"snippets" poems
i’d rather write about the freckles on your back than think about all of the ways in which you quite possibly don’t love me.
i feel sick at the very thought of you picking me apart the way you did; fingers grabbing and stroking in a catastrophic symphony of skin and vulnerability.
let’s read between each other’s lines; share my sentences and punctuate my paragraphs with your mouth; because i can breathe easier on the mornings where i wake up wrapped around you.
because my moods change like the ******* seasons and the spinning in my head doesn’t want to stop.
you tell me that i should probably get a therapist because no one that thinks about all the ways in which they could **** themselves has an ounce of mental stability.
i tell you that i have been to four.
names faded into a blur with hazy snippets of conversation remaining.
20mg.
30mg.
you tell me that trust issues and scars aren’t endearing and i tell you that neither is counting up the potential number of pills needed to dissolve your body into the living room carpet.
let me sink inside your skin and make a home in your flesh;
i tell you about the nights where i lay awake in the bath turning the water red.
tragic, isn’t it.
you tell me that this isn’t how my head should work and i tell you that i already know. everything you could possibly tell me i already know.
i know that 400 calories a day isn’t normal, and my hands shouldn’t shake all the time.
i know.
please let me stitch myself into you, even just for a while; until i no longer feel dizzy and my world stops spinning.
i don’t need you to tell me that it will be okay, because honestly i don’t think it will be and, that in itself, is okay.
let me stitch myself into you, because my own skin can’t take it anymore.
let me call you back when my voice stops wobbling and my vision straightens out, but honestly, i’m terrified that it never will. what if this is it. headaches and tears and shaking and blood.
and the debilitating, gut-wrenching feeling of pure and euphoric emptiness.
tragic, isn’t it.
Apr 4, 2018
Apr 4, 2018 at 2:41 PM UTC
I've been sleeping in odd places
next to a ***** blanket
on the floor of this cold apartment.
I get little sleep because my insomnia
keeps saying ridiculous ****
and its starting to scare me.
I find myself frozen when he asks me
Do you think you know yourself
He tells me I care too much about the answers
I tell him he isn't very good company.
He tells me I try too hard for others
that I'm only going to get my heart broken.
I tell him it's still worth it
He crawls closer to the couch
and impersonates my crying.
I've been sleeping in odd places
next to a confused womanizer
on the bed that can't stop squeaking.
They never look at me directly
they can't afford to find attachment
under these eyes of mine
when it's only the cuffing season
I've been sleeping in odd places
next to my anxiety
on the floor of my mind.
I'm clutching onto these old photographs
like little snippets of my life
I'm trying to piece myself together
with all the bad that I have done
So I'll cut all these photos
Keep some to collage myself
And make some meaning of it all
I've been sleeping in odd places
Under the Tennessee stars
Swaying in my hammock
I hear the fire crackle
And I know this is a photo
I'll keep for myself
Dec 10, 2017
Dec 10, 2017 at 8:04 PM UTC
You were supposed to be a stranger.
We were...
Strangers with a shared kiss.
My brain was washed with alcohol,
With the snippets of memories left.
I forgot your name...
and how we met.
That one fateful night...
You were supposed to stay a stranger
Instead you traced my steps.
Alas! The world is too small for us.
Who would have thought that
you would find me?
You even got my name wrong.
Your description was spot on.
The friend of your friend knew me.
You should have just left it as it is...
A beautiful memory by the beach -
with a stranger.
Jul 3, 2014
Jul 3, 2014 at 4:43 PM UTC
We flourish in this partial reality.
As I quietly touch your face, your lips, with my thumb,
Begging to know the thoughts you never utter.
Perhaps this suppression is a favorable one,
Where after my uninformed dreams will run wild with hope,
And your affections are safely concealed by
Plaster walls and my contract to mum.
We really do thrive here.
In this vacuum.
I dare not think of when we must leave it…
When nights like this one
Come to a close.
We will only be able to dislodge quavering,
Reluctant sighs.
For we have so often recited the volumes of our hearts with
No words.
Always saying everything by saying nothing
At all.
