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Geary evans Dec 2014
Trying to find the words to say but I can't
I feel like I am drowning in my own words
Let me talk let me say what I want
I can talk just give me a minute to think
Times up  no I am ready to speak
How I am feeling
Elizabeth Carsyn Jan 2017
You called me golden
Like, perhaps, I could be a California river.
But I, with my hooded eyes, never thought
I was soaked in sunlight or shimmering in wealth
Until I found you sifting through me
Marveling at a beauty I cannot see:
Telling how the sun makes me sparkle,
Bragging about the curve of my body through the hills.
The more you boasted, the more came to see
And now I know I am that swollen western stream,
A run of water muddied by your boots,
Scattered with pebbles of treasure
Winding south with the current down to the sea.
I am that western vein because I know
I give more than I take, and I know
I could never stick around for long.
You're like the others
Who held me in a pan and
Walked away with all I could give them.
There is never nothing new
Just rearrange things

I don’t write poems
I just remove the extra words that are in the way

Hold on to the words like whispers and shadows and wings
Recklessly insert adjectives
Tie it all to your delusions of profundity

Dig down deep for pain
no matter how senseless
Pick at your emotional scabs
Bleed

No one likes poetry
Constantly remind people of that
Tell them that you make it sound good to you and **** them
(Even though their ovation means everything)

Slip, dip and weave
With ambiguous wet dreams
Full lips and thick tongue
Mouthing…
Come
to an understanding
***** is much better than clean
Make it filthy
Soil it

Make it nostalgic
People need to be reassured that you were really ******* up as a kid
and that this poetry **** doesn’t just happen to people overnight

Make it esoteric
That way, when no one knows what the hell you are talking about,
you will have a good word to explain why

Say things that are so ill mannered that they are weighty
I will give you an example
“I’m not looking for a girl that is beautiful
I'm looking for one just barely ugly enough to **** me”

Incite large groups of people to *****

Get so personal that it gives people headaches

Expose yourself until everyone is embarrassed for you

Spew it all over the bar
In a drunken stupor
flaunt it lasciviously with your genitals
Pour yourself into reckless collisions
Drink from your soul until it rots your liver

Write until you want to **** yourself
then write about that

Make it as bitter as a Wal-mart associate
Make it so sweet she will swallow it all
before looking up at you with eyes like tiny puddles
To say, “that was beautiful”
(even though it was disgusting)

It should be raw
It should make you itch
It should be like rubbing up against it spreads it
It should be like VD

Make really long
Like it’s your *****
No,
Make it really, really long
Like its my *****

Make it rhyme
I mean don’t
Don’t

Don’t ever write another ******* poem
because I assure you
if I did not write it
than it must ****

and that is how poetry works

Michael L Sutter
Depression is not a 1st world problem
it is not a rich or poor person problem
it's not something that will just go away as you get older
or something you are immune to when you are younger
depression is not something that can be wished or willed away
depression is not a problem that only the weak or strong experience
it is not bound by race or ***
it is not something you can run away from
depression is not something you can lock away and forget about
depression won't leave you alone at night
it's not something that cares who your friends with or who you know
it doesn't care if you're sick or healthy
depression is something felt by all*
-Jeffrey Sutter
Tom McCubbin Apr 2015
We have let go of our frantic lust
for the shiny metal in the Sacramento hills.
It was hard for my grandfather,
in coming west on horse and with wagon,
dragging a family across the pimpled skin
of the young land, to help John Sutter
build his new empire.
He then found that his dream of good land
for ranching was subverted with easy gold.

Grandfather’s first home on the bank of the river:
a tule hut, or grass hut, left behind by
Mi-wuk Indians, who wandered with
the elk and circulated with the
wonderment of passing stars;
no regard for what shined beneath them.

It’s in the luring poems and the stories that the
old California adventure comes back to us.
No one longer builds much with grass,
and cannot so easily pick out fortunes
by following the earth’s deep cracks.

Some would walk away from jobs and cities,
bulging packs strapped on shoulders,
and head up through the openings
and narrowings of the valleys,
and into the foothills of the Sierras.
Camp beside ****** trout holes
and dip into the riffled water
at the edge of perfect green mirrors:
to find what is precious and become
free from the cycle of the frantic lust.
I wanted to stop someone

on the street

and ask them.

I wanted to stop the next random person

and say, hey

can I ask you a question.

