"sharpeners" poems
In a bedroom in small-town Pennsylvania,
you’ll find an unmade bed,
a pile of clothes on the floor—
clean but not folded,
open drawers and dusty shelves,
a desk in the corner of the room
with pictures laid across it.
When I caught my first fish at six.
I held it at arm’s length by the fishing line
to avoid the slimy scales,
a frown on my face from being forced
to sit silently in the cold.
When my family went to Marco Island,
my sister and I, sifting sand for the best seashells
in our matching swimsuits and hats.
Mom and dad’s fights forgotten in our fun.
High school graduation
posing with my best friend since first grade,
diplomas in one hand and an extra cap held between us
because not everyone survived all four years.
Move-in day at college,
sitting on my raised bed with a grey comforter
and two decorative pillows the color of cotton candy.
Sweat on my brow from southern humidity
and moving furniture without the help of a father.
The pictures are merely snapshots
that lack the full story.
How I learned what it meant for love to fall apart
when I was eight years old.
My sister warned me before it happened,
told me what a divorce was.
I mistook her for joking until they called us upstairs.
Dad cried when they told us, but mom held her tears
until the day he left. The sounds of her cries
escaping from behind a closed door.
“This doesn’t mean we don’t love each other.”
But that’s exactly what it meant.
How I was taught by my father that love is conditional,
and I repeatedly needed to prove myself
through good grades and unquestioning obedience.
Forced to stay home to spend time with the family,
sitting wordlessly on the couch while he watched TV.
Made guilty for wanting to spend time with friends
because that somehow meant that I was a bad daughter.
It’s funny—I never asked myself if he was a good father.
If you look harder at the bedroom,
you’ll find journals filled with bitter words,
screws from disassembled pencil sharpeners, loose razors, and Aquaphor,
food wrappers stuffed in hidden places,
a closet brimming with junk and pairs of shoes,
evidence of a story untold. Until you.
Sep 20, 2023
Sep 20, 2023 at 9:09 PM UTC
1. She’ll be lovely. There will be spaces for you between her ribs. Your left lung is smaller than you right lung to make room for your heart, but there’s all kinds of room in her body. Her kidneys and liver are failing and soon enough they’ll be gone to make room for your love.
2. She won’t ever be expensive on dates because all she’ll order is a salad. You’ll never have to worry about not having enough money (for dinner at least). You’ll have to worry about emergency room bills when she passes out, but she’ll never ask for anything else. All she’ll want is ***** and sleeping pills.
3. She will always put you first. She’ll love you with all the love she should have kept for herself. She’ll make you hot chocolate and stay up until 3 AM while you’re crying over her. When she makes you cry because you just want her to see herself the way you see her, she’ll be there with cold hands and tired eyes. She’s dead, she’s exhausted, all she wants is a good night’s rest. But you can count on her to be there.
4. She will tell you that you are perfect. She’ll believe it, too. Everyone around her seems to be perfect and she’s drowning under the weight of mediocrity but it’s okay. She’s okay. She won’t understand that all of us are swimming and most of us are drowning.
5. She’ll always have scissors and pencil sharpeners on hand. The knives in her kitchen are always sharpened to perfection and if you forget your razor at home, it’s ok. She has extras in her closet.
6. She’ll **** you any time you want. As long as you don’t look at her while she’s getting undressed. She’ll be used to the sensation of knives but it’s a different kind of pain when you look at her. She will want to be beautiful for you. She’ll love you until she can’t breathe anymore. You’ll make her feel beautiful for the night but when she wakes up she’ll still think she wasn’t worth it.
7. Date a girl who hates herself because she’ll love you.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 7:41 PM UTC
"Hey mom",
I say.
"Can you go get me another pencil sharpener?
Mine...
Umm,
It broke."
"Sure thing."
She says.
She comes back with a set of 12 small ones.
"You break yours all the time,"
She says,
"Will this do?"
"Thats perfect."
I say,
And I walk away to my room.
All this time,
I've been using led pencils.
