"traintracks" poems - Hello Poetry

Speaking of the kids in my hometown we used to walk the traintracks obsessively like they’d lead us somewhere like they’d show us something like the end of the summer was just a bookend parallel line with the river by the library card that promised if i only read enough books i could get out of there and over the moon. just parallel lines, but they made as much sense as any other way out. And the gazebo where the high school band played and I swung on my first date

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Jul 10, 2014

Jul 10, 2014 at 11:00 PM UTC

felicia-c

Hawley, Pennsylvania

Speaking of the kids in my hometown we used to walk the traintracks obsessively like they’d lead us somewhere like they’d show us something like the end of the summer was just a bookend parallel line with the river by the library card that promised if i only read enough books i could get out of there and over the moon. just parallel lines, but they made as much sense as any other way out. And the gazebo where the high school band played and I swung on my first date

8

I write too many poems about my body. but it’s the only house my spirit knows and the only movement is my own I could write you a love poem or one about the way the kids in my hometown used to walk the traintracks like they led somewhere but i’m completely obsessed with this idea of entrapment that i could be more than skin and bones that i could be made of ink blotch shoulderblades ribbon ribcages clothespin wrists and ruby lips that i could abandon myself and get out of this cage that’s too big or too small or whatever the **** they tell me this week.

0

Jul 10, 2014

Jul 10, 2014 at 10:59 PM UTC

felicia-c

Untitled

I write too many poems about my body. but it’s the only house my spirit knows and the only movement is my own I could write you a love poem or one about the way the kids in my hometown used to walk the traintracks like they led somewhere but i’m completely obsessed with this idea of entrapment that i could be more than skin and bones that i could be made of ink blotch shoulderblades ribbon ribcages clothespin wrists and ruby lips that i could abandon myself and get out of this cage that’s too big or too small or whatever the **** they tell me this week.

14

A pounding seizures and nausea violence, fountains of cascading mankind's bleeding, gushing puncture wounds of wine Dreamkillers out of their way to wreak smoldering, rancid havoc Epilepsy and ******** muscles spasms Brain-tissue scarring from the rocking between heavenhell and deathlife Give me your soul and I'll twist it into strands with which I hang myself and make a tourniquet around your neck Dancing or slaying be one I **** and lascerate the remnants of my skin, my soul stretched across the traintracks, waiting for pleasure pleasurepleasure in gore and flesh and wriggling maggots in the eyesockets of children Too bad we all have to wake up come down inandout of this horrific flying breathing fantasy rapture of adulterated movement Sin in all its glory licks the black flames ashestoashes and dust into mud blud across the vacuum

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Jul 11, 2012

Jul 11, 2012 at 5:48 PM UTC

devin-asher-corry

The Devil's Dance

A pounding seizures and nausea violence, fountains of cascading mankind's bleeding, gushing puncture wounds of wine Dreamkillers out of their way to wreak smoldering, rancid havoc Epilepsy and ******** muscles spasms Brain-tissue scarring from the rocking between heavenhell and deathlife Give me your soul and I'll twist it into strands with which I hang myself and make a tourniquet around your neck Dancing or slaying be one I **** and lascerate the remnants of my skin, my soul stretched across the traintracks, waiting for pleasure pleasurepleasure in gore and flesh and wriggling maggots in the eyesockets of children Too bad we all have to wake up come down inandout of this horrific flying breathing fantasy rapture of adulterated movement Sin in all its glory licks the black flames ashestoashes and dust into mud blud across the vacuum

28

I notice the symmetry in your face You look in every direction but mine We rush and crash through the night Across traintracks, through tunnels I admire the strong structures Glowing beneath these festive lights You are hiding insecurities behind A temporary mask of excitement Could-have-been tragedies Become appreciative victories We are mere trembling bodies Amongst a crowd of confidence Relief pours over us, flowing fast Reducing our uncertainties Reusing forgotten identities Recycling mistreated potential Relaxing, finally in tact...

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Dec 6, 2015

Dec 6, 2015 at 12:18 PM UTC

worried-words

What Could Have Been

I notice the symmetry in your face You look in every direction but mine We rush and crash through the night Across traintracks, through tunnels I admire the strong structures Glowing beneath these festive lights You are hiding insecurities behind A temporary mask of excitement Could-have-been tragedies Become appreciative victories We are mere trembling bodies Amongst a crowd of confidence Relief pours over us, flowing fast Reducing our uncertainties Reusing forgotten identities Recycling mistreated potential Relaxing, finally in tact...

