"ribcages" poems
i cannot explain the flames that lick your eyelashes,
bright eyes.
and i adore that you're not as passive as i am.
and that your heart isn't as big.
there's less space to break
and more room for the fresh air of the world to fill your lungs
besides, hearts are wild animals
and that's why we need ribcages
but you, you're a creature of kindle.
and i get the feeling you know how warm you are.
i do.
if a river like me ran all around the world, do you think i'd get golden slumber, or just bronze sleep?
would i be famous, or just used, with more and more boats put on me?
i wouldn't shiver in Siberia, with you
i would replenish the deserts, with you.
but without you, i have no reflection.
what is a river with no sunrise, but a river?
what is a sunrise, with no river?
still so beautiful.
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 12:23 AM UTC
Manic Pixie Dream Girl
fingerpainted rainbow
on a flat canvass, you are
cardboard pretty.
Like this pastel-colored cupcake
you once saw on television
with sprinkles and little marshmallows on top
something you know
you can never taste
but still thought
“That must be delicious.”
One-sided postcard
With a beautiful scenery at the front
and empty surface at the back
No words to tell
No stories to give
Just a vacant lot.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl
I’ve always thought you were beautiful.
with your colors spilling out of your being and your smiles
that could light up anybody’s world
I’ve always thought it was like peering through a kaleidoscope
And you were a perfect symmetry
of everything a little boy could ever dream of.
So as I grew up
I dreamed to be something like you.
And for a while,
Without really meaning to
I was something like you.
People often told me,
“You are so pretty.”
“You are nice and funny.”
“You have a great smile.”
“You are fun to be with.”
“You are different.”
and guys liked me.
They adored me.
most especially when I exist
only for them.
When I am there to pick up the pieces
and make them whole again.
But manic pixie dream girl
I realized I am no dream girl
I am just—
me.
I feel ugly most of the time.
I eat a lot when I’m sad.
I am very impulsive.
I give irrational comments.
I have temper tantrums when I don’t get what I want.
I get scared of the dark.
I cut when I am hurt.
And there are days when I just want to sleep
and disappear forever.
I am no dream girl.
I am just a real girl.
Trying to make it out alive
in the real world.
I am not a navigator
meant to save lost boys.
I am not
a box of crayons
meant to grow smaller
as I color this blank page of a guy
I am not
a white glue
meant to disappear
once I am dry
I am not
a bandage
meant to heal wounds
on careless little children.
I am not supposed to be a fantasy
I am flesh and bones
I am human
with ribcages that are meant to crush
with the weight of a broken heart
I have lungs
I can breathe on my own.
I don’t need a broken boy
to feel that I have a purpose in life.
I am my own destruction.
I am my own salvation.
I am no dream girl.
Please
wake
up.
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 9:02 PM UTC
I.
I wonder if you remember me.
You said, “Go out. Find me
that universe, and take these
with you.” Talismans.
Good luck charms like Mozart
and fifty-five ways to say hello.
Navajo night chant,
Peruvian wedding song,
diagrams of ribcages, gender,
bushmen and bones.
Gifts for a people you said
I may never meet.
It has been thirty-four years
and I wonder if you remember me.
II.
Less and less,
we call across the distance:
sixteen-point-twelve hours
between transmissions
and I wonder if you remember me.
I nearly kissed Jupiter for you,
nearly skimmed Saturn’s bright rings,
but you said, “Go out.
Find me that universe,”
so I sail out into the dark for you.
I keep a photo of you,
twenty years ancient,
to keep away the quiet
between your calls:
pale pixel, distant dot,
my origin receding,
I wonder if you remember me.
III.
I know now,
you never meant
to call me home.
Dutifully, I will go out,
but I wonder if you forget me.
I am still here, sailing.
Oct 18, 2011
Oct 18, 2011 at 6:23 PM UTC
I love roller coasters.
I love the old rickety ones that jar my spine and push me into my little sister and i can feel our ribcages collide with the
click-click-click as they slowly build suspense and propel me towards the sun.
my last boyfriend hated them. He felt that his stomach couldn’t stand up to the drop of gravity so he ran at the sight of the climb up to reason and fled the line when i unbuckled my seatbelt.
i love waiting in line for a **** good thrill, and i count down the minutes until the spill of my scream echoes into the hairspray of the woman in front of me as she holds the hand of her cut-offs husband.
i guess you aren’t one to pine for the wooden tracks of thrill, either. but last night i lay in bed, on my side, trying to memorize the planes of your face, trying to calculate the angle of your nose as it leans slightly to your right, you tell me it’s crooked, i tell you it is lovely. it is the finest architecture this side of eiffel tower and you run your hands from the top of my collarbone, down the valley of my waist to the top of my hip, and you tell me you wish you had a tiny car to run along the line.
most of all i love the fall.
