"stubbed" poems
I keep my feelings on a leash,
locked in a cage like the perpetrators of crime.
Sometimes I take them out for walks
to test out their rarely used legs on the ground.
Only too reel them back in,
too scared to let them wander,
wander towards those who let theirs loose freely,
not caring where they step.
For I have learned that this only leads to hurt.
Stubbed toes on the curbsides called love.
Failed attempts at crossing the crosswalk,
into the depths of someones shallow, unforgiving arms.
Not paying attention to the Stop sign right next to them.
Over and over, I wish I would've noticed that sign sooner..
Before all the heartbreaks and fallen tears.
And that is why
the footwork of my heart, kept captive in the dark,
is sleeping in silence for perhaps eternity
Mar 13, 2018
Mar 13, 2018 at 1:04 AM UTC
I lost the ***** that held my world together
There is no finding it now
And yes, I looked between the cushions of the couch
I prepare to run because
Like water through a busted dam it is coming
Like the pain of a stubbed toe it arrives in a furious instant
That asks for select curse words to be shouted
But so unlike pain in my toe, it does not fade
My world comes crashing down
The clouds in the sky fall
As dust onto my outstretched fingertips
(They hope to catch a bit of my falling world)
The atmosphere caves in
The air pressure intensifies
Until it has wrapped me
In a straight-jacket and
I
Am
Paralyzed
I Search for your comforting eyes as you
Distantly ask me if I am okay I’m not
Okay but I cannot
Open my mouth
For the words to say because
I cannot move an inch to save you
Let alone myself
I couldn’t even save a
Word document right now
I try to scream but
I
Can’t
Speak
And my world is crashing down
The water from the busted dam
Hits me like a concrete wall
My useless straight-jacketed body
Is swept away
The water washes away all emotion
I
Can’t
Feel
The sound of my demise is so loud
In my ears
I cannot hear you any longer
I
Can’t
Hear
The lack of oxygen
In my brain
Turns off the light
I cannot see the stars
I
Can’t
See
Water everywhere
World crashing down
I
Am
Drowning
My heart beats too
Fast
Fast
Fast
I don’t have enough air to
Last
Last
Last
World
Crashing
Down
I
Can’t
Move
Can’t
Speak
Nor
Feel
Hear
See,
I
(Gasp)
Can’t
(Gasp)
Breathe.
Mar 26, 2014
Mar 26, 2014 at 4:22 PM UTC
My mom says "frick"
or "fiddlesticks"
even when kids aren't around.
She's holding in
some of that pure, unfiltered rage
each time a plate is dropped
or toe is stubbed.
If only she'd just shout "OH ****
she wouldn't lash out
at grandma or sob uncontrollably later.
Someone once said to me, **** you!"
and I was happy.
It means they won't ****** me in my sleep
because they expressed verbal and not physical rage.
I was happier when someone told me "go **** yourself"
because I went home and did just that.
Speaking of pleasure,
the act of *******
burns between 85-250 calories,
improves sleep & your immune system.
Google it.
I've been ******
a realization &/or learning experience
having gone broke without a way to pay rent
resulting in the lesson of moving back in with the parents.
We can get ****** up.
A couple too many tokes &/or shots of gin &/or punches to the face.
We learn the perils of excess.
In third grade, I was ****** up by a group of 6-7 kids.
I learned I never want to experience THAT
uncomfortable feeling again.
Why is **** such a bad word again?
Jul 7, 2012
Jul 7, 2012 at 11:58 AM UTC
A cigarette. A ****** cigarette.
You discovered that I
was a habitual liar.
All from the stubbed cigarette
at my feet.
I didn’t blame you.
I would never want to be
with someone so filthy.
It’s hard, you know.
Your first lie is like the first injection
It’s the rush, baby.
And then you find yourself
unable to pull away.
Always,
eventually going back.
Lies are blameless
The liar is to blame.
I love you
But not enough to stop
And you discovered this-
this habit of mine
all from a cigarette.
A cigarette. A ****** cigarette.
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 6:19 PM UTC
Woke up this mornin'
Barely knew where I was.
Woke up this mornin'
Still feelin' a buzz.
Woke up this mornin'
Mouth tasted like fuzz.
What day's it today?
Don't nobody know.
What day's it today?
Do I got some place ta go?
What day's it today?
Jumped up and stubbed my toe.
It's Monday mornin'!
I got an achin' head.
It's Monday mornin'!
I want ta stay in bed.
It's Monday mornin'!
I'm wishin' I was dead.
I got the Monday mornin' blues
Not the day I'd choose!