17

i know that most days the cathedral of your body with all its dips and curves forgotten staircases and ripped velvet covers on the splintered pews is hard to love and there are days where you wish that your body would have manifested itself as a palace made of ivory and bone with great empty halls that would host nothing else but your anguished cries and empty stomach but these things are incapable of filling you up because it is hard to sustain yourself on bitterness and past scars alone so i say to you my friends brothers and sisters my lovers and those living in the wastelands of themselves cast aside these things for you are not a church or a palace or a temple no you are something much stronger and vast grow yourself into a forest turn all the sleepless nights and breakdowns and hospital visits and suicide attempts and those traintracks of scars into the great twisting trunks of trees grow yourself as big and bold as you need to be protect yourself wrap up all your sharp and soft edges and corners into the bark of mother nature become a forest because through fire and drought and storm and flood the forest always comes back even the charred remains of trees stand strong so i say to you with your dark circles and long sleeves and chest hidden behind a binder with all your scars and imperfections be a forest because a forest is unstoppable it always comes back it always grows back and so will you

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Jun 8, 2016

Jun 8, 2016 at 3:06 PM UTC

magic_queer

regrowth

i know that most days the cathedral of your body with all its dips and curves forgotten staircases and ripped velvet covers on the splintered pews is hard to love and there are days where you wish that your body would have manifested itself as a palace made of ivory and bone with great empty halls that would host nothing else but your anguished cries and empty stomach but these things are incapable of filling you up because it is hard to sustain yourself on bitterness and past scars alone so i say to you my friends brothers and sisters my lovers and those living in the wastelands of themselves cast aside these things for you are not a church or a palace or a temple no you are something much stronger and vast grow yourself into a forest turn all the sleepless nights and breakdowns and hospital visits and suicide attempts and those traintracks of scars into the great twisting trunks of trees grow yourself as big and bold as you need to be protect yourself wrap up all your sharp and soft edges and corners into the bark of mother nature become a forest because through fire and drought and storm and flood the forest always comes back even the charred remains of trees stand strong so i say to you with your dark circles and long sleeves and chest hidden behind a binder with all your scars and imperfections be a forest because a forest is unstoppable it always comes back it always grows back and so will you

65

I was fifteen when you were sixteen, I knew you were trouble and that's what I liked about you. My mother would hate it.. but we always got away with doing bad things. Sneaking alcohol and stumbling down traintracks. Tell me why I couldn't know you now? You don't exist in my world anymore.. your cashmere skin and eyes the color of some burnt thing. But yet so alive. We would ride around in your mother's car, smoking *** like we shouldn't be.. Out after midnight like we shouldn't be... having *** like we shouldn't be. But we didn't care because as long as it feels right, do it, eh? And oh did it feel right. I think you'll always be a memory to me. One of the best memories. The only memory I need, the only memory I have of you is warm summer thunderstorms and mischief. What did we know? We were only in tenth grade... but like my mother says, "you think you have it all figured out". Maybe we did.

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Nov 4, 2016

Nov 4, 2016 at 4:09 PM UTC

girlonfire

People You Meet At The Wrong Time

I was fifteen when you were sixteen, I knew you were trouble and that's what I liked about you. My mother would hate it.. but we always got away with doing bad things. Sneaking alcohol and stumbling down traintracks. Tell me why I couldn't know you now? You don't exist in my world anymore.. your cashmere skin and eyes the color of some burnt thing. But yet so alive. We would ride around in your mother's car, smoking *** like we shouldn't be.. Out after midnight like we shouldn't be... having *** like we shouldn't be. But we didn't care because as long as it feels right, do it, eh? And oh did it feel right. I think you'll always be a memory to me. One of the best memories. The only memory I need, the only memory I have of you is warm summer thunderstorms and mischief. What did we know? We were only in tenth grade... but like my mother says, "you think you have it all figured out". Maybe we did.

14

up the water hole Ledbetters: the waterfall which we yearned to explore on our days off. like a fresh romance, we wanted to know each rock on her body and how it got there. the raft guides and myself, the master of whitewater reservations, most days working (trapped) in an old stone house grabbing phones, calls from pockets-full-of-cash families, boy scouts, seeking gorge thrills on full days of sun and moody thunderstorms. Ledbetters: she sits down the railroad tracks which ran through our cabin homes (and my little shack-barn) traintracks that kept running next to its river friend, heading into the town as a timid tourist train jaunt. we’d creep on top of the rails, while sparrows sang their high-pitched refrains, river rafters’ shrieks faded, (i’d pretend not to hear the rattlesnake’s jingle). the sun beat down hard on our shoulders, but stopped its punches when we snuck off the tracks, onto the trail, into the woods. (then, the spots of sun shone only where trees told them to) down the path, past the wooden bridge where we played Pooh Sticks, past the old campfire spots, the towers of rocks we crafted so carefully, to get to Ledbetter’s legs: her huge rocks, the heavy flow of water, her blood. i always slipped and fell as i jumped from rock to rock, up and over cliffed streams. higher and higher we would climb, until we reached her narrow water hole: Birth Canal. i’ve been afraid to climb up Birth Canal— shimmy up and clench its slippery rocks with gravity’s water working against me. i’m almost certain she would wash me away, i’d tumble down all her rocks, crack my skull on wet rock, more of a Death Canal. when you can overcome your mind, are you truly reborn?

