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Emmanuella Jun 2019
Today I put on that perfume
And it hit me
With a memory forgotten;
Sunken at the bottom of the almost empty bottle.
“Mhm, wow you smell so good. What perfume is that?” You had asked.
I’d been over the moon waxing outside. You had tickled my insides.
So when I’d spritzed that on my neck and inhaled that scent and that memory…
I was glad.
Glad that the bottle was finished.
Glad that there was nothing left to remind me of that moment,
Glad that as I tossed the bottle into the trash, I had, in turn, trashed the memory.
The memory sunken at the bottom of that perfume bottle.
A scent's arousal.
neth jones Feb 2022
contaminated...                            

the boy is explained in the dark
                  made smaller and tighter than his thirteen years
        invented a-tread each direful night ;
            in place of restfulness
                   he is tussled :

itchy within                                    
moans of a growth owning pain
domestic air is newly surrogate
the boy flees upstairs
the condition of the home is sickly
             excreted beads from the fibres
a pale mix is gland
                        a perspiration out of sorts
pursed
spritzed
lively          
            then a wing-ed light smog

keeping to his room                            
he sits on his bed to 'wait it out'
the sun downs                        
as fruited ideas                
                   treacle up the pine wood walls
as otherworld tones        
                             flute the flumes that plumb the walls
as his mother clears the dishes
        with the radio on
as the fathers increasing tardiness
        makes the wound hour leaden further

outside
wind starts churning up the monster
hustling the coniferous trees
stoking the forrest for its brazen voice
jeeving hard upon the house
dry *******
inducing a perverse osmosis
within                                              
          pressurized audibility is clayed
hairs on the carpet tick static
              ....  this negative duress

outside
the moon hides its legend            
an autumn owl takes the bough
     just above the boys window
    it hunches into its ruffle
       retches up a pellet of prey
fur and crushed bone
            clatters dryly into the gutter

the boy works his jaw
       relieving his popping ears
the rooms climate becomes sparky
important items radiate auras :
             the scorpion in formaldehyde
stolen from school
                          grandmas mourning ring on a string
                suspended above his desk
        an old key discovered in  the woods

investigation                          
a brief hole in sound
a slim bik of light traverses
  over the boy
    the bed
       and out into the hallway
it winks gone
     and sips of smoke
like lithe neat scraps of silk
start livening the corners of vision

he stands                                                      
open­s his closest and dresses for sleep
      yield to routine

Mother enters                              
    always a human breath                  
                                         of pre decay warmth
      here to make him into his bed
bound by her neat practiced tucks
                         the boy receives her loving words
                                  but she's in a separated world from his
distortion gums up the audibility          
he attends to lips
the blessings don't function right
mistress smudges are left in the air            
they trail from the corners of her mouth
                             with the expressive turns of her head

fending lightly from the room
she blows a kiss at the doorway
it punches a little galaxy swirl
                              and suspends
a heated blue weave of the hand
                    and she is gone

door concluded and the light left on
the wall flower patterns crick and shale loose
    they cash into the flooring
and in turn the floorboards palpitate finely
feathering into a unreliable state

less than a minute later ...                   
fathers presence                              
   makes an apologetic attempt
                                                     at a ghost-walk
sounds clumbered in an aquarium                
    he slides his back down the drunken partition
and talks
   he sells a story of personal wretchedness
some lesson is vague
flammability
the boy takes the readings                  
                  of the distant vocal squall
pauses in the erratic speech weather expect replies  
     but the boy fears this colonized version of the father

though anger
                        father does not enter
rumbles his fists, feet              
                 and frustration at the wall
stands                                            
      and­ punches his footfalls
                  to the master bedroom

the parents
together now closeted
amniotic             
their world fidgets fiercely and swells          
swaddled in their own dramatics
firing blindly                        
their voices
travel the pipes in the walls
back to the boys room
                drowned of discourse
but not the aggressive 'passion' flaring out
they plunder the boys ears

