"shoplifted" poems
She burst into our lives one summer
In an explosion of glitter and cat ears
And into the darkness of our young lives
She became a light.
She demanded my friendship
Commanded my respect
Reprimanded my bad choices
And expanded my views.
She's the one who got me writing poetry
She taught me how to worship
And how to question authority
She told me to speak up
To be myself
And I learned from her fearless example.
We shared some scars
And she was never afraid of telling me the straight-up truth.
She wasn't perfect
Sometimes she destroyed feelings
And shoplifted our hearts
But I learned from that, too.
And then one day with a toss
Of those red curls, one of those
Hugs that made everything better
And a swing of the metal heart hanging on her chest
She was gone, just like that
But I'll never forget she changed my life
And I'm still changing it through
Rachel, this one's for you.
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 4:57 PM UTC
Bedroom’s painted fisherman’s blue
There’s a cut out of Hayden Panettiere naked in a pink bikini with a hula-hoop on the back of the door
Copies of British Vogue desperately hidden underneath the bed accompanying an empty bottle of Glen’s
Manchester United duvet cover and matching pillows to boot
The bin’s filled with pre-packed home-made lunches from the last six months
Wardrobes a collection of ill fitting blue jeans bought for me by grandmother and football jerseys for teams that I’ve never even heard of, yet let alone see play a single game
Uniform ironed and sitting out ready for school on Monday at 8am sharp
***** clothes cover mostly all the floor smelling of Lynx’s finest even though there’s an empty laundry basket just waiting in the corner to be used
Inside one of the woolen blazer’s (that is way too big for me) pockets a single unopened ****** and an AES 256-bit encrypted USB stick
An old PlayStation 2, with a single controller; games including FIFA years through 2004 to now, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and GTA.
Blood red shoplifted lipstick that’s now melted hidden in the little secret compartment at the back, meant for network expansion.
Artemis Fowl, Alex Rider, and Harry Potter all adorn the bookcase
Physics, Maths, and IT textbooks remain firmly closed on the desk in addition to a smashed phone from me and Daddy’s last “physical altercation”
Lady Gaga’s “I Like it Rough” is playing in the background on repeat…
Aug 23, 2020
Aug 23, 2020 at 2:43 PM UTC
I hope you’re doing okay,
but from what I’ve heard,
I don’t think you’ll ever do well.
I heard you were wasted, puking
on *** that was shoplifted
by your friend. Your ***** smelled like
oranges and everyone took you home drunk
to your mom like it was their fault.
Because I remember when you were just cutting yourself
to escape the trauma of your mom beating you
and living with runaways. Your friends raised you,
but they’ve gone to college, and you’re left
with drunk driving drug dealing boyfriends
A couple summers ago you called me when
you lost your virginity in the bed of your
obsession’s truck and you thought you
would be pregnant and drank yourself
to sleep because you thought it was decent
birth control, even though he came on your back
didn’t see you for a couple of years and thought we lost touch
because we were broken down and giving up
and I thought if you could just find a place that didn’t
party or abuse their girlfriends that you could find
a place to be where you wouldn’t feel so numb
Way too long ago I remember stories of your friends
running away to Canada, being kidnapped
or arrested, sent to the emergency room
like when you tried to **** yourself over some boy
or because you hated your mom
or you thought you were too fat
when you’re trying to forget yourself
drinking cheap alcohol and skinny dipping
I hope that you won’t have to last as long
because you aren’t meant to be ******
intoxicated or depressed, when that’s
all you’ll ever do.
Jun 19, 2011
Jun 19, 2011 at 11:40 AM UTC
I'm sorry I'm a bad person
That I steal and lie
Those sunglasses I gave you?
Sorry, I shoplifted them from Walmart
I'm sorry I'm ****** up
That I have terrible tales from my terrible childhood
The stories?
None of them have I made up
Sorry, it's just the way I was raised
I'm sorry I get depressed
That some days are good and other days I can't even talk to you
And those days?
You're the only fix for them
Sorry, I really can't help it
You're ill-equipped to deal with my ****
And that's not your fault.
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 11:40 AM UTC
We wore our shoplifted morals
on our very backs.
Shirts stained in lust and
revelation plain.
Lost in odes to obscenity
and ****** light in boxcars
to Ocean.
Fake wisdom chainsmoked
and chained up pressed
to the radiator, burned.
Seventeen looked twentytwo
and felt about a hundred
But danced like we were
young again in the ethereal
glory of the night.
But the nights turned to
minutia as we packed
Luggage filled with memories
on an outbound train to
Adulthood and Adolescence
was left waiting for you
by the tracks.
Trains trains trains
life and love gone flying
by at a mile a second
and the seconds are precious
and the miles are precious
and all the precious miles
and minutes still fly fly fly
speeding on train tracks
and we wave as friends become
blurred faces waving back
from portholes zipping
in opposite directions
and we becomes I and you
and I don’t quite know you anymore.
And this used to be beautiful:
Writing gibberish on
our arms and legs
when we ran out of paper
sleepless nights pouring
forth beautiful poetry
and utter catastrophe
twinkle-eyed laughing .
Driving streetcars through
Los Angeles to go get high
at the top of the world
and peal out when
the coyotes crash the party.
Summernight shamblings
and skinny dipping
and kissing caressing
ashamed of nothing.
Learning that peace
is only a word
until love breathes
life into its
lungs and that we could
breathe with each other
and breathe in each other
But our kindred fire
flickered and roared
only to flicker again.
sunken embers haunting
fingertips reaching,
but too far now to
ever touch again.
Charred and depleted,
flying in the tumult
of cyclone wind,
Memories stripped bare
and standing blasted by
the sands of time until
smooth and unrecognizable
they fade from our minds
Ashen shadows of smoke
from locomotive top-hats
chugging endlessly onward
to opposite stations.
10 October 201o
Oct 21, 2010
Oct 21, 2010 at 11:50 AM UTC
"You should never have set the thermostat to 'off'! Now my pipes are frozen & have no water!"
You should never have continued putting your alcoholism
Before all of your children
You should never have had to leave your job because you
Shoplifted and they let you off easy
You should have never taken away my house key because I
"Didn't deserve to have that privilege"
You should have been there for me when I told you
I wanted to die and that I needed you
You should never have asked me to lie to the one person I wholeheartedly trust
For the sake of protecting nothing & only further enabling your
Long-term delusional mind
You should have never given birth to me in the first place
If you planned on staying eighteen years old forever.
If accidentally leaving the house with freezing pipes and no water is the best way to say
**** you
Without actually saying it,
Then so be it.
(Sorry I'm not sorry.)
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 1:47 AM UTC
we should
get lost
in europe
dreaming
empires
trespassing
painters' homes
you'll mona-lisa
smile and i'll measure
the shoplifted
hearts
in foreign
time zones
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 11:10 PM UTC
Someone said the truth
sets you free
So I try to be
the shoplifted spirits
Irony poured me out
a little for my home
needed flattening
having wrinkled in time
Here's a reason
here's a rhyme
There's a fate
At my gate
He didn't knock
But dropped a line
There's a gun
In my fun
It doesn't stun
But blows his mind
Here a fate
There a fate
Everywhere a fate
fate
Oh my darling
What a charm
Free I, free I, oh!
Oct 20, 2014
Oct 20, 2014 at 12:29 AM UTC
I shoplifted by age three
Arrested by ten
Prison by nineteen
Got out
Cruised the streets
Like a wolf in many forms
Jun 15, 2015
Jun 15, 2015 at 1:10 PM UTC