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mw Aug 2016
who knew that growing up,
feels a lot like growing thin?
who knew my weathered bones
would grow to hardly recognize the skin that they live in?

i’m tired
and when i say that
i mean more than just the sleepiness that seems to reside permanently around my collarbones.

i’m heavy
with the weight of converging adolescence and adulthood
like kissing life-milestone tectonic plates,
they bury us.

we spent the last of summer days soaking up what little sun the mountain range allotted us,
and the last of summer nights gathered closely around the burning ends of our post sunset cigarettes
murmuring that there must be more than this.

striving to make the grade without making ourselves insane.
substantiating our existences with substances and excess.
growing closer to these ragtag companions we’d patch-worked together in a few months time than friends we’d known for years,
this is family.
this is kin.

they say that nothing compares to the first breath of spring but i digress,
the first breath of freedom - that first whisper, no matter how tainted with ash and glitter and the ever-present impending air of responsibility it may be,
is truly incomparable.

but, on the first night you find yourself talking someone down from the dangerous concoction of stimulants and ego,
listening to them scream about how they hate the world, and you, and themselves,
remember your arboreal roots.

remember that there are trees that survive forest fires with their lives but not their branches.

that same night you will see in the mirror how resilient buds can bloom through ice, and concrete, and self-loathing.

you will find solace in persephone.
letting a piece of you die each and every winter seems a fair price for the rebirth of spring.

i cannot say that this will be the last night you find a friend on their bathroom floor,
like a child with matches, trying to strike away the unruly sprouts that have taken root under their skin
i cannot say with confidence that you will never find yourself there either.

there will be more forest fires coming your way
like a child with matches, you may start a few yourself.

but, darling, spring is around the corner
you may be mangled and gnarled and knotted,
but i have seen trees engulf steel, and watched as flora took back abandoned gardens
i have witnessed oceans of grass shoot up from ashes,

there is nothing manmade that the earth cannot take back
the earth will take you back,
there is still green within you.

count the dandelions you find poking their cadmium heads through asphalt,
remember inhabitance is not a matter of comfort but a matter of will.
feel the ripe bud of growth in the soles of your feet.
remember there is nothing wrong with returning to the dirt.
Vyiirt'aan Nov 2017
Satisfaction lingers
The inherent bliss that warms
The buried fears that flounder,
The abolishment of qualms

The radiant glow materialises
Substantiating to a path
Hop onto the luminescence
Guiding you to your guard

I am a container

A crystalline beaker fills me to the brim
With affection in a golden hue
The amber nectar seeping in abundance

As a tap leeches my soul, my mere essence sways
As I bleed and stand on crystal shards

An empty vessel yields no spirit
From the empty barrel that remains
For a heart devoid of soul would not
Display nor muster

I am the light that dissipates
Yet the darkness brought me back
It does not leave me alone
Why does it clamp itself to my back

Get it off
Get it off me
GET.    IT.    OFF.    ME!

It does not leave me alone
It does not               leave me        alone
It does not        leave        me alone
It        does not leave        me        alone



It
         does
                        not
                                ­    leave















                                        ­                                                         *It doesn't...
Raj Aug 2024
18th August
-Before the autumn arrives

Fourteen more sunsets to witness
Fourteen more endings to caress
I'll watch sturgeon for the last time
Gonna get 'ma-aslama' from August very soon
'Fall' will be evoked for what the September strives
Gonna have an eye-catch since it's a 'corn moon'
Summer will kiss you for the last time
Before the Autumn arrives!

Have to suffer a few more starks
Season leaving autumnal marks
My cozy lights ambering my darks...
Final Equinox in the doorway is driving
These elm splinters are substantiating
That the autumn is arriving!!

My darkened panes
reminiscing autumn rains
Rains on the crisp dead leaves
Triggering seasonal pains
'Ash' will perform his last ballet
Before he dives;
'Walnuts' will play their nonchalant rhythms
Before he arrives!!!

