"toughness" poems
True gardeners cannot bear a glove
Between the sure touch and the tender root,
Must let their hands grow knotted as they move
With a rough sensitivity about
Under the earth, between the rock and shoot,
Never to bruise or wound the hidden fruit.
And so I watched my mother's hands grow scarred,
She who could heal the wounded plant or friend
With the same vulnerable yet rigorous love;
I minded once to see her beauty gnarled,
But now her truth is given me to live,
As I learn for myself we must be hard
To move among the tender with an open hand,
And to stay sensitive up to the end
Pay with some toughness for a gentle world.
10.9k
toughness -
the drive, grit, and determination
that I have to find
will be necessary in days to come
goals -
have been written on paper
will make me shoot for the stars
though I may fall short
friends -
will support me in my endeavors
and fuel my drive
but some may doubt
family -
happy that I have found myself
glad to help me on my way
though mom is not happy with all the time spent
coach -
the man with the plan
which I will follow
though who knows where it will lead
the combination -
of it all creates a strong brew
from which I will partake
giving me the toughness to see it through
Sep 4, 2010
Sep 4, 2010 at 8:29 AM UTC
A breadcrumb I am - the morsel of my old dough,
a piece of chewed bread rotten, missed near a toe,
shredded by the sons of righteousness and “normality”,
entombed I am under the carpet to fulfil “morality”.
Mum added the yeast for me to grow, as well as flour,
Hoping my crust would golden as a vivid live flower,
She sprinkled little salt into me, to know the grimes,
Sugar too, for life brings out the salt to eyes, at times.
Dad poured the water, to soften toughness uncalled,
For man is kind too, not merely clay masked, walled -
And above all, they added affection and compassion,
They wanted me to satisfy mineself, not one’s ration.
Into the oven, 9 minutes, under fire: I show colors,
The warmth turned the heart warm for all others;
I am left to rest, to harden the shell and eternal body,
To be perfect as ma and pa wish: not adverse, shoddy.
But the stale, unpuffed, unfresh bread of this world,
covets but loathes what is good and not yet twirled,
It wishes for me to inhibit mold and evict dignity,
Mais allez, étrange moi, expose me not to malignity.
The least of their gurgling sounds puncture heads,
And the weakest of their advice the spirit dreads;
The making of me is the capacity of mine flexes,
Your ingredients suit not me, mortals and sexes.
Days yearn for you, not this battle of complexes:
You, mine old dough who suddenly “complex” is,
My parents baked me on low heat nice and gentle,
And they sear me with words not for me, mental!
Know you: Pita, Kmajj, Brioche, Shrak, or Baguette,
Bread is bread, could be different, but it is no threat.
Jan 18, 2023
Jan 18, 2023 at 9:27 AM UTC
i used to have
some smiles
7 of them in fact
7 pretty little smiles
one for each day of the week
each brighter than the other
we had monday, she was patient and honest
but we had to give her away because
we saw a passer by who
needed to borrow her for a day
and so we gave her away
the stranger replaced her with a frown
but that’s okay because
we still have tuesday with us
tuesday who is kind and innocent
oh, wait
no
we don’t
because along came a friend who
had a broken heart and
tuesday didn’t understand why but
she wanted to sacrifice herself anyway
before she went she said
it’s okay, you’ve still got wednesday and the others
oh, wednesday
the tough softie
he fought for them when needed
he was loyal, he was brave. a soldier
and i guess that’s why when
my best friend lost her brother
wednesday felt like he had to be there for her
so i let her have him because
at least i could see her smile on wednesday
and before he went wednesday smiled at me and
he said
hey, you’ve still got thursday and the others
then thursday and wednesday bid farewell
two supposedly inseparable soulmates
thursday, sweet and gentle to match
wednesday’s toughness
wednesday was his hero
i guess that’s why
when my sister was in pain
thursday wanted to help
just like the others
thursday hugged me goodbye and
wiped away my tears as he reminded me
it was all for a good cause.
he kissed friday goodbye and asked her to be good to me
and friday promised she would
but she left too
she left while we were asleep
she picked up and went
we don’t know where but
she was always the loud and reckless one
we miss her though
and i think the loss of the others finally
made her
snap.
