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Kiernan Norman Jul 2014
We didn’t bloom together the way we should have. We never eyed each other across neat soil; both self-conscious and self-righteous as we sipped the sun and, in quiet bursts, raced to touch the sky.  

We weren't planted by gentle hands in soft plots with room to stretch our limbs and shield our eyes, nor to bud in peace and thrive and find identity in both our own bold blossoms and as a pulsing piece of the whole lavish garden.

We didn't bloom because we erupted.
We running-start-swan-dived into stale dirt and were too close from the very beginning.
We didn’t sprout up straight; we snaked and lurked and left no bit of earth untouched by our vibrant, stencil **** fingers declaring ourselves alive.

By harvest we were tangled beyond repair.
By harvest I didn't know me from you and I liked it.

To be so entwined is lovely but depends on a balance
we could only begin to grasp.
To expand but not uproot requires perfect synchronicity maybe not beyond our years but certainly beyond our maturity. We spread out our emotions like tarot cards on a towel in the grass and reflected in your sunglasses I met the silent pieces of me.
In colorful, grim drawings those quiet, ugly bits floated up veins and settled under ribs.
They stayed silent. Until they began to scream.

And you and I- we didn't have the words;
not our own words that we earned and burned while stumbling across months and plains,
tripping over potholes and finding our feet quicker each time.
We had place-holders words we sang back and forth and splashed around and bathed in.
The words we spoke were profound and cardboard.
We were just reading lines, sharing identical scripts and an ache to be seen
so deep and desperate it was sinful.

We maybe shared the humid cling of regret; which hung heavy in stuck-air auditoriums,
it beaded sweat echoed, rolling down spines and turning blood to sticky wax as we whispered in the corner about the things we could say aloud while our minds never left the things we wouldn't dare.

We were mostly ill-equipped.
We joked about hurricanes
We didn't survive the first storm.

I want you to know you really hurt my feelings.
I want you to know you're the first guy I've given my feelings to hurt.
I want you to know I was terrible towards the end.
And I know that. But you gave up on me

You gave up on me at the exact moment I was giving up on myself.
Even as my tongue stung metallic and veins pulsed so hot and loud
through my eardrum that I felt I would explode- it was clean.
It was all remarkably clean.
and sterile.
There were no explosions.
No shattered plates, ****** knuckles or blown out voices
that scratched and rose in time with the sun.

Just a quick slash of rope-
an anchor cut loose and left to sink;
our secrets were set free to
rust over and collect algae.
We were suddenly off the hook
for any vulnerability we might have spilled
on each other in our fits of laughter
and hours of sleep.
A deep sigh of relief.
A deeper sigh of desolation.

The moment exists in sad yellow lighting that must have been added in restrospect.
I tweaked the floor of my memory too:
at that moment I was not wearing flipflops on linoleum- but sinking, slowly and barefoot, into chilly riverbed mud as it turned to ice.

I opened the door and there you stood.
You knew I had been crying and I didn’t try to hide it
it was too exhausting- running on fumes.

And I did expect something from you,
anything from you, that might dull the singed-dagger plunging
stab to my chest with each breath I gulped and spat .
I wanted anything that might reel me in from the cliffs edge
where my thoughts had carried me on horseback.

But you had nothing.
I watched your eyes swallow my swollen lips and pinched, glassy eyes
like a quick, sharp shot of warm whiskey.
Careful to avoid eye contact you slipped ‘**** this,’
under your breath and started to reach for my hand.

You started to, but then after a second suspended
you let your arm fall back to your body.
Head lowered, jaw clenched and you turned and fled with a new heaviness pushing down on your posture.
It looked painful and adult.
It looked like you finally felt the weight of our season.
And watching you go I shrank in lighter and thicker because I felt it too.

We are not going to get a happy ending-
not with each other and not right now.
Maybe not ever.
And that will have to do.
(Though I will miss your hand in mine.
I hope one day you'll remember being tangled with me and it will make you laugh before you cringe because I didn't like to be alone.)

If I wanted to be alone I would just go home.
Nigel Morgan Oct 2012
When Zuo Fen woke day was well advanced into the Horse hour. In her darkened room a frame of the brightest light pulsed around the shuttered window. A breeze of scents from her herb garden brought sage, motherwort and lovage to cleanse the confined air, what remained of his visit, those rare aromatic oils from a body freed from its robes. Turning her head into the pillow that odour of him embraced her once more as in the deepest and most prolonged kiss , when with no space to breathe passion displaces reason in the mind.
 
The goat cart had brought him silently to her court in the Tiger hour, as was his custom in these summer days when, tired of his women’s attention, he seeks her company. In the vestibule her maid leaves a bowl of fresh water scented with lemon juice, a towel, her late uncle’s comb, a salve for his hands. Without removing his shoes, an Emperor’s privilege, he enters her study pausing momentarily while Xi-Lu removes himself from the exalted presence, his long tail *****, his walk provocative, dismissive. Zuo Fen is at her desk, brush in hand she finishes a copy of  ‘A Rhapsody for my Lord’. She has submitted herself to enter yet again that persona of the young concubine taken from her family to serve that community from which there seems no escape.
 
I was born in a humble, isolated, thatched house,
And was never well-versed in writing.
I never saw the marvellous pictures of books,
Nor had I heard of the classics of ancient sages.
I am dim-witted, humble and ignorant,
But was mistakenly placed in the Purple Palace . . .

 
He loves to hear her read such words, to imagine this fragile girl, and see her life at court described in the poet’s elegant characters. Zuo Fen’s scrolls lie on his second desk. Touching them, as he does frequently, is to touch her, is to feel mystery of her long body with its disregard of the courtly customs of his many, many women; the soft hair on her legs, the deep forest guarding her hidden ***, her peasant feet, her long fingers with their scent of ink and herbs.
 
He kneels beside her, gradually opening his ringed hand wide on her gowned thigh, then closing, then opening. A habit: an affectation. His head is bent in an obeisance he has no need to make, only, as he desires her he does this, so she knows this is so. She is prepared, as always, to act the part, or be this self she has opened to him, in all innocence at first, then in quiet delight that this is so and no more.
 
‘A rhapsody for me perhaps?’
‘What does Liu Xie say? The rhapsody is a fork in the road . . .
‘ . . . a different line’, he interrupts and quotes,’ it describes people and objects. It pictures appearance with a brilliance akin to sculpture or painting.’
‘What is clogged and confined it invariably opens. It depicts the commonplace with unbounded charm.’
‘But the goal of the form is beauty well-ordered . . . . as you are, dearest poet.’
‘You spoilt the richness of Lui Xie’s ending . . .’
‘I would rather speak of your beauty than Xie’s talk of gardening.’
‘Weeding is not gardening my Lord.’
 
And with that he summons her to read her rhapsody whilst his hands part her gown . . .
 
Over the years since he took her maidenhead, brusquely, with the impatience of his station, and she, on their second encounter deflowered him in turn with her poem about the pleasure due to woman, they had become as one branch on the same tree. She sought to be, and was, his equal in the prowess of scholastic memory. She had honed such facility with the word: years of training from her father in the palace archives and later in the mind games invented by and played with her brother. Then, as she entered womanhood and feared oblivion in an arranged marriage, she invented the persona of the pale girl, a fiction, who, with great gentleness and poetry, guided the male reader into the secrets of a woman’s ****** pleasure and fulfilment. In disguise, and with her brother’s help, she had sought those outside concubinage - for whom the congress of the male and female is rarely negotiable. She listened and transcribed, then gradually drew the Emperor into a web of new experience to which he readily succumbed, and the like of which he could have hardly imagined. He wished to promote her to the first lady of his Purple Chamber. She declined, insisting he provide her with a court distant from his palace rooms, yet close to the Zu-lin gardens, a place of quiet, meditation and the study of astronomy.
 
But today, this hot summer’s day, she had reckoned to be her birthday. She expected due recognition for one whose days moved closer to that age when a birthday is traditionally and lavishly celebrated. Her maid Mei-Lim would have already prepared the egg dishes associated with this special day. Her brother Zuo-Si may have penned a celebratory ode, and later would visit her with his lute to caress his subtle words of invention.
 
Your green eyes reflect a world apart
Where into silence words are formed dew-like,
Glistening as the sun rises on this precious day.
As a stony spring washes over precious jade,
delicate fishes swim in its depths
dancing to your reflection on the cool surface.
No need of strings, or bamboo instruments
When mountains and waters give forth their pure notes . . .

