"reopens" poems
my skeleton never liked me
very much. it cracks in unusual
places, ribcage poking out of its
skin prison, the frailty of it
breaking beneath the musical
whispers of the wind through hollow
spaces. i see
light bursting beneath the flash
of a camera and my skin
incinerates - do not look do not touch
do not look - and the charcoal in
my lungs is set on fire. i wake up
with ash beneath my tongue
far too often. my skin
despises me now that i have
bruises in places no one could
kiss better. there's this scar above
my right knee, which dislocates when
my life falls out of its socket, and it
reopens and blood pours from the
renewed wound too often. i think
i have a body that likes to believe it is dying.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC
We all have the same envelope.
Our bodies are different, but they look the same.
Bodies are worthless.
They mean nothing.
The way the soul carries the body is infinitely more important.
People carry themselves a certain way
It is their tell
People carry different hurts in life
You can never know how a person has been wounded
What type of weapon was used
Where it struck
How long it took to heal
If it sealed itself shut
If it is still sore from the blow
If the wound reopens from time to time when no one is watching
If any phantom pain rear its ugly head every now and then
You can never know
And for that reason
Always hold a person like the most precious stone.
Sep 30, 2014
Sep 30, 2014 at 5:49 PM UTC
Isn't it funny
how the whole world is ran
on reputations.
People bend themselves
to match the expectations of others.
They do not allow themselves to do things
for the sake of their reputations.
People don't let themselves
be themselves
Everyone tries to act
like what they see.
Its too bad most people cannot see
the personalities of the goodhearted people.
Life covered in a thousand scars.
Each time we are seen as different,
the scar reopens.
The cycle repeats,
and what is hurt
can never be fixed.
Reputations
**** society.
People strive to be
smartest
prettiest
kindest
hardest worker
biggest ****
and everything in between,
and those who do not "fit"the category
are discarded into the land of the lost.
Reputations ****
Why can't people just accept others
for who they really are
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 5:57 PM UTC
Hearing your voice puts knifes in my heart
You'd think by now the knife would be dull
But it reopens the wounds as easy as ever
These scars are never to heal
Hearing your voice makes my blood pulse
The new wounds bleed faster
You'd think I'd never forget this pain
But every time it feels just as bad
This blood will stain me forever
Hearing your voice makes my breath short
My vision goes black
You'd think I'd wake up feeling confused
But I remember it clearly;
Your voice took my breath for good
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 at 7:22 PM UTC
ACT I
DAD: in his late 50's.
TRISTAN: around ten or eleven-years old GLADWIN: in her early 40's.
TRISTAN Dad?
Scene 1
Interior of a cheesy, unkempt motel room. DAD
channel-surfs the cable television, the remote in
his right hand, a cigarette in his left. He's
sitting on the edge of the bed. TRISTAN is on the
bed behind him, crying.
DAD
Yeah bud?
TRISTAN
Is Mom gonna **** herself?
DAD
Well, I hope so.
TRISTAN Dad!
DAD
(Chuckles). What?
TRISTAN
Stop! I'm scared. What if she does?
DAD
Why are you worried? I'm not that lucky.
TRISTAN
(Screaming). C'mon, Dad!
DAD
What? (Chuckles again, longer this time). I'm not.
TRISTAN
Dad, stop. What if she really does?
DAD
Trist, don't be stupid. No one who's really going to
**** themselves tells you like that. They don't sing it
out loud. She's whistling Dixie.
TRISTAN
(Sobbing at this point). Dad, I love Mom.
DAD
(Pause). I know, and I-
(DAD'S cellphone rings. He answers
immediately)
Hold on, Trist. It's your fat mother.
Hello? Yeah. Yeah, you have this kid scared to death.
Would you just tell him you're--What? Alright, Glad.
Well enough's enough. (Pause). Okay. (Reacting loudly).
Oh, quit screaming in my ear! Trist, (extends the phone
to TRISTAN) here.
spotlight comes up on GLADWIN, who is stageleft,
lying in bed and on the phone.
GLADWIN
Trist! Trist? Say goodbye to Mama. I'm going away.
TRISTAN
Wait! Don't do anything bad, please.
GLADWIN
I'm gonna swallow my pills, Trist. I'm gonna take them
all and I won't be around anymore, honey...
TRISTAN
No! Mom, don't!
GLADWIN
...so just say goodbye to Mama and don't ever...
TRISTAN
Mom! Stop. Please, stop, just don't!
GLADWIN
...forget that I love you.
