"underripe" poems
Speak
When you speak I see cascades of life.
Life and light tend to look the same.
Your light is turquoise and the color of jade sitting just beneath the surface of choppy water.
When you speak I feel heat.
You have yet to burn me.
You are the steady warmth of new born embers of a fire
yet to blaze. When you speak I smell salt water.
Even with a sting, you’re the most refreshing thing.
The ocean is not as paradoxical as your passionately
calm surface. When you speak I taste loneliness.
Bitter sweet like underripe tangerines.
I cannot know this beautiful mind of yours without encountering cold, rusty, metal walls
When you speak I hear midnight.
You know how to play the silences.
I hold my breath waiting for the next sentence you’re carefully, mysteriously orchestrating. Whisper or shout
speak to me againHole in my heart
Speak Karijinbba Beloved!
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 1:51 PM UTC
I was born tall and thin
and pink
like a ****** steak.
I cried until I could run
and then ran
like a lunatic,
screaming peals of laughter
and destroying
without guilt
as kids do-
and still I was
skinny.
I was skinny in elementary school.
The other kids took to football
and dirt bikes.
I was still pink
like an underripe
tomato.
I grew up tall and thin
in a world for shorter
and fuller people.
With crooked teeth and
glasses.
I was skinny in middle school.
When the other kids started to build muscle
you could've played my ribs
like a xylophone.
You still could.
I grew up tall and thin
and frustrated
like a ****
I never fit on public busses
or in the little plastic desks
at school.
My feet stuck off the end of my bed.
They still do.
I slouched and hiked my shoulders up
so as not to obstruct others'
line of sight.
I still do.
I was skinny
when I first fell in love.
What she saw in me,
I can't say.
I was tall
and thin
and crooked
but I wanted so badly,
just for once,
to be the right shape
for her.
She was rather short
and had caramel skin.
We made an odd couple.
I grew up tall and thin,
a square peg in a world of round holes.
I'm skinny today-
a pinkish wisp
with a skinny soul
tucked away behind dark sunglasses.
I was born skinny.
And I'll probably die skinny
too,
and make a tall,
thin corpse
for a much
shorter,
wider
casket.
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 2:34 PM UTC
smoke-sheet eyes, you
questioned me behind
a mesh divider
all my hot hard "no"s
all my parting throes -
terrifying, endless, and gaping.
you questioned,
and never answered
you opened me like
an underripe fig
I didn't understand
how a person
could pull me apart
too soon.
Now I mould
over, I bruise
and hug the wet,
black ground.
Nov 2, 2015
Nov 2, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
When you speak I see cascades of life.
Life and light tend to look the same.
Your light is turquoise and the color of jade sitting just beneath the surface of choppy water.
When you speak I feel heat.
You have yet to burn me.
You are the steady warmth of new born embers of a fire yet to blaze.
When you speak I smell salt water.
Even with a sting, you’re the most refreshing thing.
The ocean is not as paradoxical as your passionately calm surface.
When you speak I taste loneliness.
Bitter sweet like underripe tangerines.
I cannot know this beautiful mind of yours without encountering a cold, rusty, metal wall.
When you speak I hear midnight.
You know how to play the silences.
I hold my breath waiting for the next sentence you’re carefully, mysteriously orchestrating.
Whisper or shout; continue to speak to me.
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 9:17 PM UTC
What did I ever do
to deserve a world where
avocados are underripe while they're overripe,
pens cede before their ink is spent,
rivers run dry, aquifers deplete?
What choice do I have
but to opt out of the technocratic misery,
overlorded by the Slither Circle,
to make my sways of the sun replete?
My country has a Military Complex
that fought wars over bananas.
My country prints Monsters on Money,
a desecrated spell to spill nature's blood
and use it in every commodity:
the ink, the encasements, the coatings,
the stains, the sealants, the wrappers,
even the food and medicine.
What did I do?
I ate. I wrote. I used.
Apr 8, 2020
Apr 8, 2020 at 9:39 AM UTC
I am a fruit in a basket
a green, swelling fruit
basking in the gold sunlight
on swift, spring mornings
******* in all the water
when the storm showers
claw at the grey skies,
I am an underripe growth of nature
still too bitter for those
who peel at my skin,
I hang in the air, chuckling with the leaves
the great branches sway without sight
I dance long into the night
I am a fruit birthed from a flower
a flower in a past life
bloomed beautifully, magnificently,
yet, my petals fell
and I began to be made
anew, like the pink dawn
before the cusp of day,
I am a green fruit, not quite ripe
I wait, patiently, diligently,
for the day love will embody me
and leave seeds within me
of sweet, sweet melodies
Aug 23, 2017
Aug 23, 2017 at 4:55 PM UTC