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Joshua Haines Apr 2014
If I want to die, I'll do it myself
I'll save a kid or some **** and make it look like I died a hero
But nah, I had a death wish.
Didn't any of you know?
I said it probably forty-million times.
It's cool the kid is alive, though.
And it's cool that this all rhymes.

Tell the kid while I convulse, choking on blood that  I said,
"Eat your vegetables. Stay in school. Being in love is really cool.
It's okay to be alone. It's okay to be afraid. Don't make the decision I made."

Then play some surfer music and have him stand in front of a projector,
projecting video waves and dreams, as they start to dance.

Honestly.
If I wanna die, it's by your side.
But you're gone.
Away.
It was too hard, and you're afraid.
I'm afraid, too. I don't wanna die.
But this isn't living, what I'm doing now.
It's survival, and it's just
blood and bone.
Eat and walk.
In a crowded room, alone.
Smile and talk.
I can't feel. I can't feel. Keep saying it: I can't feel.

But I feel it all, and if I want to die then it's by your side.
If I wanna die, then I want to talk to you before I go.
If I'm going to die then it's because it's hard to cope
knowing that I love you, and you love me, but you don't wanna anymore.
So I don't wanna anymore, anything.
I don't wanna be here.
I don't wanna be anywhere.
I don't wanna be.

I dream a lot now, more than before.
Reality has become the compass to a draining nothingness,
and I don't want to stick around.
Either way, I'll dream or think of nothing, and it couldn't be that bad.

"No one is worth taking your life over."
"It gets better."
"What if she wasn't the one?"

How do you know how I feel?
What if it doesn't?
What if she was?

Can I bathe in nihilism or is that too transparent?
Should I shake the salsa in the silver room of the Lisbeth Salander character arch or should I be in the ark, two by two, with Noah?
At least I'll be able to feel, taste, see the shine, relate to another's pain, realize a life, be next to one meant for me in the shelter of doom and eventual hope, and be with a man with as much certainty, perceived as crazy or brilliant as me.

Can you walk home to me?

To know that what I knew is what I may never know is something I don't want to know, and something I'll always know could be something I live for and by, and that's all I knew before and now I know nothing but that.

If I wanna die, then it's knowing you as I walk to you or you walk to me, in depth, in death, in soliloquy.

The crumbling clock is my hoarder as it keeps everthing I don't need like memories, future events, and times and dates for places I don't want to be.

Is it too much to want to be a fly on the wall that is smashed?

I've never been so lost.

"Don't be so dramatic. Don't be so dramatic. Don't be so dramatic."

Okay, thanks. Now I can think of that, and what else is wrong with me while I feel lost. So lost, and unlike ever before if I ever was lost before.

What do I even say on my note?

Ooops?
Whoops?
My bad?
It's never enough, isn't it?

If I could wrap your sorrow around my lungs to where I could only breathe your sadness as I give you my hopes, joys, and everlasting essence to fuse with you as you feel complete, I would, I have, and I lay empty.

Is this enough to say?
Do you get my point?
PrttyBrd Feb 2015
In the darkness of night
Searching for that lost ship
That pulled into port without a sound
Searching sans lighthouse
In the reflection of a new moon
Every variation of wave
Sounding like the possibility of you
Worry and wonder and what ifs
And the demons, they laugh
For my heart knows
Though my head plays damaged films
On a shoddy projector
Everything is a possibility
Without a thought of a word
No notice
Not a crumb tossed to a bright little brd
No thoughts of a vacant soul
Long out of mind
Though never out of heart
Peaceful slumber
Feels like punishment
Feels like the possibility of spite
I don't know
Until i know
Even though I've always known
Spirits torn and taped in love
Have yet to set in glue
A broken mind skewed to darkness
Leaves another sleepless night
In the wake of the dawn
As the captain, comfortably in port,
Looks over the ocean
The starless sky a backend blue
Falling out in peaceful slumber
While tears fill the ocean
With thoughts of you
22115
Joel M Frye Aug 2014
when
the poison
is ported through my heart
and eventually arrives
on the slow boat
to its terminal
when
it does its designed job
while picking up side work
in other organs
when
the projector is shut down
and the reality
is walking beside me
within me
I will let you know how I am.
One of the mysteries of life I'd sooner not discover.  But I shall.
Pride Ed Jul 2015
those days;
just like old television shows
on a retro box.
black and white, silent pictures
that make my head hurt.
whimsical musings tarnished;
a damaged Charlie Chaplin film—
a lifetime burning
on the **** projector
4 hours away in an Ohio Autumn.

these days;
a blue wool hat i wear in
90 degree weather,
always misplaced the first of
November,
and Hypothermia is the name
of my favorite child.
i dropped everything
to cradle it because
it’s insane how heavy an
August shadow can be,

and yes! i’m the red gloves
found under the bed
several months too late,
the drunken mess that got
thrown in the leaf pile
by the curb last year,
the 3am snowfall that everyone
******* about on facebook…

spring just isn’t the
same anymore,
and people still *******
about that too.
I'm standing in a small living room, dead center. My family and even some people I don't know, all proud Mexican people, stand around me.

I don't know why, but this memory is blurry and filled with static.

