"scrunch" poems
You've crossed my mind many nights.
Sometimes I just lay there, holding you tight in mind.
Wandering your body with my hands.
Filling my fingers with the skin I've dreamt so much about.
The things you keep hidden. unraveled in empty sheets, blankets.
Your warmth becoming the only comforter that dictates whether or not I'll have sweet dreams.
What justifies the stain our breath has left on one another's.
The press of your face against my neck.
The marks left on each other in anticipation. Refusing to pull ourselves away.
Clinging tight to the ****** of being beside ourselves.
Deliberately keeping each other awake in the promise of sleeping wild moments later.
To watch your face scrunch up as it breaks your gasp. Bringing a halt to anticipation,
The comfort of bodies becoming pillows harboring us into a deep sleep. Soft, still.
My head laying on your shoulder.
As we ourselves become lost in the sheets
Jan 18, 2017
Jan 18, 2017 at 11:35 AM UTC
I think it's my eyes.
The glowing hazle stare
blankly piercing through
whatever bubbles you've shielded
yourself with.
Arms crossed means you're defensive,
raised tone towards the end of a sentence
means you're lying
but when your lips scrunch together
you're holding back something.
Maybe it's
my thought process.
One second
I'm talking about polar bears
celebrating birthdays with ******* and hexagrams
when I shift
to a rant about my self empowerment
through meditation and how astral travel
might be real.
Perhaps I'm too comfortable
with myself for you to handle.
I don't give a **** how tangled my hair is
or what weird religious doctrines you follow.
Let's have a conversation,
not an unruly **** measuring contest.
I truly love you,
and all my mild frustration
and slight agitation is radiating
from a place in my heart
that tells me I want you to succeed the most.
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 6:21 PM UTC
Ouch. There's a tug somewhere deep in my gut.
Ooh, a pinch almost.
I hunch over, placing one one hand on my stomach.
Squint my eyes and scrunch my nose.
"You okay, ***
"Yeah, ma. Can I just try on these jeans and get home? My tummy hurts."
"You feel like you're gonna puke?"
"No, just a little crampy."
The discomfort continues.
I grab the Levi's. Size 12/14.
Shuffle into the dressing room.
"Uh, mom . . . ?"
"Yeah? Are they too big?"
"Uh, no . . . " Then, in hushed tones. "Can you come here?"
"What?"
"Uh . . . I think maybe. I uh, got my period."
Silence. Anticipation. Waiting for the happy mom, excited squeal, and Welcome-to-Womanhood! hug. A My-Little-Girl's-Growing-Up smile at the very least.
Instead, with a straight face, "Oh, well, we'll have to take care of that. Did the jeans work out?"
Oct 13, 2010
Oct 13, 2010 at 7:53 PM UTC
I remember mornings at your house,
sunshine pouring over me through the floral drapes,
forcing me to scrunch my to return to darkness.
Then, the sweet smells hit my nose
and my eyes were wide open.
Sizzling, frying, and your humming hit my ears.
I pulled myself out of bed
that I had so carefully been tucked in to,
and I made my way into the kitchen.
There you stood, with such poise,
Moving with sixty-five years of grace
through steam and grease.
You swayed around the stove,
Danced from *** to pan,
armed with a fork in your left hand
and a spatula in your right.
You turned and saw me there, in the doorway,
both of us smiling.
We shared our good mornings
and you poured a tall glass of milk
for me.
I sat, waiting, watching
you spin around the kitchen,
stirring, scrambling, flipping,
with such purpose that the sweat
on your forehead went unnoticed.
You filled my plate with pancakes, eggs, and bacon;
golden brown, scrambled, and crispy,
the way I like it.
You didn’t eat.
Only sipped your coffee and smiled.
Now, here I’m standing,
fumbling, burning and cursing,
Preparing bacon and eggs
over my cheap electric stove,
and I’m barely beginning to understand
the reasons your breakfast tasted so good.
Dec 3, 2011
Dec 3, 2011 at 4:06 AM UTC
Scrunch each of those toes...
feel every minuscule grain of sand.
The warm, salty wind blows;
time whips through each hand.
The sun will keep count…
leave another freckled kiss.
