"stapling" poems
Before sleep I knot a paper tag
to my big toe with baling twine.
Sometimes I think of stapling it -
ritual wants a clean edge.
She tolerates my oddities:
a posterboard of errands above the sink,
tea mug with its brown ring I refuse to clean,
I stand too close when the train arrives,
or climb ladders with one hand full.
Last summer a rogue wave flung me under;
I surfaced broken, collarbone split,
came home wrapped and aching.
She kissed the bruise and laughed,
as if I’d slipped the ocean’s grip,
as if the sea had lost its claim.
I call them accidents to sleep easier,
yet I flood the stove with gas,
strike a match, laugh at the plume,
convinced the fire means I’m alive
even as it scorches my hand.
At night she circles the bed,
tugging at my toe tag
as if it could bind me to her,
carrying me into the cabin,
a weight she won’t release.
Sep 20, 2025
Sep 20, 2025 at 1:44 PM UTC
The memory is unbearable
I cringe as it rises from
my subconscious; haunting me
It plagues my mind
I need to find a distraction
Write, write, write, write
Stapling papers drawing forms;
Archiving documents.
I get on my 20 n get time alone.
The memory creeps up,
I can feel it as my mood keeps changing.
Distraction distraction distraction
Look at the cars speeding down the streets
The couples huddled close for warmth
Hmmm that's could have been us
F U C K
Your memory is creeping in
Everything I see reminds me of thee.
You can only distract yourself for so long before you have to face the truth
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 12:15 PM UTC
--With antlers
Breaking; broken
We're all-
Wonder; wandering
Through the glass
Forest where trunks
Reflect regret--
And leaves cut mistakes
Into scars.
We are deer,
Eating barb-tailing
Grass.
But I'm sorry
Antibiotic acorns
Aren't working anymore.
My pupil's seep,
Mercury in return.
When that feeling--
Attaches bed-linen
To stapling sharks,
They begin birthing
'Acknowledgement'
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 3:28 AM UTC
Anxiously awaiting atomic assimilation
Basing me on belligerent and boorish bastardization
Capsizing cargo with careful consideration as to
Deciding which day is decay's destination
Everyone embrace the elevated expiration
Forget my face and follow fabrication
Go to the gallows with grace and gravitation
He will hold you and hinder alienation
I, however, hold insignificance in interest
Justifiable jackhammers jacking fighter jets
Killing Californians who are kissing canvases
Lying without laughing and lighting cigarettes
My master makes me move my mundane mind
Never knowing next to nothing with nothing else inside
Overly offering operating override
Practicing patiently pulling peoples' pride
Quickly questioning quizzical quietness
Rationalizing raging reinventions ridiculous
Stapling this summer to my (still) sick subconscious
Traveling tunnelers trading tides for tiredness
Under the umbrella my undertow untangles
Violently vibrating like varying violin angles
Waiting with wandering whispers under the table
Xylophonist x-rays, excruciating fables
You yellow youngling, you who screams in my dreams
Zebras zoom by every single night, it seems
Let's chant my enchantments, the alliteration song!
And untie your tongue
So you don't take it wrong.
Feb 17, 2011
Feb 17, 2011 at 6:59 PM UTC
Coffee. Desk. Ringing phone. Clacking keys.
This same pen. This same ******* pen,
that writes the same way—there is a thinning of the ink
in the curve of the E’s and the stroke of the Y’s
Endless stapling. I find myself gritting my teeth every time
as if I’m stapling my skin—or my hand. To my face.
The window behind me offers the same view
of the same skyline of the same ****** buildings!
Overcast, sunny, slight drizzle or deluge—
Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the rhythm of my heart
That is no different from the rhythm of my day.
I can’t even remember what happened yesterday. I just remember
The coffee. The desk. The ringing phone. The clacking keys.
At least this way, there’s no use fretting about tomorrow.
Because tomorrow—it’ll be that same pen. That same pathetic pen.
Sometimes, I want to cry. Cry for my wasted hours—days—life.
Cry for those clouds in the horizon that looked no different
from the same clouds in the same horizon yesterday.
Cry for the slowly dulling reds and greens and purples
in the canvas of this miserable life.
Howl for the Wonders of the World,
the Must Watch Movies Before You Die,
the 1001 Books You Have to Read Before You’re Dead,
that I will never get to savor.
Grays and Blacks and Whites.
So monochromatic.
So very monotonous.
At least, in the few nights that I dream…
I dream in color.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 1:59 AM UTC
Extinguished beneath the pressure of stifling darkness;
the blackness a behemoth caressing me with oil slick fingers.