They would think

I wanted some change

to buy a little more alcohol

but I don’t really drink

and they would say sure you don’t, buddy

and maybe hand me some coins anyway

or just walk on

without another word or turn of their head

convincing themselves that my homeless state

is my own fault

and it is

but I am not even homeless

Not the way they think.



I want to ask them,

the ones reverently typing into their phones,

excuse me but what exactly does LOL mean

because I don’t hear anything.



I wanted to ask someone

but everyone seems in such a hurry

procuring caffeine infused drinks

with names that are so long

that you couldn’t fit them on billboards

but they rattle them off

with a fine, practiced precision of the tongue

to Baristas in green aprons

wearing Verona smiles,

their eyes glinting from farther away than

the place which the precious coffee whence came

and I want to ask

if this is maybe their own illusion,

one that mimics conversation,

making the five-something they pay

so ******* worth it.



I wanted to ask someone

sitting at their desk

incessantly checking their on-line profiles

and commenting on comments

made in response to the comment

they left on the post of a picture

that has captured a small snapshot

of some life

while they pretend to be working on something else

so that they can pay the ever increasing price of access

because its important to stay connected

and I bet if I asked them to list

six things they could never live without

surely Facebook is what they would list

right after water, food and God

but they just seem too busy which

I think is their intent.



I wanted to ask someone

but everyone seemed so focused

on getting home

so they could embrace their loved ones

on the sofa

and hold each other close

while they memorize the reruns of

some reality TV show,

while they don’t talk to each other,

being so engrossed, and

I would ask them

if I were in their living rooms

while they strain to hold their heavy lidded eyes

high

shooting their television with their ray guns

chanelling their TV gods,

chanting,

there’s nothing on,
there’s nothing on,
there’s nothing on.



I wanted to ask someone,

anyone,

if that girl was right

when she told me that

I speak too passionately when expressing a point

and if it really is good

to nod in agreement

with the things people say

like a parrot

as opposed to posing an argument

because she professes to know that

beneath my façade of not caring

that I do care if they accept me or not and

I really do want to know

if she is right and

I wanted to ask someone

but instead I decided to just keep it to myself

because deep down I do know

she was as wrong as

I always was

and if there is one thing that I did learn from her

it is that

if you cant fit it

in the one-hundred and sixty character space

of a text message

no one really wants to hear it anyway



so instead of starting a random conversation

with a stranger

I spent the morning memorizing acronyms

so that I might communicate more effectively

with people farther away than my voice.


Michael L Sutter
His lips press against my neck
My hair stands on end and my fists clinch tight
His arms rap around my chest like a straitjacket
He is rough in all the right ways
He pushes me against the wall
His breath warms the back of my neck
I feel him slowly turn me around to face him
His soft hands wrap around my waist so gently
I look deep into his light brown eyes
His eyes pull me toward him like an inescapable gravitational field
The space between us grows ever smaller
My mind is racing at the speed of light
Our lips touch for the first time
My mind freezes
My body goes numb and is then filled with a warming since of passion and love
Are lips feel like two puzzle pieces that were made to fit together
I finally understand what the perfect kiss feels like
This perfect moment is stopped by a screeching noise followed by a bone shacking vibration
I wake up to my life and get ready for work* -Jeffrey Sutter
If only


we could start off with

some horrific argument,

the emotion subsiding.

We would curse less and less.

Words would fall back into our mouths.



Nothing to be forgiven or

forgotten

because it never quite happen.

We would hold each other

comforting hurts that

would always undo themselves.



Each kiss would make us

a little more giddy and

every day

you really would look

a little more pretty.



The way we touch

would be a sort of

un-touching

that would redefine anticipation

Every ****** intensifying,

escalating into that first feel,

first taste,

first breath of breathing



and then

finally

we would

walk backwards,

away from us,

it would feel

like we were

approaching something though,

like we might

care for one another

one day.

We would go away dreaming

the parts

we hadn’t quite discovered

before losing sight of one another

without any of the hurt or

remorse.



We would still be perfect somehow.

Loving in reverse
instead of backwards.


Michael L Sutter
Megan Milligan Aug 2011
HANGING WITH THE GALLO(W) BROS.

Coked out
Strung out
Flipped out
Had my share of friends
Blow their brains out

But still I went back out
And hung out with the Gallo brothers
And the drunks and the druggies and the homeless and the insane
Downtown at two in the morning.

