"pinpricks" poems
The heat,
The way it ripples from the steel handlebars
And burns my hands,
The way the clunking of the chain feels
As each pedal propels me forward
Beneath the sun.
The sky is blue,
The air is crisp and leaves pinpricks
On my skin,
Soothed by the tenderness
Of sun rays that fall like curtains
Upon the concrete.
It smells of rubber,
A lingering scent of nostalgia
That fills my lungs like tar
And fills my heart with youthful
Thoughts.
As the wrinkles emerge,
And the delicate cracks begin to show,
I realize that my bike
Is the last memento that
Resonates through my aging ways.
Let's take a final spin down the boulevard,
Before the sun goes down
And my bones ache once more.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 4:26 PM UTC
when a boy shows you his hands
bare except for the dust
he’s begging you to look past
take them in yours.
squeeze them once.
twice.
say without speaking
that you understand that the valleys
in his palms were meant to cradle
shooting star wishes
that he’s allowed to still hope for.
when a boy shows you his eyes
of milk and crimson and melanin
a bloodshot vein for every night he can’t sleep
let him shut his eyelids.
say without speaking
that you understand that the black hole pinpricks
of his irises hold more than the universe
should allow.
when a boy shows you his soul
shivering but still working toward friction
iced over but still working toward melting
let him come to rest next to yours.
say without speaking
that you understand that he is lonely
and that his silence speaks volumes
and that you kept his treasure close
because you love him.
when a boy shows you his hands
show him your hands.
when a boy shows you his eyes
show him your eyes.
when a boy shows you his soul
show him that
this is a comfortable place to rest it.
when a boy shows you the hardness that shaped him
show him the softness
that you have in store.
Nov 21, 2017
Nov 21, 2017 at 12:33 AM UTC
I got a tattoo last night
Did it myself, all needles and ink
Sterile like the bathroom floor
And wet rags dyed black and pink
It was a little picture of a house
Sitting on top of my left hip
Pinpricks of ink pushed into my skin
And not once did I let the needle slip
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 1:15 PM UTC
At night,
when the sea is still,
you can't tell sky from water,
and everything is
convoluted mirrors
spiraling away into darkness:
an abyss of serpentine stars,
warping the night sky
into a kaleidoscope
of constellations.
The sky is full of stars,
and I get the euphoric sensation
that I am floating in space,
suspended in stellar time
with nothing but oblivion
and pinpricks of light
around me.
Somehow,
this brings me comfort.
It is reassuring
to pretend as though
I am significant
in this world.
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 4:00 PM UTC
I sat by the window and gazed out
at the rain falling down
in torrents and sheets.
The night was black as ink, save the stars;
barely visible behind thick storm clouds,
pinpricks of silver in the ebony scape,
as the rain continued to fall.
I thought of you, of the deliberation in your face
etched into every feature a painful, wavering resolve.
The decision before you:
two fates, the ending, or the prolonging of the time before the terminal predetermined.
I grieved as I remembered the pain in your eyes.
I know you too well. I have seen too much of you
for you to hide this from me. I broke
-a silent cry of realization, collapsing my furrowed brow into a contorted countenance
as I realized that you were gone
not just for now, but for good.
And so there I sat that night,
after I removed the gold chain you rested around my neck
after I scrubbed away the makeup
after I traded my lipsticked smile for a mourning countenance
-I sat, alone in the dark, and gazed out the window into the rain.
I wondered where things had gone wrong.
And so, May showers
drove away April's flowers.
It was all I could do to cry quietly,
face soaked with the saline of sadness
that dripped now on my chest.
Now, I sit again at the window
and the same song plays that had consoled me before
'you'll feel better when you wake up'
And I did.
The sadness stayed safely at the bay
while I tried to channel it again
But this time it wasn't the same.
Though I duplicated the mood down to the clothes I wore,
the heartache was no longer fresh
and my face remained dry.
Sure, I felt sad. But it was not from you.
It was not from a heartbreak or a brokenness.
It was inorganic sadness, brought on by my own need for closure,
the thirst for a goodbye that burned my throat in agony and sorrow
that my parched lips would never find.