 
Her lord had left on her desk his own Confucian-led offering, in brushstrokes of his time-stretched hand, but his own hand nevertheless, and then in salutation the flower-like character leh (joy)
 
‘Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart’.
 
Meanwhile Xi-Lu stirred on the coverlet reminding Zuo Fen that the day was advancing and he had received no attention or conversation. It was whispered abroad that this lady spoke with her cat whom each afternoon would accompany his mistress on a walk through the adjacent gardens. It was true, Zuo Fen had taught Xi-Lu to converse in the dialect of her late mother’s province, but that is another story.
 
Lying on her back, eyes firmly shut, Zuo Fen surveyed the past year, a year of her brother’s pilgrimage to the Tai Mountains, his subsequent disappearance at the onset of winter, her Lord’s anger then indulgence as he allowed her to seek Zuo Si’s whereabouts. She thought of her sojourn in Ryzoki, the village of stone, where she discovered the blind servant girl who had revealed not only her brother’s whereabouts but her undying love for this strange, ungainly, uncomfortably ugly man who, with the experience gained from his sister’s persistent research had finally learned to love and be loved in equal measure for his gentle and tender actions. And together, their triumph: in ‘summoning the recluse’, and not one alone but a community of five living harmoniously in caves of the limestone heights. Now returned they had worked in ever secret ways to serve their Emperor in his conflict against the war-lord Tang.
 
She now resolved to take a brief holiday from this espionage, her stroking of the Emperor’s mind and body, and those caring sisterly duties she so readily performed. She would remove herself and her maid to a forest cabin: to lie in the dry mottled grass of summer and listen to the rustle of leaves, the chatter of birds, the sounds of insects and the creak-crack of the forest in the summer heat. She would plan a new chapter in her work as a poet and writer: she would be the pale girl no longer but a woman of strength and confidence made beautiful by good fortune, wise management and a generosity of spirit. She needed to prepare herself for her Lord’s demise, when their joyful hours living the lives of Prince and Lady of Xiang, he with his stallion gathering galingales, she with her dreams of an underwater house, would no longer be. She would study the ways of the old. She would seek to learn how peace and serenity might overcome those afflictions of age and circumstance, and when it is said that love’s chemistry distils pure joy through the intense refinement of memory.
This short story with poetry introduces the world of Zuo Fen, one of the first female poets of Chinese antiquity.
Lily Pandera Feb 2013
Like a star,
it pulsed.
Glowed for a moment
and I almost
missed it.
It did, glow, though.
I saw it.
Before it went out.
It went out.
Not with a crack
or a pop
or a shout.
Just quiet.
Like it wasn't there
at all.
Nothing to begin with.
Not an ember.
Not a star.
All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
   Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
Marly May 2014
she expected
f  i  r  e  w  o  r  k  s
when she first kissed him.
little did she know that she was going to become the fireworks.

she was an easy target, and he had good aim.
as soon as she f
                         e
                           l
                             l  
into his grasp, he was quick to send her back from where she came.

crowds gathered.
fathers' hands silenced their children's mouths as his loaded her into the mortar.
mothers' hands covered their children's ears as his lit the fuse.

she was shot forward by a merciless puff of dragon's breath,
and as she looked over her shoulder,
she saw the ash leaking from his nostrils.

stars beckoned to her.
glimmering, shimmering, shining stars extended their fiery hands to her already outstretched ones.
she rose higher and higher,
filling her lungs with the last bit of oxygen that was left,
and screamed.

he screamed.
her flaming body parts rained down in the form of asteroids, striking him.
stars spelled out her name and pulsed weakly like his dying heartbeat.
they both went from "are" to "were" in a matter of seconds, and everyone knew that their chemical reaction was triggered by fireworks.
Pagan Paul Feb 2019
.
The future was heading its way very fast,
it pondered the alternatives.
It could gently levitate
and reveal its magickal powers.
But now was not the time.
Not quite yet.
It relaxed, in the way swords relax,
and waited for the drop,
a tune humming along its full length.
Tension just a distant memory.
Its point tipped over the edge.
It fell,
in the manner of magickal swords.
Gracefully.

The waterfall felt the ripple of enchantment
as the iron thing crested its … crest,
and failed to plummet.
That disappointed the waterfall.
It also felt the girl,
in the swirling flow on the edge,
fail to catch it before it fell.
It 'heard' the naughty words
and the scream …

… she had screamed
as she lunged for the sword
and missed,
the Poet had been unceremoniously
ejected from her pocket
and disappeared over the edge.
So Jerrica screamed.
She didn't know what else to do.

Kelm was stalking fish.
They hadn't been hiding in the river
so they must be in the trees.
He had his catapult ready
and maggots to fire at the fish.
Then he heard a scream
so he started off towards it.
He saw the girl staring in horror
and then she bolted off.
Down the side of the waterfall.
“What the hell are girls for?”
he wondered as he wandered off.
He decided to go and hector Bruce.

They had abandoned ship.
Well, jumped barrel.
And now they had gone awol.
But the author didn't care
about a couple of slap dash bit parts.
He hoped the Troll had got them.

The sword floated serenely.
Mattering not in the slightest
that the water was vertical
and flowed quicker in that direction.
Then it felt a jolt,
a ripple in its pond of calm.
It was slightly amused
as something grabbed its hilt.
And held on.
It felt the panic, it felt the relief.
Then it felt … a connection.
Something tingled along its length.

As his tiny arms clutched the sword
a wave of dread passed by,
waving at him with a sharp smile.
A wave waving in waves.
The Poet considered the images
and clutched harder
as nausea also comes in waves.
Instead he thought about physics.
How could it be he fell faster than
an iron sword?
And how was it possible
to slow descent to a mere saunter?
Most of all he asked
“What does this all over tingling feeling mean?”
A barrel plummeted by
too fast and too **** close.

Kelm was exploring
and had found the tiny bridge
upstream from the excitement
and was poking about,
as is the want of curious little boys.
Thats when he found the clay doll.
Ugly in a crude kind of way.
He wondered if dolls could swim
and attached it to his fishing rod.
He dunked it.
Like a biscuit in tea.
The result was a sticky mess
so he threw it in the river.
He made a decision and wandered off,
he was going to look for fish nests.

The Troll was confused.
He had accidentally discovered Hide and Seek.
But didn't understand the rules.
Morfine and Choklut were hiding
and he was out of ideas.
A fairly normal state of mind for a Troll.
And now his body was dissolving.
He remembered his doll familiar.
It must have got wet.
And he was fading out of the story.
“Goodbye reader. Thankyou for knowing me”
he says with a regretful voice.

The astonishing thing about light
is it stops you bumping into things.
And the sword was very light,
as the tingling pulsed through it.
It did not bump into the boulder
at the bottom of the waterfall.
Rather, it slid gently
into the middle of the large stone.



© Pagan Paul (10/02/19)
.
Part 3 of 4
.
So much have I forgotten in ten years,
So much in ten brief years! I have forgot
What time the purple apples come to juice,
And what month brings the shy forget-me-not.
I have forgot the special, startling season
Of the pimento's flowering and fruiting;
What time of year the ground doves brown the fields
And fill the noonday with their curious fluting.
I have forgotten much, but still remember
The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.
I still recall the honey-fever grass,
But cannot recollect the high days when
We rooted them out of the ping-wing path
To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen.
I often try to think in what sweet month
The languid painted ladies used to dapple
The yellow by-road mazing from the main,
Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple.
I have forgotten--strange--but quite remember
The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.

What weeks, what months, what time of the mild year
We cheated school to have our fling at tops?
What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy
Feasting upon blackberries in the copse?
Oh some I know! I have embalmed the days,
Even the sacred moments when we played,
All innocent of passion, uncorrupt,
At noon and evening in the flame-heart's shade.
We were so happy, happy, I remember,
Beneath the poinsettia's red in warm December.
Marieta Maglas Mar 2013
It's summertime. The saxophone  jazz
sounds are pirouettetting the waves
to find their own balance. It's a mauve

inner dance in almost everything around.
More exactly, the melodious movable
sounds become soundable movement

needing a reverberation time to dissipate  
the energy. The movement releases its  own
purity to become simple fecundity. The pulsed

sound waves are also old memories  lost in the
natural green. The saxophone  looks  much
more like a Tahitian prince dancing his love

on the sand. The singing mauve sea waves
have a sadness taste at sunset. The last one
is a watery mermaid and he embraces her

while searching the high. The sounds need
touch and life. They need to dematerialize
and to disappear into the universe. The

saxophone  remains a solitaire keeping
safe his evanescent  hermetic equilibrium.
Kalei A Sep 2012
I was having a nice Dream
when you shook me Awake.
The sky was bruised with no hint of Light.
You held one thin finger to your smiling lips-
Vacation was the only word whispered.
A day full of flying & driving we finally arrived
Grandma's and Grandpa's; Everyone was outside.
Met with pity-filled smiles
and red-rimmed eyes
steel-gripped hugs about crushed my spine.
Aunties, Uncles & Strangers were there.
You told me to go unpack my things.
 
