"scab" poems
My body is the makeup of both hard and softness
The reds, browns, golds...
The light and darkness of all my ancestors.
Some men have lost themselves here,
Some men have found themselves here
Most women stand stronger next to this.
I am both war grounds and silent cities.
I am both girl trying not to drown in all this sadness, all this loss...
And woman trying not to drown in all this sadness, all this loss.
I am your blonde roast that starts a riot in you first thing in the morning
And your dark roast that goes down smooth, leaving you to want for a little more...
I am both the scab healing over bruised skin
And the area surrounding it.
I am both strong legs and soft lips
...Brown skin deep enough to hide flaws still.
I am the softness in light...
And the softness of honey, but still thick enough to swim in.
I am the hardness of knees on ground, praying to the man or woman who has made me both hard and soft.
I am the woman who cannot forget enough to truly forgive,
But human enough to help you if the light goes out.
I am consistent no's and the yes that matters,
I am shattered glass and spilled milk.
This skin mirrors both the earth and everything you give the universe on a new moon .
I am both woman dancing in nothing, but a skirt to the rhythm of the ocean ...
And the ocean kissing the shore wishing to be as free as that woman.
Sometimes this mouth...
Sometimes my words bite,
Creating harsh weather,
But I am tired of making storms of people, storms of my relations.
I am both soft belly and strong back.
Something you can count on,
A woman you can be sure of.
You can bet on me,
You can stand near me,
You can fall in my presence.
...You can be both hard and soft with me.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 7:59 PM UTC
I despise social media.
It's ugly, to state the obvious
Our lives are posted, retweeted, altered, reblogged, perfected, and photoshopped to exactly how we want to be perceived
We have the freedom to be exactly what they want us to be.
It starts with a few edits doesn't it,
pigmented our skin to seem smooth and sun kissed,
that would seem most acceptable right?
Maybe an extra like for the skinnier waist.
More reassurance for brighter colors.
Some more filters will hid the emptiness you feel with your friends
Another like
Flashier clothing, phones, shoes, cars, other simple words our eyes have latched on to
Another like
We urge ourselves to portray the life of leisure and effortless beauty, happiness, success,
Another like
But what are we enjoying?
Another like
Views of our changing world through a 3 by 8 view.
Another like
Events pass by swipe
Another like
and swipe
Another like
And when we managed to unlock ourselves from this grasp
We always come back
Like flies to light, more like scratches to a scab
Festering we find ourselves getting ****** back in
To an imaginary world, that if destroyed, would have no physical effects on their fictional beings
For without this world, maybe eyes will open
We will step past the boundaries,
and start to love our beings
unfiltered
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 4:40 PM UTC
I sometimes fear the younger generation will be deprived
of the pleasures of hoeing;
there is no knowing
how many souls have been formed by this simple exercise.
The dry earth like a great scab breaks, revealing
moist-dark loam--
the pea-root's home,
a fertile wound perpetually healing.
How neatly the green weeds go under!
The blade chops the earth new.
Ignorant the wise boy who
has never rendered thus the world fecunder.
8.6k
Your cold hand against mine
we are frozen in time
with your breastbone against my body
and the darkness all around me
All I want is to call you my own
all day that's what I moan
but you've passed away today
there's no other way
to hear you say "I Love You"
or for us to gently woo
the other one to marriage
where the ledge stood
that you jumped off of
to the ground below and above
the birds sang as the sound
of crunching bones against the ground
shatter the silence with a scream
maybe I'm just in a dream....
But then I awake with an empty bed
beside my body and my head
I reach across and look for you to grab
my hand where my ugly, horrendous scab
from when I tried to **** myself
lives within the hidden shelves
of my lost mind.
Oh, lover, where have you gone?
I sing a sorrowful song after song
hoping that will bring you back
but instead your body is cracked
and will never house another soul
your body is just a black hole
within my memories of us
you're now a once was
after your suicide
I've never been the same. a part of me died.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 8:05 PM UTC
I miss you
Like a toothache
Needing extracting.
