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Pretend
If I was accompanied
In this shallow moment
Where time shattered
And maybe surfed
Across my skin
I'd be lonely,
But not alone
I'd see a day where
The unavoidable reality
Was my own
Fortress of my heels
Something I'd never escape
*******
And unattainable dreams
Where you could
Touch all the little details
Pick them up and
Dust them
Call them
Yours
Take them home and
Shred them
Salad toppings
Ingest
And be full
Forever
A poem based off another poem by my favorite poet Diane Wakoski.
Zach Gomes Feb 2010
A drowned beer-hauler was hoisted on the table.
Someone had taken a dark-bright-purple aster
and clamped it in his teeth.
As I cut outward from his breast
under the skin
with a long blade
and removed the tongue and palate,
I must have touched the flower—
she slid into the brain which lay nearby.
I packed her in the cavity in his chest
amid the straw stuffings
as he was sewn up.
Drink yourself full in your vase!
Rest softly,
little aster!
Translation from 'Morgue' by Gottfried Benn
Don Bouchard Nov 2013
Who thumps against me in the dark
And rings the jingles by the door
To let me know he has to *** a little after four,
Then barks at neighbors passing by
To let them know a guard is nigh?

Who chews my phone and my remote
And tears the pillow stuffings out,
Then wags his tail with sheepish smiles
And makes me laugh when I should pout?

Whose breath defeats my appetite
And slobber covers everything in sight
And pounces on our comfy bed at night
When I have snuggled in just right?

Tucker Freitas is his human name,
A wooly Labradoodle with no shame,
(We call the "grand-dog" to his face
But other things when in disgrace).

So would I have him any other way,
Say in a kennel or a fricassee,
Or stuffed and lying on a frame?
No, I will love him in his puppied self
Content to know he loves me as myself.

The company he gives is pure as gold,
His eager joy at seeing me is never old;
He's healthy and excited each time he hits my door,
Tongue hanging out and slobber flying,
Four feet sliding on the polished floor,
Remembering treats and wanting more.
jad Jun 2013
My heart sits rotting away in a rattan chair
All the love and the people I long to be near
Progressively grow closer to one and other
As I slowly drift out of their lives
I will not longer be the lining in their memories
Not even remembered as part of their lives
Just a humorous picture on the screen
A name in a book dated "2011-2012"

On the other side of the country
my brain grows and cripples from
A lack of blood flow
As my heart begins to give up
And break down
because this distance is too great
and hearts only have so much strength.
But my brain stuffs itself with meaningless facts
and replaces the heart
with stuffings of leftover ******* from the 'elites'
and a horrid instability occurs.

False faces and shattering smiles
Can no longer be redeemed.
I am a new human
as this hole in my chest
is filled with hate and judgment
and my brain cries for happiness
but only receives E=Mc^2.
I am the ugliest human to have ever lived
The only warmth I can seem to find
Is when touching the broken heater
of this insane asylum.

I rejoice,
despite the fact I try my best
and the sky
continues to fall
and the world only gets more bitter.

Father calls to me,
Willing my brain
Handing me a hand-knitted heart
That pumps false hope and paper-mache dreams

"You will not survive, You'll never make it out alive."

Heaps of regret
Are staggered on every path I face.
I may as well die,
No.
I may as well do what i please.
why should I attempt to please those who will never be pleased?
I'm sorry that I am not sorry at all.

This troubled heart,
Now strapped to a surgical table
Connected by tubes to the welcoming hands of my chosen family.
Those who grew me from the dirt,
After i was dropped there out of the womb.
My roots were strong,
But my wings are tattered,
I cannot fly just yet.
But I was thrown from the nest,
And now I am drowning in the fiery depths of hell that were below.

I cannot make this decision.
Not because I cannot make a decision,
But I literally don't have a choice.
And my heart will only continue to die.
And soon enough I will be a carcass.
Norman Crane Aug 2020
Every poet is a fake
eyewitness, peddler of make-believe hearsay,
A conveyor of love he never knew
in a city he never saw in a way to make you
feel the passion as if it were true,
He is an air-brusher of reality,
Thus a proselytizer of the Absurd:
That you can paint pictures with words;
That you can travel by verbs;
That you can conjure nouns by saying them;
That you can lead several lives within your only one.

