"seatbelts" poems
Keep your eyes soft and your dreams
up on the highest shelf so you won't take them down too early;
keep everything that you spill in the dark locked
behind your teeth during the day, don't bring it out before dusk;
like secrets we drip over sidewalk cracks
from cotton-candy sticky fingers and leave our names
dissolved under each other's tongues, the warmth of you is keeping me company
as I try to crawl out of my blood again, they told you to leave
a bread-crumb trail in case your heart becomes too watered down by just visiting
to even remember the vacation at all; you carry
kisses on the knuckles of amputated arms,
driving through parking lots with your seatbelts on,
collections of constellations growing
in the bruises on the insides of your thighs, reminders
of salt & the whites of your eyes;
I'll always carry you around
like scuffed knees and the last time I told you "I'm okay",
I wanna press my fingers into you until your skin is melded
with fire and scraps of things that I could never be,
I hope steel rods grow out of your bones and I hope you gather
bruises before you gather dust,
we are all a little lost and lonely but that never stopped
the accumulation of well-spent nights
coughing up new ways to spell my name
(it sounded foreign before you)
leave this on repeat,
we're going in again.
Jul 1, 2018
Jul 1, 2018 at 11:59 PM UTC
I want to write you a trilogy on the stages
in which our relationship formed.
The first book would be solely based on the day
that I stopped treating your text messages
like active landmines. Stopped tiptoeing.
No longer being afraid of what your affection
would do to me once I submit to it.
It would be based on the first step I took to
stop being so **** afraid. From that very day
you've helped me in ways I'll never be able to fully explain.
Helped me let go of fear and trepidation, and open
my heart to the greatest thing in the world; your love.
The second would revolve around the first time you kissed me.
I don't know if you noticed, but my knees buckled
like seatbelts and I shook like glass window panes in torrential rain.
That day you awoke something inside me that I didn't know existed
but I'm so glad you found it. Like a stray kitten I was lost
and you brought me back home without questioning where I'd been,
and I'll never fully understand why, but I guess it doesn't matter.
You've taught me not to overthink things, to just revel in the moment.
The third would be set in here and now. Every forehead kiss
and stolen glance sums up to another page, every loving gesture
is another chapter. We are creating something people wish they
could create for themselves. A love that belongs in museums
to teach the world what it really means to give yourself to someone,
with no fear, and not a single ounce of regret. To say that you changed
my life is an understatement. You altered my way of thinking.
Took a broken thing and made it new again. Made me, new again.
And with every word that slips from your lips I am reborn.
Apr 3, 2016
Apr 3, 2016 at 11:25 PM UTC
I smell Motherland in the corridor
She crept up on me with her soap, drunken men and things I’d rather forget
I was thinking about death since I was 10.
.
The plane gets up,
Chicken soup is served.
Here are your nuts.
Have this lolly, the tension is getting
Higher
Higher
And higher
I cannot hear anything.
.
We are now in a very neat place
Incheon, South Korea
Fancy, shiny, pricey
Another plane, bigger
Higher
Higher
Higher
Yoghurt and cheesecake
I like this food better.
.
We get off, and even the ground shines
The air is very different
For the first day I smell this country it does has a specific smell
And after 5 years
You creep up on me, my love.
.
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 10:36 AM UTC
queasy
upset stomach
shaky knees
spill out of a packed van
with choking seatbelts.
feet that are tired of wearing shoes
and sitting
for houuuuuuurrrrs
hit the hot concrete...
foreign land:
gas station.
dad tells me to run around a bit
stretch my legs
mom sits in the car
pregnant
fanning herself
smiling
at me
out the open
window
i smile back.
i'm wearing the white shirt
with the blue trim
that mom made me
special
for our trip
it has a silly sun
with sunglasses and a crinkly smile
that she embroidered on it
it is
my favorite...
i smell the acrid gasoline
look around
the first time
i've been
anywhere
i am only eight
dad comes out of the store
his hands full
of funny little cardboard boats
me and my sister
run up to him
he hands me
a chili dog
with onions...
first bite....