For each trial to surmount,
there will be a taste of bliss.
So let that long hair down.
Close those hope filled, heavy eyes.
Waves crash…retreat; hear each sound.
Let only the imagination comprise.
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 1:30 AM UTC
abused aromas
fuse the dwelling
throats slacken and tighten
good cooking can make a home
a rooted clut of tallow
home
sweaty home
ignite another cigarette
scrape a fingernail on the sofa
a white grippy trail
scrunch your toes in the deep greasy carpet
and salivate on the wender of smoke
from the cooking of the roast
Dec 27, 2021
Dec 27, 2021 at 11:38 AM UTC
Friendship
It looks like the beautiful multiple colors of a double rainbow
That emerges from the sky after a rainy day
But it also looks like a huge flame of fire engulfing your body and burning it up
As your skin sizzles and starts to melt away
It smells like the sweet scent of lavender
That calms you like it should
But it also smells like nasty, spoiled, rotten eggs
That no one wants to go near
It feels like you are bonded by an imaginary leash
That can never be broken
But it also feels like you are getting stabbed with a knife
Over and over again and the pain won’t stop
It taste like sugar sweetness
That can never be bad and makes your heart sing
But it also tastes like the bitter sourness
Of a lemon that makes you scrunch your face in disgust
It sounds like a sweet little bird
Chirping on a warm sunny day
But it also sounds like the angry roar of a fierce lion
That is loud as thunder and shakes the ground
Friendship it goes one of two ways
It’s good or bad, happy or sad
It is friendship
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 6:30 PM UTC
Sun-dried moss
hangs in clumps
from the eaves trough.
Morning dew glittering
in the dawn.
The floorboards,
covered in peeling
gray-blue paint,
crackle and creak
beneath my bare feet.
My joints feel rusted,
and my eyes don’t see
as far as they did before.
Before all that happened
happened.
My hand on the doorframe
is alien to me.
But it moves when I ask,
so it will have to do.
I stagger through
the warm porch,
where a soft,
sweet-smelling breeze
drifts in through
torn metal screens
and cracks in the
rickety door.
I open it as quietly
as I can.
There is only me here,
but I like the quiet.
Three wooden steps
down to a gravel drive
that passes side to side
out front.
Bare feet,
too well-worn to
feel the stones,
tip-toe across
to the rough,
brown-green grass.
My feet are wet
now, and
when they find
the sand just beyond
the patch of grass,
it clings.
I scrunch up my toes,
digging, until I find
the cool, dry
layer below.
The lake is clear,
and the soft rustle
through the pine trees
along the shore
reminds me again of years
gone by.
Sticky fingers,
covered in sap,
pine needles sticking
between my toes,
and scrapes on my shins
that hurt back then,
but sing sweetly in my memory.
I sit on the little beach
between the trees,
crossing my legs,
and plunge my hands
beneath the sand.
Peace.
And what a joy,
to be here
and feel it
in the coarse sand,
the cool caress of morning breeze,
and the utter
silence of the still lake.
Have I come so far,
to wish for so little?
Have I lost something
along my way?
The anger has faded,
and in its place
sits a quiet resolve.
The games they play,
I’ve long since lost,
but finding myself here,
I wonder if I’ve not
come out ahead.
The water calls to me.
I may visit her soon,
once I’ve had my fill
of sand.
The wind grows bolder,
and the pines whistle.
A loon calls out,
somewhere unseen.
I wonder if today I’ll
climb that same tree
from so long ago.
Wonder if it has held
its form better than I,
and which may break
a limb first.
I smile,
because I know
it’s foolish,
and the beach is so
soft beneath me.
Warm and yielding.
But oh,
the sweet,
stinging memories.