Got the Monday mornin' blues
Wishin' I had me some *****
In da game a life, I AWAYS, always lose!
The Monday mornin' blues
Got da blues!
Da Monday mornin' blues
Blues blues blues
The Monday mornin' bluuuuessss. . .
GOT DA BLUES!
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 8:49 PM UTC
"I LOVE LOVE!" She shouted, speaking to herself in third person.
It was then that she seemed to float away
A balloon on Macy's Day.
*It seemed I was the only one orbiting earth,
watching those performances of daily life applauding
for a well-flipped omelet a superbly
fitted glove a full tank of gas at $4.00.*
I couldn't believe my luck
Terrestrially, there were husks sipping coffee
and rasping and rustling at each other
desiccated.
Privately, she was buying real estate on the moon
I LOVE LOVE! she shouted
Dancing like an egg on a spray of water
a declassified military satellite who through some dumb luck
had escaped the pull of gravity and won
Marveling at the moon rock
on her finger, even a stubbed toe just seemed
like the ideal opportunity for extorting kisses.
And it glinted in the light.
Everything was fine.
*Down on earth it seemed all the wine drinkers
were toasting to us cheering as we terra formed
the moon.* ***We couldn't believe our luck
as we rolled back our stone.***
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 10:07 PM UTC
A thought sometimes forms
I live too much
yet I do too little.
Woken at strange hours,
never asleep.
Rapt in raps
or wrapped in riddles
Chained to links
or hammered to handle
stubbed to bone
Mens et
Manus
There is time yet, I swear
To flourish
To dream
To make
To be
To do
To create
Will I?
We'll see
There's time yet to tell
Be yourself, they say
The best you you can be
But once more— Will I have time
To edit
I live less
I do less
Portfolio: empty
or at least, locked away.
Excitement too.
Blank slate
Blank palette
Is there any paint?
Can I truly make
excitement saturate?
Will I be able to place
value as I see fit?
Can the world be hewn slimmer, slicker
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Tis daft I think, to amuse such a notion
But not necessarily so daft to be wrong
Emerson called it misunderstood,
Shaw found it unreasonable
But ay, theres the rub
That bed once made, must be lain in and
all dreams which might be had are alone not enough
Bloom effects don't work outside the movies.
Ideas are trash, these are recession times
Deflations made them a farthing a dozen
Started 10.03.11
Unfinished
D.B. Guy
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 2:57 AM UTC
There once was a man with a flu
Who ran in the night to the loo:
He stubbed all his toes
In consecutive rows
While filling his knickers with poo.
Feb 22, 2025
Feb 22, 2025 at 12:17 AM UTC
You open to me
a little,
then grow afraid
and close again,
a small boy
fearing to be hurt,
a toe stubbed
in the dark,
a finger cut
on paper.
I think I am free
of fears,
enraptured, abandoned
to the call
of the Bacchae,
my own siren,
tied to my own
mast,
both Circe
and her swine.
But I too
am afraid:
I know where
life leads.
The impulse
to join,
to confess all,
is followed
by the impulse
to renounce,
and love--
imperishable love--
must die,
in order
to be reborn.
We come
to each other
tentatively,
veterans of other
wars,
divorce warrants
in our hands
which we would beat
into blossoms.
But blossoms
will not withstand
our beatings.
We come
to each other
with hope
in our hands--
the very thing
Pandora kept
in her casket
when all the ills
and woes of the world
escaped.
4.8k
The footsteps echoed on cobblestones
When a chime rang ten of the clock,
As a sailor making his way back home
Was walking up from the dock,
It was cold and dark for the lights were out
And the street was wet with the rain,
When he came to an old red telephone box
At the side of a narrow lane.
The clouds were black and they opened up
So he stepped in out of the wet,
Dropped his swag as it turned to hail
And lit up a cigarette,
The box was ancient, was George the Fifth
And hadn’t been used for years,
But stood in a lane that time forgot
When the rot set in, and worse.
For most of the houses were boarded up
And the weeds had grown outside,
Some had embarked for a tree-lined park
And some of the others died,
It was lonely there in the dark of night
As the sailor waited, he sang,
But stubbed his cigarette out in fright
When the telephone next to him rang.
He stared at it for a while before
He raised it, stopping the bell,
It had an echoing, ghostly sound
Like you hear in a deep sea shell,
The sound of sobbing came to his ear
And he cried, ‘Who’s there, what’s wrong?’
‘Oh God, I’ve waited forever my dear,
I’m locked in the basement, Tom!’
