Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
jane taylor May 2016
stepping back into the west
chills reverberate up and down my spine
chiseling open obsolescent padlocks
dangling with dust
on ancient treasure chests

pallid colors in the attic release
a blossoming familiarity
faint hints of retrospections float on faded paper
granting me access to roads
where no map is needed

as i peruse the streets
my heart flows coalescing with the vicinity
caressing each detail i transform to fluid
and fuse with the past
through fresh strokes of watercolored memories

recollections flash before my eyes
revealing antiquated stories
though thought forgotten
an etched history endeavors to define me
renewing itself as i turn each corner

i shudder at some remembrances while encompassing others
through synchronicity realization hits
that I am all of it
yet none of it
at the same time

familiar faces paint meaning onto me
no longer do they know me
yet they airbrush vestiges of yesteryear
and coat me with connotations
i allow them to think i am whatever they imagine

i morph into their canvas temporarily
then break free in multi-dimensionality
they don't hear me with a new listening
no longer invested in their projections
once sharp triggers now appear in soft focus

an auspicious mist lies around the edges
of my former life
it is as if i never left
yet traces of the east lie sandpapered in me
a maturation commingles with my former self

flushing out on my skin
tethering newfound emotions
a gentle gratitude for home territory
nestles softly
inward

i listen to the clicks
of my scuffed cowboy boots
on acquainted yet somehow distant sidewalks
the echoes layering multiple impressions
glimmering with the utter beauty of this terrain

as I wander through the majestic rocky mountains
drinking in the quaking aspen's crimson edges
interfacing the evergreens
hushed whispers of autumn loftily rest
juxtaposed neatly against futures waiting to unfurl in the wind

an amalgamation of intimate sights and scents
dance in open wounds
dazzling
homesickness cured
a wholeness returned

as winter's crystal dawn blooms
i realize the depth of my growth
for in leaving here and returning
i cherish the west
my home

©2016 janetaylor
Loewen S Graves Apr 2013
Sometimes it's just a conch shell
I am tired of holding
to my ear.

The birdsong outside my window
fills me more than your affection
ever could. When I say I am in love
with the entire ******* planet,
I mean it is impossible
for me to settle down.

I am not the type to sink
in the river, I want to float
on my back through the bloodstream
of the Earth and let the moon tell me
when it is too dangerous to go
swimming.

I never learned how
to swim. I am far too cautious
when I talk. My body is self-conscious
about letting the chlorine of
a summer pool touch me, fill me
like you used to.

I guess that's why I'm leaving,
love. The open air is a much better lover
than the sea. I would rather burn
inside the marrow of a far-off star
than feel alone at the bottom of the ocean,
only fish to guarantee I'm still alive.

Love is Pluto,
drifting in space searching
for something to hold onto
never knowing it is in orbit
circling something it will
never get to touch.

I wish I'd never touched you.
Never felt the sandpapered scars
that fold inside the creases in
your wrists. Never let you think
I had fallen from heaven, I wish
I'd told you I'm searching
for a way to float on top of clouds
without needing a God to tell me
I'm happy.

Maybe I only loved you
when you were unhappy.
Maybe your shoulder blades
never contained the wings I thought
I could see when the lights were out.

Baby, you were the ink
pouring from Shakespeare's
****** quill. You were the barnacle
in the sand waiting to take in
the blood and screaming disbelief
of a child, you were the whales
beaching themselves in one sorry attempt
to taste the grass.

You were the one
to always keep sinking.
It was your sandpaper
I held under my tongue
hoping it would rasp
long enough for someone
to tell me I was bleeding.

You were always
bleeding, especially when
I was gone. Now,
you breathe smoke
and still tell me it's me
who needs you.
K F Nov 2017
Forget Portland and Austin and Santa Cruz.
Those famously strange places,
where the tourists gawk at local weirdos.
Here is not there.

Here is the place of advice such as:
“When life gives you meatballs put a wig on a dog.”
—True story.

Here is the place where:
“With all good things in life you just have to wipe the bird **** off.”  

The place where steel and marble Confederate ghosts,
watch the wealthy renovate their westward homes along a cobblestone road.

Where paintings are propped to rot up in alleys,
and buzzing twenty-somethings on their way back from a show,
shake it and tilt it and carry it home.
—Gilded frame and all.

This is the place of painted concrete where walls are canvases,
and red bricks pop out of the ground,
the tree roots poking through to trip you.

Here’s where the People’s Beer comes from Milwaukee,
but we replaced the R in ribbon with here,
and sell it by the caseload when it rains and when it’s Tuesday.

Where young people go to find themselves getting lost becoming someone else,
remixing history to not admit naivety,
before they’ve been sandpapered through experience.
        —To a core.