0

Feb 26, 2012

Feb 26, 2012 at 7:29 PM UTC

melanie-r-holmes

up the water hole

up the water hole Ledbetters: the waterfall which we yearned to explore on our days off. like a fresh romance, we wanted to know each rock on her body and how it got there. the raft guides and myself, the master of whitewater reservations, most days working (trapped) in an old stone house grabbing phones, calls from pockets-full-of-cash families, boy scouts, seeking gorge thrills on full days of sun and moody thunderstorms. Ledbetters: she sits down the railroad tracks which ran through our cabin homes (and my little shack-barn) traintracks that kept running next to its river friend, heading into the town as a timid tourist train jaunt. we’d creep on top of the rails, while sparrows sang their high-pitched refrains, river rafters’ shrieks faded, (i’d pretend not to hear the rattlesnake’s jingle). the sun beat down hard on our shoulders, but stopped its punches when we snuck off the tracks, onto the trail, into the woods. (then, the spots of sun shone only where trees told them to) down the path, past the wooden bridge where we played Pooh Sticks, past the old campfire spots, the towers of rocks we crafted so carefully, to get to Ledbetter’s legs: her huge rocks, the heavy flow of water, her blood. i always slipped and fell as i jumped from rock to rock, up and over cliffed streams. higher and higher we would climb, until we reached her narrow water hole: Birth Canal. i’ve been afraid to climb up Birth Canal— shimmy up and clench its slippery rocks with gravity’s water working against me. i’m almost certain she would wash me away, i’d tumble down all her rocks, crack my skull on wet rock, more of a Death Canal. when you can overcome your mind, are you truly reborn?

39

Something that stopped me in my tracks was the weight of the air around me. we're all sitting in traintracks on a baseball field and we dont see the cars driving past but we can **** well feel them the balloon of pressure air sprinting away from the grill of a two-ton hunk of metal glass rubber knocks you back just in time to get hit by the train you never saw coming. jump off the tracks and dive into my opened chest the sea is swelling and it will swallow you whole You're just standin there. You look stupid. Wonderin' why.. Why, man? be the tide and raise these storm waters until they crash your levies leveling your time-built empire your stockades made of billiard *****

0

Feb 24, 2014

Feb 24, 2014 at 12:35 PM UTC

christopher-ranieri

english class ramblings 1

Something that stopped me in my tracks was the weight of the air around me. we're all sitting in traintracks on a baseball field and we dont see the cars driving past but we can **** well feel them the balloon of pressure air sprinting away from the grill of a two-ton hunk of metal glass rubber knocks you back just in time to get hit by the train you never saw coming. jump off the tracks and dive into my opened chest the sea is swelling and it will swallow you whole You're just standin there. You look stupid. Wonderin' why.. Why, man? be the tide and raise these storm waters until they crash your levies leveling your time-built empire your stockades made of billiard *****

19

i’ve lived along the wrong traintracks, half a chromosome off from the abandoned ivy school i would have attended, had i been led by what i’ve been looking for. nobody really knows me here. it takes a special type of person to read the tea leaves in the bottom of the mug I leave to dry. and this still stands: i don’t know how to share the air still trapped in my lungs. because air doesn’t mean much if it is not being swallowed as a last chance. and i know i’ll be able to leave isolation behind and write a poem to live in

0

Jul 26, 2015

Jul 26, 2015 at 8:44 AM UTC

jae-hyun

traintracks

i’ve lived along the wrong traintracks, half a chromosome off from the abandoned ivy school i would have attended, had i been led by what i’ve been looking for. nobody really knows me here. it takes a special type of person to read the tea leaves in the bottom of the mug I leave to dry. and this still stands: i don’t know how to share the air still trapped in my lungs. because air doesn’t mean much if it is not being swallowed as a last chance. and i know i’ll be able to leave isolation behind and write a poem to live in

23

You're in the clattered traintracks And the static on my phone I know you've found your heaven But you're always welcome home

0

Apr 27, 2015

Apr 27, 2015 at 11:24 PM UTC

starsonthetipofmytongue

10.