The sailor said that he wasn’t Tom
But she didn’t appear to hear,
‘He’s got an axe, attacking the door,
Be quick or he’ll **** me, dear!’
The sailor didn’t know what to say
But a chill ran up his spine,
‘Tell me, what’s your address,’ he said
‘Before you run out of time!’
‘I’m straight across from the telephone box,
You usually meet me here,
He’s found us out, and he screams and shouts
That he’ll **** you as well, my dear!
He just came home from a spell at sea
And called me a cheating *****
If you don’t come over and rescue me
He’ll have smashed his way through the door.’
The sailor wanted to say, ‘Enough!
It’s nothing to do with me,’
But flew on out of the telephone box,
Leapt over a fallen tree,
He raced right in through the open door
And he called, ‘I’m here, just wait!’
Then made his way to the cellar door
But all he could feel was hate.
The door was shattered, he walked right in
It was dark, there wasn’t a light,
He felt around for a candle, lit
And stared at the terrible sight.
A man lay dead on the basement floor
Where an axe had taken his life,
And there with her throat like an open sore
Was the body of his dear wife.
He staggered, stopped, and fell to his knees
And sobbed like a man insane,
‘Oh God, it’s true, I did this to you,
But my mind’s been playing games.
I thought if I went away to sea
I’d return to find they were dreams…’
As he sliced a razor across his throat
He thought, ‘Life’s not what it seems!’
David Lewis Paget
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 5:35 AM UTC
I stubbed a toe today
It brought back unwanted memories
Intense, unguarded, pain shot through me
Like a lightening bolt
A bolt from the blue.
Unpleasant sensory and emotional experience
Transferred themselves to a stubbed toe.
I withdrew my toe
I withdrew myself
I boxed up the pain again.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 5:54 PM UTC
Last weekend was “Parent’s” weekend at Yale. A time when parents are formally invited to visit. They have receptions and other events - but no potato-sack races (which is disappointing). My parents couldn’t come, they’ve never come to parent’s weekend, but Leong’s parents came again, from Macao, China, a 16,060-mile round trip.
There was a time when boys could tank my self-confidence with a word. When the male gaze seemed overpowering. I’d felt constantly evaluated - but I’ve evolved - somewhat. We’re going to a party. Lisa, Leong, Sunny, Anna and I - we’ve got our shine on and we’re drawing looks. Well, ok, Lisa’s drawing looks and I’m in the general frame.
Lisa sneezed, “The air quality’s bad tonight,” she announced, wiping her nose with a Kleenex.
“I don’t have any allergies,” I bragged. “Me neither,” Leong added.
“If you can breathe the air in China,” I said, “You’re golden.”
Leong laughed “Tài zhēnshí liǎo,” (Too true!) She agreed.
As we left the more street-lit part of the path, the moon, wandering in and out of the clouds, created moving shadows that peopled the darkness with phantoms. Was that impression the paranoia of fatigue? I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. Or maybe it’s October and Halloween’s just around the corner.
I was walking in the rear, nestled in the mingled scents of my roommates' perfumes that, like rare blossoms, enchanted and excited the child in me. I wasn’t paying attention, and I stubbed my toe on a misaligned sidewalk tile. Don’t you hate the gap between stubbing your toe and feeling the pain?
Oct 11, 2023
Oct 11, 2023 at 8:15 PM UTC
Easy come, easy go
it hurts a bit more than a stubbed toe.
The hurt means I cared,
but I can't let getting hurt make me scared.
I have to believe
even if you all will call me naive,
that not everyone will leave
even if the notion, right now, is hard to conceive.
Easy come, easy go
you packed up and left, it was the end of our show.
But it's not the end of mine.
For one day, all my stars will align.
Everything will fall into place,
I won't have lies told straight to my face.
Easy come, easy go...
From this hurt, I know I'll grow.
Sep 23, 2015
Sep 23, 2015 at 10:50 PM UTC
She stubbed her toe.
And she did something about it.
Without letting me know.
Ended it.
I wonder what that means.
It was her choice.
I will never argue otherwise.
And my ego may ask
What is it about me
that she would so quickly
make that choice?
Late at night with my head on the pillow
I imagine what it would have been like.
Pushing a carriage
or changing diapers.
But the timing was off.
And sometimes
timing is everything.