Sudden ! ;                
                  brakked smell of flint
a bird slams the window dead        
crack in the pressure
unbearable penetrating release
screaming the boy host violent
minds that bind are loosened
subpoenaed                                              ­
          the boy recoils and fends this raid
kicks off the bedding
strips free of his pyjamas
a thick layer of his own goes with it
fleecing his actual skin                        
raw stinging exposure
he tugs at the flay of his own rubbery peel
enough layers of dermis in one
grip and pull
to make real hurt
raw of pain
(it feels)
tug-tug
grip
and pull
sleeves off of limbs
and a sappy caul from his bonce
he doffs the leather onto the floor
fresh wash of song
fierce waves of signals hot and cool
he ***** up his matty sheered hide
"**** it !"
pulls up the window enough
vent
an outward 'gush' as the pressure balances
the boy                        
dispose    
      push the viscid pelt out
the boy expels
disgorged into the night

                                              - consummated
A Mareship Apr 2015
In a Bluebird toffee tin
Are a hundred letters –
Most of them doodle-stamped and
Delivered by hand.
Unlike the letters I sent to you
They do not smell of spritzed cologne,
(A trick that I learned from Grease)
They are not messy
Or tea stained,
But perfect powder blue
And allowing for small extravagances –
The Cursive of the Obsessive,
Cursed by neatness and perfect hearts.

I pick one out at random,
A casually cruel one sent from Rome –
I imagine you blinking on a balcony
With dazzles on your collarbone,
A teeny tiny sugarless coffee
At your side,
And a pen tapping your knee.

“I’m not a **** at all –“ you wrote,
"It’s only that you are gregarious
In the most DISGUSTING way.
That’s your problem not mine -
Your optimism won’t catch you.
(Cynicism won’t catch you either,
But it has the courtesy not to throw you.)
I’m stopping now,
By the time you get this
I’ll be back home.
What pointlessness we endure for one other.
I miss you, as you say,
‘ever so’ –
Bedtime here is a source of misery.”


And then you signed your name,
Tiny,
Small,
Impossibly graceful,
Just like yourself.

You were always nasty
When you missed me.
posted before but now edited. Of all the things I've written, this is my favourite (probably because half the words are not mine.)
i cant read
so i just write
i quickly become tired
with your work
i would much rather pace
wear down the blades of grass
in the familiar place

i cant read
because while the graces of poets
philosophers
and scholars
make pretty the page
syllables dancing
atop meticulously pressed parchment
while this happens
through their beauty
i only think of you

toss the tome aside
and imagine all the ways
i can express
the things that capture and drag
the fingertips to their home
back to the place where i feel full
loved and laughed at
where i carouse and cherish

this was never about the "reads"
never about the ratio
of lit to likes
it was only ever about me writing
you love letters every day
ten max though

fact is, half of these *******
scrawlings these
are returned to sender
but crying alone
is far better than pretending
pretending you were never upset
and begging for something you need
begging doesnt only work if there is a listener

i cant read
i cant read our future
i cant give you house keys
a front or back yard
a cat box
a leash

i cant read
i write.
all 106 of them
garbage some think
but its garbage
i sealed with tears
and stamped with a kiss
spritzed with cologne
(if i wore it)

i cant read
star charts
memos
concert bills
calendars
no parking signs
or the expressions of cats

but i can write
pour out every guttural spasm
scribble every inspiration
leer and laugh toward
a glowing screen
mute and accepting
of the drivel banged out below it

i cant read
i can write things though
some things
good things
things

see what i mean??
i cant even write.
"things
good
things"
hay-seuss x-mas!
looking to hire a writing coach....
999-888-9988 extension 666
"i like it"
so i guess i win
A Mareship Oct 2013
In a Bluebird toffee tin
Are a hundred letters –
Most of them doodle-stamped and
Delivered by hand.
Unlike the letters I sent to you
They do not smell of spritzed cologne,
(A trick that I learned from Grease)
They are not messy
Or tea stained,
But perfect powder blue
And allowing for small extravagances –
The Cursive of the Obsessive,
Cursed by neatness and perfect hearts.