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 8:10 PM UTC
I can tell by the scrunch in my sisters nose when she sees a gay couple that I will never come out
It’s not a comment, it’s not even audible
But I can see the distaste on her face
I can tell by the way she clings to her bible on a Sunday morning that I will never share my true self
She clutches it like a security blanket, trying to protect herself from the sin in the world
Where I see love she sees a blanket of immorality wrapping them up and taking away the good
I know how she feels when she sees sin in others
But how would she feel if she knew the sin was inside of me
Jun 5, 2016
Jun 5, 2016 at 10:52 AM UTC
Lipstick stains all over your mouth mixed with drawn blood as your tongue crashed violently around my insides
As you traveled
you left behind your mark as if I were something to be discovered
Some the size of Ireland
Others the size of Australia
When the sunlight reflects on our window, I am reminded that it is my time to be vulnerable
Rubbing orange peels on my aching body as if there were a bad spirit that needed to be warded off
Your nose would scrunch up,
but even still your amber eyes seemed ready to sap away my soul
Leaving behind a husk of a body
My straw hair falling off each limb
just like the leaves gathered on the forest floor
I longed to crush them under my sole
The marks on my body seem to have started to absorb the yellow from your eyes
I can’t seem to get rid of you
The avocado toast in the mornings only seem to fill me up temporarily before they are all expelled
Oh how quickly avocados turn ugly!
My nostrils are filling with an emptiness that is cold and engulfing
My head is a boat
I will sail away even if I’m tattered
The raging storm lurks behind me and threatens to end us both
But I know behind those dark clouds
there will be an array of colors
waiting for my happy ending to be painted
(m.p)
Aug 17, 2022
Aug 17, 2022 at 1:53 AM UTC
Do you scrape it
or roll it
pick it
or mold it
when picking at guck?
Do you fold it
or scrunch it
Tear it
or bunch it
when wiping that muck?
Do you flip it
or flop it
hold it or drop it
when dealing with yuck?
Mar 21, 2022
Mar 21, 2022 at 10:01 PM UTC
I watched my father scrunch his eyebrows together
whenever my mother said something he didn't like,
his impatience seeping through his dark skin,
apparent in the way he turned his body away
as if he wanted to run from all this
but he's trapped now, trapped forever.
I listened as my mother told me she did not want to stay
and my brother and I are the only things anchoring her unto this godforsaken house
of peeling white paint and crumbling walls and endless shouts and burning words.
I watched them hold each other when things got tough
and I knew it wasn't because of love—
it was because they were the nearest things to each other.
At a very young age I knew love was something that dissolves,
a flower you water everyday,
a story you never stop writing,
And some people, they don't know,
that they have stopped watering,
and they're running out of ink, only on page 3.
Little girl me knew.
Big girl me continues to watch it unfold,
dead petals in their hair
and dark ink between their fingers—
dry
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 6:34 AM UTC
it hurts me when people could describe you easily with one word
while i stuck when it comes to you and to me you worth a lot more than a single word
it saddens me when people thought they knew you better than i do
when i know exactly how your eye fades and your nose scrunch when you smile
it angers me when you are wasting your time with the one that only look at your flaws
because i am here accepting your flaw as something that make you beautiful
it put me to torment seeing the shine in your eyes vanished
as people betrayed you and throw their hatred toward you
it just put me through pain when i know you are better off without me
because you deserve someone much better than the ****** up me
so as i watch from a distance i hoped for your happiness
as you would find someone who can wash all your pain away
Feb 2, 2014
Feb 2, 2014 at 11:55 AM UTC
Our wilier webs
woven with the distractions of self-absorption
can come to feel
cheated if we use them
only for halfhearted games of catch
and eventual release.
He’d overlooked that part.
Then there was an obligation to prey
who so willingly strayed upon the taffy
pull of his sweet and sticky strands.
The scrunch up of their wee faces
squeaked, “We deserve
to have our glued-down expectations
met with a most gruesome expertise.”
He’d just wanted to watch them
struggle a smidge,
at first.
It was a test if this muscle the scribes
ascribe as rightly plagued by pangs
was in him
perhaps despicably defective.
With each tripper-by trapped
the examinations grew
more tortuously complex,
and when none raised even
the slightest murmur of a palpitation,
he gave the web its dripped-dry due,
at last.
“The murderous truth will out,”
they say. It did, monstrously.
Now his bound but gagless masques
are always well-attended.
Sep 29, 2010
Sep 29, 2010 at 7:40 AM UTC
You are so incredibly, imperfectly, beautiful that it amazes me to how oblivious you are to it.