Little did I know,
The Gallo Brothers were leading me to the gallows
Dead woman walking
Hanging out with them,
I was killing myself slowly
Too cowardly to flat out pull the trigger and get it done with,
I just squeezed it a bit
With two, three, four visits a day
From the dynamic dastardly duo.

Sometimes we hung out at Sutter Home
I remember the plastic thunk of bottles
In my purse on the way there.
The glass-laden Gallo Brothers sometimes made a bit too much noise
When stealth was called for,
So no one else would catch on to what I was doing.
So no one would catch onto the feelings I tried burying,
The demons I tried to drown,
Who were squeezing the life out of me
Feeling horrible, unworthy
Always going back on my misery.

Tremors, delirious
Delirium tremens
So shaking I can’t even double-fist
A single can of soda
I reached for the only help I’ll accept
I grabbed on tight to their hands
Even though my body turned it down
Rejecting, ejecting
Spewing, spitting their help
Back in their faces

“I wish I knew how to quit you”
My body told them

But the Brothers were a violent lot
Beating me into submission
When my mind was under their influence
Sometimes I’d do the craziest ****
For friends who didn’t know better,
Didn’t have my best interests at heart
Were -bent on my personal destruction.
Talk about peer pressure!
Doing, saying things I normally wouldn’t!
They made me go against the grain of everything decent and good about me.

Some friends just aren’t worth having
I learned that lesson the hard way
Cutting ties with the Gallo Brothers...
The hardest thing I ever did!
But... the only way to keep Dead Woman Walking
From becoming Dead Woman Hanging around
at the morgue instead of the Gallo Brothers’ house.
© 4/28/2011
I tell her that I forgive her as I look into her eyes
She looks at me and smiles assured that the lie I just told her was the truth
I tell myself it’s the truth as lying to myself is the only way I can muster up the courage to say it
I hold her close as I think about the lie I have just told
I tell myself I just need more time
I tell myself that it’s her fault I can’t forgive her
Many years pass as I hold on to the hatred and anger I have in my heart for her
I look in the mirror and see nothing but a hurt child refusing to let go of the past
I convince myself that letting the anger go will mean letting her go
I reach the edge of the dam and look across at the vast river of hate I have allowed to flow into my heart
I tell myself that it’s time to let it all go
I open the gates and allow myself to cry
The feelings of anger flow out of me like a raging river roaring down a mountain after the first snow melt
I can finally start to forgive
          I can finally tell her I forgive her*
-Jeffrey Sutter
Another night left alone to ponder my life,
Another night to dream of a life that is not mine,
The darkness thickens around me as I try and grasp what my life has lead up to,
My mind spins uncontrollably as I contemplate the decisions I made,
I sit under the one poorly lit light left in my world,
As it flickers on and off each time threatening to never come back on,
Time is continuously wasted by my obsession to figure out what it all means,
And in this chaotic time of my life,
That’s when it hits me like the bolt of a rifle slamming into a bullet,
I know who I am inside,
I have always known,
My mind has been tricked,
Weighed down by the unforgiving nature of our society,
The flickering light in which I sit under burns brighter than ever,
Now not only lighting up the small corner I sit in but the whole room,
With the path I need to take finally lit by not a flickering light but by the sun,
I am finally ready to stand up* -Jeffrey Sutter
Nobody likes vultures.
Oh, but the eagle…
People ******* love eagles.

The vultures,
they tidy things up for us.
The stench of all that rotting,
decaying road-dead flesh,
all the life crushed beneath our wheels
when we were not paying attention,
when we were moving too fast,
they take care of that.
They clean up a mess.
How nice.

The eagle…
it kills ****.  
And in that we see such nobility and
Regalness.

I propose we change
the symbol
on all our currency,
in our courthouses,
on the t-shirts of so many
Wal-mart shoppers,
to the vulture

and then maybe
act the part

and when someone mentions the eagle…
we can turn our nose up at the thought.

Michael L Sutter
Her long brown hair hung
occluding forty-seven percent of her face
and her one eye
looked a little manic.

It was slow and sweet
for a while
but she had been
gradually gaining momentum.

I am watching her
carefully and
waiting, really
for that moment.

Suddenly she stops.

She raises her hands up
clenched.
It looks like she is going to
pull her own hair
and then her right fist
slams into my ribs
followed by a left
and a right and a left.
A barrage of little hurts
pouring out
machine gun frenzied.