Jul 11, 2014
Jul 11, 2014 at 12:00 AM UTC
They said the fairest of the goddesses
Was the one to give us love,
The one to fetch the maidens
And bring the boys their girls.
What they meant by fair was beautiful,
Not just or right or equitable,
For it hardly seems fair
That she's a goddess,
Enthroned on a mountain with a mirror in her hand
And we're all of us mere mortals,
Hapless humans,
With our ribcages wide open,
With no bone to shield our vulnerable ventricles
And no sense to tell us to cover our chests.
It's no wonder that this otherworldly seduction
Can ****** us
And string us along
And consume us
Until we forget what life was
Before love caught us.
It seems impossible
That these frail, impermanent bodies
Can hold such ethereal infatuation;
It's too strong,
So it ravages us,
Strips away dignity,
Rips away common sense,
And seizes all control.
Our little human selves
Never stood a chance.
Tell me, Aphrodite,
Does it make you laugh to watch us struggle?
From your lofty vantage point,
Do you giggle when the rational become foolish,
When the thinkers become unfocused,
When the innocent become broken?
Does it please your fair reflection
When those devoted mortals go to ungodly lengths
For this love that you inflict,
Until they have nothing left of themselves,
Until they're worn to the very bones
That couldn't protect their unsuspecting hearts?
Do you revel in the irony,
Aphrodite,
When, exhausted and dejected
And downright tortured,
They still worship you?
When they bow
And sacrifice
In gratitude?
When we miserable mortals
Thank you for these feelings that destroy us,
Because for tiny moments
We felt transcendentally good.
Perhaps she'd had better intentions,
That goddess Aphrodite,
Thought that she was filling our open hearts
With something to give them meaning.
Maybe she thought
We'd left our ribcages open on purpose,
That we'd all simply been waiting for her,
Wondering when she'd reach down her power
And give us a love to cling to.
Or,
It could be that she had it right,
That our chests were left gaping
And our hearts were left empty
So that Aphrodite could look away from her mirror,
Smile from the clouds,
And send us someone to make us whole.
Nov 27, 2010
Nov 27, 2010 at 6:39 PM UTC
You could die for it--
love,
or refuse it altogether
and know nothing
except the urgency
of youth. Men
have been
solitary
for ages
carrying the
stoniest of hearts
in their broad chests
while we women
begin too early
brush the brown leaves
from our shoulders, go
from bloom to fade
as soon as
we see the sunrise
We let our eyes go first
Then there is the limp lolling
of our hearts from side to side
the tongue we cut away
the blind kiss on the backlash of night
the giving giving giving of skin
As women
we blindly wish
past the ****** of passion
as we vanish into a world of men
whose ribcages we were scraped from
Perhaps we are born of seeds
our essence crawling up the stem
to feed the bees.
Perhaps
every flower you see
is a woman
and when
she's in bloom
and when she is blooming
red
and when her leaves are wingbeats
of green in the autumn wind
beating wings of green, yes
even as the wind tries to humiliate her
it fails because
she's in love
and only she would die for it
2.7k
as if you never would have found me,
as if you never would have caught me,
as if you never would have kept me
inside
outside
ribcages
veins
*when you find the right person
you just want to destroy them.*
Oct 9, 2011
Oct 9, 2011 at 3:07 AM UTC
I write too many poems about my body.
but it’s the only house my spirit knows
and the only movement is my own
I could write you a love poem
or one about the way the kids in my hometown
used to walk the traintracks like they led somewhere
but i’m completely obsessed with this idea of entrapment
that i could be more than skin and bones that i could be made of
ink blotch shoulderblades
ribbon ribcages
clothespin wrists
and ruby lips
that i could abandon myself and get out of this cage
that’s too big or too small or whatever the **** they tell me this week.
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 10:59 PM UTC
I want to write until tears fall from my eyes
and my pen runs dry and I draw silent and still
I want to write you into words I can take with me
I want to capture your being and form on paper
I want to write to soothe the cacophony inside me
I want to pull it out of me, pull me out of myself
in ribbons and strands until I fill a room
I will look at all that was in me, tugging on strings
that have left me empty. I want there to be nothing left.
Hollow out my insides leaving me with nothing but air in my spaces,
leave me with air and pencil shavings
Put all that is me out on display
Maybe then I will find calm.
I want to write about you,
I want to write until I know and understand you so well I confuse you with myself.
