"tiptoes" poems
It arrives,
Unnoticed, unannounced.
Quiet,
At first.
Slow,
Seeping, dripping.
I put it down to a few stressful weeks.
I carry on.
It unpacks,
Worries, anxieties.
Gently,
For now,
Tiptoes,
Whispers, creaks.
‘It will leave soon’ I think ‘It always does.’
I keep going.
It settles in,
Getting comfortable.
Getting louder,
And louder.
Banging thoughts,
Insomnia.
‘Please don’t be happening again’.
I shuffle along my daily routine.
Claws in,
Insidious.
Screaming,
24/7.
Shame, worthlessness,
Hurt.
‘Please go away’.
I’m barely coping.
Growing roots,
Into my brain and heart.
Blossoming pain,
With every beat.
Emptiness, loneliness,
Abandonment.
Silence, Stillness,
‘I can’t move, I can’t cope.’
May 13, 2018
May 13, 2018 at 8:20 AM UTC
She keeps songs
locked away in boxes
like secrets.
She will take them out
like postcards
to help her remember
the feeling of
a different time,
a different person
by her side.
She likes the one
that makes her
eyes close
to see the lights.
She smiles at
the one that
makes her stand
up on tiptoes,
the one that
helps her forget
she doesn’t know
what to do
with her hands.
The tune
will carry her.
Like it did
the times when
voices broke
like a heart.
When instruments’ strings
would snap
and hurt.
Apr 5, 2019
Apr 5, 2019 at 1:34 PM UTC
My childhood was sunshine,
summer days,
pool,
book,
trees,
It was yellow dandelion, carpet lawn
and endless blue and green
as far as I could see
standing on my tiptoes
on a swing in the backyard
jumping down onto smooth soft summer grass
in the flat calm ivy-colored sea
It was stars on the night sky
like stars on my ceiling,
hair floating up around me with my dreams,
pulling me out the open window
into air,
into indigo,
into midnight blue, nail-polish painted sky
on the sweet-smelling cedar easel,
in the dark room,
where I come sometimes
to touch the beginning with butterfly-soft fingers
My childhood was hide and seek,
shut up in closets,
smiling,
laughing,
giggling,
yelling tag you’re it,
as it touched board game movers
and pushed them
one
two
three
around boards colored like rainbows
that I rode around the world
and into the universe
Now my childhood is two yellow foam blocks
asking me,
“Why?”
“Where?”
but I don’t know why it’s gone
or where it’s gone to,
all I know is that I’m not ready,
but here I come
Mar 28, 2017
Mar 28, 2017 at 12:51 AM UTC
Every day is the same; they wake up in the same bed, at the same ungodly hour, to the same monotonous ringing from the alarm clock.
They grumble their ‘good morning’s; whether they believe it is or not, rolling out of opposite sides of the duvet.
They dance around each other in the bathroom, the heat of the shower creating a fog through which neither of them can see; causing him to stub his toe on the toilet or the counter, and steaming up the mirror so she can’t apply her make-up.
They continue their ritual into the kitchen; flicking on the kettle, popping in the bread, pouring the orange juice; stirring the tea, catching the toast and spreading the butter and jam. Crunching and slurping together at the table, mumbling about what their days have in store; tapping texts on their phones, crinkling newspaper in their hands.
They peck each other a kiss goodbye and mutter a ‘see you later’ before going their separate ways.
But then Monday comes...
Mondays are different.
He knows she doesn’t like Monday mornings. It’s the very beginning of a new, long, tiring week. She never looks forward to Mondays.
So he changes that.
He sets the alarm on his watch a little earlier than other days; shutting it off before it can wake her.
He slips silently out of bed and tiptoes quietly into the bathroom to shower; leaving her smiley faces and love messages on the steamy mirrors.
He creates her favourite tea and makes her toast with raspberry jam; just the way she likes it. Picking a flower from the garden; whichever one looks the happiest and brightest, he places it all on a tray and pads back up to the bedroom to wake her.