You're in the clattered traintracks And the static on my phone I know you've found your heaven But you're always welcome home

4

i awake blanketed by the morning sun and the celestial frost that lingers on from the night. the sound of laughter jolts me. i watch the couple walk leisurely along the side of the traintracks. "Hi!" the woman says behind stale eyes and wispy blonde curls. she stiffles her laughter until it bellows out like a warrior cry. i can hear the harshness in the words she speaks of me to her lover, they grow more distant as they escape my view. i can smell the sweat of the lost souls who found themselves here before me. i can taste the saltiness of the tears that slide down the contours of my face; an emotionless, knee-jerk reaction. however, i feel nothing. there is no despair left in me. no more hatred. not even sadness. i feel only the bitter cold of the concrete bridge beneath the weight of my resting body. i feel only the hunger that aches in the core of my being. i feel only the rattling of the train cars passing , only the rumbling of the morning traffic on the highway above all of which are lulling me back to sleep

0

Dec 5, 2015

Dec 5, 2015 at 6:05 PM UTC

neveah97

hate doesnt help (but love kills)

i awake blanketed by the morning sun and the celestial frost that lingers on from the night. the sound of laughter jolts me. i watch the couple walk leisurely along the side of the traintracks. "Hi!" the woman says behind stale eyes and wispy blonde curls. she stiffles her laughter until it bellows out like a warrior cry. i can hear the harshness in the words she speaks of me to her lover, they grow more distant as they escape my view. i can smell the sweat of the lost souls who found themselves here before me. i can taste the saltiness of the tears that slide down the contours of my face; an emotionless, knee-jerk reaction. however, i feel nothing. there is no despair left in me. no more hatred. not even sadness. i feel only the bitter cold of the concrete bridge beneath the weight of my resting body. i feel only the hunger that aches in the core of my being. i feel only the rattling of the train cars passing , only the rumbling of the morning traffic on the highway above all of which are lulling me back to sleep

50

my words are going to hit you. so hard, you forget your first name. the paintings etched on your skin will now be our story and i want your cigarette-stained fingertips to burn holes into my skin - set me on fire. my words are going to stay with you while you're not holding your breath on bridges, tunnels, elevators, traintracks... and while my face would be turning blue, with lack of oxygen. my words are so precisely and concisely constructed into sentences, that are never spoken, never whispered, uttered, or murmured; but they are written down for you to read. so please - touch my face tell me you love me then set me on fire.

0

Sep 8, 2014

Sep 8, 2014 at 12:38 AM UTC

dissolveintoyou

my words

my words are going to hit you. so hard, you forget your first name. the paintings etched on your skin will now be our story and i want your cigarette-stained fingertips to burn holes into my skin - set me on fire. my words are going to stay with you while you're not holding your breath on bridges, tunnels, elevators, traintracks... and while my face would be turning blue, with lack of oxygen. my words are so precisely and concisely constructed into sentences, that are never spoken, never whispered, uttered, or murmured; but they are written down for you to read. so please - touch my face tell me you love me then set me on fire.

33

And if I were to die, what would it mean? If I crashed in a car or was carried out to sea I know others who've passed and I wish I was in their place Because they are the ones needed to stay So if I was to die, what would it mean? If I laid on the traintracks or was left to bleed I know others who struggle but let me go first If you were die the pain would be worse What if I was to die, what would it mean? If I swallowed pills or didn't wake up from my dreams I know others who grieve but with me its be relief So what would it mean if it would mean anything

0

Jun 8, 2015

Jun 8, 2015 at 11:58 PM UTC

jenn-yeo

If I was to die

And if I were to die, what would it mean? If I crashed in a car or was carried out to sea I know others who've passed and I wish I was in their place Because they are the ones needed to stay So if I was to die, what would it mean? If I laid on the traintracks or was left to bleed I know others who struggle but let me go first If you were die the pain would be worse What if I was to die, what would it mean? If I swallowed pills or didn't wake up from my dreams I know others who grieve but with me its be relief So what would it mean if it would mean anything

12

Instant- Live- five minutes later, from the gitgo we got this gizmo makes us, make shifts up, allowing -split axle- right, that's what did it, signal all the wheels in wheels in wheels from where the tire touches dirt, to where the driver feels the pull, to spin with gravity boost, allowing if to call, if we made the turn, due to the berm, beyond the line, the traintracks lean in and let go oh. Not many ever tried.

0

Feb 12, 2022

Feb 12, 2022 at 4:03 PM UTC

kenpepiton

After 800. { an ify 50 sec. read}

Instant- Live- five minutes later, from the gitgo we got this gizmo makes us, make shifts up, allowing -split axle- right, that's what did it, signal all the wheels in wheels in wheels from where the tire touches dirt, to where the driver feels the pull, to spin with gravity boost, allowing if to call, if we made the turn, due to the berm, beyond the line, the traintracks lean in and let go oh. Not many ever tried.

17