May 19, 2018
May 19, 2018 at 8:47 PM UTC
She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green,
And an off-white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams,
Like leather, like elderly skin, like a crossword puzzle with half the letters filled in,
She sat by me and spilt her sentences and her tea:
She claimed her husband had been killed by a cabal of spiritualists,
Killed by a bull elephant in the streets of Nepal,
Killed by the seven plagues,
And never killed at all,
That he was once a number
Somehow both perfect and prime,
That he was Prime minister of the sea,
And independent of time,
That his bones were cracked marbles
Bought from a widow in Tennessee,
That his name continued to escape her,
But that he looked something like me,
Leaving I saw her wings drag her heavenward,
I saw her terrible wings,
As I stumbled and veered from concrete to tarmac
I heard the pavements start to sing:
“I was once a flowerbed,
My father was a field,
My mother was a source of light,
Before which all the people kneeled.”
Then lost in the eye of daytime and night,
Drawn to the moustache of a Spanish racketeer,
He was once abandoned by his books and his babies
In the boot of a broke-down cavalier,
His pasts and ideas caught up to him,
And gripped him by his belt and his teeth,
His pasts gripped him in quiet of his nightmares,
And slashed his arms in the street,
Visions shook me by the bleeding palm,
Her terrible wings now pinpricks for the moon,
Visions shook me as deities died,
With eyes like a card-trick and fingers like doom,
Then stuck in the endless space between words;
She sat by me, in her skirt, hand grenade green;
Stuck in the endless space between words;
And an off white blouse obscured by a jacket with dust in its seams...
Mar 11, 2018
Mar 11, 2018 at 9:11 PM UTC
i've been building sentences
for you, because there are
too many words to keep them
stagnant and docile.
oh, words on melancholy smiles,
chipped porcelain and
sunlight dappled through your hair
like the sun herself had
kissed the crown of your head.
i've been writing you letters
inside of my head. little golden
pinpricks of love
seeping through my cells
because my body cannot hold
the very idea of loving you.
in those moments, i am liminal,
held tight by the arch of your spine,
the pads of your fingers,
the way that you held my name
in your mouth before
it rolled off of your tongue and
the smell of your skin
in a dark room, with only
the moon watching us
woefully, sweetly.
words like saccharine and
your name, slow like honey,
taste sweet enough
to make me cry.
i've been stuck on the idea
of loving you, loving me
and wringing my hands
over bad luck, mon petite chou.
and still, you close your eyes,
clasp your hands over your ears
and brush off my words like
dust or snowflakes or
unrequited love.
Sep 9, 2012
Sep 9, 2012 at 10:57 PM UTC
~
*Lift the veil from a grayscale morning. Vividly imagistic. An odalisque no more.
Her shape beneath the gown is a foreign land, a series of quiet revelations. Its pattern manifests as pinpricks of light perforating the shirred fabric of his heart.
The preponderance of dream in her eyes becomes a call and response evoking purely imaginary spaces. The contained chemistry is beautifully insular, monochromatic.
And there her lips. Into claustrophobic kiss. This lower register of love comes in unadorned, subtle colorings like the darkest part of night.
One thousand shades of gray.
One single light of white.
And everything merges in the night.*
~
Nov 24, 2023
Nov 24, 2023 at 11:47 AM UTC
The words I speak don't matter
to those who don't listen.
Screaming air to those who
don't care.
They think my lips spill poison
and would rather sew them shut.
And would rather mute my voice
to their locked ears.
I breathe fire
baked from years and years
of pressure from all around.
All the little sparks and scars
added up for so long
until I can no longer hold it in
my mind and heart.
You may believe me to be overreacting
to childish play
or teasing words
but what do you know?
Do you care?
Do you know what it's like in my shoes?
Can you take all those pinpricks of pain from over the years
and still stay sane?
They'd rather have me stay quiet.
Silent
Don't start a ruckus or
Complain.
Out of the way and never
bothering the
structure of our world
with my pain.
And why?
is maintaining a lie more important
than my voice?
Sep 22, 2018
Sep 22, 2018 at 8:51 PM UTC
To you i would give the passion of the sun
and the shine provoked from simmered grass
and if the moonlight was not safe from your eye,
it's buttermilk glow i would surely pluck down.
To you i would give the midnight chimney smoke
that sillouette on the sky putting cobbles underfoot.
Take my taste of salt as sea white mer-men come
a breeze in the laughter of workmen's homecoming.
I give the feeling when swallowed by field flax
pinpricks of cotton, i'd lay you down bare-skinned.
You empty the film on my flesh camera,
I keep the removal cuts.