Some buzzing, angry voice cuts my ears. The sound a sharp, electric squeal. It hurts less as I get used to it, but I've been used to it. My ears tune the squeal and I know this sound. My uncle maybe. To be honest I can't remember.

My mind drifts off.

I blink in the light from the projector. Words flash across a sterile screen, something about an opioid overdose. First aid training presentation. I sit in a chair that's too small for me. My hips feel bruised.

Someone in class answers a question but I'm barely paying any mind. I can't stop thinking about drugs. I read the words in our follow along study guide earlier and now I can't get it out of my head...my head.

The hum turns into a low rumble.

I glance over to where it's coming from, the corner of a ****** apartment, the rumble creeps through the wall until it hits the sliding door to the balcony. Lightning bolt. I'm tripping acid somewhere I used to live.

I know I'm not there though. Just more flashbacks. Just more memories of things that feel good.

The phone rings.

I'm in my car, my cousin hesitates through the phone. My grandpa has cancer. I don't know how to feel because I've been avoiding him. I try to feign distress. Maybe make him think I'm not a terrible person for not knowing if I'm supposed to care…

I know I feel something. My stomach feels uneasy, like it always does. Except right now it feels uneasy like it usually doesn't. I tell him I need to hang up. I do. But it feels like a lie. I am self centered.

I am quiet.

The living room full of brown skin and brown eyes, red spit. They yell at me. My uncle's make fun of me for being ashamed of my skin. My last name is Montejano, but today my thirteen year old self has disowned my family. I'm tired of being called immigrant at school.

My cousins are solace, peace. I'm sure one of them told, but they pretend they care and some of them mean it. I am the bully in my family, I see them and I wonder if I even deserve my brown skin.

The memory sort of fades as I listen to the talking in front of me. Projector playing a slideshow. Things I should be writing, things I know. My right index finger is cut by a glass I'm washing in the sink.

The wound is large. I can see loose tissue while I wash it out. We find duct tape and some paper towels from the burgers we had last night.

I snort xanax. I'm outside.

Someone's playing guitar, I'm looking at the ceiling. It's just a memory but it feels so good.

My grandpa is in the driver's seat of a semi truck. We are passing a massive golden spire surrounded by trees. Somewhere near Maine or Virginia. As I try to remember the place we were, his face fades. His black hair is grey. And I don't remember it.

We're sleeping at a truck stop where he warns me not to open the doors at night. I don't sleep.

I step out of my dad's pick up truck a week later and it's the first time I experience perspective shifts, his truck isn't as big as my grandpas.

This is the first time I realise how small I am.

I'm pulling into a parking space as I get home from work. I can't remember how I got here.
Wk kortas Mar 2017
We’d known each other forever, or all the time that counted, anyways,
Sitting side-by-side on the bus from kindergarten
Until you and your mom moved up to Fifth Street,
At the cafeteria table, on the swings at rec
(Despite the considerable risk of contracting girl cooties)
And always but always on the gym bleachers for movie day,
Which, on the day in question, was "Paddle To The Sea",
And as I sat and watched the small, hand painted wooden craft
Improbably navigate the great blue ribbon
Bisecting the land of apple pie and Chevrolet
All the way to the Gulf of Mexico and into the great, blue ocean
It was as nothing else--that gym, the other kids
The comforting clack of the ancient eight-millimeter projector,
And, for that forty-odd minutes, even you--did not, could not exist.
As the lights came up, I looked over in your direction
Noticing the remnants of tears on your cheeks.
Hey, it’s OK to cry, I said
(Girls allowed such luxuries, after all)
But you whirled around at glared at me
(Even at that early age, stunned at the depth and breadth
Of my misunderstanding, my utter stupidity)
And said in a tone which neither sought nor brooked argument
That just can’t happen. No toy boat ever makes it to the ocean,
And for any number of days afterward
You would, apropos of nothing, angrily blurt out
How stupid, stupid, stupid that movie was,
And how you hoped they would cancel movie day from now on.

We had, nature taking its course and all that
(As I used to say to you at the time,
It’s not my fault you ended up with ****)
Our dalliance in that murky interval beyond friendship,
Fumbling about your bedroom
On those afternoons in-between sport seasons
Or on the old Friday night in the back of the balcony
At the old Rialto Theatre
(In its final death throes at the time, deserted enough most nights
I could have taken you right in the front row wholly unnoticed)
Though always within limits,
As you had no designs on becoming
Some drop-out baby mama patiently home-bound,
Spending mornings sweeping the detritus of the mill
From some weathered, crumbling front stoop
While waiting for me to come home from a spot on the line
As we lived happily hand-to-mouth ever after.