To think I once loved you
Who filled a cavity.
I miss you
Like a broken leg.
Now cast off,
I rise and walk.
I miss you
Like a scab,
But the scar
Reminds me
How cruel a cut
You are.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 10:11 AM UTC
Yes, your actions wound me
But I will not command you to do a thing
Love is a choice
And within that choice is more decision
Because love does not command of another
It prefers blind hope
Blind hope, which fails every so often
But I choose to love you through my aching
The pain you inflict is only temporary
My hurt feelings will scab over
Love is choice, after choice, after choice
And patience – a whole lot of patience
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 1:42 AM UTC
It's unfortunate to say
that I've always done my best work
when my skin was the canvas
and when the drawings would scab over
and slowly
ever
so
slowly
fade into permanent marks.
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 2:45 AM UTC
a bottle of scotch had bad dreams.
bullets twitch, junk sick
in 3 inch thick
mustard ****
toe nails clipped from yeti
lay strewn about the **** stained corpse
of a motel six dixie cup -
root canal trophy,
next to
a black fez
with scab tassel
upended.
down in it. belching apnea
propaganda
and belladonna
waiting for curious george
to find a shotgun
and a yellow
hat
and a brick banana.
blowflies inhale the rank damp
of a fresh ****
the odd dog whines
like a clown in -
a blender.
[ the ]
house wins
with a marked card; jabbing fat fingers
into acned rosacea
bloated with sleep lack
and mortgage
back stab
chasing twenty ******
with a hollow point
pull from an acid
flask
while hailing a black cab.
tinsel sutures
stitch eyelids as a mercy
shattered bone knit
hand-grenade
cozies
old glory, at half mast
half wasted
fifty stars, no light
dragging on
the grounds of immunity
to do a line
of coke stock
with a basset hounds'
finesse.
your taxes at work
in columbia,
hiding from a lost farm
in Idaho
your american dream
turning tricks in shanghai
for a counterfeit
egga roll
your meme, devoid
like an ice cube
tombstone
your freedom, parking cars
for italian escorts
smoking skin flutes
for ferraris
and white teeth.
your integrity, sold to a hedge fund
for astroglide and a pez dispenser
packed with prozac
pressed by ' Jose the butcher' s abuela
in a narco slum
that ain't seen radio
since cinder blocks
had wings.
Dec 26, 2012
Dec 26, 2012 at 2:40 PM UTC
You've come so unexpected,
Slipping through the cracks of my heart
and finding your own place in it.
Finding space in the emptiness
and filling it with your own form of love.
But it hurts.
You're the scab to my healing heart that I want to pick.
Refresh the wound that's now become so self inflicted
and continue the cycle of love and loss.
I don't want it to be scarred.
I just want to remain wounded.
But my heart feels your presence.
You've become a long awaited antidote to this emptiness
and I can't get you out.
Slowly,
I'm healing.
But forces will try to tear us apart.
Our Love will be seen not as a work of art
but crafted by the devil.
A spell cast over our eyes
blinding us from the truth that is God.
We will look misguided and lost,
but not all who wander are.
It's the devil who wants to take us away from love.
Remember that.
It's the devil who doesn't want happiness.
You make me feel love.
You make me happy.
You make me want to go to church and be with God.
How could the thing that's supposed to take me away from him
make me want to grow closer?
But it's not you who takes me away.
It's them.
It's the very people who want me most to find God
that push me away from him.
They are my devil.
They throw scripture in our face to tell us we are ******
They cut us with verses to enforce what they believe to be is true.
But they are not alone.