burst of onion
spice of chili
sweetness of bread
orange
mouths
i look at my sister
she points to my shirt
shows me the chili stain
against the perfect white
i
cry
Apr 30, 2013
Apr 30, 2013 at 2:45 PM UTC
Read the palm of my hand,
Analyse the lines and see that it maps a highway with no destination
You became a long highway with high speeds and good music but as the driver, I knew it were to go nowhere
But as the passenger, you anticipated us to go everywhere
And for that I’m sorry
You became a best friend that I resented
And I became the best friend that you had to learn to resent
Long car talks became our lingo and daily messages was our travel snack that we would crunch like a pass time
But as you found another, our cars collided
Inertia was met by fastening seatbelts and an accident we both denied had occurred
And it's not that I’m jealous or realised I love you
But I am now met with suburbia,
With corners and cafe small talk,
Stop signs and round a bouts,
And I am to know that I can no longer rely on you like a country road but instead give way to another
I wish all the best for you
I know you once looked at my hands as a destination for yours
And honestly, sometimes I wish it were
But instead, they are creased maps leading to the nowhere for you
And everywhere for someone else
Although, I really hope you enjoyed the trip home
Jul 9, 2021
Jul 9, 2021 at 7:53 AM UTC
There are no ways to safeword out of this life.
I know, I’ve tried them all.
Elephant, apple, Alaska, amen.
Tried screaming anything into the pillow my face is pushed down into,
Whiskey, tango, foxtrot, stop
Exhausted my vocabulary against the blanket my fists are balled into fists against,
Anything to make the beatings stop
But they just
Keep
Coming.
In **** having a safeword is like wearing a seatbelt.
There are rules about having one
And the ones who choose to do without
Are taking risks.
We are born without lifejackets, without seatbelts and safecut scissors
Without breakaway glass or rubberized mats
Without any way to make the world slow down
Let us catch our breath,
And jump back in.
There are no hard limits in the real world.
So we bite into our gags and wait for the session to end.
Elephant, apple, Alaska, amen.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 1:02 AM UTC
a toast to the gods of self preservation
twenty one with plenty coming
allowing to pound sounds within
the crown aroused voided a founders of it’s bruises
spells hold the fold, I’m coasting with the best
resting in the east so I sleep with blinds low
the comfort zone is far from solitude
my molecules have aptitude to channel Jupiter
seatbelts are useless wastes of matter, excuse me
just a minute so you can miss me with that individuality
your calloused grip on reality impairs the singularity
old school, gold noose, silver lined diamonds
Jesus pieces reaped the seeds that teach your blind lids
came back with scabbed knuckled and heart scars
hustled the portal of pretension ever so ethereally
inner synthesis purged the day the plague hit
on the courts or the graves, you name the slaves
the game slayed the day the chains changed hands
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 2:20 PM UTC
The aroma of coconut milk
permeating the frost
of the windshield.
Vague scent of cigarettes and Febreze
in your hair.
Your teeth between my thighs.
Your tongue
circling mine
like two hyenas
scavenging .
You taste like
the tea you drank
half an hour ago.
Neutral
This car has been hit before.
I am frightened by your
automatic seatbelts.
Jul 25, 2011
Jul 25, 2011 at 2:55 PM UTC
In the event of an emergency
Please fasten your seatbelts
And attempt to remain calm
Breathe easy and prepare for the thrill
Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be one hell of a ride
Docile, like sheep, you expect us to remain
In the face of our impending doom
Draw in deeply from the mask that’s fallen in front of you
Pure oxygen so that we may become euphoric
Before plummeting into land or sea
Now let’s not forget that life vest too
So strap up ladies and gentlemen,
This is going to be one hell of a ride
As engines three and four shut down
There is little noise to drown out the screaming
Families and loved ones clamoring to say goodbye
Funny how in the moments just before the end
We all want to make amends
The cabin’s losing pressure now
And our fall starts to speed
Over the intercom the captain shouts out
Altitudes, allowing us to pinpoint the exact
Moment that we will all likely die
I breathe in filling my lungs with something pure
Euphoria, eyes seal shut
In just moments it’s all over and I
Begin to fly right back up
Calm and collected as could be
We’re onto the next journey of life, or death
Ladies and gentlemen fasten your seatbelts
This is going to be one hell of a ride
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 9:11 PM UTC
Woke up early like I always do, no matter what I'm going through I sit and contemplate my present situation, like is this life worth living or am I wasting it, I got plans for myself but with what I know, I know there's a possibility of removing it from the shelf of possibilities, sometimes I can't control myself, so I get ****** off let some shots off and restock, my life is just a ramble that needs to be reshocked like defibrillators to your live stock, cause global warming turned to climate change and they make it seem it's not an issue by keeping your mind invisibly encaged and your nose in the tissue, I've been changing, so when it comes to blaming there's no one to blame but the cats who put our work to shame, **** the industry it's why I live in infamy like the US has for practically an entire century, continuing forensically but fail to catch their own trace of criminology, instead blaming you for your ideology passed down from generations along with theology, some things are more believable like the inconceivable evil that's injected inside the bloodstreams of my people, makin them turn from people to machines, **** that I'd rather be trapped in Saturn's rings but sometimes it's hard to stop some things
- This world has been ruled, dominated, and conquered for thousands of years.. I think it's about time to let that **** lay to rest -
Man I've been living for quite some time, and all I've seen is the world go from a bright shine to a darkened shrine, but I guess that's what will happen when you're born into a world that's already fastened their seatbelts for a global blastin, end the nukes end the fed end the ************* who will leave us for dead while they happily sit in bed waiting for their master Satan to come in faster, the worlds a disaster but it can be fixed if everyone pitches in to dethrone their "masters", mathematical factors plotting out disasters cause they're done on purpose like previous stories remastered, some will ridicule me but it won't matter when they realize the truth that's been hidden educationally generationally, you're serviceably useful to the machine aka the system, but the system needs you, you don't need to listen
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014 at 7:48 PM UTC
I'm glad I'll drive your next girl insane
With my phantom kisses that
May or may not have left stains on your brain.