Mom, why did you pack me so many socks?
Vacation only lasts a handful of days.

 
Realizations pulsed inside like a serpent had punctured my skin
 Then filled me with disgusting truth. 
Within a few moments 
I'd been stripped & thrown
into a hole full of my most secret fears. 
My hideous screams still ring in my ears.
Sam Hawkins Jul 2018
Last night, a spiraled light
it caught and submerged me--
carrying far off
all my fears.

My drum-pulsed heart was flying.

I rose and weaved my airy way
among jagged mountain rock--
my path opening, opening

until a high-arched gate appeared,
laced with colored flags
and I moved through it and beyond.

In a while I saw among distant shadows of villagers
and wisps of smoke a child there, sitting,
her back to me.

Are you my teacher?
Yes, she said, though not with words.

What do you have to teach me?
Be simple.
this is a generalization account of an "upper world  journey" I took the night before. this is what happened. shamanic journeying with a drum pulse as "vehicle" is a technology. Seek out a highly trained practioner as a guide...if you wish to travel. Anyone who studied with Michael Harner (now transitioned) is a ringer! I am not permitted to be a guide for others.
Nicole Ashley Dec 2014
Hope is all we have
Waiting and waiting

Sounds of a clock ticks on and on
Pulsed in our ears

Waiting for answers

No phone calls
No music or TV

Silence

Just silence


For truth
Not lies

Hope is all we have
Sitting and waiting


Sounds of a clock ticks on and on
To Jenny came a gentle youth
   From inland leazes lone;
His love was fresh as apple-blooth
   By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
And duly he entreated her
To be his tender minister,
   And call him aye her own.

Fair Jenny’s life had hardly been
   A life of modesty;
At Casterbridge experience keen
   Of many loves had she
From scarcely sixteen years above:
Among them sundry troopers of
   The King’s-Own Cavalry.

But each with charger, sword, and gun,
   Had bluffed the Biscay wave;
And Jenny prized her gentle one
   For all the love he gave.
She vowed to be, if they were wed,
His honest wife in heart and head
   From bride-ale hour to grave.

Wedded they were. Her husband’s trust
   In Jenny knew no bound,
And Jenny kept her pure and just,
   Till even malice found
No sin or sign of ill to be
In one who walked so decently
   The duteous helpmate’s round.

Two sons were born, and bloomed to men,
   And roamed, and were as not:
Alone was Jenny left again
   As ere her mind had sought
A solace in domestic joys,
And ere the vanished pair of boys
   Were sent to sun her cot.

She numbered near on sixty years,
   And passed as elderly,
When, in the street, with flush of fears,
   On day discovered she,
From shine of swords and thump of drum,
Her early loves from war had come,
   The King’s Own Cavalry.

She turned aside, and bowed her head
   Anigh Saint Peter’s door;
“Alas for chastened thoughts!” she said;
   “I’m faded now, and ****,
And yet those notes—they thrill me through,
And those gay forms move me anew
   As in the years of yore!”…

—’Twas Christmas, and the Phoenix Inn
   Was lit with tapers tall,
For thirty of the trooper men
   Had vowed to give a ball
As “Theirs” had done (fame handed down)
When lying in the self-same town
   Ere Buonaparté’s fall.

That night the throbbing “Soldier’s Joy,”
   The measured tread and sway
Of “Fancy-Lad” and “Maiden Coy,”
   Reached Jenny as she lay
Beside her spouse; till springtide blood
Seemed scouring through her like a flood
   That whisked the years away.

She rose, and rayed, and decked her head
   To hide her ringlets thin;
Upon her cap two bows of red
   She fixed with hasty pin;
Unheard descending to the street,
She trod the flags with tune-led feet,
   And stood before the Inn.

Save for the dancers’, not a sound
   Disturbed the icy air;
No watchman on his midnight round
   Or traveller was there;
But over All-Saints’, high and bright,
Pulsed to the music Sirius white,
   The Wain by Bullstake Square.

She knocked, but found her further stride
   Checked by a sergeant tall:
“Gay Granny, whence come you?” he cried;
   “This is a private ball.”
—”No one has more right here than me!
Ere you were born, man,” answered she,
   “I knew the regiment all!”

“Take not the lady’s visit ill!”
   Upspoke the steward free;
“We lack sufficient partners still,
   So, prithee let her be!”
They seized and whirled her ’mid the maze,
And Jenny felt as in the days
   Of her immodesty.

Hour chased each hour, and night advanced;
   She sped as shod with wings;
Each time and every time she danced—
   Reels, jigs, poussettes, and flings:
They cheered her as she soared and swooped
(She’d learnt ere art in dancing drooped
   From hops to slothful swings).

The favorite Quick-step “Speed the Plough”—
   (Cross hands, cast off, and wheel)—
“The Triumph,” “Sylph,” “The Row-dow dow,”
   Famed “Major Malley’s Reel,”
“The Duke of York’s,” “The Fairy Dance,”
“The Bridge of Lodi” (brought from France),
   She beat out, toe and heel.

The “Fall of Paris” clanged its close,
   And Peter’s chime told four,
When Jenny, *****-beating, rose
   To seek her silent door.
They tiptoed in escorting her,
Lest stroke of heel or ***** of spur
   Should break her goodman’s snore.

The fire that late had burnt fell slack
   When lone at last stood she;
Her nine-and-fifty years came back;
   She sank upon her knee
Beside the durn, and like a dart
A something arrowed through her heart
   In shoots of agony.

Their footsteps died as she leant there,
   Lit by the morning star
Hanging above the moorland, where
   The aged elm-rows are;
And, as o’ernight, from Pummery Ridge
To Maembury Ring and Standfast Bridge
   No life stirred, near or far.

Though inner mischief worked amain,
   She reached her husband’s side;
Where, toil-weary, as he had lain
   Beneath the patchwork pied
When yestereve she’d forthward crept,
And as unwitting, still he slept
   Who did in her confide.

A tear sprang as she turned and viewed
   His features free from guile;
She kissed him long, as when, just wooed.
   She chose his domicile.
Death menaced now; yet less for life
She wished than that she were the wife
   That she had been erstwhile.

Time wore to six. Her husband rose
   And struck the steel and stone;
He glanced at Jenny, whose repose
   Seemed deeper than his own.
With dumb dismay, on closer sight,
He gathered sense that in the night,
   Or morn, her soul had flown.

When told that some too mighty strain
   For one so many-yeared
Had burst her *****’s master-vein,
   His doubts remained unstirred.
His Jenny had not left his side
Betwixt the eve and morning-tide:
   —The King’s said not a word.

Well! times are not as times were then,
   Nor fair ones half so free;
And truly they were martial men,
   The King’s-Own Cavalry.
And when they went from Casterbridge
And vanished over Mellstock Ridge,
   ’Twas saddest morn to see.
Skye Applebome May 2014
There was a purpose to it all. To the man who just missed his taxi in New York, to the young child hopping between rocks deep in a forest, on a bubbling stream. Just as the city pulsed with life, seeping through cracks in the pavement repaired just last week, in the wheels of the taxi driving away and in the man's curse under his breath...
Just as the city pulsed with life, billions of trillions of ideas and thoughts and galaxies in heads thinking about their coworker one cubicle over who mentioned offhandedly to their friend about not having plans this Thursday evening, about whether their mother had remembered to take their medication this morning because she always was forgetting and did she realize how much easier it would be to hire a servant for these things...
Just as the city pulsed with life, as did the forest, a snake slithering between the dancing shadows from the shaking leaves, the child unaware of this impending surprise until the moment of impact, yielding a sharp report and a mad dash for an exit...
So did the forest, birds swooping between branches swaying ever so slightly from the gust caused by the boy's speed, one train of thought, one heartbeat racing to catch up with its feet...
So did the forest, with billions of trillions of thoughts and ideas in heads wondering about whether the snake had bitten him or not, about whether their grandmother had remembered to take her medication this morning because she was oh so forgetful and Daddy did always say they needed a maid since he was always busy and Mommy left...
So did the forest.
Feet flew, wheels sped.
A puppy, patiently waiting by the window, tennis ball in mouth, for her buddies to come home. Her older dog companion had fallen asleep in the wait.
And in these moments, of waiting, all with one destination...they were already together in their minds.
Rebecca Gaylor Dec 2012
Summer nights melt into summer days.

