"proposals" poems
I'm struggling with what it means to be a woman.
Does it mean that I am always in competition to be the top of my species?
Does it mean that I need to be perfect without a single curve out of line in order to find love?
Does it mean that I am only defined when owned by a man?
Does it mean that I can only find purpose in childbirth?
Does it mean that I will forever live in the shadow of men?
Does it mean that I am an object invented solely for a man's pleasure?
Does it mean that I'm forced to confine to gender roles and live in someone else's story?
Does it mean that I'm supposed to accept it when I'm harassed from across the street?
Does it mean that I'm supposed to lie there silent when he puts his hands up my skirt?
Does it mean that I am only worth 77 cents to a man’s dollar?
Does it mean that I am defined by my looks rather than my intelligence?
Does it mean that I will never be capable of holding a major position of power due to my mood swings?
Does it mean that I am defined by how many men I have had *** with?
Or does it mean something else entirely.
It's difficult learning to love being a woman.
Obvious and damaging disadvantages are visible to observers.
We are regarded as second best, property of our man.
We are erased from history, our pain is minimized and forgotten.
We are oppressed and have to fight for our rights.
We are afraid to walk the streets at night, afraid for our lives.
We are harassed without care and without penalty.
We are ***** and murdered for refusing proposals.
We are expected to live on the sidelines as a housewife whose only priority should be her children.
We are expected to keep quiet in situations of domestic abuse.
We are expected to be perfect, and pretty, fresh for a man’s picking.
We can’t even advocate for our own equality without being demonized.
There are times where I wish I wasn’t a woman.
Being a woman comes with innumerable expectations, pressures, and responsibilities.
My existence is not defined by a man, or by the patriarchal expectations that have been placed on me.
I am breaking free of my confinements and I’m not afraid to admit that,
I'm struggling with what it means to be a woman. And that's okay.
//sarahmann
Mar 25, 2018
Mar 25, 2018 at 3:10 AM UTC
We all bear scars in one way or other.
Some from loving someone too deeply and some others from losing someone or something that you cared too much for.
Some scars are intentional while some others exist for stupid silly reasons.
Some we are but some we are not so proud of.
I have scars all over my body.
All over my mind and all over my soul.
I have scars on my brain due to over thinking and over analyzing incidents that haven’t even happened yet.
I have scars on my eyes for shutting it more often, for being blind to things that should’ve been taken care of.
I have scars on my nose from all those endless snobs and sniffles from my horrifying past relationships.
I have scars on my mouth from speaking the truth, only the truth and nothing but the truth.
I have scars on my neck from getting choked up on false love and fake proposals.
I have scars on my shoulders from lifting up responsibilities that I was accustomed to from an early age.
I have scars on my hands from holding onto things that weren’t supposed to be mine from the very start.
I have scars on my chest from my ice cold heart that has been stomped over and over multiple times.
I have scars on my lungs from the “occasional” stress buster cigarettes that I am addicted to every now and then.
I have scars on my stomach from one too many butterflies that flew when we first met.
I have scars on my legs from running, miles away from people and that place I used to call home.
I have scars on my skin from the many tattoos I got done that helps me reassure my self-worth.
I have scars on my soul from trying hard to pull myself together, calm me down and compose myself through the rampant storm that’s been raging in my life.
I have all these scars. All of them.
And they don’t scare me now even though they hurt like hell, at times.
They’ve become a part of me and looking back, they are just reminders of who I was, what I have been through my life and the person it has made me become.
They don’t scare me anymore because they define who I am now.
A survivor.
Mar 10, 2018
Mar 10, 2018 at 2:04 AM UTC
People pass by me,
from all every direction
even in winter snow.
From exhausted firemen,
expectant mothers,
forgotten children,
marathon sprinters.
Even grumbling men carrying heavy, ancient computer printers.
Each have their share and take their turn on me, the local sheltered, secluded
seat.
Even if only for a deep breath and a break or a little body
heat.
Bags and books, all sorts of things have been dropped or left on me, proposals have even happened here, you
name it.
If you don't believe it, come see for yourself and
frame it.
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 1:50 PM UTC
he was philosophical
the way any person is when they're high.
he wore black framed glasses
and talked too much;
which i kind of liked.
he said my name made me sound like a classy stripper.
i chose to take it as a compliment.
i didn't ask his age
though i wish i had.
he talked passionately about
aquatonics and molly.
he said he was starting up a business.
maybe i was flattered that he thought i was cute
or maybe he was generally interesting.
i'm not sure though.
all i can remember is the way the hookah tasted
as the music faded out.