Remember, the devil knows and uses scripture too.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 2:18 AM UTC
Speak loud
then keep quiet
be humbly proud
at the peaceful riot
shoot to live
then sadly play
selfishly give
then haughtily stay
you're boringly fun
and anxiously still
not ready but done
as you bandage you ****
so strangely normal
and terribly good
just dirt poor formal
on plastic wood
so mic your meal
then call a cab
pop a pill
conceal the scab
your heels are old
your dress is new
your eyes are cold
your friends are few
you've seen it all
but know it's true
you've raised a wall
so they can't see you
for what it's worth
you're not to blame
to death from birth
it's life's false claim
©2012 Lyn
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 6:56 PM UTC
The skin is dry
The pull
The tug
The tear
The skin is dead
It sticks
It bleeds
It shrivels
The white teeth stained
With the blood and the pain
As the pink lips scab,
The skin pulled back
Blood drips
Tongue licks
Teeth rip
Mar 7, 2016
Mar 7, 2016 at 9:48 PM UTC
The rustic sheet of a door screams as we pull it like a scab
We step inside this warehouse can
Two floors - we're holding hands
His eyes lit like a crescent Moon - excited, he yells "daaad!"
Our head, like swaying swing
We see it all, tongue in cheek
Like controls without the freak
It's so much fun it stings
An asymmetric wasteland
Convenient and distorted
The walls - bleak and boarded
A symbolic sleight of hand
This is where we feel
My father's on the catwalk
Like paranoia paraphernalia
My son's grip tightens, it's the only thing that's real
Absolute felicity
To realize what I have in the confines of my hand
Imperfection in the making - he doesn't understand
Skylarking permissably
A reverie to remember
His smile - sifting through his eyes
Warm, he maneuvers like the flies
He was born in December
Moving closer to my father
He's amidst the in-between
Consistently foreseen
His motion is no bother
He steps along the ply
Somehow keen in his demeanor
Four-years-old, but greener
Tossed and turning - it's the gleaner
The sheet has been disturbed
He's falling to his death
I'm blanketed in sweat
This cannot be deserved
My father's eyes - they match my own
I tear through the distance
Foreseeing and consistent
My father is a witness
The fear - he's fighting falling
We've never known it more
His tiny hands just wishing there were nails
Collective - we're losing all things
I grasp a finger as he falls but not enough to bring him back
My son approaches pavement as it fills my throat the same
I look him in the eyes as they melt away in pain
My body wakes without my mind - hysterically screaming "DAAAD!"
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 3:00 AM UTC
I have a wound that only trust will heal,
a scab encrusted on my bleeding soul.
Your eyes will tell me how much to reveal.
At first, the pain was much too great to feel;
the void within a black and gaping hole.
I have a wound that only trust will heal.
I learned the need to cover and conceal -
to curse the hurt and go on with my role.
Your eyes will tell me how much to reveal.
Love's embrace a temporary seal,
the depths too raw for topical control;
I have a wound that only trust will heal.
Another saw it, said it was not real
and did not want to see I was not whole;
your eyes will tell me how much to reveal.
Debride the edges gently, I appeal;
a healing touch will help the stitches hold.
I have a wound that only trust will heal;
your eyes will tell me how much to reveal.
Jan 9, 2011
Jan 9, 2011 at 7:17 AM UTC
My Lucifer, unwitting Muse, dog-eared Vonnegut,
afrobeatnik third eye, howls escaping
from your headphones, wailing about secrets, about infidelity,
about analyzing life until there ain’t nothin’
left. Then you shuffle by in your black and white Adidas,
hair in twists, wearing the striped sweater
of nihilistic intent, quoting the rants of Holden Caulfield
in your blog like you never didn’t know him.
I never asked to know you, to want who I can’t have
when I can’t even love myself. And every fiber
Of my being yearns for reciprocation. What is there
to return? What is there to feel, you meditate on truth,
fallen angel in the parlor of rebellion, blasphemous goodbye,
bright and morning star simpering like crickets in the palms
of daybreak. Your musicality radiates from subway chatter
and overheard profanity down El Camino Real.
I take in your ballad at my post office mailbox,
in the abandoned echoes of daydream monologues.
You’re a philosopher, exploring theory of mind, a cartographer,
mapping the labyrinth of your deepest desires.
Tell me again about desires, demonstrations of divine sadism. Tell me
about human empathy, the animated faces of wordless expression,
the metaphysics of free will, my beginning and my end,
alpha and omega, my fortress in the land of chic.
