? do you ever wonder how I
look now, draped around new
frames and coaxed by honey
that drips from new fingers?
do you ever miss those nights,
the half-light of the bathtub, the
shrine of bare thighs and the
drip drip drip as you watch me
melt into something black and
shimmering on the surface maybe
like blood maybe like nothingness and do
you desperately try to take handfuls
as I slip away like sinking ocean down the drain?
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 4:22 AM UTC
Your stare is a diamond-cutter
Your hair smells better than
Hair that smells good.
Namely, I like you better than
People with hair that smells good.
And I wonder at your personhood
For you are made of *** and *****
Your mouth is filled with gold and snakes
And trickles rapturous winding rivers
of *** and venom.
Your sharp teeth have purpose
And your softness only seems
To heighten their resolve.
When you open up to me
I better than dissolve.
I become aware for the first time
in a week.
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 1:20 AM UTC
I lost myself
In between the months of May and August,
As people sped up to undress, to feel the breeze of the warm wind
As I doubled my layers and was ashamed of my own skin
I lost myself
I let my existence chip away like overdue nail polish
I let you destroy my personhood piece by piece,
I was an extension of you that had to be polished
I let your words dig through what I thought was tough skin and unravel tears
I lost myself
I forgot to smile, I forgot to let people know I was fine
I forgot to lie,
I forgot to lie
I lost myself
My existence was merely a performance
But maybe I was suddenly gaining consciousness
Maybe in the months of the harsh summer
Where every night, crying preceded slumber
Maybe I was shedding the version of me that you had created
Maybe I was shedding the extension of you that you had obligated
She could no longer be, her time was up
She had filled you with all that was in her cup
Maybe I was going through metamorphosis
Maybe the aching was her death but my genesis
Sep 26, 2021
Sep 26, 2021 at 12:37 PM UTC
(Continue reading for English translation)
Ang pagiging tao
Ay hindi nasusukat
Ng mga makamundong salik
Na maglalaho lamang;
Sapagkat nagiging tao ang tao
Sa pamamagitan
Ng pagpapakatao.
Ang pagiging mahusay na tao
Ay ang taos-pusong pakikipagkapwa
Sapagkat mabubuo lamang ang tao
Bilang tao
Sa pamamagitan
Ng pagyakap sa kapwa
Na pagyakap din
Sa sarili--
Dahil ang dalisay na pakikipagkapwa
Ay ang paglampas
Sa karaniwan
Sa limitasyon
Sa sarili.
Sa bawat paglampas
Ang tao ay pinapanganak muli.
---
One's personhood
Is not measured
By worldly factors
That will only fade away;
Because a person becomes truly himself
By being
His fullest self.
To be an excellent person
Is to whole-heartedly reach out to others
For man can only be whole
As a person
Through
Embracing others
Which is also an act of embracing
Oneself--
Because being a sincere person for others
Is going beyond
The ordinary
One's limits
Oneself.
In each going beyond
Man is reborn.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 10:40 AM UTC
All I really want is to talk to you rather than distract myself with the petty things I do.
I'm almost gone.
A deep hollow in my chest leaches at my sanity leaving me bereft of a connection that could seal up the cracks in my heart from which leak my wounded humanity.
Scrolling through my Facebook feed leaves my hungering for what I really need.
The stupid games and apps light up my phone and make me forget that I'm alone.
Tomorrow creeps into each patchwork day. You can't hold time it slips away.
Each hour is fractured by distraction the sun is sinking before I gain traction.
While I'm not looking I miss the sunset. Time to cushion my head with this night's fret.
I won't sleep tonight, like most. My place is haunted. I'm the ghost.
I drift the twilight between realms with clipped wings and overwhelmed.
Sun and moon chase round about; light blinded eyes, thick-dark-muffled-shout.
That's the way it is at night things look different by starlight.
But which am I the sun or moon; do I give chase or am I pursued?
I won't find the things I seek. I'm stuck like this from week to week.
To be needed is exhausting, but to be not needed is accosting.
I need to hear you hearing me and be realified in that harmony.
Instead of trapped between death and life, I'll be free when I see you seeing that I'm Being. Existence could suffice, yet personhood is reciprocally conferred. Make me a Being like you then you'll be a christ.
What is my name?
You say that you can't read my mind as if I haven't put it down line by line.
I want to know I'm more than heat rising from the pavement to dissipate in the sky. Or else call me Mirage--If you can't see me, feel me, hear me.
I'm already gone.