This is an ink-stained but not splattered place.
Where lines are careful, permanent and abundant,
and on Fridays can cost 13 bucks.

Here is the place where people roam like that restaurant rabbit:
listless and nomadic and stuck.

Where there’s a wild streak in its heart that follows the tracks,
and cuts the city in half.

This is the place that Carvers itself out into cultures,
and you can be from the Bottom,
or proud to be a Rat.  

Here is where you night-drive over the bridge,
see the skyline and feel restlessly content.

Here is home.
—For now.
I’d hidden away the mirrors
Packed them up and sent them off,
Taken the shine off the saucepan lids,
Sandpapered the coffee ***,
Everything that reflected I’d
Sand-blast, like the sliding doors,
Even got rid of the polisher
For shining the wooden floors.

It was very like narcolepsy when
She saw her face on a plate,
She’d go in a trance and sit for hours
In a crazy, dreamlike state,
I’d take away the reflection and
She’d sit and weep for hours,
‘You’ve taken away my beauty,’ she
Would say, and take cold showers.

It seemed like a terrible sickness that
She loved her looks so much,
She’d say, ‘If you won’t let me see myself,
I’ll just make do with touch,’
She’d run her fingers over her face
Explore each crease and mound,
And sigh to her satisfaction as
She felt her lips turn down.

I couldn’t get rid of the garden pool
That flowed on in from the brook,
Babbling over the standing stones
From the woods at Nether Hook,
I’d catch her kneeling beside the pool
And staring into its depths,
Smiling at each reflection that
Would ripple with every breath.

‘Beware of the evil Water Sprite,’
I told her more than once,
‘He takes advantage of lovely girls
For he hates to be outdone.
He’ll lure you into a shady pool
With guile, and his tender lies
And hold you down ‘til you surely drown,
You’ll avoid him, if you’re wise.’

She told me then of a vision that
She’d seen, that of a prince,
He’d smiled at her from the water but
She hadn’t seen him since.
‘That’s not a prince but the Water Sprite
And he’s trying to lure you down,
To put your face to the water, but
I’ve told you once, you’ll drown.’

The water was babbling gently on
A sunny day in Spring,
In shades of the weeping myrtles and
The sound of cuckooing,
Miranda was knelt beside the pool
And I saw her head go down,
When claws reached out of the water
Pulled her in, without a sound.

I raced across and I seized her hair
And I pulled her from the pool,
But claws had raked at her pretty face,
She said, ‘I feel a fool!
I should have listened to you, I know
But I thought that just one kiss…’
But he had turned to a monster and
Had bitten her rose red lips.

I put the mirrors all back in place
And I bought new shiny pans,
Polished the floor, you can see your face
But she hides behind her hands,
She never looks in a mirror now
Though her scars are healed and white,
But goes each day to poison the pool
To **** off the Water Sprite.

David Lewis Paget
Joanna Oz Aug 2016
my nostrils spit fire
sandpapered passageway from boiling lungs
cracked and ragged,
bursting rivers to dust bowls
try to keep breathing, dragon woman.

so naive, how I believed collecting miles upon miles of rusted road signs and concrete structures
between
us
would wash your face from my mind
as if I had not already seared your eyes
into the sky of my daydreams
even now, you stare into me

I gnaw bloodstained lips,
scratch fevered fingertips on tweaking knees
and you,
you are rabidly foaming in my memory

how does an addict quit cold turkey
and not remit?
I ***** your name to strangers any chance I get
just to feel it
crawl out my mouth and tumble through my ears
back into the creases of my mind
pupils ****** open, I can hallucinate your breathing in my lungs
bartering oxygen for ghostly touch

werewolf mistress
haggard howling at a new moon
leave me to commune with absence,
to laugh in the face of doom
Grace Jordan Oct 2015
I can feel it wearing on my skin, a deterioration of my bones, sandpaper on my heart, carving holes and smoothness in paces were they don't belong, polishing me into something it isn't. Inside my head I'm screaming but its hard when everyone knows better, everyone is telling me what to do, no one is willing to let me just do things my way, those ways are wrong, always wrong, and I need to stop them or else. Or else what? I'm not even sure I just know its bad and bad is bad and that's something I'm not supposed to be doing.

My body is caving in on itself, but I don't have the time for it, I'm late, so very late, for all the important dates and I can't let the axes fall and the queens to get angry for I can't waste any time with my head chopped off. I have to keep it together. I must keep it together. I have no choice but to keep it together.