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 10:13 PM UTC
Pencils are opportunities, it dulls as you write,
mistakes slowly burns the red rubber ****
and sharpeners are luxuries or government help or socialism.
But what about cheap pencils,
whose lead dulls or breaks easily.
Pencils are all equal if you look it in the outside
but what you can't see is that these cheap pencils
does not have a solid strip of lead inside,
it has some small quantities of opportunities to write.
I need to sharpen it once in a while
so I can clearly write.
But not everyone has sharpeners nor extra pencils,
some even bought this kind of pencil
with all the money they have
and they cannot write their stories
and their happy endings,
when the luster of their leads are constantly fading
into white, swallowed by the open
free-market place of ideas blank paper.
And I can't blame the poor vendor who sold me
these substandard opportunities.
However,
I am blaming the owners of factories,
for making such lousy imitations,
for exploiting my hunger to write.
I am blaming the government,
for allowing such pencils to ever exist!
Their lust for power, their greed takes away
my opportunities to write clearly and continuously,
I am blaming them for assuming that all of us have sharpeners!
We should not pay for social sharpening services!
Sharpeners and pencils should be free!
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 8:45 AM UTC
1. She’ll be lovely. You’ll be able to count the spaces in between her ribs. She’ll have thin skin and it’ll be so easy to drive her crazy with just a single touch. It’ll be easy to make your mark on her, too. She’ll bruise easy and love it. She’ll think it’s beautiful.
2. She won’t ever be expensive on dates because all she’ll order is a salad. You’ll never have to worry about her ordering an expensive steak. You might have to worry about emergency room bills when she passes out, but she’ll never ask for anything else. All she’ll want is ***** and sleeping pills.
3. She will always put you first. Your needs always come before hers because she was raised “God first, others second, I am third”. She’ll make you hot chocolate and drive to your house at 3 AM with pizza she won’t eat, even though she’s dead tired and all she wants is a good night’s rest. You can count on her to be there.
4. She will tell you that you are perfect. She’ll believe it, too. Everyone around her seems to be perfect and she’s drowning under the weight of mediocrity but it’s ok as long as you know how perfect you are.
5. She’ll always have scissors and pencil sharpeners on hand. The knives in her kitchen are always sharpened to perfection and if you forget your razor at home, it’s ok. She has extras in her closet.
6. She’ll **** you anytime you want. As long as you don’t look at her while she’s getting undressed, she’ll love you until she can’t breathe anymore. She’ll smile as you kiss her thighs because you’re the only one that makes her feel beautiful.
7. Date a girl who hates herself because she’ll love you.
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 8:34 PM UTC
The kids who have pencil sharpeners that can no longer sharpen
who use lighters but dont smoke
Who wear makeup on their arms instead of their face
who's eyes are red from crying, not getting high
Heres to the kids who are broken
Not because they deserve it
But because life is a gamble
A game
And they lost
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 10:54 PM UTC
*whether I am right
or you prove me wrong
the scars I am making
will be short and long*
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 2:43 PM UTC
I remember when I didn't like your boyfriend and you said that I couldn't tell him I hated him anymore because he was important to you.
You were never apparent enough because you never told me that I wasn't.
The days always dragged on and we would commiserate on the lack of family.
We were never a family.
But it was always my fault, wasn't it?
Solitary nights, I found myself accompanied by the ticking of an alarm clock made of metal that wasn't quite as cold as your heart.
I spent those nights alone brainstorming efficacious ways to **** the pain but I never got too long of a list. Mainly it consisted of picking up a blade.
You never noticed the pencil sharpeners suddenly missing. You never noticed that I only wore long sleeves, even during the summer. Now that I think of it, you never really noticed anything. But I can't really blame you when you were never home to see it.
I remember wondering why you loved him so much. The scent of alcohol constant on his breathe, quick with his words like sharpened scissors. Your sword turned into a shield made of paper. Fire and fire, but I was the one who got burned. I never understood why he loved you either.
