"scrunches" poems
Platonic Love Song
The wind in our hair as our lungs work
Screaming out the lyrics to a teenage summer
As we drive free, racing, to the waves and mountains
Lights in our eyes and hands over hearts
Youthful yearning fills us, as we get caught chasing the sky
Her laughter fills my soul and she begins to dance
While she wraps her arms around me, safe
A fire blazes, but our smiles are what light up the night
We make the stars jealous,
They beg for half of our shine
Embers and vapour fill the air,
Hands trading drinks and smoke and care
Music floats and lyrics sink in
Lips trading stories and laughter and kisses
Engines start, stop, jump, and rumble
Her eyes gleam and shift, catching attention
Hypnotising and beautiful,
They draw us in, keep us safe, and we ask to stay.
Let yourself love your friends. Let yourself stay with them.
She pumps music into our lives, her voice loud
We dance to the wild tempo of our heartbeats
Crass and catching, her voice settles in us
Let people in, even when it’s hard. Let yourself love them.
She scrunches her face up and tosses in jokes,
Making us smile at any price,
She helps us laugh the pain away.
Let people love you back.
I know it can be hard but...
She covers her smile with a hand,
Else she’d blind us, but we’d be alright,
If that could be the last thing we see
If you aren’t in love with your friends, where is your absolution?
She swings her hips and we get lost in her lips,
The gold on her skin, the brown in her eyes,
Entrancing on a new level, and we exalt
If you aren’t in love with your friends, then something is wrong.
She grabs our hands, reviving and vital,
Her shoulders jump and so do we, she’s got us on our feet
Her energy is infections, makes us forget imperfection.
If you aren’t in love with your friends, where are you spending your time?
Existing in a different state, but in the same hearts,
And we are all staring at the same jealous stars.
She feels like a home you’ve never been too.
If you aren’t in love with your friends, then you’re not doing it right.
Because for me, they define ride or die,
The first loves of my life, they mean open
Open arms, open homes, open hearts
They are coffee in the cold and make up in the night,
Empowerment in the dark and hope in the now.
Love isn’t just for spouses and partners,
Love is for those who you know with your heart,
Who’s soul touched yours, and said,
“Hey, it’s been a while. I missed you.”
And if you haven’t felt that yet then I’m sorry,
But don’t worry, you’ll find them.
And when you do, it will be like coming home.
And you’ll know.
Jan 30, 2018
Jan 30, 2018 at 3:00 PM UTC
Well, she looks like a witch,
Her pointed nose does twitch.
As she frowns upon the grocery list,
Then scrunches in a timely twist.
Bidding her straw broom,
Which she doth groom.
Hovers away into the gloom,
Over a pond she doth loom.
To frogs, rats, snakes and slime,
Quoth she, "All in good time!!"
Soon they'll be no room,
For the impending doom.
Her cauldron happily hissing,
As she adds to the seething,
Her black cat begins meowing,
After the rats, he begins running.
Slowly cooling the putrid portion,
She applies the lovely lotion.
The moles, warts and silver hair,
Disappear into thin air.
Her velvet apparel now lace,
Not a blemish does one trace.
Fondling her silky Siamese,
She heads home with ease.
To the little candy castle,
Awaiting Hansel and Gretel.
Aug 13, 2018
Aug 13, 2018 at 10:21 AM UTC
The moon is high and bright tonight
Quietly lighting the earth around me.
My skin scrunches together
As a chilly breeze steals warmth from me
The only sound heard
Comes from the invertebrates in the trees
And the closest heartbeat is a mile away
But there is something out here
It is a creature; a creature of habit
Always hunting only those who are solo
It is a sly creature
Creeping up on its prey silently
It will drain every drop of happiness
All dreams, all plans, all loves
Will fade away from the victim
Slowly the numbness absorbs me
And I do nothing to hinder its progress
Soon I am consumed in the cold darkness
I know this creature
This creature is loneliness
Sep 25, 2011
Sep 25, 2011 at 11:15 PM UTC
There are pictures of naked bodies
Bouncing from one cell tower to a different cell tower.
We live in a world where technology allows us
To see each other’s bodies long before we ever
Climb under blankets and have the privilege
Of exploring one’s anatomy in the comfort of the dark
Instead of through the mirror of a small bathroom
Where if you’re lucky, she might have included her face.
It’s too bad the boy or girl she sends it to still won’t know
The color of her eyes or that she scrunches her nose
When she’s mad or that she has the deepest dimples when she laughs.
Your body is more than just a screenshot that the receiver will take.
