"redecorated" poems
Mum had been gone a couple of months, six I think… (An ordinary day, feeling hollow but doing OK) …when I realised I could get rid of the sofa.
I thought it was ugly, she thought it was a bargain. A sofa’s not a keepsake and it was certainly no heirloom. I’d not inflict it on my kids. I got rid.
If I could’ve had her back then? I would’ve done. Even if it meant keeping the sofa.
Redecorated. Bought a new telly. Spent frivolous amounts of cash on scatter cushions. She disliked scatter cushions. I thought they were cosy.
My little boy drew on one of the cushions. On purpose. I was about to smack the back of his legs… (Mum would have, she smacked me when I was little) … I stopped.
I never wanted to. Had known all along, somehow forgotten.
If I could’ve had her back then? I would’ve done. But she would not smack my children.
Mum had been gone a year… (Planting bulbs, feeling conspicuous carrying a shovel ‘round the churchyard) …and I missed her.
It was as hot as the day she died. There was no breeze up on that hill, no cloud. Beautiful views stretched right out to the sea.
My little boy had grown, he helped carry water and dig holes. My baby was learning to walk, she wobbled on uneven turf between the headstones. I wanted Mum to see.
If I could’ve had her back then? I would’ve done. No question.
Mum had been gone three years… (Bulbs were doing OK. There was nothing left to plant that rabbits wouldn't nibble) …and I realised it was time to move on.
I kept the ghosts quiet while agents showed people round. The house sold. We moved away. A warm, terraced place in a small town by the sea. Dad died.
Mum has been gone eight years and I miss her.
Looking out from the Downs across cliff-top and sea, the churchyard seems nothing more than a soft-grey fleck on the green edge of town.
If I could bring her back now? Everything’s changed.
Ghosts exist. They sit in empty chairs and speak kettle-whistle. Wishing us well.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 2:34 PM UTC
he put new stars in the sky and redecorated with new colors, made himself at home along the giant nebulas and the infinite constellations.
he dialed his voice to a whisper and told me sweet stories of how the sun loves the moon, while broad spectrum daydreams intertwined both our minds
we wished on shooting stars and shared cosmic kisses, and there was no need for gravity..I fell for him the second his lips spoke my name
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 10:26 PM UTC
I remodeled my home,
By ridding it of old furniture made of
Dark and malice thoughts,
And redecorated with thoughts of joy and inspiration.
I decorated the empty ceilings
With a full moon and some shining stars,
I took down the drapery that once covered the windows, and watched From my living room as the new dawn embraced the sunshine.
In my garden, I built a house for the melodious birds to warble their Songs, and constructed a temple for prayer from my tears and sorrows.
I planted an olive tree in memory of innocent souls, and decorated it with Some tulips, roses, and jasmine flowers for the anthem of love!
Hussein Dekmak
Sep 23, 2018
Sep 23, 2018 at 11:01 AM UTC
The desk is a refreshing change of pace from the
uneasy comfort of the bed. I
eye the flimsy container of trail mix
lying in wait, my lightly salted prey.
rolling from beneath the body-like warmth of my
blanket cocoon,
I stumble towards nourishment.
I attack my snack,
and settle into the
beeswax halo of drunk hung Christmas lights,
mistakenly onto an uncapped felt pen,
tip bleeding into a beige throw
bought for a newly redecorated room.
Unnoticed, the stain spreads,
advancing on the threads of the throw.
I will, perhaps, see it tomorrow
and curse silently,
and wonder if it can be
hidden by rearrangement and ultimately
decide that a little folding will do the trick.
Outside, the snow freezes a fresh exoskeleton,
primed for crushing the footprints of strangers.
Jan 29, 2013
Jan 29, 2013 at 4:25 PM UTC
If you've never pulled some tinsel
Out of your cat's ****
Or cleaned up after "Fluffy"
Eats the poinsetta and throws up
Surely, you've redecorated
After "Fluffy" climbs the tree
You hear it smash into the floor
In the morning, about three
You've used wire to support it
Keep it straight, that is your goal
To "Fluffy" it's her present
It's her brand new scratching pole
When the tree has got no water
But, the cat just has to ***
You have to fill the bowl again
Beneath the dying tree
You kick ornaments around the room
And find out that they're glass
Because "Fluffy" had to play with them
So, you kick her in the ***
It's a Family Christmas Ritual
If you're the owner of a cat
You can't decorate and leave it
She won't have none of that
Christmas is the season
For cats to drive you mad
And give you Christmas memories
You wish you never had
So, if you've never seen the tinsel
That the cat ate just last night
You can see it just below her tail
If the light just hits it right
This is why I have a dog....