i don’t blame any of them.
it’s for a good cause.
that morning we woke up
saturday, sunday and i
all staring at one another
i took them in,
the polar opposite twins
saturday with her cheerfulness and wildness, her free spirit
and sunday with his sturdy consciousness and his good morals.
they looked at each other and looked back at me
and what they said broke me
completely
“we’re moving out. we’ve got a promotion and a house. we’ll still visit from time to time, but... we got a job where we can help the others .. it’s for a good cause”
and i feel my shoulders slump as pain ebbs through me
and i say
“okay, i understand”
and we say goodbye
see, i once had 7 pretty little smiles
one for each day of the week
but one by one they left me
they went on to do something great
and here i am now
with my straight mouth and dull eyes
please don’t ask me for a smile
because i don’t have any left within me
©️Elissar Mustapha
15.01.2020
Mar 2, 2020
Mar 2, 2020 at 5:11 AM UTC
I'm not the type of girl
Who flirts to get out of things
Who fawns all over you.
I'm not the girl
To get dressed up
And put on a mask of makeup.
I'm not the one
Who wears her heart on her sleeve
Or pours her emotions out for all to see.
I'm not the girly girl
Into the latest fashion
Or the new trends.
I'm not the one
To get all pretty just for you.
I'm the girl
Who plays tough.
Dirt and grime never bothered me.
I'm the one
To play with the guys
In sports and games.
I'll beat you in your favorite video game
As we eat the fattiest foods.
I'm the tomboy
Who loves to just be comfortable.
I bottle up my emotions
Hiding from them behind a wall.
My exterior is just a facade
Of strength and toughness
Held up by sheer will.
I'm not going to change.
I love me for me
But I hope that you can see
Past the mask that covers my interior.
The passion that hides behind the fence
Waiting to be found.
The romantic who needs a push,
A sign to know it's real.
A nudge in the right direction
Is all you need to give.
Showing me you care
And telling me are two different things.
I'm not the girl who reads up on relationships
Trying to decipher the meaning
Behind every word,
Every movement,
Every little thing.
Instead, I'm the one to take it at face value.
Don't play games with me
Just make it clear as day.
Are you here to stay?
Or are you here to play?
If you're here to stay
Then just let me know.
I can't stand these mixed signals
Hovering between just friends
And something more.
If you're here to play
Then I need to know.
I don't like these games
Of cat and mouse.
I can't stand the doubt
Which plagues my mind.
To me you're more than just a friend.
We've been dancing for 6 months
Between the two stages.
Each time I think I know what's going on
Something you do turns me around.
This dance is getting old
And I'm getting scared.
The more time we spend together
The more attached I grow.
But I'm afraid that I have no right to you,
Because you seem to keep changing your mind.
I'm not a girly girl
I'm not the one to open up easily.
But you're growing on me
And I feel a desire to tell you everything.
But I'm afraid that you'll leave,
Just like everyone else had.
I've been through too much
To wear my heart on my sleeve.
I've grown tough even as I hide.
My emotions squeezed and confined
Want to burst forth when you're around.
I don't know how to tell you this
Maybe I should let you read instead
All my words and poems.
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
Toughness is my warm gooey love
Isolation is the only defense I've developed
I keep reminding myself this is it
My passion never existed
An urge deep frying my mind
My fingers tingling
My heart throbs
My throat suffocating
The words telling me to discontinue have melted into sweet nothings
I'm a *** drive with no destination
A complicated disastrous women
My feet turned to charcoal long ago
I haven't blink in a lifetime
My burnt sunglasses situated against my broken nose
My high waisted skirt accentuates my fate
Perfect, is a pretty ******* explicit world to create
Please no holding the insane
Back away slowly
She's always hoping to bite
Taking chunks of your pride
May 5, 2016
May 5, 2016 at 1:49 PM UTC
Your soul is like your fingers
Such calloused hands
How rough you are
How abrasive you can be
Doesn't measure up
To the toughness of your heart
I admire your resiliency
My only wish is that
You would soften up to me
Know it's okay to get cuts and scratches
And even to show off your scars
Show me your sensitive underbelly
Trust me enough to fall asleep next to me
Like how animals sleep tummy side up
When they feel safe
Shed your hard layers
Feel my gentle interior
Know that it will always be
Okay.