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 4:00 PM UTC
Bereft of love all my life,
Thought I would not need any.
Still, you entered my life,
And now I need you as my wife.
Proposals, you can get many,
Yet you say you will be my wife.
You scuttled my ship.
Apr 16, 2021
Apr 16, 2021 at 10:52 PM UTC
All sorrow is perpendicular occurring
at right angles of tragedy encircling
the grief-stricken with straight edges
only once intersecting across infinite planes—
Don't dare draw the lines between points
or shade the region with limits or curves
because the trajectories of bullets are plotted
on branes intolerant of slightest triangulation
Woe unto the seekers of sine waves
sobbing thinking of filling every trough
believing surely by now we've offered enough
to sate these bloodthirsty Euclidean demons
Cresting won't ever arrive in this course
filled to the brim with asymptotes, cold corollaries
but never spilling over under our sacred
pledge of allegiance to the 2nd Parallel Postulate
No intersections can be admitted with thoughts
& prayers extending outward barely co-planar
serious public policy proposals axiomatic
insistence on the Nirvana Theorem or nothing
A set of all points remains, mutually exclusive
motionless and always incongruent clueless
about their own particular geometries
awaiting radical Pythagorean salvation
Some paradigm we’ve built here though!
Two hundred years of living polygonal hand
to elliptical mouth without tangential reflection
on the unproven flatness of humanspace.
Aug 4, 2016
Aug 4, 2016 at 4:41 AM UTC
The carpenter sits in his rocking chair as he thinks,
as the sun drowns itself into the dark clouds, he waits.
Waiting for something to tell him that he is no longer a boy anymore,
that his maturity and humility have been masqueraded
Into a body that resembles him.
Every night, when he eats, he sits alone
His plate as round as the moon,
He lights one candle on his dinner table.
Most nights, when he is drinking heavily,
he walks to the back of his house,
sits in front of an old wooden bench,
gazing across the lake and he picks up a book,
construing ideas and proposals that he fails to recollect the morning after.
He reads poems to himself, poems from books.
Poems about the nature and history of the human condition,
about the muscles and the tendons in our bodies
that bend and crumble and shiver at our disposal.
Bottle in his left hand, book in his right.
And sometimes he switches hands to highlight his drunken dexterity.
Clinching his book of poems as if they were his children,
too afraid to go out into the soft fear of the electric night,
and he was the wild one to present to this world.
He feels abandoned, dismayed,
and he no longer sees a light at the end this tunnel,
like someone or something is closing it,
leaving a crevice wide enough just to test and to tease
his willing and purpose to escape from it.
He feels a burning in his chest
as he trickles down the last drip of scotch onto his lips,
tasting death like it was tapwater.
It's midnight and he has to wake up in six hours,
wake up to a routine where his work becomes unnoticed
because he doesn't have the ***** to stand up for himself.
So, he sits and he waits for something to happen,
something fantastic or supernatural to help him grow wings
so he could relieve the tension on his shoulders,
his bones realigned to fit the being of gods.
He closes the book, walks back to his house
and blows his one candle at the dinner table,
blackening the room to fit the clouds of the night.
He lies in his bed as he engulfs his body with his comforter,
hoping to never wake up in a world that will not hesitate to laugh in his face.
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 9:28 PM UTC
Ode to Self
Walking on my own in this road to nowhere
I have thought my life was a whole lot better
Without the things that I used to consider
Superficial like love that made me bitter
Then an angel came to me in a jiffy
Dressed in golden feathers with lips like ruby
Suddenly I was enthralled by her beauty
Misery left me then came my love story
She gave me her heart and I found my shelter
At last my cry was like the rushing river
Can’t imagine why God put us together
Only to be with another’s arms sooner
It’s hard to live in the shadows of her past
Happiness gave company yet left so fast
I don’t have the clue of how long will I last
Like a fracture in a sculpture with a cast
My hopes have faded like the stars were aligned
Like prayers answered like proposals declined
Bursting with ideas from an empty mind
Beauty of irony which left them behind
I have heard limericks from my broken heart
Pieces of memories being torn apart
Mosaics of truth that built a fancy art
But I don’t want to go back from where I start
Ode to Beloved
Sassy lady how lovely you shine so bright
Blind me, come and take away my precious sight
Do you want me to go on a solo flight?