Spotlight goes out on GLADWIN.
TRISTAN
No! (Looks at DAD). Dad, she can't!
(He drops the cellphone)
Oh my God!
(Leaping off the bed and fumbling with
the phone in his hands, he hurries it to
his ear)
Hello? Mom? Mom?
(He closes the phone and quickly reopens
it. He dials GLADWIN'S cellphone)
DAD
Trist, take it easy. She's fine. Stop calling and go to
bed.
TRISTAN
She won't answer! (Breaking down). She won't answer.
(Lets out a piercing cry). Dad!
(DAD lights another cigarette and pulls
TRISTAN onto the bed and under his right
arm)
DAD
(Rubbing TRISTAN'S back gently). Go to sleep, babe.
She'll be there tomorrow morning.
TRISTAN
But--
DAD
Ah, ah! What did I just say? Everything will be okay.
TRISTAN
(Calming, but still anxious). You promise?
DAD
Promise, kiddo.
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 3:17 PM UTC
Lars lifts opens the toilet seat. The hinge squawks and he mimics the sound with his mouth. A dumb smile folds out on his face like someone unrolling a beach towel. He sits without dropping his pants or underwear. The cops are just about to leave through the screen door. Maggie offers a departing sacrament of right out of the oven of crispy flakey Pillsbury biscuits. They wave their hands parallel to the ground refusing. Maggie pulled the biscuits out too early. The bottoms are tan and dimensional but the tops are sloppy. They look like they have a glaze but they don’t have a glaze. They are pasty but still hot to the touch. The pan is hot. Maggie is wearing maroon oven mitts. One of the cops gets his foot snagged on the throw rug. They walk with their heads down but don’t notice the curled edges of the throw rug. They notice a black pug named Roger instead and nearly avoid fumbling over him. The cops scatter outside quickly like ducklings crossing the street. Lars’ dumb smile lingers and he laughs with a shushing lisp. He reaches between his legs into the toilet bowl. His hand disturbs the water. His nose is bleeding. Maggie closes the doorwall after the cops leave. The cops left the screen open. Maggie reopens the doorwall, closes the screen, shakes her head, and then closes the doorwall again. The kitchen is humming with improper wires. The light is electric pastel blue. The linoleum is too ***** to sleep on. Maggie’s ******* can be seen through her shirt. Lars wipes his nose with his arm and shoulder. He is hunched digging into the toilet bowl. He pulls out a baggie with a twist tie on top. The baggie looks reused. Maggie enters under the frame of the door and her lips roll out like a beach towel. The ******* in the baggie is very very dry.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 7:56 PM UTC
Every time I see a dream and chase it I run into hurdles. I always find myself running at full speed ready to leap over any obstacle in my way! I see the first hurdle and lunge into the air only to fall and scrape my knee. I wail like a small child who thinks they are dying from a tiny scrape. I am not dying! I get up and start running again tripping over hurdle after hurdle after hurdle and with each fall the scrape becomes a cut and then a ****** gouge until I cannot run anymore.
Finally I am running again and this time with a beautiful scar where I had repeatedly fallen before. I have started off a bit slower this time being more aware of what may lie ahead. I am speeding up and am feeling invincible, unstoppable, nothing can stop me now! I see the hurdles up ahead and I am ready! Hurdle 1! Yes, success! Hurdles 2, 3 and 4! I can see my dream just around the bend, I am almost there! Hurdle 5! I am soaring! Flying down the track! Hurdle 6! My toe catches and I fall. A tumbling but not quite fatal fall in which my scar reopens into that gaping gouge and my other is scraped and my right elbow.
Everything is visible now, everyone knows. I bandage myself up to hide it all, to hide the pain and scars and I continue to move, to trudge, to try and dream again. I am awkward and moving slowly, but I am moving, I am beginning to find motivation. And soon, I will be running this race again.
Jul 5, 2011
Jul 5, 2011 at 9:39 PM UTC
Misty little corner
In a blue Room
Calls out to the mourner
Immersed in doom.
Grey furniture makes
Greyer memories
Faults, taunts and insipid
Fallacies.
Blue is the colour of the eye
It's inside is filled with a neon so fly.
The pink tree of life ******
Venus flytrap dissolves in juices.
The eye looks, the eye appalls.
The eye resigns, the eye dissolves.
The pink trap reopens again.
Lust curls into the corner in vain.
The misty blue corner like a white canvas,
Fills with all its colours again.