She digs her nails into my chest,
her mouth is twisted,
her teeth clenched,
I can see muscles
in one jaw line twitch.
More hair falls over her
Countenance.
Her hips move furious  

and then
Sensuous wails of red light,
screams of sumptuous green,
bright yellow trembling,
and electric blue rippling
like bright neon

She cools and dims
she collapses
into me
sobbing
and I can feel
salty wet
itchy dripping down my skin

I cry too
never having seen someone
this...



Michael L Sutter
I tear it out because I don't need it anymore
I don't want to play anymore
I don't want to stand and fight anymore
I can't take anymore
I have no tears anymore
I'm done and its over
I'm tired of shaking
I'm tired of waking up and not knowing
I'm tired of stuffing it all inside
There's no room left anymore
There's no fight left anymore
The war is over and i'm not sure who's the winner
I can't do this anymore*
-Jeffrey Sutter
I try to imagine you with a few more wrinkles.
More pucker lines around your mouth
and fatter
Liver spots indicative of aging,
a few of your teeth gone brown or missing,
and maybe some sort of growth upon your nose.
I wish your beauty bad

I imagine,
in your desperation for
a little bit of the attention
you once had,
you would come back for me.

You would leap out from behind a tree
like on our first date.
You would shout boo
and we would laugh
like the way I can’t forget.

I would take you in my arms
and kiss your crinkled lips.  
We would walk again on a city street
so that I can watch you digest
     the art of the sidewalk,
          the music of dive bars,
               the difference between two woven fabrics
that look quite the same to me.

And I would
help you back up to your pedestal.
I would stand close to keep you safe.

I would love you.
Forever.
No matter.

I wish you were ugly like me.


Michael L Sutter
He looks at the empty bottle he has just fished off
He punches the wall and tells himself this is the last time
He knows this is the same thing he told himself yesterday but refuses to admit he has a problem
His pain has been replaced by the feeling of numbness and confusion
He just sits and waits for the day the lights finally shut off
He thinks to himself maybe then I will finally find happiness.* -Jeffrey Sutter
*I wrote this only because I hadn't written anything in a while... I hate this poem...
Another night spent shaking in the cold waiting for the warmth of love to warm him
Another day spent waiting for love to flow through his heart            
Another week spent crying in the shadows cast by his broken soul
Another month spent walking along the shattered edges of his world
Another unfathomable year spent in a desolate life
Another lonely boy looking for nothing more than for someone to appreciate his existence*
-Jeffrey Sutter
Divested self worth and shattered dreams
my heart bleeds to feed the screaming voices
in hopes that my blood will purge them from my mind
and desecrate my thoughts of a life long lost* - Jeffrey Sutter
He looks into her sparkling eyes
He reminds himself to breath
She smiles at him and touches his arm
His heart skips
Time seems to lose all meaning
And within this timeless moment he knows he can stay with her forever
He moves closer gently placing his arms around her pulling her tightly against him.
He has never felt anything so warm
He smiles knowing this moment will never end
A tear runs down her face
He tells her that he will always be there
Time starts to move again
He knows this is the last kiss good bye
He leans down toward her slowly still looking into her eyes
Their lips touch
Years of memory’s rush threw his head
He hears the screeching of the train
Their lips slowly separate
He says I love you as he feels her warmth leave him for the last time* -Jeffrey Sutter
Life  is an ever ending mystery
Life is cruel and will kick you when your down
Life doesn't care who you are or who you know
Life doesn't stop and wait for you to ketch up
Life will speed right past you if you waste it
Life will make you wish you never had it to begin with
Life can scar you deeper than any knife can
Life can make you want to give up
But Life can also bring joy
Life is what you fight to keep
Life is the greatest gift you can give
Life is always worth keeping
Don't ever give up on Life* -Jeffrey Sutter
Mitchell Jul 2014
Bottle opener
Cracked vermouth
Naked lady
The kids grip their
Hearts
Like newly stolen candy

I'm a leaflet notebook
Fire parade
Fortune teller dressed in secrets
Kimono headdress
Ketamine lines

Upside down caligrpahy
Apple wine
Summer time
Open faced hamburgers
With the moon
On the infinite rise

Trickling melancholy
Purple moon
Hustlers under mailboxes
While grandma's line-up
To do the
Foxtrot