She no longer sets her alarm on Mondays. She knows he’ll not let her oversleep.
He places the flower in her hair and drops delicate kisses; full of his love and affection for her, to the corner of her mouth, until she stirs gently.
She smiles on Monday mornings.
They eat breakfast in bed, covering the sheets in crumbs and giggling contentedly as the cat licks them up.
She hums in the bathroom while he clears away crockery, and always re-emerges with the flower tucked behind her ear.
It remains there ‘til night fall.
They never once look at their phones or the paper, far too focused on each other to pay anything else mind.
Their kiss as they part reminds them of their love for each other and of the good things in life; like strolls along the shore, strawberries dipped in dark chocolate, smiling sunflowers that open to a beautiful summer’s day, and of course, Monday mornings.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 5:17 PM UTC
imagine —
you are the last of your species,
an angel, who dances on
ice.
like
a
film that protects
this earth ,
your wings are broken ,
and these are the pieces of you that cannot go
home .
.
so on
tiptoes, this cracked marble
does not shatter,
and
everyone gets to watch you perform ,
unknowing of the cold truth that you are shackled
to ,
like
a ballerina in a box
that hums a sweet tune —
you still dance ,
even as the last of your species,
even though
you are all that you have left.
and
even though
you have decided that love is a form of
betrayal.
.
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 2:04 PM UTC
She lives a quiet life,
she tiptoes around,
she whispers when she speaks,
she hardly ever makes a sound.
Although her words are quiet,
her mind is very loud.
She has so much to say,
but no one listens for soft sounds.
She's an invisible girl,
who doesn't want to stand out,
she just wants to be heard,
without having to shout.
Sometimes the loudest people,
aren't saying much at all.
Empty words and promises,
just leave their mouths and fall.
But whispered words fly high,
and catch peoples attention,
they're intriguing, so amazing,
but only when they listen.
So look outside the spotlight,
because often the real star,
isn't anyone on stage,
but the mind behind it all.
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 2:31 AM UTC
Every blue patch on the sky keeps an eye,
cherishing clouds dancing, hovering over.
The songs of deep blue ride the heady air,
only to be stunned, all of a sudden,
at the first sight—
sung down on a perfectly placed mural.
The Queen of Sheba tiptoes this way;
King Solomon leans to the ground,
only to find seas of silent blooms
musing, dipping in sun-kissed dews—
on gently tilted roses that will not fall,
not from this picture-perfect, navel-high!
Velvety, the rose rises from the ground;
the forever-green Earth hangs low,
in the dew on the rose that will not fall.
Blossoming, eyeing an acute high,
evermore hopeful to scale upward,
toward the faraway, awaiting heaven's pool.
There, the spotlight does not move—
neither north nor south, nor up nor down—
until Queen Fathima, the Queen of Heaven,
steps on the "as above, so below" slope.
There, the newly resurrected Earth will be primed,
its minted atoms vibrating beyond bounds,
rising, for the first time, atop the navel-high.
Perfectly wrapped, the atom's circle finally turns on—
the stepping stone that holds no pi-decimal hole.
Pure Scientia hangs on the door of Paradise,
awaiting the numerically perfect Queen Fathima to step.
God willing, she will work in beauty:
the most sought-after, perfect works of art—
the lost masterpiece, not in translation,
but hidden within the pi-decimal abyss of Earth's depth.
Lo, the gleaning Sleeping Beauty peeps,
trailing the role model Queen.
Fathima—the first woman to enter Paradise—
walks the walk: perfect, straight, numerically precise.
As if she always knew, back from the Earth,
of the murals ahead, hanging on Paradise’s wall,
mathematically exact!
Mirrors of imagination, new wonders on Heaven’s way,
etched in the murals at the golden section, navel-high.
She zooms past the ever-spinning atom’s perfect span,
cemented at the entrance of Paradise.
Yet leaves no footprint—
for she never did, even on the sublunary Earth.