It could not, of course, have lasted.
The fall came where you headed off to Cornell,
An unlikely landing spot for a mill-town girl;
We sort of stayed in touch for a couple of months,
But come the tail-end of your second semester
You simply disappeared without a trace.
The sheriff’s boys up there had assumed you’d jumped
Into one of the scenic gorges
Which were the pride and joy of the town’s Chamber of Commerce.  
(I’d laughed in spite of myself, the notion that you would end up
In some pool below a waterfall or some shallows of an inlet
Almost too cosmically comic to fathom)
Though there was a rumor that someone fitting your description
Had dove into the Seneca Canal
(But clad in a bathing suit,
Like someone enjoying a brief, early-season swim)
And for the briefest of moments I had a vision of you swimming
Up to Clinton’s Ditch to where it met with the Oswego Canal
And the big lake, going up the frosty St. Lawrence
And thence to the very Atlantic itself,
But I knew that was a fancy, indeed an outright madness
Inconceivable in the small-town cosmology
Of a young girl intimate in the true nature of toys and oceans.
Rylee Galloway Jul 2015
What if the biggest rush in life is taking your last breath
Having everything flow through you
And out
All your memories suddenly start to  play a movie on fast forward with people dancing across the projector of your mind
It must be a lovely sight
But then afterwords come
People all the sudden pretending to know you
Said they talked to you
They will dress up in pretty black laced dresses and the men will be wearing nice button down shirts with suits
It's a nice costume
there will be hundreds at your funeral
But you will only know a few
Funny how people start listing when your dead for many will speak about your jokes as if they found them interesting
Study them  for a underlying meaning
Missing the pun completely
Because once you have gone extinct
People start to see you as a specimen rather than a person  
And sometimes I am convinced it'll be easier
To greet death when you see everyone in your life slowly turn green
Including yourself
Issa Jul 2014
Crowd begins to rustle    
Lights begin to dim
Performers begin to sweat

The curtain fades
The noise of the audience fade    
The first act music-student's courage fades

He focuses on the notation sheet  
Stage lights focus on him    
Spectators focus on the teenager  

                 He plays the first downbow note                  
                 The crowd listens to him                    
        Lights shine, never faltering            

-

Multitude begins to grow impatient
Lasers begin to blink on
Pop stars begin to nod at each other


The darkness on the stage fades
Distraction fades from the crowd
Sweat on the band's hands fade


She focuses on the expanse of people
Yellow lights focus on all of them
The sea of people focus on the song


Bassist plays the intro
Die-hard fans listen to the heartthrob
Strobe lights shine, excitement escalates      

                                      -                                                                                                                            ­           

Big finale performed by the orchestra      
                   People shiver in their seats                        
                 Wood stage vibrates                      

         The curtains are drawn        
Listeners sated, their scores are a draw
      Philharmonic members draw smiles      

    Assembly gives a standing ovation        
Each student gives a triumphant bow    
Curtains give way          
                                                   ­                     
             Backstage, the people laugh                      
Stage director laughs from relief  
Congregation laughs from witty student's last remark

-

Last verse of fulfilling song performed by band
Top section shivers from air conditioner
Big speakers vibrate on last note


Projector screens are drawn
Crowds draw their phones for selfies
Drummer draws his experience on notebook

Spectators give shouts of, "Encore!"
Band members give their farewell
Coliseum gives back lights

Pianist laughs recalling his slip
Volunteers laugh from crowd's reaction  
Fans laugh at guitarist signing for them
our ends are all beginnings
Danny Hefer Jun 2014
At the end of the show
After the final theme, there is another song
For nobody to hear but the ones expecting
there will be something else
After the last flicker
of the projector's light

As the music fades out, the screen is turning blank
Nothing is left but eyes, locked into a last gaze

At the end of the show
After the ending theme, a song plays for no one
Two voices, harmonies still ringing in my ears
Slightly out of tempo
Chords on the minor scale
Stop before the chorus

As the music fades out, the screen is turning blank
Nothing's left but the room, and the ghost of a tune

As the music fades out, it's the end of the show
But the show must go on,
but the show must go on.
allen currant Nov 2014
empty lakes and
barren streets try
to keep me inside

detached from the
land of detachment
tired eyes cold coffee

sun of light but no
warmth the constant
buzz of renovation

call it limbo call it
boring it stands here
the middle of the end

a running projector with
no film left the encroaching
white space passive sadness

screams are not heard they
are never voiced but they
are there under the material
Doug McCray Sep 2014
Find us idling our time away in the twilight of a movie theatre projector,
Intertwining,  intermingling, interlocking..down to the matched rhythm of breaths with her...
Criss cross them thighs to my Lap and let me caress up till I feel that knee becoming hip bone
Its been months since I felt all the sensations of a man lost in what some would call the zone
Lost in the coy smile in hands pushed back from pleasure just to be returned seconds later
Back to spots felt even stronger that a wait's made even better
Bitten lips never tasting more full, bitten lips bitten softer,
Lips just ripe for this mood and both best savored....

We just cant help ourselves when months of affections been saved
As i feel through our months of basic training till your legs tighten and beg
Pulling my body closer to yours, closer to the temptations you fight to conceal
Your eyes closing to the theatre around us to begin playing fantasies, for now, you just feel...
Grip tight baby and love loose...
Were just adding up our reasons and dividing the excuses to always equal youth
Come, rest in the pleasure of friction and fingers hidden in the dark,
Guilty by unsanctioned military pleasures, innocent by young hearts....