Pink is the monster,
Blue is the perpetrator,
Green is the debilitator.
And I, the wild colourless mind,
Sits by the wall and conjures this mishap.
All dreams are flies,
And I, the Venus flytrap.
Apr 23, 2019
Apr 23, 2019 at 4:04 AM UTC
The first time my third eye opened, the world was horrifying to view.
I could see my entire life, each mistake glaring at me and pounding against my psyche.
Every good moment collided with the bad,
The future turned inside out and bathed me in a gory downpour of the viscera of moments to come.
Now, each time the sparks and fires start in my brain, it reopens
And with this golden eye of the blind gods, I'll stare into everyone's souls.
I'll watch all of you and judge you by the contents of your very essence.
I'll see you in the way you refuse to see yourself.
Because if people see what they want to see,
I've made it my duty to see the truth in all of it's slithering glory
As it encircles the apple, and beckons me forward.
Oct 7, 2019
Oct 7, 2019 at 10:47 AM UTC
Her healing smile shines bright,
yet my wound reopens in this light.
I begin to bleed,
a flow so heavy I feel my head spin...
I cannot be freed if her faux grin is not exiled.
Feb 9, 2021
Feb 9, 2021 at 8:38 PM UTC
What does it mean to be
Emotionally unavailable?
My manic thoughts keep me starving for
An imagined happy
“Are you single?” They asked
Well, my heart is as open as an old wound
That reopens & bleeds & scars for
Vicarious validation
Yet closed in the sense that it shuts down
Every time it starts to feel something
Almost habitually,
As if in self defense
I guess you could say my heart was a
Twisted & distanced kind of available...
But no
I’m not available in my mind
Because it knows better than my
Feeling *****
The human container that’s headstrong
To it’s gullible nature
My thinking ***** knows that
Vicarious happy is not real happy
Which labels my forehead like a neon sign
Emotionally Unavailable
I crave a validation that looks like your love
But it won’t fix me
Or provide the happiness I
Desperately need for myself
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 6:20 AM UTC
Brother, in my dreams you have always just died.
I’ve never dreamt you are still talking to me
nor are you many years gone
your absence is always known, fresh, and painful
it feels like a skinned knee
stinging red and raw and with every movement
It reopens and spills out more and more pain.
Sometimes I am at your funeral
I’m talking through tears about the things you loved
listing off:
longboarding
reading books
long conversations
a good beer
and I stop at me.
How much you loved me, how much we were alike
and our one difference-the size of our hearts.
Mine, a tiny fragile thing with room enough
only to house you and
you, who had a heart so big
your body couldn’t let it live.
It couldn't keep breathing without making your blood thinner
so that it could more easily pass through that
giant beating ***** of yours
such thin blood that kept you alive just long enough
for you to feel every bit of pain and every moment of sadness
that having such a big heart always brings
every sad thing I feel in my dreams.
Brother, I'll say to your corpse
remember that time you were drunk
so drunk that when I told you we were out of ice
you started sobbing
you sobbed on the ground and you screamed so loud,
and you said, “but where will the penguins live?”
I laughed at you, I picked you up off the floor
and I told you, “They can live with us and I’ll pay their part of the rent.”
Then I whisper to you, softly enough
So that the congregation won’t hear
I love you more than you loved everything
Even penguins.
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 7:23 PM UTC
Brother, in my dreams you have always just died.
I’ve never dreamt you are still talking to me
nor are you many years gone
your absence is always known, fresh and painful
It feels like a skinned knee
Stinging red and raw and with every movement
It reopens and spills out more and more pain.
Sometimes I am at your funeral
I’m talking through tears about the things you loved
Listing off:
Longboarding
Reading books
Long conversations
A good beer
And I stop at me.
How much you loved me, how much we were alike
And our one difference-the size of our hearts.
Mine, a tiny fragile thing with room enough
Only to house you and
You, who had a heart so big
God couldn’t let it live.
He couldn't keep it beating without making your blood thinner
So that it could more easily pass through your
Giant beating *****
Thin blood that kept you alive just long enough
For you to feel every bit of pain and every moment of sadness
That having such a big heart always brings
Every sad thing I feel in my dreams.
Brother, I'll say to your corpse
Remember the time you were drunk
So drunk that when I told you we were out of ice
You started sobbing
You sobbed on the ground and you screamed so loud,
And you said, “but where will the penguins live?”
I laughed at you, I picked you up off the floor
And told you I love you more than you love everything
Even penguins.
And told you no one will ever love you more
Than I do now.