Every poet is a fake
taxidermist, seller of second-hand stuffings
of souls that were never alive

Every poet is a fake
imperialist, would be explorer-***-colonizer
of the terra incognita of your mind

Every poet is a fake
poet
Some will walk away their cares as if they walk up or down the stairs into or out of oblivions face as their mask of poetry falls from place onto the floors with checkered squares that are covered and littered with their words like flares from phrases of I don't care punctuated with the stuffings from ripped apart stuffed bears flogged by improper English weilded stares as imperfect hands in braile will yell skin deep in demeanor not so hard to tell or keep and no doubt to all I have to say as I wave my hands goodbye good day.
Katie Miller Mar 2019
I'm sorry... is this not "real life"? I must have walked through the wrong door. You see: I walked through the door that had the word "reality" engraved across it's chestnut wood. I walked through the door that had the burning handle so hot it branded me with the truth on my palm when I turned the ****. I walked through the door that was jammed shut with the stuffings of lies that I've told myself for the past how ever many centuries. I walked through the same door that you did, seemingly, since that was the only door that I saw. So how, excuse me for asking, is your reality any more "real life" than mine? You tell me that I should be preparing for the "real world" but how is this not real enough for you? If this isn't the real world than how does anyone survive real life. Just because we're kept in an institution that shoves unnecessary knowledge down our already tear-choked throats doesn't mean this isn't real. Just because we don't know how we feel about the crazy world around us doesn't mean this isn't real. Just because you can't seem to respect us like we respect the rest of you doesn't mean for one second that this isn't real. I sincerely apologize if you've been put under the false pretense that I'm living a fairy-tale because I'm not. I sincerely apologize if, this whole time, you thought that I was writing the perfect dream poem of love for myself, because I wasn't. I sincerely apologize if you saw me and thought that I was some fantastic princess who smiles and sings to birds, because I don't. I don't understand how you don't think this isn't real life because I certainly do. So does the girl who doesn't even want to live anymore, this is real life to her and it hurts her. So does the guy who just killed himself because he can't handle the academic rocks that settle in his stomach when he hears the words "high school" or "homework". I certainly think this is real life, or are the lines on my wrists just plots to another princess story you were told when you were young. Are the scars just the structural integrity for the castle you dreamed of as a little kid with pointed roofs. I certainly think this is real life because tripping into love and falling out again hurts us just as much as it hurts you. I certainly think this is real life because my stress is just as heavy as yours it just goes by a different nickname. Call it academic or peer or life but stress is stress and my threshold has a different line than yours. Don't tell me this isn't real life just because your fire-breathing dragon breathes fire that burns brighter blue than mine. Don't tell me this isn't real life just because your hair has to be longer to let down and to climb up. Don't tell me this isn't real life just because you're prince-charming took longer to rescue you than mine did. Because I am my own dragon. I am my own ladder to climb. I am my own prince-charming and I'll save myself from this life. Because this is real life, and if it isn't, then I'm never going to make it.
I hate when people tell me that I should be preparing for "real life" as if high school love, anxiety, depression, heartbreak, and heartache aren't real enough. That's why I wrote this. Ta-da
Gosiame Legoale Jun 2016
Hey,
I offer very few words often preferring that my riddles get ushered out in scribbles, it’s the chosen if not more cowardice stance but I plead sincerity. It’s my forum, sanctuary and how I speak to the world. It is how I speak to myself often where I am brave enough to part with that which I would rather, normally, and sometimes with reason, keep close chested. Bare with me if you bid, I’m still breaking into rhythm. I free write, so may encounter a misplaced line. It happens when I let my mind roam free, I don’t do properly constructed very well. I digress.
Yours smile. That laugh. Your thighs. Your nose. The way you get upset at absolutely everything. I dig that about you and was foolish enough to take it for granted. Not define really, so used to rolling with the punches I half left it neglected. Shame, a consequence I seek to amend. Alter. Be it a tad in vein. I’d rather that I have tried. But oh your smile, that laugh. I long for the Sundays that never were. What they could have been only the fates will know, you were the habit I quickly adopted and like any good habit, I didn’t see it through. The injustice of being a ***** is the role play of hindsight, retrospection, you can do very little by such except replay it, the ***** of torture I gather. A travesty if you ask me. You thought I was bemoaning the luxury of you being a convenience; I missed you for the sake of missing you. I can’t fault that train of thought, it crossed my mind and consider how it was I was able to portray neglect, valid in every sense. I’m thinking now. It pretty well could have been. It probably is but there is also the lingering frustration of what could have been. The possibility, it had barely sparked and then, load shedding. Brogues of frustration. I do enjoy you though, thoroughly that had to count for something. I can only hope
Those words still burn, how I was so comfortable with my life and my ways. I am, and reluctantly there was likely an aspect from myself adverse to the change, I gather though it has more to do with the systematic flaws I carry around at not being able to fulfil that of a consummate boyfriend. Perhaps I am selfish and unfamiliar with how one steers clear of trouble. How not to get scolded is but a foreign concept I gather, being aloof second nature. The very things I would imagine an initial trigger being the most irritable, it would then have to come from me wouldn’t it. So stuck in my ways and always expecting the conforming into my ways leaving little room for anything other than that. I gather it has to do with mine tentativeness at the matters that come attached with relation meaning that soon enough my flawed character is left bare et al for the scathing universe to see and picking it all up again, not so fun. Perhaps it’s my little defending.
To try for an explanation I am a very selfless ******* and I hate that. It leaves room for train tracks to tattoo my flesh and I think I’m sick of the second fiddler role. Friends to family and those I generally consider I may care for. It’s a part of the Gosiame matrix and I often realise or stupidly so that you get very little back. You the great guy, that is about all really. I have opened up to the prospect of relation and the thing is when I do, I really leave the door more than ajar, I don’t hold grudges but it burns. I think. I don’t wish it on any I am not fond of, and there is only so much of numb we can all endure, even I have my limit of spilt drink and the love that was. I may have opened the door to the wrong parties but then again I have never claimed to be the best judge of such. In any essence I am a toddler to these things so a little coaching and patience does really go a long way. I am a terrible human being, more so when I hate that you get jealous at what I have considered second nature before you came along and then realise that I too hold the ability at this thing called jealously, some character probably has me acting a fool in the fist cuffling cuffing fights I have imagined us engaged in. That is as far as it goes nor will I admit at being human. I like my super coo unattached unbothered aloof stance.
You came at me like a gust of wind and I got taken in by the fun of it all. I will admit to that. I wrongly imagined what will be will be as is the prerequisite if you are me and well that the roles will identify themselves. I think I am being repetitive. I am habitual. I claim to hate routine and my small comforts, in truth I probably enjoy complaining against them far more than I do being drawn away from them. In any case, you would need to be very clear if there is any fool hardedly romantic stuffings to be done because my lazy self will opt to steer clear of any pants and make out with the remote control while yelling at the tele. That day I imagined you would make your way over. In truth I thought it one of your unreasonable rants all over again, thought you’d calm down, make your way and well that never happened did it. The lack of boyfriend in me had at no junction sought to reason that she may need to get met halfway, I apologise. In my mind I had not canned our plans, just altered. I think I know better. Look I need stick it notes for the thoughts I had five seconds ago.
This is getting ridiculously long winded and moving in a roundabout way. I like that I could possibly refer to you and your forehead as my girlfriend. I like you in all you’re B Cup glory, that they could just be perfect for you. I won’t make any false promises not to anger or infuriate, as the way history runs down for us, but I will do so only in a manner that makes us unique, fun, bearable in a sense. I had a hand written letter and then you scolded and thus I knuckled down to type this, consume ridiculous amounts of this ridiculous coffee and ask forgiveness and show you that I am learning. Did I mention that I miss your ******* and the way you tend to cup them? I made fried rice and it was so lovely, can’t get over such. I’d like to give it or us a solid go, if not only for your laugh, oh and I keep getting these things that require a plus one all the time so that could be handy but more so because I want you in unimaginable ways, manners that I can’t even describe to myself. And I’d hate to walk away from what could just be the best thing to happen to me, no that smells like a line, the sexiest. That rather!
I miss thee
PS. Will you go out with me? For like real this time? In real life?
TS Ray Nov 2019
It’s a brand new day
shall we celebrate as they say
'tis not just a holiday
Gotta be thankful to someone someday.