I will write and use up all the words in this language,
then make up new ones to describe exactly how 2,630 miles feels like when it weighs inside a heart,
how it feels to smile back at a photograph,
how I recognize voices through doors and it turns out to be a stranger.
I want to write about things gentle and soothing,
things that can act like a surrounding embrace to a heavy heart. I want to comfort myself.
I want language to be like my imaginary friend I whisper to behind a child's hands.
I want to hurt and I want to need, I want to evoke and I want to express.
I want to strike a chord and resonate for ages, a reverberation to last a century beneath the earth.
I want to not make sense and be misunderstood.
I want to cry silently in my pillow,
filled with emotions so human and so real that I know I Am Alive.
I want to find new words for your eyes, your voice, the curve of your spine.
People talk about making homes out of hearts and ribcages,
maybe I can do that too, live inside the marrow of your bones.
I want to fall into your deepest corners and find You,
then I want to surround you with a tender warmth that will calm and douse you
and you will know that you are Loved,
I want you to know that I will take care of you.
There will never be another who will do just This for you.
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 9:47 PM UTC
You gave me a red rose
To symbolize your love for me.
You gave me a black rose
To symbolize that you are leaving me.
You went onto someone else
And left me in the past.
So, I am angry and coming for your
Head.
You were not my first mistake,
But you will be my last.
Many people have done this to me.
Now they are skulls locked in my closet.
Their skeletons grew
Because of the roses that were tossed in.
Their skeletons kept
As a reminder to everyone.
And up their femurs
Came the vines.
Round their ankles
Slept tired time.
In their sockets
Napped with hate,
And in the ribcages
Snored the love.
And as I threw
More roses in,
I wondered if loving the bones
Was a sin.
Jan 18, 2017
Jan 18, 2017 at 8:15 AM UTC
We dreamed of becoming more than what we were.
And we escaped in the smoke that filled the room.
Our souls trapped...
Jailed behind our ribcages.
So we sat there...
Changing out the records.
Mouthing all the lyrics.
Waiting for the perfect moment to speak words.
Those times never came...
Instead we became more silent.
Inhaling the smoke.
Exhaling it all the same.
And I sat there wondering what else was out there.
I felt so comfortable in your surroundings.
Too high to realize what was really going on.
I broke the cycle.
The routine of a roller coaster ride that wasn't fun.
Longing for something more.
Wondering if I deserved better.
Even when I thought you were the best...
I started to question that.
My love for you may never die...
But my addictions did.
My tears brought on the clouds.
And I had to follow the sun.
No more.
No more tears.
No more love to give to you.
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 6:20 AM UTC
Callarbones & ribcages
The only love of my life.
They made me want to strive
They were the drive that kept me alive
As I cried in desperation for their inspiration,
They were my justification for isolation
Collarbones & ribcages
No more dreams,
No more love.
My motives came from a non-existent light above
A light filled with hates and lies.
The lies that struck me like knives
Collarbones & ribcages
Exercise drills and diet pills,
The image that kills.
Because beauty is pain,
Ana will make sure you die in vain
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 11:25 PM UTC
mother problems
chicken pox
asked my aunt
she replied
shower my mother with love and care
after many tries
chicken pox
appointment to the end
of chicken pox
sent my mother a message that she wasn’t okay
drowsy drowsy
medicines
drowsy
shouts and screams
a clueless father
a I-dont-give-two-fucking-shits sister
exams over
results out
failed my favourite subject
HOW DID I FAIL LITERATURE
chicken pox doctor
misdiagnosis
then gave me wrong number of weeks to rest
choreography for bollywood
tamil folk
parents were showering ill concealed parental
concern
went to support
ran ran ran
confused and nervous
of the entire world hating me
i ran. ran. i ******* ran
wash the dishes
cooked **** - got scolded for not cooking
extremely pms-y father
why the ******* hell did that happen
cooked
messed up dishes
ate dinner outside
whole family sick
syf prac horrendous
out of breath
trying to run
dinner outside everyday
people who didnt listen
people who didnt care about the dance
time limit
one week before kanal
havent finished choreography
CHICKEN ****** POX
came back to school
parents being ***
whole family down with chicken pox
mother working her *** off
she doesnt want any help
dancing dancing dancing
mother’s talk about me trying to get away from dance
raffles diploma
performance
november performance
i couldnt dance
kicked out ruthlessly
kanal
five minutes before
a message no more such activities next year
marche dinner
screamed and screamed
out of breath
******* hole in my throat
ran ran ran ran ran
away from idiosyncrasies
raffles diploma
career choices
out of money
where did all the money go
where did all the money go
goals
fashion designer
parents : banker, scientist
work backwards from the goal
dance i want to dance
outings
2 days before
go on to khan academy
father only listens to himself
crushed bones
crushed ribcages
i cant breathe
still running
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 3:48 AM UTC
These streets knew feet in days gone by,
bustling sidewalks, crowded storefronts,
laughter, light and dancers leaking
out of smoke-filled bars.