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 6:51 PM UTC
It just comes natural to me
To submit to a Dom
You're gentle with your roughness
Eat up all my wetness
Since you caused it
You can't tease me and expect me not to want it
You can't tease me and expect me to not be *****
Your thirst, I can never satisfy
Even when you eat my soul out of me
You still crave to eat more
To drink more
To do it all night
And all morning
Girl, don't you ever get tired?
It just comes natural to me
To submit to a Dom
You're gentle with your roughness
You're smart with your toughness
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 8:27 AM UTC
Words hang from twisted emotions like blossoms from a garland,
Dropping, then gathered into sentences to be delivered as expressions.
Discussed and considered, feelings form, fear or confusion arises.
Happiness, delightful excitement is offered.
To be taken and sensed, or dismissed and forgotten there's always the choice between trusting or suspicion.
Belief is difficult when experiences are dampened with pain and hurt, not fulfilling.
A chance for happiness perhaps, amongst the chaos that is reality.
Respite from the toughness, see the lightness offered through kindness and love.
Non judgemental consideration and beauty, helps the pain and emotional restriction.
To give is wonderful, to be able to accept is incredible.
Too many words have been spoken in early excitement, from the heart rises love, desire and need.
The head overflows, logic disappears to be replaced with more of the same, belief forming.
The sense of being, confused by the strength of the connection and depth of feeling.
Joined in natures embrace and pleasuring touch, joy, happiness and deep, deep emotion intermingle
Searching for understanding, a meaning, is there one or is this just how it is for now?
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 10:44 AM UTC
Beautiful curves
Like conjoined maltesers
She melted under your touch,
And you crunched away all her inner toughness
With each little nip at her neck.
It was hot and
She stuck to your fingers.
So you bathed together,
Hot and steamy
And then you melted too.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 5:53 PM UTC
A lifelong Michigander
I've endured my share of brutal winters
The ones that seem to thoroughly freeze you
Right into the cracks of your armor
You know, the toughness that you show the world
Deeper experiences than your skin, reaching past and
Down right to your bones
A woman seemingly designed for melancholy
I struggle and have to beware of making it my identity
For I am much more than that sorrow which has shaped me
I've endured my share of hardship and pain
You know, the kind that bandages cannot reach
And pain can feel like a gnawing within
Like the winters that penetrate you
Ones that reach your bones
And bone crushing, they do feel
But I'm no fool
And I use the pain
For in vain I won't let it become
For spring could not be so glorious, it seems
Without the show of its flip-side...a frozen reality
Joy would be meaningless to me
Without understanding the truth of
Disappointment, sorrow, hurt, loneliness...
gut-wrenching misery that all must face
At least once in their lives
Maybe it sounds cliche but....
The rain might seem dismal and unpleasant
But surely you bask in the green of its fulfillment
A birth might be agonizing for the mother
But surely the life brought into the world is the beautiful result
These are some of my thoughts, lately
The conceiving and jotting down of them
Help me to hold on when life doesn't seem right
Help me to grow beyond my comforts to reach up and beyond
Challenging me to stretch my faith into a bigger dimension
While getting through the tempests of life
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 11:40 AM UTC
Do not let our love be forged in sweet ease,
Nor should vanity be used as our base.
Let not our joy be a product of peace,
Nor should we dwell on our warmest embrace.
Let our love be a product of roughness,
Let it be steeped in our tears and shed blood.
Let our anger be the source of toughness,
And we will stand against the coming flood.
Let all the others take their unearned love,
With its ease and hugs, and their flowers, too.
So that when, as always, push comes to shove
We will stand as one, not apart as two
The flood will sweep away all the others
As we stand as the only true lovers.
Jul 25, 2014
Jul 25, 2014 at 2:56 AM UTC
*O come
gentle persons all
and listen to the woeful tale
of an unfortunate lover*
1
I pitied Cinderella
and knocked at her door
when everyone was away
and I sang:
*Come, run away with me
and I shall look after you -
all the days of my life
all the days of yours*
Get lost, she said.