Blasphemous hustler, let your idealism simmer, your wit, your mojo,
I come to you an amateur, a neophyte, a lowly scab
in the strike against ignorance. Give me my melody, my song,
my one-hit-wonder of all that is cliché and unknown.
But I can’t be the other woman, your girlfriend, your aspiring
Playboy bunny only 10-bucks-a-throw. Your highness-who-yells-
his-ideas-into-the-ears-of-echoes, your every quirk spellbinds me.
Each day I wake to your entourage vibrato.
I am held captive by your brooding stare, empress of liberal
doves. You visit in my dreams when the sky is a force of darkness
viewing light through peepholes, your flaws an aphrodisiac, a love drug,
a fast hit in the basement from the ecstasy of words.
Aug 1, 2012
Aug 1, 2012 at 5:37 AM UTC
*** a couple times with your hand that
has one vein popped up over the knuckle. sheets crinkle
laundry sits in the small humid room.
smells like roadkill and peppermint,
like christmas eve with dinner down the toilet.
you've *** four times in an hour,
rubbing at yourself through your underwear.
don't touch skin. it's off limits today.
getting raw means you can feel
how it stings when you cross your legs.
it's not about pleasure. it's the reminder:
you want to know what you look like,
what you feel like.
next time you're ******* down some boy you ask him
"how does that feel?" he says "good."
quick kiss, his ****** is archaic and copper.
you like how it tastes. now it's your turn:
but of course he won't make you *** unless
you take your hand and rub while he *****
your hand a barrier between his body and yours.
"please be quiet," you say out loud
the boy furrows his eyebrows, "i didn't say anything."
you laugh, "no, my stomach."
pretend to *** for a faster exit.
give him a tiny maternal kiss.
let it linger out the room where it's cold but he's still warm.
you don't want a warmth you have to love because it's too much.
the scab on your neck is now a scar
and you have no make-up for the ones on your forearms, but
really, most of you by now is star dust and tobacco leaves.
the sun is in our eyes. i want to know
what makes a circle go on forever.
i think about ****** a lot.
dreamt two nights ago chris sold me some,
it was in that tiny wax bag with a "king ****** stamp .
when i texted him the next day said "i dreamt
we did some together," he said
"that's funny. i've been doing some definitely
but not really selling."
the Chicago cold does something odd enough to you.
it always seemed like you were alive as a kid. well,
were you?
where is your body? out in the storm.
are you a ghost? no, it would be nice though:
the lack of responsibility of life,
a state of impermanence.
it would be nice.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
How distasteful you are,
With your sundry splotches
and jarring imperfections.
Oh, you taunt me so!
Whether your anathemas
are reflected through the mirror or my own eyes.
Oh horrible, hateful, heinous thing!
I cannot bear to stare any longer.
How sickly your color is--
A pallid yellow, like one giant bruise
That has budded and blossomed
In some unnaturally grotesque fashion.
My blood boils, my pulse races
And I raise my weapons to fight--
Two talons--claws honed to perfection.
Be gone, you wretched scab!
And so I tear, scratching furiously,
Until no more of you is left.
The blood is stuck beneath my fingertips,
Or what is left of them.
My sinews tremble, ****** and bare,
As the last of my wallpaper
Is ripped from my bones.
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 7:04 PM UTC
October 3, 2013 at 1:22am
So maybe I still miss you,
but apathy is the way I want to feel towards you;
*I want the ache in my chest to diminish,
to be completely extinguished in a quick fleeting moment.*
But it’s more like erosion,
only washing away the most miniscule amount at a time.
Decreasing the pain in the tiniest of amounts,
taking decades and centuries of
wind,
light,
and rain
to morph it into what I desire it to be,
without any distinguished timeline.
Just natural causes that move uncontrollably along,
constantly irritating,
festering,
and ripping
the scab of the wound in awkward moments of solitude.
I’m a slave to the tormenting low burning throb.