Or be a tool for another man’s delight?
Oh ears of my dearly loved can you hear me?
Draw closer to me please respond to my plea
Heed the sonata of my melancholy
It feels like I’m falling with no gravity
You‘ve lost your sight from the dimness of the dusk
You’ve fooled your own heart when you wore on that mask
Love was next to you even if you don’t ask
Like a machine with an automated task
Hey girl do you see a man from your future?
Do you know that he would stitch up your suture?
From sorrows that have caused your heart to rupture
Which made you weak and soon became your nature
If metaphors can be like reality
And reality can foresee destiny
I don’t know how happy it would be for me
If you could make sense of my allegory
Just gaze at nowhere but only in the front
Disregard the pasts that persist as they haunt
Like carcasses in graves so ghastly and gaunt
Walk with me make sure it isn’t just a jaunt
iamthe_avatar ©2010
Mar 7, 2014
Mar 7, 2014 at 1:14 AM UTC
The water tower stands above the town and can be seen for miles around. It has a
ladder leading up to the base of the tank. This ladder has been climbed by countless
teenagers, for thrills and mischief and young kids answering a dare.
Over the years, many symbols and words have been painted on the tank. From
Highschool mascots, to hearts of love and proposals. Flowers and Holiday wishes
joined in.
It had always been one mans job to keep the water tank painted and to cover up
any impromptu artwork. He always took his time about it though. Making sure that
each message stayed up at least two weeks before he would paint over it.
One day he received a phone call. On the line was a little boy. This little boy asked
the man to please not paint over his message he had written on the tank, as it was
very important.
The man explained to the boy that it was his job to keep the tank painted and
clean. But, that he would leave his message up there, untouched, for two weeks. The
little boy, with tears in his voice said "Thank you, I hope it will be long enough".
The next day, as the man was driving past the water tank, he looked up. He saw no
message or pictures of any kind on that tank. He shrugged and assumed that the boy
had just been to scared to make the climb all the way to the top.
Three weeks later, the mans phone rings again. It was that same little boy. Very
excited, he proclaimed "Mister, I just wanted to thank you for not painting over my
message...It really worked!"
Intrigued, the man went to the tank with his paint and supplies. He climbed to the
top, set down his paint and brush. He walked around that tank several times and still
did not see a message. But, as he bent to pick up the paint can, there it was.
Towards the bottom of the tank, in crayon with a young child scroll was written:
"Dear God, pleeze let my daddy come home frum war I miss him
Your frend Mike"
The years passed. Many drawings and words were painted over by one man and then
the other, as they took the job over. But never, the one small patch, with that heart
felt prayer.
Sep 14, 2010
Sep 14, 2010 at 2:50 PM UTC
I have all the reasons to believe,
All the evidence to give,
That Faith of all after Eve,
Came to my soul to live,
To hold my hand to the wedding eve.
A women from another mother,
Assumes her class for this poor thing,
Whose several proposals have yielded nothing,
Perharps for poor presentation,
And presumably doubts of my being.
The pics you sent me the other time,
I find my eyes gazing at them more often,
Whenever you call or I do,
Learns soul and body gets alert,
******** not to forget.
How you start a conversation,
Always with a calm noncholant voice,
Makes my thalamus restructure its pitch,
Just to make my vocals present a fair draft,
All in a bid to impress my one in a million.
That birthday surprise,
Left me mouth agape,
The concern and commitment in your voice,
Have made me harden my stand,
And declare a love sentence .
The later promise,
To me equals a nightmare ,
Like a Christian to rapture tale,
My being awaits affirmation,
Of your mouth watering promises.
I love it when you say,
"Omi chonjo"
Its a reassurance,
That liberates my heart ,
From fear of losing its queen.
Jun 18, 2018
Jun 18, 2018 at 2:10 AM UTC
Each piece wedged in deep,
deep in the soul.
Proposals and births,
deaths and break-ups.
Each explosion causes shrapnel.
Little shards of experiences.
Bad and good,
all in us, making us.
N. Hedges
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 11:18 AM UTC
Have you been searching for that perfect gift?
Want to say something special, give someone a lift?
Are you popping the question? Is it someone's birthday
But you're just not quite sure of the right words to say?
Is the one that you love feeling lonely or sick?
If a card or a letter just won't do the trick...