Bound with shackles of my own forging,
chained to the dank confinement of shame with iron bracelets made up of every hurt I felt, each sting I’d inflicted.
Comforted by the weight of my own disease, dragging me down deeper into the depths of myself;
swarmed by demons cutting slices of me for their devouring.
Blistered fingers claw at the dirt, broken nails taking insignificant strongholds in the battle.
New shackles being forced into place where old ones were severed, cutting new wounds where old ones were healed.
Then, a searing light burns through the airless tomb where I lay,
my sweat still glistening in the after hours of my latest debasement.
Eyes burning, unaccustomed to the phosphorescent glow after years of stapling them shut to the vision of horror I became.
A new tsunami of dishonour throws me back, twisting my shackles tighter around bound limbs.
Now I am free and live to feel the sun on my skin, no longer translucent and sallow.
Each sound and sensation sending ripples of pleasure through my soul, but still
I limp, and my wrists are scarred.
Aug 13, 2021
Aug 13, 2021 at 4:50 PM UTC
i'm constantly piecing myself together
rebuilding and remodeling
gluing, stitching, and stapling
myself back together
so i don't easily fall apart
as i did once before
GM
Jan 8, 2017
Jan 8, 2017 at 12:38 AM UTC
One fateful day in a cave made of rock,
lived a camel named Humphrey Cornelius Tawk.
His **** was supreme, his fur was quite green,
sitting on a throne in that cave made of rock.
He huffed and he puffed, and he snorted in displeasure
as he looked upon his vast mountain of treasure.
"Oh, huff!" he exclaimed at the cup that's brand-new,
"Oh no" he said loudly "It just will not do."
Humphrey Cornelius just wanted more,
He wanted more 'till it covered the floor,
and it reached to the sky and it touched lands of lore.
No he'd never be happy 'till it stretched to the moon,
and became more majestic than the greatest sand dunes.
And so he sat waiting on his meager stack,
until someone brought him the treasure he lacked.
And he waited, and waited, and waited some more,
and the pile continued to sit by the door.
Then realization dawned in his head,
this waiting he was doing was as good as stapling bread!
So the camel known as Humphrey Cornelius Tawk,
looked out of the cave, and he began to walk.
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 11:08 PM UTC
This time I broke my heart
Giving us a chance to be together once more
Lacing
Weaving
Quilting
Stapling
Creating a stained glass temple
Beauty created through cut palms
Melding
Forming
Fitting
Polish the tainted glass windows of my soul
Bring me clarity in crystalline fractures
Kaleidoscope
Transparent
Allow your parts to hold my heart together
Creating this bombshell heart
Outright
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 12:04 PM UTC
Keeping the covers over your
eyes in the morning never hides
the true darkness.
You still have butterflies in your
veins you know.
Or possibly moths,
you've always thought they were beautiful.
Pretty maybe.
Stapling the black curtains to
the wall will never
have the same effect of your
mother standing over you
saying how she wished she
could understand why you
were so in love with death
and you wished your body were
mountains so people could
glue their eyes to you as
the sun said goodbye
behind your head.
That was your funeral.
You still walk around and leave
fingerprints like the coffee stains
on my teeth.
You just so happen to leave
scales everywhere you step.
Leaving the same line from your bedroom to the bathroom
where you've probably shattered
the mirror with how your heart
felt like crushing your chest plate
but settled.
you spent so much time on looking
out of windows you became one,
knowin there is a fire burning
inside of you but your biggest
fear is never being consumed by it.
I love you and everything so much
right now
and it's still not enough.
T.L
Feb 7, 2014
Feb 7, 2014 at 10:23 AM UTC
Man needs to reconsider his place in the universe. Upon my morning awakening, while enjoying a cup of coffee(another one of man's creations although albeit simply refined and utilized by us), I closed my eyes and heard not the sounds of nature, as one might assume would be the ideal, but the sound of a pneumatic air-pressure nailgun stapling shingles on a roof. Then, in sequence following that in a crescendo of sound I heard the distant lawnmower native to this local urban habitat, feeding on grasses. This was only soon to be followed by the wind-like sound of nearby automobiles slowly passing by. All of this muffling the sounds of the morning flyers (winged creatures of an inferior design unknown to us) presenting their songs, but falling on deaf ears . That's when I realized we are a product and slave of our own creations, when we should be a slave (or close sibling rather) to creations unbeknownst to us.
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 1:37 AM UTC
A little girl,
Ten years old,
Who knew nothing of *** or ****
But that didn’t matter
When he picked her out.