I can't lose anything. I've built my mountain of progress and though my heart is being sandpapered into a mess and a circle of conformity and pain, I can't stop I can't breathe if I breathe a breath of my own air they reject it and my new lungs they gave me reject all air that is original. I can't breathe. I can't keep things together. Everything is a broken cacophony of madness and I cannot silence them and they fill my lungs and bleed me of oxygen until my body is panicking and I'm not breathing.

I want to feel better. I want the monsters gone and the fear and the shattered fragments to find their place somewhere safer than the tips of my fingers and the center of my heart. I'm so scared. I'm so tired.

I'm tired of trying and failing and having no time to breathe and when I try to give myself time to breathe I'm not better and things hurt more and everything spiraling down, down, down, and I can't stop it its like my brakes are broken and I'm careening into traffic and I'm trying to save myself but my airbags are broken and my windshield is shattered and my bones are brittle and my seat-belt is choking me and I know that if I don't get the brakes to stop soon I'll be dead but I know if I stop driving I'll hate myself more so I pray to unnamed gods and figments of my imagination to let me live past one more intersection so that I don't have to stop never stop and just keep on going forward.

I don't know if I'll make it, but I can't stand the idea of braking now. I could lose everything I've ever dreamed of, and I can't stand the thought of that.

I'm so tired and everything hurts, but I can't brake now, I can't sleep now. It might **** me but losing everything would **** me too. Stuck between a whirlpool and a seven headed *****, guess I'm picking the ***** and hoping I have enough marbles by the end to make it through.

Please stop being tired.
Joel M Frye Jan 2011
Sandpapered throat and
bleary eyes greet me today;
a code id da hed.
Sally A Bayan Jul 2017
The mountain wind this evening, spreads
its cool fingers on my short hair, like a comb,
brushing strands, away from my face....while
my own fingers are tiptoe-ing, back and forth,
seeking comfort...and freedom,

they're a mix of purple and burgundy
hues and shapes that clash perfectly
they're cold, round, and heavy...
i am weighed down by colorful shackles
my wrist, choked by red, green and gold crystals
the gray of doubt and fears pull my heart lower

"O, please give way,
let my fingers, and my body sway!
let my arcs, loops, and crossing strokes
make their own moves, like frogs must croak
like cats must purr and meow...
leave the rooster alone, let him caw....."

left hand slides them one by one  on the table,
wrist...now bereft of  natural crystal shackles
shortly, this dry spell would turn into a surge
night could offer a ditty or a dirge

free hand, black pen, unicorn paper weight
crisp yellow pad....old lamp, still bright
newly sandpapered desk of pine
all are ready, one busy night...a glass of wine...


Sally

Copyright July 23, 2017
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
...kinda dry tonight,,,playing with strands of agate, sodalite, tiger's eye,
   goldstone, and other semi-precious stones...all cold to the touch...
K May 2018
The swell of waves
or globus sensation  

and the tongue having
gone through utter drought.

Sandpapered throat
had been choked raw

the pulling back of the (Tide.
Tsunami of thoughts

words lost in the chaos and roar
droplets racing down

drought no more?
a little confusion but the want to (Tide.through)
Rick Nov 12
all those doughy-eyed, snot-nosed, putty-cheeked, frog-mouthed, bull-headed, cowardice faces: they were born
without sorrow
until they hand over their lives
to someone they truly don’t know
and they do it with a smile
and a gleam in their eye
and then they get sandpapered down
and polished in something
they did not choose,
their freedoms get capsized and
they don’t know what they’ve done
or why they’ve done it.
they become enraged and frustrated
with themselves
but they do not know where
to project their anger.
they can’t do it at home.
they’re too afraid of what they might
lose: their own self-made agony
so they take it to work with them
or to the supermarket or to the restaurant
and aim at anyone over any little thing.
they can’t do it at home.
those poor deluded fools careening towards
the only elusive dream that matters: happiness.
some of them are regretting decisions,
some of them are stewing on mistakes,
some of them are plotting their escape
all that sacrifice, all that pap
all those easy words
whistling like stream;
“I love you.”
“I miss you.”
“I want you.”
“I need you.”
all of it: for nothing
all those droopy, sullen-glared, turkey-necked, warthog faces everywhere;
laying in cold beds, coddling empty blankets,
****** in sorrow, contemplating the error of their ways,
alone with themselves, alone with each other.
Elisa Cinelli Apr 2021
I picked up your box of matches
their packaging promised deep green forests and toasted marshmallows on sticks
and even though I saw others tied to the stake
and even though I was burned badly in my child’s play
I felt that the long cardboard box with its deep red, sandpapered edge belonged to me
who sandpapered the mirror?
it makes me look smoother
it makes me look slimmer,

give that person a medal.

I too would like a gong, said,
Long John,
who I knew from my days on
the deep blue,

I said,
not a fukin chance.

— The End —