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 3:46 PM UTC
I meticulously pick the cracked and peeling fingernail polish from my fingers.
Staring down.
Focusing on anything but your eyes.
The beating of your heart like a metronome,
setting the rhythm of the room.
You've whispered me your secrets, stumbled in love with my evasive glances, blotted out my smudges and redecorated them in your mind.
I am your thrift store find,
a treasure, nonetheless.
I put my head against your machine of a chest,
My mouth shape the empty words into something resembling truth.
My hungry soul is a picky starving child.
Not so innocent,
I greedily collect hearts in my hands and groan as they grow heavy, too afraid to give them back.
Yours is the freshest.
I am the one weathering your heart.
With my silence. / With my tears. / With my selfishly stolen kisses.
I want to tell you to run away, but my own fear of loneliness paralyzes my tongue.
"you're beautiful, you have cute feet, and I love you."
As you slip a delicate silver shackle around my neck.
The tiny silver heart dangles above my own.
I want to tell you to run away, but my own fear of loneliness paralyzes my tongue.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 8:30 PM UTC
Isn't it about time we redecorated in here? the new orphan asks,
Ripping down old wallpaper until she can't
Rip
Any
More
It keeps on growing back,
Like the smell of smoke.
Jun 14, 2012
Jun 14, 2012 at 4:05 PM UTC
I couldn't remember anything about particle physics or lucid dreams when I was the sky. I could only be, I could only swirl across the great paradox of everything and nothing. I could only watch the things that happened within me. It was like a beautiful symphony, one that needed me but operated without me, one that defined me without taking a single chisel to my being.
So what was it like to be the sun? You changed me daily. You let my core revolve around you and you helped me spin. You let me see new places, you clouded me and cleared me, you cut through me and reached in deep and redecorated my insides with barely a word. But when you cracked, when you went supernova on this little quiet galaxy, you burned right through me and exposed my insides to the elements. My outer glow was gone, my inner self was singed, and what I thought I was, I wasn't. It was like watching a plane crash. It was like I was a passenger who learned he was a pilot but couldn't stop the fall.
So what was it like to be the tiny crack that tore the engine off?
I know I'll never know what you were thinking, but I know I'll always wonder. I know I'll wake up and it will all have been a crazy dream, but I know I'll never shake this feeling that we're all not quite here. We're all shedding skins. We've all died in our sleep and we've all opened our eyes on the other side. We're all living on another new day, thousands of years from the last one. We'll never know the difference every time that the world ends. Here we are again. Where are we again?
Wherever you are today, whoever you are today, remember that we start again each morning and you're the one dreaming this up, so make it a good one, yeah? Do it for me, because I still remember the day you were the sun and the day I was the sky, and you owe me one, love, for letting you go. Whoever I am, whoever you are, let's get going before we all start all over again. Alright?
Alright.
Okay?
Okay.
[Aug. 9, 2011]
Dec 21, 2011
Dec 21, 2011 at 1:57 AM UTC
At the touch of a button,
flick of the finger,
swip of the screen,
I can know more than the generations before me could.
I'm exposed to people I could never hope to meet,
their thoughts and feelings condensed to numbers and words on a screen,
introduced to so many thing that i've never seen before.
I'm so overwhelmed by how the world is turning,
suddenly conscious of my own failings:
the homophobic uncle, the sexist teacher, the racist childhood television show.
The shame creeps in and there is no stopping it,
what I built myself up on has eroded as the new world is redecorated in glass and chrome.
I have friends I don't respect anymore, and films I refuse to watch.
Natural disasters and catastrophes are reduced to hashtags, people you've never met can tell you that you're too tall, too short, too fat, too thin.
The digital revolution has already begun, and there is no turning back.
I am exposed, developed, and forever changed for better and for worst.
It's a fact I find hard to accept, so I blame my service provider.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 9:10 AM UTC
I’ve not yet found home within myself,
astray in a place so dark and hollow.
Redecorated my insides,
still my heart does not follow.
My veins are filled with poison
and my teeth are turning yellow.
flesh plastered in scars,
the only company I have are my demons and sorrow.
The lights need mending,
and the engine has to go.
My soul requires burnishing,
maybe I’ll feel at home tomorrow.
Jul 3, 2018
Jul 3, 2018 at 12:17 AM UTC
Shedding
I'm shedding you see.
Soon you will not recognize me.
There are many changes,
I used to flee.
But now I am free.
Redecorated the old me.
I'm shedding you see.
Wait til you see the new me.
Lori Mack
5/19/18
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 5:45 PM UTC
I get out,
And it's dark,
I can hear her whispering.