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 7:08 PM UTC
and you’ll see the moon,
reflecting off the light of the sun.
you’ll see the blushing sunset,
dancing around the skirt of the night canvas.
you’ll see the pinpricks of stars,
dead for years yet shining just for us.
you’ll see the one spot in the sky,
where the artist never finished painting
the galaxy around the planets.
the milky way runs patterns across your eyes,
and dyes your shadow a silvery glow.
we’re all looking up at the sky,
searching.
for what, we don’t know.
don’t worry,
I’m looking too.
Jul 1, 2019
Jul 1, 2019 at 9:35 PM UTC
waking
newly human
strange and soft;
pinpricks, feelings -
the crawlings around inside you
shiver as your skin becomes real
a nightlight for daytime sleeplessness
carry the seas inside yourself
like people:
walking barefoot
drinking sunstreams
and braving the dark red nights
hark, choir voices, still
slurring miss you discrepancies
howls in empty skies
wolves die
a misunderstanding of your insides
bones
more sand than rock
crumble at a press too hard
on this,
last day of your first life
hung on a boy’s fingers
the edge of a cliff
taste the water in your nerve endings dragging you home
you splinter,
and you rise -
when the bruise blooms, you shine
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 5:21 PM UTC
at first when you take off
the world just looks small
a dollhouse, a miniature world
an amusing punchline to an old joke
a fantasy tinged with g-force and sprite in clear cups
but as the sky darkens and the plane lifts higher
the world seems to drown in blackness
an inky clarity of night not confused by clouds
and suddenly it is as if you are at the top on an ocean
looking at a far away ocean floor
crawling with foreign creatures with all of their bones lit up
over coral reefs of light and movement
parking lots like stationary jelly fish and highways like currents
of neon veins pumping lights and cars
all of the world's exoskeleton is illuminated
and it is beautiful and movable
it is nature's patterns played out in electricity
but the farther out you go
the more the sharpness and geometry of the roads and cities
attack the eye
and the coral reefs turn to computer motherboards
all of man's ingenuity and beauty no longer draping the world
but ordering it
into squares and jagged lines
into distant pixel pinpricks
into maps
until you're not traveling through the world
but over it
Mar 14, 2010
Mar 14, 2010 at 11:06 PM UTC
There's something about water that fascinates the mind,
Hypnotic in its passive dancing,
Wheeling in panicked turns to the tune of an inaudible waltz.
The way it ripples with each drop of rain in the cold,
Resonates with me,
As though the water itself is speaking to me,
Desperately wanting to be heard,
It's voice crying in every motion.
Stop!
What is it saying?
Stop! Stop!
I don't know
Please! Stop!
It's too quiet
You're not listening!
All I know is how I feel when I see the way it glistens in the moonlight,
The way it reflects the beauty of a cityscape as dusk falls,
When the day is done water's true beauty is found,
It sparkles below me,
Pinpricks of street lights streak across its surface,
They seem to spread ferociously as my eyes are filled with tears,
Pinpricks becoming blazing stars.
The air whispers to me,
telling me what I need to hear.
Exactly what I need.
Water is pure beauty,
Eternally entrancing my closed-off mind,
Drawing me in,
Because sometimes
Water is more than beauty,
It becomes a perfect friend,
With no capacity to judge,
No way to hate,
Only to fill.
An empty
Heart
Drop
by
Drop
It becomes
Escape
*My legs fold beneath me,
my body goes limp,
I fall.*
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 1:24 PM UTC
A Good Set of Bicycle Lights
Strap white to the handle bar
red to the seat post
of your worrisome bicycle
a fixed gear nightmare, these nighttime
streets lay in wait while I lay waiting to be pierced
by the call that never comes
with a bit of luck.
Old light from distant stars
at the edge of my
galaxy of fear
arrives as pinpricks a reminder
your new orbit free
of my nettlesome gravity.
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 8:55 AM UTC
The thing is, you can’t ignore that graceful lament-
The teal heaving of your chest-
The wash of questions in your head
That exquisitely hold pinpricks of the future.
There’s a brand of groan you know well
That belongs to feeling unresolved.
That noise you make when you’re a painting without a face,
When you’re two lines of a song that’s lost to the breeze,
When you’re a cup of water dribbling through careless hands,
That noise is the growl of restless dreaming.
There is a struggle to unpin yourself
From the avalanche of time
That has pooled thickly around your legs.