It’s more than ******* in the extra bit of sand
Inside the hour glass of your flesh covered skeleton.
It’s more than standing a little taller, arching your back
So that the cage of ribs protecting your heart show through
The lens of the camera.
Your body is more than turning to the left, then turning to the right
Because you’re trying to find an angle that makes you seem even thinner.
There are boys who only know how to love you as they hold their phone
With your picture in their eyes and their hand touching their own body
When they could be touching yours.
Do not allow a boy to love you through a picture because if a real man
Wants to love you, he won’t ask to see your naked anatomy before
First seeing your face and knowing that your eyes are blue,
That when you laugh, your dimples grow as deep as the Grand Canyon.
Do not allow yourself to let a boy love you through a picture that’s
Bounced from one cell tower to a different cell tower.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 1:09 PM UTC
Cacaw cacaw
sing the sparrows
to her tiny china toes
the shadows criss-cross
the cherry hardwood
like a board of tic-tac-toe
tick-tock! the phoenix
rises from her coffeepot
tickling her freckled nose
she scrunches her forehead
into a fan and pats her alarm
good morning!
ambles to the sparrows
sighs out the exhaust
and breathes it right back in
another day
another sheet in the reams of paper
of people
she purses her lips
into a folded envelope
seals it with a kiss
and slips it out the window
wonders if today
she'll be the one
lost in the mail
Apr 27, 2010
Apr 27, 2010 at 1:40 PM UTC
a chemical cocktail spills from your lips
your tongue drips pure moonshine
table varnish leaks on the floor
i've been polishing for hours
can't get it clean, can't get clean
i scrub harder until my skin is red
and blood blemishes the rug nearby
my friends are the beams of sun
that show ashes in the air
i don't want to breathe it any more
i feel it scrape inside my lungs
wanting to get out and escape
white powder, lines of dust
and little pills that keep me sedated
my nose scrunches at the smell
of strong ozone and the taste
of metal forming in my mouth
while ironing out radiation particles
wondering where it all went so wrong
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 3:41 PM UTC
Her breath catches. she turns over. it doesn't matter, no matter what she does, she won't sleep. that itch is there.
she lies on the flat of her back, staring at the colours swirling on the ceiling with the shadows dancing with them. she starts thinking about him again. the way his hair curls at the end, the way it moves when the wind blows around, the way his face scrunches up in amusement, the way he holds himself, how he leans in when he speaks, his lips, his face, his eyes...she lets her mind wander...aswell as her hand...
her breath catches again, but for an entirely different reason.
setting a steady pace she drives herself insane, physically with resistance and mentally with reminders of who she can't have.
two years gone and she still can't stop. she loves him. everything about him, the air around him, even. she adores him and it's killing her.
her legs widen to accomadate her rising arousal, a low moan grows in the back of her throat, pushing her forward making her desire vocal, unlike the love that has crushed her heart over and over, again and again, she can't stand it anymore.
her speed increases and she breaks a sweat. she's crying now, thinking about the rehashed fantasy she built in her brain. how she'd loose herself to him, give him eveything, let him take her to places shes never been before. She cries because she knows it'll never be so, all she'll have is her own little bed and her own hand for company, no strong arms to hold her as she falls asleep, no sweet lips to kiss goodnight, no growing passion pushing into her ever so warmly.
suddenly she bucks, screams out in pain and passion, and curls in a ball to live through the aftershocks and the screaming agony her heart holds, she pretends he's holding her and slowly falls asleep.
Jul 15, 2010
Jul 15, 2010 at 6:04 PM UTC
White snow covers the brittle branches
Of the sage brush beside them
The birds song of the Nevadan January is gone-
Not even the brisk wind moves this scene
Her car pushes through the stillness
Then the clicking of her engine stops.
Silence speaks again
Through clouded windows she hears him shouting phrases unknown
Then his stumbled pacing sounds nearer and nearer
He stops at the sight of her
Still sitting in the drivers seat she looks forward aimlessly
With a tug at the door handle she follows him into the road
He's looking at her eyes turn into faucets
longing for her to say something to break the silence
She's staring at the emptiness surrounding him
They almost meet eachothers gaze,
He tries to pull her in, she refuses
Then as the silence floods between them
She rushes into him
The brittle branches are nourished
By the tears that violently crash down
Grasping on to him,
She wills to always be held by him
And then he pulls her off
She tries to speak, but feathers fill her throat
Their eyes meet and search rapidly for secrets
His pupils swallow her face
With the shadow of the sun behind her,
she sees herself within his gaze
He asks her "What do you see"
And she looks into the car window beside her and croaks " Me. I'm Pathetic"
His reflection scrunches his eyes and brings his hand up to his ear
He begins to disappear
The silence surrounds them once more
And she turns around and looks into his eyes one last time
And sees two tears racing to the ground
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 1:32 AM UTC
He scrunches his eyelids.