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 10:08 PM UTC
I only know how to love you
in ways that hurt, that feel
like scraped knees and
dropp
i
n
g
skittles on the floor,
stubbed toes,
****** nose,
chest x-ray
came back negative
because I gave everything that
was in there to you so they had
nothing to see in the doctor's
office. My heart was never
really mine to have, anyway.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 10:37 PM UTC
Dear Future Daughter
Don’t worry about making right choices
After you born on this planet
Because choices are what you are gifted
Do remember courtesy of love
And give it to your Mom
Who open your eyes
After she kept in you in her warm womb
For
Nine months and Nineteen days
Dear Future Daughter
I don’t want your favorite colorist must be pink
Like any other ordinary girl
It could be anything
Which symbolize you a real astonish bold amazing girl
I don’t want you to be normal girl
Who live under someone else life
And trapped by dogma
Live for you
Live for your happiness
Dear Future Daughter
I won’t worry about what your hairstyle is
I won’t care what your fashion is all about it
I won’t stubbed you
Because you are the outcome
Of my amaze marvelous *****
No matter what life is up to you
No matter how many boys fallen in love with you
Not a big deal how many Purpose you would be going to rejecting it.
Dear Future Daughter
I promise I will love you with all of my heart
No matter what and your smile will be the upside of my day
I don't need you to be perfect, although you will be perfect in my eyes.
©Saujan Gyawali
15 December 2014
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 7:06 AM UTC
He smelt like smoke
as he leaned away from me,
texting himself with my phone.
We left the campfire outside,
in our shoes by the door
our socks overlapped in a tangle of limbs.
In that leftover guest room,
on the bottom bunk of the microwaved bed,
I remembered why I thought I knew what love was.
He was tired and needed a nap,
I was restless and cold.
Trapped inside because of violent temperate rainstorms.
This boy owed me stubbed toes,
thorn ****** through my jeans,
nicknames and rubber soles.
This was the boy who had always smelt of smoke,
who knocked over dead trees for me,
who lied about being able to rock climb.
This was the boy who went swimming in the ocean
before summer had properly began
when it was still much too chilly.
I taught him a new card game,
he beat me at badminton.
We played capture the flag and threw pinecones.
We sold cookies on the side of the road,
ate dusty blackberries,
traded innuendos and bad jokes.
This was sea-urchin boy,
slug boy,
the boy with the bird's nest hair.
This boy grew taller,
dropped his voice like a used bus pass,
looked past the top of my head.
He laughed when i stepped in a mud puddle,
dared me to walk in bare feet.
This boy suddenly went mountain biking.
I talked extra loud, in hopes that he would overhear me,
offered him rootbeer straight from the can.
Ate pretzels and learned to read his mind.
We shared our childhoods like penny candies,
switching all the peach ones for strawberry.
we agreed these are the best years of our lives.
He layed beside me, underneath as many covers as we could find,
taking up too much space and he knew it.
my cartoon boy.
My hand-drawn boy,
With smoke coming out of his ears
moved away.
We didn't talk again
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 12:39 AM UTC
an aerosol angel with college-ruled wings
and paint stained fingertips
stranded in a sea of pigmentation
lately, she's been feeling out of place
not all compasses point due north
a parrot in a sea of sharks
who's never learned to sail
they're selling tickets to the shit-show on the shore line
catch the half priced sunday matanee
save the date
a trapeze ******* with a choke hold on the universe's coat tails
tap dancing through star charts and love poems at the pace of lightning's strike
some failures just have to be public
if lessons are to be learned
the prettiest ballerinas aren't afraid to fall
she's learned the hard way to find beauty in skinned knees
strength in stubbed toes
and faith in a broken heart
no point in dressing up, honey
prince charming doesn't frequent freak shows
he's an arrogant flake, anyway
her best bet is a strong man
or a fire breather
when looking for a boy to bring home
one man to bare her burdens
and another to scortch the wreckage of what's left
careful what you wish for
butterflies the size of funnel cakes shake her rib cage to pieces
silver confetti on pitted pavement
he looked so handsome beneath the neon lights
horrified and ecstatic all at once
like a lost boy in neverland
scanning the crowd of strangers for any possible princess tiger lillie's
someone to ride alongside on the ferris wheel all night
untill the sheriff shines his flashlight down the path that points them home
alone
but handsome boys know little about matters other than themselves
so she's gotten good at feeling bad
it's time to find a man
someone who can build things instead of just break them
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 3:17 PM UTC
stubbed knees
and school yard loyalty
when a cardboard box
was a castle, under trees
we played all day
till the stars sung our names
i looked to you
through the cut out doors
traced in blue
you said we can run away
in suede suitcases
filled with tubes
if you knew the game
why did you push those needles
through
i always could of loved
you more
but how did you run alone
through our castle door
hopped those speeding trains
fled to abandoned planes
and you filled those strangers beds
just to feel that lift
i was your younger self
i believed in nothing more
leave the artists
alone with their dreams
all those hurtful days
will become their masterpiece
but I'm a single wing
a monarchs arm
that rests on the peek
of our castles farm
you left me alone out here
with big shoes to fill
wearing my daisy dress
bleached with our mothers tears
i always thought you had it good
you where the silhouette
of my shadows dream
but in the end
of this threaded world
i sit on a bench
filled with city birds
and i look past the cracks
of our castle doors
to see my loneliness
apart from your beaten war.