Because you see, as perfect as she will be,
I **** red lipstick and trilbies and kohl
And it's rare in a woman to be able to watch Top Gear
Without thinking of safety hazards, and seatbelts.
I hope she knows that however loose she wears her hair,
She'll never be as wild as me.
And as cool as she sounds,
I have a bite like a kiwi,
And I always leave an after taste that isn't strawberry and sugar.
So yeah, she's suave and calm and collected, and that is **** fine,
I'll give her that.
But I'm sarcastic.
And I call you out when you become too boring,
Like for instance,
Not making me mad at you at least once a day
For making me think about things that I would like to just blitz over
As I do with many other things
Like the people who loved us.
Because all we needed was each other.
And although she pouts,
I smirk.
She has big eyes, but mine are of lynxes.
I'm your own personal minx.
And she knows I'll always be wrapped around your neck.
And however close she gets to you
I'm always right beside you, inside you
Every breath she takes,
Every mistake in love you make.
Mar 31, 2013
Mar 31, 2013 at 7:33 PM UTC
Cars crashing,
seatbelts couldn't hold them back
as they flew through the windshield,
waterfalls of glass
cascaded over the smashed front,
the ground sparkled coldly,
red glinted off of the glass
that was embedded into the flying figures.
Bodies hit the ground,
they made a hollow sound,
blood pooled out around them.
They were young souls,
gasping out their final breaths,
their chests heaved as they screamed.
People gathered around
crying hopeless tears.
Nothing could change their fate.
As the ambulance finally came,
and the cars were towed away,
only one thing remained,
it was the young blood that stained
the grey pavement.
No tears,
and no rain,
could ever wash away this blood
that now tinted the hearts of the people who saw
just exactly how violent it is
to die young.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 2:10 AM UTC
Believers vs believers
A sign of judgement day
Spilling the blood of mankind
That is what the Lord forbade
The one being slaughtered
Is clueless as to why
A brother is taking his life
And the murderer also does not know the reason for picking up a knife
The state of mankind
Is beyond ******* up to be repaired
Long gone are the times when strangers cared
Every night is in competition with another to becomes the darkest and wildest
Next of kin worried about inheritance
And spouses taking out life insurance claims
The soul is bruised
But on a shell is placed a band aid
Fine wining and dining
Abundance leftovers in the bin
Whilst the neighbour starves
As people frolic in sin
Slaves giving birth to masters
Power in the hands of wrong
And those buried six foot under
Are suddenly the lucky one's
Knowledge decreasing
And ignorance on the rise
We compete in the construction of the tallest building
And mothers abandon their children
Beauty pageants
And *** selling cars
The ship of the world sinks
In broad daylight
Yet we un-fasten our seatbelts
And live by ride or die
Yolo people
Get an intoxicated high on a traitorous life
A year passes like a month
And a month like a week
Nothing remains but a name
Humans who massacred humanity
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 10:14 PM UTC
Today, my train of thought
Is a bit off track.
It's a dark and confusing smokestack.
You see, questions abound.
So buckle in as I go to town.
Which cider you on?
Apple or hard?
If a tree falls on a copier
And no one is around to see it,
Does it make a forest?
I'm rooting for yes; but quite unsure.
How many coins can a fountain hold?
I wish I knew.
Is Paul dead or the walrus?
Is Paul dead AND the walrus?
Coo coo ca choo.
What's the beef about red meat?
It fills but kills? It sells but fells?
Who knows!
The proof is in the pudding.
All other desserts are unsubstantiated,
I suppose.