How much can two people fit between a showtime and credits
Would some say just a body that next weekend comes with seconds
Or others perhaps poems formatted inside those racing pulses
Count one butterflies count two everything off body language and impulse
An ecstasy that finds us spent and content when lights flicker back on
To then look into each other eyes and stare soft and stare long
To then hold the very hands that etched passion in every last valley of our bodies,
To then, just ever casually walk to the smell of popcorn, and the light of the lobby...
Stacie Lynn Jan 2017
the first time you broke my heart felt like every molecule in my body had been shaken like a carbonated drink inside a plastic bottle, containing the catastrophe and sheltering the insanity as if it were a home. i could not let anyone know how close i was to exploding, i could not be weak.
i walked around daily, replaying memories we had against the backs of my eyelids like a projector against a cement wall
i played it over and over until my stomach overflowed with churning bile, wanting to eject the inauthenticity of nostalgia
while watching i would try to make meaning of the dialogue, and you, being it’s main featured character
i made you out to be the hero but you were the villain, you destroyed the plot, you slaughtered the character’s lives, yet you were such a deceivingly good actor
have you ever heard something so many times that you started to go insane?
words can hit you so hard they start to feel like they’ve been carved into your brain, able to be sounded like keys on an everlasting piano, one note insisting for another to play along with it
but you’re not a song that i want to listen to anymore

the second time you broke my heart, i had it coming
i told myself this was it
every time i watched you blink i watched the doors to your soul close
have you ever let anyone in?
every kiss enabled another voice in my head telling me goodbye
but the best part about me letting you into my heart for a second time was that it didn’t really break
what i thought was my chest ripping open, withdrawing blood vessels and vitals, was really the nerves in my body connecting again, i can feel again
i can feel again
i am healing and here months later,
stitched up and intact
you can’t hurt me anymore
Jo Aug 2014
it numbs my chest,
burns in my heart.
how will i succeed?
what if i don't?
I crave you,
with every part of my being,
my mind,
a projector of memories,
my heart,
waiting to be filled by your love,
an empty cup.
i am a beggar at your door,
old and worn,
weathered from the storm,
but hear me,
see me,
love me
please,
do not shut the door.

i will wait,
i will fight,
but i will not let go,
i can't.
for i love you too deeply,
i love you too much,
scare me,
hurt me,
break me,
lose me,
i am still here,
loving you the same.
Elaenor Aisling Nov 2013
I do not think Hell will be
fire and brimstone, and sulfur geysers.
No medieval, halloween demons
ripped from Dante's manuscripts.

Hell will be in our minds,
our introverted, bleached brains
where we are doomed to watch
the lives we can no longer live,
over and over and over again,
While they play across the white coroner's sheet
as Satan's projector hums.
Bor ehgit Mar 2017
Sometimes I see you, in the swirls of my cigarette smoke. Hair pinned back, effortlessly beautiful. I'd break my arms to hold you again, and drowned in your blue eyes one last time.

Do you remember the first night we met?
Young and awkward, I remember the very second you entered the room. It was like the breath was pulled right from my lungs as I caught your eyes. You were smiling and completely oblivious that I even existed. What I would give to be frozen in that moment again, lost inside my own body. I was so full of life and hope, wondering if there was some way to make you mine.

After I finally had you, I pushed you away and it happened.
I don't want to remember the day you fell out of love with me, because to me that day didn't happen and it never will.
I still stay up all night hoping to not fall asleep, knowing as soon as I do I'll see your face. Knowing I'll fall right back in love.
Aaron LaLux Dec 2016
In The Pursuit of Happiness

Everywhere I go,
there are too many pillows,
and I’m not complaining I’m just saying,
it’s like I’m living inside some sort of reality show,

so far gone out of our minds into these experiences we go,

in the pursuit of happiness,
we catch the wave go with the flow and away we go,

so,
certain of nothing,
living,
the dream one nightmare at a time,

writing,
these words,
right after she’s left me,
like everything we experienced was just a dream,

or so it seems,

met amongst the sweat and steam,
of some thermal baths,
on the Buda side,
of Budapest,

bubbles whipped into a froth,
wandering but not lost,
feeling like a God,
gone but not forgot,

at this sacred sanctuary,
on the Buda side of Budapest,
I’m a runaway still on the run,
so sanctuaries like this are where I do rest,

in the pursuit of happiness,

some call it a challenge I call it a quest,

life is a lesson it is not a test,

losers say no while winners say yes,

Yes,

on the Buda side,
of Budapest,
this was the setting,
in which we met,

she was with her friend,
a lesbian from ******,
that’s an island in Greece,
for those that don’t know,

she happened to be a poet too,
so naturally we vibed well,
because when two or more poets get together,
it feels like we’re part of the artist cartel,

we got those emotions if you need them,
come on over and get your fix,
just a little motivation,
a rest stop a re-up on the road to happiness,

in the pursuit of happiness,

we have plenty of experiences,
we roll dice and take chances,
life itself is a gamble we all lose,
because nobody gets out of here alive,

I invited,
her and her friend to dinner,
they accepted so we met up,
a few hours later,

the plan was to go out to one of the ruins bars,
get some beers or whatever,
instead we ended up climbing a bridge,
and watching the lights of the city in all their grandeur,

fast forward,
we’re back at my place,
making love on a bed,
Baraka streaming from the projector screen,
onto the white wall between the floor and high ceiling,
melting reeling shaking grasping releasing,
feeling like two entire universes for the first time meeting,
she was coming I was going letting go at the same time holding,
it’s funny how sometimes a good grip can feel so freeing,
flying high lying down she’s riding me she’s coming now,
she’s Greek a Goddess call her Athena I mean this wow,
I’m surfing Her wave like Poseidon a titan live at the Apollo,
an all mighty Aphrodite laying down but not sleeping no Hypnos,

so high so fly,
feels like there’s wings coming outta my head,
she’s still on top of me so I turn her over on the bed,
to find a tattoo on her neck and here is what it read,