Baskets of fruit and food,
stuffings and dressings,
yes it’s that good,
sweet potato and yam sides in all likelihood
for as tasty a gathering,
Come on over, if you are in my neighborhood.

You wonder then,
What are you thankful for?
sun that rises to brighten every turn?
stranger who helps you without expecting anything in return?
Poems that touch you and make you yearn?
Pondering by a pond to live and learn?

There are many moments to be thankful for,
just be with me oh special one,
your magical presence is like the sun,
lets make it our sweet harvest times,
for all good moments under the sun.
TS. 2019.  Thanksgiving reflections.  Happy Thanksgiving Poets :)
Keiya Tasire Oct 2019
Is the pain and suffering    
that comes from our generational weaknesses.
Born from the stuffings of our ancestors.
The pain and suffering they are not able to resolve
Is a gift for the next generation.

The choice to resolve or not to resolve
Is ours alone to make.
If we choose to resolve, it is a gift.
If we choose not to resolve, this too is a gift.

For more generations will follow
To make the same choice.
Stepping into this life
Fully aware of the new strengths
They will gain and pass on
to the generations ahead.

If they step into darkness
While holding on to courage.
For both strengths and weaknesses
Are blessed gifts.

One to bring us to our knees
And the other to lift us up.
There is both darkness and light in life each has its role. As we come to understand the role and gifts of our shadow side, we come to an awareness that black and white is more. As we explore their handshake in the gray areas, we learn that weaknesses take strengths by the hand and dance together to yield an even more durable strength within our life. Yet, choice to step into healing the weaknesses to cross into our greatest strengths is our choice alone. The question becomes, do I allow my fear to join hands with courage? Will I trust the process? Or do I stay stuck in the generational perspective that has enslaved myself and the ancestors before me?

— The End —