A daze.

Amazed, at how our Neverland became something fallible.

When we were young and innocence pulsed through our veins,

words were light and the air hummed with electricity-

Cotton candy clouds over a watercolor sky.

We were wild things.

The ocean left its mark with kisses in our hair.

Marsh mud, like war paint, adorned our bodies.

Our bodies, like molded ivory.

You braided flowers in my hair,

told me to remember Neverland forever.

I need my Neverland now more than ever.

Summer nights melted into Autumn, Spring,

Rinse, Repeat.

I blink, and stand here at eighteen,

left breathless at the rate

my childhood did evaporate.

There’s still flowers in my hair.

My body, still ivory.

My mind, lost.

Those firefly nights without a care became something quite different.

A witness to the world we destroy-

A martyr of my own breed.

I want. I need,

to tell you.

If you find yourself in Neverland,

never return.

For this world, it hurts like a broken bone.

We collect our things and call it home,

and our left to envy,

the youth and their Neverland.
krista Oct 2013
i.*   i've always loved the way the earth looks from an airplane window, small enough that i can filter through an entire city with my fingers and never encounter a single face that inhabits it. but this time, i looked out and could see nothing but green for miles. it was as if god himself could put his infinite hands together and they would still fill with trees and branches and coffee-stained rivers instead of people. i didn't know it was possible to drown in so much color.

ii.   a man who spoke in splintered english and carried a machete told me that he could survive in the rainforest for a month without supplies, that the jungle ran through his bloodstream as he imagined gasoline and city lights flickered through mine. the day he took us hiking on the trails, he glided through the understory barefoot, pausing just long enough each time to see if we were keeping up.

iii.   some mornings, i lay in bed still wishing i could turn the chorus of car horns outside my window into the songs of howler monkeys echoing across the treetops and into my dreams.

iv.   at night, we walked down a beach, dragging sand and weariness in our socks and watching the waves crest along the shore. i looked to my right and the stars leaned so close into the forest that they simply became twinkling electric lights atop palm tree lampposts. my feet even tasted the stars beneath them; when i kicked up sand, tiny constellations startled scurrying ***** into the tide.

v.   you will always be the first country that trusted me with a bottle in my hand, as i stole through the midnight streets of san pedro with the taste of *** mixing in with the laughter i felt hidden under my tongue. and in the morning, i awoke to a faint dizziness and the memory of boys who bought me drinks and asked for nothing more than a dance and a handful of stories in return.

vi.   *muy exótica
, they murmured as i walked down the road, my heartbeat syncing with the wheels of my suitcase as they rolled over the uneven dirt. a pair of enamored scarlet macaws held no magic for them now; the real exotic specimen was the girl whose almond eyes were filled with desert sand, whose skin only became mocha when the sun stared at it too long. they couldn't turn away.

vii.   i still have countless bug bites that dance across the backs of my legs in tingling trails. i hope the scars stay long enough for me to trace them back to the place where they were choreographed.

viii.   only one of a thousand sea turtle hatchlings will reach adulthood, yet i watched one of eight make its way from my hand to the ocean until it caught the sunrise and disappeared. i kept my palm open as i waved goodbye, hoping he would someday be able to read his way back home.

ix.   the last night, we danced under a shower of stars and you told me about a time that you smoked until twilight and saw sea turtles dancing on the beach to bob marley. while we were sitting there wishing the storm would swallow up time, i imagined piro beach was littered with the shells of sea turtles using the moonlight as it pulsed off the waves to teach each other how to salsa too.

x.   i've never written a love song, but i spent my days in a hammock wishing i knew enough words in spanish to weave together one for costa rica. i wonder if i will spend my life falling in love with places and scattering pieces of my heart across the continents like turtle eggs without ever finding the one location i'd like to bury them deep into the sand and wait for life to dig its way back out.
// for costa rica, te amo
Terry Collett Apr 2015
Jane passed the church, walked past the gravestones of those long dead, smelt the scent of flowers, heard the songs of birds in nearby hedgerows and trees. Benedict said to meet her there the day before while leaving the school van, about midday he had said. She had cycled from the vicarage where she lived with her parents, down through the narrow lanes, passed the water tower by the farm, riding carefully past the cottage where Benedict lived with his parents and siblings, on through narrow lanes until she had reached the church. She was happy to be meeting him again, from the time she had awoken that morning she felt a sense of excitement at seeing him, being in his company. Her mother had asked where she was going and she said to meet Benedict at the church on the other side of the hamlet. Her mother smiled; she liked Benedict, he was trustworthy, unlike some of the boys round about whom she would have felt uneasy about Jane meeting...Benedict sat in the churchyard in the corner away from the nearest grave, where the name and date had worn away over the years until just a few words remained visible. He looked around him, studied the shapes and size of the gravestones, many had become dilapidated over the years, but it was peaceful and he liked it being amongst the dead sensing the feeling of being beyond the here and now. He waited for Jane to come. He had asked her to meet him there the day before. She said she would. He looked forward to seeing her, having her  near him, seeing her eyes looking at him, her dark hair, brown eyes, that shy smile...Jane saw Benedict sitting on the grass in the corner, he was looking at the gravestones, his hands around his knees. He was in blue jeans and white shirt and black shoes. She passed a few graves when he looked up and saw her. A thrill of excitement went through her, her stomach churned, her heart beat fast...There she was, standing not far away, Benedict stood up from the grass and went to her and she smiled at him. Not late am I? she asked, putting a hand out to touch his. No, he said, just on time, looking at the watch on his wrist, feeling her hand touch his, buzzing his nerves with her touch...Jane sensed her tongue becoming stuck in her mouth; her eyes scanned him taking in his eyes, hazel bright, his brown hair with that quiff that she loved, that smile so warm and yet inviting. Her hand was in his, warm, soft, his thumb rubbing her skin...Benedict felt alive; felt so here and now that his heart beat so that it seemed it would crash through his chest. How are you? He asked, rubbing her hand, not wanting to let it go, but not wanting to hold it too long. I'm all right, she said shyly, wanting his hand to stay there, to feel him near her, listening to his every word...Jane looked around at the churchyard, saw the flowers on some of the graves, some dying of neglect, some fresh planted. Shall we look in the church? She said, see  the interior? Yes, he said, why not, not seen inside for ages(although he had a few weeks before when the girl Lizbeth had taken him there and had tried to ****** him inside on one of the pews and he had left and declined)...Jane looked at him, seeking to see if he mentioned the girl Lizbeth whom Jane had heard had taken Benedict there a few weeks before. She trusted him, but needed him to tell her about the girl from their school, thirteen like them, but more forward, more dangerous. I heard you were here with Lizbeth a few weeks ago, Jane said, not wanting him to be unaware that she knew, but wanting him to be honest with her...Benedict blushed and looked at her, releasing her hand reluctantly. Yes, he said, she took me here, or rather we came here.  He didn't know what to say, but he couldn't lie, not keep things back. She came to the cottage and asked me to bring her here because she said she was interested in the architectural aspects of the church, but she just wanted to do things, he said looking at the nearest gravestone, feeling unsettled. Do things? Jane asked, looking at him, seeing his blush still there, wondering what he had done. She wanted me to have *** with her on a pew in the church, he said, but that was after we were in the church and she tricked me...Jane caught her breath, brought her hands together in front of her, trying to make sense of what he was saying. *** with her on a pew? She said, the words soft almost choking her. You didn't did you? She asked, not believing she was asking him. No, of course not, I would never have come here with her had I known that was what she was after, he said, gazing at Jane, unsure of her reaction. She felt her heart beating fast in her breast, her mind was becoming out on a limb. How could she think you would? She asked, not sure what to say or asked any more...Benedict felt the world becoming almost too big for him. He wanted to take Jane and say it hadn't been for real that he had been tricked, that he wanted to be near her not Lizbeth. I don't know, Benedict said, I never encouraged her, thought she was interested in the church, but inside she changed and said we could have *** on one of those pews. Jane sensed an unease enter. And what happened then? She asked, looking at him shyly. Nothing, I left the church and she followed and I cycled back home and she followed me, but them rode off, he said, feeling undone, feeling as if the ground was about to swallow him up...Tears were rising to her eyes, she could sense them. Did you kiss her? She asked, wanting to know, yet not wanting to know. No, nothing at all, he said shaking his head, I wanted none of that. She bit her lower lip, tried to hold back the tears in her eyes. She sensed he hadn't, but she needed to be sure. She had heard about the girl at school, but had he fallen for her charms such as they may have been? Why did she want to have *** with you? She asked, blushing at the word *** in her own mouth. No idea, he said, seems to have this fixation with me and ***. She sensed the tears falling from her eyes and on her cheeks. She wiped them off with the back of her hand. Can I trust you? She asked, the tears making her throat feel sore. Yes, he said, I’d never betray you, never. Not with her or anyone, he added, feeling his world emptying like a fish thrown on dry land. She put a hand on his arm, squeezed it, drew him to her and he embraced her uncertain if it was for real or just a gesture. I trust you, she said, wanting him to hold her close to him, sensing her tears rub on his shoulder, dampening his shirt...Benedict held her tight, not wanting her to go from him, not wanting to lose even this one moment in her closeness. He smelt that naturalness about her, an apple scent, fresh air, purity like new snow, blossoms...She kissed his cheek; lips to skin, not pressured, but there wanting to express how she felt, how her heart felt, not lust like the Lizbeth girl, but love, yes, love for him...Benedict sensed her lips kiss his cheek, warm, soft. He held her tight, feeling her body close to his, sensing her soft ******* against his chest as he held her...Jane put a hand behind his head, drew him closer, her lips kissing his ear, his lobe, his cheek again, then she pulled away a little to look at him. I should not have doubted you or your what you would do or not do, she said softly, her eyes watery, her cheeks damp. I heard about her and her visit to you, but I wasn't sure if it was true or not, but it doesn't matter now, because I trust you, she said...Benedict held her as near as he dare, not wanting her to go from his hold. I would never hurt you. I didn't know what she was after. Jane put a finger on his lips. Hush, she said softly. Let us not give her the benefit of thinking she has undone us. He felt his heart pounding in his chest as if someone was punching him from the inside...Jane turned his head towards her and kissed him on the lips. He kissed her, too, his lips pressing against hers. She put her arms around his waist and hugged him as she had never hugged anyone before, her lips sealing him from breath, from leaving her, from going away...Benedict sensed her body so close now that his heart seemed to beat with hers in a duet of thumping inside. His lips felt as if welded to hers, wet and warm and soft and he sensed himself filling with tears, tears he'd not shown or felt before to this degree...Jane took his hand and they walked past the gravestones into the church and sat in a side pew next to each other. His hand was in hers; he rubbed his thumb against her skin, rubbed it gently. She squeezed his hand, turned and kissed him, then sat back and stared ahead. God's house, she said, she should never had thought you would do anything like that here, not in here...Benedict said, not anywhere with her, certainly not here. He recalled that day here with Lizbeth, how she had suggested they have *** on a pew and he taken aback by such a thing and how she thought it quite possible...Us, Jane said, us and not her, not anything she thought possible. He nodded and looked at the altar where a brass cross stood alone. Do you love me? She asked. He turned and gazed at her, his eyes searching each aspect of her features. Yes, I do, he said, as much as its possible to love. She smiled shyly, wiping tears from her damp cheeks. I love you, too, she said... Benedict closed his eyes. He wanted to capture her and her words and that moment for ever in his mind. He wanted being here with her now to over brush the image of Lizbeth here with him those weeks before, to have that image and words of Jane captured in his mind like a camera snapping it all and holding it in frame and picture for evermore... Jane breathed in and out slowly. He had closed his eyes. His hand was still in hers. His pulse pulsed with hers, a gentle beat, a soft thump, a mixture of one becoming two, an uncertainty going, a truth and love becoming true.
A MEETING AT A CHURCH ONE MIDDAY IN 1961.
Hope White Mar 2017
I should have kissed you before you ****** on your smoke,
Before the fluorescent elevator lights illuminated the flaws
That danced and drifted along your skin.
The thick smoke mingled with your shadow,
A shadow of a man; no face, only a cigarette.
You breathed in smoke, but your lips were positioned for a kiss.