“Pursuit of Happiness”,

in words written in cursive,
this is beyond ironic,
this is cosmic this is honest,
this is a comet crashing into earth this is God meets Goddess,

on this,
earth,
we made love,
like some things still matter,

like,
something,
still,
mattered,

in this,
bed,
we made love,
like no things still matter,

like,
nothing,
still,
mattered,

as Baraka,
continued to play,
onto the tall white wall,
from the projector from which it projected,

and in that instant,
something mattered and nothing mattered,
everything mattered mad as a hatter,
free as a God in Greece in a moment perfectly captured,

as she lays here,
in this moment out of time,
an alchemist creating bliss from the pain,
painting the perfect picture,

this is more than a poem this is living scripture,

we are creating emotional paintings,
we are Gods and wherever we our is our Mt. Olympus,
as we travel on and write down our experiences,
so others can live through our words in a way that’s vicarious,

we carry this,
torch and stay on the course in the pursuit of happiness.

And everywhere we go,
there are too many pillows,
and I’m not complaining I’m just saying,
it’s like I’m living inside some sort of reality show,

so far gone out of our minds into these experiences we go,

in the pursuit of happiness,
we catch the wave go with the flow and away we go…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

09/09/16

Author Bio:
www.amazon.com/Aaron-La-Lux/e/B00ODPJAOK
if you listen carefully
to that song that you love
so much so that it brings salt
to your eyelashes
pay attention

stare directly at the sun
or into a projector
displaying a map of canada
and witness it

the luminescence
and every tone and shade
of every chroma
flashing with every blink
the liquid provides
a spectrum unbeknownst
to vertebrates
much like blood for vision
*youre* my blood
Norman Crane Aug 2024
of what's a house built,
tatami mats without
figures, ghosts within walls,
haunted by the absence
of anyone of substance who calls,
ozu, can you hear me? in
these rooms of noh occupants,
transients staying only a night,
staging a performance for no audience,
except me, turning slowly to dust,
late spring in tokyo twilight,
floating weeds in an empty house,
by a projector's light.
rodeo clown Jul 2017
my days fill up
like balloons
with forced breath

seeing light
shine through the messed up blinds
like a projector playing a movie across my skin
about something slightly nostalgic
but very far away

when i leave my house
my skeleton is magnetic
i feel nothing
but the push and the pull
the lack of choice
and a deep-cutting desire
to once again
have the world
and my body
belong to me
i've grown used to living in fear
it's now the quiet, stationary mockery of life that makes me itch
NotMyRealName Mar 2015
Through the filter of memory
The unreliable projector
I couldn't see a thing in that alley
But you hit me true
Left your bruise
I recall living in a place like this
Among skyscrapers made of  garbage with the floor painted a pleasent ***** green
where the psychopaths roam
Where do you come from?    
Well lit corridors and wide open spaces?            
Fed, washed and clothes clean
in front of the TV and bundled up warm ?  
Didn't you shiver
when those teeth came closer  ?
Did you see the late night screening
of flies on the ceiling?    
Did you have dinner with your mother and father  ?
Get a pat on the head
when your nose started bleeding?
Fist fights and *****
or homework in the evening?
Give me your story
Make it ******* gory
First poem. Feel free to comment and let me know where I can improve
Emotional Man Dec 2018
Dreams.... I can't remember the last time I had a vivid dream.
As I truly feel that I'm not in understanding with myself.
Maybe I should pull out my brain, set it on fire and brand myself with the thoughts inside....clashing lines...and visions of skies, broadcasted using my mad thoughts as a mental projector.
I feel as if I'm in the wrong sector, as passer my hecklors are causing me more problems then my spider injectors.

How does one truly come to know themselves, and have those vivid thoughts, and vivid dreams, where they can imagine  anything up and get stuck in there own time machine.

How does one know themselves so well that they can feel the pushing and pulling of positive and negative energies.

How does one know themselves so well that they know they were blessed by being the different seed but I know I have to struggle now for the future generation that's inside of me.

Dreams are like one in a million, but sometimes I get bits and pieces of an important image, as we will always remember the 5th of November, the gun powder, treason and plot.
For I too will have a vengeance for myself...A vendetta that's never forgot, because to truly understand myself I have to search my mind, my soul, and body.
And surely you don't expect to grow mentally, physically and emotionally without a fight.
To truly grow I have to push past points of my comfort zone, and experience uncomfortable and radical situations, with no expectations of thoughts and patterns, no blank lines and visualizations, because I'll get mad at myself and make my own accusations.

As I try and understand myself more and more it frustrates me because I understand other people more than myself, consequently the rules are broken and in my mind I'm nearly floating....washed out like a flash flood, my thoughts actions, and words are over flowing, like a water sprout that was casted over the ocean.

As my would be dreams set sail on an empty horizon, like my thoughts crash like soundless waves on beach fronts.
I'm waiting to hear over whelming thoughts and ideas roar like lions fighting over who will be thought of first.

I have to train my brain to think with my spiritual mind.
To know who you are spiritually defines a person mentally, and depending upon how your looking in the mirror reflects on the person physically.

