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Tommy Johnson Jun 2014
An unrequited love that still offers a seemingly patronizing hand of rapport
Is just another way to say "friend zone"
But you'll be dancing in the end zone
After you finally pay your student loan with money from the job you needed a degree to get which called for the loan in the first place

The salt has spilled off the Lazy Susan
Throw it over your right shoulder

Is this my alter ego?
Or do I have a split personality
Maybe this is my light skinned doppelganger
I've got to get these bats out of the belfry
I've got claustrophobic, roided-out butterflies in the pit of my stomach

Busted paper thin lips
A blood sport
Stop it from clotting
Vaccinate me

This vacuum is a rare find
The national demographic is going through culture shock
Assume a surname
Put on the gargantuan pennant
Go to the pulpit and beg for penance

Gridlock
The paleophone is cracked
Study the topography
And pay the bus fare

The squatters who are on borrowed time
Take a swig from the half empty bottle
After searching their whole lives for an even break
But are forced to cut ties and make a clean cut from society

All the lent hands and ears
Are lodged between ungratefulness and exclusive pity parties
Sweet nothings and forget-me-nots
Do a clean sweep

It's imperative to have a method to your madness
A portrayal of eccentric narcissist
Painting self-portraits
While on some kind of wonder drug
Longing for some moral support

Double-dealing
Double crossing
A hypocritical traitor
Who has the right away

I will watch your blood coagulate around the bullet holes
As your body goes into Rigor mortis
I will commit this picture to memory
I would have bet dollars to doughnuts that it wasn't you
But who wudda thunk it?

It's all just an impromptu turn on a dime
That encumbers you with cabin fever
When you're on display in a human zoo
Where unproductive bull sessions are a dime a dozen
Waverly Mar 2012
Some things are sadly poetic
Like the cougar whose boyfriend
Won’t come back outside and she’s alone
At the only table in the cold
smoking a pall mall,
Having a beer.

Some things are refreshingly poetic
like leaving the office for a bit with the boss
and going somewhere
where there are domes made of pure gold
and priests who pour milk on them from
helicopters.

Some things are interestingly poetic;
like the poet, turned novelist, turned artist,
who does landscaping to cover the spread.

Some things are courageously and nostalgically
And hurtfully poetic,
Like not seeing your family for nine years
Because the money’s good where you're at,
And plane tickets and passports are outrageous.

Some things should not be
poetic, but they are, because they are truthful
And that is verse;
like the waitress who was *****
when she cashed her check at a grocery store
after the night shift
and she wasn’t the only one in her car
when she got back.

Some things are poetry because they come
Into this world quietly
And bleeding internally,
and yet they survive
Even though their lungs are full of fluid,
And they can barely breathe.

Some things are poetry because they happened
And nothing can change that.

And because
Poetry is
unchangeable, immovable, and
grotesque, beautiful, uncomfortable, calming,
disfiguring, life-giving, ****** up,
Possibly ******, possibly a nectar
That God
or whoever the ****
allowed to be put on paper,
Possibly a way to talk about pain,
Possibly roided up with someone else’s words,
Possibly a way to talk about
the pure dream of a girl’s body
Without being  a ***** *****.

Poetry is love in the worst
and most unimaginable ways.
Neil Brooks Mar 2015
What round is this anyway?
Somewhere in my subconscious
I heard the bell ring
signalling a new one.
Now my ears ring.
Equilibrium disoriented
while I search for my footing.
Skinned from glancing blows
and bruised from taking solid punches.

Back when I was a desert hermit
I decided to step back in the ring.
I guess my fight wasn't over
like I thought it was,
like I hoped it was.
I didn't have the heart
to drown myself in whiskey
or pull the trigger.

So here I am again
facing down a capitalist bull dog
and I'm the junkyard dog,
the stray dog,
shaved bare to hide the mange.
My ears got holes in 'em,
my flesh marred.
My eyes are barely there,
but I'm still here,
passing up scraps
going for the bigger meat.

My ribs show,
shoulder blades sharp
as the knife I wear
and cannot bear
to be separated with.
My teeth are discolored,
gums rolled back
like my lips in a snarl,
but they still cut.
I can still land a killing blow
against this raging,
'roided up beast.

I swallow depression,
along with blood
and caffeine.
I close one eye
against double vision,
spit out bile
and charge back in.
I can still win this fight,
can still earn my place.
I'm here to stay,
no matter how many times
you cast me away.
Willy McGee Feb 2015
dude Gray, Carl,
I ran into that meathead y'all fought at that coop a long time ago
He was in front of me at lil' Woodrows watching the Super Bowl
all rooting for the Pats and ******* Soo roided out, Red Beaming Eyes

I took a picture with him at the one yard line right before Marshawn lynch was about to clutch his nuts for the win and the fine from the commissioner

But
Patriots picked it, I walked off to take a **** and deleted the picture staring at the toilet

— The End —