The darkness sheds,
And my heart seems to fade,
With each step I make,
Her shadow follows me,
I can't escape.
Where's my light?
I come home,
And she's redecorated the house again.
The rooms look the same but are rearranged,
Or do they look different but still in the same space?
I can feel her sink in and embed herself in my skin,
And I try to take a shower,
And I try to scrub as hard as I can to wash her away,
And I can feel my body cry and scream,
Telling her to leave,
As if depression could leave when you asked for it to leave,
But she just stays.
She stays.
And with my final words,
I tell her,
"Depression, please go away."
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 10:20 PM UTC
When my mother dropped me off at the airport
She said, I hope that you find your home
This one is tired and bent at the edges
And it doesn't suit you well
I walked and flew and slept all across the universe
But then I remembered... I know where my home is
My home is walked into the paint-stained carpets of dorm hallways where we taught international students how to curse in English
My home is under the napkins in greasy spoon diner tables where my godfather winked across at me
It's somewhere between the white and the blue in the waves of the ocean
Inside one or both of my headphone earbuds
Under the bark of a eucalyptus tree
Inside the box of waxy crayons on my lap during road trips
Caught like a stone in the treads of the tire of the wood-sided Jeep my father gave me
Buried under a tree in the backyard, with the goldfish and the pet mice
In between the keys of my piano and the keys to my first dorm, first house
In the sunlight through the window panes of my room in San Fransisco
And hanging off the roof with the geckos in Indonesia
It's feeling scared in the school library and at senior prom and in empty alleyways
It's the empty park nine thousand miles away from my mother
Where I whispered to the birds that I wanted to go home
Because I knew no one else would listen.
It's in the scissors that gave me blisters
When I redecorated our house by hand
And the tears I hid from my brother
While I turned up the thermostat to warm his icy soul.
A lot of it is stuck on the roof of a hospital room
Staring up wishing to disappear
Some of it is in my father's bones
And his misty eyes when they started to show
Home is in my best friend's bed
We didn't have our health but at least we had each other
It's my favorite space between the top bunk and the bottom bunk
Where secrets hang like candle smoke
It's the words of a book I haven't written
And the pages of one I don't want read
It's here, it's now, it's etched on my skin
It's me, it's him, it's somewhere far ahead
I don't know what it looks like but I know it will be there.
Nov 22, 2015
Nov 22, 2015 at 5:25 PM UTC
The door was left wide open after i had left the room,
Returning months later to find it unfamiliar,
Redecorated in the stlye of who you wish to be,
And who you mimic.
No longer feeling safe within the walls i once trusted unequivocally,
It feels so strange to be sitting here, unable to find the things i left, the things i loved.
Hidden under new wallpaper are the words we wrote together,
I only wish to read them once more,
To relive just a fleeting second of a time where no sorrow could come.
But your new decorations block my view and i may only live in memories.
Had i stayed, would we have mainted our decor, i often seem to ask. A question i'll never see answered, the one loose thread, unraveling the rest of my thoughts.
I cannot stay here, too strange and unwelcoming, alienated where i once called home.
Yet i still don't wish to leave.
So all that i will ask of you, is to close the door behind me.
For i could never lock myself out.
I will only hope, that if i should return, i should find all that cared for, pride of place, in the room that i called home.
I wish i'd never left.
Apr 17, 2016
Apr 17, 2016 at 10:29 PM UTC
**To: You; From: Me
4/10/15, 6:37PM**
Hi. It's been awhile,
just, uh, checking in...
**To: You; From: Me
4/10/15, 6:41PM**
I still think of you--of us, our friendship.
I'm sorry we drifted apart; I'm
sorry for being carried off by other waves
and leaving you ashore
**To: You; From: Me
4/10/15, 6:57PM**
Tear-stained pillows,
a layer of clothes covering the carpet...
I guess you can say I've redecorated
since the last time we hung out? Haha
**To: You; From: Me
4/10/15, 7:09PM**
How do you do it?
How can you possibly
reach inside my chest and
squeeze my ******* heart
so tight it nearly bursts
just by making eye contact??
**To: You; From: Me
4/10/15, 7:11PM**
**** YOU!!!!!!!!
**To: You; From: Me
4/10/15, 7:20PM**
I miss you so much
I don't even know what to
do anymore
**To: You; From: Me
4/10/15, 7:21PM**
Please come back into my life
please be my friend again
please please please
**To: You; From: Me
4/10/15, 7:30PM**
Hi.
Apr 29, 2015
Apr 29, 2015 at 6:32 PM UTC