Peers through the half-closed curtains,
Which cover those big eyes with a color that has yet to be named,
At the bright light of lovely advancement
That connects him to me.
He's sleep stubborn.
Refuses to cave.
Until those curtains close themselves,
Until only sporadically does the bright light seem to shine.
Lit up with my awake little talks,
While he tries his very best to hide his sleepy eyes.
But he can't.
I know it, I do.
Even from behind those distanced bright screens of ours,
I can feel those sleepy eyes closing.
And the countdown begins.
Until I receive the message that tells me what I already knew.
He's sleep stubborn.
And that's something he never wants to admit to.
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 9:07 PM UTC
In the darkness
I find my way to a chair,
worn cushion,
and splintering.
The uncovered nails dig into the back of my calf.
Theres a click and a bright light that shines on a desk.
I squint.
There is a man sitting in front of me.
Bloated,
wrinkled,
and silver haired.
His swollen sausage fingers with yellowed chipped nails
are neatly knitted together on the table beside his coffee.
His teeth are yellow too.
Jagged and crooked beneath his cracking lips
and sunken deep into his skull,
just as his eyes are
like a bear in a cave,
deep brown,
warm,
but fierce and strong
staring at me.
I shift uncomfortably in the chair
as he sips his coffee from a styrofoam cup.
I notice it may too bitter for his taste.
He scrunches his nose,
which wrinkles his forehead,
his eyebrows tangle in the middle.
Time passes by. I adjust to the lighting and find a somewhat comfy spot in the chair.
Then I become uncomfortable in ways that can't be settled.
His mouth opened,
white tongue rolls out
a stale breath flows out
with his thick heavy gargled words.
I nearly choked
for the small enclosed room had little ventilation.
He questioned me
of who I was,
what I've done,
what will I do.
His words surrounded me,
stared down on my small little body.
I tried to hide behind my long black hair
but I know my green eyes glowed through the gaps.
I could not hide
who I was,
what I've been through,
my unpredictableness.
It reeked through my pores
and danced with mischief in my eyes.
My tears streamed
and his words did not pause.
He wouldn't stop until I responded.
And eventually I muttered out,
"I will never stop."
Oct 30, 2012
Oct 30, 2012 at 12:15 AM UTC
Your nose scrunches up in normal conversation. It makes you look a little bit like a piglet.
Trust me, that may sound like a backhanded compliment, but it's adorable.
When you yawn, you sound like you want to cry.
Nothing freer than you transposing your tears for the sake of singing sad songs,
To Children you've never met, as if you've never slept.
We're both a little too sure about what we eat, and
The times you sit on your hands are the days when your guts moan...
[Others would call these imperfections, but the little things are always the best parts...
Birds flapping their wings (hollow arm-bones)
Tree-roots burrow and anchor (lungs)
Grass pets your eyes]
Always busy, the words form on the tip of our toes, everything I say
Is written with our silhouettes.
Outlines pigment the natural world...
Like a horror-show,
Hallways stretch for hours
(I can not currently see out this window).
Your open sockets spill waterfalls of true understanding from a crimson sunset of genius scars,
Like open wounds of the best silence, only the sound of teeth clashing
Between stretching lips
You hook your palms into my cheeks, bones creak
Gazes reflecting thoughts, unity in unmerited shame,
Our legs conversing softly, hair intertwined (snakes on our necks), and all night...
I keep playing a triplet between your ribs
A simple arpeggio archway under moans from dead skin in light,
I hold you by the red skin, carve you, for just one moment
Until we're living art. Skin static, roots spreading wings.
No expiration date for us, just a point when our bodies no longer parallel
But after that, we speak in clouds
We paint murals for each other in abandoned city parking lots
Or empty train halls.
The moon is our vanishing point,
All eyes on craters.
My language is something undiscovered to me,
I don't know if I want to let all these words go.
You mean Reincarnation to me,
Some jaw of life, some whale's mouth.
I am snow.
Everything loses focus but the stars...
Like teenagers.
Mar 24, 2011
Mar 24, 2011 at 10:55 PM UTC
I’m next to you
Breathing,
Holding,
Kissing,
Caressing,
You.