Pick up the phone call Poetically Correct
With our help, you'll achieve the desired effect
Just give us some details, and in a short time
You can send someone special, a gift that's sublime
Anniversaries ~ Apologies ~ Any Occasion ~ Baby Dedications ~ Bachelor/Bachelorette Party ~ Birth Announcements ~ Condolences ~ Congratulations ~ Eulogies ~ Father's Day ~ Get Well ~ Graduation ~ Holidays ~ Love ~ Proposals ~Reunions ~ Roasts ~ Secret Admirer ~ Special Friend ~ Surprise ~ Tell 'Em Off ~ Told U So ~ Valentines ~ You Name It
Jun 16, 2019
Jun 16, 2019 at 11:48 AM UTC
I need you in my life, baby
The only productive addiction in my future is to your proximity
A decade of scattered sorrows is but an aching blink when I’m with you
You manifest what I could never say or feel without the fear of exile
Rom-Coms hold no candle or wick to our story
Proposals would only seem like trivial when it comes to you and I
We’re closer than nostalgia and episodic memory
closer than gods and their devotees
closer than the dawn and dusk
when nine to fives carry you through a day
Yet despite our bond
only I can hear you, see you, feel you, think you
So with baited breath I speak your name, or at least what you are known as:
Imagination.
Oct 25, 2022
Oct 25, 2022 at 3:18 PM UTC
What's a moment without the thread?
Every clock brakes and begins to slow
So long since a tears been shed
Hazy eyes don't look but low
Seeing higher than the status quo
Freely opressed like an opening window
Lies are true and pride is gay
Counting time from doe to doe
Pricy fees I don't care to pay
Menial lives of grass to hay
Withering the vastest shade to grey
Shaping paths into cracked Concrete
My face plastered on your dismay
Pulling me out to every heart beat
Fates revealed from simple body heat
Lying dead on a scorching sheet;
Beginnings lost just as they were found
Pictures taken as blind love meets
Creatings reality out of invisible sound
Judgement conceived with no one around
Walking with chains nailed to the ground
Fastened tightly to stop me from growing
Drifting from pace enslaved as a hound
Keeps me from where I need to be going
Holding back all that i've been showing
Planting emotions I shouldn't be sowing
Igniting proposals of fragile connectivity
Claim to be committed but I tend to do nothing
Isolated inside of a crawling relativity
With depleted self esteem disguised as complexity
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 12:22 PM UTC
Rebellious minds wander through enlightenment
With new found insight into a deeper understanding
An illuminated sense of self - disguised in complexity
Stroking our ego's with a persuasive fascination
Gutless contrarians thriving off schematic exceptions
Objecting to proposals is all that seems formidable
Double edged intellect embracing it's own prevarication
Claiming supremacy as the better half of the equation
One more plagiarized thought to dwell on
Re-occurrence of Ideals in plain lucidity
Come crawling forth from the genetic sea
To stain our mind with a rhetorical monotony
Monolithic horizons expanding out of view
A facade of a paradise - lost in a new weary age
These frail structures collapse and rebuild
reclaiming everything that we once had known
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 7:11 PM UTC
Flower petals and confetti litter the ground.
Balloons held up by your friends.
Curious passersby gathering around.
You,being pushed towards the center of attention.
You, alone, in the middle of it all.
His friends wearing letters on their shirts,
Shuffling to spell out-
“will you marry me?”
It flashes on the jumbotron
In lieu of the kiss cam.
Fans hooting everywhere
“Say yes! Say yes!”, they scream
As he kneels on that popcorn and soda littered floor
And repeats-
“will you marry me?”
He says as his now sister-in-law gives you her bouquet.
His and everyone else’s eyes are on you.
Even though it’s his brother’s wedding’s reception,
he still managed to capture all the attention
Towards the two of you.
His eyes are brimming with tears
and glistening like the ring he’s holding.
He loves you. So much.
You love him,too. You know you do.
But how do you say I love you and no at the same time.
“I love you but, no.”
That doesn’t seem right.
So you stay on the middle ground and say
“I’ll have to think about it.”
The hooting turns to whispers
The tears on your boyfriend’s eyes come falling down
as he tucks the ring back in his pockets.
Your feet cemented to the ground
As people look at you as if you’re the strangest thing
to have ever existed.
And you may as well be.
No one says no to proposals.
It’s considered rude to reject such a thoughtful gesture.