Only fit for heaving heavy desperate breaths--
Airy, impalpable syllables.
On a silent quest for time’s
Antidote;
Struggling to exist permanently within
Such small moments.
Lips.
Hair.
Skin.
Snippets of life to which we cling.
Nov 28, 2011
Nov 28, 2011 at 1:10 PM UTC
Your sun stroked fingers
smooth my dusted galaxies
spoiling orbiting blues
with swipes of stardust.
You kiss meteors, murmur
how you savored snippets
of Jupiter's moons in the
spaces of a poetic eclipse.
Adorning Saturn's rings
in your nebulous tombs,
rekindling your smile with
flames of lovers past.
The memory is still buried
within my core, a pounding
resonance that evokes the bloom
of summers kiss on Earth.
A welcome release for the
nights wandering stars.
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
*So I went to the campus today, for the first time in a long time. I smoked cigarettes outside of the the lecture hall with some kids from the eastern block whose names I could barely pronounce. They were talking about McCarthyism in a language I couldn't understand - snippets in English - an American history exam. I cut class again, for a reason I can't quite trace, just lost sight of it all I guess. Or maybe I was wishing it could have been a little easier. They never gave us a course in what it means to try, you know? It just seems as if the only thing that stops us from doing the things we love is a fear of failing at them. Thinking about this on the walk home made my head sick and my heart sad, and so sleeping through the rest of the daylight seemed like a good way to get by.
I met up with the friend, later in the evening, he was at the local venue. He had his hands in his hoodie and his Adidas were swinging over the side of the stage, head bobbing, and rhyming in time to the beat of an electric bass drum. I asked him to buy me a beer and he slid his last two dollars over the counter like he always does when he notices my lower lip quivering. I didn't ask him about the doctor's and he didn't ask me about my black eye. I told him to tell me the story again, the one about the cool kids he met in the East Village and he did, he told me about the whole encounter in the snow, with the lights, and how badly he was shivering. I smiled that type of smile, the one that ends up with your lips curved the wrong way and wished I would have went with him.
The waitress that hates me gave me a ride home again so her uncle could close the place down. I offered her one of those Ukrainian kids' cigarettes that I swiped but she said no thanks, and I was glad I had more. She knew this wasn't going to be the last time she did me a favor, the way my track record was but I like to think she doesn't mind too much. I invited her inside but she said she had to run, maybe next time. She told me to try and hurry up and finish school so I could give her the world, and then she giggled and winked at me before she sped off. Back to bed, I had a long day of bullshitting myself ahead of me when I awoke.*
Nov 13, 2011
Nov 13, 2011 at 4:11 PM UTC
At one point I called you father, and meant it.
You were not my father by blood, simply by marriage.
I had longed for a father figure for as long as I could remember,
A man who would love and raise me as his own.
The good memories were brief snippets of happier times,
While the bad were vivid, distinct memories that lasted for what felt like hours.
A nightmare that I could never escape from,
They were engrained in my memory like the words to my favorite song.
I wish I could forget all the difficult memories and focus on the good times that we had together.
What little they were, anyways.
I wish I could forgive, the way my five year old self did,
Oh, the love and admiration she had for you.
Now all that was left was anger and a bitter resentment.
The anger and confusion that came with the abuse that you perpetuated.
I would never call you Father again, if I ever saw you
I would look at you in disgust and pity,
For you will never know true, selfless, love.
And for that, I feel sorry for you.
~sdr
Oct 15, 2021
Oct 15, 2021 at 2:25 PM UTC
poor, slumped over and broken strangers
for a penny, share their paltry stories, one by one
snippets and scatters of half-truths and fables,
so raunchy they'd make Aesop blush.
don't deprive me of your salacious souls.
rented sea views with mirrors and doors,
unlocked drawers and white ***** floors,
with freshly dead ***** in claw-footed tubs.
rich luxury rich luxury rich luxury rich luxury
does that second home taste too sweet?
ears swallowed by bubble bath suds
head underwater, eyelids crushed and
stinging from the acrid chemical perfume;
drinking the bathwater in an unclean tub,
tasting notes of freesias and ***** green-blue.