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 10:27 PM UTC
Music wafts from
The concert hall
Into my empty bar.
The fact that I'm not
The one taking the stage
Reopens a long closed scar.
The glasses stand ready
There's wine to be poured
The performer's hope
To be adored.
Just close your eyes and
Hear the violin play
Enjoy the music from afar.
I may not be
The one with the bow
But at interval - I'll be the star.
Dec 21, 2010
Dec 21, 2010 at 10:42 AM UTC
You’re paying homage to me
with your touch along my curves and edges.
With your golden, intense eyes.
With your kiss, your adoration.
This paid homage stirs me,
shakes out hidden grief,
reopens closed space,
unlocks dammed love.
Starts a new journey of ‘we’.
You’re paying homage to me,
aiming to reach me.
Intentionally, joyfully,
breaking down my
solitary
reality.
Apr 11, 2021
Apr 11, 2021 at 9:33 PM UTC
I'm sorry are just two words you can say
but as she says them she releases her prey
picks up a knife, reopens her scars and bleeds out her life.
As she's bleeding she drops the weaponry and mumbles Goodnight.
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 8:43 AM UTC
While the birds begin to sing their songs
The sun climbs silently into the sky
Fleeting dreams fade away at the breaking of day
The dreamer reprieved, he opens his eyes
He gets ready for work and puts on a tie
Fit for a funeral or fit for a wedding
He sees during the day but its only a lie
Truth to be found only when the dreamer is resting
As the sun creeps quietly down to the West
The dreamer lays his head down to rest
Escaping his reality to something more real
He attempts to lose himself in his dream surreal
Light sets the scene as it infallibly does,
The dreamer alone but feeling no fright
Rosewood, as usual, the door appears
Gold handle glowing bright in the light
Behind the door is an unknown world
A world without convention and without ties
The dreamer caught motionless in a reach for the handle
Indefinitely pondering a world without lies
While the birds begin to sing their song
The dreamer reopens his eyes
He could only think of the rosewood door
And how he did not want to wear a tie.
Sep 6, 2014
Sep 6, 2014 at 2:46 AM UTC
I guess this serves as a warning.
To the friends and the loved ones
members of an active social order
wanting a life of something more than disorder.
Poetry is not a breath.
It is not an escape into a lesser abyss
that leaves you scratch free.
Or an opening and interesting guarantee.
Instead
it grabs inwardly at you.
It coaxes the trolls from the deepest
corners of the forest that you had
long since banished and left behind
and wanted to rid your mind of and
never wanted to see again.
The fire that had been stomped out
is reborn.
The crashing waves that broke the ship
fight again.
And poetry reopens the wounds
that you had hoped would heal
with time and with suppression
that had once filled and consumed with aggression.
Poetry is anger.
Poetry leaves the poet
drowning
in a river of currents when it flows
but out in the baking sun when
it stops.
The issue is
for a poet to be happy
with her work
she must also feel the
unhappy in her life.
Jun 19, 2017
Jun 19, 2017 at 1:50 AM UTC
Curtain up on cardboard courtyard, spotlight moon frames first figure seated
Logeverchy ~ Ache not solemn heart for solitude of beat tears night asunder,
leaving my breast a hollow soul, as I alone am left to wonder.
Wait whom skulks in shadows midst and pry's on secret pain,
come hither phantom make intention known or as my heart be slain.
Vanalausch ~ Tis I my lord your honoured bondsman see my hand a letter,
scented with a hint of promise, from the Maiden of Valetta.
Logeverchy ~ Can it be nay be away foul night vapours of fetid cheese
and with your words and false hopes another may ye tease.
oh if but for a chance halt, again to me and may in truth
Thy proffered offering give unto doubtful mind unreputed proof.
Curtain falls and again rises on silk draped bed chamber where a maid attends her lady
Anvibility ~ If er' heaven blest so sweet a union let it be this night
and may his heart on feathered wings be given up to flight.
Nuxominal ~ Hush lest your words meet with unwelcome ears
and give voice to tongue to speak aloud my fears.
Hast thou not heard the footfalls upon yonder stair,
I know not what evil deed awaits my true love there.
Anvibility ~ I will away and light a lamp and place it by the door,
if only now to settle thee and to guide to thee amour.
Curtain closes and reopens painted canvas corridor with candle flickering
Logeverchy ~ Be it ever thus that so simple a light could herald me such hope
for two in stolen moments steal away and into night elope.