I don’t look like the other girls, the ones you used to kiss.
I can still picture your eyes, reddened by smoke,
And your lips as ashy as your cigarette.
And I hoped you, too, could forgive my flaws.
Like how my body casts too wide of a shadow,
And the sallowness of my ordinary skin.

Things that really shouldn’t remind me of your skin,
like old leather books with burnt paper that I bet taste like your kiss.
Such books I read in the shadow,
And hide, like the way you hid behind your smoke.
Because, like the way I love a bad book and its flaws,
I could love you and your cigarette.

I’ve held your hand, the one that holds your cigarette,
And I felt the sandpaper of your skin.
I smelt the airy cologne you use to cover the flaws.
It smelled light; you used just a kiss.
Now, I smell only smoke,
And the memory of your touch is a shadow.

In the hospital you were no longer a shadow,
But a body, surrounded by walls as white as your cigarettes.
Your voice cracked from the smoke,
While needles pulsed life into your skin.
Your lips were cracked with only blood to kiss.  
I saw you naked, and I saw your flaws.

Your favorite vice was your fatal flaw,
And the black fire of death became your shadow.
It followed you around, and it saw our first kiss,
Which was our last, because you chose your cigarette.
So a charcoaled monster brooded beneath your skin,
And your flesh succumbed to the white ghosts of smoke.

You died in smoke, from your flaws.
Your skin’s now dust, roaming with the shadows.
So I’ll smoke a cigarette, ‘cause it tastes just like your kiss.
Eddie Feb 2019
Humans, like all animals are flawed.
It’s ironic that our strongest weakness of all, Is the fact that so many refuse to admit it.
Difference makes us stronger
The glue to our society.
Every curve, edge, scar and dimple.
These are not imperfections, but evidence of the fact we are living
You are the one I see the world in.
You.
The world would surely be slighted without your existence.
Every single human life has value.
More than gold, more than all the money i’ll ever have
More than my own innocence
I look in your eyes and I see stars,
I gaze upon your skin and I witness Van Gogh's finest creation.
You may never see it in yourself, but It was present from the day you were born.
You refuse to see the beauty in your own imperfection.
There are some who say a child’s angelic face is closer to perfection than there ever will be
When I was young, carefree and filled with wonder
I saw a world filled with magic and monsters
I chased fairies in the garden, disguised as bright red ladybugs.
In each morning of fog, I would stretch my arms, and pretend to be one of the undead, here to consume all the candy I could get my hands on.
I saw a kind hearted king in my dad, smiling down on me from his throne
When each day came to a close,
I would come home at night, and tuck myself in, snuggling under my covers but unable to sleep.
I was forced to listen, as my parents exchanged harsh words to each other, barely muffled by the paper thin plaster of my room.
I could never understand why.
Why, In my perfect little world, would my parents fight?
Reality crashed down on me that day.
This was but beginning of the loss of my innocence.
As I grew, my bitterness grew with me. Each thin tendril pulsed and throbbed within me, pushing poison into my veins.
My mother, father, they weren’t the people I thought I knew
Suddenly all those monsters made my house their lair
One, an exceptionally large creature kept residence in my heart
Resentment.
It ****** me down, like a whirlpool, touching everything, tainting the very ground I walked.
One day my mother, approached me.
She had this look in her eye I couldn’t quite place.
Guilt? Pain? I will never know
She pushed me gently to my room, taking a seat at my desk.
She looked me in the eyes, and uttered these words “i’m sorry”
Those two words, I needed them, as a fish needs water.
I needed to know, that despite the hurt and the neglect, she still loved me
That day I realized what it means to be human. It means hurt, pain, mistakes, and so much more. But I’ll tell you, picking yourself up again, continuing to keep trying,
That, is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. We are human. Gloriously so. Who would we be without our flaws? It takes courage to fix your mistakes. But it takes so much more to embrace them. I looked each of you in the face, and I give you my hand. Take it.
Denel Kessler Mar 2016
I dreamed
there was a evil man
searching for wealth
beyond all riches
hidden in the hardened
sculpture of a woman
there was a hero too
I could not see his face
he journeyed to a sacred cave
to guard the precious treasure

he climbed inside
the statue's hollow center
and held the treasure to his chest
where it radiated
with such intensity
he had to close his eyes
it gently pulsed in his hands
calming the anxiousness
leaching sour
in his throat

the villain
shrouded black
entered the cave
a belligerent pirate
yelling obscenities
where are you *****?
when I find you, you'll be sorry
you think you can hide from me?
no one will ever love you
the way that I do


his craven hunger upon seeing
the lost prize glowing heavenly
beneath sapphire stalactites
left this dreamer cold
he began to tear
at the sculpture's *******
with hands encased in forged steel
spiked fingernails slicing
until shimmering gold bloomed
in the statue's chest

zealously the villain tore deeper
molten yellow dripped
from his over-eager fingers
when suddenly from the center
came a flash of scorching fire
the villain dissolved to ash
without a single sound
the hero too transformed
into a luminous bird
not unlike a phoenix

he shook fresh wings
flexed honed talons
raised his crested head
and from hooked beak
there came a sound
like a choir of voices singing
the hero flapped three times
and soared out of the cavern
into the bluest sky
I'd ever seen
A yellow jacket
Pulsed while scaling candied ham
Then braced, sawed a piece
Away it swayed amongst oaks
Cicadas shrilled loud and hot
Tanka  ...needed a little reminder of warmer days and bluer skies
Francisco DH Nov 2014
I

The sun casted  an arm around her shoulder
A companion was he.
Left to tend distant matters
As she harvested Calla Lilies.