Oct 1, 2017
Oct 1, 2017 at 6:09 PM UTC
How can I ever be strong
When I know there is this
Incurable weakness writhing
Within me?
Every time, I repeat my mistakes
Because I am too weak to say no.
Every time, I miss opportunities
Because I am too weak to say yes.
Every time, I fall into self-pity
Because I am too weak to make myself
Better.
I can see myself
Stronger, improved, worthier
But I cannot remain on the path to
Success
For my childish weakness trips me
And drags me down
And I am too weak to fight off my own
Weakness.
How can I ever be good
When there is so much bad
Swirling within
And strangling me?
I cannot suppress the evil and twisted
Thoughts that sprout from my mind.
I cannot help but take delight in them,
Somehow find pleasure in their utter
Despicableness.
And I cannot help but find a sour pride
In possessing such horrible thoughts,
As if it makes me special.
How can I ever be me
When I am completely influenced
By the people around me?
I am a collage of mirrored traits
And characteristics
Adopted from friends and family.
All my aspirations of personhood
Are tainted by society’s ideals.
Nothing is truly mine.
Nothing is truly original.
I am trapped in a never-ending cycle
Of give and take,
Repeat and release.
How can I ever be happy
When I know death awaits me?
And while I live on this Earth,
I am merely a meat suit,
Imitating the ignorant beings around me
While weakness and evil
Manifest within my body.
Maybe death is not such a bad thing.
It is escape from myself,
My poisoned, tainted being,
My sad excuse of a life
Without hope of redemption,
For all humans are the same:
Wicked little beings hidden behind smiles
And good intentions.
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 10:50 PM UTC
Oh don’t you wish you were free
Don’t you just wish you were free?
You’d be a fool to give it all up
Just for peace, happiness, and security.
Poor soul, your state oppressing so many
Maybe some day they’ll see
That mass corporate conglomerates are people too
Just like you and me
All that nonsense, propaganda
About social justice, bonds, and solidarity
Beware, that’s just the sugar coated ghost of Stalin
Mao, ****** Beezlebub, and Mussolini
Oh boy don’t you just wish
Don’t you wish you were more like me?
At liberty to willfully discriminate
On your own private property.
To just exercise your personhood
By buying clothes and watching TV
What’s the matter man, why don’t you see,
Why you so anti-individuality?
Apr 4, 2013
Apr 4, 2013 at 10:49 AM UTC
Inspiration arrives in the wee hours of the morning
Like a fresh snowfall that won't stick
Teasing, tickling my brain
Inducing a rumbling hunger for snow cream and chapped cheeks
A floating half-cadence
Stinging like the stale metallic aftertaste of the cavity I can't see
But I know I need filled
Like the hole you left when you were digging behind my back
Smiling beneath my feet and I fell a little deeper
Like you did into me under the Everclear
Night sky after we dropped
Altering our minds in a place we called home
In the company of our tribal community diving head-first into pursuit of personhood
By the hand of a tedium spring and temporary cushion
Where the new members must've watched behind closed lids
Before another night like the previous nights consisting of little sleep.
There's an assignment to complete
Suppressed by the urge to go for a night run to strengthen those thighs
I didn't intend to open, I swear to God
I never intended anything to result in this
Unresolved half cadence in the i-V-i progression
That I didn't compose on the theory test
I didn't pass today because I didn't finish.
There exists no focus to the wisps of ideas slapping these cerebral walls
Like lingering tendrils of broken thread and splattered paint on a drunk summer night.
It's too chilly now on the off days and perfect on the on's
So I will wait, patiently, more or less
To avoid dropping the wisps and distasteful run-on sentences
Into your feigning palms willing to grasp me again
Because what the hell else would I do?
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 2:40 AM UTC
I've been called many things
Unsavoury and unkind
Words that strangle what little hope
I've stored in myself
What little light
That's been left
A flame so heavily guarded
Yet barely burning
I've been called many things
Crazy
Sometimes I crumble within myself
Forgetting where I am
Who I am
Who I've been
Who I could be
Wishing I could just spotaneously
Not be
I've been called many things
Emotionally draining
How is it that I feel everything?
And then nothing?