I remember when I came home from school and the boxes were stacked to the ceiling with his name printed neatly on the sides. I thought maybe you two had another fight, but it wasn't that at all. It was me.
"I can't deal with that for another four years!" he shouted.
It was ME...
But even when he left nothing changed. In fact, I think it got worse.
I remember screaming at you that you made me want to **** myself. I remember it because I was shaking, tears rolling down my cheeks. It was the first time I had ever verbalized something like that. And with such anger and pain, but mostly fear.
You didn't hit me though. You didn't pull my hair like I thought you might. Instead you grabbed your car keys and you didn't come home for awhile.
I remember sinking to the floor, back against the wall. I cried for a bit and held myself. Mostly because I knew you wouldn't. You never did. I never wanted much, but maybe I asked for more than you could give.
Every day in that house, I felt unwanted. Alone.
Unimportant. Unappreciated. Unloved.
You were never a parent enough because you never told me that I wasn't.
-k.d.
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 12:30 PM UTC
J,
I painted a picture of the deep blue sea today.
Mrs. A said she loved how I put the sea in the shape of a sphere
Going from a deep sapphire, to a light cerulean,
Until it reaches an inky blackness in the middle.
Such art.
I said thank you.
I didn't tell her about your blue eyes,
And how they reminded me of the sea.
And the air and the heat,
And the earth and life.
I didn't tell her how it feels,
When your eyes glaze over me
Like my soul carries no body.
E asked me this week
If I still collected sharpeners,
Before she whispered about how you got engaged.
I'm so happy for you.
Honestly:
I'm so happy for you it hurts.
I think she wished I hadn't heard her.
I bought more sharpeners that day.
I saw Dr. O yesterday.
She asked me if I still heard your voice
When everything's dead at night.
I know you're not wondering:
But I do.
She asked me if I'm taking my meds,
And sometimes I don't want to,
And sometimes I just want to take them all at once,
But I said I did.
She asked me about the letters.
I told her I filled my fifth box that day.
She told me to stop,
Because they weren't doing me any good.
That's why I wrote you a poem today.
I hope you don't mind.
I saw you with her this evening,
And your family,
And her family.
That's a lovely ring.
I know you're doing well,
And I know you're loved.
I hope you will always stay golden.
Really. I mean it.
Happy Holidays.
Dec 27, 2014
Dec 27, 2014 at 7:13 PM UTC
Language is powerful, it evokes emotion in just a few sentences, words, letters, and I've decided the most heart breaking five words are "I'm scared to be alone"
You didn't have to say anything more, I knew that those five words meant you needed me to make sure you didn't take ten or twenty or thirty more anti depressants than prescribed, make sure the knives, blades, pencil sharpeners, and anything else you could hurt your self with were hidden, I knew you needed someone there to talk to, who could point out the speck of light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how small it may have been.
Language is powerful, it evokes emotion in just a few sentences, words, letters, and I've decided the most heartbreaking four words are "I'm used to it."
When you have been in so much pain for so long that you have stopped noticing how much it hurts to breathe, you forgot what good days feel like, you can't tell where pain ends and human begins, that is when you are most likely to give up trying to win the battle.
One of my closest friends told me how much they wanted to die, how ****** life had become and how much they are now used to feeling this way, and it felt the way it sounds when glass breaks to hear them say that.
Language is powerful, it evokes emotion in just a few sentences, words, letters, and I've decide the most heart breaking three words are
"I’m already broken."
I believe that no matter how messed up you may be you are never broken, just sprained, just twisted, that the pain of breaking a bone and the pain of a broken mind are different but the same because both can get better. But when someone is in so much pain they are convinced they finally broke, finally shattered, when they think there are too many piece to ever be whole again, you know they are in deep. And you know that this could be the day they stop trying to piece themselves back together.
Language is powerful, it evokes emotion in just a few sentences, words, letters, and I've decided the most heartbreaking 2 words are "the end"
I've never been very good at ending things.
I have a notebook full of unfinished poems, just a beginning, middle, and no end.