If peanut butter leaves Los Angeles
Traveling east at 100 miles per hour,
And jelly leaves New York
Traveling west twice as fast,
Will they become a sandwich when they meet?
What a treat if they did.
Maybe one day these
Universal questions will be solved.
But for now, I'm quite dizzy
From all the lunacy involved.
Catch you later...
Apr 14, 2023
Apr 14, 2023 at 3:42 PM UTC
Write everyday.
Write everyday no matter what.
Write even at a loss for words.
Write down the sounds.
I make notes of the plane crashes
I've never heard, the brook trout
that never shook pond water
onto the brittle grass when I didn't
catch it, or the thunder cup coil
I keep kneeing trying to give the overcast
over the mountain something to compete
with.
And I'm not sorry.
I'm not. I'm not sorry that my
reborn Christian best friend has seen the light,
and I still scoff when people pray over potatoes.
And I only believe in plastic Polaroid postcards
from last decade timestamped in the white space
with Bic black ink.
I'm not sorry for that.
And truth is, I've never washed this black shirt;
just hung it hoping that moths' would ****
the sweat spots and leave
the fabric.
I clenched the gold cap beneath
my ring finger from the glass green
bottle occupying my lips driving
down the Marsh Creek bridge.
I wanted to relate / to be relatable /
relative to the sedans, and seatbelts
too tight to breathe, passing me.
At the end of the bridge, where there was no chance
of drowning and the road color changed, I parked
in the driveway of a wooden house. Its blinds
were up, shades pulled apart with two hands
like gas station freezer doors, leaving them
vulnerable to the hiss of semi truck tractor
trailer high beams slicing through fifty +
raindrops per second going a few miles shy
of sixty-five, yet the people inside moved so freely.
I sat Indian-style—a term I learned at four
then learned it to be racist at fourteen—
in their driveway, and ate the gravel
they walked on trying to taste security
because all I'd had in the last few hours
were plates of refried fear.
Fear of audit, of my teeth breaking off,
and of ending up like Eric Garner
when I heard that wailing
Voice of Justice
coming for me in the distance.
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 4:32 PM UTC
Joseph sits on skinny chairs, reads the funnies
she would be tall, pretty hair, she don’t see
see he won’t be reading one bit, he looks dumb
just staring, looking fat, broken, glum
she cleans up all the plates
—Put those dishes down, now is a time for **********
I’ll take you now, and wonder if I’ve taken
steps enough to excuse my idleness; in time
you’ll leave, and supine, I’ll take a coat of lyme
and let the lines loose
We will communicate through touch and kiss
and enjoy the full of it, pull in the harvest;
light and movies romance the **** out of me
at last, we are at the end of all things irony
Christ that **** impersonal.
—This music don’t be coming from them
that is right, that is absolutely the end of them
they just end, I don’t care, I let it be
how come you so foolish, Joseph? I don’t see
why are you so foolish?
—You play the guitar by ear and plucking
at this moment they are dinosaur hunting
time is absurd and disgusting
I don’t understand it, I’m simply saying
you played some songs I knew at the time
But how different are your songs from mine
attach your seatbelts to your right hand buckles, fine
away with it, away with them all, please
I am telling, telling, understand, please
different in a few ways, love
—Joseph, you play the drums too loud
you are a big, dumb, idiot head
they end, it certainly has to be
it’s apocalyptic, something like this, said she
such a dummy you Joseph
the movie drums its so vicious loud
the end a dumb idiot head
that’s a thing she might have said at the time
and you are given a full witness to the violence of our time
Joseph plays bad harmonica.
Feb 13, 2010
Feb 13, 2010 at 3:00 PM UTC
Radio static
Crackle.....crackle....ladies and gentlemen
Please fasten your seatbelts at this time
The no smoking light is now on
We are beginning our descent
Into madness
I'm using my seatbelt as a dinosaur
To get in one more stick
Before we crash in a gasoline flavored fireball
No music
Nothing special
No one minding
It just is
A mommy holds her sleeping daughter
A buisness man
In a pretty little tie
Loses his mind behind me
Someone tells him
Be cool man your scaring the kids
Everyone is faced with the same question
I drink cold coffee from a Styrofoam cup
Watching the deer play on the clouds outside my
(Little window)
All those times I was embarassed around people and I prayed
"God, please get me out of here"
And I got up and walked out
I wish I could go back and save all those times
To use right now
But when I try to get up
And walk out on my own power
The door opens up ten thousand feet above sea level
And closing
*This is the captain ladies and gentlemen
We have suffered a slight engine malfunction
And we are going to try to make an emergency landing
If you have any prayers
Now is the time to use them*
All I can do is think about you
As I sit against the bathroom door
I know that if you were here right now
You would probably be wearing headphones
Listening to your "getting ready to die playlist"
Maybe you would put your head on my lap
And try to get some sleep before we get there
I can almost hear you say
"Where we're goin' we won't get much sleep"
So I close my eyes
And lay my head back
Lighting a cigarette beneath the no smoking sign
Feb 24, 2012
Feb 24, 2012 at 2:39 AM UTC
It is ok to be
not
what you are
still
becoming. She said
"you're not special." Grinding teeth and sodden rails. My car is exhausted--
downwind, held in the air like branches of birches and pines
humming with each blatant engine-stroke
which fall onto that bleakening
icedock and curl-- culled passengers tossed to sea;
unavoidably
sharp veer left, beyond surreptitious and frantic spectators
and through a once-pearl snowdrift straying into my mind.