Jan 3, 2014
Jan 3, 2014 at 1:12 AM UTC
From deep under the surface
Something stirs
The people of this city
Experienced a tragedy
A horror so traumatizing
The city walls and store blocks
Are scarred, both inside and out
Bullet holes and burnt buildings
Cemeteries filled with graves
Tombs of those who died
When the wrath rushed through
But still it lives on,
The city filled with natives and tourists alike
People sell, people buy
People remember but still people die
It is now a historic monument
But slowly the city repairs
Revealing only a faint scab
Fixed by reality
People say they will always remember
But how long 'til the scab is gone?
Lost, inside the flesh
Apr 13, 2012
Apr 13, 2012 at 1:40 PM UTC
Forgive me father for I have sinned, wait what's the part after that? Isn't it go ahead my child? I don't really know because religion has always felt like a relationship I just can't commit to, while others are on their knees begging for forgiveness I was on the white tiles while the only blood of Jesus I saw was my own. Forgive me-wait you see I'm suppose to say forgive me father but it's more like why did you forget me father ? You breathed the life into my mother's stomach and then like hoodini disappeared only to reappear when the sting from the cut had started to scab you ripped it off like the bandaid I had to leave on for so long because as a child all I wanted to do was heal. Honor thy mother and...thy father? Is that really the thing to do after barricading yourself into my arteries with the knife you chased mom with. Forgive me father I don't know what I've done but somehow being born was the sin that condemned me from ever feeling your love as a soft emotion but of something I must always beg for. Forgive me father I cannot seem to see things straight and for that you will surely disown me as if you owned me when you put your DNA into the mixing bowl to recreate your mistake that you so proudly claim on taxes. Forgive me father for I have sinned I wrote another poem again thinking someone would care to hear my voice, but they shot it down like the deer I am. Now I lay me down to sleep I pray--- who has my soul because they told me I lost it when I kissed her when I tied myself down and told them how to pronounce my name. Forgive me father for I have sinned? Just by putting on the female body I live in.
Dec 18, 2015
Dec 18, 2015 at 2:07 AM UTC
i fall and ascend in a sea vantablack
spiral light
fire ghosts and ice
that cut the soul to pieces
like scissors
that split rabbits
industry of a hissing creation
polluted altar of sleeping lakes
and scythe
bludgeon and howitzer
prods of push and pull
in a grindhouse
necropolis of craters
scattering satanic eggs and tumors
i am here born to you thin of bone
mother of catastrophes
on a colossal ball of scab and callous
that moves sonorous dazzling shapes
careening through
ephemera workhorse torches
of doom
you fill me with knots of terror
and desperate dreams of stairway wings
veils and glimmers
resolutions dissolving
petaled apertures of desire
and night whispers
in a spider web of sonic bulls
before undertows gravity
i was vibrant
but then i died into the rock ash of earth
they called it my birthday
my parents with party hats and balloons
blinked fetters
against nights of granite and stone
i got deader still
until i was nothing
but an imagineless gob of mud and breath
an eye looking out
behind red nerve forest fires
and tears shook tambourines
down heavy lashes
cascaded fluttering tassels
i am born to you mother of senile seas
citadel of shattered glass
in a slate cube of cyclones
mute and screaming
my fate deep shock
encased in mausoleums led nautilus
blatting hells jaundiced shriek
Pluto conjunct Saturn
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 1:05 PM UTC
A fluff of feathers
Black and white,
Hide the scrawny scavenger
Whose "Rick, Rick, Rick!"
Identify some place of death,
This careful bandit's visiting.
He leaves outright robbery
To his cousin jay,
And flits,
One disaster to the next,
To see how he may capitalize.
Dead carrion, his usual fodder...
Yet one subzero winter day
I saw a magpie perched
Upon a shivering cow
Belly deep in snow, and
Chilled in minus 30 air,
Peck-scratching through a healing scab
And pulling living flesh away.
Apr 28, 2015
Apr 28, 2015 at 8:19 AM UTC
I find you in the margins of old school books,
in the cupboard where I keep my old notepads,
in the stories I’ve forgotten I’ve written.