From the depths of dark petunias
Crept a ravenous wolf.
Malicious intent pulsed in his thoughts
As she harvested Calla Lilies.

With a forceful snag he took the Calla Lilies.
Iska May 2019
there once was a girl born with a fire heart.
it danced beneath the layers of her skin,
burning so brilliantly
you could see the flames blazing within.

when she saw the monsters
lurking within the darkness,
hunting those with no light to burn
this little girl gave them her flames.

and for once,
the world was burst into a brilliant light.
it pulsed and danced across the stars
with the potential to burn away the endless darkness

but what this foolish girl had yet to understand
was that there was only so much of your fire heart
that you can give away before you are left with
nothing but simmering embers inside.

on her knees she was smiling,
seeing all that her fire has saved.


only to be burned with her own flames.


she has out lived her purpose
so they left her to be devoured
by the very monsters
she had protected them from.

only to realize that these monsters
weren't nearly as bad as the ones
who now walked away with her flames.
Sydney Ann May 2015
Do it quickly,
God forgive me
Her eyes drifted dreamily
His teeth worked against her neck

Lord of the flies, favor me now
... had already pooled in it, something viscid and alive
I am the resurrection of death
He's undead, Ben
We must go through bitter to taste the sweet
blood.

Now your end.
LET ME GOOOOOOO----
and the blood that pulsed from his chest turned black

Look out!
You killed the master!
I'll be back
They were in the streets, the walking dead
They go crazy on the inside.
Lora Lee Nov 2017
in the landscape of you
I am a wandering soul
with but my words
                for protection
as I make you my goal
in the expanse of your vista,
I wear the cloak of our depth
your heartbeats in mine
as we breathe
           the same breath
I feel your rugged peaks,
your valleys that sink
your core's wildflower essence
that stains me with ink
I bathe in its fragrance,
a tattooed poet's imprint
in the primal spheres in my being
enveloping my core
all the clearer
          for seeing

and when your rough
                 tempest storms
are afar, yet in view
I dive straight to
                  their center
into the magnet of you
for
     I will water your deserts
infuse fresh creeks
                        in your dry
I will run through your forests
as I call to your wild
as I straddle your cliffs,
festoon your tundra
             with blooms
steam will rise from
                your earthcore
and fill up my womb
Through the dew on our lashes
through my lava that flows,
the stars in your eyes
make my universe glow

these geographic measures
                                 I take
as you let me inside
our bloodstreams merging
as we get lost in the tides
electric pulsed woodlands
that spread iced wildfires
slaking the loops
  of floodgates' desire
and I will hold you together
if you fall, torn apart
bonded forever
in this map of our
                    hearts
I feel you. In every stone. In every leaf of every tree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJczHir9Enw&feature=share
Prabhu Iyer May 2013
I.

I knew she liked me much,
the way she blushed and
went cold, every
morning at my touch;
I love her too, my favourite
cereal bowl: she's
all ceramic, a queen
among bowls. So, I decided
to break ice and ask her,
this morning, when this space
is resonant in unusual
calm amid the buzz
of clumsy bikes, kitchen clanks
and crowbar knocks: tell me,
dear bowl, I say, tell me more
about yourself: I want to
know your story.

II.

She blushed again: really?
Why would you want to know
this my sad story?
Everyone I ever loved,
has been cleaved from me
and here I wait today,
polished and reflecting
the mad whirl of the tireless
fan every sombre morning.
Silence. I gave her a caress:
an empathetic, loving one,
and nudged her on.
She stuttered. I gazed intently
at my interested face
reflected off her beaming eyes.
Well, where shall I begin?

III.

I was the soft clay
lining the shore of this
beautiful lake, in some remote
haven untouched by betrayal:
a far off land, where
people just loved and expected
nothing back.
China? Mongolia?
I was about to ask, excited,
but then kept quiet,
how would a clump of clay
tell one country from another?

IV.

I loved her soft smile
rippling past me every morning
and deep night, and we
loved each other this way
in waves and caresses
for aeons, when one day
this menacing contraption
a monster, cleaved me off
and transported me
to a boiling cauldron. I wept
for pain and roiled on
until hardened and cast
into this shape.

V.

Earlier, my dear bowl,
still earlier I wish to know,
what were you, before
being the sand on the lake?
She got thoughtful for a while.
Well, I was the mountain
that fell in love with the sky.
O, her beauty that
came alive when she wore
a tunic adorned of twinkling
stars and the crescent moon
adorned her forehead; But,
the jealous winds
cleaved me off her: bit by bit
scraping me off they
deposited me by the lake.

VI.

Earlier, dear bowl, what
were you, before being the
mountain that loved the sky?
Now it seemed like I was
in communion with an ancient
deity: a being so vast, that
all existence was in her throb.
Ah, those searing depths
where I flowed simmering
by ragged channels, I was
the pain that the primordial
planet carried in her womb.
Before exploding over the land
and rising to the ashen skies.

VII.

I could not ask her more.
We both were lost in a
trance-like moment. I just
touched her and we felt
every event that pulsed in her.
The giant star that exploded;
Spreading gases and dust
all over vast distances.
Gathering together and
growing all over again, through
and through time, since
numberless cycles of creation.
Stardust. Here in my humble
bowl, is gathered,
the seed of all existence.
Another experiment here...do excuse the length!
Meredith Dec 2013
Before reading this I want people to know that I have never been *****.
I got the inspiration for this poem from a post on tumblr.*

One
After the first time he put his hands on her
she never thought she'd be able to escape the grasp of the feeling
she stayed up till 3:41 in the morning in the bathtub
sitting in the scalding water
trying to burn the dirt from her skin.
she sat there until the water turned cold
and she had not one tear left to cry
and until her skin was rubbed raw and bleeding.
she counted the bruises on her body
9 on her stomach
1 on her face
1 on her neck
a yellow and purple necklace around her collar
from the telephone wire he abused
from the telephone she didn't dare use
even after he finished manipulating her.
she scrubbed his fingers from her hair
but decided cutting it off would be easier
she washed his yelling voice from her ears
but found that screaming made him quieter
she scraped his taste from her lips
a dry martini
a cigarette
and someones tears from the past.
she couldn't scrub her wrists hard enough
to erase the feeling of the ropes he had her anchored with
so instead she sliced the flesh of where the imprint lay
attempting to release the strain from the burn marks on her skin.

Two
That same morning when she almost bled out
she checked herself into a hospital.
They sewed up the crimson bracelets she made
trapping inside of her wrists
each scream he muffled
with every new stitch.
she guessed they figured out what happened
whether it was the bruises
or the way her speech sounded like morse code but
they told her the police were informed
and that they'd do everything in their power to find monster
who opened the door to her own personal hell.
When the sketch artist asked her to describe him
she told her he was a photocopy
the regular John Doe
medium hight
brown hair brown eyes
nothing special or unique that would make a girl cross to the other side of the street
just like she said she should have done.
When they told her she needed to be inspected
she didn't even flinch
that seemed to be the only thing that people did these days
was inspect one another for an outcome that they'll be paid for
in paychecks or pleasure.
They stripped her down
apologizing for the cold
they took pictures
apologizing for the flash
they held her hand
apologizing for the feeling
but why apologize if he already imprinted it on her body
there's no going back from this
she will never be able to look at a man the same way again
she will always see cold hard hands on her shoulders
even at the warmest touch
she will only see flashes of his lips forced onto hers
when she receives the smallest peck
she will never be able to feel anything but a mattress beneath her back
rope around her wrists
and a freezing cold emptiness inside of her stomach.