So when someone reaches the end of their story, or when they decide to close the book, when someone decides their story isn't worth seeing it through to the real end, that is when the heart stops pumping life and starts pumping poison through their veins. When the lungs lose the ability to inhale anything but seconds hand smoke. When the mind stops thing of life and starts thinking only of death.
Language is powerful, it evokes emotion in just a few sentences, words, letters, and I've decided the most devastating word is goodbye.
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 9:11 AM UTC
The sight of blood
You think I would have grown accustomed to it
After all, I've released so much
Wrecking pencil sharpeners, staining sheets
Blood has been a steady companion of mine these past few years
So it came as a surprise to find myself so weak
Heart racing, body shaking just at the sight of a movie
A death scene I knew was coming
But I couldn't foresee how much it shook me
Breaking down in public is hard
Trying to hide your mind falling apart
Its not something anybody should have to do
Part of that ****** hand life has dealt me
But have, what else is new?
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 3:23 AM UTC
Bring me back to the days
When sharpeners were just for pencils
Bring me back to the times
When dieting was just a choice
Bring me back to the place
Where the warmth could still reach me
Bring me back to the person
Who not once had teased me
Bring me back to the age
When milk was my whiskey
Bring me back to the past
When I only pretended to smoke
I guess it's too late
To bring me back to life
I guess it's too late
To pull out the knife
All I want now
Is for you to remember
And look back a the moments
When you made me suffer
Mar 19, 2014
Mar 19, 2014 at 9:41 AM UTC
my heart punctured as a foot by broken glass
i reek of dried *** and my own rotting flesh
the scales of mother's womb cool the flaming mold
***** needles filled with rat's ****
picking my fresh scabs from lit cigarettes and pencil sharpeners
my tongue blackened from ink and tobacco
i taste the fungal poison which comes with death
and i sleep in my bed of satin and rusty nails
while tomorrow fills my nightmares
i awake in a puddle of secretion and sweat
breathing death into my lungs
as if welcoming an old friend
one last time
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 4:52 PM UTC
As they purged the house
She stood and watched
They took the pencils
They took the sharpeners
She's not allowed to shave
They took the razors away
She cannot sharpen the pencils left
They took the razors away
The artwork gets dull
Her mind goes null
Idea box is full
But she cannot draw
They took the razors away
Her writing is forced
They speak of divorce
She can't express because
They took the razors
They took the razors away
They took her art
They took her love
They took her words
She took her life
Not all the razors had been thrown away.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 10:16 PM UTC
She loved art,
more so when she’s using red
Bright- filled with joie de vivre.
Dark- deep and sophisticated.
Soon her colour pencils will get blunt,
if not already broken
She reaches over to her drawer
full of sharpeners,
all either bladeless or with rusty metals
She takes a brand new one out of its packaging
and admired its beauty,
Its lustrous metal gleam
She unscrews it and began drawing red
on her pale, see-through canvas
The metal cold on her blue veins
unlike the warm red, now in a crimson shade.
Feb 20, 2018
Feb 20, 2018 at 6:46 AM UTC
Dark red stains on clean white sheets
Cracked pencil sharpeners, missing a piece
Angst and loneliness spelled out in blood
Bitter and afraid, longwing for the one I loved
To save me from this wreck
That has become my ******* life
Trapped inside a world
Where I can't get any respite
From the pain, oh the pain
That makes death seem like the only escape
And as the artist turns back to his canvas
He carves a heart
Broken and empty
On his pale white skin
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 10:04 PM UTC
I used to paint pretty pictures on my skin.
My brush collection was wide,
Filled with box cutter razors, the blades out of pencil sharpeners, and knives.
I used to melt my shaving razors and rip the blades from their homes,
Nessled them deep within my flesh to warm their steel bodies with my blood.
Am I painting pretty again, Mommy?
Am I making you proud yet, Grammy?
Looking into the glass windows of my home like they were funhouse mirrors,
Twisting and distorting my hourglass figure until I could no longer recognize my own skin.