But to whom is it being thoughtful of
Because it sure as hell isn’t of you
Since you’re the one who’s being viewed as a villain
But you have to remember that you’re not.
You are not a villain for saying no.
You are not the bad guy for not being ready.
Your decision is valid
And if he leaves you
Or makes a villain out of you
for being honest,
Then you were right to reject that ring.
Jul 28, 2017
Jul 28, 2017 at 10:11 AM UTC
Love is everything right and wrong with the universe.
From midnight phone calls because you can't sleep to
Midnight fights because you came home drunk.
From telling your crush you like them to
Telling your vows to the person you plan to spend your life with.
From spontaneous picnics on a starry night to
Surprise proposals.
From going to depths of hell for them to
going to the flower shop to buy them a rose on Valentine's Day.
But most of all
It's for anyone,
Regardless of
Gender,
Race,
Age,
Religion,
Location,
Fandom,
Fashion sense,
Music taste,
ANYTHING.
Love is for anyone.
No matter what.
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 11:56 PM UTC
I asked, 'will you'
she said, 'I will',
and the thrill of that sound lifts me up off the ground
'til I'm floating on air,
with her.
Kissing those lips until the tingling in my toes reaches the tip of my nose and then kissing some more.
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 8:05 AM UTC
Don't give such
affirming sighs
to my proposals.
Those eyelids
don't make
the jump to fly.
I push them
off a cliff.
May 3, 2017
May 3, 2017 at 3:12 AM UTC
*his voice was fine
no raspy proposals of sarcasm
his voice was as clear as a bell
as smooth as sea water
only when the current dances
does it ring out in aggressiveness*
Jul 24, 2013
Jul 24, 2013 at 2:27 PM UTC
I used to have the names and facts
right quick at my disposal.
It helped in settling arguments
and in drafting work proposals.
Now names and dates elude me.
Appointments just slide by.
Were it not for my Blackberry
you might see a grown man cry.
Yet deep in the recesses
of my bicameral mind
my neural Librarian,Norman
strives not to fall behind.
He's peering into synapses
and looking into lobes
He's hoping I can temporize
till the name he can disclose.
If I relax it comes to me
though too late to save face
Long after she has left my bed
I recall her name was "Grace"
Dec 19, 2011
Dec 19, 2011 at 3:36 PM UTC
Democracy, freedom, independence and joy
have all done a full circle and stopped tonight
Now to pack that well worn bag one last time
and let go
of all the hopes and dreams
of a little house with a blue door
with icicles hanging off the roof
surrounded by daffodils as the snow melts
predicting long summer evenings in the sun
sipping ice cold beer with those who are dear.
All the friends made memeories gained
will be left behind at the start of this trip
with a one way ticket to which used to be home.
Social norm is a miserable concept
and in this fickle thing called life
the only thing that doesn't change
is apparently my race.
Because God decided to play a cruel trick
and made me brown outside and inside a Brit.
Just to thicken the plot
having been raised with morals
here I am declining
generously convenient marriage proposals
deluded by romance and sacred notions of matrimony
just to get a visa was never going to cut it.
And dear Craig from last night,
you tasted and smelt of honesty and liberation
and your embrace, like a lie in on a lazy Sunday morning
was warm, cosy and comforting
your eyes mirroring a painful understanding
of heartache and no hope of tomorrow
yet yearning to stay in each others arms
as we did on that tiny dark dance floor
even long after the music had ended.
I would have given you my number
if time hadn't failed me
if fate hadn't cheated me.
I died a little more inside watching you leave
even though we had just met
and it was one night
with alcohol running through my veins
as I drank to forget
I remember
that kiss good bye.
You lingered and I can't stop thinking
what if what if what if
what if I had time
could we have been something more
guess we will never know
instead I've got to go
leaving everything behind
except for my well worn suit case
full of crushed dreams and a broken heart
dampen and heavy with tears and fears
time to leave where I belong
and return to where I was mistakenly born.
Time to face the beginning
of the end...
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 6:19 PM UTC
You still don't get it, do you?
I don't like your godly love
Or godly flowers
Or godly proposals
Or godly weddings.
****** hell
I don't like anything that is
godly.
Call me in the middle of the night
at 3 AM, perhaps
call me and talk to me about
your dreams and nightmares
and fears and dreams back again.
Introduce me to your demons.
I would love that.
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 11:40 AM UTC