*I’ve a premonition
of glass slippers
and Princes and castles*
2
And so I went to fair Verona
to see if Juliet would
give me her hand
but it was her father
who showed me the toughness
of his servant’s hands
3
And ah, I went to Rapunzel
and I said: *Oh, let down your hair
and I’ll come to you;
and I’ll find a way for both of us
to run away to better lands*
Get lost, she said
*You don’t look like a man
who can afford to get
me the best shampoo
and golden diamond-studded hairclips -
new ones everyday
for my hairdo*
4
And so I waited
for Cleopatra
till Brutus and the conspirators
stuck their daggers into Caesar
and I went to her mansions
but the guards seized me and they said:
*You ever heard of Cleopatra’s needles?
Where’d you like us
to stick them in you?*
5
and so, desperate,
I went to **** myself
back in Verona
in the family crypt of the Capulets
and woe is me -
I really don’t know why -
but I’m thrown into prison now
*‘for the ****** of two’*
Oct 10, 2010
Oct 10, 2010 at 9:51 PM UTC
Did your English toughness lead you to reject
the ancient discontents of history,
to rather seek modern realms of ethical choice, Wystan?
There were no streets named after you,
nor monuments sculpted in the parks,
nothing that would say more than your words.
Words read and pondered in ritual
to better grasp the gruel and poverty of my own.
You talk in my sleep, Professor,
staring back at all that I am not,
teaching that art is born of humiliation.
Did the shaving mirror stare as cruelly?
The task is in the present moment,
Auden's poetry civilly requests a comment.
Feb 29, 2012
Feb 29, 2012 at 11:10 PM UTC
- Joseph Childress
Soft words
Are usually preferred
During pillow talks
Foolishly
I foolheartledly
Brought hard words
Harsh
& Disturbed
Which
Hardily makes sense
Since
Your sentiment
Didn't deserve
The sediment
Provided
From my concrete heart
I argue
Our argument
Was all my fault
I dumped asphalt
On the sandy beach
You provided
For our sweet retreat
You retrieved
My roughness
And smoothed
The edgy conversation
Tamed my
Toughness
And soothed
The painful consternation
You could
Ease the temperament
And impatience
Of anger management patients
All the while
Showing
The peacefulness in his
War within
Finding righteousness
In his right to yell
You respect
His freedom of speech
But with each
Negative comment
You seek
To find
The positive content
In the layers beneath
You see the beauty
In the mess
Like an abstract painting
Made for the
Artistically elite
My poor sense
Of creativity
Is lifted
From your richness
I dropped
Destruction
But always
Pick it
Back up
Like bad habits
Rehabilitate me this
Last time
And I promise
I’ll never
Cast a shadow again
I’ll shine
In every way
I direct my attention
Hopefully
Its not too late
But knowing you
My lateness
Will be welcomed
Like a homecoming
You seldom
Look at my faults
And not find
Greatness
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 8:21 PM UTC
the fungus are among us
among us, and abundance of humongous fungus
the substance spun us into funnel monkey dumbness
no longer numbness we felt the suns bliss
sun kissed wondrous fun.
feeling the youngest we dismissed all toughness
no longer rambunctious
we had won us a moral compass
complete sublime oneness
glad we had done this
we yelled cowabungas
Aug 24, 2014
Aug 24, 2014 at 3:01 AM UTC
They told me she died.
So I woke up in the graveyard of my dead dreams,
Took up my trusted shovel,
And like a good old country lad,
Decided to dig her up.
They told me she died.
But I knew they had to be wrong.
Why, there she lay, as unattainable as ever,
Smiling smugly from her coffin,
Mocking me with her fake omniscience.
For Death, may be a great leveller,
And make sceptre and crown
Just tumble down,
But not so her beauty.
They told me she died.
But how could i believe them,
After knowing her wicked wit of Solomon.
With which all her life,
She didn't let death so much as touch her beauty,
For she hid it so deep within,
Veiled beneath the layers of toughness
And faded tee’s,
That even a soldier camouflaging her scarlet skin,
Would be put to shame.
They told me she died.
But they didn't bury her beside me.
But by another man’s side.
Because he was man enough to ask
What i should’ve,
And now she lies buried,
As his bride.