Instantaneously
I just want to feel again
I just want to feel real
I just want to remember that
I'm more than these names
These things
These afterthoughts that
For some reason
You decided to impart on me
I've been called many things
Things I didn't want
Things that aren't me
Things that barely touch the idea of me
Among these things
These verbal illustrations of my personhood
Disconnect
Alienating and cold
Misconstrued and yet so sharp
Ambiguous yet so sure
I have been called many things
But never yours
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018 at 9:06 PM UTC
I’m one foot out the door and both feet over the edge
I’m an inch away from out of my mind and god **** it this hurts
I’m in limbo in between being myself and being a mess
And I’m never one or the other
I’m twisted in knots and tangled in sheets thrown over the remains of my personhood
And I’m not making any sense
I’m not making anything, not a sound, not a living
I’m statistical noise. Affordably omitted from any rational decision
I’m not a rational decision anyone would make
I wouldn’t make the choice of making me again but I guess it was never my choice anyways
I’m hovering in the space in between saying you’re okay and meaning it
On the precipice of feeling human without actually feeling it at all
Someone please push me
Over the edge that I’m slowly edging closer to
Someone just pull me back
Just push me
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 9:13 AM UTC
this languish is unyielding
ankles and bare shoulders are making me bitter
stop unwrapping my things
don't you dare try to take the tears from my cheeks
you have stepped in at the final moment of purity
and however you might try to
pry the gore from between my legs
you know nothing.
I am being suffocated by privilege
not enough to find me fortune, oh no
only that strangers afford leisure
and i am burning, slowly
brunch is taunting me
afternoons spent quietly,
a night out with close friends,
one, any activity alongside the sun
in the real world, there are days off
and dreamless slumbers
and friends.
all the evidence supports that i am doing everything i possibly can to do the very best anyone could ask of where i am right at this moment,
so how do i feel so behind?
and out of place?
and worthless?
the shade is being drawn back from my eyes now
my happiness was a glitch
to think that i deserved it, an error
my personhood, a mistake
i am so capable, and so angry
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 8:03 PM UTC
thanks
no i mean it
thanks
i was actually feeling a bit
d
o
w
n
and i needed you to tell me
on a monday night
at 7:53
in the middle of july
that i had i nice ***
it really brightened my day
to know
that i
a human person
can be complimented
because of my
assets
instead of the fact
that i work
all the time
without getting tired
or giving up
or that
i study
so much
i feel like
i'm falling apart
or that
i spend time
trying to make the world
around me
a little
bit
better
i really wanted to affirm
what girls are told
from the time
they can listen
that cup size matters
and whether or not
you fill out your jeans
means
whether or not
you might matter
that we will be ignored
in the work place
if we aren't
supermodels
and even if we are
that is all we become
bodies
not people
you know
somebody once told me
it doesn't matter
what you look like
because your personality can make up
for anything
which should be good
like
i look like quasimodo
but with a sense of humor
and a bit of *****
i'm esmerelda
i can look like a spork
but if i laugh
and play along
like nothing's wrong
like girls should
i can be a full fork
i love that i have to be something
really
i do
i love that being
is more important than
existing
i love that i have to be someone who listens and never speaks
i love that i have to work with all my might to be thin enough for people who don't care about other people
i love that i have to have a double d and up in order to be even noticed
i love that my **** has to be filled out and gigantic so that i can be assured personhood by a man
because girls are only
what
the
men
see
we are reduced to objects
who give up
and don't fight
because the women who fight
are criticized
and *****
and killed
and we can't stop it
because the more we speak
the more we are silenced
so thank you
sir
for reminding me at 7:53
in a menards parking lot
your wedding ring glinting
like the malice in your eye
that all i am
is
what you see
Oct 1, 2017
Oct 1, 2017 at 8:52 PM UTC
"You can do this"- I tell myself
I gasp for breath,
I am amazed and dazed,
Let me rephrase-
"You can do this"- I lie to myself,
(Oh, what a compulsive liar I am.)
I rush to my desk,
And my hands wait to be knighted.
Take it, feel it- and run it
D o w n,
Your beautiful wrists,
What a shame of your personhood.
My desk has seen the unabashed,
People call me a ******
People call me a maze.
My mind sinks in turmoil,
And my hands seem like Calpurnia's dream,
It's terrifying.
But beautiful.