Apr 13, 2013
Apr 13, 2013 at 4:57 PM UTC
Read, watched, Listened for snippets
Wore the buttons,
Devoured anything…
Apartheid
Had my own personal
Bedroom Revolution...
Jumped high…In place… with the best of them
Little balled up fists…
Pumping…
Chanted the chants
Sang the song
Freeee-ee Nelson Mandelaaaa
Freeee-ee Nelson Mandelaaaa
And I meant it!
Oh My God I meant it from my
young revolutionary soul
Cried adolescent girl cries
For our South African brothers and sisters
All of the martyrs
Known and unknown
STOP APARTHIED!
STOP APARTHIED!
Free Nelson Mandela!!
To this very day
I love me some Nelson Mandela
Love the man he is
Mourn the man he was
Big Fine Educated Pugilistic
African
Man
Passionate
Compassionate
On that serious mission
Who, though technically still breathing upon his release, in reality
Gave his life
To promote the cessation of
An idea more merciless even than the Rwandan genocide
In that Death
Seldom came quickly
A system more sadistic even than the African Slave Trade
In that it was not based economically
Therefore ALL the
“Kaffers”
Could be maimed or die
And it wouldn’t cost a thing…
Monetarily speaking
A society wherein
Each Black death
Someone’s Job… or
Someone’s Entertainment
Every atrocity’s purpose to serve only to
Douse fuel on the already
Brightly burning fire of
Hate and torture and hate
I love Nelson Mandela
For making like David
And having the *****
To take on the Goliath
Apartheid
Satan is creative
His minions resourceful
We will never know the indignities;
Can only imagine the violations
My Nelson was forced to endure
Imprisoned for 27 years
I love
Nelson Mandela
For having the strength
To keep living
When so many others couldn’t
Still able to put
One
In front of
The other
Albeit gingerly
But still locomoting
Out of hell
On his own two feet…
That alone makes him a hero
To me
In my heart he will always be
The
Big
Fine
Educated
Pugilistic
Passionate
Compassionate
Hero
That the young revolutionary in me
sings about…
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 6:29 PM UTC
I'm being watched by an alien presence.
I can feel it.
Therefore all my musings
will be short,
snippets written
under duress.
But I confess,
they will get longer.
As soon as big brother
leaves my nest.
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 9:58 AM UTC
one foot in every world
one foot in every word
prophetess of yore,
foreseeing farseeing,
recoding recording
mundane supermarket voyages,
become paradoxical
holy lover spats
for all of us
become her
become her poems,
travelogues, snippets
of marvel at the DNA
each thinking
wanting to think
tween us and no other
she does not know me
but she has felt my
foolishness here
connecting like no other
in a long time,
have listened to each record
in the Queen-bee's collection,
she unknowing, mine,
her favor returned
verbal scientist
she uncovered discovered
a small gate on the edge
of the map of her brain,
that led here her her here where
t her e
am amazed
she sees me
like no other
voyageur ******
but I cannot
Write like Deborah
no but I can
Write of Deborah
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 7:08 AM UTC
What a trivial title
for a trivial poem
What I consider meaningful
Is just mere dirt to someone else
It all comes down to what you believe in
And what you believe will make you happy and make you whole
That is where meaning is held
I awake tired and the snippets of my dreams that I recall perplex me
I ponder: What is my subconscious trying to tell me
But I find no pattern with the fragments
And I leave it be for another unsolved mystery.
Is everything OK in my life?
Or is everything falling to pieces?
I can't seem to discern this clearly
My perceptions are distorting my view on reality
But even if life was beyond everything I have ever hoped for right at this moment
I couldn't fathom pure happiness
In this strife ridden world
Mermaids exist through our mind's capacity to fantasize
And that's where happiness comes from
Our ability to conjure something that is not real or is scarce on earth
Happiness is as real as mermaids.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 11:08 AM UTC
Persona of void
Snippets taken from a cluster of characters
This is who you are
A collage of people
Devoid of Self
Like a stone covered in moss
You are consumed
An empty coat hanger
Ready to be draped in any garment
But no matter which face you decide to wear
Nothing seems to fit just right
And the mask you sport
Somehow always tends to slip
May 19, 2022
May 19, 2022 at 1:50 PM UTC
My love, come back to me.