It wasn’t because of her nonexistent figure,
Or her my little pony tank tops,
It was because of what he saw in her eyes,
The first time he touched her.
As she winced and couldn’t meet his eyes,
He knew right then and there she would never be strong enough to stand up for herself
So that boy,
Two years older,
Thought it was okay
To steal her innocence.
A ten year old girl
Buying a pregnancy test from the gas station,
Paying the clerk a little extra,
So that he doesn’t tell her mom,
Burying it deep in her pocket,
Until she gets home.
Feeling criminal for her deceitfulness,
Paying with the money,
She had saved in her piggy bank for an American Girl Doll.
The one she would never get,
Because she was more worried about being touched again,
Than being a little girl.
She sold all of her toys,
To buy those bras that hook in the front,
Hoping that he would be too stupid to figure out what had happened
And stop doing it.
A ten year old girl,
So afraid of love,
That she beats up on the other kids
So that they will stay away
And won’t hurt her.
A ten year old girl,
Coming home from school with bruises on her chest,
Because his friends helped him grab her.
Terrified that her mother will see,
And that she will get in trouble,
So she spends all the money she has left,
On makeup,
So that nothing looks wrong.
A ten year old girl,
In fifth grade,
Stapling her bras for the sense of security,
Until she realizes she is only helping his game.
And she can’t understand why he laughs when she cries.
She cannot understand why he laughs when she begs him to stop.
A ten year old girl,
Thanking God she wasn’t pregnant.
A ten year old girl,
With cuts on her wrists,
Because she didn’t have anyone to go to.
The brightness and curiosity of her eyes drained,
Resembling an ocean without water.
Shaking as her father touches her,
Hugs her,
But she can’t tell him why
So he blames it on himself.
She can’t explain why she turns up the music,
To drown out her heart wrenching sobs as she gives up her last piece of life.
A ten year old girl,
With a suicide note in one hand,
A bottle of pills in the other.
A ten year old girl,
With nowhere to go,
Because of what he saw in her eyes.
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 10:36 AM UTC
The Greatest Gift of All
Comes from our Helper,
Our Heavenly Father.
Who, with Great Mercy
Bore His Only Son, the Divine Fruit
To redeem us from the Fires of Sin
And the Smoke of Anarchy.
Shining from the Son,
There are other Great Gifts given
On-the-Run
And each of them Play a certain Role in Life
While others could reimburse their fife.
Love,
The most Important
Which always keeps Constant
To the Heart.
Taping two People; Then stapling the Many
To God's Unbiased Paper.
A Work of Art.
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 12:47 PM UTC
My mother wore wigs and drank bourbon on Sundays
while my father worked across the street
I'd watch him from my bedroom window
sewing, stapling
hammering out frustrations I couldn't name
I called my sister David
because I wanted a brother
and a different family
My mother called my father Jesus
because she said he thought he was perfect
"Jesus, cut the grass."
"Jesus, take out the trash."
"Jesus, just ******* do it."
I'm grown up now
my name isn't Stupid Girl anymore
I've inherited my mother's rage
and my father's heavy sighs
Dark days I find myself thinking
my finger tracing the rim of a shot glass
you can't outgrow
what you're made of
And I feel inside of me
the breaking of glass
My sister writes me long letters from New York
she signs them all
love, David
Oct 26, 2014
Oct 26, 2014 at 7:59 PM UTC
You and I have fantasised
About too many golden sunrises
And yet we always sleep through dawn
Always wake up seconds too late
When grandeur has faded into familiarity
Our bodies are bruised
From all the invisible rocks we have hurled at each other
Our lungs tired from breathing toxic air
Our ankles sore from dragging chains
My fingers are covered in papercuts
From the edge in your voice
We have handcuffed each other
And put leashes around our necks
Confining each other to this birdcage house
Afraid to be the one that has to watch
The other fly free
Yesterday I tried to find the movie stub
From our first date
And instead found my pockets
Stuffed with fist-fulls of receipts
For things neither of us bought
Like the black hole in our bed
That occupies centre stage in our polka dot bedsheets
It swallows the words we speak
And refuses to let them echo
How many conversations have we drowned
With alcohol and tears
How many keys have we thrown away
To lie in a mound ten feet tall
Keys that could have opened the doors
To our secret stash of confessions and apologies
That could have saved us
On the nights that you wrap your arms around me
I can feel your body curving along the edge of the hole
Trying not to fall through
Determined to maintain miles between us
Even though I can feel your breath on my neck
Our living room is covered with pictures of strangers
Because we are afraid of stapling our own faces to the walls
Afraid of calling this prison a home
Afraid of making what had started out as temporary
A permanent affair
So instead we crawl from day to day
Skipping each sunrise as it comes
Sep 19, 2017
Sep 19, 2017 at 6:44 AM UTC
*primarily because of daylight, and younger brother's
song: evil and harm; and last night.*
you know what i keeping conjuring in my head?