Forehead to forehead,
Pupil to pupil,
Lost in your fickle irises,
And mine roll back
When I find myself in your smile,
And I sigh
Content,
At peace
With you.
But my face scrunches.
War breaks out in the creases of my eyes,
In the angle of my frown
As I dwell on your imminent departure
And reject the time between then
And the time we can snuggle like this forever.
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 4:23 PM UTC
This morning I woke up smiling.
I kissed your cheeks.
Every tiny thing about you inspires me to write stanzas,
But who wants to read a poem entirely based on the way your face scrunches up in the shower, exposing your pearly whites while you grab loose strands of knots from the suds of conditioner
Or how in awe I am at the sight of the beautifully constructed transition of your chest to your neck and how I envision maroon little passions marks along it every time I stare at your throat vibrating when you speak, and your strong hands on my shoulders, hips, everything.
The way you smile seductively to get what you want and how I never thought you'd be that good at making my knees weak enough to buckle and bow down and give you every thing and every part of me I can muster up or hold in the palms of my tiny hands.
(I actually teared up today while looking at you but you don't know that because I was hogging the water and your eyes were closed.
For a moment I thought you must be the physical embodiment of the perfect human polykelitos wrote an entire novel and carved an entire bronze sculpture trying to create and bring to life.
-----
This morning I woke up and you were smiling. You kissed my cheeks. You told me you liked my cheeks. You gave me butterfly kisses and butterflies in my stomach and you left little maroon passion marks along my neck.
I don't think my body has ever felt more euphoric.
We fit together like Tetris.
Your body felt sacred.
Our passion was electric,
both of our souls pure and naked
just like the Greeks and then Romans painted.
Sometimes I feel like our love is geometric.
Oct 31, 2015
Oct 31, 2015 at 8:57 PM UTC
*My side of the Earth is wrapped in
cellophane,
Wherever I walk the ground
Scrunches,
Mornings feel like the first pages of
different books,
A foreign blink to a familiar eye.
Sometimes I feel no pressure
to unpack the stars,
Laying on my back in a room
with no wires,
Though sometimes I'd plug the moon,
and watch how it scares away
the ghosts,
Their silhouettes marching
on the walls,
Or maybe that's me running from
my thoughts.
The ground feels like it's squeezing
my toes,
Burying the soles of my feet
in the sand,
I hang the sea on the far horizon,
Just to have something to pull me
ahead.
In my two-bedroom cardboard reality,
My mistakes are never quiet,
Going through the tracts
I've burrowed in my existence,
I can't find the hinges that hold my world together,
Or the patterns that could help me try.
Why does the water taste like
it's from a different planet?
Maybe it's just me,
Afraid to get too comfortable,
With a present seemingly
not mine,
A sketch I started drawing,
But felt like I lacked the talent
to finish.*
Jul 15, 2017
Jul 15, 2017 at 8:50 PM UTC
He scrunches up his face;
A bravura of sheer irksomeness.
Fruitless tries of wild fathom.
His act halts his face facing mine;
dawning of endless gaze.
After a splendid array of irritability all that his partings exit is a set sound of,
Tch.
Mar 16, 2018
Mar 16, 2018 at 9:44 AM UTC
She’s got pretty eyelashes, long and curled, and she’s always smiling, but she squeezes her eyes shut (blue, maybe), scrunches her nose up, gags, spits it out, only lets it run down her chin, refuses to swallow it.
Sometimes the men say nothing, sometimes they say disgusting things, things that would make me cry if they came out of someone’s mouth, but sometimes I think these words at these girls.
Whisper them at my glowing laptop screen with my hand under the waistband of my pajama pants.
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 4:48 AM UTC
Winter,
and with winter comes a girl.
She greets the weather as a friend
she has not seen since last Christmas,
grins as the snow
scrunches and squeaks
as green Wellington boots
on a wooden floor.
Two men walk past her,
reeking of yesterday’s brandy.
One has sloshed a lot
down his front,
a dark claret patch
like a seeping **** on his chest.
Someone is playing an instrument,
a saxophone,
and the sound
sprints fluidly along the streets
into taxi-cabs and terracotta
coffee-shop windows.
She smiles again.
One dustbin’s been KO’d,
trash trips out
in a puddle of colours
like unwanted confectionary.
A teenage couple are kissing,
their heads a swaying metronome
and the boy grips a Starbucks cup
with one limp hand as if to say
here you have it.
Evening gushes over her
like a rush of bad acne
but she loves the sun
as it pecks the cheeks of buildings
and the jingle from her phone
which reminds her,
the movie starts at eight.