Door is opened by Anvibility and Logeverchy enters bed chamber as Nuxominal looks up
Anvibility ~ Harken my words and be away let not this moment bind you,
the horses and provisions wait lest now her father find you.
exit stage left lights fade curtain falls and all is quiet..
Feb 25, 2012
Feb 25, 2012 at 4:46 AM UTC
She beckons me,
with fickle hand,
in silken gloves,
to her demand.
Her crown above,
Her veiled face
Her body poised,
with noxious grace.
awaiting now,
Her harsh decree,
i kneel down,
beneath Her feet.
Her hands swing down,
Her gloves grow red,
reopens wounds,
already bled.
She sends me off,
i must comply,
such is my lot,
until i die.
i can't prepare,
i simply wait,
for greedy hands,
i know as Fate.
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 1:10 AM UTC
I used to pull sharp metal across my legs
Rarely, only on occasion
Whenever I was so desperate to feel something and I couldn't feel happiness so I chose pain
I've not chosen this particular brand of pain in a while
But I have other alternatives
I've never brought an open flame to curl against my skin like the folds of a blanket
Nor have I beaten myself with my own fists or struck out against some hard surface to bloom purple and green flowers on my skin
No, I have other alternatives.
I take showers so hot my skin reddens like a boiled lobster
I dig my nails into my palms and arms and legs to leave armies of pale crescent impressions
I bite my lip, the inside so that no one can see the sore and near-torn flesh
I scrape my nails against my back, arms, legs, chest, stomach, leaving red lines like from the claws of a tiger
I sing sad songs, difficult songs, loud songs, songs to make my throat hurt from exertion and holding back tears
And that may seem to be the least harmful or all these but its not
It can't be when it reopens my old battle wounds and makes my throat so raw that the tears burn even more
And all of these alternatives don't mar my skin permanently
But I can't help but wonder if they're really all that much better
Because I still want to feel
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 1:05 PM UTC
I can't even touch my feelings
I used to live in them
Now I live beside them
Day and day again
I watch them go
They want in
I want them to stay out.
I push the door shut and the window closed.
We are separate entities now.
They scream in frustration now.
Aching to get back in.
I tell them they are still in here with me.
I feel the memories of them
Every day a rip or two reopens
But I close my eyes quick
Lick away the blood.
Acting as if it never happened.
As if the bandaids had worked
Because I know half the cuts are from myself.
So I tell my feelings I still hold them dear
But I just hold my own survival nearer.
I don't want to destroy myself.
I want to destroy everyone else.
I want to push until they tear
Crush until they break
I want to become so sharp
That a look from my eyes can
make them bleed.
I want the world to know
What my insides have felt
And what my heart desires.
From love to lust
From wanting to fix it
To wanting to break it.
I don't have time for guilt
I don't have time for pain
Hurt,
Anger
I don't have time to feel pity
I don't have anymore room.
And sometimes my own selfishness makes me sick
But this gets me one step closer to the completion
of me.
I am done with dissecting the human race
They've infected themselves
And I am one step behind but catching up quick
I am trying to play a game with a finesse
That someone as new as I cannot possess.
I can't even touch my feelings.
And until today it wasn't a choice.
Let me lick the cut.
Dec 8, 2010
Dec 8, 2010 at 6:14 PM UTC
A wound reopens when you least expect it
Be it through running
Being clumsy
Or though repeating a simple mistake
Should my lack of intelligence
Be a punishable crime?
Was my trusting nature just not meant for existing?
I realize through your glazed stare
You lack remorse.
Being alone was a terrifying choice,
Perhaps I should have harden the shell.
The shell has far to many cracks that fail to mend properly.
Deformity should be eradicated
Sep 24, 2016
Sep 24, 2016 at 6:06 PM UTC
no longer will i glaze my eyes over the world in
monotone colors since all the colors were drained
from this memory. no longer will i sit back, watching
someone like you play favorites and pity the scars on
my legs. no longer will these mountains be a prison for
me. no longer will i let a person imprison me who leaves
me uninhabitable in the end and reopens fresh wounds.
i will surpass you one thousand times over, and play god.
for now, i am broadcasting in god's place since i was
tricked into thinking someone like you was my savior.
i will become the omnipresent regret and the everlasting
guilt. i will leave you aching, hungry, wounded, lost, and
alone. no longer will i be the roadkill, i will be the weapon
but no longer will my body be used to hurt another.
- kra
Oct 10, 2015
Oct 10, 2015 at 8:06 AM UTC