Cars would wind through intersections,
blood cells between neighborhoods.
From The Corner came The Roar.
He remembers how the Autumn sounded
back in '84
when Alan Trammell brought The Series home,
the arcing shot off Gibson's bat,
the rolling wave of soaring voices.
Old English
"D"
tattooed on the hearts
of a city
who's been hurting since the 50's.
Bless You Boys.
Ya did it--
went and Sparked up Michigan
and lit a dimming town again
in Corktown's widening eyes.
In 20 years, though, losses pile up.
55 and starved for signs
of trends reversing, luck upending,
impending relief or just some kind of
something.
Sickening, cloying rapid decay
as neighborhoods die.
These streets know crumbling cinderblock
walls and blistered paint coats don't
cover ribcages starting to show--
steel girder bones--and windows blown
out, like teeth lost from a well-spoken mouth,
allow the Lake Michigan wind to howl
out the tale--
through oxidized bones--
of just what it looks like
when economic war hits home.
Heartbeats still find footing
in Motor City streets, beneath
the Old English "D,"
but mind the scoreboard smart;
the Tigers lost a hundred games
in 2003.
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 6:58 PM UTC
My fingertips bruise
Whenever I touch him,
Ribcages tighten and confine
Me to what I am to be;
Pavement cracked and crippled
Under the weight of word.
Lungs expand to accommodate him,
But he just complains about
The noise of my heartbeat.
I am sanctioned under a law of silence,
Forbidden by growth and loss,
Entrusted in splinters and expected
To heal
Jan 15, 2015
Jan 15, 2015 at 10:08 AM UTC
When the last strained
chord of the parade
blew sour and home sounded
good again and all the trash
was meticulously placed
on the floor there was
a bottle rocket peeling
past the grim-faced throng
to adorn ribcages
with a scatter of sparks
the desperate stink
of burning hair wafted
all was transgressed
and now the walk
of shame.
a swig of honeyed
gin and all was
right again
until next year
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 12:36 PM UTC
as i walk with nothing but the feeling of my heart
grasped achingly by my ribcages,
i grieve for my future self;
this is a habit i cannot break.
like a sacred ritual
i commence a solemn ceremony
to mourn for the unknown half and
to mourn for myself, a loveless poet.
will i spare someone all the love
that i tend in my backyard?
the garden of all my poems,
the garden of all my words.
but, what kind of poet am i
if all the love i write is mused by utter loneliness,
soiled underneath the pretty field?
resting in peace in a worm casted ground.
oh, i cannot wait to see
how my garden will bloom
once you enter it.
how your presence will soften the soil
and i will welcome you fondly as you earthen close.
but please know that rain
did not water every thing here,
this love grew because my heart has yearned
a lifetime to be understood.to be known.
you were once a figment of all my hurt,
a muse shaped like a blur that i begged to seek me.
i guess our hearts naturally just ache to be loved
that we yearn for beautiful things
right after killing them with our very own hands.
still, i remain as gentle as i am now
because i mourned,
and mourned,
and mourned...
for someone like you.
a flicker that was absent for god knows
how many lightyears away we were to each other,
that we couldn't hold hands no matter how
interlocked our hearts were at recognizing everything we feel.
so forgive me if i mourn for you by and by
—your beauty is closest to the moon after all,
tell me, how can i not long for you forever?
Jun 20, 2023
Jun 20, 2023 at 9:11 AM UTC
to have been lead through
slumbering paddocks by
held hands; hope, the
deity, nonexistent and relentless,
i felt alive-
was i but the subject
of her meticulously-planned humour?
was i the joke,
or the punchline?
boldly ripening into
mistaken aphasias, i
find my melting thoughts
matriculating into sharp
movements in the dark:
curves patterned,
ribcages' separation, a gaussian blur of
intertwined epidermal rivulets,
your soft, slow imaginings becoming
tiny flecks of graphite smeared
a page's width, intricately sown
across skin, that light trickles
through a sliver in the curtains
to wordlessly illuminate.
seventh memory: a peeling away,
a mandarin on the kitchen counter.
watching stars disappear
from atop the balustrade, we sit
mere fragments apart, yet
at great distance, like
the fog of the cities we carry out
the moments of
our regularized lives, within.
finally, i become translucent.
yet,
what have the stars become?