You try to kick, but it moves like molasses.
Slower than a hard thwack to a non-newtonian fluid.
Pointless as collecting antique doorknobs.
There is an urge to catch a destiny by the tail
Like you’re somehow prepared right now,
Like there’s nothing left to learn.
How fortunate you are that perceived linear realities
Can curve the hubris of your linear fantasies.
And yet there’s that gnawing need,
A craving that demands surrender,
That all too graceful lament,
Of being forced to take the smallest of steps
on the greatest of adventures.
Nov 28, 2012
Nov 28, 2012 at 4:06 AM UTC
the nagging pinpricks that flower in my chest
every time i hold my tongue
when i could take a stand
exhaust me.
some days i wish i were not stirred
by every minor injustice,
by every casual -ism.
i am not all angles and shards.
some days i am soft lines and rounded edges,
some days i am petal-small and twice as fragile,
some days i am tired.
some days the inevitable backlash
of speaking my mind
can send me reeling.
the accumulation of anger and dismissal and mockery
piles upon my shoulders
and seems sometimes too heavy to carry.
but even on these days,
these quiet, glass-boned lows,
i know why i am fighting, and
i know to the core of my being that
i
will
never
stop.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
I should apologize for the days I am withdrawn. This is not what you signed up for. I should apologize for when I don't want to speak or communicate with touch or when I want to be without you but also do not. My indecisiveness is appalling: and I should apologize for that. But today I do not want words. I do not want to be felt because I feel you grabbing and pulling instead of caressing and comforting. You have not done anything wrong. I am just mean. I am just inside myself today and when you want to know what is up I want you to accept that I say the sky instead of pressing for more. My thoughts are poison right now. You shake me like a magic eight ball and I keep thinking try again later but saying not likely. I have the capacity to be kind but my words are pinpricks in your chest and every time I claw you with my numbness I inwardly cringe because I don't mean it, I am sorry, and I should apologize. But I can't. I can not bring myself to vocalize that I am not okay because you'll want to help and I don't want to be okay. Not yet. I want to hide in my closet and cry without company. I want time to myself today. But I don't want to hurt you. I am sorry. You are no burden. I am withdrawing. Not from you, but from me. I don't want to be kind, or resilient, or strong today. I just want to fold into myself, I want to be small and insignificant. I am tired of being fun and happy, it's tiring work. I need time to be low without an interrogation. I just want to be empty for a moment. And I should apologize.
Jul 14, 2017
Jul 14, 2017 at 11:39 AM UTC
Misery haunts me like a vengeful lover’s phantom
Grey clouds of solitude drench me with the rain of cold silence.
The thunder startles my vision with its sudden piercing vibrancy,
but the accompanying sound is inaudible to my ears.
Perhaps the deafening screams of my soul have rendered them useless.
Misery bites into my flesh like a famished Hellhound
the crimson of unrequited love bathes it mercilessly.
Its dagger like fangs bite into my calf,
but the accompanying feeling of pain on my skin is nonexistent.
Perhaps the innumerable pinpricks inflicted by words have rendered it numb.
Misery paints me like a mournful artist,
into the monochromatic shades of abandonment.
The slicing strokes of his brushes, highlight crimson suffering,
but the accompanying cries of bitter pain are not possessed by my throat.
Perhaps the incessant demands of respite made by it have rendered it sore for an eternity.
Misery slithers inside my nostrils like a toxic repulsive snake.
Trails of blue betrayal are left by its slimy flesh while it travels to my lungs.
Its venom covers my nerves in the burning sensation of ridicule,
But the accompanying smell of approaching death seems absent
Perhaps the putrid smell of my burning conscience has rendered my senses immune.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 10:24 AM UTC
I find everything absolutely breathtaking.
How can you not think your murky yet sparkling brown eyes aren't the most intriguing things? They are powerful enough to give me nervous butterflies.
Why can't you see the way the clouds capture the sun, making, if only for a second, the perfect bittersweet scene. The suns finally goodbye makes a masterpiece that is impossible to recreate.
It is a mystery to me how you do not pay attention to the damp smell of the rainy earth, or the tingling pinpricks of snowflakes resting on your exposed skin.
Why haven't you taken time to get as close as you can to the galaxies that construct the roof above you and explore them? They are fascinating at night when each star becomes luminous against the black of night.
Darling, everything around you thrives with beauty.