Sinister balloon
Of heavy-metal persuasion
Big titted foul players
Of foreign speaking
Soothsayers

Can it be that we
Are all out of players?
The ***** are in
The goals are scored
There's not a hand
Manning the board

Usurp the direction
Upend the powers that be
Peek through the keyhole
Discover the lies
Behind the masks of men
Who wear brightly colored ties

Music moves through
The meek feet of the weak
What're we all looking for
But the big vote
To take us all the way through.
Better butter down Sutter
Baby sitters been broken
The kids have gone missing

Instead of doves
We've got pigeons
Another day passes as he wishes he had been born differently
Another day he puts on clothes he doesn't like
Another day he looks into the mirror and feels nothing but pain and sadness
Another day he wastes his breath praying to god to change him
Another day he walks through the mall and wishes he could change his body
Another lie told to a friend when asked if he is okay
Another night spent dreaming about the life he feels he should be living
Another week spent feeling completely alone
Another year spent living the same life
A life he feels deep in his heart is the wrong one.*- Jeffrey Sutter
Elliott Jun 2017
You’ve traveled to the corners of my mind and into my deepest thoughts.
I never thought anyone would make it that far without ever touching me.

You’ve blushed at the way I put these words together, and
trust me, if you let me keep this up it can go on forever.

And I don’t mean forever as we’ll be together
forever
because I know for a fact
the statistics about high school couples,
I looked them up. Perhaps I’m being presumptuous.

Perhaps I’m thinking too far ahead, because you haven’t even
asked me on a date yet and I’m thinking of you past friendly,
going to poetry written about you,
talk about hitting on you like you were my woman crush Wednesday
but I can't anymore,
You're my woman crush everyday.  

I listen to love poems as if they were meant for me and you and
golly gee if I could,
I’d paint a thousand portraits,
take up my whole SD card in my camera,
Just so you see your beauty in my eyes

Dye my hair into your favorite color
because it puts me closer to you.


I hardly feel lonely anymore.
You’re in the shadows of my poetry, the goal for 2018,
I can’t wait to get honor roll so you can give me that hug and say
you’re proud, because that’s all the motivation I need.

And can I just say,
my medication alters my mood, but it never alters it enough for me to forget what makes me happy naturally,  
what makes me smile when I can’t seem to do it myself; will you be my
daily dose of prozac?
Doctors prescribed 50 ml grams a day but 50 minutes a day hearing you say my name is good enough too.

You’ve gotten me down to a science.
I sutter thinking about you asking me on a date and you
blush at me telling you the truth;
what does that tell us about our past lovers?

Is it alright I see you covered in a sweet truth over romanticized by my words?
Is it alright I say your name like Christians talk about Jesus and hope on our seventh day we create passion?

Jesus Christ,
if you were a word,
you’d be whatever means indescribable feeling between two people;

if you were a song I’d like you to be My Girl,

if I were a ship I’d be the love boat  
because I’m making another round tonight and you are welcome aboard, you are always welcome

because I am in trouble & you like that.
You love me being in this kind of trouble.
To you, it means I’m already yours.

I like you already but
if you let me I could fall in
deep, deep liking
for you.
I need you to stop doing whatever it is you are, because if you don’t, one of us will mess around and fall in love.
Sigh
I'm done with the games
I'm done with this pain
I won't hide behind my barricaded door
I won't stand here and just let my voice go unheard
If I have to scream then i'll scream
I'll scream till the world shakes apart
I'll scream till someone finally looks at me
I won't go back into the dark
I won't be pushed back anymore
I won't be stopped or shut down anymore
If I have to move you then I'll move you
I can't be turned away anymore
I can't fix the broken pieces anymore
My hands have been cut to shreds and I just can't grip any longer
I can't back up anymore
The walls are right behind me and I'm just screaming on my knees
Screaming that someone will just look at me
Screaming that someone will stick out a hand
I'm on my knees just screaming
Screaming for a hand to grip
Please just listen to me
Just listen to what I have to say
Please just don't let me go unheard
Don't let the world drowned me out
I have something to say
I have something that needs to be heard
I won't scream forever but I'm screaming now
Just don't let my voice fall on deaf ears
Just listen to me
Listen to me while I'm still screaming
Listen to me while I still have breath in these lungs
Listen while I still have something to say* -Jeffrey Sutter

— The End —