stapling the cheat's kippah of a pope,
to his head... and then tugging him by it through
the streets of rome...
i'm way past jokes,
i'd literally staple the hierarchical to old alec baldwin's
head, and then tow him, drag him... through
the streets of rome...
i mean... you make the pope a saint?
well... that's a first, why would popes be saints
if they can't decide upon being a pope, emeritus?
pope ratzinger (benedict XVI) is the only saint...
with what grace! with what grace he settled
for a nunnery!
fuck me! but he's not considered a saint!
that's awful, really, that's absolute filth!
oh yeah... double point: the pope's "kippah"
(so called) -
like these fake jews ruling over us with an iron
grip? ever notice the ****** on the top of it?
no? never noticed the ****** on the "kippah"?
it's not even a ******* kippah by then,
but a....
béret français:
and if you're into linguistics, try these alternatives:
bə'rā (bé ray) thrą'sé
bé'ré φρąsay -
parle poo?
qui, parle poo, anglais - on-a-glare...
with! with! with a glare!
oh ******* 'ell...
the french aesthetic for spelling: λoγoς...
and then the actual pronounciation, i.e. the φoνoς?
miles apart!
they're not as bad as the english, but they're ******* worse
than king arthur's sons.
the comparison? you see an aeroplane in the sky...
and then you sort of see the shoom five miles back...
you have to remember two languages...
the french and the english are naturally "bilingual" -
it's not that you say one thing and mean another,
you have to ******* write one thing, and say another:
so the λoγoς is the aeroplane... and the shoom?
that's the φoνoς... or the once fabled television
static being the remnants of the big bang.... well, isn't
that an ingenious name for the beginning of everything...
big... bang... and a ******* firecracker whilé you're at it.
so yeah, if you never experienced an asiatic invasion
akin to a mongol horde... you will not have clear, distinct
syllable distinctions... you'll be like a vampire saying:
blah, blah blah, blah.... or bleh bleh bleh, bleh;
minus the hatch? hetch? hay't'ch? blá, blá blá....
alt. blé blé blé, blé.
considering style though? reading heidegger
is, seriosuly, sometimes akin to
watching liberace play the trombone;
all those italics and non-footnote dittoes...
a bit like watching an apple balancing on a watermelon
and calling it tango.
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 12:56 PM UTC
The Report states Stacy has been
stealing staples again
stapling her school work
at work.
Again.
We know she writes poetry at her desk.
We haven't caught her yet
but she has that look in her eyes
like she's happy to be at work.
Investigation ongoing.
Last week she she slipped paper
with Beatles lyrics into the copier
so every time we print one of these
Reports, All You Need is Love
is in the background.
We think she is a millennial. Promotion not recommended.
Jun 6, 2018
Jun 6, 2018 at 2:09 PM UTC
Edward,
I see
You
Withered
Rope torn neck
Blood shot eyes
You
With Rotten fingers
With a Chelsea cut smile
And you
With your insides spilled on the ground
Purple neck
Bruised
And a chair that was high
And a ceiling that held you at your weakest moment
You wanted to bruise your immortality
You wanted to fly
Look at me now
Dying for you
Cut
Cut and cut
And ridged sides
And blood soaked sheets
And I see you
Dead
Dead dead
Dead
Seeing something new
You
With a black tongue
Oozing from your mouth
Blood and gauze
Barbed wire stapling you to me
And I’m cut
Bleeding from every pore
Every seem
And I cut
My wrist
My thigh
And still you are
Dead
Dead
Dead
And I wish too to be
Dead,
Dead,
Dead.
I see
You
Teeth dangling from your gums on strings
And sewn up eyes
And peeling skin
Flaking ash over me
Burning me
Plaguing me with sores
War torn face
****** creature
Worm infested
And mildew
Drenched with blood
Spilled
From me
From my wrist
And
You
At 18
With dead eyes
And dead skin
And a dead body
And me
At 16
Dying body
Bleeding wrist
Broken soul
Smouldering in your fire.
All
Dead,
Dead,
Dead.
Jun 6, 2018
Jun 6, 2018 at 6:12 AM UTC