Three
After the second time he put his hands on her
she stayed up all night in the freezing cold water
not even trying to remove his mark from her.
she figured that if the dirt beneath his fingernails were still there the second time
the dirt would still be on her too.
she let the filth engulf her
telling herself that all she was was dirt anyway
and as she lay with her head underwater
she screamed as loud as she could
for as long as she could
until her face was red
her voice was scratchy
till the veins in her neck pulsed
and when she finally sat up she was deafened by a deep silence
with no more sound than rippling water and the ticking of the clock.
That's when she realized that no matter how loud she screamed
she would never be heard amongst other peoples silences.
silences full of beeping cars and TV commercials
buzzing air conditioners and clinking plates
quite whispers and loud laughs
full of family and friends and the whole world spinning around them.
she would never matter to anyone
no brakes would squeal at the sound of her desperation
no ears would turn to decipher the morse code she mustered shakily from her lips
no one would ever care that her screams for help were muffled
and no one would have a hole in their stomach if she disappeared.
at this thought
she slipped deeper into the tub
unwraps the bandages from around both her wrists
uncovering scars that would never heal.
She explored the wounds with her fingers
and saw how weak the stitching was
like the nurse who repaired her found it pointless
and attempted it half heartedly.
She discovered that pulling the dark material that was woven through her flesh
would release her blood
like opening a door to another universe.
the purple would quickly turn to red
drop slowly into the tub
creating a water color painting of the war inside her head.
She pinched the strings holding the two parts of her together
******* their rough surface
she began to feel tired
dreaming of a happier place
of a happier her
of feeling like a person again.
she pinched the string
and pulled.
hard.
M Vogel Aug 2021

You are in there,  I am certain of it--
Behind the gear's finely-honed,
precision fit  gear..

in to gear
in to gear

into gear..
And I wonder..  do you want out?
The machine  on the outside, self-repairs
Any attempt towards dismantle  from
the external,  is futile..
But the internal,  beautiful girl..

"I don't know what you mean, about 'machine'"
She is apprehensive, those beautiful
brown eyes,  looking up at me..
"Look down, sweet girl"
Her thighs, fully parted,  as I slide
in to her.. those amazing hips,
moving so perfectly with mine,  extracting..

Milking from me, my warm  pulsing *****--
a deeply-penetrating lubricant,  pulsed
deeply into the machine
As if to lubricate its gears..
As if..

But penetrating so deeply, as to now
permeate the insides  of the
mechanization's innerworkings--
turning from lubricant, to that
of a corrosive nature..
Fully coating now, the inner you..

as it turns back now, into that
of a healing balm
Bringing to you  a moment of Light  
  and internal clarity--  
long enough for you to see

    That the machine  is made vulnerable
    by the ever-changing qualities  of
    Love that found its way through
    As the awakened parts within you, for the
    first time.. understand

the machine's love-blocking,  nature
And you begin to choose, mid-******
the machine's dismantle,  from the inside--

'Little by little..

Line, upon line..

Block, upon block..

Precept, upon precept..'


Until we have the chance,  once again..
to do it all again
the power of christ compels
.
Mirlotta Oct 2014
Once upon a time, in a world that looks like yours      
there was a girl with
golden hair
that hung like a banner across her back in a
a sea of sandy metal
that whispered across the air
all the untold secrets of the water and the flowers
and their petals


and when she blinked, her eyes were blue
and if you leaned too close you'd
drown in them
like the hags who tumbled down the wells
and shrieked for help
that no one cared about
because they didn't hear their voice
or see their
ebony locks trailing like abandoned sea **** after them
because they didn't fit into the space the puzzle maker had carved
and couldn't conquer the tedium of difference



and the girl was tugged by hand to go to Church
and her prayers were secret treasures
that trickled from her lips
and tasted like righteousness
each word more crystal than the last
soaked in honey at the tip
and smothered in wonder and glory
and the days as they passed


and they never mentioned the girls she teased
who wore headscarves
or bindis
that she'd printed with the colours of endless torment
in hues of cheerless and agony
and the girls never told her that
if they took them off
like she begged them to
laughter sprinkled in and stirred
they'd have to show her how much more pain
her jeering caused them



and the girl made mockeries of the unconventional
but that was okay because
everyone did
their eyes creasing up into slits of derision
in universal agreement
skidding past the true
whims of their heart and growing to
resent them


and the eccentric pressed themselves carefully
into the mould of society's
baking tray
their souls thrashing out in pain and hatred
as they compressed their emotions
and intelligence
and the beauty they found in the strangest of things
into the shell that had been vacated for them
when its previous owner had shrivelled up
and given in
and died



and all the way through life, the girl was beautiful
but she still  blew char
over her eyelashes
and stained her lips the post-box red that's found in
first kisses and
poetry and
scrawled crayoned hearts and
fading wishes


and she made fun of the red that pulsed
in the form of acne on
her classmates' faces
growing their hair out long to cover their pain
until no one could see their shame
and pouring their money into
the collection tins of mass chain stores
of cream and gloop and products
until their faces were marred by make-up
until their mothers didn't recognise them anymore
and they cried



and the girl was thinner and happier than anyone
but because it amused her
her wrists were slit
so her peers doled out their sympathy
and held battles over
who could make her smile first
and she fasted to become thinner
and she collected
four leaf clovers


and her classmates ignored the tender puckered skin
of the children that hacked at
their flesh and
tried to hide it alongside their hurt
and she cackled at the ribs
that seemed to try and burst from their flesh
like hungry mouths were trying to eat
them from the inside out
and they collected things because they feared
what would happen if they didn't
because that was OCD



and when the girl grew up, she married a boy
and he was tall and
his hair was night
and he was handsome in the conventional way that was accepted
perfect match
the paradisiacal sight of
dainty damsel clutching the arm of the
kind of man she'd read about in books
she'd been infatuated with him before they'd met


and the boys who fell in love with each other were outcast and spat on
their hearts torn into tatters and shredded in machines
by the people who thought they could decide for them
that if they didn't love girls then they'd love no one at all
because in the fairy tales they'd read as young children
they learnt that
prince = princess
and the prince never runs away with the woodcutter
because where would the princess be then?



and the girl still lives on today, in a world that looks like yours
her words a deadly poison
reaping and bleeding
crushing her prey between *******
and showing songs to the ears of the impressionable,  young or old
sowing seeds in their brains
that blossom in their hearts
and she is beautiful
and she is terrible
and she is nameless but for the title of
Society’s own child
and she is blameless
for it is the parent
at fault.
Yay, first poem!
Michael W Noland Jul 2012
She was so alone

filling the oceans of my heart

as it turned to stone

lay her down

atop the moonlight

drain her out

absence of light

so ******* cute when she fights

and i still feel

the echoes of the tide

and i still kneel

to her strong side
Graff1980 Dec 2014
I remember when I was a young thing, barely even a couple million years old. You were so young too. It seemed that just yesterday you had crawled out of the muck stinking of sulfur and brimstone. My father used to laugh at you and call you “his little funny ooze.” This day, for no reason at all, my father gave me a gift. It was such a tiny thing, barely a flickering light. Up to now there was almost no light. Oh, but what a beautiful thing it was. Had I known how much I would enjoy this I would have asked for it sooner.

He handed me this glimmering sparkle that was barely a speck of dust in my hand. What power the speck had, it struggled and raged against the darkness and began to grow, so much so that I had to turn my head for a moment. My body started to tremble. I think I was afraid, even though fear had not been created yet.

Until now darkness had enveloped all of existence. There was only an occasional flare of cosmic energy. Sometimes this red orange and white light would appear, engulf us in its fury and majesty. Then it would fade away, but that usually only lasted a year or so. The warmth would stay with us a little longer. Many times it was such a relief to feel anything at all, except for the cold numbness of darkness and uncertainty. I never knew where father was going with this experiment, but he took such joy in it so I followed along curiously.

My body trembled in fear anxiety, joy, pain, agony, and passion. There where so many new thoughts and feelings. I could not contain them. The little light had grown incredibly. At first it had been circling me slowly but now its speed had increased exponentially. Faster and faster it rounded my body, humming quietly at first but increasing in volume as well as its’ velocity. I could feel all of these new emotions jerking and tugging, pushing and pulling to get out and the more powerful my emotions became the stronger and faster the light pulsed and hummed.