Jan 10, 2016
Jan 10, 2016 at 8:55 AM UTC
She told my dad he was “kind of an *******
the first time we had dinner with him,
at this place called The Pear Room
but she was disappointed that there were not only
no pear decorations, but that there was not a single dish
with a pear included. She ordered a dry martini
with three olives on a skewer,
but she never took one sip. She gulped.
She came at me like an avalanche in jean mini skirt.
I tried to run ahead of her, but she picked up speed
and tossed me right into her path with scratch marks
on my back to prove it. You’d never know it
by the way she twirls her hair into a bun at the top of her head
just to take her make-up off, how she laughs
instead of getting ****** or how she sometimes
orders her dessert before her meal, but she’s just a girl
who puts on her toughness in the morning like a slip.
She folds
her dollar bills into fourths before she puts them in her wallet,
and she strings herself like paper chains
against the sun every day as she drives to a job she hates.
She listens to Miles Davis on her record player,
asks me to dance at half past eleven on nights I need to sleep,
but I get up anyway. I pour us both a glass of Coke
and try to capture the reflection she doesn’t see of herself,
mirror it in my eyes, just so she knows that she
is not just another item on the menu.
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 10:11 PM UTC
**** the things that make you run,
who needs 'em?
And let's be honest,
aren't we all a little more afraid of
staying, anyway?
I'm tired of all the toughness.
It is not pretty or popular or thoughtful or fond
to be a disconnected, dearly contented, apathetic
sack of **** body bag made of
music and stardust and a cacophany of epiphanies
being carried around in a lump of a brain that has
"no ***** to give".
I'm tired of the way that we're striving to live and it's ********
Giving up is not poetic,
and heavy tears are not pathetic when they have been built by
resistance
to the every growing popularity of a
selfish way of living,
as in taking without giving
and being unconcerned with the result.
It's not adult to be so *******
foolish,
and childish,
and finicky
and spineless
and what is this "toughness" anyway but a
generation of ********
who's parents didn't want to have too listen to them cry.
And no silver spoons would ever ponder on why.
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 4:46 AM UTC
I called her once, then I called again
And I called throughout the night,
There wasn’t a message from Olwen’s pen
Nor the answering ‘ching’ of delight,
I’d begged forever her not to go
But she must have gone and went,
Down to the Fair at Cinders Flo
And into the strongman’s tent.
We’d been together to see the Fair
When the sun was riding high,
And all the rides and the Ferris Wheel
Were reeling up in the sky,
We rolled a ball at the grinning clowns
And we won a Teddy Bear,
The hairy woman and legless man,
All of the freaks were there.
But then we got to the Strongman’s tent
And I saw her eyes go wide,
He picked her up with a single hand
And I’ll swear that Olwen sighed,
I found I couldn’t drag her away,
She paid for a second show,
And after stroking his biceps once
She waved for me to go.
I had to drag her away from there
Or she would have stayed all day,
‘What do you find so interesting?’
I finally had to say.
‘Isn’t he such a mighty man
And his muscles ripple so,
He makes me feel like I want to squeal
Like a Tarzan’s Jane, you know.’
I finally went to Cinders Flo
In the middle of the night,
Thinking the end of me and Olwen
Seemed to be in sight,
I got to his tent, and there she was,
A-stare, a look aghast,
For what she had woken up was slim,
She saw the truth at last.
For there hanging up within the tent
Was the Strongman’s muscle suit,
With every ripple and every bulge
And a chest that was hirsute,
But he sat up in his lonely bed
And was pale and thin and white,
With a certain wiry toughness, though
He could never cause delight.
I think that it cured my Olwen though
She’s never been so still,
She spends her mornings and afternoons
Hung over the window-sill,
I try to get her to walk with me
But she can’t, she says, she hates,
She’s staring down at the guy next door
As he’s working out, with weights.
David Lewis Paget
Nov 10, 2016
Nov 10, 2016 at 3:18 AM UTC
I drive my bus
Full of grotty kids and lunatics
On the bitumen dream
Where middle aged mothers with boxers' eyes
Weep from the sidewalks of toy-trashed suburbs.
Driving my bus,
Through the unfolding flower of dawn
And through the tangled tears of night
Where the boisterous poor
Wilt in their gardens of excess.