Leaves and the branches parting ways
Trees bearing insane death
Four are over already in these verses
Now the days are ten left! ~vairagya
A poem about Autumn
Jessica Crandall Aug 2014
poetry is not a poison
but a burning desire
that courses through the
veins of the human spirit
meeting the soul on its own plane
transcending restraint
and substantiating emotion
in a tangible and connective way
it teases the thoughts, catches the breath
and breaks through all barriers between
feelings, actions, thoughts, speech and being
it is a spirit; a reality
a deep-seated truth that speaks the unspeakable
expresses the unexpressable
and brings to light that which was once shrouded in darkness
poetry is a boundless freeing...
a freeing of yourself
SC Mar 2016
Old warriors have a lifetime
wins and losses
Scars substantiating each.....
We have lived long enough
to know
when to fight
and when to walk away...
Anthony Emmi Apr 2018
Time does not exist.
My eternal minds abyss.
Self loathing restless.
Self degrading relentless.

Blaming all troubles I abide.
Substantiating I coincide.
Grasping for any relief.
I hold the past in belief.

Insanity surely ensues.
Same problems and issues.
Doing things on repeat.
Never learning I retreat.

Despair and sorrow.
Its all I seem to know.
Trying so hard to grow.
Yet feeling so ***** and low.

Alone I shall stay, lying to myself.
Never having to please anyone else.
I am who I am, maybe I cant change?
Maybe I prefer a life lived in derange?


A.Emmi 04/09/18
and finally gung-** with a poem title
important to yours truly
not disappointing his Facebook fan base,
which electronic affirmation,
and confirmation, breeds gratification
analogous to being
the proud papa begetting offspring
progeny growing up at breakneck speed
spurring me to rub my eyes
as if experiencing hallucination,
and thanks be to thee unknown readers,
whose familiar and recognizable namesakes
fuel an impetus to slave away
past the bewitching hour.

A cup of first press high test Joe
(courtesy the missus)
this late hour crucial and vital
to trigger genesis of writing idea
though nary a handy dandy blues clue
what the following endeavor will entail,
whereby thought processes
whipsawed across a gamut
of enigmatic basic questions
most likely similar queries pondered
when proto humans
first learned or evolved
to stand *****,
where genitalia subsequently visible
in plain sight front and center,
and most likely the males
who sported the biggest schmeckle
(id est - gifted with endowment
where ******* ***** concerned)
inadvertently, impeccably, and invariably
wowed an equally
well proportioned barenaked lady,
thus setting into motion Barbie craze physique,
which became commercialized,
idolized, popularized, et cetera
March ninth, nineteen fifty nine
millions of countless generations before
yours or mine Bubbeh's
Zayde's, Bubbeh's Zayde's,
Bubbeh's Zayde's et cetera
until the beginning of time.
I would not have been bestowed
(but rather disadvantaged)
with any redeeming physical advantages,
what with my gangly, measly,
and scrawny body and probably
screaming ****** ******
left to die lest drawing enemies woke
fee fie foe fum... in bespoke guttural
(necessitating traditional healer
*** doula *** witch doctor
to toss out baby with the bathwater
autochthonous eventually
giving rise to naturopathic doctor (ND),
as they practiced a system of medicine
that incorporated natural therapies
and holistic measures
ofttimes deemed cruel approaches,
by standards of twenty first century
often distinct from conventional Western medicine
and quickly dispensed
with "good riddance to that cry baby"
then lionized by salivating king of the jungle,
when yours truly just days old as a newborn,
but bully me that would have saved
a lifetime of trauma courtesy
those foo fighting beastie boys
who trumpeted characteristics
topped off with natural carrot top
donned windblown handy dandy raked pompadour
which heady hirsute provided extra bonus
added insouciant aura at the onset of drama
bequeathed most robust
short, nasty and brutish **** sapiens,
(who would still be considered pygmies
among land of the giants
(even yours truly feels dwarfed)
by standard of modern man/woman
stood head and shoulders
among the madding crowd)
as no specimen to tangle
cuz they were counted, gifted, and linkedin
among those who met,
(and checked off survival of the fittest box)
bolstering triumph amidst adversity
criteria inheriting salient qualities
namely who at birth evinced potential
to become a Sumo wrestler,
who when population density
increased implemented deportation
way before MAGA onset
towards those (though necessary
for grunt work) evinced
stark ape parent
visible primate characteristics
substantiating Darwinian theory of evolution
in tandem with origin of species
predicated new species
come from preexisting species,
and that all species share a common ancestor.
Kurt Philip Behm Oct 2020
Backround information,
footnotes of the weak

Substantiating all excuse,
data incomplete

Reasoned explanation,
wishful thinking’s tool

For dilettante’s to build a stage
—to dance and play the fool

(New Hope Pennsylvania: September, 2020)

— The End —