A new wonder blooms in the classic old eyes:
oh, Pi, still irrational, still pondering,
at the measured, eternal navel-high!
Oct 31, 2018
Oct 31, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
pony-tailed playmate
head tucked in her shirt
gazing steadily down
at her toes in the dirt
chaos tiptoes around her
naive oblivion
journeys in far away lands
just west of the meridian
watercolor fairy tales
bleeding outside the lines
unaware of the danger
unaware of the signs
let me sit with you, darling
in the dampened flower beds
and paint a new world
for us in our heads
Dec 24, 2018
Dec 24, 2018 at 11:25 PM UTC
i want to play a piano
i want to feel my fingers slide down the keys
i want to swirl myself in melodies no one’s ever heard
i want to engulf myself in harmonies
angels sing their children to sleep
i want my fingers to dance on black keys
like ballet dancers twirling their tiptoes
i want to feel like satin unwinding
like champagne bubbling
i want to dance in the moonlight
with nothing but a grand piano
and my fingers
nimbly picking each key
ever so softly
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 10:23 PM UTC
I waste myself for you, oh page.
I battle sleep and demons and
Face what I would otherwise
Curtail, for the simple act of
Filling you up.
I trap everything that I am
Within you, page. A web for my
Foggy thoughts, dew caught like
Tears, crystallising the opaque
Within my life.
You are the recipient in my mind,
Oh page. Brain chatter forced into
Structure, a soldier. Almost a child.
You **** me like an alpha, my borrowed
Pleas at your feet.
And so I tread you like infant snow.
Each print a scar, each word a brittle
**** stem. Your silence a truth beyond
My own and whatever I say
Will pollute it.
So I walk round in circles. Tiptoes
Like sparrows, piecrust shapes in
The snow. I walk in circles to not
Carve a path. To hide my meaning.
Don’t follow me home.
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 7:53 PM UTC
cheap makeup covered
the purple marks of his "masculinity"
forced upon her in the hours of
coal, coldness and blame.
before it got too much,
I saw her stand on her tiptoes
and dissolve into the night sky,
into the night gutters,
into the night cries,
of pills, diets and mutters.
and right as the moon
swallowed her whole,
only to spit her out onto
guilt soaked mornings;
she survived.
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 11:06 AM UTC
Crack some fire
everywhere
on the way heaven.
Light the shadow
light a candle
down the moon.
The sun in fact
does it every day.
Scurries towards
the last dark room
down the moon.
With the colour plate
intact and full
passes by shining on
every corner and nook
every untouched end in the day
the rainbows peep on the way.
Sneaks its way through
the deep forests of orbs
up and down the passages
in the mountains of stars
even after nightingales
and robins go deep silent
the sun tiptoes on the go
lights a candle on the moon.
Moments after the sunset
facing its true north in the West
only to find in heaven
the way The Queen of Heaven
puts her footprint less step
it's the sun's true West
shows up the new crescent.
Sep 4, 2022
Sep 4, 2022 at 9:10 PM UTC
Gripping ***** locks
knotted to his scalp,
she kicks him to the road.
Glass bottle bits scrabbling
under his fingernails;
he yelps, dragging away.
Their pressed flower daughter
clings to the soot-stained wall.
She tiptoes his nape
into the pavement,
drawing a gag and gurgle
bubbling out of his throat.
Two fingers pull his nose,
resting his teeth on the curb.
An incisor plinks to the girl’s feet.
She hugs it as close as a home.
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 4:58 PM UTC
For every star that whispers against
The cold December sky, there’s a wandering
Soul that tiptoes like a ballerina skates across
An icy stage before losing control underneath
The only street lamp that glared a yellow light
Up and down a short distance on the empty street.
One lost and broken body, crawling over
Paved concrete, looking for a part that hadn’t
Had the time to dry in the lukewarm sunlight.