I used to own a hall of mirrors.
Collected my demons behind the glass.
Big and small,
Tall and short,
Thick and thin,
Each mirror distorting your body image more than the last.
I used to collect knives.
Steak knives, butter knives, utility knives, butcher knives.
Each blade glistening with crimson.
Oh how I miss my children.
I bet you think it rude to speak of my past gory collections so fondly.
As if cutting myself open to let the bees rattling inside my veins free was the animal abuse.
Well I'll have you know I've finally set them all free.
Now my true healing may begin.
Now I collect flowers off the side of the road.
I collect feathers
I collect poems
I collect words
I collect men
And finally,
I collect myself
Dec 1, 2017
Dec 1, 2017 at 1:46 PM UTC
my fingernails are jagged
from all the times i used
them as screwdrivers
to unscrew the blades
of pencil sharpeners
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 12:24 AM UTC
the red bead bracelet
is a bracelet i made myself,
with the razors of my pencil sharpeners,
the beads of blood covering my wrist,
the red blood being the sole reason
i dont show my wrists without being covered
by some sort of sweater or jacket
because if i don't
i get made fun of or questioned
i am asked, why?
why did i pierce my clean, ****** wrists
with driving razors through my skin
the answer is because
i wish i weren't here.
because i don't feel
loved enough to not do it
i am ill, yes, I know that by now,
my therapy sessions prove it
the calls up to the office prove it
me, a kid on suicide watch in my own home
prove it all.
i can hardly keep my door shut
without getting yelled at by my parents
i know i am ill
but i am not
the deranged monster i am made out to be
that is what the red bead bracelet is for.
May 9, 2025
May 9, 2025 at 1:42 PM UTC
My room is a mess
debri settled on the nightstand from sleepover confessions, spilling all the secrets collecting dust inside our rib cages
ashes scattered across my roof from long nights of hoping the smoke would fill the spaces left
by our fathers
bladeless pencil sharpeners casting shame from my dresser
empty liquor bottles downed with hazy eyes and thoughts of those stupid ******* boys who won’t stop breaking our hearts and
maybe
I don’t know why I haven’t just put myself out but
how can you smother a fire when the ashes are already cold
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 11:49 PM UTC
I still have hopes
I still have regrets
I have scars from guitars
And scratches from the frets
I still have dismantled pencil sharpeners
Sitting in my trash can
I still have trophies
From races I never ran
I still have the belt
I used to measure myself with
But perfect perfection
Might be a myth
I still have fears
I still have cares
I have a defective brain
And a need for repairs
I still have diary entries
From years long ago
I still have scars
That I will never show
I still have Valentine’s Day cards
I kept from second grade
And I could have told someone
But I was afraid
I still have thoughts
I still have autonomy
I have control
Over what I’m gonna be
May 9, 2025
May 9, 2025 at 1:30 PM UTC
Wake, adolescent angels.
Your eyes are ice storms,
Your irises are tidal like the cold North Sea,
Your pupils are moonwashed and mad
Like howling western winds.
You look at your horizon,
You inhale stardust and nebulas like cigarette smoke,
Snort powdered mountain snows
Like ******* in the idle breezes of April or May.
Weep, shriek, sob yourselves hysterical
In the darkness of subways,
Beneath underpasses of ***** and spray paint
And endless neon lights.
Jump, leap, drop like stones from melancholy rooftops
Clutching burning cigarettes and *****
Spin, dance, laugh drunkenly in stairwells,
Assault your forearms with syringes and needles and broken glass.
Cry melancholy saltwater in public toilets,
Kiss the mirrors with fight-split lips
And pick at the broken wall tiles with chipped fingernails.
Tear at the moss on empty high-rise balconies,
Stand high on the railings without hands
And contemplate life and death and redemption and eternity.
Stab, slice, tenderise your thighs with pencil sharpeners,
Fall, graze your backs ****** on concrete,
On gravel, on rough tarmac and asphalt,
Trip, split open your knees in parking lots at 2:45 in the morning
When you’re high and drunk and giddy,
And dreaming of poetry and existentialism and cities.