I'm indecisive like two babies playing tug o war.
I don't know how much longer I can be for sure, as long as I feel the timing of my soul mind and body align once more.
I hope I don't become depressed and mentally shut the door, before my true awakening, so I can walk the path to be spiritually woke, but I hope I don't consume so much Information and spiritually choke.

-Emotional Man
Ashton Nance Nov 2023
The box in which I lay is glass
Walls adorned with paper flowers
Fragility is fragrant and congests the space
That which I inhabit and all that exists
A projector plays across the room
Our fondest, our darkest, our forever unknowns
What can you see from where you are?
Do you feel my anguish, how I slowly crack inside?
I hear a tune playing, pleasant and warm
A familiarity I can’t place but that I welcome nonetheless
Sadness permeates as I finally recognize the twinkle of your laugh, a sound frozen in time
How am I meant to go through life without you here?
I feel you in my soul, in my heart, and you survive in my mind
How can I reconcile the things you will never see, the older you that you can never be?
The walls begin to break, my cruelest mirror
I would give anything to be near you again, hold you dear
I will live the rest of my days aching for you and wishing someone understood
How nothing will ever be the same
Now that you’re gone
Fatima Ammar Mar 2014
walking through the hidden realm of my heart,

whistling close by me, a poisoned dart,

burning lightning in a pearly orb,

the essence of my agony you absorb,

echoes of a dog's anguished howl,

the opening eyes of a new-born foal,

ruby tears from the eyes of an innocent child,

a Spanish bull fight gone wild,

fiery chimera in a hailstone blizzard,

a multilingual emerald, flying-lizard,

purple mountain majestic mistletoe kiss,

a rare sorrowful bliss,

a distant ringing of mournful bells,

walking along a rocky beach collecting empty shells,

carousel of blood-hounds, running on fire,

my only desire; to hear this unearthly ire,

wretched arlequin, juggling the last string of sanity,

this truly isn't a show of subconscious vanity,

reaping emotions at such surprising speeds,

along with bitter memories of horrendous deeds,

diving into a sun-warmed tropical reef,

floating with fire coral far beneath,

a lilytrotter on candy-sweet waters,

the irreplaceable smile of a cherished daughter,

a blue fish dancing on a ghastly moon,

corruption swept away by a gilded monsoon,

a flurry in a race-horse chase,

no thoughts left to chastise,

shrewd smell of ancient tree-spice,

lingers in the unreachable corners of paradise,

when the red and golden banners are hung,

a far-off nightingale's song is sung,

the cresent moon, white-light projector,

an involuntary earth-life protector,

darling Ludwig, you sly minx,

for you have put my uncontrollable will under a jinx,

I'm ****, my true colours on display,

until it comes my time to decay,

Elise trapped thee heart in Limbo,

full of shadowed stars and powdered moonshine,

in a fairytale land divine,

treacherous Elise, make a speech,

of words no Poet can breech,

to thy trespasser, rowing,

in forbidden waters of longing melody.

175 seconds of unabridged art in blood...




AN: I'm sorry about how mad this first appears to be. If any of you know the history behind the song Für Elise then you might understand what this rant-like poem is on about.

Elise, (not her real name) was proposed to by Ludwig van Beethoven but rejected him to be with an Austrian nobleman. It is thought he wrote this for her. So I tried to describe a bit of the emotions he put into tune.