It’s all scraps of myself in rounded letters,
uncanny because it looks like me,
sounds like me,
but it’s you and it is you
but it’s like me too.
I’m opening you (and me) back up and I hate you.
I hate you, but here we are,
in the mirror maze,
all these mes and yous
in the endless tunnel of mirrors,
back to back, side to side,
caught in ourselves at every angle.
We’re all the same: We’re all so different.
None of us are good.
I hate you.
I hate you at every age,
*Then reality splays, sprawls flat out in front of me, exams, money, work, decisions, tight nooses that bind me to life. Get your head out of the clouds, girl *(2012)
at every stage,
Big smiles, A stars, clever girl, the anomaly, dry compliments, sand paper against my skin. Locked in, not a word, just a mind gone grey, a growing mass of dust that swallows the light and only allows for glasses poured half empty (2014)
at every moment,
I don’t fit in, never have done, never will. I’m always one step ahead or one step behind. I’m never quite there. But no one understands. They say they do but they don’t. I’m different and I don’t like it but I don’t want to change because this is who I am and whatever happens, I have to put up with it (2012)
all your hatred, you happiness, your ignorance and your sadness
The scab peels and leaks. Too soon to heal, too late to undo the fall. Tomorrow, you’ll trip again and your skin will bleed but this time you’ll know where to find the first aid kit. (2013)
You make me sick.
The world was blue today, a metaphorical wish wash of tears and a meagre ocean. Ice cream dripped in depression, picnic blankets snagged on pebbles and the kite committed suicide on the telephone lines. (2013)
I hate the scraps you’ve left behind
I put bits of you in the bin. I put you out for recycling.
I donate you to charity shops and so you live on and I can’t get rid of you.
There’s no way out of this mirror maze,
no way to avoid the mirrors at angles,
no way for me to escape you or for you to escape me.
There are so many of you and I literally want to beat you all to death.
Oh, I hate you. I hate you.
I don’t think I’ve ever hated anything more than I hate you.
I hate the tone of your words,
I hate your stupid sadness.
I hate your happiness.
I hate your hope.
I hate the memories of your laughter.
I hate the memories of your fun.
I hate you for all the things you’ve done and
never had time to feel bad for.
I hate you in the photographs,
in the words, in the schoolbooks,
in the poems that I’ve shared,
I hate, I hate, I hate.
I wish I could smash up this maze of mirrors and you,
but then I’d only be left with myself
and I hate her too.
Jun 14, 2017
Jun 14, 2017 at 5:14 PM UTC
And there she was
A rough scab on a smooth perfect knee
With a chalky cigarette between bony fingers
Chipped red painted nails
Matching crimson accenting glossy white walls
She knew she was dreaming
Because of the ****** sun in the middle of the room
Chapped lips crack with scarlet, staining teeth
Surgical gloves reaching out from her beating heart
Held in by pale marked skin
Needles pricking gums, calling upon beads of ruby
Incisors and canines fall out one by one
Heavy tongue tastes gory wine
Indifference and apathy sistering one another
Stitches hold right-handed fingers in permanent crosses
Though an opal ring falls through
The shattering crystal lights the room ablaze
Intangible flames lick the ceiling as it rises and the floor sinks
An ever-expanding room flashing over and over in endless continuity
Like a repeating reel of film catching on fire
And then she was gone
Nov 15, 2022
Nov 15, 2022 at 4:12 PM UTC
You left a scab which
Took too long to form,
And my healing heart
Was all dead and worn.
You have no right
To come back and do this,
Checking me off
Like an item on your To-Do list,
What happened to me
Was awful and cruel,
And now "never trust"
Is my number one rule.
So you have no right
To come back and say,
"Oops, I'm sorry
I treated you that way",
For shallow words do
Nothing when spoken,
To a newly healed heart,
Not ready to be broken.
Jan 14, 2017
Jan 14, 2017 at 6:51 PM UTC