Sleep, juvenile metaphysicists;
Your mouths are dimming campfire flames,
Your minds are like caves of amethyst and quartz,
But time will go on,
Much as it has since the morning of everything.
Earth will spin;
Faster than your head when you’re high
And your brain is addled by infinity.
Space and time and God
Will remain eternal.
But you
(But we)
Will not.
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 9:36 AM UTC
i wonder if you honestly thought that i didn't know all my flaws when you were screaming them at me.
i did. i knew. i still have bad habits, but they aren't as bad. i know you probably don't care.
i stopped ripping my flesh with blades out of pencil sharpeners
but not long enough ago for all of wounds to have healed yet.
and nothing goes up my nose anymore, or in my veins,
but now i sleep too much and eat even worse than i did before.
and i can't seem to stop biting my nails because i have no clue what i'm doing until they're all ripped away and hurt like hell.
the rest of my life is like that, too.
i wonder if you ever wondered why i never told you all the things you did wrong.
i won't waste your time telling you now.
but you had bad habits, too. you had your flaws.
i hear you put your fists down
but now you spend your nights in new york
with bottles and bloodshot eyes
or on little stages singing your songs about me.
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 7:44 PM UTC
When I was in 1st grade I would jump off the swing set just to feel alive
I got a lot of attention because the other kids thought I could die
Maybe I was lacking some sort of Imbalance chemically in my mind
Because the attention they gave me Was a new type of high
I illicit reactions just so I can feel fine
Blood is in the sink I think I can finally see the light
I want to feel the wind between my arms And lift into the air just one more time
The attention is addicting
Thick eyeliner and a black boobie dress
12 years old and they say I'm not filled out quite yet
I enjoyed the validation the old men gave me
Blood red, pill dead
Just like the pretty cigarette girls on TV said.
stuck in this loveless hole until somebody saves me.
Self destructive, enable the pain
Turn the corner and play their game.
I only want to what's worst for me.
I illicit reactions just to see
The emotionally intense delivery
Oh you should see your face,
And in the frown you gave me.
I'm just a liar now
No one hears my screams
There's blood in the sink and no one is listening
Lower middle class middle school ***** stealing pencil sharpeners every chance I could get
The blood is on my clothes and its not coming off
And I'll still send that old man a picture of my body
As I leek blood, draining it like a hobby.
He ignores my pain to fulfill his selfish pleasures knowing he gets to see a pubescent body with ******* on
I only like doing the things that are bad for me.
I illicit these reactions to keep the attraction
If I'm in control and I know their intentions, they can't hurt me
It can't happen
But there's still blood in the sink
God I'm so tragic
Wouldn't you think?
Feb 19, 2025
Feb 19, 2025 at 9:16 PM UTC
You know what's hard?
Getting up every morning and being perky and pouring your coffee in front of everyone and pretending you weren't crying until 4am.
You know what's hard?
Getting dressed and putting on your make up trying desperately to impress someone... Hoping for a miracle.
You know what's hard?
Leaving the house and having every single thing remind you of a certain person. Oh we kissed there. Oh he goes to the gym there. Oh he drove me home there.
You know what's hard?
Lying to every single person when they ask you if you're too warm in your baggy jumpers, when they ask you how you're doing. Oh I'm fine, yourself? It's a monotonous reply.
You know what's hard?
Losing every inch of yourself. I've no idea who I was before. And every single time I fall for someone new (which has only happened 5 times. I'm not a crazy **** I lose part of who I am. And I get happy for a bit but then they leave.
You know what's not hard?
Hurting myself. I seem to be able to do that with ease. Razor blades and pencil sharpeners seem to dissolve out of their screws and plastic. It's so easy. And falling. That's another thing I find easy. I fall way too fast for people who really don't deserve it. Only I fall rarely so it hurts worse....
You know what's hard?
Love.
Life.
Breathing.
Being me.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 7:53 AM UTC