Driving them home,
Driving lover to lover,
To their acrobatic fields of fire,
Driving the madman raging in his seat
And the girls with rainbows in their eyes.
Driving
Driving
Into the sorrow beyond the sky
And into the hollows of the lonely hearts
Who linger, speechless, at my ear,
As we drive, and drive.
Where the gutter ghosts rattle their dying coughs
Into the emptiness of night
And the half-cocked girls smoke toughness and cool
And the burning boys
Writhe in the furnace of desire.
The streets are crying in the pools of time
And the dogs are howling in the summers of their heat
While the ladies are waiting at the corners of our youth
With their handbag smiles,
And the faces we will never see again
Go sliding, Go sliding by.
Mar 5, 2016
Mar 5, 2016 at 6:31 PM UTC
So many lovely, young girls
brimming with despair and despondency.
Makes an old man sad.
You are like buds that can't blossom.
Casual *** attempted suicide,
drugs, alcohol, broken hearts:
all accrue to the self-aware.
Self-awareness is a great gift,
but acutely painful
to the very young.
Never use a man to define yourself.
Only disappointment lives there.
Men aren't all that smart
or valuable, you know,
and can be easily replaced.
In 40 years, you won't remember
his name.
None of this is new.
The trick is to find
your way to survive
and do it no matter what.
On the other side of suffering
is life, and perhaps more suffering.
You don't need bunnies and rainbows,
you only need yourselves and time
and toughness and belief.
Go ahead and blossom.
Make an old geezer smile.
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 8:53 AM UTC
"You're tough", she said.
And I thought.
Am I tough because I really am
Or I'm tough because I've got no choice but to be one?
Apr 27, 2017
Apr 27, 2017 at 1:18 AM UTC
Weird in his outfits of a late ragamuffin
Reflecting strength of character and soul toughness
Contrasted by dreadlocks on his pykitonic head
Giving him a look of an African amorous ogre,
In the tough stunt for *** with a tectonic girl,
Veneered by mastery of his pen and keyboard
Following after his *** starved ancestor
The muzhik; Vladimir Nabokov the ****** lover,
Swimming in enviable freedom to *********
Afro-English words in his road to the burning church
That barely roasts the peasants for tribal reasons,
A ****** ground for Mochama’s humour
That will hold you glued and captive to the pages
Until the he goat of Abagusii goes through
The second round of its ****** act
Basically forming education for Smitta
The smitten rock of African literature.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 6:11 AM UTC
After school
Helen’s mother took you home to tea
and she was wheeling
the big pram along the pavement
with you on one side
and Helen on the other
and she said
hold onto the pram
while we cross the roads
I don’t want anything
to happen to you
and as you crossed
the busy roads
you kept glancing over
at Helen with her plaited hair
parted in the middle
and her thin wired glasses
and her raincoat
buttoned tight
against the wind
and her small hand
clutching the pram handle tightly
and beside you
Helen’s mother
short and stocky
pushing and puffing
and her eyes dark as night
and kind at the same time
and when you reached their home
and went inside
and she took off your coat
you went with Helen
into the sitting room
with a coal fire blazing
and the smell
of drying clothes
and past dinners
and Helen said
do you want to see my dolls
and the doll’s house
my daddy made
out of boxwood
with lights you can turn off and on?
sure ok
you said
and you followed her
into her bedroom
where her toys and dolls
were laid up along the wall
next to her bed
and she took up a doll
and held her out to you
and said
this is my favourite
this is Jenny
and you said
hi Jenny how you doing?
and Helen smiled
her slightly goofy smile
and you liked that
her smile
and her eyes large as duck eggs
behind the thick lens
and she handed the doll
to you to hold
and you held the doll
and kissed the head
and hugged it close
thinking glad the other boys
can’t see me now
here with this girl
and kissing and holding
the **** doll
out of some small boy love
and shyness
and you know
they’d laugh out loud
and point their tough boy fingers
and you’re glad
they aren’t there
just Helen
and her little girl love and kindness
against their rough ways
and small boy toughness.
Apr 7, 2012
Apr 7, 2012 at 4:01 AM UTC