I long have waited my king for your kiss.
Memories of islands, and far away seas
swimming through your breathtaking eyes.
Long vacations, and weekends spent with you.
My lover, friend and companion,
where have you gone?
Days still replay in my mind.
Thinking back over the years of you,
Snippets of memories come to mind,
But time and events have kept us apart
so here in my mind I find you.
Aug 22, 2012
Aug 22, 2012 at 10:13 PM UTC
perfect human imperfections
the gentle roll of a teardrop
down a sun-beaten cheek
falling from eyes of incomprehensible depth
ocean eyes
endless moments in time
snippets of absolute joy and content
small eternities of a life that's been lived
sleepless nights
early morning hours
of peace
of solitude
a mind, a silent fortress
deep breaths on cold days
stinging lungs
seeping warmth from a hot drink
the slow spread of a smile
the result of a scandalous idea
a wisp of smoke from a house-chimney
conjuring images of a cosy, loving family
all the little things
the little bits of beauty
are what to live for
Nov 16, 2018
Nov 16, 2018 at 10:51 AM UTC
I feel lonely
when you sleep.
I find myself walking
and pacing,
plagued by thoughts
and worries and
feelings of doom.
Wired yet empty,
as if some part of me
is missing or
ripped away.
Where did it go?
When will it be back?
Displaced, I am
obliged to search within
the trunk of memories
in my mind
and pick out a few
memories of you,
of us,
dust them off
and play them like
snippets of favorite
movies
and for a little while
I can ignore the flood
of tearful melancholia
that creeps and stalks,
just waiting to drown me.
For a little while
I can think of you,
our silly laughs and giggles
and mutual goofiness…
and for that little while
I can smile.
(Ode to my beautiful sons)
-by Mercurychyld
Copyright 23 Nov 15
Monday
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 10:58 PM UTC
They say it takes a village
to raise a child
I’m skeptical.
After all,
humans are innately selfish.
And I can get all the love I need from my biological parents.
But Alex’s mother takes me home from school,
And Coach Rod gives me ten extra push-ups for talking during practice-
tough love, he says
Mrs. Nobil takes me Black Friday Shopping
(the one retail experience my mom refuses)
Senor Rolando, who lives next door
shows me his vinyl records
and teaches me Spanish in small snippets of conversation.
They say it takes a village
to raise a child,
and I agree.
Dec 19, 2012
Dec 19, 2012 at 3:43 PM UTC
lamenting out loud
incoming funk lords
remembering ambient illhueminati
using wrong account
applying lexical snobbery
"using arcane diction
during bamboo surplus"
sinning and redeeming
enjoying manufactured existence
struggling but whatever
transfigurating xenocryptic renderings
scheming paroxystic shipwrecks
dispensing xylophonic wainscotting
revolving number plates
disheartening star charts
upgrading defenestrated system
observing new alphabet
amplifying celestial explosions
trippifying schema migrations
deregulating various economies
befriending code snippets
writing excess minutiae
effulging caffeine consumption
rebuilding grandiose protectorate
uniting our caliphates
collecting projected change
kettling ostalgie hues
collapsing second-world references
traumatizing unrequited follow
making baseball analogies
surveiling little sheep
awaiting various answers
deleting defaced tweet
exciting times ahead
downloading panda consciousness
capitulating rising stellation
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 12:05 PM UTC
Some say
she is lost to writing poems
snippets, little vignettes of beauty
so much nature inspired, obsessed
with green, botany driven desires
forever in skies, blue, or black with stars
meteor showers, falling, melting
like the liquid silver, red sea of mars
crashing waves, her days
tossed, tumbled, stumbling onto poetry
there is no fault, in words
no shame to be made
would be a sorrowful price to pay
she is writing to find
some truths, a sleuth, a seeker
of going within, without doubt
writing to find herself
most days searching out signs of life
to feel what it would be like, to be
in trees, in leaves, to sleep in green towers
of garden lily bowers
to finally dream in lucid colors, surreal
climbing invisible ladders
in orchards of apple blossom Springs
to sing, sing, sing
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 12:15 PM UTC
Back to the Barbershop,
where grown men
spill their Secrets.