I pick one out at random,
A casually cruel one sent from Rome –
I imagine you blinking on a balcony
With dazzles on your collarbone,
A teeny tiny sugarless coffee
At your side,
And a pen tapping your knee.

“I’m not a **** at all –“ you wrote,
It’s only that you are gregarious
In the most DISGUSTING way.
That’s your problem not mine -
Your optimism won’t catch you.
Cynicism won’t catch you either,
But it has the courtesy not to throw you.
I’m stopping now,
By the time you get this
I’ll be back home.
What pointlessness we endure for one other.
I miss you, as you say,
‘ever so’ –
Bedtime here is a source of misery.”


And then you signed your name,
Tiny,
Small,
Impossibly graceful,
Just like yourself.

You were always nasty
When you missed me.
susan Apr 2015
looking back and forth
from you
   to her
     to them
        & the others
and i wonder...
who of you are sincere
which of you go home in complete & utter contentment?

   you...
wearing plastic smiles
             coifed hair
      painted eyes
   and lips
             gelled
     sprayed
          sprinkled &  spritzed
                   iron out
     blown out
      shaken & tousled
for what?

to add to the alcohol induced facade
   of the similar?

no, i am not unique

i'm just better at showing what's real
than most.
Anais Vionet Aug 2023
Peter, Charles and I were jetting our way to Paris. I’d just woken up. I had to *** so badly it woke me up. It was a medical emergency. I stretched and everything hurt, I felt like I was 30.

Peter was sitting next to me, on the aisle, reading. When he saw me stretch, he said, “Hey sleepyhead.” Ok, I didn’t actually hear him say it, we were all wearing noise canceling AirPods. I read his lips. I motioned that I needed to get up and he probably said “sure,” marking his place with his index finger and standing up in the aisle. I saw Charles watching us and I gave him a sleepy smile.

I’d made the Paris trip 20 times, at least, and I carry an indispensable little travel ****** bag. I removed my AirPods and put them in their case to recharge and used Neutrogena cleansing wipes before I splashed water on my face. Then I spritzed my face with Biologique L' Eauxygénante moisturizing mist. Finally, I applied Clinique lip balm. When I was done, I felt human. My watch said I’d slept for 2 hours.

On my way back to my seat I dropped by Charles, one row back from us and across the aisle.
“How you DOin?” I said.
For some reason Charles and I always greet each other like we’re the Sopranos. “I’m DOin’ ok,” he replied, giving me a little toast with his coffee cup, “You slept?”
“2 hours,” I said. I nodded at his coffee cup, and he handed it to me for a sip.
“Mmm” I said, handing it back. “It feels odd not sitting with you,” I told him, because, well, it did.
“Go on,” he said, giving me a little shoo-away gesture. “We’ll catch up in Paris.”
I gave him a gentle, backhanded tap on the shoulder as I left.

When I got back and Peter and I finished the whole seat-hopping bit, I tilted the book he was reading to see what it was. The title read ‘Thermodynamics and Control of Open Quantum Systems.’ I pantomimed a yawn and he smiled condescendingly.

I put my AirPods back in and the annoying, but necessary, jet noise vanished. The little jet on my seat display indicated we had about 5 hours to go, but I had my Kindle (500 books), my iPad (games, apps, the slow Internet), my Nintendo Switch (Animal Crossing and Zelda), my phone and, of course, the movies and series offered on the seat panel in front of me.

Then, I remembered the two Cinnabons and Honeydew melon Boba Teas in my backpack. The flight attendant passed and asked if we needed anything.
“Can I get a large cup of ice, please?” I enquired. She nodded, making a ‘be right back’ finger motion.