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 4:34 PM UTC
Feelings are broken,
they mend,
and they they're broken again.
It ***** so you've gotta be a man and **** it up,
well with a ****** if you've got one. Breaking.
It hurts.
Hurricanes from hell destroying every inch of your body starting from the heart, the "center" of all the emotional ******** we call feelings.
That breaking is as if your 3Ds died after you beat Pokemon x.
That **** didn't save and is worth a few tears on that $55 topshop sweater all hormonal girls love.
That breaking is as if you stubbed your toe and you just got your nails done, it's as if u got a B+ not an A.
Well you get my point.
But that mending though,
that uplifting sensation you feel after you've hit rock bottom.
Emotional mending is like taking your bra off after a long day at school,
or work,
or whatever your occupation.
Now that's a simile.
Feelings are emotions,
Emotions are feelings.
It's all the same.
it always gets better,
then worse again.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 2:37 PM UTC
Please don't stop your creativity.
you are very creative.
you are given a gift which is burdened by others.
Seeing the other types of creativity you feel like your in a room with deafening silence.
Because you will become less sure of your creativity.
You may feel your creativity is like kicking a pebble.
And the others creativity is kicking a rock.
But in some attempt's to kick the others rock you may have stubbed you toe.
So you go back to your pebble ways.
But i swear to you
That pebble will be a rock.
please don't stop your creativity.
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 3:41 AM UTC
The alarm clock rings
and once again
the rooster sings
the morning new.
Slumbering flowers
lift their petals to drink
the drops of dew.
Reliable Sun
vanquishes the darkness
as he lightens the sky.
I see an honored guest
is in the garden,
his tiny nametag reads... butterfly.
But on the other side of town
someone struggles with
addiction.
Habits grab hard,
break will powers in two.
The will becomes won't
and the power is all through.
Satiated,
temporaneously satisfied.
only till the next time the habit has to be gratified.
The victim moves on trying to reassemble his day
Avoid
a crooked roaded relapse,
along the way.
Oh ghost of the host why must repitition repeat the most
and feel so good in its continuation?
Why must familiarity breed the need
for more familiar feelings?
To the point of killing control, sealing a fate,
dealing defeat,
stifle healing.
If your out there guardian soul, spirit helper, what's your roll, your goal?
Guiding with helping hand or let stand the habitualized
habit man.
Isn't there a self preservation station within?
A gland or impulse control button to switch from sin to win?
Even Edgar Allan Poe stubbed his toe on a ten step program trying to get in the door.
Ill-begotten and craven, drunken and unshaven cried the raven...never more.
Guiding spirit it ends here!
No more slave to the crave
or impulse picking from the addiction tree.
The need to repeat and repeat
the pattern becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.
Back to normalacy, complacency,
it's a moderation that one seeks.
To enjoy the ****** of bells, hallalulah wails,
a babies dimpled cheeks.
Can you do that Spirit helper, please.
Let sing the bodies vibration.
No more internal damnation.
No more self flagellation.
Allow to draw power from these words.
Think of this all as an intervention!
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 6:52 PM UTC
Woe is me
What have I seen
The ****** dog peed
All over my DVD machine
Woe is me
And twice woe
I lost my balance
And I stubbed my toe
Woe is me
It just isn't fair
I looked in the mirror
And saw I'm losing my hair
Woe is me
I hate my life
I came home and found
The milkman run off with my wife
Woe is me
I chased a mouse
Knocked over the electric fire
The curtains caught light and burnt down the house
Jul 15, 2010
Jul 15, 2010 at 10:18 PM UTC
He who stands for something is prone to prejudice.
He who is prone to prejudice
Is quick to act
He who is quick to act
Is ultimately destined to folly.
For it's said "He who stands for nothing".
"Falls for anything".
So, with breath held
And careful consideration
Ask yourself.
"What do you stand for"?
Is it natural design.
that your action is not of your
Making?
So much control, smacks of huberis.
Like a stubbed toe
On the best of days.
Jul 30, 2018
Jul 30, 2018 at 7:06 PM UTC