(there are many theories on who this song was meant for but I just chose this one)
My warm breath ricochets off the surface in front of me, back onto the skin of my jowls.  I see darkness, but within that darkness, an infinite amount of possibilities.  I'm on the road, the warm summer air is heating the cool frames of my sunglasses as I travel to somewhere far away.  Destination unknown, just traveling, always traveling.  Every time I take a different path with fluctuating experiences, utilizing varying transportation methods.  I begin to float, but I am not actually moving.  It is as if the ground beneath me is simply sinking away.  The wind picks up, the sun sets as the moon lapses into being, and suddenly, I am above a city.  The bright ambient lights are off-setting at first , but I grow used to them quickly. The cacophony of car horns, metallic scraping, pounding footsteps, and atrocities being committed complete the atmosphere. Sometimes I am that atrocity.  I soar down to the streets below and my ankles absorb the shock of the landing.  It's never as painful as one would anticipate. I wander through the dark alleys, dragging my hand across the damp, rigid, bricks.  I hear whispers from the walls telling me where to go next.  I have a calling, a civil duty to uphold.  The collective conscious of the city is screaming to me, asking me to do what they do not have the courage to do.  After the deed is done I melt back into the shadows from whence I came, and wait patiently for the next task.  With no warning and no control I transcend to another setting.  I move on to another life, with no recollection of the past world.
I am five years old.  I stare up at an amusement park, bewildered by all that is going on around me. The noisy gears of the machines grind and whir, drowned out only by the carnival medleys shrieking from the loud speakers implanted in the various coasters and carousels.  It is too much to take in at once and I begin to feel anxious, something does not seem right.  A sense of familiarity kicks in, but never has anything so familiar felt so uncanny.  Swarms of people flash by as though they are images imprinted on film reeling swiftly through a projector. Amongst the multitude of scurrying figures, one woman stands still, like a figurine mounted inside a snow globe surrounded by thousands of  free falling flakes. She turns to face me, and as I stare into the pale blue puddles of her eyes, I begin to weep. Electric impulses speed through my nervous system, my vision blurs, heart skips a beat. They're letting me know that somewhere, somewhere else, a bell is ringing.  I feel the breath again and there is a blinding light.  An orchestra of zippers, Velcro, and papers crumpling reverberates against the cold cement walls.  Not completely aware of what's going on, I follow the crowd and scuffle through the corridors, my footsteps acting as a sort of metronome against the linoleum floors. It is then that I am finally aware of where I am. I am back in the real world, back in the school, out of the comfort of my dreams.  My destination in this world is predicable, the journey  not so immense, nor as intriguing.  My legs begin to tingle as the blood rushes back into the tired muscles.  The woman from my dreams is now just a pale shadow in the banks of my memory.  
While the environments of my imagination tend to differ, there is  a catalogue of fairly constant variables.  There is usually the girl.  Not always the same girl in a  physical sense, but one that provokes the same types of feeling whether she's there or she's missing.  Except for this one.  This one always leaves an ominous, almost haunting, feeling.  She is not visually disconcerting.  It is not her sandy-blonde hair, porcelain skin, or even her murky blue eyes that frighten me, but rather the way she looks at me with them.  Her eyes cry for help that I can not provide, and it seems that she knows this, and for that she resents me.  I have no knowledge of who this woman is, or what she is meant to symbolize, but she makes my blood run cold.
I wrote this in high school. It's one of the few things I still enjoy reading now. (Descriptive essay on Reoccuring Dreams)
spysgrandson May 2013
you beguile me      
with your talking dead  
who said dreams
were of the future?  
my history flickers  
through my REMs
like a trailer for a movie  
I did not choose to watch…  
crumbling gray walls
around my mother’s home  
my father confusing
some interloper for my lost sister  
extending his hand to her,
from the grave, good naturedly,  
in the flatlands of life  
I feared him
even now, feeble on the floor
of this flowing dream
he has power to perplex  
by appearing, by simply taking milky shape and form  
reminding me he once was there
and that I must let him go  
and my mad mother as well    
but I am not running the projector  
when I slumber, again, and again    
they and the other fallen actors  
can grace the screen  
and all I can do
is open my eyes
to a deeper dream
actually had two distinct dreams I recorded from last night--this was the first, though written after the second one that occurred chronologically
Lane Nov 2014
He'd be twenty today.
Unfortunately, that truck had other plans.
Instead, he'll always be fifteen,
thirteen days away from turning sixteen.
T-***** on the corner from our town to the interstate.
A turn everyone has made one thousand times.
For his memory, only one time will ever be remembered.
A classmate, a friend, a teammate, a brother.
The list goes on and on.
None of these can ever truly capture his fire, life, joy.
There still isn't a day that I do not think of him,
and how unfair it all was.
For a small town of 2000,
we still feel the effects of that tragic day.
When everyone knows everyone else,
and you flip on the news to see things like
"teen killed in crash",
phones light up like wildfire,
everyone calling everyone to check in.
To think,
all that pain, misery, grief
could've been avoided,
if I took the time that day,
staying at the school,
and lifted with him.
Maybe then,
he wouldn't have gone home,
or at least,
not that early.

That night, everyone met at the football field,
and wept.
and wept.
and wept.
Taking styrofoam cups, interlocking them in the fence
to spell out a final message.
"WE <3 U  T-BAIN #11 2013".
You see, 11 was his jersey number for everything, and I mean everything.
He played basketball, football, baseball.
You name it, that dude could play it.
Because he was our Superman.
And 2013 was supposed to be his graduating year.
Instead, a vacant chair with a cap placed ever so neatly
and a gown draped over was all we got.

The service was held in the gym,
there was just no where else to go that would fit enough people.
As people littered the gym,
a giant projector ran clips, showed pictures, played music
but it just wasn't good enough.
I wanted the authentic guy, not just his image ran on a big screen.
I wanted Tanner back.
We all did.
Instead we had the service.
Where there wasn't a single dry eye in the entire O-zone*,
even the sternest of faces softened up.

Two weeks ago,
which was four years and two days after the accident,
we held a charity two and one mile race event.
Wristbands, shirts, glowsticks.
I can promise with one-hundred percent certainty,
that my community has not, cannot, and will not
ever
forget.
"Always remember, never forget" pasted over and over,
on the sports team's shoes, football sideline, wherever.
Instead, this trauma has brought our tight-knit town
closer together than ever before.
We rallied behind his family,
and together we were able to overcome
this melancholic fog
that gripped our town at the throats.
Instead of being glum about his passing,
we celebrate his life,
cherish his memory.
I'm sure
he wouldn't have it any other way.
*our gym was nicknamed the O-zone, because our mascot was an Oriole.
Guadalupe S P Nov 2023
If you walk down the hallway of all your sorrow Watch on each passing door a projector display the whirling colors of the hands bearing gifts and shackles, shaking trees under frightening storms and caskets of people and things seemingly lost. If down this corridor you continue, I promise you will get to the very end where only a final door in front of the corridor remains open where the temperature suits your skin and life still exists lighter and freer than where you were before. This gift I am sure you will receive if you walk through that corridor of your sorrow and you step through that final door
Cody Edwards Apr 2010
In a different town.