Suddenly, I recalled when my brother had moved on. We were outside of time watching as specks of cosmic dust began to explode from the center. At that point it was just the center there was no name or description that I could give that would accurately describe something so new and different. My father whispered to my brother, so quietly that I could barely even hear it myself. Had it not been for the stillness and silence of the void I would not have heard him at all.

“ Chronos it is time.”

“Time for what” my brother replied.

And in the softest and sweetest voice I have ever heard my father said “ it is time for you to join your sister Rhea.”

        Then with no warning or explanation he tossed my brother in to the void. By now your small blue orb was just blackened bits of liquid fire and cosmic dust. Yet it seamed my brother knew what he was supposed to do. As he entered the void his body expanded until he was nothing but a gaseous vapor. Subsequently he settled in and hugged your sphere. Which until now I had not noticed, but suddenly I realized that it was my older sister Rhea. He wept in joy as he engulfed her in his vaporous form, she who had until now been raging with cosmic fire spewing and ******* in various forms of cosmic mass, calmly embraced him.  There was such peace and joy that I was almost jealous.

            The light was on the verge of exploding within me and outside of me. Then my father pulled me aside and took me back a billion years. He embraced me softly and whispered that it was my turn. Helios you will burn the brightest out of all of your siblings. You will shine in the past the present and the future. Then with a force I had not known since the beginning of creation he shoved me into the void with his gift. I surveyed the darkness and could not see my siblings. Where were they.

        Finally my insides erupted. I exploded and from my body fire rained in to the void. The darkness was illuminated, shapes took form. Space had meaning. A million years or so later my sister came crashing down. So I shined my light as brightly as I could so she would know that she was not alone. To my surprise she was naked and embarrassed so she gathered bits and shapes from the now lighted space around her and covered herself with fire. Angrily she lashed out at anything that passed ******* it in or spewing it out with great fury. Another million or so years later my brother Chronos appeared and calmed her.
We never spoke we simply existed.
This was one of the first short stories I wrote, after many years of not writing almost nothing at all.
paige Feb 2014
i punched the
elephant in the room
square in the face
square. in. the. face.
with all the force
i could muster
from the raw vulnerability
that pulsed through my veins

and the elephant looked
right into my eyes
baby blues with a blooming iris
freeing the seeds of thought
that had lay dormant within

yes, that elephant looked
right into my eyes
and laughed.

                                       laughed

and with its
seven foot long trunk
it ****** out
e
  v
     e r
           y   l
                  as
                       t
                                  d
                            ­          r
                                               o
                                                        p

    ­                                       of feeling
                                    emotion
             ­                passion

and left me empty.

but hey, at least the elephant left.
Aztec Warrior Aug 2016
Dream-Walk Sunset**

From the Highlands they came.
Even before we saw them
we felt the earth shake.
Drums pulsed,
feet danced
to ancient runes,
to didgeridoo
and haunting pipes;
danced to dreams come true.
000
From the Highlands
to the sea,
marching to those cliffs
over soft white sands
they came.
Magical Fae and Folks of old
traditional ways
where life and death
were just Gaia’s breath
in harmony with the rest,
a dream-walk sunset.
000
Can you see them?
There- they dance
to a sound so bright
you can see it
even in this dark night.
There- they float
on Witch and Fae spells
to set the world right.
There- all those points of light
billions and billions they
march to anciet songs
of magic held in the notes
of the didgeridoo
and Asturian pipes.
000
Over the Highlands they came
marching to the sea
and those cliffs
above soft white sands,
magical Fae and Folk of old
traditional ways.
Will we join them
in Gaia’s dream-walk sunset?
Or just watch
as they fade away?

Aztec Warrior/redzone 7.24.16
...thanks for reading... here is the link to some Highland Music,
"Busiindre Reel"  by Hevia
https://youtu.be/_ggXyv3RtiQ
RKM Jan 2012
Kashtanka had lost him on the street
Instinct had stung her mongrel brain
tiny legs had span out of control.
And when she looked back
a grey desert hid her friend,
And had she been human
Tears would have pooled in her
Gummed ducts.
She padded through pavements for dog days as
Umbilical hunger for a scratch behind
Ears pulsed through her vital organs.

Simultaneously, it was ethanol that pulsed
Through Luka's.
And had she known how little
He was thinking of her,
Her tiny canine heart might
Have faltered.
Terry O'Leary Aug 2016
Galactic curls in spirals swirl, entwining twisted mystery,
where time unrolls in blackened holes, no longer bright and blistery,
but writ like runes on starry dunes enclosed in cosmic history

Galactic dust, from novas' gusts, congesting empty spaces
once fatefully flung beyond the tongue of burnt out astral traces,
may recompress and coalesce in distant times and places

Galactic dwarves, like ancient wharves with silent planets mooring  
yet still in spin though long done in, hide flares no longer soaring -
magnetic webs of eons ebb, in thermal fusion roaring

Galactic tides warp space divides, call forth sublime creation
while bending clocks in rippled shocks, unfolding time dilation
that seems to crown the flowing gown of pulsars' pulsed gyration

Galactic stew, a seething brew, midst background noise and chatter
like Chaos reigns, the sole remains of missing antimatter,
with just a trace to form a space-time, curved or somewhat flatter

Galactic glue holds something new: dark energy and matter
that interacts and counteracts the ancient Big Bang splatter:
a cosmic soup of strings and loops, a universal batter

Galactic life's replete and rife 'neath lactic milky wafer,
though solar gales leave unseen trails of cosmic rays, the strafer;
but nonetheless, one must confess, it seems there's nowhere safer
Laura Feb 2014
i found myself split in two
sitting on the kitchen floor

with a bruise the colour of plum
on the underside of my left cheekbone

it pulsed when i looked up to the lights
to find all the mistakes i ever made

staring back into my genetically altered pupils

whom further represent
any means
in which i felt to fit in

so with skin the colour of peach
and eyes the colour of sapphire

its hard to think id be here to begin with

with blood shot eyes
and medicated smiles

its hard to think
that you were once the only person
i'd want to be with

i don't want you at all
speakeasied Jul 2013
You mixed two packets of melancholia
into your coffee today,
and I had to bite my tongue to resist
to say, "I thought you liked it black."
I watched as you daintily taste-tested
it from your spoon and was delighted
upon seeing your grimace of
disapproval (you're adorable when mad).
I took note of how
your veins pulsed underneath
your deeply tanned skin
and I longed to be the blood that
traveled through your delicate body.
If only I could map out your cardiovascular
system and find all the detours and
shortcuts to your fragile heart,
memorize the freeway that
encircled your figure and learn
when to avoid rush hour or when
to take the fast lane.
I found myself fantasizing about
the day you were conceived and
how you beat out all the other
potential embryos - that maybe,
you were chosen out of the thousands
for the sole purpose of being with me.
Janette Aug 2012
I let go
Of all I ever knew,
To taste the anticipation
Of his promised storm...the breath of his
Kiss pooling at my feet,
Velvet darkened desire,
A crimson silken-stain,
Bending the clutch of flesh, a chaos unleashed;
Sliding in cushioned madness, bleeding
Slithering tongues, tasting the moans
Exposed in the wet of me...




Thunder's primal heat fell, surrounding me;
It's warm, weeping liquid
Dripped across my lips, opened
In moistened invitation,
Searing me hot; as
His breath whispered,
'Taste it, lick it, hold it',
Taunting commands
Slaking teases wicked...traced in shimmering lines
Across roseate tipped *******;
Blushes afloat in satin caress...




So sensuous,
The rose,
A **** silhouette, drenched warm,
Swallowing his reflection;
Her untamed passion
Braced for unbridled *******,
The depths of flesh, caught in the trance of his midnight storm,
Mesmerised in a bliss-rush,
Pulsed with the vibrato of his tongue slide,
Licking the night tender, forging the opening of my purest delights;
Where boundaries blur...




Dipped in the dew of flesh, I ache
For the heat of his touch, where
Moans taste like honey to his eager tongue;
A tapestry of erotica
Birthed as fire between hungry thighs
Exposing me, shuddering his name
Beckoning him deeper; buried
To my spine, bent and grasping, holding the warmth of him,
Sweet love
Spilled upon cool sheets...




Passion, swallows heat and rhythm in the crevice of my heart;
Submerged in echoes of yearning,
Blanketing satin; and
Misty eyed heat simmers beneath the folds of dream,
Where I pour myself like rain under his skin..........
Between us the heat ignites me to burning.....the tracing hours wind the subtle fire splayed inside... take me home.... into your warmth..... live with me in this barrier that wants your name engraved under my veins... J

— The End —