It’s not like we have to row this jet. Why do people complain about air travel?
hillary litberg Aug 2019
i wrote you a letter,
spritzed it with pheromones,
dotted it in tears

every grim notion was far too pretty —
dressed in ballpoint ink
dancing a legato cursive

tracing everything i didn’t say;
my tongue was tangled up,
and your hearing was selective

but pain was bubbling out my pores,
and starting to burn
the only remedy was writing it out:

dear you,

i want to mold me into the
pedestal i put you on,
but you have to scooch a little

i want to go on a scavenger hunt
in your brain, but you didn’t
think to draft out clues

i want to use your heartbeat for 808s
and play them on repeat,
but you’d probably say that’s ludicrous

i want to find our favorite
frequency, i think it’s
somewhere close to middle c,

but you didn’t meet me there
never really cared to care,
and that’s fine, that’s fair

your debt to me is absent
same as mine to you
yet i’m still paying in time wasted

analyzing your words in my head
that don’t have double meanings
like i devised

you’re as literal as stem majors
uneager to decode the metaphors
i made for you

so i’ll stop writing them
at least
i’ll try

love,
me
(please)

folded up my fears of feeling
something more than my pulse
the impulse wasn’t strong enough

couldn’t muster the courage
to address it in your name
still i hoped you’d somehow see

so i let the wind take the reins
with fate in the passenger seat
clutching my precious card-stock cargo

will it find it’s way to you,
or dissolve amongst the mist?
i guess that i can only guess
a little ditty about trying to get over unrequited love which as we all know, *****!
I'll peer through the flaxen strand
   of night

with your color that excites,

and think myself the blue pither of fire
  or a flummoxed stone left unturned.

it's not the rapture of a knowledgeable
   beast or the common grip
   of the eye's gift for unsparing detail.

it's the way the queen moves to all
    corners unclenching a fold of sidereal,

and then like a child with almond eyes
  spruced up, spritzed this morning's
  incandescent dye,

the lapping of strange tides revealing
    fish with dreams of brine

or that one moment when you had
   at first light, the hot flush of coming
      into, recognizing insatiable appetite,

  whistling its overdue intent and the detritus
        we try to hide when we had that virginal moment of    once and  never looking back
      at mirrors.
Hewasminemoon Mar 2017
I lie in vintage floral and breathe in the musty smell of the "yellow bedroom"
The room is pitch black and in the distance is the blaring of the 11 o'clock news echoing on two televisions

I toss and turn in my bed
Its mattress much firmer
than I am used to
It makes my bones ache so I crack my feet
and stretch my legs
I hear footsteps coming down the hall so I shuffle in my place and quickly click the lamp beside me off
I lie perfectly still
Rubbing my tongue against my teeth

A small white sore formed on the tip of my tongue one week ago and it won't go away
When I eat sugar or spice
it burns
Sometimes I stick it in the air and feel the cold **** up all the moisture
Drying and healing the spot
But only momentarily
Until I place it back in my mouth, and the stinging returns, two fold

The sounds of steps again,
this time departing
Then the sound of the microwave

My eyes are swollen from lack of sleep

I lie and think of the summer I slept in this same bed
After a long days work in the heat my skin was blistered
from the sun
I took a photo of my tan lines to send to someone
My back
bright red
I can still smell the scent
of weeds
and freshly dug dirt
underneath what fingernails I had left
I could feel the dirt spill out onto my pillow as I rested my head on the back of my hand

I adjusted my position and suddenly felt the space between my legs burn
Earlier, in the shower, I attempted to shave with a cheap pink razor
It mutilated me
Left dozens of little pin ***** like wounds
The rush of discomfort caused me to sweat profusely and the combination of the perspiration and heat almost created a cool tingling sensation that reminded me of dry ice

I laid still again until the pain went away

I could feel my eyelids
getting heavier
Sleep beckoned

I recalled a happy memory
from a few days prior
As I closed my eyes
I imagined myself
back in my own bedroom
My own television
Its volume barely audible
On the screen
A film entitled
"To Catch A Thief"
My head burrowed
in a mans chest
My arms wrapped around
his neck
Swirling the ends of his hair
in my fingertips
I would drift in
and out of a dream
Each time, waking with a jolt
After some time,
He announced his departure
pulling himself out from underneath me,
kissing me softly
and slinking out the door

I yearned now
for the sort of sleep
that followed then
A heavy,
almost drug induced sleep
My body dense and soupy
My mind delirious
My dreams
Rapturous