For each shattered heart, waiting to be buried in
The wet concrete, hoping to mend its cracks
And fill its craters from too many punches to
The center of ourselves that should
Receive nothing more than love,
Will find its peace within the outside flooring
Where nothing is no longer temporary.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 5:59 PM UTC
She's thoroughbred hunger
From her double shift mom to her deadbeat dad
She tiptoes through junkyard junglegyms
Collecting alleyway beach glass
She learned to swindle
Haggled survival with the big guy
Big sisters traded on corners
She was one
Karma mustve forgotten
While doing rounds
She's got an invincible soul
Stitched of disappointments
Wrapped in sorrow
Hope as a bow
He's thoroughbred gluttony
From mommas limelight jewels to daddy's sin-shined shoes
He learned to swindle
To thrive
Wall street walk on the 99%
Politician promises
To impermanent faces
Costly trips
To extravagant places
Mixing up "enough"
With "more"
Looking for happiness
In a store
Though it seems to me
Whats made of life
Is what makes life worth living for
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 4:34 AM UTC
My life is a virtual battlefield
complete with hidden traps,
layered atop cowardly assaults
between highly guarded spans of peace,
Inside my house
chairs and walls
are coarsely blown to bits
by verbal bombs,
and stark fists of shrapnel.
Behind that simple smile,
semblance of solid love
so easily shaken,
lies a ripened mine field
I tread on tiptoes
yet it erupts under
calloused feet unprovoked,
blasting glory to grey
as sacred sanctuary
falls to scarred terrain.
Spears lodged inside ribs
I peel myself from the ground,
shake off soot,
wait for dust to settle
before I march forward, again.
yes I lose the battles
But I will win this war.
Jan 21, 2019
Jan 21, 2019 at 6:30 PM UTC
mourning doves for late afternoons
a lament for the golden hour
the end of adventures
a little girl comes in for dinner
tiptoes upstairs
strokes her mothers hair
leaves little blue flowers by her bed.
I let my hair go dark again-
just like yours, do you see?
I'm a woman now, I have your mouth.
forget-me-nots for noontime
where the little girl would lay
violet blue healing shroud
and disappear
un-pixelating a photograph in the sky
the portrait that made her father cry
it was a five year old aesthetic of death.
I guess I never really knew you, did I?
music box hidden in the mystery of a closet
shades of midnight, shades of dust
a ballerina's slow pirouette
called into life after forgotten years
the haunt of Sleeping Beauty.
I know you didn't mean to miss my birthday.
I begged you for a music box, you remember?
It's my most dear treasure on this earth.
mourning doves for missing you
forget-me-nots for remembering you
my music box will live for you
How strange that such wonderful things
should make me so sad.
May 25, 2012
May 25, 2012 at 9:59 AM UTC
He was walking home
Ticked off with a broken nose
They stole his things
And with no shame
Left cuts and bruises
Head to toe covering him
No one gets his mind
No one really tries
He hides in the closet
When he gets home
In fear of his intoxicated father
His leather belt
Swinging from his fist
The boy cries in bitter isolation
He can't trust anyone
With no safty
He fears for his life
His mother was killed when he was five
Nine years later
He just wants to die
Multiple times he's tried
Every one of them
He survived
His wrists bleed for releaf
His skin pulls tight
Then it's released
He tiptoes out of his room
This for the last time
His father asleep in the chair
He looked pail
His chest barely moving
If you weren't paying attention
You might think he was dead
The boy got an idea
Such a melancholy idea
He went in to his father's quarters
Peaking under the bed
There lay a box full
Unsold meds
A knife in the kitchen would be his weapon
Nothing but a sigh let out
His father was soon to be no more
His heart pounded
His mind thundered
With anger and pride
"This is for Mom!"
He screamed with tears in his eyes
A knife to the chest
He fought the man
Pushing further and harder
He worked fast
The eyes glazed over
Both fear and joy filling his heart
Into the bathtub
Pills in hand
He turns on the water
He uncaps the bottle
Putting it to his lips
Up turned
He sinks down
Letting the drugs take their toll
Gone
******
Suicide
This was the price
For freedom
For justice
Mar 5, 2021
Mar 5, 2021 at 5:27 AM UTC
From a fifth storey bachelor’s window
pondering shadows in the car park below,
Johnny opens another can.