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 10:33 PM UTC
I need someone who feels
with wildflowers,
and speaks
in the tongues of streams.
I need their cheeks
to sprout dandelions,
and let them grow,
even though others say they're weeds.
I need their mouth
to taste of earth,
and their soul
to hold the heat of the earth's core.
I need their ribcages
to contain mountain ranges
that can puncture my diaphragm,
and remind my lungs
how much they like the like the taste of air.
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 12:59 AM UTC
when the word ****
resonates from the lips of
any teacher, i cannot
help but perceive
how many students' heads
fall downward, staring at
their disquieted hands. i am
wondering how many people are closing
in on themselves, lips pressed together
in thin lines, burying themselves
six feet under into graves
constructed however long ago.
somewhere within the catastrophic enclosings
of their minds, they are the people
reminiscing violent robberies, not
of television sets or radios, but of
innocent souls. they are suffering
from the post-traumatic stress
of feeling naked skin and cracked
ribcages and heaving lungs
never burn in the turbulent
wildfires left
behind in their burnt
lives; a simple word
is enough to have them
reliving the mournful
affair forming their
empty chest. i glance around the
room for students whose
memory gnaws at their
scarred skin, and
the problem is
is that there are too many.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 9:50 PM UTC
The pretty girls who spend hours in their room,
Counting calorie after calorie
As if each one was their last.
Shattering themselves into tiny peices
Until no one could pick up the glass
Of their broken ribcages
And crushed dreams
Wasting themselves away in order perfect
May 2, 2018
May 2, 2018 at 7:15 PM UTC
i think too much
about throwing up
about emptying
that which people tell me
is wrong.
to society
i am
disgusting
i am
too fat
i am
repulsive
"no one wants to look at THAT"
they say.
because beautiful
is malnourished bones
thighs that don't touch
stick-thin arms
bony
ribcages...
it has been POUNDED INTO ME
that beautiful is NOT
what i am
that beautiful
is achieved by the shape of your body...
and maybe i'm not a perfect size
maybe my stomach isn't flat
maybe my thighs
are chubby
maybe
i'm not a lot of things
but i believe
that i AM
beautiful...
and no amount
of ugly hearted people
who tell me that i am not
will get to me.
i was made like this
and i would not change it
for the world.
**** it,
***********
generation.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 11:40 PM UTC
I'm the shadow
Casted by the sun,
Feeling small
As the day's begun.
I watch people
With nameless faces
Go places
With no destination,
No purpose.
I watch them with
Bruised ribcages
And flowers blooming from their arms,
Pretending to be a part
Of the crowd,
Pretending to fit in.
Their hearts are shattered to dust,
But they fix it
With stiches and staples that turned to rust,
Pretending all the pieces fit
Their shirts are filled
With pins and needles,
that poke their skin
Pretending not to notice
The emptiness filling in.
But I stay put.
My shadow is too small to notice,
Too scared to move.
My mind is almost as broken as theirs,
But my door is fully open,
Not pretending.
Sep 7, 2019
Sep 7, 2019 at 11:14 PM UTC
I'm jealous
because you did what I couldn't
do
But wanted to
for so long
And executed
with such
beauty
and grace
right down to the place
perfect
But you can't see
the heaving
heavy
hearts
of the people you left behind
and the weak ribcages
struggling for air
and an answer to
why
and
how couldn't I have known?
I wish I was gone too
Why didn't I take the plunge?
Regret fills me.
Two tickets to city cinema
waiting
Why didn't I talk to you?
When I had the chance.
I was a coward,
scared of rejection
and now I can never know
if affections were returned
I can hear you in my head
still
Minolta
Pentax K1000
Lenses
Engineering
And I wonder why you loved photography so much.
Was it the pursuit of perfection?
Was that your heaven?
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 11:46 PM UTC
To fall asleep tonight I'm thinking of last night's
dreams and tomorrow's nightmares all at once
like re-runs of the same television show aired years ago
by another person in another body, and I wonder
if they felt the distinct absence
of everything... a pain that has no source, but that can pierce
every nerve in my entire body until I'm screaming louder
than the ambulance's siren. At night we are all passengers
waiting for the sunrise's journey. And tonight I will think about
how the nurses feel when their patient dies
before they arrive at the hospital,
if they feel the pain that exploded from the victim's last breath,
if their ribcages feel just as hallow
as the ambulance itself is without anyone to rescue.
I flip on the television in my eyes, and suddenly
all I see is static.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 9:58 PM UTC