But the elation of this idea
was short lived
And instead,
I was back in stiff sheets
Once again,
I could hear the televisions
This time;
the sounds of late night infomercials

I had always hated falling asleep alone
It was tedious
as a twice told tale
And desolate
as a desert
Back and forth
My left and right shoulder occasionally
exchanging the weight
My internal organs
sloshing in me
from one side to the other

Finally,
I found a comfortable spot
And decided
I had better force myself to sleep
On account of an early wake up time tomorrow
I took one last long breath
in through my nose

I was wearing his sweatshirt,
In the hopes his smell would waft in and put me right to sleep like a lullaby
but instead all I could smell was my own perfume I had spritzed earlier

The image of his face would have to suffice for now
I closed my eyes and imagined the small dimple in his chin and the sound of a door closing shut.

Soon I was fast asleep.
Spritzed me with rain, this morning.
   Rooftops unravel inner coating like old scabs
   to wounds. Quiescent mercy of the Sun
   bleared behind curtains of cumulus. There is a far
   more in-depth correlation between an insurmountable
  ex-facto and the fruition of affront:
           something a sutured lip unwraps, a sotto voce.

                                                          ­    Murmuring murmurings,
       tousled the leaves to a zither like salad on a depthless bowl:
    a coarse susurrus unattainable through lip-reading: tongue’s the
   scythe and the message that rummages athwart, something
                                 that rushes in the blood, a scrape on the sinew
                 as I coil in pain like a thing in womb revealing its fetal nature.
                              something that speaks for another one – ventriloquism
                       in its keenest sense,        speak for me, you, both of us lost
                                in frenzied translation.
Marie-Niege Mar 2016
today I watched meek flies die
at the center of a grapefruiting sun
and marveled as it's feathering wings
peeled and spritzed and clouded.

*funny how transparent life is. everything
that gives takes
Bonk Bonk Sir Jan 2019
A blank stare.
The soft rustle of long black hair
whipping in the wind.

Tear stained cheeks and red eyes,
a certain feeling of numbness that won't subside.
The sound of painful screams echoing in an empty mind
that is bustling inside all at the same time.  

Distant memories come back to haunt
while the good times have already been forgotten
as if they were some wild dream.

Upon looking at the calm water and being spritzed in sea spray,
most don't realize that the same crystal waters they are gazing upon
is part of the body that swallows up unsuspecting victims
and sent many to their graves.

The sun reflecting upon the clear water burns her eyes.
She jumps as a soft hand rests upon her shoulder.
It is a young boy,
An unfamiliar face that seems so innocent and so pure
that she feels she has known him all her life.
Then she remembers that she no longer has one.

The person she was,
the person that would smile and say hello
was long gone.
She died in that same sea long ago.

The boy asked her name but she only replied,
"I don't have one. Not anymore."

Upon seeing the confused look that had washed over the boy's face
and the curious gleam in his eyes,
she said,
"Names are for people with purpose,
for those who have someone to love
and a life to live
and a home to arrive to at the end of each day.
They are not for the broken.
They are for the people who are blissfully oblivious.
They are not for me."
And so she walked away,
her frail body becoming smaller with each step she took into the distance.
And the boy tried calling out to her,
but he couldn't.
For she had no name.
Graff1980 Aug 2018
It is a porcelain battlefield
and I hear the
brown bodies drop
with a wet thwap.

I push and strain
against the pain
to purge this
unpleasant thang.

Prickly peanuts
thick and hard
tearing me up
as I yell
“Arrrrggggh.”

Hold on tight,
it’s one hell
of a fight.

A fearsome foe
falls once more.

Then I hear
civilians holler,
“God no
that’s so gross!”

“Oh no,
collateral damage!”
I think as
puffs of spray
are spritzed my way,
cause in the heat
of this hard-won battle,
I forgot to
shut the door.
Whit Howland Feb 2021
Once popping crackling
flashing

now burning down
to an orange ember

soon to be spritzed
followed by hissing

then sputtering
what just happened

we had so much
promise

whit howland © 2021
A word painting

— The End —