I stuff another pipe.
We talk about our trip to Brazil
and how great it would’ve been had we gone;
Johnny turns up the radio.
I take the first drag.
Old girlfriends swing by in our conversation,
most of them giving us the finger, mind you;
Johnny dabs at his tears.
I pass him the pipe.
Dusk-scalpels are slicing through the curtains now,
they scrape over coffee table dust,
through Irish coffee stains,
cut open Johnny’s frown:
The neighbours are at it again, arguing;
he accuses her of seeing someone else,
she tells him *correct,
it’s your ****** sister.*
Johnny taps out the pipe in the ashtray,
says he has to do someone a favour;
throws on his jacket,
says take it easy.
Johnny’s shadow tiptoes into evening,
a car alarm screams and a gunshot cries.
I convince myself
this is Brazil.
Feb 3, 2011
Feb 3, 2011 at 7:59 PM UTC
to the boy with the dancing feet,
please never stop loving what you do.
one day, when we meet,
i hope you'll teach me the moves too.
i might end up missing a step,
but i know you'll correct me right away.
and you might "accidentally" nudge me to make me fall,
but i know you'll catch me in your arms-- that's how we'll play.
you'll twirl me around on my tiptoes,
my heartbeat and head is a mess,
your hands on my waist, my arms round your neck,
a tangle of limbs, is what anyone will guess.
and when the music finally stops,
that's when we have to let go.
but i'm glad you taught me how to dance,
through dancing, it's only love you show.
to love the dancing boy,
to see such passion and feel such love,
to be the reason why you dance,
to be only yours, to be the one you're proud of
Mar 17, 2016
Mar 17, 2016 at 9:10 PM UTC
Her eyes are sinkholes in a quiet, sleeping state
and I was a girl, lost and misplaced at twenty-one,
looking for love in infinitesimal spaces:
on her palm creases and chipped, ruby nails,
and in the blown-out ends of her lotus tattoo
I find myself tracing a secret,
at the spiked tips of her hair tamed by fairy lights
and on the slits of her skin — a rabbit hole of wonders,
I always fall like Alice in sworn careful tiptoes
and crash headfirst; a broken wishbone, a tainted wish
some habits you just can't quit.
like —
October and her obsidian eyes, and the sunless ways we kissed —
being lost and misplaced made sense for a while in the detached comfort
of her cold bed, colder hands,
warmth has become an oppression.
But this dalliance has always been a disaster waiting to happen
and I am a paramour, a memory, a face in the crowd
swallowed in a seismic fall —
and losing October has always been a disaster waiting to happen —
this bed, always a site of a losing battle
and I find myself in a soiled, torn dress,
lying helpless on the other side of her war.
Tonight, I light myself a candle;
maybe one day, I'll finally learn to run away from a girl made of disasters
and not towards her.
Oct 16, 2022
Oct 16, 2022 at 1:39 AM UTC
To M.
See, I should have kissed you.
I should have kissed you when I had the chance to. Should have pulled you closer, stood on my tiptoes, my hand tightly clutching your neck, and kissed you full on the mouth. Should have run my fingers through your spiky hair, smiling as your arms closed around me.
I should have found you, the taste of tiramisu still on my lips, and I should have kissed you, giving you a taste of the happiness in a box that you'd handed me so timidly.
Your voice still rings loud and clear in my head, I hear it when I read your messages, that distinctive accent, eyebrows raised, cheekbones moving. And that smile, so sly and cunning, your lips slightly upturned. I should have kissed those lips when I had the chance to do so. Then and there, among tears and sporadic, almost desperate hugs, I should have kissed you. When you held on to me for just a little longer, your hug tight, your hands running along my back, I should have traced your lips with mine. I should have sealed that promise with a kiss.