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 12:03 AM UTC
All day
it’s been like this since Friday night
Like little pinpricks
short stabs of adrenaline
giving me an increasing amount of jitters and pain
with no beautiful passion or art to show for all the hormone fireworks
I’m not depressed
I’m not anxious
but I’m suffering directionless excitement
My journey of healing has brought me to this mountain and commanded that I climb
So I climb
I have no choice but to rise
Reaching up with bruised and blistered fingers
it’s the only way to leave my ruined body behind
Oct 21, 2018
Oct 21, 2018 at 9:02 PM UTC
Orange and yellow
Exploding with memories like pinpricks and broken glass
"Tiger Lilly's, that's your flower"
"Why tiger Lilly's?"
"Bright and lovely, they suit you. You know you deserve better than what you give yourself. You're more than this drug fiend you say you are"
He drank seven beers at breakfast, the waitress looks over disapprovingly
"Talk to me tell me how you have been, I worry about you."
I eye the empty beers and say nothing
Worried about me while his own addiction flourishes in front of me
His worry for me was a distraction from his own crumbling
"You taste like ashes, everything tastes like ashes"
"I trust you"
Letting go of you with every breath
Goodbye friend
I miss you
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 7:03 PM UTC
The passion infused plucking
like each note has a soul of its own
The high notes like pinpricks
Low notes like a loud heartbeat
The sound of content loneliness that taught me happiness
The tempo slows like water shying away from the shore
Peace born out of urgency
Love born out of technicality
The hours given to the tone, timing and tempo
The effort in perfectly letting go
Perfectly unique every time
just close enough to be the same
The beauty in form
The form in beauty
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 5:37 PM UTC
these last two weeks drag on.
I wash my hair all the time, rinse and repeat rinse and repeat rinse and repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat
slithering out of my follicles and sliding down the drain
toweling my hair dry, and
then you're creeping into my skin
you're creeping in creeping creeping and there's a whole bar of soap, gone.
and I think I'm finally clean and you've etched yourself in the pads of my fingers
that I rub on sandpaper until they bleed, ****** ****** badges of I'm winning!
winning this game with you in my lungs, pushing out with all your hands and your feet;
I can't breathe out, you won't let me, I hold it hold it hold it I touch edges of darkness feel my eyes
clog with pinpricks, stars, explosions and I've suffocated you, let out my breath,
calmed by your soft murmur in my ear, your touch on places we always went together,
I am cleaning cleaning cleaning trying to get you out of my skin and my hair and my thoughts
thoughts like you didn't even care and you don't even think about me anymore and all I do is think about trying to scrape your brains out of my innards.
vivid intakes, passionate obsession, cleaning cleaning cleaning the house the yard my hair (again) the door the mirror you wrote I love you beautiful the car seat you pulled me into the feel of your lips and your hands and your hair when you sweat because I could make you
feel.
and now I look in that mirror where I can't erase your words and I don't see that girl you watched anymore;
all I see is ***** of skin and listless hair and blue purple circles stalking my eyelids and profound sadness and I see so much that isn't even there because the one thing I need to see I can't because it's
you and you're wrapped up in her like a present
and all I got this christmas was coal to match this listless hair and an inability to see reality and a really awful obsession with wanting to cause you pain
pain pain pain pain what is pain, pearl white
what is pain
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 6:28 AM UTC
“Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sense involuntarily triggers experiences in another sense. This means that people with synesthesia may see colors when they hear music, taste shapes when they read words, or feel textures when they smell certain scents. It is a rare and unique phenomenon that affects about 2-4% of the population. Synesthesia is not a disease or a mental disorder, and it does not interfere with daily life”
would sell my soul
cheap very cheap
to have this kinetic
blessing
think of the life
of love’s illusions
you could sketch,
the intersection
of all the senses
in one glorious
syntax
speaking of the
synthesis
of perfection moments
to decorate ordinary existence
for others
to be a human filtering
kaleidoscope
this poet’s word~world enthralling,
mesmerizing
*imagine a love poem
erupting,
the sound and the fury,
the volcanic coloring heat
upon your flushed cheeks,
the symphony of
tiny erupting pinpricks*
***when first you
kiss
the great love of
your life***
For everyone to
understand,
persuasively share,
the exact ecstatic crystallization
of that single second as well as you…
Feb 23, 2025
Feb 23, 2025 at 3:46 PM UTC