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 5:07 AM UTC
so apparently the blood between my legs makes me less
less than a skyscraper with men in suits and vests
less than a cluster of cells who can’t breathe yet
less than a white man with a **** and a company
and if i can’t even pick what grows within me
how the **** can you call me free?
i’m nothing but an oven to cook your bun
nothing but a *** object for your own fun
nothing but an *** for you to cat-call
as you walk down the street, down the block, down the hall
i’m nothing but a **** for sleeping around
you’re the “ultimate player,” the king of the town
you call me a ***** for taking control
but you’re just a “leader,” you’re running the show
my sisters have died because they said “no”
and you won’t let me have the drugs that keep the blood in check
and you won’t let me save myself when my body’s almost wrecked
and you think it’s fine to strip my rights for Holy God Most High
and you think it’s fine to **** me if i’ve showed a little thigh
so a revolution is on the horizon
the only solution is all women rising
with venom and gunshots
with words to attack--
**we’re taking our ******* bodies back**
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 2:44 AM UTC
Life begins at conception.
For a human being to be able to love, she/he must first be loved, usually by her/his biological parents, other times by her/his surrogate parents. If the newborn is not loved, she/he will suffer great pain, possibly even dying.
Most human beings do not receive the love they need; thus, they will unconsciously compensate usually in one or more of three ways: accrual of power, not to empower others, but to oppress them; aggrandizement of wealth; or achievement of fleeting fame.
If, on the other hand, they are loved, they will love all others throughout their lives, realizing their personhood, which is their innate sacredness. If they are not loved, they will realize one or more of their deleterious behaviors.
When all die, those who realized their personhood will not return to Earth to live another life, because their soul has become pure love that bonds with the pure love of infinity, which is reality that has no form, no beginning, no end. They have become enlightened and will be so forever.
Those who did not attain their personhood, realizing only one or more of their deleterious behaviors, will need to return to Earth in a new life unconsciously to make another attempt to attain enlightenment.
Love is infinite, the finite illusory. The latter remains nonetheless the paradoxical path to the reality of eternal love.
Know truth by untruth.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Nov 22, 2022
Nov 22, 2022 at 12:17 AM UTC
Inborn debauchery...sea-swilled communion received...
hung over and over in discipleship.
All's nigh, charged airy pour to date A.D., to tire of
personhood.
Finding the soul's panoramic view insufferable.
Forward motion lugs gluttony--lethargic with figuring.
Hunger's recitative plea has completed the mind's
mockup.
There's twitch and hallucination amongst common
ground--upon which, what was exchanged?
Do tell and do tell...told by the lot cast, as yet to
settle.
Billions cry to sleep--to rise the hardwon face...gaming.
Their sheets serpentine folds retain shadows as light
reinstates its presumption upon them.
Our emergence we day into draws back the flesh as
needle's eye through...we, with such nobility
Kingdoms branch in a single act.
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 12:19 AM UTC
There is a difference between personhood and behavior. Everyone's personhood is divine, inviolate, whereas so many people's behavior is often uncaring or hurtful or even much worse. It is not unusual to react to one's untoward behavior with at least displeasure if not outright hate, even ****** But this latter response is unknowing. When one encounters bad behaviour to any degree and wishes it were not so, do not exacerbate what is already deleterious by making it even worse through punishment. Instead, constrain this negativity, but love this forsaken person. Love is the cure for all who suffer pain. It may take a lot of love to heal a hurting soul, even a lifetime, perhaps even longer. But love is the antidode for all emotional maladies. But for one to be able to love others, one must first be loved, preferably by one's parents, but if not by them, then by someone else who was loved and thus has love to give those who desperately need it. This dilemma is what our world most suffers from. Wealth, fame, power--all are illusory and therefore feckless. They are but unconscious efforts to compensate for lack of love, and that is why our world has been turned inside-out for millennia. Only being loved, and then being able to love, will we be able to turn our world right-side in. Then and only then will we have Peace on Earth forever, and for the first time.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Feb 21, 2021
Feb 21, 2021 at 2:09 PM UTC
the more noise you make
the less they can look away
but all that friction in your mouth
averts them from your eyes
and hands go wild
trying to pin desire to the wall
trying to scrape the mud from the linoleum bathtub
trying to hide from the pitfall in your chest
when you're surrounded by the smell of pine
trying to get home with all of your cinnamon welts
trying so hard to level the picture frame of your mind
that continuously leans too far to the left
trying to rest your dreams in a tiny wooden casket
a graveyard beneath your pillowcase
what counts is that we're trying
but gloves keep holding my identity hostage
smiling souls are nothing but black holes
and outer-space is everything that can't be a star
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 4:54 PM UTC
Am I too much?
Hard to swallow, a bitter pill?
Am I raw and unprocessed,
Undiluted, concentrated,
Too spicy for your stomach?
Good.
Choke on it.
I won’t cut myself
To bite-size pieces.
I am not a convenient product.