"You never see a person only once in a lifetime," you whispered in my ear, your breath tickling me. "That's a promise," I choked on tears, "You hear me, it's a promise."
I should have kissed you; instead, I hugged you once again as you held me tightly and rubbed my back. I should have just reached out. Fate or whatever mystical force there is ******* us up pretty badly. If only I'd met you earlier. If only I'd known you before I got mixed up with the wrong person. I wish we'd had more time. I wish I'd done a lot of things differently. My heart drops in my stomach every time you say you miss me. Your voice will fade away. I won't be able to conjure up your face without looking at pictures, and all your familiar features will be blurred by time and memory. The ephemeral imprint of your skin against mine will soon be gone forever. My heart will grow cold.
The taste of tiramisu will linger, though. Always in the back of my mind, the unanswered question of what it would be like to taste it from your lips. Have tiramisu some time. I hope it tastes like me. You never see a person only once in a lifetime, but perhaps you only have one chance to kiss.
I should have kissed you.
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 7:22 AM UTC
You round up because what difference is a quarter of a inch
Heels, depending on the size, will make you the average height
Leggings and sweats will bunch at your ankles
Shirts become dresses, but only for you
Dress hems hit the floor, but only for you
**** skirts become **** dresses
Having to hem every single pair of jeans
Sleeves. Sleeves are far too long
"Petite" clothing doesn't fit either
Step stools are your best friend
Jumping for something that's just out of reach works too
Constantly being mistaken for a 16 year old
(Even if you are turning 20 this year)
Being used as an armrest by someone who thinks they're funny
Stuck in the front for every group photo
There's that awkward height difference between you and everyone
Standing on tiptoes and having the guy lean down for a kiss
You hate sports that require tall people, like volleyball and basketball
And yet, you wouldn't change your height for the world
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 6:51 PM UTC
...
new moon
"just let me sleep,"
moon eaten
my absence upsets all.
Look at me, really look at me,
stare up at the belly of a loved sky,
watch fingers dipping into bowls of blood holding hope,
feeling around for a sliver,
of sweet milk,
of relief,
of anything;
new moon whispers
on the dead bodies left behind,
god sighs---
he knows;
"I am not the same"
waxing crescent
map out my wreckage,
my skeleton of poetry;
in the spines of books loved by mankind,
bury me there in a pages of flowers---
in the altitude of words;
read me with a hunger you have never known before,
over and over;
whenever it seems fit~
like the light of the moon is a cigarette.
smoking,
he's always smoking now.
god takes another drag;
he describes to me:
*"You could be my bible,
you book of blood"*
I can't stand smoke...
"I have no business in being your holy snakeskin."
first quarter
I've been searching for
solid ground, solid shadows,
a solid compromise;
I wanted a little more
than ordinary love from him so I
asked him where the static began,
for me it's below my bottom left rib
and found that it was also where the spiders started too.
Time, that quiet thing
obeys god, only
because it waits for no one
it loves
unzipping the law of alchemy,
cause ink flowered in my blood again;
I should thank time
it was this saving kind of grace;
always has been
god stroked my hair this time
and said quietly:
*"You see,
the saddest thing is realizing
that there's nothing more they can do for you"*
waxing gibbous
Oh, where's my love?
Is it in the fever I call happiness,
is it in the sword my mama raised me to be
Is it in the way
the moon tiptoes closer
when he says my name
in that beautiful way he does
or breaks my name
over his teeth like it's just
glass apples
God doesn't even look at me
he doesn't have to;
"Do you believe in angels?"
the wreckage answers him
"not lately"
full moon
And it begins again
I watch as he just looks away
and says it's fine
it hurts
god narrows his eyes but shrugs
"Pain had other plans for you."
I breathe out raggedly;
***"I guess,
if there's no key
then I'll just swallow the whole door."***
...
Feb 26, 2017
Feb 26, 2017 at 9:30 PM UTC