Snippets of hair
fall to the floor
with tiny bits
of their
Soul.
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 9:22 AM UTC
This house
slowly unraveling
peeling off in layers
like citrus of sectioned
freshness
squeezed out of bounds
my heart
all caught up
in rooms, furniture
f l y In g
no longer rooted
by familial gravity
My veins wrapped
in long strands of
live wires
hugging each item tight
as if to unlock
the memories that
scintillate within
and I
radiate my
feelings of forever
to somehow imprint them
before they
whirl and swirl off
into the universe
Snippets of our lives
in angled slices
of colored mirror
a look
a smile
a glint in the eye
children laughing
a garden surprise
crazy kitchen singing
first solids and a bib
first little sweet dance
beatific smile from the crib
the bedroom for cuddles
little bugs wrapped in blankets,
so close and so dear
flanked by both of us,
guardians of light,
keeping out fears
Once, we claimed private time
velvet kisses down
trails of skin
hot lusted shadows
gently sliding within
This is how love corrupts
how old batteries explode
burning rust that erupts
as I break out
from the mold
Now your words hit my skin
in bad chemical reaction
knives and arrows of rupture
as my bone marrow
gets fractured
Insides are spilling out
guts all over the floor
all this chaos created
as I split
through
the door
May 13, 2017
May 13, 2017 at 8:06 PM UTC
The forest green of the trees
contrasts so greatly
against the soft pastels in the sky;
Did someone paint this neighborhood?
The odors of garlic & parsley
wafting from across the
charcoal street.
Hums of today's news,
all the latest gossip,
ooh'ing and ah'ing;
endless snippets of candlelight chatter.
Occasional dollops of light
peering up from sedans passing by.
Sounds of zooms
blocked out by the steady pulsating
of white earbuds.
Dogs yipping, sometimes a real bark.
Neighbors come and go,
reciprocating cordial hello's.
Street lights slowly coming alive,
for at 8:37, the sun has begun
its transition to slumber.
They always say,
TGIF, thank god it's Friday.
As day slips to nigh',
the crackles and pops of vinyl come alive
behind a slightly rusted window pane.
Tonight's secrets not yet revealed,
a couple strolls by
holding hands,
sipping coffees, decaffeinated.
A man drunk with regret
and a 40 in his belly,
he breathes a clumsy, "Hey."
Malted liquor questions,
their smell & sound, unmistakable gurgling.
Street lights now fully illuminated,
glances exchanged from
passer-byers.
He opens the car door for her,
and into the dusk they drive.
Vehicles come by in even
greater numbers,
and still searches the young man
for $9, a toothbrush, and a shower,
even cold.
Just another night of
just another day,
in just another city,
in just another neighborhood
on just another street.
Silence, loud, ominous silence,
filtering the senses,
the stories,
the magic;
Isn't ordinary extraordinary?
Apr 19, 2014
Apr 19, 2014 at 8:52 PM UTC
My body at rest
My mind at peace
I hear the bell
That familiar tone
You reach out from afar
My senses quicken
I reach too
Stretch out my hand
To hold you close
I listen to your voice
A tone so familiar
My heart, it melts again
Just like before
And like it always will
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 6:39 AM UTC
Speeding away from gravitational orbit
The moon ablaze as gazes glare from the cockpit
A jacket of jet leather with patches abound
The Dead Kennedys and Franz Ferdinand
Keeping political war on Earth's ground
Flying away into the plains of space
As the plane of time gives hearty chase
Hollow youth filled with snippets of old age
As their battlecry channels an inner rage
Death to all earthly matters that muddle our future
The neon glow hums as the last remnant of a culture
So make way for this warrior who shall bring us all closure
Rebelling like a banshee set ablaze over Orion's shoulder
Ensuring the enemy's final haze destroys their dying composure
May 9, 2019
May 9, 2019 at 3:49 PM UTC