My feathers are not plucked,
My hair is unshorn,
My feet are unshod,
And the muscle of my thigh
Is for kicking, not meat.
Do you not like the taste?
Poor spoiled glutton,
You cannot acquire it.
Find your refined sugar elsewhere –
I do not come pre-packaged.
Jan 11, 2025
Jan 11, 2025 at 12:58 PM UTC
skin so perfect and warm
chest to chest.
vulnerability.
discomfort to feel comfort.
the requirements for mortal passion.
soon our souls will go heavenward
and our bodies to decay
with no more skin on skin.
a beautiful tragedy
overcoming this personhood
yearning for the breathless,
tingling nights.
not ready to bloom,
not quite ready to die.
skeletal hands grasp
for the promise of fullness.
satisfaction miles beyond.
but oh,
your skin on my skin.
Jul 11, 2013
Jul 11, 2013 at 10:42 AM UTC
I’m lying in bed tearing my cuticles off and rubbing my calves together
And personhood is oozing out from the cracks in these walls
I’m exhaling complacency.
I wonder who you’re thinking about when you fall asleep
And what’s dripping from the ceiling
In a room I’ve probably been in
Summer threw itself from thunderclouds
And the person I picked up out of the rainwater
Isn’t me anymore, just droplets of something vacuous
Which is exactly how you feel now
Constantly expanding and pushing me into the negative space around you
All of this is negative
All of me is empty
All this feels like is space
Infinite miles of outer space into forever
“Forever”
Like I said.
Vacuous.
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 10:47 PM UTC
There is thunder in my bones where you lay.
Your memories dissolve like salt into a wound.
To this day,
If anyone calls me 'Red,'
I will rain down like the storm cloud you always hoped I wasn't.
My collective tears will burst from the dam
Until not a spot on your soul is dry.
I will tear out the tendons, remove the connective tissues.
You wanted to make me yours,
To erase the personhood until I was pliable for your will.
To some extent, you succeeded.
Your memories are stored in my body, trauma.
The bleeding is internal, is not visible, is just as deadly,
But I have staunched the flow.
There is thunder where you lay in my bones,
Lightning where you touched me.
I am tearing you away tendril by sticky tendril.
I hope you feel the sting inside you.
This girl is not your object.
This girl is a hurricane.
This girl is the end of your world.
There are words for what you did,
****** assault, ****
But they are not sufficient for the way
My psyche floated out of my skin.
You counted on the scars keeping me bound,
But you had only started the storm.
I am a thundercloud, a lightning goddess,
Made from the sun, wind, and ocean.
You called me 'Red' like my hair,
But I am 'Red' like my temper, like fire.
Try me once more, and I will teach you not to play games
With young girls.
Apr 10, 2020
Apr 10, 2020 at 2:05 AM UTC
free-fall speed fails to capture
conscious creation as a universal tool
neon tracers flash into oblivion
time archetype shifting as humanity’s truth
blurs lines of reason
and Neil Donald sits idle –
Go-re-ra grows in poison oceans
and constitutional rights are being applied to sheep
in suits
rooted fruitcakes
stuck in last year’s Autumn ascot
and a 1927 spending frenzy –
three times before we killed 30,000 brown people
and for what
glory of a flag
misinterpretation of destiny
and god on the side of white industrialists –
sun wrinkles start to distinguish my eyes
from youthful indifference
to a Clint Eastwood style stare
looking for the one that needs killin’
in order to save this here town –
no entity exists as I read the pages of corporate personhood law
erosion trails cut deep into my cheeks
a landscape destroyed by reality and acceptance
there is still time to buy a small piece of land
and do my Tim Leary impression –
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 12:54 PM UTC
Learning the way out.
in between feels like forever
you're darkyears away,
the antimatter
of vicarious personhood.
days crumble upside down
the pain had you butchered
only sparrows forget their stories in the sunset.
the mute carpets keep you company
still life with despair and an apple.
Jesus promised something
-undeciphered-
look at this fallen demigod
you’re a pile of fears
drying in the sun
and the night has no (w)holes to hide
a stuffed puppet
the true form -
unrecognized.
pain is almost a character
roaming inside
tramping blindly the remains of the day
making everything so sharp alive,
look
each cell has a voice
and you can’t open your eyes:
no space, no name
just a rotten apple
left over from yesterday.
no one came on the mute carpets
and the silence holds on
like a ghost of the future
language gets killed
yet the heartbeats
march on
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 5:25 PM UTC