The baked streets have thinner air.
The fata seem to belong less to Morgana than to the mountains.
The tall mountains that freeze
The water of the eyes to
The water of the roads a mile away.
The terrific air.

I can now only barely recall.
No sound, the film skipped,
Slightly off the projector track.

The dark insides of a native heritage.
The store with an open door.
The stern woman behind the white smoke counter.
Turquoise is expensive,
But no one buys enough for it to be in vogue.
A vogue might swallow all the sulfur
Sand.

The sharp nose,
Cheekbones that squint the little black eyes deeper inside.
I can see why they must have been afraid,
Though I’m not quite sure what I mean by “they.”
This town is different from any other one.

And you can feel it when the mountains
Pin their tongue into the sun.
© Cody Edwards 2010
Lucy Tonic Nov 2011
My soul resides
On the other side
Of some other galaxy
So stop trying to measure me
You've got scars
You've got history
You've got His Story
But it's not mine
When you've been
Without light
For so long
You start to speak more literally
Start to sing a different song
Cause there was nothing
Great white nothing
But the artist's pen
It burst
And the ink mixed
With her salty tears
And his ****** fears
And the compass
started to spin
The projector
Began to roll
And it's still spiraling
Out of control
To this day
I'm afraid
I'm afraid
I don't want the womb
I don't want the tomb
I'm afraid
An accident was made
Gives whole new meaning
To kid A
I'm afraid
I'm afraid
Black dove
Come take me away
I'm afraid
I'm talking to myself
Again
Elise Jackson Aug 2017
if i said that i wouldn't die for you, i'd be lying.
such a naive thing to say, i know.
but it's my honesty.
it's the rawest thing i can give you.
i'd **** for you, i'd do anything for you.

an open letter can become a treasure chest if you open it the right way.
a technicolor dream of gray, a projector screen of pink.
a hallucinogenic vision i dreamed about a year before i saw you.

this was meant to happen.
all of the things in my life have happened for so, all of this is supposed to happen.
i was always supposed to feel this way.
i do.
i have.
and i always will.

i don't believe most of the things she's said about you.
most, because somehow she'd like the truth to be told.
because you're wonderful, but she'd rather make the bad things noticeable by lying.
maybe she's angry that you don't love her.

it's the miles deep pain i feel in my abdomen that shows me the truth.
it's the heart attack i experience when your eyes light up that shows me your real heart.

it's the knot in my throat when you talk, that shows me you're alive.


and so am i.
Tempestuous longings from behind the screen of life’s moving picture
You stare back at me, in a glimmering, shimmering afterthought
Laid low by foregoing passion
In a moment’s torrid glimpse from our hollow reflections
Fragrant evenings during seasons of filming
Solemnly captured and revised then experienced
The all encompassing struggle with context and setting
Abides a steely night, in the rustle of autumn branches
Requiem for an unremitting beloved!
Sung in the valley between piercing peaks of sorrow
She floats through the scene as distinct aura and vague essence
An embrace from the trail of vapors and misspent gestures
All emanating from a glass of cider beneath nostrils
Gracefully, you embank on the wind of time’s shadow
And nudge my cheek with impetus and vigor
Lashing out at my skin in ambivalent revelry
As if my follicles were vacuous caverns
Catching the callous moments which flutter the ***** of hillside tents
The unearthly gusts of banality extinguish the projector’s gleam
While nature embodies your beauty furthermore
Toward the end of the pathway
And the credits of the film
And the allegro of the score
And the solitude of eternity
And the rustling of the branches
Isobel G Apr 2013
Clothed in endless fibers of unsolved equations,
my skin is every A, B, C+ I've ever had.
My tongue and teeth carved from
over-used quotations.
Hair of flowing shreds of wasted time.
Eyes of burnt projector lights.
Red ink corrections on my lips.
I wear my science textbook heart on my sleeve,
dissected and un-beating
in your unyielding grasp.
©Nicola-Isobel H.            22.04.2013
Matthew Roe Sep 2018
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
Your honour.
Play the evidence”

The sound of a projector whirrs
As wind in a snail shell.
TAKE ONE.
REPLAY.

“The defendant knew the man,
Had talked to him on train stations,
But kept it as hidden as a brief encounter.
He knew this man liked that band,
Not liked, loved,
And the defendant had a whole playlist to recommend and a whole compilation of
Critical readings on Post-Britpop to articulate.
However!
the defendant being
Slow and mollusc minded.
He kept his oyster shut.
SLOW THE FILM!...”

The whirring whizzes to ticking,
As nagging as potentially productive hours.

“Slowing the footage,
we can see
That his mouth even hesitantly gaped for a second.
Not one of his greatest hits was it?”

Ha,
I think,
No need to punish me.
I do that deed upon myself.
My pen scribbling, clicking,
Ticking,
Whirring,
In my head at night,
With conversations I never had.
When you overhear a conversation that you could join in or spot someone you could get along with, but nervousness stops you from talking to them or joining in. From when I spotted someone from my college at a train station, I knew that like me he was interested in music, but I never spoke to him.
I wasn't into Radiohead like he was, but I would still enjoy talking about them.
(Anyone reading this like Bowie?)

— The End —