Maybe its the way your eyes light up when you talk about what you love. I know that look, its the look of a kid on Christmas Day.
Or maybe its your lips. Like rose petals they pin themselves back, showing your teeth. As you scrunch up your nose, you give that whole hearted laugh. I'm not sure if your laughing at me, or at the moment. I guess I don't really care, I'll take what I can get.
And I've seen you at your worst. I've tried catching you. But my big eyes are not a substitute for my small hands. So maybe I'll just fall with you instead. Besides, isn't the view so much more beautiful form where you can see the whole sunset. Though you say you haven't seen the sunset in while. But, you see it everyday in the mirror. Everyday, the purples and reds and oranges reflect onto the world off your eyes.
Your eyes are funny like that. You wear that mask like its your job, but your eyes never stop telling the truth. You can't fool me, not even with the mask. I know your lies. And then there is your hands. Like velcro they seem to want to interlock with mine.
You have big hands. They can catch. Which is good. I'm terribly clumsy. I'm good at falling.
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 9:31 PM UTC
(The sun is somewhat dimmed, as though I'm looking through a film.)
Losing myself in the crinkles of your eyes
As you smile carelessly into the camera
I remember
The way you scrunch your nose a little
The way your lips remind me of cherry blossoms
(It's a little cold here. The temperature is falling.)
Even as I lay in bed shivering and battling my fever
I remember the nights you wished you were here
The nights you work as a bartender, carelessly picking up girls over the counter
Do you serve them all poisoned holy grails?
(A hollow whirring. That's the sound I hear when my ears are blocked.)
Your favorite song plays in the background
I remember
When you said my voice was soothing
When you said I meant something
Ed Sheeran probably didn't mean it
But now I cringe with every note of his
(The brightness before me is blurring. Are those my tears or is it just the water?)
It was beautiful, really
But pink sakura petals do not bloom in this region
Even the colour pink is distressing to me
Since we matched in winter through spring
(You nicked my heartstrings. How do I mend it?)
I find you in all the little things
Cigarettes, temples, business trips, huskies,
Harry Potter, Radler, Netherlands, salmon,
Macaroons, banana man, an 18 grand television
Round and round, the second hand runs on the face
The sun goes down and down, signing off the days
Round and round, you're running in my head
I go down and down till I reach the seabed
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 8:05 AM UTC
Rest easy, read these heavy words of slumber,
tap your chest to the beat of your heart,
empty out breath even from the deepest parts
the void, will fill itself, with sleep, I hope for your sake.
Scrunch those toes to close, then let them relax and let go,
Half close those toes and let them loose, shake them once and again,
Tense those calves, feet pointed at the ceiling, if you are willing,
Go half way and shake the tension away, from you,
Quads and hamstrings, next remember in pretext, full and halfway,
shake the tension away,,
gluteus maximus
then abdominals
and lower back
and in their turn
chest, those pecs to reflex and relax
latissimus dorsi, my oh my you got your back
shoulders,
hands of fingers, just like the toes,
pretty soon you might doze,
forearms, biceps and triceps too,
neck and face shrug and scrunch,
you don't have the answer,
so pucker your face,
eyes are the last close them once,
eyes are the last close them half,
eyes are the last,
I hope you never read this far,
unless you are awake, after a
night of rest fullness, so if it does
not work, know this, I will sit by
your side so you can unwind,
I have a good year for listening,
on pillow soft words, for you to put
your sleepy heavy head.
Good...night...yawn
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 12:34 AM UTC
Like you were a first trip to NYC,
or a perfect view of the cosmos
from that clearing on Sylvan Avenue,
I was agape and fawning while you sauntered
out from your double doors, to the end of your driveway,
to where I rocked on my heels eagerly
on Allen Dr. at 6:23
Come 7:15, we bedecked your body
with stripped and frayed Armani
in tribute to the Walkers we've seen;
cool-white fluorescence drew emphasis
on the harmony between your ivory simper
and each cobalt marble that rolled
and flicked beneath your tuckered eyelids
by some sort of beatnik artistry.