M
C
M
L
V
Turtlenecks can't keep us warm and soup can't clear my throat.
I choke on
sliced rubber, seatbelts cut halfway-- from
Spring. pluck us like cattails
amongst my marshy solubles.
Exposes my larynx she-- ubiquitous sonnet spews forth.
What contrite aberration, wears Kalapodi temple dress
made of rose petals blown in beneath love's column
and presses with her thighs my vision?
There is nothing more to say-- meals served
raw on Winter holidays. Steaming
spoonfuls dried up on her palate--
Special in the way I left you there.
Special in being the same as I should have been.
And I, no-- I!
I can not talk any longer! The clouds I thought to taste
won't allow me to
rain
be-- once dangling from the ceiling, my dripping prevented
with a pale, cotton daub.
You see
the paramedics
even as they sheath my torso
and hold your head with thorped sieves:
The driver steered his vessel wrong
an action which robbed his passenger's breath.
Sep 25, 2011
Sep 25, 2011 at 9:34 PM UTC
First some dots,
Then some roads
That form a knot.
I watch above
A lush green spot,
A modest farmer’s plot.
When seatbelts click,
I feel the drop.
My stomach sinks,
Completely fraught,
From the futile battle
With luke-warm Fresca,
My bursting bladder
Is quite distraught.
We go down,
Then there’s a stop,
Through a gust of air
That is hot, we walk.
With movements like, a robot.
We take wing again,
And turn back the clock.
My headache is gone,
But my ears have popped,
This is a red-eye plane.
Aug 31, 2011
Aug 31, 2011 at 1:42 AM UTC
We're cruising along in your old off-beige '93 Ford Fiesta
The one with the great sound system
And I am miserable enough to drive us off a cliff
We crash backwards into the water,
Unbuckle each other's seatbelts,
Open our respective doors,
Grab each other,
And drown down there
Because we won't let go.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 5:43 AM UTC
Long car trips
Crowded with junk
And cramping legs
Flashing light streaming through the window
Into the muggy car air,
A trapped fly banging on the glass,
Low rumbling like gravel thunder
And bursts of shaking
Rattling teeth and seatbelts
When you roll over stones
Wisps of vented air
Curling around your naked toes,
And sweaty, rumpled clothes.
Skin sticking to fake leather seats
The slight sifting sick in your belly
Sitting fat like a toad,
And hoping the stuff in the back
Isn't shaking or breaking apart
From the crunching washboard gravel,
And drowsy eyes, tired from endless trees
Slowly drift until you arrive in the dark
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 1:34 PM UTC
Days feel hollow
Months get swallowed
Time is moving fast
I don't know how much time has passed
24 has turned into sixteen
I hardly have time to fix me
One day turns to 8
I try to be on time but I'm always late
Time slips right by
No matter how hard I try
The grip is not as tight
We're turning into light
Vibrating at a higher speed
Our physical bodies we'll no longer need
The shift is coming faster and stronger
I just wish my days felt a few hours longer..
Yet it is a sign of the changing times
Let's unbuckle our seatbelts and enjoy the ride
Aug 18, 2016
Aug 18, 2016 at 12:01 PM UTC
One of my friends
quiet as he may be
actually paused today and asked
why I am so against wearing my
seatbelt.
Why?
I had no heart to tell him
that without that safety harness
around my chest
I am one step closer to death
and I prefer it that way,
no heart to tell him
while they all think my
suicidal tendencies are
under control,
never to be seen again.
They think I'm all better
but I've got hidden demons
always begging to come out
and play.
May 16, 2013
May 16, 2013 at 4:33 PM UTC