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 3:58 PM UTC
My niece is sat opposite me
My niece is in possession of paint
And a paintbrush
And I’ve surrendered my hands to her.
That tickles!
My face scrunches
Paint properly plastered
The newspaper in front of us her dad had put down for her she swaps for plain
I wiggle the digits on my
Upward facing palms.
Now flip!
Like this?
She nods
And splat
SPLAT!
The One That Married Into This
Via me
Comes in from the kitchen.
I rise from my cross-legend position
And pat his cheek as we meet in the doorway
Then I rest my hand on his shoulder,
Trying to gaze lovingly,
As opposed to smirking.
He doesn’t notice the paint
Because it’s warm
And maybe I’ve just got clammier hands than usual.
I go to wash my hands off.
Your turn!
Le artiste demands
My turn?
Everybody turn!
Great-aunties groan.
Alright then.
SPLAT!
The One That Married Into This
Touches a reassuring
Painted
Palm
To just below my back.
So ordinary
We only notice the paint prints
As we graze the hall mirror
As we start the 30 minute process
Of saying goodbye
Walking art
He whispers
As we walk out the door
Jul 29, 2019
Jul 29, 2019 at 10:22 AM UTC
i always catch him looking away
his hooded eyes crinkling
porcelain skin turned blood red
his nose scrunches together when he gets nervous
we aren't alone
a crowded room filled with ****** music and cheap liquor
keeping us apart
i'm smiling now, look up, look up, look up
he does
its my turn to look away
i just want to talk to you
but this boy sitting next to me
is telling me about his baseball team
i keep looking at you
*oh ****
we've made eye contact
can you see my heart racing?
can you see it in my eyes that i'm in love with you?
this night drags on and i haven't spoken to you yet
but i want to
so badly
please
just speak to me
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 6:57 PM UTC
scrunches his face up
he thinks it's a joke, at first
he thinks it's just
another one
of those dreams
hurt eyes; small apologies
he's never been prettier
he's going to throw up
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 3:08 PM UTC
Smiles like an angel,
scrunches her nose from such sweet
butterfly kisses.
May 13, 2011
May 13, 2011 at 5:47 PM UTC
There once was a man.
His sole purpose in life was to put antiseptic and bandages on my wounds.
He read me a stories and gave each character a funny voice.
He took me wherever I wanted to go, and also, everywhere he'd ever wanted to show me.
He showed me the past, like
individual bricks on a wall,
and built me up to the roof
of a house.
Staring at stars and constellations and swirling dreams.
We played and conversed like equals,
alternating from being children to grownups, together.
We went to baseball games and aquariums and museums and beaches and parks and forests.
I danced on his toes, and sprouted his curly locks from my own head.
And when he died, I died, too.
There was nothing left for many years, until I held my own child.
My daughter,
who looks so much like my dad,
sometimes it hurts to see
the similarities.
The curl in her hair, the stars in her eyes, the magic in her shadow,
And it almost makes me feel like
Maybe he didn't leave me without love.
Maybe I didn't perish along with him.
Maybe he is still alive in me and in
the funny way my little girl scrunches up her nose when she giggles.
Or her preference of squash to green beans.
Maybe the world didn't end with my dad.
Maybe I would feel even sadder that she won't know him if I wasn't too busy soaking in her every moment like my father did mine.
And, one day I'll tell her,
"Eliza June, I once knew the most incredible man.
And he would have loved
to hear you call him,
'Grand Dad.'"
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 1:13 AM UTC
It bothers me that I was her understudy.
It bothers me that
I am a woman
But to you I was just a warm body.
I was never her.
When I catch your scent my face scrunches tight,
But I never let you see.
Unrequited oh-so-absolutely not love.
If you could pull me apart,
Stretch me out,
You would see that I am small.
I feel small.
I wish I was enough
And yet at the same moment I want nothing of you.
I don’t want you.
Not you.
I hereby lay us to rest, the us that we were.
You cannot be my friend
Because when I look at you all I see is *** and nothing.
Tomorrow I will make you coffee and pretend it’s all okay.
But on the inside I am shrinking
Ever smaller.
Nov 7, 2012
Nov 7, 2012 at 7:27 PM UTC
I think it's cute how your face scrunches up when you laugh.
Your eyes squint into slits.
Your nose crinkles.
Your mouth opens.
Your small, baby-like, teeth flash.
It makes me laugh because it's cute.
You do it way too often,
and it makes my day better,
to be honest.
Your laugh causes me to laugh,
which makes my day better.
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 11:36 AM UTC