Frankly, my chest swelled with fever
when I noted the scrunch of your nose
askance to liquid-latex applications,
or the way black cherry sap wept
from the corners of your mouth
while dislodging the blood-capsule
in-between your molars
and your stately, hollow cheek at 7:50
And I noticed around 8:00,
when I had slowed you to a halt
near the crosswalk on Montauk
between Coastal and Le Soir
to fix the scar-tissue on your chin,
that if I ever knew there to be one,
you made a most stunning zombie
with my Tom & Jerry cap lining your scalp;
Which made the stain left by the makeup
worth the trade of my hat
in exchange for your company,
as we picked up a twelve-pack
at the 7-11 just down the street
before we returned to the party.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 8:05 PM UTC
There is a never ending breed of bracteria livig in my bones
It
almost chews with the full intent of biting off but not quite, holds back just enough to leave me hanging
my joints, nooses of collateral damage,
they
almost wiggle like worms but burn with less intensity than pain.
There is a never ending wall of inter knotted muscle within my back
I call these things frustration
although alot of the time they feel like fury
make my neck ache like guilts burden.
I have ground my teeth to tiny sizable pellets and
picked at my charred white skin,
until there is no more youth in this body
all you will see is five foot seven of sallow eyes
pale faced
bloated frustration
corpse-like
if corpses smiled.
Untill my teeth are yellowed from coffee and cigarettes and the laugh lines around my mouth taunt me like the scars on my upper arm (if you are scarred just as painfully by laughter as a knife what is the point of it all)
12 inches of stitched back frustration that reads:
you cannot undo
what was done
stitches I want i want to rip out in the company of polite
normal people and
smile at their disgusted faces
have you ever as a child
been so unhappy by what you put down on paper
you would scrunch the whole thing up after crossing it out in the thickest black marker
throw it in the bin and start over?
This is what living feels like
I am just a canvas
I can almost remember what it was like to laugh
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 8:46 PM UTC
The spidered light of a September night,
shallow and sparsely flung about the room,
reminisces the sound of a phoenix in flight,
while webs inside the rafters loom.
The phoenix song is like the pallid glow of a chandelier.
Waning, yet resilient,
it coos in mystic merriment
melodies in the key of a rattling nearby mirror.
Every so often the song completely stops,
filling me with a silent bit of despair.
Commonly this follows loud scores of pops
indicating the cycle residing in the flare:
into ashes the song bird bursts again.
It's Rudolphish nose begins to scrunch up ---
I see it even now as I fill my water-cup ---
a sort of reincarnation acumen.
But the bird isn't really real or here;
it's more of a half-truth or memory,
similar to tales of the origins of tea.
It sways, forgetful on my cerebral pier,
nearly falling into the waves of my brain,
dipping it's feather mid-refrain,
repeating it's song again and again,
and again.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 2:18 AM UTC
snow is falling
silently waiting
for the scrunch of a story
then watching indifferently
as a fox disappears
down an alley
May 29, 2015
May 29, 2015 at 8:20 AM UTC
My jet-lagged self sleeps early,
wakes early, sleeps again, reads.
Having watched one movie too many over summer
I relish the sounds designed above- a click
of a door handle, bare warm socks gliding
across wooden floor, the scrunch of toothbrush
against the rusting metal straightening yellowing teeth,
the few lone cars across the street, that hazy
early sound that only light can make as it
becomes aware of itself in my dorm room. What
kind of camera lens would make this moment more
livable and is it already dead?
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 4:39 PM UTC
as your brows scrunch slightly
your lips pucker forward a little
but not quite enough to say "kiss me,"
and i'm nervous anyway, so it's better off that way.
why do you look away every time i try to look in your eyes?
you're laughing when i'm not sure what's funny
i'm intimidated. you're very intimidating.
there's no way this is a coincidence
you're sick.
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 5:12 PM UTC
I want you to
pick something.
It can be anything:
integrity,
last Thursday,
your grandmother's
socks.
I don't care what it is
but I want you to
pick that something
out of all the
other somethings
and I want you to
believe in it,
I want you to
scrunch your eyes
up tight and
slow your breathing and
put all your energy
into that singular
belief.
And while you are
busy believing in that
something
I will believe
in you.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 4:43 PM UTC